Linked List: August 23, 2010

Monday, 23 August 2010

Mac Enterprise Sales Growth 

According to analyst Charlie Wolf, Mac sales are way up in the enterprise, including this:

Mac shipments in government grew 200%, sixteen times faster than the market’s 12.1%.

That’s a policy change from the Obama administration. More or less: buy the best tools.

All of Chewbacca’s Dialogue From ‘Star Wars’ 

Drawn on a sticky note.

iTunes Phishing Scams 

John Paczkowski:

So these reports of a major security hole in iTunes, one through which people have had their PayPal accounts drained? Not much to them, I’m told. Or, rather, not much to their assertion that Apple (AAPL) is at fault here. There’s no security hole in iTunes and if you’ve been unfortunate enough to have hundreds of dollars in unauthorized purchases charged to your iTunes acount it’s likely because you’ve fallen victim to a phishing scam — a variation on the one that’s been around for years now. Sources close to Apple tell me iTunes has not been compromised and the company isn’t aware of any sudden increase in fraudulent transactions.

I like how TechCrunch’s evidence that iTunes had been “hacked” was to cite a few tweets.

Google, Friend of the Carriers 

Jason Hiner:

Here’s the dirty little secret about Android: After all the work Apple did to get AT&T to relinquish device control for the iPhone and all the great efforts Google made to get the FCC and the U.S. telecoms to agree to open access rules as part of the 700 MHz auction, Android is taking all of those gains and handing the power back to the telecoms.

That is likely to be the most important and far-reaching development in the U.S. mobile market in 2010. In light of the high ideals that the Android OS was founded upon and the positive movement toward openness that was happening back in 2007-2008, it is an extremely disappointing turn of events.

What high ideals, though? Actions, or merely words?

Layer Tennis Season Three 

Speaking of Jim Coudal, the third season of Layer Tennis opened last week, with two crackerjack matches.

Online Advertising: Losing the Race to the Bottom (MP3) 

Worth a re-link: hour-long MP3 audio of yours truly and Jim Coudal speaking at SXSW earlier this year.

Sammy Davis Jr. for Suntory 

Ends up Bob Harris is only the second-coolest pitchman for Suntory. (Via Guy English.)

NMA World Edition on Google’s ‘Domination of the World and Loss of Mojo’ 

Their visualization of Google’s alliance with Verizon is subtle.