Archive for April, 2009

Yahoo Inc. limited co-founder Jerry Yang’s 2008 compensation package to his customary $1 salary during his final year as chief executive, a tumultuous reign that unraveled after he rebuffed Microsoft Corp.’s $47.5 billion bid to buy the Internet company.

That seems a bit high, doesn’t it? Considering what’s happened to the company under his reign.

I’m kidding. He deserved every penny. Literally.

Thank God. If I get a wave of people following me again, I might scream. I can hardly wait for Twitter to get back to the way it was before Oprah sat on it.

More than 60 percent of Twitter users have stopped using the micro-blogging service a month after joining, according to Nielsen Online research released on Tuesday.

“Twitter has enjoyed a nice ride over the last few months, but it will not be able to sustain its meteoric rise without establishing a higher level of user loyalty,” said David Martin, Nielsen Online’s vice president for primary research.

I’ve had such a bad week online, I was searching for travel insurance online, you know, just in case I needed to get away from it all and let things settle down.

I’ve been using Tweetie for Mac for a few days now myself.

The interface is very simple, clean and Mac-like, which is to be expected since it is a native app and not done via the Adobe Air process that some of the desktop applications use such as Snitter and Twhirl. Granted, it doesn’t have the flash that some of the other applications have, but that may be a reason why it is so nimble and responsive. It is also very unobtrusive, working in an adjustable window that takes up a minimum of space, yet does quite a lot in the process.

I am liking it thus far.

There’s talk about a new feature in Firefox…

Firefox has had a feature that lets you re-open recently closed tabs for a while. But what if you accidentally close a whole Firefox window with several running tabs. Now you can restore that too… as long as you’ve got the latest nightly build of Firefox 3.5 installed.

I fell for this once before, when I was told that a couple newcell towers were installed in my area to give me better coverage. Well, they did install them, but my service didn’t get any better. I guess this is nothing like that then, is it?

I don’t know about them, but with the help of the Tab Mix Plus plugin, I have had this feature for a very, very, long time.

There’s a great post with wight reasons why your next computer should be a PC.

Let’s just say it: For the vast majority of computer shoppers, buying a Windows PC doesn’t quite qualify as a decision. Around nine out of ten computers run one version of Windows or another, making it the world’s default option in operating systems. It’s opting for something else, like a Mac, that always represents a conscious choice.

Read it. Even with a memory upgrade most PC’s don’t perform as intuitively as a Mac. These are eight reasons I completely disagree with.

I’m taking the night off to complete a big project I am working on. I’ll be back tomorrow, unless Swine Flu gets me.

New rules at Facebook.

Facebook intends to adopt two new governing documents following a four-day vote on the documents that was open to all Facebook users. Preliminary results indicate that approximately 74.4 percent of Facebook users who voted support the new documents. More than 600,000 users voted on the new Facebook Principles and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, according to a blog post by Ted Ullyot, Facebook’s general counsel.

Non-binding rules? Isn’t that like sugar-free sugar? Or buying a cheap imitation luggage instead of Samsonite luggage, which can stand up to the pounding of a gorilla?

Bad news for GeoCities users…

Yahoo Inc. said Thursday it plans to close GeoCities, a Web site publishing and hosting service it bought in May 1999 at the height of the dot-com boom for around $3 billion in stock.

The service will be shut down later this year. Visitors to the site now see a message that says new GeoCities accounts will not be available and gives them the option to sign up for Yahoo’s Web hosting service for $5.98 a month.

So what’s doing to happen to all the people pushing their wares like spray on hair and Ferrari parts on GeoCities?

Still making cuts at Yahoo.

Yahoo Inc said it would cut 5 percent of its global workforce and reported quarterly results that showed progress toward controlling costs, sending shares higher in an after-hours relief rally.

The Internet company said economic conditions remained challenging, as revenue on Yahoo Websites from both display ads and search ads fell during the first quarter.

Working at Yahoo would be much more painful than any blackheads treatment, that’s for sure. The ship is still listing, I wonder how long before it completely capsizes? Will it?

Tweetie, the Twitter client for the Mac, has been released. I downloaded it yesterday morning and have been testing it since. I actually find it easier to use (and much more efficient) than having TweetDeck open with all those groups.

I am still testing it, but so far it seems pretty good. As a programmer I may have done some things different, but it’ a sharp application that doesn’t use nearly as many resources as TweetDeck does.

A couple people have reviewed it already, including David Chartier and Christina Warren.

Twitter clients are a dime a dozen these days, so it all boils down to what floats your boat. Will I shell out the $14.95 (introductory price) for the full version without ads? Maybe so. Time will tell, but so far I really enjoy using it.