Apple Envy

I own an iPod, as you may remember, and I quite like it. One of the things I found a bit strange was the label at the back of every iPod "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China".


Why do I care that it was "designed" in California, I've asked myself? Is this label suggesting that this is actually an American made product and "we had to outsource production to China because of our shareholders"? Will we ever see a label on a Mattel toy claiming it was "Designed by Mattel in California, Lead paint added in China"? How about "Designed by Intel in Israel, Managed by Intel in the US, Made in China" for mobile Intel CPUs? Just how far will this go?

Well, Joel's latest column tries to put this into perspective, explaining what does the word "California" evoke in American culture. But what I found the funniest, is Microsoft's Apple-envy. They've added the following label to their lackluster, iPod-wannabe, strangely-named Zune:
"Hello from Seattle. Assembled in China".

Yes, clearly our friends from Redmond value a lot of things - originality is just not one of them.

Got Something to Add?

By popular demand (Ok, 2 people asked for this :)), I've added a widget on the right hand side showing the 5 recent comments made to the blog.

For people who are not sure how to leave comments: below every post, there's an "n comments" link (n can be 0 or more). Clicking the link pops up a comment window (so make sure you allow pop ups on www.guyvider.com in your browser), allowing you to review past comments and post a comment of your own. Choose your identity (you can specify your real name, or choose to remain anonymous - either way, your input is welcome) and publish your comment.

Next, I get an email with the post name and the comment and I either approve it (99% of the times) and it gets published, or I reject it (you'd be surprised how much spam, or just pure junk is posted to blogs). The number below the post will increment by 1. I also do my best to respond to comments immediately. Whatever it is, question, correction, request - I'll try to address it as soon as possible.

If you don't feel comfortable with the comments form, you can always mail your comment to blog@guyvider.com. Mention the subject or post name, and I'll be glad to post it for you.

One tiny addition: I've added a Video category, for all the videos uploaded to the site. Find it at:
http://www.guyvider.com/search/label/Video

Book Recommendations

I realized pasting Amazon links into posts makes them unwieldy (and later un-editable, as Amazon uses iframes to host those links on my blog).

But I still want to share my reading recommendations with my readers - and hence this widget on the left. In it, will be every book I'll discuss in my posts. The only rule is: I'll only show books that I FULLY READ AND RECOMMEND, that is, if I read something and it's not good - it won't be there. If I'm in the middle of something, generally it won't be there (unless I was wowed).

Mostly, these books will be IT, programming or marketing related, but expect some fiction recommendations as well. I'm working my way through 2 works of fiction right now - and if they're good - they'll appear on the widget. If the widget is well accepted, I'll add one for movies and gadgets (currently in the process of buying HD-DVDs for my collection and I could recommend some).

Here's how the widget works:

• Hover over a book to get it's full name, price, and a short recommendation from me (if you want the full text, you'll have to find the matching post).
  
• Click on it to jump to Amazon and buy it.
  
• As new recommendations come in, old ones pushed down, and to the next pages.
  
• If you're reading my posts over RSS or Email feeds, you'll have to browse in once in a while - to see what you're missing :)
  

If you buy a book through this widget, I'll get 4% of what you've paid, in Amazon store credit (and believe me, we're talking peanuts here - this is not why I'm doing this - see disclaimer).
Oh, and this is my chance to say THANKS to the anonymous reader who bought Joel's "Smart and Gets Things Done" book off my site. Drop me a note. I'm dying to know if you've liked it.

.Net Framework - Open Source???

Microsoft announced today that the source code of .Net Framework 3.5 will be available, on a read-only license base, with Visual Studio 2008.

No, Microsoft doesn't want Open Source enthusiasts to contribute and improve the Framework (see that "read-only" designation?). Instead, they want to allow us to improve our debugging capabilities by following our code into the FW functions.

This will be cool, in my opinion, but also a bit frustrating: found a bug in a .Net function? Can't fix it (see "read-only"). Report it on Microsoft Connect and await the next service pack.

If you want to see more, read ScottGu's illustrated post, taking you step-by step into FrameWork debugging.

Don't Click My Ads

Sorry for not posting yesterday. I'm on a CRI (Customer Related Incident) in Hotlanta and have been a bit busy.
You may have noticed the Google ads and banners are blinking on and off from my blog. I sent an email to Google AdSense Support, got the regular "check our support groups", sent them a screenshot, verified with Linux, Mac OS, and various browsers (VMWare - what would I have done without you?) and posted a question to the blogger newsgroup.

Finally, an answer: according to Google policy, only 3 banners are allowed per page. Fine, I can live with that (despite the fact that on Blogger, the entire blog, every post of it, is a single page).

What followed was another email warning me that:

While reviewing your account, we noticed that you are currently displaying Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our policies. For instance, we found violations of AdSense policies on pages such as www.guyvider.com.

Publishers are not permitted to encourage users to click on Google ads or bring excessive attention to ad units. For example, your site cannot contain phrases such as "click the ads," "support our sponsors," "visit these recommended links," or other similar language that could apply to the Google ads on your site. Publishers may not use arrows or other symbols to direct attention to the ads on their sites, and publishers may not label the Google ads with text other than "sponsored links" or "advertisements."
Please make any necessary changes to your web pages in the next 3 business days.

As you can see, I've removed my request to click any ads on the right side (that request was always accompanied by a :) and was never meant to generate revenue - as can be seen in my disclaimer). Furthermore, I hope this post's title will calm the Google Gods and prevent my banishment from the AdSense kingdom :).