My daily readings 10/30/2010

• Marco.org – The Mac App Store isn’t for today’s Mac developers <span class="“> – Annotated

  tags: mac app

  • The likely intention

    I’m guessing this is what Apple has in mind. If not, this is at least what I think is likely to happen:

    

    Actually, the scale’s off.

    This is the much more likely outcome:

    

  • One of the reasons the iOS App Store is so successful is that app-buying has become a form of casual, routine entertainment for iPhone and iPad owners. We gladly go and browse the App Store even when we don’t “need” anything at the moment, with the intention of going and spending a few bucks on whatever’s new that looks good.

    This requires a few conditions to be ideal, all of which are true on the iOS App Store:

    • There must be a large number of new apps being regularly added, and they must be easy to find and browse.
    • Apps must be low-risk. That means:
      • Inexpensive.
      • Trustworthy that they won’t do anything creepy or destructive.
      • Easy and quick to purchase and install.
      • Easy and quick to delete.
      • Enough apps should be good that people will remember the good ones and forget the bad.
  • In other words, a lot like iPad-app pricing, but shifted slightly higher. And even considering the lower prices than current Mac software, and Apple’s 30% cut, the value in exposure will overcome those for most good apps, and developers will be able to make a lot of money.

• Building an HTML5 Drag & Drop File Uploader Using Sinatra and jQuery: Part 1 • Caffeine • Onehub

  tags: HTML5 Javascript

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My daily readings 10/28/2010

• My Favorite Interview Question <span class="“> – Annotated

  tags: interview

  • The question was designed (4 or 5 years ago now) to just barely require building a distributed system. With the widespread understanding and availability of solid state drives, it is fairly trivial to do in a single box now.
  • I’m looking for quite a few things as we go through the question. The first is their opinion of “a terabyte of data” and “5000 lookups per second.” Do they consider this to be a lot of data, or a fairly boring amount, same with the lookups per second. Leaning either way isn’t a failure, it is just information gathering for me, and referencing it against how you represented yourself in your resume, cover letter, and phone screen

• Hacker News | Ask HN: I built it, “they” didn’t come… <span class="“> – Annotated

  tags: Product development

  • I’ve been in the “build->launch->move to next project” loop for some time.

    My projects are mostly based on features that are missing or misimplemented in
    the existing products. Some of the finished projects gone live, tried to sell some,
    some are rotting in the attic.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My daily readings 10/27/2010

• Think You Know How To Study? Think Again : NPR

  tags: Study learning

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My daily readings 10/26/2010

• Pixelmator | Weblog | The Mac App Store <span class="“> – Annotated

  • Specifically for us, the good thing is that once we are in the Store, we will finally be able to focus completely on Pixelmator improvements, quality, and new features instead of worrying about how to reach our customers (we need as many customers as possible to continue or even boost our innovation march), build the best website, or manage a Web store. We would be very happy to be able to simply focus on creating the best image editor for the Mac.

    Other benefits of being in the Mac App Store include the fact that we won’t need to spend time and energy developing our own update systems (though I really do like our software update), Web store shelves, licensing systems, anti-piracy measures, and other things like that. We are good at creating the best Mac apps – and should do only that.

    So, I just wanted to clearly state that the Pixelmator Team is very excited about and will totally support the new Mac App Store. Pixelmator will definitely be there.

• What we know about the Mac App store – CNN.com <span class="“> – Annotated

  • Apple is selling more Macs than ever right now, a total of almost 14 million in the last year. And with 50 million Mac users worldwide, it’s now a $22 billion business for Apple annually, COO Tim Cook reported Wednesday.

    Last week, IDC reported that Apple had grabbed 10.6 percent of the PC market, good enough for third place in the U.S. market behind Hewlett-Packard and Dell.

  • “Apple sets a high bar,” it says. “If your user interface is complex or less than very good it may be rejected.” Apple also warns that apps that try to alter the native user interface elements of Mac OS X are not allowed.

  • No. Unlike the iOS App Store, Apple doesn’t play the same gatekeeping role with the Mac App Store–at least for now. You can still buy and install software other ways: from a CD, from a USB key, or from the Web. As Jobs put it, the App Store is not the only way to get apps onto a Mac, but it’s “the best way.”

    But looking ahead, it’s not hard to imagine Apple going chiefly with this method of software downloading someday.

    At the Mac event, Jobs also introduced two new models of the MacBook Air, which he called “the future of the MacBook.” Neither of those have optical drives, so downloading from an App Store or the Web could very well be where he eventually sees most desktop software going.

  • Who’s going to want to give 30 percent of their revenue to Apple if they have other options? Again, the bigger software makers may be less excited by this idea, but smaller ones are very likely to be interested.

• Might The Mac App Store Lead To A New Class Of Micro-Apps? <span class="“> – Annotated

  • And this store may give rise to a whole new crop of small apps that otherwise might get lost in the sea of web apps — or not exist at all. You could certainly make the case that great new services like Instagram would have never existed without the iPhone App Store. Perhaps the Mac App Store will lead to developers creating new experiences and a new crop of apps as well.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My daily readings 10/25/2010

• Eric Butler – Software Developer in Seattle WA <span class="“> – Annotated

  tags: OAuth

  • It’s extremely common for websites to protect your password by encrypting the initial login, but surprisingly uncommon for websites to encrypt everything else. This leaves the cookie (and the user) vulnerable. HTTP session hijacking (sometimes called “sidejacking”) is when an attacker gets a hold of a user’s cookie, allowing them to do anything the user can do on a particular website. On an open wireless network, cookies are basically shouted through the air, making these attacks extremely easy.

  • Firesheep is free, open source, and is available now for Mac OS X and Windows. Linux support is on the way.

    Websites have a responsibility to protect the people who depend on their services. They’ve been ignoring this responsibility for too long, and it’s time for everyone to demand a more secure web. My hope is that Firesheep will help the users win.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My daily readings 10/24/2010

• 180 Apps Launch At Rails Rumble 2010: Our Five Favorites

  tags: Rails WebApp

• 专访周鸿祎、金错刀：微创新改变世界(3)_互联网_科技时代_新浪网 <span class="“> – Annotated

  • 周鸿祎：这是挑战，也是机会。刚才我讲为什么首席体验官会比CEO更重要？因为CEO高高在上制定所谓的战略最后层层执行，但是执行可能受到很多损耗，得到的信息有很多过滤，不知道市场发生什么，也不知道用户需求什么，所以这个用户体验官就要把自己当成产品经理，才能了解来自一线用户的体验和感觉。举一个例子，在我们公司，我们因为原来是做社区搜索，我们还有一个奇虎的搜索引擎，现在都是给自己用。我们有能力把中国所有的BBS和博客、微博这些消息全部能够搜索到，很简单，我们就每天用关键字，在里头搜网上用户对我们的反馈，每天我们都能看到这样的报告，每天你就知道用户对你的产品有什么抱怨，有什么建议，有什么提醒。
  • 如果跟用户没有关系就不承认它的价值，可以把这个文化扭过来。而且从上之下，我们在企业内部，其实我们不断的在灌输或者教育一种理念，就是用户至上，这种用户至上实际上是说用户体验至上。很简单，互联网里所有成功的公司都是先有用户价值，给用户创造价值，然后才有商业价值。如果我们根本没有用户基础，很多公司的商业模式上来就是怎么去挣钱，怎么去卖东西，实际上这种公司要么没价值，要么就昙花一现。
  • 　我们为了一个用户，穷追猛打，那些副总、总监很不给面子，要认真剖析，不是给我解释用户很傻，不会用，我们说用户都是小白用户，我们就是要让小白用户也能很好地使用我们的东西。这样时间长了，公司慢慢就能形成用户至上的文化。
  • 我曾经看过一个例子，福特汽车当年他们的CEO说过一句话，如果你在汽车还没有发明的时代去问用户要什么，用户会说我会要一匹跑得更快的马，用户不知道这个新的产品是什么，这一点上是不是矛盾？
  • 用户体验可以成为公司战略级的秘密武器，只要你进入用户的心理，所有的竞争对手都会傻掉。在iPhone出来之前诺基亚是公认的老大，手机做那么长时间，还有什么花哨可以玩？但是iPone一出来，整个智能手机领域都傻掉了。再比如杀毒软件，在中国也做了二十年历史，一个二
  • 周鸿祎：有一本用户体验的书，书名就叫《不要让我思考》。其实你不觉得今天你作为消费者，人变得越来越懒，让你每天写2000字的博客肯定写不了，但是发140字的微博，你每天能狂发很多条，发微博不需要你思考，你抓起手机就可以做。
  • 另外我还想补充一点，因为我一直在教很多公司在创业，其实我觉得微创新特别适合于小公司创新。我一直觉得有太多人创业失败，就是因为他想的太大，他老是希望做平台，做平台这种思想特别害人，害死人。因为平台都不是想出来的，也不是一开始做出来，它是慢慢之后很自然而然形成的。就像压强一样，你出来一个东西可能是一个很大的市场，但是你要把你的力量聚焦在一个点，这个点就像针尖够微了吧，但是压强够大。如果一上来就是平板玻璃，不可能形成压强。

• 专访周鸿祎、金错刀：微创新改变世界(2)_互联网_科技时代_新浪网 <span class="“> – Annotated

  • 举一个例子，很多中国的软件公司、互联网公司容易犯一个错误，就是技术人员导向，我觉得我有一个技术，我做了一个东西，你就该照着我想的去用。现在我们讲微创新，首先扭转一个世界观，你的技术再高明，如果它对用户没有价值，或者用户感觉不到，这个技术还是没有价值。所以，你必须要变成以产品或者是以用户为核心，你从用户的角度去想，说用户会怎么用这个产品，他用这个产品之后是什么样的感受。

    　　给你举一个简单的例子，比如杀毒软件，大家都用过杀毒软件，今天很多人还误以为360做杀毒能够成功就是靠免费，其实除了免费之外，我们在产品上颠覆了传统的杀毒软件，其实大家的技术都差不多，但是传统的杀毒软件，你装一套会发现我经常管它叫专家做的给专家用的东西，你也看不懂界面也不知道如何设计，但是我们做了改变，比如用360安全卫士，给你体检，告诉你的机器有多少分，谁都是上小学过来，知道100分最好，59分就不及格，大家就知道对自己机器直观的概念。

  • 　　金错刀：说得简单一点，用户需要解决方案。特别是做用户体验的时候你最大的敌人是传统的体制，包括周总做免费，内部遇到的挑战很大。再比如陈年，也是一个微创新的案例，比如说早期他做一个微创新，就是把包装盒做得很好，但是内部遇到很大的挑战，因为成本算谁的？是增加成本，后来就想办法把它做成一个品牌成本，包装盒做得很精致。就这一个小的创新，从用户角度出发，用户拿着感觉很好。

  • 从用户的角度没有差别，给你一个包就好了，但是用户体验有很大差别。就像苹果很注重包装，用户感觉把苹果的产品拿回家，从拆包装的时候就感受到苹果的产品，它的产品再好，金玉其内但是也不能败絮其外。很好的包装让你感到整体的愉悦。微创新是变成以消费者为中心出发做的事。

    　　我从方法论角度还可以总结亮点，为什么要做微创新。第一，现在市场变化特别快，十年磨一剑的时代已经过去，比如最失败的例子就是微软的VISTA，微软做操作系统够牛、够有经验，他们花3年还是5年做VISTA，希望不鸣则已，一鸣惊人，拿出一个划时代的产品。

  • 周鸿祎：第二，时代在变，今天的互联网一年等于七年，确实你看到互联网整个新的技术、新的应用、用户的需求变化非常快。这样的话等你做出来，可能你当初赖以生存的市场环境已经变了，有点像刻舟求剑。所以，微创新强调的一个方法论是小步快跑，我每次做一点改进，就迅速的拿到市场中去验证，不见得每次微创新都一定会成功，但是比如你花3年，等你出来想改已经来不及了，但是你花3个月做了一个改进推出来，市场反应如果不好，你最多浪费了三个月时间，可以马上转。如果市场反应很好，OK，其实你可以马上在这个基础上再花3个月再做一些改进。所以，从方法论上来说，微创新也是一个非常重要的方法论。
  • 　　周鸿祎：我给你举一个例子，比如我们有很多企业老是执迷于制订大的战略，会请大的咨询公司帮他做战略，这种做战略，在现在高速变化的时代有点扯蛋，因为都马后炮，都是事后诸葛亮的总结，而且即使有些战略做得对，这个企业再好的战略也要把它执行出来。像苹果、Google这样的公司有一个大的方向，但是它在很多产品上坦率的说我不认为它是当初定了5年计划还是7年计划，定了一个战略，实际上是靠小步快跑一点一滴做出来。刚才说微创新也能成为颠覆的力量，在它出来的那一瞬间没有颠覆的力量，但是如果持续做，产生一个积累效应，可能最后就能颠覆。
  • 　我经常跟很多创业公司讲，如果做一个小的创业公司，你要创业，创业就一定要创新，创新就意味着不能抄袭别人，不能去跟着别人的路子转。但是你自己没有实力，又不像大公司那样，你怎么创新？实际上你就是用微创新，就像苹果这样，选一个点，这个点可能技术复杂，可能技术简单，无所谓，关键是它能打动用户，打动用户之后，你只要能够赢得用户，能够赢得市场，你就能够在这个基础上进一步做微创新，最后可能你有一天也会做成一个很伟大的事情。

• 金错刀周鸿祎谈互联网趋势：微创新改变世界_互联网_科技时代_新浪网 <span class="“> – Annotated

  • 对于微革命，金错刀解释说：“在过去我们说你要想改变世界、颠覆世界，必须靠一个大的创新，技术革命，十年磨一剑。但是现在我们发现在我们目前互联网的时代，在一个非常平坦的世界，往往改变世界的是一种微小的创新。但是这种微小的创新的背后，实际上是一种游戏规则的改变。”
  • 周鸿祎补充道，不要误解成技术不重要，其实技术一定是解决这些创新背后的力量，但关键的是消费者往往买的不是技术，也搞不懂技术是多么的复杂、先进，用户要的是结果。举个例子，有用户买一个钻头，要的其实不是钻头、机器，要的其实是3毫米的洞。
  • 金错刀：我简单用一句话来介绍，在过去我们说你要想改变世界、颠覆世界，必须靠一个大的创新，技术革命，十年磨一剑。但是现在我们发现在我们目前互联网的时代，在一个非常平坦的世界，往往改变世界的是一种微小的创新。但是这种微小的创新的背后，实际上是一种游戏规则的改变，就像周总刚才说的是一种方法论。什么方法论呢？忘掉技术至上，拥抱用户体验至上。
  • 。第二，你有没有注意到苹果公司的市值已经超过了微软公司的市值，这就预示着微软是以技术为核心在驱动，但是苹果公司已经不叫Apple Computer，它叫Apple，已经变成面对消费者的体验公司、产品公司，非常重视用户的体验。我非常同意错刀说的以用户体验为核心的时代可能已经开始逐渐领先于以技术为核心的时代。
  • 金错刀：这样说只是其中一小点，最核心的是这样一种大的变化，我们把它抛开了说。在过去我们的创新，实际上我们叫做是正金字塔，是以公司为中心的创新。比如我有一个技术，我有一个产品，就像福特一样，只有黑色的汽车，把东西生产以后要卖，营销、执行、4P理论，我们目前所有的商业理论都是围绕着以公司为中心的模式来推进。但是最近五年来这个世界发生了巨大的变化，什么变化呢？消费者王朝。我们的金字塔发生了反转，以公司为中心的创业模式变成了以消费者为衷心的创业模式。
  • 周鸿祎：大家不要有一个误解说技术不重要，其实技术一定是解决这些创新背后的力量，但关键的是消费者往往买的不是你的技术，也搞不懂你的技术多么复杂、多么先进，过去我们总是发明一些名词，消费者看不懂，听广告觉得挺神秘，就去买你的产品，这个时代已经过去了，应该一个好的产品，应该是把技术藏在后面，用户要的是什么？用户要的是效果，要的是体验。所以，我们讲的这个“微”，可能在技术上也许并不微，但是在技术体验上今天对消费者来说，我的理解是你要打动他的内心，找他心理的一个甜点，你打动这个甜点，就像你第一次拿起苹果手机或者第一次用微博，微博的微创新就是140个字，你觉得很简单，不用写文章，会发短信就会用。苹果的多点触摸屏，两个手指甚至不会操作电脑，不会操作鼠标的人都会很方便的用。这种用户体验打动是真正决定这个产品成功的力量。
  • 周鸿祎：还回到我刚才的那个问题，消费者现在实际上是一个过剩的时代，包括互联网上信息充分沟通。过去在信息不对称的时候厂商基本上可以通过广告教育用户，通过市场运作去强行推广它的产品，我觉得这个时代逐渐的已经过去了。现在就是必须换成以消费者为中心。以消费者为中心就是把消费者的力量放在最高，你思考要以消费者的角度思考。

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My daily readings 10/22/2010

• Pincus: In Five Years, Connections Will Be To Each Other, Not The Web; We’ll Be Dial Tones <span class="“> – Annotated

  tags: Social web

  • Of them, it was Pincus who probably had the most interesting thing to say. “In five years, everybody will always be connected to each other, instead of the web,” he noted. He said that he often thinks of today’s social companies as “dial tones”. That is, they’re merely entry points for these social connections.

• Bing Gordon: Social Will Grow 10 to 25x In The Next Five Years (TCTV) <span class="“> – Annotated

  • The Kleiner Perkins partner will be spearheading the firm’s new sFund and, like John Doerr, fully believes that the era of social is just beginning. Just how much will social balloon in the short term? Gordon sees exponential-like growth, expecting the social space to grow 10 to 25x in the next five years.

    “We think that social is going to be so big, the social category, I think it could be, the category growth in social could grow 10 to 25 times in 5 years and every company that’s out there has venture upside no matter how big they are right now…We want the freedom to get the venture style returns… but do it with the most interesting people.”

• KPCB – News <span class="“> – Annotated

  tags: Social web

  • October 21, 2010 – Palo Alto, Calif. – Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) today announced the sFund, a new $250 million initiative to invest in entrepreneurs inventing social applications and services. Amazon.com, Facebook, and Zynga, the leading companies defining today’s social and online environment; entertainment and media leaders Comcast and Liberty Media and Allen & Company, LLC, have committed to invest in the sFund and serve as strategic partners. The sFund will provide financing, counsel, and relationship capital for a new generation of entrepreneurs to deliver on the promise of the social web.
  • The sFund will be led by KPCB partner Bing Gordon, former chief creative officer and longtime executive at Electronic Arts and board director of Amazon.com and Zynga. Gordon said, “Social is just getting started and the opportunities are vast. As in the early days of the Internet, the race is on. Today every business, organization, and entrepreneur should have a social strategy.”
  • Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, said, “The Web is being rebuilt around people, and we’re at a point where any app, website, or device can be designed to be social from the ground up. We’re focused on enabling entrepreneurs to build companies that can disrupt their industries.”
  • All anchor investors in the sFund initiative are prioritizing developer services for entrepreneurs, who will be part of an active ecosystem. The strategic partners launching the sFund each bring unique contributions. Amazon Web Services (AWS) will provide AWS Getting-Started Support for one year, priority access to worldwide Startup Events, and dedicated business and technical support. Facebook will contribute access to its platform teams, beta APIs, and new programs, like Facebook Credits. Zynga will host periodic sessions with sFund companies to focus on management and technical development, including open source collaboration. Comcast Interactive Capital, Comcast’s venture fund, will provide access to Comcast’s resources,

    teams, and relationships.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My daily readings 10/19/2010

• Technical Q&A QA1680: Updating from a wildcard App ID to an explicit App ID

  tags: Bundle iOS development

• Bundle identifier error when trying to submit app to App Store – iPhone Dev SDK Forum <span class="“> – Annotated

  • Ok, I tried deleting and recreating the app. iTunes Connect would not let me choose the same app name again, so I had to take a different one. But now that the bundle ids match, I’m getting a different error when trying to submit: “This bundle is invalid. Apple is not currently accepting applications built with this version of the SDK.”

    How am I going to fix that? I have selected “iOS Device 4.0″ as Base SDK, set the configuration to “Release” and selected the distribution profile as Code Signing Identity.

• Apple Has $51 Billion and a Shopping List. Is Facebook On It? | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

• iPhone Development 101: Checklist for Submitting an App to the App Store <span class="“> – Annotated

  • Update the Info.plist file in your app.

    1. Set the bundle identifier (if you haven’t already) to YourAppName. (Remove the
       com.apple.whatever stuff.) The Identifier should not contain spaces or funny
       characters – alphanumeric and dashes are ok.

    2. If you want your app to be named something different on the actual device than its
       name in Xcode, change the “Bundle display name” as well.
    3. Update the bundle version. If this is your first time submitting this app, the
       version number should probably be 1.0.
    4. Be sure the icon file is set.
  • 5. Choose a numeric SKU for your app. This can’t be left blank, and it has to be a unique number for each of your apps. (I usually use YYMM, like 0902, but you can use whatever you want as long as it’s a number.)

  • Release date: This defaults to today, but you can set it to a date in the future* if you like. When your app gets approved, you’ll want to log back into iTunes Connect and reset the release date to the approval date; that way the app will show up at the top of the new releases section of its category. If you fail to do this, then when your app gets approved it’ll show up buried several pages down – not very desirable.

    *if you’re submitting an app UPDATE, however, you shouldn’t touch the release date until you get word that your update has been approved. If you change the release date of an update to sometime in the future, then your CURRENT app will vanish from the app store!

    Finally you’ll get to the summary page, where you can review all the info on your app before submitting it for review. Check to be sure everything looks ok, then click Submit.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My daily readings 10/18/2010

• 7 Useful Design Strategies for a Successful Pricing Table | UX Movement

  tags: Pricing

• Lessons Learned At Business of Software 2010: MicroISV on a Shoestring

  tags: Startup business

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My daily readings 10/11/2010

• Michelle Singletary – To truly become rich, you need to stop acting like it <span class="“> – Annotated

  • Sure, sometimes bad things happen, and it’s not your fault. But many of you — and you know who you are — are experiencing economic problems because you were pretending to be rich.

• TC Teardown: 13 Ways To Get To $10 Million In Revenues (Part I)

  tags: Monetization

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.