zorbo

Is Facebook no longer a method of communicating with friends?

Depends on if the OP means this should be event-driven/dynamic or not. The "when" seems to imply that it should be. When .widget becomes larger than 300px (screen resize/flip, for instance), then the font-size should become larger.

If that is OP's intention, then I feel @when is more appropriate than @if

What I really want is to stop my email inbox from being a notification area. It doesn't feel right for notifications. Foo replied to your post. Bug X has been fixed in project Y. All that stuff doesn't belong in my email inbox.

What I'd really like is a single online notification service. I imagine signing up for a service somewhere, and I just plunk my special notification address somewhere in the settings. The service then communicates to that online notification service instead of sending me emails. I could install an app on my phone and desktop (separately configurable) that alerts me. I can set up filters through the app or a web interface.

I'm not too hopeful about this ever happening though. No service will support it unless it's mainstream, and using the notification service is useless until most services support it. Chicken and the egg.

I completely don't see the "commit early, commit often" idiom working. It may be a viable method of deployment, but I honestly fail to see how it would improve commits.

For me, the "atomic commits" strategy is still the way to go. Whether it's early, or often, doesn't matter to me. In that regard, nothing has changed since I've switched to DVCS. I might even go so far as to say, if you've changed commit strategies since switching to DVCS, you weren't using your centralised VCS correctly.

The "branch early, branch often" strategy is an entirely different matter though.

Some of us need a helping hand to keep our discipline.

So far, all the people who've approached me for startups have been "idea people". Those are the ones who think they'll get rich quick with a iPhone/iPad application/whatever, they just need someone to build it for them. Every single one of them, when asked what their contribution was going to be, gave me a blank stare. And naturally, they want you to do it for free ("You'll get a share of the profits!") while they're off chasing their next idea.

The few truly interesting, reliable startup idea's I've seen are from real businessmen. Men with the network, contacts, funding, good ideas and commitment. Those kind of businessmen, the kind you are talking about if I understand correctly, are indispensable in a startup. Unfortunately, they seem to be somewhat more rare than the "idea people".

Given that a 99c app will attract a _much_ larger user base, chances of running into those users who expect to sit on the front row seat for free also increases.

The nice thing is, they can be ignored, as long as you do it tactfully. If you lose them as a customer, it's no big loss. A single extremely high demanding big customer that pays in the ten to hundred thousands is hard to ignore. In fact, their high demands can run your business into the ground, if you're not careful.

Schneier comments:

> The game is turned on its head

Is that really true? What has changed? Player B still can't trust that player A will give him 50% of the money outside of the game. Player could turn the tables by claiming he too will steal. Wouldn't that put them back to the original situation?

I can't find a license for this free content anywhere? There is some stuff about the service itself in the Terms of Use Agreement:

"Creative Market Service. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, you are hereby granted a non-exclusive, limited, non-transferable, freely revocable license to use the Service for your personal, noncommercial use only and as permitted by the features of the Service."

It is unclear if this pertains to the service itself, or to the content I download. Perhaps it is more clear in normal cases when you pay for the content?

The thing is, Microsoft can integrate with its own products as much as it wants, but I will never have only Microsoft products. If it doesn't integrate well with other products not controlled by Microsoft, I think their strategy will fail. And let's face it, they've got a terrible track record in that area.

> HOUSTON -- Astronauts aboard the International Space Station received a special software upgrade this week - personal access to the Internet and the World Wide Web via the ultimate wireless connection.

-- http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/jan/HQ_M10-011_Hawaii22...