April 1st, 2008
JPMorgan Chase CEO paid $29M in ‘07
During 2007—one of the banking industry’s toughest years in decades—Dimon received a salary of $1 million, a cash bonus of $14.5 million, a stock award valued at $13 million when it was granted in January 2007, and perks worth $356,330, according to the bank’s proxy filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The boost in total compensation to $28.86 million in 2007 from $27.49 million in 2006 was due mostly to a higher cash bonus.
Posted in Politics |
Comment »
December 3rd, 2007
I bought an iPhone in August or so … after having tried many varieties of pda/phone/multi-tool I had quit attempting to use any of them productively and carried just a basic phone. The iPhone is a winner though and really accomplishes with simplicity all the promises of the past.
The camera is great to have with me since it’s a tap away to email a picture. Frankly with a digital SLR there are too many pictures to manage, edit, and then upload so having a simple way to pop a good photo to friends and family is new to me.
So the podcast, er, netcast titled MacBreak Weekly had a recent show claiming the iPhone’s camera resolution is 640×480. Whoa. One of the most popular podcasts and they don’t fact check or even correct the show notes after the fact?
The iPhone camera is no great thing but it’s not a chump. I’ve got a vintage Quicktake and the camera in the iPhone is much better resolution 1600×1200. When you email a photo it is resized to 640×480 but not when you import those photos to an application. I’ve managed to squeeze some decent photos out but it’s definitely bad at the highlight and shadow areas.
From the episode home page:
http://twit.tv/mbw67
Don’t forget apple did make a digital camera, the Apple Quicktake! Which had a resolution of 640X480, the same as the iPhone! (Your iPhone, its a new Apple Newton! Its a new Apple Quicktake, its also a hard-to-use cellphone!...)
It’s kind of silly to keep the show notes incorrect … but I guess the show is a casual thing.
Here are some sample photos using the iPhone:
Pizza Friday means fresh dough and homemade pie! In low light this did OK for such a dinky camera.
Eastern side of place at Mt. Vernon, Long Pond. Highlights and shadows blown out!
This pic has more even light and it looks great. Kennebec Highlands trail system walk.
Posted in Photo, Products |
Comment »
November 20th, 2007
I’m a fan of Seth Godin’s thoughts put forth in “Purple Cow” and want to read The Dip.
The Dip seems along the lines of The 4 Hour Work Week but focused on different aspects of the same ideas. Having read neither of them this is based on what I know of each book. Suffice it to say, it’s not about being a cog in the typical sense. One has you finding the niche and exploiting it—more importantly, knowing when to abandon ideas that no longer matter or will not have a high benefit, and the other is about outsourcing your life! The upshot to both is more control.
Purple Cow was a great little read and worth going through again, I hope The Dip is as good.
Posted in Books, Marketing |
Comment »
October 17th, 2007
I can’t say it enough.
Blah-Blah Text: Keep, Cut, or Kill? (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
The introductory paragraph(s) found at the top of many Web pages is what I call blah-blah text: a block of words that users typically skip when they arrive at a page. Instead, their eyes go directly to more actionable content, such as product features, bulleted lists, or hypertext links.
The worst kind of blah-blah has no function; it’s pure filler — platitudes, such as “Welcome to our site, we hope you will find our new and improved design helpful.”
Kill the welcome mat and cut to the chase.
People read very little on Web pages. Don’t waste word count on generic, feel-good material. It’s not going to make customers feel good anyway. They care only about getting their problems solved as quickly as possible so they can leave your site.
Posted in Design |
Comment »
October 12th, 2007
Vote for Andy Sokoloff!
I know Andy and his wife Elizabeth. They will be a great asset to the town of Brunswick, so much so I wish they lived in Portland!
Posted in General |
Comment »
September 27th, 2007
One of these things is not like the other…
So I am not very interested in DRM laden music. Not because I give my music purchases away … nah, if I want to let a friend listen I let them listen but I don’t go sharing music all over “the internets” nor the “series of connected tubes”.
Amazon’s 2007 effort into digital downloads for music is an interesting and very viable competitor to iTunes. None of their tracks have DRM and are in MP3, 256kbps format. iTunes too has non-DRM music under the “iTunes Plus” rubric. I don’t know the extent of either library but one thing certainly confuses me today.
I went to check on the new Joni Mitchell album “Shine”. She’s one of my all time favorite artists and I definitely don’t want lower quality DRM tracks for this album. Funny thing this album, it is on the StarCon,LLC d/b/a Hear Music label which happens to be owned by Star Bucks by those of us none the wiser. Why is this funny? Well, the album available in iTunes is DRM laden, but, Amazon offers the album in DRM free MP3 goodness, and for a dollar less to boot! What makes this even funnier? Well, the recent brouhaha betwixt Apple Inc. and Starbucks and iTunes whereby one with an iPhone (that’s me) or an iPod Touch could happen upon a Star Bucks coffee outlet and hop onto a free wifi hot spot and buy music!
So why would iTunes have the bum deal of DRM only Joni Mitchell “Shine” but Amazon get’s the love?
Posted in Music, Product Annoyances |
Comment »
September 20th, 2007
I know it’s tough to admit you were wrong but I am very glad as are many others around the web, the NYTimes has chosen to open it’s archives.
I will in fact say I told you so, in fact I talked about it twice already here:
Farewell Friedman, Later Dowd, See ya Kristoff, Wouldn’t Want to be You Brooks – Sept 2005 and here:
The Grey Lady Paywall Cracks – March 2007
What I said in 2005 stands, they have too many good editorial writers to keep them in the “green zone”. Ideas need to be free.
Posted in Design, Marketing, Social Software, Technology |
Comment »
July 28th, 2007
Great discussion with 14 minutes of the solid basis for what one should be doing today. From his Amazon page for his book Search Engine Marketing:
Mike has worked on IBM’s Web site for the past seven years and is currently the Manager of ibm.com Site Architecture. In addition to his search work, Mike has spearheaded ibm.com projects in Content Management, Personalization, and Web Metrics.
Mentioned is the Cluetrain Manifesto from 1999. Most people have seen the cluetrain whiz by but not all really know what it is or how to say it when they see it coming. This kind of short video does more to sell his product and ideas than just about anything he can write. It’s an example of doing it wrong quickly! Very nice…
IBM has the culture to produce people like this … they aren’t talking about new features or geegaws but instead about what problems they are solving. That’s a very good thing when the bammo star of “New and Improved” is still slapped on products while it was meaningless 30 years ago.
Posted in Marketing, Technology |
Comment »
July 10th, 2007
Why Microsoft outplays Apple long term – Scobleizer
Apple doesn’t get developers. They do get whizzy UI.
Microsoft eventually will get whizzy UI. The platform that has BOTH third-party developers AND whizzy UI will win and win big in the marketplace.
I have no quip with Mr. Scoble’s critique of Apple for not having someone appear, even at a somewhat impromptu event, one week after the largest product launch in history, and not long after Apple’s own WWDC. It’s a valid critique even if somewhat early in this game.
What I do take concern about is the conflation of “whizzy” and UI. Good user interface design does not necessarily mean “whizzy”. Whizzy is more along the line of the somewhat egregious animation or some of the transparency and drop shadows we see. If done well even these gee-whiz interface features can add useful tactility to the overall usability and quality of the UI. Take the OS X minimize to dock animation. It’s definitely whizzy, maybe even cheese whizzy but at the same time it provides a visual (too strong one might add) clue as to what the heck just happened! Is that an example of whizzy U, egregious animation, bad UI or OK UI? We could debate this one device forever.
Now, take the interface to Windows Media Player and the various skins one might apply. Are they whizzy, yes and most definitely cheesy but this cheese stinks (and not the good stink). The difference is one of simple functionality – the skin in my experience actually gets in the way of functionality and just getting things done. I don’t really require an “experience” with my media player, only with the media I am playing thank you.
One could compare the UI of Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition (gargle on that name!) with Apple’s Front Row. A whole lot has been said about the two products in terms of functionality versus simplicity. Is MCE a whizzy interface? It’s certainly better than Windows overall where the little voices inside make me want to dump the thing in the river.
The thing for me is the core of what’s behind the visual design, those elements of Design that the labels, icons, and menus act upon. The most interior of all Microsoft products still feel confused, overly concerned with offering fanboy outs, too much information, or simply unclear pathways to goals. This is what comprises UI. I reckon Mr. Scoble knows this in his life steeped much more closely to the digerati than my own, but, it was worth pointing out.
As far as this relates to the iPhone it is clear to me the strategy of rolling something out with a well defined scope has worked really well for Apple in the last decade where if you do a comparison the coin has flipped.
Posted in Design |
Comment »
July 8th, 2007
A necessary step (Scripting News)
The Grandfather of Blogging says:
On Friday I said that impeachment must become an option. More than that, it must become a fixture of American politics. We’ve now suffered through two two-term Presidents who had very little regard for our opinion of them. We need to get their attention, and the best tool at our disposal is to remove them from office when they break the law. It’s our fault this is happening because we refuse to use our power.
I’d warrant our culture has a much larger problem than presidents. There is a root problem in our culture whereby vast wealth is bestowed upon a miniscule percentage for tanking companies, to fire executives, etc… and, we do it in the face of enormous and rising differences in pay across the scale. Until we can face this endemic problem across the spectrum of our civilization removing the head of a hydra will do nothing. The insurgency will continue otherwise.
It is also these small incursions we tolerate at all levels of culture, provided you wear the right collar, and perhaps others are able to make money as well. There is no small amount of correction. Impeachment is not small in itself but in light of the larger culture-wide problem it is but a meaningless gesture.
Posted in Politics |
Comment »
