So it’s all over. Apple and Cisco settle the “iPhone” trademark battle, and while its shameless self promotion, my home away from home has an excellent analysis (along with a challenging comment from a dissenter that I do hope I responded to with fervor and valid information) on the results of the merger:

[ Gearlog.com: Cisco and Apple...iPhone Love? ]

The root of the announcement:

Apple and Cisco announced that they would share the name “iPhone,” Apple using it for its new smartphone due on store shelves later this summer, and Cisco using the name for their Linksys-branded VOIP phone for home networks. The two stated that they would settle their differences and work together to make their products more interoperable, and that they would collaborate in areas like consumer and enterprise communications and security, without releasing any further details of the agreement.

I’ve noticed I’m not the only person who thinks that Apple came out ahead on this deal, some analysts believe that Cisco got the short end of the deal. For more analysis, check out Brian Gardiner’s article at PCMag.com about the deal as well.

As conflicted as I am to even add any more attention to Joel Johnson’s “stop buying crap” childish tirade over at Gizmodo, I do have a few thoughts on it that I figure I’d share. Over at my own home away from home, Gearlog, the venerable Lance Ulanoff had a few choice words for Johnson:

Joel Johnson has outed the whole tech blogging industry and especially his former parent and current freelance employer Gizmodo for shoveling “crap” down the throats of a tech-obsessed audience. Man, this guy has stones. What a hero. He told everyone how we’re all out there whoring for CE and techs companies, delivering pabulum to an audience that doesn’t know s _ _ t from Shinola.

What an idiot. I guess Johnson forgot who reads these blogs. They’re not written for or by your average Joes. These are designed by and for tech and consumer electronics enthusiast who live to know about the latest new thing. Who consider it a badge of honor to try things out first, to suffer through bad design and ill-thought out products. All so they can tell friends family co workers, and especially the companies that make these products how crummy n–or great– they really are.

What this really is an exercise in self loathing. Johnson hates what he’s done and is now taking it out on Gizmodo, its contributors and everyone who reads it. Johnson says he “gave” up two years of his life writing for Gizmodo. Poor Joel. The site made his name and now he’s mad at the way it did it.

Lance is on point, word for word. Johnson has all of the grace of a gangsta rapper, decrying his fans for paying his bills and shouting at them about how little he cares for them, but then lapping up those royalty checks. Lance goes on:

Joel thinks we should “Only buy new stuff from companies that have proven themselves good servants of their customers in the past.” Good servants? Since when is any business a good servant? I think these companies want to build good products, and they’re not looking to mislead, but they are businesses, Joel. They exist to make a profit. Being “servants” is not part of the business plan.

Truth is, not only is Johnson’s argument full of crap, he may be, too. The whole time I was reading this screed, I had the creeping suspicion that it was all a big show. Johnson didn’t even believe what he was writing. He just wanted to make a big, splashy return and ensure people read his next column.

Couldn’t have put it better myself. But I tried. My comments to his post I thought were worthy enough to reblog:

I have to admit that this comment from his post seems to hit the nail right on the head:

“Golly, you’re sure an elitist little turd for someone that did this for what, 75 years before the new crew? Gorsh. Maybe your next post should be about where to buy that sweet pedestal. I hope it comes in glossy electricities because I’m an idiot!”

I know he was just ranting, and I know he got a little too personal, but to be honest, he should have saved it for his personal blog than for public consumption. He laid himself out like some Eminem-style whiner who shouts “I hate my public and I don’t care if you listen to what I have to say!” and then laps up the fruits of that same public’s attention with an underhanded “read my column” in the same way pop stars lambaste you for listening and then plead you to buy their album. I’m tired of it. You can have a change of heart, you can have your personal opinion, but masquerading like you know it all about any industry just because you’ve been knee deep in it just exposes how long it took you to sink knee deep in your own little circle of muck, not your breadth of knowledge.

He, and anyone who’s like minded (myself included to a large part) would do well to allow people’s imaginations and passions to be inspired and flared by technology, technological progress, and the continual march and advance of both consumer and industrial technologies by reporting on them…and at the same time explaining; as most credible and ethical journalists do; that the next best thing might be coming along in just a little while, so don’t buy now, or don’t buy that new shiny, it’s not as new or shiny as the box says it is, and so on.

I don’t see a problem here, and I certainly don’t think the tech journalism or blogging community is dangling the geek carrot in front of anyone’s nose. If anything, they’re the responsible barrier between an uneducated and eager consumer with a few free bucks on their credit card and the eager, hungry waiting arms of Best Buys, CompUSAs, Frys, and their plethora of at-cost Samsung phones, LG televisions, HP “the computer is personal again” laptops, and everyone else who wants a piece of our credit card statements.

But that wasn’t the end of the discussion. Kyle Monson, also writing at Gearlog, brought up the very valid point: Isn’t Johnson right? Shouldn’t we not buy so much overpriced electric crap that inevitably falls apart right after its warranty expires, or pay to suffer through horrible technical support and unresponsive customer service? Shouldn’t we be wary of companies who are more interested in filling our homes with obsolete electronic crap than providing quality products and services? Absolutely, but that was peripheral to Johnson’s point. A jewel in the muck of his post, his noble point about being careful about what you buy and why you buy it, Johnson didn’t set out to learn us all a good lesson about the dangers of falling for the marketing hype, he set out to shoot for the moon in the trolling world. I went on to say:

While Joel’s core point is absolutely valid, and I don’t hear anyone discrediting it, his incredibly high-horsed “I know better than you because I made this industry” attitude is misplaced. I don’t think anyone would disagree that early adopters pay the price for being early adopters, but I don’t honestly think that any reasonable person runs straight out and buys something they don’t want or need otherwise just because it’s new and available in different colors. I think the whole reason technology publications exist is to educate people in a helpful manner about what’s on the horizon, what it can do for you, how it’s different from what’s available now, and whether or not it’s worthwhile.

I think it’s difficult for some people who have been schmoozing and shilling as long as Joel has to remember that the vast majority of people turn to technology publications and blogs for information, advice, and to be on the bleeding edge of technology…in their heads. No one’s heading to Gizmodo to read about a hot new cellphone only available in Japan and then go to their sources to order one even though it won’t work in the States-and if they do, they could care less about Joel’s perspective, or their disposable income.

If Joel’s willing to come down off of his high horse and acknowledge that people buy things they want, and if they don’t work or if they have problems it’s not because he had anything to do with it, then maybe someone will pay more attention to his point than his attitude. The only person guilty of ceaselessly “buying crap” are the folks that Joel runs with. I simply think your average household doesn’t buy “crap” the way that Joel thinks they do. We need to be careful about separating tech enthusiasts, who, like anyone with a hobby, spend more money on what they’re enthusiastic about, from mainstream customers, who buy things when they want or need them, not because they’re brand new.

Any dissenters?

The only thing that’s sadly true about the whole ordeal is how bad things have gotten at Gizmodo – between posts like this and their already “every article is submitted to the Digg front page” hyperbolic bent, they’re wearing the journalistic carpet thin and turning into the Weekly World News of the technology blog circuit; their only saving grace being that they’re updated incredibly often. Then again, I probably shouldn’t hold them up to the Weekly World News standard they might be aspiring to – I think that ValleyWag might hold that title.

In a rather ironic twist, the company who needs these “new broadband incentives” the least is crowing about the need for them. Forgive me if I don’t take anything from the Verizon executive vice president for public affairs, policy and communications (read: professional shill and media mouthpiece) very seriously, but there are several problems with Verizon’s attempt to “call for” resources to expand broadband and internet access into rural areas. Let’s start at the beginning.

Verizon claims that the federal government needs to provide some kind of grant package or set of incentives to accelerate the deployment of broadband access and availability to rural areas with few people. Some kind of fund…that provides universal services…to people who may not already have telephone or telecommunications services currently because of the remote locations in which they live…something like the Universal Service Fund, perhaps? That thing that Verizon’s asking for…that already exists?

Verizon’s problem with the USF isn’t what it does or why it does it (which we’ll get to later, because Verizon is trying to say that the way the USF works is badly designed, when in reality “badly designed” translates to “doesn’t give us enough money or the opportunity to dominate a market sector”) but the fact that the USF is distributed to many different organizations of all sizes, and doesn’t show particular preference to large telecommunications companies even though they collect a large number of the public fees that go into federal coffers. It’s not like that money is being wasted though – the USF is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company, which distributes it, in large part, to schools, libraries, and small businesses working to bring internet access and telecommunications services to rural and poor areas. Verizon’s problem with all of this? They have to compete for the money, they have to compete for the areas in which the public investment is made, and they aren’t given the opportunity to completely dominate the revenue stream from the government. So what do they do? “Propose” a new funding stream that they can tap directly into without having to compete with those pesky small business and do-it-ourselves municipalities.

Verizon, like Comcast and the other major telecomms, are absolutely afraid of free market competition – they claim to thrive on it, but as soon as they’re presented with a market that may or may not present a guaranteed return on investment, they balk at making the investment, but similarly stand in the way of smaller market elements that step in to fill their void.

Examples: Verizon is happily installing FIOS to homes and individual housing communities in many parts of the country, mostly relatively dense suburban communities near larger cities, like the suburbs of Washington DC, Seattle, and San Francisco, while simultaneously claiming that they don’t have the money or the technology to extend traditional telephone and DSL services into rural areas. While Verizon installs FIOS in single family homes, across the street they refuse to provide the same level of service to customers in apartment complexes, town homes, or rental communities because they have no strong guarantee that those people will in turn become their customers because of the added feature. Homeowners will up the value of their homes thanks to the presence of FIOS, but apartment dwellers or town home renters aren’t particularly interested in the inherent value. They may in turn sign up because of the better service, but they’re nowhere near as dependable as the homeowner across the street. It wouldn’t cost Verizon significantly more to extend their service, but because they can’t be sure the bills will roll in, they’ll stop where they know they’ll make money, and then whine to the government to get the public to foot the bill for the rest. Will Verizon reimburse the government for that bill? Never – once the service is there for the taking, they’ll market the hell out of their potential customers, take the monthly income from billing, and run.

We’re looking at the same setup here. Verizon can’t be sure they’ll get decent income from expanding telecommunications services into rural areas and low-cost regions, so they beg the government to foot the bill for their work so they can continue making more money, while the public is supposedly supposed to just be happy that the access is there, after sinking public money into infrastructure that’ll be corporate-owned and operated. The public pays twice – once to the government to hand the money to the telecomm to install the service, and again when they sign up for the new digs.

Another problem with this strategy is that the major telecomms will actively stand in the way of do-it-yourself municipalities who will fill in the gaps that companies like Verizon claim they “don’t know exist.” When Philadelphia made an effort to bridge the digital divide with city-wide free wi-fi, Comcast and Verizon cried foul and even took the city to court over it, claiming that the government shouldn’t be doing their job. The trouble is, though, that the job isn’t getting done. In response, business-friendly officials told the city that they could have their municipal wi-fi, they just had to work with the telecomms to get it done: essentially the public pays for non-public infrastructure, and the public pays again for the bill to use it but has no stake in its management or operation.

So if we can’t do it ourselves without the telecomms complaining, and the telecomms refuse to compete with other businesses to make it happen, what do we do? No one is forcing the telecomms to take the risks involved with building out infrastructure to rural and remote regions – businesses have to measure their risks against potential rewards and return on investment. If Verizon doesn’t think the return on the investment is worthwhile, that’s fine, but if that’s the case, don’t stand in the way of small businesses filling the gap, or municipalities and governments who offer to do it themselves.

The other travesty here is that Verizon is trying to take to task the USF for the way it dishes out money to multiple vendors and suppliers in different locales. They claim it’s a “reverse auctioning” process, which gives money to several companies where it should be rewarding one company for getting the job done. This is my favorite distortion of free market economics ever – the notion that by encouraging companies to compete, you somehow dilute the service provided to the customer, and it would be better to just give the money to a juggernaut. Verizon claims in the article to not take USF money (a statement that I would highly dispute, or out and out classify as a lie) but simultaneously goes on about how it’s “free money” so “why not take it?” Why not, Verizon, why not?

It’s so entertaining (and simultaneously appalling) when telecomm giants like Verizon ignore or insult public programs designed to do exactly what they want (but in turn demand that the public get what they pay for and insist on accountability in how public money is spent) and instead “propose” public programs that essentially turn into handouts with which they can do whatever they please. When the public complains and demands oversight and accountability for the public funds being spent, the company cries foul, throws out the evil “regulation” language, and demands that they not be strangled by such silly things as accountability for spent tax dollars. Alternatively, companies like Verizon can’t have the public, competing businesses, or small businesses sucking up untapped markets, so they stand in the way there as well. They spend more money complaining, lobbying government, and dragging competitors through court than they could make if the reinvested some of their massive profits towards the projects they claim to be so vested in. If they can’t be the solution, they want to be part of the problem.

[ PC World: Verizon Calls for New Broadband Incentives ]

As a side note, I also fault PC World, or the IDG Wire Service, from which the text of this story comes, for essentially taking what looks like a press release or a conference call with this Verizon mouthpiece, who they describe as a “top Verizon executive” before they reference his title, literally word for word and publishing it as news without fact checking (re: Verizon not taking USF funds) or even researching the organizations and programs that are discussed. This kind of journalism provides no balance or information, and instead amounts to a platform for company officials to define the “truth” and frame public discussions as they see fit.

I know I’m flooding you guys with Vista news lately, but I have to admit its just because I’m keeping a very close eye on the new operating system and I’m particularly curious how the new OS is hitting the market. I’m not particularly upset by the news that Vista is selling a little slower than people anticipated, although apparently Microsoft shareholders are-MS stock tanked just a touch on Friday-but it’s more proof that the early adopter market is all but exhausted. Given the issues and the press that the Vista rollout has gotten, I’m not horribly surprised that businesses aren’t rushing to upgrade their desktop infrastructure to Windows Vista, and while new computer buyers will get Vista one way or the other, I don’t see those large licensing purchases turning up for a while yet.

Given that Microsoft has also announced its intention to release operating system and office upgrades more frequently than in the past (eg, no 5 year wait between versions of Windows to be broken only by a massive service pack) I think that Microsoft is looking to strike a happier balance between its past trend and the near-frenetic Apple style of OS updates. (eg, yearly) Even so, when Vista gets the official blessing beyond some excellent features and lots of graphical and productivity gimmicks that many people may not care so much about, and when Vista is a bit more up to snuff compatibility-wise (which is no fault of Microsoft’s, mind you – hardware manufacturers and software developers have a significant hand in this.) I think the purchases will start to roll in.

In the meantime, I think everyone has some work to do. For example, Microsoft has some issues to address, considering some of their early adopters, gamers-for example-are having significant issues with Vista (link via Computerworld) that would stave people who would normally rush out to have the latest and greatest. Additionally, the rest of the hardware manufacturers and software developers have work to do to get their applications working with and taking advantage of Vista’s capabilities.

[ PC World :: Vista Sales Slower Then Expected ]

Okay, I haven’t installed Windows Vista yet, I’ve had problems installing on my test box for a while now and I’m a little scared to go prime-time on my primary machine. I tried to repartition my MacBook Pro and install Vista on that using Apple’s Boot Camp, but Boot Camp refused to partition my drive, telling me I should image it, format and repartition using Disk Utility, and then restore my data in order to create the necessary partition for the install. Boo. Still, my troubles only seem to whet my appetite for Vista more, and I’m glad to see a couple of Vista myths busted, including some that I myself were worried about. Here’s a couple that I liked:

Myth #4: The only thing new about Vista is the eye candy

…

Myth #7: Most old applications and peripherals won’t work with Vista

And so on. There are more, and justification for all of them, including the ones above. So if you’re interested in Vista, go for it. I still advise caution, but it’s cautious optimism!

[ TechRepublic :: Breaking 10 Windows Vista Myths ]

And I’m not complaining about this one bit.

The Super Bowl was on Sunday, obviously, and while the tanks battled the pwnies, I tuned in for the commercials, none of which more hilarious than Garmin’s spot, which was straight out of the spirit of Japanese kaiju movies and tv-shows like Godzilla and Ultraman and Kamen Rider, complete with giant evil map-monster, and Garmin-clad superhero who uses his device to transform and then defeat the monster with his awesome GPS powers:

How cool is that?

update: In case anyone was interested, there’s a 2-minute plus music video featuring the artist behind the music of the Garmin commercial, plus extra shots of Garmin Man kicking Maposaurus’ butt, along with-of course-more hilarity. Check it out:

I know, I know, this kind of digging is what Garmin wanted me to do, but you know what? I really don’t mind so much, it’s worth it. Did I mention that both Maposaurus and Garmin Man are on MySpace?

Tech guru Chris Pirillo has a few tips and tricks for us, now that Windows Vista is out and available to the public, and they’re good tips to help you make the most of Microsoft’s new operating system. From tweaking the group policy settings to make the system a little more user-friendly to setting up additional clocks so you can see multiple time zones, this is a pretty good list for someone who’s just gotten Vista out of the box and wants to tweak it so it’s just right.

If you’re upgrading to Vista now, or in the immediate future, this set of tricks is definitely worth a bookmark.

[ Chris.Pirillo.com :: Top 10 Tweaks, Tips, and Tricks for Windows Vista ]