Filed under: Internet Tools, iPhone

The biggest barrier to effectively using your Mac (or your iPhone) isn’t processor speed or software compatibility — it’s poor typing speed. Who knew back at the invention of the manual typewriter that the QWERTY keyboard layout (alleged to have been designed to slow down typists and avoid jams) would still be our primary data interface more than a century later? Yes, we’ve got some other options now, but short of upgrading your RAM the best way to speed up your work is to simply learn to type.

To enhance that finger business, check out TypingWeb, which now offers a Safari-compatible (both for desktop and iPhone, as we originally noted here) and free set of typing drills. Using the service on my iPod touch, I discovered that my Blackberry-style two thumb technique was actually slowing me down compared to an index-finger approach that leveraged the word completion feature more effectively — who knew?

For a full-scale Mac typing tutor, the classic (not Classic — it runs in OS X now) choice is Mavis Beacon Instructs Typing, available on a cross-platform CD.

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We’ve been speaking about the phenomenon for some time, but it finally appears to be happening: Software is becoming a service, not a product. CIO.com picks up on this in a recent article, but people like Doc Searls have been talking about this in relation to open source since at least 2003.

What do you sell in open source? Services around the software, whether those services are support, Networks (update service, etc.), etc. What do you sell if you’re a SaaS company? Software delivered as a service/utility.

Between open source and SaaS, the software industry has changed forever, as CIO.com notes:

It is only by building such a layer of [service] abstraction that’ll enable IT’s focus to truly change from their traditional asset perspective (”what we have”), to the new value-oriented perspective (”what we deliver”). Furthermore, aggregating data at a service layer reveals far more potent information sources and the knowledge needed to drive service improvement and shift the culture and mindset of the IT organization.

Thinking of and delivering IT as a service grants IT to become part of the business, and not merely the dumb bits behind it. Open source and SaaS make it all happen. Savvy IT shops will invest in both.

… Source:The Open Road

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We’ve been speaking about the phenomenon for some time, but it finally appears to be happening: Software is becoming a service, not a product. CIO.com picks up on this in a current article, but people like Doc Searls have been talking about this in relation to open source since at least 2003.

What do you sell in open source? Services around the software, whether those services are support, Networks (update service, etc.), etc. What do you sell if you’re a SaaS company? Software delivered as a service/utility.

Between open source and SaaS, the software industry has changed forever, as CIO.com notes:

It is only by building such a layer of [service] abstraction that will enable IT’s focus to truly change from their traditional asset perspective (”what we have”), to the new value-oriented perspective (”what we deliver”). Furthermore, aggregating data at a service layer reveals far more potent information sources and the knowledge needed to drive service improvement and shift the culture and mindset of the IT organization.

Thinking of and delivering IT as a service grants IT to become part of the business, and not merely the dumb bits behind it. Open source and SaaS make it all happen. Savvy IT shops will invest in both.

… Source:The Open Road

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Yes, the open-source database market is still relatively small (roughly $200 million in 2007, according to Gartner). But when The Wall Street Journal starts paying attention (subscription required), it’s clear that the opportunity is huge. The Journal doesn’t get paid to be sentimental.

Regardless, as Arjen Lentz opines,

…(D)isruptive technology tends to not take over the incumbent’s market, but find or develop a completely new market, and indeed take over in that space. The question then is, does the incumbent’s market remain intact, or does it change/evolve naturally and perhaps shrink or even absolutely disappear over time. Generally, the market-dominant incumbent continues to survive in a niche (where they are obviously dominant, but no longer in the market overall). In short, the market changes and with it its rules and demands.

Leading this market transformation is Sun Microsystems. Open-source databases (PostgreSQL and, especially, MySQL) might get a significant boost from Sun’s involvement:

… Source:The Open Road

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