The demise of Twitter: from push to passive

When Twitter first came in to "my net life" it I was annoyed yet attracted to it's in-your-face constant alerting of social updates. The instant info burst of where funkycoda was going for lunch or DmitryBaranovsk's request for a timely response for a solution to a JavaScript problem or lachlanhardy alerting followers to the release of another new social network where all great uses of the interruption technology which came to me via an instant message (when on my desktop) or an SMS (when on out-and-about or the road).

For now, I am resigned to reading "tweet" history on the Twitter website. Reading over such social comments after-the-fact makes me feel like I missed out. Commenting later is not much good to anyone seeking an instant response. The "he's doing it now" nature of the service often made me also want to contribute then and there using the same technology of receival to comment back.

For a while, things have changed: IM stability for Twitter was a hit and miss affair earlier this year and it seems to have been taken down (permanently) for months now. So for a long time now I have not been making regular updates as I have not had an easy way to make them. Now also with the death of SMS alerts in Australia I am again disconnected from the JIT nature of the service and for me, apart from friend connections on the service I have lost use of the here and now aspect of it. There are many other services that allow me to "micro blog" that do it much better and are usable (brightkite being my current favourite).

NOTE: I know there is twitteriffic out there but I have not used it as I am against the fact that I need to provide my login credentials to a third party and run a dedicated app in place of something that fitted seamlessly with my existing day-to-day applications. Twitter should offer a service like this themselves or provide a google/flicker open auth ID type solution so a 3rd party does not see my personal login.

Google out of Touch with current Mac Line-up

One thing I noticed last week while I was considering how to spend some business profits to lower my tax payments (always fun) on the Apple Store was that Apple now scrooge on the Apple Remote across the entire MacBook range - it was even debatable if the new MacBook Air even worked with the remote.

The Apple Remote, which is primarily used to control Front Row, is now a $29AUD add-on (you could purchase it at a later date - but would then have to pay shipping if your total order was not over $100).

Since the remote first appeared it has shipped with Apple all the MacBooks and consumer desktops "in the box". It is still a standard includ with the iMac and Mac mini. I wonder why Apple have decided to drop it as an incision in latest round of MacBook product updates? It seems even Google (Official Google Mac Blog: Most Mac models today ship with a six-button remote control…) were not aware of the change to the status-quo. I doubt it would be a cost saving measure - the device is so simple at mass-production it would cost less than $5. It's also feather light, so it would add next-to-nothing in additional shipping costs. One issue I see is that the current MacBooks may not be updated for a while and Apple do not want issues/complaints about flat batteries, or acid leaks. But I really hope they are about to launch a redesigned remote that looks like the 2nd generation iPod Nano. I think the anodised aluminium would look like it belonged next to the new slim line keyboards, on the base of the latest iMacs and and the higher-end MacBooks. Now that would be nice.