Everybody’s heard the best way to make money during a gold rush is to be the guy selling picks and shovels to the miners. Very few people will “strike it rich” but even the guys who lose their shirts need the tools to mine. I want to be a miner in the worst way — I daydream about what will happen when I hit the mother lode. And I know that big strike is right around the corner, so I keep digging and digging. And yet, the money I make continues to be in the sale of tools to other miners. Sure, I come across a nugget or two in my mining (I do use my own tools), but the bulk of the...

In the olden days a writer needed a publisher in order to get their book in front of their audience. But with Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Kindle and iBook stores, that’s no longer the case. And while I could argue for their usefulness still, one thing I continue to see makes me hope for the DEATH of publishing houses in the near future… ..if you charge the same price (or even close) for a digital copy of a book as you do for a physical copy, you are ripping people off. But I see that happen over and over again. And not just on new books, but older ones as well. Here’s a book from the...

Yesterday I exchanged my normal cable box for one that handles HD signals. I didn’t need to do it before now because until my birthday recently I didn’t even have an HDTV and rarely watched a “channel” at all. First thing I noticed with the new box is that stuff looked *really* different. In a good way. Clarity and vibrant colors. The trade-in was definitely worth the extra $8 per month. As cool as the enhanced picture is, during my TV watching session yesterday I noticed three things that made me realize (once again) why watching TV is mainly just a waste of time. 1st Stupid...

I’ve been the owner of a Kindle Fire for just about 12 hours now so I don’t have a lot of experience, but my initial reaction — overall — is that it’s the wrong size. At the risk of being called a fanboy (or even fanboi) I think Steve Jobs was right about 7″ tablets not being a good size. (Now watch them come out with one…) Here’s why: If I’m in a “mobile” situation, stopped at a red light, standing in line, etc., my iPhone is the perfect size. And if I’m in a “settled” situation like sitting in bed or on the couch,...

Laptops are outselling desktop machines (by a huge margin) and tablets (iPads, specifically) are being used to replace laptops by more and more people. I can see a time within a couple years (yeah, that soon) where the only computer most people will need will be an iPhone. Sidebar: Yeah, someone using Android could pull off what I’m suggesting, but Apple has a proven track record of doing more cool things. Sorry, just a fact. A “home computer” could consist of a monitor and a keyboard — and your iPhone. Sit down in front of the keyboard and connect your iPhone to the monitor...