Apple Poised to Top Microsoft This Quarter

Consider this a headline I never would have expected 10 years ago. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve used Apple products exclusively over the last decade, and it’s been an intriguing journey to say the least. But according to CNN, Apple is now the world’s most valuable tech company. While that fact in and of itself is quite astonishing, consider this: it’s very possible that Apple’s quarterly sales are poised to top Microsoft’s.

It boggles my mind that this tremendous success is still occurring in spite of the recent difficulties with Apple’s iPhone 4 making headlines all over the place. In spite of the admittedly brilliant technology of these new phones, it’s quite apparent that the blogosphere, anyway, accentuates the bad. But I suppose, this is one of those examples where negative PR in no way impacts sales. People want what they want, and once the masses have decided it’s out of our hands.

Sure, Apple computers themselves still don’t have the market share of PCs in general. But from a company standpoint that hardly seems to matter. According to CNN, Apple is expecting to hit the $18bn mark by September 30, which will be the company’s best quarter to date. But, as the article is quick to point out, the numbers no longer accurately reflect the aims of the companies.

From CNN:

“The media loves to tell this story, but I don’t think it’s a particularly relevant comparison,” said Barry Jaruzelski, management consultant at Booz & Co. “In the past seven or eight years, Apple went from a computer company to a cutting-edge consumer electronics business, and Microsoft is a platform software business.”

While there is a great deal of Apple criticism, and I admit to having participated in quite a bit of it myself, you can’t dispute the forward thinking executives’ approach. Since the iPhone’s release, Apple has simply dominated the market. We keep talking about iPhone killers but the truth is that Apple tapped in to something consumers didn’t even know they needed, and made it absolutely essential. It’s that perfect synthesis of status symbol and technology.

And while I do approach the future with quite a bit of trepidation, I do wonder… what will Apple do next?

[Image: CNN]

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17 Things You Should Know About DNA [Infographic]

Are you a living creature? Then, congratulations! You have DNA! That microscopic little building block of life that makes us all the same, but grants us with distinct differences. But for as common as DNA is, it can be a though subject to understand. Below are some of the facts to help you better understand the little bit of genetic coding that makes you, you!

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Are Vampires Losing Their Geeky Edge?

From Black Holes to Blood Suckers

I couldn’t help but notice some trends in yesterday’s post about black holes in our geek lives. Not only did we see some interesting omissions in people’s geeky educations, but there were also quite a few confessions. (Really, people, not reading The Lord of the Rings? And you call yourself geeks…)

Kidding aside, one of the confession/discussion threads got me thinking a bit. And that subject? Vampires.

Before I get too far into this post, I will admit to being a relative vampire newbie. While I’ve read about Twilight, I’ve never read the books themselves or seen the movies. I am a fan of the show True Blood, and I’ve read the first two books in the original series (but prefer the show). I’ve read a bit of Anne Rice, and watched a fair amount of Buffy. So I’m a dabbler, but no expert.

Still, I wonder if by and large vampires are inherently geeky at all? Or at least, I wonder if they’re losing their geeky edge these days. Granted, vampire folklore is very geeky. But vampires have gone mainstream in a huge way, and when the public’s eye changes the way something is represented and perceived, change is imminent.

Fanpires?

Boy, do we geeks get our panties in a wad when it comes to discussing what vampires should and shouldn’t be. I think partially that has to do with Joss Whedon and Buffy, and the collective effect on geek consciousness. Vampires have, in a way, become integrated within the geek community because of Whedon–but I think it’s a matter of Whedon being geeky, and not the vampires or the genre itself.

For that reason I understand the knee jerk reaction among many of us when it comes to recent vampiric developments. But is it necessary? I mean, I think we’re treading on some difficult territory here. Perhaps there’s a confusion between geekdom and fandom. To me, the Twilight/vampire thing is more of a fandom than a geeky pursuit by a long shot. Sure, there are similarities, and there are plenty of geeks who like Twilight and vampires–but that doesn’t define the fandom as geeky. (Also, while some might dispute it, liking Twilight doesn’t exclude you from being a geek, either.)

Sure, there’s plenty of room for argument. The entire horror genre definitely is part of geekdom, but I’m not sure it’s in the center of the Venn diagram. Horror’s appeal is much wider than other geeky genres, and while the fan presence is there in regards to vampires, I’m not sure it’s as precise as the stuff we see otherwise among the geek contingent. For example, I think True Blood is a great show, but I’m not sure if it’s geeky.

Mainstreaming

That’s not to say that popularity excludes things from being geeky. On the contrary, it’s quite possible. But I think that in order to be both geeky and popular, there’s got to be a certain level of intellectual celebration. Like Harry Potter, for instance—Harry and Hermione are total geeks! Outcasts and misfits are celebrated in Rowling’s series, and smarts are seriously valued. While there are some very clever vampires out there, the most popular among them (that’s the Twilight variety) certainly aren’t. They’re like undead Jonas Brothers. Without guitars. And 200 years old.

So, what do you think? Are Twihards a real threat to geekdom? Or are they just part of another fandom? Should we let the sleeping vampires lay and just get on with other things? Or am I being too hard on the sparkly vampires?

[Image – The HijiNKS Ensue – Team Edward T-Shirt – you know you want one!]

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Netwitness Visualize: Bringing Network Data Extraction and Assembly to the Next Step

Being in charge of network security can be a daunting task, especially when threats mutate on a daily basis. There are loads of tools out there that help with these tasks, and one more tool has been added to the security toolkit: NetWitness Visualize.

Using the enterprise full packet capture of NetWitness, it is now possible to extract key pieces of content that flow across the network and assemble it in a way that allows analysts to quickly navigate to important content types. Want to see all of the PDF files on the network? How about all of the VOIP calls made from your developers group? You can tell by the photos of shoes and dresses that Suzy in the HR department has a clothes shopping habit, while Steve in Sales took photos of a white board displaying a beta product mockup with his cellphone and sent it to a competitor.

NetWitness has married full packet capture, content extraction, and Microsoft’s Silverlight to create a Minority Report-style interface to quickly zero in on and navigate through activity detected across a network. You can see it in action yourself and interact with it in this awesome online demo of the application.

Also, here’s a Youtube video showing how the touchscreen navigation works (starts at 3:50).

There are two ways you can look at applications such as Netwitness Visualize: it gives the good guys an awesome tool to quickly find bad guys on a network, or could actually give your employer, or the government for that matter, a frightening amount of power over what you are doing, in and out of the office.

For those of you going to the Black Hat hacker conference in Las Vegas next week, NetWitness has promised to have live hands-on demos available.