Can we listen to Christmas music now? When we start celebrating holidays

THE START OF HOLIDAY CELEBRATIONS On November 1st a friend asked, partly in jest: “Halloween is over, can we listen to Christmas music now?”   And therein lies a conundrum. When do we begin the celebration of the Christmas holiday? There are two schools of thought: Celebrate each holiday in its own season: first Halloween,…

Read More

Apple’s New Ecosystem: the Implications of Apple Pay

      APPLE’S NEW ECOSYSTEM: THE IMPLICATIONS OF APPLE PAY Today, October 20, Apple launched Apple Pay with the release of their iPhone iOS 8.1 version of the device operating system. This new payment system is scheduled to go live with 220,000 merchants today for users with iPhone 6 or 6 Plus. I wrote…

Read More

Apple Watch: a New Category for Apple

Apple Watch

APPLE WATCH: A NEW CATEGORY FOR APPLE On initial impression, some might say this seems like less of a watch and more an iPhone nano. While the iPhone 6 is an evolutionary change and larger than before, as I discussed in my last article here, the Apple Watch is a new product category for Apple with…

Read More

Apple’s New iPhone 6: Why you care

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, about which many leaks had already informed us
Apple Watch, the previously rumored iWatch saw the light of day, though not orderable until next year
Two new ecosystems — which are the truly revolutionary part of the announcement — Apple Pay and HealthKit. I’ll tell you why these will be huge.

Read More

VMworld 2014 San Francisco: Final Day

VMWORLD 2014 SAN FRANCISCO: FINAL DAY VMworld does something special for the Press and Bloggers, it reserves several tables near the front of the auditorium with power cords and a special WiFi feed. This makes it easy to take lousy low light photos from one’s iPhone. Having written on Day 1 and Day 2 of…

Read More

VMworld 2014 San Francisco: Day 2, The Details

VMWORLD 2014 SAN FRANCISCO: DAY 2 Following on the announcements of Day 1, three VMware executives filled in the details. <img src=”https://billpetro.com/wp-content/uploads/BenFathi2.jpg” alt=”Ben Fathi” width=”134″ height=”134″ align=”left” style=”padding-right: 10px; />Ben Fathi, VMware Chief Technology Officer Ben started the morning with Destination Giveback, a charitable effort that involves flying paper airplanes as a part of the…

Read More

VMworld 2014 San Francisco: Day 1, The Announcements

VMWORLD 2014: DAY 1, THE ANNOUNCEMENTS The largest cloud show of its kind, VMworld 2014 opened with the General Session in Moscone Center in San Francisco. 22,000 attendees from 85 countries are here. The show actually opened 2 days previously, but everyone who is going to be here is at this event. Partner Day and TAM…

Read More

History of David Winn

HISTORY OF DAVID WINN Recently I attended the memorial service of David Winn, a good friend and a great man. I started out as a patient of his dental practice almost 20 years ago, but we quickly became friends, sharing many common interests. Our conversations were stimulating and he had a sly sense of humor.…

Read More

History of Twitter: The Social Tool at Eight Years

Twitter

HISTORY OF TWITTER “I don’t get it…” …is the phrase I frequently hear when I talk to people about Twitter. This micro-blogging service is one of the more unique and most difficult to explain of the social technologies — a “presence” tool that broadcasts “what are you doing” to friends and strangers alike, anyone who…

Read More

History of Facebook: The Social Network at 10

HISTORY OF FACEBOOK February 4 is the 10th birthday of the social networking site Facebook. What started back at Harvard — and initially only open to college students or those with email addresses that ended in .edu until September 2006 — Facebook is now the largest social network with over 1 billion people using it…

Read More

History of 2013: Best of billpetro.com

Gentle Readers, Happy New Year and thanks for visiting my blog at billpetro.com. In 2013 the blog was visited 71,000 times as people viewed the 110 articles I posted during the year. The busiest day was Jan 7 with 1,040 views. Most visitors were referred from Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and Stumbleupon. The most popular…

Read More