Dressing Michael Jackson

The protectors of his presentation, we, as his personal stylists and exclusive designers for close to twenty-five years, learned through a unique creative process how to channel Michael’s thoughts, wishes, and philosophies to create clothing that would symbolize what he stood for. The King of Style: Dressing Michael Jackson is the first-ever pictorial compilation of the evolution of that process — a visual adventure of our work together.

The book just won a Gold Medal from the Independent Publishers Book Awards.

Samsung closing desktop business

It makes sense for Samsung — the money is in the mobile markets and with the exception of the Mac Pro, nobody has really innovated in the desktop space in a long time.

Squarespace

It’s never been more important to make a great impression online.

Squarespace puts world-class design in your hands and provides everything you need to create your own website in minutes. Squarespace websites are different. They’re designed to be simple, modern, and to look great on every device. With Squarespace, your personality, products, or content is always the focus.

Try Squarespace today for free at squarespace.com.

Apple owns the future of mobile

Apple owns the future of mobile devices, not because it has erected a near monopoly market position protected by major barriers to entry like IBM in 1970s or Microsoft’s DOS and Windows in the 80s and 90s or Google’s search and Adobe’s Flash in the 2000s; Apple sells its products within a very diverse and openly competitive market and maintains minority unit market share in smartphones.

It just happens that Apple is making the vast majority of all the profits in mobile hardware, software, media and services. And the mobile segment happens to have much brighter prospects than the rest of the consumer technology market, particularly WinTel PCs.

Very well thought out and lengthy article from Daniel Eran Dilger.

Microsoft store opening fail

“Yeah I’m here for Microsoft,” said Elizabeth Goodrich, before coming clean. “No I’m here for Weezer, I’m a huge fan.

“But I’ll look around – who knows?”

Because that’s exactly how you want your customers to react.

Apple TV console

This is a smart article from Austin Sweeney. Where this whole thing is going, and when, is up in the air, but there is no doubt that stumbled into a great gaming device with the iPod touch. The big question for me is will it be easier for the console makers to convince the public they have an entertainment device or for Apple to convince the gamers they have a gaming device? The next couple of years are going to be very interesting.

Learning from ’80s guitar tone

Whether you liked the tone or not, there were some great players and engineers experimenting in the 1980s that came up with some great tricks.

Website sidebars are garbage

Eric E. Anderson:

Dumping a bunch of stuff into a sidebar doesn’t make you a blogger. Nor does it make your website more useful.

Anderson brings up some good points. I’ve tried to keep the information in the sidebar on The Loop very minimal, but there’s still more than what I’d like. This is the next project I’ll be tackling with The Loop’s design.

Guy English on the new Mac Pro

A lot of people are probably going through this same type of thinking. Of course, there are others that will just grab the Mac Pro as soon as it’s released.

Avid releases Pro Tools 11

I have been very impressed with the last few releases of Pro Tools and been using it almost exclusively for recording and audio editing. Pro Tools 11 carries on with some great new features.

I know this may sound silly, but one of my favorite new features is Offline Bounce. In previous versions of Pro Tools, bouncing a track would require the entire track to play in real-time. Offline Bounce outputs the track many times faster than real-time, saving time for the whole project.

It’s hard to say that bouncing is the biggest feature. Pro Tools 11 is also 64-bit and comes with an all new audio engine.

There’s a lot to like about Pro Tools 11. I’ll have a review after I get a copy.

Tim Cook asks board to amend his compensation

The Committee intends for future stock awards to Apple executives officers to be performance-based and Cook will lead by example. However, though normal performance-based compensation normally has both an upside and downside, at his request, Cook’s award will solely have a downside component.

That is a leader.

Gruber and Jackassery

It’s funny to watch a Google employee try to tear Gruber down, especially when he totally misses the points Gruber was making.

Apple warns of “chilling effect” in e-book trial decision

If Apple was found guilty, it would “send shudders through the business community” by condemning the ordinary negotiations that companies undertake to enter new markets, the company’s lawyer, Orin Snyder, said on the last day of the trial.

“We submit a ruling against Apple on this record sets a dangerous precedent,” Snyder said.

The Loop Magazine Issue 4: On the road with Jimmy Page

We have some great articles in The Loop Magazine Issue 4, including a story from Greg Howard about some time he spent on the road with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and The Black Crowes.

Brad McCarty talks about our unending thirst for technology; Steven Aquino looks at Accessibility and how it affects him; Dermot Daly on his first computer; Joe Rossignol talks about how sci-fi thoughts of how the world would work have become reality; and David Caolo talks about his first band and doing things for the love of it.

You can download The Loop Magazine on the App Store and start your free 7-day trial when you subscribe.

Advertisers upset with Firefox for limiting tracking of users

The maker of the popular Firefox browser is moving ahead with plans to block the most common forms of Internet tracking, allowing hundreds of millions of users to eventually limit who watches their movements across the Web, company officials said Wednesday.

Firefox’s developers made the decision despite intense resistance from advertising groups, which have argued that tracking is essential to delivering well-targeted, lucrative ads that pay for many popular Internet services.

It should be the user’s decision. If they don’t mind, fine.

The Loop Magazine 1.0.3

The Loop Magazine has been updated fixing a items for users. Among the biggest changes is a fix for some international users that saw the app crash on launch; Issues and cover art will now download in the back; accessibility features have updated; and a number of performance improvements were made.

You can download The Loop Magazine on the App Store and start your free 7-day trial when you subscribe.

Man roses

Nobody touches my man roses.