LA Times: “One affiliate, Ken Rockwell of San Diego, the owner of a 12-year-old photography website, said he planned to move out of state.
“Will it be Las Vegas or Scottsdale or Ensenada?” he said. “It’s a question of where, not if.””
A question of when, not if. Let’s see how many folks flee California. It’s a beautiful place to live, unmatched by any other state, but it’s also the most unfriendly state to business.
If you have an Amazon Associates account, and you live in California, you probably got a ‘Dear John’ letter similar to this one.
Notice of Termination due to New California Law
Hello,
Unfortunately, Governor Brown has signed into law the bill that we emailed you about earlier today. As a result of this, contracts with all California residents participating in the Amazon Associates Program are terminated effective today, June 29, 2011. Those California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned before today will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.
You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here. And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program.
To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect your ability to purchase from Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com.
We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. As mentioned before, we are continuing to work on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available.
Regards,
The Amazon Associates Team
How many people have built part of their business on this program? That’s gonna leave a mark.
ZDNet [hat tip Cass McNutt]: “In the ongoing state-by-state battle over tax collection on affiliate website sales, this afternoon Amazon warned thousands of affiliates their revenue streams would be shut off if a tax bill would be signed into law. Mere hours later, Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill, signifying tough times ahead for many online business owners.”
Good morning happy people! (If you’re not happy go away, this line isn’t for you.)
Here’s our great line, good luck!
Ok, quick, what movie! Send your guesses here.
MSDN: “Apple sold 15 million iPads in the first nine months, while the Microsoft tablet has flailed around for a decade. Why? Because Apple realizes what Microsoft does not: the true laptop form factor is an entirely different device, not a smaller PC. It requires a completely different design approach, much closer to a phone than to a PC. I’m watching my 8-year-old daughter play with my father’s iPad as I write these words. She loves it, far more than her PC at home. I wouldn’t write a novel on one, but my daughter prefers it for kaleidoscope art and pony races. “Toys,†sneered one current Microsoft employee. That’s exactly what Ken Olsen used to say about PCs.”
Sneer all you want at that “Toy” iPad, it’s taken you to the woodshed and laid a whoopin’ on you.
Microsoft will recover, don’t write them off. There once was a company called Apple that lost its way, now look where they are.
Good morning movie liners, we have a winner.
Congratulations to multi-tasker extraordinaire Mr. Layne Lev.
The correct answer is…
See you next Thursday.
Good morning movie liners, it’s been a while!
Here’s the line, good luck!
Ok, quick, what movie! Send your guesses here.
Lytro: “Today, I am proud to announce the launch of Lytro and share our plans to bring an amazing new kind of camera to the consumer market.”
Photographers, start your engines.
I’m pretty sure my lovely wife will want one of these.
CNN: “Today marks the 100th birthday of IBM, which was founded on June 16, 1911, in New York City as the awkwardly named Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. (It was renamed International Business Machines in 1924.)”
Happy 100th Birthday Big Blue.
Technology Review [hat tip Ben King]: “A new printing method makes it possible to produce large sheets of metamaterials, a new class of materials designed to interact with light in ways no natural materials can. For several years, researchers working on these materials have promised invisibility cloaks, ultrahigh-resolution “superlenses,” and other exotic optical devices straight from the pages of science fiction. But the materials were confined to small lab demonstrations because there was no way to make them in large enough quantities to demonstrate a practical device.”
Harry Potter has nothing on us Muggles.
Wired: “They were told that all their experience, all their knowledge and every program they have written in the past would be useless on Windows 8.”
I think there’s been a lot of undue FUD surrounding the little demo of the new Windows 8 shell Microsoft released. I saw the demo and my first reaction was, “Hey, they’re learning from their mobile experience.” Then I instantly thought, “Wait, is this a shell on top of a shell? Is this Microsoft Bob all over again? Reminds me of Active Desktop.” Yes, those thoughts crossed my mind. I hope this isn’t a shell on top of a shell. I hope they find a way, like Apple, to meld it into the desktop experience. I can’t imagine it would be a shell on a shell. That just doesn’t make a lick of sense and would be confusing to users. I say Microsoft will do the right thing and make it work for both novices and experts alike, it will be a part of the shell. Steven Sinofsky is a smart guy.
The other thing I call BS on is developers believing Microsoft is going to abandon .Net or FORCE them to create applications in HTML. Do you think Visio, Word, Excel, or even Visual Studio will be rewritten in HTML? I think not. I’ve heard Microsoft is making a push back into C and C++. Bravo. Embrace the computer I say. In the last 10 years Microsoft has made great strides on .Net, I can’t see them abandoning that. It’s basically a development path for the masses as well as a way for Professional Developers to accelerate time to market. Microsoft has always been very good about maintaining backward compatibility. I don’t think developers should worry too much.
I’d reserve judgement of Windows 8 until we see Release Candidate bits. If the new shell is still a shell within a shell, then I’d worry a bit.