... it's the skill (or lack thereof) of the photographer.

... and Chase Jarvis is right: The best camera is the one you have with you (in this case, my iPhone).

And the countdown for Windows 8 ("This time it'll work right, we promise!") has begun.

The iPhone is rapidly turning into a photographer's best friend. (iTunes link).

Makes sense. Picture-taking these days is a two-step process: You take the photos with your camera and then work on them with your computer.

Why not combine the two processes into one single device? True, you won't get professional-level results of it (for now) because of processor and imager constraints, but how long will that last given the pace of chip development?

Memo to Toyota: Opting in for email doesn't mean setting up a campaign that makes your customers worry about whether they're being stalked by a madman from Great Britain.

Computers aren't valuable as objects, they're valuable because of what they can do with data.

Period. Full stop.

A computer without data is utterly worthless: It doesn't even make a good boat anchor, and when your data moves to the cloud, it's the cloud that becomes valuable and not the device that's used to access it.

Unless, of course, that data can only be accessed by one device, like the Sidekick. Then you have two points of failure. You can't get to your data from your Sidekick, and you can't get to your data from any other device. Your data is not your own anymore, it belongs to the cloud.

Heaven help you if the cloud fails you.

The Streisand Effect: When your unreasonable demand comes back to haunt you.

And Ralph Lauren is finding out just how bad it can get.

What are the odds that because of this notoriety (and that outrageously stupid Photoshop), Ralph Lauren will go out of their way to make sure their 2010 Fall Campaign will feature real, normal-sized models?

Gourmet Magazine goes Tango-Uniform.

This is somewhat of a surprise, but then again, no. Magazines are suffering thru the same transition that's killing off newspapers by the dozen, so seeing big name periodicals go buhbye should surprise us, no matter what the medium.

Facebook has achieved what so many Web 2.0 startups have failed to do: They have positive cash flow.

Lesson to be learned here? Rupert Murdoch jumped the gun and spent a gazillion dollars for MySpace, which made a profit (barely) a few years ago but is now getting clobbered by Facebook, and the last payment from Google is looming for MySpace. Can MySpace be profitable without Google's cash? I doubt it.

Sometimes, it's good to be #2.

Everyone's chattering about what Apple will roll out tomorrow, but one of the things I've not heard anyone talk about is support for Flash in the iPhone/iTouch.

Annie Leibowitz is in a world of financial hurt, and to make matters worse, she's getting sued for plagiarism.