Tue. Sep 22nd, 2020

Open source: Why governments need to go further

By Grace 2 days ago

How to copy expressions without changing cell references in Excel

By Grace 3 days ago

Stone Pro dock v. StayGo Twelve South hub: Flexibility vs. portability for Mac users

By Grace 3 days ago

How to migrate data, apps, and settings to Apple’s iPad 8th gen or new iPad Air

By Grace 4 days ago

5 Apple Watch apps to simplify your workday

By Grace 5 days ago

Featured Posts

Kindred Capital closes £81M second fund to back early-stage European startups – TechCrunch

By Grace 1 day ago

The TikTok deal solves quite literally nothing – TechCrunch

By Grace 2 days ago

Unity Software has strong opening, gaining 31% after pricing above its raised range – TechCrunch

By Grace 3 days ago

Ride-hailing was hit hard by COVID-19. Grab’s Russell Cohen on how the company adapted. – TechCrunch

By Grace 4 days ago

Kindred Capital closes £81M second fund to back early-stage European startups – TechCrunch

By Grace 1 day ago

Kindred Capital, the London-based VC that backs early-stage founders in Europe, has closed its second seed fund at £81 million.

That’s only a tad larger than the the firm’s first fund, which invested in 29 companies and was raised in 2018. Portfolio companies from fund one include Five, which is building software for autonomous vehicles; Paddle, the SaaS for software e-commerce; Pollen, the peer-to-peer marketplace for experiences and travel; and Farewill, which lets you create a will online.

However, perhaps what really sets Kindred apart from most other seed VCs is its “Equitable Venture”. This sees the founders it backs get carry in the fund, effectively becoming co-owners of Kindred. Once the VC’s LPs have their investment returned, like the firm’s partners, the founders also share any subsequent fund profits, as long as they have passed the vesting period.

More broadly, Kindred says the idea is this extra

… Read more

Open source: Why governments need to go further

By Grace 2 days ago

Commentary: Yes, governments should open source their custom code. But more than that is needed.

Image: lucky-photographer, Getty Images/iStockphoto

For Drupal (and Acquia) founder Dries Buytaert, “the default [in government] should be ‘developed with public money, make it public code.'” That is, if a government is paying for software to be created, that software should be available under an open source license. While he acknowledged there might be exceptions (e.g., for military applications, as I’ve called out), his suggestion makes sense.

Years ago I argued that government mandates of open source made no sense. I still feel that way. Governments (and enterprises) should use whatever software best enables them to get work done. Increasingly, that software will be open source. But when good open source alternatives don’t yet exist, it makes no sense to mandate the use of suboptimal software. 

But software that governments create? There’s

… Read more

The TikTok deal solves quite literally nothing – TechCrunch

By Grace 2 days ago

Well… that was pointless.

After debasing the idea of free commerce in the U.S in the name of a misplaced security concern, stringing along several multi-billion dollar companies that embarrassed themselves in the interest of naked greed, and demanding that the U.S. government get a cut of the profits, the TikTok saga we’ve been watching the past few weeks finally appears to be over.

A flurry of announcement late Saturday night indicate that the TikTok deal was actually a politically-oriented shakedown to boost the cloud infrastructure business of key supporters of the President of the United States.

Oracle, whose cloud infrastructure services run a laughable fourth to AWS, Alphabet*, and Microsoft, will be taking a 20 percent stake in TikTok alongside partner Walmart in what will be an investment round before TikTok Global (as the new entity will be called) goes public on an American stock exchange.

According to a

… Read more

Unity Software has strong opening, gaining 31% after pricing above its raised range – TechCrunch

By Grace 3 days ago

Whoever said you can’t make money playing video games clearly hasn’t taken a look at Unity Software’s stock price.

On its first official day of trading, the company rose more than 31%, opening at $75 per share before closing the day at $68.35. Unity’s share price gains came after last night’s pricing of the company’s stock at $52 per share, well above the range of $44 to $48 which was itself an upward revision of the company’s initial target.

Games like “Pokémon GO” and “Iron Man VR” rely on the company’s software, as do untold numbers of other mobile gaming applications that use the company’s toolkit for support. The company’s customers range from small gaming publishers to large gaming giants like Electronic Arts, Niantic, Ubisoft and Tencent.

Unity’s IPO comes on the heels of other well-received debuts, including Sumo Logic, Snowflake and JFrog .

TechCrunch caught up with Unity’s

… Read more

How to copy expressions without changing cell references in Excel

By Grace 3 days ago

Microsoft Excel updates cell references when you copy an expression. Here are a couple of workarounds for those rare occasions when you don’t want to change the cell references.

Image: AndreyPopov, Getty Images/iStockphoto

Microsoft Excel has a helpful behavior in regard to copying expressions. After entering a row or column of expressions, you can copy them, and Excel will update the cell references according. Otherwise, you’d have to enter all expressions manually and that would be tedious and open to error. However, it’s not uncommon to run up against a situation when you won’t want to update the references. There’s no easy built-in way to do this. In this article, I’ll show you two quick workarounds for copying expressions without updating the cell references.

SEE: 60 Excel tips every user should master (TechRepublic)

I’m using Microsoft 365 on a Window 64-bit system, but this works in older versions. You can

… Read more

Stone Pro dock v. StayGo Twelve South hub: Flexibility vs. portability for Mac users

By Grace 3 days ago

Although Apple doesn’t build its own Mac docking stations or hubs, others fill the gaps. Here’s how to decide which of two popular options—a Henge Docks or Twelve South product—is best for you.

Image: Illustration by Lisa Hornung

Whether you’re working remotely from a home office or at corporate headquarters, if you’re using a Mac, chances are you must connect additional peripherals. The need is particularly true if your Mac is one of the newer laptop models possessing only a pair of USB-C ports, one of which is typically dedicated to the power adapter. A docking station is necessary, but which dock is right for you? The answer, as is so often the case, depends on the accessories you plan to use and how you plan to use the dock.

SEE: New iPad Air: The best features for business users (TechRepublic)

Henge Docks Stone Pro

The $239.99 Henge Docks Stone

… Read more