The Oatmeal: How to get more likes on Facebook

Honestly, the same could apply to Facebook pages for businesses.  Seriously, how many social network buttons does one business need?

Best Buy Scans Drivers License For Returns — No More Allowed For 90 Days

With policies like these, it’s no wonder Best Buy is failing. I’m not aware of Amazon doing this sort of thing. If Best Buy were to do what Amazon does then they’d be more successful. “What is that?” you say? It’s called taking care of the customer. It’s not hard.

Best Buy CEO quit over 'personal conduct,' company says

Yikes! Double-whammy for Best Buy! The company is losing money and their CEO quits over ‘personal conduct’ issue? Man, I’d hate to be a stock holder right about now!

Best Buy CEO steps down as chain struggles

Holy crap! $1.7 billion in quarterly losses? Best Buy is in a downward spiral for sure!

Big Snickers, Twix bars are going to disappear

Mars Inc. says it will stop selling chocolates with more than 250 calories by end of 2013. Good for them! When a Big Snickers packs a whooping 540 calories, a third of the calories of an average diet, I would say it’s time for a change. Now, if you really want a 500+ calories Snickers the choice is very simple: just buy two Snickers! Me?  I can’t eat the stuff anyways so…have at it!  :)

RIM Says It’s “Ready To Compete” Even As It Loses Major Clients, Developers to iOS

Ouch!  Looks like it’s time to throw out that Blackberry and pony up for a real smartphone!  ;)

The Dumbest Idea In The World: Maximizing Shareholder Value

In this article from Forbes, Roger Martin, author of Fixing the Game, makes the argument that corporations can learn a lot from how the NFL operates. I highly recommend reading Mr. Martin’s book. I just started reading it and, so far, it provides a very interesting perspective on the problem with our current system of business.

Bill Moyers talks with former Citigroup Chairman John Reed about his role in bringing down the Glass-Steagall Act. I urge you to take some time and listen to this interview.  It’s very interesting and revealing about the full scope of the problems within our financial system.  This is the part that I think really sums it up:

I used to tell my kids, “Why do you think a car has brakes?” And they all would say, “To stop.” And I’d say, “No, a car has brakes so that you can drive fast. If you got into a car that had no brakes and you knew it, how fast do you think you would drive? You wouldn’t drive very fast at all.” And that’s the same reason we have rules. You want the private sector to be free to be creative and exuberant and whatever, within a framework, okay?

Indeed, having a well crafted framework of rules that promotes balance and fairness would be highly welcomed.  Why Congress hasn’t done this already is beyond me.

Windows XP still hanging on as dominant OS

It doesn’t surprise me that Windows XP is still the top OS in the market. Windows Vista was a horrendous release and, as such, probably didn’t help sales of Windows 7 very much.

For enterprise in particular, I would imagine that the holdout for upgrades to Windows 7 probably has a bit to do with rollout and management tools. With Windows Vista, Microsoft changed the setup process quite a lot.  As such, rollout and management tools that used to work with XP wouldn’t work so well with Vista. Even with Windows 7, enterprise customers have to find ways to manage both Windows 7 and Windows XP computers at the same time.  i would bet that managing both can be a real pain and thus they tend to stick with the lowest common denominator, Windows XP.  I believe the old saying “If it works, don’t fix it!” would apply here.

Freddie Mac Betting Against Struggling Homeowners

Wait a minute…so you mean to tell me that a taxpayer-owned mortgage company has executives making over $2.5 million and is participating in mortgage investments that are similar to the ones that caused banks to go bust?  Something is seriously eschew here.