Not funny

This week’s Macworld column looks at three things that used to be funny but aren’t anymore: Wired, Dan Lyons and RIM.

Reminder to Insiders, we’re marking the new Saturday content with “Saturday Special”.

Because we care.

Oopsies

The Macalope was kind of wondering what happened to that iPad-killing 4G Xoom upgrade. Turns out it’s been delayed from the second quarter to “summer”.

OH, WELL.

Still, remember, it’s 4G-capable, so… advantage: Xoom.

Weekend ruined

A special weekend Macalope because some things are too stupid to wait to skewer.

What a riot

This week’s Macworld column looks at obtuse reviews and RIM’s financial troubles.

For you Insiders, we’ve started tagging the new content in the Saturday column with the alliterativeriffic “Saturday Special” heading. We’ll also try to put it at the top unless it’s a logical follow-up to another piece.

Keeping the party rolling

This week’s Macworld column looks at Flash, Apple’s changes to iOS subscriptions and more on Lodsys. For you Insiders, the third part’s all new.

C:\NGRTLNS.W8

Lodsys and Windows 8, all in this week’s Macworld column.

Which is still free, by the way.

Short answer: no.

“The great task in front of us over the next two years is to lift the experience of the Linux desktop from something that is stable and robust and not so pretty, into something that is art,” Shuttleworth said to applause from the audience. “Can we not only emulate, but can we blow right past Apple?”

- Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, maker of Ubuntu, 7/22/2008

Macworld Insider clarification

For some reason there still seems to be some confusion about the status of the Macalope’s work over at Macworld so let’s see if we can clear this up.

The Saturday column still exists and continues, as ever, to be free. The Insider content is all-new, Monday through Friday. Nothing has been taken away. In fact, the two overlap. While you don’t know it if you’re not an Insider, you’re getting some of the Insider content. We now have three weeks of this under our belts and each week it’s unfolded the same way: the Macalope has written five Insider pieces Monday through Friday and then used two of them in the (free) Saturday column as well as writing one new piece for the benefit of non-Insiders. It may not always work exactly that way, but that’s probably going to be how it’ll work most of the time.

Frankly, the Macalope feels that non-Insiders are getting a better deal than they were before. Why? Because they’re getting the pick of the best of the five Insider pieces (plus an original piece). If something new happens that affects a piece the Macalope published on Monday, he tries to edit that into the piece when it goes up on Saturday. Overall, the Saturday pieces are now longer, more thought out and better edited. Plus, now that he’s getting paid more to do this, he’s able to devote more time to keeping up on the issues, rumors and blathering of silly pundits, all of which is the animal lips that help make the delicious hot dog you, strangely, like to eat on Saturday morning.

Some people dislike the fact that Macworld includes a link to the Insider content in the non-Insider view. This is called “marketing”. Sorry. ESPN, which covers baseball among other sports, does the same thing. Baseball is the American pastime. What do you have have against the American pastime? That’s a joke, but marketing is actually another American pastime, so…

The two different Macalope columns are tagged separately. Check out the sidebar to the right here and you’ll see two links, one for Dailies, one for Weeklies. Use the one that best fits your lifestyle.

If you can’t justify the Insider subscription, that’s completely understandable. Just know that Macworld and the Macalope have tried to make an add-on that hopefully people enjoy and are willing to pay for. Nothing has been taken away from anyone and we hope it’s a deal that benefits readers as well as us.

And if you want to vent in the comments, go ahead. The Macalope won’t even mention that some other sites that put ads in their feeds don’t even give you a place to vent. Not even going to bring that up. Nope.