Dan Frommer gives his advice on how to write a better blog. There are definitely some good tips in here.

One of my main rules for writing: Be honest with yourself and your readers.

Mashable:

On Thursday, Napster will officially merge with Rhapsody, the largest on-demand music service in the United States. Rhapsody signed an agreement last month to purchase Napster for an undisclosed sum from its parent company, Best Buy.

I didn’t even know Napster was still around.

Ian Hamilton:

But a roof with solar panels that help extend the range of your vehicle? Instant feedback so I can tell exactly how much my driving style impacts my mileage? An electric car that feels perfectly smooth as you drive? When you press the accelerator (not the gas pedal) it instantly moves? It doesn’t require gasoline but can use it if you need it? And it rides so silently it needs a noisemaker to let pedestrians know it’s coming?

I’m so jealous of Ian right now.

Reuters:

Apple’s iPhone edged past major news events, celebrities and pop stars as the top searched term on the Web in 2011, according to Yahoo!

Not to be rude, but Yahoo only holds 15.2 percent market share. I’d be interested to know where “iPhone” falls on Google since it controls 65.6 percent of the market.

Jared Newman for Technologizer:

Effective December 5, the magazine and its website are shutting down after 22 years of publication. GamePro’s website says PCWorld.com will take over editorial (both publications are owned by IDG), while IndustryGamers reports that GamePro Media will focus on custom publishing, such as specialized gaming publications for trade shows and events. There will be layoffs, but it’s not clear how many people are affected.

Very, very sorry to hear this news. GamePro has been a great magazine over its life, but it’s no secret that the magazine publishing industry – the publishing industry in general – has fallen on very hard times and is struggling. My heart goes out to my former IDG colleagues who are losing their jobs as a result of this change.

Reuters:

Three hackers say they have exploited a vulnerability in Research In Motion’s PlayBook tablet to gain root access to the device, a claim that could damage the BlackBerry maker’s hard-won reputation for security.

Why bother?

For the holiday season-to-date, $15 billion has been spent online, marking a 15-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. Cyber Monday reached $1.25 billion in online spending, up 22 percent versus year ago, representing the heaviest online spending day in history and the second day on record to surpass the billion-dollar threshold.

I guess people have money after all.

MarkdownMail is the easiest way to compose HTML emails and blog posts on your iPhone or iPod touch. Based around John Gruber’s popular Markdown markup syntax, you can now send emails with bold text, italics, bulleted lists and more. MarkdownMail will convert your Markdown formatted messages into an HTML message that you can send to your friends, family or colleagues.

Justin makes great software.

HP CEO Meg Whitman:

“It’s possible if you integrate the tablets,” she was cited as saying by the French daily. “We will try to be champion again in 2013. It will take time for the products that I have influence on to make it to the market.

This echoes recent research from Canalys.

ifoAppleStore.com:

As a demonstration of Apple’s low-key philanthropy, the company will mark the occasion of World AIDS Day in its retail stores on December 1st by spotlighting special (RED) products that generate donations to fight AIDS in Africa. Apple created the (RED) product line in 2006 as part of a global charity campaign spearheaded by musician Bono. According to sources, on Thursday a select group of Specialists will be wearing and promoting the (RED) iPod nano, with a portion of the $129/$149 price going to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa.

Amy Thomson, for Bloomberg (via BusinessWeek):

Nokia Siemens aims to eliminate 17,000 jobs by the end of 2013, sell real estate, cut businesses and consolidate jobs and suppliers to reduce annual expenses by 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in the next two years. WiMax, a high-speed network technology for mobile devices, has been overshadowed by a rival system called long-term evolution, which has been adopted by the largest telecommunications companies in the U.S. and Europe.

Nokia plans to sell its WiMax business unit to NewNet Communications Technologies. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Susanna Kim for ABC News, (via Yahoo):

You’ve got mail–not. Employees of tech company Atos will be banned from sending emails under the company’s new “zero email” policy.CEO Thierry Breton of the French information technology company said only 10 percent of the 200 messages employees receive per day are useful and 18 percent is spam. That’s why he hopes the company can eradicate internal emails in 18 months, forcing the company’s 74,000 employees to communicate with each other via instant messaging and a Facebook-style interface.

It’s an interesting, and somewhat bizarre, concept – a rather extreme solution to the omnipresent issue of workplace spam. This isn’t a startup company trying this on a lark, either. Atos is a multi-billion dollar multinational with offices in 42 countries.

There’s something in this bundle for everyone… Whether they’ve been naughty or nice. So don’t waste your time waiting in line this Holiday season, give the gift of software! You can get all your holiday shopping done while sitting in your pajamas sippin’ eggnog in front of your computer screen.

The first 10,000 people also get MacScan free.

Kevin Fitchard, for GigaOM:

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) intends to apply the age-rating icons now familiar on PC and console games to mobile apps, providing a way for parents to monitor and restrict the games and content their kids download. Five mobile operators and Microsoft have signed on to the new system, but more notable are the players missing: Apple and Google.

It figures, since Apple and Google both have their own well-established and robust systems for rating apps in their respective stores.

The ESRB rating certainly carries name recognition with consumers and software publishers alike, but at least in the case of PC and console games, it costs a lot of money to get that rating. Which may partly explain Apple and Google’s reluctance. Another is the ESRB’s admission that it is relying on application developers’ honesty to fill out their applications, since the company doesn’t have time to test them all.

I’m a bit late with this link, but there’s still time. Cameron Moll has put together a number of letterpress designers that will give you a discount today only.

Matt Gemmell on the decision to turn off comments on his blog:

It’s been a very difficult decision (I love reading comments on my articles, and they’re almost unfailingly insightful and valuable), but I’ve finally switched comments off. Since I used the excellent Disqus service, the easiest way was simply to disable it globally, which also removes (but doesn’t delete – I still have them) comments on all previous posts too.

I must admit, I’ve considered this approach too, but decided to leave them on.

Reuters:

Facebook has agreed to settle an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission into deceptive privacy practices, committing to cease making false claims and to submit to independent audits for 20 years.

Around 12PM EST, Apple called our head office to let us know they were going to go ahead and pull our app iTether from the App Store. They stated it was because the app itself burdens the carrier network, however they offered us no way to remedy the solution… We were very clear when listing the app what the primary function was and they even followed up with several questions and requested a video demo then they approved the application.

Told you it wouldn’t last long.

High speed photography is a technique in which a camera is set up to take pictures of objects in motion that would normally be too fast to be seen by the naked eye. It usually involves a tremendous amount of patience and an awful lot of trial and error. Though everyone has access to equipment that make it possible to take high-speed photographs, only a skilled photographer can capture that one in a million shot.

I would be hard pressed to pick a favorite out of these samples.

American Airlines and its parent company are filing for bankruptcy protection as they try to cut costs and unload massive debt built up by years of high fuel prices and labor struggles. There will no impact on travelers for now.

Maggie Shader:

Remember how two malls annoyed more than a few people by announcing that they would be tracking shoppers’ movements via their cellphone signals? Yeah, well that’s no longer happening — at least for now.The malls have suspended their plans after a U.S. senator raised the same privacy issues that everyone else had already mentioned.

Come on, you knew that wasn’t going to last long.

WSJ:

The social networking firm is now targeting a time frame of April to June 2012 for an initial public offering, said people familiar with the matter. The company is exploring raising $10 billion in its IPO—what would be one of the largest offerings ever—in a deal that might assign Facebook a $100 billion valuation, a number greater than twice that of such stalwarts as Hewlett-Packard Co. and 3M Co.

That’s just an unbelievable amount of money.

Kirk McElhearn, for Macworld:

If you live in an area like me, AppleCare is a worthwhile investment. If you’re near an AppleStore, however, and you use your Mac at home, spending an extra $150 or more may not seem worthwhile. You can always drop into the Apple Store and get a diagnosis or repair (if it’s still the first year).

I’m asked regularly by friends who are new to the Apple ecosystem if buying AppleCare is worth the money. I recommend it – in fact, I’ve rarely not used it, especially on work gear that gets used a lot, like my laptops.

There’s certainly a case to be made against buying AppleCare for iPhones, iPods and iPads, as they’re lower-cost items with fewer moving parts that are a bit better designed to be durable (arguably).

Tether is an application that allows your Mac and PC to take advantage of your smartphone’s data plan, providing you access to the Internet on your laptop anywhere there is cellular coverage from your smartphone.

Can’t imagine this will be available for very long.

Alastair Sharp for Reuters:

The company said on Tuesday that it will launch its new Mobile Fusion device management software in the first quarter, allowing corporate IT staff to set and monitor rules for passwords, apps and software on a range of devices, including Apple’s iPad and iPhone, and smartphones using Google’s Android operating system.

Maybe Apple can show RIM how to make a native email client.