It's time for what's becoming the annual look at the Mac operating system, OS X. A week ago, Apple announced its latest update, Mountain Lion, and the announcement reveals how the operating system battle is evolving.

Two key trends: Smartphones are influencing desktop/laptop OS designs. And the cloud is becoming integral to the OS.

We're going to talk about Mountain Lion today and the future of the computer OS with two great experts:

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"You never know when you've raised your last dollar."

-- Craig Walker, CEO, Firespotter Labs

Stop right there. Before you start commenting on how this is one of those painfully obvious Secrets--I know you want to, because this one really is--I will point out that there's been nothing new or revolutionary in this series so far. The tips people like the best are the ones they already know. But that's why I do this. It cannot hurt to be reminded of the things that well tell ourselves and each other when we are looking for … Read more

If you use more than one computer at a time, as I do, maybe you know of the utility called Synergy. It allows you to use one keyboard and mouse on multiple computers: as you drag your mouse pointer off the side of one screen, it appears on the neighboring computer's screen, and keyboard focus changes too.

For years, I used Synergy to allow the keyboard and mouse on the Windows PC that my employer owns to control my personal Macbook when I parked it on my desk at work. It was a great setup.

But all good things … Read more

There's a social network oozing into the U.S. that you probably haven't heard of yet: Badoo. I hadn't.

But this network has, I'm told, 130 million users around the world, with about 6 million in the U.S. How did that happen? And will it play in Peoria? Here's the story, in two parts.

Part 1: The high-minded theory Badoo is a social site, but it's no Facebook. Where Facebook is the network of your friends (even if you define "friend" loosely), Badoo is a network for friends yet to be. … Read more

"Success gives you the credibility to talk about your failures."

--Osman Kent, CEO, Numecent

We celebrate success in entrepreneurship. Obviously. But Osman Kent, who's started several companies, says we really should keep it at arm's length. "Success is a bad teacher," he says. We're better off learning from successful people who have failed.

Osman says that, statistically, even the most successful people regress toward the norm. The chances are that if you are a big success at one job, you'll be less so at the next. The success comes from realizing why. … Read more

Last month, I stumbled into Umami Burger, a restaurant here in San Francisco. It was lunchtime on a weekend and the restaurant was crowded, but the host asked for my mobile phone number and told me the restaurant would text me when a table was ready.

There's an app for that, it appears, since the host put my number into an iPad. And it worked: About 10 minutes later, while I was out for a walk, the message came in. The app in question: NoshList, which is leaving closed beta and should be appearing for free in the App … Read more

I've been meaning to write about Pixable, an excellent mobile app for keeping up with Facebook images on your iPhone or iPad. Unlike Facebook's own mobile app, which I find slow, complicated, and crash-prone, Pixable lets you dive into your social photo stream in a snap, see what friends are posting, and get out fast. There's more to it, too, and it's all good. It's a great app to pull up on that short elevator ride.

At least it was, until today's update of the app, which adds Facebook Timeline integration. Now whenever you … Read more

How do you throw away $4 billion? Buy spectrum you can't use. That seems to be what LightSquared did. The company bought access to a chunk of spectrum, and planned to create a new wholesale wireless network.

But the FCC this week said, sorry, your planned use of your spectrum intereferes with GPS. The FCC withdrew the waiver it had previously given LightSquared to allow it to operate, and now LightSquared is sitting on what appears to be a toxic asset: Not only can it not use the spectrum, but the FCC ruling means no one else can, either.

Or can they? What's happening here, and how will it affect you, the user of mobile devices who just wants more bandwidth?

We're discussing this today with two experts from CNET News:

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"Take the money."

--Ruslan R. Fazlyev, CEO, Ecwid

Many of today's entrepreneurial heroes have a curious item in common: They turned down the big payout. Zuckerberg turned down Yahoo ($1 billion) and then Microsoft ($15 billion). Andrew Mason (Groupon) rebuffed Google's $6 billion. And Twitter's still a private company, to the consternation of everyone, including Zuckerberg. (See No Sellout, from Fast Company.)

Don't let that be a lesson to you. Not all big ideas are quite that big. The vast majority are not, in fact.

Ruslan is a very young Russian entrepreneur. His … Read more