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What I’ve read: Catching up with more posts from the reading pile

Fall is here, New Zealand “Sprang Forward” and much of North America is close to a new “Fall Back” on November 4th. As we near Hallowe’en, are you curious to know what do candy, Microsoft products and Congress have in common?


Well, while you’re catching up on the week’s really important news, here are a few articles from the reading file for you. As noted these are all (for the most part) available for download, making it easy to read the files off-line.


Have a good weekend.


Featured Download: Automatically download new TV shows over BitTorrent with ted – Lifehackersaved by 218 other people


Book Recommendation: Debunking The Myths of Innovation – Lifehacker – “If you’re still waiting for your Eureka! moment to hit you on the head (like Newton’s mythical apple when he “discovered” gravity), this is the book for you. One by one, Berkun unravels and explains the complex cultural and political forces and history… saved by 24 other people

The TechNet Australia Blog: Parody of Microsoft Surface

Bit-cycling : New Look – “Those of you who read this blog in an RSS reader may not have noticed, but this blog underwent some cosmetic surgery recently. I used some instructions I found on Guy Burstein’s blog, but some some modifications.”

Pulitzer-Winner on Living with Asperger’s (NPR) – All Things Considered, August 13, 2007 · Tim Page, a Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic, describes living with Asperger’s syndrome in his article “Parallel Play” in the Aug. 20 edition of The New Yorker… saved by 9 other people

Microsoft Team Foundation Server Branching Guidance (Codeplex) – With the advanced concepts behind us it is time for us to discuss our guidance for branching structures which are optimized for large teams. With the release of Visual Studio “Orcas,” Microsoft’s Developer Division went to a feature crew model.

Health: Eight foods you should eat every day – Lifehacker – Web site Best Life suggests eight foods that you should eat every day to ensure you’ve hit all your nutritional bases. In short, the list looks like this: spinach, yogurt, tomatoes, carrots, blueberries, black beans, walnuts, and oats… saved by 38 other people

Featured Windows Download: Consolidate Your Data With the Easy Duplicate Finder – Lifehacker – Windows only: System utility Easy Duplicate Finder scans drives and folders for identical files and lets you delete or move them off your PC. Unlike previously mentioned WinMerge, Easy Duplicate Finder can scan more than one folder or your entire hard drive… saved by 201 other people

Public Speaking: Perfect Your Presentations – Lifehacker – Productivity guy Merlin Mann gives a behind-the-scenes look at how he put together the Inbox Zero presentation he gave at Google a few weeks back (video included above to jog your memory, and here are the slides.) MM’s a fan… saved by 65 other people

Virtual PC: Speed up Windows XP in Virtual PC 2007 – Lifehacker – 082407 – Users running Windows XP in Virtual PC 2007 can speed up the virtualized operating system. Tech blogger Dan Maharry drafted a six-page PDF document full of tweaks and customizations you can do to Virtual PC and Windows XP to make the installation… saved by 22 other people

Logitech Harmony 1000 – Review by PC Magazine – The Logitech Harmony 1000 is one slick, touch-screen remote. It’s got a big, beautiful, color LCD, a nice brushed-metal top with several hard buttons, and it’s easy to program. Can you imagine using it in your living room? PCMag.com’s hands-on review.

Google Apps in the Enterprise: A Promotion-Enhancing or Career-Limiting Move for Enterprise Architects? (Burton Group) – Redmond report says that “According to the report, Google Apps can be useful in a “limited set of circumstances” but — as a “lite” collaboration application — startups and/or other smaller businesses should use it only for rather basic office …

Reviews of Five HDTVs with Great SD Picture (PC Magazine) – By Robert Heron, Aug 23, 2007. “Sure, HDTVs offer incredibly sharp video quality, but when it comes to standard definition content many sets stumble. In fact, SD video often looks worse on and HDTV than a plain-old TV. However, if you choose your HDTV car… saved by 13 other people

Our Favorite New PC Desktops (Review by PC Magazine) – 08.20.07 Pump up your computing one of these desktops, all of which have earned our coveted Editors’ Choice nod. By Lisa Ruefenacht… saved by 1 other person .

Music Piracy Costs U.S. Economy $12.5 Billion, Report Reveals (informationweek) – August 22, 2007. K.C. Jones at InformationWeek reports that global music piracy costs the United States about $12.5 billion in economic output and more than 71,000 jobs annually, according to a study by the Institute for Policy Innovation.

Apple Polishes Spreadsheets With Numbers – Lifehacker – Macworld says that iWork ’08’s Numbers changes the spreadsheet paradigm. Mac guy Merlin Mann says Numbers is like the Excel librarian who ditches her horn-rims, opens a button and shakes her hair… saved by 20 other people ..

Access Your Del.icio.us Bookmarks with LocalDeli – Lifehacker – Freeware, Windows only: Freeware application LocalDeli provides lightning fast access to your del.icio.us bookmarks through a simple search interface. After you log in and update your bookmarks, you can search your bookmarks by tags, description or… saved by 46 other people

Digital Music: Stream Music On Demand with Deezer – Lifehacker – Streaming online radio service Deezer is like Pandora on steroids. Search for songs, create playlists, randomly stream songs or listen to the top 10 in the US and UK. Though Deezer will not have every song you search for, it does have a very large… saved by 40 other people

So what are the microstock sites looking for? (Joe Calev’s WebLog) – Joe covered the different microstock sites and his opinions of them, and why not to use Shutterstock. 🙂 He briefly cover what the microstock sites are looking for to provide guidance for those wondering whether their photos will be accepted and sell.

Microsoft Plays Catch-Up In Server Virtualization (CMP Channel) – By Kevin McLaughlin, 4:40 PM EDT Wed. Aug. 22, 2007. Microsoft arrived late to the virtualization market and still has holes in its product portfolio. As it fights for market share, partners say Microsoft’s traditional strategy of pricing competitors out… saved by 1 other person

 


Tags: misc, articles, what I read. (thru August 27).

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Of interest: Sputnik at 50

Image:Sputnik asm.jpgAt least I’m younger than Spunik.

Interesting Space.com article on Spaceflight technology’s next 50 years, as the race began 50 years ago with Sputnik 1 blasting into orbit.

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Massive exclusive Halo 3 package on eBay signed by Bill Gates and J Allard

What’s green and gold, signed by Bill Gates and J Allard, and currently at $8,600?

Why, the Special Halo 3 Xbox Super Bundle auction on eBay of course…

“The ultimate Halo 3 package Included in this package is the ONLY Xbox 360 Limited Edition Halo 3 console that has been personally signed by Bill Gates, the ONLY Limited Edition Halo 3 Zune 30 GB media player personally signed by J Allard, The entire Halo Trilogy: two copies of Halo 3 (Legendary Edition and Standard Edition) and Halo Triple Pack for original Xbox (Halo, Halo 2 and Halo 2 Mulitplayer Map Pack), HD DVD player, a rare special aluminum storage case with over $400 worth of accessories, two Limited Edition Halo 3 wireless controllers with an exclusive Todd McFarlane Collectable Figurine, Messenger Kit, HDMI AV cable, extra 120 GB hard drive and a Halo 3 t-shirt. For tax purposes – total retail value of this package is about $2,000.”

The Xbox 360 Accessory Package is quite rare, having been used as a promo item during the launch, I believe.

This auction benefits the Boys & Girls Clubs of King County.  With 12 full-service Clubs, and 28 before- and after-school program sites, the organization is one of the largest of its kind in the nation, serving 18,000+ members annually. Our son plays at the local club during the week with his friends and enjoys it.

Bid high!

Update: The package went for US$8,400!

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Of interest: Local news and blogs provide details on new Zunes

Of interest today as I’m home sick (cough-sneeze)… King 5 news reports (from the AP) on the new, redesigned Zunes… a family still with FM radio and wireless sharing, but with a larger hard disc and (finally) with flash-memory…



“Microsoft Corp. took the wraps off its second-generation digital music players Tuesday, showing three new Zunes that bring the software maker’s offering more in line with Apple’s market-leading iPod.”


… and this report on betanews


“Although the news won’t officially hit until midnight tonight, further details of the Zune players have leaked ahead of Microsoft’s secret Tuesday night event for press and bloggers.

“Sources have confirmed to BetaNews, as well as additional information from Zune news site Zunerama indicates that there will be two new Zunes, including a new 80GB HDD-based model along with 4GB and 8GB flash based versions.”


… and this on tgdaily.com… an excerpted FCC filing on 4 GB and 8 GB Flash Zune configurations…



“The sketch published indicates that the new player will be substantially more compact than the hard drive-based Zune, but it will keep the general layout of the device consisting of a main navigation area in the shape of a scroll-wheel as well as dedicated play, pause and back buttons.”


Last, this from Mary Jo Foley with a link to What’s on tap for tonight’s Zune launch 



“As with Searchification, Microsoft has invited reporters and bloggers to an event which they aren’t allowed to write publicly about until after midnight (EST) on October 3, sources say. At the October 2 invitation-only Zune launch, Chairman Bill Gates and Corporate Vice President of Design and Development J Allard are slated to take the wraps off the Version 2 Zune devices, according to sources claiming familiarity with Microsoft’s plans.

“Besides the new Zunes (“Scorpio” hard-drive and “Draco” flash-based units), Microsoft is expected to unveil a new beta community site for Zunes, an enhanced method of discovering new music and a line of Microsoft-developed accessories (perhaps an FM transmitter and dock?). A new online Zune store, which is more tightly integrated with the Xbox Live Marketplace, also might be part of this evening’s rollout, sources said.”


Update:  Gizmodo reports that “Microsoft’s just confirmed with us the November 13 release date of the new Zunes—previously stated by Amazon. Whether or not the firmware for the old Zune is coming on 11/13 is still unconfirmed.”

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Your questions: What is the new Microsoft Office Live?

Jen asks today…

“What is the news around [the new] Microsoft Office Live?”

Lots of news on the new Microsoft Online service. There’s an interview with Jeff Raikes (posted yesterday)…

“First, Microsoft plans to deliver a wide variety of new solutions over the coming months under two key families of service offerings: “Live” and “Online.” We believe these choices will provide businesses with the flexibility to choose the software and capabilities that best suit their business needs, whether hosted by Microsoft, on-premise with the customer, or hosted by a Microsoft partner.

“As part of this announcement, we are launching Microsoft Office Live Workspace, a Web-based feature of Microsoft Office that enables people to access their documents online anywhere and easily share their work with others. Testing continues on another of our new services offerings, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and I’m thrilled to say that the reception this new offering has received during an early access program has been great.”

I’ve read a bunch of news stories from overnight that refer to this as a “fast follower” and late to market beta as compared with other on-line hosted services for businesses. As I see it, this is a new opportunity that’s been in test and trial, with people having signed up for pieces of the puzzle already: more than 450,000 subscribers are on Office Live Small Businesses (formerly called Office Live).

At home, our son, Max, has his own Office Live site as I posted here with his own site, Another Thousand Paintings.  Yes, I help him, but it’s been his idea and interest.  If a nine-year-old can use the service…

Of course, being focused on the business as much as the creativity, Max noted the lack of integrated e-commerce tools on the site.

And we have customer pilots with Microsoft Managed Solutions (MMS) with what Jeff refers to as “a targeted to a select group of customers” for managed IT solutions for businesses with 5,000 seats or more. (Less than 400 references on http://search.live.com, but that’s bound to increase…).

More info: Office Live Workspace beta will initially be available in English to a limited number of people. Pre-register now to be one of the first to try it.