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EWeek’s incomplete list of Client OSes ‘that could replace Windows’ and more of what I’ve read

The past week has flown by as the mercury rises on the thermometer

Just as Jason Brooks of EWeek says in the article, Seven Client OSes That Could Replace Windows, that “Microsoft’s Windows is the undisputed king of the desktop, and, for a long time now, it’s seemed as though Windows would reign forever more. However, with customer uptake of Vista still limp—even with the magical Service Pack 1 milestone months behind us—it’s time to ask if any of Windows’ client OSes has what it takes to capture a bigger chunk of the mainstream desktop. Here are some of the contenders.”

Limp? I guess that he missed the company’s annual report announcement which noted that Windows Vista “has sold over 180 million licenses since launch” and the note from Bill Veghte with an update on the Windows Roadmap which noted the improvements in Vista SP1. [added link to annual report and noted on SP1]

And of the seven OS choices they made, assuming he’s referring to future releases, Brooks fails to include/ mention Windows 7, Windows Mobile (or embedded for that matter) or even the venerable $12 Apple II-based PC: as Engadget says “the $12 PC currently being developed at MIT will probably hit its price target. The project, being spearheaded by Derek Lomas and Jesse Austin-Breneman, is centered around cheap Apple II-based machines currently on sale in India and other developing nations that plug into televisions, and the goal is to update the systems with more memory, web access through cellphone tethering and actual storage.”

On to the latest reading list – stay cool this weekend.

U.S. loses out in Lenovo’s Linux netbook push | ITworld – August 6, 2008, 10:26 AM — IDG News Service — People in most markets Lenovo serves, including Singapore, China and the U.K., will be offered the company’s new IdeaPad netbooks with either Microsoft Windows XP or a Linux OS, but users in the U.S. won’t have that option. U.S. computer buyers will only be offered Windows XP on Lenovo’s IdeaPad S10, according to Lenovo. People in the U.S. will also miss out on the IdeaPad S9, which has a smaller, 8.9-inch screen, and will be offered in most other countries. Models slated for the U.S. will have 10.2-inch screens.

CrunchGear » Archive » Gary Krakow is off his f’ing rocker, tells Jobs what to do to make the iPhone better — Peter Ha (June 5th, 2008) says that “Krakow thinks Apple needs to “bite the bullet” and hook up with Windows Mobile or RIM for corporate e-mail support. This is a f*cking joke, right? Is he serious? Are his glasses upside down?”

Review: REDFLY Mobile Companion – WMExperts‘ review of the Redfly Mobile Companion. “First, a refresher: what is the Redfly? Like the maligned Foleo, the Redfy is called a “mobile companion,” which is shorthand for “intended to be used with a smartphone.” Unlike the Foleo, however, the Redfly is “dumber” yet therefore a smarter concept. What the Redfly does is connect to your Windows Mobile phone over USB or Bluetooth and “trick” it into believe it has a large, 800×480 screen and a near full-sized keyboard instead of a tiny 320×240 screen and a chicklet keyboard. So the Redfly itself stores no data and has no processing power, it all stays on the smartphone.”

And here is a link to the video demo of the Redfly with Windows Mobile Standard. “Since we told you that there was expanded compatibility, we figured we’d show you how it works with non-touchscreen devices. Short version: pretty darn well, but there are a few quibbles here and there.”

Engineering Windows 7 – “Welcome to our first post on a new blog from Microsoft—the Engineering Windows 7 blog, or E7 for short. E7 is hosted by the two senior engineering managers for the Windows 7 product, Jon DeVaan and Steven Sinofsky. Jon and Steven, along with members of the engineering team will post, comment, and participate in this blog. “Beginning with this post together we are going to start looking forward towards the “Windows 7” project. We know there are tons of questions about the specifics of the project and strong desire to know what’s in store for the next major release of Windows. Believe us, we are just as excited to start talking about the release. Over the past 18 months since Windows Vista’s broad availability, the team has been hard at work creating the next Windows product.”

Heroes: George Takei’s Heroes Power Tells Him to Buy Apple Stock — “Heroes Season 2 was mostly garbage. So I was kind of glad the writer’s strike gave them the chance to reboot and blow past the rest of the season, thereby preserving my final, dangly shreds of interest (though I worry about this season’s rumored multi-verse). Anyways! One deleted scene reveals Hiro’s dad’s (George Takei) power: “He’s a supercomputer, but even faster (how delightfully racially stereotyped), which makes him really good at predicting the future, and of course, stock trading. Guess whose stock his superpower picks for the win? (I won’t spoil how this revelation comes to him.)”

Olympic Fail: Blue Screen of Death Strikes Bird’s Nest During Opening Ceremonies Torch Lighting — “Well, this is just perfect. At the exact moment Li Ning was rounding the lip of the Bird’s Nest during the amazing torch-lighting climax, someone snapped this photo of our good friend the BSOD nestled among the Nest’s steel twigs. Perhaps an Opening Ceremonies IT dude spit out his coffee on the machines in the server room when Li took to the sky? Another question is what a projection screen is doing inside the Nest at that location, but I think the better question is what wasn’t going on inside the Nest’s roof—did you see that thing during the ceremonies?”

Steve Jobs: 60 million iPhone apps downloaded, confirms kill switch – Engadget’s Thomas Ricker posted Aug 11th 2008 that “Steve Jobs, presumably speaking from a hyperbaric chamber where he’s being nourished with an infusion of liquefied developers-souls before his next public appearance, had a few interesting tidbits about the AppStore for the Wall Street Journal this morning. Namely, users have downloaded some 60 million programs for the iPhone representing sales of about $30 million since the launch last month — a 30/70 revenue split between Apple and developers, respectively. “The thing’s going to crest a half billion soon,” Jobs added, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my career for software.”

Also see “Apple Can Remotely Disable Apps Installed on Your iPhone” — “By now, we’re well aware that Apple can make apps vanish without a trace (or explanation) from the App Store. But Jonathan Zdziarsi, the author of iPhone Forensics, says that Apple can actually remotely disable apps installed on your iPhone. Apparently, there’s a blacklist URL in the iPhone’s OS that he says “suggests that the iPhone calls home once in a while to find out what applications it should turn off.”

Microsoft (finally) speaks out on ‘Fiji’ | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com – “It only took two-plus years, but Microsoft finally issued on August 8 its official comment about Fiji, aka “Windows Media Center TV Pack.”

Alarmed about Vista security? Black Hat researcher Alexander Sotirov speaks out (Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report) – Alarmed about Vista security? Black Hat researcher Alexander Sotirov speaks out.

The Naked CIO: Why boards get IT spend so wrong – Management – Published: 11 August 2008 16:52 BST “Sound infrastructure projects often fail to win board backing because of flaky ROI demands. But come up with a hare-brained scheme and boards fall over themselves, says the Naked CIO.”

Vista PCs: These Prices Are Insane! (Microsoft Watch) — “Nearly half of retail Windows PCs now pack 3GB of RAM. Manufacturers are bulking up features as average selling prices stabilize. Next trend: 64-bit Vista and 4GB RAM. Editor’s Note: This is a companion to another post at Apple Watch telling a different story from the same NPD data. Please read that piece, too, and read how Mac average selling prices are at least twice those of Windows computers.]

Xbox 360’s new Dashboard game install demoed on video – Engadget has “the first look we’ve had at a feature we’re sort of stoked on: the ability to install games to the internal hard drive from DVD. From the looks of things, it’s an extremely simple process to get the data moved over (despite the long waits for multiple GB files being copied), though it looks like you’ll still need the DVD on hand to actually play the game. Don’t believe a word we’re saying? Take a look at the video after the break and see for yourself!” [Via Xbox-Scene News]

Pew Internet: Search Engine Use — “The percentage of internet users who use search engines on a typical day has been steadily rising from about one-third of all users in 2002, to a new high of just under one-half (49%). With this increase, the number of those using a search engine on a typical day is pulling ever closer to the 60% of internet users who use email, arguably the Internet’s all-time killer app, on a typical day.” (thanks, via ValleyWag)

Apple’s secret to selling iPhones: Windows Mobile – After a rocky iPhone 3G launch, Apple’s store operations have returned to a model of efficiency. One of Steve Jobs’s secrets: roving sales clerks who use mobile devices to ring up orders anywhere in the store, not just at the cash register. Ah, but which devices? Motorola MC75 handhelds running Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system.

Google: The Downside of Relying on Google for Everything – Gizmodo says “Oh, Google is just so great! They have the best free email, calendar, chat, photo and document sharing services, so why not use them all? Well, here’s why: they can lock you out of your entire account without any explanation or any way to get it back, pretty much erasing your online existence. It happened to Nick Saber.” Ouch.

Inside a 60 gig Xbox 360: The Official Site of Benjamin J Heckendorn – Ben Heck provides his internal analysis of the new 60GB version of the Xbox 360.

Your Essential Emergency Kit – Kiplinger.com – These nine steps will protect your family and finances against disaster, whether natural or personal. By Erin Burt, July 31, 2008 “Stuff happens. And it often happens when you least expect it. With storm season in full swing and the economy looking iffy, now is a good time to ask yourself how prepared you are against disasters, both personal and communal. Here are nine essential things to do to safeguard yourself against life’s unpleasant surprises.”

Buying a Refurbished Computer (Dell, Apple, eBay, General Motors, Ford) at SmartMoney.com, By Erin Geismar, July 30, 2008 – “OVER THE YEARS, computers have evolved from a luxury to a necessity. So while the thought of spending your hard-earned money on a new computer might be painful, it’s not as painful as the thought of going without. “Of course, buying anything refurbished — especially a computer containing so many fragile moving parts — should be reason for concern. After all, you can’t kick the tires like you would a used car. There are ways to protect yourself, however. Here’s how to make sure the refurbished computer you buy doesn’t turn out to be a lemon…”

Apple dominates the retail music market in 2008 1H (John Paczkowski, AllThingsD) – According to a survey by market research company NPD, Apple dominated the retail music market in the first half of 2008, selling more music from January to June of this year than any of its rivals–including those selling both CDs and a-la-carte digital music downloads. NPD’s top five U.S. music retailers: iTunes Wal-Mart (Wal-Mart, Walmart.com, Walmart Music Downloads) Best Buy (Best Buy, Bestbuy.com, Best Buy Digital Music Store) Amazon

Microsoft To Counter Open Source With ‘Basic’ Software Line (Informationweek) – The software vendor plans to develop versions of its products with “basic functionality” to be sold at lower prices than its standard offerings. By Paul McDougall InformationWeek August 5, 2008 04:36 PM

Microsoft’s Blind Taste Test for Vista Leaves Some Bitter – NYTimes.com – By DAN MITCHELL, August 4, 2008 SAN FRANCISCO — Deserved or not, the Windows Vista operating system from Microsoft gets a bad rap. But the company’s recent effort to repair Vista’s reputation did not win any rave reviews either.

Lightning Review: D-Link DSM-210 Wireless Internet Photo Frame – Gizmodo says of the new D-Link 10-inch photo frame, “which contains Wi-Fi to download and display pics from your Flickr, MobileMe, MSN, Picasa, webshots, Facebook, and various other photo sharing accounts. There’s also RSS news display, 1GB on-board memory and a USB port for external photos. The Price: $240 The Verdict: Works mostly as advertised, but at a price of $240, we expect a bit more polish to the unit. You can also stream photos from various online photo sharing networks, which works pretty well over its 802.11g connection or its 10/100 Ethernet port (you really want to use the Wi-Fi to make this truly wireless, but seeing as there’s a mandatory AC adapter, that’s pretty much an impossibility anyway).

Lego Robot Sends Pictures From Space: Lego Robot Sends Pictures from Space, Wishes It Had Lasers to Annihilate Us All – “Last Tuesday, a group of professors, students and robotics hobbyists launched the H.A.L.E. (High Altitude Lego Extravaganza): seven Lego Mindstorms robots attached to a weather balloon, which exploded at 30km over the Earth’s surface. Each of the robots parachuted back successfully, but not without taking the obligatory photographs of the ascent and descent.” By Jesus Diaz, Aug 1, 2008

Ars Technica Guide to Virtualization: Part I (arstechnica) – (A free PDF of this guide is available to non-subscribers via the Enterprise IT Guide, presented by Ars Technica and Intel. Check it out for this and other free whitepapers.) Jon Stokes on Ars Technica says (August 03, 2008) “Virtualization implementations are so widespread that some are even popular in the consumer market, and some (the really popular ones) even involve gaming. Anyone who uses an emulator like MAME uses virtualization, as does anyone who uses either the Xbox 360 or the Playstation 3. From the server closet to the living room, virtualization is subtly, but radically, changing the relationship between software applications and hardware. “In the present article I’ll take a close look at virtualization—what it is, what it does, and how it does what it does.”

Steve Jobs on MobileMe: the full e-mail – By Jacqui Cheng | Published: August 05, 2008 – 01:52PM CT Painting by Nitrozac at Joy of Tech Ever since our report last night on an internal e-mail sent by Steve Jobs about the botched launch of MobileMe, we have received an outpouring of requests for the full text of the e-mail. Although we originally weren’t comfortable publishing the entire thing, it is now slowly becoming available in its full form across the Internet. Because of this, we made an editorial decision to give into your requests and publish the text for your reading pleasure. Here it is.

Calif. Teen Is Olympic Medal Hopeful : NPR – What are you afraid of? As Rob Schmitz reports for KQED on NPR in his article on All Things Considered, “Calif. Teen Is Olympic Medal Hopeful, it turns out that “one of the the best U.S. prospects for a gold medal in diving is 15-year-old Haley Ishimatsu.” Ishimatsu has mastered some of the most difficult dives off of the 10 metre high board. And she’s afraid of heights.”

Japan to start carbon trading in October (Carbon News and Info) — 30 July 2008) “The Japanese government will start a trial emissions trading scheme in October as part of a multi-faceted climate change action plan approved by Cabinet. No details of the scheme will be released until September, one the eve of its introduction, suggesting the trial will be a modest one to start with and may not be far reaching across the economy. Voluntary and efficiency measures have been in favour up until now and the action plan outlines a wide range of such initiatives, including improving home water heating and air conditioner efficiency by 50 per cent by 2030, halving the cost of solar power within five years and looking at a shift to daylight saving time in summer.”

Polls: Are You Fighting The War On High-Fructose Corn Syrup? – consumerist says that “Label-conscious consumers are skipping over high-fructose corn syrup in favor of products sweetened with natural alternatives like cane sugar, honey, and fruit juice. Finding HFCS-free items takes work, but the Corn Refiners Association worries that consumers are increasingly up to the challenge. They recently launched a “major marketing campaign” to defend their chemical concoction. Are you paying any attention to the sweet brouhaha?”

Related is the story on the Grocery Shrink Ray: 15 Victims Of The Grocery Shrink Ray – consumerist says that “The Grocery Shrink Ray continues its miniature spree across the supermarket aisles of America. Here’s 14 more victims that have surfaced in the past week, as spotted by our watchful bands of deputized Consumerist reader-investigators…”

The call of the time (l’express, Mauritius) – In Mauritius, the “Government will introduce summer time on 26th October after the Time Bill was voted in Parliament last Tuesday. A decision that irked a few MPs – all for the wrong reasons; let’s have a look at the real issues.”

Number Stations – Spy Communications – Shortwave Radio Messages – Secrets in the Static – Esquire reports that “Around the world, a group of people are broadcasting encoded numbers to persons unknown. The question is why? How a small group of shortwave enthusiasts is trying to unravel the secrets of global espionage.” By Julianne Pepitone, July 31, 2008

Digital Cameras: JD Power Announces the Best Cameras of 2008 – “JD Power and Associates just released the results of its latest camera survey, culling the responses of over 8,000 digital camera buyers between April of 2007 and March of 2008. They split the categories into DSLRs, Point and Shoots, Premium Point and Shoots, and Ultra Slims. Hit the jump to see the list of winners. DSLR: (two-way tie) -Canon EOS Digital SLR -Nikon D Series Point and shoot: -Fujifilm Finepix S Series Premium Point and Shoot: (two-way tie) -Canon PowerShot G Series -Lumix (Panasonic) DMC-TZ Series Ultra Slim: -Sony Cyber-Shot T Series”

Steampunk: Klaatu Varata Studios Produces Steampunk Creations With Back Stories — “For those of you who enjoy steampunk, story telling and handmade creations, I present to you Klaatu Varata Studios, the workshop of Arkansas artist Dillon Chandler. Check out his Solarian Ray Gun or the Geldar Light Infantry Robot, both of which come with the back story of the Kelevion Universe and the civil war which has torn it apart. If sci-fi musings aren’t your style, take a look at his Steampunk Scorpion, made from motorcycle engine parts. Several of Chandler’s works are available for sale on his Etsy page, and range from $10 for two toy-sized bombs to $2,200 for a nine-foot-tall metal bear.”

Bluetooth Two-Way Earpiece Communicators Reviewed (Verdict: Spy Movie Fun at 250 Feet Or Less) – Like many geeks, the New York Times’ David Pogue watches movies, “like the Bourne Supremacy or Mission: Impossible, and yearns for the wireless earpiece tech they use to communicate with their buddies without microphones, headsets or cellphones. He’s right, they’re cool, and recently he had the chance to review two consumer versions, the SM100 (SoundID.com, $86), and the Dragon V2 (CallPod.com, $100). The final verdict? Both are *really* just average yuppie Bluetooth earpieces like the ones you see stuck in people’s ears on the subway. The catch, however, is that with the press of a button, they become “secret”…

Switzerland: Open Source Switzerland Network Testing Tool Catches ISP Throttlers In the Act – As part of an effort to thwart future ISP infractions, á la Comcast, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released Switzerland, an open source software tool for “testing the integrity of data communications over networks, ISPs and firewalls.” If you’ve been following Comcast for any amount of time over the past year or so, you know exactly what that means.

VIA Nano at 1.3Ghz playing 1080p. Demo video from VIA. | UMPCPortal – The Ultra Mobile Computing reference site – Chipp says that “It takes some courage for a small company like VIA to go head to head with Intel so you have to hand it to VIA for putting this video out. Apart from the fighting-talk in the first 30 seconds, it shows the 1.3Ghz Nano (I have this confirmed) against the 1.6Ghz Intel Atom (Diamondville.) in a 1080p HD video test. I recognized the video being used (Try it – Robotica) and checked it out on my Akoya/Wind. Sure enough, it doesn’t play perfectly. Not surprising as it’s about 9Mbps of 1440×1080 video. “If the Nano is doing this in CPU-alone then I’m really impressed because the 1.3Ghz Nano is perfect for 7″ UMPCs.”

Lenovo Enters the Mini-Notebook Market with the IdeaPad S10 – August 4th, 2008 by Joanna Stern Rumors of Lenovo entering the mini-notebook space end here and now. Lenovo officially announced this morning its IdeaPad S10 – a 10-inch mini-notebook running the 1.6GHz Intel Atom chipset. Do we have a MSI Wind or Eee PC 1000H killer on our hands? Quite possibly. Two configurations of the 9.8 x 7.2 x .8-1.08-inch and 2.4 pound S10 will be available in the U.S. Priced at $399, one will have 512 MB of RAM and an 80 GB hard drive. The other marked at $449.99 will have 1GB of RAM and a 160 GB hard drive. The specs seem to indicate that the system will support 2GB of RAM so we assume swapping out RAM will be easy. Initially the netbook will come preloaded with Microsoft Windows XP…”

How Cloud Computing Is Changing the World (businessweek) – A major shift in the way companies obtain software and computing capacity is under way as more companies tap into Web-based applications. Aug 4, 2008, by Rachael King.

Not many speak their mind to Gates Foundation (Seattle Times Newspaper) – The Gates Foundation says it wants to hear from its critics. But with so many in the global health world dependent on the foundation’s cash, honest feedback is hard to come by. By Sandi Doughton, Seattle Times science reporter, August 3, 2008

User Access Control in a nutshell (Security Adviser, InfoWorld) – Security Adviser – Roger A. Grimes, August 1, 2008 “User Account Control (UAC) is one of Microsoft’s new methods for attempting to protect users who are always logged on as an administrator. I’ve seen it talked about so wrongly so often, I’ve decided to write here about what it is and isn’t. This is my attempt to describe UAC as concisely and accurately as I know how, without falling into the flame trap of comparing it to Su (Substitute User) and other techniques. I’ll leave that to others.”

FCC Votes 3-2 Against Comcast – WSJ.com By FAWN JOHNSON, August 1, 2008 12:14 p.m. — The Federal Communications Commission on Friday voted 3-2 to cite Comcast Corp. for throttling Internet traffic to customers who use high-bandwidth file-sharing services. Mr. Martin had harsh words for Comcast. “Comcast was delaying subscribers’ downloads and blocking their uploads. It was doing so 24/7, regardless of the amount of congestion on the network or how small the file might be,” Mr. Martin said. “Even worse, Comcast was hiding that fact by making affected users think there was a problem with their Internet connection or the application. Today, the commission tells Comcast to stop.”

Tags: iphone, misc, articles, what I read, Microsoft, Windows Vista, Xbox 360.

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Apple, Microsoft, Imagine Cup winners and lots of other news in the reading pile last week

A quick reading list as I post before leaving the office (yes, early today… we have a busy weekend and I was up until too late last night working on, well, work ;).  On top of that, I’m a week behind in posting the reading list.  I have to go home and set up a Dance Dance Revolution on Xbox360 for a throng of kids on our block… priorities.  I’ll add another update this weekend as time allows.

But first… a belated shout out to Long and the team that Won the Imagine Cup world finals (istartedsomething) — “Who would have guessed, a rookie team from Australia whose representatives in the past has never gone as far as the world semi-finals with a blow-up Kangaroo as a mentor would actually come out first-place champions in the Imagine Cup world finals.” 

Very cool. 😉

Have a good weekend.

Q&A: Iron Mountain Digital president talks off-site storage (Network World) — By Jon Brodkin, 072508 — “Once you go 10 or 15 feet below the surface of the Earth, you’re at 58 degrees.” Here’s an interview with John Clancy, president of Iron Mountain Digital. The co. provides storage services, including remote archiving…”

Microsoft Security Advisory (956187): Increased Threat for DNS Spoofing Vulnerability and A guide to the attack plugged by MS08-037 —  By the way, this explanation by Kaminsky is among the few around we think is understandable to the DNS layman. Recommended reading.”

Microsoft vs. VMware: What’s the next move? (SearchWinIT.com) — By Christina Torode, 25 Jul 2008 — “Between Microsoft’s minimal pricing strategy with its Hyper-V hypervisor and VMware’s recent decision to make its own ESX hypervisor free, such technology is now affordable to IT shops of all sizes.”

Survey: Vista Adoption Weakens, as IT Pros Eye Apple (Redmond Developer News) — by Kurt Mackie, 23 July 2008 — “A KACE-sponsored survey on Windows Vista adoption represents more bad news for Microsoft’s flagship operating system, even as Microsoft prepares to pour an estimated $300 million into a new Vista marketing campaign…”

Data Dilemma (Redmond Developer News) — Mapping a strategy for Microsoft’s new data-programming models. by Roger Jennings, July 2008

The Personal MBA: DIY Business Education – Mastering Business Without B-School – More than 1416 people can’t be wrong.

Media Converter – the fastest free online audio and video converter – saved by 2,091 others, and File2HD.com to “Download any file from any site”

Compostable flatware okay in Santa Monica green bins (Los Angeles Times) – “So-called biodegradable or compostable flatware come with their own problems, an L.A. Times article pointed out yesterday. Since most of these only biodegrade in industrial composting facilities that get things really hot — and since few cities have such facilities, let alone city-wide collection programs for these newfangled disposables, most of the allegedly greener food containers and utensils go to landfills, just like non-recyclable goods.” By Siel, Jun 20, 2008 – see also http://greenlagirl.com/  

Oh gawd, Dell releasing Zing-based DJ Ditty in September? – Engadget — The “Wall Street Journal says that “several Dell officials” have confirmed in-house testing of a new sub-$100 digital music player that could go on sale as early as September. So… if you’re wondering how Dell’s acquisition of Zing might play into this…”

Hitachi Starboard FX 77 Duo white board gets demoed on video – Engadget — “Hitachi’s StarBoard FX 77 Duo multi-touch white board seemed impressive enough when the company announced it late last year, but if you’ve been waiting to see one in action before you transported your classroom into the future, Hitachi has now got you covered.”

LG’s BD300 Network Blu-ray player to stream Netflix in September – Engadget — This new “Blu-ray Disc Player will begin streaming Netflix movies in the US this September. The player will cost “well under $500″ and allow Netflix members to stream more than 12,000 standard definition TV and films…”

ASUS prepping “high-end” Eee PC S-series for September – Engadget — engadget offers the “ASUS Eee PC roadmap… that lists the new Ultimate S-series and Pro Fashion Eee PCs amongst the 23 models. Turns out both categories are planned for a 2008 launch with specs like dual-core Atom processors, 120GBs of hard disk…

VIA Nano and Intel’s Atom benchmarked head-to-head – Engadget — PC Perspective, Eee PC News, and Hot Hardware all ran some tests recently, and a 1.8GHz Nano L2100 with Chrome9 graphics was usually able to outperform a 1.6GHz Atom 230 with GMA950 graphics at everything from MP3 ripping to 3D benchmarking.

HP responds to MediaSmart Server issues, offers no real solution at all – Engadget reports that “HP MediaSmart Server owners have been having an awful time getting their device to operate correctly… since [a] recent software update…”

Fabled Opus motherboard appears in Xbox 360 – Engadget — “According to an image put forth by one Electric Tuner” engadget claims to have info on the new Opus motherboard. “We heard back in February that Microsoft may be utilizing the Opus mobos in order to fit the newer 65 / 90-nanometer CPU / GPU combo…”

Intel, HP, and Yahoo to build joint cloud-computing research labs – Engadget — HP, Intel, and Yahoo are teaming up… to build six cloud-computer research data centers around the world, stocked with anywhere from 1,000 to 4,000 nodes each, with the goal of bringing them online later this year for pre-selected researchers to work on…”

Dell’s new Latitude E series for suits detailed by elaborate PowerPoint presentation – Engadget has a “few leaked Dell PowerPoint presentations” on the new Latitude E series presentation, compete with “Roadmaps? Charts? Bullet points? They’ve got it all…”

How to Get Your Passport in a Hurry – For US citizens who need to know. 😉

Qr Codes: QR Code Jacket Patches Take Strangers On the Street to Your Blog, Stat! — “QR codes are actually useful is still good ol’ Japan (where they’re everywhere)… and there are readers available for just about every mobile platform (including iPhone). The $20 patch points to a proxy server which redirects phone browsers to the URL o

Privacy: Face-Swapping Tech Keeps Your Privacy Online By Making You Look Horrifying — “Well, this new “Face Swapper” software found on Boing Boing automatically switches out features on peoples faces with features from photos in its database, creating horrifying cross-gender hybrids.”

Gaming: Nintendo Sues Piracy-Enabling R4 Cart, R4 Sales Predictably Skyrocket — “Yesterday, Kotaku reported on Nintendo and 54 software makers filing an injunction to stop the sales of the R4 and similar devices in Japan. For the uninitiated, the R4 allows you to download DS games online and play them on your DS.”

Airplanes: How the Cormorant Submarine-to-Air Plane Works — “The US Navy had to reconvert many of their Ohio-class nuclear submarines, giving new uses to their missile bays. They talked with Lockheed Martin about it, who came up with the idea of the Cormorant: a Halo-looking plane that launches from a submerged submarine.”

Up: New Pixar Movie Has Us Completely Puzzled — Wall-e still hot in our minds, Pixar has shown their new movie teaser at Comic-Con 08. It’s called Up and the movie plot has us completely puzzled.

John Mayer Giving Tech Support: John Mayer Does Apple Tech Support for His Dad, Fails Miserably —  “John Mayer… had to turn into tech support guy after his dad called saying “Hey, John Mayer’s dad here.” The musician tried to guide his father through Mac OS X in order to find his Entourage icon with no success, getting more and more frustrated with e

Netflix strategy focuses on subscriptions — “Netflix’s strategy will remain focused on subscriptions even in the digital space, CEO Reed Hastings emphasized Friday. “We don’t plan to enter the pay-per-view segment, where Apple, Amazon, Sony and others focus, or the ad-supported segment…”

Rickenplayer Games custom arcade joysticks and more — “This is not an empty do-it yourself cabinet. It’s a complete pre-built kit! The kit includes a 19 inch arcade monitor, pre-wired controls even built-in speakers. All you need is to add your own PC.”  Also see Dream Arcades.

Toshiba Launches Small, Cheap HD Palmcorder: Camileo H10 — Gizmodo on the $350 Toshiba Camileo H10, the new SD-based 720p camcorder that sports 64MB of internal memory, supports up to 8GB SDHC cards with “5x optical zoom, video stabilization, motion-detection shooting, night mode, HDMI output and a 2.7-inch display…”

The Personal MBA: DIY Business Education – Mastering Business Without B-School – More than 1416 people can’t be wrong.

Media Converter – the fastest free online audio and video converter – saved by 2,091 others, and File2HD.com to “Download any file from any site.”  Mp3: VidtoMP3 Converts Online Video Clips to MP3 – Enter a video URL and it spits back the MP3 file available for download.

Windows Explorer: Power Up Windows Explorer with Free Add-ons — lifehacker looks at “some free power add-ons for Windows Explorer that make dealing with your growing file collection faster and easier.”

Ozzie puts his own spin on ‘ThinkWeek’ | Latest Microsoft News – CNET News – CNET News.com — “Once or twice a year, Ozzie tries to find time for what he calls “white space.” Rather than be surrounded by the ideas of others, Ozzie prefers to lock himself away with the proverbial blank sheet of paper. His most recent such exercise was during a brie

Home inventory software (http://www.knowyourstuff.org/) — Nearly a 1,000 people have tagged this, and I’ve found it to be a very good program. “At KnowYourStuff.org, you can download the new home inventory software for free. This software makes creating a home inventory fun and easy. Once you have completed your inventory, it is easy to keep your information up to date.”

6 brand new, but unmissable tips, for any Windows Vista user (Windows Vista Magazine) — Your experience will be more rewarding and safer as a result. By Nick Peers, Published on 12 June 2007.  Also see Windows Vista Magazine’s “PC Heaven” where the magazine covers “heavenly habits to ensure a smooth and sin-free life for your PC.” By Mike Williams Published on 30 June 2008.

Desktop Media: adds drive icons to your desktop — Desktop Media is small application for Windows (any flavor) that automatically adds drive icons to your desktop. It will detect USB drives, fixed drives (ie. your hard drives), CD/DVD drives, network drives, and even RAM disk drives.

Dell Studio Hybrid – At A Glance – Reviews by PC Magazine — “The Dell Studio Hybrid, one of the most design-forward PCs out there, is a competitor to the Mac mini and the HP Slimline PCs. It’s stylish, compact, and unburdened by crapware.” Their words, not mine. 😉 072908

Mancrush: Downright adorable Flickr founder wishes Microsoft had bought Yahoo — not my Mancrush… ValleyWag’s: “Flickr cofounder Stewart Butterfield says that he wished Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo had gone through — and that the now-scuppered deal wasn’t the reason he resigned from Yahoo earlier this month.”

The Microsoft Index: ‘Blah, Blah … Google’ — “Steve Ballmer said “blah” 23 times during his Thursday morning presentation to analysts in Redmond…” Windows was mentioned 30 times, and Google: 35. July 25, 2008

Software Notebook: Microsoft ramps up efforts to counter Apple — By TODD BISHOP, July 28, 2008 — “With Windows Vista’s reputation suffering and Macs continuing to gain ground, Microsoft made it clear last week that Apple is on its competitive radar as much as ever.”

Apple Extends iPhone Lines Additional 2 Hours | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD — John Paczkowski reports that “Responding to unprecedented demand for the new device, Apple (AAPL) is opening its retail stores two hours early. And it’s pre-qualifying customers as well.”

Mini-Microsoft: Exit One Kevin Johnson– Mini comments on Kevin Johnson’s departure from the company.  Also see (old news) Kevin Johnson’s reorg rundown — A blast from the past: KJ’s PSD reorg mail from 2006… “In the second part of Kevin Johnson’s leaked internal memo, the MS co-president outlines who’s coming and who’s staying in Windows Live, the Core Operating System Division, the Online Business Group

Poll: Whom should Microsoft pursue next? — “After the withdrawal of its Yahoo bid, what should Microsoft pursue next? Options… AOL; Digg; Facebook; LinkedIn; MySpace; Twitter; Yahoo (again); other; or none of the above, focus solely on internal development.”

Jim Allchin’s Mac message: The full text —  Posted by Todd Bishop at January 10, 2007 – “Jim Allchin’s “I’d buy a Mac” e-mail… was previously excerpted but not available in complete form. However, the full message has now been posted among the plaintiff’s exhibits online.”

Mini-Microsoft: The Tumbling Tumbleweeds of Summer — Mini says that “we continue to balloon and expand with no rhyme and reason, and cutting back in employee size is the tune I came here to sing. So, enjoying a breeze off of Puget Sound is a lot more pleasurable than thinking about our constricting bloat.”

Believe it: “The X-Files” are at the Smithsonian (Around The Mall – Sightings at the Smithsonian Museum) — Jesse “was able to attend the ceremony commemorating the donation of X-Files memorabilia to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. I was able to take an up-close gawk at Mulder and Scully’s FBI ID badges…” 

Also see ‘X Files’ icons go to Smithsonian American history museum – Who’s News Blog – from USAWEEKEND.com — By Lorrie Lynch with Kathy Rowings, July 16, 2008 – “Intern Lisa Gartner just got back from the National Museum of American History, where she saw Chris Carter, creator/director/producer/writer of The X-Files, donate a bunch of sci-fi goodies…”

HP TouchSmart IQ506 Desktop reviews – CNET Reviews — 7.2/10: “HP’s new-and-improved TouchSmart all-in-one PC refines the touch-based concept it introduced last year. Faster all-in-ones, and Apple’s iPhone, make the TouchSmart seem a bit behind the times, but the convenient software and its kitchen-friendly…”

Also see HP TouchSmart IQ506 Desktop PC review (washingtonpost.com) as they describethe new PC as “Sleek, classy all-in-one PC gets points for design, but it lacks the same wow in its performance.” By Darren Gladstone, July 17, 2008

HTPC Case : MonShopper.com — The Moneual 300, 800 and 900 series cases for your custom HTPC.

Dave Froslie – Microsoft Development on the Prairie : Have you made a Developer better today? — James Whittaker now blogs, and Dave noticed. “[He] is one of the most distinguished testers at Microsoft. He’s written a couple of books and is a well known in the industry for his work in testing – particularly in the Security field (see this interview)…”

TechLeaders : A New Perspective — “In response to your feedback, we’re switching gears and taking a break from video content. This past week, we posed the following question on LinkedIn: If you could give ONE piece of advice to a new or aspiring manager, what would it be, and why?”

Architecture + Strategy : Cloud Computing and Software Clients — David discusses “innovation in Web application platforms and Web-oriented architectures, and associated mindshare shift towards Web development models, do show that client-side software is becoming less relevant than the heydays of client-server computing…”

E-Commerce News: Tech Buzz: The Fall of Google, the Rebirth of Microsoft and the Changing Face of Apple and Linux — By Rob Enderle, 07/14/08 — “Microsoft is evil and Google isn’t, right? Maybe not, after recent events, writes columnist Rob Enderle. He also is revising his impression of Richard Stallman as an advocate of freedom…”

10 Reasons Enterprises Aren’t Ready to Trust the Cloud – GigaOM —  “Because as important as cloud computing is for startups and random one-off projects at big companies, it still has a long way to go before it can prove its chops. So let’s turn down the noise level and add a dose of reality.”

Success Stories: Please, I Beg You, Do Not Send Another Useless Comcast Truck To My House — “Chris L. writes in to let us know that the EECB (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) is probably the only way you’re going to get Comcast to fix a network problem that affects your entire neighborhood.”

The smartest advice I ever got – CNNMoney.com —  From Bill Miller to Derek Jeter: 40 great minds share the best money lessons they ever learned. July 2008

Apple: Apple Doesn’t Know How To Handle The MobileMe Crisis — Consumerist reports that Apple’s “new MobileMe service has had problems since it launched two weeks ago, and even now there are thousands of users who can’t sync, or whose email has been deleted (oops, should’ve set up Time Machine).

Why is it So Hard to Wake Up in the Morning? | Popular Science —  Jessica Cheng notes on PopSci that “sleeping in on the weekend makes it harder to get up on time during the week. The concept may be common knowledge for most, but the article backs it up with science for those who still aren’t convinced.” Thanks, Lifehacker.

Jobs: 7 Steps To Developing A Strong Network In Case You Get Fired – I was talking about the importance of building strong personal networks. Lifehacker asks “What’s the first thing you would do if you were fired? Punch your boss? Cry like a baby? Throw a party? Financial blogger JD Roth at Get Rich Slowly” has suggestions.

Ebook: What Do You Want to Do With Your Life? Ebook Helps You Answer That Question — saved by lots of people on Delicious,  Lifehacker asks “What the heck am I doing with my life, anyway? It’s a big scary question… But if you’ve decided to tackle the beast, reader William Mize recommends a free ebook entitled What Do You Want to Do With Your Life?.”

Set Up Port Forwarding on Your Xbox 360 – Wired How-To Wiki — gaming on the Xbox360 through a router? as noted on Wired, you may run into “lengthy wait times between games and [other] problems. Chances are you need to tweak the port forwarding settings… Here’s a quick rundown of this fairly straight-forward process.

  • lksdksjld

    Tags: iphone, misc, articles, what I read, Microsoft, Windows Vista, Xbox 360.

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    SETI@home, new iPhones and other bits for a quick post-vacation reading list

    Back from vacation and waiting for a meeting to start (whilst hungry attendees grab lunch 😉 I find that I have a couple of minutes to post – normally I wait until after work’s done for the day, but here’s an exception to the rule.  Last night I made a quick spin by Engadget to catch up on what I missed, as well as a few other sites and mail items from the news this week.  Much of my reading over the family getaway was keeping up with the daily news in a sleepy little area on the Oregon coast (thanks, Amanda and Edgar).

    I noticed that on my first day soaking up the sun of an active effort to “Save the Arecibo Telescope.” Just before Independence Day (pardon the allegory 😉 in the States, SETI@home put out a call on the future of Arecibo Observatory (where SETI@home collects its data). Turns out that the funding may be cut for Arecibo, and replacement is due to be operational until at least 2020 at best… so some people are upset… 

    “If you are a U.S. citizen, please write your representatives to support the Senate bill and House resolution to continue Arecibo’s funding.” 

    The link takes you to a web-based form letter where you can voice your support for Senate Bill S. 2862 and House Resolution H.R. 3737. You can use the form to automatically look up and generate letters to print and mail to your representatives.

    iPhoneOf course, the big news today is Apple’s new iPhone: we made it back home just in time to witness the first day of the new iPhone going on sale, with a few problems as noted by Suzanne Choney on MSNBC…

    “iPhone 3G launch day was supposed to be about long lines for the popular devices, not about problems getting them activated. But across the country, new 3G iPhones failed to activate after purchase…”

    I’ve seen a number of reports today about the new iPhone retail launch, and the news is not all doom and gloom, as I’m sure that the kinks will get worked out.  With new features, there is some tremendous appeal in this shiny, new device: the Apple Remote software, to turn your new iPhone into a WiFi remote control that Engadget says…

    “the new freebie from Apple which turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a remote control. It works with Apple TV and iTunes over the WiFi network to play, pause, skip and shuffle your songs stored in your iTunes library…”

    An interesting view is Walt Mossberg’s video review of the iPhone 3G: Walt is generally thumbs up on the new version of the device, with a few downsides.  And in Canada, I read that Rogers “caved on iPhone 3G plans” with new offers of 6GB for $30 a month: “Rogers is launching a promotional offer along with the iPhone of 6GB of data for $30 a month — not quite unlimited data, but close enough — which can be added on top of any regular voice plan.”

    David Ewalt of Forbes reported today that…

    “At precisely 9 a.m. this morning, I plugged in my first-generation iPhone… The update started as expected, began to sync with my phone and proceeded normally for about half an hour. Then I got a pop-up warning… Repeated attempts to disconnect and reconnect the phone resulted in the same warning. And worst of all, the upgrade is not completed, so my phone has been bricked–it’s stuck in emergency mode and won’t start up. I can’t make or receive calls or access any of my data.

    “I’m not alone. Since the update became available, Apple’s support boards have been flooded with complaints from users having the exact same problem. So far, Apple hasn’t responded to tell them why it’s happening.”

    Ouch.

    It appears that Apple saw all these new iPhone owners (as well as old iPhone owners in search of the new software) crowding the web which resulted in overloaded servers. For the most part, customers seem pleased with their new device and software with the reviews of Apple’s iPhone 2.0 software pretty positive across the board.  It was nice to see in Sascha Segan’s iPhone 2.0 review in PC Magazine that…

    “Microsoft’s Windows Mobile remains our Editors’ Choice because it’s available on a much wider range of devices, and has an even wider range of software and capabilities than iPhone 2.0 does.”

    imageI’d certainly like to see a positive experience for Windows Mobile users similar to the one-stop-shopping (so to speak) that users get with the Apple’s App Store, included in the iPhone 2.0 firmware (or an iPhone 3G) where iPhone owners can download new programs on to their iPhone. 

    The Windows Mobile site offers a link to the Windows Mobile Catalog where you can view information on popular applications, offering everything from entertainment and productivity software to dev tools and utilities, with links to MobiHand, Poketland and Handango to purchase.

    But where are the links to free software on the site?  Handango offers downloads to some free and trial versions of software on their site, and their “Handango InHand” site offers access to apps and content directly from the phone.

    Sorry, WM: this isn’t as slick as App Center.

    Apple's App StoreApple’s App Center also offers a service to keep you on the latest version of the apps you purchase. (“Buy an application from the App Store and you always have access to the latest version. iPhone tells you whenever an application update is available.)  As David Pogue of the Times posted on his blog…

    “Well, the iPhone Apps Store went live last night, and it’s just crazy, insane fun. I’ve just downloaded about 30 programs to play with on the iPhone 3G. As I predicted, it’s just a blast…

    “It looks like the App Store’s army of programmers are making quick work of the iPhone’s missing standard features. So far, you can install apps that restore video recording, voice dialing, radio and instant messaging to the iPhone. No word yet on an app that adds copy/paste, MMS sending or a removable battery.”

    Now on to the news, and have a good weekend.

    Customer Service – Firms Seek Out Disgruntled Customers on the Web — By Carolyn Y. Johnson, July 9, 2008 — “At Southwest Airlines, the social media team includes a Twitter officer who tracks comments and monitors a Facebook group, an online rep who interacts with bloggers.  Also see Comcast Wins With Twitter – C.C. Chapman’s “an amazing experience in customer service from Comcast…”

    Social Media: Get Productive with Social Media (and Stay Sane) — “lifehacker asked self-described social media junkie Steve Rubel for his tips on how to participate in online social sites like Twitter and FriendFeed without losing your entire workday. Here’s what he said.”

    Video: Ira Glass on Getting Creative Work Done — “Ira Glass [of NPR] features some great advice about working through those first few attempts—or even years—where your product doesn’t quite meet your standards, as well as Glass pulling out some honestly awkward examples from his own portfolio.”… saved by 72 other people

    Stuff We Like: Multi-Use Car Charger with Dual USB Ports — “This $20 Multi-Use Car Charger sports two built-in USB ports to power your iPod, cell phone, GPS, and whatever else you’ve got that charges via USB. And since USB cords are generally smaller and less clunky than a regular wall plug…”

    Self-help: Shame Yourself Into Spending Less With A Hello Kitty Debit Card — Reader Mervin Gleasner has Hello Kitty to thank for his unique method of curbing personal spending.

    Xbox 360: Do More Than Just Game on Your Xbox 360 — “With some free tools and a little elbow grease, that compact, networked PC sitting under your television can offer a whole lot of useful media functionality. The fact is, your 360 is capable of so much more than just gaming. Let’s take a look at a few…” saved by 369 other people

    Apple Ups The Ante With 3G iPhone – But RIM’s Almost Ready to Counter – Seeking Alpha – We asked consumers who currently own a smart phone or who plan to buy one in the next 90 days to tell us the manufacturer.

    Book Excerpt: How Priorities Make Things Happen — “Project manager and writer Scott Berkun knows how to get things done when you’ve got a team of people, a to-do list, and a deadline. Today he offers an excerpt from the updated edition of his best-selling book The Art of Project Management (our review)… saved by 175 other people

    New report says SSDs are, in fact, more efficient – Engadget notes that “LAPTOP magazine published a report confirming what most people already believe to be true about SSDs: they use less power than traditional drives. Apparently they got up to 20 minutes more battery life when testing an SSD against a platter-based drive…”  Also see SSD-maker responds to nasty report, says it’ll do better next time – Engadget — “Tom’s Hardware article which benchmarked (and gave failing grades) to power-consumption of the non-mechanical drives was flawed because, “They are using legacy drives, none of which will be used by any major PC OEM.”

    Study says more than 10,000 laptops go missing at US airports each week – Engadget reports that “A new study has now found one not entirely surprising place where your laptop is particularly unsafe: the airport… more than 10,000 laptops are reported lost at the 36 largest airports in the US each week and, of those, 65 percent are not reclaimed.”

    Turtle Beach intros Ear Force X3 Xbox 360 headset – Engadget notes that there is a new way for me to look silly in front of my kids as I play team games via Xbox Live, with the new Ear Force X3: “Turtle Beach has just expanded the headset options for Xbox 360 gamers even further, with it today introducing its Ear Force X3 unit, apparently the first wireless headset to boast independent volume control of amplified chat and game audio.”

    Project Grizzly guy forced to auction Trojan ‘Halo suit’ – Engadget reports on some silly stuff up for auction: “Normally we’d start off a post about the sale of Canadian Troy Hurtubise’s Trojan fully-armored exoskeleton with a few amusing Robocop quips, but the reason Troy has to let his crazy, high-tech creation go makes such frivolity seem a little inappropriate…”

    Yamaha Tenori-on: everything you wanted to know (with video) – Engadget reports that Tenori-on is “an 8 x 8-inch magnesium square brimming with 256 tiny, pressable, blinking LEDs and even gestural controls that make it easy to sequence electronic music on the fly.” $1,200 from Yamaha.

    Keeping on the audio gear news, see this article on the Aurora open source hardware mixer (hackaday.com). It is a dual channel USB-powered mixer with two linear faders, one crossfader, eight backlit buttons and 24 potentiometers, all built around a PIC 18LF4525 microcontroller.

    Acer rolls out the Aspire X1200 home theater-friendly mini PC for $450 – Engadget’s view of the new Acer Aspire X1200, which for $450 includes on-board NVIDIA GeForce 8200 graphics, an AMD Athlon X2 2850e processor, and HDMI port. Acer promises full 7.1-channel audio support as well as the guts to work with H.264, VC1, and MPEG2…

    And just what is going on at Kodak?  New cameras, wireless digital picture frames and HD video players? 

    D-Link DSM-210 unboxing, hands-on, and mini-review – Engadget’s look at the D-Link DSM-210 Internet Photo Frame, “a 10-inch, 800 x 480 LCD display with built-in WiFi and ethernet connectivity — promises to upgrade the familiar static nature of its ilk with a handful of networking enhancements…”

    Tags: iphone, misc, articles, what I read, Microsoft, Windows Vista, Xbox 360.

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    Oh, Canada, meet Independence Day: a reading list for a holiday week

    Tomorrow is Canada Day so a shout out to my friends north of the boarder as well as the many local Canucks we have on campus, at the Microsoft MCDC and MS Canada. Canada is so much more than Bob and Doug McKenzie (I’m shoring my age).

    And with a nod to the Office OFFline Web Comic and to please the kids on this reading list day (published late, or early as I don’t expect to post much of anything later in the week), here’s a little something that I have fun with at home, with reference to the article “Hey Bill, sorry I kept your book since high school” in the Seattle Times Newspaper.  Seems that Bill Gates used the latest word-processing technology available at the time to create his own ex libris: an IBM Selectric typewriter with a rotating typeball that produced italic (by Rami Grunbaum)…

    dingalings.com

    Good to note the importance that employees placed on getting feedback from Bill at Microsoft (Joel Spolsky has a very interesting account of what it was like working as a program manager for Microsoft in 1992).

    Have a good week… now on to the reading list:

    Bill Gates Retirement Party: Things No One Gives Microsoft Credit For (But Should) — “Microsoft is rarely credited for being why mainstream tech has come this far—a computer on every desk, the explosion of the internet, even the idea of a common UI across applications. Even smarmy Mac and Linux snobs have a lot to thank Microsoft for…”

    Also see…

    Seth’s Blog: What Dave just did — “Dave Balter, an old friend and colleague, has written a new book. It costs $45 on Amazon. But, for my loyal readers…you can get a copy of the ebook (the entire book) for free here.”… saved by 40 other people

    Seth’s Blog: Email checklist — Seth’s says that there are a few things that you shoudl do “Before you hit send on that next email, perhaps you should run down this list, just to be sure…”… saved by 486 other people

    Windows Vista Tip: Use the Tab Key to Rename Multiple Files in Vista — Lifehacker reader “provides a tip for anyone who regularly renames groups of pictures, documents, or other files, but doesn’t need a bulk renaming utility to get it done. Just start renaming the first file in a folder or list…”

    ICanada: Canadians Write Angry Letter to Steve Jobs Over iPhone Plan in the Great White North — With all due respect to my friends at Rogers: Rogers Communications in Canada “has a data plan that makes AT&T look positively philanthropic: $75/mo… 3-year contract, 100 text messages, 300 weekday minutes, and a 750MB cap on 3G usage.” So Canucks are sending a petition to Jobs himself asking him to “take a look” – the full “Dear Steve” letter on ruinediphone.com — Open Letter to Steve Jobs about the situation.

    35,310 Lego Star Wars Mini-Fig Army: 35,310 Lego Star Wars Clone Trooper Army Invades Earth — “What are 35,310 Lego Star Wars Clone Troopers mini-figs doing together, apart from planning a planet invasion after breaking out of the giant Lego storage cathedrals? Raising awareness and funds for autism, that’s what.”

    Zune MP3 Player Pilot Podcast (2007/2008 Missouri Teacher of the Year) — Eric Langhorst is the 2008 Missouri Teacher of the Year. On his blog he noted that his class is involved in a student Zune pilot. “Microsoft is providing each of my 25 students in my 3rd period 8th grade American History classroom a 4GB Zune to use…”  More also at Zune in School in Missouri, New Mexico, and at Local public school students get assigned Zunes – Engadget — Liberty, Missouri’s handing out a hundred and change media players — Zunes, to be specific — to local high school and middle school students for listening to lesson-supporting podcasts in the hopes of saving them “lost class time.” (June 29 2008)

    How would you change Microsoft if you were Bill Gates? – Engadget’s Darren Murph posted (Jun 27th 2008) the question above and rants and raves ensue. A fun read.

    Princeton to start publishing Kindle-edition textbooks – Engadget — Mark and I discussed Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader last night. Today I read that Amazon has won over Princeton University (Jeff Bezos’s alma mater) announcing “plans to publish Kindle version of its textbooks this fall, joining Yale, Oxford, and Berkeley…”

    Zappos tries robots on for size | Crave, the gadget blog – CNET reports (June 27, 2008) that “Zappos.com, which now sells more than just shoes, has just finished outfitting it’s Kentucky warehouse with a robotic army to help fill orders, the company supplying the system announced Tuesday.”

    AirPiano single-handedly redeems air instruments from irrelevancy (engadget) — I sense a lawsuit brewing in Lo Jolla… 😉 Pat, have you seen the AirPiano? It allows you to “emit beautiful tones without ever touching the “keys.” It’s even smart enough to sustain a note if you hold your hand over a particular area for an extended time.”

    Evento’s BuzzBall: your own personal roller coaster — Evento’s BuzzBall is essentially a personal roller coaster, which reportedly features a “single seat inside a large outer ball that’s able to spin and roll independently of the ball itself” alongside a pair of electric motors used to power it.

    Cizmo’s CX1730M gaming laptop packs a wallop – Engadget – I’m sure that my old friend, Paul, would love this namesake PC, the Cizmo CX1730M, a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo proc notebook, 2GB + 160GB SATA HDD , 17″ WSXGA+ panel, 2 Mpixel webcam, DVD burner, NVIDIA’s 512MB GeForce 8800M GTX and a plethora of ports.

    Creative’s ZEN X-Fi player with WiFi gets a lot more real – Engadget reports that “The Creative kids over at epiZENter have what looks to be a genuine scoop of an unannounced ZEN X-Fi… a new DAP with SD expansion and built-in WiFi, speaker, FM tuner, voice recorder, and the ability to stream media from Creative’s “Public Media Server…”

    Credit Report Settlement: Trans Union Corporation Privacy Litigation Home — If you had a credit card, loan or credit account, you could get benefits from a class action settlement.

    Real Estate | Credit-report settlement is good for mortgage seekers | Seattle Times Newspaper — Under the terms of a national class-action settlement, you may qualify for six or nine months of daily monitoring of your credit file, plus unrestricted access to your credit report and score, via listclassaction.com. By Kenneth R. Harney

    Gizmodo lists Media Center as one of the 10 reasons why Vista isn’t so bad (Connecting you to your media blog) — “Endadget lists Media Center as one of it’s hits (but surprisingly left Clippy out as a miss). Gizmodo lists Media Center as one of the 10 reasons why Vista isn’t so bad, so I guess that puts Media Center +1 on the pundit scale.”

    Funny Friday – Charlie Rose ala Samuel Beckett (Pla.NET Southeast) — Although this has been out a few months, many of you may not have seen this yet. Imagine a Charlie Rose interview re-imagined by Samuel Beckett. Surreal piece of filmmaking, this…

    Hard to find Windows Vista help and how-to articles (The blog of Rob Margel) — Rob’s post has 2 aims, “firstly to highlight… available [content on the Windows Help and How-to site] and secondly as an experiment to see how quickly after this posting does the content appear in the Windows Live search catalogues.”

    Ian Moulster’s blog : Using any email address for your Windows Live ID — IanM says that “you can use any email address to sign up for a Windows Live ID? Which means you can use any email address to access Hotmail or Messenger for example, or SkyDrive or Spaces or any other Windows Live Service.”

    Shooting and Editing Better Videos – Expert Help by PC Magazine — I’ve known Jan Ozer for several years and he is a bright guy. In Jan’s experience, the secrets to shooting better video “can be broken down into two rules… and if you abide by them you will save yourself a lot of time and effort.”

    Dell Studio 17 and Studio 15 review roundup (Engadget) — Paul Miller at Engadget has coverage of teh new Dell Studio line of laptops that “appear to combine the power of XPS and the prices of Inspiron, with some new perks like HDMI out and slot-loading drives to keep things fresh.”

    On the scene: Microsoft’s farewell to Gates (Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog) — Microsoft is holding a town hall meeting here in Redmond this morning to send Bill Gates off into the new era of his life. It starts about 9 a.m. It’s clearly a big moment for people at the company — including Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer…”

    More states say cellphones and driving don’t mix – Yahoo! News reports (Jun 25, 2008) that “On July 1, California will become the largest state to ban unlimited cellphone use by drivers. The law prohibits drivers under 18 from talking on the phone, and it requires older drivers to use a hands-free headset.”

    Geek Girl Blogs – Home — Here’s a central aggregated blog site of “women’s blogs together in one place, to create a wealth of knowledge that covers the amazing strength, agility & force that is Women in IT! We also hope that by sharing our experiences we can encourage & enlighten…”

    Windows Live for mobile — Do more from your mobile phone than just talk. Explore all the ways you can connect with your friends and to the information and entertainment you want when you’re on the go.

    Sprint | Instinct “Movie” page – too cool for school.

    Book Review: Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post Gates Era — “What does someone who’s been covering Microsoft for 25 years think about Bill Gates’ retirement? Ask Mary Jo Foley, or consider her book, Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post Gates Era.”

    Xbox.com: Transferring Content Licenses to a New Console — Got a new Xbox 360 console? Great. But maybe you downloaded games or other content from Xbox LIVE Marketplace onto an older Xbox 360 console, and now you want all that content on your new system. Well, now there’s a way to do it.

    The original Microsoft ‘family’ (BBC NEWS) — “Albuquerque, New Mexico, there were only a dozen people working for the company – compared with the current number of almost 90,000 employees worldwide. Here we have 11 of the early pioneers…”

    Et Tu, Intel? Chip Giant Wont Embrace Microsofts Windows Vista (New York Times Blog) — Steve Lohr of the Times reports that “Intel, the giant chip maker and longtime partner of Microsoft, has decided against upgrading the computers of its own 80,000 employees to Microsoft’s Vista operating system…”

    Why I Still Use Windows Despite the Peer Pressure (gizmodo) — Adam Frucci at Gizmodo says that he “still rocks XP, and I’m pretty happy with that. Why haven’t I switched to Macs? Plenty of reasons, not least of which being that I’m just too smart to switch to a Mac… ” … saved by 61 other people \

    Welcome to Akihabara News : Akihabaranews.com – add this to your blog roll for teh latest gadgets from across the pond. Apparently this is popular: saved by 980 other people

    101 Photoshop Tips in 5 Minutes | dekeOnline — Photoshop enthusiast and frantic video editor Deke McClelland fits 101 tips for Adobe’s premiere product into five minutes of video, and the results are surprisingly watchable. Via Lifehacker… saved by 417 other people

    Bill Gates Retirement Party: The Best Bill Gates Parodies Ever — Bill’s semi-retirement is later this week, so gizmodo provides “a mash-up of all these green sweater, glasses wearin’ characters.”

    Japanese telco institutes upload caps… of 30GB… daily — By Jacqui Cheng, June 25, 2008 – “Bandwidth caps are coming to Japan, but not in the way to which North Americans are accustomed. OCN, operated by NTT Communications, has decided to impose a daily upload limit beginning on August 1. The limit? 30GB per day.”

    Giz Explains: How the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Will Save the World — “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the world’s largest charitable foundation… It’s not your average charity though—and not just because two of its three trustees, Bill and Warren (no last names needed) constantly jockey for the title of world’s richest…”

    British Police in High-Speed Chase … With UFO | Autopia from Wired.com — In a close encounter with the future of transportation, a police helicopter almost hit what its crew insists was an alien spacecraft. And then they chased it. Seriously. At least, that’s what Britain’s Telegraph newspaper reports.

    Reviews of “Wanted” and “The Happening.” (The New Yorker) by Anthony Lane , June 2008

    Dark Knight Director Shuns Digital Effects for the Real Thing — “The Bat-plan was simple: Base-jump off one Hong Kong skyscraper, smash through the window of another, grab the Chinese crime boss, then hitch a drag chute to a passing C-130 cargo plane for a daring aerial escape. And on to Gotham!”

    WiiHD: WiiHD’s Homebrew Guide — WiiHD has a good walkthrough teaching you how to get Homebrew onto your Wii, if only for the privilege of playing Quake and various other games… saved by 55 other people

    IPhone 3G: iPhone 3G Takes About $173 To Manufacture Says Estimate — iSuppli, an authority on taking electronics apart and figuring how much it costs to build one, has just put preliminary price tag on the iPhone 3G of $173. That’s quite a bit higher from the $100 analysts were quoting earlier.

    Annals of Technology: Hello, Hal: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker — John Seabrook wrote a recent feature in The New Yorker about interactive-voice-response systems (I.V.R.) commonly used with customer service and tech support telephone hotlines.

    Timepieces: Digimech Clock Does Digital the Old-Fashioned Mechanical Way — “The Di Grisogono Meccanica mechano-digital watch is indeed amazing, but I’m almost as impressed with Duncan Shotton’s Digimech clock (maybe it’s because it looks like I could afford it).”

    X-Box 360 handheld console on the way? – www.t3.com — Fancy rocking some GTA IV on-the-go, if T3 get T3’s (no relation 😉 way Microsoft’s Zune MP3 player could be going gaming. Check out their artist’s impressions.

    HP TouchSmart IQ504 PC (KQ436AA#ABA) from HP available now — The HP TouchSmart IQ504—an all-in-one 22″ touchscreen PC with a Core 2 Duo processor, integrated graphics and an impressive 4GB of RAM—is shipping now off of HP’s site and retailers like Circuit City

    Two New TP1s from Sony : Akihabara News .com — The TP1 is the “Media Center” PC solution from SONY, and today the Japanese giant decided to update its line-up with the VGX-TP1DQ/B and VGX-TP1D. Very cool indeed.

    What I’ve Learned: George Carlin (MSN Lifestyle) — “Back in January 2002, George Carlin revealed his intimate thoughts on censorship, racism, and how the IRS saved his comedy career. With his recent passing, we represent his words here.”  Also see George Carlin mourned as counterculture hero, as Carlin died Sunday of heart failure at 71.

    The Media Center Extender shootout – Engadget HD — Vista Media Center really sets itself apart from any other DVR solution out there, and the single greatest advantage Vista Media Center (VMC) has over the other options is the ability to have multiple Media Center Extenders. by Ben Drawbaugh.

    PC Chipsets Today: Choice and Confusion — Loyd Case at extremetech “thought it was time to take a look at the landscape for core logic, to help you better choose what motherboard may be right for you. What we’ll cover here is not only the speeds and feeds of the different chipsets…”

    Coding Horror: The Ultimate Code Kata — “programming every day may not be enough to make you a professional programmer. So what can turn someone into a professional driver or programmer? What do you do to practice? The answer lies in the Scientific American article The Expert Mind.”… saved by 492 other people

    Xbox 360: Turn Your Xbox 360 into a Streaming Netflix Player — if you’ve got an Xbox 360 and a Windows Vista PC, lifehacker says that “you don’t have to shell out $99 for Roku’s Netflix Player box to get your Watch Instantly library on your TV screen—you already have everything you need.” Check out the free Windows Media Center plug-in…  But I’ll agrue that Anuthony’s new Roku Netflix Player is worth every penny, and doesn’t require a PC… and saved by 323 other people

    SensibleUnits.com — Web site SensibleUnits converts virtually any unit of measure to real-world objects “to help you get a better understanding of the practical size of something.” (via LifeHacker) 537 other people have converted all sorts of things: it would be fund to see what coversions have been particularly popular:

         http://sensibleunits.com/

    The Guru Pitka | The Love Guru Movie — enough said. GO see it when it’s released if you like Mike Myers‘ comedy.  I predict that his xRank will increase as we near the movie’s release.

    Canon HD: Viral Video Superstars

    New study compares 360, PS3 consumers – Joystiq’s Scott Jon Siegel (Jun 23rd 2008) says that “a new study released by the Experian Group compares the consumers of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The findings cover age breakdowns, leisurely activities, and personal philosophies about recycling (seriously).”

    Marketing Apple: Secrets of the World’s Best Marketing Machine

    PC World – Business Center: Nearly Half of IT Workers Snoop in Confidential Files — Carrie-Ann Skinner, PC Advisor – June 21, 2008 – Nearly half of IT workers have admitted to snooping around networks to look at confidential information, according to research from software firm Cyber-Ark.

    Tags: Bill Gates, misc, articles, what I read, Windows, Windows 7, Microsoft, Windows Vista, Gartner, Xbox 360, utilities, Zune, podcast, dingalings.

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    Zune in School in Missouri, New Mexico

    Engadget reports that local public school students were provided some free Zunes in Liberty, Missouri… 

    “handing out a hundred and change media players — Zunes, to be specific — to local high school and middle school students for listening to lesson-supporting podcasts in the hopes of saving them “lost class time.”

    Turns out this was kicked off by Eric Langhorst, the 2008 Missouri Teacher of the Year. On his blog, Langhorst noted that his class is involved in a student Zune pilot…

    “Microsoft is providing each of my 25 students in my 3rd period 8th grade American History classroom a 4GB Zune to use during the spring semester.” 

    How did Langhorst get the Zunes?

    Simple: he asked.

    From the article via the Associated Press… (available here)

    “He approached Microsoft at an education conference last year and pitched the project that allows 25 students in one class to have the Zunes. He now can beam notes on the Gold Rush, Power Point presentations and Civil War battlefield maps directly to the students.”

    Zunes are also in use in a rural New Mexico school as well, according to the article. And what does Microsoft get in return? Data, with a promise to publish the info in time for a future education conference…

    “In exchange for the donated Zunes, which retail for $129 to $249, the schools are providing data — expected to be more qualitative than quantitative — on how helpful the devices were in the classroom. Microsoft plans to post a case study on the pilot project following this summer’s National Education Computing Conference in San Antonio, Texas.”

    Tags: Zune, podcast, school.