April Fools On the Internet - Best Day of the YEAR

I'm just going to keep track of the awesome things that occur on the internet today, starting with:

GMail Auto Pilot-
http://mail.google.com/mail/help/autopilot/index.html

CADIE Google AI -
http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/cadie/index.html
her Blog: http://cadiesingularity.blogspot.com/

Think Geek Bottled Bacon -
http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/squeez-bacon.html



Not an April joke, but AWESOME:

Tauntaun sleeping bag - http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/tauntaun.html

More to follow I'm sure in updates.

In Marble

I think that we should see this shirt as a marble masterpiece.
Mario vs Bowser

Go over to shirt.woot.com to check it out.

Bloodsucking On A Whole New Level

I’m probably going to be one of the first people in a large crowded room to shout out about how much money Microsoft charges for it’s products. I think their model should be one of high volume, low cost.

Anyways, Bill released a bunch of Mosquitoes on an unsuspecting crowd of IT elite and I find that hilarious. Check out the original article here: http://www.informationweek.com/news/industry/technology-telecom/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213201784

All kidding aside though, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or BMGF does a lot of really great things around the world and I think it is refreshing to see one of the worlds richest men, devote his time, money and energy to solving some of our planets issues.

If more of the ‘so-called’ elite of our society spent their time and effort like this, we would live in a better place than we do now.

~TP

No More KHAAAANNN!

Another era has come and gone with the death of Ricardo Montalban.  He had a rich career that included ‘Fantasy Island’ , Star Trek and many other appearances throughout the Hollywood movie and television scene.

The reason I bring it up is the startling difference between the coverage I’ve seen on the Internet.  On the one side you have people that remember him for his time on ‘Fantasy Island’, as the mysterious owner and host of guests to the resort on the island.

For many of us though ‘Fantasy Island’ is merely a footnote on the one thing he did: Kahn. Kahn represents on of the greatest villains in science fiction and certainly in the Star-Trek universe.  I’m not great at quotes but William Shatner is very well known for his legendary scream of torment and hatred in the direction of Kahns character.

I certainly am not doing this wonderful man justice.  It is a sad day to see another piece of my childhood pass to ashes.

 

OS X – Duck!

I’ve now spent the weekend with Windows 7.  I loaded it on all the computers in the house that we’re capable of supporting it.  I've also spent a lot of time working on trying to break it.  I’ve yet to break it.

I’ve been paying attention to the feature casts on Microsoft.com and reading articles from people that were working on earlier pre-Beta releases of the operating system. Since I started paying attention my feeling has been that, Apple better watch out.

Apple has been experiencing the same sort of growth that they experienced during the Windows ME days. Apple is very good at playing off the short comings of Microsoft and Vista has been a debacle since the beta with Apple exploiting it to the best of their abilities.  I’m not saying that Apple is doomed, or is worse or anything, it’s just not enough better than Windows 7.

OS X is quite possibly one of the best operating systems ever written. I’m a hardcore PC guy and I’ve been flirting with getting a Mac just because of the ease of use, hardware construction, and the fact that I can still use Windows in VMware or Parallels without any issues.  With the release of Windows 7, my interest in that will go away. Windows 7 is everything that Vista ‘should' have been.  It runs fast, it installs fast, configures with little trouble, manages the network better, manages users better, ease of use is central to the design and it’s pretty.

In summary OS X is in danger of finding itself on the short end of the stick as Microsoft brings an actual player to the table.  I hope Apple doesn’t, competition is everything in an open market, and with Apple competing we got Windows 7.  I only hope that apple responds in kind with further progress.

First Impressions of the Beta

I’ve had my first day with Windows 7, after having successfully downloaded it last night and getting it installed.

First impressions are that it’s fantastic compared to Vista.  I can understand now why this isn’t a service pack or an update to Vista, this runs like a completely different animal.

The best thing that I have to say thus far is: I didn’t have to install a single device driver.  The install handled it all.

I’ll have more thoughts as the days progress and I have more time to play with it.

Windows 7 Beta!

That’s right! Sooner that most people thought it would come, Microsoft is getting ready to release the next version of it’s operating system to the public with an open albeit limited release (only 2.5 million downloads will be available tomorrow (1/9/2009)). I’m sure though, that creative minds will be able to find a copy if they think hard enough.  (thePirateBay.org, isohunt.com)

One of the more exciting things to note about the upcoming beta is that it’s slated to expire in August, 2009, meaning that either: another version of the Beta is slated for the end of the year, or, as a much more exciting option, Windows 7 will be released in time for Christmas.  I’m tempted to put my money on the second option due to the failure that Vista represents.

We’ll see how things turn out.  Look at the bottom of this post for links to both the Windows 7 beta site, as well as links to articles I fleeced for this information.

UPDATE: According to the Windows 7 main page on Microsoft.com the timeline for the Beta release is sometime in the afternoon.  I would assume this means about 2 or 3 Pacific time (-8 GMT).  With the download restriction set I would assume that this means there are going to be a lot of people hitting the sight all day tomorrow, just waiting for the link to pop-up.  I’ll post the time that it actually comes up as soon as I notice it.

Links:

• Windows 7 Beta Site
• Ballmer Doesn't Excite But Delivers the Goods – PCMag
• Ballmer Announces Windows 7 Public Beta, Live Essentials
• Microsoft’s Ballmer Announces Availability of Windows 7 Beta and Windows Live
  

Windows Live Writer Test

This is at test of the new Windows Live Writer that I downloaded to easily write posts to my blog.

We’ll see how this ends up working out.