Microsoft Surface, part 1

Like the rest of the blogging world (Scoble, ScottGu, Sam Gentile to name a few), I’m assimilating the possibilities of this new Microsoft technology.

( in fact, I think I’m making Microsoft sound like a not-so-bad version of the Borg - They are characterized by relentless pursuit of targets for assimilation, their collective consciousness that enables rapid adaptability to almost any defense, and the ability to continue functioning properly despite seemingly devastating blows. They have become a powerful symbol in popular culture for any juggernaut against whom “resistance is futile.” - couldn’t resist that quote)

I’ve just gone to the Microsoft Surface site and found that its using, wait for it, Adobe Flash Player 9.

Beta or not, Silverlight should have been used here - when you use your own products, it inspires confidence in your customer base ( in Microsoft’s case, .Net developers).

And I like the logo. Its in similar vein to  the Silverlight one. The new, high tech, sci-fi like logos Microsoft are now using show how Microsoft is positioning itself to ride these new technologies into the future and guarantee its continued existence. Just a thought.

Amazon.co.uk

Just bought some stuff from Amazon.co.uk and it reminded me of this comic:

 Another Pending Lawsuit for Amazon.com

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PodTech:Zoho Notebook demoed

Thought I’d post this as a follow up to my recent Google post (Google Notebook came up in my list of improvement for google to make).

Desktop Search

By spectacular accident today, both my keyboard and mouse died for some damned reason I still can’t figure out. Maybe it was the KVM switch? Maybe it was the tea that spilt over my desk and slowly dripped onto said switch?  In any case, I went out to buy a new keyboard and mouse since a headless desktop PC is effectively useless. While out shopping I picked up a new DVD drive to complement my other one that no longer plays DVD right. I got Nero Essentials 7 with it. I did a full install ( since I do have the drive space).

And lo and behold a desktop search box appears in my taskbar. Its called Nero Scout. I thought this was interesting since the Desktop Search space has already got Microsoft and Google bumping heads.

According to the Nero Website:

Nero Scout is a unique media database application that provides instant access to your media files from any Nero application, Windows Explorer, and many standard Windows applications.

Hmm… a media database???Right.

Now I can’t vouch for either of the the above mention desktop search programs since I haven’t used any of them yet (I do have Desktop Search installed on Windows home Server and Scout is still indexing), but this looks interesting. If it goes wrong, Scout has the potential to get really irritating.

Here’s hoping it goes right….

Interesting Comparison

Frank at pseudorandom has this to say:

Since Bush took office, the Canadian dollar is up 39.76 percent. When you consider that Canada has a comparable (though much smaller) economy, a comparable standard of living, a border that’s essentially open to most trade, and a higher level of government services, this becomes an amazing statistic. It’s what happens when one government runs budget surpluses year after year, while its neighbor, after briefly running a budget surplus under one president, begins running unprecedented budget deficits under his successor.

Never thought of it that way.

Two things I’d like Google to Do

Just a short post while I’m thinking about this.

Number 1 - Integrate your winning search engine into Google Reader

The number of times I’ve read something and forget from which feed or when I read it is unbelievable. I have to go trawling though my feeds BY HAND!!!!! looking for it. Its a hit or miss affair with a less than 50% success rate. Very frustrating.

Thus I have to either post items to my Link blog ( you’ll see it in my side bar) or star it. Neither of which are substitutes for a good search facility.

It would do wonders for my blogging !

Number 2 - Integrate Google Notebook into Google Reader

Again, a good tool for bloggers.

Right now I have a ton of stuff about Microsoft/aQuantive waiting to be blogged about. And it would do so much to help if the notes pointed to the original material instead of to Google Reader ( I use the Explorer extension to right click and add  the selection to my Notebook)

While we’re on the subject, Google might want to add a “Share” feature to post stuff from your Notebook to your shared Items feed. Its such a pain when you come across something worth sharing and its NOT in Google Reader

(this is turning into more than two things, but hey, I’m helping improve things)

Number 3 - Make it easy for bloggers NOT on Blogger to work with Google Reader

But this I mean the “Add to Google” button that bloggers use. Mine either flat disappears or doesn’t work. And I can’t remember the page where you get them from ( I DO remember that it took me an age to find in the first place).

Secondly, work with other blogging engine to get them to allow users to add a clip of their shared items to their blog. My solution at the moment isn’t nearly as good as what Google provides via JavaScript ( making it impossible to add to WordPress).

Number 4 - Allow us to see how many people subscribe to our shared items feed

For no reason than this would be really cool.

In fact, this plays into Google’s hands. the more people add an items to their link blog, the more popular the item is. And the more people subscribe to a link blog, the more authority  that link blog has, thus helping Google better rank items shared. In short, its the RSS/Atom version of their PageRank system.

Update 1:

Maybe Google should make a new acquisition:

Joke apart, Google Notebook is really an online yellow sticky, while Zoho’s Notebook is a full-featured multimedia application to create, aggregate, share, collaborate on just about any type of content easily, be it text, database, spreadsheet, image, drawings, audio, video - you name it.  The only thing the two “Notebooks” share is the name, otherwise they simply play in different leagues.  I tend to agree with Read/WriteWeb:  “Zoho Notebook offered different things than Microsoft OneNote and more things than Google Notebook.“

Did Someone say something about DRM-Free Music?

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Windows Home Server AntiVirus

I’m following up my previous post on this.

I left a comment on McAffe CEO David DeWalt’s blog (great blog, if you ask me) asking about a WHS version of McAffe Antivirus.

I just received an email reply from Customer Services (they prefer me not to post it). Although they do not have a home-use version at the moment, they will consider it if future demand dictates. Which means I’ll have to go to the Small and Medium Business section to buy it.

I’d like to congratulate McAffe for their great response and customer service (Even though I’m not a customer, yet). Which brings me to the latest post at the Security Insights Blog:

McAfee’s goal is to help our customers protect what they value. Everyone - parents, small businesses, Fortune 500 enterprises, government agencies - have information and assets that they value. And McAfee is here to help you protect them. But what about McAfee? What do we as a company value? Clearly, our employees rise to the top of that list. The more than 3,800 of us are the heart and soul of McAfee.

Of course, our customers are just as critical to us, as are those who have chosen to trust in us as an investment - our shareholders. McAfee is a partner-focused company, so the thousands of companies with whom we partner are indispensable to our success. Our suppliers provide us with the necessary tools we need to operate. Finally, we value our communities-including our natural environment and our local neighborhoods-for these are where we live and work.

And that’s how I like to demystify “corporate responsibility” from confusing buzzwords we read in the media to real meaning within a company. At McAfee, our approach to corporate responsibility simply involves our commitments to protecting what we value: our employees, customers, shareholders, partners, suppliers, and communities. With that introduction, welcome to the Corporate Responsibility thread of our corporate blog.

You’re on the right track…

Windows Home Server and SageTV

There is quite a bit of news about WHS floating around this week.

Rick at One Man Shouting has this to say:

Lots of Software partner announcements as well.  The most interesting in my opinion is the SageTVintegration.  Basically you can pump all your media to your Home Server, including PVR functionality, and use simple extenders to deliver your content anywhere. I’m not sure if SageTV allows for live TV watching, but it’d be awesome to move to a model where the only TV tuners in the home were connected to the Home Server, and all your channels and saved content were available to any TV, PC, or portable device.

Wish I’d thought of that. It makes great sense. And since my Server is in the Office/TV Room adding a tuner or two and hooking it up to the ariel would be trivial. Not sure if SageTV works in the UK with Freeview or not but its definately something worth investigating.

The SageTV website has this to say:

Enjoy all your TV, Video, Music or Photos anytime, anywhere using SageTV Placeshifter to connect to your Windows Home Server from any broadband connection

Connect your TVsat home to SageTV on Windows Home Server with SageTV Media Extender

Handles nearly every Video, Music and Photo format

Works with Cable, Satellite and Broadcast TV around the world including NTSC, ATSC, PAL and DVB

Now if I can just get the Antivirus sorted out…

Here is the Press Release

A flicker from Flickr

I’m not a Flicker user myself but this story totally makes me want to stay away:

Rebekka is a single mom and art student living in Iceland. She’s an artist and a talented one at that. She does amazing things with her camera. Recently she discovered that a gallery Only-Dreemin had been ripping her off. They’d sold thousands of dollars worth of her images and when she caught them and tried to make them give her the money that they stole from her they refused. So Rebekka did what anyone with a following on the internet might do and she posted about her frustration and plight on her flickrstream. And her story resonated loudly with the flickr community. Her story made the front page of digg and by days end she had 100,000 views on this particular photograph with hundreds of supportive comments.

So what’s got me pissed today? What’s got me pissed today is that according to Rebekka, Flickr has removed her image from their site. That’s right. Not only did they remove and kill her image and her *non-violent* words of protest, but they censored each and every one of us who commented on her photograph, who offered support to Rebekka, who shared in her frustration by wiping every single one of our comments off the face of the internet forever.

That is bad. So Microsoft is not the only “evil” tech giant…

Help out by lending your support: Digg Thomas Hawk’s post.