Microsoft Rips Page from Google Playbook
Ripping a page from the Google playbook, Microsoft have stepped up to compete with Google Apps for Your Domain by offering you a free Office Live Basics website and communications portal.
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Top Ten Reasons I Hate My MacBook Pro
Yesterday we discussed the Top Ten Reasons I Love my MacBook Pro and today, to be fair, we look at the darker side of the MacBook Pro in the definitive Top Ten List of Hates:
1. Heat: The 17-inch MacBook I have runs hot. Because the case is made of metal the heat goes directly from inside the machine to the case and outside right to your hands. I don’t mind the heat so much but, compared to my other Windows laptops made of plastic, I wonder if this burning MacBook metal is a better or worse sensation or if my wondering is merely being sensational.
2. Whine: It seems many MacBook Pros have an annoying high-pitched whine that Apple cannot seem to fix or even make it clear if they think the problem exists or not. I don’t mind the whine so much — many blame it on the new Intel chip in the MacBook Pros and Intel blames Apple and Apple says nothing — because I always have iTunes playing, the TV is on, the radio is turned up and my Vornado fans are blowing full blast. My poor cat, however, refuses to sit on my lap now. The whine hurts his ears and in a quiet room it hurts mine, too. I can’t imagine using this MacBook Pro in a library where quiet is the mandate of the day: I’d be tossed out on my dual-core.
Thirty Billion Dollar Buffett Buffet
Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, announced over the weekend he was giving Bill Gates’ foundation $31 billion dollars, thus creating a charitable buffet like no other in history.
With $61 billion dollars in the till, the Gates Foundation will be able to do even more good in the fight to cure health and humanity issues the world over by creating a deeper dedication to healing the immense suffering in the urban human core and in bringing hope and satiety to smaller rural communities in Africa and Asia.
Bill Gates Buys a Life
I am a Bill Gates fan. I think he is prescient. He is valuable. He blazes a bright path in the dark where others fear to tread.
He’s also smart enough to know nothing lasts forever — except for infamy and shame — and his decision to leave Microsoft on his own terms and on his own timetable demonstrates he knows how to do the right thing even if it may bring him personal heartbreak of purpose and insecurity of mind.
Older Fatter Uglier and Younger Slimmer Prettier
Is it just me or are the new, hilarious, television commercials for the new Apple MacBooks some kind of weird semiotic take on the caricatures of Bill Gates at Microsoft and Steve Jobs at Apple?
Windows machines are older, fatter and uglier than the younger, slimmer, prettier MacBook?
Or are the commercials a more direct shiv up the backs of Windows users who may not be as cool as their Mac brethren?
Or is this a more specific personal poke in the eye with a sharp barb from the Apple Boot Camp through the dawning Windows Vista?
The series of commercials are funny and they tell a succinct story — but the dark undertow beneath the raging rapids of laughter might tell us more about the real semiotic embedded in the subliminal Apple corps advertising.
An Apple Through the Windows: My MacBooks Review
Last week in my article, MacBook Questions from a Windows Heathen, I asked some questions about the new MacBook line of laptops from Apple computing. I have been using Windows computers since the rise of Windows 3.11.
My previous experience with Apple has been limited to the first generation Newton which I loved so much that Apple used a quote of mine in a press conference but without attributing it to me or asking my permission. I had posted on a CompuServe forum explaining why the Newton was “touching the future today.”
I believed in that technology then and the Apple Newton set the stage and started the trend for personalized, portable computing now. I have also used a first generation iPod and I have used iTunes and QuickTime.
I don’t know much about Apple computers so if there are some things in this review you do not understand or that are wrong, please let me know. After using the MacBook for a couple of days, my plan was to make a permanent move away from Windows and become a MacBoy today and forever. I will let you know my decision about moving from Windows to Mac at the conclusion of this article.
One of the great things about the new Intel-powered MacBooks is you can dual boot into Windows and Mac OS X on the same machine so you, in theory anyway, do not have to make a choice of Operating System preference.
Continue reading → An Apple Through the Windows: My MacBooks Review
Do You Trust Gmail?
Are you concerned about Gmail violating your privacy? Do you have a method for routinely backing up your Gmail account? Do you trust Gmail?
When Gmail started two years ago I thought the idea of having a free, giant, email account was divine and I paid someone on eBay $40 to get one of the first Gmail invitations.
PowerPoint Pins Penned Paper
In the past month I have had three Thank You “notes” emailed to me as a single-slide PowerPoint presentation.
Have you ever received a PowerPoint “Thank You” or have you created one?
Public Private Peer Review and Microsoft Word
If you aren’t aware by now how Microsoft Word saves all revision and review information as a matter of its default behavior, then you need to know any interaction you have with a Word document of your creation — or if you are reviewing someone else’s Word document — does not protect your identity unless you interactively remove your private information.
You can imagine how this Word feature/problem is haunting for those
unaware of its nefarious power. This Word document tracking issue
played a role in the ramp up for the War in Iraq:
Back in February 2003, 10 Downing Street published a
dossier on Iraq’s security and intelligence organizations. This dossier
was cited by Colin Powell in his address to the United Nations the same
month. Dr. Glen Rangwala, a lecturer in politics at Cambridge
University, quickly discovered that much of the material in the dossier
was actually plagiarized from a U.S. researcher on Iraq. Blair’s
government made one additional mistake: they published the dossier as a
Microsoft Word file on their Web site. When I first heard from Dr.
Rangwala about the dossier, I decided to try to learn who had worked on
the document. I downloaded the Word file containing the dossier from
the 10 Downing Street Web site (http://www.number-10.gov.uk/) and found the following revision log in the file…
Continue reading → Public Private Peer Review and Microsoft Word
41 High Priority Updates
Yesterday I pulled through my collection of IBM ThinkPads to see which ones worked and which ones needed an update to start working again.
I found my old ThinkPad T40p with its massive — at that time — 40gig HDD that I used two years ago and ran into the ground with heavy usage.
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