• Horrible email - Only two accounts that the phone will actively check, and those get reset every couple of days so you are messing with the email settings constantly. One of the main reasons I got this phone was so I could type better with the full keyboard. Lots more issues with email that I don't want to spend more time on. Just understand that getting email right on this phone should have been the number one concern for Nokia and they failed.
• Music - The interface for email is clunky at best. I use music on my iPhone constantly. I literally only used the music player on the E71 once to test it. The plug for the headphones is on the side making the E71 awkward in your pocket. The sooner phone makers realize that a quality music player is paramount to taking iPhone market share the better off they will be.
• Web browser - You don't realize how good the iPhones is until you go back to the 1990s style browser included on this thing. Admittedly, it is probably better than other phones but that doesn't make it usable. I had issues accessing one site in particular that made my life very difficult because it wouldn't render a scrollbar?
• User Interface - This is another area where they lose me. If I pulled out my old ass Treo 300 and compared it to the E71 I wouldn't be able to choose which one is newer (except the Treo is black and white). Again the bar has been raised by new phones in this regard and the user interface shouldn't be so business user rigid (even if that is the target audience). My suggestion is to hire a graphic designer who knows what they are doing and tell the engineers they aren't in charge of the look anymore.
• Battery Life/Charging - The batter life wasn't great. Charging the phone required a propriety cable when the phone also had a USB port. I only want to carry around one cable with me. Now when I travel I bring my laptop to charge my phone not a charger just for my phone. I also went out and bought a dock for this thing, that would only charge if one cable was plugged in at once. I'm not sure if that is the phone or docks fault. But Nokia didn't offer a dock - this was offered by a third party. I miss by Nokia to make money and have a better user experience.

• Jack Bauer once stepped into quicksand. The quicksand couldn't escape and nearly drowned.


• There are two hands that can beat a royal flush. Jack Bauer's right hand and Jack Bauer's left hand.


• When someone asked Jack Bauer if he was afraid of James Bond, he replied "What does 'afraid' mean?"


• The city of Los Angeles once named a street after Jack Bauer in gratitude for his saving the city several times. They had to rename it after people kept dying when they tried to cross the street. No one crosses Jack Bauer and lives.


• It takes you 24 weeks just to watch what Jack Bauer does in a single day.


• Most people would need months to recover from 20 months of Chinese interrogation. Jack Bauer needs a shower, a shave and a change of clothes.


• If Jack Bauer had been a Spartan the movie would have been called "1".


• Some people see the glass as half full. Others see it as half empty. Jack Bauer see the glass as a deadly weapon.


• When a convicted terrorist was sentenced to face Jack Bauer, he appealed to have the sentence reduced to death.


• Jack Bauer was once charged with attempted murder in Los Angeles County, but the judge dropped all charges because Jack Bauer never "attempts" murder.


• Jack Bauer once showed up late for work. CTU adjusted their clocks accordingly.


• Jack Bauer never retreats, he just attacks in the opposite direction.


• Jack Bauer's sperm come in 9mm, .40, and 12 gauge slug.


• If Jack Bauer gives you his word that you'll get your deal, then he really means it. Unless you killed David Palmer. Then you're fucked.


• When bad things happen to good people, its probably fate. When bad things happen to bad people, it?s probably Jack Bauer.


• There are three leading causes of death among terrorists. The first two are Jack Bauer, and the third one is heart attack from hearing Jack Bauer is coming for them.


• On Jack Bauer's Tax Returns, he has to claim the entire world as his dependents.


• Once, someone tried to tell Jack Bauer a "knock knock" joke. Jack Bauer found out who was there, who they worked for, and where the goddamned bomb was.


• When Jack Bauer was told smiling increases your face value, he said not speaking increases your life span.


• Withholding information from Jack Bauer is now classified as a suicide attempt.

As we enter the final few months of 2008, I want to thank you for your continued confidence in ING DIRECT. Over 700,000 new Savers have joined us so far this year strengthening the bank and their own financial footing through our savings, home mortgage and ShareBuilder investment accounts. Despite a challenging economic climate, our Customer base is 7 million strong and growing.

The consequences of the mortgage meltdown on financial institutions and individuals continue to erode many Americans? dreams. We will continue to stress the right way to achieve home ownership ? buying only as much house as you can afford and paying off your mortgage as fast as possible. In return for good credit and prioritizing home investment, ING DIRECT mortgage Customers are rewarded with exceptional rates and a transparent, direct administration process. Rather than selling your mortgage to another bank or investor the minute you get it, we keep your mortgage and service it here. Doing so gives us flexibility to find innovative solutions to help Customers keep their homes during unexpected financial downturns.

While we don?t have an Orange crystal ball, we do expect the economy to remain fragile through 2009. The best course of action for our Customers is to be disciplined: avoid splurging; identify and cut out unnecessary expenses and save for what?s essential; and hedge against those tough times. We can all benefit by developing good spending habits: confront - and cut up - credit cards; use your home as a savings vehicle - not as an ATM; and establish and contribute regularly to an IRA or 401(k).

In this difficult financial environment, we work tirelessly to safeguard your deposits, mortgages and investments. Importantly, your deposits are FDIC-insured according to its limits and your investments are SIPC-protected. Our security processes are the best in the business and are in place to protect your savings from those with bad intentions. While we are constantly vigilant, we need your help. Keep passwords to yourself. Never give personal information through an email. And always install both the latest antivirus and anti-malware software on your home computer.
ING Ball

Thank you for your continued trust in
ING DIRECT. We will not waver in our promise to provide you with great value, service, security and convenience.

Arkadi Kuhlmann
CEO of Savings

?We have devoted significant resources to this project: Over 200 engineers and 50 designers are working on the Volt alone, and another 400 are working on related subsystems and electric components. That?s how important we think this is, and that?s how much stock we place in the future of extended-range electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt.?

? Tony Posawatz, Vehicle Line Director ? E-Flex Systems and the Chevy Volt, General Motors Corp

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.
The music won't last

Do you run through each day
On the fly?

When you ask: How are you?
Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done,
do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?

You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.
The music won't last.

Ever told your child,
We'll do it tomorrow?

And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die

Cause you never had time
To call and say, "Hi"?

You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.
The music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift thrown away.

Life is not a race.
Do take it slower.

Hear the music.
Before the song is over.

---- Original Message ----

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

This site is so slow it is unusable.

It wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.

These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.

They are not filtered by the system ... and so many of the things are strange.

I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).

I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.

I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.

In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?

So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.

Doesn't Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?

Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.

This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.

So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn't use it for anything else during this time.

What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.

Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?

So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.

So I got back up and running and went to Windows Updale again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.

So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.

What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.

So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.

At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.

So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like "Open" or "Save". No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.

The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.

So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.

It is not there.

What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.

Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.

What an absolute mess.

Moviemaker is just not there at all.

So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.

I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.

I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.

I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.

So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package.

The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don't you just love that root certificate message?)

When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.

Tess Vigeland: Drive south from Sacramento where I met the Goslins and you're in what's often referred to as America's salad bowl -- mile after mile of verdant green farmland.

It's also the epicenter of the housing mess. Stockton, California has the highest default rate in the nation.

Keep heading down I-5 and you'll hit the town of Patterson, population 20,000. But despite its rural setting, it boasts the same kind of subdivisions you see in major metropolitan areas and as of a couple of years ago, the same kind of prices.

Dan Sinclair: Hey Esme, you comin'?

Vigeland: That's Dan Sinclair. He's a 43-year-old systems analyst who lives in Patterson with his wife Esmeralda and their three small children.

We were heading out on a walk around his neighborhood. Dan wanted to show me just how many homes were for sale or simply abandoned.

Sinclair: All right, so here's a house you can see is in disrepair. I mean, it's not bad, but their lawn is not mowed. That's one of the signs is when the lawn goes dead, you know that people aren't living there anymore.

We only had to go three houses before finding another dried-up lawn with a sign that said "bank-owned." As we rounded a corner, the Sinclairs' neighbors got up from their front porch and asked what we were doing.

Larry and Kathy Fiddler have lived here since the development went up four years ago.

Larry Fiddler: It's a shadow of its former self, really. Everybody's gone just about but five of us.

Vigeland: What's happened to your home value?

Fiddler: It's gone down probably 35 or 40 percent.

Larry says they plan to stick around. He's confident new residents will move in as prices drop. For a while he and Kathy mowed the lawns of nearby empty houses... until there were too many.

Fiddler: Well, that one there just recently... I think they vacated it.

Vigeland: Are these foreclosure here?

Fiddler: That one is, that one is, this one next door, that one there, so yeah, we're pretty much surrounded.

Kathy Fiddler: Kind of a little ghost town... little ghost street.

We continued on to the next ghost street where the Sinclair's house is. They've watched it all happen and they might be next.

They bought their house three years ago. It's 3,600 square feet, including a four-car garage and a pool. Their purchase price: $440,000.

Sinclair: But the prices kept going up. At one time, our house was worth over $600,000. In fact, a model just like this they were asking $699,000 -- and now things have entirely collapsed.

A similar house down the street is already in foreclosure and the bank is entertaining offers for under $200,000.

The Sinclairs stopped paying their mortgage in October when the payment jumped from $3,000 a month to $4,000. Now they're basically squatting in their own home, living there for free.

It's happening all over the country because mortgage companies and bankruptcy courts are so backlogged, nobody's sending the sheriff to kick people out.

The Sinclairs say they never meant for this to happen, but Esmeralda lost her job and a third child was on the way.

Sinclair: We had to start making some hard choices, which included going into foreclosure on our house and kind of starting again. We're midway through the process, about a six to eight month process and we kind of have a plan of attack. If plan A doesn't work, we go to B, C and D.

Plan A is asking the mortgage company to lower the principle they owe on the house, something Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has suggested to the banking industry.

Plan B: Try for a short sale.

Plan C: Just walk away.

Plan D: Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Many of the current government proposals call for reductions in interest rates. Dan says even that wouldn't be enough:

Sinclair: If they reduced our interest rate back to 4.25, we might be able to make the payments, but I don't think we're going to.

Vigeland: Now, why not?

Sinclair: We would do it if the equity was there, but in a case where we're already so behind... Imagine that for five years, say, we're gonna pay four grand a month and then we're just gonna be back up at what we bought the house for. We feel like we're throwing away money.

The Sinclairs say they want to take responsibility for their debts, but right now it makes more financial sense not to.

Sinclair: I mean, you ask a good question. Is it really the right thing to do to let the mortgage companies take up the difference? That's a really tough ethical question.

Dan says he experienced the various stages of grief, including denial and anger. Now he's just relieved.

Sinclair: We went through months of being skinflints, because we knew that we were going into the red, so we didn't buy anything. All the sudden, we had a bank full of money and we're living rent-free, but we know that's not really our money.

Vigeland: How does that feel?

Esmeralda Sinclair: Great! Like he said, we were so tight with money...

Dan: It does feel great, because all the sudden, we feel like we have a little margin now where we can go out to dinner, get a babysitter...

Vigeland: But you're not paying your mortgage. You're not paying the biggest obligation you have. How does that feel good?

Esmeralda: We already went through the guilt. his is really what we need to do, not what we wanted to do, but what we need to do.

And they say they are paying a price. They're losing their home, most likely and their credit is shot.

Esmeralda: It's also our dream that's just not there anymore. Everybody dreams about owning a house, having a house and now it's gone.

Vigeland: But not everybody would think that they should get into a 3,000 square foot house.

Dan: Yes, you're right...

Esmeralda: ...and that's taught us a lesson.

Vigeland: Their next home, the Sinclairs say, will be a much smaller one.

Last week while I was on vacation apple was nice enough to release it's SDK.   Today it came out that so far 100,000 developers have downloaded it.  I have to admit that that is a very high percentage of people interested in this space.  So much potential is sceen that a venture capital company is investing tons in the space.  

All I can compare it to is when OSX Widgets came out.  It was this great platform to have a small piece of web based content (mostly web based) on your desktop at all times.  Years later they have 3,497 dashboard widgets available for download.  That really isn't that many.   For me I used them a couple of times but mostly they just sat around and didn't get used.  I used the standard ones that apple provided.  Calculator, calander and weather are what I use.

On the iPhone it's the same thing.  My iPhone is hacked so I have had the abilty to install applications on my phone for months now.  What do I use?  The standard apps, a couple of games and themes.   The themes are something I am sure apple won't keep because they are all about controlling the user interface.  Standard apps are wonderful, they do what they should and do it well.  And games, well they are games.  Not for productivity but nice to pass the time.  My favorite is the NES emulator.  Games from circa 1990!

The only thing missing is a quality email system.  The email application is by far the biggest dissapointment on the iPhone.  But it seems that they are working on that by licensing software from microsoft.

Besides the ones I've already mentioned and web based (safari) applications what is left?  What do these 100,000 people plan on building that is going to make me spend my money on the application?  What can I not live without on my phone?

Anyone that really knows me knows that I can't handle waiting for things.  At the same time I am a total techno weenie and love to research things online to know I am getting the best deals.  Most of the time those deals are online only deals.  Meaning you have to pay shipping and then wait the 7-10 business days for it.  My impatience usually outweighs the deal I could be getting - unless the deal is superb.  I would rather drive to pick something up and have it right away then wait to save $5 bucks in price.

The combination of the web/instore world is huge for me.  Some retailers are doing it well, Bestbuy, Walmart and Target are a few.  You browse those sites and have the option to add-to-cart (online) or find instore (local).  Some even let you buy online then pick up instore which is awesome.  

This is a huge opportunity, even for the businesses that don't make sense to sell online (are there any?).  You get a 24 hour salesman that lets people shop and compare from a couch or desk not taking up floor space.  I think a lot of people now realize that having a e-commerce site is benefitial but not that many are moving in this next step direction.  Think of the gap.  They have this great web site and tons of retail locations.  Not only do you help the impatient people like me get the instant gratification but if they are like puma and have specific inventory for e-comm you can save the sale.  The sweater I want isn't available in medium online but 3 miles down the road they have it.  That saves me from potentially going to a competitor and makes me happy because what the online retailer couldn't offer I could still (easily) purchase.  That is business inteligence that needs to be given to the consumer.  

However, this isn't easy to accomplish.  You need to have a real-time insight into your inventory.  Most IT departments aren't that innovative and will not volunteer for more work.  You need to have good photos of the products which isn't cheap but can pay off huge dividends.

If you are a retailer and are not investing in a real-time inventory system and a great web presence you should be.  Otherwise you'll probably be closing down soon.  If you need help especially with the web presence talk to these guys they are wicked smaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrt. 

Now what I would love to see is a product search engine that lets me search retailers I can drive to.  Right now craigslist is my closest option.  That has all used stuff and people that think they should get the $1000 they paid for the 386 computer ten years ago, today.  If I do a google search I get ebay and nextag every time, even when I search with a product number. Sounds like a good business idea!  Anyone know if this exists yet?   Maybe I am just in the minority.

this is beyond frustrating. the celtics are playing right now. They are shown on comcast sportsnet here in new england. Not some mom and pop tv station - the company that I drop an assload of money on every month for television service runs this channel. and lots has been made about comcast not covering road games in HD. Tonight's NBATV game of the night is showing on 881 and guess what it is boston versus clevelend. Great news. I watched the pregame with stupid ass talking heads hyping up the game then at 7PM when the game is supposed to start the screen freezes. I can change the channel then go back to it and no matter what the screen freezes when I put it to 881. The NBATV game is obviously beeing blacked out.

Lets start a petition for A) comcast spend a little money and get the games in HD or B) the celtics sell the broadcasting rights to NESN. I mean NESN gets every bruins game in HD - and nobody cares about them!

I'm paying for HD tv programming, watching anything especially sports in non-HD is not pretty. I don't even know who has the ball unless it is Scal!

I wanted to look up how much space you are given to park in boston around certain obsticles...it's really hard to find detailed information at least I couldn't find much. It looks mostly like it is grey area like no chance in hell do people give 10 feet around fire hydrants. It must all be up to the mood of the friendly parking attendant. We'll see tomorrow when I come out to my mini next which is parked next to a ramp, not covering the ramp but the sidewalk has started to slope.

Here are the laws I found:

Parking regulations are generally determined by state law but are enforced by local cities and towns. If you are parking in a business or residential district, you must position your vehicle within 12 inches of the curb, except where angled parking is allowed. Parking spaces on roadway edges are often marked by white road lines. You must park your vehicle between these lines, not straddling two spaces. In Massachusetts, you may not park your vehicle in certain places:

• In a zone posted with a NO PARKING, NO STANDING, or NO STOPPING sign
  
• In a bus stop or taxi stand
  
• In a zone and at a time posted for street cleaning
  
• In a posted loading zone
  
• Within 20 feet of an intersection
  
• In a crosswalk, in front of a driveway, or in front of a handicap-access ramp
  
• In a zone posted for HP-DV parking only (disabled person plates or placards, disabled
  veteran plates). Violating this parking regulation carries a heavy fine.
  
• Within ten feet of a fire hydrant or fire lane
  
• On a sidewalk, curb, center traffic island, or median
  
• During a weather or roadway emergency
  
• Facing the wrong way against traffic
  
• On a state or an interstate highway, unless authorized
  
• On a roadway in a rural area or outside a thickly settled district
  
• In a traffic lane next to a row of parked vehicles (“double parked”)
  
• To make nonemergency repairs to your vehicle
  

They were buried in a PDF file so I figured I would post them as something easier to find.

UPDATE: no testing the system tonight.  the spot in front of mine opened up and I pulled the mini up 

Microsoft is showing its age yet again. Today microsoft demoed its latest creation "popfly". It's a web mashup tool for the laymen. That's all great and all but you've already got people in this space. You've got more efficient companies doing everything microsoft is trying to start in these days.  Microsoft you can talk all the talk you want but you are becoming more and more irrelevant.

Even better Steve Ballmer went on to discuss how google wasn't as good as they seemed and how great other companies that have grown up are. Sounds to me like that old IT guy who has been at a company too long telling me how I can't change things to make them more efficient because the status quo is how they do things.

Silverlight - a new plugin that hits home for me won't fail (Man I hope it does fail) because it isn't solid technology but because it got to the game so late. I'm sure they will shove it down peoples throat with an update for vista (which no one should install) to get the market penentration. By waiting so long to get into this game you have to start fresh with getting web developers to adopt. Adobe has a huge lead in this part and I don't know any flash developers that are looking for work...most are beating it away with a stick. The good ones are at least. Earlier I said I hope it fails because we as web developers already have hundreds of other choices for scripting and backend coding, which is a very bad thing. I'd love to just stick with one choice for animations on the web. If the development environment costs an extra fifty bucks that is fine with me. This is one category were I think competition is bad.

Another anti-microsoft thing happend to me recently. I got presented with a web platform that is built in ASP.NET and maintained by 100 or so developers (yes I said 100). Costs a couple of millions bucks a year to maintain. Plus they use a bunch of vendors for what seems to me to be standard platform functions. Give me half those resources and build it in java and you've got something so flexible and scalable that it would blow this platform out of the water. Real men code in Java!

This is a little late but I got the iphone last weekend. I unlocked it for t-mobile using iFuntastic and following these steps. It took me about an hour total and that was mostly in researching the different ways to do it.

After a week of use I would say it is worth every penny. And worth the risk of not being able to use it after apples next upgrade.

My only regret is only getting the 4GB. My guess is they are coming out with a 16GB version soon anyways.

Update: I sold my unlocked 4G for a bit of a profit to finance the 8GB version.  Looks like I waited a bit too long to do that.  The new iPhone I got was running the latest version of software (1.1.1) and unlockable....at least for a while it was.  Worst week and a half of my life!  Once you go iPhone you don't go back.  But after using it a bit longer it seems to me that apple released it a bit prematurely.

I've been trying to decide if I want to join the tons of others out in the iweb commenting on apple's news this week.  I guess I will because I have comments on most of the news items...

Selfishly: Now I can get the iPhone equivelent minus the phone without giving out my first born to AT&T.  I'm still not sure which one I am going to get but I am sure it won't be the weird looking nano or the soon to be extinct classic.

Businesswise: The most exciting thing about this for me as a web guy is how many more hands we can get a qualified mobile browser into.  Anyone who has every tried or investigated building something for the mobile platform has been overwhelmed by the different requirements of each phone.  Now with Safari you can take your knowledge of programming on the web and apply it to a mobile platform.  Trust me it will be huge.

An article has come out saying "Apple is the new Microsoft" than that same publication came out with "Why Apple isn't the new Microsoft".  It's all crap.  Microsoft is a great company yes they do have a bit of evil in them lately but they are responsible for a lot of good in the computer industry.  The guy in the first article is stating that apple bundling the iPhone with Safari is being monopolistic.  If an iPhone didn't come with a browser then any customer would be pissed.   Same thing Microsoft did except for the fact Apple has no competition for a browser that would work on the iPhone.  Microsoft did have  competition when they were bundling browsers, but why would any business promote the competition?  You don't.  If Netscape (ya they are dead now, but they were the competition at the time) should have gotten into the OS business and bundled its browser if it really wanted it to succeed. 

Open letter from Steve Jobs and the following response from some idiot.  Not much I can say about this.  Apple is being very gracious in giving a $100 rebate, something they didn't need to do.  If that guy could have bought the phone when they first announced it in January for $1000 I bet he would have.  The early adopters payed gladely, they lined up overnight, apple sold millions that first weekend.  If you asked anyone who actually bought an iPhone that weekend if they thought it was worth the money I'm sure you would, in most cases, get a resounding "YES".  I certainly understand why people can be upset about the cost change but apple is trying to make it right.  You run the risk of anything electronic loosing its value when you buy it, that is why you don't think of anything electronic as an investment, you think of it as something that you will get use out of.  Its a hard lesson to learn. One that I am still learning!

All and All great week for apple marketing wise.  Where I work we are happy with one blog entry, they have millions of voices talking about the news this week.  some good some bad - but it doesn't matter people are talking.

Last friday great news came out of engadget that very soon we would have an unlocked iphone.  Now it looks like because of AT&T's lawyers it isn't going to happen.  At least not for a while.

Here's hoping they at least release the unlock on bittorrent or something.   Although I am sure apple could be forced to release some software update that re-locks the phone.

Ah lawyers.   AT&T you suck.

Did anyone watch this show?  HBO cancelled it after the first season.  I watched all 10 episodes of the show and am utterly confused as to what the hell was going on.  It was like trying to read shakespeare.   Nothing they said made any sense.  The worst part because it was cancelled we will never know what happens!  

The last episode when Luke Perry is sitting talking with John and he asks "Just give it to me straight" all I could think is hallejuiah!   I watched all the episodes but that was with the thought that at some point it would all make sense.

The funny thing check out the comment in this link.  The people are actually saying they got it and we are all just stupid people who didn't get it.  OK then.  Please explain to me why the hell Mitchy was floating.  

Jesus christ.  Jesus christ.  Jesus christ! 

Oh and most of the actors were horrible.  That didn't help.  At least they had a few great surfing scenes.

I've been thinking about this post for a bit (seething)....Why does jet blue suck?

Let's start with the booking process. Now this one could be expedia's fault but somehow I doubt it. I booked the trip on expedia.com. When booking I looked at about 100 different combinations of airtravel to get us in vegas for the longest time. We only went for a bit but I wanted to maximize our time in the city. Most flights didn't arrive in vegas until 10-11PM this jetblue flight went via JFK and arrived at 4PM. Plus it left late on wednesday so we would have all day to party. Not to mention the most leg room in coach and direct TV. So far it sounds great right?

Flight is booked on expedia confirmation from Jet blue never received. So I spend a few days back and forth with Jet Blue and Expedia getting the flights booked. I'm summarizing things here because the rest of the story is so much more ridiculous.

First we get to Logan (Boston) airport in plenty of time for the flight. Enough time even for a detour at the bar. We went over at the proper boarding time only to find out the flight was delayed. No they don't delay it before hand - when obviously if you have an hour delay you could have. So back to the bar we go. To sit and think about how close our connections are and how we could miss it and end up in vegas at 11PM which we tried so hard to avoid. Now I am watching the flight via mobile.jetblue.com. When we go to board no one else is at the terminal and they yell at us for making the flight late. I almost had enough liquid courage to tell the miserable attendant where to stick it but I held my toungue. Yes they were going to leave without us, that is why we sat on the tarmack for another half hour.

Now to JFK. First off I hate New York (mostly a Yankee thing). We arrive at JFK and need to get to a gate three numbers away from where we currently are. Easy right? Wrong. We have to go and get on a bus to take us somewhere we could have walked in three minutes. Sitting with miserable annoying new yorkers on a bus is not my idea of fun. This whole time our next flight has been boarding for at least ten minutes. We make a quick pit stop in the can (disgusting facility) and get in line to board. When we get to the front of the line the bitch taking tickets tells us we need to wait. Sorry we aren't psychic - she is only boarding the back of the plane. When we finally got on the plane there was someone else already sitting next to us, I wonder when they boarded?

That has just been the annoying part of the journey. Now we get to Vegas and have to wait forever at the baggage claim for what never comes. We have a few other people that came on the boston flight who are also missing baggag that are all waiting to talk to the baggage claim personal to take our statement. More waiting....did I mention I hate waiting? So after describing five things that are identifiable in each bag, not as easy as it sounds, we have our estimation from the attendant that the bags will come on the next flight. Not that bad, not that ideal but at least we will only have to buy outfits for one night. So the next morning rolls around and we have no bags. We call again and get hung up on a couple of times and finally talk to someone in the central office who doesn't know where they are but will make sure they are on the next flight. When I talked to her I said that if they don't get on that flight they should just go to boston because we are leaving the next day. She "makes a note in our file" to make sure they call us when the bags our found so we can tell them where to send them. So we are forced to spend more of our time and money to find more outfits to wear.

No one ever calls. When we get back to Boston we go to the baggage office in Logan and ask for a status update. Only to find that the case has been closed. The girl we are talking to it is her first day it seems because she has three people looking over her shoulder to make sure she inputted the right things. She sends an email to vegas to figure out why it was closed. Real helpful.

After another day Tasha figured out that the bags were at our hotel and they got delivered after we checked out on wednesday. She calls Las Vegas baggage and they inform her they will be on the next flight to boston. Nope. Another day no bags. She calls them again, this time with a bit more anger, and is told again that they would be on the next flight back and we are assured a phone call when they are put on the flight. This time it actually happened. We got the bags a quick five days after we flew.

Now supposedly we are getting $25 bucks for each bag each day it is lost. What does that buy you? A pair of underwear and toothpaste? Especially in Vegas where everything is more expensive and where you need to dress daper for all the events you have planned. The part that bugs me the most is the lack of any knowledge of what is going on in the different offices, or in the same offices for that matter. Everytime we called we had to start at square one to describe what happened. More $$ on cell phone minutes. It would be so easy to build a central system to control it all. And you use RFID to take the asset tracking out of the hands of the baggage handlers hands. If you had that system when we first knew our baggage was lost they could say we last saw the bag arriving in JFK and it never got scanned getting onto the plane. And more to that point they could look at this same system before the plane left JFK and said oh we are missing these 10 bags from boston since we are sitting on the tarmack doing nothing lets get on the walky talky and get those bags on the plane. I guess that would take someone with half a brain designing the system?

However, despite it all we still had a blast in vegas! Could have done without the stress but you can't not have fun in vegas.

Update: we got a check for $110 - far less then what we were told it would be.  trying to contact them again.  the saga continues.

Forget a Porsche.  I want one of these. 

The pop-culture icon from the 1980's is making a come-back.

The gullwing doors really sell it for me.  Why can't you get a honda with gullwing doors?    

Unless you have living under a rock lately you will know about the simpsons movie opening today. From a movie preview in Sprinfield, Vermont. Webistes devoted to the movie. Airtime on the news (Fox 25 in boston at least). To tons of commercials during primetime. And everything in-between. Not just recently have they been advertising. For months now I have seen trailers running in basically every movie I go to.

My question is why? With all of the simpsons fans around the world would you even need to advertise. The show has been running for what feels like forever. Most people I know were fans at some point in their life - if they aren't still. And if you are a fan of the show you are at least aware of the movie being out and if you don't already plan on seeing it in the theaters you will at least pick up a DVD.

I guess its one of those things you can't really A/B test to see if it works without the advertising. I think the reason for all the coverage isn't becuase it needs it. More because they can. News corp has been building up its empire for years now. Thoughts of the movie "In Good Company" pop into my head. Where you see the CEO holding his hands together and saying "Synergy". What he meant by this is you use all of your companies working together for one goal. In this case they are trying to force everyone in the world to see this movie.

I wonder what it will be like once News corp gets a hold of The New York Times? They send the paper out one day in the shape of a donut?

I've been trying to Simpsonize myself for days now.... 

The latest Harry Potter book seems to have been leaked via the bittorrent network. It seems that someone got their hands on a copy (American edition) and photographed each page and posted it up.

Despite the price tag of 10 Million pounds the book has been released before its due date. The funny thing is the people that posted the torrent won't make any money off of this (most likely).

My biggest problem with this isn't the piracy of people downloading it without paying for it. I really don't think many people will be downloading this and not buying the real thing. Trying to read a book online is nearly impossible even when it is in e-book format. This is screen shots of each page. Your eyes would need a break every five minutes from trying to focus on that. No my problem is how did these people get a hold of the book before I could buy it? Why are they so special that they get a copy before everyone else?

The story here will be about how the publishing companies have lost all this money due to piracy when in fact they probably haven't lost any. I have an idea for you (and it makes you more money) release the book right when it is produced. Charge a ton for it at first than scale it down....the die hard and rich fans will pay anything for it. But then the people who can't afford it might download it probably...

I won't be downloading. I will wait my four days and get it with everyone else.

More and more lately I have been noticing ridiculous domain names.   For example http://www.237bolton.com/ this is for a house that is for sale in south boston.  I saw that the other day when I was walking around and thought to myself I would check it out.  Now when I went to look for it I first looked for 138bolten.com didn't work.  137bolten.com 136bolten.com 139bolten.com...none of them worked.  I know two parts of the URL are wrong but with my attention span I can't believe I remembered anything at all.

To actually get the URL i went to google maps figured out the correct street name.  Once I had that I went back to trying the 136-139 numbers because I thought that was what it was.   So when none of those worked I went back to google maps and checked again.  After about five minutes I had the correct URL.

This house is listed by remax, a large company (at least in the north east).  Wouldn't it make a whole lot more sense to have a url like http://bolton.southboston.remax.com/ And with the magic of wildcard domains if the url's are miss typed you are directed to properties in south boston or worst case remax.com (which case you could contextually direct them to the correct place).  

Some people say you only have 3-5 seconds to make an impression on a web page...does figuring out where the hell that page is factor into this?

If I wasn't going to use that domain for this post I certainly would not have figured out what the correct URL was.  I sure hope they are also using craigslist otherwise that place will never sell.

The iPhone launches today.  Already it looks to be a massive success.

With this new phone you have to think us iPod people are the ones who are going to take the shaft.   I have loved my different iPod's, I've had four.   I am usually the earliest of early adopters.  I don't like the idea of having the same thing everyone else has.  The iPod I have now I have had for over 1.5 years.  The thing has grey hairs!  For months now I have been waiting to get any kind of update to the current lineup of ipod's.  Now that the iPhone is out it is clear.  The new iPhone is what I have been waiting for.  This is unfortunate because A) I don't want to pay $600 for something I would easily break B) I don't like AT&T and am in the middle of my contract and C) I love my blackberry.    

Without any updates to the current lineup of iPod's I find myself thinking of getting something new.  Perhaps a Zune?  Microsoft sucks but that thing looks pretty cool.

Or maybe I should just go work for apple and get it for free. 

I saw the latest chapter in the Die Hard series last night (opening night!!) and all I can say is thank you.  Thank you for not just making this some cheesy sequal just trying to make money.  Maybe it is just because bruce willis is the man that I loved it.  But I don't think so.

Like all the other die hard movies this one is filled with non stop-adventure.  Only one scene do was totally over the top and unrealistic...much less than what I was expecting.  The plot was decent.  It featured a massive terroist threat that is actually plausable and kind of scary.  The best thing is the sidekick was a hacker, not just any hacker the kid who plays 'mac' in the mac-vs-pc ads (he is wicked funny). 

The only shortcoming I can say is the vilian.  While having a hacker as the hero is appealing having a super technology guy be that evil is just unbelievable.   Of course Bruce saves the movie being the "man" he is.  I won't ruin it for you.  Just see it.  At least netflix it!

P.S. Bruce has been dead the whole die hard series! How else could he make it through all these situations.

Check out the offical Live Free or Die Hard site.

Thanks tiff -

On the first day of school a first grade teacher explains to her class that she is a Yankees fan.

She asks her students to raise their hands if they, too, are Yankees fans.

Wanting to impress their teacher, everyone in the class raises their hand except one little girl.

The teacher looks at the girl with surprise,

"Janie, why didn't you raise your hand?" "Because I'm not a Yankees fan," she replied.

The teacher, still shocked, asked, "Well, if you are not a Yankees fan, then who are you a fan of?"

"I am a Red Sox fan, and proud of it," Janie replied.

The teacher could not believe her ears. "Janie, why pray tell are you a Red Sox fan?"

"Because my mom is a Red Sox fan, and my dad is Red Sox fan, so I'm a Red Sox fan too!"

"Well," said the teacher in a obviously annoyed tone, "that is no reason for you to be a Red Sox fan. You don't have to be just like your parents all of the time. What if your mom were an idiot and your dad were a moron, what would you be then?"

"Then," Janie smiled, "I'd be a Yankees fan."
-----------------------------------------------------

A family of New York Yankee fans headed out one Saturday to shop for the youngest boy's birthday.

While in the sports shop the son picks up a Red Sox jersey and says to his older sister, "I've decided to become a Red Sox fan and I would like this Boston Red Sox jersey for my birthday."

His big sister is outraged by this and promptly whacks him upside his head and says, "Go talk to mother."

Off goes the little lad with the jersey in hand and finds his mother. "Mom?"

"Yes, son?"

"I've decided I'm going to be a Red Sox fan and I would like this jersey for my birthday."

The mother is outraged at this, promptly whacks him around the head and says, "Go talk to your father!"

Off he goes with the Red Sox jersey in hand and finds his father. "Dad?"

"Yes, son?"

"I've decided I'm going to be a Red Sox fan and I would like this jersey for my birthday."

The father is outraged and promptly whacks his son in the back of his head and says, "No son of mine is ever going to be seen in THAT!"

About half an hour later they're all back in the car and heading towards home. The father turns to his son and says "Son, I hope you've learned something today?"

The son says, "Yes, Dad, I have."

"Good! And what is it you learned?"

The son replies, "I've only been a Red Sox fan for an hour and I already hate you Yankee bastards!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Four baseball fans - a Cubs fan, a Cardinals fan, a Red Sox fan, and a Yankees fan - are climbing a mountain and arguing about who loves his team more.

The Cubs fan insists he is the most loyal. "This is for the Cubs!" he yells, and jumps off the side of the mountain.

Not to be outdone, the Cardinals fan shouts, "This is for the Cardinals!" and throws himself off the mountain.

The Red Sox fan is next to profess his love for his team.

He yells, "This is for everyone!" and pushes the Yankees fan off the mountain.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

A Red Sox fan liked to amuse himself by scaring every Yankees fan he saw strutting down the street in an obnoxious NY pinstripe shirt. He would swerve his van as if to hit them, then swerve back just missing them.

One day while driving along, he saw a priest. He thought he would do a good deed, so he pulled over and asked the priest, "Where are you going, Father?"

"I'm going to give Mass at St. Francis church, about two miles down the road," replied the priest.

"Climb in, Father. I'll give you a lift!" The priest climbed into the passenger seat, and they continued down the road.

Suddenly, the driver saw a Yankees fan walking down the road, and he instinctively swerved as if to hit him. But, as usual, he swerved back onto the road just in time.

Even though he was certain that he had missed the guy, he still heard a loud THUD. not knowing where the noise came from, he glanced in his mirrors but still didn't see anything.

He then remembered the priest, and he turned to the priest and said, sorry Father, I almost hit that Yankees fan."

"That's OK," replied the priest "I got him with the door."

My friend Pete wrote the other day about how apple has brought the safari browser to the PC. They also updated most of the pages (working in web development not an easy task) on the various sites. I really understand what this is all about. The iPhono is coming out June 29th. It will be platform independent. All applications on the iPhone run on safari. They are setting themselves up perfectly to have a dominent product that isn't limited to running on just OSX. Like they did with the iPod.

That isn't the point of this post.

As a web developer I have big problems with this. Every new browser that comes along means creating more tweaks for everything to render the way it is supposed to look. Now you might be saying that if the browser is standard compliant it shouldn't be an issue. But the number one browser in the world is the biggest culprit to none standards compliance. I could say "if they don't support the standard then forget them". In the real world this doesn't work. You don't target some standard you target the users.

Just this week I have been battiling an issue in Opera. Not just Opera. Opera version 9.21. Everything worked fine in Opera 9.20. Chasing bugs like this doesn't do much to make the company I work for money. It is just a drain on my productivity and makes the company decide not to support the Opera browser.

Lets start a campaign. No new browsers! Or one rendering engine and you can put whatever pretty border around it you want.

A article on news.com outlines the possibility of repealling the recent law that was passed that banned online gambling.

"In the end, adults ought to be able to decide for themselves how they spend the money they earn themselves," said Rep. Barney Frank

Finally a politician thinking logically.  I understand that some people have gambiling problems.  Its the same thing that Alcholics have to deal with.  I'm sure that during the prohabition days it was a lot easier for Alcholics to stay away from alchol.  Since prohabition got repealed you still have plenty of people that can stay away from alchol if they want to. 

I for one really miss being able to bet on sunday football games it makes the day much more exciting.  And I only bet $10.  Just something to keep it interesting.   If I was in vegas it would be no problem.  But because I am doing it in my living room somehow it is wrong.  

I have been seeing more and more articles like this. And from my limited experience with the OS I think that commercials like:

are pretty accurate. I used to be a huge windows fan. I would signup and do all the beta test just so I could get the software early to play with it. I had lots of computers when I was younger and they all ran windows.

A few years ago with the introduction of the intel macs I found myself converting. At first it was comfortable because you could still run windows if you wanted to and got the benefits of trying out OSX. Now I find myself not ever wanting to touch windows. When friends ask for help on a PC I shudder because I don't think I remember how to fix it...and I just have to ask myself why they are still using it. Now the only time I use windows is via parallels to test out web sites.

I am sure they have sold a lot of copies of vista. Most of those sales come from vista being bundled up with new computers. Then the new computer owners are stuck with vista, if you ask most of them they would be happy with what they knew XP.

Now this brings me to the point of this entry. Microsoft is dying. They have spread themselves out too thin. They have gotten too big internally. Tried to expand into new territories without mastering the ones they have. Vista is just one small example. All of microsoft web 2.0 sites are lightyears behind googles. Brand wise they have turned themselves into that evil category no brand ever wants to be in. When I see a microsoft site I don't have the same trust that I would have for a smaller company I get scared and I don't bother to check it out.

They spend millions (billions?) on building a new windows operating system - that is a year delayed. Instead they should have been trying to inovate on XP since they day the launched it and give away updates / fixes and focus on building the next frontier web based OS. It is the next logical step and what google is doing. When google is ready to launch their web OS if Microsoft still has its hands in its pockets and doesn't have a competitor they will die. Not right away beacuse they have boatloads of $$ but at some point.

When I was a kid I dreamed of working for Microsoft. Now the dreamers work for Google or Apple and grown ups work for Microsoft. Too much business being done not enough innovation.

"O'Donnell said on the show Wednesday that she wanted to stay for one more year, and ABC wanted three."

The game turned into a boring manning love fest. The halftime show featured Prince. Prince? What football fan is going to enjoy Prince? Bring back Janet Jackson! At least some decent commercials along with some not so decent ones.

Here's a URL to refresh your memory: http://www.ifilm.com/superbowl/

The K-fed commercial got the best response from party I was at. I would say my favorites were the careerbuilder.com ones and the coke "what else have I done?" commercial. I was kind of suprised to see a bunch of commercials that I had already seen. If a commercial is going to cost you $2Mil just to run you would think you would put some cash and effort into producing something new and exciting. Maybe I just watch too much TV?

http://www.gbmini.net/wp/2006/11/the_awesomeness_of_small/

MINI really gets the idea of CRM. I will be waiting anxiously for my reward in the mail.....

So today Boston got attacked by the very dangerous aliens from the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force".  As we all know anything with a circuit board and flashing lights has to be a bomb I can see why the Boston officials felt the need to shut down the entire city.  I am glad I am not under surveillance, if they observed me selling an old computer to someone on craigslist I would surely be shipped off to cuba!

I am embarrassed for this city.  These things are up in a lot of cities and I haven't heard any reports of other freak outs.

And I am upset at myself.  I let myself get caught up in this thing just like the rest of the country.  When I first heard about the shutdowns this morning I figured it was a car accident....then when I heard about the other shutdowns I figured it had to be something real.  I started thinking about how best to get out of the city with my loved ones.  cursing boston.com for asking me to register an account when i am trying to get updates during this crisis.  Fear is a powerful weapon.  Especially when being assisted by the media and our officials.