Yesterday, I wrote about the government of Denmark deciding that being locked into proprietary (i.e. Microsoft) formats was not going to do. The problem was not Microsoft per se, but the locked nature of the formats. Now it looks as though Norway is on the same track, going a bit further and saying that, though it is a standard, OOXML will never do. They are deciding that ODF is the hot ticket -

[slashdot]

“Microsoft’s XML-based office document format, OOXML, does not meet the requirements for governmental use, according to a new report published by the Norwegian Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (DIFI). The agency wants to start a debate over the report as part of its work on standards in the Norwegian government. (As we discussed a week ago, Denmark has already decided to choose ODF over OOXML)”

With this and the talks elsewhere in the EU about open source, it may be that soon Microsoft products won’t be seen anywhere related to the workings of government.

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As I was perusing the Supersite for Windows that Paul Thurrot hosts, I came upon a piece that gives an insight to the way that Microsoft is almost rabid about making Bing show a profit, and also the way the company truly feels about Yahoo.

The piece was first reported by Thurott in Windows IT Pro and is not eye opening, but simply amazing because it confirms the commonly held ideas that Microsoft is willing to throw good money after bad to pursue and overtake Google, and that it simply considers Yahoo a throwaway in the battle.

Echoing an economic reality that also hampers its Xbox video gaming business, Microsoft’s Bing search engine has cost the company over $5 billion over the past several years. And although many people feel that the software giant can never recover that expense, Microsoft this week said it’s “confident” that Bing will be not only successful but profitable.

To echo an old refrain, a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking about some real money. What is wrong with these people? Is this some sort of honor thing, that will end up destroying the company because of a schoolboy’s dare?

“As soon as we close and implement the Yahoo! deal, we have achieved a milestone, [and] for advertisers, we are a credible number two [in the marketplace],” said Microsoft Senior Vice President Yusuf Mehdi. “The goal is about share gain. If we grow share, we will grow our way into profitability, and we have confidence we can do that.

“There’s no question we intend to make a profit,” he added. “There’s a huge return in the search marketplace that can more than make up the investments we’ve put in to this point.”

But how long will the trip be to reach the break even point? This is much like the guy at the horse track that bets on the 40-1 horse, not because of a tip that the horse is great, but because the odds are such that a win could put him on easy street. Of course there is money in it, otherwise Google would not be there, but how much loss does it take to make Microsoft see that for them, it’s a day late and a few hundred million dollars short?

(Mehdi currently runs Microsoft’s online audience business and is directly responsible for Bing and the MSN web portal. His comments came during an interview with Reuters this week.)
Although Bing has made modest but steady gains this year—it now controls 10.7 percent of the United States search market, up from 8 percent when it was called Live Search through mid-2009—it also trails market leader Google (with 66 percent share) and number-two Yahoo! (with 17.3 percent) by a wide margin.

Mehdi says that simply combining Bing and Yahoo! will yield a more competitive marketplace and achieve what Microsoft’s standalone search service can’t: 30 percent share. (OK, it’s closer to 29, but whatever.) “At 30 points we are now a credible option, so that number matters,” Mehdi told Reuters. “The nice thing is we can say [to advertisers] you can be close to 30 percent share in one easy buy. That 30 percent carries a lot of weight in the marketplace.”
A combination of Bing and Yahoo! would indeed improve Microsoft’s ability to compete in this market, but it’s unclear whether it would do much to blunt the market leader. Google has actually improved its share of the search market over the past seven months, by 0.7 percent. That’s tiny even by Bing standards, but it’s still a gain. Assuming the Microsoft/Yahoo! deal goes through, the software giant will need to address that trend next.

They are already looking ahead, pushing toward the days that Microsoft kicks the Yahoo carcass to the side of the road and keeps on the chase after Google. Does Bill Gates still have any cares about Microsoft, or are those days behind? It would seem that he might have the good sense to stop the madness. If I were a Microsoft shareholder, I would want to know why the company was wasting my dollars on things that are not anywhere near their core competencies. For those that wonder about Steve Ballmer, any of the moments caught for YouTube of the “monkeyboy dance” should make them think twice about investing in Microsoft.

I have no way to prove this, but during the time when Carl Icahn was on the board of Yahoo, and many were wondering why the communications between Microsoft and Yahoo broke down, I stated that I believed Ballmer, not a complete idiot, did not want any part of Carl Icahn being involved with Microsoft.  This because he would start doing what he does best once ensconced within the stock holders there -  all because the stock is underperforming, and many think they know why.

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Once upon a time, you could buy a pack of cigarettes for under $2 a pack. Cigarettes appeared in numerous TV and film productions. You could smoke indoors while at work and in some cases even purchase them in the building. These days, you can’t find a pack under $7, cigarettes are pretty much limited to Mad Men on TV, and smokers are banished to a small, cold corner outside of the office building.

Americans are just plain disgusted with tobacco companies. With the recent news soda may cause pancreatic cancer, we may not be far away from feeling the same about soda companies. Already under fire by high fructose corn syrup skeptics and the link to diabetes, beverage companies don’t appear to be helping their cause. They continue to peddle drinks like Red Bull and Amp, which have tons more sugar and caffeine than their cola cousins. What’s a parent to do when their child can access these dangerous drinks so easily?

Could we soon see a day where lawsuits are launched against beverage companies just like we’ve seen with the tobacco companies? Could we be approaching the day when our guilty geek pleasure in Mountain Dew will cost $100 for a case? It seems inevitable with the current obesity numbers in the United States. It’s only a matter of time before government action is taken. I hope I’m wrong though. Because Mr. Pibb and Redvines = crazy delicious!

Photo by

With the release of its Power 7 processors. chips that are four to eight cores, with 4-way hyperthreading  on each core (IBM doesn’t use the term hyperthreading, because Intel trademarked it, but that is what it is) and native speeds of 3.0 to 4.14 GHz, it would appear that the Power 7 is king-of-the-processor-hill, just as the Power 6 was when launched.

The story from InfoWorld tells that the chips are constructed on a 45nm process, so it competes with Intel’s previous generation of processors, yet should thrash them soundly.

IBM on Monday launched its latest Power7 processor, which adds more cores and improved multithreading capabilities to boost the performance of servers requiring high up time.

The Power7 chip has up to eight cores, with each core able to run four threads, IBM said. A Power7 chip can run 32 tasks simultaneously, which is quadruple the number of cores on the older Power6 chip. The Power7 will also run up to eight times more threads than Power6 cores.

Power7 chips will run between 3.0GHz and 4.14GHz, said Ross Mauri, general manager of IBM’s Power Systems unit, during a press event in New York on Monday. The chip will come with four, six or eight cores.

The chips are being made using the 45-nm process technology. The company has made memory-level improvements that should enable the processor to execute tasks faster.

Power7 systems will deliver twice the performance of older Power6 systems, but be four times more energy efficient, Mauri said. The systems will run operating systems including AIX and enterprise Linux offered by Red Hat and Suse.

The new chip also has TurboCore technology, which allows customers to crank up the speed of active cores for performance gains. The technology also puts memory and bandwidth from eight cores behind the four active cores to drive up the performance gains per core.

Wow. It looks like all the same array of features found in the latest Intel chips is there, yet the performance is higher. Imagine that. And right after the announcement of the latest Intel Itanium processor.

Intel has now launched its first Itanium series CPUs based on the Tukwila architecture, the Itanium 9300 family. Aimed to be used for demanding workloads like database, business intelligence and enterprise resource planning applications, the new chips are manufactured on 65nm technology, have up to four cores and eight threads, two DDR3 memory controllers, 4.8 GT/s QPI, second-generation Intel Virtualization Technology, a maximum of 30MB of cache (6MB L3 cache per core), Demand Base Switching for lower power consumption and Turbo Boost.

“Intel is committed to delivering a new era of mission-critical computing, and we are delighted 80 percent of Global 100 companies have chosen Itanium-based servers for their most demanding workloads,” said Kirk Skaugen, vice president Intel Architecture Group and general manager Data Center Group. “Intel is continuing to drive the economics of Moore’s Law into mission-critical computing with today’s Itanium 9300 processor announcement, more than doubling performance for our customers once again.”

The Itanium 9300 series processors (detailed below) are currently shipping, with OEM systems based on them being expected to become available within 90 days.

The Itanium processors are on a larger process, have fewer cores, and are quite costly, ranging from $946 for a “budget” dual core at 1.6 GHz, to $3838 for a quad-core running at 1.73 GHz.

Though many might say that the Power 7 chips don’t compete with the Core i7 parts, the Power 7 seems to have performance in spaces over this Intel “golden child”, while the chips that do compete head to head, the Itanium line, seems very anemic in performance, unless the price for Power 7 is twice as high as Itanium offerings.

Moving back to the InfoWorld piece, the IBM claims that Power 7 is the fastest chip extant would seem to be a killer blow for Intel’s new fangled Itanium, but then we must wonder why the Power 6 did not crush the earlier Itanium offerings.

IBM representatives declined to provide server pricing, but said it would be competitively priced. The servers will deliver better performance and bang for the buck than existing Power6 systems, said Rod Adkins, senior vice president of IBM’s Systems and Technology group.

IBM officials called the chip the “world’s fastest processor,” but emphasized that system performance will be measured by the ability to deliver “intelligent” performance.

“As we conceived this Power7 system… raw performance was a given. What you will see is a tremendous focus around … intelligent performance,” Adkins said. A mass of data will flood servers as computing expands to devices like mobile devices and smart meters, he said. This data will need to be collected, processed and analyzed on the fly. For example, collecting data will allow utilities to instantly analyze energy usage patterns, and new ways to acquire energy from multiple sources.

If the pricing is competitive, Power 7 should win on all counts. Why Power 6 did not blaze new trails is something I find amazing, and wonder if the folks at IBM are that difficult to deal with, or if Intel is playing the same shenanigans that got it caught up in New York and Europe. In the meantime, with Oracle promising to push Sun, it remains to be seen how the current offerings there stack up.

Though it takes lots of money to strike out in a new direction, I do wonder why there is no one willing to cobble together a new PC system, able to compete with the x86 architecture. Steve Jobs must have some spare change to put out for a new Next project. Or  perhaps Woz can be coaxed out of apathetic retirement. The reason I speak of those two is that Apple is very good at getting people to purchase higher priced PCs, and if some performance numbers were shown, and an updated operating system was written (remember, the earliest OS X revisions ran on Power 5!), some decent numbers could be racked up.

Of course, it would never be mainstream-go-purchase-it-at-Best Buy, but that would be part of the draw. Also, with that speed, it might be able to game better than anything else, using an emulation layer! No doubt it could put the work back in workstation.

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One of the extra curricular activities during the Super Bowl is to view the commercials and grade each on how good or bad they are. This past Sunday’s Super Bowl provided commercials that were good, bad and just plain ugly. The commercials with the guys bare chested, pot belly-ed and in physical distress were down right disgusting.

But there was one commercial from Google that made little sense to the group of people I was sitting with. You see, most people have no idea that Bing is a search and decide vehicle while Google is for searching only.  Most people just use Google because that is what they are most familiar with. When one hears about doing a search, they may even say ‘doing a Google’ which is understood by most folks.

If you missed the Google commercial you can see it at the link below. But what is interesting is the fact that between these two money making giants, neither is making a solid point in why we consumers should use either of their products. The commercials we see don’t say anything useful.

Or it it just me that feels this way?

What do you think of the commercials Google and Microsoft are showing to us?

Comments welcome.

Google commercial

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It isn’t often I find something useful [software, that is] while stumbling about with StumbleUpon. It is something I really enjoy, because I pick up lots of useful information, but seldom do I get pointed toward software, useful or otherwise. As I was saying the other day, with the addition of a working StumbleUpon extension for Chrome (I’m using it on Iron) I am stumbling a lot more than ever before.

This morning I came upon something that, though I doubt it will be that useful for me, it will be invaluable to the customers I have that aren’t especially good at disk organization and manipulation. It is for Windows 7 only, and called the Win7 Library Tool.

[from the programmer’s site]

Windows 7 libraries are a really useful feature of Windows 7, however unfortunately they arrive in a slightly cut-down form out of the box.  Microsoft decided against exposing some really useful capabilities to users, like adding network locations, pretty much the first thing I tried to do.  You get this message:

Luckily, you can add network locations (and any other un-indexed locations), but it must be done programmatically.  MS supply a command line utility slutil.exe, candidate for the worst named executable in history.  Pretty sure it stands for shell_library_util.  Anyway, I decided to write a tool to make it easy to add network locations, and added a few other features as well:

• Add network (UNC or mapped drive) and any other un-indexed folders to libraries.

• Backup library configuration, such that a saved set of libraries can be instantly restored at any point (like after a re-install of the OS or for transfer between multiple computers).

• Create a mirror of all libraries (using symbolic links) in [SystemDrive]:\libraries.  This means you can reference all your files using a much shorter path, and also provides another entry-point to your files in many places in the Operating System (e.g. file open/save dialogs).

• Change a library’s icon.

Hopefully it’s easy enough to use, so I don’t have to explain it .

You can download it for free below.  (Note: This will only run on >= Windows 7.)

Download Installer | Source Code

I must give credit to Josh Smith for his TreeView CodeProject article, upon which this solution is modelled.

The application uses the Microsoft API CodePack to manipulate libraries, which I encourage you to check out if you are writing software to integrate / take advantage of new features in Windows 7.

If you want to learn why and how libraries were introduced in Windows 7, including diving into the .library-ms file format, you can read this MSDN article.

So, there it is. It should help those who have things stored on other machines (which includes me, so I suppose I’ll be making some use of it myself). I’m not really enthused about Libraries as a concept, but for the purpose of gaining easy access to content on other machines, I’ll relent.

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With all the emphasis on the economy these days it is no wonder that people try to put a price on things that were previously either free or beyond price.

Now it seems that zero-day flaws are being shopped around, on both sides of the street -

[slashdot]

An anonymous reader writes “Zero-day vulnerabilities have become prized possessions to attackers and defenders alike. As the recent China-Google attack demonstrated, they are the basis on which most of the successful attacks are crafted these days. There is a growing underground market growing around these vulnerabilities, but there are also “white markets” — set up by VeriSign, TippingPoint, Google — where they buy zero-day flaws and alert the companies so that they can patch their products before the vulnerabilities can be taken advantage of.”

This is a far cry from the days when the majority of the computer world was more cohesive, and helpful. Only the really rotten would think of trying to profit from these exploits, and besides, the majority of people were not interested in trying to poke holes in the code of others.

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Philthydelphia mayor Michael Nutter stated that the city will start handing out fifty dollar tickets to enforce the law about clearing snow from sidewalks.

I believe the proper term is irony when a city won’t clear the streets yet fines you for not clearing your sidewalk.

London police announced the arrest of Kiera Knightley’s stalker.

You will note that I am blogging from work, not prison.

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Now that the Stupor Bowl is over, television can return to (ab)normal.  Even my wife, who was honestly interested in the outcome of the game, was shocked to discover that the game hadn’t even started by late afternoon.  I guess the pre-pre-post-turbo-game show ran over (again).

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And hey, how about that snow?

Better yet, how about no snow?

Our `hood received damn near two feet of the white blight from Friday to Saturday.  On Saturday, fearing the blast from the wife moreso than the snow, I got out with the shovel and did our walk.  Fortunately for me, the snow was very light, allowing me to stretch out and do the crazy lady’s sidewalk next door.  It’s not enough that she’s a crazy old lady, her tenant is a schizophrenic, apparently with a brand new bad back.

There is some sort of law about having the sidewalk shoveled within a certain amount of hours after a snow.  My wife was going ape-shit over this.  I suggested that the Snow Police could stop by and try to ticket me.  This is the same lady who believes the trash cans need to be lined up a certain way, lest the Trash Police spring into action.

Boy did I regret shoveling.  No good deed ever goes unpunished.

Within a few hours, I was walking like an eighty-five year old man.  This continued til late Sunday night.  I was almost ready to take off work.

Of course I still faced extricating my car from the White Blight this morning.

The running joke on the news is that we’re two days out from another foot to foot and a half of snow.  Again.  This has stopped being funny.  Or fun.  Or nice.  Or shovel-able.

A coworker loves this.  I suggested he choke/drown in it.

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So there it was, the ICBM-Chevrolet Land Yacht Police Car-Looking Vehicle, covered by over a foot of not so lovely white powder.  It’s almost like some sort of bizarre ski report (on acid), isn’t it?

Fortunately the left side was clear, due to the occasional appearance of the sun.  This left the top, side, and driver’s side street, where it got plowed in whilst the street was being `cleared’.  Within about five minutes I lost sensation in my right hand.  This turned out to make much more sense when I heard the news reporting a zero effective temperature due to wind chill.

Minutes later my back popped up to remind me that it was unhappy with the act of shoveling.  Not that I am particularly enamored of it either, of course.

Moments after that, the wife popped up to remind me to use a broom to clear the car.  There is nothing worse than a backseat shoveler.

As helpful as she was, she continued to help by suggesting ways to deal with my frozen fingers.  Even more help was forthcoming, in the form of repeatedly asking me where my gloves were.

Gloves occupy a special place in our quantum universe, right next to socks.  I have something like three pairs of gloves.  They are always right there in the same spot all year.  Right there up until the second I need them, then they go to that special place occupied by The Disappearing Sock.

Fortunately I located one glove.  More fortunately, I didn’t look like Michael Jackson with a shovel (sorry, BROOM, Dear), even though I’m pretty pale, even in the snow.

With defrosters, blowers, shovels, icepicks, liquid nitrogen, and time, I finally got the car road-ready.

And I made it to work only thirty minutes late, to a complete emergency, and I was still the first member of the team on premises.  Lucky me.   A hunched-over MIS guy - but a hunched-over MIS guy with coffee!

I can’t wait for the next foot and a half in a day and a half.

As a person that still takes courses in college, I often wonder how things have changed over my life. Though the computer companies would have us believe, in their advertising, other marketing, and press releases, that most students are using notebooks in class, I have personally found it is not so.

In a recent semester, I was in two classes held in lecture halls, with roughly 60 students in each class. In both classes there were always a few, but five or less, that used a laptop to take notes. These were not math or science classes, so it had nothing to do with the inability to quickly type mathematical symbols on the screen.

I believe it has a bit to do with the way we learn, and it was not simply my being one of the over-30 crowd in the room. Of the people I became friendly with, most claimed that lugging a notebook was a pain (these were women, by the way) and others claimed it was always a problem situating oneself to be close to an AC outlet. Timing the battery life with their notebook was something at which they were not adept, and the disturbance of trying to continue on pad and paper was too much trouble.

Several were like me, and believed that there is something organic about the experience of taking notes, writing the notes on paper when later, in the testing phase of the class, they will need to repeat the writing of the answers on paper. The note taking by hand tends to harmonize both mind and muscle memory.

Apparently we are not alone, as a story in slashdot tells a similar tale -

“While waiting to see if the iPad is a game-changer, this CS student continues to take class notes with pen and paper while her fellow students embrace netbooks and notebooks. Why? In addition to finding the act of writing helps cement the lecture material in her mind, there’s also the problem of keeping up with the professor: ‘[While taking notes on a laptop] every five minutes I found myself cursing at not being able to copy the diagram on the board.’ So, when it comes to education or business, do you take notes on a notepad/netbook, or stick with good old-fashioned handwriting? Got any tips for making the transition, or arguments for staying the course?”

the above has a quick two paragraphs, excerpted from the link, where it gets summed up -

Call me old fashioned, but I like to take notes with a pen and paper. As I’ve discussed previously, the act of writing helps cement the lecture material in my mind better than passive listening does, and studies have shown that it’s not just me [pdf]. Still, I know that my old-fashioned ways are quickly going out of style.

I don’t know if typing notes aids memory as well as taking notes on paper does, but I do know that it does not work for me. I decided at the beginning of last year that it would be nice to bring my laptop to class so that my notes would be neatly organized (and actually legible for once), and changed my mind after only one or two classes. I could never type fast enough to keep up with the professor, and every five minutes I found myself cursing at not being able to copy the diagram on the board. It was a relief to have my Five Stars and Pentel R.S.V.P.s back at the end of that little experiment. Considering my negative experience, I wonder how my classmates can keep up. I know that not everyone learns the same way I do; maybe my peers don’t need notes as copious as mine in order to do well.

I don’t necessarily believe that the amount of note taking has much to do with it, as I rarely get very verbose on the note pad. I try to use 3 – 4 word phrases, and single concept words.

I’m not sure that anyone typing in class could do any better with copious note taking. In my experience, matching grades would indicate my methods work better.

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Back in the old days, when there was still some vestige of the work of Peter Norton in the products, around 2001- 2002, I was still using the Norton Antivirus and Norton Tools. I had been faithfully upgrading each year or so, and was surprised to have my subscription renewed without my knowledge - the first I noticed it was on a statement from the bank.

I made a very big deal out of it, and received a refund, along with the usage of the subscription, but it was a pyrrhic victory, as the steps to get the refund were long and arduous.

Now, just this morning I read that Symantec is still doing this to people, and someone got upset enough to take them to court, and establishing a class action suit in the process -

[TechConnect]

Well-known security company Symantec was sued last month by one Kenneth Elan over an unwanted subscription renewal. This case, which was asked to be granted class action status, comes seven months after Symantec and McAfee each agreed to pay $375,000 to settle with the New York attorney general over accusations that they were automatically renewing customers’ subscriptions without their consent.
In addition to paying the fine, the two security software companies vowed to provide electronic notification to consumers before and after renewal of the subscription, yet, in Elan’s case, that didn’t happen. According to Elan’s complaint, which was filed in a New York court, he was charged $76.03 for the renewal of his Norton Antivirus subscription although he didn’t agree to it. In fact, he says he didn’t get notified before the money was taken from his credit card.
With the lawsuit Elan is accusing Symantec of deceptive business practices and is asking for a full refund.

This is why ( along with lack of effectiveness ) I stopped using the NAV product. The loss of quality with NAV, and the total lack of usefulness of Norton Tools, along with the absorbing of Central Point Software (PCTools, a worthy competitor to Norton Tools), and Executive Software (Xtree Gold software), simply to allow their own, inferior products to survive, is why I still dislike and distrust the products and people of Symantec.

It looks as though my distrust is still well placed.

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All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.

- Sean O’Casey

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Those longtime Windows users that have tried to change the interface by using themes know that one of the ways to do it, other than purchasing Window Blinds, or StyleXP, was to use a program to nullify the behavior of Windows to disallow non-Microsoft theming.

For Windows XP and Vista there was a great little utility called UXTheme Patcher. It was nice, but another application was developed for the release of Vista, and now has been updated further, to include Windows 7, both 32 bit and 64 bit versions.

It is called VistaGlazz and has been updated to version 2.0. The site “Tweaking with Vishal” tells us a bit more about this tweak.

If you are bored with default Windows look and want to try some 3rd party themes, you’ll need to patch your Windows to be able to use them. There are many patcher programs available on net and today we are going to share one of the best UXtheme patcher program “VistaGlazz“.

When VistaGlazz was introduced, it was created only for Windows Vista but the latest 2.0 version also supports Windows XP SP3 and 7.

Changes in 2.0:

• Supports Windows 7 (32bit and 64bit)
• Supports Windows XP SP3
• Supports Windows Vista KB971029
• Enhanced Windows Vista RTM and SP1 support
• Enhanced diagnostic screen providing more details
• Setup properly detects repairs/upgrades

You can download it using following link:

Download Link

Homepage

The website has some other great information, so perusing it now and then would be very beneficial. The site also has links to other sites that are lesser known, but no less helpful. Thanks, TWV!

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Google bought an advertising space during the Super Bowl. The ad was called “Parisian Love” and it was the first time that the tech giant has been part of the Super Bowl ads:

And the costs for a Super Bowl advertisement? It is reported to be “between $2.5 million and $2.8 million” for thirty seconds.

Catherine Forsythe

This Christmas I got a few new things to make my Mac Pro actually be a Mac Pro. Up until this point, I only had 2 GB of RAM. As you might know 2 GB just is not enough to run multiple apps as well as editing and exporting video. So I was happy to get 4 more GB of RAM to add this Christmas.

The video below is a video of my installing the RAM. Also, go to Other World Computing to get more instruction on the installation process. Enjoy!

After releasing the news of the iPad a couple of weeks ago, it should surprise no one that other players in this new game are starting to arrive. Maximum PC gives us a low cost alternative (or is it?) to the Apple unit, and we begin to see how some possible truth in advertising may need to be applied -

Think Steve Jobs was cutting you a price break when he unveiled the $499 iPad? Think again. A small OEM based out of Colombia by the name of Haleron Technologies has just released a $149 iLet Mini tablet to cost conscious buyers. It looks like an interesting enough device, but you might want to keep your expectation in check based on the hardware.

The iLet Mini sports a 7-inch resistive LCD touch screen running at a resolution of 800 x 480, and for comparison sake, is slightly worse than your average netbook. Its a funny resolution to spot on an Internet tablet, but starts to make sense when you drill down to discover that a 300 MHZ ARM processor is at the heart of it all. In the memory department it also falls a bit short with only 128MB of DDR2 RAM, and a mere 2GB of NAND flash for storage. SD Flash cards and external hard drives of up to 250 GB are supported, but currently the only OS being offered is Windows CE.

It would be interesting to see how a device like this would compare to the iPad, but the fact that the spec sheet says it running Windows CE, and the screen shots show Windows XP don’t give us a warm and fuzzy feeling when it comes to the companies honesty. For hardware enthusiasts its not a total loss mind you. The device offers up a pair of USB 2.0 ports, wired Ethernet, support for external keyboards, and all that wrapped up in the promise of 8-10 hours of battery life. If your waiting for good ole Steve to capitulate on any of those features for the iPad, you’re going to be waiting a very long time.

Either way I think it gives steam to the argument that Apple is making a pretty healthy margin on its new tablet. Are you interested at this price?

First, I think anyone buying this unit before a complete inspection is made by a reputable reviewer is someone that has more money than brains. The things cited above (Windows CE vs. Windows XP) should be only the beginning of the possible problems suspected.

On the other hand, if this unit reveals itself to be at least reliable, and well assembled, it may make for a device that will satisfy many.

There is no doubt that others will bring to market devices mimicking the iPad, and they will no doubt be at least some cheaper. The question is whether they will give the performance and feel of the iPad. We all know that Apple is an interface company – the excellence comes from the perception of usefulness and the ergonomic design choices. Will other companies be able to emulate the design of an iPad without infringing? The public hates things that are found to be cheap knockoffs, and Apple has been found to dislike excellent knockoffs, going after them in court.

The trick for these other players will be to change a little, so as not to infringe, but convey the same high quality, and usability, of the Apple original.

§

The smaller screen may also be a case where the public wants to see more pixels…

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The parliament of the country of Denmark has made a decision that the people of Redmond, Washington will certainly not like. In a move to use non-proprietary formats, the nation’s government will be using only ODF for documents saved.

The statement by the government makes it clear that the reason is not enmity, but the ability keep from being locked to any proprietary format whatsoever.

The story, from Bright Side of News tells that though only the national government is affected by this decision, the many businesses, and minor governmental entities dealing directly with government will probably follow suit -

Denmark Parliament recently made a surprising decision. On a session held on this Wednesday, the Parliament decided that starting with April 2011 onwards, Denmark government offices will save all of their documents in ODF format [Open Document Format].

This means the end of the road for proprietary formats the government used so far [XLS, DOC, PPT and so on]. As you might have guessed, this comes after almost four years of hard debate. The government will use Open Document Format in all communications between official government institutions. If Microsoft wants to keep doing business with the Government of Denmark, the company will have to support ODF in the same or better manner than competing packages such as Sun’s OpenOffice or Corel’s Word Perfect Office.

Denmark’s Minister of science Helge Sander stated that “My ambition for the future is to communicate using only open standards.”

His opinion was mirrored by the Red-Green Alliance [Enhedslisten party], who also sided with this decision. Per Clausen from Enhedslisten party stated that “We believe that open source is step forward and it should replace patent stands we currently have.”

Even though that from April 2011 onwards a switch to ODF formats will affect only national institutions, it is expected that all Denmark regions and districts will follow suit. Is this decision a stone that will start an avalanche and lead to slow but certain win of Open Source formats or is Microsoft preparing a fight back, remains to be seen.

So Microsoft will be able to continue to compete, if it shows a complete compliance with the open standards. The problem than will be one of value. Will the Danish government believe that the few features that Office includes which are not available in OpenOffice, or any derivatives, are worth the cost?

Should the government wish to switch to open source operating systems, the ability to move to them would be eased by the availability of OpenOffice for those platforms.

In the time of bad economic conditions all over the world, I would think that government bean counters in every nation of the world are doing the math, trying to see if the retraining of staff is less costly than the keeping with the high priced spreads.

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and change is coming to the rock, all over the rock.

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If you are the kind that runs to cracks and keygens after installing any new shareware software, wait. It is more harmful, because those sites not only serve you trial busting cracks, but also delicious malware. Yummy!

Most shareware applications allow you to run them with full feature capabilities for a specified number of days. In most cases a month (30 days). Instead of using a cracks or a keygen, I suggest you try RunAsDate, from NirSoft

RunAsDate is a small utility that allows you to run a program in the date and time that you specify. This utility doesn’t change the current system date and time of your computer, but it only injects the date/time that you specify into the desired application.

You can run multiple applications simultaneously, each application works with different date and time, while the real date/time of your system continues to run normally.

I don’t think this is legal, so try at your own risk. :P

But how does it work? The help file answers:

RunAsDate intercepts the kernel API calls that returns the current date and time (GetSystemTime, GetLocalTime, GetSystemTimeAsFileTime), and replaces the current date/time with the date/time that you specify.

[Download Page – RunAsDate]

Further Reading:

1. Extend or reset trial period of software, talks about another application Time Stopper.
2. Are you looking to extend those trial applications, [Hat Tip]
3. How to use RunAsDate, YouTube video

As much as one of the main purposes of computers is to move information, the flow certainly does not show when it comes to things like power supplies and the efficiency of the rest of the components in the computer.

Processors are becoming more efficient, using less power, memory is using less power than ever, and motherboard chipsets follow right along, on the green bandwagon.

It certainly seems strange then, that more and more manufacturers are releasing PSUs, never having had any in their product lines before, and all lines are now listing capacities that were unheard of just a couple of years ago.

Thermaltake is a company that has been producing power supplies for several years, but now they are putting more effort into the advertising of their lineup, and producing larger capacities that are clearly more rugged than have ever come with a Thermaltake brand.

The newest of their offerings are part of a line called Toughpower XT and carry EPA EnergyStar Bronze certifications.

[TechConnect]

Thermaltake has now revealed four new additions to its Toughpower XT line of modular power supplies - 575W, 675W, 775W and 875W units targeting power users and gamers. The fresh PSUs are all 80 PLUS Bronze certified (up to 89% efficiency), comply with the ATX 12V 2.3 and EPS 12V 2.91 standards, and feature things like the DC-DC Converter Module, double-forward switching circuitry for low power loss and higher reliability, active PFC (Power Factor Correction), a single 12V rail design, and the S.P.T. indicator, a 3-mode LED that enables the easy real-time monitoring of your unit.

Thermaltake’s power supplies also make use of high quality 105°C Japanese solid state capacitors, have a MTBF (mean time before failure) of over 120,000 hours, and are cooled off by a 140mm dual ball bearing fan (working at 1900 RPM) that will continue to operate 15-30 seconds after system shutdown to prolong the lifetime the PSU’s components.
The 575W, 675W, 775W and 875W Toughpower XT units are set to become available very soon priced at $109, $135, $145 and $159, respectively.

For those that like quality look and feel, there is plenty to like here.

I used to believe that the use of a modular PSU was a bad thing, because of power conduction across the extra connector. I have seen, over time, that most people who care enough to worry about the wiring in a computer, and the airflow, will be opening the case, cleaning, and connecting and disconnecting wires enough that any possible oxidation on the connection will be removed or bypassed. Also, the ability to only use the parts of the wiring harness needed contributes greatly to ease of cleaning and the temperature reduction of internal case components. Not having to figure out where to hide the extra wire bundle is simply a plus in the matter.

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Money won’t buy happiness, but it will pay the salaries of a large research staff to study the problem. Bill Vaughan

Download Opera - A faster and more secure Web browser.

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For a limited time and while supplies last, Buy Two Xbox 360 Platinum Hits, Get One Free from Amazon.com!

For a limited time, you’ll get three Xbox 360 Platinum Hits for the price of two. Offer valid February 7, 2010 through February 13, 2010, or while supplies last, when shipped and sold by Amazon.com. Limit one free Platinum Hit per household. To qualify, check out with three of the Xbox 360 Platinum Hits listed below in your cart. The price of the third qualifying Platinum Hit of equal or lesser value will be discounted during check out.

Get the Xbox 360 Platinum Hits at Amazon.com with FREE Super Saver Shipping on qualifying orders over $25.

Jon Hammond scores a wooden Motorola Visilite FM/AM Clock Radio from Jim Coleman Collection at CHRS Swap Meet at Radio KRE for his personal use seen here on Jon’s 1965 Fender Band-Master Amp

Sounds Fantastic!
Some other choice radios in the museum of California Historical Radio Society housed at the old KRE Radio Station in Berkeley photos by Jon Hammond

Nice!
Some real nice Bakelite radios

CHRS California Historical Radio Society http://www.californiahistoricalradio.com/ President Steve Kushman interview with Jon Hammond on HammondCast KYOU Radio from studio of Radio KRE as seen on the 1973 George Lucas movie American Graffiti Wolfman Jack scene
*WATCH VIDEO HERE

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4448374658844840359&hl=en#

CHRS Vice President Scott Robinson repairing Motorola AM Table Radio in CHRS Shop photo Jon Hammond

Jon Hammond Trio playing at CHRS KRE “LIVE” annual fundraising event

Jon Hammond Band official http://www.jonhammondband.com
Hear Jon on his daily radio broadcast HammondCast on KYOURADIO streaming worldwide twice daily on the CBS Radio Network on the convenient Player
http://kyouradio.com/player.php?id=19007
On this program guests Alex Ligertwood, Stephen “Doc” Kupka, Lydia Pense, Eddie Money on Jon Hammond HammondCast KYOU Radio

VOTE for JON HAMMOND Band in the Guitar Center Slash Contest
Guitar Center Presents Your Next Record With Slash
  
Hear Jon Hammond Theme Song LATE RENT http://www.yournextrecord.com/contest.php?sid=181&rid=1811&aid=60380

More Jon Hammond Band Backstage
http://www.yournextrecord.com/backstage/artist.php?artist_id=60380

JON HAMMOND BAND

		ARTIST INFO Vote for us in this competition! JON HAMMOND Instruments: Organ, Accordion, Piano, Guitar Attended: Berklee College of Music 1974, City College San Francisco Languages: English, German Musician: Jon Hammond is one of the premier B3 PLAYERS in the world. Jon has played professionally since age 12. Beginning as a solo accordionist, he later played Hammond B3 organ in a number of important San Francisco bands. His all original group HADES opened shows for Tower of Power, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Michael Bloomfield. Eddie Money and Barry Finnerty became musical associates. Moving East he attended Berklee College of Music and played venues as diverse as Boston’s “Combat Zone” in the striptease clubs during the ’70’s and… View more OTHER WEBSITE: http://www.jonhammondband.com HOME TOWN:  San Francisco GROUP/BAND MEMBERS:  Bernard Purdie Joe Berger Todd Anderson Jon Hammond
VIDEO/AUDIO LATE RENT NOW PLAYING HAMMONDCAST JON HAMMOND BAND PLAY POCKET FUNK WITH INTRODUCTION ON HAMMOND… PLAY LATE RENT IN VILLON PLAY TRIBUTE TO 9/11 INTRO “GET BACK IN … PLAY POCKET FUNK PLAY LATE RENT IN STELLWERK HARBURG GERMANY PLAY PAYPHONE JOHNNY PLAY TRIBUTE TO VICTIMS OF 9/11 “GET BAC… PLAY POCKET FUNK LIVE AT WINTER NAMM SHOW 201… PLAY JAZZKELLER BREAKDOWN HEAD PHONE PLAY COOKIN’ AT JAZZKELLER HOFHEIM JON H… PLAY THING IN C MINOR IN DOWNTOWN BLUESCLUB H… PLAY POCKET FUNK WITH INTRODUCTION ON HAMMOND… PLAY SIX YEAR ITCH PLAY COSMO LANE PLAY		GIGS Date Venue Location 03/23/10 08:00PM Jazzkeller Frankfurt Frankfurt, 03/26/10 08:00PM Jazzkeller Hofheim Hofheim am Taunus,

FANS DMH Artist Matthew Terada Fan Jennifer Frizzell Fan Joe Berger Fan

COMMENTS Margo Heda The Late Rent theme = The Essence of Cool. Best song and band! Stephanie Green late rent theme song is my favorite. rock on, jon! Stephanie Green late rent theme song is my favorite. rock on, jon! Ya Yin Well done, man! Andrew Chung Joe Berger Late Rent is a NYC classic & one of my favorite to play!! Stephanie Green the Jon Hammond Band is awesome-the best in the whole wide world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Post Comment

PHOTOS

Jon Hammond just played with legendary studio drummer Bernard Pretty Purdie at Winter NAMM Show Midnight Showcase in Hilton Hotel Hilton-Muzeo seen here on the incredible Hammond XK-1 organ playing bass Jon’s song POCKET FUNK featuring Bernard “The Hit Maker” Fatback Drum feature

Fatback Drum Feature Pocket Funk Bernard Pretty Purdie and Friends Winter NAMM 2010 + FLASH BACK 1989

Fatback Drum Feature Pocket Funk Bernard Purdie and Friends Winter NAMM 2010 + FLASH BACK 1989 Jon Hammond and The Late Rent Sessions Men gig in Mikell’s where it all started at 97th and Columbus Ave. NYC
Pocket Funk Bernard Purdie and Friends Winter NAMM 2010 + FLASH BACK 1989 Mikell’s NYC
Jon Hammond and The Late Rent Session Men featuring Bernard Purdie drums
*WATCH THE VIDEO HERE:

http://ia341319.us.archive.org/2/items/JonHammondPocketFunkBernardPurdieandFriendsWinterNAMM2010_0/PocketFunkBernardPurdieFriendsNAMM.m4v

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA8lxS4yozE

Bernard Purdie and Friends Winter NAMM 2010 Hilton Hotel Anaheim
Pocket Funk by Jon Hammond © JH INTL ASCAP
Bernard Purdie drums
Joe Berger guitar
Jon Hammond organ
Shea Marshall sax
Winston Byrd trumpet http://www.HammondCast.com
Special thanks NAMM, Hilton Hotel Anaheim, camera Jennifer

Bernard Purdie, Winter NAMM 2010, Jon Hammond, Joe Berger, Funk, Soul, Blues, Organ ASCAP, HammondCast, XK-1, KYOU Radio, Winston Byrd, Pocket, Local 802 Musicians Union, J4JA!

FLASH BACK! August Year of 1989 Pocket Funk With Bernard Purdie on Jon Hammond Late Rent Sessions Band at Mikell’s NYC

FLASH BACK VIDEO LINK:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2831189635144040422&ei=sKBUS6SoOInYqAPJt_z7Dg&q=mikell%27s+pocket+funk#

This classic film/Jazz Funk Movie from August 28, 1989 shot at the legendary Mikell’s in New York City at Columbus & W.97th St. of JON HAMMOND Band playing first time with the great studio drummer BERNARD “Pretty” PURDIE on drums along with ALEX FOSTER on sax, CHUGGY CARTER percussion, BARRY FINNERTY guitar and JON HAMMOND at his mint 1959 Hammond B3 Organ (& bass). Playing Jon’s funky composition: “Pocket Funk” featuring this fine rhythm section. This film SMOKES! 

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