Imagination Defines the Limit of Genius
I upgraded all my machines to Vista SP1 last week. It has had a big, and very positive impact on all of them, in particular my notebook. I have been really disappointed in this little machine, while it looks great, Vistas performance on it broke my heart.
With SP1 though it feels like a new machine….
This has been THE topic of conversation in the blogosphere, and mainstream business media, since it was announced. I’m still in favour, and think it offers one of the only possible paths toward a serious competitor to Google in Search and Online Advertising. After all, fundamentally, this is what this deal is about.
One thing that has amazed me is this announcement by Google on their official blog (and in a press release). It strikes me as an incredibly amateur and transparent first response to the news that their two biggest competitors may be combining. It reads like the sort of speculation a junior reporter would put together for a fast deadline on http://news.com.
Anyway, to keep it all in perspective, these are big companies, doing big company things, to other big companies. Their motives are of the purest sort, utter self interest (fortunately, pleasing customers is also in their self interest). In this regard, Google (“Do no evil”) is no different, and while I’m on the subject, neither is Apple. I wish these companies would stop claiming the high ground of Openness (like OpenSocial I presume they mean! yeah, very open).
Technologies trend toward natural monopolies by their very nature, whether that is High Definition video formats, Operating Systems, Advertising Platforms or iTunes music stores. The good news is that things move so fast, and are moving ever faster, that any dominant position is transitional. More than that, it is actually biased against the incumbent, and if IBM wasn’t a good example, then Microsoft certainly is.
For Google to speculate that:
“Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors’ email, IM, and web-based services?”
Amazes me on two fronts, first, that they expect us to believe they would not/are not doing the same thing (especially given their existing Internet monopoly in Advertising), and second, that they of all companies think this is possible. The Internet is not new, and neither is Microsoft’s monopoly, if this were going to happen, it would have by now. The purchase of Yahoo is not going to suddenly make the PC more relevant.
So, Google, next time, put these posts through some time of review process huh? Could I recommend Microsoft SharePoint? We can help <grin>
MTV has an interesting article that details the death by many cuts of the music industry as we know it:
Madonna Ditches Label, Radiohead Go Renegade: The Year The Music Industry Broke
Radiohead, one of my all time favourite bands (mostly because they are so incredibly innovative) essentially reinvented how to distribute an album, and they did it just the way I had been waiting for:
October 1: Radiohead shock fans by announcing on their blog that not only have they completed their much-anticipated new album, In Rainbows, but that “it’s coming out in 10 days,” via download — leading to reams of “this is a taste of the future of albums”-type commentary. The bandmembers, who have been free agents since the release of 2003’s Hail to the Thief, decide to release the album by themselves in two formats: download-only, which allows fans to name their price for the album, and as a deluxe “discbox” version (priced at approximately $80).
It is a shame the results of this experiment have not been published. Personally, I gladly handed over 8 Euros. Their web site did let them down somewhat, though the support was excellent, actually trusting me, the customer, to have done the right thing.
October 10: In Rainbows is made available for download. Over the next two months, much speculation ensues as to just how many people downloaded it and exactly how much they paid to do so: Early reports have more than 1.2 million fans downloading it at an average price of $8, though later findings by comScore, a company that measures consumer activity online, adds that more than 60 percent of downloaders paid nothing for the album. Neither Radiohead nor their publicists discuss the financial aspects of the download experiment, though the band does issue a statement dismissing comScore’s findings as “wholly inaccurate.”
I shed no tears for the music industry. They are missing out on my money because the only way available to me to get new music is via the purchase of a CD. Guys, it is 2008!
I don’t want to buy CD’s. I move around a lot and nothing sucks more than having to deal with these annoying, fragile little plastic disks. Sure I can store them, but then someone gets into my parents garage and steals them, leaving me completely without a collection.
This is ridiculous, I want to be able to buy my music digitally, and I want to know that in 10 years I will still be able to play that music. And until you give me that I’m not going to buy any music from you. We want a service like Amazon MP3 (horrid license aside) in Europe, I want to give you my money.
As for iTunes, don’t get me stated on that. DRM sucks. I just have to wonder where are all the people shouting monopoly are now? The old reality distortion field reaches pretty far these days.
Rant over.
It didn’t surprise me to read here that over 300 individual memory leaks have been fixed in Firefox. Soon after leaving Microsoft, I decided to switch over to Firefox, mostly due to the huge range of add-ins. The swap however didn’t last long as the crashing simply didn’t stop: Firefox and memory consumption.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to it…
First the wicked Prius, and now this, I’m gonna buy a Toyota….
BetaNews | Toyota president: Robotics will be a core business
I’m a little peeved today. About 3 weeks ago I installed Quicktime, a site that I visit often seems to be obsessed by it, and I finally decided that I might as well just install it. See I don’t really care that it’s Apple (I’m even thinking about getting one of those touch iPods), it’s just I’m really picky about what software I install on my machine, years of dealing with Windows has taught me that the less you install, the more reliable and speedy your PC. When I did install it, it of course tried to push iTunes onto me, something common to a lot of software packages these days (the Google toolbar being the main offender), it was an offer that I declined. Windows Media does it for me, I don’t have an iPod, and I don’t plan to shop at their DRM crippled store thank you very much.
This morning, as I was rushing out the door, I got a note from Apple saying that some of their software needed to be updated (note updated, not installed). Stupidly I didn’t read anymore than that, I just assumed that it was just a Quicktime update. Knowing the importance of security, and keeping your patches up to date, I said go ahead and install. I have just got back now, to turn on my PC and find that I was actually installing iTunes!
Now, let me just say this, if Microsoft ever pulled this dodgy sort of move, they would have been hauled over the coals three or four times. I have never wanted to install iTunes, I have never proactively gone to any Apple site to download it, and I don’t want it on my machine. To prompt me to install it via their “Software Update” tool is very near fraudulent! What right have they to stick a sign on my computer screen asking if I want one of their products, its like some kind of pop-up advert.
Now I have to go through an uninstall, and hope that it doesn’t leave any rubbish behind, which by the way, I’m sure it does. I’m uninstalling Quicktime while I’m at it…
Of course this makes me feel stupid. I long ago gave up on Virus scanning software, and turn off Windows Defender. They don’t really work, they just slow your PC down, and I have never had a malicious software problem. This is just a little reminder about how vigilant you have to be, and how hard it is for the average PC user. ARGH.
It has been a long time since I wore a watch, in fact the last watch I wore purely because it had a 256meg memory stick built into it (of course I was one of the first, alright!). I do wear one every now and then, usually when having a bit of a “dressy” night out, and I’m constantly on the lookout for interesting pieces. This little collection fits “interesting”.
Of course my old mate Scotty, who had trouble reading analog clocks until late year 11 (I know because I had to help him read them during our final Japanese exam), is probably terrified by these.
If I had known about this sooner I probably would have bid.
Those of you reading my blog would know that I have a minor obsession with Soviet Era manufacturing and tech and this would have given me my own little piece of it.
The first Soviet mouse, look at those CURVES!
I have been using Firefox a lot more lately, mainly because I’m not accessing internal Microsoft web sites anymore. It’s quite a nice browser, now doubt, but I do fail to see what all the fuss is about.
The primary thing I like about it is not the browsing experience, but all the cool add-ons. Of course these come at a price with a negative effect on stability. I’m getting around 2-3 crashes per week.
I have to say that I find the IE7 UI much nicer, much cleaner, makes better use of screen real estate. The Firefox UI strikes me as being a little old school.
The thing though that is really starting to make me think about switching back to IE as my default browser is this:
Both browsers have been open for around the same time, with roughly the same number of tabs, and I have been doing roughly the same type of stuff. This really has an impact on the performance of my machine, slowing what is a pretty modest spec’d laptop.
I have been hearing about this problem on Firefox for what feels like years, is there nothing that can be done about it?
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