Please can someone explain this Microsoft commercial to me? I do not get it. The commercial hopefully is setting up something. Hello Microsoft….I am waiting to see something cool or funny, or at least that makes sense.

I have to agree with Kevin Rose on the latest episode of Diggnation - what old men came up with this ad? The audience you want to capture, at least on TV is the younger audience. Kevin suggested paying Jessica Biel to rub a Vista box against her breasts. How talk about making Vista cool and getting some viewership for the ad.

Shoe Circus - Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates

For those that know me, I have and always will be a bit of a computer geek.  You just cannot beat it out of me with a stick.  Even now that I have taken a position in management and using a Mac, I have still not stopped geeking out once in a while.  However, the days of requiring a rack of computers to install the latest beta version of Microsoft OS, Active Directory, Exchange or open source Linux distribution or server application are probably gone.  Although I have fond memories of those days, and miss being the guy in the room that technically knows more about the latest and greatest things than anyone else in the room, I have moved on - life goes on.  So leaving that era of my life behind, I no longer need a so-called ’server room’.  All of the servers have been shutdown, all the data wiped.  I have gone from a potential rack of 8 live servers, plus a bench for assemble and disassembly to one office with three computers.  No longer do I have a working Active Directory domain with DNS, DHCP, active mail servers for web front ends, custom router/firewall systems, private instant messaging servers or hardware RAID enabled file servers.  On August 11th, 2008, it all came down.  Now to be realistic, most of it has not been powered up for the past two years…but that is beside the point - it was still in the room ready to be powered up.

Now the rack sits disassembled in a neat pile in the corner of the room.  All the extra computers have been reviewed by friends for possible life in their active server rooms.  The rest are all piled up downstairs awaiting recycling.  It is the end of an era….

Now on to bigger and better things - mobile computing and the 21st century.

You know I hear on the radio when driving earlier this week that Google had release a revolutionary new browser called Chrome. I got a bit excited. It sounded pretty cool and I like that fact that Google had decided to throw their innovative resources into the browser market as well. Yesterday I got a ping from a colleague asking it I had installed it yet. I have been busy over the past couple of days, and sadly replied no, but was going to. he provided some feedback on his experience and I got a bit more excited about trying it out. So later this morning I find some time and turn my browser to Google’s Chrome site.

I find the following:

So I see Beta for Windows, OK, where is the Mac and Linux versions?
Point One: Google runs on Linux. All it’s products and services benefit from the robust Linux community.
Point Two: Hello the Google CEO sits on the Apple Board of Directors.
Come on, Google has a stock price floating around the ~$500/share range, and you tell me that you can only make a Windows version.

Then I found the following: Google Co-Founder: No Mac Chrome an Embarrassment
It also states that Google co-founder Sergey Brin is a Mac user as well. Hopefully someone is getting an ass chewing.

In an interview with BoomTown’s Kara Swisher, Mr. Brin
asked if she would try out Google Chrome, to which she said “no,”
because there isn’t a Mac version available. Mr. Brin replied “”I know,
I know, it’s embarrassing.”

He added that he doesn’t know exactly when a Mac version will be
available. “I’m asking every day. I hope it’ll be a matter of months,”
he said.

Crack the whip Sergey and get those guys working…

Trademark Files for Leopard Systems Preferences Logo

Really Steve, do we have to trademark everything? Stop wasting time with all you copyrights and trademarks and hushing everyone at Apple from tell anyone what is coming next and work on fix the broke iPhone 2.x platform, iPhone battery life, and the pathetic MobileMe system. On MobileMe, how bad is it when Google provide a much better platform for free that we can bget from MobileMe for a $100/year. Stop filing patents and fix your services.

Looks like Microsoft has finally had enough of Apple poking fun at Vista with its rather humorous, I’m a Mac commercials. It would seem that they have paid Jerry Seinfield $10 million dollars to appear with Bill Gates in some so-called ‘edgy Microsoft commercials. Hmmm, I wonder if anyone at the Microsoft marketing department actually watched Seinfield…cause Jerry Seinfield had a Mac in the show.
I am curious to see what the commercial will be. It is suppose ot air on September 4th.

More details: Gates, Seinfield to appear in MS Vista ads?
MS Counter - Apple ads start, admit early flaws

iPhone Suffering from Flawed 3G Chips

After reading this article about possible problems with the iPhone 3G chip, I am rather glad that I did not get one.
My situation is a bit unique. I simply do not want to buy a $300 iPhone 3G, sign a 2 year contract with AT&T, and next year this time not be able to use it when I am in Ottawa, Canada. Would be sweet if Rogers would let me simply sign my iPhone 3G purchased in the US up to their service, but that is not going to happen. Rogers is having too much fun raping their fellow Canadian citizens with their 3 year contracts and $110 limited data plans for the iPhone 3G.

Lets hope that this is a firmware fixable issue. God knows the Iphone 2.0 software is slow and buggy. It literally takes me 2 seconds to get SMS Text Messaging to appear once clicking on the iPhone icon. Even longer for it to bring up my contacts list.
I was a huge fan of the iPhone 2G and the 1.0 software, but I have to say, with the 2.0.1 (that is even with a bug fix or two) the iPhone works like an alpha product. Battery life….hmmm, do not get me started. Oh, and why does it take an hour to sync my iPhone now - why?

Steve - Please use some those hordes of cash you are making off the new phones and the App Store and fix the damn software…please!

You know, this article may have just hit me the wrong way, bit I had to say something. Senator Hillary Clinton, you lost, get over it! I mean come on how many times do we have to hear ‘what of’ scenarios of how things might have been if this or that did or did not happen. The simple fact is, we live in the here and now, and lets move forward.

Iowa Without Edwards

I do not want to hear for the next several weeks about how Clinton might have done this or that, or how Edwards took votes away from her, etc, etc. Just as I do not want to hear about how Nader cost Gore or Kerry the election. Gore and Kerry cost Gore and Kerry the election for not talking about issues. …but that is another topic…

Unfortunately the world has lost a very funny guy. As many articles about his death state, people were shocked in Bernie Mac’s passing. (Star pay tribute to Bernie Mac)

I am a bit surprised that he died from pneumonia. I would have thought in this day and age, as long as you got hospitalization, this would have not been such of a problem.

Obviously I was mistaken.

After making the argument a while back with several of my friends to use Site5 to host their blog and other web services, I am moving my blog to wordpress.com.  Nothing against Site5, it is just a change of life and priorities that is creating the move more than anything else.  Hosting your own blog software requires geek time to review and update from time to time, and at the point in time, I need something that requires no maintenance.  WordPress.com fits the bill.  So as you will start to see, all my online services and life will be moving into the Web 2.0 cloud.

• Personal Blog:  WordPress.com (http://justisengard.org) — still using my domain name though. 
• Photos: MobileMe Gallery (http://gallery.me.com/justisengard) — Photo Albums and Movies
• PhotoBlog: Flickr (http://flickr.com/photos/justisengard) — Snapshots from iPhone with the cool new apps with geo-tagging
• Micro-Blogging: Pownce: (http://pownce.com/justisengard)

Also created a new blog for Anita and I to share stories, comments and opinions during our travels.  For those wanting to now where we just came back from, what happened or where we are planning to go, or what unique food we had - this is the place we will capture all this.

• David & Anita’s Epic Adventures: (http://davidandanita.org)

I have to say I have been plessantly surprised how well WordPress.com works.  The advanced fucntions on the GUI editor are nice, and I do not have to struggle with inserting pictures, etc.  ScribeFire (blogging plugin for Firefox) works well with it too.  You will see me changing themes for a bit until I find one that works for me.  I may just have to break down and do some CSS editing…but I am not there just yet.

Check out this article: Fears About Link Between Cell Phones and Cancer Re-Emerge.

Seems the cell phone antenna emits microwave radiation at least an inch from the phone. So when you are holding the cell phone to your ear, unless you have big thick ears, you are frying a bit of your brain.

Cell phones emit low doses of microwave radiation that destroy rat brain cells and memory and reach one inch into the human brain.

Wow, looks like I should start using my ear piece more. You know, maybe this would help those idiot drivers with one hand on the steering wheel and one holding their cell phone to their head.

Larry King recently featured three well-respected neurosurgeons on Larry King Live to talk about whether cell phones increase the risk of cancer. Each surgeon indicated that they do not hold their cell phones up to their ears when using them. Keith Black, a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles said “I think the safe practice is to use an earpiece so you keep the microwave antenna away from your brain.

So what is the take away from all this? Frying your brain with microwave energy is baaad. You have two choices: One, do not use a cell phone or two, get a ear piece.