Elegant Distractions

With the proper version of Windows 7 in-hand I set about upgrading my two computers.

The first was my home-built video editing computer running 32-bit Vista Ultimate. The process went flawlessly in about two hours. Really, a few clicks, no difficult choices and boom: Windows 7 Ultimate. I tried a few apps, like Adobe After Effects and one or two games with no hiccups.

OK, one hiccup. Sleep and hibernate no longer work but since even Vista was unable to restore my Creative EMU 8020 audio break-out box (although XP never had trouble) I'm used to doing a full power down.

My one-year-old HP Pavilion Dv7 laptop, running Vista Home Premium x64 turned out to be a different beast. Repeatedly the installation would hang at "Expanding Windows Files (18%)". I found a few references to this problem on the web but none of those solutions have made an impact.

Five (now six) retries have all failed at the exact same point in the upgrade. Repeated rollbacks have not been too kind to my laptop, either, as the last one required a run of chkdsk. I'm going to let this run for a few hours to see if it makes any progress at all.

UPDATE: Disabling the floppy drive from the boot options has solved the problem. Installation is continuing!

Posted by director at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

OK, my fault for making assumptions (and forgetting what I'm running). I admit that I did not check the upgrade pages for specific versions of Vista and what can -- and can not -- be upgraded to what.

Two computers, one running Vista Ultimate and another Vista Home Premium. Two copies of Windows 7 Professional. Upgrades: zero.

Neither version of Vista will upgrade to W7 Pro. Why not? What the hell does it matter? Especially for Home Premium as W7 Pro is an upgrade (kind of, really it just installs additional features).

So my fault for not reading the fine print and going only on the hype of "Vista can be upgraded."

Here I was expecting to provide a glowing report on my upgrade experience but I never got out of the batter's box.

UPDATE: The chart on this page shows what I'm talking about. Vista Home Premium can be upgraded to anything but W7 Premium. Of course!

Posted by director at 04:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Fifteen years after Jeffrey P. Bezos founded the company as an online bookstore, Amazon is set to cross a significant threshold. Sometime later this year, if current trends continue, worldwide sales of media products – the books, movies, and music that Amazon started with – will be surpassed by sales of other merchandise on the site. (That already occurred this year in its North American business.) In other words, in an increasingly digital age, Amazon is quickly becoming the world’s general store.

Posted by director at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Historic ‘Blockbuster’ Store Offers Glimpse Of How Movies Were Rented In The Past

Posted by director at 04:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Shantanu Narayen, President
Adobe Systems Incorporated
345 Park Avenue
San Jose, CA 95110-2704

Mr. Narayen,

I’m sure whoever had the brilliant ideas for destroying, excuse me, enhancing Adobe’s product registration and activation system has, by now, fully paid the price for their epic short-sightedness. The CS4 registration/activation process is a disaster of legendary proportions and you approved it. I can only guess at the monstrous impact on the balance sheet.

I’m just an individual who’s been happily using Adobe video products for nine years but moving to Creative Studio Premium CS4 may well be my final upgrade. Let me give you two reasons.

First of all, I upgraded from an older suite. The inability to perform this upgrade without customer support intervention was and is unforgivable on its own. I suspect the marketing department laid a heavy hand on the technical team to initially deny upgrades to older suite owners like myself and that perhaps there was an uproar late in the game which forced them to rethink that position. Regardless, having to call support (and wait, and wait) just to activate using a special one-time code is surely meant only to punish smaller customers. I mean, you have worked hard to make it as painful as possible to remain a customer, after all.

Secondly, the process of activation after a reinstall from, say, a hard drive failure also requires a call to customer service. Perhaps this would be a simple, quick event if it weren’t for the already overwhelmed support system. In my case, I sat on hold for one hour and twenty-three minutes (reported wait time: 20 minutes) without getting through to a person. Perhaps you can help me understand how many times I should expect to endure this type of wait before speaking to an individual?

It would be tremendously helpful if I could manage my activations through my online adobe account, so that I would not have to trouble your overworked support staff.

With a mere 17 days remaining before my software becomes unusable I have serious doubts about making a support breakthrough. It’s not like I can spend ninety minutes every day on the phone hoping for a miracle. When I can no longer use the software I worked very, very hard to acquire, I promise I will never purchase another Adobe product in this lifetime.

Most Sincerely,

Director

Posted by director at 07:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When you have to do a clean install, that's when.

Upgrade pricing for Windows 7 is available to current users of Windows XP and Vista, although people on the older operating system will need to conduct a "clean install," which doesn't preserve existing data or programs as a standard upgrade process does.

Might as well reinstall my XP clean now and just forget about W7 altogether.

Posted by director at 04:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by director at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Fabius Maximus provides a nice roundup of articles on small nuclear energy plants. These are tiny, self-contained nuclear reactors that can power a factory, a neighborhood, or a small village.

In the comments he says:

Disposal of atomic waste is my favorite candidate for “most overblown fear”, despite the stiff competition in America (a once-bold nation reduced to childlike terrors). As noted in this post, most advanced atomic technologies use fuel which is not convertible to fission weapons (at least not with resources available to terrorists). The “tiny cores” can be gathered up and safely entombed at moderate cost. We’re talking about radioactive waste — not antimatter or a universal solvent.[emphasis mine]

Posted by director at 02:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been playing Spore for a few days now. It can be pretty fun but there are a number of annoying characteristics.

The idea is that you start building a creature from a tiny tidepool organism. The creature earns DNA points by eating and, later by interacting with other species. Spend the DNA points on "features" for your creature, then evolve from the tidepool to a land creature all the way up to interstellar colonization.

I find that the tribal and civilization stages are the simplest and quickest to get through. There's not enough to do at those levels. After the struggle of the tidepool and the early land stages, these levels are a disappointment.

The space level seems endless. Maybe thats by design. So far I haven't completed the space level. Which brings me to the gripes.

EA clearly invested a lot of money in certain animations. To get their money's worth they make you watch them endlessly. The mating animations are particularly annoying after the first dozen times. Same with the spaceship launch.

Getting your ship blown up (very easy to do early on) you have to sit through a fifteen second animation and two button clicks before you can use the new ship. Slogging through dozens of ships to beat much stronger fleets with your single craft gets down right irritating.

Upgrading ships weapons takes a lot of dosh, as my Oxford friend calls money, but I seem to spend almost all my time fighting pirates and raiding species on my planets and those of the allies. I can't get away to do any more trading and beating the invaders (who have dozens of ships) takes a loooong time, each time.

So, at this stage I am unable to improve my ship so it can survive longer and beat stronger enemies because I can't get away from the home planets long enough to do some trading.

Now, I have established a trade route with an alien civilization but none of that revenue is usable by the ship. So, what's the point?

Also, there are civilizations that will declare war on you just for showing up at there system. No warning about this, either, so you may be on a peaceful mission and suddenly you have enemies bombing your homeworld.

Terraforming is fun, though.

Also, to improve the chances of establishing diplomatic relations with aliens sometimes you have to go on missions for them. One of these is hunting down a half dozen diseased creatures on some planet. What's terrible about this is that the ships radar is useless for this (and pretty much everything else). There are no instruments to guide you, so the only option is to scoure entire surface of the planet. Ah! But these are always timed! One time I managed to find them all, out of five or six missions.

Overall, interesting strategy-like game play but some aspects are really not thought out well enough. I hope future patches will address some of these issues. I'll keep trying to figure out the space level and see what I'm not getting at present.

Posted by director at 06:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Don't you wish there was a way for qualified people to skip over the script-reading first-tier support personnel?

I want to start every support call with, "Hi. I already know more about this than you do. What I need is to speak with somebody who knows more than I do. I've done all the basic things you will ask so can we skip the part where you ask me to reboot the device and you try to explain how to log on? Just pass me up the line to the next level so we can get this solved quickly."

Wouldn't it be cool if there was some kind of way to universally skip first-tier secretaries and get right at the more knowledgeable people? A membership number to something that you can enter during the phone intro to jump to the second-tier support folks.

Hey, you! Get to work on that!

Posted by director at 08:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just a small point. Dlink makes some OK products. One of which is a wireless bridge (DAP-1522) that I suddenly have come to need. The set-up was pretty painless but the damn thing was as slow as a dial-up connection. My crappy Airport Extreme, which seems to need a hard boot every day or so and blocks access to my HP 2600N, was at least fast.

Foolishly hoping to avoid taking the Bangalore Express to phone support, I emailed support with my issue. Nothing. Not even a confirmation email. A couple days later I sent another.

Eventually I bit the hour-wait bullet and actually got a decently-speaking Indian who ran me through the basics. (I resisted the urge to explain that while I was waiting I swapped out wireless NICs in my Belkin F5D8230-4 router in hopes of getting DD-WRT running on it.)

Ultimately, the bridge is bad and has to be returned so I'm stuck with that terrible Airport Extreme until I get an alternate working.

It will be fun to see how long (if ever) before I get a response from their email support team. Clock is ticking, DLink!

Posted by director at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I recently bought the Garmin nüvi 360 GPS Navigator. I picked this model in large part because it has Bluetooth handsfree capability. The product description on the Garmin site has a link to their list of compatable phones. I did not check this list because my phone works with Bluetooth. I've had a couple of different BT headsets over the past few years.

And yet.

Garmin has found a way to limit their phone support. My stupid old, tiny Motorola BT headset can talk to any capable phone but Garmin can't figure out how to do that. Their list of supported phones is miniscule and doesn't include several of the hot LG models (or phones, for that matter).

I'd think that if the idiots at Motorolla can find a way to stuff BT into their headsets that are the size of rabbit turds, well, then, the big brains at Garmin (who are famous for aircraft avionics) could read up on BT standards and get all the phones online with their GPS systems.

C'mon Garmin, get with the program.

Posted by director at 02:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Daughter the Second bought herself a spanking new LG Voyager. She loves it, rates it 9.2 out of 10.

Where does it fall down? It seems somebody slept through the design meetings or the endless spec reviews so the phone (stupidly) does not send the turn-by-turn navigation audio over Bluetooth. In fact, in order to hear the audio she has to disconnect the phone from her handsfree system in her car. Otherwise: silence.

Hello? Any one home?

Let's think about this for a second. You are using navigation on your phone. In your car. While driving. But you have the bad taste to have a built-in handsfree system in your car. You get to either a) use the BT and divert your eyes from the road to watch the little video screen or b) disconnect your phone from BT and then have to ignore all incoming calls while navigating.

Frankly the engineers and designers were all asleep at the switch when they made (or failed to make) that decision.

Posted by director at 02:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I think Tivo has pretty much figured out how to distinguish television advertising from the shows themselves. If they have the guts to take this to the next logical step, they will sell millions of units.

I had the distinct displeasure of 1) being sick and 2) watching live television. With three Tivos in the house, I normally refuse to watch anything live. The ability to fast-forward over advertising (and Ryan Seacrest yakking with contestants) has spoiled me completely in this regard.

So normally I would not have seen what went on yesterday. Tivo popped up a link to a video for Shell Oil -- during a Shell Oil commercial. Those Tivo evil geniuses knew it was the Shell ad, and the right ad, to boot. I saw the same thing for another advertisement.

Now, if they would only put this information in the hands of their customers we would have the one feature longed-for since the first VCR: smart ad skipping. Like jumping chapters on a DVD. A click of a button and the ads go *poof* and then its back to the show.

Of course they will not provide this feature because they are selling pop-up ads to companies like Shell, who would be loathe to buy them if Tivo made is even easier to jump past the ads. It is interesting to realize, however, that the technology exists and that Tivo is selling consumers out to generate more ad revenue for themselves.

Posted by director at 09:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Daughter the Second gave an HD Tivo to the Spousal Unit and me for Christmas and we got to open it early so we could beat the post-Christmas rush on cable cards. Did I ever mention that I have the best daughters in the history of the universe? I don't mean to burst any parental bubbles out there but the competition is closed and the winners have been announced.

Back to the point. The difference between Tivo HD and Comcast HD DVRs is like the gap between NFL football and intermural flag football. At a Division III school. Without football. Or intermurals.

It's such a treat to be able to quickly navigate screens, have the fast forward stop where I expect, have shows disappear when I tell the system to delete them, to have the system not crash when it's in the middle of recording. Little things like that.

Comcast needs to call up Tivo and pay whatever outrageous sum the Tivo execs can dream up to replace every single lame-ass DVR Comcast is currently foisting on their poor customers. Let this arrogant and ill-concieved (need I say failed?) experiment sleep with the fishes.

Sure Tivo no doubt asked for extortionistic fees years ago and at the time creating a DVR from scratch seemed so simple. Now, Comcast, you know that you can't just throw dollars at a technology problem and get a great result. Or even a modestly satisfactory result. One of these days we'll talk about why.

So. Love the HD Tivo. Good riddance to the Comcast POS DVR.

Posted by director at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I went to buy some iTunes gift cards from the iTunes store (if you want the link, find it yourself) for some last-minute Christmas giving. What? A week to go is last minute.

Problem is, iTunes only provides physical cards that they mail out. What kind of moron is behind that plan? I can buy a gift card on Christmas morning and put it under the tree before the family wakes up -- from anybody but Apple.

Any one who fears late delivery (me) will simply pass on iTunes gift cards and find something else. Great strategy, Napolean.

Posted by director at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As noted earlier, I have been interested in getting FIOS at my residence. Installation was scheduled for today.

Last week, after reading some notes online about FIOS port blocking (notably 80 and 25), I called to cancel. The order-taker had no idea what port blocking is, so I was passed on to the techies. The young lady who spoke to me confidently informed me that they block no ports at all and don't care what you run. Kewl. So, I let the order stand.

During today's installation, I mentioned this to the installer and he said they do block 80 and 25. He called the mothership to verify but the sad truth is that HTTP and SMTP ports are verboten. Since I do anti-spam development from the house this little nugget is a deal-breaker and I said so.

So, I will be keeping my Comcast service for the time-being.

UPDATE: In the process of re-enabling my Comcast broadband service (or, rather, keeping it from going away) I was able to upgrade to 16mbps/2mbps with the click of a button from the Comcast rep and a reboot of my cable modem. Problem solved.

Posted by director at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After realizing they probably had as good of playoff positioning as they were likely to get, the Seahawks went out and played like nothing mattered against the dreadful Panthers, losing by a few points (I don't even want to read the sports page to get the final score). The Line That Offends gave up four sacks, including the game-clinching sack/fumble that lead to Carolina's winning TD. By the fourth quarter I was fast-forwarding through most of the "action".

The Seattle defense made the Panther's rookie, first-time starting quarterback (whatever his name is) look like a star. Not sure what John Marshall's game plan was for the defense but "Run Away!" could fairly easily sum it up.

If Seattle was intending to concede this game (and the next two) they might as well sit the starters.

On the plus side, this was the first game I watched on the new HD Tivo and it must be noted that the difference between Tivo and the Comcast HD DVR is astonishing. The picture is better, the remote response is better, the fast-forward stops where you want it to and the UI is better.

Posted by director at 08:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Verizon spent the spring and summer jackhammering my neighborhood laying down fiber lines. I put up with the 6:30 AM drilling and pounding in anticipation of super-high speed internet.

I decided to take the plunge. The mailer I got this week offered 15 mbps connection for $49.99 (one year commitment) plus $15 per month off for three months. So I followed the link to the special website: http://www.verizon.com/fios46 which i'm spelling out here because the last two digits will change before long.

Guess what? Can't get that price or that deal from that website. So I called the phone number on the mailer (877-232-7330) and they didn't know anything about the deal or how to get it. It was suggested to me that it is a local deal only and that the national call center hadn't gotten it yet. Nonsense, because I've been getting these mailers for months now.

I plan to call the local business office (800-483-4000) to see if they know anything. After that I'm going to the Attorney General with a complaint of false advertising.

Posted by director at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I got a refund from Expedia on a non-refundable ticket. Here's how:

In my previous entry the manager "John" (I'm sure he didn't use his real name) flatly refused to refund my ticket and hotel on a flight that was not unworkable due to weather in Las Vegas.

After that fruitless conversation I called US Airways to work on alternatives but nothing was possible unless it resulted in the wife and I spending the entire weekend flying or waiting to fly. The extremely helpful clerk at USAir cancelled our tickets, meaning the entire trip. Perfect-o.

After getting back home I realized the hotel reservation was still out there. I called the hotel directly and cancelled that, too, but they informed me that the refund would have to come from Expedia. Uh-oh.

This morning when Expedia's stupid online site was back up, I called back in. With the airlines and the hotel both agreeably cancelling and offering refunds, Expedia had no choice but to cooperate. So, there you go: if you want a refund from Expedia then work it backwards and leave them no option.

Posted by director at 10:31 AM | Permalink

Was scheduled to travel from Seattle to Toronto via Las Vegas yesterday but storms in NV got in the way. The flight was delayed, naturally, not something Alaska Air has a lot of control over. The connecting flight departure gave us only the slimmest margins for catching it.

I called Expedia to see what they knew. After explaining the situation to the "Customer Service" representative I was put on hold. For 48 minutes by the timer on my cell phone. I called back and waited for another fifteen minutes before hanging up.

The wife and I were literally standing at the gate, boarding passes in hand, waiting for any information regarding our connecting flight. Alaska knew nothing, the US Air phone system said it was on time, and Expedia was stonewalling.

If we got on board we could very easily get stuck in Las Vegas with no way home. No the world's worst scenario but not what was planned. The gate agent said they had to close the doors so I had to decide. I thanked them and said we weren't going. It was the right call. That flight ended up missing the connector by three hours.

I called Expedia for some resolution. I asked to speak to a manager and was connected with "John" (not his real name, I'm sure, but that's what he said). I was far more upset over the lack of service from Expedia than anything else. John explained that Expedia doesn't have any information about flights, that they, "are only an online booking service" to quote him exactly.

Helping customers who are stuck at the airport isn't part of their job. Finding customers another way to their destination is just absurd. Once you pay them money they are not interested in your problems, especially if the flight is non-refundable. Free money!

Why, then, I asked him, didn't the reps just say so? Either time? I explained to John that in this situation "I don't know" is a perfectly suitable response and one I could easily deal with but his people were incapable of such honesty so instead they left me hanging on the line for an hour. Then he said, "Nobody told you to stay on the line." I guess next time I hear the words "please hold" I should ask, "How long"?

No refund forthcoming from the assholes at Expedia, either. Thankfully, US Airways was completely understanding. I should be getting my refund from them later. Marriott was equally cooperative, although the pleasant clerk I spoke with informed me that I would have to go through the morons (my words) at Expedia for my money back. Can you say "fat chance"?

I should add that the geniuses at Expedia took down their entire system for half a day for an "upgrade" so I will have "a better experience". Well, it will take more than a pretty UI for that wish to come true. What kind of idiots take their entire business offline for 12 hours? No doubt people at Amazon would just laugh at the idea.

Any guesses when I might use Expedia again? When Frosty and Lucifer play together.

Posted by director at 02:51 AM | Permalink

I've been reading about the sins of Google and within the past month decided to abandon Google in favor of Ask. Glenn Reynolds tallies the problems then summarizes with:

So what, exactly, does Google have that will protect it from a sudden shift in consumer sentiments?

Answer: not a blessed thing. Unless they get some grown-ups to put the kiddies in line, Google may well go down as the most colossal corporate bungle of all time. The Chinese have a symbol called the Yin and Yang. You know what it is, the circle with the black and white slugs chasing each other. You will note that the "eye" of each of the colored areas is the color of the other slug.

The best explanation I've heard for the symbology of the "eyes" is this: within every success lies the seeds of failure and within every failure lies the seeds of success. Google may very well prove the validity of that philosophy.

I'm perfectly happy with Ask.com, including the maps. I won't go back.

Posted by director at 05:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Check out this quote from Woody Norris in Make vol. 5 (subscription only):

[N]obody really understands gravity. What we do know is that it has something to do with mass and it is the result of something going on in the nucleus of the atom. I think I know what that "something" is. I might be the only person in the world who know what that "something" is. I know that sounds brazen, but I believe it's true. I have been working on a variety of experiments, over the course of years, to test my theory in a way that yields clear, unambiguous results so that it can be independently reproduced....

Based on the current rate of progress, I am confident that within ten years we will understand the mechanism of gravity and be able to influence it in specific ways.

My kind of guy. He's putting his own money into this research, not going around begging for grants.

Posted by director at 09:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Roger Simon shows that he just doesn't get it when it comes to longevity.

Too many people think that living a long time means being old for a longer period. The reality will be more like being younger longer instead. What's the point of retiring when you feel great and have good health?

Posted by director at 03:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Even in the face of overwhelming evidence some people still believe

longer hours == higher productivity

Sigh. My experience is that even managers who profess to understand the issues involved still value and reward the people who put in extraordinary hours over those who do their work then go home. One success guru said, "If you can't get it done in 40 hours, you can't get it done in 60, either."

This part is fascinating:

Studies have shown that being awake for 21 hours impairs drivers as much as having a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.08, which is the legal limit for noncommercial drivers in the U.S.

It's ironic. Most software companies will fire an employee who routinely shows up drunk for work. But they don't think twice about putting the fate of this year's silver bullet project into the hands of people who are impaired to the point of legal drunkenness due to lack of sleep. In fact, they will demand that these people work to the point of legal impairment as a condition of continued employment.

The ability to do complex mental tasks degrades faster than physical performance does. Among knowledge workers, the productivity loss due to excessive hours may begin sooner and be greater than it is among soldiers, because our work is more affected by mental fatigue.

The thing that is impossible to explain is why the technology sector continues to ingore data gathered over nearly a century as if it doesn't apply to them. It is still considered a badge of honor (in some circles) to work insane hours and run on as little sleep as possible. Perhaps it is the appearance of productivity that matters more than the reality of it, in some organizations and to some people?

The article doesn't even adress the resentment factor. Missing the significant events in the lives of family members cannot be compensated and everyone who has to put in 'face time' after kids are long asleep has the mental distraction of knowing that an explanation will be due, and this on top of the fatigue of the day. Also, There are no more pots of gold at the end of the technology rainbow for the average worker to justify to some degree the extended work days.

Hey, don't take my word for it. Read the whole thing.

Posted by director at 07:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The video coverage of the Men's Half-Pipe was horrendous. The exposure and the pixelation was so bad it looked like ABC was using webcams instead of their expensive ENG cameras. I don't know who set up the cameras but they clearly didn't account for the extreme variations of bright and dark.

It was by far the worst camera work I've seen on network television. The good news is that it was sorted out in time for the Women's Half-Pipe the next day.

Posted by director at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Interesting article on gasoline/alcohol mix fuels with a nice explanation on why hydrogen is not feasible.

While the author explains the "power shortage" of hydrogen he does not give a similar comparison to ethanol/methanol, nor does he explain the energy consumption needed to produce these fuels. I'd like to see that topic covered before jumping on the booz-fuel bandwagon.

Also, what happens when alcohol-mixed fuels begin to drive down the price of petroleum? It doesn't take a huge drop before the cost to produce the alcohol becomes impractical.

I'd rather see lots more drilling and fast-tracking of nuclear plants.

Posted by director at 07:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In a desperate attempt to prove they are not the company they once were, Intel throws good money after bad by promising to keep promoting the Itanic. Intel and HP have pledged another $10 billion over 5 years to boost the beleagured processor. Seriously, can't they read the writing on the wall? First Intel gets clobbered by AMD in the desktop retail sector. Second, Dell is seriously considering defecting and shipping AMD chips. Now, they want to keep boosting the Itanic. Acting as if you didn't just hit an iceberg is not going to stop you from sinking.
Think about it. The Itanium was supposed to be the successor to the Pentium. The problem was, it wasn't as fast as expected--especially at running x86 code--and it was really hard to write a compiler for. At one point Microsoft was shipping Itanium versions of its premier Windows XP operating system. Now, it has switched to the AMD64 platform. It still will ship Server for the Itanium, but has reduced the scope of support in that product down to three workloads. that doesn't sound like a healthy ecosystem to me.
In some ways, it is not amazing that Intel would try to jumpstart this dying beast. It needs something to counter the AMD assault on its home territory and iniatives like VIIV (which no one can pronounce let alone explain) are insufficient. It needs something else. I don't think the Itanium is it though. It is just too different and not sufficiently better for most systems to need it. I predict that the x86 will continue to move upstream and Risc/Epic chips will become less and less useful. Another $10 billion is another $10 billion lost.

-Godshatter

Posted by Godshatter at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been an AMD fan since the introduction of the Athlon. I always expected them to be a far distant competitor to Intel. They still are, but they are closing the gap quickly. Intel lost 11% retail market share from 4th quarter last year to 4th quarter this year. You can guess who gained that market share. Wow.

Posted by Godshatter at 09:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

20:13
I've been pretty happy with my Tivo boxes over the past few years. Tonight, however, the Humax box barfed and what an ordeal it was.

The Humax version has a DVD burner built in, but mostly it gets used to play DVDs. I slipped a disc into the drive but it never loaded, I couldn't get it to eject or the remote to respond in any way. Then the machine rebooted. And rebooted. And rebooted some more. Unplug, let it rest for a few minutes, plug back in. Reboots again. Arg.

Found the Humax support number. You have to call the box maker for support on anything besides signging up for service. After navigating the phone menu, getting the typical "please wait" message, they have a very annoying practice of actually ringing once, then going back into the hold queue! So, you think a person will answer only to get the music again. Eventually my call went into Perdition never to return.

20:26
Call back, same routine, only this time a couple of times when the phone rings somebody is talking on the other end for a word or two before tossing me back in the pool. Interesting, the "please wait" messages are not coming around every 30 seconds. I might have found another black hole in their system. Hanging up.

20:31
Call number 3. I'm starting to memorize the menu sequence. Got through pretty quickly and complained about getting dropped twice.

So it turns out there is a paper-clip hole that will release the drive tray, but you have to get the cover flap out of the way to find it. A bit tricky to do but finally the system is getting back on its feet. Hope I haven't missed recording anything.

Posted by director at 08:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yahoo just missed revenue targets and is down 11% as I write this. While we don't know for sure why yet, it means that advertising at Yahoo didn't grow like they expected. It could be that Google is just so powerful that they took all of Yahoo's customers. It could also mean that the online advertising binge is just about over. As I wrote previously, I think search is really a commodity game where name brand means more than product quality and advertisers can get the same value out of a smaller search engine as a large one. If true, it should be fun to watch Google's high-flying stock come back to realiy. Already today it is down 3.5% ($16).

-Godshatter

Posted by Godshatter at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yahoo just missed revenue targets and is down 11% as I write this. While we don't know for sure why yet, it means that advertising at Yahoo didn't grow like they expected. It could be that Google is just so powerful that they took all of Yahoo's customers. It could also mean that the online advertising binge is just about over. As I wrote previously, I think search is really a commodity game where name brand means more than product quality and advertisers can get the same value out of a smaller search engine as a large one. If true, it should be fun to watch Google's high-flying stock come back to realiy. Already today it is down 3.5% ($16).

-Godshatter

Posted by Godshatter at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm not the only one who thinks Google could be having a hard time maintaining their huge stock price. Henry Blodget enumerates his bear case for the company.

-Godshatter

Posted by Godshatter at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The company is hot. It's stock closed yesterday at 466.25. It has gone up $50 or 10% so far this year. That's in like 2 weeks! Google has all of the technophiles loving it and nearly all technology companies fearing it. At any time you can find dozens or perhaps hundreds of bloggers pontificating about when it will render the work of desktop computing irrelvant. It is coming out with a new operating system any day now--or so I'm told.

The ABM (anybody but Microsoft) crowd is fully in Google's court. It is the latest company to be given mantle as the Microsoft Slayer. If I were Google, I'm not sure I'd want that title. I mean, consider some of the others who have had that title: IBM, Sun, Oracle, Netscape, Novell, Linux, Corel, Apple, Pointcast, the list could go on. The track record of Microsoft Slayers is short on wins. If they were in the NFL, they would be the Houston Texans (2-14 this season).

Is Google any better or stronger than these others? To listen to the mainstream press tell it, yes. Then again, they told the same story about the companies above and countless others. Google is like the stronger companies in the list. It has a good product and solid earnings. It isn't the next pets.com. The trouble is that it has really only one profitable product: search. That's a great product but I'm not convinced it is very sticky. Not long ago I tried to MSN Search. At first, it couldn't compete with Google and I ended up using Google a lot. Lately, however, it has gotten much better. I have fully switched and almost never go to google.com anymore. I changed my search toolbar to MSN and never looked back. It was painless. I still find everything I'm looking for.

So what? Everyone besides me is still using Google. True. However, my experience says that Google doesn't deserve the high margins it is getting. It says that it is really in the commodities business. When I switch from Windows to Linux, I feel it. When I switch from a BMW to a Daewoo, I feel it. When I switch from Charmin to Cottonelle, I don't. Google is much closer to the third than the first two. It is easily replaceable. I suspect that if I switched to Yahoo, I'd get the same results I got with MSN.

But, you say, Google has more eyeballs than MSN and Yahoo. They can therefore charge more for their advertising. If Google were a magazine, they would be right. Google, however, has changed the rules of advertising and rendered the supposition incorrect. When I buy an ad in a magazine or on TV, I pay a fixed price for it to appear and get a non-fixed response. An add on the Superbowl gets more people watching it than an add on The View. The Superbowl can thus charge more than The View for the same ad. I'm paying for placement and getting whatever eyeballs happen to be looking at that placement. Take the Superbowl again as an example. Ads this year will cost $2.4 million for a 30-second spot. If I pay for an ad, I spend $2.4 million whether the viewership is 50 million or 5 million. When I pay for an ad on Google, I pay not for the timeslot, but for the click.

Why does that matter? Because a click coming from MSN search is just as good as a click coming from Google. I don't get more clicks for my money at Google. In fact, because there is more competition for each ad word, I probably get fewer clicks per dollar. As an advertiser, if I'm buying 1,000 clicks, I don't care if Google has more customers than Yahoo. 1,000 clicks is 1,000 clicks.

To reiterate, this means that Google is in the commodity business and just doesn't know it yet. Microsoft and Yahoo could conceivably just keep the price per click down and customers will come their way. It makes good business sense. Some customers like FTD (the flower company) are already starting to balk at Google's prices. What effect would it have if lots of customers left? Google's earnings would lower which, with a P/E ratio of 105, would cause the stock to drop like a rock. That has other repercussions and a downware spiral would begin.

What do you think? Am I missing some critical fact which renders my analysis void?

-Godshatter

Posted by Godshatter at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A few articles of late have me thinking about the future of Apple. All may not be well in the land of the iPod.

First up we have an author on ZDNet explaining why subscription music is making him dump his iPod. The iPod may have like 84% of the market right now, but it doesn't offer subscriptions and if those take off, the iPod may lose its luster.

Second, we have one of my favorite authors, Clayton Christensen, author of the Innovator's Dilemma (if you work in technology and haven't read it, you need to) discussing why the monopoly Apple has on music might be fleeting.

Third, an article in the mainstream press questioning whether the press is treating Apple too favorably.

What does all this mean? Presently, not a whole lot. It does, however, mean the future could look mighty interesting for the little company on Infinity Loop.

-Godshatter

Posted by Godshatter at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I saw this on /. and thought it had some merit.

Google to me seems like a new Catholicism. Everything consolidated under a monolithic central power with a mandate of "doing no evil". They send missionaries in the form of Bots and Ad Words to uncharted territory seemingly to help netizens in the wild, while gathering statistical data about what large masses of people are doing where, when and why. With this they can build their own versions of everything. Your home (page) is nothing compared to their cathedral. Heathens flock to it and erode their old societies under Google (capital G).

-Godshatter

Posted by Godshatter at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From a young-but-experienced developer: "Why is it called a 'ship party' when they are holding it at a hotel?"

Posted by director at 07:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This article from the Blogfather is more ominous than the population at-large will be able to grasp.

On the other hand, it may hasten us to a new internet standard since it won't take long for the EU/UN to strangle the golden goose. They see the threat to their monopoly and they fear the freedom the internet fosters.

"The state has grown used to treating its taxpayers as a farmer treats its cows, keeping them in a field to be milked. Soon, the cows will have wings.

"Like an angry farmer, the state will no doubt take desperate measures at first to tether and hobble its escaping herd. It will employ covert and even violent means to restrict access to liberating technologies."

The Sovereign Individual

Posted by director at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been a long-time fan of the Canon pro-sumer cameras. I own a GL1 and have been making plans to acquire an XL2. But this may change my mind. Apparently available in August.

I've been skeptical of HDDV but this camera might just change my mind.

Posted by director at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was intrigued by this post on 43 Folders.

Given the choice between a fractionally tedious task that will save hours of effort, and something capitivating and challenging, we’ll bunk off the former.

Hunters were used to be bored. They played skill-developing games, made weapons improvements, then went out to hunt. Put a Hunter in a farming situation and he goes crazy.

Modern Hunters don't have to be after game animals. You will find them on the playing fields as often as they can get there. Or in front of a game console, or hacking their computers.

Today even Hunters have to deal with Farmer tasks every day, filling out forms, working in a Farmer-like job, being responsible (read: Farmer-like) so as to attract a mate and these times can be like a bear trap around the leg. Accept the pain, do the task and get on with Hunting.

Posted by director at 08:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Blogfather points us to this interesting article on a juvenile deliquent asteroid that may crash the party here on earth.

This is the story Armageddon should have been. Defeating rogue asteroids is the work of decades, not weeks. A close call is hundreds-of-thousands of miles not glancing off the atmosphere at physics-defying angles.

If you think the story can't be told on film, look at Apollo 13, the real-life story which is being honored today. A skillful storyteller can keep your heart pounding even when you know how it will turn out in the end.

I guess the Spousal Unit and I will have to put this one on the to-do list. Nobody else will tackle it, I'm sure.

UPDATE: fixed broken link to the original article.

Posted by director at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Welcome to Elegant Distractions. Those who have been familiar with Young Enough will find that all the posts on that blog have been successfully imported here.

Blogger was a good place to start but the performance issues became unbearable when it took nearly a week for email entries to be posted. Sometimes just logging in was painful, so I moved into this new space.

Posted by director at 08:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)