I'm vying for a spot in a reality show

Finally my love of the thespian arena and gaming intersect with MTV Networks, Spike TV, and Microsoft Corporation partnership to bring a bunch of dorks together in "...a real-life televised Gears of War 2 adventure."

I've submitted my questionnaire and emailed in the pitch entailing why I should be a member of Delta Squad.

"...just like in the game, challenges, tough decisions and sacrifices stand in the path of victory. In a fast paced reality show that feels like an alternate reality game brought to life, your team must work together to reach the ultimate goal: Becoming the first gamers in the world to play through the entire saga of Gears of War 2 in early October."

In light of Patton Oswalt's piece on George Lucas, my geekiness is getting in the way of my nerdiness.

Layoffs at Yahoo!

Here's this guy's Twitter about his countdown to layoff at Yahoo!

http://twitter.com/ryankuder

Painful highlights:

Waiting for the call from HR so I can go pick up my paperwork....C'mon, c'mon! I'm busy here! Let's get this over with. about 7 hours ago from web

This is a serious downer. Trying to drown it in free lattes. Which I will miss. about 7 hours ago from web

Walking around saying good bye to some great people and good friends. about 8 hours ago from txt

Ironic that I just got my PC repaired yesterday. Won't be needing that anymore. about 9 hours ago from txt

On the plus side, my commute just got a lot shorter. about 9 hours ago from txt

Y! layoffs today, I'm "impacted". I'm heading into work to pack my desk, get my severance paperwork and hand in my badge...more to come. about 10 hours ago from web

Damn.

More at searchengineland.

Sugar daddy for search

$44,000,000,000+ for an internet company? Ok, it's Yahoo! but, jeez. This Friday morning, Yahoo shares rose 45 percent to $27.71, up $8.53 after the offer hit the table. In summary,

...[t]he offer, for $31 a share in cash and stock, represents a 62% premium to Yahoo's closing price Thursday. It comes offer comes as Yahoo continues to struggle against Google in the race for online-advertising revenue and Internet- search market share despite efforts to upgrade its systems. Yahoo's shares have lost about 40% of their value over the past three months.

I'm betting that Yahoo! takes the offer. Its shareholders will probably want this, and it's been struggling for years. This isn't to say that Microsoft will revitalize it even after it dumps millions into the flailing company. What's going to happen to all the product overlap (email, instant messaging, search, blogs, news, finance, etc)? Chop chop...I think it's going to be more than just 1,000 jobs being lost.

True many people still use Yahoo! for search, but Google (and its myriad services and products) is wooing users away...I recently tired of the AT&T/Yahoo! webmail interface that always shoved ugly ads in my face, so I switched everything over to gmail.
Let's also not discount the issue of competing corporate cultures. Microsoft and Yahoo! will be like the 40 year old CEO and 20 year old dreamer trying to reach consensus on pizza toppings. It'll be like a bad 'reality' show, which is to say all of them. Remember the Time Warner/AOL drama in 2001?

I'm hoping that Ask.com is able to further differentiate itself. If this merger goes through, the playing field will narrow to Google, Microsoft, AOL, and Ask. Fewer players...greater stakes.

Update: Cnet posted the 'we want to buy you' letter sent from Ballmer to Yahoo's Board of Directors, in which he professes his love for the company and his undying yearning to stuff its mantle under his manly loin waddle.

Why people hate Microsoft

Tons of users out here love Word and Excel. There might be fewer who feel the same way about Visio, Powerpoint, Project, Outlook, Exchange, or Access. But the main reason why people don't like Microsoft, I'm contending, is because the company's operating systems are so crappy that users must postpone adopting a new platform until a service pack AND additional hotfixes are released.

XP had the same concerns. Now it's finally a robust mature OS...at service pack 2 plus the additional hotfixes that are rolled out on a relatively frequent basis.

But Vista. Oh man. What's the deal? I was so fired up to take advantage of the DirectX10 graphics and the cool 'aqua' interface (yet another jacking from Apple), and then all the horror stories about the OS started sprouting like mushrooms in Kevin Costner's field of poo, which as you know, is used to fertilize his other, more recognized field.

Computer sellers like Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and others are offering consumers the option to buy computers with XP pre-installed instead of Vista. Chortle. What did Microsoft have to say to the issue of the strong demand for XP in the face of the new OS?

"We wouldn't term it strong," said Kevin Kutz, a director in Microsoft's Windows Client unit. "We would describe this as accommodating a certain element who needs more time."

M'kay. That reads as, 'We wouldn't call the smell shitty, but rather we have a certain, and might I add, LAME and ARCHAIC contingent who fail to recognize the beauty of our fecal matter.'

Anyone using Vista? Am I wrong? Did anyone have to request the special hotfix (that's right...you have to REQUEST it) because you ran out of memory while copying files?

What about using the diagnostic tool? Did anyone have any luck resolving the 150 problems that Vista identified?

Walt Mossberg gave it a pretty fair-handed review and I'm sure that Vista will eventually be as good as XP if not better...it'll just take a couple service packs.

It would be nice if there were hotfixes for real life...hmmm...a hotfix for the Bush administration? Actually, the best fix in that case would probably require a reinstallation of the OS, plus prompt updates via all available service packs, and a rehaul of the security measures to include more robust internal auditing measures.

Master Chief in Training

I promise this will be my last Halo 3 posting for a while...unless I need to post another one.

I was well on my way to discuss my excitement about finally rolling over 4 jobs worth of 401k plans into a Rollover IRA, and then I saw this story about some MIT students executing a geekly smart prank on their neighbors at Harvard.

Those kids.

iTunes secret assassinator for Outlook?

Word on the street is that the latest version of iTunes software is obliterating some Outlook recurring events. Not a big deal if you're using it at home to listen to the Sphincter Sister's podcast while you dial Mom and looking at the photos your cousin sent you from inside Space Mountain.

But if you're one of those people who have admin rights and can install the iTunes software on your work machine AND your work mail solution just happens to be riding on the Exchange/Outlook backbone, well then...for now you might want to consider disabling automatic updates of the iTunes software if the MS Outlook Calendar-iPhone synch is a concern for you.

The affected version of the software is version 7.3.2.6. If have already have this version installed and have not yet synched, you can also disable the Outlook add-in.

For Outlook 2003, follow these steps to disable third-party add-ins:

1. Open Outlook 2003
2. From the Tools menu, choose Options.
3. Click the Other tab.
4. Click the Advanced Options button.
5. Click the COM Add-Ins button.
6. In the add-ins "iTunes Outlook add-in" and "Outlook iTunes Sync add-in" please uncheck and disable this.
7. Deselect the checkbox for each third-party add-in in this list.
8. Click OK.

For Outlook 2007, follow these steps to disable third-party add-ins:

1. Open Outlook 2007
2. From the Tools menu, choose Trust Center.
3. Select Add-ins from the left column.
4. Look at the list of add-ins beneath "Active Application Add-Ins" iTunes/Outlook add-ins ("iTunes Outlook add-in" and "Outlook iTunes Sync add-in") select the iTunes add-in
5. In the Manage box, click COM Add-Ins, and then click Go.
6. In the COM Add-Ins dialog, deselect the checkbox for each iTunes add-in in this list.
7. Click OK.

Folks who were troubleshooting this couldn't find any other alternative order of operations or impact from other applications that would cause this problem, so tread lightly. This looks to be affecting Outlook Calendars on both PCs and Macs. More troubleshooting from Apple here. Although in this case installing the newest version of iTunes probably shouldn't be part of the solution. Steve Jobs wants to kill your Microsoft calendar...muah-ha-ha-hahahaha!!

Lindsey needs her cookies deleted

Lindsey Lohan. She's like that favorite drink you like to imbibe when you go out, but you know you have to watch it when you drink it, because it totally rips your sanity and reason away. Tossed. Out the door. You've hit rock bottom, and start high-fiving everyone when they don't want to be high-fived, and you keep telling the same joke over and over again...to the same person.

So, being the party elixir that she is, and just after leaving rehab, she tears off and starts high-fiving everyone by drunk-driving with a gram or two of blow in her pocket, engages in a vehicular chase with a relative of a former employee, and gets busted by the po-leece.

I'm going to make a guess that her booze bracelet was singing Inna Godda Da Vita during the whole chase.

But the good news is...and this affects anyone who uses the internets...Google, Ask, Yahoo, and Microsoft are all implementing stronger privacy methods to anonymize your search records on their systems. Here are the essentials:

Google: Modifying web search cookies so they expire in 2 years, assuming the visitor doesn't return to the site, otherwise the cookies push the expiration date out each day. In my opinion, this is somewhat meaningless...who are the users who access Google once in a 2 year period? 5 Eskimos and a monk in the Himalayas? Search records will become somewhat anonymized after 18 months (the last eight bits of your IP address will be made opaque). This means that your IP would be identifiable in a pool of 256 others.

Yahoo: They will anonymize data about searches and searchers within 13 months after each search is performed.

Microsoft: Users will be able to choose whether they want to receive ads tailored to their Web surfing habits. The company will also sever the links between information about a computer and the Web searches carried out from that machine after 18 months.

Ask: They're implementing AskEraser, which is a preference tool that allows you to not have Ask store your search information. They'll keep search records intact for 18 months, after which they'll disassociate the search history from the IP address or cookie information.

Now if only scienticians could figure out a way to mask Lindsey's drunkenness and public outcry for a hearty slap in the face and a hug to follow...but then, what else would we focus on: the worst U.S. President in history tethering our blood and money to the petroleum industry while simultaneously face-stabbing the global perception of America whose wounds and scars won't heal for decades to come? Nah...that's too much of a downer and I have to think about stuff that's not fun to think about.

Was Paris chasing Lindsey? That would be so cool if those two tramps got in a drunken, hair-pulling, fight and then Fall Out Boy stopped by to play a few songs as, like, y'know...a soundtrack? That would be sweet. I would totally put those pics on my MySpace page.

Chicktionary saves the day

Microsoft recently saw a bump in their searches (which is a measure used to define a share of the entire Search industry), but the way in which the increase was achieved seems...wait for it...fowl:

Another Internet metrics company, Compete, said the share of MSN and Windows Live searches jumped from 8.4% in May to 13.2% in June, an increase of 67%. While Nielsen/NetRatings will surely offer a third set of numbers, the trend is clear: Microsoft is finally seeing a change of fortune in the search industry.

Or is it? According to both comScore and Compete, Microsoft's turnaround is not due to improved quality or customer satisfaction with the service, but rather an online game called "Chicktionary." [HAHAHAHAHAHA!!] The chicken-themed game lets users re-arrange letters into words, and then launches a Web search for the word. A player may indirectly run dozens of searches in a single game.

Chicktionary is available on Microsoft's Live Search Club Web site, which offers other games such as a crossword puzzle called Flexicon, which also requires searches to be made for each word. Prizes are what's apparently attracting users to the site. For each game they play, visitors earn points that can be redeemed for software like Windows Vista and Zoo Tycoon 2, as well as shirts, song downloads, headphones and more.

I'm going to go with this prediction: this type of activity isn't sustainable, and next week, people will find something other to do during their lunch break or during lecture.

Yahoo-Microsoft and Google cookies with 2 year old milk

The San Jose Mercury News c/o Bloomberg News reports that Yahoo! is poised to be purchased per industry analysts...

The chance Yahoo will put itself up for sale has increased after the most-visited U.S. Web site lowered its revenue forecast, according to Stanford Group. Microsoft is a candidate to buy the company, analyst Clayton Moran said, reviving previous speculation.

...whoa.

Does that mean that all the ATT-Yahoo! email domains change to Hotmail after the merger? Gosh darn golly that would suck.

Google is also changing its cookie retention policy. Cookies are little bits of information stored on your computer when you visit a website. They allow sites to customize content for a user, help shopping cart technology remember your order, keep track of various credentials by uniquely identifying the user's point of contact, and other covert things that lull you into a dreamy complacent state of perception.

There have been some concerns surrounding privacy since the inception of cookies, but with the meteoric rise of the Googleplex PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER folks have been clamoring that the search/ad giant stop becoming big brother. I don't think they really set out to be big brother...it's just that everything they offer and provide is web based, and customization at this point relies on retaining information about the user...by using cookies.

Under the new policy, the cookies would expire automatically after two years, instead of in 2038 as is currently the case. However, the two-year period could get automatically extended when users revisit Google's search engine, so one might have to avoid Google for a full two years to see the cookie automatically expire.

This really doesn't address much in my opinion, because what about all those petabytes of server log data the Google farm stores? The best way to defeat cookies is to remove them from your machine. This process takes about 30 seconds to 3 mins in my humble estimation, depending on how active an internet user you are.

Running Microsoft? Here are the steps to delete cookies.
Mozilla Firefox? Bing!

To Microsoft: My mom is the best mom ever

Microsoft is hosting a competition where gamers are invited to submit an essay that details how their moms are hardcore gamers. Winners will be awarded the new Xbox360 Elite and $100 gift certificate for flowers.

Well, here's my entry. Mom, if I win, I will need to make sure that the system works properly before I send it to you. You WILL get the flowers on time. Some of you will not get the gaming references, but rest assured, my mom is a diehard player, who TOTALLY hearts shooters. Sort of.

Dear Mr. Microsoft,

I grew up in the womb listening to the sounds of "Snake!?...SNNAAAAAAAAKE!", as my mom played Metal Gear Solid. She rested the controller on her belly, and chuckled each time the Ninja Cyborg would say, "Hurt me more!" For my fifth birthday, mom bought me a Raiden t-shirt, but I totally hated it, as I always thought he was a bit of a pansy. But when my mom looked into my face as I held the Hanes Beefy T screenprint up to my body to approximate the fitting, I smiled big and wide and told her I loved it. Mom always meant well, and she loved the game so much that if I hadn't worn the t-shirt at least once a week, she would've taken me to see a "talking doctor."

When the Xbox and Halo came out, she wouldn't let me go to school and she didn't go to work until we had both finished the game twice, and fragged each other in multiplayer mode. She didn't really like the fact that the first game in the series didn't support online multiplayer action, but she was pleasantly surprised by Halo 2. I'd come home from school, help dad prepare supper, then go into the entertainment room where mom would be blasting some online combatant in the face with the shotgun. She told me, "Son, Mommy totally hearts the shotgun." She always said that: "Mommy hearts this," or "Mommy hearts that."

Well, now that mom is under investigation for software piracy (she started modding Xbox and PS2 systems in the early 2000s in addition to burning and selling copied games on ebay), the FBI won’t let her out of the house or receive shipments of any kind. I really want to be able to bring her an Xbox 360 Elite for Mother’s Day. I figured out a way to sneak it in…Agent Smith totally hearts Car and Driver, and if I wave a copy under his nose and mention the article on the prototype cerami-plastid V10 block in the Dodge Hyper Viper, I know he won’t notice the large rectangular box shape in my backpack. All I need is Microsoft to help me help my mom by awarding her the Xbox 360 Elite.

She’s a good person, and if anything can be said about her, it’s that she’s TOO hardcore. The FBI is eventually going to make her develop simulation games for "training" purposes as part of her plea bargain, but what she’s really looking forward to is playing Gears of War and ultimately, Halo 3. She’s dying to play, Mr. Microsoft. Please help me make my mom’s Mother’s Day the best one ever.

Sincerely,

gamertag: CmdSgtMaj

They have the internet on computers now

Aside from iTunes, virus software, and small utility packages, I don't install productivity software on my machine anymore. After my last rebuild of my system (you can check the specs here), I found that there are many web-based or hosted solutions that fulfill my needs without the overhead of installing megabytes of software (I'm looking at you, Word 2003).

Google allows you to author documents and spreadsheets online. All you need is an account to access them. At first it only looked like Google was targeting consumers, but they've also been working on Google Apps for Your Domain.

According to an article on businessweek.com:

Google Apps for Your Domain lets companies offload e-mail systems to Google while keeping their own e-mail addresses. Soon, it's expected to add word-processing and spreadsheet services to the suite, which includes an online calendar, chat service, and Web page builder. In coming weeks, Google Apps will turn into a real business as Google begins charging corporations a subscription fee amounting to a few dollars per person per month.

While Google has no where near the large scale B2B expertise that Microsoft has in terms of delivering applications to businesses, companies like Pixar and its parent, Disney are considering the switch. Others are sure to follow.

Of course, until all of us have some nanotechnology integrated into our weak flesh and transistor-less brains and are able to be online ALL THE TIME, users will need to be able to establish a web connection using their personal computing devices to use web-based tools. Which means that if you're that guy who likes to fill out expense reports while going through a BART tunnel, you might be out of luck with accessing your files on Google Docs.

Sneaking around the open source door...Microsoft

Oh man, this is rich.

Microsoft apparently tried to pay a blogger to "revise" some content on an article on Wikipedia. HAHAHAHAHA! For those who don't know, Wikipedia is open to all Internet users (for the most part) who wish to contribute to various online articles. The content ranges from everything. It's awesome, really. You can find out all kinds of information on the site, and while some of it should be taken with a grain of salt, if you want to find out what happened to that kid in Disney's first live action film, The Black Stallion, you can bet your tokhes you can find it on Wikipedia.

The Wikipedia staff like to keep the content devoid of conflict of interest, so when Microsoft tried to pay someone to revise the various articles (which contain content related to open source document management which Microsoft's 'pay-me-for-everything' approach doesn't tolerate) it's considered bad form.

The reason why is explored in an article on sfgate:

"Microsoft acknowledged it had approached the writer and offered to pay him for the time it would take to correct what the company was sure were inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles on an open-source document standard and a rival format put forward by Microsoft.

Spokeswoman Catherine Brooker said she believed the articles were heavily written by people at IBM Corp., which is a big supporter of the open-source standard. IBM did not immediately respond to a request for comment."

So at the sideshow, I guess that could read as:

This is for my mental and my momma that I cried on
Microsoft motherfuckers let bygones be bygones
But since I'm Mack'intosh, I'ma double click your icons
The Coup, Steal This Album
"Me and Jesus the Pimp in a '79 Granada Last Night"

No? I guess it'd be more appropriate if Boots was rappin about IBM instead of Apple.

Anywho, the article on Wikipedia is about OpenDocument or ODF, short for the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications, is an open format for saving and exchanging electronic documents such as memos, reports, books, spreadsheets, charts, and presentations. This model doesn't exactly jive with Microsoft's pricing structure and proprietary formats, so it would seem that they wanted to plant some kind of "two-thumbs down" piece.

Oh yeah, Vista is also launching this month. You can buy a limited edition copy of the OS on amazon...it's signed by the multi-billionaire philanthropic small business crusher.