Fake Steve goes real

Kinda stale, but the Secret Steve Jobs Diary blog is changing...to the dude who writes as Steve Jobs, Dan.



I totally loved his stuff. My favorite was recent piece from a contributor who 'worked' at Google, and was describing the significance of employee badges. Details.



Dan/Steve also pointed out some awesome comic, SiliconApartment.com, which covers the life and times of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates living together. Hijinks ensue.

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.

Bill Gates: an American patriot supporting sexy innovation

What makes America great?

Free speech? Freedom of worship? Democracy? Yes. Yes. Yes, but nothing's sexier than innovation.

America has been one of the most innovative countries. We've only been around since 1776, but we developed the light bulb, the automobile, the computer, peanut butter, Wite-Out®, UNIVAC, the personal computer...the list goes on.

As of late, however, we seem to be lagging behind. India and China are poised to be the next great information/economic superpowers because of their triumphs in manufacturing and technology. Here in America we seem to be more interested in Anna Nicole's secret patronization of the Church of Scientology. Why? We're complacent. We're fat and lazy. We're the bump on the log that buys the 60-inch plasma/LCD/DLP and posts up in the house and watches HDTV while the rest of the world becomes better equipped to function in the global economy.

Recently, Bill Gates (yes THAT Bill Gates) went before the U.S. Senate and basically said that America needs to remain competitive, and that enhancing our flailing education system and revamping the H-1B guest-worker visa system is the only way to do it.

Essentially, America is lacking technical skills, so in the short-term the proposed solution is to make it easier to bring immigrant workers on board, while the long-term solution involves getting more students to graduate from colleges with a degree related to a field in science or math. The current national average of students that go into a college with such a major is %17.

There's a whole slew of reasons why this is the case, but I'm going to single out one: the majority of students coming into colleges have a poor mathematics or science background because these courses require rigorous study and application. Young Americans today are surrounded by immediacy (MySpace, YouTube, video games, streaming video, podcasts, blogs [wink-wink] etc.), and it would seem that spending a couple hours each night to learn about differential equations, or to attend classes on why an OLTP RDBMS isn't an optimal back-end to support BI transactions aren't sexy enough activities. While each of us need to take some responsibility, and take a more active role in our lives and understand that our actions affect those around us, there needs to be a stronger partnership with government and business.

Here's what Gates had to say on the issue:

To remain competitive in the global economy, we must build on the success of such schools and commit to an ambitious national agenda for education. Government and businesses can both play a role. Companies must advocate for strong education policies and work with schools to foster interest in science and mathematics and to provide an education that is relevant to the needs of business. Government must work with educators to reform schools and improve educational excellence.

Let's make learning, teaching and business sexy. If for no other reason at all, math and science grads tend to make more money, and Americans find money sexy. I didn't say it folks, that was Harry Warren and Al Dubin, and who are you to argue with them? Who were they? American innovators, of course.

iPhone...or iRipyouagoodone

Let's face it...Apple puts out hot sexy gear that makes you quiver with desire. They made UNIX hot with OS X. They have groovy PC-Mac commercials where the Apple guy is the quintessential "every-guy" (no doubt a character amalgamated from careful market analysis, surveying of Apple store patrons, and executing multiple focus groups) with whom all Apple fans can identify.

Or not.

The newest, and hottest thing to come from Apple was announced at this year's CES in Vegas: the iPhone. You may have seen the new device. It's hot. It's sexy. Did I say that already? Yes I did. Other not so sexy facts: while the two iPhone models will retail at $499 and $599 for the 4 and 8 GB versions, their actual costs of production will amount to no more than $245.83 and $280.83, respectively.

The markup on each model, which falls just under 50%, is one of the most aggressive in recent consumer electronic history. A 2-year service contract with Cingular will also be required for the purchase. Unlike most service plans, the agreement obviously does not subsidize the hardware cost.

You can check out the itemized breakdown here.

This just in: consumers have enabled Apple's raping of their collective wallet! Yay! I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I will not be an early adopter of this product. I'll let it go through a couple iterations and feature enhancements and price drops before I make a commitment here. Apple is still hot and sexy, but I just can't afford a Gisele-type device. I need more of a Tina Fey model.

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.