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By Blake, March 9, 2010 12:08 pm

What is the American Saying?

I was thinking about the current state of Microsoft and Apple and was wondering, Have they swapped places? Obviously, I need to explain exactly what I am talking about. When I make this comment I am specifically referring to the innovation that we are seeing from each company. Before I get into the details, let me explain what my interactions with each have been. I have a desktop running Windows 7 (it used to run Vista), an old desktop running Windows XP (it has had Hackintosh, Ubuntu, and Vista) that serves as an HTPC, a Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard (it did have Leopard), a Windows Mobile Phone manufactured by HTC, and an ipod touch.

1. PC Operating Systems- Let us look at the innovation from OS to OS. I can’t say anything about Apple’s improvements from versions before Leopard, but how many innovation did we see from Leopard to Snow Leopard. Obviously there were changes made, but the changes are so far under the hood, most users can not tell you what the changes even were. I do not want to underplay any innovation that does not effect the visual aesthetic, but quite simply the visuals matter. I actually could not even tell if the upgrade was successful when I upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard. I left the room and came back and it looked identical (I did an upgrade not a clean install.)

Now Let us look at Windows. The changes made from XP to Vista were pretty apparent. There was the sidebar and aero that come to mind off the top pf my head and this really helped to make Vista much prettier. There may not have been much actual innovation because the changes were under the hood or aesthetic, but what was really new. There were changes in the Start Menu and the way search worked, but nothing really major. However, as much of a bad rap as Vista got (much of which was a fantastic amalgamation of being overblown and deserved if that makes any sense) it really did feel like a good upgrade (I mean this in the feature set not necessarily function.) Then we look at the move from Vista to 7 I feel like there was much more innovation. The taskbar (while riffing on Apple’s Dock) has become fantastic. It is the perfect blend of Apple’s Dock, and the old Taskbar with Quick Launch. I personally think the taskbar is fantastic. The way that peak works by making windows transparent is great for sorting things. Finally, there is snap. There is a strong possibility that this is not as much innovation as much as it is a rip off. I am sure that there is a possibility that this was injected somewhere else before Microsoft did it, but this was the first time I had seen it, and honestly this is my favorite feature to be added to a major OS.

Continue reading 'Microsoft and Apple: Is the shoe on the Other Foot?'»

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By Blake, March 8, 2010 1:26 pm

Awesome

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By Blake, March 8, 2010 10:37 am

So, not too long ago I made a demand of Google concerning the way that Buzz works (keep in mind that I never really expected anyone at goog to see it.) I simply said that they needed to have a way for me to sort Buzz by date of post, or I would leave Google Buzz. Well, my birthday was Sunday and my demands have not be reached. I just went to delete my Buzz account and wham, Google you got me.

Continue reading 'Ok, Google. I see what you did there.'»

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By Blake, February 24, 2010 10:28 am

I have a birthday coming up and I want to send a formal request for an easy birthday wish to the Google Buzz team. I am not asking much and it will be as good for the Buzz team as it will be for me. Buzz team, please, give me a way to sort the buzz posts chronologically. I have a few buzzards (yes I typed it this way on purpose) who get a lot of conversation because they have obtained some type of celebrity. I can’t go into Buzz without all of the top posts being their posts, possibly over a week old. I do not want to mute the conversations because I do want to be able to go back in and look whenever it is convenient for me.

I do not think that it is much to ask. I am kind of liking Buzz, but I simply can’t continue to use Buzz if this is how it is going to stay. Your team showed great reaction time in trying to fix some of the security problems that you created, and I know that you have the propensity to take action.

In closing, my birthday is on March 7, and by the end of my birthday either this will be fixed or I will no longer be using Buzz, and I will go ahead and say that if I decide to dump Buzz, there is a good chance that I will not come back.

Sincerely,

GBM

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By Blake, February 21, 2010 1:46 pm

Pic from the past and probably the not too distant future.

First let me say , that I am no professional food critic, but as I was eating here I thought, I have to share the experience. Second, let me say, that I do not want to be overly critical and possibly hurt someone’s feelings, but that is exactly what I am going to do.

I was nervous about eating at The White Palace upon viewing the menu. If there is one thing that is good evidence on a restaurant, it is that if there is too much on the menu, the food will be bad. This menu had a Chinese, Mexican, American, Italian, and Sandwich section. That was a bad sign.

The Ambience-

The inside of the place, looked clean but it did not feel very inviting. The light blue and brown colors of the wall, along with the Mylanta Green of the tables was not a particularly awe inspiring combination. I am not going to say too much more other than that it was obvious that there was not a lot of money spent into the aesthetic of the restaurant, but that is ok (as long as the food is good.) I think I would recommend a bit warmer lighting though. As is common in non romantic dining establishment there was a television, however this was a particularly strange choice. There was one TV (I think a 20″ tube) place in a spot where about 1/3 of the restaurant could see it. What was on this TV you might ask? Sports? No. News? No. A DVD of First and 10, an HBO show that ran from 1984-1991? You bet ya. The great thing about this show is that while I was eating I had the opportunity to see naked women. the perfect addition to a restaurant looking to bring in the family crowd.

You can get the whole season on sale at walmart.com for less than $16!

The Food-

I decided to have a Chicken Sub, and my wife a Philly Cheese Steak. The food would probably have been pretty good had it been cooked by an 8 year old kid, doing something special for mom and dad. However, I could not see inside the kitchen and I am not a father, so in this case, not so much. It was not very expensive, but one should hope not upon viewing the food. The sandwiches came out and were on a bland warmed bun that looked like a fat hotdog bun. My sandwich had fried chicken, lettuce, and tomatoes. When I ordered the chicken sub, I did not expect the chicken to be processed chicken patties that are prebreaded and bought frozen in the grocery store. The french fries seemed to be bought from a grocery store frozen food section as well. Laura’s Philly Cheese Steak, one word: Steak-umms.

Nothing says gourmet like sandwiches made the Steak-umm way.

In closing, don’t eat here.

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By Blake, February 15, 2010 8:56 am

Anyone who knows me fairly well knows that I have been a fan of Windows Mobile for a while.  Before there was the iPhone it was phenomenal, and the iPhone came out and raised everyone’s expectations. WM devices were slow and clunky when compared to the iPhone (and in years since other oses.) Microsoft made very little changes but HTC showed an invigorated interest in making the UI more attractive, first with HTC Home and then pushing deeper with every iteration of TouchFlo. They also really started killing it with hardware eye appeal, but much to the decry of online critics and Apple Fanboys the devices were still fairly slow and clunky (at least from a software interaction point.)

Now we have WM7 (this is what I will abbreviate with even though it is technically incorrect.) First, I would start with what do you expect? Of course the OS looks, good. Have you not seen the UI for the ZuneHD? The Zune integration is critical at this point because once you have used a dedicated portable music device it is hard to go back to WM (at least on older devices like I have had.) Xbox Live integration is a nice plus to go after other OS makers. Overall, what they are showing so far looks good, but as I write the press conference is still active. I think it will be interesting to see if some of the rumors posted on ppcgeeks that made it appear that WM7 would be more iPhone like than most WM fanboys would be comfortable with.) I also wonder if there will be anything to a slightly different device for consumers and business, but that will probably all filter out later today.

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By Blake, February 11, 2010 11:12 am

Big Image

Let’s all face it, Yahoo is a pretty boring company. They have not had any big products in a while, while google just pumps out new tools frequently. Yahoo show no signs of innovation. They gave up search to Microsoft (pending federal approval). Yahoo mail is not even close to being as useful as gmail. Heck, flickr is being supplanted by facebook for image posting. This was my opinion on Yahoo, and I am not saying that the opinion has changed, but I did find Yahoo pipes and thought it was pretty cool.

Yahoo Pipes is a service from Yahoo that will route virtually anything on the web that is in the right format. This may not be new and it may not be original. I really am not sure, but it is new and original to me. As a matter of fact I am having a hard time thinking of how to put into words what pipes exactly does, but it is really cool.

I will just share the first use that I got out of it and perhaps with more playing I can later give more information. Of course, I would encourage experimentation of your own.

My first case was I was looking at ways to aggregate various information to various websites. They are a multitude of social services out there that will allow you to have a following and make posts. Additionally, back-links to a blog can never hurt. So I was looking at all of these sites and trying to figure out a way to minimize my effort in handling them.

Continue reading 'Yahoo Pipes'»

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By Blake, February 10, 2010 11:30 am

Something is Buzzing

Gmail users may notice something new in their gmail accounts, a small logo that says buzz next to it. Buzz is a Google attempt to throw it’s hat into social networking/media ring and it may not really be anything new.

Buzz just shows up when they activate it on your account, and Google said it would take a couple of days for all accounts to be active. You will be notified when you are ready to go live on buzz upon logging in to gmail. Buzz will connect to profiles that you already have setup in your Google profile and import information. For instance, my Google profile already had my twitter information in it, so my buzz imported (and will do so actively) my tweets. My blog’s url was in my google profile and so buzz automatically shows my posts. My youtube info s already in google, so the last youtube video that I posted is in my buzz.

Essentially, buzz appears to be a bit of a friendfeed knockoff, but might be able to get more traction than friendfeed ever did by just rolling it out to gmail users automatically. It also autopopulates your google contacts as people you follow in buzz. Currently, the buzz homepage lists Twitter, Picasa, youtube, flickr and google reader as web apps that are supported.

There is also, buzz integration for mobile phones so you can fully access the desktop features easily, but there are some mobile features that may make this even more interesting. You can view buzz near your location, post to buzz with you current location (geocaching) embedded, and view a buzz layer on top of google maps. There are also mobile apps for the iphone and Android that will allow for you to dictate your buzz.

Essentially, this looks like it could be promising/interesting. Will it take on Twitter? How will this compare in functionality to FourSquare, GoWalla, Yelp, friendfeed, and who knows how many other social services? Or, will this be another Orkut?

Perhaps after a little time these questions were start to clear themselves up, and maybe I will expound upon my thoughts after further use.

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By Blake, February 9, 2010 11:50 am

Chris Nolan directing some movie.

Deadline.com is reporting that Warner Brothers has asked Christopher Nolan to oversee the production of a Superman reboot. This is hot off of the heels that his brother is working on a script for a third installment in the Batman franchise. Of course Nolan is known primarily for his reboot of the Batman franchise with Batman Begins and then The Dark Knight. Nolan sounds like the perfect guy to go too, after all he did Begins successfully after the Batman and Robin disaster and was not hampered by that movie’s dismal portrayal of the nippled Dark Knight. He then did The Dark Knight, directing one of the largest grossing movies of all time, and directed Heath Ledger to a posthumous academy award for his portrayal of The Joker (not to take any credit away from Ledger), in a film category not typically showered with this type of accolade.

The question that I have is, is Nolan really the guy that we want giving creative direction to the Caped Crusader. Has Nolan earned our trust? Sure. Does his style lend itself to Superman? That I do not know. Nolan has not been around for a long time and his better known works outside of the Batman franchise are Memento, Insomnia, and The Prestige. Looking at what we have seen from him, I am not sure how Superman fits. He is definitely a bit on the dark side, and that was what made Batman so great a fit for him. Can Superman have a good movie in a darker style? Do we want Superman in an a darker style? I will not presume to speak for the comic and film lovers of the world, but I say no. If I could see one Superman story adapted to film it would be All Star Superman (and I think a lot of comic readers would agree with me), and I just do not think that type of story would fit with Nolan’s style.

All of that being said, I do not want to be overly critical. I really like Nolan, and all of his work that I have seen, and I simply do not want to think about a Batman movie without him directing. The good news is that it looks like we do not have to worry about that anymore. As I stated above, Nolan’s brother Jonah (not Matthew) has said that he is working on the script for a third Batman installment. Jonah worked on The Dark Knight Script as well as the scripts on Memento and The Prestige. The script is also being worked on by David Goyer who helped on Batman Begins. So it appears Nolan is preparing himself to take on the big shoes he created with The Dark Knight.

In closing I would just like to say that who knows what will happen? Christopher Nolan (at least as far as we know) will not be the director, and will just serve in an overseeing (likely more accurately labeled advisory) position and it is certainly possible that the success or failure of a Superman reboot would have nothing to do with his involvement. Now my questions are, should they keep On Brandon Routh and/or Kevin Spacey as Clark Kent and Lex Luthor respectively, or in true reboot fashion make a break from actors tied to the old project.

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By Blake, November 30, 2009 9:45 pm

If you are anything like me, you like Firefox and you like browsing in multiple tabs. You also are probably a big fan of the trackpad on Apple’s MacBook Pro. The multitouch functionality really brings ease of use to another level once you have gotten used to it. There is just one important function missing from the trackpad…

…Middle Click.

Middle clicking may not seem like a big deal if you have never really gotten used to it. My personal biggest use for it is when using an internet browser. I am a huge fan of opening things in a new tab, and of course middle clicking will do just that immediately (much easier than right clicking and then clicking on open in new tab.) The good news is (as well as the reason for this post) that there is an app for OS X (Yes to Snow Leopard) that will allow you to tap with 3 fingers to simulate a middle click.

Continue reading 'Middle Click on the Macbook Trackpad'»