Greetings

10 Question About this Guy

1. Who wipes his ass?
2. Who picks his nose?
3. Can he point out the bad guy in a line-up?
4. How does he do the hokey-pokey?
5. How much does he save on socks, shoes and gloves?
6. Is his nickname "Bob"?
7. How does he put his pants on?
8. Can anyone walk a mile in his shoes? Literally?
9. How often does he get a face fart?
10. Has he ever got into a fight?

Way Too Familiar

Is Microsoft Imploding?

My brothers sent me (separately) links to the recent NYT article by Dick Brass on the demise of Microsoft at their own hand.  It’s titled “Microsoft’s Creative Destruction”.  My first reply was kind of errantly focused on the broader issues of Apple and Google and whether Microsoft really figures into that triad of triviality.  Whatever that means.

My second reply came after a few more re-readings…

“Ok, after a second, and indeed a third reading of this article, I wanted to address it from his same point of view:

He's correct.

From what I gather from talking with the few I know who work there, or used to work there, there are bright spots within the company: The System Center division is producing remarkable products and gaining not only accolades but marketshare.  Office 2010 is already garnering praise in ways similar to Windows 7.

One of the blogs I follow daily is that of "Mini-Microsoft".  An (supposedly) unidentified "insider" who has become widely recognized as the internal voice of "what's wrong" within the inerds.  Even MS execs cite his posts often (there's even a Channel 9 video interview with Lisa Brummel, Microsoft's VP of Human Resources which focuses almost entirely on Mini's complaints and suggestions).

The company is fucking huge. Too huge.  It's like GM.  World-wide, multi-cultural and multi-language.  I have no idea how anyone could effectively manage a project which is literally parsed out around the globe like Windows and Office are.  It reminds me of the overwhelming complexity of designing and building an aircraft carrier.  It's just magic I suppose.  I may never understand how it works.

I agree with his overall take and that it's a big question mark.  Most would agree that one of their biggest faults is that they're easily distracted by irrelevant markets and deluded into believing they become threatening “competition”.  Markets like mobile media players, game consoles, web browsers, search services, and mobile operating systems.  They chase the wrong vermin.  It wastes their time, energy and budgets and makes them look oafish in the end.

As a comparison however, Apple has had their share of problems and problem decisions.  They are executing fairly well overall, but lately they too seem to be wavering a bit.  Ironically, the iPad is a good example mainly because there was almost nothing announced that wasn't anticipated.  That's a subtle but significant "first" for Apple in over a decade.  The iPad should've blown people away.  Instead it was just "pretty cool".  I don't know anyone, Apple enthusiast or not, who is saying "I have GOT to get one of those!"  Not like they did with the iPod Touch or the iPhone.  Even Macbook's got more excitement buzzing from their launch than this.  And like I said before: the design is shockingly un-exciting for an Apple "first".  It's just, well, Microsoft-ish.

A lot of buzz is coming out of Google that they too are facing a point of inflection.  They've grown in size to rival early Microsoft.  Shear number of employees, global dispersion (time zones, languages, cultures), and now they're starting to feel the gradual tug of market gravity as they fall into a (for now) tiff with Apple in both the phone and tablet markets.  Did you notice that within 24 hours of Jobs making his recent "Google is evil" comment that Google unlocked the multi-touch feature on the Nexus phone?  It was sure talked about in the tech community.  They've already been showing off their Chrome OS tablet with multi-touch as well.  Schmidt and Jobs are shaping up to be quite a pair.  All they need is TMZ following them around and it will be great ratings fodder.

But, the issue there is that Google is starting to chase side markets.  Remember, they get almost 99 percent of their revenue from advertising.  Everything else is given out "free" or laced with ads.  It's a smart approach, but only while the game rules are like they are now.  Things will change of course.

And what will happen to Apple when Jobs departs (or passes on)?  There really isn't anyone else with the same charisma, command and confidence to instill a sense of a bold future beyond that.  Schiller? Oppenheimer?  Cook?  Serlet?  Tammadon?  I don't think so.

It seems to be shaping up like Gates handing the baton to Ballmer.  What a mess.

So, back to the path:  Yes, Microsoft has dealt themselves some pretty horrific blows over the years.  He didn't even touch on the NetDocs vs Office battle that raged for years.  That was infamous.  They're still blowing their own heads off in the Windows Mobile space (WM 7 has been promised and delayed for years.  Still not certain).  They shot from the hip with Windows Home Server, which is an amazing product, released with almost no meaningful official "push", more of a small-team grass-roots effort.  But the only partners they could rustle up were Toshiba and HP and only HP is making any profit.  They're still scoffing at Netbooks and gave up on Tablets (like he mentioned).  And they've taken way too long to counter Google Docs.  However, Google has remained silent on a counter to Microsoft's SkyDrive, which blows my f**king mind to Jupiter how they could have missed that obvious opportunity.  Microsoft actually has multiple, including Live Mesh.  Another example of a multi-headed beast marching in twenty directions at once.

I could go on and on, but for every goof they've made, they've somehow managed to crank out an equal success,even if small.  I think that's how they've managed to hold on.  That and the fact that they've won over IT geeks for years with their focus and attention on the plumbing technologies like COM, WMI, SNMP, LDAP, .NET, RPC, WinRM, WPF and so on.  They are the absolute king of API's and documentation. They know how to make building blocks that stick together like Lego's.  That is like heroin for enterprise IT admins and corporate developers. Actually, more like crack.  IBM ignored that too long and lost the game.  Apple ignores it.  Google sees that but is only building the kits for use outside the corporate space, which is a gamble.  Time will tell.

Footnotes:

XBox comment – Yes, it’s a worthy component of their consumer base.  But it’s widely believed to be a break-even prospect for them internally.  Even their relationship with Bungee has been someone unclear at times.

WHS comment – The storage problem early on highlighted a disparity between the WHS group and other groups dealing with storage.  The lack of partner product momentum at the outset was an indication of initial uncertainty, when it should have been more prominent and visible.

Plumbing technologies comment – Yes, I know they didn’t invent many of those mentioned, but they did exert incredible effort in tying them into their products across multiple divisions no less.  And the efforts of TechNet and MSDN are no less than amazing in their own rite.

Google – I didn’t really dive into the fact that they too have bought into their share of empowerment without building it themselves.  YouTube is a great example.  Orkut however is a horrible example.

Awesome Trampoline Acrobatics

WARNING: The music embedded in this video contains some language that may be offensive to some folks.  If you don’t like Rap lingo, turn the sound down.  The video is worth the effort.

Google Inconsistencies Drive me Nuts

Google has always shown great potential, but they get a pass from the public far too easily.  They aren’t as cohesive and efficient as a lot of people would have us believe.  I’m a software developer by nature, even though I’ve worked in many other capacities within the IT world.  So I take software application quality seriously and feel everyone else should also.  But I guess I’m alone.  It really bothers me how companies the size of Google get away with quirky, inconsistent crap and the public gobbles it up as lobster and prime rib.

For example:

1. Features are not consistently implemented across their supposed “suite” of services.  Themes are only available in some services like Gmail and Blogger, but not with Picasa or Calendar.
2. Google Analytics is not pervasive.  You can’t insert GA code into Picasa web albums for example.
3. The breadcrumb menu links are not consistent.  Sometimes you get links for Notes and Sites and sometimes you don’t.
4. Googe Docs doesn’t allow many common file types to be uploaded because it wants to parse them into a database schema for storing and parsing.  It’s also very inconsistent with respect to file size limitations.  Just click the “Upload” link and read the “Types of files that you can upload” information.
5. Compare what “settings” are available with YouTube, Docs, Calendar, Gmail, Sites, Picasa, and Notes.  Only about 25 percent of them are even consistently available across those services, but even then, they’re not consistently implemented.

Some glaring omissions, “holes” in my opinion, in their offerings include the following services:

1. No group-oriented features for things like shared calendars, documents, and so on. You either have to share a single user account, or constantly “invite” others to view content.  A group calendar would be nice.
2. Nothing to compete with SkyDrive?  Really?!
3. Nothing to compete with Twitter? Really?!
4. Nothing to compete with Craig’s List?  Really?!

They compete with PayPal and Facebook, technically.  But those offerings (Google Checkout, and Orkut, respectively) suck shit.  They are horrible.  They are Apple’s Lisa and Newton, and Microsoft’s Bob and Vista.  Again, they seem to get a pass, as if they have the Midas touch.

I’m just amazed at what gets the stamp of approval from the public as being “quality”.  It’s 2009 folks - wake the fuck up.  Why are we settling for shoddy crap and calling it “innovative”?  This sort of ad hoc assemblage is something we expected back in the 1980’s and early 1990’s.  I can’t believe it’s 2009 and we’re still ok with that sort of output from a company of that size.  I suppose we really haven’t progressed very far after all.  Oh well.

Extreme Baking Powder Experiments

Chrysler Builds a Futuristic Car in 1939

Compliments of John C. Dvorak's blog, posted here. An animation feature for the 1939 World's Fair exhibit.

YouTube IP Nazis Went on a Blitzkrieg

I logged onto my YouTube account as I often do and noticed that about 20 of my saved "Favorites" had been stricken from the site for copyright violations. These are NOT items I posted. These are items posted by others. They cover music, comedy and even some self-produced clips, which was even weirder. Clips of comedian Brian Regan, George Carlin, Chris Rock, musicians like Frank Zappa, Limp Bizkit, and Cream, and so on. Not even the same publishers or rights holders. All of these clips had been "up" for at least a year. Many for two or three years. Looks like someone got a bug up their *ss.  The Internet is becoming less and less fun to use.

Proof that There is No Intelligent Life Here

What's worse: The fool, or the crowd watching the fool? Or is it the crowd that pays for cable or satellite to watch the fool?

Check THIS out and decide for yourself the following question:

If there is intelligent life beyond our little planet, and it watches the link above, is it truly "intelligent" if it doesn't immediately vaporize the planet?

YouTubing

That's what my son calls it.  Going "YouTubing", or spending an hour, or three, surfing around YouTube to find interesting things.  My YouTube home page has been piling up favorites for quite a while.  Yesterday a bunch of my family came to visit and late last night we gathered around the big TV with the Dell box and did some "communal YouTubing", which was a lot of fun.  Music clips, comedy clips, stupid tricks clips, you name it.  If you look at my favorites page, you might think it's all music performance clips, but if you browse through a few pages you'll find a lot more than that (if you have time).  Even a few I posted myself.  There's some really good content coming out these days.  With the emergence of HD podcasts, podcast series, YouTube and streaming sites like Hulu, it's kind of exciting to see the media world opening up.  To think back just eight years and none of this was prominent.  Two clips by comedian Brian Regan had us all ROTFL last night. "Working Out" and "Food Labels".  Enjoy!

Barbara Bush Runs Aground

Bush Pardons Scooter Libby

Wow. Talent Indeed Gets Noticed

If you haven't heard of Tal Wilkenfeld, and you appreciate music, you should check her out. Amazing. She's getting around the music circles with incredible speed also. This clip on YouTube with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Vinnie Colaiuta and Corinne Bailey Rae is fantastic even if subtle. Search YouTube for Tal Wilkenfeld.

YouTube Live Debuts Today at 5PM EST

I'm wondering how well this will work for them.  I hope YouTube Live works great, but who knows. I'm really tired of hearing about failures and bad ideas.  I want to see some success again.  Maybe this will be the nudge in the direction of online media that everyone has been waiting for.  TV is still king.   It will probably remain king for a lot longer.  But maybe some real (or perceived) competition would put some innovation back into mainstream television again.  I mean, seriously, do we need (or watch) 50 different cop shows?  12 rip-off shows of Desperate Housewives or Grey's Anatomy or Dancing with Dumbasses or whatever?  My mom used to call our preferences for entertainment "sausage grinder" entertainment.  They crank it out and we eat it up like it's different from other sausage.  It's all the same.  Let's see what this brings.

Smoke on The Water, Fire in the Sky

I just finished my 5 mile, as-fast-as-I-can-go-in-as-high-of-a-gear-as-possible-for-me bike ride at 4:25 PM local time. The winds are blowing hard near my house and the nearby park trail. Blowing 92 degree wind with a crappy dose of burning wood smoke from the still-burning fires in NC. just south of us. Not as thick as it has been, but enough to make it difficult to ignore it when you're gasping for air.

The upside of this is that smoke in the atmosphere can make for a nice sunset. Cheap excuse I agree, but it's probably the ONLY positive outcome of something like that.

I spent most of the morning sipping coffee and YouTubing, as my son calls it. Once in a while, I will plop down on the sofa and fire up the AppleTV to go surfing YouTube and Podcasts for something new. Something different. Today was mostly about chasing obscure musicians that I have always liked. Many of whom spent time at the University of FZ (if you know what that implies you're in). People like Ruth Underwood, Adrien Belew, Vinnie Colaiuta, Terry Bozzio, Eric Marienthal and John Pattitucci to name a few. But I also spent a lot of time watching classic George Carlin clips. This one here is one of my favorites and I agree with him 110 percent: