Our friends over at Techdirt reported that Microsoft wants to own the concept of conjugating verbs. While I'm sure there's more to it (like some cool software that does a better job of it then our Indian call center friends), I have yet to read it and really like the headline. :)
2006-08-17
Sweden: A Nation Divided Over Piracy?
So the piracy war wages on in Sweden. On the one hand I understand what their intention is, and what their issues are. I do not hide the face that I believe the DMCA is a horrible piece of legislation, not to mention half the shit in the Patriot Act. But at the risk of invoking a dedicated Carnivore server to my blog and laptop, I shall cease ramble.
Regardless of your persuasion and thoughts towards copyright, I suggest reading up on what's going on up around the arctic circle. These pieces in Wired really caught my eye:
A Nation Divided Over Piracy
Wired's overview of the piracy camps in Sweden
Secrets of the Pirate Bay
Background on the Pirate Bay.
Letters between the MPAA and a Swedish Politician
Did I mention that I like the Swedes? FWIW, if I were a registered Swedish voter, I would most likely be a card-carrying member of the Pro-Pirate party - even if their approach is a touch misguided.
2006-08-16
Windows Live Writer
So all my posts today have been entered using Microsoft's new beta of the Windows Live Writer. So far I'm quite impressed. It is a very cool tool that immediately adapted to my blog (on blogger) and gave me a very easy WYSIWYG local environment for blogging.
And since they don't (and most likely won't) support Firefox, it might just be enough to make an IE7 user out of me...
I'm burnin', I'm burnin' for Dell...
So appearently Dell's burn. Dell's burn good. A little while back one caught fire at a conference in Japan. Bad times.
Last month some poor midwestern office worker ran back to his office to find his coworkers dousing his Latitude with flame retardant goodness from their underused fire extinguishers.
I returned from lunch to find my old Latitude (D600) running quite warm. The battery was too hot to handle. I called Dell, bitching, got them to replace it. That day they announced a recall of 4.1e6 laptop batteries - made by our friends at Sony. Good times for Sony. Maybe they can use the recalled parts in 2nd Gen PSP's or PS3's as 'spark simulators'.
HTC MTeoR: A ball of confusion and lies
So apparently HTC’s marketing department isn’t talking to the engineering team. I’ve been following this thread for awhile (as I was excited to get one of these phones), but alas it looks like all those hopes are gone due to a simple typo.
The skinny is this: the MTeoR does NOT support UMTS 1900 or GSM 850 – both of which are important for any US user (especially if you pay a stipend to Cingular). Many guys are returning their phones to their providers and resellers.
Check out this review from Unwired (it's a long one), and the links to the HowardForums posts that I've been following:
Unwired Review
A post with a reply from HTC Customer Service
The HowardForums Thread that I’ve been following
Anyway, it is a shame, but I guess the HTC TyTN will have to do as my only phone.
Yipee! US is still #1 in Call Center Jobs!
"...62 percent of call center jobs are located in the U.S. and 6 percent in the United Kingdom. Canada and India each have 5 percent of the total market."
Does anyone really believe this? I can't count the number of nice folks I've talked to in Canada and India representing Microsoft and Dell - 4 this week actually. Personally, I don't mind them. I talk fast enough for the Indians, and I always bond with the Canadians when I heckle whatever Canadian hockey team they are fans of. Except for the Senators perhaps, I like them (which Uncle Moore should appreciate).
2006-08-11
ASUS Wireless Router will run your Torrents
I normally wouldn't glorify shitty ASUS hardware on my prestigious blog, but there is something about grabbing torrents to a "device" with "remote ordering" that I think is still pretty cool.
Did I ever mention the shitty ASUS hardware I bought 8 years ago?
New ASUS wireless router has Bittorrent and hard drive built in
2006-08-04
Online Marketing: CPM's for Dummies
Nice article from our friends at the Economist explaining a bit about the online ad word - past, present and future. While not complete, it's a good overview for all you non-nerd technophiles (of which exactly zed read this).
"John Wanamaker, a devoutly Christian merchant from Philadelphia, who in the 1870s not only invented department stores and price tags (to eliminate haggling, since everybody should be equal before God and price), but also became the first modern advertiser when he bought space in newspapers to promote his stores. He went about it in a Christian way, neither advertising on Sundays nor fibbing (thus minting the concept of “truth in advertising”). And, with his precise business mind, he expounded a witticism that has ever since seemed like an economic law: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted,” he said. “The trouble is, I don't know which half.”
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