Wow. That was a long title for this post. Possibly my longest ever. But you know what? This one deserves it. Now, the emotional part of me that really loves Tommy Boy wanted to call this the worst Microsoft commercial ever. But clearly it isn’t worse than the current reigning gem. Still, it is a travesty of justice.

To make matters worse, this one doesn’t just star some terribly bad actors. It actually has Microsoft executives in it - including CEO Steve Balmer! So, go ahead and check it out. And may God have mercy on their souls.
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News flash! I’m in Houston at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference where I stick out like a sore thumb sitting here in the wireless lounge using my MacBook Pro. I’ve already been hounded by three people, and I think they are calling security!

Anyway, in this morning’s keynote address the Microsoft folks took a swing at Apple and announced that they are going to start an agressive campaign to promote Vista as the operating system of choice. And from what I’ve seen around the conference there is a serious emphasis on pimping the OS (hey, it’s a Microsoft convention! I’d expect no less!).

If there are any loyal readers out there attending the event feel free to hunt me down and chat. You’ll find me at the Microsoft Virtualization Solutions session from 4:30-5:30pm where I’ll be addressing the group in regards to Layered Tech’s recent announcement of being the first partner to roll out Hyper V.

For everyone else, if I discover anything totally new or exciting I’ll report back later with another post!

PS - VMware, Microsoft’s #1 competitor on Virtualization technology, announced that they missed their numbers, their CEO is “stepping down”, and their stock is down 25% this morning. That should make for a lively discussion this afternoon!

Look, any time you’ve got a character in an advertisement named T-Bone it’s an indicator of things to come. But after the first 7 minutes of brutally bad acting and terrible story line the good news is that you are treated to a horrible rap song about Windows 386!

Seriously. If you can sit through this entire 12 minute promotional video without your head exploding I’ll be very impressed. It’s just sooo bad. I only finished it myself as an experiment to make sure I wouldn’t kill any of you by actually exposing you to this crap.
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Have you ever had a computer for a long time and then wanted or needed to move all your data to a new one? Or, have you ever had to reinstall Windows just because you’ve loaded so many programs that it’s caused your computer to crash so often that you’re willing to start over? Well, what would you say if I told you it is possible to take a “snapshot” of your entire computer and move or copy the data to another machine in minutes so you can continue right where you left off.

Well you can, and it’s not something that is “coming soon”, it’s here today and has been here for at least a couple of years. The technology is called Virtualization, and there are several software vendors who provide the capability to allow you to do this on any operating system - Mac, Linux, or PC.

Before you ask me “why would I want to virtualize my computer”, let me share a few reasons:

• Portable workspaces - virtualization allows you to move your entire digital workspace from one physical machine to another. You can even use an iPod or USB memory sticks to host a virtual machine!
• Testing and training - rather than loading all kinds of unknown software into your normal computing environment, you can have a virtual machine just for testing. Heck, you could have one for games, one for personal computing, and one for work!
• Disaster recovery - if you always keep a recent backup of your virtual machine, say… on a portable USB hard drive, even if your computer dies you’ll be able to pick back up exactly where you left off without having to reinstall everything.
• Consolidation - Virtual machines are used to consolidate many physical servers into fewer servers, which in turn host virtual machines. Each physical server is reflected as a virtual machine “guest” residing on a virtual machine host system. This is also known as Physical-to-Virtual or ‘P2V’ transformation.

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Almost a year ago I wrote about the new Microsoft Photosynth technology, calling it The coolest photo technology I’ve ever seen. I still think that. Dammit! How much longer do we have to wait for a public release? Seriously this is Microsoft’s main problem - they… take… too… long… to… do… anything. Let’s have it already!

Anyway, here is a neat demo of the technology as applied to the Space Shuttle. You need to follow this link to go and actually check out the image collection.

For Endeavour’s historic launch on August 7th, 2007, Live Labs joined forces with NASA to provide a Photosynth tour of the shuttle from vehicle assembly building to the launch pad. Thousands of photos intertwine to provide three dimensional, 360 degree perspectives of one of human kind’s greatest innovations.

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Ok. You know how Microsoft seems like it always crashes at the most inopportune moments possible? Well frankly, it’s all your fault. What you need to do is type the following command: Hold ALT, CTRL, CAPS LOCK, and TAB while simultaneously pressing F8, HOME, ARROW DOWN, and ENTER.

This will bring up the following dialog box. Examine closely to adjust your systems preferences.

Thanks to Johny for pointing out that I should share this new technology on the old blog here. Actually, I’ve seen this several times before but never posted about it because I have mixed feelings about how successful this product is going to be in the marketplace. Nonetheless it is a sign of things to come, so you should all know about it.

Microsoft has released a new type of PC called the Surface. It is unique in that it has no input devices other than a touchscreen. Rather than telling you all about it, just take a look at the videos below and they will explain everything.
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For anyone that’s ever spent time working in corporate America, you’re going to love this. Comedian Don McMillan gives a short comedy sketch around Powerpoint presentations and the common mistakes that people make.
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Some people remember, and some seem to have forgotten, but Microsoft has driven many companies out of business. There are those who have argued that Microsoft did this simply because they were the better competitor, but that is not the only reason.

Microsoft gained an early monopoly in the PC operating system arena, then abused that monopoly to damage competitors ability to compete. The Netscape browser was a perfect example.

Anyway, here is a leaked document from a court case in which Bill Gates is suggesting that Microsoft manipulate an open industry standard in such a way as to hurt Linux. This kind of predatory practice is unbelievable - especially when aimed at a free software movement where all of the development has been voluntary!

Being the resident tech geek, I have been asked by at least 10 people now if they should upgrade to the newest Microsoft Windows variant, Vista. Now, everyone is different so I can’t provide a blanket ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, but I will say that I don’t personally recommend it, I’m not using it, and I don’t plan on ever doing so in the future.

There is a great Web site called Bad Vista which can give you tons of reasons not to adopt this operating system, but I’m just going to stick to three primary ones for now:
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Everyone has been driven crazy by a poorly staffed call center, sitting behind a horrible Interactive Voice Response Unit (IVRU) while calling a service provider like the phone company, cable company, government office or technical support. Well, help has now arrived.

Paul English, the CTO of Kayak.com, decided to build a site to help people get through to a real human after one such frustrating call. The result is GetHuman.com.
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There are a lot of people that have migrated to alternative Web browsers such as Firefox and Opera; the problem is, for most people, it’s been impossible to fully abandon IE because it’s the only option they have to get Windows Updates.

But, if you really despise IE and wish you never had to open it again (or if it just isn’t working), have I got news for you… Using either Opera or Firefox you can head over to WindizUpdate and get your system updated from a source other than Microsoft.
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