Archive for the ‘Microsoft’ Category

Technology and Me – 2001 through 2010

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

This is the first of 3 posts that have to do with technology changes over the last decade. I’ve been thinking about this since January but finally got around to writing it down this weekend. We’ll start with the basics – what I was using in 2001 and what I’m using in 2010.

Technology I used in 2001:
- Nokia cellphone for mobile and long-distance calls
- landline for local calls and Internet access
- dial-up Internet access
- company provided laptop with Windows NT 4 for getting online at home
- basic cable
- standard definition 20″ TV
- cheap battery-powered alarm clock
Technology I’m using in 2010:
- iPhone 3GS for all calls, MP3 player, Pandora, yellow pages, maps, mobile web access, gaming, e-mail (personal and work), controlling my Apple TV, alarm clock, calendar, and contacts.
- NOTE: no landline
- cable Internet access with wireless router
- Apple TV
- Mac mini
- 17″ HP laptop with Windows 7 (personal)
- 10″ Dell laptop with Windows XP (work)
- Samsung Internet-connected Blu-Ray player
- 65″ Panasonic Plasma HDTV
- DirecTV with dual tuner HD DVR, NFL Sunday Ticket, and ESPN Game Plan (no premium channels)
- Hulu for catching up on shows that I may have missed
- Netflix for DVDs and streaming video (but I’m unimpressed with their streaming content, so I’ll probably cancel with football season resumes in Fall 2010)
- PS2 used primarily for Karaoke games
- Harmony remote that controls my Sony receiver, Samsung Blu-Ray player, DirecTV DVR, Apple TV, and Panasonic HDTV

Technology I used in 2001:

- Nokia cellphone for mobile and long-distance calls

- landline for local calls and Internet access

- dial-up Internet access

- company provided laptop with Windows NT 4 for work and for getting online at home

- basic cable

- standard definition 20″ TV

- cheap battery-powered alarm clock

Technology I’m using in 2010:

- iPhone 3GS for all calls, MP3 player, Pandora, yellow pages, maps, mobile web access, gaming, e-mail (personal and work), controlling my Apple TV, alarm clock, calendar, and contacts.

- NOTE: no landline

- cable Internet access with wireless router

- Apple TV

- Mac mini

- 17″ HP laptop with Windows 7 (personal)

- 10″ Dell laptop with Windows XP (work)

- Samsung Internet-connected Blu-Ray player

- 65″ Panasonic Plasma HDTV

- DirecTV with dual tuner HD DVR, NFL Sunday Ticket, and ESPN Game Plan (no premium channels)

- Hulu for catching up on shows that I may have missed

- Netflix for DVDs and streaming video (but I’m unimpressed with their streaming content, so I’ll probably cancel when football season resumes in Fall 2010)

- PS2 used primarily for Karaoke games

- Harmony remote that controls my Sony receiver, Samsung Blu-Ray player, DirecTV DVR, Apple TV, and Panasonic HDTV

Posted in Apple, Comcast, DirecTV, Hulu, Microsoft, Randy Weber, TV, TiVo, Windows, cable, e-mail, football, gadgets, iPhone, mobile, personal, reviews, satellite, sports, work | No Comments »

Windows 7 Upgrade – Very Underwhelming

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

I got a great deal on the pre-order version of Windows Home Premium – $49. It arrived in the mail a few days after launch. I finally got around to installing it today.

The process took 5-6 hours. It was easy, not a lot of hand-holding needed. I didn’t wipe the drive and start fresh. Rather I installed it as an upgrade to Vista.

After using it all evening, I’m underwhelmed. It doesn’t seem to boot any faster. It does wake up from sleep faster, but it also takes longer to go to sleep.

The OS assumes way to many things, like the fact that I would want to put all of my pictures and videos into Windows Media Player to be viewed at once. NO. I do NOT want to do this. It was a pain to undo this.

After installing, I decided to start uninstalling a bunch of software that came on my HP laptop. It took forever to uninstall things. This felt much slower than Vista and XP.

I wish I’d kept my $49.

Posted in Microsoft, Randy Weber, Windows, reviews | No Comments »

Yahoo! Search Advertiser Share Drops, This Can’t Be Good

Friday, January 9th, 2009

From Silicon Alley Insider:

After holding steady for most of 2008, Yahoo’s share of all search engine advertisers dropped like a rock in October, November and December — plummeting from 30.4% to 19.4% at the end of Q4, according to search marketing firm AdGooroo.

How do you explain this? Everyone else is gaining share and they’re losing it. This is very sad to see. I’ve always liked Yahoo!

Posted in Microsoft, Randy Weber, World Wide Weber, advertising, google, search, worldwideweber, yahoo | No Comments »

Happy New Year!

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

I hope everyone has a great new year.

Is it just me or does Live Search put the coolest pics up?

Posted in Microsoft, Randy Weber, World Wide Weber, personal, search, worldwideweber | No Comments »

Will Someone Please Buy TiVo?

Saturday, October 28th, 2006

PVR Wire wrote an interesting post on Who will buy TiVo? Google, Yahoo or Microsoft?

Let me start this with the fact that I LOVE TiVo. However, the lack of a viable HD product has led me to use the PVR in the set-top box from Time Warner. I hate it, but I have no choice. None-the-less, I still have my TiVo which I use as a music server to get my tunes from my PC to my entertainment system. It’s slicker than anything else out there, trust me, I’ve tried them.

Now, on with my point. I want TiVo to survive. I think it has major opportunities that it has not been able to capitalize on:

  1. The set-top box that integrates audio, video, PCs, and the Internet in the living room.
  2. It could change the way that audio and video is monetized by content owners and distributors.
  3. It could change they way that audio and video is distributed by content owners – pay-per-view, video on demand, stored content that can be moved to various devices, etc.

I want this device BAD. PVR Wire has their arguments on who is most likely to buy TiVo – they believe it will be Yahoo or Google. I want it to be Yahoo or Apple. Yahoo seems to be able to integrate a variety of Internet content and could really use TiVo rather than screwing around with their own vaporware product. Apple would be great because they’d be able to avoid screwing up TiVo’s incredible UI (they might even be able to improve it) and they have done very well with integrating various types of content on various devices.

Whether it’s Yahoo or Apple, please let it happen.

 

 

Posted in Apple, Microsoft, gadgets, google, personal, yahoo | No Comments »