Bnpositive's Blog

Now I’m all for anything to eliminate and reduce piracy. I just love getting in discussions with people when they think taking something of ANY value, actual or implied, isn’t theft.

Forever Geek is miffed at the following quote from Steve Ballmer recently:

“With less piracy, with more proper use, it certainly creates an opportunity for us and for other software companies to take a look at also reducing the cost, not just improving the benefits and the value of the software,”

And I’m miffed at the following implication from Forever Geek…

Even if there was less piracy, prices wouldn’t be lower, the prices would continue to be whatever people find affordable. If people find 800$ affordable for Windows Vista, that is what they will pay for it.

And there’s another thing that’s not being said. If software was more affordable to begin with there would already be less piracy.

BINGO! You got it. The market will support whatever the mass population is willing to pay for something. If people don’t like paying for Microsoft products, then STOP BUYING THEM! Think oil companies are charging too much? Go start your own or just stop driving your gas sucking SUV. And just because something is “affordable” doesn’t mean there will be any less theft. I think $.99 for a song on iTunes is pretty affordable, yet people continue to burn and distribute copies of their CD’s from and for their friends.

I won’t go into the details here, just check it out.

This would be a perfect lead-in for Apple to start manufacturing more consumer devices like TV’s, DVD players, DVR’s, stereos, speakers, etc.

Rubbersidewalks

Sidewalks made from recycle automobile tires. This is the best use for this stuff that I’m aware of besides grinding them up and using them for playground equipment mulch.

What do you think? Cool tattoo? I like just the word, not the whole tree all the way up the arm.Originally uploaded by adcreech.

A restaurant in Italy was fined $855 for displaying live lobsters on ice. I’m sure many of you have been to your local Dead Red Lobster and seen the tank full of lobsters with their claws rubberbanded shut. It turns out that someone reported this restaurant to the a national animal protection group.

“They said that the lobsters, laying on the ice, suffer…
They compared them in court to other animals, like cats and
dogs.”

A court in the northeastern city of Vicenza ruled the
display was a form of abuse dooming the crustaceans to a slow
death by suffocation.

Do these same people understand what happens if someone orders one of the lobsters? Do they think getting boiled is like some warm, soothing bath? I’m sure if we could ask the lobsters themselves, they’d let us know, “Hey, that’s okay….I’ll stay right here on this nice pile of crushed ice!”

Read on: Italy restaurant fined for “cruel” lobster display

For anyone that’s been on the edge of your seats wondering how my spam turf-war was going, things are back to normal I guess. Akismet seems to be grabbing the majority of everything, with Spam Karma 2 filling in the gaps.

My only problem (and I use the word “only” loosely) is that I don’t have enough people commenting with legitimate stuff to say to test things out.

So, unless you’re interested in telling me about phentermine, penile dysfunction/erection/growth, the lastest news in Paris Hilton’s life, or HerbaLife for that matter. LEAVE ME A COMMENT.

If you leave a comment and don’t get a response let me know. I want to make sure that my two bouncers aren’t mislabeling things.

And for anyone counting:

• Spam Karma 2 <> Total Spam Caught: 6989 (average karma: -60498.25)
• Akismet <> Akismet has caught 23,993 spam for you since you installed it
• Legitimate Comments <> 120

Check-out the post about the next mobile OS for Microsoft. Code-named “Crossbow”. There will be signficant ties to both Exchange 12 and Office 12, with the ultimate goal of becoming a true mobile e-mail platform and compete with the Blackberry.

More information at Office 12 Watch

The newest version of the Windows Mobile platform currently being developed will have close ties to both Office 12 and Exchange 12. The platform, codenamed “Crossbow” will be the latest attempt from Microsoft to gather more than their 16% market share in the mobile OS market.

Microsoft is developing a new mobile OS code-named “Crossbow”. The OS will incorporate features such as instant messaging on public and private networks. Furthermore it will have strong links with Office 2007 and Exchange 12, Microsoft’s pending new office application suite and e-mail server. Crossbow will be the successor to Windows Mobile 5.0, released in May 2005.

I’m imagining a day when I can be as “connected” and aware of the data and documents related to my business away from my desk and on the road as I am when I’m sitting at my desk. I think we’re pretty close now, but it’s not quite as seamless and intuitive as it needs to be and could be in the future.

Source: Microsoft developing next mobile OS via DMXZone

In a recent post on the Microsoft Weblog I discussed the aversion I had to Microsoft’s Live Mail due to the sheer size of the wasted space in the header area of the page.

That same attention to application control space is going to be an important aspect for me as I begin to see the final versions of the new ribbon functionality in Office 2007.

In true Dragnet style, Jensen Harris provides us with “just the facts” regarding the actual size of the new interface objects in the new Office suite.

One of the tricky things about measuring the size of the Office user interface is figuring out what to measure. The size of the Office 97-2003 user interface, in particular, is greatly affected by the number of toolbars and Task Panes brought up to use the features in the product.

To sidestep that problem for the time being, I’m going to compare the out-of-box experiences of Office 97 and Office 2007. Why these two versions? First of all, Office 97 was the first version of Office with command bars, and it’s the version often cited as representing a cleaner, smaller brand of UI. It’s also before the introduction of Task Panes, so we don’t have to take that into account. Also, it was (and is) an extremely successful version of Office which many people have installed, so it seems like a good comparison.

[Side Note: He shared a fact in the post that less than 2% of Office 2003 users modify their workspace from the original out-of-the-box settings. That's AMAZING! What do these people do with a new car? I don't know about you but whenever I get in a car I've never been in, I'm always looking for what's new and different than my car and tweaking all the adjustments. Keep that in mind if you ever let me borrow your car.]

Here’s a quick snap shot of the main window results:

• Word 97 document area: 979 x 573 pixels
• Word 2007 document area: 1007 x 573 pixels
• Word 97 Lines of text: 26 lines of text (Arial 10pt, Page Layout View)
• Word 2007 Lines of text: 26 lines of text (Arial 10pt, Page Layout View)
• Excel 97 document area: 1004 x 581 pixels
• Excel 2007 document area: 1008 x 534 pixels
• Excel 97: 31 rows, 15 columns
• Excel 2007: 30 rows, 15 columns
• PowerPoint 97 document area: 1008 x 575 pixels
• PowerPoint 2007 document area: 1024 x 573
• PowerPoint 97: 76% zoom
• PowerPoint 2007: 76% zoom

Jensen Harris continually impresses me with his ability to share and present his thoughts and knowledge of the Office interface with the public. If you’re at all interested in hearing and understanding more details about the comparison in size use between Office 97 and Office 2007, I greatly encourage you to read the entire post, which includes some great screen shots.

Source: The Size of Things by Jensen Harris

You knew they were there right? Please tell me you knew that you could “draw” in Word at least. What’s the deal?

One of the most startling and consistent pieces of feedback we’ve received from the early deployments of Office 2007 Beta 1 (and Beta 1 Technical Refresh) has been: “It’s great that you added the drawing tools to all of the Office programs! Now I don’t need to create the drawings in PowerPoint and copy them into Word/Excel/Outlook…”

Surprised? I certainly was.

That quote is from Jensen Harris’ blog entry, Breathing New Life into Old Features.

How long has Office 2000 and 2003 been out now? Surely the Drawing Toolbar wasn’t that hidden from the users was it? However, that type of oversight is exactly the type of thing that makes me wonder about the real world impact of the new document formats in my previous post.

I’ve been following all the developmens with the new file formats that are being introduced with Office 2007. I understand the overall benefits of implementing this type of improvement. I’ve tied it to the same equivalent of CSS for webpages – separate the content from the formatting.

My question though is how is this really going to impact the majority of the everyday information worker that’s using the new office suite.

One of the articles listed below, “Create your own simple Open XML editor” seems to be pretty interesting. This could be okay, but if I’ve bought the tool (Office 2007) I don’t think I’m really going to be needing to developm my own editor. Someone please help.

Related Links: XPS Sample Docs Available, XPS Essentials Pack Beta 1 Released, Create a webpage for editing WordprocessingML documents, Create your own simple Open XML editor

Looks like Microsoft recently had a meeting of people that weren’t too supportive of Microsoft in general. It was a conference by invite only and they invited both pro- and anti-Microsoft developers alike.

At MTS2006 whole range of Microsoft technologies was presented to the participants with intention to show to the enemies of Microsoft that Microsoft is not that evil as it is portrayed by Slashdot and other Open Source oriented publications. Microsoft was also gathering feedback with promise to do something with that feedback.

While it is noteworthy that Windows Mobile was present at MTS2006, Microsoft still has long way to go when it comes to convince mobile phone industry (wireless carriers, mobile phone manufacturers and end both enterprise and private users) that Windows Mobile is a good thing. Maybe instead of spending money on further invite-only conferences, Microsoft could redirect these resources to product development?

Yeah, given my recent experience with trying to get my new Pocket PC Sprint PPC-6700 working and synch’d, I’d agree with those comments, as would the other commenters on my original post.