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Because I have come to loathe Apple iTunes and Quicktime. This is a movie trailer site that doesn't require me to install Quicktime to watch trailers like Apple's Movie Trailers site. Buh-bye Apple!
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Perhaps an interesting, free website creation tool?
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Interesting site to determine how your twitter activity and profile ranks among others using the service
I’ve been at a game when a friend of mine forgot the lyrics to the National Anthem. He’s sung the song probably hundreds of times and just blanked when he was on the court.
Amazing respect for Mo Cheeks, the Portland Trailblazer’s coach at the time, who came out and stood by this girl and helped her through it.
The video above is just one of the reasons I don’t have much support for Barack Obama in this election. I will say that Barack says many things that sound good and are areas that need to be changed. My belief is that he’s not going to be changing much as President because I don’t believe the President of the United States actually has that much power. Most of what’s changed in this country comes from Congress.
A recent article has even now shared that Barack and his own advisors are preparing people to not expect maybe as much change as they were initially promised and the change that does happen may take quite a bit longer than anticipated as well.
How about this (emphasis added by me):
Barack Obama’s senior advisers have drawn up plans to lower expectations for his presidency if he wins next week’s election, amid concerns that many of his euphoric supporters are harboring unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve.
Or from Barack himself:
In an interview with a Colorado radio station, Obama appeared to be engaged already in expectation lowering. Asked about his goals for the first hundred days, he said he would need more time to tackle such big and costly issues as health care reform, global warming and Iraq.
“The first hundred days is going to be important, but it’s probably going to be the first thousand days that makes the difference,” he said. He has also been reminding crowds in recent days how “hard” it will be to achieve his goals, and that it will take time.
More politics as usual I guess. Overpromise and under-deliver. It seems like they never heard it’s usually better to reverse that pattern.
In conversations yesterday though I stated that what I hope will happen after this election is that the discourse and information about what’s happening in government with opinions from both sides receiving adequate coverage. If Barack wins, I want Republicans, Independents and Democrats being vocal about what’s broken and how they propose to fix it. With emphasis on how to fix it, than just identifying there’s problems. If you can’t propose a solution for the problem, shut-up until you’ve thought about the problem long enough to offer more than just BEWARE!
Voters need to continue to be interested and engaged in what’s going on in this country and not wait for another four years to start paying attention.
Of course that’s just my 2 pennies worth.
It was two years ago today that I published my first post on the CSI:Fanatic blog that’s part of the b5media network. It’s also a part of the new Starked entertainment portal that was recently launched by b5media as well.
I no longer write for that site, it’s in the capable hands of Lynn DeVries who does an absolutely amazing job staying on top of what’s happening across all three network series (CSI:Vegas, CSI:NY, CSI:Miami) and with all the key actors for each.
I’m watching CSI: Crime Scene Investigation now. I can say that you lose a little bit of the enjoyment when you have to write about a show, and normally can’t take the advantage of watching it later at your convenience on the DVR.
Lynn maintains a great blog and if you’re a CSI fan at all, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the information and community that’s available at CSI:Fanatic.
Image: Screen shot from CSI:Fanatic website
Totally amazing music video in ASCII art in Excel. You can download and see the whole thing at www.acdcrocks.com
Image: Screen grab from video on Microsoft Software + Services site
So I’m watching some of the videos that are available on the Microsoft Strategy Software + Services website and I thought I saw something very cool. In the video I noticed the guy was sitting in the airport using a Mac.
Notice he is also using a Zune as his MP3 player.
You see, it is possible to both use a Mac and Windows products and appreciate both for their strengths.
The big Microsoft event going on this week is PDC 2008 in Los Angeles. The "PDC" stands for Professional Developer’s Conference and it’s Microsoft’s time to share lots of new information and insight on what they’re up to with their extended developer community.
I wasn’t able to attend the conference, although I’ve been hearing plenty about it through the various people I follow on twitter. Thanks to @DanRigsby, @DaveLeininger, @BetsyWeber, @larryclarkin, @timheuer, @davebost, @BradleyLJones and many more.
Windows 7 seems to be the topic du jour but I just received an email from Steve Ballmer and he’s sharing a lot about Windows Azure and the Windows Azure Platform. The basic gist of the service is that it’s a new platform and architecture that will begin to enable us to finally combine and access the computing power that we’ve already become comfortable (also interpreted as addicted) to everything else into one large, personal network of information.
At PDC, we announced the availability of an early preview release of a new technology called Windows Azure. Windows Azure will enable developers to build applications that extend from the cloud to the enterprise datacenter and span the PC, the Web, and the mobile phone. For the first time, we shared pre-beta code for Windows 7 and for Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows 7, which is the next version of the Windows desktop operating system, will take advantage of software and hardware advances to help eliminate the boundaries between information, people, and devices.
We also previewed Office Web applications, which are light-weight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote that are designed to be accessed through a browser. Office Web applications will be part of the next version of Office and will enable people to view, edit, and share information and collaborate on documents on the desktop, the phone, and in a Web browser in a way that is consistent and familiar.
Windows Azure is part of the Azure Services Platform, a comprehensive set of storage, computing, and networking infrastructure services that reside in Microsoft’s network of datacenters. Using the Azure Services Platform, developers will be able to build applications that run in the cloud and extend existing applications to take advantage of cloud-based capabilities. The Azure Services Platform provides the foundation for business and consumer applications that deliver a consistent way for people to store and share information easily and securely in the cloud, and access it on any device from any location.
As you can see, Windows Azure seems to be working its way into and throughout lots of what we’re already working on and using and we’ll begin seeing more of the integration as new versions and releases of products and software applications continue to be released by Microsoft.
Exciting stuff in my opinion. I know connecting to and synching folders and information to and from each other just seems to be too convoluted than it should be at the moment.
If I’ve taken the time to burn my entire CD collection into my computer, why can’t I easily access and listen to that music from anywhere and on any device. Those devices could be my laptop from work on my favorite coffee shop, or my phone while I’m waiting for an appointment, or what if I could even stream all of my music to my car stereo through some type of satellite network technology like XM Radio?
Image: Xbox.com Website Product Review
Microsoft and Xbox have finally taken advantage of what a game console in the living room can mean to a family that enjoys spending time together and using technology.
A few months ago I was thinking about how gaming consoles could really be taking advantage of an area that to me seems obvious. You’ve got the ability to have four controllers, why not make more games that let 4 people play games together, specifically families?
Screenlife Games has finally released a version of their addictively fun game Scene It? for the Xbox 360. I don’t know if you’ve ever played the normal DVD versions of these games, but they’re perfect for families, or perhaps even more so for group games when you’ve got a lot of friends over and everyone’s ready for some good competition and rivalry.
I original saw this video on the Regretful Morning website here, but I couldn’t embed the video so I went and did a quick search for it on YouTube.
Aside from the health issues that will probably be facing this cute kid in the future, he’s pretty stinkin’ cute singing. He does some nice eye-brow movement at the, which is near and dear to me for anyone that knows me. I’ve been called "The Brow" because of my excessive eyebrow movement.
Here’s another music video like we featured earlier this week. Another song I love made to look absolutely stupid!
Image: Screen Grab of Desktop by Jason Bean
I was reminded today of a feature I’d long forgotten about in Windows. The ability to place "active" content that was regularly updated via the Internet. When the feature first came out I guess you could call it the grandfather of what we now called widgets and sidebars, except before you could just put stuff wherever you wanted on your desktop, not just docked to a side of the screen.
Anyway, I was reminded of it today when I was checking some of my desktop settings to see if I could enlarge the icons on my desktop. Mainly to test a new icon file I had created, because I really abhor large icons most of the time.
I checked on the option to set my existing homepage as my desktop active item and BAM!, there’s my iGoogle homepage sitting on my Desktop. Everything is active on it like a webpage, but I can drag my icons on top of it wherever I want as well. I’m still intrigued by how that can happen and not interfere with each other, but they figured it out.
Does anyone use Active Desktop now?
My question is, does anyone still use this? How do you use it? Do you just have one web page being displayed? What page do you use?
Would love to hear your thoughts and comments on this topic.




