Some funny stuff from everyone’s favorite ventriloquist, Jeff Dunham, and our favorite terrorist screw-up, Achmed!
Happy Holidays!
I’m one of those weird people who really don’t expect or need my phone to do much else than make phone calls. That was until I ditched my PDA (a Sony Clie at the time) and went with a PPC-6700 SmartPhone running Windows Mobile.
I quickly discovered that having a completely mobile device with full Internet connectivity, ability to natively open and use Microsoft documents, and to synch between my main laptop computer without much second thought was a valuable place to be working.
The problem of late though has been not seeing much improvement with my Windows Mobile experience. Sure, I could enjoy the new features of Windows Mobile 6 if a upgraded my phone to the latest model, but is there anything really major that’s new there? Plus, similar to my earlier thoughts about cell phones, I’m not one that needs to invest in the cost of upgrading or changing mine very regularly. I’ve been using my PPC-6700 now for over three years.
How do I compare all the new features and status icon components that are now all the rage with the iPhone 3G and the Google Android phone? Is Microsoft doing anything to compete?
- Windows Mobile development is going nowhere when Apple’s iPhone OS and Google’s Android are going everywhere. Smartphones are the future of computing. Either Microsoft really is in a sorry state, or there’s a super-secret project that will supersede Windows Mobile.
- Months ago, I heard rumors that Zune poster boy J Allard had moved on to some secret project. Right away, I thought Microsoft phone. Sometime later, his title got an upgrade to chief experience officer and chief technology officer of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division. Zune and Xbox 360 user experiences are great following upgrades, by the way. Could J be scheming with Danger and Tellme folks about a Microsoft phone? Sure.
- Microsoft already is working on an applications store code-named Skymarket, which would rival similar operations from Apple, Google and Research In Motion. That’s a dish best served up by one chef, Microsoft, rather than restaurant franchises. End-to-end software plus hardware plus services would be the way to go, like Xbox Live and the game console.
- Recent Zune device price cuts and music store freebees could be preparation for a Microsoft phone. The device operating system should draw lineage from Danger and Zune rather than Windows Mobile. A Microsoft go-to-market strategy would first target existing Microsoft customers—and Zune users would be good ones, particularly if their purchased and subscribed content were transferable.
That’s the information that’s in front of us regarding the potential for a new Microsoft phone. Will it be more than just Microsoft powered? Could it be new functionality that’s going to be part of their Azure mesh network? I’d say it has to be, otherwise we probably would have heard even more about it for now.
Having fun at a wedding is one of those things that delivers the memories you will always remember right? I know the times that I’ve been one of the groomsmen in a wedding, we were always thinking up something silly to do during the ceremony. Don’t think we ever could have planned for something like this to happen.
I’m sure we’ve all experienced that time in our lives where we’ve been in some situation where we shouldn’t be laughing, or at least not out loud, and we just can’t get ourselves under control.
Check-out this video of a Belgian TV host that can’t keep from laughing at his guests on a talk show about surgeries gone bad. It turns out this little bit of laughing fit ended up costing the host his job and killed the show as well.
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A new social media application that brings together a variety of different social networks
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A live countdown clock of information. Very interesting. Featured it on my Uncover the Internet blog.
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Image: Microsoft and Yahoo logo mix
I just saw a post from Inquisitr saying the discussions between Microsoft and Yahoo may be back on again.
The Inquisitr article linked to this story in the TimeOnline website that discussed the details of the discussions being presented from the two parties.
The external investors would also have the right to appoint three of Yahoo’s 11 board directors. The talks with Yahoo involve Microsoft obtaining a 10-year operating agreement to manage the search business. It would also receive a two-year call option to buy the search business for $20 billion. That would leave Yahoo to run its own e-mail, messaging, and content services.
I continue to think the Microsoft and Yahoo merger would be good for both companies. I’ve mentioned my opinion on whether or not it should happen a few different times on the site.
- Is Yahoo Regretting Saying No to Microsoft
- Microsoft Interested in a New Yahoo Board
- Google and Yahoo Announcing Partnership
- All Not Happy In Yahoo-Land
This new development puts a new twist on the previous discussions. Microsoft stating that they’re specifically and perhaps only interested in the Yahoo search business. This does go against my thoughts to the benefits of this merger going through. I think there’s plenty of other valuable assets that Microsoft should be interested in of Yahoo‘s.
I was reading this article, "Why I Love Twitter" by Tim O’Reilly. It’s a good article about twitter, but he mentioned a new service called PeopleBrowsr. If you’re still not sure what all the big fuss is about the service, this would be a great read for you as well.
Less is more. New services like peoplebrowsr are reframing service aggregation in a richer way, as a way of learning more about the people you follow, browsing the social graph. (Peoplebrowsr is still in alpha, but I think it has real potential as a social graph explorer, rather than as yet another people feed-reader.)
O’Reilly mentioned that the application was in alpha currently so I didn’t expect to be able to get on the service and immediately begin using it. I was a bit surprised then when I was able to visit the PeopleBrowsr site and immediately login and begin adding my social media network information.
You add your social media identity information into the system and then you can connect and see your network visually through the system. You can update your twitter status with the application and even delay post tweets as well.
Here’s what PeopleBrowsr says about their service:
PeopleBrowsr is a simple visual dashboard that adds power to Twitter and your other online Identities.
It funnels in data from your friends and IDs and then funnels it out by publishing, reweeting, rebloggong and tag-grouping.On PeopleBrowsr you can:
- See your friends and other people from your network and keep an eye on what they are doing
- Tag them into groups
- Write ‘PeopleProfiles’, as in a PeopleWiki
- Find people living in your area or sharing your interests
- Increase the quality of your online and in person connections
- Gather your blog, Flickr Photostream, YouTube channel, Facebook profile and more
- Update your networks
The service is obviously still in alpha as there’s a number of layout and visual functions that need to be cleaned-up. I’m also interested in seeing what comes of the future development of the site. The question I have about all of these new developments is whether or not I’d really use them if I were tied down to the browser web page.
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Image: Screen capture from World Clock
My preferred background and theme for iGoogle is the world sunlight clock. This World Clock gives the time and so much more information as well.
Time, Population, Death, Illnesses, Environmental information, energy consumption, crimes, food use and much, much more.
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David Peralty shares thoughts on how much actual information is shared by the experts when it comes to monetization on the web.
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A company that I just saw on an episode of Dirty Jobs. They take various animal skins and make leather parchment and other materials from it for a variety of purposes.
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Image: Screen shot from Word 2007 Options panel
I’m still engulfed in learning more than I’d ever thought I would about mail merges and other functionality. Part of that learning has been combing through all the different checkboxes and settings that are available in the Word 2007 options panel.
A quick review of the "Layout Options" group uncovers a huge list of settings that are just checkboxes to check on or off a variety of settings. The "Layout Options" panel is initially collapsed so the expanse of potential options are hidden from the user.
After expanding the panel I was overwhelmed with everything that could be triggered on or off. I then began to wonder if there’s any type of logical grouping or additional information that could have been shared with this information to provide examples of what exactly it is each of these things do. I’d also think that there probably could have been some additional grouping of these settings into logical categories within the "layout" section.
Did the developers get lazy with this section? Did they run out of time? Do they just not care?
Image: Screen capture from Microsoft Word 2007
I’ve been spending lots of time working on some mail merge documents for a client lately. One of the tasks we’ve accomplished is to embed a logo into the header of the document that changes based on another mail merge field that’s pulled into the document.
Everything works great except for one problem, the image always comes up as a broken image link with the red-x displayed where the image should be.The user has to do the following steps to make it work:
- Double-click on the header to open it for editing
- CTRL+A to select everything in the header
- F9 to force refresh the fields
After the user does this the correct image displays as expected and the mail merge finishes up beautifully. The only problem is that the user has to perform this manual step each time and increasing the manual steps for a user to complete is never helpful or encouraged whenever it should be possible to eliminate those steps.
Image: Screen capture from Microsoft Word 2007
I know in the configuration of the INCLUDEPICTURE field that there’s the checkbox for "Data not stored with document" which we have checked.
Note: There’s a whole different issue about why the Insert form above isn’t located anywhere near the "Mailings" tab in the UI Ribbon. We won’t go into that though.
The problem again is that I can’t figure out a way to force refresh these fields.
A friend pointed me to this blog entry for Word 2003 Header and Footer Field Refresh for Multiple Section Documents. I thought was going to give me what I was looking for but it doesn’t seem to be working for me.
I’ve entered the code in as expected but it’s still not working. Anyone have any ideas? I’ve sent a shout out to a couple of folks that work for Microsoft in their Office and Word groups, but haven’t heard anything yet.
Really looking for an elegant and simple solution to eliminate the manual refresh steps by users.
I posted this question about my INCLUDEPICTURE problem on the Microsoft Community forums.
Image Source: hunterblock on flickr
After a recent comment made by Michigan Wolverines football coach Rich Rodriguez, I’m wondering how quickly news spreads among fans and how much turmoil could be done via the Internet and the various social media outlets.
My boss let me know of a statement that was made recently by University of Michigan Head Football Coach, Rich Rodriguez. His comment was made in reference to the passion of Michigan football fans. Those same fans that have sold-out the 100,000 seats of their stadium every season since 1975. Those same fans that have supported the team through the good and bad and the ups and downs of their 105 year rivalry with the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Rich Rodriguez has handed the Wolverines their first losing season since 1967 with an even worse record this year than then. Rodriguez made the following comment going into this weekend’s game with the Ohio State Buckeyes.
"It’s amazing some of the things that people would say [on a message board] or yell at you of a personal nature," Rodriguez said Monday. "You almost want to tell them, ‘Get a life.’
I will agree that there are much more important things than football. However, I’m not sure I would have made the comment regardless of my feelings towards the fans. These are the fans that pay your salary to lose coach.
LZ Granderson is a writer for ESPN and wrote a great column that mirrors my thoughts and expectations. I can’t say it any better than he did in his column, but this quote literally made me LOL.
It is because of this that Rich Rodriguez is lying down on an operating table somewhere, preparing to have his foot surgically removed from his mouth.
The question for me now becomes how quickly does the word spread and do some of the alumni start pulling strings to make this season, the last one with Rich Rodriguez in control?
