Daily Techno-Babble

I don’t get it. What’s the point of Zune? Where is Microsoft going with this new device? Do they even expect to have even the tiniest success with this product? After having my first encounter (at a local Staples) with Microsoft’s new Zune media player I have to admit, I just hate this thing. Brown? Why would anyone want a brown media player? Color choices aside, Microsoft’s effort with the Zune is not only ill timed but badly conceived. Here are four observations so far:

1. Bad Timing - Of course I would expect nothing less with Microsoft. After announcing delay after delay with Windows Vista, Microsoft has become quite good at damage control when it comes to issues if timing. With Zune, its almost like they have decided to forget everything they learned. They need to take a closer look at the market, the one that’s being virtually dominated by those devices that have the white headphones. You know the ones, and so long as the iPod exists the Zune has only a snowballs chance in gaining market share.

2. Completely Uninspiring Design - Not that the first iPod was anything to write home about but Zune just seems like a re-hash of bad already-been-there done-that ideas. The design has only one endearing characteristic, the screen is a decent size and brightness is adequate. Beyond the screen there is little else to get excited about, given where player design is going I really don’t see the square Zune design winning over any converts. Give Zune at least three years of design evolution and then maybe we will see something interesting. However, I would not bet on Microsoft letting this science project live that long.

3. DRM Me, Get Out A Rope And Hang Me - As if the timing and bad design were not enough Microsoft has decided to include extensive DRM free of charge! Why Microsoft keeps missing the simple idea that the reason for the iPod’s huge success is that the DRM (FairPlay) included in the iPod does not get in the way of the user. Yes, its that simple. If you want people to buy your player then you need to make the DRM transparent to the user otherwise you don’t have a chance in the iPod driven market. Add in the fact of royalty payments for each player sold and now nobody makes any money thanks to every greedy record company stepping in for their cut of Zune’s non-existent profits.

4. Not Cross Platform - One of the ways you can expand your audience for any device is to make sure it works on as many platforms as possible. Of course Microsoft made Zune only work on Windows, but they did not stop there. From initial reports from those few Zune users who are actually trying to use the device it seems that the Zune does not even work directly with the Windows Media Player included with Windows. At this point I cannot possibly imagine what Microsoft is thinking, to not even fully support their own system is a significant sign in itself.

So that’s my take on Zune and why its a total waste of both users and Microsoft’s time.

As many of us sit down for our Thanksgiving meal let us give thanks for all that has been good to us over the past year and also to take a moment to consider several honorific geek traditions commonly observed during the course of this day:

Thou shall not watch sports. At no point will anyone watch anything even remotely resembling sports on the television. Football? What’s that? Don’t even consider it and if someone tells you to change the channel from your X-Files marathon just bid them a fond farewell and show them the door!

Thou shall proceed with the ritual drying out of the turkey. Just because you paid over $1 per pound doesn’t mean you can’t dry it out just like Mom used to do with the $0.29 cent version. For added effect, use additional additives in your stuffing such as coffee grinds or the dust you find at the bottom of the cheezit’s box.

Thou shall forget to call anyone. We already know you need to level up so you can get your “epic”. You don’t need to call and tell us about it, we won’t care since we too are spending our day questing (how do you think we dry out the turkey!) for that elusive rare drop which requires you to kill the same mob 200 times or more.

Thou shall play Quake at least once. It’s DM6 or bust and you know you’re the best so have at it, just don’t lord it too much over any guests lest they whine like babies about how you are camping the rocket launcher (you would never do that….)

Thou shall complain about Star Wars Episode I at least once. Sure we waited almost a generation for that movie but what’s not to love? Plenty, and now is the time to air it all out while everyone can’t escape from the clutches of your lack of faith in George Lucas and your hate of all things Jar Jar.

So there you have it, some traditional Thanksgiving day activities for geeks. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Thought this would qualify as Friday humor for those who maybe just can’t wait for the next “critical update”. Of course I can’t help but speculate that maybe Microsoft is considering this as a possible option when most folks skip the Vista “upgrade”!

As if sending out Windows Vista was not enough to keep us all busy for a while, Microsoft has also released Office 2007 into the wild and if first impressions are any indication, its looking good so far. Lets get one thing clear right up front, this is not a simple upgrade with just a few new features (like Vista?). Word 2007, Excel 2007, and Access 2007 have been completely upgraded and sport a totally new graphical user interface.
Unlike Vista, Office 2007 seems very much designed around the needs of today’s users. Many of the changes provide a much better experience than previous versions and enable users to limit how they use the product without having to deal with “hidden” features. This is not to say that Office 2007 does not have some problems, in fact I discovered several issues which may plague early adopters. Some small problems I noticed were two minor performance issues (scrolling through complex documents was much slower in Word 2007 vs. Word 2003 for me) and the new display zoom feature sometimes seemed to freeze up. These two small issues aside, here are four great reasons to take a closer look at Microsoft Office 2007!

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Since the release of movies on iTunes I have been putting off giving one a try since I really did not have high expectations for the service. Having read all the negative reviews of Amazon’s service and checked out some of what Google Video had to offer I was not impressed. None of these services gave me the “warm and fuzzy” with full length movies that I hoped for and the prices always seemed unreasonable. When iTunes introduced movies I was somewhat reluctant to give it try since the quality of the TV shows (in my opinion) was still lacking and the selection was limited.

Since I was home with a few hours to spare I decided to give the movie “Cars” a try since it looked interesting and I figured it would be a good test of the quality of movies provided by the service. The purchase was exactly the same as buying an album (with the extra “are you sure?” pop up) and I must admit that the download of the 1.3gb movie file did not take nearly as long as I had expected, arriving in about 1.5 hours on my Verizon DSL connection.

Like I stated above, my biggest concern regarding all these movie download services was the quality. How would the picture look on my 100+ inch projection screen? Would the quality of the sound be acceptable? Thankfully my initial fears were quickly dispelled and I am happy to report that my experience was top notch. Once again Apple has exceeded my expectations and made me yet another satisfied customer. The picture quality in the movie was superb, clear and with no visible motion artifacts. I was able to compare the movie side by side with a DVD and could not tell the difference. Sound was also very good but not in Dolby 5.1 format, which for me was not a huge deal but would have been a nice touch. Perhaps the high quality audio could be offered later as the service matures.

Overall I was very impressed with the quality of the movie I downloaded from the iTunes movie section, the quality was right up there with what I was used to with the DVDs I have purchased recently and my only complaint might be that the audio was not in Dolby 5.1 format.

Wow, after the overwhelming response to my first post on Windows Vista I decided to delve a little deeper into the reasons why corporations will not like Windows Vista. To sum it up, I don’t think Windows Vista is worth it for the majority of Windows corporate users for three important reasons. My focus is on the corporate user, not gamers or those who need to install Vista just for the sake of running the latest (and greatest?). The folks I am talking about are the IT cannon fodder, systems administrators, cube workers and home users who use their computers for work related activities. The big question facing these users regarding a Vista upgrade is going to be whether or not to bother upgrading from Windows XP. The three reasons presented below might just give them cause to approach this decision very carefully.

1. To get the most from Windows Vista, you are going to need new hardware (again) - As many pointed out in my last post, Vista’s new “functionality” is severely impaired by older hardware. This is not in itself a negative per se, but the fact that Microsoft is trying to sell users on the idea that they can install Vista on existing machines (non-Vista Ready) and get any kind of satisfaction from it is really asking for trouble. Of course the idea that you need new hardware for Vista is most likely part of the overall marketing strategy since anything which may boost hardware sales will please Microsoft’s partners. Bottom line here for corporations is to get friendly with the concept that Vista is a new hardware only platform.

2. Corporate users (and administrators) will have to deal with new license restrictions - As everyone is already aware (and Microsoft painfully so) the current method of issuing corporate license keys is widely abused. With that in mind I can’t really blame them for taking steps to try to curb this practice but it seems that they have gone from one extreme to another. Now it appears that corporations are going to be expected to have to activate every single Vista desktop no matter what. What about corporate networks that don’t have access to the internet? Are these folks looking at having to install activation servers or are they going to have to call Microsoft each time they need to activate? Believe it or not but the reality is much worse! It sure looks like the age old process of automated installs on large groups of machines at once is going to be a tough call for Windows Vista. The bottom line on this is Windows Vista is going to require significant re-tooling for corporations to widely deploy it.

3. The IT help desk is going to be overwhelmed - One really basic observation (that I initially missed!) is that Windows Vista lacks a “Start” menu! Sounds really silly but this is an example of just one change Microsoft has decided to make which will send users running to the local support folks to sort things out. As anyone who has worked in a large corporation knows, you will always have users who can’t stand it when something changes. They constantly want to be “trained” and require hand holding for even the most basic tasks in Windows Vista. It is these users who are going to drive the folks at the help desk crazy. I have always been a strong supporter of change, but with Windows Vista many of the GUI changes and some functional changes don’t really seem to make anything easier for the users. So the bottom line for most corporations with large numbers of users is expect to see an increase in your call volume once Vista starts being rolled out.
In the interests of promoting the facts about what I have stated above I have included several links which you may find interesting:

Microsoft’s current recommended hardware specification for Windows Vista.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/evaluate/hardware/vistarpc.mspx

Great forum post with a round up of all the new licence changes in Windows Vista.
http://www.aeroxp.org/board/index.php?showtopic=5821

Good article detailing the user interface changes for Windows Vista.
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=600988&seqNum=2&rl=1

As you all may have heard, Microsoft has released Windows Vista to manufacturing yesterday. A momentous event? Well that just depends on who you ask, and if the person is myself then you are going to get the following four reasons why I personally would not even bother with Windows Vista.

1. No new features or speed boost - No kidding, it’s true! Windows Vista won’t run Microsoft Word any faster, won’t make your presentations look any better, and if my own experience is any indication then Vista is not going to make managing your PC any easier either. If Microsoft sticks to their new anti-piracy plan then corporations will be having to setup whole new license management systems to deal with Vista. To make matters even worse this *new* version of Windows is really just the Windows Server 2003 kernel in colorful clothing with some snazzy new mini-applications. Microsoft provided these programs in the “Ultimate” version of Vista as a weak attempt to compete with Apple’s iLife software suite. Additionally, my own informal tests on my Macbook Pro seem to indicate that Vista upgrades will likely run existing applications slower than XP for many folks forcing the purchase of new hardware just to “keep up”. Bottom line; Vista does not add any substantial new features for new or existing Windows users and may even be a significant reduction in speed for some users who dare to upgrade from XP on today’s hardware.

2. The new interface just gets in the way - Go ahead, try it out at your local computer store (demos should be available soon). One of the first things you are going to notice is the new interface which is a major case for the bifocal lens thanks to the excessive use of transparency. Unnecessary eye candy is everywhere, and seems to not add or enhance any features that might make users more productive. No well thought out GUI tricks like OSX’s expose here, just pure bling that quickly becomes annoying on all but the fastest PCs. The bottom line; Windows Vista does not bring anything new to the table other than more gizmo-style features that only serve to get in your way when you are trying to actually get some work done.

3. Security will still be a major problem - Since Microsoft decided not to build Windows Vista on the longhorn kernel (which was rumored to be a complete rewrite, or close to it) they ended up leaving many of the known problem areas of Windows XP (and other previous versions) still in place. In an attempt to address this problem of legacy code support they have tacked on a layer which is supposed to protect the system from malware and viruses. This layer is visible to the user in the form of dialog boxes that pop up every time you require “administrator” or direct access to system resources, something that seems far too common on the Windows platform. What does this mean for most users? More dialog boxes for users to mindlessly click “Ok” to without even bothering to read the message. Bottom line; constantly annoying pop-ups intending to improve security will actually result in even greater problems as users begin to blindly click “Ok” even more than they already do now.

4. The alternatives are so much better - I know what you are thinking, here comes the Linux or Mac OSX vs. Windows argument. Well you’re wrong! Right now the best alternative to Windows Vista is its predecessor Windows XP. The reality is that you can do everything promised by Windows Vista in Windows XP today with less hassle and in most cases faster than you could in Windows Vista on the same hardware. If you already use Linux or Mac OSX then Vista is not going to impress you anyway so don’t even bother taking a look.

Well that’s enough for now, look for me to post a nice (or not) mini-review of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition soon which will discuss some of the above mentioned issue in much greater detail.

Ok, blame it on woot.com for this one but after spotting a iRobot Roomba SE on Woot today I just had to tell everyone about just how much these little robot vacuums rock. It’s been six months with my Roomba Discovery and to tell the truth, you could not pry this thing from my cold dead fingers. It’s that good. Back in the day before this wonderful robot vacuum I would spend about 30-40 minutes once a week keeping up with the war against the dust bunnies. Now before I head off to work on Friday I simply clean up the junk on the floor (5 minutes) and then send out the Roomba with just a touch of a button. How cool is that! By the time I get home the floors are all nice and clean, and the Roomba is back fully charged in it’s dock. This is definitely one of the more useful gadgets I have owned and is well worth the $249 I paid for it.

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