PC lover bites back - I HATE MACs

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2006031,00.html

I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don't use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.

...

If the ads were really honest, Webb would be standing there with one arm, struggling to open a packet of peanuts while Mitchell effortlessly tore his apart with both hands. But then, if the ads were really honest, Webb would be dressed in unbelievably po-faced avant-garde clothing with a gigantic glowing apple on his back. And instead of conducting a proper conversation, he would be repeatedly congratulating himself for looking so cool, and banging on about how he was going to use his new laptop to write a novel, without ever getting round to doing it, like a mediocre idiot.

...

Ultimately the campaign's biggest flaw is that it perpetuates the notion that consumers somehow "define themselves" with the technology they choose. If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality. A mental illness, maybe - but not a personality. Of course, that hasn't stopped me slagging off Mac owners, with a series of sweeping generalisations, for the past 900 words, but that is what the ads do to PCs. Besides, that's what we PC owners are like - unreliable, idiosyncratic and gleefully unfair. And if you'll excuse me now, I feel an unexpected crash coming.

ouch. may the wars continue for years to come. I fully expect Han, El & Ry to argue this very topic in 15-20 years time.

(<flame on>I still wonder about form over function - one mouse button by default - that is so 1986 (when I first used a Macintosh in the Maclabs at UWA).</flame on>)

McNaught's Comet

a cosmic event
Originally uploaded by Jirrupin.

An intergallactic blue flame.

Super Bowl Ads...

Hot off the presses! (or intraweb anyways...)

Super Bowl Ad Watch: Top Spots

Windows Vista vs. Mac OS X Leopard

Ding Ding Ding! Round 1!...

Some Apple fanboy was trying to be funny in this upgrade chart comparing Windows Vista and Mac OSX Leopard...



Interesting point to note (from Gizmodo article):
"Leopard isn't available yet, and second, Apple will charge you for each point upgrade of OS X, and you only have to buy Windows once every five years."

But don't you keep paying every day for using and putting up with Windows? ;)

Vista Mac Upgrade [via Gizmodo]

cool ad only on YouTube

Interesting that ads are now being made just for TubeOfYou. Google wants to p0wn u.

Interview with Hamad Darwish, Flickr photographer shooting Vista wallpapers

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20070203/interview-hamad-darwish/

Hamad Darwish might not be a household name, but if you use Windows Vista, then his work is on your computer. In fact, it might be even on your desktop right now! Assuming IDC’s predictions are accurate, then before the end of the year, up to 90 million people will have the chance to see Hamad’s work, and all he had to do was upload it to Flickr.

Does Google really regret censoring information in China?

http://www.miraesoft.com/karel/2007/02/02/does-google-really-regret-censoring-information-in-china/

A year ago I wrote about Google’s hypocritical decision to help the Chinese government with censoring information in China. There was no doubt that this decision was made based on pure business reasons. They sold themselves out to the Chinese government expecting to be able to gain (more) access to the big market in China, even against their own principles.

How To Make a Wii Laptop... Part 2...

The sequel installment of this project which I posted before...

How-To: Make a Wii laptop (part 2)

MacWorld: Why use Lightroom?

Dave, I remember you asking why an app like Adobe Lightroom or Apple's Aperture would be useful when Adobe Bridge already has a lot of the same features... apparently MacWorld has been asked the same:

http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2007/02/bridge/index.php?lsrc=mwrss

It seems they have a sensible answer.

Supercar top speed run

Ferrari, Lambo (with flaming exhausts) and a remix/sampling of the Knight Rider theme. What more could you want?

Google will the THE internet

When Being a Verb is Not Enough: Google wants to be YOUR Internet.

...

Looking at this problem from another angle, right now somewhat more than half of all Internet bandwidth is being used for BitTorrent traffic, which is mainly video. Yet if you surveyed your neighbors you'd find that few of them are BitTorrent users. Less than 5 percent of all Internet users are presently consuming more than 50 percent of all bandwidth. Broadband ISPs hate these super users and would like to find ways to isolate or otherwise reject them. It's BitTorrent -- not Yahoo or Google -- that has been the target of the anti-net neutrality trash talk from telcos and cable companies. But the fact is that rather than being an anomaly, these are simply early adopters and we'll all soon follow in their footsteps. And when that happens, there won't be enough bandwidth to support what we want to do from any centralized perspective. A single data center, no matter how large, won't be enough. Google is just the first large player to recognize this fact as their building program proves.

It is becoming very obvious what will happen over the next two to three years. More and more of us will be downloading movies and television shows over the net and with that our usage patterns will change. Instead of using 1-3 gigabytes per month, as most broadband Internet users have in recent years, we'll go to 1-3 gigabytes per DAY -- a 30X increase that will place a huge backbone burden on ISPs. Those ISPs will be faced with the option of increasing their backbone connections by 30X, which would kill all profits, OR they could accept a peering arrangement with the local Google data center.

Seeing Google as their only alternative to bankruptcy, the ISPs will all sign on, and in doing so will transfer most of their subscriber value to Google, which will act as a huge proxy server for the Internet. We won't know if we're accessing the Internet or Google and for all practical purposes it won't matter. Google will become our phone company, our cable company, our stereo system and our digital video recorder. Soon we won't be able to live without Google, which will have marginalized the ISPs and assumed most of the market capitalization of all the service providers it has undermined -- about $1 trillion in all -- which places today's $500 Google share price about eight times too low.

It's a grand plan, but can Google pull it off? Yes they can.

The Windows Vista Upgrade Flowchart

Not sure if you should upgrade to Vista?

This might help...



Windows Vista Upgrade Flowchart [via Gizmodo]