Angry Learner

What do you hate about all the Microsoft employee blogs you've read?

Scoble asked. I replied:

Microsoft is a monopoly. When software developers have nightmares (about their work), those nightmares are often about Microsoft coming in and competing with their software or changing their development tools or yet another security problem.

That Microsoft can come into a market and completely wipe out an existing product by releasing a similar product with the Microsoft name on it, is a result of Microsoft's monopoly status. Sure, the other product will hold its own for a while, but they will lose the fight.

You might argue that the Microsoft version of a product is better or simpler or whatever. And while this might be true in some cases, it does not matter - you all are a monopoly, you have to act different. You have an unfair advantage: you provide the oxygen for your developers, and, yet, you can go in and suck all of it out of a room by your mere presence.

Microsoft bloggers don't get this. They don't seem to understand that the company they work for induces fear for so many. When they talk about innovation, I have no doubts about their intention, brilliance or passion - their talent is not in doubt. Will I have a competitive marketplace to compete against them in? No, and it is because of the machinery and presence (and in marketing terms, simply the name "Microsoft") of the company they work for and the special position it is in.

If you work at Microsoft and think that the software you develop enters the market on equal ground with software developed outside of Redmond, think again.

Tivo Desktop Hacking

Today, Tivo came out with a Home Media Option. Basically, you can listen to music, view slide shows from your Mac through your Tivo onto your home stereo or TV.

The Tivo Desktop software runs on your Mac shares your iTunes and iPhoto libraries for you. It is cool. Just a service and a preference pane. Your Tivo box talks to this software.

Anyway, I want to understand how the Tivo Desktop software works so that I can make my public web server talk directly to my iPhoto library on my desktop - I think it would be cool. I spent about 10 minutes hacking around and here is what I have found.

The Tivo Desktop software is a little Java service that listens and responds via HTTP. It listens on port 8101, responds with the server name: TiVo Calypso, and registers under the rendezvous service name: _tivo_servemedia._tcp.

It responds to my requests, but I can't get anything out of it...yet.

Update: TiVo has documentation on TiVo Desktop. Excellent.

Kashi Cereals

Kim and I are trying to eat better (more protein, less sugar) at breakfast so we don't crash like crazy before lunch. Unless you like bacon and eggs (or have the patience for it) every day, this is almost impossible given the typical American breakfast offerings...

Kashi has a host of cereals that fit the more protein, less sugar mold. Some even taste good. GoLEAN Crunch! and Heart to Heart are excellent. (Crunch! can be brutally crunchy...) GoLEAN (regular) and Good Friends are horrible. Kim has developed the theory that any cereal that contains "fiber twigs" can't taste good.

Rock The Vote Loses Credibility

Rock the Vote claims that they are a non-partisan, non-profit organization...yet they release a Lenny Kravitz song called, We Want Peace, as part of its commitment to "supporting those who have the courage to speak out".

Would they host a song called "We Want To End Oppression"? Probably not.

The biggest hypocrisy in all of this was completely unexpected. After trying to register to get the song in several browsers, Internet Explorer finally got through, although I had to give my email and zip code and endure epileptic page refreshes to get the song. The song is maddeningly in Windows Media Player format. Which after downloading, doesn't even play on the Mac OS X version of Windows Media Player.

Wouldn't the non-partisan format be MP3?

Idiots.

Rants from an Airport

Notes to airport authorities:

Buy toilets that flush correctly. Do not have it flush while I am sitting on the seat. When it does come time to flush, do not have it flush so much water that it sprays beads on the seat. We all know what I am talking about here. Clearly, toilets can be designed so that they don't do these things. If they can't, then don't make them automatic. Maybe airport management has secret non-flushing, non-spitting toilets and does not know the plight of the traveler. BTW, we aren't just talking about one airport here...almost every airport with automatic toilets suffers from this stupidity.

Enhanced security procedures (as the intercom keeps telling me) are in effect. Does not mean just glancing in my trunk? How can that help? They don't look under the car, they don't look in the spare tire, they don't examine the 40 lbs. bag of dog food in the trunk, either. What are they looking for that I have to submit to a search just to park in short term parking?

If the illusion of security is what they are going for, I see the illusion.

The pay phone behind me keeps going ding. Not ring, but just ding. I may dismantle it before I finish this post. It is maddening. I would move, but I have a power outlet here. The period in between dings appears to be random as well. I wonder how much the phone company paid for that feature.

These benches are horrible. They are concrete with a blue, rubber coated lattice with holes just about the size of those in a six pack. It is numbing on the posterior.

The water fountains do not work.

There are giant red pillars in the baggage claim area. They added them during the airport remodel. They appear to have no structural significance - if they were just structural, then they could be MUCH smaller. But they aren't. They are at least four foot in diameter and are spaced in such a way so that you have to dance back and forth from one side of the claim area to another to be able to see across the area. What a waste.

Ding.

The airport authority is running a sale on parking deck parking. Now $6.50 instead of $10 per day. How about you not run sales and just charge us a lower price everyday? How about posting the price for long term parking at the entrance to the parking deck? Since when did quasi-governmental entities start having sales?

Ding.

Kim's flight has arrived. I hope that there is no followup rant from a restaurant.

Rants from a Mall

Well, not exactly from the mall itself, but from the parking lot:

Having stop signs for traffic trying to get out of the mall, while having no stop signs for traffic getting in is dangerous and stupid.

Trying to brand a mall with the developer name, like SIMON, is idiotic. I don't care who manages the mall as long as the stores are there and the location is good. Perhaps their idea of branding a mall that you can associate it with cleanliness and safety, which fails spectacularly with McCain Mall in North Little Rock.

Perhaps they want to sell more dumb gift cards. I returned a package of really poor quality and finish socks to JC Penney. I had a gift receipt. I got $6.75 on a gift card. They supposedly could not give me cash.

Gift cards are stupid, too. They make no sense (Will pointed this out to me). You lose them and you can't get the money back. You can only use them at the one place (or mall, in the case of SIMON gift cards), and they usually expire. How is this a gift? Now I have to keep track of $6.75 that I cannot unchunk and put with my other money.

I thought I had gotten all of the giftcards out of my life with Hastings (where we sell you overpriced CDs and have a lousy book selection - did we mention that we package used DVDs so that it looks like new ones for sale at what should be new DVD prices?).

Best Buy, Office Depot and Circuit City all lost sales tonight. Best Buy because of the relentless offers for help. (Meanwhile, I heard what help meant; not having any clue about their laptop selection. I would have helped but I am not going to be party to a HP or Compaq purchase. They are stupid and heavy.) Office Depot lost a sale because some really high pitched noise kept going off in the middle of the store. Circuit City required me to physically plug my ears while in the store so that I was not pummeled by bass from their car stereo area. (Yes, the entire store).

I came down on this trek to get the hole in the Civic's exhaust replaced, only to find out I need new tires, and that the Honda dealer does not sell them. Which means I have to get new tires at a tire dealer and then take the Honda back down to Sherwood/North Little Rock to get the car aligned, because no tire dealer has the brains to align the Honda correctly. One once asked, was this car in an accident? No, you have no clue, I almost said...

Combos at Back Yard Burgers cannot include lemonade as your drink choice without an extra charge. Nowhere is this on the menu. Plus, it is inconsistent. Last time I was in there, they were friendly and accommodating. This time, they were indifferent, inattentive and not too friendly. At least the sandwich was good.

Back to JC Penney for a moment. I hate the escalator scheme. You have to walk around and around to get to the right one because they want to dump you in the back of the store as often as possible so that you have to shop your way out. I would have gone postal with that and the gift card if not for Calling Elvis playing on the ever present department store music system. Why couldn't they have at least played that at Circuit City?

Back to Compaq...Almost everything they sell is called iPaq. Lowercase "i". Please, get your own original marketing gimmick.

Netgear...What the hell were you thinking? Your new hubs and switches have the ports on the back. They used to be on the front. How are you supposed to mix old and new hubs and switches? Also, these new hubs & switches seem to have fewer informative status lights, than the old one. Look, don't change it unless it is going to actually improve things, OK?

Last one. Why can't I buy a digital video recorder (or PVR as it has been termed) without some kind of ridiculous subscription? You would think that companies would create a killer entry level device so that they could upsell into the service. I just want a digital VCR, minus the cassette. I want a big chunk of storage that I can just record, play, delete without having to mess with tapes. Build in VCRplus as well so I can program it with my TV schedule that comes in the paper. All these companies want some kind of lock in. Why would I lock into a service that I don't want with a company that isn't even profitable at a price that is almost the cost of the recorder itself? They have no idea where the value is.

Enough already. Time to go to the airport.

Mark Knopfler

Imagine my delight when Kim called me and told me that she had heard Mark Knopfler tour dates on the radio. Imagine my sadness when I read that he broke six ribs and a collarbone in a motorcycle accident on St. Patrick's Day.

We wish him a speedy recovery.

MT Photo Idea

Since Movable Type can use MySQL as its database, write a script that exports out of your iPhoto library (sort of like how myPhoto does (except it does dynamically)), creating thumbnails, etc, and place posts in the database for every picture.

You get easy to change templating, you can put the photos themselves on a completely different server if you choose (.mac), and you get search functionality depending on what you have the script place in the post. The MT paginate plugin could help on days where there are a lot of photos.

iPhoto albums could translate into categories.

You could even run MT on your local computer and rsync to your publish server wherever it might be. (You lose comments and searching, but still...)

Seven Cities of Gold

The classic EA flat box games like Seven Cities of Gold, Skyfox, One on One, Hard Hat Mack (as a kid I didn't realize that OSHA was a governmental agency), Archon, and the Bard's Tale (and Broderbund's Ancient Art of War) were my golden age of gaming. These incredible games still stir memories of playing them with friends.

One of EA's top designers was Dan Bunten (later to become Dani Bunten). His/her company, Ozark Softscape, was based in Little Rock.

Salon published a great article on Dani yesterday. It is a good introduction to her life and the impact that she had. Regrettably, she passed away in 1998.

Ozark Softscape also wrote M.U.L.E.. Classic Arkansas references can be seen here and here.

Ode to Joy

President Bush signed the National "Do Not Call" Registry into law today. Free registration starts in July, enforcement starts in October, with fines of up to $11,000 per incident. Woo hoo!