Monday, January 17, 2005

Oh, so it’s OUR fault now?

image

The folks at Miller are opening the wrong barrel of worms: Their new site tries to be viral [Prevent Taste Loss] but loses against sites like Burger King’s Subservient Chicken, which was so successful that it even had a Snopes urban legends page. Everyone’s chasing the holy grail of marketing - getting that 20s-something disillusioned youth (who substitutes snide for substance) onto their website. Must be tough being “the Man” these days…hell, every company is “the Man”, even coolies like Apple.

I have an idea - In my opinion, Miller should stop producing that fecal-tasting brew and just make a beer that actually tastes good...

Posted by admin on 01/17 at 04:16 AM
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Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Memo: Keep my day job…

Seems any job I could have based on prognostication should include where my next meal would come from.

Man - I got alot of that wrong. Apple came out with the mini, the shuffle and the office suite (and since when is 2 applications a “suite”?). I got the shuffle right, but let’s face it - I’d have to be deaf, dumb and perhaps dead to have missed that one.

The Mac Mini surprises me, not just at the price, but at the form factor. It makes a Shuttle PC look huge. Add the video adaptor and wireless networking and you’ve got an interesting box there in the living room. I see a port of Myth TV coming down the pike VERY quickly…

The office suite. Hmm. “So how many pages in that Pages document?” Could have been worse - they could have called it Document. I guess they’re going to hold back from attacking MS Office for a while more, which makes sense since buying an office system without MS Word, as the boss’s secretary would say, “ain’t gonna happen”.

All-in-all, fun while it lasted. Will I buy a Mini? Nope - no need. I’ll hold out a little while longer for a proper PVR.

Posted by admin on 01/12 at 03:06 AM
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Monday, January 10, 2005

Hoo-hah! MacWorld Predictions

MacWorld is tomorrow in California - bastards. Sunshine and new hardware. So since we’ll not be there it’s time to put my predictions in writing. Some are no brainers, and some wish-fulfillment. But it’s a game, right? So let’s consult the Magic 8-ball:

“Signs point to yes”
- New iPod Flash - unless you’ve been hibernating, this is a fait de complet.  The latest buzz is that it’s a remote-control-type device.

- New QuickTime - the h.264-based video (4 times more efficient than current, if I recall correctly) with AAC Pro (the new audio component to h.264) and support for OGG playback. This will make many a Linux user happy and negate a bit of the iRiver advantage.

- New iTunes - New iPod, new QuickTime…new iTunes. duh.

- Keynote 2 - Long overdue, it has the possibility to be a real PowerPoint killer if Apple can smooth out the rough edges. It needed more transitions and pushes, and the ability to have multiple pushes-per-slide, more clipart and easier bullet-ing. QuickTime export really stands to have great gains on file size.

- Asteroid - Some kind of Firewire DJ control. Kids will like it, I guess. Damn kids - playing music at all hours. And stay off my lawn!


“Reply hazy, try again”
- A Mac Office Suite - Possible, but that would mean either upgrading the AppleWorks codebase, which if I recall wasn’t terribly optimized for OS X to begin with, nor a G5. Building from scratch makes more sense, but we’re also talking about creating a word processor & spreadsheet companions to Keynote, which as I mentioned earlier needed stabilizing itself. Mail competes pretty well with Outlook except for the scheduling component - iCal needs to be integrated better. You also need a competitor for Access, especially since the MS option doesn’t include it and MySQL is built in to OS X. Filemaker makes sense except that they’re doing very well without being bundled but it competes with MySQL. It makes more sense to build a MySQL front-end with the same drag and click ease of Access. Ultimately, I think Keynote 2 will arrive and perhaps a upgraded version of Notepad becomes our new Write application, and when a db and spreadsheet are ready, then the Office app cometh. IMHO, not this show.

- iBook upgrade - yeah, it’s only been a few months since the speed-bump, but Apple really needs to address the coming VRAM issue on the iBook and Tiger. If you say Tiger’s Core Image component requires 64MB VRAM, how long do you continue selling 32MB VRAM hardware? What happens when all these Christmas presents decide that they want to upgrade to Tiger in June, and find that they’re already severely outdated? Sure Core Image scales to older hardware, but seriously - 32MBs? Apple - you really need to address this.


“Outlook not so good”
The Headless Mac - Man, I really doubt the idea of a $500 headless iMac. Unless they’re dropping the eMac from the consumer market, I can’t imagine most non-Apple users heading for it.

So what is the mystery box…?


“Signs point to yes”
iHome - Apple’s PVC and answer to the iPod video issue. Another salvo in the consumer hardware market, I think the iHome will be the Mac Tivo - with the added ability of allowing iPods to shuttle video from project to presentation just by plugging in. iTunes music and iMovie, iDVD projects, the iPod carries it to an iHome which displays it, as well as doing the video recording/scheduling PVRs are known for. I would be surprised if it had a DVD player, but it could happen. I do expect it to be able to link with an Airport Extreme, so you can place your video where you want without having to keep it near the stereo or running wires across the room. Consider also the space-saving quality of h.264 in the new QuickTime. And if the rumor of Apple speakers are true, and they’re wireless speakers, then you begin to see how this can really change the marketplace.

What may separate it from the pack will be price - I think Apple’s on the edge of playing the value game. If iHome comes in under $500, it’ll completely own the market. Even if you have to spend another $200 or so for wireless speakers and an Airport Express, it would still be an amazing value and destroy the competition on price.


“Ask again later…”
Apple chose not to webcast it live (another pointer for me to a QuickTime upgrade) so by tomorrow midnight (Amsterdam-time) we’ll probably know all.

What do you predict?

Posted by admin on 01/10 at 01:15 AM
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Sunday, January 09, 2005

Updates and MacWorld

It’s slow on this site mostly because 1) this is an experiment to see if I even care to blog, and 2) I sold the old home laptop and I’m waiting for MacWorld before making a decision on a new home computer.

I won’t have another PC in my house - game over on Windows. I work on them all day and I don’t want to be come tech support at home, so now with OS X it’s all Macs at home. The first update will be a new portable and later on in the year I hope to either add a Dual-G5 or, ahem - this is a big “or” - an xServe.

(Yeah, I could run Linux - I’ve done that under Suse and RedHat before on my Sun 5s and the old Pentium II, but now I tend to want to simplify my systems and that means OS X full-time. I just want it to work…Of course, I’m always open to new ideas—and if anyone wants to donate to the “educational fund”, please do.)

But the rumors of MacWorld’s headless Mac systems, home PVRs, new hardware and software makes one just want to wait a little bit more. I’ve got an eye on a new iBook, but the 32MB vram seems a little low when you consider the 64MB video requirements for Tiger…I’m hoping for a slight update on the iBooks.

Posted by admin on 01/09 at 07:27 AM
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Sunday, January 02, 2005

A New View on Theo Van Gogh

It’s said that you need to be outside the pack to understand the pack: This weeks “The New Yorker” magazine has a very good story on the recent murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Friend Max Pam talks and tours author Ian Buruma on the many haunts of the late independent filmmaker, and the conversation shows the kind of balanced research and thought that perhaps only an outsider can find.

It’s a damn good read.

The Netherlands is in a difficult state right now - it’s not sure how to weather the levels of intolerance and violence it’s occasionally experiencing. It’s certainly not a constant barrage, and by comparison to some other countries it’s not even so bad. But there’s a nobility in tolerance that is starting to wear thin, even for the current government, and I think some Dutch question if they’ve been too passive in general and if so, how much to tighten up rules. Nearly two years past the the death of politician Pim Fortuin at the hand of a liberal Nederlander, the public opinion is that this danger comes from outside, not within.

Fortuin’s legacy is perhaps this telling quote - “Holland was full.?  The handiwork of Mohammad B. only adds punctuation to this powerful malapropism.

Posted by admin on 01/02 at 12:52 PM
Posted in: Living in Holland  
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