Welcome to The Hoosier Illuminati. Macintosh bigot, clothes horse, motorsports fanatic (as long as they turn right), Anglophile.

Clothes and manners do not make the man; but when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance. --Henry Ward Beecher

What’s the big deal?

Everybody is making a big deal about this announcement between Microsoft and Novell.  Here’s a piece of the e-mail I got from Novell:

Let me begin by quickly outlining what we just announced. Microsoft and Novell, starting today, have agreed to build and market solutions so that Novell’s technology works on Microsoft and vice versa. Specifically, customers will now be able to run virtualized SUSE Linux Enterprise on Windows or Windows on SUSE Linux Enterprise. This landmark agreement also calls for both Microsoft and Novell to provide patent coverage to each others’ customers for our respective products. Why is that important? It’s important because you shouldn’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about legal matters around which operating system to choose. You also shouldn’t have to worry about barriers such as intellectual property agreements, who owns which patent portfolio, and indemnification. None of those issues move your business forward. Now many of those barriers have been removed.

Uhhh.... whooptidoo?  Have these guys heard of VMWare?  I’ve been running virtualized Linux on Windows for eons.  And they promise to quit suing each other.  Well, that’s great too, I guess.  I’m pretty underwhelmed, frankly.  Sort of makes me wonder if the announcement has something to do with this. 

They’re missing an opportunity

WINCHESTER — Indiana Michigan Power has announced that it intends to install several 200-foot-tall meteorological towers in East Central Indiana to study the feasibility of a wind farm.

The utility company has invited 150 land owners in Jay, Randolph and Wayne counties to meetings on Nov. 9 and 10 to discuss the project. About 100 adjacent land owners also have been invited.

I&M plans to lease land for the test sites. If tests show strong enough and frequent enough wind, I&M or a developer would continue to lease the land for a wind farm. Northern Wayne County is also under consideration as a site for the test.

If they’re serious about generating electricity from wind they need to put these things in Muncie.  If they insist on planting them in Randolph County, I’d suggest Farmland.  Lots of wind there too. 

Oh happy day!

After waiting a near eternity (well, ten months anyway) SlingPlayer for Mac is finally available. 

OK, so it’s still in beta and it’s not very, well, Macish, but at least they’ve finally made it available and it actually works.  So you folks with Macs and Slingboxes who need a new way to goof off at work now have it.  I’m just hoping they do a little bit of UI work on it before it goes gold. 

Vista RC2

So I threw a copy of Vista RC2, Office 2007 Beta and the technical refresh on the VMWare machine, and oddly enough I don’t find it nearly as revolting as RC1 was.  They’ve fixed a lot of what really hacked me off, and GroupWise loaded without my having to cast a spell over the computer. 

There’s still some tediousness about it.  I don’t want to have to click OK/Allow twelve times to do EVERYTHING, just make me enter a password once like OSX does and let the system go about its business.  Why do you make the screen dim every time a dialog pops?  Geez, I hate that.  I’m still not completely sure I like the Start button (or the Windows button or whatever you’re calling it now.) Run really ought to be easier to get to.  But they have smoothed it out considerably, I think it’s nearly usable now.  I still don’t plan on spending any money to upgrade to it until I have to though. 

Office 2007 is great, I like it.  The ribbon is probably the best interface innovation Microsoft has come up with in a long time.  Again, I’m not sure I’m spending any money on it at work any time soon.  As nifty as the ribbon is, I figure it’s going to cost a ton of money in retraining costs, and since Office 2003 still works fine, well…

As much as I like what I see, there’s nothing there that makes me want to upgrade to it and especially not throw out my Macs. 

Windows Vista still sucks.

Release Candidate 1 my ass.  This thing is a clumsy, disjointed, counter-intuitive piece of crap.  They’ve been working on this since XP came out and THIS is IT?  It’s horrible.  Terrible.  Atrocious.  Unbelievably so. 

It goes without saying that OSX is simple and elegant compared to Vista, but the terrible thing is that XP is ALSO simple and elegant compared to Vista.  I cannot tell you how horrid this thing is. 

Now, for those of you who were unfortunate enough (as I was) to try to install Vista in VMWare (and discovered that you can’t), there is a fairly simple workaround.

Add the following lines to your virtual machine’s configuration file (.vmx) before installing Vista:

svga.maxWidth = “640”
svga.MaxHeight = “480”

After Vista is installed, install the VMware Tools and then shutdown the virtual machine. Remove the added lines from the configuration file and then power the virtual machine back on.  You should then be good to go.

I’ve even gotten GroupWise to work on Vista, and that’s a feat that not too many people seem to have accomplished so far.  I basically had to install GroupWise 7.01, uninstall it, uninstall WIndows Messaging, and then install GroupWise again.  Then it appears to work. 

Anyway, I think whoever designed the Vista interface needs to be not just fired but killed. 

The more I use Windows the more I love my Mac. 

If you want the latest Windows Vista beta

Microsoft is opening it up to the first 100,000 people who download it.  Beware, this pig is 2.58GB.  I’m downloading it, but 2.58GB? 

Amazon Grocery

So yesterday I get an e-mail from Amazon announcing Amazon Grocery.  Their solicitation mentioned the availability of such brands as StarKist, Crest and Hamburger Helper.

Laying aside for one moment the incredible success of such luminaries as Webvan and Kozmo in this space , could someone PLEASE explain to me the appeal of purchasing my tuna, toothpaste and boxed dinners through the Internet when I pass Wal-Marts and any number of traditional groceries just driving around town?  I realize that Amazon wants to be my one-stop-shop for absolutely anything and everything I might ever need to use, but come on, Bezos.  Is anyone really going to buy their Kellogg’s cereal from Amazon? 

It was dumb back in the dot-com days and it’s dumb now. 

Just as I rag on Verizon for not giving us a Blackberry 8700

Engadget reports that an 8703 is due on the Verizon network on August 28.  That’s a beautiful thing if it’s true, as my Nextel contract expires on September 1.

The new 8100 Blackberry camera phone, of course, is not coming to Verizon any time soon.  The CDMA version is experiencing “notable development delays”

Good on Sprint

Sprint announced that they’re going to build out their network in WiMax.  That may well be the first thing Sprint has ever done that makes me happy, and it’s about time one of the major infrastructure companies embraced WiMax.  I wish it was Verizon instead of Sprint, but those idiots never announce anything until everyone else has already had it for three years, and even then they’ll figure out some way to cripple it so that it’s unusable.  (Verizon, would you PLEASE get me an 8700 Blackberry?  T-Mobile even has one, for God’s sake.)

Anyway, WiMax is a heavy-duty wireless technology that can truly make broadband available to mobile users and in locations poorly served by cable or DSL.  If Sprint turns up WiMax around here any time soon, I would move to them for that reason alone.  Listen up, Verizon, you no EVDO-supplying, ancient-Blackberry-selling morons. 

Amazingly enough

Our federal government, 33 years after the first OPEC oil crisis, still has not even the first rough draft of an energy independence policy. 

And now this:

BP PLC said Monday it will replace 73 percent of the pipelines from the nation’s largest oil field and that production could be closed for weeks or months, crimping the nation’s oil supplies at a time of peak demand.

BP, the world’s second-largest oil company, began shutting down the pipelines on Monday and said it would replace 16 miles of the 22 miles of transit pipeline it operates in the Prudhoe Bay field following a leak discovered Sunday.

And I don’t want to hear, “Bush is an oil man, that’s why there’s no alternative energy policy.” Clinton, Reagan and Carter weren’t oil men, and they didn’t order up an energy independence program either.  There needs to be a Manhattan Project aimed at developing alternative, renewable fuels.  It needs to start yesterday.  Meanwhile, grassroots ethanol programs are springing up everywhere because private citizens have had it with being held hostage by these savages in the Middle East. 

LG Flatron monitors

I’ve never used an LG flat panel monitor before, almost always NEC.  Samsung are OK, nothing special, I’ve tried a few other brands, but always came back to NEC.  NECs are nice, build quality is consistent, images are good, they’re solid monitors. 

Five minutes ago I put together an LG Flatron and plugged it into my PowerBook.  I’m an instant convert.  The image is amazing.  The colors are very rich, the panel itself is very bright, it went together very easily.  Analog and DVI, I’m using the DVI.  My only criticism is that the panel feels a little wobbly on the stand (not like it’s going to fall off, just not rock solid), but it’s not as if I’m going to be constantly fiddling with it. 

Very highly recommended, I have a new favorite brand and it is LG. 

iPod connectors in 70% of 2007 autos

There are three things I’d really like to have in my next new vehicle, which I’m planning to buy sometime next year:

-- E85 compatibility
-- Built-in XM radio
-- A really good iPod connection solution

The iPod thing just got a bunch easier. 

On Aug. 3, Apple announced that America’s largest car manufacturers, Ford and General Motors, as well as Japan’s Mazda, will include iPod connections on most 2007 models. Apple already had similar arrangements with more than a dozen automakers, including Honda, Volkswagen, and Mercedes-Benz.

The newest deal means iPods could be integrated into stereo systems of more than 70% of the 2007 autos sold in the U.S., and it could help Apple extend its lead over rivals in the $4.5 billion market for digital music players.

Now if Honda and Toyota would just cooperate with me on the E85 thing…

Why Windows Vista has been delayed

How long does Steve Ballmer have? 

Ooh, this is definitely bad news for Microsofties

OK, so let’s say you’re an investor in Microsoft.  You’ve dealt with security problems, delays upon delays, declines in your company’s fortunes.  You go to an analysts’ meeting and what is the absolute last thing you want to hear?

Steve Ballmer made his first solo presentation, sans Bill Gates, at the annual Microsoft analysts meeting on Thursday, claiming that he would be the “primary champion of innovation in our company.”

Oooh, not good.  Definitely not good.  Not what I’d want to hear.  Apparently not what anyone wanted to hear.

Investors seemed underwhelmed, bidding the software company’s stock down nearly 2% on the day, perhaps less than excited by Ballmer’s contention that the company’s delayed Vista operating system and Office 2007 program could be Microsoft’s “most exciting offerings ever.”

Once again, I use Vista and Office 2007 every day.  If these are Microsoft’s most exciting offerings ever, buy Macs.  Buy them now. 

But that’s a fantastic idea anyway. 

Microsoft thinks PCs are ugly.

And they would like box assemblers to start making them attractive. 

You know, like Apple.

A How-To kit for the ideal PC has been making the rounds of leading design shops. It calls for “accelerated curves” and “purposeful contrast.” The preferred colors include a shade of black called Obsidian and a translucent white dubbed Ice. “We want people to fall in love with their PCs, not to simply use them to be productive and successful,” reads the enclosed booklet. “We want PCs to be objects of pure desire.”

Doesn’t sound much like Microsoft, does it? But it is. BusinessWeek has learned that a team of 20 in-house designers has been working quietly for the past 18 months on an elegant new look for PCs that will run Microsoft’s next operating system, Windows Vista. It’s a major departure for the company, which historically has left design to the likes of Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Gateway. Persuading the hardware guys to embrace the toolkit won’t be easy. They’re already working overtime to build better-looking gear on their own.

Microsoft, I’m running Vista and Office 2007 on one of my machines here.  The only thing I can say is this:  After looking at that stinking pile of crap for about a month now, you are the last people on the face of the earth who should be lecturing anyone about design.