The daily thought (29)

The weather has an unbelievable ability to affect my general attitude toward things.  Today = FANTASTIC!

The daily thought (28)

The price predictor in Bing rocks!

The daily thought (27)

to bing or not to bing

The daily thought (26)

TGIF – oldie but goody, and I still think that every week!

The daily thought (25)

Early in the morning, the sun was up and the sky was very blue.

The daily thought (24)

2 days till the weekend – clearly defined goals.  Let’s rock!

The daily thought (23)

ZuneHD anyone?

The daily thought (22)

Back to work for a four day week. Every week should be like this.  More time with the family – more energy to work. FTW!

The daily thought(21)

Bank holidays rock!

The daily thought (20)

Lazy Sunday reading papers. Roast later :)

The daily thought (19)

Gardening – I need a lawn that thrives in boggy conditions…

The daily thought (18)

It’s the freakin’ weekend gonna have me some fun!

The daily thought (17)

Who knows when things will improve?  You don’t, you just have to focus on making it through the day, and don’t let the important things drop.

On improving the daily slog through better technology….

Now, Apple has apparently been doing some work around a water-cooled laptop. This is hopefully going somewhere interesting.

I don’t really see the need or have the capacity to install another large box in my office – so I suspect that most new purchases for me and many other people will be laptops.  Problem is, as my main workhorse at the moment is a Dell XPS M1710. Loaded with 4GB of RAM, it’s almost sufficient for my needs.  It’s relatively fast, and has enough RAM to run a VPC if I have to. Mostly, I use the new ‘boot from VHD’ functionality in Windows 7 to choose which OS to run, and have a number of images sitting on VHD.  This allows me to work on any number of OS’s at native performance, while keeping all my docs etc on a separate partition.

The 2 things I would improve in this machine is:

1. An SSD (native PCI-express type like OCZ makes for PCs) which I assume will eventually be available on Expresscard for some ridiculous amount.
2. And a decent cooling solution.

The machine runs hot – way too hot.  Having it on the whole day means I don’t need to have central heating in my office.  Having two of these in an office turns it into a boiler room.  And the noise is just terrible.

So, if Apple (or anyone) actually makes a decent water-cooled laptop that runs cool and silent, I’ll be first in line.

And those Expresscard SSDs – I’ll take 2 !

The daily thought (16)

It’s amazing how things can become really messy, really quickly.

The daily thought (15)

It never rains…

The daily thought(14)

Let’s rock!

The daily thought (13)

I’ll say it again – unlimited subscription music ROCKS! nothing like a collection of around 5 million tracks…  Discovering old favourites is amazing!

The daily thought (12)

What good reason is there not to believe the Singularity will happen? You don’t really need to believe, you just need to realise it’s inevitable.

The daily thought(11)

Once you have a baby, sleeping in or even just lounging in bed on the weekend becomes a thing of the past…

The daily thought(10)

For some reason – I constantly think there’s something (else) I should be doing.

The daily thought (9)

Before living the dream, you have to dream the life – completely!

Killer feature for any mobile device (Zune take note)

So, it turns out the rumours from the twitter account were fake – there may not be any new Zune coming in June. However, we won’t know till we know.

Sadder is the news from WSJ that the motion camera for XBOX won’t be shipping for at least another year.  This is unfortunate and makes me wonder what’s in the pipeline, as rumour has it that the device was pretty much fully functional when MS bought the technology.

But back the original topic. There is a new Zune coming, we just don’t know exactly when yet. @Volvoshine has been talking about new features, and one in particular that has other manufacturers stumped.  Question is, could it be instant on?

The most annoying thing  about any mobile device, but especially music players, is the fact that there’s a boot time. This really sucks. It sucks enough that I go back to good old FM quite often. Nice thing about FM, you press the button, you have music, INSTANTLY. If someone can pull that off with a device I’d buy three – or more.

Being able to get music without the annoying 15 sec delay would really be awesome.

But – unfortunately I don’t own a device company, so cannot build one myself and have to wait for someone else to realise this would kick ass…

The daily thought(8)

I never realised how much my quality of life could be improved through fitting a new kitchen and bathroom! You want to live somewhere else while it happens though…

Zune HD Updates…

So – at long last we’ll find out whether the Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division team really has what it takes to compete. Hopefully Mr Allard has been up to something mind-blowing – and has a plan that won’t cost billions in fixes…

But, the market has become crowded – they need a phone that works – and something really special to take on the iPod Touch that has become quite an excellent gaming platform.

Of course, there are a number of things happening, and the gaming platform may be the first one we see with E3 coming up. Note that they’ll most likely release the new Wii competitor tech first – but who knows…  E3 may be very exciting.

Strange place to launch a music player /phone thingy though…

The daily thought (7)

Distraction – it happens in the blink of an eye…

The daily thought (6)

Weekends – great for relaxing, and clearing the mind.  Make sure to get as many chores as possible done during the week. This gives you a sense of accomplishment and frees up your weekend for fun pursuits! Focus on clearing your time for the coming weekend.

The daily thought (5)

Getting more family time requires less TV, less Web, and less work.  Strangely – this will also allow you to start a business with all the time you now have.

The daily thought (4)

The web (like work) fills up all available time….

The daily thought (3)

What would happen if I stopped tracking news on the web? Go cold turkey? No more twitter, blogs, facebook or engadget?

The daily thought (2)

Current workloads and economic policies are not family friendly. We need a way to spend more time with the family.  A 2.5 day work week at most :)

The daily thought…

How much wisdom can be conveyed in a single twitter post (tweet)?

Windows 7 RC and Windows Server 2008 R2 RC Now Available

The release candidates for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are now available for download to anyone with MSDN or Technet subscription.

When pigs fly…

Apple is making money hand over fist, and Microsoft posts it’s first revenue decline EVER.

Zune HD – What would REALLY be better than iPhone….

So – rumours are all around that we’ll soon see a new Zune, and all those tales about the Zune dying or not being given new hardware was fake.

Well, there are some killer apps that the Zune could do with.  It already has software far superior to iTunes, so can they make the hardware and package irresistible?

First up, wireless sound – using Kleer, Bluetooth 3.0 or even audioengine.  It’s probably too late for Bluetooth 3.0, but let’s hope they have some plan.  This should not only be to the bundled headphones, but ideally include an adapter to connect to your stereo.

Just think, sitting on your couch, browsing the Zune marketplace and playing anything directly to your stereo courtesy of your Zune pass without wires.  Now that’s something to dream about!

Oh, and they could throw in a wireless power charger like the palm pre :)

OnLive – Deepzoom for games?

Onlive seems to good to be true.  The demo shown of at the GDC yesterday looks incredible, and certainly has the potential to revolutionise the gaming space.

This is a true example of dreaming better….

I wonder if anyone at Microsoft or Sony is paying attention.  This does not really bode well for their next gen consoles – though MS has been focused on downloadable content for while, so that may be a natural fit. 

This will certainly stop another $1 Billion fiasco  - the red ring of death - hardware quality issues, but i assume the xbox 720 is already close to becoming a reality.  Not sure whether there’s any match yet – but this looks like a prime acquisition target for the boys in Redmond.

We’ll have to watch closely.

To see what this is all about, check out the video here.

Silverlight 3.0 Beta available!

Microsoft has released Silverlight 3.0 beta to developers just before the official start of the Mix 09 conference in Las Vegas.

Silverlight 3.0 has been eagerly awaited by a large number of developers, all hoping that the magic 3.0 release from Microsoft will bring even broader adoption of the already fairly successful platform.

A comprehensive list of all the released bits can be found here.

More info to follow…

Apple endangers the MIX

Joe Wilcox thinks OS 3.0 will kill Mix09.  But if we get Silverlight on the iPhone, maybe that helps a little?

What if all developers working on Silverlight apps (and WPF .Net apps) can suddenly target both iPhone and Windows phones?  Or even just the iPhone? How’s that for a START?

iPhone 3.0

Will we see Silverlight?  That is, will the new SDK allow browser plug-ins?

We can only watch and wait…

Again – anything with an SDK…

So, iPhone OS3.0 is coming.  Updates to the SDK, rumoured tethering via Bluetooth and USB, what more could you want?

But wait – look at the date they’re releasing it – 17th March – 1 day before Mix 09.  Any chance MS has finally managed to get Silverlight onto the iPhone?

Not sure what that would mean for their flagging mobile OS, but it sure would be a massive boost for Silverlight!

I have to say – tethering is one of those last things that the phone needs.  A longer battery life would help too, but I’m assuming we’ll see new hardware soon.  As it also has Exchange Sync, the iPhone is becoming a serious contender for Enterprise Phone.

So, is this just a dream, or does Microsoft have a plan to get their Mobile strategy going, that includes the most unlikely of partners?