Microsoft in the News

I got carded for the first time today! I feel so grown up! I know, it's sad. I haven't been asked for my ID before really except for seeing apartments, which is just as collateral. I was trying to buy some shisha for my brother's hookah, and he carded me. Anyway, I got 5 out of the 6 questions on my Diffy Q test perfect, but I don't think anyone got that last one, so I'll hope for the best. Tomorrow is my Theory in Programming Practice final, which will be more stressful. Anyway, there were a number of Microsoft articles in the news today. John Dvorak spouted his nonsense in an article at MarketWatch that Microsoft is sinking, but his reasons are all wrong. Just off the top of my head: open source is not beating .NET at all (the demand for .NET developers is through the roof), Office 2007 is really sweet (despite the numerous versions), their search engine is growing rapidly, and when employees keep quiting for Google, can you blame them for turning their attention that way? I don't think that Microsoft is soaring, but they're still far from breaking. Gates may not care either way though because he's sick of being so rich. Poor baby. I see what he's saying though, but at least he's trying to donate a lot of it. They may even be acquiring Yahoo, though I don't really understand why. I thought that Live was their main effort on the web. Oh well, they can probably afford it. Lastly, they're going to be producing fresh web shows, and I'm curious to see what they come up. Especially since they did a decent job with this.

I've been trying to keep you all up-to-date on the net neutrality battle, but I realize that some of you may not realize that gravity of the situation. Hence, I strongly recommend that you read this explanation of the logistics in laymen's terms. Maybe it'll sway some of you to the good side (I hope). ITWire has a decent article about why Mac OS X is safer than Windows, but I'm not sure that I buy all of it. Yes, it's much harder to find a backdoor into a Mac than a Windows machine, but I think it's going too far to say that Mac users don't need to protect themselves at all. I'm no expert, but I've come to realize that most large-scale applications aren't bulletproof in the world of computers. There has been a push to check software for flaws earlier on, which is really great. The farther along in a project you encounter a bug from earlier, the harder it is to fix and the more expensive that fix becomes. CNN Money has a listing of the top 10 fastest growing jobs, and I'm thrilled that I'll be able to enter the 3rd or 4th ones on that list when I graduate! I could probably do the first one, as well, but it is rather specialized. Lastly, the DS Lite will be released on June 11th for just $130! This is better than the Japanese price (correct me if I'm wrong, people), and it's so sleek and pretty that it's quite tempting for me to get one. I'll probably save up for a PS3 (after its price drops, of course) though.

Not much movie news today. Sony has decided to delay the release of Blu-Ray until June due to pressure from pretty much all their partners, which I don't think is that big of a deal. It's not like HD-DVD has gotten off to a great start so far. Only a couple of those June 20th releases are halfway decent anyway. Yes, you are looking at the Aston Martin DB5 that will be in Casino Royale. I feel that it's a little too present-day to fit the movie's timeframe though. We also know that there will be another 007 movie, Bond 22, in 2007 since it ends in those three magic numbers. It'll be a direct follow up to Casino Royale, but I'm guessing that it'll be really rushed, unfortunately. The cast for the Transformers movie has been confirmed, but nothing all that impressive. Not that John Voight and Bernie Mac aren't good, they're just not selling points. No matter, I'm sure the movie will turn out well with Joss Whedon at the helm. Lastly, there's talk of the Silver Surfer making an appearance in the Fantastic Four sequel, who I remember liking back in the days of the animated series.

I thought I'd make up for the movie news drought with a mini-review of ABC's streaming TV service. I watched this week's Lost today on it in two sittings (I won't spoil it, but it's a mad crazy episode). I was very impressed with it. There were maybe four ads in the whole show, and they were done cleverly. After 30 seconds, you can either keep watching it or interacting with it, or go back to the show. Some ads have questions as part of a little story, one was a trailer for a movie, and so it cycles around between their main sponsors for the service as a whole. This is quite tolerable, and better than normal TV! The picture quality was quite good, in my opinion, but you can only make it so big (no full screen). The most important thing is that the stream never broke, and so it was just as good as watching it on TV in that sense. In fact, it took me about a minute to start up the episode after getting on the ABC site, so that's nice, too. Plus, the time navigation shows you actual times, unlike your standard media players, so it's easy to pick up where you left off without having to search around and guess. It's off to a great start, and I encourage you to all use it for these shows rather than using torrents to encourage improvements and extended programming choices.

Now for some 3x Thursday action:

1. Are you really into music? Does it get you excited, or can you take it or leave it?
Yes, it gets me very hyped. The weeks leading up to ACL last year were just pure anticipation. I wish I went to concerts more, but I probably will when I start making some decent wages.

2. Do you look forward to new albums coming out? Are you one of those ppl that waits with bated breath, or do you just buy albums when you are walking by a kiosk or something like that?
It really depends. For example, Stadium Arcadium hits Tuesday, and I'm going to get up early and run out and buy it that morning itself! I also bought Late Registration the day it came last fall.

3. What kind of music did you listen to as a kid (0-18)?. What do you listen to now?
I went through phases. I had a disney music phase, a pop music phase, a rap phase, and an alternative phase. Now I just take the best from all worlds in my taste.

Bonus Question: Does music hold the same meaning as an adult as it did when you were a kid? Why/why not?
It holds more to me now I think because I'm freer to listen to it through my computer and my iPod Shuffle.

I don't think there'll be a post tomorrow because I'm going to see MI:3 and may party afterwards. I also have 3 parties on Saturday, so I'll blog the first chance I get! There will be a Sunday night post for sure, though.