How VMWare Became the Goliath

Note: Sorry about the tardiness of this post. It was ready last night, but Blogger wouldn't let me post for like four hours, and then I had to go to bed. This is the Thursday post though.

Today was a strange day. I pretty much got thrown directly into the world of chip fabrication automation with the code for the tool I'm going to be improving, and it was wild stuff. I'm exciting about what the possibilities could be from here, but today was pretty boring until the end when I finally got a hold of my mentor and found out that a girl I like is off limits. I hope tomorrow will be better, but I'm sure that it will stay as good as ever for VMWare, which has really been owning Microsoft in the virtualization arena. How? They give their customers a better Windows than Microsoft ever has! It's an interesting concept, and I don't have much experience with VMWare's software myself, but I've seen it used and it is rather intuitive. Imagine some of Windows's biggest drawbacks fixed and you'll only have a slightly better product than what VMWare offers. What's truly intriguing about this situation is how we've heard of M$'s tactics, such as acquisitions and trying to attract press and forcing VMWare to release certain stuff for free, which are pretty standard fare for them. However, they don't seem to be working too well. If there's hope for VMWare then there's hope for anyone else trying to compete with Microsoft!

At least Microsoft is doing something to help us out: they're going to start letting us know that it has a tool running on our machines to make sure that it's not pirated. I still can't accept that this tool wouldn't accidentally mark a copy of Windows as pirated that was purchased legally, but I guess they probably know what they're doing. Meanwhile, people are still talking about what people are calling Google Office since now they have Writely and Google Spreadsheets, but is this really a competitor to MS Office? Ars Technica wouldn't posit it, and I agree. Google knows it can't take over MS Office with this stuff, but if they get it popular enough then they can force more acceptance for open standards so that everyone and their mom doesn't have to use MS Office just to be in the loop. I hope it works! Yahoo is adding more features to Yahoo Photos, which I only bring up because I think it's stupid that they have two photo services, especially since I know that Flickr is hurting them more than helping. Wouldn't it make more sense to just throw one service's resources at the other rather than pit them against themselves? If you think that laptops are just too small for your home use then the Acer seems to have a pretty decent 20" laptop, but I just think that any more than 17" is really pushing it. Intel has decided that it will be reducing prices on their Pentium processors by as much as 60% to try and gain back the market share it keeps losing to AMD. I think that people are too concerned about this though because I don't see why anyone buying something as expensive as a computer would want to cheap out with an old processor that won't last more than another year or possibly two before showing its obsolescence. Lastly, Sony has actually shut down production on a video game because they felt that the "semi-erotic" interaction between the female children in the game would cause a ruckus. I'd say that's pretty lame though because the game seems to obviously aim more to scare than to arouse, but you can judge on your own.

That Decepticon is our first real look at Transformers, but I'm sure it'll still be a while before we have a trailer. We also have some new posters from Clerks 2, but I picked the Transformers one despite how hot Rosario Dawson looks in her character poster because we haven't heard much from that movie in a good bit. And anyway, I know you're all going to see it if you have any sense of humor whatsoever. The Japanese action movie Battle Royale, in which a bunch of high school students (include the actress who played Go Go Yubari in Kill Bill) have to fight each other in a battle royale at some twisted summer camp (I think it was a camp, at least), is coming stateside in its own adaptation. AICN is pretty skeptical, but I'd hate to pass judgement so early. 24 is one big step closer to making it to the big screen now that the series' creators are on board to work on the script, but still no Kiefer (though he's likely to join if the script is good, which is also pretty likely now). I can't figure out how 24 could translate into a good movie though since two hours just isn't enough time. Lastly, there are some new clips for Strangers with Candy if you're interested. I didn't see them yet because I need to go to bed now, but it has Bob Saget so I'm sure it should be pretty wild.

Now for some 3x Thursday action:

1. Are you very social? Why/why not?
I am, but not as much as I'd like to be. I'm definitely a people person, but school work just constantly owns me, which is why I try to stay involved in a couple of clubs. I go out and party on the weekends, but part of my disappointment this Spring was not dating and not building on some of my friendships enough.

2. What does 'being social' mean to you?
Hanging out with people a lot and readily meeting new people and such. Also, I think a component of it is to maintain those relationships.

3. Do you think because we're Merkins (meaning we love excess) we're more social than other cultures? Why/why not?
Possibly since I almost think we may feel emotions more intensely. I'm probably wrong, but that's just the way I think of things. I'm a computer guy, not a biologist!

Bonus Question: Done anything social lately? Do tell!
I went out and saw the Mavs game at a local pub with some other interns here at TI tonight. Dallas won! :)