I found an interesting post by Bill Thompson on the BBC website. It seems that most ‘young’ people don’t bother about their userid, useraccount, and password. If you forget your password you simply get a new ID and setup a new account and start over. This, in contrast to ‘us’ ‘older’ people.
I can find myself in Bill’s remark that he tries to setup accounts with similar names and tries to hang on to his email address. I’ve had my email address for some eight years. Before that I had to change it every time I changed ISP. Thank god that is in the past.
Insight at last
It is about time that we restrict the emissions of airplanes. I was in Canada on September 2001 when all the flights were grounded in the US because of the attack on the Twin Towers. The effects on the temperature and the clouds during that period were staggering. A clear indication to me that the effects of emissions by airplanes is underestimated.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | EU to tackle aircraft emissions
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The end of the analog transmission
The Netherlands will stop using analog TV signals by the end of this year. If you don’t have cable (which 80% of the Netherlands has) you will have to switch to satellite (DVB-S) or terrestrial digital (DVB-T).
I don’t I will buy a new HP printer right now
It is something out of a Hollywood script; “Top CEO spies on its board members and breaks every rule there is”.
If you haven’t heard about it. There has been some stuff going on at HP. There were some boardroom secrets leaking out to the press and the CEO (Patricia Dunn) started an investigation. Nothing wrong with that you would say. No, but if you let private investigators hack into personal phone records of board members and reportors, than you are crossing a line.
Personal Computer 25 years
The PC is 25 years old! I can remember the first time they carried the thing into our office. Oh man, did it change the way we worked. We had a Wang text editor in a private network. One of these great boxes with screen and keyboard in one box. The documents we wrote we either send handwriten to the typing department who were also working with the Wang or we did it on the Wang.
We first used Multimate, Lotus, Symphony, Harvard Graphics, DOS, QEMM. Great times. The first PC I had looked exactly like the one on the picture. You could park your car on it and it would still run.
Now I work with a Tablet PC, a laptop plus I still have a couple of desktop/workstations. The price of all that stuff is probably less than what you paid for the first IBM PC.
Apple hype?
Recently Steve delivered his key note about the new features in Linux OS X Leopard.
Great new features? No, not really. A lot of features were already available in either Linux and/or Windows (Virtual desktops, Time machine) or were just fixes not worth mentioning.
No new Nano, no new iPhone, no Vista 2.0, no … Maybe Apple is just like all other IT firms; sometimes hot and exciting, something boring.
Hot? Make your own air conditioner
As the temperature in the Netherlands is rising above the 30 C, the questions comes up; how to keep cool.
Answer; Build your homemade air conditioner.
Here is the link [link]
Apple versus France (DRM issue)
The Herald Tribune has published a good article about the bill that is going to pass in the French senate this summer [link tot the article].
As you might have read somewhere, there is somewhat of a dispute going on between Apple and the French government. The latest are proposing a bill which will force companies like Apple to open up their DRM system. This would allow the enduser to buy music, video’s and digital media in general and play it on any equipment.
It is very funny to see how Apple is trying to protect the lock-in they have at the moment. Funny to see a company who is considered to be cool and innovative using old-school tactics of the 19th hundreds.
It is most likely that if this bill is passed in France, other countries in Europe will make a simmular bill. The first signs in that direction can be seen in Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
In most cases Government interference is bad. It stops innovation and is most of the times to restrictive. In this case I question the attitude of Apple. Forcing Apple to open their DRM model is good for the customer but at the same time gives Apple the opportunity to license their DRM model and receive income from that. Of course it mean that their model has to be superior to other DRM models, but that is a good business challenge.
Yahoo is selling it’s first DRM free music.
This could be significant [read the article].
French DRM Law Revised for iTunes
I am afraid that the French have no balls!
Read this article [link] in BetaNews. The French have watered down the original bill which would ban the use of DRM formats that are closed down for third parties. Or easier said; A person who buys a DRM protected piece of data should be able to play it on any equipment it has. So if I buy a song on iTunes I wouldn’t be forced to buy an Apple iPod to be able to play it on something else then my PC.
I hope the Scandinavians have bigger balls.
Cool USB stick
Check out the FosFor Gadgets website for a very cool USB stick (link).
Microsoft
This has been quite a week for Microsoft; Scoble leaving, share prices going down and than now Gates leaving!
Robert Scoble; http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/
I have been reading Roberts’ Blog for some time. Him leaving Microsoft was not really a suprise to me. There were some signals in his writing; the time he stopped blogging, the moment he unsubcribed to all his RSS feeds (wooh!), his questioning what to use of blogging was, which indicated to me that he was looking for something new something fresh. The passing away of his mother might have made the step easier. Whether PodTech will provide him with the new stumula, we will see. Good luck Robert.
Microsoft stock prices going down. Everybody could have seem that comming; the success of Google, Flickr and all those ‘small’ new firms, Vista being delayed, etc. It is just the short term vision of the stock market, they are just looking for a quick buck.
Today Bill Gates announced that he was leaving Microsoft (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5085444.stm). I didn’t see that one comming but I think it is a good thing for Microsoft. Microsoft has always been to much Bill Gates and not enough Microsoft. There are so many talented people working at Microsoft, maybe they can dust off the ‘old’ image and move Microsoft into new areas.
I don’t need an iPod, I have an iRiver
