Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows: Windows Live Movie Maker Review, Part 2: "YouTube
You may be surprised that YouTube is the default sharing choice in Windows Live Movie Maker, though I should mention that Microsoft's own video sharing site, MSN Soapbox, was very recently cancelled due to lack of interest. YouTube, of course, is one of the most popular web sites in the world and, by far, the most popular video sharing site. So there it is."
Friday, August 28, 2009
MS stops fighting the current
Why Glenn Beck Is Feared By The Left
A Matter of Definition
Could Depression Be Useful After All
Depressed people often think intensely about their problems. These thoughts are called ruminations; they are persistent and depressed people have difficulty thinking about anything else. Numerous studies have also shown that this thinking style is often highly analytical. They dwell on a complex problem, breaking it down into smaller components, which are considered one at a time.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Crazy Ahnold's!
Everything Must Go: California Holds Giant Garage Sale - News Story - KTVU San Francisco: "The governor has even autographed 15 car visors in an effort to fetch higher bids on vehicles."
Chilling
And if you think that my fear regarding the arts becoming a tool of the state is still unfounded, I leave you with a few statements made by the NEA to the art community participants on the conference call. “This is just the beginning. This is the first telephone call of a brand new conversation. We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally?…bare with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely… “
And so the betrayal is complete
6 Things You Need to Know About Mac OS X Snow Leopard | Gadget Lab | Wired.com: "Hardware Requirements: No Support for PowerPC MacsPersonally, I think it should be distributed on a read-only USB drive for those poor Air owners. Then again, I suppose if you can pay $2000+ for your computer, you can afford an extra $99.
If you own an older Mac powered by a PowerPC chip (rather than Intel), then you’re out of luck: Snow Leopard won’t run on your machine. The requirements are as follows: You must own an Intel Mac equipped with at least 1GB of memory, and the install requires at least 5GB of free hard drive space for the install. And of course, you’ll need a DVD drive to be able to read the disc and run the installation. (MacBook Air owners: We hope you have an external optical drive.)"
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Say What?
The Associated Press: Chrysler cuts powertrain warranty to 5 years: "AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Chrysler Group LLC said Wednesday that it is dropping its lifetime powertrain warranty in favor of a 5-year, 100,000-mile guarantee.
Chrysler spokesman Rick Deneau said the decision was driven by market research that showed consumers prefer warranties with a fixed time period. Powertrain warranties typically cover repair or replacement of transmission and engine parts.
'Basically, the assumption of a lifetime warranty just wasn't that big a deal to consumers,' Deneau said."
Monday, August 17, 2009
Bait and Switch
Auto Dealers Paid for Just 2 Percent of 'Clunkers' Claims, Congressman Says - Political News - FOXNews.com: "In the letter, Sestak said only 2 percent of claims have been paid and that four of every five applications have been 'rejected for minor oversight.'�h/t: Instapundit
In recent days, auto dealers across the country have been complaining that the reimbursement payments are slow to process. And they said some of their applications were being rejected because of apparent procedural issues. The statistics Sestak cited suggest those complaints are not based on isolated incidents.�"
Health Care, with actual numbers
STEPHEN GLOVER: I deeply resent the Americans sneering at our health service - but perhaps that's because the truth hurts
| Mail Online: "But whatever the failings and excesses of the American system, the statistics suggest that it delivers better outcomes than the NHS when dealing with serious illnesses. I say 'suggest' because we should always be wary of comparing figures compiled in different ways in different countries.
In treating almost every cancer, America apparently does better than Britain, sometimes appreciably so. According to a study in Lancet Oncology last year, 91.9 per cent of American men with prostate cancer were still alive after five years, compared with only 51.1per cent in Britain.
The same publication suggests that 90.1 per cent of women in the U.S. diagnosed with breast cancer between 2000 and 2002 survived for at least five years, as against 77.8 per cent in Britain."
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
Neither bitter nor surprised
T-Mobile G1 owners: Don’t expect any future Android updates: "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but someone has to say it. If you currently own a T-Mobile G1, your days of Android updates are numbered. In fact, cupcake might have been your last treat. Users should not expect to receive the Donut update in its full form.
“I don’t think that anybody… can precisely answer your question at the moment. Size remains a constant concern, not just for the G1 but also for other devices.” Jean-Baptiste Queru, Android Software Engineer
“I don’t believe that has been decided yet, and ultimately it will be a decision made in conjunction with the carrier. It is even possible that some carriers may want the update and others won’t. There will come a time in the near future when we won’t be able to fit the latest release on the G1 internal flash.” Dave Sparks, Android Software Engineer
Based on all the information I have, I’m just going to assume no more updates for the G1 till I hear something different. You would be wise to start thinking the same thing to avoid being disappointed.
Why is the G1 going to stop getting updates?
The limited storage space of the G1 is the single reason its days are numbered. It is a bit of a no-win situation. No one will admit it, but the small storage space could have been the reason Cupcake was slow in coming.
“Where the situation is really tricky is that the system partition on the US G1 was already filled to the brim with cupcake, and we were routinely flirting with build sizes that were a few dozen kB under the limit (or several MB over…), which means that even small changes to the core platform could very easily push the system size over the limit and staying under the limit took some effort”. Jean-Baptiste Queru, Android Software Engineer
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Echo Chamber
Ed Brayton lambasts Investors Business Daily for this quote:
People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.
He says:
There's just one tiny little problem with this: Stephen Hawking was born and raised in the UK and has lived there all his life. He teaches at Cambridge. That's in the UK. This ranks up there with the French not having a word for entrepreneur.
The IBD has already corrected the article, and noted the correction (which is crucial to honesty) but I think their editors missed a crucial word: “Now”.
According to Wikipedia Hawking was diagnosed at the age of 21. He was born in 1942, and so his diagnosis came in 1963. Ed and his commenters seem to be assuming that the British NHS has remained unchanged since it’s inception in 1948. It should be elementary to assume that there have been some significant changes in even the 46 years since Hawking’s diagnosis.
And there are more changes on the way. Ask yourself: Are you healthy enough to be denied health care by a government source with no other recourse?
One commenter hits the nail on the head:
Actually, on reflection, I'm going to be scrupulously fair to the Investor's Business Daily. Stephen Hawking, IIRC from a documentary I saw a while back, does not rely solely on the NHS for his treatment. As a wealthy individual (thanks to being a best-selling author), he is in a position where he can employ a live-in nurse to cater to his needs and thus the care he receives is not necessarily typical for a Motor Neurone Disease sufferer in the UK.
He does go on to mention that his own father has no complaints about his care under the NHS. That’s fantastic, but again the question is “would he get that care if newly diagnosed?”
Honestly, I don’t think Hawking is the best example anyway. His father was a doctor, and in many ways he was born as part of the upper class. He went to Oxford, for crying out loud.
So here’s a question for you intrepid class-warriors out there: Would a Down Syndrome baby born to an immigrant, low income mother get the same treatment? If you think the answer is yes, you haven’t been paying attention.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
What Fresh Hell?
Michigan madness | Washington Examiner: "Case in point: Democratic State Chairman Mark Brewer. Ordinarily a pretty savvy political operator, Brewer is now suggesting five ballot propositions for the 2010 ballot. Their aim apparently is to improve the lot of Michigan citizens. But the result, as anyone with an iota of sense can see, would be to inflict horrifying damage on an already staggering state economy."
Monday, August 10, 2009
The White House Wants YOU!
Dissent is patriotic - not: "'I can only imagine the level of justifiable outrage had your predecessor asked Americans to forward e-mails critical of his politics to the White House,' Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, wrote in a letter to President Obama. 'I suspect that you would have been leading the charge in condemning such a program.'"I honestly can not understand how the same people who panicked over Terrorism Threat Levels and government wire tapping are willing to instigate a program for informing on those with a different opinion.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Book Burning
under a law Congress passed last year aimed at regulating hazards in children’s products, the federal government has now advised that children’s books published before 1985 should not be considered safe and may in many cases be unlawful to sell or distribute. Merchants, thrift stores, and booksellers may be at risk if they sell older volumes, or even give them away, without first subjecting them to testing—at prohibitive expense. Many used-book sellers, consignment stores, Goodwill outlets, and the like have accordingly begun to refuse new donations of pre-1985 volumes, yank existing ones off their shelves, and in some cases discard them en masse
The Shoe is on the other foot
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
The Government sticks it’s nose in
Apparently there’s been enough noise about Apple’s rejection of the Google Voice app that it’s gotten the attention of the FCC. Here’s what Amazon’s Aric Annear had to say:
There's two sides to this inquiry business. Personally, I come down on the side of this being a very good thing, though admittedly perhaps for the wrong reasons. Specifically, the inquiry will hopefully lead to at least a little more transparency in how apps get approved or rejected. Back when the iPhone App Store first opened, developers joked about the seemingly random approval process for getting applications into the store. Now, as the iPhone radically gains market share and inspires developers to expend real time and sweat and financial resources in a heavily competitive environment, no one's laughing anymore. Frustrated developers (and consumers) are beginning to abandon the platform as their inquiries about rejection and request for useful feedback go completely ignored--since there's no way whatsoever to know in advance if your app is going to be accepted, expending serious development resources on the iPhone begins to look more and more like a bad bet.
I tend to disagree that this is a good thing. The bolded section above references developers and users abandoning the platform and that’s a great example of the market at work. Apple should be allowed to make any business decision it wants, and if that limits their growth then so be it.
Shame at my bias
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Popular
Dig Deep
Asked about raising taxes on the middle class on Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” White House economist Larry Summers wouldn’t repeat Mr. Obama’s pre-election promise. “It is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out no matter what,” Mr. Summers said—except, apparently, when his boss is running for office. Meanwhile, on ABC’s “This Week,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also slid around Mr. Obama’s vow and said, “We have to bring these deficits down very dramatically. And that’s going to require some very hard choices.”
Monday, August 3, 2009
Get your whole family up to speed
End User: Windows 7 Family Pack prices, Anytime Upgrade details: "The upcoming Windows 7 Family Pack will be priced at $149.99, and it will be available for purchase in stores upon the operating system's Oct. 22 launch, Microsoft said this morning.
The Family Pack, which will let PC users upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium on up to three existing Windows Vista or XP computers, represents a discount of more than $200 from buying the Windows 7 Home Premium upgrades individually."
Whither the office?
Go into any office today and you'll find people using Word to write documents. Some people still print them out and file them in big metal cabinets to be lost forever, but again this is simply an old habit, like a phantom itch on a severed limb. Instead of printing them, most people will email them to their boss or another coworker, who is then expected to download the email attachment and edit the document, then return it to them in the same manner. At some point the document is considered "finished", at which point it gets dropped off on a network share somewhere and is then summarily forgotten.
People keep doing this, but it is an astoundingly awful way to work. Here are just a few of the problems:
- People sometimes forget to attach the document to their email.
- The document can be too large—especially long documents with lots of images—and can clog up the email server.
- Nobody knows what edits were made and by whom. Sure, you can turn "Track Changes" on, but as it transforms your document into a horrible illegible mess, most people very quickly turn it off again.
- Nobody has any idea which is the most recent version of the document. This leads to amusing email flame wars where people insist that you adopt version control for your file names, which nobody ever does because they are too busy arguing about what the syntax should be. Even if you do manage to get version control, you are still never sure if you have the most recent version.
- People save the document in some directory on their hard drive and then forget where it is. The usual solution to this is to email the author again and ask them to resend it.
- People miss the email (usually because there are far too many emails in a day) and claim to have never received the document in the first place.
Even if you somehow manage to survive all these pitfalls and your document reaches the Holy Land of $some_random_network_share, your troubles are just beginning. Now nobody knows where your document is, so they have to pester you to tell them.
Changing habits is the worst part. Everyone wants everything in a specific folder, but being able to search is typically much more efficient. The difficulty is that you have to have the keywords. There's one very funny story where we were trying to find the electronic file for a program book, and literally searched everywhere we could think of. Naturally, the file was called "PB."