Amusing column in the Guardian with their take on the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercial.

An excerpt:

"PCs have charm; Macs ooze pretension. When I sit down to use a Mac, the first thing I think is, "I hate Macs", and then I think, "Why has this rubbish aspirational ornament only got one mouse button?" Losing that second mouse button feels like losing a limb. If the ads were really honest, Webb would be standing there with one arm, struggling to open a packet of peanuts while Mitchell effortlessly tore his apart with both hands. But then, if the ads were really honest, Webb would be dressed in unbelievably po-faced avant-garde clothing with a gigantic glowing apple on his back. And instead of conducting a proper conversation, he would be repeatedly congratulating himself for looking so cool, and banging on about how he was going to use his new laptop to write a novel, without ever getting round to doing it, like a mediocre idiot."

Ha!

New York Times had a slideshow of a day in the life of Steve Ballmer.

Well, it actually doesn't follow him through the whole day and seems to just focus on his office.  Interesting to see it.

I've been gone for awhile again.  The winter holidays, getting back into work, etc.  I am remiss.

Just in time to pop up to say hello.  Yay, Vista has launched for everyone!

I found an interview with Bill Gates, done by BusinessWeek on the day of all the launch activities.  It's interesting to see Gates' responses when he is in a jubilant mood.  A nice tone.

Oops, looks like the Blogtv.sg show pointed people over here to this blog.  I might as well put some links to my other blogs:

Personal blog: www.howardlo.com (redirects to http://www.moblog.com.sg/blog/theguyoverthere)

I mentioned http://www.meferral.com on the show.  It's a brand new site, just getting off the ground.  We have a tool that helps store your recommendations and wants and lets you connect with your friends and find out specialized information.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the show, hope you could understand my mumblings, and thank you for your participation on the chat board.

Chris Sells wrote a blog entry on why he's thankful for Windows Vista.  Reading it did make me appreciate Vista more.

As much as one can appreciate an operating system or piece of software, that is. :)

First, the small details:

It’s past midnight.  I have an early morning meeting tomorrow that periodically pops into my mind.  “Get some rest,” is what the voice says.  The computer behind me is making whirring noises, I’m not sure whether it’s on the brink of failure or if it’s dust caught in the fan.  Doesn’t matter.  I should shower.  Got back from a long walk – Killiney to Scotts to the last train heading towards Marina Bay.  Work was okay, minus an angry e-mail sent from an Australian customer, the day was mixed with a smattering of good chats, productivity, and a pleasant social call.

I got some exercise in too.  Beijing 2008, here I come.

It’s Thanksgiving today.  From Wikipedia: “A celebration of being thankful for what one has”

I like Thanksgiving.  The week leading up to it is the start of the holiday season for me.  Where moods lift, food becomes plentiful, and if you’re in the right place – the weather turns cool and crisp.  Yes, in Singapore it stays tropical, but the decorations and fake snow get applauded for effort.

A lot of people pause on Thanksgiving and think about what they are thankful for.  Which is good, we should take time to do that.  Better yet, recognize those things and appreciate it year round.

Aside from the common gratitude towards family, friends, and special people, there are random things I am thankful for.

·         The Republicans are no longer in control of the United States government

·         I can be entertained by mass-produced (thus readily available) TV shows such as Lost & Prison Break.

·         T-shirts are allowed at work

·         I know a good video game shop in Sim Lim Square

Thanksgiving reminds me that I’m American.  I miss Thanksgiving dinner.  Back in the US families sit at the dining table in front of a large, hopefully brown juicy turkey.  Cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy, and potatoes are common.  Everyone eats, the turkey turns into an unrecognizable hulk of white meat – enough to refrigerate and eat as leftovers for a few more days.  The tryptophan sends the adults into a deep nap.  That’s a great feeling, sleeping in front of a TV.

Singapore is a difficult place to celebrate Thanksgiving.  Pumpkin pie is rare.  Turkey ends up dry.  Stuffing is unheard of.  Mashed potatoes are made from instant powder.  The horror!  It’s okay, I found a restaurant serving a feast tomorrow night.  We’ll see how it goes.

Food-wise, I’m sure it will beat the Thanksgiving of 2000 when Moshe and I cooked Cornish Game Hen and Lamb Tongue for our meal.  The hen was great, I made it.  The tongue, well, it’s hard to find recipes for lamb tongue, and in hindsight it isn’t the type of food one should experiment with.  Chewy.

Have a happy and wonderful Thanksgiving.

From a Mercury News interview with Bill Gates:

"I've said many times that if we just re-sorted the world so that you randomly lived next to the majority [and knew] how the majority of people lived, you'd say, ``Oh my God, her baby just died of malaria; my God, look at that dirty water.'' And the IQ applied to this thing would be a thousand times bigger, because whenever you describe this to people, or they go out to these areas, they come away very affected."

Great article about the development taking place in Vietnam.

Back in 2000 you could "feel" how quickly the country was moving along.  And how entrpeneurial people seemed.  It's what attracted me to Asia.  (I was there as a tourist in December 2000, and after that is when I decided that it would be well worth it to move over here and work).

I feel like I should go try to start the next Starbucks in Laos... opportunity for the taking!

One day, we'll have all our experiences and memories stored on the computer.

MyLifeBits is a sneak preview of it.  The applications they talk about in this article are very cool.  I've already got pretty much every e-mail and sms message I've sent since 1998 saved.  Always fun to go back and look at them...

Other articles:
What went into the name Zune.

Bill Gates showed a gentler side.

Ed Bott has debunked a few myths about Vista (both positive and negative ones).

He's got a list of them here, and there are more detailed explanations about each myth on ZDNet.  It's a good read.

You've all heard the sounds... the start-up of Windows, the "ding" message, "stop" sound of the red message box for an error...

This article talks about the work that went into creating these sounds for Windows.

Long, long, long in the making... :)  But finally, Windows Vista is complete!

Vista Ready to Roll

Have fun boys and girls... whenever you do manage to get your hands on a copy of this operating system.

It's itchy fingers in Microsoft as many of us want to upgrade from our RC1 builds to RTM, but do we take the plunge and do it on our own or wait for our IT staff to prop the RTM build out on our file shares and provide images with Office 2007... saving us time from installing it all ourselves... hmm.

But isn't it always cool to have the latest and greatest? :)

Time magazine has named Youtube its invention of the year.

Youtube's impact really is quite incredible.  Such a simple idea - I want to share videos online with others.  And I guess they managed to come along at the right time with enough broadband penetration and lower bandwidth costs to make this possible.

Hello all you Americans.  Go vote!

And in other news, Office 2007 System released to manufacturing.  Get ready for it!

I was getting updates from my friends about the Office 2007 ship party.  I was there for two of the ship parties: Office 2000 and Office XP (I transferred to Asia a little bit before Office 2003 was out the door).  Makes me nostalgic to hear about the parties but it sounds like times have changed... not as many champagne bottles anymore and no one was tossed into the fountains (as they were drained).

Perhaps we're a more economical and safer company now.

The Windows Vista team has released photos of the new packaging that Vista and Office 2007 will come in.  A subtle change, with the curved corner, but I think it looks quite smart.  Hopefully not too glossy.

I think we've all been hearing a lot about Youtube lately, and it's all been relatively glowing news.  For me, I'm certainly excited to hear about their acquisition by Google, and it makes me think that perhaps it's a sign that internet boom 2.0 is about to begin.  However, I guess not everything is roses and there are other perspectives of the Youtube acquisition.  Mark Cuban has posted some details about the workings of the Youtube deal.  Interesting read.