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dilleet: I share your concern... have not heard a word from MLB about this season/subscriptions, yet.
One would think they'd get better at doing it right as each year goes by, but MLB somehow manages to make things worse (at least for mac users) every year.
Remember when one could simply go to one's fav radio station and simply get the stream for free? No muss, no fuss and worked reliably every time.
Jim
Bootz: CWEI fell off a cliff later in the session... no word anywhere I follow as to why, so speculate that someone placed large order and took awhile to fully execute/fill, driving price spike up and then down... it is such a thinly traded stock... one big order like that might get others' juices running at the thought that they hit pay dirt in Utah.
Jim
Was a very bearish close in general... after hitting a new intra-day high in S&P, it closed lower than yesterday's close... about as bearish as it gets...
Every sector got whacked.
Last two times, though, turned out to be 2-day headfake in market and then back to normal...
But the feel of the tape today (my combined PFs dropped net 1% in less than 1 hr. after being up .5% in a.m., then down .5% 45 mins. later)... makes me think Monday will be quite volatile.
Jim
Even worse is the new Office format
"The Office file formats that have been around since 1997 have become something of a lingua franca in computerdom. They're still available if you explicitly choose them, but Microsoft encourages you to use new formats that require special conversion software (some of it not yet available) to work with older products--including every previous version of Office and recent mobile versions. Recipients of such potentially unreadable documents may not be amused."
Officious Office doesn't do old menus/commands
Stephen Manes 02.26.07
Microsoft Office 2007 takes its unspoken theme from the psychedelic 1970s comedy troupe Firesign Theatre: Everything you know is wrong. The old menus are gone, arrogantly abandoned without a way to get them back even as a "classic" option.
Instead you see a "ribbon," a big, ugly tabbed panel of icons and labels that can hog more screen space than your work and sometimes even hide it. You can minimize the ribbon, but you can't avoid it completely or go back to what you know. Just about everything is different, except for keyboard shortcuts and legacy-settings screens buried a few clicks deep.
Not only do the sprawling ribbons take a lot of space to deliver little information, they annoyingly change depending on screen resolution and the size of the window you're using. In a wide window the Find, Replace and Select commands turn up near the right edge; narrow the window a bit and they disappear beneath an "Editing" panel you have to click first. It's just one of many irritations created in the name of innovation.
The Office file formats that have been around since 1997 have become something of a lingua franca in computerdom. They're still available if you explicitly choose them, but Microsoft encourages you to use new formats that require special conversion software (some of it not yet available) to work with older products--including every previous version of Office and recent mobile versions. Recipients of such potentially unreadable documents may not be amused.
There are a few useful new features, like the ability to save files directly in Adobe (nasdaq: ADBE - news - people )'s Portable Document Format. (Competing products have done this for years.) You can put icons for functions you use a lot in a single task bar above or below the ribbon, which can't be otherwise customized.
But some things haven't been fixed. In a world of wide displays, Word still can't automatically arrange more than two documents side by side. And Excel still doesn't understand (as Lotus 1-2-3 did more than 20 years ago) that when you type 2+2 into a cell, it should automatically add the numbers, not treat them as text.
Users: Adapt or die. Or stick with older versions that do most of what this one does and work the way they taught you to.
Dim Vista (from Forbes):
Windows Vista: more than five years in the making, more than 50 million lines of code. The result? A vista slightly more inspiring than the one over the town dump. The new slogan is: "The 'Wow' Starts Now," and Microsoft touts new features, many filched shamelessly from Apple's Macintosh. But as with every previous version, there's no wow here, not even in ironic quotes. Vista is at best mildly annoying and at worst makes you want to rush to Redmond, Wash. and rip somebody's liver out.
Vista is a fading theme park with a few new rides, lots of patched-up old ones and bored kids in desperate need of adult supervision running things. If I can find plenty of problems in a matter of hours, why can't Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people )? Most likely answer: It did--and it doesn't care.
Example: If malware somehow gets into your machine, Windows Firewall will not stop it from making outbound Internet connections to do its evil deeds. If you turn off that firewall in favor of a better one, the Windows Firewall control panel will admonish: "Your computer is not protected; turn on Windows Firewall." But the Windows Security Center will correctly tell you that a firewall is on and that you shouldn't run two at a time. Call it convistancy.
Gaffes like this make you wonder if security really is improved as much as Microsoft claims. You'll still have to add your own antivirus software, a new Vista-ready version at that. And Vista's irritating and repeated warnings about possible security breaches don't always mean what they say and are usually irrelevant. You'll take them as seriously as the boy who cried wolf, making them useless as defensive tools.
As usual, things Microsoft was touting last time have mysteriously gone away in favor of putative new wonders. Windows XP's heralded "task-based interface" often let you perform actions by picking them from a list. Now many of those actions have disappeared--except where they haven't.
Likewise, Control Panel options have been totally rejiggered yet again for no apparent reason. You can still use the Classic panel view that's been available since time immemorial, but several items have been confusingly renamed out of sheer perversity.
The new desktop search features are a mess, thanks in part to inscrutable indexing defaults and options. A "quick search" panel at the bottom of the Start menu lets you find results whether in a file's name or its contents. But on one machine--oddly, the fastest I tested--it was far, far slower than using Start's regular search option. Though that option finds folders like Accessories, quick search doesn't always. And if you click away to do something else while you wait for answers, Vista abandons the "quick search" and makes you start over.
Windows Mail is a mild reworking of Outlook Express whose big new feature is a spam filter that in my tests flagged nonspam as spam and vice versa an unacceptable 10% of the time. The bare-bones word processor WordPad used to be able to open Microsoft Word files. No more. What possible rationale could there be for "fixing" that, except to force users to shell out for the real thing?
Potentially exciting improvements keep coming up short. The speech recognition system's clever design lets you control the computer via voice and dictate into programs like Word. It did pretty well at understanding me even when I used a less than optimal built-in microphone instead of a headset. But my enthusiasm turned to dust when the software for correcting inevitable mistakes locked up repeatedly--even when it understood what I was saying.
Many touted improvements, like the Web browser and media player, have been available for XP for months. One minor winner is Vista-only: file lists that update their contents automatically. You no longer have to hit View and Refresh to see files added since you last opened the list window. Macs, of course, have done this for years.
The new Mac-like ability to show thumbnails of documents and running programs is cute, but it doesn't always work--typical of a level of fit and finish that would be unacceptable from a cut-rate tailor. Only in Windowsland will you find howlers like a Safely Remove Hardware button for memory card readers that happen to be hardwired into your computer.
Still with us: program crashes, followed by the machine's refusal to shut down until you lean on the power button awhile. Thereafter you may be subjected to ugly white-on-black text from CHKDSK, a DOS-era program that issues baffling new reports like "44 reparse records processed."
Should you upgrade your current machine? Are you nuts? Upgrading is almost always a royal pain. Many older boxes are too wimpy for Vista, and a "Vista-ready" unit Microsoft upgraded for me could see my wireless network but not connect to it. The diagnostics helpfully reported "Wireless association failed due to an unknown reason" and suggested I consult my "network administrator"--me. Yet I've connected dozens of things to that network, including other Vista machines, a PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's own Xbox 360.
My recommendation: Don't even consider updating an old machine to Vista, period. And unless you absolutely must, don't buy a new one with Vista until the inevitable Service Pack 1 (a.k.a. Festival o' Fixes) arrives to combat horrors as yet unknown.
I suggested to one Windows product manager that if the company were truly serious about security, Vista might offer a simple way to delete files securely and eliminate all traces of identity and passwords so you could safely pass the machine on or sell it years from now. His reply: "Does any other operating system do that?" That tells you all you need to know about Microsoft. The real slogan: "No innovation here."
As Bill Gates winds down his roles at Microsoft, Windows Vista may be the chief software architect's swan song. It's a shame his legacy is something so utterly unimaginative, internally discordant and woefully out of tune.
Author's note: This is a bit of a swan song for me, too, though I hope a sweeter and more fleeting one. After holding forth on technology here since 1998, it's time for a six-month break to attend to some nontech projects. My brainy FORBES colleagues will carry the tech torch.
KCMW: "is it really a stretch to say 'Hmmmm, maybe there are better alternatives to the OS?'?"
Apparently up until now, it has been a stretch for the ave. user and not even a consideration in corporate settings.
I have been pleasantly surprised by the IT people where I work now because whenever I complain about some aspect of my forced Windows/MSFT experience, they are quick to recommend and/or provide open source alternatives, including firefox and open office.
But they still chain me to a Dell all day.
Jim
"you spend more time on your work, and a lot less time working on your computer" -- what's disturbing about that is that it has been true for over 20 years now and AAPL is just now getting that msg. through?
If I were in charge of AAPL, my primary focus would be to hammer that msg. home relentlessly until the world wakes up from its hypmo-tized state and smells the coffee.
Jim
The drop in Microsoft followed an article in business weekly Barron's February 5 issue, which suggested Microsoft is more likely to fall than rise with the release of its Vista operating system, as expectations for Vista's success were already factored into its stock's price.
Microsoft shares fell 1.9 percent, or 58 cents, to $29.61 on the Nasdaq, reversing all the gains of the last month. Monday's slide was Microsoft's largest one-day decline in almost six months.
Bootz: a sympathy haircut because of Dell news last week? eom
OT: Bootz... make that up 11.6% @ Henry Hub... nat gas price that is...
Jim
(is Jim)
OT: (edit) Bootz... as in Delta-P Drill Stem Testing? Or as in DPTR?
Nat gas was up 9% today and forecast looks favorable... all gassers up big today, DPTR coattailing on thin volume... nothing to see yet, move along...
Jim
Well, bottom must be in for AAPL...
We've just had confirmation.
Jim
sinclap: I have to agree...
Very unscientific sample... family friends' 15-yr. old son (dad is high level exec w/QCOM, so can afford anything) has every game console ever made... for recent celebration w/friends out, everyone dropped kids off at their house... kids all 15 plus or minus a year.... without exception all of the kids before and after were telling us parents why the Wii is so much better than XBox, PS3 etc...
The iDaughter saved up and bought her own PS2 a couple years ago... loved it for a couple of years... now says it's no good and won't ever use it again... wants a Wii or nothing... says Nintendo 'gets' games and nobody else does... she won't ever get anything else from now on... even went on ebay to look for an old Gameboy (hers was stolen some years ago, has some other Gameboy - Advantage? - now) because she says it was the best hand held... blah, blah, blah...
I get the impression that kids just like Nintendo stuff better and that XBox & PS3 are geared more toward college crowd... will be interesting to see how iDaughter's preferences 'evolve' as she ages into college in 3 years...
Jim
Tex, re: HPQ
Dunno if this is still true, but a few years ago, more than 50% of HPQ's profits came from ink sales, making me think at the time that HPQ had adopted the old Gillette or Kodak biz model where you give away the main product in order to sell boatloads of supplies for them... can't believe how cheap color lasers are now -- HP 2605 laserjet sells for about the same prices as 6-8 replacement toner carts...
FWIW, I think AAPL has just the opposite biz model... hook customers on the "supplies" (iTunes, software, etc.) and then sell them the main product...
I was recently surprised when I came across an ancient HP-35 calculator in my attic that I was given as a soph. in college by my uncle (who'd replaced it with an HP-45, then HP-65... which I eventually ended up with as well)... curious, I poked around the net and was surprised to see that the HP-35 is worth a little bit more than what it listed for in the early/mid 70s... the HP-45 and HP-65, not so much...
I still use an HP-10C for general calc, and an HP-12C for financial stuff... but miss those old LED displays.
Jim
(is Jim)
coreguy:
In most cases involving intellectual property rights for trademarks, the key is: regardless of who filed for TM first, did they make good faith attempts to defend it?
In this case, I'm guessing that AAPL is going to contend that Cisco never really defended the TM (and produce all of those other iPhone filings to support their case), while AAPL has been steadily building trade dress (another form of intellectual property) based on the iXxxx ever since the first iMac, AND -- here's the important part -- AAPL has actually sued people to defend those iXxxx TMs and trade dress and therefore they have prior claim to iPhone, especially if they are first to market with a product using that name...
Perhaps Tex can correct me where I am off base, but that is my understanding of intellectual property as concerns TMs and trade dress.
Jim
(is Jim)
OT: Alaska not exactly floating on oil
Even using the most optimistic Alaskan reserves figures and only counting on those reserves to supply 5% of US demand, and also producing every possible drop from ANWR puts Alaskan oil at about 0.8% of world production (assuming ANWR is drilled/developed)... North Slope is already way past peak production (only 450,000 bbls/day) and ANWR would be fully depleted (at peak production of about 1.4 million bbls/day) in 10-16 years after reaching peak production.
The United States is the world's third largest oil producer behind Saudi Arabia and the former Soviet Union. But the United States holds less than 2 percent of the world's reserves -- the amount left in the ground.
BP, which operates more than 1,000 wells on the Prudhoe field, has given up exploring for new oil on the North Slope, saying its prospects are better elsewhere.
If Alaska were floating on oil, I'd have heard about it and BP would be looking to produce it -- the only known oil left in Alaska that's not in Prudoe or Bristol Bay is ANWR, and I would not characterize 5-11 billion bbls of "maybe" reservers as floating on oil.
Venezuelan oil is among the lowest grade crude being developed. It is expensive to produce and refine. The fact that the US still relies on 10% of its oil coming from Venezuela (even if it is refined in the Caribbean first -- and even though we hate Chavez) says a lot about oil reserves worldwide and the availability of easy/cheap oil.
Might find this interesting:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import....
Blue: could it be difference between dedicated GPU/card and the Intel "graphics solution"?
Jim
(is Jim)
lango: in my defense...
Apparently a couple years ago Steve also agreed that simply a music phone was not an insanely great idea...
From that Time article:
"The last time Apple experimented with a phone, the largely unsuccessful ROKR, Jobs let Motorola make it, an unsatisfying experiment. “What we learned was that we wouldn't be satisfied with glomming iTunes onto a regular phone,” Jobs says. “We realized through that experience that for us to be happy, for us to be proud, we were going to have to do it all.”
But I'll still admit I was much "wronger" about this product possibility and that you were right.
Jim
(is Jim)
lango: I'll be the first to admit I was way wrong...
2-3 years ago when I was ranting that an AAPL cell phone was an incredibly stupid idea...
Yesterday blew me away.
I think this product is as revolutionary as the original mac (compared to IBM PC One, or even Apple II) and the iPod.
I was very very wrong.
In my defense, 2-3 years ago, the image in my mind was just another phone with a camera and music.
And that would have been stupid.
Instead, AAPL yet again blew me away... and that's even considering that the past months or so, I'd already been changing my mind about the phone and was expecting big things...
Jim
(is Jim)
I suppose that price doesn't include some "usage" charges... didn't really make clear what was included in the contract.
Jim
Johnny: price includes 2-yr. Cingular contract - em
Johnny: SJ said exclusive deal w/ Cingular, so no CDMA, no Verizon, etc.
Jim
MiMiC: didn't SJ say syncs via iTunes? And iTunes runs on Windows... dunno how that would work for iPhoto and/or contacts, etc....
Maybe an emulator to run MacOS on windows? A sort of Paralells for Windows that allows running a crippled OS X just for phone stuff on Windows? Or maybe eventually some sort of standalone app just to use iPhone w/windows boxes.
Jim
AAPL broke $91/share -- eom
KCMW, it has wifi, but dunno if phone part works over it, but it sure does a bang up job with the internet...
Perhaps I get one just for the iPod and internet functions, but only be able to use it over wifi?
Will have to check exact specs etc. later on the website.
Jim
Bootz: OK, wanna help? eom
Looks like not an HR, but a grand slam on just the phone... AppleTV not so much, IMO...
Now for "one more thing..."
Jim
Just broke through $90/share -- eom
AAPL up $4.26 now! eom
roni: I want one bad... but can't go with GSM phone... GSM carriers in my area don't give me coverage in my own home... only Verizon which uses CDMA...
Sheeeeeesh... I want an iPhone NOW!!!
Will they (AAPL) eventually offer this up in CDMA flavors?
Or cardless?
Me want now...
Jim
And right after Shiller's demo, stock starting shooting up again... never seen this kind of intra-day w/ AAPL during a keynote...
Jim
And now, AAPL going back up -- very weird keynote action in share price.
Jim
AAPL from up $2.50 to down .08 now - eom
AAPL is selling off while keynote is on... was up $2.50, now up just pennies... selling the news?
Was everything SJ is going to announce already priced in?
Jim
OT: Bootz... what's up w/ the dead birds in Austin? eom
spit:
May be in Jim's neighborhood again soon
You mean Jim as in me?
Jim
ace:
What do Z's, Blue's or anyone else's actions on RB have to do with here?
Are you suggesting that the delight you get (and post about) from AAPL's occasional problems are a direct result of what other people post on other boards?
Now that's really showing us the error of our ways... displaying your schadenfreude here because of what other people do someplace else... you are claiming it is OK to gloat here because you hold us responsible for what others do and say on other boards...
You have a very mature outlook.
FWIW: isn't it amazing that for two straight days, AAPL stock price gaps way down and then recovers by the end of the session... apparently investors think the (pending) news about sales and quarterly profits are more important stock price drivers than you do... you should have picked up some shares below $78 for a nice quick profit in Jan.
Jim
"Why is someone always a "troll" when they post information that shows Apple's holier than thou demi-god to be shall we say, "less than dishonest"?
Maybe it's because the person rubbing the board's nose in it obviously derives muy mucho schadenfreude from it.
Does this make Steve Jobs' actions (A) CRIMINAL or (B)NEGLIGENT ?
You obviously don't want an answer as much as you want the excuse to ask the question as often as possible.
Grow up.
Nobody here trolls the iHub MSFT boards the way you do this one.
Jim
Shouldn't that be a YABO, instead of YOBO? eom