Some rationale here.
I don't think that it's a good thing to have the gaming world reduced to a few massive developers. I'd much prefer to see all kinds of little start ups doing innovative things, particularly with Microsoft's XNA tools allowing for free and easy of XBox game development. I want to see a lot more Rez, and a whole lot less boring FPSes.
I use multiple computers on a daily basis. One for work and several for my personal use. Paul started an email thread on the topic of why or if he really needs personal laptop. I thought it might be interesting to explain why I decided I needed one and how I integrate it with all the other computers in my life. Note, in this discussion I'm not really talking about any machines I have at home for dedicated purposes like home theater / server etc. I'm just talking about computers I log into and use as computers.
Continue reading "Integrating Multiple Computers Into Your Life"...Microsoft has expanded their free virtual storage service, SkyDrive, to 5G. That's great news if you are looking for a secure place to store personal files, share them with friends or with the world.
The service just came out of beta and I think it needs a few more features to be truely useful for me: 1. Windows Explorer plug in. 2. Integration with Foldershare to provide machine sync as well as online storage. 3. Windows Mobile support.
I just discovered what Amazon calls a 'Book Upgrade'. When purchasing a book (some selections anyway), Amazon will offer you an 'upgrade' to add an online version for an additional fee. This fee seems to be around $4 - $5, at least for the quick few books I checked. They are marketing this with the following features: 1. Start reading now, no need to wait until the book arrives in the mail. 2. Leave your books at home, and access them from any internet browser.
To be honest I'm not sure how I feel about this. Charging $5 on top of your physical book purchase is sure a way to control their business model. You cannot purchase the online version without buying the book first. Also I'm not a huge fan of online only books. I use ebooks a lot as filler when I'm traveling and don't have internet access. I guess this approach also protects their Kindle ebook model since they currently are not offering any other way to purchase / read those Ebooks. The online books of course are tied to your Amazon account and non-transferable etc.
What do you think about this?
The rumor mill has just lit up again with speculation of an Apple Tablet or some sort of uber iPhone due out mid this year. There is even talk of a surprise press conference as soon as next week. In all honesty, these rumor are always running at about the same volume, you just can't hear them sometimes through all the noise.
I have no love for Sony, but I really hope their new, iPod Touch competitor, NW-A829 does well. Why? Because it has bluetooth (A2DP)! Somebody needs to nudge Apple a little bit.
My top windows feature is well known to be remote desktop and has been since XP came out. For this spot there is no competition. The number two spot however has changed from time to time. This week I'd have to say the position goes to System Restore. System Restore has saved my bacon more times than I can count. This week equals count + 1. When in the course of extreme machine hacking, you break something big time, it's nice to know you can just roll back to the last known good configuration. Sometimes I wish my life had a feature like that.
"All laptops will evolve to fit into a manila envelope."
This time they are going after Danger. Looks like they are continuing to try and buy their way out of their current slump.
What if you were not allowed to connect your personal laptop to the corporate network? Would that affect your set up?