Sunday, 31 December 2006 by marstinson.

Newsflash: Uproar in the blogosphere over Microsoft tactics.

Seems that the good folks at Redmond had an idea. What about sending Acer Ferrari laptops to some of the bloggers on The Hive? For those of you who might not know, The Hive is a web community more or less dedicated to talking about Microsoft products and technologies. Microsoft provides the servers, web access and some of the content and the community does the rest. Anyway, the selected bloggers can take the final version of Vista out for a test drive on some decent hardware and then tell the world what they think about it. Afterward, they can do whatever they want with the laptops: keep ‘em, hold a give-away contest, or send ‘em back. If you think of the cost in terms of a single 30-second spot during the Super Bowl, it’s negligible, and the target audience is the people who are most likely to want to know more about Vista anyway.

Sounds like a great marketing idea, doesn’t it? Microsoft is pretty confident that Vista is going to meet most of the hype, so they’re expecting that they will get good (or at least neutral) reviews. And for those few reviewers who might have major complaints, well, it’s something that Microsoft might be able to fix in SP1. After all, the general rule for a sizable chunk of the business environments is to not deploy a new Microsoft OS until SP1 is out. But, no! Sending laptops to bloggers sounds too much like bribery for some folks.

With a few caveats, I’m not one of them and I don’t see much of a problem. If there is a problem, it’s one of perception.

Bloggers are not journalists as we typically think of them. I do not mean to imply that they don’t report news because in many cases they do, nor do I believe that their opinions are not their opinions or are invalid simply because I might disagree. But journalists are supposed to operate within certain ethical boundaries. If they stray too far from those boundaries, they will find themselves looking for new employment, probably in a new career field. Some do stray, as evidenced by a few notable scandals over the past couple or three years, but the vast majority do not. Bloggers, however, are not bound by those ethics. Within certain legal considerations (copyright and libel, for example), they can write pretty much whatever they want about whoever or whatever they choose.

So what’s the big deal about sending out a few laptops? Perception, mostly. If a blogger who has received a laptop from Microsoft (these are $2000+ machines, by the way) writes a glowing review of Vista, was it because Vista is actually that good or because they got a freebie laptop out of the deal? How about if the blogger writes a glowing review of Vista on their own machine and with their own copy of the OS? That last is strictly hypothetical as Vista has not been released for public consumption yet. And how are you, the reader, supposed to be able to tell the difference unless the blogger tells you where he/she is coming from?

From Microsoft’s point of view, the issue is pretty simple. They want people to write about Vista. But Vista’s hardware requirements are pretty hefty if you want to get the full Vista experience. So to make sure that the reviewer gets the full experience, they are willing to provide the appropriate hardware along with the OS. If you go down and look at my comments on the Beta 2 build of Vista, you’ll note that I couldn’t get the Aero Glass effects because my laptop’s graphics card was not up to snuff. But I also told you where I got the OS and that it was a Beta release so you would know the basis of my comments. It seems to me that if Microsoft wants people to write good reviews of their new OS, then it would be in their best interest to make sure that the reviewer can get the full experience of the OS without forking out a wad of cash to upgrade their current system or buying a new one. Note that professional reviewers (like “PC World,” “PC Magazine,” “Comuter Shopper,” and the like) keep their test machines up to date so that they are able to evaluate the full potential of a piece of hardware or software. Bloggers probably don’t have the budget to be able to do that. So is it bribery or making sure that a reviewer can actually see what the OS can do?

And even looking at it in the worst possible light, is it really bribery? Although I’m sure there are some people out there who will switch to a new OS simply because their favorite magazine or blogger said it was way cool, most of us will switch to Vista for a few very concrete reasons: it does something that we want/need to do and can’t in our current OS, it will come preloaded on a new machine, or we’ll upgrade just for the sake of running the latest and greatest. Reviewers have virtually zero influence with people who are going to switch for the first two reasons and people who are going to switch for the third are going to do it anyway. The only things that a review can influence in that regard are whether the switch takes place sooner rather than later and, perhaps, the version that the consumer decides upon.

Microsoft, I’m sure, is hoping for “sooner” (first quarter earnings and all that), but “later” is still money in the bank. If my understanding of Microsoft’s licensing terms to manufacturers is correct, you won’t be able to buy a box with XP on it after January 2008, so “later” is not that much later. As for the version, anyone want to take bets on the sales of ”Ultimate” versus “Home Basic” and “Home Premium”? Speaking from the gaming perspective (which is probably the better reason for going with “Ultimate”), there is currently only one graphics card out there that is built for DirectX 10 (the GeForce 8800 from nVidia, though I’m sure that ATI won’t be too far behind) and zero games that can actually take advantage of it. Even “Halo 2,” which is being tailored specifically for Vista and is not supposed to run on XP, is sticking with DirectX 9 so that players will not have to fork out $500-$700 for a new graphics card to play it.

So let’s see… If people are going to switch OSs because they need or want some new functionality, a reviewer isn’t going have much of an impact on the decision; the OS either does what they want/need or it doesn’t. If people are going to buy a new computer that comes with the new OS, a reviewer isn’t going to have much of an impact on the decision because the computer manufacturers are going to make that decision for the consumer. So that only leaves those who are going to voluntarily switch OSs either through a clean install or an upgrade of their existing OS (assuming, of course, that their hardware can handle it). And the odds are very good that these folks are going to do it anyway.

Frankly, I don’t see a major problem here. This is not a case of “here’s a new car, now say something good about it and you can keep it.” This appears to me as a case of “here’s a new OS and some hardware that will let you see what it can do. Kick the tires, take it out for a spin, and tell us what you think about it. And you can do whatever you want with the hardware when you’re done.” As for the ethics of doing it, I still don’t see a problem. I cannot count the copies of software that I have received from various vendors using a “try it; you’ll like it” approach. So it’s not like this is some new tactic fresh from the “dirty tricks” department at Redmond. The only difference that I see is that in this case the vendor made sure that the hardware was up to spec.

Get a grip, people.

Posted in News and Politics, Vista | No Comments »

Thursday, 21 December 2006 by marstinson.

The guitar relearning proceeds apace. Neither Eddie Van Halen nor the kid down the block have anything to fear from me. I am so sick of “Yankee Doodle” and “Skip to My Lou” that I could just about puke, but everyone has to start somewhere. At any rate, I’ve been perusing the forums at several dedicated guitar-playing sites in the hope of picking up a few tips to help me play better and have noticed an alarming trend - kids can’t write.

 I’m not talking about the occasional misspelling or grammar mistake. I’m talking about entire sentences, sometimes paragraphs, where the only word spelled correctly is “I” and even that is often spelled “i”. Some of it is understandable and comes out of the desire to conserve keystrokes. It’s much faster and shorter to use “U R” instead of “you are,” for example. I could even understand using that style of spelling in a chat session where speed of reply is an issue or in an SMS message where message space is limited. But to do it on a public forum where you want others to understand and answer you? Give me a break!

So here are a few thoughts to keep in mind when you post on public forums. First off, the way that you write is the first impression that the reader has of you. Make it a good one. If what you have to say is that important, then you should take the time to say it properly. And if you can’t spell, use a spell checker before you post. There’s one built into your Google toolbar if you don’t feel like firing up a word processor and writing it up beforehand.

Along with that first impression comes the idea of what kind of language I’m going to need to use to answer your question in a way that you can understand. Do I tell you to click Start -> All Programs -> Games -> FreeCell? Or do I tell you something like “Move the mouse so that the arrow-thingy is in the lower left (left is the hand that makes an L when you hold out your thumb and first finger). Now put the arrow-thingy on the part that says “start” and push down one time on the mouse button under your pointer finger”? Or do I just ignore your question because you insult my intelligence and can’t possibly be serious if you write like that?

I’m not talking about people whose native language isn’t English. Those folks have more guts than me - I don’t even try to post in anything other than English in spite of being reasonably compentent in a couple of others. And I’m also not talking about people who intentionally misspell or use poor grammar for effect. There is a very noticable difference between someone who has problems with a second (or third or fourth) language or is intentionally violating rules of grammar and syntax and someone who can’t express a coherent thought in their first language.

The purpose of the Internet is communication. So learn to communicate coherently!

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Tuesday, 19 December 2006 by marstinson.

While I was verifying links in the previous post, I hit a link at Paul English’s blog (www.paulenglish.com) that linked elsewhere and eventually dumped me out at Violent Acres in an article about employees being subjected to verbal abuse from customers who believe that “the customer is always right” allows them to behave like morons.

While I believe that she makes some relevant points, it also brings to mind something that has been irking me for quite some time - courtesy or the lack thereof. There are a few things that I’ve noticed down here on the border that completely baffle me. Shopping carts in the parking lot are probably the most irksome. For some reason, a good chunk of the population seems to think that they can just leave a shopping cart when they finish emptying it. The fact that a cart drop-off point is only 20 feet away doesn’t even seem to matter. They just leave the cart. Perhaps they figure that it’s the store’s responsibility to retrieve the cart? Maybe they think that their time is so valuable that 30 seconds would bankrupt them? Maybe they think their cart is someone else’s problem? In any event, they just leave the blasted thing wherever, even if that means blocking a parking space or creating a situation that could damage a couple of other cars. C’mon people - 30 seconds won’t bankrupt you, it IS your shopping cart so it IS your problem, and the exercise won’t hurt you any, either.

Another annoyance - clerks who believe that their socializing is more important than dealing with the customers that they are paid to deal with. I can’t count the number of times that I have gone into a store, had a problem with something, searched out someone who might be able to point me in the right direction and then had to stand and wait while they finished a conversation with another clerk (the conversations never seem to have anything to do with work) before they would deign to notice me. And this is not just teenagers, although they are the most common offenders. Needless to say, I do not do business at those stores, but I’m also noticing that I’m running out of stores. Is this something peculiar to the border area or has the meaning of customer service changed that drastically in the past few years? I don’t run into this problem in other cities, but I’ll also concede that my out-of-town time is pretty much limited to those areas that are generally frequented by visiting business people.

At any rate, would it be too much to ask that people exercise a little courtesy?

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Tuesday, 19 December 2006 by marstinson.

Tought I’d put this out, mainly for my own reference when I suffer from blown memory buffers:

 A fellow named Paul English put together a list of company phone numbers that usually went direct to a human being. The response to his list was so overwhelming that he moved it off of his blogspace and into its own domain and database:

www.gethuman.com

 If you’re about ready to go postal over Interactive Voice (Non)Reponse phone systems, you should be able to find what you’re looking for there. Be advised that some of the direct-to-human lines are toll calls and there is no indication of how long you may be waiting to actually get a live person on the line.

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Sunday, 17 December 2006 by marstinson.

I recently decided to pick up the guitar again. I played for a while in high school, but pretty much dropped it about 30 years ago. So my Christmas present to myself this year was an electric guitar and I’m diligently trying to relearn the instrument. One thing that I’m doing differently this time is that I’m paying attention to what others have to say about playing (yep, when you’re 16, you know everything - it’s only later that you find out that you don’t know squat or are at least you’re willing to admit it). I came across a thread in the forums at ultimate-guitar.com where the poster was complaining about how learning to play had destroyed his appreciation of music.

This is not the first time that I have heard this. One of my girlfriends (yes, we had girlfriends back in the dark ages) was a bassoonist who went on to study music in college. As I recall, she had finished two or three semesters of her music studies before she changed her major to business. I think the question that came to me at the time was something along the lines of “how can understanding music ruin your appreciation of it?” After all, I had been listening to music for as far back as I could remember, had learned several instruments, starting with piano in something like the 3rd grade, and my appreciation of music hadn’t changed. In fact, the only noticable change was that my taste in music had become more eclectic. I kind of shrugged off the question as one of those “mysteries of the universe” or “things that man was not meant to know” and went on with my life. Now that I have a few more years and a bit more experience under my belt, I think that I understand her point.

I think that most people who pick up an instrument, especially one like the guitar, start with the idea that they want to be able to play like so-and-so (Hendrix, Page, Santana, Van Halen, Billy Gibbons, Slash, etc. - obviously my brain has been fried by too much exposure to rock/R&B as I can’t think of any other styles of guitarist by name). Or perhaps they want to learn how to play certain songs or styles of music. But the common thread running through all of these is “how”. How does he/she do that?

So they set out to learn how to do that. Some find a teacher; others pick up any of a number of “how-to” books. Some do it the old-fashioned way: they listen to records (sorry - CDs) over and over again and then try to mimic on their own instrument. Those with the talent or sheer persistence eventually learn how to do that. Those without the talent or determination get frustrated and move on to other things. In my case, it was lack of determination more than anything else. My modicum of talent was enough to let me get started, but talent alone won’t do it for more than a handful of people and I wasn’t in that handful by any long stretch of the imagination.

At any rate, once the student has learned the “how” of a particular instrument, song or style, the problem comes. In many ways it is like a magician’s trick. Once you know how they trick is done and can do it yourself, the trick loses a lot of its wonder. The “wow” factor just isn’t there anymore. And I think that this is the point where people hit the crisis point. Now that they know what they set out to learn, what comes next?

Many musicians never hit this crisis point. They continue doing what they have been doing and are quite satisfied to play what they know. They may even put down their instruments and only occasionally pick it up again. This last group are the folks who rush home to pick up their acoustic instruments when there is a power failure at the local watering hole and stage an impromptu sing-along.

I think the potentially great musicians change their question, however. Now that they know how it was done, they want to know why it was done that way and why it wasn’t done some other way. And those questions lead them into the theory and structure of music rather than just the performance of someone else’s music.

Posted in Music | No Comments »