Paul Mooney

I need more storage so that I Can Celebrate my Digital Lifestyle

 I like so many others am busy planing a trip to CES where we will celebrate our digital lifestyle.

A few blogs have offered tips on how to approach the overwhelming spectacle that is the Consumer Electronics Show of shows. I’d suggest you get plenty of sleep this week and exercise so your cardiovascular system is in shape.

When you arrive at the airport grab the 108 North bus, you could be stuck for hours waiting for a taxi.

I plan to make videos at CES and post them on my blog. I've posted over forty hours of video this year and hope to record more in '07, so I’m going to need mega gigabytes of performance optimized storage.

At the recent Ready2Rock Roadshow I got a good look at Seagate’s new 750GB Hard Drive and tossed my business card into the Seagate contest bowl praying they would pluck it out, but it wasn't my night.

It’s not often in life that you get a second chance, the good people at Seagate along with PodTech are giving away a maximum capacity 750GB Hard Drive and I just want then to know it will have a happy home next to the new Media Center PC I'm building.

The 60GB drive on my laptop is over half full, my two Seagate 70GB SATA drives are maxed-out and my 240GB back-up drive has more jpg’s they you could ever imagine. A Seagate 750 gigabyte Hard Drive would be the exclamation point of my digital lifestyle!

Google's Blog

A year in Google blogging

As we are all counting down the hours and then the minutes and seconds of the year 2006 the giant Internet Company Google is marking a year of blogging. This is significant because the blog is the voice of the company; they don’t need to hire a two bit PR firm to tell them how to speak to the community because they know and understand their community.

The latest Edelman scandal could have been avoided if the Microsoft Windows Team had used the Windows Vista Team blog to engage with their community and learn who the influencers are.

I have been urging Intel to blog for much the same reason; to engage with their community and help people better understand Intel.

Google NYC

Can Google Come Out to Play?

The answer is NO; the NYC Googlers are never present at NYC Tech community events.

I’m active in several User Groups in NYC and we are very social and talkative, but I have yet to meet anyone there who says I work for Google, or I just got hired by Google.

I went to a Google Recruitment Event last year, but most of the Googlers I spoke with were the California variety and they were looking for people to move out there.

As a native New Yorker when I read stories that don’t have any context to this great city I have to speak-up - the area where Google NYC is located is the old warehouse district adjacent to what were the Docks of the Port of New York, the mighty container ships now call to Port Newark across the river in NJ.

No Misconduct

Apple Panel on Options Backs Chief

So the iPanel backs their iChief and everything is iOK.

The Edelman blogolia scandal continues to suck most of the blogmospheric oxygen as the Mac fateful prepares to convene in San Francisco next week.

Apple’s conclusion of No Misconduct sounds like Edelman PR baloney; throughout the entire Vista laptop episode Edelman have not made a single public announcement, so much for the Me2Revolution.

I spoke to Aaron Coldiron from the Windows team yesterday about the selection of bloggers that received Vista laptops and he kept repeating the mantra community, but look at my blog-roll not one legitimate blogger in the Microsoft developer community received recognition nor did any Windows Vista beta tester.

Aaron referred me to Adam Anderson but he didn’t answer the phone. I did read a quote from Rick Murray Edelman’s Me2Guy that roughly 90 laptops were given away and that this stunt was linked to the Bill Gates meetup.

It appears as if Jobs is playing the role of a monkey: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. If he truly were fulfilling his role as C.E.O., it is highly questionable as to why he didn’t know about such poor management and oversight of the option granting process.  - Lynn E. Turner, a former chief accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Top Googles

How we came up with year-end Zeitgeist data

The Googlers like to call their year end Top 10 list Zeitgeist it's the spirit of time.  Sex and Games have always been the top searches, but the Googlers filter the results and come-up with their lists of top searches on Google.com for 2006,

As far as the wisdom of crowds goes we’re are very peculiar bunch, I had to laugh at the where is inquires for Villanova and com.au. Villanova is a University in Philadelphia and com.au is from a big island west of New Zealand.

In several categories there are duplicates and some triplicate search strings preventing any or all of the Edelman scandals from making the top ten in the Scandals column.

Running on Windows Vista

The Advantages of Running Applications on Windows Vista

For the past several years, Microsoft has been moving toward the vision of software as a service, where applications are exposed through services that communicate via message-based protocols. One of the foundations for this goal is a managed runtime with tooling to rapidly build applications and services that interact using these protocols. The initial release of the .NET Framework in 2002 signaled the approach of this vision. The release of the .NET Framework 3.0 signals its arrival.

The .NET Framework 3.0 builds on the foundation of earlier framework versions by adding new capabilities around differentiated user experience, enterprise service-oriented communication, declarative business process modeling, and heterogeneous identity management.

Windows Vista offers substantial new capabilities in security, performance, reliability, and manageability. It is also the first operating system released with the .NET Framework 3.0 in mind, and the first client operating system to include the .NET Framework 3.0 as a part of its own installation.

Security Improvements with Windows Vista
Performance Improvements with Windows Vista
Reliability and Management Improvements with Vista

Google Authority

Google Blog Search Surpasses Technorati

Technorati is a tool I’ve used for over three years, but Google is a much better friend. I see referrals in my logs everyday from Technorati search, but a post of mine will only hang in the top 10 for an hour or so. On Google Blog search I’ll stay in the top 10 for up to three days and after two days I’ll be near the top on the main Google Search

When Technorati and Edelman made their big announcement about blogs around the world I noticed they completely missed the big audience my blog has in Switzerland, Italy and the Czech Republic.

Google grants me authority on the subject of technology and aggregates my posts on the pages of Google Financial. I’m the Rodney Dangerfield of Technorati in getting no respect.

Send Me a Mac

Now Microsoft Wants Its Laptop Back

Yesterdays breaking news was not the rotten Apple stock scandal it was the free Vista laptops sent out to a bunch of bloggers who could only managed to write about the box opening experience and the color of the laptop. Not one word was published or posted about the Windows Vista OS, not one.

Looking at the blogs rewarded with a laptop I didn’t see one blogging on ASP.Net software and not a single Windows Vista beta tester among them. 

Edelman is becoming synonymous with scandal, doesn't the Windows Vista Team, AMD and Acer read and subscribe to blogs?  Edelman PR is too involved with Technorati and they don’t favor blogs on ASP.Net.

For every action there is a reaction and that's what we're going to read about today – another day without a word about the Windows Vista OS.

Google Phone

SAMSUNG Launches the Ultra Edition 13.8 (Z720), the Thinnest HSDPA Slider

Powered by High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) for data transmission speeds at 1.8 Mbps - up to six times faster than 3G UMTS technology – the Ultra Edition enables mobile users to access more files and provides greater fidelity for streaming video content.

In addition, the Ultra Edition is the first mobile handset from Samsung installed with Google  mobile search and Gmail which enables consumers to search for information, and manage their emails on the move. It includes a Google icon in the application menu, offering one-click access to Google search.

Google Earth, Google everywhere....

Bubble Bubble

Is 'Web 2.0' Another Bubble?

A link to the WSJ today,  giving us a peak into their walled garden of useless conservative information. The WSJ doesn't know if Web 2.0 is a bubble, so they don't answer their own question - would you pay these guys for information?

There is a Google bubble gentleman and you read it here for FREE, I don’t charge my subscribers for tidbits of raw informational power.

Google is generating profit from advertising; this is the same model that made Newspapers, Magazines. Radio and TV profitable businesses in their day.

Google search is social, the internet is people and blogs are the expressed views and desires of people. People form communities and nurture relationships to help us all sustain and enjoy life.

VC’s and investors want profit from our social arrangements, place a yoke around our necks and have us perform the menial tasks of User Generated content. LOL

Windows Mobile and Cheese

It’s great to see our Windows Mobile and Cheese Geek dinner from last years CES is now a tradition…..

Thanks Lora, looking forward to seeing you and all the Heiny’s. We had a good time last year, it’s a must attend event for anyone interested in Tablet PC's or any kind of Ultra Mobile computing.

Tuesday, Jan 9, '07  - 3:30PM - 6PM - Cheeseburger Las Vegas

Journalist Attack

Flaws Are Detected in Microsoft’s Vista

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 24 — Microsoft is facing an early crisis of confidence in the quality of its Windows Vista operating system as computer security researchers and hackers have begun to find potentially serious flaws in the system that was released to corporate customers late last month.

Johnny Markoff tried to play the Grinch that stole Christmas as he published what is hopefully his finial Chicken Little dispatch of the year. 

I don't know who his hacker friends are, but the're not getting access to my machine and corporate firewalls should keep them out.

In a constantly changing threat environment, static or reactive security leads to damage from hacker attacks, and data theft. Security is dynamic and an ongoing service is required to keep up with emerging and unknown threats. Determina’s Security Advisory Service provides VPS customers with real-time and ongoing advisories, updates and configuration advice against emerging threats and attacks.

- How about Johnny Markoff Christmas eve Chicken Little attacks?

We had a lovely Californian Cabernet Sauvignon at our Christmas dinner and I hope everybody had a good time celebrating with friends and relations at this joyous time of year.

XNA 3 Way

xna3way.com It's not a game, it's a new blog for people who want to learn how to write games in managed code and it's cool!

A few months ago, 3 of us got together and decided to form a team of game developers. Each of us bringing our own specific talents to create something greater than the sum of its parts. We're like a superteam of game developer friends... the superfriends of XNA, if you will.

The really great part is that we've been working on some truly amazing stuff. One of those amazing things is Paradox. - Jason Olson

Paradox (par·a·dox) -noun:
1. an apparently true statement or group of statements that leads to a contradiction or a situation which defies intuition.
2. A truly badass RPG built by the aforementioned superfriends using XNA, Game Studio Express & C#.
3. All of the above.

Abbey Corps

Abbey Corps

Andrew Baron of Rocketboom is Launching a new Video venture along with fellow New Yorker Jeff Pulver called Abbey Corps. 

One thing that I kind of like about Rocketboom is that I have never done any press releases. I also dont have an email list; Until now, I've always just fielded the incoming. I'm not against that kind of outreach, it's just interesting that there has never been any. Well all of that is about to change. I'm going to post some news on my blog! :) I'll post it in pieces over the next several days. I'm calling it blog post suspense.

Drew has done an amazing job creating and producing Rocketboom and Jeff is a player in VoIP and Video on the Web, I wonder if they have seen any of the videos I’ve made?

MS RSS

Microsoft's "Content syndication platform" Patent

We've know about Microsoft's Windows RSS Platform for over a year now, it's an important component of Windows Live! Now it appears that they have applied for a US Patent. The members of the RSS Team are not clamming to have invented RSS Syndication, Patents are like bowling trophies at Microsoft.

Microsoft will never charge us for feeds, information has to flow freely. RSS was pioneered at internet start-up Netscape as a way of creating your own newspaper and now that vision has become our reality.

UMPC

How Microsoft Botched Marketing The Ultra-Mobile PC -- And Why You Might Want To Buy One Anyway

I read James blog, he's a Microsoft Mobile MVP so he knows Microsoft doesn't make the UMPC Samsung does and they are selling very well.

The Microsoft Mobile group has done a very good job at showing-up at each and every conference with members of the Team doing demos and passing the UMPC around. The big misunderstanding is that this is not a notebook replacement, it’s a nice way to connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot and check your email on the run.

Many of the gadget bloggers had everybody’s hopes up to high, this is not the device Bill Gates held-up at WinHEC in '05, it’s really the dream device for a teenager to swap and listen to music files, share photos, IM and email friends.

Google Widgets

Google Search API?

In my mind, this is a significant step backwards. - Don Box

The Google AJAX Search API a clean brake from SOAP Web Services to AJAX Widgets. 

We all know that Microsoft and IBM have been moving towards a future that's all about XML Web Services. The aim of Google AJAX Widgets is to gobble up everything, SOAP is about interoperability.

Imbedding a little Widget or Gadget on a your Web page will help Google earn more money from advertisers, but will they share some of that income with you? 

Yahoo was first with Widgets, and then Microsoft got hip to Gadgets. Apple then appropriated Widgets and now we're going to have Googets..?

Vista Security

Windows Vista and protection from malware

Sophos sells anti-virus software and fear. In a recent report that cited 10 threats to the new Windows Vista Operating System they concluded with a link to buy their software.

Jim Allchin himself looked into this FUD:

In order to understand what was really going on here, I asked the team to go look at the technical facts behind the story, and that started in the lab.  We began by observing first-hand how these various forms of malware affect a Windows Vista system using a machine that was configured with the default settings and without any additional security software.  What we found was that if you are using only the software in Windows Vista (e.g., Windows Mail and no add-on security software), then you are immune to all ten of the malware threats that Sophos cited.

Windows Vista and Zune

XNA Development

Building killer Games using .NET and XNA Game Studio Express

XNA relies on a version of the .NET Compact Framework CLR that we ported to run on PowerPC chips (the XBOX 360 ships with a 3-core PowerPC CPU).  For a killer demo that will impress your friends, install XNA Express, load up the built-in "SpaceWar" C# starter kit template, customize it, deploy it to the XBOX 360, run it and dazzle them with the graphics, and then set a breakpoint within your C# code in Visual Studio and show hitting the breakpoint and stepping through it in a live debug session against the XBOX 360 as you are playing the game.  Pretty cool.

XNA on MSDN

XNA Development

XNA on Channel9     The Best XNA Movie in the UNIVERSE