Coming back from CES, it’s amazing how ubiquitous USB flash drives have become – I returned with, get this, 5152 MB of flash memory spread across nine USB flash drives. Two of those were big suckers – Sandisk 2 GB USB Flash drives meant for Vista ReadyBoost use – and the other seven were between 128 MB and 256 MB, used for press releases, high-resolution images, and other content that the press likes to have. Flash memory has certainly hit its stride!
Month: January 2007
Supernova Not All That Super or Nova
“The reality TV show is over for Rock Star Supernova. Now there’s just the reality of turning a made-for-TV group into a real rock band. And judging from the foursome’s opening show New Year’s Eve, there’s plenty of work left to do. Led by Toronto singer Lukas Rossi, Supernova delivered a wildly uneven show before some 2,000 at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.” – Full Article
Although it might be too soon to completely write off Supernova, from the moment I saw them perform their first original song – and felt that it wasn’t as good as what Ryan Star did on his own – I realized that Supernova was probably never going to be as big or successful as the show they were supposedly the stars of. That feeling only solidified as they performed more and more of their original material – most of it less than inspired or entertaining. It’s not easy to write a great song, but between the three of them they have many decades of experience in the music business, and if Gilby Clark can’t come up with a good riff of melody then why form the band? I always thought that Ryan Star or Toby Rand would have been the type of talent the band needed (hell, Dilana would have given them something a bit different), but ultimately they chose Lukas – and I don’t think he’s got what it takes to help make Supernova stand out from the crowded marketplace of rock bands.
TV Worth Watching: Beauty and the Geek
I’m generally not a fan of reality TV shows: they tend to be geared toward maximum exploitation of the people on the show, vapid entertainment based on sex appeal or cruel humour. The reason most of these types of shows are popular? It’s the same reason why people driving slow down to watch the aftermath of a car crash. We have a strange desire as humans to witness the suffering of others. I’ve ignored 95% of the shows in this genre, having never watched more than a couple of episodes of Survivor, The Amazing Race, Big Brother, etc. When I first heard about Beauty and the Geek a couple of years ago, I just knew that I had to check it out. I wasn’t disappointed, because the first season was hilarious. I found that I could identify with the geeks on the show, which gave me an instant connection to it – while some people watching the show doubtlessly laugh at the geek, I was definitely laughing with them because I know what it’s like (and I managed to marry my own beauty). The third season of this show just kicked off last week, and it looks just as entertaining as the first two seasons (though nothing will ever be as funny as watching Richard in the first season). If you’re a jock or were popular in school, you won’t grasp this show. But if you went home most days after school to play Ultima IV by yourself (like I did), you’ll find this an entertaining TV show. The cast this year is a good mix of geeky geeks (like the guy who leads a Star Wars tribute band) and beauties (some of the women look incredible) – and, true to form, some of the geeks are incredibly socially dysfunctional (some in their 20’s and never having kissed a girl), and some of the beauties are incredibly clueless (like the one who thought the satellite was a telescope). I’m definitely glad this show came back a third time!
Back from CES 2007, Trying to Get My Head Screwed on Straight
CES, and Vegas in general, is a mentally and physically draining experience. I made it back last night after nine hours of travel (left my hotel at 12 noon in Vegas, arrived in Calgary at around 9pm), and my home world never looked so good. Ashley brought Keiko with her to the airport, which always brings a smile to my face when I see them. Returning to Calgary was harsh in terms of weather – it was about -20 Celsius. Vegas is more exhausting than any other place I’ve visited. Spending one day in Las Vegas is like spending three days anywhere else – it really did feel like I was away for 15 days instead of only 5 days. It’s a combination of the noise, crowds, lines, smoke, advertising, blinking lights, traffic, and drunk people – all things that I find draining. I think it’s because I’m a borderline introvert/extrovert – in the Myers Briggs test I was an xNFP, where the “x” represents that I was one point introverted, but so close that I have tendencies of an extrovert as well. Over the years I’ve come to realize that I’ll often be an extrovert in small to medium-sized groups groups, but like an introvert, I require time alone to recharge my batteries – a true extrovert is recharged by being around other people, and being alone drains them. In Vegas the only time you are alone is in your hotel room (perhaps an elavator), so Vegas is 99% drain for me. I feel very glad to be home with Ashley, and back in my office (chaotic though it may be at the moment). I was so decimated from yesterdays travel I slept in until 10:30 AM this morning, so I haven’t had the most productive day. The Vista Lab and CES were great experiences though – I came away with introductions and business cards from 50+ people who have products, services, or connections that can help me do things what I do even better.
Lunch With Jim Allchin
By the time this goes live, I’ll be at a special event that I was asked not to speak about before hand: a lunch with Jim Allchin and members of the Windows Vista team. The invitation was a bit of a surprise, but it’s an honour and I hope I get some face time with the man who drove the Good Ship Vista over the past few years…especially since Allchin has said he’ll be leaving Microsoft after Vista ships. I was initially hoping it would be a really intimate event – half a dozen of us blogger/media types – but I’ve been told it’s more like 25 people coming. Still, that’s not too bad and hopefully there will be an opportunity for some good conversation about Vista.
Why Vegas Causes Me Brain Damage
Las Vegas is, in every way, a trap. The strip and everything on it has been designed to confused, defeat, and ultimately break down everyone so they give up on life and plop themselves into a chair in front of a slot machine. Last night I saw the Bill Gates keynote live, which was pretty cool, but it was also running at the same time as Digital Experience, a special press-only event that I wanted to attend. So, along with Stephen Hughes (and another guy who’s name I’m afraid to say I just can’t remember) we leave the keynote a bit early to get to the Digital Experience event. We were at the Venetian, and the event we were trying to get to was at Cesars Palace. Long story short, it took us around 90 minutes to get there, and we walked. We got lost, turned around, given bad directions, lacked good information from the event planners, and arrived around 9pm hungry, tired, and irritated. I only had a chance to speak with a few vendors, which really ticked me off – this was the ONE event I was really looking forward to because it was so great last year. This year it was much bigger, which made it harder to get through everything…I met a few people and made some good contacts with Sharpcast, Kensington, iGo, HTC, and others. There’s a similar event tonight, dubbed ShowStoppers, that I hope will be just as good – because I’m going to arrive on time and work the room like a PR master!
Youtube Video Test
I’m just testing the combination of Windows Live Writer and a plugin made for it that allows you to easily plug in a video clip from YouTube, MSN Soapbox, etc. It works amazingly well – I had to install the .Net 2.0 framework, which was a faily slow process, but once I had that installed the plugin worked really well – I simply pasted the URL of the YouTube video and this tool created the embedded video quickly and easily. Nice!
Sometimes Things Are Just Too Hard
As much as I love WordPress, I’m stunned at how some of the simplest things don’t seem to work properly, and how no third party developer has stepped up and filled the gap with a simple tool. YouTube videos for example: when I embed them directly into this blog using the code provided by YouTube, the layout breaks and the videos don’t work. I tried one plug-in, and it didn’t work at all. I tried another plug-in, and it worked, but also pulled in all of my recent videos instead of just displaying one. Finally, I looked at this one and it seemed very promising. I installed it, then discovered that my server doesn’t have Curl installed – I use Cpanel, and it’s all automated, so I’m not about to install something new on my server just to use this one plug-in. Why is this so hard? It’s the WordPress plug-in design schema so difficult that no one can create a simple, flexible tool to accomplish this one thing?
Vegas 2007: Day 2
Day two in Vegas was a busy one – here’s my write-up of the conference I was at, and here’s a video clip of what we did for dinner…time to go to sleep for me! The day starts at 7am tomorrow…
Vegas Needs a New Slogan
You know how Vegas has their “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” slogan? Well, I’d like humbly suggest a new slogan: “Vegas: It Would Have Been Better an Hour Ago”. So much of Vegas is buffets, and so many of them are luke warm. In fact, Vegas itself has that luke-warm, re-heated in a microwave kind of way. A bit sad, a bit soggy, a bit re-used. But if you’re drunk, you probably don’t know the difference…