Happy Birthday!

Do people actually click on ads like this?

Really. Do they??

Go Apple!

In an world dominated by bad economics woes, I was looking forward to the Apple earnings call earlier this week and wasn't disappointed by the news that I knew was forthcoming.

Today, Microsoft is dumping 5,000 employees, mostly in entertainment, and this is a great thing for Microsoft. They need to get back to basics in business that is their core focus and rebuild their products else face continued decline.

Apple on the other hand has really only had one thing that I've been harping about since last fall, and thats the lack of transparency on Job's health issues. I don't care if the SEC investigates their activities here, what I think is at stake is shareholder trust. Damage to this will make any SEC finding insignificant.

Expensive adwords

I was researching some new trade show booth designs tonight, and while cruising booth design websites, I clicked on an adword only to be prompted with an htaccess authorization window.

Whooops!

I'd hate to be the business paying for those clicks, especially in this economy. Yikes!

Let it go

Geeks don't just wear t-shirts for the looks, they wear them to tell the world something about them. At least he wasn't wearing his Newton in a holster at the party, but he did look funny trying to upload photos with his external modem tethered to his flip phone.

Keynotes

Ok, here's my take.

Apple sent a "nobody" to talk about nothing.

If the organizers of MacWorld thought Apple bowing out of any more MacWorld Expo's was bad, Apple's final keynote was a slap in the face to them and all the fanatics in attendance. It was "Hey folks, thanks for coming - but no, we're not gonna show you guys crap." I'll be interested to see what Apple announces in the next 60 days since anything brought to light that close out could have been talked about at the Keynote.

Still, I do appreciate the iLife changes - especially iMovie. I'm eagerly awaiting the release of version '09 and am kinda bummed I just got Final Cut Express. (sigh)

The lamest announcement was the iPhone Keynote presenter. Seriously, if you plunk down for Keynote, forcing you to pay $.99 to get the iPhone remote app is just plain stupid. I can't wait for someone to snoop the 802.11 IP traffic and make their own free version of that app just to screw with Apple.


The other lame "note" was how Apple spread these nerds around the keynote hall to whistle/shout/applaud when Phil was making "big" announcements. These Apple t-shirt clad clones were a fitting touch to the "bleh" that Apple had at the keynote.

Catbird off the starboard wing!

As we were headed out of Tampa on December 29th, we taxied past the Lockheed Martin "CATBird" which was parked on the apron. The CATBird is the avionics test platform for the F-35 Joint Strike fighter program. (my crappy photo above)

Not something I expected to see on the ramp at TPA!