Month: March 2006

Microsoft has a page titled “How to Buy an Ultra-Mobile PC“.  What can you find there?  Nothing!  This page has been up since the UMPC was “Launched”, but there still is no solid info about when the various devices will ship, or even when or where they can be ordered.

(image from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/umpc/howtobuy.mspx modified in parody)

If Apple had launched the UMPC, the end of Steve Jobs’ speech would have included “And you can buy them right now at our online store, and in our retail stores across the country.”  Now I realize the it’s the OEM’s that control the release dates, but Microsoft and the OEMs lost out big time on the enthusiasm that surrounded this launch.  Even if the devices won’t ship until April, letting folks preorder starting on the day of the launch would have allowed them to feel involved.

Right now, all of the folks who are the most enthusiastic about these new devices are also the most frustrated.

I’m not sure if anyone has posted similar images yet, but if you search around in the world of Live Local’s Streetside, you can find images of the van taking the pictures reflected in buildings.  Credit for the idea goes to Lucas Curley of Intellitronics.  I pointed him to the preview and within minutes he said that he was trying to find a glass building to catch a glimpse of the van.  I managed to find a reflection first.  Here’s the clearest shots of the van I could manage:

  

(images captured from http://preview.local.live.com/ )

Life gets busy, but the world keeps on moving…  Here’s some random things that have been piling up in my Blog This folder:

Think you know how to tie your shoes?  Read this: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/03/its_hard.html

Vista seems to be trimming features: http://feeds.ziffdavis.com/ziffdavis/MicrosoftWatch?m=336

Google entering the Word Processor Market, will Writely be good enough? http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/what_googles_acquisition_of_writely_means.php

Instant Upgrades for Vista: http://www.msfn.org/comments.php?shownews=16227

Windows Live Local Previews Street-level imagery & city drive-through navigation: http://www.liveside.net/comments.php?shownews=90

Steve Rubal says it’s not about traffic: http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/02/its_not_about_t.html (I agree, it’s about being heard…)

43 Folders hops on the rss subsciption with exiration bandwagon: http://www.43folders.com/2006/02/24/rss-features/

 

 

I’ve taken the step of rebranding Blobservations.net as One Man Shouting.  The new site can be found at http://onemanshouting.com and the new feed url is http://feeds.feedburner.com/onemanshouting

The decision to rebrand is mostly because I found it hard to talk about “Blobservations”.  It was a nice gimmicky name when I first started the blog, and I thought it read ok, but it just didn’t hold out in conversations.  I always found myself explaining it (“It’s like observations with a B L on the front…”), and quite honestly I felt a bit silly saying it.  This was never really a problem until I attended Search Champs this past January, and I found that I actually had occasion to talk about my blog with strangers.

The new name will hopefully be a little easier on the tongue, and I think it also reflects my blogging style a little bit better.  While I enjoy it when I get into conversations in the blogosphere, and I do occasionally link to other bloggers, a good portion of my blogging is more as an outlet for me.  I have an opinion about something, or an interesting idea, and I want to put it out into the ether.  I shout – You’re welcome to listen…

Welcome to One Man Shouting…