I'm in the Philippines. I have been here for 10 days and I have about 10 more days to go. I love it here. The people are very friendly and gracious. The town is quaint, simple and unassuming. The pace is relaxed. The climate is a bit warm for my liking. But after the midday heat passes, I am fine. There is water everywhere and everyone loves to sing and dance. The families are close and supportive.
What I find disturbing is the inability for so many people to
USB 3.0 is coming at the end of this year and it has the potential to make a significant difference in your computing experience. If you bought your computer any time after the year 2000, it probably came equipped with at least one USB 2.0 port. However, later this year computers will start shipping that include USB 3.0 ports, which can transmit data up to ten times as fast.
Here's what to expect.
Increased speed, higher energy transfer and bi-directional data transfer promises to help bring a lot of new product ideas for your computer and other USB 3.0 devices. Maybe you can even take a USB 3.0 Flash Drive to your Redbox and plug it in and get a movie. The possibilities are endless and exciting!
I thought I would throw out my two cents on the release of Windows 7. It is tomorrow, October 22. I have been working with it for the past few months and think that it is 90% better overall than Windows Vista. I will not go into the myriad of reasons except to say that it is considerably more compatible with XP and some of the older applications and peripherals than Vista was. Microsoft went so far as to design a copy of Windows XP into Vista so that you can literally run XP inside your Win7 computer simultaneously just in case you have a very antiquated application that absolutely, positively will not work on anything 
except XP (also for those that are afraid to commit to a newer operating system).
Today I was contacted by a potential customer that has an HP OfficeJet Pro 8500. He wrote that the printer is displaying a paper jam error message and that it seems to have a broken gear inside but that there is no evidence of paper actually jammed in the printer. The printer costs $300 to replace and he is concerned about the costs of repair.
I have been watching the television advertising and also reading print ads and I have noticed an interesting phenomena. Microsoft is advertising that it's new Windows 7 operating system is very very good. They are trotting out good reviews and smiling babies. I also read recently that part of the reason that the umpteenth version of Windows is going to be great is because hardware manufacturers are preparing the new device drivers and that they will be ready before the operating system is released.
I used to use Microsoft Internet Explorer as my browser but I stopped a few years ago. I switched to Firefox because I had heard that it was a very good browser and it is free. The switch was painless because it transfered over all of my bookmarks and it is a very good browser. I imagine both browsers have a lot of the same features. I think the pressure of Mozilla has made Microsoft compete in a way that they are not used to. But what I will summarize what I like best about Firefox that keeps me using it...
How has Microsoft has been able to eliminate so many of their competitors in so many of the most lucrative application areas? My theory is that they use their intimate knowledge of the operating system to create applications that nobody else can compete with. I compare it to a world where the auto industry had only one engine manufacturer and all of the car makers would have to buy that engine to build a car. And they also had to compete against the engine manufacturer because the engine company also built cars. But the engine company would not tell the competition everything they need to know about building a great car around this complicated engine.
The myth that Microsoft has created is that the Windows operating system needs to keep getting bigger and more functional. With each new release the OS grows bigger with new applications, new graphic interface designs and new utilities. But if you take a look at the cell phone industry, you can see that the PC and the cell phone are converging.
The new cell phones from Blackberry, Apple and Plam are meant to do much more than make phone calls, send and receive messages, and browse the Web. It's a platform, like a PC, that's designed to run a wide variety of sophisticated third-party programs, or apps, from social-networking gateways to games to business tools.
Scenario: PC is 3 or more years old and still running well. You demand a lot from it. Sometimes you have 4 or more Windows applications open at a time. It feels a bit sluggish and takes too long to open a program.
I opened my Facebook account and just for fun I clicked on my "Chat" button (in the bottom right corner). I noticed that there are a lot of my bestest friends and family logged in. And, so I began to think that maybe Facebook could replace Yahoo/Windows/AOL Messengers. What is more social than chatting?
Now all Facebook needs to do is add VOIP phone service or video chatting and they will be able to totally corner the social networking and communications market. I use MagicJack for VOIP phone but I think their is a big market for international computer to computer video communications. What do you think?
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