Blogged on September 18, 2008 at 00:02
Well… sort of! First things first: according to Microsoft “the move was planned”. Add to that the fact they say that “this was not unexpected”. Even further, apparently the reason for the departure (nice way of putting it, I know) was *not* the popularity (or lack thereof) of the commercials, although “people would have been happier if everyone loved the ads”. Sigh…
Come on Microsoft! The only “product” coming from Redmond that truly engaged me in the last few years has been “discontinued”? Are you kidding? I loved the ads. In fact, I was hoping they’d turn them into a Friday night TV show. I’m sure it’d be a huge success and, anyway, both actors desperately need the money and fame… right? Seriously now, to me this campaign feels like Microsoft’s attempted to do a “gut move” approach to marketing. You know, one of those ideas that come up in a meeting and everybody thinks it’s just plain crazy and nonsense and your boss goes all crazy about it and approves it… Ya, Microsoft does have $10M to contract Seinfeld, then pay him $3M per ad and after two fire him (and probably the rest in the $10M for settlement). So why not do “what the crazy creative dude suggested in the meeting”?
I can’t believe they actually did these commercials… Just like I can’t believe they did the whole Mojave Experiment campaign! Do they realize that what attracts users to Apple is brand identity and “connection”? Does anyone connect with the whole Mojave-fast-food-style “brand”? The one where fake people (aka paid actors) act like they’re really surprised by the awesomeness (”wow factor”, right?) of Vista? How is that supposed to sell more of something that’s been selling a lot (better than XP) and most of the people really argumentative against it are the ones that have actually used it, thus rendering Mojave an overall failed argument?
Anyway… I really hope Microsoft gets their act straight! Apple needs good competition and Microsoft has the money and market positioning to do so… But they need to start by firing everyone in the marketing and product branding department… and Balmer.
I do have an idea for Apple: a set of “Switch” commercials featuring… Seinfeld! They could go on and on mocking his Microsoft ads and how he gave up on Microsoft and their inability to connect with people, bla bla bla… In my opinion, with the talent Apple has in this department, they could not only capitalize on Microsoft’s flop, but even help Seinfeld career get back on its feet. I actually think he can be quite funny! Maybe he’d charge almost nothing since Apple would be actually benefiting him at the end of the day…
Pretty darn good idea huh?? Ya, I thought so too… :p
PS: If Apple uses this idea I should probably be hired in the process… right? 
hehehe
Blogged on September 16, 2008 at 14:03
Okay, so Adobe is getting prepared to announce their Creative Suite 4 (CS4). Yes, you’ll have to pay for it!! No, it won’t solve all your problems!!
I have the Master Collection (CS3), bought 4-5 months ago! Except very few bug fixes released soon after installing, I haven’t seen a *single* substantial update since then… I did see CS3.3 come out (paid upgrade) and the announcement of CS4 (paid upgrade).
From the current suite, I use Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat and Fireworks heavily! I barely touch any of the other apps but getting the $2500-heavy Master Collection is still the cheapest way to get those.
From the other applications that I own from the suite, I did try/want to use Bridge/Version Cue but it’s the most unstable and useless piece of crap I’ve seen. All other apps are either good to have around but useless to me at this point (eg. After Effects) or completely and utterly junk (eg. Dreamweaver).
Being a web designer/developer that frequently works with audio/video (not Soundbooth though), I’m pissed at the fact that I’ll to keep upgrading to the new(est) Master Collection just to get bug fixes and compatibility problems solved.
I’ve been thinking: why can’t they make bundles by number of apps??? For instance, choose 5 apps from our lineup and pay $1200; choose 8 apps and pay $1800; etc… The current model is a “Microsoft-style” way of selling crappy or dieing products (read “Dreamweaver”) for people that want Fireworks or Illustrator…Plus I can’t get Lightroom 2 in any collection… Why can’t I get LR2 instead of… say… Dreamweaver??
Also, until the release of the new 3.3 suites, if you wanted InDesign *and* Fireworks you’d HAVE to either get the Master Collection or 2 different collections (more expensive). I *needed* InDesign *and* Fireworks so I was bound to the Master Collection (which is fine because I need the video apps…). This was just fixed with 3.3 but guess what: that was 2 months before CS4!!!! So if you bought that CS3.3 you will have to pay to get CS4… 3 month later! Pretty awesome huh? (CS3.3 was release 2 months after I got my CS3)
But they should definitely use a system like the one I mention above, where we choose the apps we need and pay by the number of apps we buy!
OHH… and point releases that ACTUALLY FIX things and are FREE would be greatly appreciated… Paying for new release upgrades JUST because I want bugs fixed and don’t even care much for the new features is OUTRAGEOUS!
Alright… I’m glad I got that out of my chest!
Have a great day guys!
PS: Sorry about the rant guys… Long time no post, and what a way to come back! This is actually an expanded version of a comment I left on TUAW’s announcement of the 9/23 event… Oh well… I needed to rant! After all, us bloggers, we’re all “criminals and terrorists” or just “anti-social people mad at world”… right?
EDIT: I had a phrase I never ended plus I didn’t have any links to any of the products… Added those and added a reference to Lightroom 2! (which is my new *love*)
Blogged on June 20, 2008 at 21:01
We have a saying in Portugal that I’m not sure exists in other languages, but basically and literally says “where there is smoke, there is fire!”. We all heard about all the “Conspiracy Theories” around Facebook, that include CIA, NASA, NSA, ICANHAS [1] and what not… I was never into any of those and I still hold to the opinion that if any of those agencies want your information… they’ll get it, and they don’t really need Facebook. We also all heard how some really interesting and even revolutionary findings have been done by accident… So this is one of those accidental findings!
As I’m checking and cleaning some old bookmarks, I come across one I named “conversation10″… I vaguely remember bookmarking a Facebook conversation a while back for reasons I don’t even remember, but I have since then, deleted that whole thread/conversation from my Facebook messages. To my surprise, when I opened the bookmark, it opened the following screen on Facebook:
(click to open full sized image on Flickr)
Clicking the link, I get that whole conversation with current profile pictures and all. This has only one explanation: Facebook doesn’t really delete anything. Now think of your embarrassing photos that you thought you’ve deleted… They’re still hosted somewhere!!
After finding this, I searched the web to check if this was a known “feature”. Every page I found was of someone asking how they could recover they’re deleted messages, and the answers all said “no”. To be real honest, you can’t really recover them unless you saved the thread ID from the URL. But if you still have that conversation in your browser’s history, you can easily get that and just add “&show_del=1″ to the end of your URL, or even just open the old thread page and click the link like from my screenshot above.
Ok, this is definitely not a revolutionary finding. Nor it’s an extremely useful one. But it just adds up to all the “Facebook Conspiracy Theories” out there [2]… Especially if you check Facebook’s Help:
I accidentally deleted a message. Can I get it back?
There is no way to recover messages that have been deleted. Sorry.
Are they just being “mean” or don’t they want the “world” to know about it? In other news, I’m still using Facebook, and will keep using! If I put something online, I’m perfectly aware I might be “cached” somewhere and be unable to completely remove it from the interwebs… But that’s me…
[1] Yes, I was just making those up… All I heard about was CIA, but don’t they look cool like that?? And you gotta admit the LOLcat in there was really well put, right?
[2] Anyone got links for posts and videos on those existing theories? They’d be a ncie addition to this post…
Blogged on June 17, 2008 at 16:26
I. CAN. HAZ. IT ??? Apple SysAdmin Geekness At Its Greatest ^^,
Blogged on May 30, 2008 at 20:30
After 5pm today, I was talking with a colleague at the office about how I despise Java. At the office, we use Java for a lot of our “business logic” apps, and have chosen to use a Java web frontend for a portfolio web application we’re developing. Well… I didn’t get to vote in on that since I got here after the choice had already been made. The following months we’re horrible: neither me (non-programmer, working more on the UI side of things) or him (the actually in-house programmer, an “all-java” guy) liked the application we had to develop and customize and so you can imagine how it went. All of this brought up the discussion Java vs Others, mainly because even though he didn’t like what we were (actually, we still are :/) using, he swears by Java in most of the issues. I, on the other hand, hated Java on the desktop because it’s so slow and bloated and the little experience I was having developing with it was being extremely painful: re-deploying the app (Ant) and restarting Tomcat every time I changed the CSS or XSL (yikes.. hate that too!) was extremely discouraging. Not to mention having to use Eclipse to make it all a little easier (3 scripts had to be run to re-deploy the app).
Well, jumping back to today, after I got mixed up in my arguments because I don’t know Java that well, he sarcastically sent me this link: Java, Ruby, and even Python Suck. Quite an entertaining article I should say, but what I really thought interesting were his points and the reactions on the comments. Make sure you read that article to have a good laugh (especially the section on Python) and follow the comment stream…
But I’ll transcribe my comment because I think it pictures how I feel about those 3 languages:
Blogged on April 11, 2008 at 17:31
My good friend André from The RAC submitted his remix to Radiohead’s “Nude” single remix contest! As always, he’s done a GREAT job! I encourage you to listen and… can you be helpful and vote for his remix there?? And then head on to his website (that I have the pleasure to host ;)) and listen to more of his *awesome* remixes??
Thanks everyone! 
Blogged on April 11, 2008 at 16:42
I know, I know… I had plans to blog more, had ideas on what to blog, had the right tools for the task, etc… The only thing I was and currently am missing is: TIME! ;(
I’ve been meaning to write about a lot of stuff that happened during this last month. Among other things, I got my shiny new Macbook Pro. The whole order/shipping process deserves a blog post of its own so I’ll keep you curious. Since I got it, my workflow is starting to “feel” better. There’s one huge downside though: having a laptop, gives me the ability to easily waste time anywhere I am! I’ve been finding myself playing games or reading feeds/news at even later hours… On the other hand, having the ability to run VMware Fusion presented me with a whole new world of possibilities like running linux testing servers on my machine, windows (Vista runs more smoothly than XP on VMware IMHO), etc… And I can even run MyEclipse on top of all this without even “feeling it” (4GB RAM surely help :p). Ok, enough of that…
In the mean time, Wordpress 2.5 came out and I upgraded! Didn’t think it’d go all that smoothly (especially after reading this post a while back - which I commented there as well!).
OK, bottom line: I will blog about the laptop like I promised; I will blog about my impressions on VMware Fusion and even WP2.5 (not so sure about this… nothing new to add to what others have said already!). I feel bad that it’s been over a month since I blogged and I *need* blogging… It helps with my… errr… “well-being”!
In other news, I started running/jogging! =) yay And no, I do not like running all that much! And no, I’m not running with anyone else! So why am I running you ask… Well… I need the physical activity, and I want to become healthier! (not that I’ve been having problems on that particular, thank God!). Got some Nike Shox Arraw, even bought the Nike+iPod kit… even though I don’t have an iPod nano! I’m hoping Apple releases the software needed for it for the iPhone in June… pleeaasseeee!! I just don’t feel like spending $ on a nano when I already have an iPod Video 80Gb and an iPhone! I’m willing to buy a 1st gen White Nano though… If anyone wants to get rid of it at a decent price, I’m willing to help you with that! :p
For frequent news on what’s going on with me, Twitter is the way to go! haha I’m finishing this post while waiting to board from Detroit to Newark after my original flight got delayed+cancelled 5 hours ago, and I’ve been twittering like a maniac about all of this! For those who thought of it as spam, I’m sorry. I bet you can find some interesting stuff just by listening to me yapper a whole lot! :p
Well, that’s enough for now. I have a few more thought out posts to make in the near future. Maybe all this time in airports is helpful to make you do stuff that you postpone all the time… More on that later!
Blogged on March 7, 2008 at 00:07
I spent the last few minutes optimizing my blog’s code! Should be a *lot* faster now! When I updated to WP 2.3.3 a few weeks ago, I took the chance to remove some plugins that weren’t relevant and optimize my code a little to integrate better with WP’s “new” code.
Yesterday I dumped Google Analytics, switching (at last) to Mint! I ran them both during the day today, finally removing GA tonight! I can already tell you that Mint is substantially faster, not to mention that it gives the ability to view my stats, LIVE, on my iPhone anytime! (major advantage point from Google’s solution which resorts to Flash a lot). Thanks Shaun!
On a side note, I’ve been working on a design update… But I think I’ll make the mockups I created into a WP theme and freely distribute it instead! I’ve struck by some awesome, clean designs lately and have been gathering some inspiration for my next design. On the other hand, the current design is growing on me… :/ lol
Anyway, thought I’d share so you can give some thoughts on your user experience on this blog! Thanks in advance.
Blogged on March 6, 2008 at 20:07
Today has been pretty hectic… My back has been killing me all day and Apple released the iPhone SDK which caused a huge stir around the web!
As to my back, I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know I’ve a small cyst right next to my spine, mid-back, for a while. Never felt it… until the last few days! And I can’t even blame the pain on the AWESOME chair I have at work… I’ll probably go to the chiropractor soon, but I’ll need to see a doctor eventually.
On to the news of the day: Apple (finally) released the SDK for the iPhone! It was a very exciting keynote, with Steve Jobs only introducing other people and not taking much part on it until the press Q&A at the end (could this be the start of a slow “backing off” by Jobs preparing his succession?). Among the great news and technical details about the SDK and upcoming apps for the iPhone, we were introduced to Apple’s “AppStore“. Basically this is no more than a mix between the iTunes Store but for applications with the current Installer.app for jailbroken phones. One of the things that got me excited were the apparent 3D capabilities of the iPhone, showcased with a few games (including a demo of the upcoming Spore) and the information that EA is already working on developing games for the iPhone (FIFA 08 with multi-touch+accelerometer ?? wow). And no, no jailbreaking/unlocking apps… or porn!
Then came the part most techies & developers have been speculating lately: the distribution model and its price. I think Apple is keen on creating the best development platform in the world. OSX has been proven to be just that and a lot of developers have invested time and resources into developing excellent apps for that platform. Apple is trying to do the same with iPhone and the latest rumours before today already pointed towards that, which got confirmed today during the SDK presentation when Scott Forstall, Apple’s VP for iPhone Software talked about how “Apple is a platform company” (something some of us already thought of but was never mentioned this clearly).
Considering this, developers wanting to sell/distribute their apps through AppStore (the only possible way anyway) will have to enter the iPhone Developer Program and paying for that $99. This price covers everything. I think the price is appropriate considering Apple is not charging hosting, distribution, etc… They only charge 30% of whatever you charge your customers. If you choose to freely distribute your app, Apple gets… yes, $0! Considering this, I think $99 is a fair fee to have access to Apple and having them check your app, host it, publicize it, etc…
But now comes something I only discovered in the midst of a Twitter discussion with Luis Rei and David Rodrigues. While I don’t agree with calling the $99 an “Apple Tax” I agree with the fact that it’s pretty bad that Apple doesn’t allow you to install your own personal, experimental apps on your OWN iPhone! While I understand the reason to do it (as it would open the way to code being shared and compiled with the freely available SDK, which would bypass Apple’s check and system!), I don’t like it! I was getting really motivated to learn Cocoa and Objective-C and start messing around with small apps and utilities but not having a way to test them on my own phone is sad.
But all said and done, the customer won’t mind any of this! As (free) apps will be available even through wi-fi and even EDGE, as a customer, I couldn’t be more delighted… Well, maybe I could… June??? Can I haz it now??? =)
Blogged on March 5, 2008 at 10:46
I was very curious about the last Nine Inch Nails (NIN) album! I was reading about all the hype on the way they used to distribute it. I was also aware of people having major problems getting to the download (just like it happened with Radiohead’s In Rainbows). And so I waited…
Yesterday, being tired of waiting I headed on to the official website. Surprisingly it opened on the first try and everything looked rather snappy and fast. I read about the download speed issues and realized we could download the 9 free tracks off of Bit-Torrent, tracked at The Pirate Bay, and uploaded by NIN themselves. I went on to get the free tracks over at TPB.
After listening to them 2 times I was already in love!!! I was even more in love knowing that they provided lossless download options, like FLAC and Apple Lossless. But I was even more impressed with the fact that they give you immediate access to those same downloads when you buy the physical version (that ships in April)!!! So I ordered the $10 (+ $6.99 shipping) physical edition of it!
Since September and my move to the US I haven’t bought a single physical CD. Prior to coming, and just during the first half of 2007, I bought around 40 physical CDs! With the move o the US I came to realize that those physical CDs can be a real logistical PITA: broken cases from the travelling, lots of extra weight that is expensive when flying, etc… Since I got here, I already bought over 20 CDs through the iTunes Store and boy, am I loving it! The fact that I can buy any album on my iPhone, through wireless and get Instant Satisfaction™ is delightful!! Don’t get me wrong, I still love owning the physical CDs and ripping them to MP3s (used to rip them to OGG, but my iPod/iPhone changed my mind) or even AAC+ (which I have been learning to like in terms of quality/size vs the MP3s). But even with all of this, I decided to order the physical edition. What “tipped me” over was the fact that I still had access to Instant Satisfaction™: they give you the same download options when you buy the physical edition.
From my experience with my other CDs, I don’t mess around them much after buying them! I get them, rip them, put them on my iTunes/iPod/iPhone and only resort to the physical discs if something goes wrong or I’m about to travel! I do like the feeling of owning the physical disc, but I’m quickly replacing that with the knowledge that from a mobility standpoint, digital has taken over. In terms of listening, it has taken over a long time ago… at least for me!
I’m also the kind of person who downloads music albums… a LOT! I’m glad I do, because on some cases it saved me money! And saving me money allowed me to buy albums that are REALLY worth it! As an example, I bought Coldplay’s “X&Y” shortly after it came out, but had already listened to it MANY times to the point that when I bought it I didn’t listen to it for a while! Why did I buy it then, you may ask… Because I *loved* (still do!) the album and think it was worth buying! Yes, that’s how I view music purchases: I pay when I feel it’s worth the price! If prices went down, I’d buy more, but I still buy quite a bit of music!!
Having said that, I encourage you to get this NIN album! If for nothing else, do it because they released it under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license, allowing you to do “whatever” you want with the music without having to pay royalties of any sort! That’s a MAJOR step forward and takes some gut feeling to do it! HUGE kudos to NIN for taking that step forward in music. I think this one is even more revolutionary than Radiohead’s album for many reasons like immediate download when you buy the physical discs, lossless formats, Creative Commons license, etc…
Bottom line: I’m *very happy* about this and can’t wait to see more artists doing the same! ^^,
Older posts »
Hey! I‘m Levi Figueira, an ‘82 portuguese tech enthusiast a.k.a geek! My interests range from design, photography, multimedia, production and music to linux, networking and development! *Personal tastes are subject to change without prior notice* :p Enjoy! =)
What do you think??