greenthinks

Yesterday Microsoft made some pretty big announcements, and while much of the web does not seem to understand their significance, at least some of the stuff they showed off yesterday is getting some real buzz. Only problem, there is no stream of the announcement available from Microsoft’s web site. We know that one exists, since Scoble was watching it internally. Microsoft, please open it up to the rest of us?

Maybe it has something to do with Dave Winer’s comments on the presentation…

This is the stupid message I get from Microsoft Word today, while working on my latest paper. But wait, I thought there is no Hebrew support in Microsoft Word on my mac? That’s right! So it is NOT that the Hebrew proofing tools (dictionary and other info that Word uses for each language) are not installed, it’s rather that they’re not available. Microsoft, if you’re going to make business decisions to exclude a capability from your program, have the decency not to complain that that capability isn’t installed, as though it is somehow my fault!?

Every power user or techie (or nerd or geek) has their pet utilities, without which a computer just does not feel like “home.” For me, the most important of these has, for the past few years, been Objective Development’s LaunchBar.

I’ve tried Quicksilver, that up and coming free youngster, but it just was too much of a mess for this OCD detail nut. LaunchBar knows what it is meant to do, and it does it beautifully. More recently, as LaunchBar seemed to be in a state of languor, and as Apple introduced Spotlight in Tiger, I have tried to do away with my LaunchBar habit.

Today I go to Objective’s site, just for the hell of it, and lo and behold, a new beta version! And they haven’t been sitting around doing nothing, either. 4.1 boasts full spotlight integration, further integration with Address Book and iTunes, support for Automator workflows, and a bunch more features, performance improvements, and bug fixes.

I’m impressed.

Chris Pirillo on Apple and MS:

Don’t underestimate Apple; they’re moving hella quicker than Redmond these days. Front Row isn’t close to an MCE competitor today, but it won’t take much to tweak it to deliciousness. Pretty soon, I expect Apple to start selling computers that are “iPod-compatible.” Watch it happen, folks. This isn’t about surfing the Web anymore – it’s about having a lifestyle that doesn’t require you to think or reprogram. The days of the blinking 12:00 are long gone, but it’s obvious Microsoft and its vendors don’t know that yet.

‘nuff said.

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Russell Beattie:

Infinite Loop – I caught the West Wing on television for the first time in a long time (since the election, I think, I stopped watching it since then really). It dawned on me how ridiculous it is to focus a television show on such a unique individual as the President of the U.S. And now they’re doing another one with Gina Davis? So wacky. I was thinking after this morning’s Apple keynote that Hollywoood should create a show loosely based on Apple computer, no? It’d have a enigmatic, yet complex leader, various VPs with ranging agendas, crisises would not involve asteroids hitting the earth or Norht Korean terrorists, but blogs leaking confidential product plans and competitors launching similar products, IP theft, etc. You could have cameos by luminaries in tech. You’d have a picture-perfect antagonist in a Gates-like Billionaire of a competing company, etc. Quirky programmers and French-born directors of Engineering would add a light element. How much more drama could you want?

Terrific.