Itch In My Brain

On one hand I am surprised, and on the other hand, I’m not:

Windows is broken and Microsoft has admitted it. In an unprecedented attempt to explain its Longhorn problems and how it abandoned its traditional way of working, the normally secretive software giant has given unparalleled access to The Wall Street Journal, even revealing how Vice President Jim Allchin, personally broke the bad news to Bill Gates.

Full article here.

I’ve said it before about this debacle, and I’ll say it again now: Longhorn is to Microsoft as Copland was to Apple.

NYU has a neat little techie project in which software attempts to identify those hard-to-name tunes, if you hum them into a microphone for it.

Could it be possible that technology is dumbing-down the next generation instead of enriching their lives?

I ask only because I find it striking that today’s so-called “techie” youth can program their cute little cellphones to cook their morning Freedom French Toast for them, but these same people:

• Can’t pick a secure email password if their life depended on it;
• Never met a virus-infested mail attachment that they didn’t like;
• Can’t describe a computer problem even in layman’s terms without sounding like Mad Libs.  In other words, about as coherent as Keith Richards & Ozzy Osbourne after a three-week booze-n-smack bender.

Norton Internet Security AntiSpyware Edition is out! Don’t you just get a chill of excitement? Or, as this reviewer on Betanews aptly summed it up:
“I’m still holding out for Norton Internet Security Actually F—-ng Works Edition, Norton Internet Security Support Isn’t Outsourced Edition, Norton Internet Security Doesn’t Rape Your PC Edition, or Norton Internet Security We Don’t Cater to Idiots Edition.”

Here’s a collection of real clips featuring Steve Ballmer, the #2 guy at Microsoft.

I guess the old snarky saying is right. The rich really are different.