Starting with the install itself, which was quick and smooth, and onto the little touches, like the super impressive Welcome Video that it starts with. Instead of boring guy presenting “New Features”, it’s just an artistic High Definition journey for the senses.

Choosing and customizing the Avatar was just as amazing. The interface is super natural and Beautifully done in pure HD! Customization options abound, especially in hair and face options. I found it to be loads of fun, no matter what they say!

Interface overall is very impressive, while staying fast and responsive also. Haven’t used it enough to figure out how functional it is, but I don’t think there ever were any issues with function here. In my opinion, the interface should first of all Impress, and it definitely does that now. Way to go, Microsoft!!! Clearly there is a solid team behind Xbox and Zune, now if only they get some of these guys to work on Windows 8 (sadly, Windows 7 seems to have mostly closed set of features now. More on that in separate post, promise!).

UPDATE: I meant to Thank Major Nelson for making it available for us, loyal Xbox fans, few days before general public availability.

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My application was a bit too ambitions, so it didn’t get finished, but I am will get back to it in the coming days. Best app that did get finished, and someone in that group even snagged a domain name for it, was LangWar.com . The source code is here, and yes, it’s all in glorious (gore-ous?) Python.

My thoughts? I still love App Engine as a concept, but it still remains Love/Hate relationship because of Python. With all due respect to the language, it doesn’t feel like it is best suited for web development, even when using popular Django template framework. I am sure it will become Love/Love, if Java becomes supported by GAE! So, Googlers, grab OpenJDK and get right on it!

The whole Hackaton experience prompted my thinking again about the characteristics of “good” or “best” programming language. As always, the big thing about defining “best”, is identifying characteristics to rate on. So, I am going to try and put short list together:

• Ease of Expression – How easy is it to put into “words” what is it you want computer to do for you
• Speed – How fast can computer accomplish what you wanted from it
• Integration – This one is an attempt for catch all category, from how well it works with other existing tools, to cross-platform / cross-OS compatibility, to Visual Editor integration

I am really trying to keep list to top 3, but many people will argue that best programming language is simply the one that you know. That’s fine when you developing something by yourself, in a Tundra, with no hope of survival or escape. In real world, however, software gets developed by many people, and usually goes through many cycles of corrections and improvements. You need other people to be able to locate piece of code that does “X”, and be able to easily read and modify it.

Turning into long post, so I will stop. The idea is mostly to provoke some thought. Some people will argue that in today’s world, the Speed factor is irrelevant, since computers are getting faster and faster. Others argue that “Ease of Expression” is overerrated and entirely relative. For them, code that says ‘ a = !regex(‘[dfqwer]x643DA*-’,*&x) ’ is easy to write and quick way to express what they mean… hmmm…

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I’ve been meaning to post on economy for a while, especially on my dormant Econoville blog, but what finally prompted me to post is a call from my father, this weekend. He was really concerned about whether or not we were going to loose our home. You need to know that he doesn’t live in the US, so I was surprised to hear that even in his corner of the world there was so much “misinformation” on the housing crisis in the US, and the collapse of our economy.

I have posted further details about the importance of Consumer Confidence Index, at least the way I see it (and I am no economic expert). And the gist is – our fears and overall “feelings” drive our behavior. A lot of purchasing and spending is directly driven by our emotions and thus, economy takes a hit. This in turn hits us, which in turns hits the economy.

The bad news – Nothing is faster than big President’s speech, to scare us all into stopping our spending, as clearly seen in the chart above. I am not saying there aren’t real problems out there in housing market and in auto industry, and in Financial industry (more on that separately). But, rather than helping these industries, the speech caused All of us to cut back our spending! The Result – accelerated freefall of the Economy!

Onto the good news – I am a strong believer in Moore’s Law, and the related Singularity. What this means for us, in my view, is that this whole Economic Cycle will be shorter this time around. Perhaps as short as 6 months, and yet shorter in the future.

Laying blame is easy, but I certainly wonder – What, if anything, could have been done differently to avoid this crisis. Meanwhile, printing more money clearly turned out to be pretty good idea to boost things. Now, if only we can manage to figure out who to give all those pretty new bills to… Definitely needs to be someone who is a big spender!

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With that in mind, I finally set a plan in motion to upgrade my media center PC, which is connected to the our big-screen. It was deemed not powerful enough (Athlon XP 1800+ or something, not even X2…) to process full screen H.264 media, which most media is nowadays.

One of key usage scenarios was obviously to wath NetFlix on-demand via this media PC.

So, as soon as I purchase everything, and not even before I finish setting things up, NetFlix goes commando with the following news:

• NetFlix in HD on XBox 360 – Yes, I heard it was coming, but only for Gold members, and never heard anything about HD, until today…
• NetFlix on Tivo Series 3 and HD models – This is great news for us, don’t get me wrong..

Well, I did try full screen Hulu, and it really looks nice, but mostly for their very limited library of 720p content. Installed Vuze on it also, and putting up TVTonic next.

Speaking of the upgrade, I ended up snatching a great deal, instead of upgrading my motherboard/cpu/memory, etc, as I was planning. It would have cost around $350, since I needed extra Vista Permium license for this setup, and that alone is $100. So I was happy when SlickDeals put up a coupon on refurbished Dell Outlet deals last week. Snatched up Dell Inspirion 530 with Core 2 Quad and 4GB of RAM for around that much, and added my own ATSC (HD) Capture Card with nVidia 8400 GS for full screen HD monster. It easily runs at 1080p now, including all media I tried to play full screen thus far. Plus, box itself is Beautiful, in white and slick metal front panel, plus runs practically silent. I am a happy camper!

Now, if only NetFlix would put out a Vista Media center plug-in, for easy and fast navigation of queues and instant playback, in HD, that would be awesome… But I guess they are too busy developing all those custom interfaces, instead of attacking the obvious, easy target…

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It is a little known fact, but I have long been proponent of Cloud Computing, even if it wasn’t called that, back in a day. In fact, in late nineties I wrote a thesis paper on just such a design, proposing that roaming Java Agents, traveling over storage/computing platform compiled of thousand of cheap nodes (as in PCs), will comprise a super computing network. This was just around the time when Google where building their platform, and we all know how that turned out. In fact, another little known fact (it seems, though one would suggest that It Is Obvious) is that Google’s biggest competitive advantage isn’t their “amazing” search engine, but their Amazing computing platform, with thousands of nodes and Big Table architecture.

But, I digress. This post is about Microsoft, who I hope will finally join the official fray and come out with properly implemented computing cloud/platform (Disclaimer: I’ve said before that I have few Microsoft stocks that I own, so there! In fact, I keep recommending that you go out and pick some for yourself, they are Greatly Undervalued now).

This post is about Cloud Computing as a Game Changer! Though we are yet to see full power of properly implemented cloud, if done right, this can finally bring the cloud into the Corporate America. My hopes are that Microsoft are finally “getting it” and will unveil just such a platform, both hosted by them and available for purchase and installation in GE’s of the world (read: Big Corporations).

What is the single biggest place where this transformation should start? The DATA, silly!!!

This is turning into long post, with no pictures. So I’ll just stop, and if you’re interested to discuss it further, comments are open for just such a debate.

I leave you with a few resources for “fun” reading on the web. Yes, all of us in the IT world need to brace ourselves for this fundamental change, or perish with the dinosaurs.

The Original - Concepts behind Google’s BigTable
The Open Source – Apache’s Hadoop platform, and HBase BigTable like implementation on it
The High Performance – HyperTable is an attempt to produce something as fast as BigTable

The only handicap for our Cloud right now is the Network. I am sure that bigger people than me realize this, so change will come there also! So be sure and be ready (Netbook, anyone?)

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• My Xbox 360 is back! Of course you don’t know that it was gone, but it was indeed a victim of well known Red Rings of Death. But, this is after at least a year of trouble-free use, and they replaced it within a week!!! Seriously, emailed us FREE shipping label for our old XBox. I dropped it at UPS on 9/25, and Oct 1st the replacement arrived! Completely Free and Fast! Mistakes Happen, it is all about how you bounce back and fess up to them that defines long-term success! So, I am a Happy Camper and Kudos Microsoft, big time!!!
• Went through rough patch at work, launching a new web site, enough said…
• We visited Consolidated Gold Mine, which is apparently only about 45 minutes north of here. Family had a good time! We’re definitely going back there in the future.
• Visited Panama City Beach in Florida, over the weekend. Pretty long drive from Atlanta, but nice beaches and weather was pretty good. Overall, fun trip also. And yes, all these trips were way before Gasoline shortage hit Atlanta…
• It’s been another month of iPhone and Zune and Blackberry, for my active daily use. We saw the release of all important iPhone 2.1 update, and Zune 3 software came out. I am working on summarizing my experiences in long post on Zune vs iPhone, promise!
• I have also been hard at work on my “secret project”, well, basically it is yet another website – stay tuned!

But enough about me, as you are likely wondering about the collapse of Wall street giants, and other such minor news happening out there… The world is undergoing changes in ever accelerating pace, and while mass media does dismal job of coverage, do keep in mind that I have a short list of articles that I share daily, for your reading pleasure, from the world wide ocean that is Internet. Don’t Clog The Tubes!!!

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We were thinking of finally taking a one day trip to the little mountain town of Helen, Georgia. So, I did regular searches on Google and others to find out tourism attractions and other things about the town. I must say, there was very little available in terms of entertainment for family, perhaps because the town is truly little. I did hear they have most wonderful nature and scenery, so that itself probably worth the 2 hour drive. Scenery led me to think of Flickr, so I went there and just typed name of town. It actually sent me to a screen with good geo-positioned photos, showing you the place in images! I recommend you try it out, before your next trip to anywhere.

I have been using similar handy feature on Google Earth Desktop software, but I was sure Flickr would have many more photos available for any given spot.

As I wrote this, I decided to dive back into Google Earth and play around with options. It is Astounding how deep that tool is and how it is improving every day! Not only was I able to find tons of photos and useful information, I was amazed to discover YouTube integration! This essentially allows to Click certain locations to see VIDEO popup from YouTube, related to that place! Now That’s a Mash-up! Perhaps this is their secret true reason for buying YouTube in the first place !

My next question is — when is this kind of functionality coming to my iPhone? Or will this be an Android-only feature, to try and win over iPhone early adopters?

Now, if only instead of all this site seeing on the Internet, we would actually get into the car and get going there! That, my friends, is a technological challenge of a different nature…

UPDATE: Flickr is your best source for breaking news-in-photos, as I forgot to mention. Take a look at this happening Documentary of Hurricane Gustav in Photos. Gives you chills and definitely brings us closer to the affected people.

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First, I don’t think people realize how handy Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 is. And now that Microsoft made it officially free, there is absolutely no reason not to install it on your Vista!

So here is what I wanted to post, I ran into two distinct aspects with Vista today. On one end, I was able to run 2 Virtual PCs, one running Windows XP SP2, the other running Ubuntu Linux. And in addition, I ran some video playback full screen on the Vista host operating system, PLUS there was CD ripping running at the time, creating some 192 kbps MP3’s from my audio CD! And the two virtual PCs weren’t idle either, Windows XP was converting some of my video files to MP4, for my iPhone. Ubuntu was also running full speed, still installing, in fact.

So, with all that action, all activities were running quickly and without a hitch!

On the flip side, a laptop with Vista Home Basic, gone completely nuts during a simple operation of Logout. Granted, it was a bit overdue for some patches probably. Anyhow, without any special messages, all it said was "Logging Out", and that is it! It sat there on that screen, flashing Hard-Drive a lot, for a long long time. I even gave up, hard-booted it, logged back in (working ok), and then Logged out again. Same thing! Hanging and Hanging and Hanging. After about 20 minutes I gave up and left it running overnight. In the morning, it was fine, logs in fast, logs out fast, weird!!!

So, there you have it! Vista, in all it’s glory! You decide!

PS: For all the people that complained about compatibility of software with Vista, I find Windows XP inside Virtual PC to be perfect compromise. In fact, you can even run Windows 95 or Windows 98, if you so desire, in your Virtual PC. That would help those very old educational games I still have somewhere, but kids outgrew them already anyway…

PPS: I am thinking of going to DragonCon this year for the first time, any suggestions what is a must-see?

UPDATE: I was going to mention a nice Tweaks Guide on Vista, which is more of an overview of Vista annoyances and what to do with them. In retrospect, this post seems like as good time as any, plus Windows Vista blog reminded me about it today…

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• Battery Life - Dismal or worse. First day I turned off WiFi, turned down screen brightness, yet still towards the end of the day the battery was practically dead. Next day I turned off Push email also, and that seems to make serious difference. Still, with normal use, one full day is your best bet. I don’t think this is critical for me, I’m getting car charger, plus charging it daily is easier to remember than twice a week, etc.
• Internet Browser - Is everything I ever dreamed of and more. Truly Internet in your pocket, with JavaScript and tons of features. I love YouTube support, but I had no idea it streams and plays QuickTime embedded videos from the web ALSO!
• Application Store - Amazing! And when combined with Internet Access, GPS and 3D capabilities of the device, the cloud computing is finally here!!! I will write-up a separate post on some of my favorite (mostly free) Official Apps for iPhone. Meanwhile install Google App, the Google Reader is killer Apps for iPhone IMHO!
• HTML Email - Amazing killer feature also, truly properly implemented, finally I can review and delete/respond to my email right on the mobile device!
• iTunes Software - I blame Apple, (though some may try to blame Windows Vista). Either way, pathetic piece of technology, really dismal. Probably the most annoying part of the whole experience and would be main reason for me to reconsider.
• Camera - Not impressive at all, and of course no Video capture (though Qik has app that will add such capability, hopefully it will be in Official Apple store soon). But, I did not expect much — I still prefer to take my photos/videos with dedicated device.

That’s it for now, I am trying not to overwhelm with very long posts, but for summary I want to just say that I LOVE IT! And the cool features galore truly worth the little inconveniences.

I also want to point out that my first experience with Apple products has thus far been mixed bag, but I was fortunate to find this video after a quick google search on the second day of iPhone use. Plus, I am also lucky to have iPhone, Zune and Blackberry in my active daily use going forward, so I will try to offer some comparative perspective, or try, at least.

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The dark side got me…Or is it the light side?

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You will need specific setup, to bring the best quality available Olympic coverage to your Big Screen TV. First thing you’ll need is Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate edition. Next, you will need an XBox 360 connected to home network, or you can skip this in case your Windows Vista PC is already hooked up directly to TV (it happens!).

Now, simply install TVTonic add-on on your Windows Vista MediaCenter PC, and start it. You can use it on your Windows Vista PC or naturally view it via XBox 360, using the Media Center extender functionality.

Actually, TVTonic brings a whole world of Internet TV to your local computer. It is actually similar to Miro and others, in that it simply pulls RSS feeds of Podcast style broadcast shows. It comes with pretty impressive guide with all kinds of Internet shows, including Dilbert, and GameTrailers in HD, both of which me and the kids enjoy tremendously!

Of course, you can always simply visit NBC Olympics site and watch highlights or even full events, steaming and online.

I am very pleased with this progress! The TVTonic client is completely free and brings home very high quality video, for convenient viewing on the Big-Screen TV. We have configured it to download specific sports, like soccer and fencing, automatically as they become available!

If you have Vista 64 Bit edition (very rare still), they are promising to make it available soon (via EngadgetHD).

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I am really trying to resist the urge. Though my contract is long up, and my Windows Mobile Smartphone, which I really love, is started to act up, I am still trying to fight the temptation. I know I posted about this before, how I don’t really need an iPhone, but I did not know then about the App Store!

As the old saying goes – It’s the Software, silly! What!!! Do I need to recap again how Microsoft made Billions Trillions and virtually created a Monopoly in many markets (not just Operating System), by focusing on Software?

So are they missing the next computing revolution again, just like they almost missed the whole Internet thingy, back on Billy G’s watch? The mobile revolution is just as critical, if not more so!

What’s more, this is a monumental shift away from bulky desktops, to tiny, powerful and mobile devices, which naturally lend themselves to cloud computing. These devices will rapidly become faster internally (CPU), with faster connection speed and more sensors (like GPS, Accelerometer, etc.). Bigger screens, projected screens and virtual input devices, precise speech recognition - such features are a given. But the most exciting are the capabilities that extra sensors bestow on our computing experience. Geo-tagged photos, virtually unlimited world of streaming Video over the air, purchasing items from Vending machines with your device, are just few simple and existing computing experiences right now.

Try to do that with your desktop PC! And therein lies a problem — pretty soon we won’t need the old clunky desktop computers, that used to run Windows (remember that monolith!!?). Already most people rapidly shifting to Laptops, for example.

So where is Microsoft? I am not just concerned as a client and user here, but as a shareholder! Windows Mobile is something I have been using for years, on all kinds of devices, from version 1.0 in fact! And it has rapidly went Nowhere! Here we are in 2008, all we got is barely version 6 and it offers no major features. Where is the long overdue Deepfish browser? Will it support JavaScript or Flash or some fancier features that people need on the mobile platform? Why no Java on Pocket PC editions of Windows Mobile!? That kills thousands of applications that could really enable that bigger touch-screen!!?

It’s the Apps, stupid! Windows Mobile is still way too complex to develop for. There is the need to support virtually any resolution, plus touch or non-touch screens, plus different built-in device capabilities and CPU speeds. Does that sound simple to you!!? Versus, the iPhone Apps — One platform, modern operating system, AND developers have a trusted set of features and capabilities! Plus, their programs go through Apple quality control, before being released to device. That is actually good, IMHO.

So why this post, why the blues? Because It’s the Echo-system!!! I will be the last to accept iTunes, in fact I don’t allow it on any of our computers here at home, but given the iPhone, it will have to “sneak-in”. This is just a stepping stone, I already see myself buying our first ever Mac down the line, perhaps to develop iPhone Apps. And I HATE Mac OS X !!! Starting with the insulting single button mouse, all the way to supposed “simply works” moniken, which simply isn’t true!

Here I am, torn between the “need” to enter the Cloud Computing age, and the resistance to enter the whole new Apple echo-system, via the iPhone 3G? I am not really viewing it as a Music Player, nor a Video Player, and not even a Phone! I mean gosh, every $0 phone can do these things today!

It’s the REAL BROWSER and the Application Platform, and of course the big screen, these are the exciting things! So friends, family, readers, and just Apple haters, join in and Save Me by commenting below.

Better yet, Microsofties, come and comment and tell me why are you missing the party! Help save me and perhaps thousands others from switching over to the “other-side”. Please, only something that really coming, and no insulting references to limited devices. I have looked at technologically impressive Samsung Omnia, but no USA carrier picked it up, nor there is any serious Browsing or Java features promised! And where is the amazing Android mobile OS from Google? It is also promising, but a huge challenge. Thus far I hear more delays are on the way, not good… Heck, even the mythical Zune Phone (Yea, I know it’s coming, no secrets from me!), with gaming, video and audio, is still unconvincing! Why? Because they will “forget” the Real Browser, and Apps platform, especially if they rush it out in less than a year…

Save Me……!!!!

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• The Fifth Element - one of my most favorite movies of all time! Adventure and Sci-Fi comes together in perfect Art Form.
• Jerry Maguire - Call it Love Story, call it Business Primer or just call it - Classic
• Titan A.E. - Excellent animated feature, another fun Sci-Fi adventure
• Underworld: Evolution - movie is available, maybe they are starting a trend and will keep adding movies
• Men in Black - There is no such thing as “Too Much Sci-Fi”!!
• Requiem for a Dream - Powerful and Moving experience, very well directed. Sit down your teenager in front of this one, for best Anti-Drug message available anywhere.
• Ghostbusters - Need I say more?
• The Girl Next Door - What!!? I am a Guy, right? Besides, it’s funny, sometimes!

I had no idea they offered full length movies, and it was especially pleasant to see these new favorites alongside old classics. There was even something for kids, but I’ll just let you browse the entire collection for yourselves:

Hulu Full Length Movies Collection - Enjoy!

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Our exciting new features are…… well, there aren’t many new features actually. The big change is that I scrapped Categories completely, in favor of Tag Cloud based approach. Now, under each Post title are relevant Tags instead.

The 10 minute upgrade took most of the day. Considering I was still on 2.3 or so, issues were expected, but this image upload issue exceeded all my expectations. Here’s the timeline:

1. A lot of time was spent reviewing the many Plug-Ins that my site uses or even In-Active ones. I had to decide what to remove forever, and for others I was making sure there isn’t a newer version available that should minimize my chances of incompatibilities.
2. Upload of new WordPress.org PHP and related files, was rather painless. Don’t forget to review additions to wp-config.php in root directory, it needs to be kept, but it has to have additions, and 2.6 had 3 more parameters than my older config.
3. Upgrade of DB itself was easy, don’t forget to backup database before the move!
4. I quickly found that my Categories got all messed up. In-fact they were there, but without any names. I think it is a result of my having one category with single quote in it (O’Rly). At first I picked up database backup, found what used to be in wp-category table and applied the category names onto records.
5. But that was only half the story, since I used Simple Tags plug-in in the past, I was trying to figure out how to move from those old Tags into the new world. Well, apparently there is a nifty embedded tags importer, thanks to simple tip in FAQ.
6. Once All Tags from old posts were imported/converted and such, I setup a Tag cloud Widget on my sidebar, and made minor change to my Theme to show Tags under posts, instead of Categories.

At this point I was sure that Upgrade is done, and I decided to celebrate the success by posting something. Funny thing, the Draft uploaded just fine through my Windows Live Writer, which I often use, but the final Post didn’t want to go up. Kept failing.

Took me a couple of back and forth to realize that the difference isn’t "Draft’ to "Publish", the difference is the fact that I added image, as I often do towards the end of post creation.

Well, long story short, many hours of investigation, logs review, forums checking, later, it looks like there is a freshly minted WordPress bug. Seems that whatever fancy technology generates Thumbnails for uploaded images, is hard-wired to default to /wp-content/uploads directory. Granted that many blogs have their images there, but mine are elsewhere!!

Hopefully this is just a small thing that Matt and Co can work out quickly. So just wait until inevitable 2.6.1 version, like I should have…

Meanwhile, I decided to spice things up just a little bit to celebrate the Upgrade. Presenting Virtual Chat Room, where you can interact with me and/or other visitors of this blog. I know I am not much of an interior decorator, but I will try to improve in the future! Meanwhile, visit the new Chat page and Suggestions Welcome!

PS: Note how there are no images on this post ;-)  Nor can I figure out how to add Tags from Live Writer… As my daughter brilliantly noted: "I thought Upgrade was supposed to improve things, not break them!"

UPDATE: I can not explain it, but today I changed my upload directory back to just say uploads, and it works fine, at least from Online uploader. Perhaps I did something wrong on Sunday, but first, I shall try the live writer next, to confirm that it uploads from there!

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Over the years I have been collecting the light bulbs, planning to drive to an official recycling center, but there wasn’t one anywhere near us! About half a year ago, while shopping in our local Home Depot, I noticed their employees carelessly dropping several large fluorescent tubes into big trash can at the end of the store. Needlessly say I wasn’t happy. I asked them about recycling, and the manager asked WHAT? WHY? She had no clue, so I called corporate number and explained my concern.

I probably wasn’t the first, and recently Home Depot announced official Recycling Program! I have collected quiet a lot of bulbs over the years (staring at the box full of about 20), so I am happy to finally get rid of them, in environmentally friendly way.

Oh, and I may stop by AT&T store, which is right next door, and pick up an iPhone 3G. More on that later! And I am thinking of upgrading my blog this weekend to 2.6 Wordpress, it’s about time. Ah, plans plans.

In other random happenings, I installed Ubuntu 8.04 about a week ago, and I plan to post on that also, including super simple install instructions, soon.

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