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I just couldn’t resist the title, it’s just too funny. But on a serious note, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform is in serious trouble. Rumors flamed up again about Microsoft making their own MS branded hardware device, presumably with Zune functionality built in.

In my opinion Microsoft really can’t blame the OEM’s this time (like they tried with the Media Player Plays-for-sure fiasco) and “Come Out with their own Phone-Done-Right device”. I think OEM’s tried as hard as they could, over the last few years, to Make Windows Mobile Work. They developed their own additions and enhancements to the Windows Mobile, trying desperately to “prop-up” the ailing platform. But, no luck thus far – Today I can’t recommend any of the Windows Mobile smartphones, after experiencing the iPhone and RIM’s offerings…

I think it is really a combination of issues, from the slow display drivers/response (bad for UI overall, especially video and navigation), to seriously lacking Internet browser (where is their Deepfish?). But the biggest issue of all, ironically, is their openness, allowing problematic plugins (that consume CPU and Memory) to run on the Phone’s front page and allowing the many programs to run in the background, slowing phone down to a crawl. I say Ironically, because this is the biggest thing that iPhone disallows – only single running application and very controlled “3rd party software”. Of course it is also biggest complaint about the iPhone, since we can’t have our “gTalk” running in the background for people to reach us, which seriously cripples the usefulness of the whole “Unlimited Data Plan”.

Meanwhile, Android to the Rescue! Yea, more on that to come, stay tuned!

I think as any responsible techie, I downloaded both 32 Bit and 64 Bit editions of Windows 7 beta, the first day it came out (naturally). Got 2 keys also (one for each edition).

Shortly thereafter I installed 32 Bit version, on 2 very different computers. One was old Athlon 64 processor, 1gb ram, barely alive computer that my daughter insists that she still likes. The other was good Quad Core system. The new optimizations really shine, as old Athlon 64 computer felt as snappy as the new shiny quad core system! My daughter loves it now, and discovered several favorite features already, like that rotating desktop wallpaper (kitties galore!) and the sticky notes on the desktop. Most software she tried so far, worked properly and performed very well! We hit few minor bugs, but it’s beta after all, so we promptly reported them.

In light of this positive experience, I finally got the courage to install 64 Bit version of Win 7 on my Primary computer with 4gb of Ram, as dual boot, of course. However, most strange thing happened, sad thing, annoying thing or even Disturbing thing.

DVD with 64 Bit Windows 7 booted fine, though seem to take longer to reach first screen than I remembered on other installations. And from there, it only got worse. Win 7 Setup took 10 or 15 minutes between each “installation” step, and on screens where I had to type something, I would press a button and see it reflected on screen only 20 seconds later.

7 Hours later, it was still on First install step!!! Though, it wasn’t stuck, you could see percentages going up, I think it was as high as 80% by then, so I left it running overnight.

In the morning, the whole computer was completely “Off”, for whatever reason. Trying to boot into Win 7 (which now appeared on dual-boot menu), did nothing, just black screen. Safe startup mode was no help, hanging at some driver that didn’t seem related to my hardware…

I didn’t give up, wiped that partition and tried again… After second time, I gave up.

Strangest thing is that I don’t even know how to report this to MS. They have crashes and Feedback reported from within Windows 7, everywhere. But what if it is a case like mine, where Installer doesn’t even work?! I wonder if there is some log somewhere.

Another strange thing is that Windows Vista and Ubuntu work flawlessly on that same computer. Go figure…

But, it’s beta, so I am not holding it against folks at Redmond. I’ll keep trying to figure out how to submit a Setup log or something like it, in hopes that they will find time to analyze this issue.

Final words on Windows 7 – I think it is critical that in these hard times Microsoft prices Windows 7 properly. It should be cheaper, have LESS “editions” and allow for multi-PC license for home (like Mac does!).

Yep, I am talking about New York Stock Exchange Computer System here! Actually, I am not laying any blame, but Google Finance and MSN Money both show a quote of 28.67 for AMD (NYSE:AMD), which translates into an increase of 946% – Overnight!! Meanwhile, Yahoo Finance is still correct!

Actually, on the NYSE web site itself the quote seems correct, but looks like whatever feeding many other systems is messed up! And this is not the only quote, I found many others to be strange and incorrect!!! Some showing down 95% overnight, others up, and so forth, all over the place. Not clear if those prices are something from history of few years back, or just random glitch…

Makes you wonder, how safe is our financial system? Hopefully this is no hacker, but just a small bug, we all know those happen, and fortunately today is not a trading day!

UPDATE: OMG!!! While I was typing, it already got fixed! KUDOS (though we are still worried)! I have Photographic Evidence above! I checked several others that were broken, they appear fine also now… Hmmm…

UPDATE2: For proof that I am not crazy, look closely at Google intra-day chart (comes up by default, or click on 5d). Look at Jan 10, it shows some fluctuations of AMD stock (for example) with stock in $26 range, and moving in price – STRANGE!

I use my Zune 30GB daily, but not today, thus far. I was afraid to even try today, but decided it is important to, for you, readers. So, found my Zune also Dead this morning, though it was fine last night. It’s hung now, during boot-up, so doesn’t boot… As I learned on the Net this morning, some bug associated with Dec 31st caused all original 30Gb models to fail.

These devices are firmware upgradable, so lets see how fast can Microsoft not only identify the issue, but actually issue a tested patch for us, poor folks.

Another interesting thing is how fast they heard about it, via the Blogosphere. I am sure people called in Customer Service also, but those Reps on the phone are paid to “repeat the standard troubleshooting procedures”, and no more. As most CS centers go, they are actually encouraged to never escalate issues, so I would be surprised if they, even after hearing so many people call, managed to get the note out to Zune Dev Team that “something was Up”. I will update this post as things develop.

[via Zune Insider] [also via ars technica]

UPDATE: After I read earlier that Apple’s Macs are ready for special “leap-second” year, I thought — probably Zune is affected by that. Well, we now have confirmation from Zune team , and it looks like tomorrow my Zune should be back to normal! I’ll update this post again tomorrow.

UPDATE2: Welcome to 2009, Happy New Year! Quick update – Zune battery ran out yesterday, as planned. This morning I charged it from computer, and it’s back to Life! Working fine, as promised! Hope none of you rushed to break your Zune or do anything crazy to get to battery.

EDITORS NOTE: I used a little-known hack in WordPress 3.1 to actually adjust a time stamp of this post, originally posted December 24, 2009 – to timewarp into December 2008. Enjoy!

Wow, so  much has happened this past year, that I find it virtually impossible to even try and predict next year. But, I guess it’s somewhat of a tradition on this blog, so I will give it a go:

• Since this is the great year when Gaming finally “took off”, I want to start things by reflecting on PlayStation 3 (R.I.P). Most people say that the introduction of Nintendo’s Wii HD is what killed it, but I felt the troubles brew right from the start, with their strange bet on now-dying Blu-ray format, and the problematic design of Cell CPU. Ironically, the competition now finally ripping the big rewards, especially from offering all those Excellent and Free Ad-Supported games this holiday season.
• Speaking of home entertainment – I believe Microsoft should put even more focus there. After taking such a big beating this year with the dramatic decline of Office and Windows market share, they really need to push their new Microsoft Home product, and get more builders signed up to having homes come with Windows preinstalled. Yea “Your Home with Windows!” would have been such a great pun, shame their silly marketing named it “Microsoft Home – Ultimate Edition”, instead of plain “Windows”. Their Entertainment unit is already the most profitable in the company, keeping the whole thing “afloat”, so it’s only natural…
• The Operating System wars are only likely to intensify in 2010. The introduction of Google OS this year, especially with it running so many Windows Apps faster than Windows, changed so much. I predict that in addition to further growing their already dominant market share on the ever so popular Netbooks, Google will finally build and market their custom business Client appliance (aka: PC). iNetBook (seriously Apple, creativity much!?) is a serious contender here, but their insistence on charging premium even over Windows 7 netbooks, is keeping their market-share still around 35%.
• I am still shocked and saddened by the recent demise of nVidia, as are many of you, I am sure. It’s a shame too, I always loved their products. So the big question now remains whether AMD can survive and even thrive, just on their excellent line of embedded chipsets for Netbooks, with those amazing 3D capabilities. Intel’s offering is finally on-par, now that they woke up to the importance of proper 3D and 2D graphic acceleration. I almost wish that AMD rename themselves to ATI, a brand that should make it easier to compete with Intel, in this great Brand war that we got now.
• Who could have predicted that Adobe would buy Sun this year, certainly not I… Or that they would so quickly release this amazing business cloud platform offering, integrating fully complete high-performance backend, with the amazing and visually appealing front-end framework? This only deepened the many troubles at Oracle, and I don’t see them coming back with anything next year either. Makes me wonder if Larry is asleep at the wheel, or just planning to abandon rapidly sinking ship soon? On a personal note, I was saddened at first to hear that Adobe chose to abandon Sun’s Java, in favor of ActionScript 5 standardization on client and server. I am a long time Java fan, but I guess I’ll have to get over it.
• In other personal news – I am still torn about exact specs of my “New Year Gift” for myself. I got my eye on that 14″ Dell beauty, the half a pound thin netbook, with desk-projected keyboard (though I will mostly use on-screen keyboard and speech input). Even though I am a Microsoft shareholder, I can’t seem to justify the “Windows 7″ premium for choosing that OS. In fact, I have a suggestion for Microsoft, why not simplify the tough choice consumers are faced when they walk into Best Buy today? Instead of them having to choose between Google OS, Mac, Windows 7 or Ubuntu, just give them “Windows 7+” option (Just don’t call it ULTIMATE!!). Beat Googlers at their own game, and pre-install the Open Source Google OS, alongside Windows 7, tightly integrating the two. That should also make it feasible to justify your price premium!
• Finally, I was as excited as many of you to hear that they are taking pre-orders on Robo-girl this holiday season. Though the thought of never cleaning, washing dishes or doing laundry again is very appealing, I found the price to be a deterrent for me. I think I’ll give it another year to mature, and for the price to come down a bit. Of course, I am afraid to ask what my wife thinks about the idea…

To conclude, I want to remind everyone the gloom and doom atmosphere of a year ago. Back in 2008 when all you heard around the holiday time was Recession, Depression, etc. Oh, how quickly we tend to forget, and how readily we spent a record 15% more year-over-year, this holiday season. Now that economy is booming, I suppose it is only natural for people to “overcompensate” for such a dismal holiday last year…

PS: More Editors Note – Kudos to Matt and the team at Automattic. This new Time-warp feature you guys put together, is really amazing. At first I tried accessing a post from 1988, just for the fun of it, but it was coming in too slow over 2400 kbps modem..

Happy Holidays and Have Fun!