Therefore, It’s Perfect!

How Old Do I Look

Have you seen Microsoft’s “How Old Do I Look?” site? It’s a fun toy, but with a business purpose.

Part of Microsoft Project Oxford, Face APIs provide state-of-the-art algorithms to process face images, like face detection with gender and age prediction, recognition, alignment and other application level features.

The horse is already out of the barn on this extension of technology. Walk in front of a camera and it’s likely you can be identified. Often times you are identified. No permission asked or needed.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is trying to tweak its carnival like ability to guess your age. I tried a few times. All were well below my chronological number (but above my level of maturity).

If Microsoft is going to flatter me by lying about my age, I’m not going to argue. Therefore, it’s perfect! Case closed.

How Old Do I Look

Ballmer? Really?

The NBA gets another schmuck as an owner. I see Ballmer behind Microsoft’s failure to innovate over the past few years. Even worse, I see his mean spirited imprint on most everything Microsoft has done.

Steve BallmerIt looks like the Clippers will go quickly. Published reports says Steve Ballmer, who recently left as CEO of Microsoft after seeing the writing on the wall, will pay $2,000,000,000. That’s an impressive number. Now I understand why Windows costs so much.

Donald Sterling, disgraced current owner, gets to laugh all the way to the bank. The value of his team seems to have doubled over the past few weeks. He can buy new friends.

The NBA gets another schmuck as an owner. I see Ballmer behind Microsoft’s failure to innovate over the past few years. Even worse, his mean spirited imprint is on most everything Microsoft has done recently.

But let me allow Steve to speak for himself. On the iPhone:

“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”

Of Google’s Eric Schmidt:

“F**king Eric Schmidt is a f**king pussy. I’m going to f**king bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to f**king kill Google.”

On Apple’s Macbooks:

“Apple gained about one point, but now I think the tide has really turned back the other direction.”

And, on business in general:

“That doesn’t mean nobody else ever thought about it, but ‘How do you make money?’ was what I got hired to do. I’ve always thought that way.”

After a friend posted this sale on Twitter, I replied, “Until Sterling, he was my most despised CEO.”

Good luck to all of us.

The Bing Commercial

The Bing commercial just aired. It’s the one with a blind Internet search ‘taste test’ between Bing and Google. Bing wins.

Duh. They’re paying for the ad.

Funny thing, unbiased reviews also show Bing produces more search satisfaction. So why am I not using Bing?

I don’t trust Microsoft.

Yes, without Microsoft personal computing as we know it would not exist. I am grateful. They still can’t be trusted.

The first hint was Micrsoft’s attitude toward content owners as shown in Vista. End users could no longer record the audio playing through their computer. They shut down a feature which had been available to Windows users and which could be used legally. My uses are legal.

Anti-consumer move.

Microsoft is the current owner of Skype. Until Microsoft bought Skype your conversations and video chats were heavily encrypted and protected. Microsoft changed how Skype communicates and no longer makes a claim for security.

Then there’s Microsoft’s method of selling its office suite to governments considering a switch to Linux. FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) spread by Microsoft dominates the geek press coverage. Scare tactics.

And Steve Balmer.

So, even if Bing is pretty good and Google is no longer a saint, I’d still rather not send my business to Redmond. It took a long time to develop this attitude (theirs and mine). It won’t go away overnight.

Las Vegas Boulevard After Dark – Panorama

This is a 360&#176 panorama consisting of sixty separate images and put together in Microsoft ICE. I took this standing on the curb at the North Entrance to The Mirage on Las Vegas Boulevard.

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Entrance To The SW Steakhouse At Wynn Las Vegas

This is a 28 shot panorama which covers nearly 180&#176 horizontally and 140&#176 vertically. It was shot in Canon RAW and then assembled in Microsoft ICE. Finishing touches (sharpening, levels) were added in Photoshop. This is a very small sample of the actual image.

entryway-to-SW-Steakhouse.jpg

Expertise Is Underrated

Expertise is underrated!

This comes directly from “Clients from Hell.”

Prospective client: $400 for a logo?! Why are you so expensive? My nephew has Photoshop—I can just get him to do it.

Me: Does your nephew have Microsoft Word?

Prospective client: Yes.

Me: Then have him write you a novel while he’s at it.

Expertise is underrated!

About The Big Bing Rumor

How is this not restraint of trade?

Briefly–I’ve seen lots of posts suggesting Microsoft’s Bing might pay News Corp (Rupert Murdoch) to let them index News Corp sites with the proviso they don’t allow Google to do the same.

How is this not restraint of trade?

Old Laptop – Fresh Install

Yeah, that’s right. A totally virgin install of Vista didn’t properly update using Microsoft’s own tools! Seriously. That’s disgraceful.

I am typing on a 2&#189 year old Dell 640m laptop. Like most computers it has slowed over time. It’s not wearing out. It’s the victim of dozens of instances of poor or sloppy programming! It can be fixed–in fact it has been fixed.

Unfortunately, installing programs in a Windows computer is not as simple as it would seem. Windows (all versions of Windows) depend on a “registry.” Here’s how PCMag.com defines it:

The configuration database in all 32-bit versions of Windows that contains settings for the hardware and software in the PC it is installed in. The Registry is made up of the SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT files. Many settings previously stored in the WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files in 16-bit Windows (Windows 3.x) are in the Registry.

Over time the registry gets bloated and full of orphan files.

On top of that some programs are just not as nice as they seem! They can take up resources even when you’re not using them!

Most computers also end up with a few handfuls of ‘helper programs.’ These are little applets that run all the time checking of the master program needs updating. They each use a little memory and processor power though they’re seldom really needed.

I might as well point a finger at myself too. Over time I’ve been a software slut installing lots of programs and never uninstalling them when I stopped using them.

Anyway, long story short, I decided it was time. Dell nicely dedicates a portion of the original hard drive to an image of the factory fresh install. I backed up the files I figured I’d need, rebooted and started the journey.

The actual Windows Vista Business re-install didn’t take long. What was tedious was going to Windows Update to get all the patches and fixes–nearly 100. The process was slow and the progress was poorly conveyed by Vista. I often wondered if anything was happening. Some patches wouldn’t even install!

Yeah, that’s right. A totally virgin install of Vista didn’t properly update using Microsoft’s own tools! Seriously. That’s disgraceful.

Dell’s not much better. Their support area has many patches listed for the programs in this machine. Unfortunately, their links lead to an error message indicating the patches aren’t there!

I’ll wait a day before contacting Dell. This seems like the kind of problem they’ll quickly find on their own. Right Dell?

I was surprised by how little of my stuff was on this machine. My photos get pushed to a backup drive. Most of my documents live ‘in the cloud’ on a Google server somewhere.

Vista features the Aero interface with translucent windows on screen. When I first got this machine I turned it off. I originally thought it was a resource hog. It’s on right now because I’m no longer sure shutting it down really does make a difference.

Mostly Aero is eye candy–and not particularly Earth shattering.

I really won’t know this machine’s true state until I start editing photos. My RAW photos from the Canon Xsi weigh in at 16Mb per shot (approximately). Photo editing and manipulation is really heavyweight math. That’s the true test. If the machine performs as it did all this work will have been for nothing–and that’s a real possibility.

My best guess is the job’s around 75% done. There are more programs to load.

At some point I expect I’ll realize something I need no longer exists–inadvertently left off the backup. Hopefully nothing too important.

Microsoft’s Greatest Gift

I also thought you could close your eyes briefly followed by some God-driven dissolve. Poof, you’d be in the future.

system-restore.png

Microsoft has this really great idea which most computer users don’t know about–System Restore.

Basically with System Restore you reset you computer so it’s just as it was on an earlier date and time. It’s especially useful when you’ve installed something and there’s a problem or you’ve installed something you really don’t want to use.

We need this in real life!

There are so many times I’d just want another shot at saying the right thing with perfect timing or preventing myself from being a dork. I’d like the entire month of June 1972 as a do over. Whatever the reason they stopped calling me at GMA–I’d fix that too.

I we could do a System Restore on life we could undo email&#185. Message Unsent! Wouldn’t that come in handy?

When I was a kid I really thought this kind of stuff should bepossible. Of course I also thought you could close your eyes briefly and instantly experience a God-driven dissolve. Poof, you’d be in the future. A fast forward button for life&#178.

Adapting System Restore for humans might be Microsoft’s greatest gift ever. If it were open source it would be ported to reality already.

&#185 – I write angry, pissy emails all the time. When finished I go back and edit, tightening things up to make my prose more powerful. Then I delete it.

You get 90% of the pleasure without any of the morning after guilt.

&#178 – More desirable at 9 than 59.

Google Changes Everything With The New Google Chrome OS

Price out Windows Vista (or soon-to-come Windows 7) or Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard and see how they stack up against free! Google’s new OS will be open source which means free.

A little after midnight Google made a startling announcement. Late next year Google will roll out an operating system–Google Chrome.

Price out Windows Vista (or soon-to-come Windows 7) or Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard and see how they stack up against free! Google’s new OS will be open source which means free.

Some of you reading this are more technophobe than technophile so here’s a quick explanation. An operating system connects the programs you run with the underlying hardware that is your computer. Different operating systems interface with programs differently. Software must be written or rewritten for each OS. That is why my Mac friends kvetch so often about applications they want not being available for their machine.

Google’s OS promises to untie applications from a specific OS.

The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

Actually there are lots of promises starting with security and speed.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

This is a huge announcement. Microsoft and Apple stock will plunge this morning. As of now their business plans are suspect.

It’s more than just a tech thing. This is a seminal moment in the history of communications, computing and media.

A Very Large Panorama

Before the sec was up I’d taken 37 photos each overlapping the previous one.

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Helaine and I were walking on Las Vegas Boulevard when I asked her to wait “a sec” while I took a few shots. We were in front of the Mirage Hotel. Before the sec was up I’d taken 37 photos each overlapping the previous one.

I ran the shots through Microsoft’s free Image Composite Editor to create a panorama and output the file in their Deep Zoom format. Here’s the result&#185!

The deeper you zoom, the more detail you see.

Because of the technology behind this there is very little delay and zooming into this immense image is smooth as can be.

I don’t often ask for them, but your comments on this ‘trick’ are encouraged.

&#185 – Microsoft Silverlight (which you might already have installed) is required.

What Encarta’s Death Taught Me About Microsoft’s Search

I know Microsoft is once again trying to go after Google. Nothing useful in search will come from Redmond until they figure out how to index their own website efficiently. Right now they can’t.

I published an entry on Appscout.com tonight about the demise of Microsoft’s Encarta. I’d read about it on another site, but that’s not an acceptable way to source the story.

I went to Microsoft’s site and tried to ferret out the official information. Zip! I finally found it on Microsoft.com through a link on Wikipedia.

I know Microsoft is once again trying to go after Google. Nothing useful in search will come from Redmond until they figure out how to index their own website efficiently. Right now they can’t.

I’d Like To Program

I dabble with computers. I can take them apart and put them back together. I write code–not a lot. Not very well. I can rewrite other people’s code in languages I hardly know. I wish I knew more.

Specifically, I wish I knew more about PHP and MySQL. I’d like to write in those languages. They’re a powerful combo.

This is a good time for a quick lesson about the web and it’ll be pretty geeky. I’ll understand if you stop reading here.

If you’ve never written a computer program you should know there are lots of computer languages. Most are optimized for a specific task. All the languages are distinct but they are similar.

The underlying programming language on the Internet is HTML–hypertext markup language.

You can create HTML using PHP, another language. The reason you use PHP to create HTML is because PHP is built for databases. Using databases you can insert fresh information into otherwise static webpages.

Think of sites you know that always look the same even though their content is always changing–this one for instance. Most likely PHP (or Microsoft’s equivalent) is working behind-the-scenes to insert the data into pre-ordained slots.

MySQL is a database program. I’m not 100% on the licensing but it’s basically “free to use and modify” software and it’s running some huge websites.

If I knew MySQL and PHP I could develop websites. I’d like to do that. Scratch building websites is a design process not unlike architecture or writing a book. It’s a creative process which appeals to me.

There are online tutorials, but I haven’t found anything yet that is well taught and at the right pace. Distance learning is not for the faint of heart nor the uncommitted.

From Your Christmas Doofus

The weather here is awful. We’ve been warming for 15 or 16 hours, it’s raining and there’s slushy snow everywhere. Rain de-fluffs snow!

santa-hat.jpgI follow “PhotoJeff” on Twitter. Jeff, whom I don’t know, is with Microsoft. He just wrote:

“PhotoJeff: …here’s a holiday fashion tip for men. Stop wearing the Santa hats! They look cute on girls and women, but make you look like a doofus…”

Great–like I’m not already guilt ridden. I’m wearing the hat on TV today anyway. Jeff lives in Seattle. He won’t see it.

I used to wince “tracking Santa” with the NORAD animations. Who knows why, but a few years ago it started seeming like more fun and I’ve embraced it. So tonight, in my doofus hat, I’ll be tracking Santa.

I’ve had parents tell me how their kids enjoy the Santa tracking, but the happiest of all are our producers who are working with a skeleton staff and happy to get a full serving of “Newscast Helper!”

The weather here is awful. We’ve been warming for 15 or 16 hours, it’s raining and there’s slushy snow everywhere. Rain de-fluffs snow!

On top of that, last night’s performance from Darlene Love was a disappointment. It wasn’t Darlene as much as it was HDTV! What always seemed like a huge and glittery production on Letterman looked more like a high school pageant on the wider and more highly resolved LCD screen. The studio looked old and worn. Then the show ran long, meaning my recordings (yeah–two) were snipped at the very end.

I’m sure my mood will brighten later. The folks who work Christmas are always in a good mood. Honest. I’m not sure how that works, but they are.

Merry Christmas. Happy Chanukah.

Another Way To See Pictures

It associates photos with one another so that if two pictures overlap, it will place them correctly spatially and you can move from one to another.

I’ve been playing around with Microsoft’s Photosynth. It associates photos with one another so that if two pictures overlap, it will place them correctly spatially and you can move from one to another.

You can share or relive a vacation destination or explore a distant museum or landmark. With nothing more than a digital camera and some inspiration, you can use Photosynth to transform regular digital photos into a three-dimensional, 360-degree experience. Anybody who sees your synth is put right in your shoes, sharing in your experience, with detail, clarity and scope impossible to achieve in conventional photos or videos.

Synths constitute an entirely new visual medium. Photosynth analyzes each photo for similarities to the others, and uses that data to build a model of where the photos were taken. It then re-creates the environment and uses that as a canvas on which to display the photos.

My synth is a bunch of photos from the Las Vegas Strip. You probably need to download a plug-in from Microsoft–so whether you view this or not is your call. It is pretty cool.

If this thing bugs you incessantly to download the plug-in (I won’t know because I already have it installed), please let me know and I’ll move the synth itself to another page.