Zune come, Zune to go

So, in all the hullabaloo surrounding the premiere of the Microsoft Zune media player, just in case there haven't been enough comments about it already, I figured I'd throw in my two cents.
I got a chance to play with the good 'ol Zune last week when I went into J&R in downtown Manhattan. Like most people, I was impressed with the picture quality and ease of use of the player. So far, it has the largest screen and best resolution of all the players I've seen and physically handled, which to be quite truthful hasn't been that many.

That being said, the release of the Zune is classic Microsoft at its usual game of - It ain't ready yet, but lets get it out the door.

Potentially the one player that could have shaken the quintessential iPod from it's perch as top dog, Microsoft took a good thing and shot themselves in the foot. The player is quite clunky in size, I'm talking first generation iPod size here, maybe a lil bigger.

All that probably wouldn't be a problem if they did everything else right. The iPod is continuously successful largely in part to the ecosystem of iPod - > itunes music store and the classic plug it in and it just works philosophy. There have been numerous reports of how bad the zune software is, many from people who couldn't even get the software installed at all. Then of course the side effects of removing the software from your p.c and getting unexpected results.

What's even more terrible about this is that they've probably turned so many people gun-shy with this debacle that even if Microsoft learns from their mistake and releases a revision to the Zune next year with everything working, it wouldn't make a difference to those people.

Let's not even start on the branding, cheerfully shown on Zune.net - "Welcome to the Social". Really? that's the best they could come up with? Apple has nothing to worry about, at least not from the Zune.

There's nothing as sad as excellent potential in the wrong hands.

Behold the Vista

That's right folks, Windows Vista has gone Gold, RTM. In normal people speak, that means the code has been mixed, baked, basted, poked, prodded, iced and yes, ladies and gentlemen after all that is ready to serve - in seven flavors no less.

Look for it on your shelves on January 30, 2007

technorati tags:microsoft, windows, vista, gold, release

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Curses and Blessings

So, I've been quite busy over the past few months working on an in-house project which I will talk about soon. But part of the quagmire of nuttiness that I've been buried in has involved frameworks and wirings and structures and architechture and code and all sorts of things that are the stuff of nightmares. More to come on that btw.

As if that is not enough, it appears good 'ol Uncle Bill and his cronies are finally pushing out ie7 through microsoft update, consequently breaking sites that were otherwise carefully and thoroughly hacked to work in ie6 anyway. Thanks to their new semi-dedication to standards compliance improvement on the platform, one of the website I developed just got broken and here I am saddled with the unpleasant task to having to rewrite the layout for the site to work in ie7.

On the one hand, I'm brimming with curses. On the other hand I'm getting paid to per hour of cursing so what's the downside?

Thanks Uncle Bill. Time to get started on that list for Santa. I wonder if he knows anything about DOM, html and standards compliance.....