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Microsoft Zune

Last night, Microsoft launched the second generation of their Zune personal media players. In all honesty, the players actually look pretty sharp although they resemble Apple’s previous generation of iPods.

The big question is whether or not anyone will actually care that there is a new version of the Zune available. In all of my travels, I have not yet run into one person who owns a Zune, and most of the people I work with are technology workers. I would have expected to see at least one of those guys with a Zune especially considering their allegiance to Microsoft’s server and development products, but that is not the case at all. I’m sure most of you can guess which player they have. That’s right; it’s an iPod! Even with people that usually swear by Windows and Microsoft’s other products, they turn to Apple for their music and video playing pleasure.

Engadget did a nice side by side comparison of the Zune and iPod, and on the surface, the Zune has a wider feature set, but they left out one very important specification. They left out the cool factor. Apple has created an aura of cool around their products like no other company in history. When it comes to cool, it is very difficult for a company to compete with Apple, and in the media player business, cool matters. People don’t want to walk around or ride a train or plane with some lame piece of hardware. What would people think? They want the coolest thing on the market, and right now, that is the iPod.

I am glad to see Microsoft is introducing new Zunes because it will push Apple to make their products even better, but I’m afraid that the poor old Zune will be an afterthought before it even gets started.

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My good friend, Scott Driza, announced a new venture yesterday called TheMortgageMess.com. The company’s products aim to help borrowers with risky loans avoid foreclosure and keep their homes. With the credit market the way it is right now, it is good to see legal and mortgage experts get together to help borrowers.

TheMortgageMess.com’s main products are state-specific Mortgage Success Kits and a Hardcore Credit Repair Kit. I think these products will be especially helpful for borrowers in states like California where it is almost impossible for a normal person to purchase a home without getting an interest-only or other unconventional loan.

I would like to wish Scott and his partners good luck in their exciting new venture. If you find yourself with a mortgage you cannot afford because of rate or payment changes, it may be worth your time to check out TheMortgageMess.com to see if they can help.

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I read on TUAW last week that the next version of Mac OS X will come very close to making my Power Mac G4 a vintage machine. It seems the minimum system requirements for Mac OS X Leopard will call for at least an 800 MHz G4 processor. If not for all of the upgrades I’ve done over the years, my poor old 400 MHz Sawtooth would have been history a long time ago. I mean, really, it’s almost eight years old! Right now, I’m running a 1.4 GHz G4 processor and an upgraded video card. I also have 1.5 GB of RAM so I should be in okay shape. It should be interesting to see if my Mac chokes on Leopard. It runs Tiger like a champ so I have high hopes.

I have resigned myself to the fact that this will probably be the last Mac OS upgrade for this computer. I have heard rumors that the next version will only support Intel-based Macs, but I find that difficult to believe with all of those G5 Macs out there. I do suspect that G4s may be put out to pasture. My Power Mac has served me incredibly well over the last eight years, and I’m sure I will be just as happy with our next Mac, but it will be sad to see it go. With its four hard drive bays, it will probably continue to be used as a media server, but we’ll see how that goes when the time comes. I wonder what Macs will be like by the time the next version of Mac OS X comes out. I have to admit, it will be fun to have a nice new machine around the house. You can’t beat that new computer smell! 🙂

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Not long ago, I wrote about the downfall of my favorite magazine. This afternoon, I went out to the mailbox and found my copy of the last edition of Business 2.0. The magazine was wrapped in a plain white cover with a thoughtful little note from Time notifying me that Business 2.o was no more and that I would be receiving Fortune going forward. The note didn’t stop there, however. Not only would I not be receiving my favorite magazine anymore, I would be receiving one month of Fortune for every two months remaining on my Business 2.0 subscription.

I don’t know about any of you out there, but this just doesn’t add up to me. Why in the world would Time think it was a good idea to unilaterally decide that their golden child magazine was some how worth twice as much as one of their other magazines. The big problem for me is that Fortune is worth nothing to me. There is a reason I read Business 2.0 instead of Fortune, and telling me that I will be losing half of my subscription months and be getting a magazine I don’t even like to read is like rubbing salt in the wound.

Now, I understand that a lot of the old Business 2.0 team will be moving over to Fortune so I’m going to give them a chance, but you can bet that they’ll be hearing from me about the little stunt they just pulled. There should be a one to one conversion from Business 2.0 to Fortune. That is really the only fair thing that Time can do for its loyal paying subscribers.

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Microsoft Office 2008Earlier this week, Microsoft announced versions and pricing for Office 2008 for Mac. According to TUAW, there will be three different versions to chose from: Microsoft Office 2008 for the Mac for $399.95, Microsoft Office for the Mac Home and Student Edition for $149.95, and Microsoft Office for Mac Special Media Edition for $499.95. Other than the Home and Student Edition, consumers will get a break on the price if they are upgrading from a previous version.

Professionals will most likely need to go with the standard or Special Media Edition in order to get Exchange support, but home users will be well served by the Home and Student Edition. This edition will compete directly with Apple’s iWork and free services from Google including Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs. Home and student users will need to really take some time to determine if they can live with only being able to work with these products online. If they can, they may be able to save $150 and use Google’s services instead. If they need to be able to work offline, Apple’s iWork may be an option. The suite is maturing, and it now has all of the same applications that are included in Office other than Entourage, and Entourage can easily be replaced by the Mail, Address Book, and iCal applications included on every Macintosh.

With Apple’s and Google’s applications available to home and student users, Microsoft will have a very difficult time convincing these users that they need to upgrade to the latest and greatest version of Office. I, for one, will not be running out and buying Office this time around. It just doesn’t make sense for me to spend money on a productivity suite from Microsoft when there are cheaper or free alternatives.

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Amazon MP3

It looks like Apple’s iTunes Store finally has some competition. As has been rumored for some time now, Amazon has released a beta version of Amazon MP3 to the public. Amazon MP3 sells their music in MP3 format using either a 256 kbps variable bit rate or a 256 kbps constant bit rate. According to GigaOM, songs sell for either $0.89 or $0.99, and albums sell for between $5.99 and $9.99. The iTunes Store has DRM free AAC files at 256 kbps, but they cost $1.29 per song. Most of the albums still cost $9.99.

Amazon has a slight advantage as far as price is concerned if you can find the music you want to buy. The selection is still skimpy compared to the iTunes Store, but I’m sure this will change soon enough. I’ve also never been a big fan of how Amazon displays its product information, but it’s not bad enough to turn me away from shopping with them. Apple definitely has the ease of use advantage over Amazon MP3 because everything is contained in the iTunes software although Amazon provides the Amazon MP3 Downloader that will automatically add purchased files to your iTunes library.

Based on the beta version of the store, Amazon has a very promising product here. Apple will soon find themselves with some work to do to either either lower their prices to match Amazon or prove to consumers why they should pay a $0.30 or $0.40 premium for the DRM free songs. Apple, it’s your move.

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Cubs Win!The Magic Number just dropped to zero! With a big shutout win by Big Z over the Reds and with Greg Maddux and the Padres beating the Brewers, the Cubs are officially headed to the playoffs for the first time since 2003. It’s been so hard to get excited about the post season with all of the division lead changes lately, but it’s finally over. Now I can finally grow back my nails and start dreaming of a Cubs-Red Sox World Series!

It’s been a wild ride this summer, and I’m so happy that the Cubbies stuck with it and kept fighting all season long. It’s going to be awesome walking around Saint Louis with my Cubs hat on with pride. You wouldn’t believe the dirty looks I’ve gotten wearing that hat around here. I can’t wait to see what these goof ball Cardinals fans have to say now.

Go Cubs!

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You may have heard by now that Microsoft is offering downgrades to Windows XP for people that bought PCs with Windows Vista installed. For business users and professionals that use applications that have not yet been updated to work with Vista, this is a very good thing. I can’t imagine that large enterprises are even thinking about migrating to Vista yet, though. All of the large corporations that I have worked with so far are very risk averse, and they do not usually migrate to new versions of software until at least one service pack has been released. In some cases, it takes two service packs to make them feel comfortable about going through a huge migration project.

In the case of home users, I’m not sure I see the need to go through the trouble of downgrading. My wife and I have had a Windows Vista PC pretty much since Vista was released, and it has been reliable for the most part. It runs pretty quickly which is to be expected from a Core 2 Duo processor, a ton of RAM, and a good graphics card. I suppose if the machine was running XP, it would really fly, but we’ll stick with what we have.

I do have to add a caveat to this post. When the beta of Mac OS X came out, I installed it right away on my Power Mac G4, and I never went back to OS 9. I guess I’m trying to say I don’t mind going through a few growing pains. For the record, Windows Vista is a lot more ready for prime time than Mac OS X was when it first came out. Of course, Windows Vista is not a complete rewrite like OS X was so I can see why people expected more from Microsoft.

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Like a lot of you out there, I have been using news readers like My Yahoo!, iGoogle, NewsGator, and most recently Google Reader to keep track of all of the news and information that is important to me. Instead of jumping to forty or more sites each day, I can go to one place and read all of the latest updates. If I choose to, I can jump to the sites to read specific stories to make comments.

One thing that drives me absolutely crazy is when a publisher only includes the title of an article in their feed. This does me no good whatsoever, and it is very annoying. A title is not enough information for me to decide if I have any interest in reading an article, and I cannot be the only person that feels this way.

Publishers need to provide at the very minimum a summary of every article in their feed. My preference is that the feeds to which I subscribe include the full text of each article. For publishers that are concerned about losing advertising opportunities, there are many companies that provide products to help monetize feeds including Google, FeedBurner (now part of Google), and Pheedo. Providing the full text of articles provides a better experience for news consumers, and I suggest that all publishers change their feeds to include full text. Just give me the full story, please.

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I have been keeping track of WPDesigner.com for some time now. The first thing that got my attention was the high quality themes that Small Potato produces. In fact, this blog uses one of his themes, Pride. Recently, Small Potato started a series of posts called WWMD or Wpdesigner Weekend Must Do. The series is meant to help all of us bloggers improve our blogs one weekend at a time.

His most recent post focused on staying within your niche. I had been using categories more like tags , and I had amassed quite a long list. This got me thinking that maybe I was losing focus. I have since converted most of those categories to tags, and I feel like I have a much more focused blog. The next time I write a post, I will be reminded to keep focused on technology, music, and sports. That’s not to say I won’t write about other topics from time to time, but I need to get focused so all of you out there know what you can expect when reading Probstisms.

Whether or not you use WordPress for your blog, Wpdesigner.com is worth a visit. Check it out when you have a chance.