I can see this happening.

Facebook is the penultimate social networking site.  They have everything that Microsoft could ever want with respect to trend marketing.  As last count, Facebook has some three hundred million users, the majority of whom are already running at least one Microsoft product.  And in both counts, this number is growing everyday.

Facebook is now where most users spend their time.  Whether they are watching television, at work bored at their desk, or absent-mindedly playing with their mobile devices.  Users do not go randomly “surfing” anymore.  They would rather skip from wall to wall checking out friends of their friends, and so forth.

The creators of Facebook understand this trend only too well, and to that end I would invite you to take a closer look at Facebook Connect.  Facebook Connect is a series of API’s that allow you to login to various sites (such as X-Box Live, Hulu, JibJab, and the Gawker Media Network, among others) with your Facebook I.D.  Once logged in, users can then post information and updates from these sites to their wall and those of their friends.  They extended this feature recently by allowing users to search these sites from within the Facebook platform.

Facebook is also quietly implementing what is known as Virtual Currency.  This is literally a goldmine for them as this allows them to accelerate their extensions by putting a “Like” button with user pictures on these websites.  The concept of virtual currency is still quite new but it is clear that it can do much, much more.  As Mark Cuban writes, “your favorite website doesnt know it yet, but Facebook is in the process of annexing  it.”

The trend shift to a “for-profit” corporation is also made obvious by some of the internal changes as to how Facebook manages virtual currency.  Let us take a look at a few of them in the subsequent paragraphs.

Facebook recently has given users the ability to purchase Facebook Credits, which is their new virtual currency system.  The prices of virtual gifts last year were quietly changed from U.S. Dollars to Facebook Credits, with each credit now costing $0.10 cents.  They have now enabled Virtual Gifts, a process that allows users to give credits to one another.  From there, they expanded the virtual currency gifting program to branded virtual gifts (branded gifts are things like Caramilk chocolate bars, Harley-Davidson motorcyles, and everything in between – nothing generic).

In August of last year, Facebook took the idea of virtual currency international, opening up fourteen different international currencies.  The cost of the virtual gifts still stay the same, however.  Soon – I’m sure they’ll add more and more currencies as Facebook becomes increasingly popular with users in those countries.  They have also allowed developers into the gift shop to pawn their physical gifts as well.  So – while the gift shop was always just items from Facebook for Facebook users – now you purchase physical items with Facebook credits (such as flowers) and send them to anyone.  You can pay for them by purchasing Facebook credits on your mobile cell phone and having them billed to your number.

This is not to say that Facebook should not be allowed to make money, but the forecast of higher earnings would certainly establish their market value considerably higher than it would with lesser earnings.  To this end, the more they are worth, the more another company will have to pay to acquire them.

Now, while these changes unto themselves do not impose upon your privacy, let us switch gears for a few paragraphs.

What do you call an application that secretly installs itself on your computer without your permission or your prior acceptance?  That’s right, folks, you guessed it!  Malware.

As referenced earlier, with respect to Facebook Connect, if you visit certain sites while logged in to Facebook, an app for those sites will be quietly added to your Facebook profile. You don’t have to have a Facebook window open, you don’t need to signed in to these sites for the apps to appear, and there doesn’t appear to be an option to opt-out anywhere in Facebook’s byzantine privacy settings.  Facebook is having a very difficult time with respect to managing the privacy settings of their users, and to think that it will get worse before it gets better is not unwise.  It would therefore be good advice taken to not post anything to Facebook that you would not want to share with anyone else.

Now, let us take a look at the big three in the industry, and how they relate to Facebook.  You have Google, Apple, and Microsoft.  Of the three, which company would love to have all of our personal information, our pictures, our friends, our family members, our employers and business associates all in a database that is extending out and gathering information about what we like on sites that exist outside of Facebook?  Here’s a hint.  It’s the only company of the three that has the cash on hand to pay thirty or so billion dollars for Facebook.  Technically, they are the also the only company that does not have a successful mobile operating system.

Microsoft.

Google has Android and does not interact with its users.  Apple has the iPhone and interacts a little bit with its users.  Microsoft has a ready made desktop and mobile operating system that would work very well with the Facebook platform.  Could you imagine a hybrid Windows/Facebook mobile operating system?  I sure can.  And with all that data that Facebook has accumulated about us, what do you think the marketing wizards over at Microsoft could do with it?

Finally, let us not forget that Microsoft already owns a 2% stake in Facebook.  This in of itself gives them the inside track to any further purchase or outright takeover.  Furthermore, in that agreement, you would have to be a fool to think that Microsoft did not have some kind of right of first refusal on shares should Facebook decide to IPO themselves.

I would almost consider this a Seinfeld post…about nothing in particular…but I am curious to see the difference in speed between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0.  The specs on USB 3.0 are pretty sick.  The transfer rate is 4.8 gigabits per second, which is roughly ten times that of its successor.  USB 3.0 will also be backwards compatible with 2.0.

The reason I am curious is because I am currently formatting a hard disk drive through USB 2.0 and it is taking an absolutely ridiculous amount of time.  Hours, I’m sure.  For someone like me who is driven by speed and optimization, that is most bothersome.  Ah well, it’s a necessary evil.  You should format your drives once in awhile, because I’ve found it keeps them fresh.  A full format will likely catch any bad sectors on the drive, and that will prevent future data loss (and because most drives have five year warranties, you can send them back and get a new one).

In any event, there is nothing that I can do about it now.  Interrupting a drive while it is formatting is never a good thing, so I must wait patiently.

Perhaps I will go to bed early and get a good night’s sleep.

Yesterday, .com domain names turned 25 years old.  Happy birthday!

The first domain name ever registered was symbolics.com.  Two hundred million dot com registrations later, and the World Wide Web is as big as can be (and growing every hour).

The Internet is now a part of everyday society.  A little side project that is now the biggest thing in the world.  Here are some more dot com numbers:

There are currently around 86 million active dot com sites.

There have been 311 million dot com sites launched and deleted in the past 25 years.

Let’s see what the next 25 years bring.

Surprise!  I still like it.

People say that Windows 7 is like the Mac O/S 10.  Nope.  MacIntosh stands for Most Applications Crash, If Not The Operating System Hangs.  I can say that with an unbiased opinion as I have the unfortunate duty of working on many Macs at work.  They are, for the most part, junk.  Big ass boat anchors.  The Toronto District School Board recently voted to do away with all Macs for that reason.  They are just too expensive to support.

Windows 7 is now where its at.  It runs seamlessly, rarely (if ever) crashes, and looks good.  As for the latter part, that doesn’t bother me terribly as I keep the style down to a minimum due to the fact that I am a performance junkie.  The faster the better, and in that Windows 7 does not disappoint.

All of the programs that I have setup on my machine run flawlessly as well.  Microsoft Office 2007, Nero 7 (because v8 and up are just far too bulky and unnecessary for what I do), the Adobe Suite of products and all the various codecs I have installed all perform as they should.  Windows 7 also has a backwards compatibility mode for older products, yet I have not had to use that feature as of yet.  Colleagues of mine have, and they have not reported any known issues as of yet.

I’m sure Microsoft is breathing a heavy sigh of relief with respect to all of the positive reviews.  I do feel sorry for them because they catch a lot of shit.  Some of it, especially with respect to their business practices, is justified but much of it is not.  The company spends billions in research and development and to make a perfect product is pretty much near impossible.

With Windows 7 they took a different approach and offered up beta versions for free.  The received feedback from millions of users, including myself, on how things ran, bug reports, and how to improve things.  They took all of that feedback and what you see is the final product known as Windows 7 (ok…awkward sentencing here, but I’m just offering up a bit of praise).

I don’t really care about things like having Internet Explorer integrated or whatnot.  Some people do but it looks like you can remove it if you so desire.  There is no virus scanner but Microsoft has released one of the best ones that I have ever found.  For those needing a solid, free virus scanner, take a look at Microsoft Security Essentials.  I will post a review of it in the future.

So, to sum things up, Windows 7 is doing everything that I need it to, and it is very stable and crash proof.  I have been putting it through its paces for a couple of months now (even longer than that if you include the beta testing) and I am thrilled with it.  I highly recommend purchasing it, with the caveat that your machine has to have at the very minimum a core2duo processor and a couple of gigs of ram.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have installed the latest offering from Microsoft, Windows 7, onto my primary machine.  This machine is my most important machine, and had not been reformatted since the initial Vista installation over two years ago.  However, with the amount of software that has been installed, modified, and uninstalled, the machine was becoming slower than it should be.  I say should be due to the fact that the hardware, despite being two years old, is still cutting edge.  Thusly, I decided to take the plunge.  It bothers me to purchase an operating system for some reason (probably because I think that if you spend the money on a machine, the o/s should be free), but I would rather do that then steal it because I do not like the uncertainty of having it fail when I need it most.  I will have to purchase another copy for my laptop in the near future as well.

Prior to installation, I disconnected all the other hard drives I have in my system lest Windows trys anything funny.  Chance favors the prepared mind.  In so saying that, the Windows 7 installation was easy.  Almost too easy.  Everything was done automatically and I had to go back and make sure that everything was in there.  So far, it is quick…but there is no software on the machine yet.  Its getting there though, slowly but surely.  I have turned off all the “enhancements” because I like the classic look, and I also like to get all the speed that I can out of my computer.  The feel is very similar to Vista and there is not a hard learning curve attached to Windows 7.  In particular, one thing that stood out was the fact that all those horrid, silly, annoying pop up windows that plagued Vista have all but disappeared in Windows 7.

The networking has been streamlined and seems to run much better as well.  I’m not sure what improvements that they made from a technical standpoint – but yes, it works well and it seems like the throughput is much smoother.

One thing that has always bothered me about Windows is the file transfers.  When copying large amounts of data, Microsoft has elected to base the copy time on the number of files, rather than the total size.  For people copying a few files this is not a big deal, but I tend to move hundreds of gigabytes at a time.  It looks like they have fixed this!  Time to break out the party hats.  As an aside, the copying speed has not changed much, if at all (though you cannot expect the operating system to compensate for the speed (or lack thereof) of the hardware).

So far, Microsoft has got it right and Windows 7 could be their best effort to date with respect to an operating system.  I have no problems giving credit where credit is due, because I will also criticize when it is warranted as well.  So – good job Microsoft!

Next up is the codec installation.  I have found that the K-Lite Codec Pack is the best option.  I use the full version (there are standard, lite, and mega versions available) and I have had zero problems with it.  In fact, it has even made codecs work on machines where they previously crashed.  Included with this version is a copy of Media Player Classic.  It is a small piece of software that you can run instead of Windows Media Center.  Because the codecs are all installed properly, everything plays in this tiny little piece of software flawlessly.

After I settled on the codec installation, I installed the AVS4YOU suite of products (some of them).  I’ll give another shout out to this company as well for making an affordable suite of products – that for a small fee ($59.00) – offers lifetime upgrades.  I purchased these products two years ago and I have easily gotten full value for my hard earned dollar.  I will present a formal review of their product suite sometime in the future, but in the interim, if you do any kind of audio/video editing, ripping, or conversion, then this is where you must start.

I installed Nero 7 Burning ROM next.  While Ahead.de’s current offering is Nero 9, I have played with it and have found no discernable difference between the versions from a technical standpoint.  Version 7 simply runs quicker than the newer one.  I do not understand why the installation size changes so much from version to version.   They both do the same thing, and if version 9 does the same things as version 7, they will both run great.  Call the size difference an enigma I suppose.

Continuing on, the Adobe CS3 suite of products was next on my list.  For image and video production, nothing on the market today beats Photoshop and Premiere.  While they can have a steep learning curve attached to them, the investment of time is well worth it.  Some of Adobe’s offerings, such as Encore and Soundbooth, lag behind the competition still.  Others, like Acrobat, are horribly bloated.  Yet all in all, CS3 is a top notch suite that does everything you ask of it (notwithstanding that endorsement, I did not install Acrobat, Encore, or Soundbooth).

Office 2007 was installed next.  I am very familiar with the intricacies of Office, but 2007 is a little different.  Microsoft took the interface in a vastly different direction than its predecessors, so I have a bit of a learning curve ahead of me here.  The jury is still out as to whether or not I like it…time will tell.  If not, I can always install the old version.  The interface is easy, and novice users will like it.  Us old birds who grew up when WordPerfect 5.1 (for DOS) was the universal standard sometimes need a bit of prodding to change out of our old ways into newer ones.

This time, I am doing away with MSN and AOL completely and installing Pidgen.  I have always liked this software and run it everywhere except on my main machine.  That changes now.  I have never been a fan of bloatware and both of those chat clients installed ate up far too much system resources for my liking.  When I first started using them they were decent enough – but as I have squawked about many times, today’s software has become bloatware.  Inefficient coders thinking that the speed and power of the computers these days can cover their errors.  Imagine – just imagine – how fast the computers would run if the coding of today was as super tight as it had to be in years past.  Anyways, Pidgen is small, allows for multiple IM platforms, is simple and easy to use.  It also includes a spell checker!

It is now time to plug in the hard drives that I had previously disconnected.  These include 3 x 500 GB HDDs, 1 x 1.5 TB HDD, and a 4.5 TB E-SATA RAID-5 array.  I am curious to see if the machine takes a performance hit having all those drives connected, though by rights it should be a small one if any.  As they are all SATA 2.0 7500 RPM, things should still run quite adequetely.  One thing I can say though, and all us geeks know it, is that the USB drives perform like a dogs breakfast.  They run slow, and the more that you connect the slower they run.  I have a significant amount of USB drives that I am going to convert over to E-SATA because I do not like the performance hit that they take.

Now that the hard drives are all hooked back up, and the machine is back where it should be, things are starting to feel somewhat more normal.  I.T. guys generally tend to fret when their main computer is in disarray, and I am no exception.  I do not like it and it makes me uncomfortable.  We like a certain order to things.  Now that the computer is well on its way I can turn my attention to some domestic duties.

Today, Geocities was shut down.  Geocities was an institution.  Those of us who have been surfing the Internet for a long time remember it fondly.  If you wanted to publish a website, Geocities was where you went.  It was quick, it was easy, and did not require you to know much HTML or Javascripting.  Mind you, this was back in the day that HTML coding was done in Notepad or some other text editor.

While I never had a Geocities website (I have always published on my own domain, quite sporadically until about a year ago), I have surfed to probably hundreds, if not thousands of them.  I would jump from community to community, webring to webring.  These were the days before Wikipedia, or Flash.  The days of dialup…the early nineties…waiting for websites to appear…staying up until all hours of the night…the Internet was a collection of hobbyists…there was no commercialization, except for the porn sites…

We complain about the lack of speed now, but we were happy with 56k.  It was ok for a page to take 20 seconds to load.  Now our attention span has decreased that if that page takes more than 5 seconds to appear, we are gone.

Those were the days.

Most people have never heard of Marin Soljačić.  He is a physicist of Croatian descent at M.I.T. who, along with his team, invented wireless non-radiative energy transfer.  Essentially, to a layman such as you and I, wireless power.  For his work, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.

Approximately one hundred years ago, Nicola Tesla begins theorizing that wireless power is achieveable.  It was his idea to transmit electricity wirelessly over long distances, as the concept of the power grid had not yet been conceived.  He even went so far as to build a 100 ft. tower in New York, the Wardenclyffe Tower.  Unfortunately, he was unable to complete his experiments due to monetary issues.

Enter Professor Soljačić.  He would not have pursued his idea if it was not for his wife having a cell phone with a low battery.  It was constantly beeping at night keeping him awake, and during one of those fruitful nights he thought that there has to be away to charge the cell phone without plugging it in.  And so the experiments began.

As for the technology itself, I think it is best explained by Eric Giler.  He is the chief executive at Witricity, the company formed to bring the new technology to the marketplace.

Microsoft is venturing in the world of the free, and has announced that they will be making a version of their popular office software available for free sometime early in 2010.  This represents a very marked shift in their corporate strategy.  Microsoft Office is one of the largest moneymakers for the company, accounting for approximately $20 billion dollars in sales annually.

This is great news for personal users, who would be more than likely not to purchase a new copy of office every couple of years.  They would rather stick with their copy of Office ’95 (or 97 or whatever) because there is no fundamental need to upgrade.  I don’t think Microsoft will lose much here.  As we all know, piracy is rampant and I’m sure that this announcement will curb that somewhat as well.  There is no need to steal something that is being given away for free.

The complimentary version of Office 2010 will run within a browser (and somewhat surprisingly, Mozilla and Firefox will be supported natively).  Microsoft will never be the corporate darling of the mass majority of users, yet their software is used by these same people worldwide.  Sometimes, I think that is a tad hypocritical, for if you do not like the company (and bitch about their products constantly) then perhaps you should not use them.

In a different track, the darling corporation of Internet users, Google, is pursuing a different track.  Their version of Google Apps now has a yearly charge of $50.00 (though the free version still remains).  It seems that they are slowly evolving into a more Microsoft-like corporation.  I do not condemn them, however.  The simple fact is that a company cannot survive by giving everything away for free.  If you live by the free, you die by the free.

Microsoft and Google are now both aggressively pursuing the corporate (or B2B) market.  Microsoft has known for years, and as Google is now finding out, that while providing their products for little or no cost to consumers, they have to profit significantly through the corporate sector to survive.  They can make money through “free” by selling advertising and so forth, but they cannot do this forever.  Eventually another company will take over.  Good examples of this are Google taking over from Yahoo, or Facebook taking over from MySpace who took over from Friendster.

On a day to day basis, I do not see too many things that strike me as unique.  Today, I saw not one, not two, but three things that I probably will not see again.

First off, the Michael Jackson Memorial at the Staples Center.  I, along with presumeably over a billion people, watched at least part of the tribute.  It was produced by the same gentleman who does the Grammy Awards and the Oscars, and the promoters were AEG.  The tribute was touching (forgive the irony), with many performers singing and remembering Michael as arguably the greatest entertainer who ever lived.  Short of having the President there, it was a heartwarming, solemn, and worthwhile show that every network carried live.

Secondly…I saw the Google car today!  A curious little thing, I recognized the little tan Toyota Echo almost immediately due to the large four foot pole mounted atop its roof.  The pole has numerous high speed cameras attached to it, filming for Google maps (the street view).  There has been controversy over this initiative, as some people can be clearly identified (and likely, in places where they should not be).  To me, if you are in public, the right to privacy is null and void.  You can be photographed by anyone at any given time.  Google is not singling you out, they are not out to exploit you or your perceived privacy.

Onto the third thing.  I was emailed a link today to a Japanese game that even by their standards is bizarre.  I never thought I would put the words Horny Nazi Tank Girls together.  Yet, in Japan this is actually a video game, and they are porting it over to the X-Box 360 soon.  Now, of all the concepts and ideas one could divine for a video game, I never would have thought of having semi-naked Nazi women pretending to be tanks and planes be one of them.  The native title of the game is Moe Moe Niji Taisen Deluxe, for those who are curious to find some videos and photos online.