THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA : off topic

Television Gaga?

bradley — Sun, 19 May 2013 06:23:00 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0omja1ivpx0

I think we need a redo of Queen's Radio GaGa and this version would be called Television GaGa. The number of people that say in passing that they no longer subscribe to Cable and only watch things online and on netfix is no longer oddities, but more and more are doing just that.

So what will we be watching in 10 years?

Traveling with geek stuff

bradley — Mon, 13 May 2013 06:03:00 GMT

One of the things you find when you actually USE your iPhone is that the charge drops like a rock. So I picked up a Mophie charge battery pack to add to my collection of geek travel stuff. In addition to the laptop, we also have the Jambox boombox (Okay so I don't always travel with that), an iphone charge cable, and I've just added the Jawbone UP device.

It's a wonder I make it through the airport security line at all.

Google docs in your future?

bradley — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:08:00 GMT

Back after a short vacation down to LA.

And after checking in with the sample geek generation of the future, they are all using google docs. Not Office 365.

Your next employee will be more used to Google technology than Microsoft.

Something to think about.

Small businesses and technology

bradley — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 04:11:00 GMT

It's always interesting to see the intersection of technology and small business.

Take this box of fresh organic veggies for example.

Picked up at a local farmers market there's a lot more technology behind it than meets the eye. First off unlike other vendors at the farmers' market this vendor indicated they took credit cards via Square (iphone use of technology). In addition, I got this box as part of a CSA subscription. CSA is community supported agriculture http://www.localharvest.org/store/local.jsp?q=csa Go to a web site, find a farmer in your area and you sign up for a monthly subscription of his or her products. In this case, a month (or a year)'s worth of fresh vegetables from an organic farm near my city.

Pretty nifty, huh! And pretty cool examples of how technology has impacted their business as well.

Look how much technology they've got at his disposal. A nationwide listing. A web site. A means to do commerce in a phone.

Happy Spring

bradley — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 23:10:00 GMT

Sweet peas blooming this morning

Foxgloves also in bloom in the front flower beds

Listening to a bit of UK Gardening radio shows while in the office this afternoon.

While we may have rain (we need it!) tomorrow, today we're hitting 83 degrees today! Ack it's too warm for spring!

Happy Spring and Happy Easter to all.

A bit of pre-spring

bradley — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 07:27:00 GMT

Just a little reminder to stop and smell the roses. Or in my case at this time of year, stop and look at the tulips and daffodils blooming.

Next week Monty Don and Gardening World streaming videos will be back on my bootleg BBC iplayer. I've been having to make do with the A to Zed (I love how they say that) of Gardening videos to tie me over until Gardening world comes out with new editions.

Team Mini Cooper!

bradley — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 05:31:00 GMT

When you have friends in lots of places..... you ask them to ship you things you can only buy overseas

Olympic toys from London 2012...which of course... naturally... are Mini Coopers.

With HUGE thanks to the great blogger Robert Pearman - http://titlerequired.com/ and if you haven't bookmarked his blog, you should.

Parallel parking anyone?

bradley — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 05:26:00 GMT

No, this is not how I parallel park my car.

MotoringFile » Archive » Video: MINI USA on the Today Show:
http://www.motoringfile.com/2012/07/03/video-mini-usa-on-the-today-show/

Finishing up the MINI Computer (get it? ... a MINI computer!)

bradley — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 05:43:00 GMT

Starting the process of getting the apps from Sister's laptop/docking station over to the newly built screamer of a MINI Desktop. And one of the first things on the desktop right after Microsoft Security Essentials and Office 2010 is ...what else.. her MINI Cooper cuckoo clock that used to be on the German MINI site but is there no longer.

Fortunately because we had a failure in the app before, I had downloaded it and stuck it on the Home server under \\public\MINI to make sure I'd kept it. I may burn it into a hard drive and stick it in a bank vault to ensure I keep it.

We were considering painting/getting vinyl racing stripes on the MINI ITX case just like MINI Sonora Internet radio (see http://www.zercustoms.com/news/MINI-rocks-sonoro-Internet-radio.html) but then decided to just put a MINI cooper logo on the front.

This is it sitting on the side desk with me rdp'ing into it getting the rest of her applications on there.

P.S. if anyone else has a relative that HAS to have their MINI Cooper cuckoo clock app on their PC and they can't find a copy of it, holler, I have it saved.

What's next?

bradley — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 07:17:00 GMT

Went to a graduation tonight.... and just think about the changes in technology that the next generation is going to see. My generation has seen us go from big data centers to personal computers and now back again to big data centers. I've seen telephones go from land lines to cell phones with limited data plans.

What if the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates is sitting in those chairs just getting ready to change the world?

So what's next for them? Where are we going next? Boggles the mind doesn't it?

When you see...

bradley — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 05:23:00 GMT

The last lecture by Randy Pausch is one of those must watch things of the Internet.

I always love this one quote --

"When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care."

Love that quote. Needed to reread it again today.

Had to share.

If you haven't seen it, or haven't seen it for a while... watch it again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

A thousand cuts of passion

bradley — Thu, 03 May 2012 19:34:00 GMT

A former Microsoft employee and myself used to chat about whether or not MVPs should be guaranteed a beta spot. He argued (and he's right) that MVPs are not always the best people to give feedback. Many of us are old fuddy duddies that are resistent to change. Many wax poetically about the days of nntp newsgroups. Many say that "gee you should do it just like you did it in the 2003 era". Change is indeed hard. So I agree with him that MVPs shouldn't get deep beta access ahead of time because sometimes we are the fuddy duddies and resistent to change.

But a the same time I've noticed a by product of this lack of trust that I'm feeling right now and "Apple" like beta process of Windows 8. I'm a lot less passionate than I used to be. And that translated into less volunteering, less blogging (well length of blog posts maybe not quantity), less willing to freely promote something that I don't 100% believe in and it's that thousand cuts of passion that I'm trying to fight against.

Seeing the death of the SBSC is another cut of the passion. Microsoft, you don't kill "community" by declaring it over in a year. You kill it slowly by depleting the buzz, by killing off the passion, by bleeding off the people behind the scenes that care and make them have a thousand cuts of passion as well. And man, right now you are doing a bang up job killing passion of a community a little cut at a time.

You keep saying that partners asked for the small business competency to make it on par with other competencies. But Microsoft, the small business products are not on par with your other products. Office 365 P1 plan is a limited product. SBS Essentials and Standard has restrictions. So the products that surround this competency are themselves not on par. I also find it interesting that there's no SBS 2011 Essentials exam. Honey, if you want us forward looking and cloud looking, why not have coursework on SBS 2011 Essentials as well?

Bottom line, if this blog site is a little less helpful and a little less passionate, apologies. I don't like feeling this way and I'm trying to fight back the feeling. I still very much like to help people, so I'm going to blog about things that do make me passionate. If that means it's a little less Microsoft-centric... well that's how it's going to be is all.

Blogging has to be human and a personal passion....or you shouldn't be doing it at all.

So where's our cut?

bradley — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:59:00 GMT

Registration Statement on Form S-1:
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512034517/d287954ds1.htm

Isn't the greatest "product" of Facebook us? As in the people that use it and post stuff and thus provide the eyeballs so that Facebook and then sell to Advertisers?

Therefore where is our cut of the IPO?

Just wondering.

So about Google Plus

bradley — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 08:08:00 GMT

I talked to a social expert today. AKA the 17 year old in high school. And despite all the Google Plus is adding millions of users talk going on (see http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/27/googleplus/) he says the reality is that it's still dead.

Social right now is still Facebook and twitter. No matter what the pundits may predict, Google still isn't winning where it counts - in the hearts and minds of users of the platforms.

So if you still aren't into Google plus, don't worry, no one else is either.

Doesn't everyone do this?

bradley — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 07:14:00 GMT

My annual bake cookies for the neighbors includes baking Mini Cooper shaped gingerbread cookies.

Doesn't everyone bake cookies in the shape of their car?

A bit of Mini Racing

bradley — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 07:58:00 GMT

Earlier today we spent time at the RaceRoom in Fresno and raced... what else Mini Coopers!

Happy Halloween 2011

bradley — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 02:12:00 GMT

This year I'm mad scientist at the door greeting trick or treaters..... or translation the best "door" costume I could come up with given the fact that I saw trick or treaters heading down the road. A little hair gel to make the hard hair stand up a bit more than it normally does, a bit of eyeliner around the eyes and eyebrows and nose to make a mustache and a bit of masking tape around the glasses. Oh and a lab coat. What can I say, I was pressed for time and the Princess costume takes too much time to throw on.

I must admit the mad scientist costume was inspired by Raymond Chen's blog today.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2011/10/31/10231476.aspx

At least for me it's effective

For anyone that goes to the Captain America movie this weekend...

bradley — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 05:31:00 GMT

For anyone that goes to the Captain America movie this weekend...

http://fresnobeehive.com/2011/07/fresno_mentione.html

Yes, they really did say "Fresno" in the movie.

(the significance being ..it's where I live)

How many times?

bradley — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 05:24:00 GMT

At the dinner table tonight with geek friends talking about the retail experience of technology buying these days and we were discussing how many times we've happened across someone in the store who was an expert....but it wasn't any employee of the store.

How many times have you been 'sold' by someone in the aisle and not the salesman?

No I don't drive like this.

bradley — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 04:38:00 GMT

No I don't drive like this.

Nor sled like that either. I'm just sayin'