Well, I would say this is quasi ironic.

Check out the results of the top of this link: http://www.bing.com/search?q=att

Notice how it has a “Bing Cashback” logo at the very top result which is the AT&T Official Wireless Site.

So apparently, if you use Microsoft Bing to buy a phone at AT&T, including the Apple iPhone 3GS, you will get 35% off your purchase!

Microsoft and Apple are “partners” here. Like I said, quasi-ironic.

There is a noted stipulation that this is for new subscribers; that could be true, but I can’t verify it.

Check out these links for more info on this:

FatWallet Forums
MacRumors Forums

And as always, your mileage may vary (YMMV)

OnLive, in a nutshell, is a “cloud” video game service. In other words, all video games live on their servers and you subscribe to the ones that you want to play. But you don’t download the games to your machine and play them locally. You play them on *their* servers, and they push content back and forth to you through your web browser via your broadband connection. In other words, your computer now becomes a glorified dumb internet terminal that receives the images of the actions you perform in the video game; the OnLive servers do all of the heavy lifting of graphics processing.

So, the theory is that you can have a NetBook or an old Centrino laptop and you can play Crysis!! Crysis on a NetBook?!? I don’t effing believe it. But that is their vision, and with the way the video game companies are signing up in droves to be a part of this service (can you say EA?), this vision may actually have legs.

And if it has legs, oh my, how that changes things for companies like:

Intel, AMD: Video games are the most processor intensive applications in the world. If OnLive is successful, that opens the flood gates for more processor-intensive subscription-type markets. People can buy less powerful machines, but still get top quality functionality. That could eat heavily into the Intel and AMD profit margins — although, Intel and AMD should hope that OnLive buys their processors for the OnLive servers.

Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo: Well, this is simple. The video game console becomes obsolete. As Paul Thurrott alluded to in Windows Weekly – ‘Microsoft just wasted $5 billion in their XBox investment’

Now, of course, broadband would need to be plentiful. Quality of Service would need to be guaranteed. As they alluded in the Windows Weekly show – hey, Comcast, are you listening? And, there are other hurdles to overcome. They were talking about Amazon buying this service being a good play. I am not 100% convinced right now of that being a smart move; but if this does what I think it might do, then yes, any company should buy OnLive if they had the resources.

This is definitely something I will be keeping tabs on because this could be a “game changer” (pun absolutely intended). And I don’t say that often.

LONG BEACH, California (AFP) – Microsoft founder turned disease-battling philanthropist Bill Gates loosed mosquitoes at an elite Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Conference to make a point about the deadly sting of malaria.

“Malaria is spread by mosquitoes,” Gates said while opening a jar onstage at a gathering known to attract technology kings, politicians, and Hollywood stars.

“I brought some. Here I’ll let them roam around. There is no reason only poor people should be infected.”

Gates waited a minute or so before assuring the audience the liberated insects were malaria-free.

Well, I guess if he made a mistake, and a mosquito or two did have malaria, Bill Gates has the money to fight off some of the lawsuits (although not as much money as he used to have — so he had better be more careful).

In my seemingly never ending quest to find comparable applications on the Mac that I have on my Windows PC, I searched for a personal finance package that could replace Microsoft Money.

It was actually a harder task than I thought, and I can’t definitively say that any of the software I looked at blew Microsoft Money out of the water.

As I have said before, I am looking for a program that:

1. Allows for online download of transactions from institutions
2. Keeps track of both bank and investments accounts
3. Looks like a genuine Mac application (not a Windows port)
4. Can generate simple invoices for business and keep track of accounts receivable (for my company Twin Roots).

But below are my findings. I didn’t have a ton of time to do an exhaustive check and review of financial applications for the Mac, so first impressions became *very* important.

Winner

• iBank 3.3.2: Well, this is the best of the bunch in my opinion. Not perfect by any stretch (e.g., not intuitive on manually entering securities in an investment account – have to currently use the “Move Shares” transaction, which is weird). But the interface is absolutely gorgeous in my opinion. Blows all of the other ones out of the water on that front. It handles investments. It downloads data automatically from some institutions (but not all major ones). It DOES NOT have simple business invoicing. I could get iBiz to do that if I want, and the cost would not be much more than Microsoft Money Plus Home and Business. It takes some getting used to, but this is what I consider a true Mac application.

Up and Coming

• Moneywell 1.4: From a potential curve, Moneywell wins. I love the “Envelope Budgeting” method. The interface looks nice. But, it currently cannot not track investments. No way to enter stock holdings, for example. This is coming, I think.

Mysterious

• Quicken Financial Life (QFL): Not out until Summer of 2009. And they would not allow me to be part of the beta, for whatever reason.

The Rest

• MoneyDance 2008 (build 629): I think this would do what I want it to do, but, selfishly, I did not like the user interface. It felt too “Windows-ee” on the Mac, and if I am going to go to the Mac, I want to go all out.
• Cha-Ching 1.2.3: Interface had some nice appeal, but it does not support the tracking of investments.
• Fortora Fresh Finance: Does not support investments from what I could see. The interface seemed fairly nice though.
• SplashMoney: Again, does not support investments
• Liquid Ledger 2: This actually had some potential, but I could not find a way to download transactions from banks, get quotes online for investments and there were bugs seen when deleting accounts (like this mysterious 0 folder that appeared). The interface was fair.
• GnuCash 2.2.8: I could not locate the Mac binary since their wiki was down. First impressions, remember. So I might not have given this one a fair shot, but I had to move on.
• Quicken Mac 2007: I refuse to use any software that does not give me a free trial (at least one readily available on the Quicken Website). Plus knowing that QFL is coming out, there is something just not right about using this version, which, by all accounts, people don’t like anyway.

So, in summary, iBank will be my Mac financial application, as imperfect as it may be. But it is by far the best and most complete financial software package out there for my needs (and if you include iBiz, it would match Microsoft Money in most, if not all, facets). I will wait and see what happens with Moneywell, and I am intrigued by the upcoming release Quicken Financial Life (although I am disappointed I cannot be a part of the beta).

If I am wrong about any of my impressions, I would appreciate you letting me know.

Symbolics.com is the oldest (Who?? )

You will see companies like Intel, AMD, AT&T, HP, Adobe on this list, but one company that was surprisingly missing was Microsoft. I would have figured that they would have been one of the first domain names. Back in the late 80s Microsoft was still finding its roots and wasn’t the success it is today; but still, it was interesting to see this omission. They didn’t buy their domain until 1991.

Octopus.com is on the list, but not microsoft.com

I went to http://www.windowslive.com/Explore/Mail and clicked on the Get It Now Button

then I clicked on Download Now

After clicking on Run for the Windows Live Installer, accepting the agreement and allowing it to try to start installing, I got this:

I was thinking what the heck is this. I tried again, and same thing.

So I did what every person would do in this situation – GOOGLE!

Doing a search with these terms:

"There was a problem with this installation. Windows Live Suite was not installed" "Catastrophic Failure"

yields many results with help options like:

• messing with the registry
• using the Microsoft Windows Installer Cleanup Utility program
• Installing all necessary components separately

After thinking about this and really not wanting to go through a workaround for something that I think doesn’t require a workaround, I realized that I already did have Windows Live Writer installed. As such, I figured I would look into my Control Panel Add/Remove Programs.

And here is what I found:

Ahh Ha!

Right click on it and you will get an option to uninstall or change Windows Live Beta.

I then choose Install or uninstall

and click continue.

Then you get to a window that shows you all of the programs that you have not installed. And you click a check box to the one(s) you want to install, and it works like a charm!

I had already installed Mail Beta before I wrote this post; that is why this is checked.

There are two things that I am still unclear on:

1. Why did the original installer still not work? Was it because I already had an installer available locally?
2. Did I install the latest version of the Windows Live Mail Beta? I think so according to my research, but I am only 99.9% confident.

I hope this helps at least one person. Let me know if you have any questions.

I sure hope Jerry Yang and the Yahoo! Board of Directors know what they are doing. These are rich folks on the board and may not be able to see things through the eyes of the everyday shareholder.

Personally, I think they made the wrong decision to not accept Microsoft’s $33/share offer this weekend. I honestly think it is a case of “I would rather have the ship sink than be with the “Evil Empire”….well, that wish might just come true. I hope not.

Steve Ballmer’s letter to Jerry Yang is very interesting…and the response.

And how does Google feel??????

[Update: Would Microsoft try a hostile takeover if Yahoo! rejects the offer? That would be very interesting and a can of worms I am not sure Microsoft wants to open]

Yahoo! has not accepted this deal yet.

In the back of my mind, I knew this would happen. In fact, after Yahoo! reported earnings earlier this week, and the stock plummeted, I thought to myself “I bet Microsoft buys Yahoo! now”. I didn’t buy Yahoo! stock. Oh well, woulda, coulda, shoulda, I guess.

Anyway, I am still chewing on this deal. Is it good for Microsoft? Is it good for Yahoo! Is it going to be a disaster a la Time Warner-AOL?

The big and obvious question is how Microsoft plans to integrate Yahoo! into its Windows Live offerings. That is a huge undertaking in my mind, and not a 100% slam dunk by any means. For example, what becomes of Yahoo! Mail — does it get integrated into Windows Live Hotmail? Does Microsoft integrate Yahoo!’s search algorithm into its Windows Live Search?

And, not to mention the culture clash of the two companies. Yahoo! is already laying off 1000 people. Can Microsoft absorb the other Yahoo! employs, or will a mass layoff come?

And then comes the other side of the equation. How does this affect Google? Of course, this deal is a direct aim at Google. Google’s stock is starting down after it reported “not great” (according to analysts) earnings last night. That doesn’t really matter with respect to this deal, I don’t think. It is a long term question — will Google’s dominance be affected by this deal in a negative fashion? This deal would make Microsoft the clear #2 in the search/advertising space, but could it make Microsoft #1?

Very interesting start to the morning, for sure.

I am trying to search the documents on my computer that contain a specific word, let’s say “Foo”. It shows me all documents that contain the word “Foo”, “foo”, “FoO”, etc.

That is fine in and of itself, but there should be an option somewhere in Vista to say “No, only give me ‘Foo’ and nothing else”.

Alas, I cannot find such an option.

Anyone?

OK, here it goes….for better, worse or the other, I am letting the world know my first product ideas. We’ll see if announcing these now was a good idea or not.

Before reading my specific ideas, make sure you obtain some context by reading my previous post about goals.

As you will notice below, I am entering into pretty saturated markets (i.e much competition exists). However, I have subscribed to the theory that while a totally unique idea that is a hit may provide the best overall outcome, those come very far and few between. Instead, it is much more normal to add value to existing ideas, and let the execution and marketing of the added value bring success. Looking at it from the glass half full perspective, having competition means that people want the product or service (i.e. there is a market).

Also, I have a motto that I want to develop products that *I* will use on a daily basis. That is important to me because it makes me my own customer — and I don’t want to use crappy products either.

So without further ado, here are my product ideas for the next year or so. Again, these products align with my goals.

RSS Reader (Desktop)

Yes, there are many RSS readers out there, both web (e.g. Google Reader) and desktop (e.g. FeedDemon) based. I am going to enter my hat into the desktop ring. I will offer the basics, of course. But, I do have some ideas that I hope, in conglomeration, will differentiate mine from others. One is having both a Mac and Windows reader, with the same user experience. The second is being able to sync your feeds (e.g. read/unread) so you can be up-to-date no matter which computer you use the reader on (this requires some sort of web-based storage solution, probably). The third is being able to….well, I don’t want to give this one away yet

Business Model: Free basic version; Fixed-price premium version [Note: I am still working out if the free/premium model is the best way to go.]

Fantasy Football Information Web Site

Two of my many passions are sports and technology. I figured, hey, why not merge the two. I love playing fantasy football (NFL). There are many fantasy football websites that offer information about who are the best players to play during a given week, game previews, answers to emails, draft software, etc. Some of these sites are from the big boys (e.g. ESPN) and some smaller, yet popular, folks (e.g. Fantasy Football Today). I figured I would offer the same sort of valuable information and tools, but try to do it better and/or differently. In the end, when it comes to sites like these it is all about providing good, relevant and as accurate as possible information.

Business Model: Advertising

Package of Tools and Utilities for Windows

I have always like building small tools and utilities. Most of the tools I have built, either for my own uses or for work, I was doing back in my corporation days. I have had folks appreciate the tool work I have done. So I figured why not come up with a list of (hopefully) useful tools and utilities and offer them up free for people. I don’t consider any of my ideas here earth shattering, nor unique, but just things I have found a need for. I don’t plan for these tools to make money, nor get bought out by Microsoft like SysInternals. I just want to provide them for fun and test an open source business model — where my goal wouldn’t be to make money, but more just get my name out there. Here are a few examples I am thinking of implementing (and, yes, initially these will be Microsoft centric because that is what I know)

1. An Outlook mail component that makes sure you actually have an attachment in an email that is supposed to have an attachment.
2. A component for IE7 that automatically puts widely used links in the Links portion of the IE7 browser and makes sure they are bubbled to the “top” of the Links portion (e.g. they are visible in the max screen browser window)
3. A small utility that allows a user to increase/decrease the number of simultaneous downloads allowed from IE7
4. A tool that finds all the files where there are multiple instances on your computer (this could be Mac and Windows)

Business Model: Free, Open Source

I will provide specific details on each of these efforts as I move along the development path. Right now, I think I am going to work on the Fantasy Football website first so I can have it ready in time for the next NFL Fantasy season, which begins in full force around August.

So there you go. The cat is out of the bag. Now it comes down to execution. Also, I am not adverse to discussing/collaborating/partnering on these ideas or any other ideas. So if you have any thoughts you want to share with me personally, feel free to contact me by email or leave a comment.