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Jess and I got semi-interviewed today on a Podcast, and you can check it out/listen below:

Jason & Jessica on the “Featuring Who?” Podcast

Some of the things that we discussed:

1. How Jess and I found Neowin (a forum we belong to) and how we became staff.
2. Our computer setups.
3. Discussion about Virtual Machines (Sun xVM VirtualBox 1.6.4, specifically).
4. Microsoft’s Mohave Experiment backfiring
5. Travelers’ Laptops May be Detained At the Border

It’s a fun little listen… I feel like a huge nerd, but what else is new?  Enjoy!

I don’t know about you, but I just can’t get enough of the wonderful shiny happy things that marketing people like to toss at us each and every day.  As someone who has worked with a few marketing people, I can say it blows my mind sometimes when I hear ideas they toss out.  So where am I going with this?  Well, my brother tossed me this video today:

What if a major corporation designed the stop sign?

As hilarious as it sounds, coming from the standpoint of someone who has done designs for companies, this is spot on.  If that wasn’t enough for ya… here are a couple more:

What if Microsoft designed the iPod packaging?

Truth in Advertising

Just great stuff, folks.

Meet Windows Mojave:

The “Mojave Experiment”

It’s fast, it’s sleek, it’s cool, it’s hip, it’s… really Windows Vista?

This is the best marketing idea Microsoft has come up with in a long time.  Dealing, as I do, with many novice computer users, getting them to switch to Vista has been an uphill fight.  Most of them haven’t tried the OS or even seen it.  They’re getting all their info from word of mouth and aren’t sitting down to try it.  In this “experiment,” Microsoft has taken many different users and after listening to them bash Windows Vista, ask them to try the newest OS, Windows Mojave.  Upon trying it, everyone is loving it and wanting it, and then comes the reveal… it’s actually Windows Vista.

It’s a great watch… I love the responses some of the people give (for real hilarity, click the link that says “You can’t please everyone.”) and how honest they are.

Seriously people, give Vista a try.  Yes, it had issues… but so did XP… and 2000… and ME… and 98… and 95… ad infinitum.  It’s not like Microsoft is the only company to have issues with new products (let us not forget the MobileMe mess) and if you never try anything new, you’ll be left behind.

Some information about the experiment via the Windows Vista Blog:

• The focus group took place over three days in San Francisco and was conducted earlier this month.
• All participants were either Mac, Linux, or users of versions of Windows that came before Windows Vista. Respondents were chosen from the focus group organizer’s database, called at random, but then selected based on having a low perception of Vista (<5 rating on a scale of 1-10).
• The participants were given a demo by a trained retail salesperson – geared towards the experiences they seemed most interested in following a series of interviews. While the retail salesperson drove the demo, it was geared by the interests and direction of the participant.
• We did not use some geeked out or custom built PC. We used an HP Pavilion DV2500. It had 2GB of RAM and was running an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz. The OS was a 32 bit version of Windows Vista Ultimate.
• Of the 120 respondents polled, on a scale of 1:10 where 10 was the highest rating, the average pre-rating for Windows Vista was 4.4. After they saw the demo, respondents rated Mojave an average of 8.5.

There you have it.  If you’re using an older version of Windows… go give Vista a chance!

If I was one to not read articles all the way through, it would appear that Pope Benedict was apologizing for all of the MobileMe issues.  The article starts:

Apple this morning sent an e-mail apologizing to customers of its MobileMe service who experienced a tough few days. And to soothe ruffled feelings, Apple said it would extend their MobileMe subscription by a month.

Which seems normal, except for the fact that the accompanying picture was this:

According to the caption:

Photo: Pope Benedict XVI apologized for a speech about Islam. Credit: Pier Paolo Cito / Associated Press

Which, you know, makes total sense.  Islam, MobileMe… that’s pretty much the same thing, right?  And hey, as long as it’s a picture of someone apologizing, it fits the article, right?  Schmucks.

So you can see the article before it eventually gets changed, check it out:

That there is some Grade A Choice 100% Pure fail.