The Blogosphere just got a whole new solar system. Sun Microsystems has turned on employee-written blogs for the outside world to read.

What's the slant, the position, the purpose, the goal? None, apparently:

“This space is accessible to any Sun employee to write about anything.”

Woah. Cool.

“Here's a yet-to-be-posted Channel9 video, where Susan Cameron, of the Tablet PC team, gives a tour of the Tablet PC.” (via Scobelizer)

What is not mentioned directly in Scoble's blog entry, but is of great interest to many I am sure, is that the functionality being shown in this video is all-new in the yet-to-be released version of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition - presently code-named Lonestar and a part of Windows XP SP2. Essentially, when you apply SP2 to the Tablet PC OS (when it's available later this summer), you'll get all the new tablet functionality as well as the regular service pack stuff.

And referring to the greatly reduced need to use the physical keyboard with the new TIP (Tablet Input Panel) as mentioned in the video, I can vouch for the fact that there's a huge difference there. I hardly ever have to switch over to the keyboard with the new TIP capabilities and improved accuracy. Sweet stuff.

Charles Maxson has lifted my spirits, hit the nail on the head so to speak. Says Charles, “I spell like siht.” Amen brother, join the crowd - although my problem is not actually spelling per se, it's typing.

You see, I typ elike siht.

See?

My method of key-pressing is what you might call the Modified Greg HUghes Hunt and Peck Method (with the misplaced capitalization left as an intentional part of the name, simply to remind us that it's an imperfect method).

I have worked in journalism, as a police officer, and as a computer geek of various sorts. All of these jobs required me to type - a lot. I just never learned how to type “The Right Way.”

But hey - as far as I'm concerned, so what. That's what spell check is for. I use grammar well, can write my way out of a box whenever needed, and am often leaned upon to help clean up writing that needs to be disseminated to large numbers of people.

But still, I type with four fingers, hit the space bar with one thumb, use only one of the available shift keys with a fifth finger (and that's all that finger does), and I lean heavilly on spell check to help correct my typing rather than my spelling.

And Charles - I'm with ya bro' - add spell check to IM, and I might even start to look smart. Taht woudl be ccol. ;-)

My boss, Chris, posted a web-log entry that had me laughing out loud, so I thought I'd share. Check his site for “Thank you for calling the United States Army,” the official (not) voice mail message of the US Army.

• If your crisis is small, and close to the sea, press 1 for the United States Marine Corps.
• If your concern is distant, with a temperate climate and good hotels, and can be solved by one or two low risk, high altitude bombing runs, please press 2 for the United States Air Force.  Please note this service is not available after 1630 hours, or on weekends.

Read the whole thing here.

Don't know why for sure, but I've been on this random kick recently about The Ultimate Answer and all that. Of course, we all know the answer, and how it was discovered:

 ultimate_answer_t deep_thought(void)
{
        sleep(years2secs(7500000));
return 42;
}

The real question is, what was the question?

And that's the hard part.

“I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is.”

If it takes seven and a half million years of Deep Thought to answer the question, but we don't know the question, then what do we do next?

It's all quite mind-boggling. Certainly does not invoke a feeling of infinite majesty and calm.

Who am I? What is my purpose in life? Does it really, cosmically speaking, matter if I don't get up and go to work?

Is that the question??? What is the question?

"Exactly! So once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means."

ARGH!

In reality, I have been doing a bit of deep thought of my own, trying to decide what I am meant to do, what it is I am supposed to be doing with my life (assuming I am supposed to be doing anything). Through a series of trials, successes, tribulations and challenges - some random and some not - I've ended up in a place in life that I never would have predicted. I'm not complaining, mind you, just wondering what's in store, what's next, why, stuff like that. Seems like something's missing, and while I have guesses about what that “something” might be, it's hard to put my finger on it for certain.

Maybe I need to play a long game of Scrabble.

Makes you wonder about which industry should be considering an IPO...

According to Hitwise, during the week of May 29th, 18.8% of U.S. Web visits were to 'adult' sites and 5.5% were to top search engines. Says CNN-Money: “Porn 3X more popular than searches.”

This could mean a lot of different things, but one thing's for sure: There's apparently a lot of people out there that I don't really understand. That, and excepting the fact that I have a soul and I value it greatly, it's obvious I am in the wrong business. :-P

I've been installing and testing builds of Windows XP SP2 for a while now, and while I should and will not go into any real detail about that here, let's just say I had a need to use a command-line switch on the installer for the latest version yesterday, but it didn't quite do what I needed/expected.

I mentioned that fact to my friend Travis, who came up with some ideas for command line switches that he says should be applied to all products.

Checking in on the industry between calls, found this news item from yesterday, related to Microsoft's security “tour” program they running right now:

Discussing how some have tried to position security efforts as potentially beneficial to the bottom line, Microsoft chief security officer Scott Charney admitted he was cynical. "Security is a cost center. If there were no attacks, no one would bother," he told a few hundred IT professionals at the event.

So true. Sure, beefing up security is important, required, beneficial and prudent in this day and age. But the fact of the manner is if there was no pain, we would not be spending big bucks in this area.

It's also worth noting that - in reality - a relatively small amount of preventative planning in this area today can save huge numbers of reactive dollars tomorrow and after. Security budgets are important. They may look expensive to some, but when you consider the potential costs on not preventing problems, the downside could be very costly, indeed.

< Cue cheesy commercial music >

This dad did it on eBay.
(PDF available for when the original exprires).

I had to laugh at this one when I saw it, but at the same time I was rooting this guy on and mentally wishing him the best from afar. I know this dad is dealing with something serious.

“SO CHILDREN LISTEN UP DO NOT DISRESPECT YOUR PARENTS YOUR FRIENDS OR YOURSELF BECAUSE US PARENTS ARE SMARTER THAN YOU AND WE WILL FIND OUT ABOUT ANY AND ALL THINGS YOU TRY TO HIDE.”

Heheh... He's certainly being creative and making what sounds like a serious point. At least one father out there who's willing to punish his 13-year-old son for misbehavior that matters (a lot) in the kid's present and future life. Hopefully this is just the beginning of the additional parental attention for that kid.

Father's Day season doesn't always need to be happy - it does needs to be real.

Thanks to Dave for the link.

Have you heard about Windows Automotive? It's for real.

Chris Sells says: “Microsoft Car .NET -- If the reality is anything like the concept videos, I want it!”

Yeah, cool stuff. A lot of what Microsoft's put into their Office of the Future concept system up in Redmond (which anyone who ever gets the invitation should check out). But I could not help but think that if the guy was not spending so much time with his computer in the first place, he might have remembered to pick up his daughter on his own...

The United States Patent and Trademark Office never ceases to amaze. Working as an intellectual property litigation attorney will be the biggest, fattest, most lucrative cash cow of a position of the next ten years, mark my words. Here's why:

According to a bunch of people on the Internet (here's one), it looks like Microsoft has patented the double-click. No joke. Wow.

Now, I'm a Microsoft fan, and I make no qualms about saying so - but this is going a little far, isn't it? I mean, this is amazing, really (and it has to be true, it's on the freakin' Internet!) Probably most shocking thing about it is that the patent was granted within the past month or two.

Or is it really that big of a deal???

Articles have been posted on the Internet, predictably describing this as a completely out of control situation. But, when you read the patent, it's not exactly as some might have you believe. In reality:

• The patent is primarily related to hand-held devices (I'd feel a little better if it was limited to handheld devices, though).
• The patent application states that the invention “relates generally to computer systems, and more particularly to increasing the functionality of application buttons on a limited resource computing device.”
• It describes the way an application or the OS on the device determines what kind of soft-key press has occurred, generally short, long, or multi-press events.
• From the patent: “As those skilled in the art will appreciate from the following description, while the invention is ideally suited for incorporation in a palm-type computing device and is described in such a device, the invention can be incorporated in other limited resource devices and systems, for example mobile devices such as pagers and telephones.”

Okay, so while it may be a little surprising, it's hard to say this is truly a patent on the use of the double-click action in any computing application. But it is pretty broad-reaching, and as always open to interpretation and challenge. Which gets expensive, every time it has to be litigated or challenged (see “cash cow,” above). Especially for smaller companies without major corporate resources.

And Microsoft has made no secret of it's position that there are thing it's invented (or at least claims to have invented) and for which it's recently been issued patents. The FAT file system and ClearType technologies are two recent examples, and Microsoft (some would say rightfully) has also stated publicly that it intends to pursue completion of patents to protect and increase its earnings. And even though it's a big company with big profits, that's no reason to start yelling about how they already make too much money. Whether it's the first dollar earned or the trillionth, it's not about how much, it's about who's idea it was in the first place. If Microsoft can't own ideas that are truly theirs, neither can Apple, IBM, my employer, or anyone else - whether they be big, small, corporation, or individual.

But hey - you don't really need Microsoft to be amazed. All we seem to need is the U.S. Government Patent and Trademark Office. At least recently.

Well, there is one positive thing to take away from all this: If it makes you smile, it's at least a little bit good for you (even if you do shake your head at the same time). :-)

The final release of Windows Media Player 10 was done on September 2, 2004. Click here for more.

Note: Judging by the number of search referrers from Google and Yahoo that point to this entry with “uninstall windows media player 10” in the referrer address, here is a starting point that hopefully will help - but the linked pages are not my advice, and I make no warranty of any kind: Support Newsgroups at Microsoft for Windows Media Player 10 Beta Thread: Uninstalling 10 to 9 Thread: Can't use/uninstall WMP10 Who would have thought my web log entry would be first on Google for that phrase? Crazy... And a quick (not quite as helpful) note to people who installed and are having problems: This is beta software, blatantly labeled as such, so a bug-free experience should be the exception, not the rule. In other words, no surprise whatsoever that it's glitchy. That said, please use the newsgroup link above and post your issues with helpful and descriptive language. Remember the newsgroups are for getting help and reporting problems, so don't flame, but be complete in the info you provide. For a list of the information you should provide, look here. Help make the next version better - earn your whining privilege. ;-)

Microsoft today announced the technical beta of Windows Media Player 10. Anyone can download and give it a whirl, so long as you're running Windows XP.

Just keep in mind, it's beta software, and so your mileage may vary, especially if you need to uninstall or roll back and use protected media files, so player beware. Be sure to read the release notes before you install. Miracle of miracles, and something I have noticed we are seeing more and more often, thank goodness: No reboot required!

Looks like end-to-end media usability, from file to device synchronization, is the goal here. They're playing up advanced support for a big variety of media devices, which is to be expected after all the announcements recently about media-anywhere products.

I did get a broken image in the UI, and the streaming appears to be a WinMedia v9 experience. I noted tabs in the player named “Rip” and “Burn,” and direct support for these. In fact, everything is generally well laid out and easy to find, which is nice.

The interface is sleeker and easier to get around in. It was nice to fire it up and not have to download the funky HTML content on a “Guide” page - by default it started in the “Now Playing” (play-list) mode. Cool.

I don't do a lot of online media purchasing yet, but there's built-in support for online stores (presently there are links to Napster and CinemaNow.com). In the player, a static page describes a new “digital media mall” concept, where a variety of stores will be available to download, stream, rent or purchase media content.

Someone I know got third place in a Power-tool/toy coding contest for Tablet PC ink apps with a cool little application he wrote in 17 minutes last fall. The Web Search Power Tool, which allows to to hand-write a search phrase and then submit it to any of four search engines, is pretty useful actually, if you use ink a lot.

Second place is interesting, but not really all that up my alley - it's a nifty pressure-sensitive ink app called PowerPaint, check it out if you're into weird funky electronic drawing.

The first place winner is sweet. Create your own True-Type font in your own handwriting with the My Own Font tool. In less than 5 minutes I created, compiled and installed a Greg_Hughes custom handwritten font on my Tablet (by the way, you can use the generated font on any Windows computer - it's just another TTF font).

See a complete and well-done review of the tools at TabulaPC. Downloads also available at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/tabletpc.mspx.

I can't imagine there are many people who care about my pain and suffering, but for the few that do and who have asked me to show pictures, here is a followup to my first spinal injection post from a few weeks ago.

And this time there's pictures! (Click on the image for more detail and pictures from the scene of the crime with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one to be used as evidence against... Oops, never mind. The red arrows point to the inserted needles.)

I went back in this morning and had a second round of injections done, only this time I skipped the IV pain killers and anesthesia/relaxation stuff. Last time they gave me this stuff that made me all calm, and a bit groggy. It's not that I wanted to avoid that medication this time, it's just that the nurse couldn't get an IV stick in me successfully. After a few painful attempts at finding a vain (I had not had enough liquids the day before and could not drink anything this morning before the procedure), we gave up and I decided I'd endure the pain of the procedure over the pain of he failed IV sticks.

That turned out to be a good idea.

My doctor's a funny guy. When he heard I was not getting the IV drugs, he paused for a second or two, said, “Well ohhhhhkayyyy then,” and started in. Yeah, it was more painful, but all in all not too bad.

The picture above is from the procedure, where they stick a needle down in my spinal column, about 3 inches, into in the epidural space where he injected a “nerve block” and some cortisone steroid stuff, which will reduce the inflammation and hopefully solve my problem of not being able to carry the weight of my body on my own two feet from time to time. Either that or figure out something else, but this is the first step (after trying medication and physical therapy - the first invasive step, you could call it).

For anyone who's avoided procedures to help with back injuries or degeneration (I have a herniated and degenerated disk), let me tell you this: You can get some relief (in some cases complete relief I am told). While my pain returned (I was told it probably would), and I have to go through this second round, the freedom from pain when you get it is worthwhile. I did not realize how much pain I was in until it was gone. Kind of like beating your head against a wall, as they say: It feels so much better when you stop.

Anyhow, totally non-tech, and so now we return you to your regularly scheduled blogram...

Need to figure out how to automagically ping this site's XML-RPC interface (rpc.pingomatic.com) on all new dasBlog posts. One ping to them results in 12 pings to various other listings. That could speed some things up. Kewl...

http://wordpress.org/development/archives/2004/05/23/pingomatic-and-site/

dasBlog lets me ping Weblogs.com and blo.gs on update, but at first glance I don't see anywhere that I can specify other services to ping - so will need to look into this.