Thoughts Cubed™

In our 9/19 post Windows ad campaign we made a comment on how Microsoft should spend their money on making Vista better more reliable and instead of spending millions on making us feel better about windows Vista.

Well apple did their own commercial on the subject, who couldn’t resist. Using the I’m a PC vs. I’m Mac format. Apple poked back at Microsoft with the PC guy dividing up his money in two plies. The large of the two plies to be spent on advertising and the very small pile on Vista bug fixes. At the end of the spot PC guy puts all his money in to advertising.

The next night Apple comes out with another commercial bashing Vista with the “Bake Sale” parody. In the commercial Mac eats the ten million cup cake sold by PC guy. It is short and to the point, nothing to miss here.

The question is how long can Mac continue to be the Cooool guy on the block? And will Microsoft ever win in the TV commercial arena? For my viewing pleasure I hope Microsoft continues to give Mac more material to work with because these guys at TBWA with Laurie Coots do a great job putting down the PC.

WOW it has been a year since the launch of the “Thoughts Cubed” Blog. Cannot believe that so much time has gone by so fast. There has been a diverse range of topics blogged about here. Topics from cars to solar power and strange Television shows, like Courtney’s show Dirt, have been covered. Some great and some not so great.

There has even been a series on whole house audio distribution systems. Part one and two have been posted and the third part about Audioengine speaker is to be posted in the next month or so. There will also be an interesting post about a supercar that is constructed out of 90% bio-renewable organic materials. Strange soloution for and every day problem.

I’m also sure that there will several more post on alternative energy. So here it to the next year and many more to follow…..

A 300 million dollar ad campaign to make us all feel good about windows? It would take a heavenly miracle to make us all feel better about Windows. I see several problems with the ad campaign.

First problem is me. Sorry I did not get the “Simple Life” parody of Bill and Jerry as BFF. Just blew completely by me. Maybe I would have got the parody if the ad was the full 4.5minutes that is posted on the internet. But only seeing 60 seconds at a time was not enough. Did not see the parody until I read about the ads in the news. I thought it was like a Target ad, just a little bit of mindless entertainment to build brand awareness. Oh well it must just be me, I must be one of the dumb Americans.

Second I guess Bill and Jerry were trying be funny. It just did not happen, the spot was not funny. Even Bills robot dance was not funny. The Apple spots are funny, but this was not.

In my option spend the 300 million dollars on designing better software. Oh I forgot we like software that crashes and is attacked by all kinds of virus and malware. But then again we are all just a bunch of Dumb Americans, because we keep buying windows!

IS Chrome for Google security and safety of Google’s ad revenue or is it Google’s research project for an Operating system? Or Maybe it is both.

The underlying technologies of the Chrome browser are very much like a Operating System. With features like a Task Manger that displays the different processes very much like Windows OS. Google’s decision to divide and conquer processes at the browser level could be and exercise in developing a more sophisticated project to follow on in the future (line an OS).

But on the other hand is Google just protecting their own ad revenue? Is Chrome a way to guarantee their ability to server up the correct ad based on your browser history? There was nothing to stop Microsoft, FireFox or Safarii to throwing up roadblocks that prevented Google from displaying the most relevant ad. After all who is the biggest inline provider on online ads?

One additional observation, the Chrome logo looks a lot like the Milton Bradley Simon game from the late 70’s.

Part of the magic of the whole house audio system is the Apple airport express. This little box is a multi function power house. In this little 4 by 3 by 1 inch package you get a router, WiFi access point, a music streaming device and a network printer adaptor. And one of my pet peeves there is no wall wart. I hate wall warts they are a pain to deal with.

So the part we will be using for whole house audio system is the music streaming device. This part of the Airport Express integrates with iTunes so you can select which AirPort Express you want to send music too. Plus you have the option of playing your music through your Computer speakers and through the Airport Express synchronized. You can also send music to several airport express units all at the same time. So you have the same music playing in several room or areas all at the same time.

We do this with the house, the patio, and pool area. All three areas are playing the same music at the same time.
So now you want to play music in the kids’ room and different music in the family room. OK you select the music from different iTunes library and send it to the desired airport express. Done

So now what about amplifiers and speakers for all this? Being that the AirPort devices are distributed all around your house the cost of wiring is minimal or non-existing, as you can stream wireless to an airport Express using WiFi. So that is where the Audioengin A5 speakers come in to play. More on the speakers next time.