Been in a record store lately? I remember going to the mall just to visit Musicland and pickup an album or cassette. With iTunes, Target, WalMart and Costco is there any reason for the record store to exist? I don’t remember the last time I bought anything at a Sam Goody. Their prices are usually $3-$5 more than the same CD at Target. I walked by a couple of record stores last week and they were ghost towns.

A very interesting article from Fortune about how people are making a living selling virtual items in MMORPGs.

I finally got around to installing World of Warcraft. Downloading 252 MB patch as I write.

My Speck skin arrived for my iPod and I really like it. Hard to tell from the pictures but the “Skin Tight” is excellent quality.

Where have I been? I just noticed today that PeerGuardian2 is out.

Are you a Firefox convert but still need to access Sharepoint sites, Windows update or other IE only websites? With this cool extention you may never have to launch IE stand alone again.

This is the best mouse I’ve ever used. I’ve used a number of Microsoft mice for as long as I can remember but this Logitech beats them all. Zero lag, zero cables, zero hassle.

The new Nero 7 is really slick too. I installed that over the weekend and burned a few Divx and Xvid movies to watch on my new DVD Player.

I’m still having problems getting Fable to run on my new computer. I have no idea why it freezes on my Nvidia 6600 GT card yet plays fine on my wife’s ATI 9600 XT. Nvidia’s software even includes a “profile” for the game so I’m mystified.

The best $1 you can spend for a nifty little backup program.

I didn’t camp-out at Target, WalMart of Best Buy to get my hands on an Xbox 360. I didn’t have to chose between the real 360 or some scaled back cheapo “core” version. I didn’t call in sick to work so I could play my new Xbox nor did I call all my friends and boast to them about my new purchase. I didn’t bad-mouth the Playstation 3 or Nintendo Revolution and I didn’t proclaim Halo is better than GTA or Zelda. I don’t plan to eBay my old first gen Xbox which I didn’t mod-chip it into a Media Center. I didn’t wear any Xbox logo clothing to work today. I’m not getting excited about a wireless controller, removable drive or Xbox Live. Xbox 360 hasn’t “taken over my living room” nor do I plan to “prepay for items like virtual armor or other game-related items“. I didn’t use the words, “kick ass” in any converstation with coworkers today.

This is exactly the type of response you’d expect from a CEO who sees Bill Gates attempting to turn the ship in his direction. The ship may be awkward and slow but it’s certainly not a ship I’d discount.

I remember so many of my PC gamer friends making fun of Microsoft and their decision to enter the console business and go head to head against Sony and Nintendo. Five years and a few billion dollars later, you can’t discount that the Xbox team is doing a lot of things right. They are winning over the hard-core gamers which I didn’t think was possible. I was at Target tonight and there was a line to play the Xbox360 demo unit. Even some moms stood back and watched the kids play Call of Duty 2. The same line existed at Wal-Mart when I was there last week. $400 is a lot to spend for a console but, then again, that’s the price of a 60 gig iPod so maybe it’s not so outrageous.

Come mid January, will we look back and say this was an Xbox 360 or iPod Christmas? Most of my friends and coworkers are *talking* about the 360 but few have one on pre-order. And about half of them own iPods but are lusting after the iPod video. Santa may bring both if you’re lucky.

As for me, I’m waiting for this.

Today Sony announced an exciting new program where each new CD will include one RIAA watchdog. From Wal-Mart to Sam Goody, any customer who wishes to purchase a music CD produced by Sony will be forced to provide food and shelter for one RIAA officer who will live with that customer as long as the Sony CD is in the home. The officer will spring into action each time the CD is inserted into a computer CD ROM drive. As long as the CD is in the drive he or she will look over the customers shoulder to ensure no unauthorized “ripping” or copying is taking place. If the officer observes any such illicit behavior, he or she will immediately call the “Sony Home Watch Program” to report the offender. Special attention will be taken to catch as many students, grandparents and children under the age of 12 as possible.

When reached for comment, a Sony executive said, “We had no idea our customers were so smart and we are baffled they have a problem with us installing hidden files that can’t be removed”.

Any store that specializes in luggage. Seattle and umbrellas go hand in hand. I figured Macy’s or Nordstrom would carry good quality umbrellas but they only carried the cheap ones that don’t last through one wind and rain storm. Bergman luggage had a nice selection of high quality umbrellas that should last at least a few seasons in Seattle.

Is Google the new Microsoft? The spotlight is shining brightly on Google (and its stock price) but people are already griping that they wield too much power. Then again, it should be much easier to switch web services than operating systems. Are we any better off trusting Google with our data than we are Microsoft? Whatever the outcome I’m thrilled to see competition thriving in the industry. I wonder what would happen if Microsoft were to spin off a dozen or so small companies and free them to create cool products? Couldn’t the small team approach used at Google work for Microsoft as well? If I were Bill I’d start by spinning off Xbox and MySpaces. Both of those groups have great ideas and know how to generate excitement.

Sprint announced a new wireless music download service which sounds very interesting until the price ($2.50 per song) is mentioned. Is there a market for people willing to pay more than twice the iTunes price per song? Then again, I’m probably not the type Sprint is targeting since I don’t understand the hoopla surrounding ringtones either. But I like the idea just not the price.

This should be illegal. I cannot believe that Sony feels it’s ok to install this crap on people’s computers. On NPR Technology they interviewed a spokesman from Sony who said, “Most people don’t know what a rootkit is so it shouldn’t concern them”. It’s hard to imagine that level of arrogance. Virus writers are already taking advantage of this rootkit. Sony assumes everyone is a pirate, and tactics such as this surely drive some of us back to P2P, Usenet and Bit Torrent. I’m sure this same junk will show up in games and DVDs. Download the Rootkitrevealer to see if you’ve been hit. The EFF has published a list of infected Sony-BMG CDs.

Nov 11 update: Stung by bad publicity, Sony halts anti-piracy CDs until they can come up with a scheme that’s much more difficult to detect.

The web is where it’s at. I no longer look forward to installing a box of shrink-wrapped software on my computer no matter how cool it may be. I remember driving to Software Etc and purchasing a game called Police Detective which came on 22 floppy disks. That was 1993 and it took over an hour to install the game on my 486DX. Even the first version of Windows 95 I purchased came on a dozen or so floppies. Slowly, games and programs were released on CD. Now, some of the larger ones are released on DVD although not as quickly as many thought.

We now arrive at the Google Age of software where applications are released online at a rapid pace. Thousands of users test the apps, Google listens, and changes are made quickly. The patches and updates are seamless to the user. The thought of having to go to a website like Windows Update, install the correct Active X controls and then have it search your machine and finally download updates and reboot is so 1999. And that’s after all the time I spent installing the software in the first place!

I look forward to the day when packaged software is history. At the very least, offer your software for download. Better yet, put it on the web where I can reach it from any machine and improve, tweak and patch it while I’m busy getting work done. It’s not my job to baby-sit the program.