CyberbrineDreams

It’s full of *-ware nastiness! Bad iPhone! Bad!

This is the sort of thing that drives programmers mad…

Consider the following C# code:

  Color inputColor = Color.White;
  Bitmap bitmap = new Bitmap(1, 1);
  bitmap.SetPixel(0, 0, inputColor);
  Color outputColor = bitmap.GetPixel(0, 0);
  if (inputColor == outputColor)
    Console.WriteLine("Same color");
  else
    Console.WriteLine("Different color");
  if (inputColor.Equals(outputColor))
    Console.WriteLine("Same color");
  else
    Console.WriteLine("Different color");

You would expect the output to be:

Same color
Same color

and of course you would be wrong.

Why?

Because inputColor is a named color (White, RGBA) and outputColor is an unnamed color (RGBA).

Obvious huh?

According to their annual report Nintendo sold more Wiis in the last year than Microsoft has sold XBox360s in the last three years. Or Sony seeing PS/3s in the last 2.5 years.

So…

In 2007 they brought in $2.5 million/per employee
In 2008 they brought in $1.6 million/per employee (they bought some factories and significantly increased their head count)

I’ve not seen what the 2009 numbers are yet per employee.

Must be nice to be able to print your own money….

I was looking up when to try to see Star Trek Friday and saw that was out today…

Counting on the fact that maybe a lot of other people did not realize it was out until Friday I left my house 25 min before the movie (previews really) to find that I was ticket #36 for a 250 person theater.

Verdict? The new film is a good reboot of the series. Worth seeing.

I usually don’t like the video version of The Onion (I personally find it works better in it text) I did like this segment.

Well the Big News today was Microsoft had its first year-to-year loss in its history.

However, I’m more interested in my mild obsession: the Entertainment and Devices Division (EDD), who’s primary income and expense comes from the XBox 360. They lost $31m compared to making $106m same time last year. Revenue was down only 2%.

Interestingly enough they first blame the poor performance on Apple software sales. Apparently Office 2008 for the Mac is down 63%. They go on to explain this as because Mac sales are down.

According to Apple’s 10Q Mac sales are down 3% this year so I’m guessing that the real Office for the Mac problems are:

• Microsoft Office 2008 for the Mac was not very well received.
• Microsoft Office for the Mac is no longer considered a requirement since there are now several good alternatives that range from $0 to $99.

Strangely enough I would have thought that Office 2008 for the Mac would have been part of the Microsoft Business Division (MBU) with Office for Windows but I’m wrong. I guess that’s why I’m not paid the big bucks.

Later in the 10Q they mention the real culprit: R&D expenses are up $66m due primarily to increased headcount.

So this brings the EDD’s net loss (revenue – expenses) up to $6.664 billion since the XBox was launched.

Tonight I tried to visit my favorite tech book site bookpool and saw it was gone. After some googling it indeed appears to have gone belly upa few weeks ago.

I’ve used them since they were a gopher site. They were the first people that I did a commercial transaction with on the internet.

I remember in the early days to sign up with them you had to FAX them a copy of your driver’s license and credit card. I faxed them the info and about 30 seconds later after I walked back to my office I was able to purchase my book. I was impressed at the speed they got me set up.

/Me lifts a toast to Bookpool. You will be missed.

Over years I’ve found that if you actually compare component for component Apple often has a favorable price point to a corresponding PC.

Disclaimer: I’m not trying to say an Apple is better than a Dell or other Wintel machine. I’m also not saying that the PC world does have many more price points, configurations, a machines that can do what the average person wants to do for much less. All of those points are true. What I am saying is if you compare two similarly configure machines, often Apple has a completive price.

Now that Dell has a Nehalem-based workstations and laptops it is possible to actually compare a Mac to a Windows based PC component to component.

So here’s a Dell Precision 5500 compared to a MacPro

• Dual 2.26GHz Quad Core Xeon (Nehalem)
• 12 GB DDR3 1066 memory (6×2GB)
• 1TB 7200RPM SATA drive
• CD/DVD burner
• No monitor
• Dell – 256MB NVIDIA® Quadro® NVS 295
• Apple – ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Apple: $3,899
Dell: $5,427

I realize there’s a slight mismatch on the graphics but everything else is the same (or equivalent). However, there are some differences. The Dell is ultimately a more configurable machine with 9 vs 8 memory slots where the Mac Pro maxs out at 32GB the Dell can goto 72GB (for $27,090 more, and it runs the memory at 800MHz instead of 1066MHz) and it supports faster memory DDR3 1333. That accounts for part if not all of the price difference.

On the laptop front I could not find a Nehlem based 15” inch from Dell so I had to goto 17”. The Dell M6400 is the closest thing I can find to a 17” Macbook Pro. Configuration:

• 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (Nehalem)
• 4 GB 1066MHz DDR3 (2×2GB)
• 320GB SATA @ 7200RPM
• 17” 1920×1200 RGB LED display
• Webcam, Bluetooth, Wireless N, etc…
• DVD RW
• Dell: NVIDIA Quadro FX 2700M, 512MB
• Apple: NVidia 9600M, 512MB

Apple: $2,849
Dell: $3,422

Again there is the graphics mismatch and again Dell is more configurable with four memory slots vs two so the Apple can goto 8GB and the Dell to 16GB. Also the Dell has two drive slots to the Apple’s one.

So for the same class of machine at this moment it appears that PCs are more expensive, but more configurable, than the corresponding Apple machine. If this generation of machines follows the historical pattern this will reverse over time.

As with Core Duo, Core Duo 2, and now Nehlem Intel has allowed Apple to be first to the party. The early adopter PCs that follow are a lot more expensive. As Nehlem processors and DDR 3 ram become more popular in mid-tier PCs the corresponding machine prices will drop and towards the end of the product cycle the corresponding Dells will be less expensive component to component.

I guess I should maybe do this comparison every 6 months or so and see how it goes

Several complaints about H&R Block TaxCut this year:

• Sending me the CD since I’ve used your product for the last 10 years is a good idea. Saves me a trip to the store. Sending me four identical CDs to the same person at the same address is wasteful.
• Having the software on the CD would be nice instead of having me download the software off the internet after I buy it. Eliminates of good part of the reason for having the CD in the first place. Send me an email next year. Al Gore and the baby seals will love you.
• Scanning my documents directory is a good idea to look for saved tax returns. Refusing to find the tax return I’m currently working on between sessions because it’s not in my documents directory is bad.
• When I print my tax return it would be nice if it let me choose which printer I want to use instead of dumping ~30 pages to my relatively expensive inkjet printer instead of my inexpensive laser printer.
• It’s even more annoying when you let me choose which printer to send my one page eFile confirmation number.

Today was the first Windows Update fix published that I helped push through through Microsoft’s system.

When Windows unpacks WMF/EMFs it does not validate the parameters of triangle gradients correctly resulting in a memory clobber in kernel mode – generally consider to be a bad thing ;-)

It was actually uncovered by one of our remote offices. I was a bit skeptical when they said printing one of our maps would blue screen the system. They gave me a project and EMF and sure enough, it blue screened my system. At first I was a bit worried as the blue screen happened after printing had left our code and was in the queue. However, looking at the kernel dump in WinDbg it was obvious it was a kernel bug, not a driver or application bug.

I passed it on to our Microsoft rep who pretty much had the same reaction as me: Yeh, right; oh sh*t! It blue screened my system!

It was pretty amusing as not only could you crash your own machine you could take out another machine by remote printing.

So after a little more than year of working with Microsoft, helping come up with reproductions, working on a business case to justify it, verifying that the patch worked, it’s out.

Seriously, all I did was champion this and push it though the system. It was a previously reported bug and was even fixed in Windows 2000 and Vista. I just lobbied for a WinXP patch since the majority of our customers are on WinXP and it could crash and possibly compromise a system.

Still it’s nice that it’s out and I’m happy to have been a part of it.

/my arm is tired from patting myself on the back…

Today one of my daughters had a friend over. They wanted to watch a film so I agreed to rent one online for them. They picked a film. It was not available on Road Runner VOD so I rented it from the Apple Store. About 30 minutes later they told me it was not playing yet. I checked it out and the download progress was 0%. I was a bit surprised as normally standard def movies play in 5-10min and high-def in the 15-25 min.

We were running short on time for her friend to be able to stay and see the film so usenet and 9 minutes later I had the film found/downloaded/decoded and playing for the kids. Afterward I deleted it. Although some might argue differently, I feel that I did nothing wrong.

If you want people to go on the straight and narrow you need to make the legal path as easy/easier than the illegal one.