Woman killed by Eagle Ray

This may be the most bizarre thing that I have ever heard. You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning - multiple time. The media, in typical fashion, doesn't really get the story right. This incident involved an eagle ray, not a sting ray. Eagle rays will actually breach the surface in pursuit of prey or when they are being chased. There are documented cases of breaches of up to 10 feet. This ray happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It seems that a boat was speeding along in excess of 25mph. A woman on the front of the boat was hit by a ray that happened to be breaching the water at the time. As a result, the woman was hit in the head by a 75 pound eagle ray. Unfortunately for both of them, there were no survivors.

Crapware

Most PC manufactures are so unscrupulous that they load brand new computers with what is known in the industry as 'crapware.' This software actually causes all kinds of problems including systems that will not run well at all. Manufacturers do this to make small marginal profits from the 'crapware' vendors. Now Sony will leave the 'crapwear' off for an additional $50. Are you kidding me? Does this seem insane to anyone but me?

This is actually something that drives me insane. You have to go through a lot of effort to delete this 'crapware' anytime that you buy a new computer. The worst offenders are the security software vendors. I would not recommend Norton to anyone for any reason. Talk about problems.

So, what should you do when you buy a new PC? Before you do anything else, download and run a program called - PC Decrapifier. This will get rid of most of the problems. The exception is often anything by Norton. If you are unable to remove Norton, you will have to go to this site to download the removal tool.

Have fun

St. Lucia

There is no better time to go to St. Lucia than spring break. It is nice and warm but not too hot. I can't imagine going any later than March or April though as I can imagine that it would get very hot. It is paradise!

Pentagon hacked

Now if this isn't scary, what is? Turns out that last June, the Pentagon was hacked. Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted this two weeks after the attack. Gates initially thought that the attack only affected the non-classified email of 15,000 employees.

It turns out that it took the Pentagon some time to discover that the attack actually loaded a worm onto the Pentagons system that spread from one computer to another for several months. Once a person opened an infected e-mail, the worm sent that person's password and other login credentials back to the person that wrote the malicious code.

iPhone goes Corporate

In a press conference yesterday, Steve Jobs discussed the new SDK for the iPhone. Apple has licensed Exchange ActiveSync from Microsoft. This means that they can push email, calendars, and contacts. It also means that there is a remote wipe function for the iPhone. What does this mean? Watch out Blackberry.

While Blackberry is still the gold standard in the mobile business space with 41% market share, Apple's iPhone is not that far behind with 28% of the market. Give this a year after the SDK is released and watch out Blackberry.

How do we know that this will be HUGE? Because Steve Ballmer said that the iPhone was a joke!

Hotel Death Star

This may be the coolest hotel ever! It is the preliminary design of a hotel that looks like the Death Star. It is to be built in the capital of the Asian country Azerbaijan.

Talk about Star Wars fans!

Dell in the Dumps

According to an article in the recent issue of Forbes, Dell is not making the turnaround that Michael Dell had hoped that it would. Chief Executive Michael Dell told analysts in a conference call that "it's very clear we have significant work to do on our cost structure."

The PC market has been a sprint to the bottom for a few years now. Trying to compete in a commodity market based on price is a loosing proposition for everyone involved. There is only so much cost that can be taken out of a product. Dell's goal is to have levels of profitability comparable to its competitors in the consumer market. Unfortunately, they have a long way to go.

I contend that Dell's primary problem, other than selling $400 computers at Wal-Mart, is their deplorable customer service. It has become legendary according to the Wall Street Journal. How much customer service is build into the price of a $400 computer? Not much! Think about it. Do you actually know anyone that has not had a bad customer service experience with Dell?

Unfortunately, there is not one PC maker that can compete with Apple on customer service. Why is that? The PC manufacturers are focused only on costs. Long ago Apple decoupled the price of customer service from its actual hardware. Apple's customer service is not cheap but it is second to none in terms of customer satisfaction. The PC manufacturers could learn a lot from that business model.

Personally, I would like nothing more than to see Dell return to its days of glory. One way to do that is move up market and focus on great customer service!

No No - Bad Microsoft!!!

Turns out that Microsoft knew that Vista was full of bugs and driver problems well before they released the software. So what did they do, they released it anyway.

A federal judge today unsealed internal Microsoft e-mails that have been used to support the plaintiffs’ case in the lawsuit over the “Windows Vista Capable” program. An attorney read these emails aloud in court, but the full messages go further to reveal extensive hand-wringing, at the highest levels of the company, over Windows Vista’s hardware and software compatibility problems after the operating system was launched.

I would imagine that we are only minutes away from the EU jumping all over this one.

Underwater Car

This is one of the craziest things that I have ever seen. An underwater car. It is built by Rinspeed, a Swiss boutique automaker. It can be driven on the road as well. For those nice sunny days, it is also a convertible.