A page of doodles found on Tony Blair’s desk at last week’s economic summit in Davos sparked a wave of excitement in the media. Psychologists and handwriting experts were drafted in by the press in the hope of getting a glimpse into the inner workings of the prime ministerial mind. Newspaper stories contained phrases such as “struggling to concentrate” and “not a natural leader”.

So what is this obviously political passage doing here? Ah, grasshopper, you jump too soon.

Now - and with not a little glee - Downing Street has revealed that the scribblings were not the work of the premier, but that of one Bill Gates of Microsoft. Insiders at Number 10 are apparently waiting “with amusement” to find out just how the comments about Mr Blair will now be applied to Mr Gates.

Of course, Microsoft will probably claim it was Bono’s…

“If you use the internet to harm people, it will be investigated and you will be punished,” Jeff Sullivan, chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s office in Seattle, told reporters.
WORM_MSBLAST.A
He was talking about Jeffrey Lee Parson, 19, who released a variant of the Blaster worm that was used to attack more than 48,000 computers. Parson’s lawyers said that since his arrest, he has made a Seattle school district video warning teens of the dangers of internet vandalism. Parson apologized to the court and to Microsoft, saying, “I know I’ve made a huge mistake and I hurt a lot of people and I feel terrible.” Parson, who was brought in from his home in Hopkins, Minnesota, pleaded guilty to creating a variant of the worm, which infected computers in mid-2003 and targeted computers at Microsoft. Parson said he created his “B” or “teekids” variant of the Blaster worm and used it to access 50 computers, which he then used to launch a broader attack on more than 48,000 computers.

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman, however, did not give the Minnesota teen the maximum 37-month sentence, saying Parson wrote malicious software and used it to attack other computers partly because of neglectful upbringing and supervision. Instead, she sentenced him to a year and a half of prison and ordered him to perform community service, pay restitution, and be placed under supervision for three years following the sentence.

Wuss.

Note that the headline is a link. It will send you over to Livedigitally.com where new writer, Pauric, takes a shot at describing the way things have been, are, will be, and maybe should be in music distribution.

I have a minor problem with it. That’s probably because Pauric is most likely a younger guy and I’m a Lieutenant in the Legion of Cranky Old Men. Here’s the problem: “People who started listening to music in pre-Internet times became used to the concept that you buy before you listen.”

In my world, that a wrong-headed implied assumption. Back in the day, we bought music “sound unheard” because we trusted that the artists we were buying wrote good music. Even the “B” stuff. (Name me one bad track on Abbey Road. And no, let’s not talk about Mr. Spock’s Music from Outer Space.) That changed as the quality of musicians and song writers diminished over time such that Pauric is now correct, you can no longer buy before you try if you actually want somthing to listen to for roughly the same length of time as the CD runs.

So, once Pauric gets beyond tripping over himself while he’s trying to set up what he’s about to say next (it happens with new writers; they think thay have to explain themselves; Ha!), he actually makes some reasonable, if possibly good, points. Worth a read.

Imagine the amazement on the faces of all your friends when you boot OS X on your PC. You need an OS X CD for this to work but jkOnTheRun will tell you where to get detailed instructions for the install.

(Of course, if you just want your Windows PC to behave like it has OS X installed, check out TechTree.com)

Writers for the popular show “The O.C.” on Fox plugged Amazon.com’s new search engine A9.com as a synonym for hunting down something on the Web, instead of using the well-worn phrase “I Googled it,” like everybody else. “I A9.com’d him last night, and according to the O.C. Weekly, he’s pretty much everything that’s wrong with Western civilization,” one of the cast members said to another on Thursday night’s episode.

I have to admit, I’ve never seen a single episode of “The O.C.” I had enough trouble pronouncing “E.R.” Seems to me, however, that if I was going to make up such a webism I’d just say, “I A9′d him.” The whole purpose is to shorten the language into near incomprehensibility, isn’t it? Why add “dot-com?” Maybe the writers just aren’t as hip, cool, grinchy, whateveritis.

It should be easy to get from city A in Norway to city B in Norway, especially if you’re using mapping software –like MapPoint– that will give you directons, right? Maybe not. In fact, maybe you should pack a passport, some spare clothes, and get a vacination. Why, you ask? Last time somebody tried that, MapPoint charted a route for them that went south to England, west to Germany, north to Sweden, and then sort of east up to the end point of choice –roughly 13x longer than the direct route north would have been. Click the image to see the route. Blind faith in technology? Maybe not if you live in Norway and use MapPoint (which is a Microsoft product, isn’t it?).

PC enthusiasts have embraced small desktops such as the LPC-401X from Little PC. It’s 10 inches long, 5.8 inches wide and 2.8 inches high.

Touchdown Industries is attempting to appeal to sports fans with a small desktop that fits into a football helmet. This PC for pigskin lovers measures 9 inches high and 7 inches wide.

(Yes, those are blurbs directly from the companies. It’s Sunday. It’s my hour off. Then again, be thankful I didn’t include Dell’s claim to minisculity. It included and LCD display and a keyboard.)

I kid you not! Lora Heiny over at “What Is New in Tablet PCs?” took me to task for my words of depression about Tablets. She took umbrage with my using Dell as a yardstick against which to measure the future of Tablet evolution. She relies on this quote:

Dell, the world’s largest PC maker, is not interested in Tablet PCs because the market is too small. “We think they are truly an interesting technology, but right now the people who are getting the most immediate gain out of tablets are in certain verticals,” said Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden. “We’re not seeing a significant market trend.”

This is one time that repeating the error over and over again doesn’t make it true. If you’re interested in buying a Tablet PC from Dell, here is the link.)

But Lora… Read what Camden said: “right now the people who are getting the most immediate gain out of tablets are in certain verticals.” So sure, they’re selling the bloody little beasties, but they’re selling them into vertical markets and have no intention of wandering. Microsoft wants to mainstream the thingies!

I can forgive Ms. Heiny for her lapse of judgment, especially the part about me being wrong. She is a Tablet proponent. Like those who fought most passionately for the walking dead OS/2, her passion is overwriting her sense of context.