Last night I stayed in the Sin City Hostel with Paul Mooney, who has been posting pics and writing about his CES experience too. I was trying to save the company money, but found that it was a bit TOO sparse for my tastes. I need at least a power outlet!
Anyway, so I got Doc Searls a room in Ballys and tonight Buzz Bruggeman and I moved in with him which makes a much nicer room affordable. It helps getting approval for expense reports when you don’t kill the group’s budget.
Yeah, I care about expenses. I remember what it was like being a starving small company (when I worked at Winnov I drove down here and stayed in places that usually would rent by the hour if you get my drift).
Yes, Buzz, I did draw the short straw so get the small bed. Oh well. I got revenge, though, before Buzz got up here I took all the available power outlets. Let’s see. One for my cell phone. One for my Tablet PC. One for my Bluetooth headset. One for my shaver. One for my Channel 9 camcorder battery. Ahh, that leaves one for Doc’s laptop and wifi station. Buzz, I’ll trade you some power for your bed! 🙂
Anyway, I’ve been snapping an occassional picture with my ssssooooopppeeerrrr dddoooopppeeeerrr new SmartPhone and putting those up on my Flickr feed.
Bill Gates, as he looked on the projection screen at the Bellagio. Mike Hall, MSFTie, talking about embedded devices at the evening press event. Vongo sign. They opened their service which lets you download as many movies as you’d like for $9.99 a month. Walt Mossberg, of Wall Street Journal, spent some time in the Vonage booth talking with executives. Brian Livingston of Windows Secrets fame (his books sell a LOT of copies) came up and chatted. Oh, look, it’s the Engadgeteers! (Yes, that’s a good portion of the Engadget crew hanging around Jason Calacanis. Did you know that Engadget gets more than five million unique visitors a month? Damn!). Hey, what are those penguins doing? Heheh.
Maybe they were watching Engadget’s coverage of Bill Gates speech? 😉
Joe Wilcox over on Microsoft Monitor can always be counted on for lengthy analysis. Here’s his on Bill’s keynote.
I met Michael Gartenberg over in front of the Lenovo booth and I see he’s been writing up the happenings too, especially interested in the Vongo news.
Tomorrow? More balancing a plate in one hand while having conversations with geeks from around the world.
I’m not looking forward to shuttle bus lines and registration tomorrow. Yikes.
Scobleizer 
One reason I always travel with a super lightweight four bar extension cable. There’s never enough power in hotels, and especially at certain conferneces. Of course being a brit we’ve got the kick ass huge plugs, so grabbing one US socket and then trailing out the UK plugs of enabling concussion means there’s not some gravity defying adaptor complex sticking out the wall.
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One reason I always travel with a super lightweight four bar extension cable. There’s never enough power in hotels, and especially at certain conferneces. Of course being a brit we’ve got the kick ass huge plugs, so grabbing one US socket and then trailing out the UK plugs of enabling concussion means there’s not some gravity defying adaptor complex sticking out the wall.
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Boy, oh boy…going to these links and such, dead obvious the geekhead tech conference and analyst whores don’t live in the same world as most of America. And, ironically, there are something like 1,000 pundits and analysts out there, yet you only ever seem to reference Gartenberg and Wilcox. No suprise as to why. 😉 Heck Gartner has a whole army. All in all, it’s shareholder death on a corndog stick.
CES is not Comdex, this was but a Comdex speech, the audiences are differing, vaporware and dreamware doesn’t play as well to this crowd.
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Boy, oh boy…going to these links and such, dead obvious the geekhead tech conference and analyst whores don’t live in the same world as most of America. And, ironically, there are something like 1,000 pundits and analysts out there, yet you only ever seem to reference Gartenberg and Wilcox. No suprise as to why. 😉 Heck Gartner has a whole army. All in all, it’s shareholder death on a corndog stick.
CES is not Comdex, this was but a Comdex speech, the audiences are differing, vaporware and dreamware doesn’t play as well to this crowd.
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I always try to bring a power strip with me. Of course I also bring a printer as well. Be ready for anything I always say. I want to buy a small travel wi-fi AP as well.
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I always try to bring a power strip with me. Of course I also bring a printer as well. Be ready for anything I always say. I want to buy a small travel wi-fi AP as well.
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Christopher: it feels a LOT like Comdexes of old.
And, why do I only mention Gartenberg? Cause they are the ones who come up and say hi at conferences. And they are the ones who write on the Web.
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Christopher: it feels a LOT like Comdexes of old.
And, why do I only mention Gartenberg? Cause they are the ones who come up and say hi at conferences. And they are the ones who write on the Web.
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Err “blog” on the web, as Gartner, Directions and Redmond Mag guys “write” on the web too. Say ‘hi’ at conferences? Boy, are you spoon-fed. But never mind, endless argument and I will never win, in getting you to look beyond the usual blogosphere nose-level views.
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Err “blog” on the web, as Gartner, Directions and Redmond Mag guys “write” on the web too. Say ‘hi’ at conferences? Boy, are you spoon-fed. But never mind, endless argument and I will never win, in getting you to look beyond the usual blogosphere nose-level views.
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CES is NOT Comdex tho, the GYM’s aren’t playing to the right audience.
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CES is NOT Comdex tho, the GYM’s aren’t playing to the right audience.
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what’s the super duper smartphone you’re using currently, Robert? sorry if I missed it mentioned in an earlier post.
thanks.
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what’s the super duper smartphone you’re using currently, Robert? sorry if I missed it mentioned in an earlier post.
thanks.
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Michael: Cingular 2125. It’s made by HTC, very similar to my old Audiovox 5600. But it has a TON better screen. Better buttons. Much better reception. Better voice quality. Better features overall.
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Michael: Cingular 2125. It’s made by HTC, very similar to my old Audiovox 5600. But it has a TON better screen. Better buttons. Much better reception. Better voice quality. Better features overall.
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I would note that the Vongo site will apparently not let Mac users in the front door–you get an error message saying, basically, “come back later Mac user.” I didn’t expect this service to be Mac-usable at first blush, but I did want to read and learn. Now I am just miffed, and not likely to come back. Not smart marketing at all.
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I would note that the Vongo site will apparently not let Mac users in the front door–you get an error message saying, basically, “come back later Mac user.” I didn’t expect this service to be Mac-usable at first blush, but I did want to read and learn. Now I am just miffed, and not likely to come back. Not smart marketing at all.
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Robert,
I recommend you look for USB power (and maybe sync) cables for each of your traveling gear and then you can reduce the number of power bricks and instead power everything from you laptop(tablet).
I have spent time for my accessories, so now I can travel with all my peripherals and only my digital camera needs a separate power brick. Everything else which includes cell phone, PDA, wireless access point, wired network hub (some sites I visit ban wireless networks), bluetooth headphone, ipod, etc. all powered off of my laptop. I use either short (less than 1 foot) cables or retractible cables to keep the wiring mess simple as well.
Mark
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Robert,
I recommend you look for USB power (and maybe sync) cables for each of your traveling gear and then you can reduce the number of power bricks and instead power everything from you laptop(tablet).
I have spent time for my accessories, so now I can travel with all my peripherals and only my digital camera needs a separate power brick. Everything else which includes cell phone, PDA, wireless access point, wired network hub (some sites I visit ban wireless networks), bluetooth headphone, ipod, etc. all powered off of my laptop. I use either short (less than 1 foot) cables or retractible cables to keep the wiring mess simple as well.
Mark
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Two things bothered me about Bill Gates’ presentation (no, I wasn’t there, but these are pretty obvious). One, is that Windows Vista is particularly boring. I think normal users, when they first fire it up, it will be cool, but there’s nothing there for hardcore users, who already have desktop search, RSS readers, etc.
Second, is that I can’t use any of this stuff right now. The Windows Live Messenger isn’t released, Vista isn’t released, WMP 11 isn’t released. In the mean time, Itunes will get like 30 real functional updates. I’m not going to buy a Mac tonight, but by the time Vista comes out, I’ll be committed to Itunes for my new Ipod, Picasa for managing photos and the new Yahoo! mail.
Let’s put it this way: MS once rolled out IE 4 to compete with Netscape, and you were so serious, you included new toolbars, Web Desktop, all this stuff. It was a huge effort, and consumers were completely blown away. Windows 95 made computers accessible, Windows 98 made them cool. It was amazing what I could download and install for free, and it worked pretty good. Now we’re all downloading software regularly and automagically updating Windows.
So my point is that anyone can download and install software as easy as enabling it in Windows. So why not use Picasa now? And now I’m locked in. I was absolutely shocked when I had to locate and install drivers for my parent’s old computer off of discs. We just don’t do this anymore. And similarly, it’s shocking that Gates is talking about software that his company hasn’t rolled out yet. That’s a hardware mentality now. A business enterprise mentality (no surprises). Google’s extreme beta software-only mentality is really just the natural progression of the last 10 years or so. This attitude is becoming necessary to keep market share. MS used to kill the competition when products like WordPerfect lingered in Dos for years. Now who’s in that position?
Did you know Creative is rolling out it’s own podcast software? Isn’t that a symptom? A company like that feels the need to make their own software rather than waiting for Vista?
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Two things bothered me about Bill Gates’ presentation (no, I wasn’t there, but these are pretty obvious). One, is that Windows Vista is particularly boring. I think normal users, when they first fire it up, it will be cool, but there’s nothing there for hardcore users, who already have desktop search, RSS readers, etc.
Second, is that I can’t use any of this stuff right now. The Windows Live Messenger isn’t released, Vista isn’t released, WMP 11 isn’t released. In the mean time, Itunes will get like 30 real functional updates. I’m not going to buy a Mac tonight, but by the time Vista comes out, I’ll be committed to Itunes for my new Ipod, Picasa for managing photos and the new Yahoo! mail.
Let’s put it this way: MS once rolled out IE 4 to compete with Netscape, and you were so serious, you included new toolbars, Web Desktop, all this stuff. It was a huge effort, and consumers were completely blown away. Windows 95 made computers accessible, Windows 98 made them cool. It was amazing what I could download and install for free, and it worked pretty good. Now we’re all downloading software regularly and automagically updating Windows.
So my point is that anyone can download and install software as easy as enabling it in Windows. So why not use Picasa now? And now I’m locked in. I was absolutely shocked when I had to locate and install drivers for my parent’s old computer off of discs. We just don’t do this anymore. And similarly, it’s shocking that Gates is talking about software that his company hasn’t rolled out yet. That’s a hardware mentality now. A business enterprise mentality (no surprises). Google’s extreme beta software-only mentality is really just the natural progression of the last 10 years or so. This attitude is becoming necessary to keep market share. MS used to kill the competition when products like WordPerfect lingered in Dos for years. Now who’s in that position?
Did you know Creative is rolling out it’s own podcast software? Isn’t that a symptom? A company like that feels the need to make their own software rather than waiting for Vista?
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re: Vongo Pongo site
Apparently I have an “OS Failure”. Really? A “Failure”? Or is the real “Failure” their inability to provide me with a web site for my OS? Vongo is telling a potential customer that I have failed right out of the bat. With a promise that Mac support is coming, “really”.
What a horrible message to send to potential customers.
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re: Vongo Pongo site
Apparently I have an “OS Failure”. Really? A “Failure”? Or is the real “Failure” their inability to provide me with a web site for my OS? Vongo is telling a potential customer that I have failed right out of the bat. With a promise that Mac support is coming, “really”.
What a horrible message to send to potential customers.
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Does ssssooooopppeeerrrr dddoooopppeeeerrr new SmartPhone camera ever focus?
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Does ssssooooopppeeerrrr dddoooopppeeeerrr new SmartPhone camera ever focus?
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Focus and picture quality isn’t ‘human’ enough, only marketing and PR hacks care about that. 😉
Yeah, either just a wobble deal, or low megapixel, or just on the go quickie pics. All the pooooooopppper scooooooppper phoen pics have a blurry glaze about them. For someone prior working in a camera shop, none of it shows, including Channel 9 shaky poor-quality cam, without decent audio.
What ever happened to moboblogging and Text America, all replaced by Flickr?
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Focus and picture quality isn’t ‘human’ enough, only marketing and PR hacks care about that. 😉
Yeah, either just a wobble deal, or low megapixel, or just on the go quickie pics. All the pooooooopppper scooooooppper phoen pics have a blurry glaze about them. For someone prior working in a camera shop, none of it shows, including Channel 9 shaky poor-quality cam, without decent audio.
What ever happened to moboblogging and Text America, all replaced by Flickr?
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Why, exactly, is MS paying to you to be at CES?
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Why, exactly, is MS paying to you to be at CES?
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Marketing, jazz-up, meet and greet the newfound blogger press, (they were not given a CES press pass before), any conferences he goes to will be flocked with groupies, aka, the Tablet PC party he’s crashing will grow threefold…dancing bear, blogged attention trust metadata rust or whatever lunatic buzzword Steve Gillmor would approve of. In light of that blah blah rehashed Gates keynote, you can easily justify Scoble being there. And any place to which he goes, becomes a centralized place to be, for the Sillycon Valley strawheads at least.
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Marketing, jazz-up, meet and greet the newfound blogger press, (they were not given a CES press pass before), any conferences he goes to will be flocked with groupies, aka, the Tablet PC party he’s crashing will grow threefold…dancing bear, blogged attention trust metadata rust or whatever lunatic buzzword Steve Gillmor would approve of. In light of that blah blah rehashed Gates keynote, you can easily justify Scoble being there. And any place to which he goes, becomes a centralized place to be, for the Sillycon Valley strawheads at least.
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