I LOVE the new Microsoft Max that just came out. I’ve been waiting for this for some time. The downside? It is slow on my Tablet PC. I bet it runs great on a faster desktop machine. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the news display in this thing. More later, I’m giving a talk to BlogCamp in India via Skype. Read more about that on Kiruba’s blog.

This is a fun way to give a talk to a conference. I’d rather be there, though, but I can see the audience in a Flickr tag feed for “BlogCamp” and a video feed (which I’m trying to get access to right now).

Yes, it’s midnight here, but what the heck?

UPDATE: bummer, the audio isn’t working great. Problem on their end. What’s funny is I can read blogs from the audience almost as fast as they are posted.

UPDATE 2: since my speech has been delayed a few minutes I am playing more with Max and reading other blog posts about it.

This is NOT a Web based aggregator. It’s built on top of the Windows Presentation Foundation which includes better fonts, better page layout capabilities, and more. It’s awesome, but needs more testing…

I agree with Ryan Stewart that it’s stunning, though. Shows what you can do if you have a new framework underneath you. Yeah, there are some problems (I’m trying to figure out how to import and export an OPML file, for instance), but, boy is this thing beautiful.

Don Park raises a good question of whether or not I (and other journalists and bloggers) are being fair to Patricia Dunn?

I’ll be happy to give Hewlett Packard or Patricia Dunn an entire blog post (take as many words as you want) to give her side, or HP’s side of this whole thing. I’d even be happy to take my video camera over and put the video up on YouTube or Google Video or Blip.TV and let anyone at HP say whatever they want unchallenged by me and I’ll put that up unedited.

I won’t even link to David Kirkpatrick at Fortune Magazine, who called for her head.

Is my reaction over the top? Yeah! But like Russell Shaw says, it’s an American tradition!

Is this story boring yet? I really don’t care if I lose every single reader I have because I keep rambling on about this story. Patricia Dunn has got to go. The HP board has to realize this story is not going away.

Well, it shouldn’t. Where are we going to draw the line on privacy? At pretexting? Or when they stick a little recording device in my bedroom to see who I am talking with? Oh, not willing to put the line there? Well, how about just implant an RFID tag in my head along with a GPS and a little transmission device.

Hell, let’s just get rid of this privacy idea altogether, right? OK, I’m game. Patricia Dunn first please. If she does it, I’ll go along with this whole “get rid of privacy” game that seems to be how many employers want to play it (ever look into how deeply employers can look into your private life? It might scare you.)

HP should prepare itself for a raft of headlines like this one, HP Boosts Its Integrity, in InfoWorld.

Is that unfair? Sure! But we aren’t the ones who broke the law.

Anyway, to answer Don’s question: I don’t really care at this point. I’ve been reading very carefully trying to find a reason to take Patricia Dunn’s side. I’ve been talking with dozens of people behind the scenes. I can’t find one reason to take a different stance than I now am taking. That said, I’d be happy to learn tomorrow that we’re all mistaken and that we’re barking up the wrong tree and I’d be the first one to report I was wrong.

The facts in this case, though, don’t get better, they just get worse and that’s after the New York Times reported Patricia’s own words. Translation: I doubt she’ll take me up on my offer.

Update: Blog Herald goes further and asks “Will Social Software Mutate Blogosphere into Mob Rule?”

CNNMoney: “Are you lying … or incompetent?”

Like I said, this story isn’t going away and the reporters aren’t going to get nicer from here. They also aren’t going to let this story go away. Christopher Coulter predicts we’ll see six months of this. Well, if the whole board resigns, then this will go away in a week and we can all get on with life.

Oh, I tried to go to the beach and see if I could get away from the smell that was coming out of the HP board room. Nope, I couldn’t, it was such a strong smell that it did reach all the way across the Santa Cruz mountains. Oh, or maybe that was the rotting seaweed on the beach. I couldn’t really tell the difference. Sigh. I did Flickr a few photos, though, including some blog links I left in the sand.

Back out to have more fun. Hope you’re having a good weekend.