Kyle LeBoeuf

So, as most of us know, the Palm Pre officially drops June 6th, and the blog world is buzzing about it, but I think deep down inside, we all know what will happen to the Palm Pre.

Yes. I will be destroyed by the Apple iPhone monster.

I am making bold claims, I know. But think about it. Neither Sprint nor Palm has the brand awareness of Apple. One of the biggest reasons the iPhone sold so well, was that it was leveraging Apple’s brand awareness brought on by the success of the iPod.

There’s also the bit about the Pre being able to sync with iTunes (possibly even paid content). That’s not going to last. I seriously doubt that Apple gave Palm the permission to do this. Either someone is going to get sued, or the Pre is going to be locked out of iTunes with an update that’s not too far down the road (or both).

Either way, this thing is going to be a dud. Palm is going to release next Saturday and it will then be completely dwarfed by the release of a new iPhone.

Mark my words.

Kyle [at] kyleleboeuf.com

Working on fixing a problem I’ve been having with the website,

As a result, you may see some downtime. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Kyle LeBoeuf

UPDATE (10:25 AM): We’re back. That was a lot quicker than what I thought. The ad code is apparently embedded deep in the files somewhere, so I had to reinstall the theme. Thanks to Daniel Weber and Ben Spell for helping me solve the problem.

I just discovered this



This morning I sent my 2000th Tweet. Holy cow!

Here’s the proof (Click for full size):

Maybe I tweet too much?

…nah.

As it turns out, it runs great. Its snappy, it doesn’t take long to boot, and I can go pretty fast even with all of the eye candy running.

(It’s still not as good as OS X)

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard about the ads that Microsoft recently released, targeting what tech-pundits call the “Apple-tax”, or the high premium on Apple products when compared to products from other companies that are released to the same markets. 

There clearly is a premium involved when purchasing Apple products, but the problem with accusing Apple of jacking up prices for better margins is that most people are aware of the premium for Apple products.

Something that many tech-pundits and big tech companies do not understand, is that the customer is always right.

Always.

People pay a premium for Macs because customers of Apple products claim they are a superior product. If someone wants the reliability that a Mac affords, they are going to pay the premium. Someone buys a Mac because they are willing to pay the price what they want

These ads make it seem like the premium a veil before people’s eyes. It isn’t.

Hey Microsoft: how about working more on making your product not suck, instead of wasting marketing dollars on crap like this? Someone in Microsoft forgot about the EPIC FAIL that is Windows Vista.

This ad from Apple says it all:

disclosure: I am an Apple Certified OS X Support Professional 10.5 and am employed by an Apple Value-Added Reseller and Authorzied Service Provider.

So as of Friday, I’m officially an Apple Certified Support Professional.

Problem is, I do not have a Mac.

I work for an Apple Authorized Service Provider (and Value Added Reseller), and am hoping to move up in the company. figured that would be a good way to start.

Funny isn’t it?

Update (4-6-09): Yeah I definitely did not proofread this post before I threw it on here. My apologies.

Before I say anything about Safari 4, I just have to say that I’ll use just about any browser before I use ANY version of Internet Explorer.

Now that we have gotten that out of the way, I’m sure some of you may be wondering about my impressions on the new beta for Safari, Apple’s web browser that has  been available for the past few years in both Windows and Mac flavors.

For starters, the beta is far from perfect. This post is actually being written from within the browser…and when I tried to create the “Safari” shown in the previous paragraph, my page was just darkened, and I could not actually click on the window that pops up and allows you edit a hyperlink. Interesting.

Before I get further in depth about this browser, I have one caveat that I want to get out now: this version is ugly. Really ugly. It looks like a hybrid between IE8 and Chrome. It lost it’s distinct Mac feel. I liked the look of the previous versions, since they looked more their Mac counterparts.

Screenshot:

(Click to Enlarge)

And I don’t have a screenshot at the moment, but the Windows XP version (in my opinion) is even uglier.

Besides that, the browser’s performance is on par, if not faster, than that of Firefox 3. In loads a lot of different pages faster, and runs javascript a lot better (it also does not hog anywhere NEAR the amount of memory that Firefox does).

But alas, it will not replace Firefox for me. Why? It’s all about the extensions

Overall though…good browser. Just wish it would look less ugly (on Windows).

THIS IS FOR LOCAL LISTING ONLY! WILL NOT SHIP

Ultraportable Dell laptop for sale, with a bunch of extras.

$550, non-negotiable price
Ultra-portable Dell Latitude D420
12.1″ Widescreen display
Intel Centrino 1.02 GHz processor (single core)
60GB Hard Drive
1GB RAM
External DVD-RW Drive
Windows XP Professional Edition (Retail copy, not OEM)
NEW battery! (6 cell, 3-4 hours battery life under certain conditions)

Extras:
Microsoft Wireless Optical Notebook Mouse 3000
Microsoft LifeCam NX-3000 (webcam)
Wenger (Swiss Army) Backpack w/ Laptop Sleeve (valuable, expensive backpack. excellent condition)

All products are used unless specified.

Notes:
Laptop has noticeable cosmetic blemishes on top surface (opposite side of the display) and bottom surface, but otherwise runs great. Notebook mouse and webcams are both less than a year old and work great. Backback is blue and black, made by Wenger (swiss army gear), with a ton of pockets and a laptop sleeve that is more than adequate in size to fit the laptop.

I purchased the laptop for it’s size, but I am involved with a lot of media and big files/programs so I need something that’s faster.

Laptop does not include any of the original boxes or CDs and is sold “as-is” I would rather sell it to someone here in Lafayette before I listed it on Ebay.

Contact me by email at leboeuf.kyle at gmail.com. Please indicate “Laptop purchase” or something similar in your subject and state clearly who you are.

Thanks in advance!

Kyle

Imagine this scenario:

You are part of a multi-billion software company, with your software being used on anywhere from 90-95% of all computers in the world. Now, imagine that you are working on the next highly-anticipated iteration of your flagship product. You announce that you will be distributing a free beta of this new product to the public, to folks who offer good feedback on your product for free, on top of allowing consumers to get used to the product and getting to see it in action.

Now, imagine that after building up anticipation for the release of this beta, you launch this product using servers designed to handle a small fraction of this expected demanded. Your servers crash, leaving millions of customers (and writers) frustrated, for something you should’ve been prepared for in the first place.

Yes folks, this actually happened. That company’s name is none other than Microsoft! They announced that 2.5 million downloads of the Windows 7 Beta 1 would be available to the public, and the story was picked up by tons of different blogs and publications. The publicity surrounding this beta was extremely high, especially following the Microsoft Keynote at CES and the flurry of coverage surrounding the operating system at that time.

So, you’re Microsoft, and you see that everyone knows about the download you will be posting, and what do you do? In this case, Microsoft decided not to prepare for the surge in traffic. Their reward? Server crashes and lot of upset folks. They were forced to pull down their servers while they upgrade the infrastructure and prepare for the traffic (WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!!!).

Here’s an image, for effect (click to make larger):

From the Windows 7 beta download page:

“Thanks for your interest in the Windows 7 Beta. The volume has been phenomenal — we’re in the process of adding more servers to handle the demand. We’re sorry for the delay and we’ll re-post the Beta as soon as we can ensure a quality download experience.”

Gina Trapani, top editor for the blog Lifehacker, shares my sentiments.

Come on Microsoft. We all know that you’ve got a ton of cash laying around. Invest in the hardware, spend the money, and don’t disappoint your market.

Kyle