Some amazing stuff in here!

Parallels released an internal build on their forums which supports 64 bit Mac’s with any arbitrary RAM installation. I successfully installed it on my Mac Pro (which has 8 gigs of RAM) and it works perfectly. Its kind of surreal to have a native speed Windows XP installation running in a window. I was able to allocate it up to 1.5 gigs of RAM, which is more than enough.

My Mac Pro has no discernible speed hit. Parallels uses about 12-20% of processor consistently, which on a Quad Core isn’t noticeable at all.

I know I’ve said it before, but Parallels and Boot Camp changes the game on Microsoft to such an extent that I couldn’t in my right mind ever recommend a PC for anyone. In fact, WBR IT is doing Parallels + Basecamp with Windows XP as a default install image for all new computers, and is recommending Mac Book Pro’s for people wanting new laptops.

Now, how I USE this Windows install is another question. Right now I use it for cross platform testing and some stupid Windows only apps.

I have substantive things to say tomorrow regarding MySpace, surveys and children. Until then though, I must tell you this: I saw Patti Smith tonight in a room with 80 people or so, with Flea on bass. It was amazing, and one of the best musical experiences of my life. Nothing, and I mean nothing is as inspiring, as emotional and visceral as a Patti Smith show. Nothing.

To prove it, I leave you with these clips:

1996 or so

20 years earlier

Marvel and witness people. They don’t make musicians like her anymore. And that isn’t hyperbole.

Patti Smith
Michael Stipe
Bono
Thom Yorke
Grant Lee Phillips
Tom Verlaine
David Byrne

Thank whomever that they grew up to be who they are.

And yes, I did say Bono. Sue me.

Well, I couldn’t live blog because the stupid theater didn’t have good reception. Bastards.

Anyhow, the Stevenote was fun and entertaining, as you’d expect. If you’ve seen it on the webcast, its a lot like that, except with other people around you, and you know, he’s there in person.

The meat of it is: the Ipod Video and I think the hidden thing is: Apple is entering the Living Room.

The video iPod first: it is amazing. I got a chance to play with one and it feels solid, the screen looks amazing, it plays video smoothly, etc. Just perfection in every format. I will have one, like, right now. It is a bit wider and taller than the standard iPod, but as its thinner it feels smaller and more lithe.

The other thing is the new iMac and its remote control and Tivo like features: Front Row. It is a gorgeous interface, and works so seamlessly its a wonder no one has done anything close before, third party or otherwise. However, being that it only works on the iMac, it is of little utility to me.

Now, this is where I think Apple is going: imagine a Mac Mini, with Core Image support and this remote interface…… Hot. Imagine an Airport Express like device with this interface connecting to your G5 as a media server…. hot x 2!

Apple is going to enter the living room. This is the first step and after playing with it a bunch in the demo area, it is going to be massive.

tagged: web2con

Something that JotSpot’s head man said: we don’t do beta anymore, we go straight into GA release. I like that, but you can’t do that too early!

My goal with the stuff I do is to be quick and agile and not overthink things. I used to do software that was all designd, never actualized. I stopped doing that when I was at the Makrolab in Venice. I just sat down and started programming, kind of like sitting down and just painting.

Since I started WBR though, I haven’t had time to do that. I’m going to try to get back to that point, and program instinctually. I do wish that I could design instinctually though.

About hiring: No false positives hiring philosophy: I agree with this as well.

Never get anyone in the company who is not successful. Even if it means rejecting a lot of candidates that would work.

It is like our philosophy: We only hire rock stars.

Interesting point just made: Venture Capital is not always the best option. I agree with this as well. Why inflate something that is essentially only a feature, or a single product into a company? It need not be. Target getting acquired, be flexible, be agile. Does a single feature need a sales and marketing VP? Does a single product need an entire business devlopment team?

tagged: web2con

They are doing some cool shit. The Mindset search is great. Search with a metric applied as to teh intent of the results. I can imagine that if we had this with a collaborative filtering mechanism and maybe a self-organized map, search could be entirely predictive toward the intent of the results.

I would like that!

Google

Scale people, scale things.

Google announcing another labs.google.com thing….

Google Reader.

How to deal with all the blogs in the world? Google Reader is a blog aggregator with the personalization twist. All AJAXy and shit.

A fast way to iterate through items that you are interested in.

Its essentially an RSS aggregator integrated with their blog search and contextual search capabilities. It has some interesting features with sharing, to make it a social software. Gmail it, blog it, etc.

Labs has it

tagged: technology

It looks like someone created a GSM/VOIP gateway. It is crazy expensive, but that is still pretty cool. I’ve been VOIP only for three years now and I’m not going back to a standard pots line. It’d be great if our phones would auto-negotiate to VOIP whenever they could, as packets aren’t individually commodified.

Here’s the thing though: we still have stupidly finite bandwidth in the states. I pay 110 bucks a month for a 6 down, 768 up line from Speakeasy. It’s a crazy fast line, but I still have audio problems on Vonage when I’m downloading from torrents on the G5.

I want fiber to my curb (or apartment building). I want cheap, commodity communication to the point where bandwidth is an insignificant concern. 20 mbits per second? That would be nice. We’re getting there. I live in an urban environment, and if I moved 5 miles I’d have Verizon’s fiber product.

Anyhow, back to this technology: it is cool. It’ll be very cool when I can move through the world and my devices could automatically keep themselves on the fast connection available without any user action.