Monthly Archives: November 2014

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Overcome with nostalgia

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Today I ported a few more of my old developerWorks blogs onto this site. One of them had several videos about classic computer commercials. (By classic I mean that they might be from before you were born…which is not your fault. You’ll be classic some day too!) All the old YouTube videos were still intact. Take a look, it might make you smile.

For the curious, I’m also starting to get my AustinComputerWizard site running, to support my freelance consulting. It’s pretty bare bones right now. (The cobbler’s children have no shoes!) Look for it to get some legs here pretty soon. I’ll likely be providing some free tutorials and things through that site and leave this going as a general blog. There will be some level of cross-pollination, though. If you know people in the Austin area who could use a compassionate nerd to help them, please send them my way.  I can also do some projects remotely. It would be lovely if this could get off the ground and let me spend time helping people do cool stuff rather than wandering around in job-search land.

 

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Open fun with Microsoft Surface Pro 3

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Like many, I’ve been fast-forwarding past the Microsoft Surface commercials as I watch recorded episodes of The Walking Dead. (Though, I will admit that I had to use Google’s listening capabilities to find out what that music was… it’s I Am the Best, by 2NE1.) It looks cool and all, but it also comes with a Windows lifestyle. I don’t mind if you decide to use Windows, but I’d really rather not.

Then I saw this article:

CNN Discovers Promotional Surface Pros Make Fantastic iPad Stands

photo of iPads propped up against Surface Pro devices
Last night, CNN wasn’t just covering the mid-term elections. It was also pimping the Surface Pro 3, conspicuously placing a kickstand-ed unit in front of a bunch of its commentators. The catch? They were actually just being used as iPad stands.

This makes me laugh. It’s such a beautiful example of how people react to having technology pushed on them when they are trying to get something done. I wonder what sort of time was spent setting up the SPs and trying to orient staff on how to use them. Did they just pass them out or was there a concerted effort that was ultimately just ignored.

When I first saw the Surface Pro 3 I thought it looked interesting, but, as I mentioned before, I wasn’t interested in moving to Windows for the privilege. I wondered how long it would take to see Linux running there. The answer… it already does:

So… I would probably need some time to poke through the tweaks for the keyboard and bluetooth, but I have no doubt that those things would all fall into place at some point… possibly by magic as the updates embraced the nuances of the hardware.

I could totally get on board with this! I wonder if they have any leftovers from CNN I could use!