Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Lowering the Bar

Here is a little list of stuff.

I got a Little Caesars (<- hard word to spell) today for $5.  Now, this is not a great pizza but it's not bad for the price and it is ready the moment you ask for it.

Breakfast Croissants (<-another hard word to spell) from Burger King are a favorite of mine.

I love McDonald's double cheeseburgers, especially when then are on sale for a buck a piece.

Popeye's fried chicken is roughly 5 times better than KFC.

Google's chrome browser is better than Firefox (faster) and way better than IE8.

I hear the new droid phones are better than the i-phones but I don't have firsthand knowledge.  I do know that the droid has none of the app restrictions that the i-phones have so there will soon my more apps for that phone. Also, droids come out  (undated) every couple of months where the i-phones are about every 18 months.

A net book costs a little more than an external hard drive.  If you need an extra 160 gig of storage, get a net book for about $300 and you end up with a spare computer as well as storage.

The grande meal at Taco Bell is a good deal no matter who you are.

Some predictions:

Who will come out on top in the battle of operating systems?
Apple is better than Microsoft.  It always has been but Microsoft still rules.  However, the Google operating system, Chrome, will be so much better that Apple and Microsoft will retreat to small players until they fade away.

Who will win the phone war?
Apple's latest i-phone is so crappy that Apple's stock has fallen almost 8% since it was release.  Microsoft is a wanna be.  Blackberry is like IBM hanging on to typewriter production for too long.  Google's Droid phones are as capable as the new i-phones with the only real difference being that they work.  Also, Google does not have all those restrictions on what company can use the phone and who can make apps for the phone.  Google is more interested in making the phone better than in adding to a pile of profits too high to count.

What will the browser of the future be?
Safari will go away with Apple.  IE8 is already dead and gone.  I use Firefox out of habit.  When I need speed and reliability, I use Google's Chrome.  Firefox 4.0 is coming out but all it's really trying to do is catch up with Chrome.

By the time Apple is able to make an affordable, non-crashing I-pad, I expect Google to come out with something better and cheaper.

What will the office suite of the next 5 years be?
I was one of the first to dump Office 2003 for Office 2007.  Big mistake.  When I bought a net book, I went out and found an old version of Office 2003 and installed that.  Office 2010 is out now.  It is just Office 2007 in a new box.  Don't buy it.  It is a downgrade put out there with the belief that you will buy it because it's new.  I have tried the Open Source Office suite and found it clunky and often incompatible.  Google Docs is free but not yet ready to take over for Microsoft.  So, Microsoft's product is getting worse while Google is now in the game with a reputation for making things better and then giving it away for free.  Who do you think will win this one?

Tomorrow is my 9th and last day in Ohio for about 15 days.  I am off to Croatia for a vacation and then to Hungary for a week.  Then back to Ohio.

up up and away!

j