When people come across someone who has figured out a couple things and has the ability to explain those things to some degree and/or can make problems go away those who are less knowledgeable latch on to them like like a monkey to an organ grinder.

And that’s where the problem starts. Just because you know more than most doesn’t mean you should really be offering people advice or running a store. If you don’t REALLY know what you’re doing you wind up causing more harm than good in the long run.

Is Vista better or worse than XP? How much RAM do you actually need? Do you need a laptop or a desktop?

Politics work much the same way computers stores and computer gurus do. We find someone who can explain things to us in a way we can understand them and follow them. A guru, with the right charisma, can provide perfectly sound and easy to follow guidance that we follow without question. But whose interests are being served?

There is nothing to prevent gurus from furthering their own goals at the expense of consumers. A distributor could start offering a new whitebook that your local guru would like to play with perhaps for no other reason than it’s new and would be cool to check out.

Answering the questions of whether or not you need a laptop or not and then which laptop is right for you can easily be swayed by what shiny new toy is available and what that particular guru feels like playing with. Perhaps the guru doesn’t know that much about laptops and would prefer not learn about them at your expense. A nice enough idea unless a laptop is what you really need and they talk you out of it.

Do we need to be in Afganistan? Should we surge there? What do we do if Iran goes nuts with their nuclear plans? We elected the people that make these decisions for us. It occurs to me that we choose those elected officials in much the same way that we choose computer stores.

I remember Obama talking about the need to reform healthcare. He was quite reassuring and delivered his message with a level of charisma we haven’t seen in years. A true pied piper to the masses. But have you ever seen his resume? What experience does he have repairing defective health care systems? While he has expressed many opinions across a variety of topics, do you know enough about those topics to decide if he’s on the right track?

We should choose computer stores and politicians the same way we choose employees. What experience do these folks have? What tasks have they successfully completed and what bearing do those tasks have on those that lie before them? What level and type of integrity to they possess?

If you’re looking for someone to fix your computer, ask them what their background is. How long have they been doing it? Who did they learn from? What kind of guarantee to they offer on their work? How much time to they spend finding out what you want to do with your computer? How does their recommendation support your computing needs?

It’s the answers to these questions that are important more than their ability to deliver them. After all, if they sound good but aren’t correct you will have another bill. If you get good answers but the delivery is off, they can always sign up with the toastmasters.

Sure there’s great food but it’s crazy expensive. In fact everything is expensive. Admittedly I don’t live there but I visit all too frequently and I can’t remember ever sitting in a restaurant eating something unique to California and thinking about how reasonably it was priced.

Honestly I try to avoid CA as much as possible but it seems like CA keeps coming to find me. Now it’s causing me tax headaches.

While building an e-commerce site for a CA-based company I’ve learned about the fantastic idea the California State Board of Equalization for varying the tax rate based on where you live.

How did I miss this? It started April 1 and I haven’t heard anything about it in the news. Come on people. The Board of EQUALIZATION is applying tax UNequally. And as if that wasn’t stupid enough, it’s based on county. What you may not know is that ZIP codes do not coincide with counties. Or cities. Why should they, really? A ZIP code is used by the post office to get you your mail.

But the reality of e-commerce requires you to base things on a ZIP code because that’s the easiest way to do things. I can import a list of ZIP codes and associate a tax rate with them and then apply that tax rate to the order. My e-commerce software doesn’t ask you what county you live in and that’s what it needs to do to collect the correct amount of tax.

WTF.

So the software has to be changed at a fundamental level just to accommodate CA. I wonder how much that’s going to cost? I probably shouldn’t complain because it really makes sense to do this now. Since the economy is down people aren’t selling as much as they used to. Clearly we all have enough time to reinvent the wheel since we’re not that busy.

Thanks to California I won’t feel so bored. I can’t wait to see how many orders don’t get completed because people are (rightly) confused when they get asked what county they live in by a shopping cart.

Sure, things look good now, but I want to see what they will do to the final released version. What services have they not sprung on us yet? What will be running in the released version that isn’t running now? What aspects of the services running now will change when they release it?

Another way to say it would be to ask if there will still be windows time running as a service?

Don’t get me wrong, M$ seems to be doing a dramatically better job of getting driver support ready for launch as compared to XP or Vista. But I’m really concerned when I read things like they have reduced boot times. It would be all too easy to reduce boot times by delaying the startup of some services until after you have a cursor.

After the beating that Vista took and all the time and money M$ spent trying to recover from that combined with all the money they spent getting Vista up and running in the first place, I think it would be suicide to release an actual new OS at this time.

There would of course be many significant problems with any brand new OS, that’s only natural. But M$ seems to created a run on that market. Win98 was fantastic for people running DOS or 95. The move to XP was very difficult because you had to have a whole new set of drivers. Vista was even worse and we are only now getting caught up. I still have a couple laser printers that just won’t work right with Vista.

So I’m thinking that Win7 is going to be 90% Vista with Service Pack 2.5/3 and a cosmetic face lift. At first I thought releasing SP2 for Vista was a bad move because I’m guessing the Vista SP2 performance is going to be very similar to Win7.

But if you have questions about a few of the things you’re doing differently in Win7 and if Win7 is really just Vista with a higher SP, what better way to get those last few kinks worked out?

In the end, this is M$’s version of the old NVIDIA rebranding trick. If at first you don’t succeed, brand, brand again.

EDIT: It has been pointed out that this article (thanks blackgold9) has a negative tone as though I am not a fan of M$. Just for the record, I don’t use Linux or any derivatives thereof, nor do I plan to. I think M$ does a great job given the broad range of hardware and software that is supported, even if it doesn’t always get supported well. I can’t imagine using anything different. When Win7 comes out, I’ll certainly be using it and I’ve already started running some benchmarks to see if I turn out to be right or not.

So I’m not really an M$ hater, I’m just pointing out how marketing can effect the products we use.

Here’s a great article about what Legit Reviews was doing with AMD. This is some SERIOUS overclocking goodness. Liquid Helium FTW.

Enter Still Life 2. I grabbed this for lack of anything else to do. I like mysteries and I like games I can put down and pick up later without having to remember key binds or where I was at in the story and that’s how this game is supposed to play.

And now for my shortest game review ever-

Do no under any circumstances play this stupid piece of shit.

Wow. That was easier than I thought it would be.

NSA computer gets too powerful and takes over its own programing, some action, hot chick and it ends with the humans outwitting the computer in a real Captain Kirk sort of way.

This thing was ALMOST really cool. Flagrant misuse of the word BIOS, let’s just skip that part of the plot, let’s throw in a couple scenes for no reason, mediocre directing and *poof* out comes a movie.

If you’re looking for something to download and watch in the background, this one won’t offend.

I don’t want to take anything away from the accomplishments of Mr. Barrett and his position as Intel’s Chairman of the Board. He’s been around for a long, long, long time and anyone who can manage that deserves our respect and he certainly has mine.

However, his comments to the WSJ, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124242845507325429.html, boggle the imagination and makes one wonder if he has actually read any of the coverage or comments from the EC at all.

“Mr. Barrett shakes his head and says, “The antitrust rules and regulations seem designed for a different era. When you look at high-tech companies, with the high R&D budgets, specialization and market creation they need to hold their big market shares…”

In the case of CPU high-tech companies, there are apparently three now, AMD, Intel and the mouse in Intel’s pocket.

“And how do you reconcile European regulators, who don’t believe that any company should have more than 50% market share — even a market that company created — with the way we operate here? Of course, now it seems as if our Justice Department is preparing to march in lock-step behind Europe. In the end, all they are going to do is create barriers to companies growing, entering into new markets, and bringing new technologies into those markets. And when we stop being the land of opportunity, all of those smart immigrant kids getting their Ph.D.s here are going to start heading home after they graduate. Then watch what happens to our competitiveness.”

I’m truly at a loss for words. This has to the stupidest most uninformed thing I have ever heard anyone say. Mr. Barrett gets the stupidest person of the day award for that. It also qualifies him to be in the running for the stupidest person of the year- the winner to be chosen around Xmas time.

Think about this. He’s saying that having one giant company is better for smaller emerging companies than several large companies. WTF? It’s BECAUSE of the way Intel operates that the EC thinks things need to change and has nothing to do with Intel’s actual market share. As any first year law student could tell you, market share is simply a warning sign, not a definition of a monopoly.

It is specifically the actions of Intel which have retarded opportunity and he has the most impressive set of blinders I’ve ever seen to miss it.

The only thing I can think of is that Intel’s legal team thought it easier to just let him prattle on in what is obviously a delusional world simply because he’s leaving today.

The WSJ lays out Barrett’s Laws. These laws are fantastic and you should definitely read them for the sheer comedic value. Move over John Madden, http://budurl.com/e47g, Craig Barrett is on the scene and making you look like the next star rocket scientist for NASA. Sheesh.

My personal favorite is

“- When something works, don’t re-invent it, reproduce it . Perhaps Mr. Barrett’s greatest contribution to the semiconductor industry was the concept of “Copy Exactly,” the absolutely exact reproduction of successful existing practices and facilities in other locations.”

Yep, right from the top, no mistaking it, have to be blind to miss it and you heard it straight from the horse’s mouth. Intel has been copying AMD as directed by Craig Barrett. He actually got the idea from McDonald’s which explains why when Intel copies AMD you get the same thing but it hits the market like a sloppy turd.

Ok, that might be a bit much, the Core2 was very good. But hey, I like a McRib every now and then myself. I guess no one is perfect.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/949/1/

Now I’m not suggesting we go back to that nonsense, but you don’t see stuff like anymore really. Oh people will start trading jabs about specs or overclocking potential but the conversation just dwindles away with a pffft.

There’s a reason for that and it’s a shame. The passion is slowly being leeched out of the PC industry by console players and pro gamers; by people downloading the .vob files rather than downloading the Xvid and converting it themselves.

The PC industry as a whole has spent untold sums of money trying to educate the tech elite so they could carry the message on to those less savvy and empower them to make better decisions.

Now why would those gurus do that? They aren’t getting paid and they don’t get a ton of free parts. The simple answer is passion. Tech is everything to an enthusiast. Teaching tech to non-enthusiasts takes real passion because you usually have to drag them kicking and screaming to the knowledge trough. It takes real patience.

Enter John Taylor at AMD. Take a second to go check out his blog, http://budurl.com/f8ef. This guy could have been sitting next to me playing UT99 at a LAN party a few years ago. Well, maybe not. He was probably doing the stuff that got him to his current position of Director, Global Platform & Product Communications at AMD.

The point is, the guy is a total geek and represents a direct path toward getting PC enthusiasts around the world spun back up to their former glory. Simply put, John has passion. Real passion. Read the blog. Feel the blog.

So ya, it’s self serving and places AMD in a leadership position. Duh, he works there. But instead of just examining the facts of his blog, listen to HOW he’s saying it.

Let me spin you a mental image. John is sitting in front of his PC reading the generic disclaimer at the bottom of his last post. “His postings are his own opinions and may not represent…” yada yada yada. He’s reflecting on Intel’s recent launch of their new AMD-based product and grinding the last bit of enamel off his teeth. He’s read the (lack of) press coverage and knows firsthand Intel has (finally) plucked their collective heads from their asses because they had to and he knows that AMD is really the one responsible for Intel’s actions.

What’s important is WHY. WHY is he grinding his teeth? Why did he hit the backspace key about a million times while he penned that post? Aside from the fact the legal Nazis would have fired him on the spot, why is he so OBVIOUSLY pissed off? He’s just an employee. He gets told to do a job, he does the job, he gets paid, he goes boating on the weekend.

Go back and actually LISTEN to his post. If you can’t tell he’s pissed you must be an idiot.

Here’s the part I like. He is passionate about what he’s doing. I don’t mean his job doesn’t suck so he puts in a little extra effort, I mean he sees stuff happening to HIS company that just ain’t right and it really bothers him.

He gets grief from his wife when he’s supposed to be watching a movie and he’s thinking about work. He misses his kids’ t-ball game because he needs to get just a little bit more accomplished. AMD doesn’t base his salary on those things and, all too often, doesn’t base his pay on how well he does what they ask him to do.

John Taylor does what he does because he is driven to do it. No, I’ve never met John in my life and I don’t know if he even has kids to miss a t-ball game. But I can see his passion.

And it’s a good thing for us that he has it. If it wasn’t for people like John Taylor, we would not have gone to the moon. Bet you were wondering when the moon bit would come around. Thanks for sticking around.

We went to the moon because the USA, as a whole, got passionate about not being outdone by the Ruskies. Times change and we’ve all learned a lot since then but the fact of the matter is, we were passionate about getting to the moon so we went.

John has this kind of passion and we would all do well to follow in his example. You can get passionate about Intel if you like (not that there’s anything wrong with that http://budurl.com/lneg). You can get passionate about the best graphics solution. You can get passionate about anything tech you want as long as you get that way soon.

Here’s what happens if you don’t. Within five years your PC will be nothing more than a console. If you want to upgrade one or more components when it’s a year old to play a new game you can go get bent- buy a new one. You won’t be able to OC anything, swap out a video card or any of the other things that make you a geek.

If you don’t find John’s passion and start posting in forums you will let people with ties decide what is best for you to own. You won’t be downloading that show from a torrent because the encryption will be hard coded into the hardware that you don’t have access to. Just bend over and take it.

So, John Taylor, I salute you. I hope you stay pissed and I hope you keep posting. I, for one, will read what you have to say and, when I agree with it, and shout it from every platform I can find lest a bunch of sniveling CS nitwits wind up controlling what goes into my PC. Rock on man.

If you know the support, customer service, sales support or marketing email address for any company that sells laptops or anyone else you believe could have an impact on helping to make change, please post the address as a comment here.

I’ll collect them into one post for everyone to use. If you would like to post the list on your own site I encourage you to do so.

Nigel Dessau, http://budurl.com/9mhr, has been saying some really sensible things about the whole battery life debacle and I think it’s time we take the message directly to the people who are capable of making a change. They need to know the community wants some reasonable numbers so they can make reasonable decisions.

I will also post here a template of sorts. It will include relevant links and a brief discussion of what the issue is from industry professionals AS WELL AS comments and suggestions by consumers.

The idea is to copy/paste the template and send it to everyone in the email list in a web 2.0 style petition. You only need to send it once as this isn’t a DDoS attack. It is simply an easy way for people to let manufacturers and resellers know we would like to see some improvement. After all, if no one bothers to tell them, how will they know we would like something better?