commercial for pc's using mac

There is a commercial that I keep seeing on tv for finallyfast.com, and it is driving me crazy. They are selling software for a pc, but numerous times within the commercial they show windows software on a mac. They even show the "blue screen of death" on the mac. They have covered the apple logo on the computers, but anyone who knows a a mac will recognize it. Besides this being a ridiculous marketing move, why would you even do it. Maybe you could get away with it if you weren't a dot com trying to sell pc software, but why would you not just use a pc to sell pc software! I can't imagine how well their software would work.

Too early

Why is is that some people who are considered the best at what they do are hit with medical problems so early in their lives? These people seem unstoppable in the "careers" but then are diagnosed with problems that they have no control over. I am not talking about those who have self inflicted problems, such as a drug overdose or suicide, but for example, Mario Lemieux, considered to be one of the best ever, had to retire so early on in his hockey career due to medical reasons. What could he have done if he was never faced with Hodgkin's.  Steve Jobs has once again been hit with a major medical issue and has had to take a leave of absence from Apple. Obviously I have no answer for the question, but let's hope Steve gets better, as I believe he still has a lot more to share with us all. 

Twitter

Ok so I am a little behind on getting a twitter account, but I finally did it.  http://twitter.com/gvwoods

GeekSouth

I recently came across the website www.geeksouth.com Looks to be a good site dealing with technology, startups and people here in the tri-cities that have the same interests as myself. 

Newest Mac User

I have finally joined the "Cult of Mac", like most people its a decision that I have been thinking about for a long time and finally took the plunge. I am not going to ramble on why it was the best decision I have made, but will leave you with this. It has been great and for those of you who have also switched, you know why. 

Back from San Francisco

I arrived back from SF on Saturday evening after a long delay at the Atlanta airport. Not only was that quite annoying, but I missed out on a $400 voucher and a business class seat if I would have taken the 8am flight out of SF instead of the 6am flight, but I thought I would have missed my connecting flight, boy was I wrong.

Oh well, enough about the airlines, I did enjoy my week in SF. I walked around Fisherman's Wharf, and was able to take some pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. However, I was much more excited to travel around Silicon Valley. I spent a few hours at the wonderful Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Afterwards, I traveled to the famous HP garage and moved on to the Apple store in Palo Alto, where I purchased a couple new Ipods for me and my wife. I also visited the Oracle facilities and on Tuesday I spent the evening going to see the new movie 21. Although it was predictable, I enojoyed it and would definitely watch it again.

Well, I can say that I am glad to be home and getting back into the groove. The Valley was nice, but there is alot less traffic here.

Is it all about ads?

While pondering startup ideas, I started to contemplate what is popular these days. You have Facebook, MySpace and so on. It seemed as though most businesses that are popping up during the "Web 2.0" phase are all about sellings ads. This seems to be working, but will the excitement collapse? There has to be a breaking point. Did I really want to create another startup that's prime business was to sell ads? Not exactly.

There are some very exciting startup companies that do not have this plan. For example there is Redfin, the Seattle based company, and Mailtrust, a Blacksburg, VA company. These are more closely to what I am looking to do. A company that actually works with people. I would bet to say that if there was another bubble burst these companies would withstand the fallout. They are real companies that utilize the web and sell more than just ads based on their page views. Glen Kelman of Redfin has this interesting post, "The Web Is Becoming A Gigantic Lead-Generating Contraption for Business-As-Usual" about when Redfin was looking for funding.

I could be wrong about all of this, but it just seems that jumping on the bandwagon is not always the answer for the long haul. Wagon wheels will only handle so much weight before they have a blow-out.