Got this error today on my Windows machine. Microsoft created Windows and for the error I experienced, there apparently is no solution. That made me laugh.

Microsoft appears to be considering delivering Windows 7 on Flash Drives instead of CDROM’s, primarily because netbooks are so prevalent and they don’t have CD/DVD drives installed in them. Its a long way away from the old floppy discs of Windows 1.0.

Here’s an interesting rumor. AOL execs are pursuing merger talks with Microsoft. What an amazing turn of events this would be for Microsoft…to go from courting Yahoo to being courted by AOL.

Now AOL is not anything close to what it used to be. Its transformation into an advertising supported business appears to be flat-lining. Its one “800 lb gorilla” – AOL Instant Messenger appears to have lost about 400 of those pounds with new social networking services like Twitter, Plurk, et al.

Could be an interesting combo. More to come.

Is it getting hot out in Redmond? Is the collar feeling a little tight? OK, so lets not get too carried away…Microsoft is still an immense power in the business, computer and software worlds and they are not going anywhere. In fact, I fully expect them to observe the market, make adjustments, and then come roaring forward to protect their core software businesses including MS Office (exactly what they did with Netscape).

But it is immensely interesting to observe the online marketplace these days and all the amazing web based products and innovation, taking dead aim at Microsoft’s cash cow desktop applications. And I know this is nothing new, as several of these apps have been out in the marketplace for a while now, and they have been written about often.

The item that motivated me to write this post is Gilffy, which is a neat browser based version of MS Visio. So in addition to this, you have Google’s Spreadsheet, Calendar and Gmail, all of Yahoo’s similar services, 30Boxes (Calendar), Writely (and all the other Web based word processing apps), Basecamp from 37 Signals, and Thumbstacks, and Eric Meyer’s S5 slideshow apps, to name a few. You are all set. No need to buy a $500 piece of software in a box full of air.

The only concern is that by using all these web based apps, all your information would be housed on someone else’s server/computer. But most to all of the aforementioned apps give you the ability to download local copies, so that should not be a big issue.

Its quite an interesting time to be a consumer and to be in Redmond. :-) I’ll be interested to see Google and Yahoo’s next steps.

This happened today when I tried to check out Windows Live while using Internet Explorer. With all the press about the Google/AOL deal, I wanted to check out Windows Live to see what it was all about, which IMHO is nothing much. It has the same basic functionality as the new Google homepage.

Check out this little widgit from Paul Allen’s Vulcan Ventures. Its a mini computer called FlipStart that fits in the palm of your hand. Its a hybrid between a PDA with a querty-style keyboard and a small laptop. It seems to be very well designed and pretty slick. I am sure Microsoft has their paws all over this and will probably get the first crack at marketing it. And then Dell will create something similar and blow the market out of the water.

I find it utterly hysterical and ironic that for some strange reason, I can not log onto Microsoft’s Hotmail, via their “wonderful” Passport authentication system, from the version of Internet Explorer that is on my computer, yet I can successfully log on when using Netscape. My Hotmail account is a spam account anyway, and I rarely use it for anything but signing up for sites I have limited interest in, so its not a big deal. But it is humorous none the less.