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Trying to explain to a 6th grader that most of that “free” music they are downloading for that new MP3 player is illegal is a conversation one should never have to have, but unfortunately it happens.

To me it’s very simple, very black and white – unless the Artist or record company is giving it away, consider it stealing. What’s unfortunate is the peer to peer (p2p) technology used in products such as Limewire, Morpheus, or Soulseek is excellent, but so much of what you find online is violating copyrights, that it is hard, if not impossible, for that 6th grader (or her parents) to know what is OK to download and what is not.

Personally I choose to buy all of my music, but for every one of me that buys the music, there are 99 others that chose to steal it. And this isn’t just about kids. These are adults; your friends, neighbors, people you’d think were just normal people that would never commit a crime, but when it comes to stealing music they don’t seem to feel that it’s wrong. If it’s “up there” and I can just download it I’m not doing anything wrong.

I also see the other side of this where p2p is a great way to discover new music you may have never heard about from any other source. I’ve heard stories from people that say that they went and bought a CD once they downloaded a band’s music because they thought it was so good. If I was in an unsigned band you better believe that I would be dumping our songs all over the Internet to gain exposure.

People say that the music industry is flawed. I don’t know enough about it to argue either side, but I do know that as much as people complain that the artist gets very little of the money from the sale of music, they are getting even less when you steal it. For many it comes down to a moral dilemma. For me it’s just bad karma, so I’ll keep on purchasing the music I want to listen to.

Let your conscience be your guide.

Microsoft often takes a huge bashing on the Internet and in the press, but none of that has much affect. Microsoft will continue to dominate because they have the mindset of the people that don’t read Blogs, Digg, Slashdot, etc. People don’t want to deal with tracking down comparable applications for that shiny new Mac or learn how to get them to work with the latest copy of Linux. Most “normal” people don’t even want to deal with upgrading their operating system when it is just slightly more expensive to go out and buy the fastest PC that is already preloaded with the newest version of Windows.

This is a cycle that will be difficult to break and Microsoft knows it. When Apple made the move to Intel processors you knew that better OS emulation / virtualization was coming. Sure, we could do it before with Virtual PC, but the performance was nowhere near as fast as running Windows natively on a PC. Now, virtualization on OS X is all the rage with Parallels and VMWare, so recommending a new Apple computer to people that ask me what they should buy is an easy solution since they can run most operating systems that they care about. I still believe the Apple’s come out just a little more expensive, but the difference is much less than it used to be. (I know there are times when non Apple computers end up costing more than the Apple counter part, but for the average buyer they don’t seem to take in to account all of the additional software, etc. you get when you purchase a Mac.)

Although virtualization is close, it still needs to get more transparent to the general population before we’ll ever see a challenge to Microsoft’s dominance. People need to be able to launch any of their Windows applications without knowing how to startup other operating systems and their desktops first. They should be able to launch Visio from their Dock and have just Visio run transparently. We’re getting closer, but it is still not a technology I would put in front of my Mom unless I wanted to get a lot more phone calls from her.

I look forward to how far these technologies will move in 2008, but in 2007 I think it will still be a tough sell to most normal users. I still have a hard time getting people to understand their are other technologies out there just as good, if not better, than Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Microsoft Messenger, Hotmail, etc. Most of them feel that Microsoft is the safe choice. Face it, those of us that deal with this stuff every day are in the minority. We’re a very vocal minority, but I’d be surprised if we made up more than 10-20% of the population. Microsoft probably doesn’t care too much about our 10%, they want (and own) the other 90%; the majority of the population that really don’t care about the inner workings of the machine. Mediocre is good enough for most people and Microsoft knows it. They are a large company with very, very smart employees that really don’t like to lose. And they rarely do.

Keep looking over your shoulder Microsoft. As soon as my Mom can handle virtualization, I think you may actually be in a little trouble.

UPDATE: As I was reading this today (I wrote this really late last night) I realized that virtualization will not hurt Microsoft a bit, as people will still need to own a licensed copy of the Windows operating system to run all of those applications.  So in the end, unless people make the move completely to an alternate operating system (which will only happen if there are applications available for the alternate operating system) it won’t really matter too much to Microsoft.  The true threat to Microsoft would be the continuing “webification” of applications from people like Google, where the operating system becomes much less important.  GMail, Google Calendar, their word processor and spreadsheet programs probably keep Microsoft up more at night than OS X.  All of my computers at home run Apple’s OS X, but I still own Microsoft Office for the Mac.  Microsoft continues to win.

Today marks the last daily strip of my favorite comic, Foxtrot. Every morning when I get up, the very first thing I read on my Yahoo front page is Foxtrot. It’s made me laugh for years and I’ll miss it 6 days a week. Thankfully the Sunday edition will still get produced, so the entire week won’t be shot.

Good luck to Bill Amend on his next great endeavor. I’ll miss his work.

I am not a big fan of Broadway shows and musicals. Just not my cup of tea. But my wife and I set out early today to see a movie before our vacation ends, and Dreamgirls was the only one playing at the time we arrived at the theater.

By the time it was over, we had both given it a 9.5 out of 10. It was an excellent movie, and Jennifer Hudson (remember her from American Idol?) was amazing. We’re fans of American Idol but neither of us remember her having that big of a voice. She made the movie. Another big surprise was Eddie Murphy. He was fantastic. I’d actually see Dreamgirls again.

So, although it wasn’t my first choice (or second, or third), I’m glad we went to see it. I think it was the best movie either of us have seen all year.

As long as I can remember, I have eaten the same meal on New Year’s day; pork, sauerkraut, black-eyed peas, and mashed potatoes. I’m not really sure of the significance of any of those foods, but I do know that the one year I did not eat the black-eyed peas was one of the worst years of my life.

Once I got married my wife’s tradition of the New Year’s pretzel was added to the list. I had never had one of those and was surprised to find it was basically just another pastry, but magically knotted up to look like a pretzel. I figure as long as she can keep down the black-eyed peas from my family’s tradition, I can eat one more pastry to close out the 10 days of Holiday gorging.

Yes, gorging. I’m not sure about your Holiday season, but ours is basically one long, non-stop, Guinness World Book of Records, stuff-yourself-until-you-are-uncomfortable, food fest. By the time January second comes around I am so sick of the junk we eat that I am looking for ways to get vegetables in to my system intravenously.

So remember, eat your black-eyed peas this New Year’s day. They’re the part of the meal that bring you luck for the rest of the year – and that’s the gift that just keeps on giving!

Anyone else out there have a traditional, superstitious meal that they eat on New Year’s day?

The Internet is a great place to get lost. Sometimes I start at one site reading about something I was looking for, and then 10 links later I’m on to the nutritional benefits of various cat foods.

Today I ended up at a great blog called engtech and read a post called “You can be a good example or a horrible warning – how NOT to be a successful blogger.”

After reading this post I realized that someone had put in words exactly how I felt about my attempt at blogging. I could never have written it as well, but I wish I had written that entry because it’s one of the best I’ve read all year, and definitely the best post on blogging.

Each year the build up to Christmas seems to increase. Stores seem to decorate for Christmas earlier and earlier. I don’t get suckered in to it very often, but I can honestly say I’m glad it’s over. Once Christmas day is done I look forward to taking down all of the decorations and getting the house back to normal.

Well, almost normal. This year we decided to take on a small home improvement project during my Christmas vacation – our downstairs powder room. It’s a pretty small bathroom, but we’re painting, replacing the vanity, sink, fixtures, mirror, and light fixture. Should be able to get it all done tomorrow if everything goes well.

I surprised Val this Christmas by replacing the diamond she lost from her engagement ring. If you remember, the stone fell out of the ring when she was cutting the grass, so how upset could I really be? It made it through 17 years. As much as she liked the ring I think she likes the gift that cost me no money at all – a commitment to lose 50 pounds in 2007. It looks like some of the neighbors and I are going to do the Biggest Loser In The Neighborhood contest again, so that should help with a little incentive. Between you and I, my intention is to try to lose closer to 100 pounds this year, so I am hopeful 50 definitely happens. She’ll be thrilled.

Of course, as with most of my life I’ll discuss the process here. My plan is exercise (yuck) and high protein / controlled carbs. Now settle down, I’ve been doing my research and I know what my body responds to the best. Three different doctors have told me it is OK to go for it. My wife doesn’t like the term “Atkins,” but I keep telling her that until she actually reads any of his books I am not listening to her opinion. Not on this one. I’ll let the results speak for themselves.

Hopefully you all had a great holiday (whatever you may, or may not, celebrate) and are looking forward to 2007 as much as I am. There’s something about heading in to a new year that gets my adrenaline kicking. It always seems like anything is possible. There’s probably no reason you can’t have this feeling all year round if you really want it, but it always seems that reality gets in the way and slaps me back to normal. We’ll see how long I can hold off reality in 2007.

What new resolutions are you going to make this year?

Friends sent me this picture of their Pug during yesterday’s Christmas Eve festivities. Poor little guy was beat!

Click on the picture for a larger version.

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I guess I should come clean. You introduced me to video blogging. I felt for you when the Boom was lowered. I followed you across America. But we kind of drifted apart and I thought we were on a break, so I started seeing other people. Don’t be upset, it’s not their fault, but it really hurt when you left and Joanne and Lala were there to fill the huge void that you left in my life.

But now you’re back and I can’t just turn away – you were my first. Without you I would still be watching reruns on Network television instead of Rocketboom, Tiki Bar TV, Ze Frank, and Digg Nation. So I’ve subscribed to your new adventures; ABCNews and Starring Amanda Congdon, and hope that all of us can coexist peacefully together. I’m willing to give this another try if you are.

Welcome back Amanda – it just wasn’t the same without you. Oh, and I wish WordPress.com offered whatever Theme you are using over at AmandaCongdon.com because it is exactly what I am looking for.

Pretty cool.  Nintendo, with the little game machine that could, has not only brought in a very cool way of playing games to our house, but they have also snuck in email (via the Mii channel) and now web browsing using the Opera web browser.  Very smart, Nintendo.

Since I am on vacation I took the liberty of trying a few web sites to see how far I could get.  My own site (the one you are reading now) works fine.  Outlook Web Access for Exchange 2003 works great as well.  The Citrix Web Interface lets me login to the interface, but you can’t select any of the icons that launch published applications.  I didn’t really expect that to work, but I  figured it was worth a try.

I’ll have to hop back on it later and see if sites like GMail and Google Reader work.  I can’t say that this would become my preferred way to use the internet, but it’s kind of nice to have it there if you need it.  Right now the Opera browser is free because it is in beta testing, but long term Nintendo should not try to charge for it as I don’t think it would drive people to purchase a Wii.  Keep it free – as in beer.