Thought for the Day: Astonish the Rest

A thought for the day:

"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."
Mark Twain, via The Quotations Page

Microsoft Office, and Another 'Death of' Article

"Headlines Predict Death of MS-Office"
John C. Dvorak, Office Suites, Productivity, Software, Product Guides, PCMag.com (September 7, 2011)

"I don't know if you've noticed, but Microsoft Office is pretty tired. All of its elements are old and boring. PowerPoint, except for the addition of a few templates, has never fulfilled its promise. Microsoft never seriously jazzed it up and a PowerPoint presentation from a decade ago barely differs from a PowerPoint presentation made today.

"The rest of the suite elements are just as bad, if not worse. The two Microsoft Word breakthroughs were Spell Check and Grammar Check. Both could use improvement, but Microsoft just sits back. If you think about it, what could it do?

"I'm guessing with the right creative team, many innovations could be considered, tested, and implemented. But Microsoft is the master of coasting while riding a winner. Unfortunately, the copycat suites have mostly caught up in both power and functionality...."

Okay. So far, this sounds like the same op-ed piece the Lemming keeps running into: [desktops/blogging/whatever] are dead because [spiffy new fad] will soon [revolutionize everything].

That sort of article isn't quite 'boiler plate,' but it's close. ("Boiler plate?" That's clerical talk for documents where the wording is always the same, except for stuff like names and numbers.)

Mr. Dvorak seems to have a bit more on the ball than the usual 'death of' writer. Take this, for instance, about Microsoft needing to abandon Windows:

"...It's like Maytag saying that it could not make money forever with washing machines.

"I heard this from everyone. The notion was apparently floated at some conference and taken as gospel by the parrots in the business. At about this time, a similar notion arose, which sent the message to Intel that the microprocessor market was dying; the company would need to invest in technologies like Wi-Fi. Intel spent far too much effort working on Wi-Fi and Wi-Max after everyone 'knew' that the company would flatline if it persisted with microprocessors...."

It's like the fellow said:

"It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us into trouble. It's the things we know that just ain't so." (attr. humorists Mark Twain,¹¹ Artemus Ward, Kin Hubbard, and Will Rogers; inventor Charles Kettering; pianist Eubie Blake; baseball player Yogi Berra (once, by Al Gore))

Vaguely-related posts:

• "Lemming Tracks: The Continuing 'Death' of Blogging, Hula Hoops, and Getting a Grip"
  (August 28, 2011)
• "Milly Dowler, News of the World, and Old-School Journalism in the Information Age"
  (July 7, 2011)
• "Phone Hacks, Privacy, Pie-Throwing, and a Ranting Lemming"
  (July 19, 2011)
• "Blogging is Dead! Long Live Blogging!"
  (December 16, 2010)
• "Mammoth Ivory, Movie Star, Big Assumption"
  (August 7, 2010)

Google's 13th, and Where Did the Month Go?!

"Google Turns 13 With Birthday Doodle"
PCMag.com (September 27, 2011)


"Google is now officially a teenager. The search giant on Tuesday celebrated its 13th birthday with a homepage doodle that features the company's logo surrounded by presents and a cake.

"The image is framed as if it were a snapshot in an old photo album, and several letters in the Google logo are donning party hats for the occasion.

" 'Happy 13th Birthday, Google!' Google's Marissa Mayer tweeted this morning...."

These 'Google doodles' are getting to be a whole lot more than just doodles. Make that 'have gotten.' PCMag.com goes into some of the history of these little art pieces.

"...Google has celebrated its birthday with doodles for the past few years, each one more sophisticated than the next. Back in 2008, the company celebrated a decade in business by displaying the original Google logo, also adorned with party hats. The following year, the company replaced the L in Google with two ones to honor its eleventh year. Last year, 89-year-old Los Angeles painter Wayne Thiebaud crafted a painting of a cake, with a single candle replacing the L...."

Then the article goes into the more practical, business side of Google.

"While Google.com was registered on September 15, 1997, Google didn't actually incorporate as a company, release early technical specs, or hire its first employee until September 1998. Now, 13 years later, it has almost 30,000 employees and reported $9.03 billion during its last quarter...."

The Lemming enjoys these 'doodles,' celebrating more-or-less-famous birthdays and events. The Google birthday, by happy coincidence, is within a few days of the Lemming's. The date, that is. The Lemming's gone past 13, 26, and 39 - and hits 60 this year.

Which brings the Lemming around to what happened to this blog: No posts for almost a month?!

Blogging's Fine: and So is the Lemming

Somewhat ominously, this blog's last post - before this one, of course - was about the "continuing 'death' of blogging." Also Hula Hoops. There's a connection. Not that blogging is dead, or Hula Hoops. Or, for that matter, the Lemming.

Which is quit a relief. Particularly considering who's writing this post. Which threatens to take this discussion into a very weird area.

Getting back to blogging and the Lemming, it's been a distracting month. There's been more activity related to the Spiral Light Candle Corp. - a shameless shout-out, the Lemming freely admits. The Lemming enjoyed - thoroughly - being the company gofer at a trade show in Pennsylvania, and is still recovering from the experience.

Good grief, 60 isn't that old - - - more topics.

The Lemming had a point to make. Where is it? Or, rather, what was it?

Google, blogging, trade show, pooped. Got it. Right.

Besides being pooped and distracted, the Lemming's been thinking about something besides this blog and fancy candles: which didn't help get posts out.

Sad to say, the Lemming even missed the annual Talk Like a Pirate Day - arrrr!

This is where the Lemming should let you know what wonderful things are in store for this blog: new horizons, new formats, maybe even a new post or two!

Well, that's not gonna happen. Besides blogging, the Lemming has dishes to wash: and sleep to be slept.

Tomorrow's another day though, at least the Lemming is assuming that will be the case. The Lemming plans to get another post out then. Of course, the Lemming planned to get at the dishes before this: yet again another topic.

Good night.

Vaguely-related posts:

• Google, pretty much
  • "Comics Artist Will Eisner: Born 94 Years Ago Today"
    (March 6, 2011)
  • "Flintstone's 50th, Google Doodles, and All That"
    (September 30, 2010)
  • "Google Pulling Out of China? I've Heard Worse News"
    (March 14, 2010)
  • "New Google Themes: Comics, This Time"
    (July 23, 2009)
  • "Google Drops Inner City News: Censorship? or a Reasonable Response to Complaints?"
    (February 18, 2008)
• Lemming Tracks
  • "Lemming Tracks: The Continuing 'Death' of Blogging, Hula Hoops, and Getting a Grip"
    (August 28, 2011)
  • "Lemming Tracks: The Lemming's Back, and Pooped"
    (August 10, 2011)
  • "Lemming Tracks: The Lemming's Taking a Sabbatical, Sort Of"
    (July 26, 2011)
  • "'Cancer Causes Cell Phones!' - or, not"
    (July 18, 2011)
  • "Lemming Tracks: Sauk Centre Storm and the Lemming"
    (July 13, 2011)