Sigh. Another publisher goes into bankruptcy. This time it's Wrox. Personally, I saw the writing on this wall for quite some time. They weren't the quality leader.

Heh, Marc Canter says I'm sounding like a Microsoft cheerleader. Rah Rah Rah!

Oh, I see, he's trying to warn me that I'm in danger of losing my "Silicon Valley Geek Pass" because I'm taking Microsoft's side too often lately. I think soon the valley police will visit me and put Lindows on my laptop and RedHat on my server and force me to read the "XvsXP" site 50 times. Oh, and Scott McNealy will probably invite me over for one of those ".NET deprogramming sessions" that he's famous for giving.

Of course, Erik Barzeski -- the guy who calls me "Microsoft's ho" -- also wrote out a list of things that OSX does better than XP, just to help me along.

Seriously, Marc does have a comeback that Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates should read and react to:

"Microsoft doesn't care about anything but their own destiny," Canter says. "They're not about helping others."

I just caught my wife reading my weblog. So, Maryam, what do you think of my weblog? "You just write too much."

Two related questions: Is Microsoft hiring all my old VBITS speakers? And, are they all weblogging? Yasser Shohoud is the latest to join Microsoft and start a weblog. He's a great speaker, a great book author, and I'm looking forward to reading his weblog for a long time to come.

I have a friend who manages a non-profit in Los Angeles. He needs a little bit of computer consulting. He has five work stations and is thinking about buying a server. If he does that, he'll need someone to come in and set it up and such. Anyone interested in helping out for a good cause? Might even be a little pay in it. Send me email. robertscoble@hotmail.com.

You know, that Pirillo guy is out of control. First he rents my chest -- and makes $2000. Now he's promising a "rent my ass" site. Hey Maryam, I have a great job idea for you -- let's rent your body parts! Ooopppsss, gotta go, she's coming after me with a rolling pin...

One conversation that just came back to me from last week. Nathan Gold, the "demo god" told me that Buzz Bruggeman did one of the best jobs at the Demo Conference he's ever seen a demoer do at. "He did something like three demos in the first 15 seconds. I've never seen anything like it" he says. He was dismayed that Buzz didn't win the award for best demoer. "He clearly was the audience favorite." What was Buzz showing off? ActiveWords. By the way, I use ActiveWords everyday while I answer my email. It saves me tons of time. I hope Microsoft and Apple are looking for ways to include things like ActiveWords into their operating systems. We need more productivity tools. PCs and Macs are now stable -- I haven't had a blue screen of death in more than two months -- but we need ways to make us more productive. That's what will get me to upgrade (or switch).

I don't know if you're like this, but right as I'm falling asleep I think about what I'm doing with my life and what I'd like to be doing. Last night I thought "I'm writing too much about Microsoft."

Why not more about NEC? After all, NEC has more employees, and I'm more intimate about NEC.

Why not more about Cisco? After all, their headquarters are right down the street from where I live?

Why not more about Apple? After all, I know Woz, and I was a Mac bigot for years before I moved into the Microsoft world.

Interesting questions, all of them. As to my employer? I don't feel comfortable in giving them ideas in public. It's just a self-censoring thing. You don't bite the hand that feeds you and most of my weblogging is pointing out what companies are doing wrong. Plus, I've never met our CEO. I've talked with Gates several times. Maybe that points to my perception that NEC's execs wouldn't listen (outside of my own group).

Hmm, I wonder if they are listening? I've never had any conversations with them, so I doubt they are monitoring the weblogs. I know my group's exec is reading me once in a while, but even there, I don't think it's often.

As to why not Cisco or WebEX? (WebEx's headquarters are 1/4 mile from my house). I just don't care about their products that much. So, I can't get into them enough to write about them. I stare at Microsoft's products for 14 hours a day. Since I use Microsoft's stuff so much, I care about the company and what it is doing a lot.

Why not Apple? Well, I don't really use their stuff anymore, so don't have that emotional bond that you need to write about a company well. It bums me out when I see Steve Jobs spending his precious few software resources in doing a web browser and a PowerPoint copy. Is doing stuff that other people have already done really a good use of limited resources? Clearly the Tablet idea is one that's hot hot hot. Why wasn't Apple the first to do it?

Anyway, I always evaluate what I'm doing here. What's really fun is there are no right answers. You just get what's on my mind here every day.