Peter Rojas over on Engadget does a great job giving us first looks at gadgets. His hands-on review of the HTC Universal makes me want one in the worst way.

RSS (Robert Scoble and Son) weekend has started. We're going to Monterey with Dave tomorrow sometime. That'll be fun. In the meantime, we're staying in a Holiday Inn Express by the San Francisco airport. Free wifi!

I've just been so busy and next week is even worse. I can't wait until the PDC is over and I can blog normally again. I haven't read my feeds lately either.

Seems when I write one paragraph about Windows Vista there are MBA types who deconstruct it and Rick Segal, former Microsoft evangelist and current Venture Capitalist, adds on his two cents: "When does good fuN become good fuD?"

Well, since you all are deconstructing my thoughts, let me add onto the deconstruction. I work very hard to only say stuff that I can back up. Yes, I make mistakes sometimes but they are always jumped on within minutes and if I can't back those up I correct my posts pretty fast. In this case I not only have the team's hype, but other info as well that we'll reveal in the videos in a week. Networking in Windows Vista is a lot better. I can back that up. So it's not FUD. Really, what would be served by doing FUD of that type anyway? Is anyone gonna not buy a Linux or Apple machine this week because of what I say about Windows Vista? If someone says yes I really don't want them as a reader anyway. I want smart readers who make up their own minds. They are a lot more fun to talk with anyway.

But, I like Rick's filter: focus on the customer. That's great advice. In every video this week I ask lots of questions trying to get at the value for everyday customers as well as geeks/developers.

One last thought. Let's say I wanted to FUD you anyway. Let's say, for instance, I said something like "MSN Search tracks less of you than Google."

Now, that'd be FUD. For a few reasons. One, I don't know it to be true. I can't back up that statement like I can about Windows Vista's networking. Two, you're all far smarter than I am (and far more connected and far more knowledgeable). I predict it'd be a few minutes before someone called me on such a statement. In fact, lately I wouldn't be suprised if Sergey or Larry showed up here (today Microsoft's first employee showed up in my comment area).

Third, the word-of-mouth network is so efficient now that it'd be only a few hours before I'd be on Slashdot and other places with tens of thousands of readers per day. Then I'd have all sorts of friends and other people calling my cell phone asking me why I did that.

Glenn Munlawin sent me this one. He works for a company that builds e-commerce engines for Sonoma/Napa wineries. Oh, Glenn knows how to get my attention. It's a good merlot!

Anyway, he says I can order wines from their site. Now that's a site I can love!

Om Malik: Guessing Google's VoIP Plan.

Om's "GoogleNet" article, linked from this latest theory, has been getting talked about a lot in my social circles but then I hang out with geeks like Liz Lawley and Buzz Bruggeman. Maryam and I had dinner at Liz' house tonight where Liz and I promptly started debating del.icio.us and memeorandum, among other things. Hey, is that called being unsocial about social software? Hmmm. Liz's husband, Gerald, cooked an awesome salmon. I guess you could say the salmon was delicious but not del.icio.us. Sorry, it's 1 a.m. here and I'm punchy.

Wired News is reporting that there's an ISP that's still operating from New Orleans and employees there are blogging. Now that's dedication to keeping the Internet up.

I guess we shouldn't make any jokes about flooding them with traffic.

Today was a lot of fun. I visited several teams. The Windows Vista shell team. The networking team. The Tablet PC team. For a year now people have been posting in my comments "why should I care about Windows Vista?"

Oh, when I get to share just today's videos I'll finally be able to give you the answer. The networking stack alone was totally rewritten. How impressive is it? Well, you'll just have to wait for the video. But the performance gains they are seeing floored even me.

All the fun happens September 13. I can't wait.

Funny anecdote: how did I start out the interview with the Tablet PC team? "I thought your team was dead." Oh, I can't wait to show you THAT video.

Paula Campbell sent me this one. FEMA and DJS, American governmental agencies, have a federal portal for disasters that you might find useful.

Thomas Hawk tells me over on Flickr they are holding a Katrina Relief Auction. Photographers are donating prints and auctioning them off.

If you're someone who lives in New Orleans and want to let people know you're safe, you can use this site:

http://safe.msnbc.com

If you're looking for people who you haven't heard from who live in Katrina-effected areas, use this site:

http://lookingfor.msnbc.com

Larry Larsen, working at Poynter Institute is asking for help for journalists in Louisiana. They need a place to stay.

Robert Cringely says NerdTV is coming next week. I'll be watching, even though I often don't agree with Cringely's comments.

Dare Obasanjo: MSN Search Adds Feed Search and Other Operators.

Wait a second, MSN is doing something in search that the other big two engines aren't doing? Dang!

This is very cool.

Dave Sifry called me earlier in the day and said he was about to answer some of my calls for niche-based lists of blogs.

Derek Powazek posted before I got a chance to talk with Dave more: "Introducing Blog Finder."

I agree, though, with Michael Arrington who says that the feature still needs some work. For instance, if you click on Microsoft you'll find me, but only me on the first page of results. Not good. There are blogs at Microsoft that are just as much authority as I do (some, like Raymond Chen, actually have more in my mind).

I found you have to tag your blog to really get included here properly. For instance, I just added Apple to my tag list. And I'm now the #1 Apple blog (don't worry, I'm removing that tag, don't wanna be listed as a spammer, but shows that the system can be gamed quite easily).

I'm still playing with it, though, and it sure looks a lot more useful than the "Top 100" lists that we're used to seeing so far.