e-Accident: Fax dead, e-mail seriously injured…middle-aged people confused

Have you any views on the introduction of a general ban on sending faxes in the enterprise? In this day and age, I feel it’s perfectly acceptable to expect someone to be able to receive an e-mail. As an enterprise, we obviously still need to receive faxes, but that can be handled by Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging as it stands. Sending outgoing faxes from PCs would require unnecessary expenditure, and I just feel that we should bite the bullet on this, do away with the actual machines, the analogue telephone lines they need, the toner and paper they use, and put this ancient technology out of our misery.  If someone needs to send a piece of paper or a signed document to someone, they can scan it and e-mail it.

<start of rant>To be perfectly honest, e-mail is on the way out too. It’s a middle-aged, middle-class way of communicating, equivalent to our parents writing letters. My kids all have e-mail, but they only use it to register on web sites, and never for communicating. In ten years time, how will we communicate with the next generation of customers? Twitter? Facebook? Bebo? TwitFace?  It won’t be by e-mail anyway.

And as for that noise the kids call music…<end of rant>

Answers on a postcard, please…

Why Can’t I Google "()"?

I just tried to Google  the googlebracesphrase “exchange()”, but unfortunately Google (and Yahoo and Ask.com etc.) won’t process the brackets at the end.  I tried enclosing it in quotes and advanced searches, but it just won’t work.

I need to know!!!

Video Rental on XBox Live at last!

Finally, from December 11th, you can rent videos from your XBox Live Video Store in the UK, Ireland, France and Germany.  For us here in Ireland, we’ll be getting these (250 MS points for standard-def, and 380 MS points for HD):

300
HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE
HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS
ZODIAC
MATRIX, THE
MATRIX REVOLUTIONS, THE
MATRIX RELOADED, THE
OCEAN’S ELEVEN
PERFECT STORM, THE
SWORDFISH
THREE KINGS
TRAINING DAY
FUGITIVE, THE
RISKY BUSINESS
SPACE COWBOYS
EYES WIDE SHUT
ANALYZE THIS
DEMOLITION MAN
ERASER
EXECUTIVE DECISION
LETHAL WEAPON 3
LETHAL WEAPON 4
LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION
MARS ATTACKS!
CLASH OF THE TITANS
SUPERMAN III
DEAD CALM

Bring it on!

More details on xbox.com

It’s Hammer Time…

Well, Longhorn…sorry, Vista Time.  Jim Allchin finally posted the announcement ending five years of development to the Vista Blog.  Build 6000.16386 has gone gold (RTM, Released to Manufacturing).  Microsoft expects to have 18 languages at the January launch, and 32 within 100 days of English RTM.

No sign of RTM on MSDN yet, but Saturday is looking promising.  According to the MSDN Downloads page, “Windows Vista and Office 2007 will be available through MSDN Subscriber downloads within 7 days of release to manufacture”.  Still no word if/when it will appear on Connect.

Well done to Microsoft on reaching this goal.

Samsung Q1-SSD ordered…

Samsung Q1-SSD Ultra Mobile PC (Solid State Disk Version) | eXpansys Code: 139989

Yes, I’ve ordered the SSD (solid-state disk) version of the Samsung Q1.  The specs are here.  Now I just have to wait…8 days according to the order tracker.  It’s going to be tough…

UPDATE 17/11/06: Still waiting..aparently 23/11 is the due date now…

Top 5 TV progs

Best stuff on telly over the last while (IMHO) are:

  1. The Green Wing (Comedy, Channel 4)
  2. Extras (Comedy, BBC2)
  3. Legend (Drama, RTE2)
  4. The Panel (Comedy panel show, RTE2)
  5. QI (Comedy panel quiz, BBC2)

Hannah 2.0

Finally, after nearly four months, the frame is now off Hannah’s leg.  I know that she gets embarrassed by mentioning her online, so here’s the tee shirt I’m getting: