Random Rants & News

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(Engtech, a software engineer and fanatic blogger from Canada, brings us this great little comic strip on how to make a money blogging)\

Dam Enkhbayar tossed his Dell PC out of his window when it froze while he was trying to download video files online.  The boy said: “If this had been a Macintosh, I would never have had this problem.”

Dam wanted a Mac f0r Christmas, but instead got his father’s old Dell PC.  His dad, Tsolomon Enkhbayar, said: “I knew he was passionate about getting a Macintosh computer, but I never thought [he] was that passionate.”   Tsolomon also said that Dam initially wanted a video iPod, but instead agreed to “settle” for a computer thinking that he would get a new MacBook.

Funny, but seriously - poor kid! I am telling you, it is all Apple’s fault for creating ads that get too much buzz ;-)

I am blogging about this because it is wickedly related to one of my most recent posts about the Holland America Line (read the post here.)

Walt Disney has just released a statement announcing its decision to double the size of its cruise business – the firm will be adding two ships to its current fleet.  Disney signed a letter of intent with Germany’s Meyer Werft shipyard (which is located in Hamburg) for two 122,000-ton ships.

The company has been considering expanding its cruise unit in an attempt to further diversify and expand its entertainment conglomerate for some time.  Disney’s move is also a confirmation of Stein Kruse’s assessment of the cruise industry’s future.

Abdel Karim Suleiman, a 22-year-old former law student was arrested in November and held in custody for “insulting” both Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. He was sentenced today to four years in jail.

Abdel is the first blogger to stand trial in Egypt, but many international organizations (including Amnesty International) now fear that the trial may spark a series of additional convictions (limiting the individual’s right for freedom of speech.)

Abdel was convicted in connection with eight articles he wrote since 2004. He is by his own declaration both a Muslim and a liberal, and he did not deny writing the articles. However, he said that they were merely a representation of his own views and opinion. One of Suleiman’s articles accused al-Azhar in Cairo, (a prominent seat of Sunni Muslim learning) of promoting extreme ideas.

On a side note, Egypt is actually supposed to host an Internet Governance Forum in 2009. It will be interesting to see how that pans out, considering that Egypt has repeatedly violated the rights of bloggers. The Internet has, as a matter of fact, emerged as a forum for critics of the Egyptian government, which runs the state’s large newspapers and main television stations.

The following news announcement is expected for this afternoon at the London “Future of Web Apps conference:” Google will begin selling a cheap competitor to Microsoft Office! Google will launch a paid package of its document, spreadsheet, calendar, and email program – for $50 a year per account. Google’s small enterprise unit has been marketing the free version of its Google collaboration applications for quite some time and claims to have over 100,000 subscribed users, but this newest push will pit Google directly in competition with Microsoft’s Office.

The primary target for this new suite (yes, they are actually calling it a suite) will be small to mid-size firms that don’t have huge email systems to maintain. The paid account will come with all of the Google collaboration applications, as well as telephone support and 10 gigabyte of storage capacity (compare that to the 2GB of storage you get as a user of Gmail.)

This is a tremendous new development, as it marks the beginning of direct competition between Google’s “office solution” and Microsoft’s products. I doubt however, that Google will be able to capture any substantial market share, as its product still lack the extensive capabilities that Microsoft Office offers. Additionally, even if Google is able to turn its 100,000 trial users into full-time customers, its revenue will not exceed $5 million annually (compare that to the $10.6 billion of the first three quarters of 2006.)