Movie Review: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

MOVIE REVIEW: THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG Peter Jackson’s second helping — The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug — written and directed by Peter Jackson with flavoring from J.R.R. Tolkien‘s classic novel is more confident than the first helping of An Unexpected Journey. It is the #1 movie of the opening weekend, scoring 74% at…

Read More

VMworld 2013 San Francisco: Day 4, Makers and Shakers

Jay1

VMWORLD 2013 SAN FRANCISCO: DAY 4 MAKERS AND SHAKERS For the popular Innovator’s Day at the end of the VMworld Conference…   Jay Silver, Founder and Director Joylabz, and Maker Research Scientist at Intel Labs. Jay went to Ken Burns’ place in Massachusetts and went on a nature awareness walk. He had a guide, but Jay…

Read More

VMworld 2013 San Francisco: Day 3, the Gadgets

iphone

VMWORLD 2013 SAN FRANCISCO: DAY 3, THE GADGETS During this week amongst 22,500 geeks it was noticeable how many devices I saw, especially mobile devices. Here’s the quick breakdown… Cell phones: iPhones by a vast majority, mostly iPhone 5s. Androids as the largest minority, mostly Samsung Galaxy 3 and 4. Tablets: iPads by a vast…

Read More

VMworld 2013 San Francisco: Day 2

Day 2

VMWORLD 2013 SAN FRANCISCO: DAY 2 In Day 2, the focused moved to details of the big announcements from Day 1, including NSX, vSAN, and a bit on automation. Carl Eschenbach, President and COO, VMware Carl started with the observation of “More attendees than expected this year, 22,500 attendees rounded up to 23K, making this the…

Read More

Wildfire in Colorado Springs: Black Forest Fire

WILDFIRE IN COLORADO SPRINGS: BLACK FOREST FIRE Last year at this time I wrote about the Waldo Canyon Fire and its aftermath in the Colorado Springs area. This year, wildfire has hit Colorado again. As I write this there are 5 large wildfires burning throughout central Colorado. The worst is the Black Forest Fire, just…

Read More

Movie Review: Star Trek Into Darkness

MOVIE REVIEW: STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS [No plot spoilers] I’ll start with the bottom line: I loved it. If possible it’s better, if not as inventive as the previous movie in the reboot released in May 2009 and reviewed by me here. I’d call it the most enjoyable movie so far this year, though I may be biased…

Read More

History of User Interfaces: iPad at 3 Years

IPAD, 5TH GENERATION USER INTERFACE This week is the 3rd anniversary of Apple launching the original iPad. It’s currently on it’s 5th generation with the 128GB version, not counting the 1st generation iPad mini. Back then many pundits claimed it would never catch on. Instead, Apple has sold 140 million iPads, totalling $75 billion in…

Read More

Movie Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

MOVIE REVIEW:  THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY Even if I had been told The Hobbit was the worst movie ever made, I still would have gone to see it. It wasn’t. But even after seeing it twice, my feelings remain mixed. In talking to friends who have been to it, reactions to the movie seem…

Read More