Thank goodness Microsoft has dropped the Seinfeld commercials. I was told by several people that he's a great comedian and the commercials were hilarious, so I was hoping it was just me (and perhaps the effects of my past employment; everyone knows cops have "unusual" senses of humor) and that everyone else would love them. I guess my lack of appreciation for leather giraffe jokes isn't so unique after all.

The "I'm a PC" ads still aren't as good as what I could write (but probably would never be allowed by the lawyers to release to the public) taking on Apple head-to-head, but they're a step in the right direction. I would have left off the beginning, where our beloved PC Man comes off as a little whiny complaining that he's been stereotyped, and just jumped into the "I'm a PC and here's why I'm great" stuff.

Best idea for a Microsoft commercial I've heard came from one of my readers, who (after the caveat that she is herself a blonde) suggested a skit in which PC is an incredibly beautiful but intellectual looking redhead (think Kate Walsh with fashionable glasses) and Mac is a sexy but obviously bubble headed blonde (Britney/Jessica/Paris) who costs you a fortune, brings you all sorts of grief and does nothing but listen to music all day. Meanwhile, PC Girl smashes through glass ceilings and runs the company while managing a loving relationship and raising two perfect children, and excelling at all those video games Mac doesn't have in her leisure time. I love the idea (and not just because I have red hair).

The Mac guy is already every mature woman's nightmare: the one we're all attracted to because he's good looking and "cool" but whom we quickly discover is so arrogant and self absorbed that there's no way you could ever build a life together. Heck, I had a brief fling with an iMac for a while. It was a neat looking machine and the display was pretty and I wanted to love it. But it wouldn't the things that needed to be done (just like those great looking guys who never seemed to have a real job or be willing to stoop to taking out the trash). It wasn't compatible with any of the programs I wanted to run. It wanted to do things its own way, and didn't much care about my preferences. I was back in the arms of my faithful, boring looking but high performance (and low cost) PC in no time.

That's the direction I think Microsoft should go with its commercials. How about "I'm an iPhone" and "I'm a Windows Mobile" for starters?  "I'm a WM6 and I can accompany you on the longest trips because you can just pop in an extra battery if I run out of juice." "Where's Mac?" "Oh, he had to go home and recharge."

WM6: "I'll write that proposal up and have it to you in a few minutes, no problem."
iPhone: "Umm, you want me to actually type something? With real grammar and real spelling? Something longer than "C U in 30 min'? Sorry, no real keyboard. I'll have to wait 'til I get back to my MacBook."

WM6: "Sure, I can carry as much extra data as you want. No limits. I'll just put it on these removable storage cards."

iPhone: "Oops. Memory is full. I'm going to have to delete something if I want to add something else. Storage cards? Umm ... I don't seem to have a slot to put it in. Sorry."

Etc.

Even though summer is coming to an end, 'tis the season when the hot air starts to flow in earnest. Election day is right around the corner, and there's a whole lotta talkin' goin' on. But sometimes I get tired of the same old same old.

Are you tired of listening to political candidates put forth their views on everything from taxes to health care to military strategy to lipstick on barnyard animals? Tired of spending half an hour listening to someone talk and coming away without the slightest idea what he believes or what he knows? Tired of listening to answers that never get around to addressing the questions that were asked?

Well, tear yourself away from the cable news channels and the opinion blogs and get yourself over to TechNet Edge, where you can leave politics behind and lose yourself in an interview with someone who does know what he's talking about, doesn't dodge the questions, and isn't trying to get you to vote for him for anything.

David Tesar's August chat with Mark Russinovich is like a breath of fresh autumn air. No, it's not filled with over-your-head technical gobbledegook so if you aren't a coder, don't worry; you'll still enjoy all 42 minutes of discussion about Sysinternals, Microsoft and Bill Gates, the futures of both Windows and security, and more. Mark isn't afraid to tackle the tough questions, such as "Should Microsoft start making their own PC hardware?" and "Should Microsoft call it quits on Windows and start over from scratch with a whole new operating system code base?"

If you're at all interested in Microsoft and its products, and want to learn about what it's like to be on the inside from one of the company's best known and most respected employees, check this one out. I came away with inspiration for a couple of articles (including one on the pros and cons of behavioral-based security), a better understanding of where Microsoft may be headed in some key areas (or at least where they should be heading), and a smile. Will the presidential debates do that for you?

And while you're on the TechNet Edge site, if you're in the mood for something a bit more technical and you're excited about Hyper-V and virtualization, check out the discussion with Edwin Yuen about the latest version of System Center Virtual Machine Manager, which lets you manage not just Hyper-V and Virtual Server but also VMware virtual machines.

Microsoft just recently released Beta 2 of Internet Explorer v8, the latest incarnation of the most used web browser. There's a lot to like about IE 8, and I covered the new features that affect the user experience in this week's VistaNews editorial (www.vistanews.com, #35).

One thing that I didn't address in detail in that article is the unseen but important "feature": security. The guys who post to the MSDN IE Blog did an excellent multi-part examination of IE 8 security issues. Here's a brief summary of some of the security improvements:

DEP/NX memory protection helps prevent code marked non-executable from running in memory, making it more difficult to exploit buffer overrums and other memory-related vulnerabilities:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/04/08/ie8-security-part-I_3A00_-dep-nx-memory-protection.aspx

Changes to ActiveX isolate controls installed by a user from the overall system (called per-user ActiveX), so that if one user installs a malicious control, the whole system won't be affected. The feature can be disabled via Group Policy if desired. Per-site ActiveX determines whether installed controls are allowed to run on particular web sites.  Allowed controls can be configured via Group Policy.
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/05/07/ie8-security-part-ii-activex-improvements.aspx 

The SmartScreen filter replaces the IE 7 phishing filter and is faster, has a better UI, better Group Policy support, anti-malware support and new heuristics.
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/07/02/ie8-security-part-iii-smartscreen-filter.aspx 

The XSS filter makes it harder for attackers to exploit cross site scripting vulnerabilities in web sites, which have the potential to allow an attacker to control what a user does on a web site, steal cookies and even monitoring keystrokes.
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/07/02/ie8-security-part-iv-the-xss-filter.aspx 

Summary of security mechanisms designed to protect against three categories of threats: web application vulnerabilities, browser and add-on vulnerabilities and social engineering exploits.
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/07/02/ie8-security-part-v-comprehensive-protection.aspx 

When you spend your entire day working at the computer, there are certain peripherals that matter a lot. Having the right ones can make you more productive and a whole lot happier on a daily basis. Having the wrong ones can make it unpleasant or even painful to do your job.

The first isn't even an electronic component. It's your chair. A comfortable chair that fits you properly is a must. Otherwise you end up with back pain or worse. The second (unless you've switched to speech recognition and dictation for composing your documents) is a good keyboard. Back in the 1990s, when I first started writing full time, I found myself suffering from repetitive stress injury (RSI) to the extent that I could only type for a few minutes at a time without pain in my wrists and thumbs. That's when Tom bought me my first ergonomic keyboard. The first couple of days, I hated it. Within a couple of weeks, I was back up to speed (80-90 wpm) and the pain was all gone. I've had only ergo keyboards since, and I've never had a recurrence.

The third important element is your monitor(s). My desktop is, after all, where I "live" for many hours per day. I've worked with bad or dying monitors many times in the past. When your display is too dim, too bright, unsharp, or won't adjust to the height and angle you need, you may not even realize what the problem is - but you will notice that you don't enjoy working.

I've been a multi-monitor fan since Windows 2000. Just as in pre-computer days I preferred a big physical desk on which I could spread out lots of papers, open reference books, notes, etc., I like having plenty of screen real estate now so I can keep all my open windows in view without having to pile them on top of one another and click to see each. For the past several years, I had been using three Samsung SyncMaster monitors on each of my main computers (the upstairs office and the downstairs office). The multiple 19 and 20 inch monitors provided a very decent workspace at a fraction of the cost of larger monitors. And for what I usually do, working on text docs, the display quality was plenty good.

Lately, though, I've gotten back into photography. And I started to get a hankering for a monitor better suited to viewing and editing my photos. I looked at HP's current series for a couple of reasons. A while back, we bought the HP TouchSmart to be our kitchen computer. The built in 20 inch monitor, with its glossy finish and optimized to display TV programs, movies and photos through Vista Media Center, is quite impressive. In fact, my son was so impressed with it that he went out and bought the 22 inch HP 2207. It's the same basic type of monitor without the touch element. He raved about the beautiful display quality - and he's not given to raving. Granted, he was replacing an old CRT so the difference was especially dramatic, but when I saw the HP, I fell in love too. And a nice bonus is that it pivots to portrait mode, which I thought would be handy for viewing photos taken with a vertical orientation.

With my birthday coming up, I decided what I wanted was a new monitor. Then we had a meeting of a local government committee to which I belong at our house and the assistant city manager notified me that she wanted to give a PowerPoint presentation. One option would have been to show it on the main Media Center computer attached to the widescreen TV - but our media room isn't really set up to accommodate the ten people who would be attending. I said to Tom that I wished I had a large monitor we could set up at the table. He said "go buy one." He didn't have to tell me twice. So, thanks to the bond committee, I got my birthday present a little early.

I knew exactly what I wanted, but when I got to Best Buy, the salesman tried to tempt me with a 24 inch Samsung that was $100 less. I like to save money, but I knew, from all those Samsungs I had at home, that I wouldn't be happy with the non-glossy surface that is almost impossible to get clean if you happen to sneeze on it or something. So I spent the extra hundred and came back with the HP 2408, the 24 inch version of my son's monitor. It performed fine for the meeting, and then I gave it a permanent home on my desk, replacing my 20 inch middle monitor.

New monitor setup, with the 24 inch HP in the middle

I had to go back to Best Buy to get a DVI to HDMI adapter since the HP has only analog and HDMI inputs, but once I got it hooked up, I was just stunned at the picture. I have a photo of a bright red cardinal as my wallpaper, and that bird was rendered in such sharp detail and brilliant color that I thought he was going to fly right out of the screen.

 
The color and detail in the bird on my wallpaper makes him look as if he's ready to fly out of the screen

When you install the software that comes with it, an HP Display option is added to the context menu when you right click the desktop. A particularly handy feature is the ability to select from several preset viewing modes, optimized for text, movies, photos or gaming. You can create custom viewing modes, too.

 
The HP My Display menu lets you quickly select a preset viewing mode to optimize the display for what you're viewing

As for the pivot feature that I thought would be so useful, I'm not so sure. It's easy enough to pivot the screen, but with multiple monitors there's a problem - when you pivot the big screen, the displays on the two side screens turn on their sides. Oops. And the big 24 incher, pivoted, is so tall I have to tilt my head back to see the top half of it. I may not be using that feature much after all, but that doesn't matter since I can place two full size windows of a Word doc and a browser side by side on the monitor, not have to scroll horizontally in either, and still have room at the edge for the Vista sidebar.

Pivoted to portrait mode, the monitor is way too tall for me

What is nice is the ability to adjust both the height and viewing angle just the way I want it. I'm short, so the monitors with a fixed height stand are usually too tall for me. The hinged stand on this one lets me bring it all the way down so that the bottom of the bezel is resting on the desk, if I wanted (I like it with the bottom about an inch off the desk). Even with many of those that adjust, they won't go down as far as I prefer.

But it's the quality of the display that really dazzles. I remember my reaction the first time I saw the original 30 inch Apple Cinema monitor. I'm not a Mac person, but oh, I wanted that monitor (which was $1999). The HP has the same brilliance and clarity, with slightly less space, for less than a fourth that price. It's a joy just to sit here in front of the screen all day now.

After seeing mine each time he walked past my desk for almost a week, Tom broke down and got one of his own (the 22 inch), finally replacing the ancient 21 inch CRT that he's been hanging onto forever. That was the last CRT we had in the house, and I'm not sorry to see it go.

What you see is what you get, and I'm glad I got the HP.

UPDATE: 09/05:
I discovered how to pivot the middle monitor without messing up the side displays. If you disable Auto Pivot and select the 90 degree pivot manually through the HP My Display settings, the other monitors remain normal while the HP pivots. Just click Options | Auto Pivot and uncheck the "Enable Auto Pivot" checkbox.

 
Disabling auto pivot fixes the problem of the secondary displays turning sidewise when you pivot the HP monitor