Every parent needs it...

It's a parody. It's gotta be. :)

Banned in the UK?

Supposedly this was banned in the UK. Struggling to understand why though.

Firefox or Internet Explorer

I'm a big supporter of Firefox. As a web developer I believe that it's the sensible choice when it comes to the initial development. Most browsers support the W3C standards so picking any of these is a good starting point. Then you can code the exceptions to get the site working in the various flavours of Internet Explorer.

It'll be a great day when the server log stats actually reflect the results in this survey;



While it's not an Advertisement, it does a great job advertising.

Microsoft Ad #2

From the word on the net these ads are leading towards something;



I'm not quite sure what they're leading towards though.

Some of the speculation suggests that they may be targeting the techy crowd. There's a number of references that hardcore Apple geeks may get like the annoying Grandma living with this family for 12 years which is the same amount of time that Steve Jobs has been with Apple since his return in 1996.

There's a few references like this but I get the feeling that even for this crowd most of the references are going to be too subtle. When you get down to it the message that is going to be put over to the bulk of the audience is that Bill and Jerry are so rich that they have no real understanding of how "normal" people live.

As for the suggestion that it's targeting the techy crowd, the vast bulk of them are probably too smart to be tempted to try Windows by advertising like this.

Vista pounding

The thing that astounded me is that this Ad campaign had run for about 2 years before Microsoft bothered to respond to it. Vista seemed to bad to worse and the ads remained entertaining because people agreed with them.

You're having fries with that.

It's surprising that people put up with all the crap that OEM hardware distributors dump on Windows PCs these days. Can't really blame them though, it's the only way to offset the cost of the OS. More and more I'm seeing OEM distributors here not adding this extra stuff though and letting the customer see just how much the OS costs.

You are coming to a sad realisation...

Mac Vs PC continues. Introducing Vista!

Upgrading for Vista

It's kind of scary to think that an OS that has had such a long history of hardware driver support is roughly where GNU/Linux was back at the turn of the century...

Spin the wheel, try your luck

I think Steve Jobs got it right with his approach to how to sell the Operating System. The one size fits all charging model makes this too easy.

How it should be done

Apple hit on a serious winning formula when they started producing the Mac Vs PC ads. They're funny, not too in your face, and scarily reflect reality.

So, Mac Vs PC week? I think so. :)

What is Microsoft smoking?

I was just listening to the guys at TWiT talking about this ad which prompted me to go and hunt it out. Having now watched this I have to agree with the general consensus. What the hell is this about?

If this is going to compete with with Mac Vs PC ads they're going to have a hard time.

I'm not actually sure what this commercial is about. Is it about drugs? Sports betting? Regardless, it's mildly humorous and the end made me laugh.

Undies or Togs?

I first heard about this through some friends that saw it on TV. It sounded entertaining enough that I wanted to hunt it out myself. This is how advertising should work. Make it entertaining enough to have your target audience go and look for it.

42 Below

42 Below is a company here in New Zealand that makes some pretty good vodka. One of the things that I love about this country is our ability to take a joke. Especially one at our own expense. We also love to poke fun at them over the ditch...

Sometimes the advertising works

This is a great example of humor working in advertising. The story is uncertain until the main players reach the goal. Then it gets obvious, but the reactions are classic