I think Apple scored a home run with their "I'm a Mac"/"I'm a PC" ads, and in the UK have done a great job (and no doubt spent a good chunk of cash) in getting Mitchell & Webb to feature in them. You can see the UK ads on Apple.com/uk if you have QuickTime installed, or if you haven't, see some of them here. Nay-saying their coolness, there was a hilarious (depending on your persuasion, I suppose) article in The Guardian (I'm always tempted to call it the Grauniad, can't think why*) which has the author admitting why he hates Macs, and rails against the latest ads as part of the argument.

Whatever you think of the merit of the ads and the messages they're putting across, they are very effective - but the opportunity to be spoofed is clearly too good, given the rash of comedy vids that have appeared on Soapbox and YouTube since.

My favourite bunch came from TrueNuff TV!, which does a great spoof of the whole GetaMac! website, and has some genuinely side-splitting ads...

Computers are Computers

Macs are great. So are PCs.
So are toasters - what's your point?
It's just a computer, get over it.

They even manage to poke some fun at a few other communities besides Macs and PCs... Be careful, though, some of the content is a little "mature"...

* Interestingly enough, searching on Live.com to just check I had the spelling of "Grauniad correct", guess what the top link is... www.guardian.co.uk :)

Now this looks interesting... as part of the slew of announcements surrounding Windows Mobile 6 which were made at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona, Orange have started talking about their SPV E650 Smartphone, which is based on the HTC Vox device. Details from Modaco:

It isn't 3G, which is a bit of a pity, but looks like a nice compromise of size and functionality... I still fancy the "Excalibur" (aka HTC S620) as a Smartphone, though...

The other day when I posted about VIrtual Earth Mobile, I was using some really great software to do remote control of my device and screen capture from the PC... SOTI Pocket Controller Professional.

It's perfect for demoing Windows Mobile devices... even comes with a huge library of skins (which are updated online) so you can match the screen output from your device as its displayed on the PC to a surround which is identical, adding to the realism of the thing. Oh, and if you have a device which rotates the screen, the software auto-detects when you do that, and it redraws the skin in rotated mode - cool!

One tip: using USB/Activesync (or WMDC in Vista) as the connection method works fine for the basic show'n'tell, but some things aren't available - device connectivity can be a bit confused, since it sees the Activesync connection as a possible route to the internet, but the PC might be disconnected. Also, the actual Activesync options (eg Schedule for sync) are grayed out when connected on a cable.

I use it over a Bluetooth PAN... so I connect the device to the PC as a network adapter (doubly useful in that it puts the PC on the net too), and then connect to the IP address of the device, which is always 192.168.0.1 (since it's the gateway through which the PC will connect). That way, your PC is connected, the device is visible, and all the connectivity (such as Direct Push mail) & other options work just fine.

It's been online for a little while - I only really noticed recently, but there is a matrix of telecom PBX systems and VoIP gateways which can sit in front of them, in order to enable Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging.

The Telephony Advisor for Exchange 2007 goes into some detail around what needs to be understood in order to get UM running. There's a link on there to the PBX Configuration Notes page, which not only details how the PBX/gateway needs to be configured, but shows a list (ordered by PBX) of what components and protocols are used, which versions of software are required etc.

It's not an exhaustive list but is a starter - if you want to know whether your current phone system could be integrated into Exchange 2007, hae a look...

You might have seen demos of Exchange 2007 and the Unified Messaging capabilities (which are mondo-cool and so great to demonstrate to people that they're sometimes open-mouthed in awe): if so, and you want to play with it yourself, then check out this great new resource:

https://signmeup.exchange2007demo.com/

Put in your email address, and you'll be sent the details of your temporary (5-day) logon to the system, accessible from Outlook Web Access, Outlook (using "Outlook Anywhere" aka RPC/HTTP) or from a mobile device using ActiveSync.

Oh and you get a (US) phone number to call to test out the Outlook Voice Access function, which allows you to navigate your mailbox and interact with it either using a phone's keypad or (if you're an English speaker), with spoken commands.

If you're not US based, you could sign up for the Windows Live Messenger/Verizon Web Calling service, which would allow you to call a US number for a lower cost (in the UK, about 1.5p a minute).