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Daily Update: Back-to-Back Vegas Shows, Zero Day Windows Flaw, Angry Birds, More

Good morning.

I'll have a separate post about this soon, but I've got a number of work-related trips coming up, including two back-to-back events in Las Vegas in April. Which sort of leads me to the notion of a meet-up of some kind. I've ignored/avoided this stuff in the past, mostly out of inadequacy fears, but what the heck. If you're going to be in Vegas for MIX'11 (April 12-14), or my company's Mobile/Cloud/Virtualization Connections shows the week after (April 17-21), well, so am I. :) In fact, I'll probably be there for the duration.

The Connections shows are probably the better bet for me, time-wise. I'm hosting an all-star keynote panel discussion with Aaron Hillegass (Big Nerd Ranch), Joe Belfiore (Microsoft/Windows Phone), Tyler Lessard (RIM/Blackberry) and Robert Scoble (blogger/tech evangelist) about the future of the mobile market ("Which Platforms Should You Bet On?"), but I'll be around for the rest of the show as well. If you are going to the Connections show(s), please, use my discount code (PT$) to get $100 off your registration.

Again, more on this show soon. But I wanted to at least get the basics out there quickly.

Moving on.

Microsoft is warning of a new zero-day flaw in Windows. Executive summary: It's a critical flaw in all supported versions of Windows. That is, this is bad news. Stay tuned.

As was inevitable, Angry Birds jumps the shark.

Netgear CEO Patrick Lo has infamously lashed out at Steve Jobs and Apple. Hey, this strategy worked great for Michael Dell, too. Go nuts.

Flubber alert: PC Werld publishes a ludicrous article detailing Microsoft Word alternatives. Curiously, Google Docs appears nowhere. But seriously, isn't the phrase "Microsoft Word alternatives" pretty much an oxymoron, at least on the PC?

Rumors suggest that Amazon is about to expand its Prime service (in which subscribers pay $80 a year for second-day shipping on all purchases; I'm a member) to include unlimited video streaming, a la Netflix. That's a neat idea, but the reason Netflix works is that it's ubiquitous (i.e. is available on so many devices.) You can't just have a service. You have to be able to get to it from anywhere.

And finally, The New York Times figures out what I've been saying for years: Platforms matter. Of course, in this case, it's about Apple, which explains why the NYT is suddenly writing about it.
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