On the latest Laptop Hunter ad, the “consumer”, Lauren, looks around for a laptop that has “speed, portability and battery life” that costs below US$1700 and eventually settled for a Dell Studio XPS 13 on sale for $899, which when all things considered, is pretty good a deal.

However, its the way the ad mislead viewers about the costs of Macs that makes me question the validity of their claims.

As seen in the screenshot above (around 20s into the ad), it clearly shows a MacBook (see MacBook as compared to the MacBook Pro – note the extra space besides the keyboard on the MBP for the speakers) but yet Lauren talked about the price of the MacBook Pro, which costs US$1999, putting it above the US$1700 budget.

Given that “Lauren” is to become a law student, it is highly unlikely that she would missed out on the MacBooks, which costs US$1299 (unibody) or US$999 for a slower white MacBook, which more than meets her budget. Conscious Misdirection indeed!

On a related note according to AppleInsider, those Laptop Hunters ads might have swayed consumers’ value perception – the belief that a given brand gives more value for money.

Quoting from a survey of 5,000 people, the result showed a marked increase (from almost 0 to 46.2) in the value perception of Microsoft where as Apple’s value dropped from around 70 to 12.4 at this period (on a scale of -100 to 100 (a score of zero means that people are giving equal amounts of positive and negative feedback about a brand – AdAge.com).

Analysts believed these changes in perception is a result of the success of Microsoft’s latest series of ads. To read more, do pop over to AppleInsider and AdAge for the details.

All I can say is, if spending more than US$300 million on ad campaigns, it better changed some perceptions – even if those “consumers” are ignorant like Lauren and not able to see beyond the added values of getting a Mac besides cost savings (for example – like having software suit iLife included for free with every new purchase).

Just for the fun of it – here’s Jennie, another Laptop Hunter (slightly NSFW)

Users of Adium have reported being denied access to their MSN account. Most who are using the latest 1.3.2 released version or the 1.3.3 beta version couldn’t log into their MSN account. Looking at my Adium Debug Log shows the error: “Unable to retrieve MSN Address Book”.

A support ticket was created and we probably have to wait for an update to solve the problem. In the mean time, you can still use Microsoft’s own Messenger for Mac.

Official word about the problem:

Starting at about 20:00 PST tonight (January 11), Microsoft’s servers have stopped accepting logins from clients that use version 15 of the protocol, including Adium 1.3.2. The Debug Window in debug and beta versions of Adium reveals that their server is failing to find a certificate that it needs when Libpurple attempts to retrieve your MSN Address Book.

In case you’re wondering, this also affects Pidgin, which means it’s definitely not an Adium problem…We’re not sure whether this is a temporary server problem or a permanent change that will break P15-using Libpurple-based clients (including Adium 1.3.2) until a future Libpurple release. If it turns out to be the latter, we’ll almost certainly include that Libpurple update in our next 1.3.3 beta.

Let’s hope they sort this out quickly.

update – which someone did. There’s also an update to the software available.

Microsoft released updates for both Office 2008 and Office 2004 recently. Both updates improves stability, security, compatibility and performances. Usually updates are good things, so go burn some bandwidth and update your Office.

Wired’s Charlie Sorrel wrote a Mythbuster-like article on why Apple will not sell $100 iPhones, NetBook or Tablets. We can always wish for cheaper iPhones or for many, a Tablet, but he has his points on why those won’t happen.

Myth: According to the entire internet, Apple will, just after Christmas, sell a 4GB, $100 iPhone through Walmart. The usual excuse is made: Apple needs to sell cheaper hardware in “these troubled times.”

Look at it this way: Apple’s PC market share continues to grow. The iPhone seems unstoppable. The new “expensive” unibody MacBooks are doing just fine. Why on earth would Apple undercut its own successful iPhone line with a cheap version? If it can sell as many $200 or even $300 iPhones as it likes, why sell a $100 one?

The 4GB part of this rumor irks, also. Name one other product line from Apple which has seen a memory decrease. You can’t. The fact that Apple already discontinued the 4GB iPhone because the sales were slow compared to the 8GB model should tell us something. Yes, there might be a 4GB, $100 iPhone. It will be announced at the exact same time as a 5GB, HDD iPod. With a physical clickwheel.

Read on at Wired Blog on the rest of the myth busting, and continue dreaming.

Lastly, a MTV shot completely on a jailbreaked iPhone called Newteknowledge by GOSHone. It would be even triply-awesome if it was edited on the iPhone…but in the mean time, enjoy.
(via TUAW)