The browser wars continue but this time Microsoft does what other browser builders don’t: advertise. The web only ads tout features and benefits of Internet Explorer, and feature former Superman Dean Cain in a series of video commercials which mix serious camp with attempts at humor, Microsoft style.

Microsoft is only airing the ads online (seen on Hulu), but may consider broader broadcast depending on the public’s reception. With IE’s shrinking user base, especially among the tech-savvy, its clear Microsoft is hoping the ads will gain a viral audience online.

Most memorable? O.M.G.I.G.P. Truly disgusting. The viral campaign is decidedly contagious. Now everyone won’t want to use Internet Explorer.

Wired Magazine’s editor-in-chief announced that an iPad version of Wired would be available by summer. EiC Chris Anderson on the iPad:

I’m from the media world, and as you may have heard, we have lots of questions about our future. The good news is I think we found part of the answer. We think this is a game changer.

Indeed.

From around the world and the BBC:

It took me under an hour to install. That’s incredible. Coupled with saving approx 10GB of storage, it’s quite something! For business purposes, the Exchange support is absolutely worth more than the minimal cost of upgrade to Snow Leopard by a significant margin. That’s likely to drive an entirely new set of customers to the platform.

I did both a clean install to my MacBook Pro and an upgrade install to my iMac. No problems.

The new OS is very similar to Leopard but it is so much faster. Safari opens instantly… I was a little concerned about whether Adobe CS3 would still work but all seems fine. I haven’t found anything that hasn’t worked so far. I can’t actually think of anything more that I would want from an OS. My priorities are speed and ease of use. Snow Leopard certainly has both.

And so it goes.

On the same day that tech writer Henry Blodget admitted he’d never visited an Apple Store, but tossed his BlackBerry for an iPhone, Dan Frommer says his year with an iPhone has changed his life.

The biggest difference between the iPhone and previous mobile devices I’ve owned—Palm Treo, Dell Axim, Palm V, various Sony Ericsson and Nokia cellphones—is the sheer amount of time I spend using it: At least a few hours a day, Monday through Sunday.

How about games, Dan?

My iPhone has also effectively killed my Nintendo Wii. I’d never been much of a gamer until the iPhone, which allows me to play inexpensive casual games—with good graphics—anywhere, without carrying a separate gaming device around.

Dan, are you reading more or less these days?

And I’m reading more! Thanks to Amazon’s Kindle app, which has allowed me to read two long books in my rare spare time, something I would not have been able to do otherwise, and Instapaper Pro, an app that lets me save blog posts and magazine articles from my computer’s Web browser to read later on my iPhone.

Any negative issues to report?

Because there’s always a distraction a tap away, I find myself, er, distracted more often. That’s led to more than a few stern talking-tos from friends, companions, and parents, wondering why I can’t go an hour without doing something on the iPhone… at the dinner table, a bar, a baseball game, or even on vacation.

It’s interesting to note that both Henry and Dan are experienced techno pundits writing for Silicon Valley Insider.

Rambling, sour grapes piece on Apple, Jobs, the App Store, and the iPhone from the aging Dave Winer, who claims to be a pioneer in the development of blogs, RSS, podcasting, outlining, and content management software.

I found the idea of a MacPhone truly inspiring. From there, it went downhill, and downhill and downhill. This platform was Apple’s revenge on developers. Everything under their control. You couldn’t even ship a product that Apple didn’t approve of!

I guess he doesn’t like the iPhone’s App Store.

There’s still a ton of Woz in the Mac, I am typing this on a gorgeous unibody MacBook Pro, which is probably the most lovely computer I’ve ever used. The software I’m using has never been approved by Apple, and can be downloaded from the Internet. Next to it is an iPhone, which I use only as a phone, an IM device and a communicating camera. It sucks as a phone. The IM is okay and the camera is really nice. But as a platform it’s a complete total disappointment.

I don’t think the camera is all that great. Anyway, what irony. Those 50-million customers don’t know how wrong they are, huh, Dave Whiner?