MANILA, Philippines — Today marks the start of the Lenten season.

A time for peace and quiet, Lent always reminds me of reformatting a disk drive. Sometimes, life can be overtaken by too much events and things that happen. Life can feel like a disk drive overloaded with data and files.

These files, especially those gigabyte-heavy types, can be quite taxing to a computer’s processor and RAM, and drive its file management system crazy. If such conditions persist for quite some time, the whole system might go bust.

Sometimes, a simple reformat can make the whole thing as good as new.

Life can be that way too.

Too Much Ado Over a Logo

Nobody is complaining about the Mac’s logo, or those of Facebook, RIM, or most any other IT vendor.

But when Microsoft unveiled its “official” logo for its next-generation operating system, Windows 8, some IT journalists, columnists, and analysts you would expect to know better began ranting against the updated Windows emblem.

They claim the logo lacks character, lacks dimensions, lacks depth, and won’t bring peace to all mankind.

Joe Wilcox of betanews.com, for one, claimed the new logo is a disaster, and compared it with the Titanic’s sinking.

I think these IT journalists are drinking something. Whatever that is, we should all stay away from that concoction.

It is a logo, for Juan’s sake. Windows 8 will sink or float depending on how users will find its user interface, and how well it performs its tasks as, well, an operating system.

Privacy 101, Again

Google last week got caught with its hand stuck inside the proverbial cookie jar.

The incident, which saw the “do not be evil” company’s DoubleClick subsidiary bypassing the anti-tracking features of Apple’s Safari browser, has been dubbed by some IT market analysts as the worst privacy violations yet by Google.

The Wall Street Journal said that the whole thing most likely began with Google+’s urge to compete with Facebook’s “Like” button, which is usually added into display advertisements to enhance their prospects of going viral.

One good thing about the incident, however, is that it has highlighted the online advertising industry’s need to address those times when IT companies’ privacy settings and policies clash.

More About the Logo

Microsoft’s recently unveiled Windows 8 logo features a clean, single-color design that fully reflects its Metro UI. Looking like an inverse of Finland’s national flag, the new logo looks like, well, a window.

Design consulting firm Pentagram was hired by Microsoft to come up with the logo’s design.

I know what you’re thinking. My classmates in Grade 1 also could do better.

That’s all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.