If you select the ‘Metro-North TrainTime‘ link from the MTA mobile site’s homepage, you will be able to see, for now, the ontime status of current trains. Unless one of the trains is delayed, they will pretty much just all read ‘On Time’ or ‘Arrived’ for now.

At the Bedford Ave L-line Subway Station, things get a little more interesting. A graphical LCD screen shows where nearby trains are, updated every 15 seconds.

It’s great that MTA is making progress on this, but I hope these are not long-term how this information is going to be disseminated.

Let’s take the mobile site as a first example.

The realtime train data should not be a separate menu on the Metro-North mobile website, it should be integrated into the schedule results (like track info .

There is no usability reason to fill out one form for schedule information and then backup and go to another for realtime information.

As for the L line, the LCD board is not going to cut it. Its too small and can only be read by people standing directly in front of it – but its information is of interest to everyone on the platform at all times. Also, the map display is unnecessary – all that is relevant is ETA of next trains.

So, lets take these two important pieces of information and rethink how to display this data.

The results look exactly like DC’s realtime train ETA signs.

These signs show exactly how long before the next 3 trains arrive in minutes, and can be seen by passengers standing 100 ft away.

There is no advantage to making people crowd around an LCD screen to see a relatively small diagram when all they want to know is ‘how long do I have to wait here?’.

This is a complaint I have had before with the Grand Central Terminal monitors as well – they use small color television screens that users need to stop and crowd around to read.

It would be much better to use a large overhead LED display that users could see from a distance and read without stopping.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: MTA Takes a Shot at Realtime Info on Subway, Metro-North

I got Ooma VoIP service a week ago and will be posting a review of it soon, but so far I love it.

That said, I wanted to point out this great deal on Amazon where you get the Ooma hardware and an iPod Shuffle for just $199 (until Oct 31st). It’s the best deal I’ve seen so far on the hardware, which is usually $229-$279.

Ooma is basically Vonage without a monthly fee – you just pay for the hardware. Calls are handled through a peer to peer system and the business model for Ooma is based on its $99/yr premium service (which I bought – my Vonage service is about $419/yr).

I am having my Vonage number ported over to Ooma now. It’s $59 for the number port but you get it free with the premium service, which has some cool voicemail and multiline features.

But don’t misunderstand – the basic service with a new phone number is completely free, you just pay for hardware. Just plug any regular telephone and broadband connection into the Ooma, register on their site (no credit card needed!) and you’re up and running with a service that, so far, works as great as Vonage for me.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Hot Deal: Ooma Free VOIP Service – Just $199 for Hardware (With iPod Shuffle!)

The new 27-inch 2560×1440 LED display bundled with the new iMacs is one of the most outstanding monitors (and values) in computing today.

With the same resolution and better specs than the Apple 30-inch Cinema display, the lowest end iMac with this panel is $100 less – and comes with a pretty nice computer!

But I don’t expect it will be too long before we start hearing some complaints of user eyestrain and headaches due to the density of the pixels in a space significantly smaller than the Apple’s 30-inch.

A few years back it wasn’t unusual that you would be able to purchase a 15″ laptop with a native screen resolution of 1600×1200 (UXGA).

Sounds great on paper – higher-res = better image and video viewing and more screen real estate, right?

Well, yes, but the tradeoff is that interface elements start to get really tiny and difficult to read- especially text, and especially for users over age 40.

I bought an 15″ Acer UXGA notebook several years back. It looked great in the store, but after 4 hours of it on my desk I realized my eyes would never adjust and promptly returned it. I think alot of other people did too, which is why you don’t see this kind of resolution jammed into notebooks as much.

Curiously, desktop LCD monitors up to 19″ have never really gone above 1280×1024 resolution, so its kind of odd to wonder why notebook makers once liberally sold 15″ panels with such a tiny dot pitch as mainstream.

There are a few holdouts – the 17″ MacBook uses a 1920×1200 resolution -the same dot pitch as a 15″ UXGA notebook. Most people are used to seeing this resolution on a 24″ display, so it’s a pretty tight squeeze.

Some netbooks also try to squeeze a lot of pixels on tiny screens never seen before on consumer notebooks. The Sony Vaio P probably holds the crown for tiniest dot pitch of any consumer LCD – it has an 8-inch screen with 1600×768 resolution!.

Yes, you can bump font sizes when text size gets too small, but how this affects the appearance and usability of your system or individual apps can vary widely. In general, your OS was designed with a rough idea of font size in mind and you will be better off to not use a dot pitch which works against this assumption.

Contributing to the iMac’s display problem is that it sports a glossy screen which can make things worse if your workspace causes reflections. Apple gets a lot of heat from users for its lack of matte display options.

Because office workers prefer to sit facing their cube or office entry (so prying eyes cannot look over their shoulder), its actually more likely that a workspace with a window will be arranged with the monitor facing it. With a matte screen, this is tolerable – with a glossy, it sucks.

Gizmodo’s Brian Lam noted issues with his using the display in his 27-inch iMac Review:

The default brightness is a bit much, but of course you can turn it down. And the contrast is welcome; even my new 13-inch MacBook Pro looks yellowed and washed out next to it. But at this pixel density, which is sharper than my notebook, it’s almost too sharp, requiring me to sit closer than I would ordinarily do with a 27 inch display. I like the feeling of crispness — 16% crisper than the last generation. But my eyes feel like the pictures are being delivered by a land shark holding a laser pointer straight into my corneas, and I can feel the strain within minutes. I would have to jack up as many font sizes as possible or sit as close as I do to my MacBook to make it work for long long periods of time. Maybe I’m just a wimp of a geek, but I’ve never been sensitive to these sorts of things on any sort of machinery before.

I’ve used the 27-inch display at the Apple Store and didn’t have any problems with it, but that was the case with the UXGA notebook I purchased also – you really need to sit down and do a day’s work with it to figure out whether it will be an issue for you.

It also doesn’t help to get other people’s opinion – I’ve found that when it comes to dot-pitch tolerance, YMMV.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Does the 27-Inch iMac Display Push Mainstream Dot-Pitch Tolerance?

I have used VMWare Workstation on Windows and VMWare Fusion on Mac OS for years.

VMWare an outstanding company and they have great products and support. If you are looking for virtualization software, VMWare is where its at.

Now, about VMWare Fusion 3 – its probably the only upgrade to a VMWare product I have not been immediately happy with.

When Windows 7 came out, I immediately installed the 64-bit version on Boot Camp under Snow Leopard on my MacBook, and then created a virtual machine for it with VMWare Fusion 2, configuring it as a Vista x64 guest.

This worked great.

Days later I heard Fusion 3 came out, with ‘official’ Windows 7 support and a slew of improvements. As a loyal customer, I upgraded immediately for $59.

After install, I converted the Windows 7 VM from a Vista guest to an official Windows 7 64-bit guest and installed VMWare tools (the special drivers you install in windows after you create the VM for better mouse, display, and network support, etc.)

The VM froze up.

Since then the VM has been hit or miss – sometimes it boots, sometimes it bluescreens, sometimes it locks up – sometimes it even locks up my entire MacBook and I have to hit the power button.

My recommendation is to wait and see before upgrading to Fusion 3. If there are issues, I’m sure they will be addressed quickly knowing VMWare’s customer support record.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: VMWare Fusion 3 for Snow Leopard Stumbles with Windows 7 VM Support

On my main workstation, I have two 24″ displays. Why two? Well, there is one right in front of my face, which is connected to my MacBook running Snow Leopard. This is my main machine at the moment.

On the left, my Windows 7 workstation. I usually keep stuff on this screen that I don’t need in front of me – like my security camera feed, and Sirius Radio online.

I switch between the two systems with a fantastic piece of free software known as Synergy. I run the Synergy server on the MacBook, and the Synergy client on the Windows machine.

They connect to each other over the network, and when I move my mouse to the edge of my primary monitor, it just keeps going onto the other screen, and the keyboard and mouse control is transferred to the Windows box seamlessly. Its amazing how well it works.

There are a couple of gotchas – the mouse and keyboard aren’t enabled as a security issue for UAC and login screens under Windows. I usually keep an additional mouse and keyboard connnected off to the side for these. Another option is to turn off password login and disable UAC (at your own risk).

For 11 years I have tried several different KVM switches, and I hate them all.

1. They are expensive (especially if they don’t come with the special cabling!).
2. They double your cabling mess.
3. Their reliability for any given setup is all over the map, especially if a Linux or FreeBSD computer is in the mix. As such, reviews and reccommendations aren’t always helpful.
4. You don’t know if they are going to work well with your systems until you spend the money and do a lot of cabling.
5. You can’t use both systems at the same time, which is usually better.
6. Even if everything works, sometimes its difficult to get a KVM into your workflow.
7. You will have to make some decisions about whether you are going to have audio support, DVI-D support.

KVM switches were more attractive when old CRT displays were big and expensive, and OS’s had sketchy multiple monitor support. For some developers and IT folks, they may still serve a specific setup, but in general, they are to be avoided.

24-inch LCD monitors are down to $200, which is just amazing. I bought my first for probably $1200, but it was still an outstanding investment in productivity.

So, for sharing two systems, having them on 2 monitors side by side with Synergy is hard to beat, and much cheaper and more reliable than older KVM methods.

As for using 2 monitors with one system, Windows 7 is outstanding, better than Vista or Snow Leopard. Both monitors are usually setup automatically, although you may need to tell Windows which monitor is on which side, and which side you want to be your primary (the one with the start menu and taskbar).

Better yet, if you *disconnect* one of the monitors, Windows 7 is really good about switching your primary to the existing display on the fly and ‘doing the right thing’ about moving windows that were open on other screens to the main.

Snow Leopard is not so great about this, which is surprising, especially when it comes to MacBooks. People use an additional monitor with notebooks more than they do with desktops – many get to work, plug into a bigger monitor and external keyboard and mouse to enhance usability.

If you plug an external monitor into a MacBook, it will add additional ’spaces’, and since the resolution of your MacBook and monitor may not be the same, the resolution of these spaces will be different. I don’t like the way this works at all, and usually want to turn off the MacBook’s screen, which is not as straightforward as it should be.

Two other great reasons for avoiding KVM switching are also fairly new developments – virtualization and remote access software. Both have been around for a while, but only recently have they become more usable, higher-performance, and affordable.

Virtualization is the running of on OS as an application under another OS. VMWare Fusion for Mac, for example, allows you to install a Windows ‘Virtual Machine’ on you Mac OS you can startup, run, suspend, and shutdown at any time. It works great.

For a while, it required a lot of memory and some decent processor and video power to have a good experience with Virtualization, but the software and hardware support for Virtual Machines has improved a great deal.

The downside is that because of Apple’s insistence that Mac OS only be run on Apple computers, you cannot, in general, run Mac OS as a virtual machine under Windows or Linux (although I’m sure someone has gotten this to work).

I especially recommend Virtual Machines for people who want to try out Linux. Linux runs great as a virtual machine under Windows or Mac OS, and can be tricky to setup on bare hardware.

Remote access is another option for using two systems at once. Snow Leopard comes with remote access (aka Screen Sharing on Mac OS) built-in, as does Windows 7 Professional and above (where its known as Remote Desktop or RDC).

Windows 7 Home Premium and below does not support Windows Remote Desktop, which is criminal. Windows uses this feature as the main carrot on the end of the stick for users to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional for $89 more. There really is no other reason why a home user would need that upgrade.

Unfortunately, accessing Snow Leopard’s screen from Windows requires a VNC client that has been tweaked a bit. The other way around is much easier – Microsoft publishes a full-featured remote desktop client for Macs.

Side note: Windows 7 adds some really impressive features to RDC.

Another option for remote access is cross-platform remote access software like VNC, or service-based software like GoToMyPC or LogMeIn.com.

There is one problem with these solutions is that none of them work over the Internet out of the box, they only work with other computers on your local network.

All of them can work over the internet, but to do so in most cases will require that you have a static IP address or Dynamic DNS, and configure your router settings for port forwarding (if you can’t configure your router, you will have to tunnel it through SSH). This stuff is required for VNC internet access also.

Personally, I do not recommend port forwarding as a good solution for remote internet access. This is because if you update or change settings on your router, computer, firewall, anti-virus, LAN IP addressing, or dynamic DNS, your remote access can break, and you usually won’t find this out until you need it.

MobileMe has a feature called Back To MyMac which allows you to use Screen Sharing over the internet without this fuss.

My #1 recommendation for internet remote access is definitely the LogMeIn.com service. It works with PC and Mac, you do not need to have client software installed on the client computer, its free, secure, has tons of features and is very reliable.

You just sign up, install the software on each machine you want to access, and you’re done. When you want to connect to one of your computers, you just open any browser on any machine to LogMeIn.com, and you will be provided with a list of your computers indicate which are online.

When you click on a remote computer you want to use, a Java-based client will open on the local computer very quickly with no need for admin access or changes to the guest. You will be prompted for the login info for the remote machine, and the screen of that machine will magically appear.

Performance is surprisingly good and very usable, and like most remote access solutions you can adjust resolution, color depth, and other settings based on the quality of the connection.

If you upgrade to a LogMeIn premium account, you can do more cool things like transfer files easily to the remote machine, which is extremely helpful and a critical feature Apple and Microsoft have never understood in their remote clients.

The problem is that when it comes to file sharing, Windows and MacOS have complex and secure systems for that. To just be able to drag and drop files between computers with only remote access authentication would seem to circumvent that. At least, that’s what I think their rationale for not enabling it is.

From a security standpoint, however, its kind of irrelevant. I can FTP, email, or ssh my files off the remote system from the desktop remotely at will. Enabling file transfer right in the remote desktop software doesn’t circumvent anything but inconvenience. It should definitely at least be an option in the server software install.

Prior to using LogMeIn.com, I used GoToMyPC for years. Its a very similar service, and has been around longer than LogMeIn.com. I haven’t compared them lately, but I switched as LogMeIn.com was free and supported Mac hosts when GoToMyPC did not.

However, GoToMyPC always worked like a champ for me, and its an outstanding product, so be sure to check out both of their current offerings before deciding which is best for you. Hard to go wrong with just trying LogMeIn free, however.

I should also note that both of these services are considered extremely secure and I have never been aware of them being compromised.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: How To Use Multiple Computers: Dual Desktops, Virtual Machines, and Remote Access Solutions

I was not originally a big fan of the Apple iPhone. In fact, it didn’t win me over until the launch of both the App Store and the 3G. Before that, I felt it was an ambitious device, but missed the mark on some fundamentals.

Since then, I have been a *mostly* happy convert.

Yes, like most iPhone users, I do have my gripes about the iPhone:

1. Service cost.
2. AT&T coverage and call quality
3. Inability to use Apps not approved by Apple
4. Annoyance of the use of ‘authorized computers and libraries’ and DRM confounding media management.
5. Inability to run apps simultaneously

As a developer, I have my gripes also:

1. 30% APPLE ROYALTY!
2. Price pressure which makes support of small market apps unattractive.
3. ‘Narrow’ marketing hose of the App Store Storefront, which makes marketing more difficult the more apps are introduced.
4. Overcomplicated provisioning procedures.
5. Inability to measure out-of-app-store marketing conversion efforts.
6. Inability to communicate directly to userbase via email.
7. Slow and random approval process.
8. Insertion of Apple Store into conflicts between developer and third parties.
9. Restrictions on app content.
10. Poor developer communications.

So, I am definitely looking forward to the new Motorola Droid, and hope it gives Apple a run for its money, because as spectacular as the iPhone is, it desperately needs competition.

My life would be much, much easier if I could sell apps direct to users. I could charge less, make more, market effectively, push updates at will, make any app I wanted without fear of rejection, and communicate directly with my userbase via email.

I would also love to have a phone with the features of the iPhone but with Verizon.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Rooting for the Motorola Droid

Al Franken has been doing a great job of laying down the law as applies to corporate rape cover-ups and healthcare issues lately.

Besides his intelligent and learned opinion on these subjects, there is another element to his congressional hearings which are just somewhat – oh I dunno, so easy to watch.

Either its general adminission seating at these hoedowns, or Al has taken a few clues from Charlie Wilson in ’stacking’ his talent pool.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Al Franken’s Superhot Entourage