geekst3w

Um yeah, I'm going to need the TPS report....

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 11:03:00 +0000

I also like to re-read one of my favorite books "Why business people speak like idiots".

The title of the book is a bit harsh, but like the link below, they just highlight clarity and common sense when communicating in the work place.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5159868?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

A great read

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Sun, 27 Apr 2014 19:03:00 +0000

http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2014/03/30/always-promise-deliver/

Surprise!

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 03:19:00 +0000

Microsoft offers overseas data storage in response to NSA concerns http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/22/5335434/microsoft-offers-overseas-data-storage-in-response-to-nsa-concerns

Spotify

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 02:30:00 +0000

Spotify Pricing Plans

Ubuntu 11.04

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:36:00 +0000

Here's a brief screencast that I did going through some of the basic features of the newest Ubuntu release (Natty Narwal).

Overall, I feel that this is the most accessible linux distribution for the Mac and Windows set. It comes bundled with a great productivity suite that is compatible with the MS Office suite, offering enough functionality for all but the most discerning Office power user. Evolution e-mail is the equivalent to MS Outlook, and other than the somewhat spartan look, it offers up a majority of Outlooks features. I like my Outlook add-ins (like Evernote), but probably not a big deal for most users if your looking for a highly functional mail client. Here's a link to a bit more info regarding LibreOffice.

Ubuntu also integrates socially with an excellent chat client (Empathy) as well as a social broadcasting client for Twitter. In particular, I like the notification system employed by Ubuntu. I find it to be a more elegant solution than many of the Windows clients.

The aspect of this latest release that seems to be the most divisive is the Unity user interface. Mac and Windows users will feel right at home using this, although a quick search through any of the forums will show that it is either loved or hated.

Overall, if you are looking to give something new a try, or you are looking to extend your hardware's lifecycle a bit, give Ubuntu a shot. It's easy to install, fairly lightweight, boots quickly, and offers a robust set of features. The only (minor) downside is that while there are access to many great programs (free and paid), if you really need to run a Windows program, there is some extra effort required. When my windows 7 laptop draws near the end of it's lifecycle, I plan on installing Ubuntu and giving it to my Mother, who has been using an Ubuntu netbook that I built for her for a few years.

Overall: B+
Ease of Use: A
Features: B

Angry Birds Chrome

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 13:30:00 +0000

Is it so wrong to love Angry Birds on a 23in touchscreen? Angry Birds Chrome

Google Music Beta

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 18:57:00 +0000

It's been a few days since I got my invite, and I've had enough of a chance to make a general first impression of Google's Music Beta Service.

After receiving the invite while I was away on business, I promptly followed the instructions and downloaded the Music manager while at the hotel. After installation, it told me that I had > 1000 songs and began uploading them to the cloud. I left my laptop running overnight and voila, the upload was finished before I left for work in the morning. So far, great stuff. The UI is simple and easy to navigate (see pics below). I also downloaded the app for the phone and was promptly able to start streaming a playlist that I had created with no issues whatsoever. The UI on the phone app could be a bit more intuitive, but that's a matter of taste and space constraints. I'd also like to see the instant mix feature improved a bit. If you take a look at the picture below, you can kind of see the "odd" mix it created. Kudos for the feature. Hopefully it will improve as we move out of beta. Also, as an IE9 user, if they could make it more usable as a pinned page, it would be nice. Speaking of pinning, the ability to pin songs and make them available offline is definitely a welcome feature.

Upon returning home, I repeated the same process on my home PC. Here's where the service starts to earn it's "beta" tag. I repeated the same steps that I had taken for the laptop, and my library was uploaded in a few hours. The first thing that I noticed was that if there were duplicate songs on both machines, they were uploaded twice. In some cases, they loaded under the same album, but in some instances, a new album was created. This typically happens when there is a mismatch in the metadata, and can be easily corrected by editing the metadata. This isn't really the greatest user experience, but this is part of the problem when you use multiple methods to get content on to your machines as opposed to a single method like iTunes. I had ripped older CD's using Windows Media Player, newer content was purchased and managed through Rhapsody. Also, what I noticed, was that my older content had been ripped at such a low bit rate, that it was almost un-listenable. Most of this content was purchased when my media player was a 512MB Creative USB media Player stick. What a long way we've come!

When I re-ripped all of my older content at 320kb/s (Google plays at a max bit rate of 320 kb/s), the Music Manager re-imported all of these songs. After severl hours of "cleaning up" my content on the machines, in Rhapsody, and in Music Beta, I've been trouble free ever since. Again,I don't truly think this is a Google issue. This would have been a much smoother experience is I had been a better organized keeper of my content. I probably should have done this clean-up when I purchased my desktop.

That being said, they could probably provide tools to help improve the experience, since this is supposed to create a single repository for your content. Maybe when we come out of Beta? The biggest issue I see is that they have no way to purchase new content. That is a MAJOR roadblock on the path to becoming a mainstream service. Only time will tell if they can move past that hurdle. Maybe Google Music "Powered by Rhapsody"? I can dream can't I?

Overall, I like the service, but it's inability to purhase new content from within the service is really holding it back. I'll be following as it evolves.

Set-up: B
Interface: B+
Overall: C

Ubuntu 11.04

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 16:04:00 +0000

Finally got Ubuntu running on my desktop, and I have to say, it runs great. It also supports touch :)

I'll get a screencast up as soon as possible.

Docks

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 01:49:00 +0000

If you're anything like me, I've had Mac dock envy for ages. Then, my Dell came pre-loaded with the "Dell Dock". It didn't really have the same feature set as a Mac dock, but it was a fairly elegant way to organize your desktop.

The Dell Dock doesn't have all of the functionality offered by the taskbar (some would argue that the Mac's dock doesn't either), but I don't think it really needs to.

As for how the Taskbar stacks up against the Mac dock, I don't use a Mac enough to see enough of a difference to complain about. The biggest drawback with the Dell Dock is that it can only be installed on a Dell (duh). Not good news for my HP PC.

That being said, I finally found a free solution that I like as much as the Dell Dock...Rocketdock. With the addition the stacks docklet, it's almost identical to the Dell Dock. It may be a little bit of a pain to set up, but it meets my criteria (free and offering the same functionality as Dell Dock).The dock and info for the stacks docklet can be found here.

Seagate GoFlex Home review.

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 18:33:00 +0000

OK. I've centered my digital life around a desktop. I've even managed some basic content management across machines with the help of some batch files and the cloud. Now it was time to add some NAS. I went with the Seagate GoFlex Home 1TB.

Set up was relatively easy in the sense that my machine recognized the NAS immediately. It also installed the Memeo crapware immediately. Memeo uses an active backup that runs in the background to backup your PC. I was unable to launch the Seagate dashboard referenced in the instructions. It didn't really matter, since I had intended to use Windows 7 backup anyhow. I was still able to access the NAS from the web interface, which is more my cup of tea.I like the web interface, as it allows streaming on the home network and access to the drive when not on the home network.

Which brings me to my next issue. Aside from the crapware, the Windows backup to the drive kept failing at about 90%. After calling Seagate support and being told that they don't support Windows backup and that I needed to use Memeo, a little Googling yielded the results I was looking for. It appeared to be a permissions issue, which was remedied by logging on to the Seagate as a root user (the Seagate runs linux)via Putty. The article that pointed me in the right direction can be found here. One I followed the steps presented by one of the posters, backups are working flawlessly. This is a major issue to me. Why do I need to root my NAS in order to backup the way that I want to?

Overall : C+
Hardware: A
Software: F
Suitability for intended use: C+

My new obsession with something old

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:26:00 +0000

Now that I have centralized my digital life on to a desktop, there are a few issues that came up. Like how to manage content across a desktop, two laptops, a smartphone, and pmp's.

There are current cloud based solutions, like dropbox and sugarsync, but unless you plan on paying, it's unlikely that they will handle all of your needs. Neither will Skydrive. Homegroup may give me access to files on other PC's while on the home network, but that does nothing for me when I'm not home.

My solution has three parts, taking a little bit of old with some new. For work releated items, I use Windows Live Mesh. Because I love me some Office, I take full advantage of Office Web Apps. I just set up the sync in Mesh, and I'm all set. With a current limit of 5GB, I felt the need to split out my solution. If they had more space available, this would probably be my only solution.

For *some* pictures and video, I use dropbox. I put all of my baby pictures, cake snapshots (for my Wife's business), phone snapshots, and phone video into my dropbox folder. Dropbox is great, and I have it installed on every PC/Laptop (including my Ubuntu and XP VM's).

Finally - Pictures and Music. Easily my two largest libraries at around 60GB, this is where I am still in flux. I use Rhapsody, so I can stream on all my devices without issue, and I can download items to any machine as needed for offline playback. The issue is syncing previously purchased content across machines. This is the promise of iTunes in the cloud and Google Music. I'm sure that iTunes will be flawless right out of the gate (other than the fact that it's iTunes) and I'm still waiting on my invite to Google Music. There is also Amazon's cloud player. I really wish that Rhapsody would get on this bandwagon, but with rumored FB integration coming, maybe they don't feel the need.

I basically created several batch files to move my files around as needed. I scheduled the batch files to run with Windows Task Scheduler. For example, every day, a batch file runs that copies media moved from my HTC EVO into a folder up into the standard Windows pictures and videos libraries. This runs on all laptops and the PC. Every Fiday at 5:00, another scheduled batch file copies my libraries from all laptops and PC's to my GoFlex Home. It's like a dropbox folder, except done the (really) old fashioned way ;) As soon as a single provider can fire up an elegant, cross-platform solution (editing all doc tyes, streaming of images and music), I'll be the first to hop on board. Automating this is why I am re-obsessed with my .bat's all over again. Sample below.I used quotes in my folder path because some folder names have spaces. For help with any of the batch commands, open a cmd prompt, type the command, and then "/?". Hit enter.

rem sample copy/move script
move /Y "C:\from folder path\*.jpg" "C:\to folder path\folder"
move /Y "C:\from folder path\*.3gp" "C:\to folder path\folder"
xcopy "C:\from folder path" "C:\path to dropbox folder" /S /E /Y
if exist z: (
xcopy C:\Users\XXXX\Music Z:\Music /S /E /Y
xcopy C:\Users\XXXX\Pictures Z:\Pictures /S /E /Y
xcopy C:\Users\XXXX\Videos Z:\Videos /S /E /Y
) else (
echo Backup drive not found
pause
)

HP Touchsmart 600-1390

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 15:37:00 +0000

I bought this giant slab of PC as an open box special. I'm not sure I would pay full price for an all-in-one, because they aren't as upgradeable as the more tradiotional PC form factors. Specs here.

All of that being said, I think this is a great looking PC. The I really enjoy the form factor. Some may argue that it is an aging desing (it is), but I actually prefer it to the newer design of the 610 series. Some may argue that the 610 is more ergonomic with it's swivel stand that lets you bring the screen almost flat when needed, but for me that's just not how I work with the machine.

The sleek minimalist design and discreet soundbar are really pleasant to look at. And the soundbar produces lovely sound. I have it paired with a set of Bose Companion 3 Series II PC speakers, and the sound is great. The little touches, such as the backlight (above the soundbar) are appreciated. The monitor itself is great. With great colors, sharp and clear pictures, and great viewing angles, it's like a 3rd flat screen.

The included wireless mouse is strictly average in form, but built well. As for the wireless keyboard, it's a sleek modern affair, but it is the best keyboard that I have used (disclaimer - I'm not a gamer, and I type like a 5 year old). It's just got a really nice tactile feel that works for me.

For now, the touchscreen is more gimmick than feature in a lot of ways. While Windows 7 supports touch, it wasn't really built with a "touch first" mentality". So for now, you have settle for layers like HP's Touchsmart on top of Windows. I'm pretty sure that this will change when Windows 8 (or whatever it is eventually called) rolls out. I've heard that there are leaked pre-betas out, but as soon as the public beta is out, I'll give it a try. In the meantime, Touchsmart will have to do :)

That's not to totally dismiss HP's Touchsmart software, it's just that it really doesn't live up to the promise of the fast and fluid touch experience we are used to on our Android and iDevices. There are hits: the recipe app (worthy of it's own review), the note app, and the painting app come to mind. But overall, the apps built for touch on the PC need to mature. For example, the Touchsmart Facebook app cannot even connect to Facebook. And the Rhapsody app requires that you have the premier account with up to 3 mobile authorizations, as the Touchsmart app is considered as a device. Boo.

Getting back to setting up a digital hub for myself, this machine is perfect. Once I moved over my digital libraries and set up my Homegroup, I was off to the races. With 1TB on board, plus another 1.5 TB of NAS, this machine has taken everything that I have thrown at it without skipping a beat. Everything streams flawlessly. And with it's mid to higher end hardware, this will serve as my digital hub for a long time to come.

Overall : B+
Hardware: A
Software: B
Suitability for intended use: A

Upcoming reviews

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 04:12:00 +0000

As soon as I get a chance to breathe, I'll have write-up's for the following:

SeaGate GoFlex Home 1TB
HP Touchsmart 600-1390

HP Touchsmart 600 - 1390

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 04:04:00 +0000

Ahh a good sale. Everyone loves one, myself included. For years I have had this niggling little voice in the back of my head. It was telling me that I needed a hub. Not a hub in the networking sense....but more like a hub to my digital life.

Which brings me to the sale. Microcenter had 40% off on an open box special for a HP Touchsmart 600-1390.Sold!

Once I've got everything set up, I'll write it up :)

Apps

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 03:07:00 +0000

Lately I've been on a tear talking about some of the Android apps that I like. I decided that I should publish a list of the apps on my Android phone. Hopefully this will be useful to the two people that subscribe to my feed.

Utilities
- Lookout: Free (at least for now) mobile security app. See my previous review.
- EStrongs File Explorer: No self respecting Android user should be without a file manager. EStrongs has a good feature set and a better price...free. I liked this better than Linda File Manager.
- Advanced Task Killer: Yeah, yeah, I get it - Android has a built in task killer and you really don't/shouldn't need one. I like this freebie better than Androids built in flavor because of features like auto-kill and ignore.
- Network(Philipp Mangelow): This is just a shortcut to RadioInfo in com.android.settings. Not for everyone.
- Speed Test: A good free app to test internet speeds. I used it to test 4G speeds in my area.
- Dropbox: Free, cloud based app that lets you sync, store, and share files between your phone and desktop.This is one of my favorites.
- Evernote: Free cloud based note management system. The app has a great UI and is useful for snapping images from whiteboard sessions and adding notes. The images are in a TIFF format, so text within the image should be searchable if any text can be recognized. I use this for snapping pictures of and storing business cards.
Media
- Rhapsody: I had Rhapsody-o-Go account before I purchased my EVO. When I purchased this phone, I had visions of ditching my PMP and transferring my Rhapsody library to my phone. That chuckling in the background is coming from everyone who has realized how lackluster Rhapsody is on Android. With no offline playback (yet) and mediocre performance, I'm holding on for this to live up to what it could be. I'm glad that the app is free.
- Shazam: Free app that lets you tag up to 5 songs/month. What's "tagging" you ask? Simply open the app and hit the big black "Shazam" button. The app "listens" to the song, save it to your history, and allows you to share the information with friends or even purchase the song immediately. Pretty cool. Paid versions remove the tagging limit. As a music guy, I rarely use this, but it's totally clutch when you want to find out the name of the cool song that just came on.
- Pandora Radio: Free streaming app that lets you build personalized playlists simple by entering the track or Artist. I like this better than Rhapsody's station streaming.
- Adobe Photoshop Express: Free app that lets you edit and share photos. You can crop, rotate, add basic effects, and adjust color. I'm certainly not a power user, but it offers everything that I need when using my phone to take pictures.
- nook: The Barnes and Noble app that takes the e-reader to the phone. Supports app to SD since the books can take up a few mb. I also sync's with the desktop version. The page turning animations are every bit as nice as what you see on that other phone.
Social Networking/Chat
- Twitter: Official Android Twitter app. Better than HTC's version.
- Foursquare: Official Foursquare app for Android. This location based cross between Facebook and Twitter is seriously addictive.
- Blogger-droid: Free app that lets you post to your Blogger account from your phone. You can view, edit, and delete posts as well as share pictures, videos, links, etc. And yes, I have posted from my phone before.
- AIM: AOL's venerable AIM on Android. Just like the desktop version, this gives you access to Facebook chat.
- Yahoo: Official Android Yahoo app. This probably has the best UI out of all of my apps. I keep waiting for the video chat...a la Skype.
- gtalk: El Goog's chat app.
- Fring: I use this for video conferencing. Not the best, but until Yahoo or Skype gets video-chat for Android, this is my go-to app.
- Qik: Seriously, push to talk on a video-chat app???FAIL. If I could only remove this crapware that Sprint bundled with the phone. Oh wait, you can...root.

Almost half way...must..stay..focused...

Social Planning
- Open Spot: Free Google app that lets users find/share real-time information about available on-street parking spots. It's not quite there yet, since it really gets better the more people use it. It will continue to get better as the user base grows.
- Places: El Goog's answer to Yelp! and Where. I like that El Goog's send QR code stickers to businesses registered with Places. And really, who doesn't need an excuse to bust out the scanner app. Of course this is free.
- urbanspoon: Free location based app that helps locate nearby restaurants, with prices and reviews. Shake until you find a place you'd like to eat. Bonus - integrates with Google Maps.
- Fandango: Free app that lets you purchase movie tickets from the comfort of your phone.
- OnMyWay: Free app that sends messages to selected contacts with an ETA. Requires that GPS be turned on.I haven't used this too much, but it's got potential. On the downside, GPS is a battery hog.
- cab4me: A free location based app that let you locate and call nearby car services. Pretty good, but it was missing a few cab companies nearby.
Shopping/Finance
- Square: See my previous review.
- Paypal: Free app to send money and manage your Paypal account. I love that they added the "bump" feature that lets you transfer money by bumping phones together.
- Shopsavvy: Free Android bar scanning application. Recognizes standard bar codes as well as QR codes. You can see examples of QR codes in previous app reviews. Scanned items will return local and web based prices.
The Rest
- Swype: You can't really get this on Android unless it's pre-loaded by your carrier or hardware manufacturer, but I was lucky enough to get in on the beta. It's a free keyboard that let's you trace words on a keyboard and recognizes words by the shape that is traces. Also allows for standard input. It is amazing how fast you can type with this. Swiftkey is a good paid alternative.
- Chrome to Phone: An app from El Goog that works in conjunction with an extension for the Chrome desktop browser that lets you push your desktop browsing session directly to your phone. Awesome. I use it to push a recipe from the web to my phone which is a bit easier to use in the kitchen than a laptop.

Thanks for sticking it out, I hope this list is helpful!

App Review

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Geez. Either I've been living under a rock or I don't know where to look for good Android apps. I've recently discovered a few great ones like Square. Recently, I've had a chance to check out one more that I like.

The first is Lookout Mobile Security. QR code here. With the advent of the recent superphones from Apple, HTC, and Motorola (amongst other) we are starting to do many of our daily activities on our phone. With all of the apps and recent mobile security issues (here and here), security solutions are looking like more of a requirement than a nice to have feature.

A thorough video from www.droid-life.com can be found below. With a clean interface, it allows you to scan for malicious software and uninstall if it finds anything. It also allows for backup of contacts, call history, and pictures. I have to say that my favorite feature is the "locate" feature. Provided that your location services (GPS) are enabled, you can log onto the Lookout portal and locate your phone. You can even cause it to "scream", although I wouldn't recommend it as it is quite loud and annoying (as it should be).

The one area that needs improvement is the remote lock/wipe. This feature has been teased for quite some time now on Android. Given the price of this app (free), I can't find too much fault with that. However, it will be interesting to see if this is added with the premium product that they have also been teasing. Depending on your needs, the free version may fit the bill. All in all a solid useful app.

Review from www.droid-life.com

The Social Newtwork

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 19:00:00 +0000

I just went to the the new movie "The Social Network". It's the David Fincher/Alan Sorkin pairing based on the book "The Accidental Billionaires" by Ben Mezrich.

The movie was well acted, and did a pretty good job paying homage to the techie crowd, dropping terms like wget as well as references to perl scripts and mysql.

I haven't read the book (I have it on my nook), but I can say tat the general outline of the story paints a less than flattering picture of Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg. Whether or not the story played out as it appears in the movie may never be known. As for the characters themselves, I'm sure some artistic license was taken.

At the end, I'm not quite sure whether I like Mark Zuckerbergs character or feel sorry for him. Obviously, there is some truth to the story regarding the lawsuits et cetera, but I find it hard to believe that anyone is truly that removed from the rest of the world. My wife and I both gave this movie two thumbs up!

Casting : A

Plotline: A-

Dialogue: A

Update: Apparently Facebook took their staff to see the movie too. Story here.

Square Up - Review

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 18:00:00 +0000

While perusing the interweb, I came across a great article article about a mobile app. Every once in awhile, I see an idea and say to myself "Damn, if only I would have thought of that". This was one of those times.

The company is called Square.

The app (QR code here)? Well, it allows you to take credit card payments on your smartphone.

I tested it on the Android platform using my HTC EVO. It has a clean interface and is extremely simple to use. I was able to process a $10.00 payment to myself within minutes of registering for the service. Within seconds, I received two e-mails. The first was an e-mail noting that I had accepted a payment of $10.00 to my account. The second was my receipt. It's that simple. Really.

The registration process itself is straight forward. You'll need to provide some pertinent identifying information including a routing number. Once set-up, there are some things that you should know:

They limit deposits made to your account to $1000/week. Anything above that will be deposited within 30 days (it is reviewed to help prevent fraud). Providing more information up front and continued use can raise that limit.
There is a higher fee for taking a payment without swiping the card through the reader. The reader is free when you register for the service, but until it arrives, you'll be manually entering transactions.
They charge a percentage of the total, plus a $0.15 fee per transaction. It's 2.5% for transactions processed with the reader and 3.5% for transactions processed without the reader. There is no monthly charge and no equipment charge.

It makes it so easy to easy to accept card payments, that you never really need to think about it. You can take credit card payments at a bake sale if you feel the urge. You can even track cash payments and download them as a .csv to import into other software. Plus, it's pretty fun to scribble your name on your phone.

This really is my new favorite app.

Square Up
App
QR Code

IE9 - Review

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 20:24:00 +0000

I was suring around that darned interweb on my beloved Chrome browser, when I thought I might give IE9 a try. After all, this was the new IE9 that has been optimized for HTML5, CSS3, and hardware acceleration, right?

The basics that IE9 gets right:

UI:
- Finally. Microsoft is getting with the program. The IE9 UI is lean and mean - a la Chrome or Firefox. I know this isn't some revolutionary advance in UI design, but it's still nice to see.
- One of several cues borrowed from other browsers is that that address bar now does double duty for search and address.
Speed Demon:
- IE9 still scores slower than Chrome, Opera, and Safari on the benchmarks, but not by much. We're talking about 100 milliseconds behind the #1, Chrome. The days of using sluggish performance as an excuse not to use IE are over. Firefox and Chrome are baking in hardware acceleration into the next versions, so that gap may widen again. But for now, 110 ms isn't enough to make me look past IE9 as a candidate for my everyday browser.
- Add in Management - IE9 has an add-in manager that includes such information as the estimated time each add-in addsto the start time of the browser. And yes MS add-ins are listed.
Tab Management:
- When you have more than one active tab, if you select the top-right "X" button for the browser, IE9 actually asks if you would prefer to close the current active tab, or close all tabs. Nice, right?
- Also, taking a page from Chrome IE9 has the ability to easily pull off a tab into it's own browser session. I found myself doing this a lot when I wanted to compare tabs side by side using the "snap" feature.
- Another feature "borrowed" from Chrome - When opening a new tab, recently visited sites appear. Additionally, the frequency of visits to the sight are represented by a volume bar. The longer the bar, the more visits to that url.
Pinning url's from a Tab to the Taskbar:
- I've always been a fan of the taskbar in Windows 7. It may not look as cool as the dock on Mac's, but I find it to be every bit as functional and a bit less cluttered. This is a matter of taste though.
- Another neat trick when pinning to the taskbar is that the icon on the taskbar is "branded" like the site. When opened, the browser gets "branded" with the sites colors, including the forward and back buttons. This is not something that changes the game, but in a day and age where more and more websites are becoming like applications, it is nice to know that Redmond appears to be paying to both the big and small details.
- One other unique possibility is the fact that the pinned sited can take advantage of Windows 7 "Jumplist" feature. That holds promise for such features as baking in right-click navigation into a site pinned to the taskbar. Hopefully this won't go the way of "slices".

Overall, IE9 represents a huge leap forward for Microsoft. They have addressed many of the issues with IE that have prompted so many users to switch browsers. It will be interesting to see how (read:if) this integrates with Windows Phone 7. Will they integrate such features as "IE9 to phone" like Google with their Chrome to Phone? Hint hint: Both would be awesome. Microsoft has shown that they can listen to feedback and has created some great products recently (Kin debacle aside). Let's hope they continue this trend. In the meantime, I'm going to keep IE9 on my laptop.

Fanboys

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 18:44:00 +0000

A friend's recent post on Facebook asking for feedback on whether to switch to "The Now network" highlighted on of my pet peeves: fanboy's.

A post by one person who had the EVO led to a debate between an Apple fanboy and an Android supporter. I'm not going to state the obvious, but I think you know where I would fall in this debate.

The thing that irks me so much about this is the fact that no matter how good Android gets, Apple fanboy's will always have on the blinders. At the end of the day, there is room for both OS's. Even webOS and WP7 can (and hopefully will) join the party. The worst part is that the Apple fanboy is in IT. Crazy, right?

I may prefer the open nature of Android to the vice grip of control that Apple keeps on it's products, but I think the more at this party, the merrier. Not only does it serve as an incubator for innovation, but it also benefits all of us.

From 120PSEye

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:38:00 +0000

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.8

The Wonders of Modern Technology

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 21:45:00 +0000

How great is this? I've managed to pull down an app from the Android market that allows you to post to your Blogger account from the comfort of your Swype enabled Android superphone.
All kidding aside, it is pretty amazing that you can now do just about anything that can be done on the traditional mobile platforms from your phone. Prior to purchasing my Android device, I had a Web OS device. It's easy to see why iphone users were such gadget snobs.
Now that I've gone droid, I'm not sure that I'll ever go back. Not only do I no longer have iphone envy, I can actually do everything an iphone can do. And all that without having to deal with being oppressed by "the man".
And with Google's Android eco-system growing at the rate of one new superphone per month, it's no wonder Mr.Jobs has not been himself lately. The only downside to all of this fantastic innovation is that my wonderful new toy will be obsolete within the next 6 months. That being said, we are all winners, since the competition and innovation trend to trickle down. Viva la revolution!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.5

EVO: Update

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 23:26:00 +0000

OK.

I was on the fence.

I loved the hardware, but I was torn over the UI.

What a difference a few days make. I still miss Synergy, cards, and the overall intuitive nature of WebOS, but HTC's Sense along with Android are growing on me every day.

Leap has now become second nature, and while it may not be as intuitive as WebOS's cards, there is no functionality missing.

As I was sitting at the hotel bar last night, I struck up a conversation with a Pre owner. We swapped phones and played around for a few minutes. The end result is that Sense/Android is for the most part a wash with WebOS. I still have to say that I miss swipe to delete though.

The lack of a physical keyboard was a worry of mine, but I've made the transition pretty well. Adding Swype as an app has certainly not hurt. Find it here. It has allowed me to type faster than I ever thought possible from a mobile platform.

I was also able to get a 4g connection while I was at the hotel outside of Boston. All I can say is "Wow". I was able to watch YouTube effortlessly. It loaded without buffering, streamed flawlessly, and was a high quality crisp picture.

Overall, I'm giving it an A-. It's a powerful, customizable platform that compromises in very few (if any) areas.

I'd like to see some better apps, but who wouldn't? It's truly a viable competitor to the 4th gen iphone, and offers more to the open source crowd (I am root).

I'll be pulling down the SDK soon and playing around to see what all of the buzz is about.

EVO 4G

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:46:00 +0000

Alright.

I waited for it for months.

I've had it for a weekend.

I'm up in the air.

While this is the most hyped phone that I've ever seen (maybe even deservedly so), there are still some areas where this android uberphone falls short.

Hits:

1. Hardware - This phone is so ridiculously spec'd, I'm not even going to go into it. Spec check here.

2. Screen - relatively speaking, this is a great screen. Like going from CRT to LCD. I hope the rumors of screen glass separation aren't true.

3. HTC's "leap" feature. I can think of a few things that I miss on an Android phone coming from WebOS on a Pre, but "leap" is pretty cool.

4. Android - This OS is young but hungry. It's got fantastic potential to be a serious rival to the control freaks in Cuppertino.

5. Google Apps - Shopper, Sky, Maps, Voice.... nuff said.

Misses:

1. Battery life - If this were a car - think of it like a Ferrari 430 Scuderia. Gorgeous, but thirsty.

2. Android - Missing some of the polish of Apple's OS and WebOS.

3. Some HTC and/or Android apps - Definitely some crapware. LinkeIN is a prime example. Yes it's a beta. But users can't even log in to the beta on the EVO.

4. Flash lite - not even going to comment. At some point Android will offer full flash support. Just not yet :-(

OK, the hardware is great. I mean please, my phone has a kickstand. Does yours?

And Android is a great jumping point for a phone OS. Their app store is much richer that the measly 2500 or so apps on WebOS. And the Google apps have much better integration (like Google Voice).

But there is just no mistaking that the Android UI is not as polished as some others like iphone and WebOS. That's why I'm on the fence. I miss things like Synergy, swipe to delete, video trimming, the cards, and WebOS notifications.

I also miss a few apps like LinkedIN (the beta sucks on Android - at least for the EVO), FlightTracker (free), and PocketMirror for Outlook.

Yes - FlightTracker is paid, PocketMirror could easily be replaced by Mark Sync (or HTC sync if you don't mine not getting task and to-do lists), and there is a LinkedIn app in progress.

I miss that the messaging app doesn't offer the option to message from within your IM accounts like webOS. But Meebo handles that pretty well.

Basically the difference between my Pre and the EVO is UI polish. There's no dout that hardware wise, the EVO is twice the phone that the Pre is. And while the app store doesn't quite match the quantity and overall quality associated with the Apple app store, there's no reason that this relatively new OS couldn't catch up.

I know I keep harping on webOS, but they were pretty polished out of the gate as far as the user experience was concerned. HTC skinned Android with Sense, so they also need to shoulder some of this burden, but Google does as well. I have zero doubt that Android will get there with the polish, and that at some point they will tighten the reigns on the app submissions, bringing up the overall quality of the apps for the platform.

Sprint and HTC have put together a great looking and sexy piece of hardware, now Sprint really needs to get that 4G network rolled out to more that the 23 current markets so that I can video chat with my friends!

Disclaimer:

On a phone this beastly, a weekend is by no means enough time to get acquainted with all of the functionality. I've been following @androidtips and @androidapostle on twitter to help familiarize myself with all Android has to offer. As I get further in, I will post and update with more info. If you would like to follow me, follow @shmilsky.

Nook :(

noreply@blogger.com (seth) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:04:00 +0000

Remember how much I said that I loved my new nook e-reader? I still do. What I do not love, however, is the crack that developed on the left page forward button after 45 days. This is a known "defect". And by defect I mean short-sightedness on behalf of the design team. The issue is that the plastic compound used for the bezel is too brittle. I read 6-7 books in 45 days. That's not really great. Check here to see some stories related to this.

The most frustrating part of this whole experience has been dealing with B&N's "trusted partner", Best Buy. I went to exchange the device and was told by several different managers at Best Buy that they would not accept the return, even though it was a known manufacturers defect. How this information was not communicated to Best Buy is beyond me. After dealing with horrible managers at the Best Buy stores in Far Rockaway (Jason), Baldwin (forgot name), 3 reps at B&N, and 4 reps at Best Buy corporate, my wife finally reached Dave at B&N. Dave is a supervisor in the Digital Support area.

I think I'm going to give Dave his own paragraph. he deserves it. Whereas every other conversation with B&N had yielded no results, Dave actually offered to call the Best Buy branch where my nook was purchased. He told us that he was surprised that they were unaware of the issue and that he would do what he could to straighten out the issue (way to go Dave..). After calling the Best Buy where my nook was purchased, Dave told us we were all set to go and return the nook for a replacement. We then spoke with Leon at Best Buy in Baldwin, who assured us that we would be taken care of. After confirming who the manager the following day would be, Leon called us back and told us that if we had any problems whatsoever, to come back to see him directly.

Dave at B&N and Leon at the Best Buy Baldwin, are in my customer service hall of fame. The issue is resolved and my wife is exchanging my nook.

Pretty much everyone else at both Best Buy and B&N that we dealt with are in the hall of shame.

I should give an honorable mention to Shaddell in Far Rockaway. He was a ghetto Queen, but his customer service skills definitely warrant an honorable mention in the customer service hall of fame.

Epilogue:

The folks at B&N assured me that the issue has been resolved with the cracking. I'm guessing that a different compound is being used for the bezel. Maybe nook 2.0 will have actual buttons a la Kindle. The easiest way to avoid potential issue would be to use the swipe gesture for page turns.

Really, I'm just glad this was resolved. Overall, I love my nook, and next time will likely purchase the coverage plan for anything I get at Best Buy. One thing that I should note is that customers who purchased their nook directly through B&N have noted a much easier time getting this issue resolved.