Things I’m looking forward to in 2009:
- Buying my first house
- Seeing my daughter turn 1
- An Obama presidency/Bush leaving office
- Final half-season of Battlestar Galactica
In 2009, I resolve to:
- Make better use of my time, money and other resources
- Procrastinate less (see above)
- Read more fiction
- Be more helpful around the house
- Re-do my professional Web site
- Finish my technical writing certification
- Grow more adept at Flash
I meant to mention this when I first read it over the weekend -- it’s been thoroughly warmed over now -- but real-estate Web site Redfin has switched completely to Google Maps from Microsoft’s Live Maps service. Redfin said it liked Microsoft’s technology, but that Google’s maps are much faster.
That’s pretty much been my experience. I love showing people the 3-D and bird’s-eye view on Live Maps, but when it comes down to trying to find something fast, I always gravitate to Google Maps.
This is probably true of most of Microsoft’s Live services -- they’re just not fast enough. Hotmail has gotten noticeably faster in recent weeks, but everything else seems kind of pokey.
Here’s a timely Christmas project I did a couple of years ago for a class I was taking. Enjoy!
Yes, I know. It takes forever to load. It was an intro to Flash class, OK?
1) Heroes. My theory on why the show started going downhill in season two: The writers abused time travel. Now, no one stays dead, so nothing has any consequence or finality. Lame.
2) Smallville. This used to be my favorite show, but has become downright unwatchable this season. No Lex Luthor, no Lana Lang. No Smallville even.
With a TV budget and skimpy one-dimensional character motivation, I assumed Terminator was going to be cheesy and repetitive. The first few shows seemed to bear out this assumption, but it is developing into a fairly complex story with unexpected depth and insight. As long as they don’t abuse time travel -- don’t get me started – I’ll keep watching.
Star Wars is a cartoon, and I’m glad I didn’t pay $10 to see the pilot episode in theaters. But if you’re a Star Wars geek, you’ll appreciate the abundance of Star Wars technology (you get to really see inside many of the ships in the movies!). Jar Jar was in last week’s episode, which I’m ashamed to say got my wife to watch it with me. But other than that, so far, so good.
Not that it matters now, but it turns out that Joe the anti-redistributionist plumber got help from welfare twice as a child, and says it helped his family work its way into the middle class and become productive taxpayers. That’s exactly how welfare is supposed to work -- if Joe actually paid his taxes, that is.
And more disturbingly, it looks like Sarah Palin was even less fit for the vice-president than we ever imagined. She couldn’t name the countries that have signed in to NAFTA (hint: there are only three, and they’re all in North America) and didn’t realize that Africa is a continent, not a country. If this were something on Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking'” segment, it would be funny. But knowing that this women came so close to the White House is scary.
(Both videos are from Fox, because me conservative friends wouldn’t believe it if any other network aired it.)
Three weeks ago, I was looking for a laptop roller bag when I saw and fell in love with the Briggs & Riley @Work Compact Rolling Computer Case. I researched an online and in several physical stores but couldn’t find anywhere for less than $289. A woman at one of the stores told me they never go on sale, ever.
Yesterday, I was looking again at the mall when a salesman tried to sell me on that very bag. I told him I loved it, but it was too expensive. He asked how much I was looking to pay. I told him $200 -- he agreed to that price on the spot.
This was at a mall, not a flea market.
A lot of cool free software to talk about:
Zune 3.0
I don’t own a Zune, but I like the latest version of the device’s music-management software. In addition to new music-discovery features well-documented in other reviews, the application has a cool now-playing features, that acts as a sort of music screen saver. Here’s a picture:
My only complaint is the limited number of biographies. Not surprisingly, only the most popular artist have enough information for the biography mode (the rest show the default album-cover mosaic). But who at Microsoft is deciding who makes the cut? I understand that not all of my obscure techno-pop favorites are going to make it, but Nelly Furtado does? Seriously?
Download Zune 3.0 here.
Windows Live suite
I was most interested in Live Writer (for blogs), Live Mail and Live Photo Gallery.
The only big difference in Live Writer I can see is the ability to automatically upload and embed YouTube videos.
Live Photo Gallery now recognizes face for easier and more consistent tagging.
Live Mail now includes a calendar that syncs up to Microsoft’s online calendar (the online-only version isn’t well integrated into Hotmail, though).
Download Live here.
Google Maps Mobile (Windows Mobile version)
The newest version includes transit direction and thanks to a new algorithm for cell-phone tower triangulation , more accurate “my location” feature when not using GPS.
The java and BlackBerry versions of the application includes Street View, something I hope to see in the Windows Mobile version soon.
Download Google Maps Mobile here.
Live Search Mobile
The newest version starts up faster. This application has a user interface that’s not so intuitive and doesn’t have Google Maps’ handy “my location” feature that triangulates your position without the need for GPS, but I’ve found local search results to be more accurate.
Download Live Search Mobile here.
The slick, file-syncing service I mentioned a few weeks ago has emerged from beta. I highly recommend it.
Or a simpler explanation: my comments are so banal that millions of other users are saying the same thing. Anyway, the Windows 7 team writes about how its working to speed up boot times, the No. 1 complaint I have about Vista.
The team describes a very good bootup time -- “getting to a usable desktop” -- as 15 seconds. I’ll take it.
I don’t know yet whether I should be outraged about this new policy, mainly because I don’t know how much bandwidth I actually use -- Comcast won’t tell me. By policy, the company won’t tell you how much you’ve used until you've already exceeded the cap. If you exceed the cap again within a year, Comcast cuts off service.
I got the warning last year after I went on vacation and a buggy program (TVTonic, the company that helped NBC bring Olympic downloads to Windows Vista Media Center) kept downloading video over and over again. Before I figured out what was going on, I pleaded with Comcast to tell me how much I had used and when the peak download times occurred, thinking someone was leeching my network. The Comcast rep couldn’t have been less cooperative.
I figured out the problem on my own and have been in Comcast’s good graces ever since. But to this day, I don’t know how close I’m coming to that usage cap. While 250-gigabytes sounds like a lot, I use my Internet for downloading movies and TV shows on Xbox Live, playing video games online, my Vonage phone line, Skype video calls, streaming Brazilian radio stations, uploading and of course, regular Web browsing and e-mail.
Maybe that adds up to a lot of data; maybe it’s well short of 250 gigabytes. The bottom line is, I’ll never know, thanks to Comcast’s poor customer service.
I understand that Comcast needs to make a return on its investment. But by keeping users in the dark until they’ve exceeded the cap, the company is going to chill a lot of legitimate uses of the Internet. And that is going to make its service a lot less valuable.
I’ve written about this cool photo mapping/modeling technology before, but now Photosynth lets anyone create their very own photo set.
The 2730p is a refresh of what I consider the best laptop I’ve ever owned – it also happens to be a good Tablet PC.
The best part is that the older 2710p’s are going for about half price, refurbished. If I had to get a new laptop, I don’t know which one I’d choose (my wife would probably break the tie and suggest I get the 2710p).
Contrary to popular belief, Vista is actually pretty good, assuming you have 2 gigs of memory, a not-so-ancient graphics and updated drivers.
But in response to this call from the top Microsoft program managers, I will say this: it needs to startup, shutdown, hibernate, sleep and resume much, much faster. As it stands now, it’s more convenient to check e-mail on my wife’s iPod Touch than it is on my own PC. Seriously.
P.S. And don’t make me use UAC to move stuff around in the Start Menu.
I just filed a story on file-syncing/online-backup services and have a few beta invitations to Live Mesh and Dropbox for anyone who wants one.
Both of these services work pretty well, though Dropbox sometimes fails to update files quickly to connected computers. And Live Mesh isn’t yet available on Macs. But that’s why they’re called betas, right?
Leave a comment with your e-mail address if you’re interested.
Update: It looks as though Live Mesh is now open to everyone, so no invite needed.
Firefox has long been my primary Web browser,but I was waiting until my add-ons -- especially Google Toolbar -- were compatible before installing the newest version on all all of my machines.
So I’ve finally installed it and must say, version 3 is a dramatic improvement.
I just posted a bunch of new photos from my recent romp to Brazil on Flickr. I have more, but I've used up all my Flickr bandwidth for the month. I highly recommend the slideshow option.
I mentioned this electronic pen in a story I did a while ago about note-taking tools, but it looks like it's finally out for sale.
It's a pen that records your handwriting at the same time as it records audio. So in addition to your written notes, you have an actual recording to refer to later. After you're done with, say, an interview or class, you can point to a particular place on the paper, and the pen plays back what you were recording at the time -- sort of like OneNote for paper.
The pen also makes it easy to transfer note to your PC and upload them to the Internet to share, audio and all. I wish OneNote were as easy to share.
This could be a seriously cool tool for journalists -- I'd get one myself if the price were a little lower. If anything ever happed to my 2710p, I'd seriously consider buying a cheap laptop replacement and one of these Smartpens.
The Pulse does need special paper, and it doesn't look like they sell a reporter's notepad. They do sell a Moleskin-type journal pad that cost $25. Ouch. The company says you'll soon be able to print out your own special paper on any laser printer.
Reviews: Gizmodo, New York Times.
I was flipping through TV channels (procrastinating on my Argentine Tango user manual for my technical writing class) and came across this on Fox. I've never been a racecar fan and am particularly wary of NASCAR because of the whole redneck thing.
But I have to admit, Fox makes it pretty entertaining. They have a very high-tech setup, with cameras on the ground, on the hood of each car and even inside the cars to see what the drivers are doing. A ticker near the top of the screen shows where each driver stands, and real-time labels make it easy to identify each car. And at the bottom of the screen they'll show a car's throttle and brake readings. Very cool.
Has it been a month already? Has it been a whole month since I last posted to this blog? Was February the last full night of sleep I had?
It's been an amazing and exhausting time for both Andrea and me -- especially Andrea. But other parents tell us it gets better.
Elena has been especially fussy today, so it looks like we're in for a long night -- it looks like she's a little colicky.
So that's why I haven't posting -- or doing much of anything outside the home -- recently.
She's convinced that baby Elena is coming early. We'll know within three weeks or so.
I'm at MacWorld today covering Steve Jobs' keynote. I was really impressed with the super-thin MacBook Air -- until I found out it has no Ethernet port and an "integrated" battery that can't easily be replaced.
It makes you wonder just what market Apple is targeting here. Business users are the natural market, but I can't see many corporate buyers overlooking these details.
Stage 1: Denial
Set up every possible appointment you can. That's the whole point of a conference, right?
Stage 2: Shock
Sudden realization that you might not have much time to walk the show floor, eat or go to the bathroom because you've set up too many appointments.
Stage 3: Bargaining
Running progressively later for appointments, make apologetic phone calls, try to rearrange schedule.
Stage 4: Acceptance
Brazenly skip every other appointment; use the extra time to run to remaining appointments.
I was aware that Google's e-mail service had a problem in which HTML mail accessed through IMAP on Windows Mobile devices shows up as blanks, but it never bothered me as much as it did today.
I got an urgent e-mail from work asking me to check a typo in a graphic I had sent last night sent -- it came in the form of a PDF (this actually makes a lot of sense when it comes to formatted graphics). Not only could I not read the message using Windows Mobile's default e-mail, I couldn't download the attachment, either.
Forwarding the message to my Yahoo account from the phone's e-mail software didn't work, because the message had been ruined by that point. So I had to log in to Gmail's Web interface and forward it to Yahoo from there. What a pain.
Maybe this is a Windows Mobile problem. But it doesn't matter -- a lot of people use the OS, and Yahoo has figured it out. Google engineers are aware of the problem, but apparently, don't consider it much of a priority.
