June 08, 2005

United To Add WiFi to Domestic Flights

It's about time! I can't believe it's 2005, and we're just now looking at WiFi becoming commonplace on domestic flights. I was at a baseball game last night, and I had free WiFi at the stadium which was cool, but doesn't make nearly as much sense as in-flight WiFi. Thank you, United! And thank you, FAA, for approving it. Now we just need the FCC to come through, as well.

This could really be a big win for airlines and passengers alike. Airlines seem to need ways to upsell (I was on a flight once where they were selling $10 sandwiches), and the advantages to passengers is certainly obvious. One no longer has to essentially miss an entire day or work to fly coast to coast (or an entire day of online gaming). Now they just need to provide power outlets so I don't have to travel with three batteries.

Would you be willing to pay extra for in-flight WiFi? If so, how much?

Posted by cantrell at 12:24 PM. Link | Comments (4) | References

May 05, 2005

Google Accelerates the Web

Google is now offering to "accelerate" the web through their free Web Accelerator browser plug-in. How does it work? From the Google Web Accelerator FAQ:

Google Web Accelerator uses various strategies to make your web pages load faster, including:

  • Sending your page requests through Google machines dedicated to handling Google Web Accelerator traffic.
  • Storing copies of frequently looked at pages to make them quickly accessible.
  • Downloading only the updates if a web page has changed slightly since you last viewed it.
  • Prefetching certain pages onto your computer in advance.
  • Managing your Internet connection to reduce delays.
  • Compressing data before sending it to your computer.

Sounds both very cool and a little scary at the same time. The idea that a significant percentage of Internet traffic could one day go through one company's proxies is a little mind boggling. I haven't decided yet whether I want to participate in the beta. Anyone out there give this a try yet?

Posted by cantrell at 01:16 PM. Link | Comments (2) | References

April 03, 2005

Wikipedia and Pope John Paul II

Look up Pope John Paul II on Wikipedia, and you'll find the following paragraph in the introduction:

Pope John Paul II died after a long fight against Parkinson's disease, among other illnesses, at the age of 84 on April 2, 2005, at 21:37 (GMT +2). His final hours were marked by an overwhelming number of younger people who kept vigil outside his Vatican apartments. In his last message, specifically to the youth of the world, he said: "I came for you, now it's you who have come to me. I thank you."

Look up the same entry in MSN Encarta and you will find no mention of the Pope's death, much less any details.

Of course, the logistics of thousands of people updating the same resource, especially around a historic event, can get complicated. Before any mention of the Pope's death was allowed to stand by the Wikipedia community, several mentions were removed with log messages like "Removed date of death, due to the fact that he is alive." Then there was plenty of editorial debate over exact time, formatting, and how his death should be expressed. The end result, however, is an extremely thorough and remarkably current account of Pope John Paul's life and work.

This is not to say that Encarta, World Book, and Encyclopedia Britannica are not valuable resources. They obviously are. And this is not to say that Wikipedia is more valuable than more traditional encyclopedias (I can't believe I'm already referring to Encarta as a "traditional" encyclopedia). Wikipedia is simply a very different kind of resource -- one which I think makes an immense amount of sense in a world where rapid change has become the norm.

Posted by cantrell at 02:12 PM. Link | Comments (2) | References

April 01, 2005

Research is to Yahoo! what Labs is to Google

If you're a Google worshiper, and a big fan of labs.google.com, keep an open mind and check out reserach.yahoo.com and next.yahoo.com for a list of very cool beta technologies that Yahoo! is working on. My favorite? The Yahoo! Buzz Game. Anyone here already playing?

Posted by cantrell at 12:56 PM. Link | Comments (4) | References

March 24, 2005

Yahoo! Launches Creative Commons Search

I discovered from Lawrence Lessig that Yahoo! has recently launched a new search tool that only searches work licensed under the Creative Commons license meaning it is free to use and build upon (usually with some restrictions). This is an incredibly useful tool for anyone who does any type of writing or publishing (including, of course, bloggers).

I really like what I've been seeing from Yahoo! lately. I think a lot of people have considered it a foregone conclusion that Google was going to own search and the communities around it. I like to see companies like Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Amazon saying "Not so fast." I think Yahoo! has been most aggressive in their positioning lately (Y!Q contextual search, Firefox support for their toolbar, public search API, purchase of Flickr, etc.), and I think they probably have a better understanding of community than almost anyone. I expect that we will continue to see impressive tools and services from Yahoo! in the future as the competition for search and community continue to heat up.

Posted by cantrell at 12:26 PM. Link | Comments (2) | References

March 23, 2005

Will the New Browser Wars End Before Really Getting Started?

Before the announcement that Yahoo! was buying Flickr, the big Yahoo! news was that all Yahoo! services would soon be compatible with Firefox, and all new services that Yahoo! released would also be Firefox compatible. Well, according to ZDNet Australia,Yahoo! has backpedalled somewhat, calling their original statement "factually incorrect." I'm not here to beat Yahoo! up for either having a change of heart, or for releasing inaccurate information since 1) accidents happen, and 2) I have no problem with people (or companies) changing their minds when they need to, as long as it doesn't have a major negative impact on existing customers. However, I do think Yahoo's correction foreshadows another interesting shift in browser distribution.

My prediction: the new version of Internet Explorer along with the release of Tiger will deal a massive blow to Firefox, and the feeling that we are all in for another era of bloody browser wars. I don't have a list of IE 7 features in front of me, but Microsoft is smart enough to deliver a browser that their customers are going to want while many Mac users who are currently using Firefox because of issues with Safari will be curious enough about the new version to give it another chance. I believe the result will be a sharp decline in Firefox adoption.

That's not to say Firefox will go away. Those of use in the IT field will continue to use it (at least I will -- I can't live without certain plugins), but I think IE 7 and Tiger will go a long way toward pulling Firefox out of the mainstream.

Posted by cantrell at 02:34 PM. Link | Comments (10) | References

March 07, 2005

Google Provides Weather (And Why Google's Interface Will Need to Change)

I learned from Boing Boing today that Google now provides four-day weather forecasts. Just type "weather, city, state". Or "weather, city" if you live in a city with a sufficiently unique name. For an example, check out the beautiful weather we're having in San Francisco right now.

What really surprises me about Google is not so much that they are trying to do everything (and certainly doing a reasonably good job at it), but that they are doing it with such an unusual interface. For instance, any other site in the world would have you click on a weather link, then type in your city or zip code. Or in order to get movie information, click on a movie link first, then type in your search terms. Google clearly identifies very strongly with the Unix world since searching Google often has the feel of entering a Unix command followed by arguments. I predict that Google will eventually need to modify their famously simple interface to make all the search options more prevalent. As Google becomes more complex and versatile, the simplicity of the interface is actually going to start working against the experience rather than for it. Ironically enough, I think Google will eventually need to create a more involved and consistent interface in order to actually simplify it.

Posted by cantrell at 01:18 AM. Link | Comments (6) | References

February 24, 2005

Sony PDAs Going Away Forever

Back in July of last year, I made a post called No More Sony Clies In the US about Sony's decision to only sell their PDAs in Japan. Well now, according to Reuters, they are discontinuing Clies altogether.

"The PDA market is being encroached by cellphones and other mobile devices that can offer similar functions, making it difficult for PDAs to maintain their position in the market," a Sony spokeswoman said.

Wow, I remember the very first Clies, and now it's all over. Anyway, enough nostalgia. Smart phones are all the rage right now. Personally, I use a Sidekick II which I love, and I'd never go back to a standard PDA. (I do use a Garmin iQue, too, to find my way, but that's hardly standard.) Recently, I even started playing with the Abacus Wrist PDA which is a lot of fun. What kinds of PDAs and smart phones are you guys using these days? Likes and dislikes, pros and cons? Where do you see the world of mobile heading now that one might declare the end of PDAs?

Posted by cantrell at 09:36 PM. Link | Comments (6) | References

A New Way to Get Answers

My job requires me to write a lot. And to read a lot, as well. So it's nice to have a dictionary handy. I used to use dictionary.com until I learned from kottke.org that Google switched from using dictionary.com to using answers.com. To see what I mean, do a search for something like kittens on Google, and look up in the right-hand corner. That "definition" link now points to answers.com rather than dictionary.com. Anyway, I figured if it was good enough for Google, it must be good enough for me, so I gave it a try, and I like it much better. The interface is far superior and you get much more information from several more sources, including Wikipedia, another favorite resource of mine. And you can hear a pronunciation without subscribing to Dictionary.com Premium for $19.95 per year.

The best thing, though, are the additional tools answers.com makes available. Of course you get your standard Firefox search plug-in, but I also downloaded their 1-Click Answers application which basically puts a miniature version of their site on your desktop. Whenever I need to look up a word or double check spelling, I can now highlight it, and hit alt+command g (on a Mac) to have 1-Click Answers jump to the foreground and give me the information I'm looking for. Assuming it's not spyware, it's a great little application to keep running. There's also an RSS feed for daily highlights, and Answer boxes that you can put on your site.

Posted by cantrell at 12:13 PM. Link | Comments (3) | References

February 23, 2005

Google Movies

This week's Google announcement is the new "movie" operator. Read all about it at Google Blog. Basically, type "movie:divorce lawyers" and get back Intolerable Cruelty (I love that movie). Click on Intolerable Cruelty and in 0.02 seconds, see reviews along with the following disclaimer:

The selection and placement of reviews on this page were determined automatically by a computer program. No movie critics were harmed or even used in the making of this page.

This week, it's probably IMDb (or rather Amazon, who ownes them) and Rotten Tomatoes (owned by IGN) who are doing the soul searching.

Posted by cantrell at 11:33 PM. Link | Comments (0) | References

February 16, 2005

As Computers Evolve, Our Standards for Computing Don't

I came across an article the other day by Peter Seebach entitled Where Does All the Processing Speed Go that articulates something that really bothers me. It starts out:

Computers are getting faster all the time, or so they tell us. But, in fact, the user experience of performance hasn't improved much over the past 15 years. Peter looks at where all the processor time and memory are going.

The crux of the article, if you don't feel like reading it, is that while computers are constantly getting faster, our experience with them isn't. Although our experience may be improving in other ways (aesthetics, features, portability, etc.), the day to day experience of sitting down and doing something relatively simply can still seem excruciatingly laborious. I typically use a 1 or a 1.25GHz PowerBook G4 with a gig of RAM, and my impression is that these are about half the resources I actually need to give me the experience I really want. I have an IBM ThinkPad next to me running Windows XP Professional which, in many ways, is faster, but is less consistent and reliable. Sometimes it just hits me that it's 2005, probably 20 years since I got my first computer, and:

  1. Computers still seem slow.
  2. A great deal of software is still unstable.

As the article points out, computers are doing a lot more today than they used to, which is certainly the case. At this particular moment, I'm running Dreamweaver, Quicksilver, Xnippets, multiple terminals with connections to multiple servers, Proteus, vim, Eclipse, NetNewsWire, a VPN client, Stickies, Calculator, Mail, and Firefox with several tabs. And that's just in the foreground. In the background, I'm running JRun and CFMX 7, MySQL, Apache, a firewall, and probably tons of other stuff I can't think of right now. I'm very good at maxing out and optimizing my computer's resources, however (I'm constantly watching CPU and memory usage), so even at half or even a quarter the number of processes, it wouldn't really feel much faster. The issue is not so much all the applications I'm running as it is our standards. We simply don't expect our experience to get much better, and therefore it doesn't. We expect features and aesthetics more than we expect performance. The best experience I've had with a computer was spending four years using Linux as a Java developer. In my opinion, Linux is the fastest, most pleasant OS to use on a daily basis, but of course, unless all you do is software engineering, it doesn't support enough applications to make it feasible for most people (including me these days).

I'd like to see hardware manufacturers and software engineers start treating performance as a feature. I'd like to see our standards as computer users go up a notch. As I sit at my computer all day just about everyday, I'd like to start feeling like it was 2005 rather than 1985. Am I alone here?

Posted by cantrell at 10:45 AM. Link | Comments (1) | References

February 08, 2005

Another Day, Another Google Beta: Google Takes on Maps

I'm not poking fun. I love Google. Besides Macromedia, they are probably my favorite company. I'd probably play with Google action figures, if they had them. Anyway, here goes another Google beta: Google Maps.

So far, pretty impressive. I'm sure the mood over at MapQuest is a little somber today, though they must have seen this coming.

Posted by cantrell at 11:01 AM. Link | Comments (1) | References

Ask Jeeves to Purchase Bloglines?

Google purchased Blogger, and now the rumor, according to this InfoWorld article, is that Ask Jeeves is going to purchase Bloglines. Although I don't use it on a regular basis, I really like Bloglines (I use a local aggregator instead). I haven't used or even seen Ask Jeeves in years. In fact, I'd completely forgotten about that silly little butler until today. A cursory glance this morning suggests that Ask Jeeves has refactored their search experience to be as much like Google's as possible, just like everyone else out there.

Personally, it doesn't seem like a fantastic fit to me, but business is business.

Posted by cantrell at 10:46 AM. Link | Comments (1) | References

February 03, 2005

New MSN Search Offers RSS

By now, I'm sure you've all heard about the new MSN search. But did you know it offers search results in RSS? (I didn't, until I read about it on Lifehacker.) Do a quick search, then scroll down to the bottom of the page and look for the familiar orange button that we have all come to love.

Posted by cantrell at 05:53 PM. Link | Comments (0) | References

January 04, 2005

Optimized Firefox Builds

By now, I'm sure all you Firefox users have seen how you can tweak Firefox so that it loads and renders pages faster by configuring it to open more simultaneous connections. (If not, check out the post on Hack A Day). But did you know that you can optimize Firefox further by downloading optimized builds? At least Mac users can. I assume the PC builds are already pretty well optimized, but I definitely noticed a difference with the optimized PowerPC build.

Posted by cantrell at 11:47 AM. Link | Comments (6) | References

November 18, 2004

Google's Been Busy

  1. Google acquires Keyhole:
    Keyhole is the 3D digital earth pioneer—the only company to deliver a 3D digital model of the entire earth via the Internet. Keyhole’s groundbreaking EarthStream™ technology combines advanced 3D graphics and network streaming innovations to produce a high performance system that runs on standard PC’s and commodity servers. Both high performance and intuitive to use, Keyhole’s solutions enable anyone to manipulate a rich map of the earth composed of imagery and feature information.
  2. Google launches Google Scholar (beta, naturally):
    Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.

Posted by cantrell at 10:49 AM. Link | Comments (0) | References

October 22, 2004

Live (Almost) from Paris

Mike Chambers is in Paris right now, taking pictures with his Sidekick II and posting them to Vision. If you're an art fan, check it out.

As an aside, I'm so amazed by technology sometimes. Yesterday, Mike was in a cafe in Paris and I was sitting in a line to get my car inspected in Virginia (I'm sure he wished our situations were reversed!) and were we able to chat in real-time as though we were both right in front of a PC. And thanks to MXNA Mobile, we were easily able to keep up with Macromedia community news at the same time. There's no question that wireless is the wave of the future.

Posted by cantrell at 12:14 PM. Link | Comments (1) | References

September 15, 2004

The First of Many New Search Options

In the old days of search, there was HotBot, Yahoo!, AltaVista, Excite, MSN, etc. Then there was just Google. For a very long time. The word "Google" became synonymous with "search". People started Googling rather than searching. Then Google started making too much money and attracting too much attention. Now everyone is working feverishly either building new search technology, or digital music systems (in fact, some companies are doing both). Amazon has officially released their first attempt to compete in the search space with A9. It's sort of like Google, but with personalization. You can sign in with your Amazon credentials, and save searches, notes, bookmarks, etc. And it will automatically keep a history of everything you search for. It also automatically returns images along with text results, which is pretty nice (images courtesy of Google, ironically enough). Oh, and it's slower than Google, but it's still plenty fast.

I'll give it a try. I love changing my habits, and experimenting with new technology. I'm not sure how much I'm going to like the personalization angle, though. Not only am I undecided about how useful it will end up being, but I kind of like the idea of quick, stateless and anonymous web applications. I already have 136 different accounts with various websites (not including anything associated with Macromedia), and it gets old always being asked for a username and a password. Yes, Amazon remembers your login information, but only for that session. And I'm also wondering if my search history is going to end up being used to suggest products to me on Amazon. Not necessarily a bad thing, I guess, but also not something I'm 100% comfortable with.

So what search technology do you use? Likes and dislikes?

Posted by cantrell at 11:34 AM. Link | Comments (4) | References

September 14, 2004

Firefox 1.0 Preview Release Now Available

I'm a big Firefox fan, but recently, I was forced to downgrade from .9x to .8 because of certain bugs that had been introduced (OS X version). Even though it was frustrating to have to roll back, Firefox is still my favorite browser, so I'm really hoping for a better experience with the 1.0 preview release. It's still a "technology release," which means "While this software works well enough to be relied upon as your primary browser in most cases, we [the Firefox team] make no guarantees of its performance or stability," but it has enough interesting new features (Live Bookmarks, improved find, Password Manager encryption), that I'm very curious, and anxious to give it a try. All we need now is for Firefox to come with Flash!

You can check out the new 1.0 preview release at the Firefox page on mozilla.org.

Posted by cantrell at 10:50 AM. Link | Comments (2) | References

September 13, 2004

Cool Tool Monday: GPS Navigation Systems

I missed Cool Tool Friday last week because I was on vacation, so I thought I'd sneak in a Cool Tool entry on a Monday. This week I'm excited about GPS navigation systems, and in particular, the Garmin iQue 3200. I've had the iQue for some time now -- probably about four months -- but taking it on vacation reinforces how cool it really is. I drove 4 hours to the beach, drove around a new area for a week, drove home, and drove some relatives to a distant airport I've never driven to before, and didn't get lost once (except when I wasn't using the GPS). But not getting lost is sort of a given with a GPS, I think, and isn't really the biggest advantage since even if you had directions scrawled on the back of a cocktail napkin, you probably wouldn't get lost. The real advantages are:

  1. Never having to get directions. Just hop in your car and go, whether you know where you're going or not.
  2. Automatic rerouting. If you miss a turn, the device will reroute in a matter of seconds, and fix your mistakes for you.
  3. Location-based services. Don't know about other GPS devices, but the iQue has a very comprehensive database of locations which you search for by all kinds of criteria, which means you don't even need to know where you want to go so much as what you want to do.
  4. Always having a map. Even if you aren't using your GPS device's ability to route, it's nice looking at a map of where you're going. You can see landmarks around you on the map that you can't see through your windows, and quickly evaluate shortcuts to avoid traffic problems.

The iQue is a handheld GPS rather than one that actually installs or is integrated into your dashboard. Since I drive a Jeep with a soft top, everything that might be overly tempting has to be removable and small enough that it can be locked in a console or glove box, so the iQue is perfect for me. In-dash units have a lot of advantages (always available, larger screen, integrated antenna), but the iQue actually has several advantages over many in-dash units (fast processor, expandable memory, handwriting recognition, PDA functionality, portable). As always, in a perfect world, I would have one of each, but as it stands, I'm pretty happy with the iQue.

Any other satisfied GPS users out there?

Posted by cantrell at 10:48 AM. Link | Comments (6) | References

August 09, 2004

I Need Some RSS Aggregator Feedback

As you probably know, Macromedia is pretty invested in RSS/weblogs/aggregators/etc. We've been blogging for well over two years, and we're aggregating over 300 feeds with MXNA with about 35,000 Macromedia related posts archived. Developer Center content has been available as RSS for about year and a half, and now TechNotes, security bulletins and product update information is available through the Macromedia Product RSS Feeds.

But what I'm interested in today is aggregators, and other ways people access not just Macromedia news, but any kind of news. Aggregators have come a long over the last two years, and at this point, options abound. There are great online options, offline options, and even iPod options. What I want to know is:

  1. Do you use an aggregator? If so, which one? If not, why?
  2. What kinds of news and information do you aggregate?
  3. What do you like about your aggregator? What do you dislike? What could make it better?
  4. How many feeds are you aggregating?
  5. How often to you use your aggregator?
  6. Anything else interesting and aggregator-related you want to share?

Feel free to leave any type of comment you want, and/or take the survey on the right (you can reload the page to answer the poll multiple times). Thanks!

Posted by cantrell at 12:16 PM. Link | Comments (33) | References

June 17, 2004

Where Is Our Taste for Technology?

Casio recently released a new line of watches intended to bring together several great features which were previously distributed across several different models. Naturally, I tried to order one only to discover that there are only four models available in the US, all of which are almost exactly alike, and sell for about $400!

I'm also in the market for a good GPS device, and noticed an interesting GSM phone on Garmin's website with integrated GPS. It looked very promising until I read the fine print: "This product is not available in the U.S." For some reason, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemberg, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, and South Africa are all more viable markets than the US.

Sony has just stopped selling Clies in the US, and just about every phone, PDA and video game I read about is available in Europe or Asia before it makes its way here, if it makes its way here at all.

So where is our taste for technology? Why is the US such a poor market for new devices?

We are one of the wealthiest countries in the world with one of the highest standards of living, the Internet and GPS were invented here, and some of the most important and influential technology companies in the world are based in the US. Are we too busy spending money on SUVs to invest in technology? Do we have so much room that miniaturization does not sell well, and has our lack of public transportation and comparatively short commutes suppressed our appetite for mobile devices? What American doesn't need a altimeter-barometer-thermometer-compass-GPS-atomic-solar timepiece strapped to his or her wrist?

Let's all do our part and go out and buy a new toy today!

Posted by cantrell at 10:54 AM. Link | Comments (9) | References

June 15, 2004

See Yourself in a Satellite Photograph!

A friend of mine sent this to me last night, and it completely amazed me. It's simultaneously incredibly cool, and a little spooky. Microsoft has a service called TerraServer USA which is "one of the world's largest online databases, providing free public access to a vast data store of maps and aerial photographs of the United States." That description doesn't do it justice, though. You really need to check it out.

You can drill down from a map of the world, right your your neighborhood (though only if you live in the US), or you can make things easy on yourself by entering your address and being taken directly to the spot. You can also browse famous places, and even incorporate TerraServer USA into your own applications via Microsoft's web service.

Ok, so now for some cool locations. This is the neighborhood I used to live in. The white car closest to the bottom of the photograph is the Nissan Sentra I recently sold, and the black car above it is my wife's old VW Passat. Spooky! Glad I wasn't doing anything suspicious outside that day.

This is the neighborhood I live in now the year before I moved in. My house is the end-unit on the left (below center), in case you want to drop a bomb on it or something. I can actually see my deck, and three hallway windows! Fortunately, you can't see how badly the deck needs to be refinished.

Here's another house I lived in as I was growing up (left of center). As you can see, it's much bigger than what I live in now. The economy has certainly changed around here!

Posted by cantrell at 12:09 PM. Link | Comments (10) | References

May 19, 2004

Using Google to Search Your Own Machine

The New York Times has an article (registration required) about a piece of software Google is rumored to be about to release which will be capable of searching your local machine, either instead of, or in addition to, the Web. According to the article, it's a defensive move to try to keep Microsoft from taking over the search industry by integrating search functionality into the OS like they did the browser back in the Netscape days. Of course, with the way Longhorn keeps getting postponed, it might 2010 before we see any such technology, but I certainly applaud Google's proactive thinking.

Posted by cantrell at 05:52 PM. Link | Comments (0) | References

April 08, 2004

Finally, An Easy Way to Upgrade Your Hardware

IBM has started offering a software package that I think is long overdue. It's called System Migration Assistant, and the idea is to simplify the process of migrating to a new machine. From IBM's website:

"IBM System Migration Assistant makes light work of migrating your old computer's data and settings to a new computer or operating system. By duplicating the source system on a single file, this tool enables you to easily transfer end-user specific data and settings for applications, printers, network connections and personal preferences."

I've always been surprised that software like this isn't more pervasive. If I were Apple, for instance, I would have way to connect two machines with a firewire cable, hit a few keys, and transfer everything of importance from the old machine to the new in order to encourage (or at least not discourage) hardware upgrades.

Of course, this is easier said than done. First of all, the two machines presumably have different hardware configurations which might make porting preferences, settings and drivers difficult or impossible. There are also licensing and activation issues to worry about these days. And, or course, there is always the advantage of being able to start completely from scratch with a new machine, and take the opportunity to get yourself a little better organized. At the end of the day, I wouldn't actually use a utility like this because I would be skeptical that it could do the job accurately and safely, and I actually like setting up new machines because it gives me the opportunity to try some new organizational techniques. But in general, I think this is a good concept that might work very well for a lot of people.

Posted by cantrell at 02:51 PM. Link | Comments (0) | References

February 23, 2004

Laptop Advice

Few topics evoke such numerous and passionate responses as the question "Which laptop should I buy?" I have seen a couple of pretty good discussions recently on different lists, so I thought I would give people an opportunity to compile some thoughts here (available to those Googling for advice).

What's my favorite laptop? Well, I've owned an IBM ThinkPad, Compaq something-or-other, Zenith, Toshiba Satellite, Sony Picturebook, Apple iBook and two Apple Powerbooks (both 15" models). Which do I like best? No surprise, but the Powerbooks have been the best overall. They are very well constructed with great features and a very nice screen. If I were a PC user, though, I would use a ThinkPad, no questions asked. My IBM was very tough, and I'm sure it is still in use somewhere in the world (I sold it on eBay a couple of years ago). My Sony was probably the coolest in terms of wow-factor, but it was a little too proprietary for my taste (Sony writes a lot of their own drivers for their hardware). I probably wouldn't buy a Sony now, although I continue to believe that they make some of the coolest laptops around, and I wouldn't discourage the purchase of a Sony, as long as you don't intend to try to run Linux on it. My Toshiba was great, but big, plastic and heavy, and my Compaq and Zenith were too old to be relevant to a modern discussion.

But don't rush out any buy a new Powerbook just yet. Make sure the screen and warping problems have been fixed first. I have the very last model of the "old" Titanium Powerbooks, and it's solid as a rock because the form factor has been tweaked and revised over probably three or four years. The new Powerbooks (though clearly superior in features, hardware, etc.) have some screen and warping issues that Apple needs to work out. Once I'm sure the issues have been fixed, however, I will probably start keeping my eye out for a new 15" Powerbook.

So my questions to you are:

Which laptops do you like best? Why? What kind do you have? What do you think of it? What kind do you wish you had?

Oh, and don't forget to take the new survey, too.

Posted by cantrell at 12:44 PM. Link | Comments (19) | References

January 28, 2004

Technology and Car Buying

My wife and I bought a new car last weekend, and I seriously can't imagine how it was ever done before the Internet and PDAs. We started out researching different models online, reviewing not only what the different manufacturers had to say, but also reading posts from owners of those particular models. Fortunately, all evidence pointed toward the car my wife already wanted, so we drove to a dealership just for a test drive with no intention of buying the car that day. After verifying that we liked the way the car drove, we went home and shifted our focus from browsing to buying. Thanks to edmunds.com (never buy another car without spending a significant amount of time on edmunds.com), we decided on exactly what options we wanted, found out exactly what dealerships' costs were, and got up to speed on all the new pricing scams (is it really fair for dealerships to pass their advertising costs along to their customers? Hmmm.). We found great interest rates online, and thanks to the interest calculator at cars.com and Microsoft Excel, we were able to model all kinds of pricing scenarios. (I ended up replicating the interest calculator in Flash 5 for my Sony Clie so that I would not have to depend on the financing manager at the dealership to provide me with numbers during negotiations.) By this time, we knew exactly the car we wanted and exactly what we wanted to pay for it.

We spent another half day at a dealership trying to make a deal, but they would not come down far enough. It was an interesting experience since I knew every penny of their costs and all of their tricks to try to artificially inflate the price of the vehicle. The price I was willing to pay had a decent profit built in for them, however they kept claiming that they would be selling the car at a loss if they were to agree to my price. Finally, I took out my spreadsheet and went over it line by line with the manager at which point, he leveled with me and said he simply believed he could sell the car to someone else for more, and that was the bottom line. You can't argue with that, so we left and executed plan B which was to drive up to Maryland to a dealership with a no-haggle policy which had the exact car we wanted for a very reasonable price. On the way up, we did some additional research on my Clie (connected via GPRS via my cell phone), and put together a game plan for approaching the sales team. It turns out this dealership had a very open policy and was very willing to show you all their costs associated with the car, and even the amount of profit they wanted to make. All their numbers checked out against mine, and we ended up getting the car with additional options for $100 less than what we were offering the first dealership. It turns out I had actually built in more profit in my price than they even wanted to make!

Anyway, I can't imagine how I could done it without being able to do research via the internet, and without the calculator, browser and interest calculator on my Clie. How did Macromedia technology figure in? Many of the sites I used for research were powered by ColdFusion, all car manufacturers use Flash to give customers a better experience, and the interest calculator I wrote for my Clie was implemented in Flash 5. Now if only the car had a built-in Flash 7 player and an SDK.

Posted by cantrell at 03:52 PM. Link | Comments (7) | References

October 29, 2003

Modular Computing -- It's About Time!

On November 7th, Antelope Technologies will launch the first truly modular computer (at least, as far as I know). What is a modular computer? It's something I have been envisioning for about 5 years now, and something I can remember my father talking about for at least 20 years. It's a separation between the computer and its form factor, so one computer becomes your hand-held, desktop and laptop. And in my opinion, it's long overdue. If Antelope delivers on what they are promising, we can finally stop waiting on the mythical OQO ultra-personal hand-held PC.

Posted by cantrell at 01:15 PM. Link | Comments (1) | References

October 20, 2003

I Fired My IM Clients

As nice as iChat is, I finally got tired of having to use both it and ICQ for OS X, so I'm testing out Fire. Fire is free, open-source messaging client for OS X which supports AIM, ICQ, IRC, Jabber, MSN and Yahoo! Messenger. So far, I'm pretty happy with it, though I only use it for AIM and ICQ, so I don't know how well it works for other protocols. It downloaded my contact (buddy) lists just as expected, and aside from one or two annoyances (not quite bugs, but certainly not features, either), it seems to be working great. I have to get some new sounds for it, though, because it uses the default AIM sounds, which makes my computer sound like my wife's. Maybe something from Star Wars will do the trick. Anybody have some good WAV files?

What instant messaging client(s) do you use? Once I get a feel for what's out there, I'll set up a poll so we can find out which are the most popular.

Posted by cantrell at 05:22 PM. Link | Comments (10) | References

October 10, 2003

OT - What's your Handheld of Choice?

I think I'm going to make Friday's my off-topic day. Today's (off) topic is handhelds. What's your handheld/PDA/PIM of choice? I've used them all, and I like different things about each one. Right now, I'm using a Palm Tungsten T, primarily because it works will with my Mac. There isn't anything particularly special about it except that it is very compact, has a great aluminum case, and I can synch it wirelessly via Bluetooth. The screen is sharp and bright, as well, which is something relatively new for Palm.

This will remain my PDA of choice until the Handspring Treo 600 is available from AT&T. I've been waiting for a long long time for a phone and PDA hybrid that finally got it right.

Posted by cantrell at 06:16 PM. Link | Comments (10) | References