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Monthly Archives: November 2006

15 Simple Ways Microsoft Could Improve Computing

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The Vista Business launch is upon us, and Vista Consumer is coming some time next year.  A new version of Office is also right around the corner, and IE7 was released fairly recently.  The bidecadial (yup, made it up) Microsoft Update is under way.

But not everyone is planning to rush out and upgrade (even if they can do it for free).  Most people have PC’s that can’t handle the requirements.  While we’ll probably see everything from Vista TV commercials to Vista the breakfast cereal next year, lots of consumers just won’t want to fork over the cash for the instant upgrade.  That said, I do believe that, just like when XP came out, within a couple of years Vista will become the dominant OS. 

Until then, however, I think there are some very simple updates to XP, IE, and Office 2003 that could drastically improve the overall computing experience.  In no particular order…

  1. Internet Explorer should automatically fix incorrect domain extensions.  Ever go to Google.ocm?  Or Yahoo.co.k?  Why doesn’t IE just auto-fix (or at least auto-suggest) the entry?
  2. Outlook should help resolve duplicate contacts.  If I have Mike Smith in my address book and get an email from mikesmith@randomdomainname.com, rather than create a new entry, Outlook should inform me there’s a similar one already there.  I shouldn’t need Plaxo to do this.  Furthermore, there should be a little maintenance tool to help me clean up entries.
  3. Alarms and reminders must require attention. This one really annoys me – you should not be able to minimize the Reminders window.  Ever!  The worst is when you do minimize it, and then the alerts pile up and you don’t even notice it in the taskbar. Outlook should force the user to either Dismiss, Edit, or Snooze, and not let you do anything else until one is chosen. 
  4. Office applications need constant Autosave.  Why every 10 minutes, or 6 minutes, or 3 minutes?  Why not save the entire editing history, and add in a visible timeline to the editing window?  Forget saving multiple revisions, just have one copy of the document, and allow me to go back in time if I need to see a prior version.  For an extra bonus point, save all the branches too – it’s not as if we’re running out of hard drive space these days.
  5. ld_taskmanagerAdd useful information to the task manager.  When you view the task manager, there are tons of processes showing nothing but a process name.  Why aren’t companies required to provide useful information about their processes here?  How about adding in fields like: company, URL for more info, and a real name.
  6. Office “lite” or “quickload”.  I understand that there are a lot of power users out there, people who live and die inside Excel and PowerPoint.  How about lite versions of each Office application with a barebone set of features, such as viewing and editing.  Note that I’m not talking about what you install, I’m talking about having an entire second version of the applications that launch extremely fast.
  7. Use consistent keyboard behaviors.  Any idea what F3, F4, and Control-F all have in common?  Depending on the application, they are all shortcuts to Find, and all in Microsoft Office and Windows.  I’m not even discussing external software providers here, this is all Microsoft turf!
  8. Provide a Horizontal template for Word.  I understand that Word is primarily a word processing application, but with all the fancy tools for drawing and tables and whatnot you can pretty much use it to build any type of document.  As long as it scrolls vertically.  How about a horizontal template that allows users to build documents that scroll left-to-right.  Would be great for creating workflows, family trees, org charts, and storyboarding.
  9. Smarter cut and paste.  Only Word and Excel provide “Paste Special” and even then they are tedious to access.  If I copy a table from a Web site into Excel, what are the odds I really wanted to include the table formatting?  Shouldn’t that be the Paste Special?
  10. Don’t make CANCEL the first option in ANY dialog. Ever start a huge download, then while rapidly switching through visible windows, click the space bar or hit enter?  Bye bye download window.  Bad bad bad.
  11. Fix Paint or give a simple photo editing tool.  I can’t back these stats up, but I’d wager that more than 80% of “image handling” on a Windows PC is related to photo editing.  I’d then double-down by saying more than 80% of photo editing is one of: crop, rotate, resize, remove red-eye.  The only one you can do in Paint today is rotate.
  12. Consolidate Messengers. Windows Messenger.  MSN Messenger.  Windows Live Messenger.  C’mon.
  13. Clean up temp files automatically.  I have too many .tmp and ~ocument.doc files laying around.  Find them, fix them, get rid of them.
  14. Allow simple HTML exports.  Word, PowerPoint and Excel all include Save As… HTML options.  All create these huge bloated files that cannot be easily integrated into other Web pages.  If I’ve got a simple table in Excel, odds are much higher that I want it in a different Web page, so there should be a way to bring out the HTML with none of the MS-special style sheets.
  15. Don’t put email from my contacts in my spam box.  I don’t care if the subject line is “Mortgage loans on casinos with viagra and free software,” if it comes from a contact, it’s email. 

They might not all apply to you. They might be harder to build than I can possibly imagine.  But they’d all improve the computing experience, and I shouldn’t have to upgrade to Vista to get them.

Want to go to CES for FREE?

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All you’ve got to do is blog.

Yes, that’s right.  Netgear is having a “guest blogger” contest in which one lucky winner will get a nice little package consisting of…

  • Free flight to (and from) Vegas
  • Free hotel room
  • $2000 in spending cash

Not to shabby, eh?  Not only that, you get to (or have to, depending on how you look at it) be Netgear’s “resident blogger” for the show.  Considering how much fun CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) is every year (and it is), this is a great opportunity!  Click here for the official rules,

For more on CES, here’s the official site. 

Ready to go?  Enter the contest here.  The contest ends December 15th (winners to be announced on the 20th).

YouTube on VCast is the wrong approach for Mobile

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The talk of the town today (recommended reading: IP Democracy, PhoneScoop, TechCrunch) is the announcement that Verizon and YouTube are doing a deal.  Quick summary: you have to be a VCast subscriber and from the NY Times:

YouTube said its editors would select short videos from its library for the Verizon Wireless service. Verizon Wireless said it would vet the videos to make sure they met the company’s editorial and taste guidelines.

“We’ll select content that has the broadest appeal and the highest entertainment value,” Ms. Liang said.

 The funniest read on it so far comes from fellow Canadian Mathew Ingram:

I know that Forrest Gump said “Stupid is as stupid does,” but there’s really no other word for what Verizon is doing with its much-heralded launch of YouTube video on cellphones. I mean, really. How much stupider could this get? The answer, to paraphrase Nigel Tufnel in Spinal Tap, is none — none stupider. Fred Wilson sums it up in a single word: Lame. In fact, this deal is right off the lame-o-meter. How do I lame-ify thee? Let me count the ways.

Now I agree with this as lame, but not for the same reasons as others.  Fred wrote “This deal violates the entire ethos of YouTube, not free, not open, exclusive, no community, limited, censorship, etc, etc.” and over on LostRemote I read “I don’t see this as being an especially tempting offering – it goes against the free spirit attitude of YouTube.”  These are fair points, but not what I perceive as the most important flaw in the plan.

People don’t surf to YouTube because it’s free or open, nor because of the site’s free spirit.  Actually, people don’t really surf to YouTube much at all.  Whoa, slow down – I know they serve a kajillion videos a day (or is that bajillion?).  What’s key about all this is how people use YouTube. 

They share.  They link.  They blog.  They email.  They don’t surf.

When YouTube serves 200,000 streams of a video, it’s not because 200,000 people come over to YouTube.com, and go find videos to watch.  It’s because people were sent there by friends, colleagues, and blogs.  YouTube is viral, not programmed.  And that’s the key flaw in the Verizon/YouTube relationship.

They should scrap the budget on the ‘editors’ and instead invest on building a simple technology that allows people to SMS the clips they watch to each other.  Not only will this increase usage of the service, it’ll also increase SMS traffic (something the carriers like a lot) and will also help incent new users to pay for VCast.

Why Internet Access Isn't Free for Travelers

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I came across a post entitled “Why Isn’t Internet Access Free for Travelers?” this morning and I figured I’d step in and answer the question for the author and others who are curious.  It’s one of those pat answers that’s almost too easy to answer.

13.5 hours later, it's JT in Hong Kong airportThe overwhelming majority of travelers who need Internet access are business travelers.  Furthermore, business travelers are pretty much the only segment catered to by the travel industry.  Airfares are based on business-oriented itineraries (unless you are going to Orlando, of course).  Hotels are priced based on proximity to business locations, such as convention centers, and their prices fluctuate when big conferences or other events come to town.  In other words, going to visit Aunt Sally and the kids doesn’t attract to much attention from United, Marriott, etc.

While this is clearly a generalization of the travel industry, it’s a fairly good rule of thumb.  So, if you are in charge of building out services for a given company, and you see business travelers as your key segment, you know you can probably charge them for something you effectively hold them hostage over.  They don’t just want to go online, they need to get online to do some work.

The most frustrating part, in my eyes, is the quality of the service we receive while traveling. The connectin is typically a standard DSL line split amongst all guests.  Access often blocks proxies or other services many folks need to get to their corporate network. 

The question I’m curious about is: what is the timeframe for this to remain a viable revenue source for the travel industry at large?

  • I can use my 3G-enabled PPC6700 smart phone to get my computer online (via a technology called tethering), and its fast enough to do everything from surfing to slinging.  More and more phones include this capability.
  • The upgrade to my Sony Vaio VGN-SZ160P laptop includes various options for 3G services, and most manufacturers have these options as well.  Alternately you can pick up a card from your cell carrier to provide this service if your laptop doesn’t have it built-in.
  • Municipal wifi access is now available in several cities, and rapidly expanding.
  • Wimax (Internet everywhere) offerings are on the horizon.  Okay, they’ve been on the horizon for a while, but now they’re really on the horizon.  You just need to squint a little.

Hotel Alfred Nobel - roomIn other words, the various airports, train stations, hotels, motels, Holiday Inns (say what?) around the country have an 18-30 month window in which to suck us dry for the (on average) $9.99 per night for unbelievably overpriced, underdelivering Internet access. 

After that, they’ll probably have to start overcharging for regular things. Like the minibar.

Did DVRs kill the watercooler chat?

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I received my first TiVo back in 1999.  It was a 14-hour unit, made by Philips.  It changed my life.  Now I don’t even mean that in that lighthearted way – it really did change my life.  Prior to owning a TiVo I watched about 2 hours of TV a week, total. Since then, my hours have climbed to a staggering 10-15 hours per week! This is still significantly lower than the 4 hours per day of the average 2-person US household (unbelievable, ain’t it?  it climbs to 8 per day when you include all US homes!), but it’s much higher than I’d really like.  I’d blame it on Heroes, but there’s enough other stuff I watch that I have to accept responsibility for my actions.

In the early 2000’s I was still a (very) early adopter of the DVR (digital video recorder, the ‘generic’ category for what a TiVo is), always preaching its virtues to friends, colleagues, and strangers on the bus.  I remember many times when someone would start talking about a TV show and I’d have to just walk away, not wanting to hear the details for a show I hadn’t yet watched.  Worse yet, during the 2003 playoffs (hockey, of course), not one, but two games’ endings were spoiled by eager relatives calling while I was still an hour or two behind on the game.  In each incident, I’d always exclaim “haven’t seen it yet – don’t say anything!!!” and then proceed to explain the DVR.

TiVo HeadquartersNowadays, TiVos are fairly well-known in the mainstream (if you are reading this and thinking to yourself “what’s he talking about, everyone has a DVR!” you are very out of touch with the masses.  DVRs are in roughly 1 in 5 or 1 in 6 of US households, that’s it.) and you see references in TV shows and movies (and even Sprite commercials).  My Mom has a TiVo (she calls it Mister TiVo), my wife uses it, my in-laws have a DVR, my Dad doesn’t have one but knows all about it, etc.  In fact, timeshifting (using your DVR) is so prevalent, it’s being tracked by Nielsen – who recently reported that DVRs are actually boosting show ratings.

Recently, however, I’ve noticed that there’s a lot less chatting about the shows themselves.  While some are musing that TV viewership is down (the stats simply disprove this theory), others think that watching behaviors are changing.  I agree more with the latter than the former.  I believe the combination of timeshifting, TV shows on DVD, and online video is causing more of a social impact than a viewership one.

Today, when you watch a show and start talking about it, you hear responses that range from “I’ve got it in my Netflix queue” to “I haven’t watched it yet, it’s on my DVR” to “I’ll download it from iTunes tonight” and more.  People seem a lot more prone to saving entire seasons for future viewing, so you can’t talk about Entourage when your friends are waiting for it to arrive from Amazon.  Heck, I don’t even read many pop culture blogs or Web sites, for fear they’ll have divulged events from this week’s Heroes, which I just didn’t get around to watching.

I don’t agree at all that people are watching less television.  I think they may watch it with less enthusiasm than they once did.  I think they watch it with more distractions than they once did.  They watch it at different times (and places) than in the past.  They watch it on different devices. 

My feeling is that social culture is changing to de-emphasize an episode of a show as something worth talking about.  I haven’t quite figured out what’s filling that void, just as long as nobody ruins another show for me.

Wii + Turkey

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This Thanksgiving was a little different from usual, not only because I wasn’t at home, but because it included some Wii action!! The boy and I headed over to his friend’s house to do the turkey thing, and what sweet diversion should he provide us with while the bird finished cooking, but a pair of Wiimotes and his system all ready to go.

Ladies and gentlemen, the draw of the Mii channel is inescapable. The urge to create a pile of horrific little monsters is irresistible. Making yourself, sure, just a minute, but making Martians? That is the true work of art. Then, after viewing Missing in Action en español, we were inspired to create the perfect Chuck Norris. Yes, celebrities are obviously common fodder for the Mii machine. I’ve seen several versions of Jesus already, as well as a couple Michael Jacksons. The version of Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV seen here was done with Joystiq’s mock-up Mii generator.

But wait, this is a video game system, right? There must be like, games or something, right? Right! Twilight Princess, you can almost take for granted, at least if you’re a Zelda fan. On this particular Wii outing we had on hand a copy of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. By this time we had been joined by a couple others, and proceeded to have a 4 way mini-game battle.

This is where my reservations start to come back out. I want a Wii, I really do, but I’m still a little shaky on the motion sensor controls. The more I see, the more at ease I become, and maybe there is just a bit of a learning curve. I’ve heard that Twilight Princess plays wonderfully and there is no reason to go back to a GameCube pad, but other games I’m not so sure about yet. For instance, here we were motoring around in hovercrafts, flying through the air, running, throwing darts, all with the sincerest of physical effort. Either that or we were hovering straight into the wall, falling out the air, slowing to a crawl, missing the board completely, and cursing the controls the whole time. Or if we weren’t cursing them we were wondering why we were doing it at all. Well, to look silly and laugh at each other, of course! Dying was frustrating, but at least everyone thought it was silly. I’m worried that more game will be less like Twilight Princess and more like this, games where the controls aren’t so great, but it’s still fun with friends and you can just laugh at how bad you are. As the console ages, people will get the hang of what works and what doesn’t , so things should turn out ok.

This isn’t to say that there is no precision involved right now. The dart game is a pretty good example. Obviously you have to be aiming at the TV (I.e. the motion sensing strip, which is somewhere around there) and to help you do that (so your dart appears on screen) they’ve engineered a box into the air so when you move too far out of range you’ll feel it and come back. That really does work for the most part. That said, just aiming inside the box won’t get you points. You still have to throw the thing, and I was really bad at that.

Funny thing: after all that, I think my favorite part of the gaming portion of the evening was spent on Bomberman 3 for the Turbografx-16 downloaded via the Virtual Console. We had all four remotes plus a GameCube controller plugged in for a five-player destruct-o-thon. Yay, retro! I think we played a three-to-win match on every map.

Ultimately, I think my advice would be to get a Wii, get Zelda, figure out which mini-game collection sounds the most fun to you, and grab that, as well. Have fun, and then while waiting for the next must-have game, settle into the Virtual Console and enjoy!

Smokin' Toe's Turkey (now with muvee videos on Stage6!)

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IMG_1652 smoked turkeyThe single best turkey I’ve ever made, eaten, smelled, eaten, and eaten.  Wow.  The only one I’ve made that looked better was the 25-pounder I cooked with my cousin a few years back, and while that was tasty, this year’s knocked it out of the park.

Now I’ve been posting a lot of recent stuff on non-techie topics, and I’m feeling a little guilty about that, so I’m going to amend for it all here.  This post also contains vlogging, a quick intro to Muvee, and my first use of Stage6 from DivX (quick disclaimer: I am doing some consulting work for DivX, although it is wholly unrelated to turkey cooking).

First up: the vlogging.  I used my trusty Canon SD700is (recently rendered obsolete with the SD800is) to do all the video work.  Sure I could’ve used my DV camera, but I didn’t care that much about the final video quality, and didn’t want to spend all the time downloading the video from the miniDV tape.  Also, my wife and I did all camera work, no tripods, microphones, or anything fancy was involved. 

Next comes the editing.  My first video project, I did all the editing myself.  From the notes I took, I spent 13 minutes importing and editing clips, 20 minutes working with transitions, photos, and titles/credits, then 11 minutes to export the video, for a total of 44 minutes.  You can see the video here (running time 4:50), I feel it’s the most informative, yet dullest of the batch. 

Muvee logoWhat’s this? Batch?  Yes, that’s correct, I have created multiple videos.  The next three were all done using Muvee AutoProducer, which is one of the most impressive pieces of software I’ve seen in years.  I’ll do a full review shortly, and this is not the best demonstration of its power, but I wanted to do an easy “compare and contrast.”  It took 6 minutes to import all content and create titles/credits and pick a style for the video. It took another 4 minutes to analyze the media files (a one-time only requirement), and I had my first video ready.  Over the next 10 minutes I experimented with different styles until I had the one I liked, then waited 13 minutes while it exported the video, for a total time investment of 33 minutes. 

The really impressive part was I then spent less than 10 minutes to preview a dozen more styles, and generated two additional videos in another 10 minutes.  To see the fruits of my labor (and you should watch one of them in contrast to my manual editing work), watch style one, two, or three (I recommend #1).  As you’ll see, all three are more entertaining and upbeat than the manually produced version.  Muvee is awesome, and I’ll really prove it in the next few weeks with a detailed review.

Stage6 logoFor my last tech experiment of the day, rather than go with YouTube, I decided to try out Stage6 for my video-sharing needs.  Creating a profile was simple and took a few seconds (although I decided to actually flush it out with all the personal details too, but that was not a requirement), but uploading a video wasn’t as straightforward as I’d hoped. 

First, I was required to download an uploader (although I think there was a plug-in version as well, but I may have accidentally missed that), then I realized my videos weren’t in DivX format already, a requirement of the site.  I proceeded to download Dr. DivX, after which I was prompted to download a DivX codec update.  Pain in the rear, however, Dr DivX worked really quickly and flawlessly, and coincidentally included a built-in uploader to Stage6.

Several minutes later, I began uploading videos, and am now officially a member of the long tail.  And I didn’t even have to use clips from SNL or the Daily Show to participate!  Ni-ice.  As you noticed from the post, the only way to really share videos from Stage6 is via linking or email. 

I’d like to see them step up the features for bloggers by including some HTML sharing code, embedding tools, and thumbnails.  Also, while I know the codec is huge in Europe (just like David Hasselhoff), I am curious to hear back from readers if there were any issues playing the videos

Anyhow, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, full of turkey and techie, just like me! 

Amazon Xbox Thanksgiving promo gone in minutes!

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Amazon.com Xbox Thanksgiving sale server overloadAs hit the whole geekier side of the Internet last week, Amazon.com had a promo for an $100 Xbox, available today at 11am PST.  I had 3 windows, with up to 6 tabs each, open as of 10:58am.  The site began timing out almost immediately, and so I refreshed the tabs as needed.  By 11:05am the pages that did manage to load showed the deal was sold out.  And I wasn’t the only one…

Amazon.com's Xbox promo sale sold out!

I wonder how many they had in the promo, and also wonder what % of dissappointed shoppers ended up buying something else.  For example, as a consolation prize I was welcome to pick up the “Barbie in The 12 Dancing Princesses: Interactive Princess Genevieve “Let’s Dance” Doll” for only $25.  What a bargain.

 

Gonna Smoke Me a Turkey

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turkey - 15 - ready for servingSorry for the lack of posts past few days, been traveling and prepping for the most important day of the year: Thanksgiving 2006, or “the one where Jeremy smokes a whole turkey (and doesn’t get high).”  My beloved wife bought me a BBQ smoker for my birthday this past year, and I’m putting it to work tomorrow for gobble gobble time.I’ve read a few turkey smoking recipes although at the end of the day it comes down to these simple steps:

  1. Brine the turkey (I generally go for a very simple brine myself – while I am certain that brining matters, I am uncertain that different brines have a major impact on the flavor) overnight.  I’d prefer a full 24 hours, but since my time machine is still on the fritz, I’m going with about 14.
  2. turkey - 02 - 24 hour air dryingAir-dry the turkey.  Again, this would ideally be almost a full day just resting in the fridge, but it’ll probably be a pat-down and about 2 hours at the most.
  3. Rub the turkey.  Don’t be filthy people. I’m going to use roughly the same recipe I do for chickens, which is a spice mix combined with enough olive oil to give a paste-like consistency.  For my devoted readers, I happily provide JT’s Super-Mega-Awesome Chicken Rub Mix freely here:
    1 part Paprika
    1 part Chili powder
    1.5 parts Salt (I like to use both fine and coarse salts)
    1 part freshly ground Black pepper
    1 part cumin
    1 part dried oregano (can be substituted for another dry herb as you’d like)
    1/2 part sugar (or brown sugar)
    1/2 part onion powder
  4. Smoke the sucker.  I’m using apple wood chunks.  I’ve read that about 25-35 minutes per pound is appropriate, so our bird should be good in about 5-6 hours.
  5. JT Thanksgiving 2003Eat.
  6. Drink.
  7. Be Merry.
  8. Fall asleep.

Click here for pictures from my cousin and I cooking a 25-pound bird a few years ago. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Am I the only guy unexcited about the new consoles?

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Pair of PS3sRobert Scoble observes:

I’m sitting on a sidewalk with the first 30 people who’ve been waiting in line since yesterday (PlayStation 3’s go on sale at midnight). There are about 700 people in line at San Francisco’s Metreon.
…
They are closing four streets for a concert in front of the Metreon at 6 p.m. tonight. They aren’t releasing the names of the bands, but it’s pretty clear this won’t be a high school band playing.

From the AP (and more at Techdirt):

Nine months pregnant, Julie Mosley said she tried to ignore her contractions for the chance to score machines for her family, her daughter’s father and her younger brother.

“I’m going to hold out as long as I can,” Mosley said Thursday as she sat on a cooler in the 19th spot outside a Circuit City in Mount Laurel, N.J., joking about giving birth on the sidewalk.

Also from the AP:

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards acknowledged Thursday that amid his criticism of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., a volunteer member of his staff asked the world’s largest retailer for help obtaining a hot new Sony Playstation 3 for Edwards’ family.

I don’t understand!  I’m all for participating in a pop culture social moment, heck I was in line for the advance showings for all three Lord of the Rings films (and accept full mockery for such activities, but at least I wasn’t in costumes).  But I don’t see how this applies to buying a new game console.  Especially not a $600+ PS3 or a Wii with a magic wavey wand (okay, that’s not fair, it does seem pretty cool).  But what’s the rush to buy it the day it launches?  How long does that moment last?

I did find the debates on the price/value proposition of the PlayStation 3 pretty interesting.  My quick guide to getting the most coherent insight is as follows: start on Gizmodo, continue at Good Morning Silicon Valley, hit the Utility Belt, then finish up with Davis Freeberg. 

I just wish the PS3 wasn’t so darn smudgariffic.  Not that I’d be getting one anyway.  I’m much more hot and bothered about the potential $100 Xbox 360 over on Amazon!

Jeremy

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Was doing a little self-Googling today, and noticed the following:

  • Googling “Jeremy Toeman” (results) has this blog first, followed by a variety of stuff related to me in some way or another.
  • Googling “Toeman” (results) gets my actress relative Claire first (darn IMDB), followed by me, and then my great-aunt Zerka later in the page.  If I do “Toeman -claire” (results) it’s mostly me
  • Googling “Jeremy” (results) gets, well, everyone but me.  Amazingly (to me), Jeremy Zawodny’s blog ranks higher than actor Jeremy Irons and porn star Ron Jeremy.  Then there’s a few other famous and not-so-famous people.  But nowhere in the first ten pages do I show up.

I don’t think I can pull off the same thing as Robert Scoble has (google Robert, he’s first!), but I am a bit surprised I’m not even in the first page.

Hopefully this post will help that.  I’ve learned a lot over the past few years about getting into the top results on Google, and am curious to see the impact of a single post named “Jeremy.”