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Lots and lots of Apple updatesAs both a Mac user and a Windows user (who also uses iTunes and Quicktime) I'm absolutely amazed at how often I need to update some piece of Apple software for security vulnerabilities. It feels like it's almost daily, which makes it feel like Windows XP circa 2003. Windows Vista on the other hand has had far fewer patches to download since launch, and when they do get downloaded they get installed automatically overnight. On my Mac - or PC with Apple Software Update - it always seems to require user intervention. Updating your jukebox software every couple of days gets pretty annoying when you're trying to get work done. Does anyone else feel this pain? More: Apple unloads torrent of patches, plus the first iPhone update Goodbye Google Notebook, Hello OneNote + FolderShareA few months back, I wrote about Google Notebook and how I was using it to store notes on a project... and I alluded to the fact that I might end up switching back to OneNote at some point. Google Notebook has the benefits of being available from anywhere and being relatively simple to use. Unfortunately simple also meant simplistic, and being available anywhere... well, there's more than one way to skin that cat. Apps don't have to run in IE/Firefox exclusively to be available across multiple machines. That's just how Google does it. I decided to switch back to OneNote once and for all, but this time with the added "feature" of roaming my notebook thanks to FolderShare. OneNote has nifty roaming features built-in, but FolderShare is a dream when it comes to keeping all of my files in sync across machines. All I did was setup my "OneNote Notebooks" folder as a FolderShare library and within seconds it was available across 4 different PCs running Windows Vista (work PC, work laptop, personal laptop, personal desktop). Changes are synchronized across the Internet within seconds. Joyful. Why the switch? Well, editing notes in a browser just isn't as easy as it is in OneNote. Basic things like taking screen captures or inserting images, video, and tags either can't be done, or it's really, really tedious to do. It's similar to the differences between Windows Live Writer and a basic web-based blog entry form - anyone who uses Writer knows what I'm talking about. And of course, OneNote integrates so nicely with Outlook (which also roams my tasks and notes across all PCs via Exchange) and Windows Vista search (just hit the Start key and type a search phrase!) that are reasons enough for me to switch back. Naturally, I'm a little bummed that OneNote isn't yet available via some basic web interface - even if just read-only. And the mobile integration isn't yet what I need. I almost never dock or synchronize my Motorola Q with a local PC; everything I need other than my notebook can be synchronized over-the-air already (email, RSS, tasks, calendar, contacts) which is ultimately what I want from OneNote. Both of these things - a web interface and OTA mobile sync - require a services component to OneNote. Necessary disclaimer: I have no idea if this is being worked on or not. But one can hope! Welcome back OneNote. I missed ya. Merlin Mann’s “Inbox Zero” talkAt least twice a week, someone will swing by my office and say one of three things:
Part of this is probably just my personality; I don't like clutter or cognitive overhead and I hate disappointing people (or regretting something later) by dropping important things on the floor. I can remember my email inbox back in 1993 went to zero every single day, so this is far from a faddish GTD love for me. I've been using a similar system for close to 15 years. Keeping my inbox clean, especially when I receive more than 150 emails per day, is the only way I stay sane. But I've never taken the time to write up all of my tactics. I plan to. In the meantime, this video is fantastic - it's Merlin Mann of 43 Folders speaking at Google about his Inbox Zero system. I watched the entire thing and I don't think I disagreed with a single thing he said. Enjoy...
Updates to Windows Live SpacesYes, I know I'm way late on this one. I was out of the country when the rollout finished, so I wasn't able to jump online and post about it. For the past couple years I have been lucky... I was always around during release windows, but this time it just didn't work out. As you can probably see if you're an active user, there have been a number of updates to Spaces including:
You can read more about all of the updates on The Space Craft: Three months of new updates to Windows Live Spaces. A-listers don't always "get it"It used to be fun watching the "A-list" bloggers discover the obvious things that folks outside the U.S., little kids, and even big companies have been tracking for months; sometimes years. It was hilarious when they first discovered YouTube or MySpace, and it's even funnier to see them all up in a tizzy about Facebook now like it's a new thing. It's as if they don't realize they're the ones who have been missing from the scene, not the other way around. It's just so uninteresting. Ah well. Unsubscribed! Iomega StorCenter Pro 150d: Not for Windows users!I should have done my research. A couple months ago, I decided to upgrade my local storage system for the first time in a long time. I wanted to get enough hard disk capacity to not have to think about the problem again for a few years (preferably something like five!) so I went with a 2TB Iomega StorCenter Pro 150d NAS (network attached storage device) after hours of research online. Turns out I missed one tiny detail: it runs Linux, not Windows. This may not seem like it would be a big deal, but my master plan had me mapping all my Vista user folders to the NAS so I could use it for primary storage in a RAID5 configuration. So folders like C:\Users\Mike\Documents would actually be mapped to \\batcave\Mike\Documents behind the scenes and Windows would function as if the files were stored locally. All the while, the files would be "safe" inside the NAS thanks to RAID - and of course, other backup solutions on top of it. Turns out that plan didn't work. As soon as I remapped Vista's home folders to a network folder, desktop.ini would appear in the folder. I would delete that and "$RECYCLE.BIN" would appear. I would delete that and it would just return a second later. Other things were wonky too in that files like Thumbs.DB and the file Media Center uses to store thumbnails would randomly appear - and Windows started to treat them like "real files" when doing things like thumbnail generation on the Pictures folder. So instead of my Pictures folder consisting of nice looking thumbnails based on my photos, they were weird gear symbols since there were DB and INI files visible inside those folders. At first I thought this was just Windows doing something weird. After some experimentation, I learned that I couldn't set any file attributes on any files stored on the network drive. So after spending, oh, about two straight days copying files (300GB worth) to the Iomega NAS and about five more hours troubleshooting this, I called Iomega and they very matter-of-factly told me that this was due to the fact that the StorCenter Pro 150d (unlike higher end models) runs Linux... and Linux doesn't honor Windows security or file attributes like hidden, system, or read-only. Things I wish I knew before buying this thing. After arguing with the guy for 20 minutes, he told me they couldn't take the device back for a refund since 30 days had already passed. Of course, I was pretty livid at this point - you can't find detailed information on this device anywhere on Iomega.com or in the Help files. Nothing that says that you can't HIDE files or make them read-only, something that seems like a basic necessity of any storage device. Maybe I should have realized that when it says "Linux" in the fine-print (which I didn't see earlier) that means Windows users just have to deal with strange folders and files appearing throughout their file system. Maybe it's my fault for not knowing this, although my assumption is that most Windows users wouldn't. The kicker is that it doesn't work with Mozy either - something else I should have looked into before buying this thing. Either way, I now have a $1100 paperweight. Not being able to do basic things with my files is a necessity. So I purchased two 750GB USB2 drives to replace the NAS last night, fully expecting to sell this puppy for what I paid for it on Craig's List or eBay this week. I'm sure it's a great storage device for gearheads who run desktop Linux - or maybe for people who are primarily Mac-based - but for those of us living in a Windows world, it was a bad, bad purchase. So in short, if you're running Windows and want a NAS to use for primary storage, do not buy an Iomega StorCenter Pro 150d. You're better off winging it on much cheaper and much more flexible USB2 or Firewire drives. In the meantime, if you're one of those afore mentioned gearheads interested in a very barely-used Iomega NAS, hit me up with a message or shoot me an email at mtorres at microsoft (dot com). My mobile favoritesFinding good mobile websites (aka sites for PDAs, phones, and smartphones) is still a total chore; most sites don't automatically redirect to a "mobile friendly" version when you browse with your phone, and the .mobi initiative has been misguided from day one. So it's really a lot of "hit or miss" when it comes to finding the best mobile sites... you know, the ones you actually want to use on a daily or weekly basis. With all this talk about the iPhone recently, I figured it would be a good time to share some of my mobile favorites with everyone. If nothing else, maybe you'll pick up a favorite or two for yourself, saving yourself the pain of sitting on a bus playing around with these sites (and the ones that didn't make the list) like I did recently.
Enjoy! Know of any others? Windows Live Writer and FolderShareI can imagine that when people talk about Windows Live, it probably means different things to different people. To some, it's Messenger and a way to talk to their friends around the world. To others, it's Spaces and it's all about blogging, photo sharing, and catching up with friends. But to power users, I think it's something else. I think Windows Live today represents two truly standout applications to the digerati: FolderShare and Writer. These two applications are best in class and when judged by blog chatter alone, seem to have really captured the imaginations of people. It's not a surprise to anyone who has used them - they both pass the "it just works" test with flying colors, and they both make something that was previously a chore into something that's joyful. That's no small task. And it shows when you do a quick search (using Technorati or... ahem... Google Blog Search). Check it out: On Windows Live FolderShare:
On Windows Live Writer:
In a conversation earlier today, I was explaining to someone what makes Writer so appealing to me over every other desktop or web-based blogging app. It's the little things that show the team cares about bloggers; one example is the "auto-fill" feature from your browsing history when you insert a hyperlink into a blog post. Clever. Another, of course, is the extensibility. Don't like something about Writer? Chances are you can install a plug-in to improve upon it. And let's not leave out the (cool) WYSIWYG editing that shows you exactly what your blog entry will look like before posting it. And the new glass effects in Vista! Of course, like Windows Live Mail which supports POP and IMAP, Writer is also standards compliant and can post to the most popular blogging engines. If you don't like Spaces, shame on you - but you can swap that out too. Misinformed reviewers like Joe Wilcox - who I unsubscribed from long ago - recently gave Microsoft flack for not supporting other photo services in Windows Live Photo Gallery. What he failed to mention: Mail and Writer both support industry standards out of the box, and we'd love to hook Photo Gallery up to other photo hosts - unfortunately every single one supports their own proprietary API so it couldn't get done in the first rev. Back to the point: What does this appreciation for Writer & FolderShare say to me? It says that we need to do a better job across the rest of Windows Live. We need to learn from FolderShare and Writer; why do people love these things so much? Why are people still using and talking about FolderShare after two years? What is it that appeals to folks? There's a lot to gain here and I expect you'll see more Live services all the time striving to be as essential, easy to use, and fun as these apps. I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this if interested in commenting. Some iPhone thoughtsOmar writes exactly what I would have written had I documented my iPhone experience from Saturday:
Exactly. I wrote about this back when the iPhone was announced; without Exchange support (which you have to assume is coming very, very soon) it's a total no-op for me. The other things (the slow network, the built-in battery, the price, and so on) are still things you have to deal with - some of them are just Apple taxes similar to the iPod. But I've gotta tell you, after holding that thing and playing with it, these taxes might be worth paying. I didn't want to like it, but I do. With Exchange sync, I would probably have to jump on the bandwagon... taxes and all. Omar lists some of the other devices that hit him this way. I have my own list:
I love that Omar exists because he saves me a lot of time - whether it's writing blog entries for me or teaching me about some Outlook idiosyncrasy that dramatically cuts down email filing effort, he's always making me more efficient :) Digital books and the trade-in modelThe future of books is digital. That much is obvious. There are many people out there who think this is an impossibility, but those folks are probably the same people who once said MP3 would never make it because people "like having CDs". Digital books have so many advantages over paper books - readability, instant search, automatic updates to the content, portability, instant purchase, and so on - that this game will be over much faster once it really kicks in than the migration to digital music was. The technology is just now catching up with the desire, so I expect that over the next decade people are going to switch to digital books en masse. Note that I don't say "eBooks", because I think the digital book will be dramatically different than the 1999 eBook. The hardware will be much more appealing to book worms - possibly with digital pages that actually flip - and the fonts and rendering technology will be wondrous. The dedicated device will be connected to the net for instant download (via an iTunes-like store, probably provided by Amazon.com and B&N) of new books, magazines, newspapers, and other types of content. Have you ever been on the isle of Bora Bora, where there isn't a bookstore in sight for miles, and run out of reading material 4 days before boarding a plane to go home? I have. Never again. Of course, this will only be a pleasant transition if used book stores, retailers, or "web 4.0" startups figure out how to provide trade-in value for existing books. As someone who has purchased 100+ books over the course of the last decade, I have no desire to repurchase them just to convert them to the digital format. Instead, I want to be able to drop off the books at a used book store and be given a credit towards the digital book for download. I want to replace all existing paper books with digital books in the year 2012 but I don't want to pay retail for the privilege (although $.50/book would be fine) Sound familiar? It's essentially what millions of people have been doing with CDs. We've been ripping, mixing, and burning for a while now and many people are finally at a point where 100% of their music collection is digital. It's fantastic not to have CD clutter lining the walls of my home any longer; the CDs I still have are in a CD book filed away in the closet. If the transition to digital books supports a trade-in model, it could potentially be accelerated. Let's not make people repurchase their books again. This is assuming there isn't some crazy iTunes-like big brother DRM attached to every book, of course. I wonder if there's a business model hidden in here for someone. Sidebar: there's at least one relatively decent reader out now from Sony with a very crisp display. I'm sure there are others as well, but the "iPod" of digital books is probably a few years out; the device that makes it so painfully obvious why digital books are the way to go. For some people, this might just be the iPhone, a Windows Mobile phone, or the equivalent - something with a nice-sized screen, Internet connectivity, and always in your pocket. For others, it may be a dedicated device. |
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