Saturday, December 20, 2008

A Tale of Online Banking

I have been banking online for quite awhile and it has overall been a convenient and trouble-free experience. However a few weeks ago I ran into a problem that got under my skin and it seems worth documenting the experience for others.

I will refer to this particular international banking firm as Slime in this blog. So, over the course of the year I set up a Money Market account and bought a couple of CD's from Slime. These experiences went well enough. They weren't quite as convenient in their online processes as some others but they were paying slightly better interest rates and I didn't mind the extra steps that much. Then one fine day I said to myself - Self, now would be a good time to ladder in one more CD. So I took Self over to their website and checked the rate. Sure enough they were offering a nice 4% for a 6 month CD so I slogged through their process which treats each CD purchase as if they had never heard of me before. 

Fast forward about 10 days and the new CD has been set up and funded electronically from another account. Self logs in and checks the status only to find that the interest rate has been set to only 3.1%! Of course by this time when I check their website the lower rate is the new advertised rate.

Being quite sure I am not yet senile and had properly checked the rate I contacted Slime, electronically of course, and to my shock Slime confirmed indeed I wasn't senile. However they informed me the rate they pay on a CD isn't locked at the time you file the paperwork to open the account. It is instead set when they fund the account and since the rate dropped after I opened the account I was only entitled to the lower rate. This was quite a trap but in reading their fine print it was within the stated terms and conditions. Essentially Slime had written in a clause allowing them to slime their own, in this case loyal, customers. 

I let it go for a day or two but it really was getting under my skin. So I fired off another email saying I found their policy highly unacceptable and bordering on false advertising. They simply responded once again that they were "within their rights" and "helpfully" letting me know I could withdraw my money from the CD if I was willing to pay an early withdrawal penalty. Now I was really peeved! Their "explanation" only served to irk me even more.

So I said to myself - Self, you gotta do something about this. Slime is taking advantage of people and they should be stopped. So I said to myself - Self, visit thy oracle for advice. By which I mean I did a quick Google search and found out which regulatory agency was responsible for overseeing Slime. Turns out it was a federal agency called OCC - no, not Orange County Choppers. I mean Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. I found a handy dandy complaint form, filled it out, and faxed it in. By which I mean I emailed it to Maxemail which turns electronic documents and email into faxes for next to nothing. Being a fair minded guy I let Slime know I was going to file a complaint in advance. Would it shock you to hear - er, read - they didn't respond to that message?

After not very many settings of the sun I get a letter from Slime. They apologized for the miscommunication and restored the rate on my CD to 4%. Now not for a minute was there any miscommunication involved. They're just trying to keep me from pushing my complaint with the OCC further. I feel that in light of the shenanigans perpetrated this year by financial institutions penalties and increased regulation are quite likely. Screwing over your customers isn't going to win you any points with the politicians and regulators.

I'm not sure yet if I will yank all of my money out of Slime as the CDs mature. Frankly money talks and if they offer superior rates I will likely still use them. They did "do the right thing" - with a gun pointed at their heads. However if their rates are only competitive I will take my money away.

And, oh yeah, the OCC promised to contact me after hearing from Slime. I'll tell them I'm satisfied with Slime's apologetic action but ask how I can lobby to ensure such actions become illegal. Any time I get tripped up by something like this I imagine how many times institutions get away with things - because people don't pay attention, because they are elderly or otherwise infirmed or impaired, or just too unsophisticated to know how to fight the system. 

It's a rough world and we need to look out for each other.


PCalc - a free version available now

Awhile back I wrote about a great iPhone utility called PCalc. I wanted to let everyone know that JT has put up a Lite aka free version of PCalc. Don't let the fact there is now a free version fool you. It also packs a ton of functionality and is the best iPhone calc app out there. And don't let the "RPN" in the title of the full version scare you either. PCalc works great as both a traditional and RPN calculator. If you don't know what RPN is you'll be just fine. Check it out!

Monday, December 15, 2008

Retailers and the 2008 Holiday Season

I see and read non-stop about how retailers are worried about the holiday shopping season and about how aggressive they're being in discounting items. Having hit the stores and completed my shopping in the past couple of days I can only say I sure didn't see discounting of much of anything anyone actually wants.

For example, Toy's R Us advertises some heavy discounts but not on anything any of the many kids or adults on my shopping list want (and believe me everyone, young and old, wanted toys). I'll at least give them credit for having staffed reasonably well. I went to a department store to look for a gift and after walking in circles for awhile never found anyone to locate the item for me. Hiked down to another store and was able to find it. A few weeks ago I had seen some shirts I liked for myself but the price was high. Self - I said - when you do the Christmas shopping you can pick those up at a much better price. Well, so far the shirts are only discounted 25%. For a normal year that would be OK but that sure doesn't represent "big discounting". And it was obvious from the tall stack of the shirts, in every size, they are not moving. If they had been discounted heavily I probably would have bought one or two. As it is I walked out spending $0.

I bought a second HD TV a couple months ago. Checking the ads, the price I got back then, with a discount, is less than what you can buy the set for now. And overall this seems to be the case. Other than Black Friday weekend TVs don't seem to have been discounted much at all.

On the other hand you sure can get big discounts on toys no one wants, ugly socks, hideous neckties, and other unwanted gifts. Basically the stores are just trying to move the junk you shouldn't buy as a gift...

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Sorry excuse for parenting...

I never, ever would have imagined Chuck E Cheese was a hot bed for assaults against persons... Apparently on a nationwide basis - read the story here.

All they needed to know they learned - or not - in kindergarten.

I don't think the CEC around us serve alcohol. And I don't think they should.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Storming Pogue aka Blackberry Cult

My previous post was on the Blackberry Storm which has been marketing as oh so much cooler and better than an iPhone. As a BB user it was pretty obviously desperation marketing and I saw today that Pogue wrote a negative review in the NY Times. (This is the link but you can't get to it unless you sign up for free access).

Turns out on his blog today Pogue writes that a lot of folks commented in firm agreement with my (er his) conclusion. Not surprising since I'm always right. The amusing part is he has discovered there is a virulent strain of fanboy much stronger than the Apple variety - the Blackberry adherents. Apparently this new strain has never even used the Storm but is quite certain his review was fundamentally (and fundamentalistly?) wrong. Poor David...

N.B. oh, and the iPhone share tripled last quarter (via TUAW).

Friday, November 21, 2008

Storming the iPhone

RIM is introducing the Blackberry Storm to (finally) counter Apple's iPhone line. Years ago I thought BB's were da bomb. Problem is even the Storm is still a yesterday model.

E.g. they are hyping that it can play mp3s. Big whoop. That is ancient functionality at this point. Part of the greatness of the iPhone is the ability to do so many things effectively. iTunes brings with it movies, videos, video podcasts, etc. I can sync family photo albums - no more dealing with crappy wallet photos. And all this is so easy and for syncing is completely automatic.

Bored in line or some other twiddle-thumbs situation? Play a game. Don't have one you want to play? Fine, download one. 

The RIM browser totally sucks...

For those completely committed to RIM, or stuck with it because of corporate rules, Storm is a minor step forward. For the rest: skip this one.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

A huge advance for Civilization...

In a huge advance for civilization and peace and understanding for the world, Monty Python now has a legit channel on YouTube that includes high quality images. They are still getting started adding content but I just saw one of my all  time faves, Black Knight, is already there. Killer Rabbit is too. I'm laughing just thinking about it :-)

Go forth and waste time laughing. Oh, wait. Laughing isn't a waste of time at all!

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Spam be Gone???

I've seen several reports lately, such as this one, about spam machines being cut off.This kind of news has been reported in the past and I never paid much attention to it since my spam has been ever increasing. 

This time I'm a believer. My various anti-spam tools had been showing a running accumulation of junk mail totaling around 1,000 items - stashed neatly in a single folder to smolder and then be sent to oblivion on a rolling basis after being in purgatory for 1 week. A few weeks ago the count suddenly dropped to under 500 and held there.

After this latest anti-spam effort my junk folder has - incredibly - fewer than 100 items. I can't remember when I've seen such little junk mail. I never pay much attention to the junk mail folder but the crap does slow things down and occasionally causes false "new mail" notifications and other minor annoyances. Plus I'm a neat freak and just hate junk. I'm quite happy by this turn of events! Wonder how long it will last?

Ford & GM - Pathetic Leadership

Well for the second time this year Ford and GM have their hands out for billions of dollars of taxpayer money to help them do what they've fought and ignored for what seems my entire lifetime. Getting 25 billion dollars earlier this year isn't enough. Now they want another 25 billion. 

These companies have consistently and obstinately refused to produce fuel efficient cars - something that would have benefited their employees and shareholders as well as the climate. Laws were passed many years ago to "encourage" them to move in this direction but instead they chose the crack cocaine (producing large SUVs not classified for passenger use to bypass the laws). Now they are paying the price (for the second time in my life) for their totally shortsighted decisions and inefficiency. 

While I doubt that a standard Chapter 11 filing by these automakers would be the right thing I certainly think just handing over more money is absolutely the wrong thing to do. There must be real accountability and real pain for the stakeholders and, unfortunately, pain for the employees is unavoidable if this vicious near nationalization of the US automakers is to ever end. Problem is I have trouble seeing Democrats making this kind of tough decision since their re-elections are tied strongly to unionization. 

Monday, November 10, 2008

He's here!!!

Starting...

Hopefully we will fill this later today...

Sunday, November 9, 2008

G1 Android Phone - G1 must mean

I finally saw the Google G1 phone yesterday. After doing so I think G1 must have been chosen as the name due to the fact it is Gawd-awful ugly. The photos don't really do justice to its clunkiness. That fact is this thing is butt ugly. 

The fact the first instance was allowed to be so uninspired sure highlights the difference between a Steve Jobs run product conception and that of the average techie...

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Lovely...

way to spend Sunday.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Parents !!!

Saturday we had our yearly Halloween aka "Fall Festival" neighborhood party. You know the drill - pony rides, chili cookoffs, costume contests, etc. All geared toward a fun ol' time for the kiddies. Yet there always seems to be at least one parent who doesn't get it that the whole thing is supposed to be fun.

To set the stage: one of the activities was a small bounce house. A rotating group of neighborhood volunteers was monitoring the bounce house - 8 kids at a time, 5 minutes per rotation. Now this bounce house was pretty closed-in. Not a lot of visibility from the outside.

So, I'm standing in line with the Princess for awhile (maybe I should call her Tinker Bell 'cause that's her costume this year...). We make our way to the front of the line and are patiently waiting our turn when a woman comes storming up with her daughter in tow. I would guess her daughter was in the 8-10 year old range. The mom starts going off on the volunteer about how her daughter had been hit in the mouth by some kid in the bounce house. Now I had been in line for quite awhile and that mom had been no where around. I saw no damage to the daughter, just a pouty face. Yet this woman started getting more-and-more aggressive toward the volunteer like it was her fault or as if something really horrible had happened. The volunteer patiently kept explaining she couldn't watch the kids all the time, was just a volunteer, and generally handling it more calmly than I would have. Finally the woman yelled she was going to hunt down the kid who hit her daughter so she could "tell his parents what she thinks about it." Apparently thoughts like "why weren't you watching your daughter" never crossed her own mind. For sure this lady's daughter will grow up having a hard time dealing with life on her own.

Oh, I saw the pair about 30 minutes later. The mother was still fuming. Yeah, they had a great time at the festival.

And folks wonder why no one likes to volunteer...

iPhone Takes over the Earth

Great news for my iPhone peeps! Google has released it's Earth application and in fine fashion indeed. It takes advantage of the motion sensors built into the iPhone to adjust the view as you move your iPhone around.

Read all about it at TUAW.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Google Reader

Following Harald's lead I too want to note that in addition to seeing a few shared headlines on my Facebook account and here on the blog there is now a page available via Google Reader. I tend to share technical tips, some humorous items and some others I consider generally useful. In other words whatever I feel like :-) Click here to visit and/or subscribe to the feed.

I've been using Google Reader for a few years now. I switched to web-based reading since I keep a pretty solid partition between my work computers and home computers. Since the blogs I follow are a mix of work, personal, and in-between I want access to all my feeds no matter what hardware I'm using. I used Bloglines are first but switched to Google Reader as its features, and integrations, improved.

Monday, October 13, 2008

iPhone Life (battery, that is)

I've had my iPhone 3G for several months and read a lot of complaints about its battery life. Most of the complaints seem to be - if I use it a lot the battery doesn't last a day and that makes me cry. Wah wah...

I've had Crackberry and Smartphones/(aka dumb Windows Mobile) for years and I can assure you the iPhone's battery life is in reality best in breed when used like a BB or WM device.

But I can also confirm if you use it "for all it's worth" the battery won't make it to bedtime. In my case "for all it's worth" would mean a number of phone calls, checking email on it regularly, and running applications requiring net and location signals. Also throw in some podcast/video watching to the mix. When I do all this I come up an hour or two short on battery life.

I needed to travel to San Jose for several days of (boring) meetings and knew I'd make heavy use of the iPhone on the plane and to entertain myself while there. I needed extra battery power and after searching around selected the Richard Solo DX001 for the trip. I'd heard good things about the item and the price wasn't too bad (though more than the old AA battery pack I used to use to extend my iPod's life).

Having had the DX001 for a few weeks I can say that it has worked without issue and as advertised. If not for the trip I probably would have tried to wait a few more months as I expect more aesthetic solutions will eventually make their way to market. But if, like me, you need something now I do recommend the DX001. Not only does it work but also the customer service response to my pre-sale questions was very fast. Non-expedited shipping brought it to my door in 2 days == happy camper :-)

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Reminds Me of the Internet Bubble

Microsoft has gotten so desperate to catch up in the (now misnamed) search business that it will pay you to use Live.com's search. Saw this originally at David Pogue's blog.

Following on the heels of the horrible Seinfeld ad campaign and Ballmer's denials in the "Vista ready" lawsuit I really wonder how such a rudderless ship manages to prosper. Ah, the miracles of a monopoly...

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Oh Wyndham, How I Hate Ye!

Thanks to an ace corporate planner I am staying in a Wyndham hotel for a couple of days of meetings. This means the room is in the hotel as well as the meeting space and the meals are from the hotels crack kitchen staff. Some people would call this "jail". We call it meeting hell.

This is my third Wyndham stay and all have been bad hotels. This one is no exception. Three immediate problems:
  • No kleenex in the room? You have got to be kidding me. This is a new low for inhospitable treatment. I see no signs of a place to hold kleenex - it isn't like the room ran out and they just forgot to put some in the room.
  • The air conditioner is only slightly quieter than the back seat on the MD-80 I flew in on...
  • And the crowning achievement? While I was unpacking I heard a noise that made me think someone was at the door. I walked over to check, found no one, and as I turned to finish unpacking saw some black crap coming up through the bathroom sink. I called the front desk more than two hours ago and they said someone would be right up. Hah!
So like I said, oh Wyndham how I hate ye!

Monday, September 29, 2008

How will Congress's Failure to Pass be Viewed?

In one of the biggest votes in Congress of my lifetime the House has voted "no" on the rescue plan. This is huge as the market is indicating.

It's not that I was thrilled with the plan - can't deny action is needed though. No, what is horrible is they put this to a vote without having secured the necessary support ahead of time. This failure further cements the feeling that the government is inept (both parties!).

Indeed the accusations that House Speaker Pelosi turned the vote into a partisan one in her speech is quite true. What was she thinking? Her job was to get this thing passed since she has stated her full support for the measure. I know politicians can't help but try to score points off the other side in every issue. But this wasn't the time. Flaming Bush could have waited a few hours and she still could have commanded a stage...

How much worse can they screw this up? We're about to find out...

This post by the chief editor of MarketWatch is a good one I think.

Downslide

Well the so-called rescue package aka bailout is nearly done. The market isn't reacting very favorably. I think because the regulators and politicians have proven themselves to be so very far behind the curve. And so lacking in leadership. The boulder could easily have been stopped at the top of the hill but is now hurling down the hill with enormous momentum...

MarkT mused on Facebook wondering when we would see simple truth and honest leadership. I fear the answer is never. But this isn't unique to the USA...

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

How Escalation Really Works

As you know I manage Software R&D. I thought I'd break an illusion some customers seem to have about their efforts to escalate an issue they may have with their deployment or a software product. This never happens at my employer but I've heard about it other places ;-)

Customer's conception: I escalate an issue up the Vendor's management chain and they will assign more people and better people to help resolve my issue. The more I escalate the faster my issue will go away (even if it is self-inflicted).

What really happens: Higher management sees the escalation and yawns "ah, another one" and forwards it on to the same people who have been dealing with it all along. Those people already know the situation is hot and have already assigned anyone useful even if it means taking them off of something else. Vendor agrees to provide more frequent status to customer. This means that the extra resources assigned end up briefing field support, sales, product managers and the janitors on status instead of actually making progress. Customer demands hourly updates. Vendor agrees to a daily conference call to update the progress which robs the resolution team of even more time to solve the problem. Customer resolution time takes one step backwards. Vendor higher ups want to be kept informed so internal status updates are required and daily internal conference calls are scheduled. After a day or two higher ups lose interest and no one other than the resolution team bothers to attend. Customer resolution time takes two steps backwards. Eventually the problem is fixed but only after consuming more people and taking more time than if the customer just relied on the Vendor to do their job responsibly. The over-use of time and resources means other Customer's problem resolutions start to lag so they hit the Escalate button. So the cycle goes...

Economic Disaster

I hadn't intended to include entries on the economy and finance but the present situation in the US, and indeed the world, is extraordinary. 

The Treasury wants the US taxpayers to bail out what has amounted to highroller bankers who took large risks for many years and who are now seeing those risks catch up with them. The situation amounts to thousands of bank executives and high ranking employees becoming multi-millionaires straight out of the pockets of the taxpayers. A transfer of wealth from those sweating to put food on the table of their families to people with vacation homes in the Hamptons. Those who took unreasonable risks are not the ones who will pay to bail us out of the situation. And because of the large amount of leverage they used even if the government could reclaim their salary and bonuses it would be a drop in the bucket compared to the carnage they have created. 

Dramatic action by the government is absolutely needed. But the Treasury has too many connections to these highrolling financial institutions and their proposal is too favorable to those who created this pain. Congress generally mucks things up due to its partisanship but this is one case where taxpayers have to hope and count on Congress coming up with a more reasonable plan. And curses to Congressmen/women who try to use the situation to score political points. Someone needs to make a Winston Churchill speech to cut through the crap and get everyone focused on what the "enemy" is and what victory must look like.

The government must act quickly but a few days spent in an honest effort to improve the proposal will pay huge dividends. I just don't know if we can count on politicians to put in an honest effort...

Monday, September 22, 2008

Parenting and the Internet

As a parent of a young daughter with one more on the way I've long intended to do something about protecting them from the darker side of this wonderful thing called the Internet. I had searched around for a product to install on my network of Macs at home and every time I looked over the reviews for the candidates the number of problems reported stopped me in my tracks. So far my daughter is young enough I've been able to get by with using the draconian methods that are part of Leopard (10.5). But the sweetheart is growing up and we also have older kids visiting regularly who want to use the computer so I recently took another look at options.

I had heard of OpenDNS a number of times but the only feature association in my head was it's claim to providing faster resolution times. I've never had a problem in that area so tended to always skip over any mention of the service. However in my recent search I found several blog entries on its usefulness to parents. Moving at the Speed of Creativity had one of the most direct discussions.

In my case I changed my 2Wire router to point to OpenDNS rather than using the ISP's servers. Once done I selected the Customize option to allow me to set some site filters based on a categorization of the site content. All of this setup took less than 5 minutes and has worked flawlessly. I like the fact I can customize the filters as well as "vote" on categorizations for various sites. I haven't needed to but you can block or open individual sites as well.

This scheme doesn't provide the same level of filtering and control as some commercial products but it is also less intrusive with essentially zero overhead. For my particular situation and approach to controlling Internet access this is an excellent free solution.

Note we do not allow children access to a computer in a "private" location in our home. The only one they can use is adjacent to the kitchen in full view. If this weren't the case I would probably opt for one of the more draconian commercial products.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Now They Kick Seinfeld to the Curb?

Well after a negative - and confused! - reaction to the Bill Gates+Jerry Seinfeld ad campaign Microsoft is making a 180 degree turn and giving Jerry (and presumably Bill?) a kick to the curb. Their new - and equally screwy - ad strategy is to use a look alike for the PC guy in Apple's ads. Guess Jerry is happy to walk with his money.

Get a clue MS... I know they say even bad publicity is good but in this case I think it is just ineffective. It's not like we don't already know Microsoft exists. The ads are too late to effect the back-to-school shopping, won't do anything for enterprise sales, and aren't going to sway anyone for the holiday season either. It's not like Apple is the only source of negative comments on Vista. 

Read more at TUAW.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Clouds

No, this isn't another photography post :-)

Cloud computing is in it's nascent stage. As a SW R&D and products guy that means it is exciting, rapidly evolving, ill-defined, and with uncertain profitability. Which added up means lots of folks are going to throw millions of dollars in trying to capitalize on the theme. The only sure winners are the "experts" and evangelists who will claim to be able to give you all the answers. For the rest there is hard work ahead.

Unfortunately I'm not in the middle of this one but wish I was! This post by James Urquhart provides a good background on some recent announcements and key facets of this nascent product/service area.

iPhoneApp Winners

I've gotten questions from several newer iPhone 3G owners along the lines of "I'm too lazy to browse the App Store, just tell me which apps to look at." Well, actually none of them admitted being lazy :-)

Rather than continue to answer these one at a time I think a blog entry is in order. So without further delay here is the list. Click the app name for more details:
  • Klick - best Flickr companion
  • PCalc - best utility belt for anything involving numbers
  • Jott - best to-do and list application
  • WeatherBug - multi-locations, radar, alerts and more
  • Bloomberg - world wide market indexes and news
  • Facebook - missing some key features but still convenient
  • Where - finds events, friends, cheap gass, etc nearby based on GPS
  • 2 Across - crossword puzzle app, a free lite version also available
  • Wikipanion - guess what, this is a Wikipedia front end. Surprised, aren't you ?
  • Now Playing - find movie times, theaters etc near you
All are "Ron Approved" and receive near daily use. Oh, did I forget to mention all but one of these is free? :-)

I got a bunch of others I use less frequently. I'll get around to posting on those soon.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

PCalc - a great iPhone utility belt

I've long been a user of PCalc on the Macintosh. I love it's feature set and most of all the elegance of its implementation. James Thomson, its author, has shown great commitment to his products and so I was very interested when I heard a iPhone implementation was available.

PCalc for the iPhone exceeded my expectations and has earned a place on my iPhone's home page. I'll first cite one of the coolest innovations and that is James' undo implementation. To undo an entry you simply swipe your finger right-to-left across the display area. To redo simply reverse the motion. Multiple levels of undo are of course available. Very natural and efficient since no screen space is needed for buttons or menus. Another innovation is the use of the shake "operation" on the iPhone. Simply shake the phone twice to clear and three times to do a clear all.

Some of the other features that set it apart from Apple's version, and the iPhone app crowd in general, are its support for RPN, operations in a whole range of bases, a simulated tape so you can see the history and result of interim results, and finally a very convenient and comprehensive set of unit conversions as well as constants. 

Highly recommended! Check it out here or look it up in the Apple App Store.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Another thing to love...

When you downloaded an app update on the iPhone it used to always dump it in the first available spot on the first home screen page with available space. This meant I was constantly having to move updated apps back to the desired page.

I did some app updates this morning and lo and behold they were updated in place on the desired page (although the download still shows up in front while it is in progress). One small step for users...

Contacts are like Greased Lightning!

The new iPhone 2.1 is out and I did the update from my Windows XP laptop (I normally sync with a Mac). The update was flawless. A number of the fixes, like better battery life, 3G coverage, and fewer app crashes can only be verified over time. But...

The claim that the Contacts app is faster is awesomely true! It is like greased lightning - everything about the app is more responsive. I have a large list of contacts and previously it was painfully slow. The update has completely turned around this situation and I am one happy camper :-)

Hope the other fixes are as solid!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Front Row now Supports Aperture

Thanks to a tip posted on Flickr I found out that Front Row now supports Aperture as a photo source (previously you had no control over this as iPhoto was the only option).

To take advantage of this install the new Front Row (2.1.6) then start it up. Navigate to Settings->Photo Source and click to change from iPhoto to Aperture. At least in my case when I clicked on Photo Source it took awhile for Front Row to do anything. I think it might have been traversing my large Aperture library before changing the text indicating the source.

One small victory for users :-)

Monday, September 8, 2008

Hurricanes - New & Improved

Well, actually it is a new and improved hurricane tracker site courtesy of Stormpulse. Though I live out of hurricane territory my past experiences with the beasts as well as my ties and friendships with those still living in target zones keeps my keen interest in tact. The National Hurricane Center gives some great data in a rather a bare bones presentation format. Stormpulse gives a lot of data in a very sexy package. You know which one I'm gonna prefer...

And yes, Ike seems to have the hots for Houston... However urricanes are notoriously fickle in their romantic attachments.

Fattening of America - A Conspiracy

As if "want us to super size that for you" wasn't enough of a reason to think there was some kind of conspiracy to fatten up America I've now found that several local sandwich chains now charge you more if you want less food. When you approach the register for your sandwich and small drink you are asked if you don't want to "make it a combo" which includes a bag of chips. When you decline the sales clerk quite helpfully will let you know that declining the combo, i.e. foregoing the chips, will increase the cost of your meal by 10%. What kind of business model is that???

I guess the idea is that if they fatten us up and stretch our stomachs we will buy more later? But what about the premature deaths of customers? Or is Frito-Lay giving kickbacks?

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Making Seinfeld boring wasn't enough for Microsoft...

...so now they are going to copy Apple's Genius Bar (where customers can get help with hardware and software issues for free). I would be willing to bet MS will not be nearly as effective. First, Microsoft doesn't have their own stores so consistency and location will be challenges. Second, MS doesn't make the hardware so will be seriously limited in helping in some cases and essentially have to turn away users who do have hardware problems. Third, Windows is a nightmare to support in the consumer space. Corporations lock down their Windows boxes and run a bunch of anti-virus and security software to keep them relatively clean. Many consumers don't know enough, care enough, or lack the resources to follow the same approach. 

These MS gurus are going to be busy...

Friday, September 5, 2008

Beatbox Humor (UK)

This is a hilarious beatbox video. Very creative in the dry UK humor style :-) Check it out for a Friday pick-me-up!

Yep, Microsoft Just Doesn't Get Consumers...

Well the much ballyhooed Seinfeld/Gates ad campaign started. The first spot that ran was so empty the MS spinmeisters are out trying to explain it to people. I'm not a consumer marketing expert, but I don't think ads are supposed to need explaining... More commentary on this over at CNET.

One Ugly Ike

This is a very ugly picture. I no longer live in the hurricane zone but all the activity still triggers a strong desire to stockpile water, food, gas for a generator, a rush to put up hurricane shutters, and a tendency to be glued to the National Hurricane Center forecast updates. We saw so many the preparations became routine but the stress was always there.

Ike looks to be headed right for our former home in south Florida. I have a lot of friends there and I truly hope it either curves north or becomes much weaker before landfall. And hey guys, if you want to get away and visit Dallas just let me know :-)

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Flock has Flopped

Well, I gave it the old college try but just can't see the value in Flock the way it is working on my Mac and Windows XP. Neither seems that stable in terms of integrating with the third parties I'm most interested in. So I've given up and returned to Safari on the Mac and Firefox on Windows.

Onward to Chrome as the new yab (yet another browser)...

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Good Morning Gustav

Driving to work this morning and the outer bands of Gustav had arrived overnight. The sky is ever changing today - a day where I could sit outside and watch it like a movie. Instead I have to work like most the rest of the world :-)

Image is copyright, all rights reserved.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Flock Flop 1

Update on my Flock trial. I had downloaded the 1.2 version to try on the Mac while trying  the beta on Windows. I've given up on Flock on the Mac. It refuses to connect itself up properly with FaceBook in spite of my repeated attempts. It never seems to feel it is really logged in and repeatedly tells me so :-(

I'm having a bit better luck with the beta on Windows. I'll see how that goes before deciding whether to try the beta on the Mac.

Have to say the fact all the setup info and data can't be kept on a cloud seems like a real feature miss. A  real pain having to configure this on each computer.

Friday, August 29, 2008

iPhone 3G - small things matter

Having blasted a few aspects about the iPhone and MobileMe I thought I should add a little balance and add some things I really like. I'm going to start with a few points that show why Microsoft and their Windows Mobile just don't get it. Today's two points talk about what to me were major annoyances with WM 5 and 6.

First, in WM if you hit the volume key on the phone/PDA it is ambiguous exactly what volume is being adjusted. It depends on the "mode" the phone is in as well as the handset vendor's implementation. You might be adjusting the ringtone volume, key click volume, speakerphone volume, earpiece volume etc. On WM there is absolutely no visual feedback on exactly what is happening. One of the first things I noticed about the iPhone is that when I hit the volume keys it shows a speaker icon, shows the resultant volume setting, and also has some text below the speaker icon telling me what volume is being adjusted (e.g. ringtone). Some people may not care but I really appreciate these user friendly touches.

A second "small" item is one that caused me problems on a regular basis with WM's email client. Like most people even with 3G service I don't normally download entire attachments when looking at email messages. I regularly get attachments that are >1MB and especially on the small WM screens there is no point in trying to view them. However I routinely need to forward the message on to someone else - to hand off a issue, or pass on an FYI, etc. Now, in WM if you don't manually download the entire attachment before forwarding the message it will send it without the attachment. I got numerous "there was no attachment" responses due to this silent decision by WM. The iPhone, blessedly, handles the situation properly. When you forward a message that has attachments it asks you if you want it to include them. Wow, imagine that - letting the user decide what to do.

These small touches, which are a couple out of hundreds, that Apple includes in its products are why it is kicking other technology companies' butts in consumer products.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Flock

One of my favorite low-volume bloggers is Bryan Frank, a broadcast news photographer and all-around good guy in LA. I've been a reader for years and recently noticed his posts were made by something called "Flock". Being the curious type I clicked the link and found this Firefox/Mozilla browser called Flock that provides some cool "hooks" into your online presences (like Google and Yahoo Mail, Facebook, Flickr, Blogger and so forth). I'm sure I've seen mention of it but I'm so inundated with innovations, gadgets and new tools/sites it takes some effort for one to break through into my consciousness.

I decided to give the Flock 2 beta a try and this post is coming from Flock's built in blog creation tool Hope it works :-) I'll give Flock a couple of weeks of play time before deciding if it can earn a place in the starting line up of browsers (I sometimes have 3 different browsers running...). BTW Flock is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Well, this post should have had a tag line of something like "posted by Flock". You'll note it doesn't because it refused to post to my Blogger account. Filed some feedback on that. I'm using a beta version so I'm not going to ding Flock for now over this. Though the fact this is failing really undermines the value. I might have to forgo the beta and drop to the current stable version.

It Truly Is My Lucky Day!

Well, I snagged the Wii Fit via Amazon right before lunch so decided to browse the local Best Buy for games compatible with the balance board. Didn't notice much but saw - to my amazement - that they had several Mario Kart's on the shelf. I had been keeping an eye out for those in the local shops as well as online stores like Amazon but hadn't found any. Checking around just now Amazon itself still has no stock, nor does GameStop or Target show stock. Wal-Mart does list it as in stock.

Anyway, I grabbed one along with an extra wheel. We're gonna be busy with the Wii over Labor Day - that's for sure!

Wonderful if I'll win the lottery today too? ;-)

Hearting Amazon - the Wii Fit Chapter

I've liked Amazon from the beginning but as it expanded its offerings and services I came to totally love it. Innovation and value is a combination I can't resist!

Latest example is my purchase of a Wii Fit - without needing to spend a lot of time checking retailers or paying some "middle man" markup. When I checked Amazon.com awhile back I noticed that even though these were out of stock there was a link to have Amazon notify me via text message when stock arrived. Had never noticed this before but since I knew Wii Fit was hard to snag I signed myself up. Sure enough I got text messages on my iPhone when they were available. All I had to do was respond with "buyfit" to snag one. The first time I wasn't near my phone and they were gone by the time I responded. Twice more I missed out. I think once because I had a typo in "buyfit" - these things sell out nearly instantly.

However today I saw the message right away and had no typo in my "buyfit" response. Very soon I got a confirmation that I had snagged one to be shipped two-day for free (I have a Prime membership). I feel all lucky and proud today :-)

MobileMe does NOT do Windows

MobileMe has gotten a lot of bad press since it's introduction. Initially over service unavailability and instability. I never had too much trouble in that regards. But it's claim of working with Outlook on Windows is very nearly unfounded. I'm not saying it is impossible to get it to work but it is improbable for a tinkerer to get it working and impossible for the average "Joe/Jane". This is one of the latest threads over at Apple documenting the mess.

I'm a software R&D guy myself so I am familiar with the many challenges in producing large scale commercial products. For this reason I am often a lot more tolerant of issues I see. But in this case I can only conclude serious irresponsibility or incompetence was at play.

First, MobileMe on Windows will not work through a standard company firewall. At all. Now, there is nothing in the docs to say it will work. But that is no defense. Any use case around Outlook has to assume the user is on a corporate network. Now, I'd be willing to work around this but for the even worse defect - even on a completely open internet connection MobileMe syncing from Windows just DOES NOT work. Worse yet there are no error messages or any other helpful feedback on what is going wrong and/or why. This is a feature that is claimed to be supported. Worser and worser is Apple's silence about the problem happily letting its customers thrash around wasting time and energy on what is documented as a simple "for the rest of us" feature that is an unmitigated disaster. If you poke around the support threads you will see a few people say they "finally" got it to work (without a firewall/proxy) but there is always a caveat like "except for calendar syncing" or some such. You can be sure that if any of the kludge solutions posted was fully functional Apple would long ago have published a FAQ or Knowledge Base article with the solution.

Very hard to take Apple seriously in the enterprise software space given the severity of this issue and their response - or rather complete lack of substantive response. I still love my iPhone and am using MobileMe from my Mac. But I am completely warning my Windows-using friends away from MobileMe.

N.B. I am using Google's calendar sync app for Outlook as a kludge solution for calendar access. This has a lot of failings but at least it does allow me to view my work calendar from my iPhone...

Monday, August 25, 2008

New Favorite "Lay me Down"

On a very short road trip this weekend I think we found a new fave hotel chain for those family "lay me downs". The accompanying picture gives you a glimpse of why - a 42" plasma flat panel TV in the room. You can't see it in this image but there is a very novice friendly connector panel that makes it trivial to connect a laptop, game system etc. to this TV for your work or play pleasure. Just plug in the cable and hit the button and off you go. In addition to this sweet bit of tech the room was a bit larger than normal and the sitting area is separated from the sleeping area (even though this isn't billed as a suite style hotel). The sitting area has a generous sized and comfortable sofa plus a - yes - generous sized ottoman for your laziness pleasure. Rooms included a cordless phone, wireless internet, fridge and coffee maker.

The lobby area was contemporary but with warm colors so it didn't feel unfriendly or cold like some do. Well trained staff. Continental breakfast on the house and cooked items available day and night in exchange for some dinero. This chain includes a pool and a wine/beer bar as well. The price was very reasonable too.

Move over Hilton Garden Inn. Hyatt Place now owns us.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Serendipity

Just have to share this bit of serendipity, happy accident, or whatever you want to call it. My 4 year old daughter was playing around with my p&s camera during the oath ceremony and when I uploaded the pics later there were some pretty awesome looking abstract photos. The room was dark so I have no idea exactly what produced this effect - maybe some crazy flash reflection off of something? Best not to think about it and just enjoy it. BTW this is SOOC. Anyway, I think it is way cool :-) Click the image to see it larger on Flickr.

Please don't repost or otherwise use this image without my permission. Thanks!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Jott out of Beta

Jott has made the big move out of beta which, as you might guess, means it is no longer entirely free. Users (now customers!) have the option to stick with a free ad-supported service with limited capabilities or to sign up for pay-as-you-go or monthly service plans. The low-end "pro" service is only $3.95/month which is quite reasonable in my estimation and so I am going with that. Don't have any feedback on how intrusive the "ad-supported" ads will be. Details can be found here.

Also of note is the introduction of a Jott Express desktop application built using Adobe AiR. This is a small desktop app (for Windows and Mac) that allows you to quickly created and view Jott items without having to visit a web site or use a clunky web UI. Jott has also introduced integration with Microsoft Outlook meaning you can now use their voice transcription service to add Outlook calendar items, reminders and to draft email messages. 

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Woo Hoo!

Here is a mosaic from yesterday's oath ceremony. Click on through to see some commentary I posted on Flickr. It was an exciting and event and very well done.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

A very special day!

The Princess and I are now in the family and friends seating area for
the BH's Citizenship oath. A major life event making us all proud! As
you can see there will be a lot of new citizens today :)

More pics and info to come. But there are around 650 new citizens at this oath ceremony and it is the second session of the day!

Monday, August 18, 2008

Jott Multi-tool

Like many new iPhone owners I quickly downloaded a number of free apps when the AppStore opened. Many were removed as useless or after a period of benign neglect. One of the definite keepers is an application called Jott.

Jott is actually a free service that bills itself as providing "voice to text" transcription. I had checked on it awhile back, when I was using a Windows Mobile phone, and didn't find the value proposition appealing. When I noticed a free app for the iPhone I decided to download it and give it a try. Boy has this app caused me to completely re-evaluate Jott! The change is something akin to finding out the unassuming-looking guy next to you on that coast-to-coast flight is actually a professional story teller willing to entertain you! What makes the difference?

The iPhone has a number of missing features, like all smart phones. One of which is the lack of a real to-do or list application. The Jott application provides a powerful list/to-do capability that can be accessed anywhere since it syncs to a cloud on the backend. Some use cases to illustrate its usefulness:
  • Open the Jott app on the iPhone and add a few tasty tidbits to your grocery shopping list
  • Call Jott while driving and use your voice to send an email to you office address reminding you to complete that action item that slipped your mind
  • Access the Jott website and create a new to-do list of tasks you want to do in preparation for the birth of your son
  • While driving call Jott and tell it to add a meeting to your Google calendar
Jott does this and much more. You can create as many distinct lists/to-dos as you wish to keep parts of your life compartmentalized. When you call Jott to send yourself a note it will ask if you'd like it to set a reminder.

Jott's list features, without voice transcription, are superior to most of the fee-based iPhone apps I looked at. When combined with the web/cloud backend and voice transcription this blows those away. Neither the list nor transcription capability would likely have sold me on Jott. But the combination is killer. And did I mention free? Visit jott.com to learn more.

What I don't miss about Florida...

is the hurricanes. Fay looks fairly minor as hurricanes go but could still cause a lot of damage and heartache for a number of folks. In my fairly short time living in south Florida we went through about 5 hurricanes 3 of which were pretty much direct hits. Once we were without power for 4 days (which was short compared to most folks). Another time we were without power for 2 days. In context these power outages and the attendant lack of any fresh milk, produce, meat etc. in stores covered a huge area. We suffered property damage several times but were fortunate compared to the many who lost their homes or suffered severe damage with insufficient (or simply dishonest) insurance coverage.

My best hopes and prayers to those in Fay's path.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Now for Something Completely Different

Today was my wife's second major sonogram. Like the first one everything turned out to be normal and healthy. The big news was that the baby has shifted around make a c-section unlikely. This is a big relief to my BH :-)

The photo was snapped while we waited for the doctor. Can't wait for the delivery date!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Life Poster

I've seen life posters around and found them intriguing. A few years back someone posted instructions on how to create them manually in an old version of iPhoto. With the passing of my mom earlier this year I embarked on a project to scan in a bunch of old photos, mostly B&W, to share with family members to help in remembrances. It struck me as I was working on this that it was going to be a bit of a shame for all of us to look at those memories only to file them in a folder to, in spite of best intentions, be forgotten. Or to be forced to only pick a couple to frame and leave out. A Life Poster project seemed like the perfect solution.

I recently did some searching around and after looking at a number of approaches including scripting, Picasa, and shareware tools I settled on a nifty little commerical application called Posterino. I liked the convenience of its UI plus its ability to create irregular posters. Unlike Posterino a number of the tools force you to have every photo the same size and aspect ratio.

I downloaded the demo version of Posterino and in not much more than one hour I learned the program and populated an irregular poster with nearly 100 images. Posterino allows you to individually resize each image to fit its spot in the poster as well as repositioning each one so the proper portion of the photo is being shown. Another key feature is the ability to simply drag a photo from one part of the poster to another - when you drop the photo in the new location the application automatically swaps with the previous photo in that spot (this is configurable behavior). Since I already had all of the old photos in a project in Aperture the fact Posterino could directly access my photo library was a big plus in quickly finding and placing the images.

Once you're done you can transfer the resulting poster image into iPhoto for ordering via its Kodak interface, upload it to Flickr, or export it to a file for other uses or for transmission to other printing services.

I am normally quite hesitant to spend money for software to automate a task I will do only infrequently. However in this case I think the money was well spent in ensuring a high quality result in an amount of time I could afford to spend on the project. Plus the license fee is about the same as the cost of one large poster print and so a misfire in creation of the poster to print would eat up any license fee expense. The demo is fully functional but does place a large image over the top of exports until licensed. This means you can give it a complete dry run to see if it will meet your needs before forking over your hard earned cash. Wander over here for more information.

Not wanting to completely leave out the Windows users, I found a nice blog entry at HelpMerick.com describing some options for you. Click here to give it a read.


Bringing Aperture and the World Together

Most digital cameras still lack GPS and hence their photos are not geotagged/location-aware. I've long made the effort to manually tag location info on photos I upload to Flickr but it is cumbersome in their UI. My iPhone has geotagging on its photos which has whetted my appetite for a convenient way to add this info to shots with my far superior Nikon D40x.

You can imagine my delight when Maperture was released. This is a plugin for Apple's Aperture tool that works with Google's mapping feature. So far this new plugin looks great and even better it is another freebie.

Thanks ubermind!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Radiant Green


Radiant Green, originally uploaded by Road Fun.

I really liked this houseplant image and wanted to post it on my blog for those who don't wander over to my Flickr stream. I'll do this from time to time...

P.S. The image is copyright and cannot be downloaded or reproduced in any fashion without permission.

Crikey - Apple's on Fire!!!!

A fire at the mothership can't be good. But it doesn't sound too serious either :-)

iPhone Disappointment Alert

No, I'm not going to start dissing the iPhone overall. In fact I love mine - there I said it! But there are a few issues that to me are major shortcomings. I'm going to blog a few of these so others considering a purchase - and it isn't a cheap one taking service into account - can be as well informed as possible.

Today's complaint is about the horridly anemic Alert sound. In my case this is specifically a problem on meeting reminders. My previous Crackberry and Windows Mobile 5/6 devices provided robust reminders - distinctive sounds that would repeat for some time in order to get your attention.

The iPhone's Alert sound, which cannot be changed, is first of all barely at the level of a beep even on the loudest setting. Even worse it only sounds once! Unbelievable to the point of rendering the iPhone useless as a reminder device. The only workaround is to manually add Alarms in the Clock application. Alarms have a pretty robust sound which is configurable. So I know Apple knows how to do this Alert thing properly if they chose to...

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Klick for Flickr


One of my favorite iPhone apps is called Klick. A deceptively simple app that brings a whole lot of capability to anyone who is a fan of Flickr. Klick is much more powerful than it's competitor Exposure and in my experience it is more stable and has a very cool UI. Klick displays your contact's photos and has a UI that allows faving and commenting from the iPhone. You can also view your own stream and the comments folks are making. A quick tap on your photo shows the most recent comments. Clicking on the comment bubble takes you to a screen that shows all the comments on the photo. You can also view photos "Near Me" using the iPhone 3G GPS as well as your favorites and a sampling of Interesting photos from other users. The developers are extremely responsive to questions and enhancement suggestions.

Almost amazingly, given its breadth of features, this app is free in the AppStore. If you use Flickr you gotta try this one out.

Funky Sunrise

Saw this rather funky sunrise driving in this morning. Only had a
second to take a quick iPhone shot. The image is SOOC. I think it has some potential so I will likely touch it up later and post it on Flickr.

Monday, August 11, 2008

French Swim Team

I heard the French swim team was talking smack about the US men's team prior to the relay. Even spat in the water in the US team's lane. Really bad sportsmanship. But the best men won when the US out-touched France at the end. The French were big "favorites" but by their actions became losers (in the race and otherwise). Talk about seizing defeat from the jaws of victory!

Let's Make Cookies!

The Princess, Aunt and a cousin making mom's famous oatmeal raisin
cookies for the gang.

Where is this headed? Why does it exist?

Well, in typical form I'll answer the last question first. I've decided to create a blog to start to pull together the many online "presences" I have collected over time. Each one has a useful place in providing friendship, connections, useful info and general life enrichment. It will take me some effort to pull this off but I do think a blog is the best current vehicle to link all this together. Hopefully to your benefit as well as mine.

Where is this headed? Frankly, I don't know. So let's just enjoy the journey and enjoy the sights (and sites?!?) along the way. Thanks for reading this rather uninteresting post :-)

Threatening Clouds

Took the above photo using my iPhone 3G a few weeks back. Some dramatic-looking clouds brought to us by Dolly - but we didn't even get any rain from this. You'll be hearing more about my iPhone in coming posts. But I promise there will be a lot of other topics too. Apple haters fear not.