A Google laugh of the day
Posted on March 31, 2007
Filed Under Life, Misc. | 1 Comment
Download Squad points out that Google does indeed have a sense of humor.
Enter in a Google maps start and destination point that is separated by continents, and Google will provide directions. Right up to, and including, a 3,000+ km swim across the Atlantic Ocean!
I tried it for myself, entering in my hometown and Frankfurt, Germany which is where Eric’s next business trip will likely take him. The results are hysterical.
Google takes the time to direct me all the way to a Boston pier, because after all it would be really silly to just go east to the Jersey Shore and jump in, don’t you think?
They’re even nice enough to indicate the toll roads. That’s certainly something to take into consideration as I plan my 4,209 mile, 29 day and 12 hour journey. Yes, they obviously estimated just how long it would take to swim the 3,462 miles. Dying of exhaustion, exposure, starvation or shark bait not withstanding.
On the other hand, I tried a similar search in MS Live’s map application (Googling to find a real address in Frankfurt to use as an end point) I got this:
Live Search cannot find a route for the locations you entered. Ensure that your start and end locations are correct, and try again.
Oh, those Microsoft guys have no sense of adventure.
Me and my Blackberry 8800
Posted on March 31, 2007
Filed Under Internet & Technology | 5 Comments
Last Saturday, I noticed on the Cingular site that I could upgrade my phone. It’s not like I rushed right out that day and upgraded. Sheesh.
I waited until Monday.
There’s some stuff going on in my personal life that I can’t quite blog about yet, and it has me upset. Some women shop for shoes to de-stress. I shop for tech. We swung by a Cingular store and sure enough, just 13 months after I purchased the Cingular 8125 I am eligible for an upgrade. Why? According to the Cingular/AT&T rep they’ve been activating upgrades for “good customers.” Hmmm…maybe the fact that I can’t seem to let that “upgrade” link be cold for more than a few days has something to do with it.
Anyway, after playing around with the Samsung Blackjack, Cingular 8525, and a number of Blackberry models I finally did settle on the Blackberry 8800. I just liked the way it felt in my hand. I liked the way the menus responded. And I was finally convinced by the fact that the monthly unlimited data cost on the Blackberry is cheaper than on any Windows Mobile device.
To love:
- The Blackberry operating system is far more intuitive than Windows Mobile. I got very good in Windows Mobile, but it took much longer than with the Blackberry where I already feel comfortable. I love all the little shortcuts, like holding down a key to get caps, or hitting space bar twice to get a period, or hitting space bar in an email field to get the “@” or “.” in the address.
- Blackberry rules for email and messaging. No question about it. I also like the way text messaging “conversations” appear in a single screen rather than as separate messages.
- Far superior battery life. Activity that would have left my Cingular 8125 at 30% capacity barely takes one bar off the meter on the Blackberry.
- The device automatically goes into stand-by mode when it’s put in its case.
- Even though it’s not 3G and the data is the slower GPRS/EDGE connections, it feels tons faster than the Cingular 8125 did when surfing around.
Not to love:
- Microsoft ActiveSync worked just fine in Parallels. Blackberry’s desktop software does not. I’m using Missing Sync for Blackberry to sync my calendar and contacts. PocketMac is free, but I’ve read in too many places how bad it is. Missing Sync is working just fine, but it means that I have to use a dizzying sequence of tools to get my data from Outlook to iCal/Address Book and back so the Mark/Space software will sync it to my blackberry:
- Sync Outlook calendar to Google Calendar using SyncMyCal ($25 for unattended syncing)
- Sync Google Calendar to iCal using Spanning Sync ($25 per year or one-time purchase of $65)
- Sync Outlook contacts to Plaxo, which syncs to Mac OS X Address Book (Premium Edition is $50 per year to manage more than 1,000 contacts)
Completely insane. But it works, and it’s one step closer to getting more of what I do on the Mac side than the PC side.
- Because I can’t get the Windows-side software to work, I can only install software on the Blackberry that can be installed from the Blackberry and I can’t sync bookmarks.
- I came real close to getting a different model Blackberry because of the keyboard, but I went with the 8800 because of how the entire device felt and the fact that it has expandable storage. The keyboard takes getting used to.The keys are cramped and a little slippery. I find that I can type much faster and with greater accuracy with my index finger than my thumb.
While we were both in the store, Eric and I switched our separate voice plans to a Family Talk plan, saving at least $10-15 a month over having separate accounts. We were told that we would only be able to keep 700 of the 3,000 or so Rollover minutes we had between us. But surprise! When I log into my account online it shows 3,250 Rollover minutes in our combined pot. Even if the 700 minute a month plan isn’t enough between the two of us, we’ll have lots of time before we’ll have to make any changes.
Only problem? Since Eric moved his account to mine, his outgoing calls are showing my name on Caller ID. It’s a known thing with Family Talk plans, I know. If I can’t change the caller ID to show different names, I’ll at least change the account to show both of our names. I hope. Eric doesn’t really care as much as I did when the reverse situation happened with my phone a few years ago.
Is virtualization enough for Mac development?
Posted on March 31, 2007
Filed Under Macintosh, The Bi-Platform Life | Leave a Comment
Last week, I posted a review on Web Worker Daily of Tubes, a new friend-to-friend file sharing utility.
Tubes is not bad. Very friendly looking, drag-n-drop, kind of zippy when it works…and Windows-only.
Last week, the company announced Mac support in a link that reads, “Tubes™ Now Accessible to Mac Users.”
Boston, MA, and Renton, WA - March 29, 2007 - Adesso Systems, a leading provider of content replication and collaboration solutions, and virtualization leader Parallels, today announced that Adesso’s instant social networking application, TubesTM, is now accessible to Apple Mac users running Parallels Desktop for Mac, the first solution that lets Mac users run Windows and OS X simultaneously, without rebooting. By including full support for Parallels Desktop for Mac, Tubes now enables Mac users to create, connect and share via Tubes as easily as Windows users.
As easily? Windows users don’t have to buy $300 in software ($70 for Parallels, $200ish for the OS) and learn a 2nd operating system to use Tubes.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I really like Parallels. I have nothing against Windows. I’m in Parallels at least 50% of the time. But it bothers me that a developer would optimize for virtualization and call it a day as far as Mac compatibility is concerned. Isn’t this what some in the Mac community feared when Apple first announced the Intel Macs?
I mentioned something along these lines in my WWD review, and received a comment from a Tubes’ developer:
Just to be clear, we’re not bypassing Mac support - In face, we intend a native Mac version soon. In the meantime we did something most small companies don’t do - we took the extra time to make sure our Windows product would would flawlessly for Mac users using Parallels. Most companies, including Apple with Boot Camp, won’t “support” products intended for a different platform but we actually made improvements in the product just for this purpose.
Fair enough, but nowhere on the Tubes site do they say that they’re developing a native version and it’s only hinted in the press release.
This isn’t meant as a dig at Tubes (which is pretty nice), or Parallels (which I can’t live without). It’s more of a general question wondering if this is an area that Mac users are concerned about? Should we worry that development of Mac OS X desktop applications coming from traditionally Windows-centric companies will stall or die altogether since they have the crutch of virtualization to fall back on? Does Intuit need much of an excuse to stop the Mac versions of their software? Or Microsoft?
Adobe CS3’s mix & match menu
Posted on March 28, 2007
Filed Under Design, Macintosh | Leave a Comment
And they came down hard on Microsoft for having too many package options when Vista and Office came out? Puh-leeze. Adobe announced Creative Suite 3 yesterday, and as expected it’s a mess of options. 12+ different applications, 6 different packages and multiple upgrade and a la carte choices.
InDesign CS3 looks fantastic. I saw the demo where you can apply a gradient mask to a placed image right within InDesign and Adobe, you had me at hello. The new find/change options and styles on table cells sweeten the deal. Illustrator’s changes aren’t quite as exciting for me, since I tend to use Illustrator only to get logos and vector graphics in and out of InDesign. But still, it’s painful to open and close Illustrator CS2 on this Intel Mac so that alone will be worth the upgrade.
I know I want InDesign, Photoshop (can’t even think of going back to CS2 after using the beta these few months), Illustrator and Dreamweaver. Fireworks would be nice to have. So it looks like I have to spend $599 on the Design Premium package which gives me those applications (not Fireworks), plus Acrobat 8 which I already have. Plus it’s the Photoshop “extended” version which I’m not quite sure I have any use for, but I’ll take it. I looked at going for the Design Standard package of Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign and adding Dreamweaver separately, but that’s $399 + $199. So looking at it that way, I’m getting Photoshop Extended for $1 by going for the Premium package.
I may end up having C3 buy it instead to take advantage of nonprofit pricing. That is, after all, how I use the software 98% of the time.
As far as Fireworks goes, that’s a mixed bag. They’re only offering the software separately. There are some really new and interesting features, like multi-page support. But for the most part, this software is a distant cousin. It looks and feels like the old Macromedia product, warts and all. Dreamweaver gets away with this in areas that Fireworks has a little more difficulty pulling off. I was a Fireworks beta tester and while “disappointed” is an easy word to grab, it’s not entirely accurate. This article sums it up nicely:
In short, Fireworks CS3 is pretty much the same Web image creation and optimization product it’s been since at least the beginning of the century. What that ultimately means, however, largely depends on who you are. If you go way back with Fireworks, you’ll likely be relieved at the continuity (not to mention the fact that it beat out ImageReady). However, if you’ve been using the newly deceased ImageReady, you may be thrown for a bit of a loop when attempting to grapple with the old-school Macromedia interface.
Beyond that, I find some basic interface quirks truly annoying. For example, I am very used to clicking on the field name and hitting the up and down arrows to adjust a setting in a palette or dialog box. In Fireworks, the keyboard shortcuts are rudimentary at best. You’re adjusting settings with sliders. I like the ability to do basic math in the “X” and “Y” and “width” and “height” fields to move objects around. Want to position something a quarter of the way down the page? Just click in the “Y” field and type “11 in/4″ and voila! Want to make a box 1/2″ wider? Just add “+ .25 in” to the “width” field, even if it’s displaying the width in pixels. Fireworks does none of these things. It may not seem like a big deal, but it’s often a deal-breaker in my workflow.
And don’t get me started on how Fireworks handles text.
Fireworks still does a far better job of optimizing images for the web and visualizing web layouts than Photoshop does. That’s why I use it. And it has many fans. But those fans are a small minority of Adobe’s customer base.
What’s it REALLY like to ring the bell of the New York Stock Exchange?
Posted on March 24, 2007
Filed Under Nonprofit | Leave a Comment
Can you tell I’m catching up?
Anyway, I’ve been meaning to point out this great post that Carlea put on C3’s blog. She journaled the entire experience of C3 being asked to ring that opening bell, from that phone call on Friday afternoon to the swag and the roar of the bell. If you ever wondered what it was like to stand on that podium of capitalism at its best, then read her entry.
