Computers & Technology, Personal, Philosophy, Politics & Culture, Writing, Editing & Journalism

Short Reflections on Recent Items of Note

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The best defense against cynicism remains a wild-eyed sense of wonder that things really can get more screwed up than they need to be.

  1. Oh, you silly Michigan Republicans. Yes, I voted in the primary. Yes, I voted for Mitt Romney. Yes, I want to see Romney prevail in the delegate count. No, I don’t want Saul Anuzis to put his thumb on the scale. Give Santorum his stupid delegate and be done with it. Intentions aside, retroactively “interpreting” the rules to favor a favored candidate smacks of dishonesty even if such interpretation is valid and squeaky clean. The appearance of impropriety is what matters, not the actuality of impropriety.
  2. Speaking of the primary — time for Gingrich to exit stage right and Paul to exit stage kooky. This has turned into a two-man race. Actually, a one-man race, but Santorum hasn’t figured this out yet and he deserves time to internalize it. I’ll admit that Santorum surprised me a bit; I didn’t think his dogged insistence on fighting the culture wars of the ’90s would resonate with primary voters as much as it has, especially when serious matters — like national security and the economy — deserve pride of place this cycle. I think the Romney likability factor plays into it a bit. What are the odds Huntsman and Pawlenty regret pulling the ejection handle so quickly?
  3. The ongoing drama over Israel’s potential response to an Iranian nuclear weapon highlights the Obama team’s lack of seriousness about Iranian threats. Nuclear Iran presents an existential threat to Israel and will almost surely ignite a nuclear arms race in one of the most volatile regions on the planet. We need more than bluster to win the long-term peace. Although I certainly don’t want a war with Iran, I also don’t want a nuclear Iran. If the latter goal cannot be achieved peaceably — and the Persian running down of the clock suggests it won’t be — then other action must be contemplated.
  4. After the Holocaust, the West said, “Never again.” After half-assing it in Bosnia, we said we really meant it — next time. Then we looked the other way in Darfur and Chechnya and Tibet. And now we look the other way in Syria — because we pretend that enfeebled Russia’s protection of its sole remaining Mediterranean client remains geopolitically significant. Genocide continues, and we whine that the politics of weakness at the U.N. means that we have no more effective alternative than to lodge diplomatic protests while thousands die at the hands of a cruel despot. The technical term for this pseudolegal equivocation is “moral depravity.” On our part, as well as Assad’s.
  5. I’m not all that worried about $5 gas. I am worried that $5 gas means that politicians across the ideological spectrum will put on their silly hats and promote short-term policies that make no long-term sense simply to pander to voters who don’t grasp the complexities of energy policy.
  6. Have we reached a tipping point? The ongoing privacy black eyes from Google and Facebook may well prove decisive in finally getting politicians to draft consumer-friendly data protection laws. About damn time.

Life’s been good on the personal front, too:

  1. A few weeks ago, columnist Florence King of National Review penned her last “Bent Pin” column. I had been a fan of hers since I was a teenager; she used to write “The Misanthrope’s Corner,” then semi-retired, then came back. Now she’s permanently retired from regular columns and will now occasionally submit reviews. Having been duly saddened by her new retirement, I wrote her a letter. To my great delight, she replied with a lovely handwritten card. I think I’ll frame it.
  2. ‘Tis been lovely on the social front. Yesterday, Tony and I went to Battle Creek, to the Firekeepers casino. The original plan was to go to the smoke shop in Battle Creek, but we were delayed too much in Lansing so we detoured to the casino instead and partook of some light gambling and heaving dining. Last weekend, Tony and Jen came to town to celebrate Jen’s 30th birthday. Also attending: her brother Joe, and her friends Heidi and Pete. Tony/Joe/Jen/Jason started with dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, then we met Pete and Heidi and trudged off to Mixology at Six One Six for cocktails; we eventually ended up at Cygnus 27 for even more cocktails before the evening met its natural conclusion. And last Thursday I enjoyed cigars and Scotch with Rick and Sondra at Grand River Cigar. All these events provided a strong measure of fun and connectedness.
  3. Celebrated another writer’s event on Friday. These gatherings are more social than productive but it’s still nice to connect with fellow scribes. And I got to learn about Charlie the Unicorn.
  4. My truck was victimized by a local ne’er-do-well. Someone broke into the back window and rifled through the contents of the truck cab. As far as I can tell, the only things taken were less than $2 in coin plus my spare copies of my license, proof of insurance and registration. I filed a police report anyway. And that evening, I saw my neighbor — a G.R. police officer — but he already had been informed by the detective who reviewed my report.
  5. I’ve been kept full-to-brimming with contract work over the last six weeks. One of my clients invited me into a special project that has consumed a large amount of time. Happily, they’re paying above-market rates for the work I’m doing. Plus, I received a fabulous referral for some Web marketing work for a law firm in southern Michigan; contract negotiations begin next week. It’s a rare treat to make money faster than you can spend it. However, much of this work may well fund a late-summer trip to Italy. Stay tuned.

All for now.

Computers & Technology

Windows 8 Consumer Preview: First Reactions on a Desktop Touchscreen

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For several years, my heart knew the pain that Detroit Lions fans feel: Sometimes close, but rarely the cigar.  The object of my disaffection? Microsoft.

See, I love Microsoft. I have tinkered with Windows since 3.11 was the hot new release. I remember as a teenager going with my best friend to the local electronics store when MS-DOS 6.0 came out; we were so excited we planned the trip a week in advance. With Windows 95, all was well in the world. I avoided the pain of Windows ME by going straight to Windows 2000 on the desktop. Then came XP. Then Vista. I ran the beta for Windows 7 and loved it — indeed, I installed Win7 on my laptop the day the software was released (I got a “Steve Ballmer Signature Edition” package for hosting a launch party — that’s how much of a nerd I am).  And mirable dictu, I’m running that same installation on that old machine. Never had to do the wipe-and-replace routine. Not once.

Along the path, though, my beloved Microsoft seemed to slip. Products were good, but the missing 5 percent that kept them from being great proved a too-frequent irritant (SkyDrive and Mesh with a Berlin Wall in the middle? Or Lync for Office365 that can’t talk outside the organization without an enterprise subscription?). On the mobile side, I went from BlackBerry to Android. On the tablet side, I went from webOS to a dual-boot with the CyanogenMod alpha-dot-6 release of Ice Cream Sandwich.  On the desktop side, my irritations with Vista sometimes made me flirt with various Linux distros, mostly Kubuntu and OpenSuSE.  (Never Apple, though. I had to run a network of Macs once and it was pure hell; whoever said Adobe Creative Suite and OS X fit like a hand and glove never had to clean up the mess of the twice-weekly occurrence of a Mac crashing and losing an entire newspaper just before the print deadline.)

But things started to look up last autumn. Rumors of Windows 8 popped up. I watched the entire video of Sinofsky’s presentation at //build/ and in September I acquired a Windows Phone 7.5.  I fell in love with that device; it just works. Even after I gave it a bath in the dishwater.

Now, I’m — dare I say it? — genuinely excited to be a Microsoft customer again. Whereas Apple and Google play fast-and-loose with privacy and release products that may look nice but reflect yesterday’s static-icon GUIs, Microsoft has played it cool with data and has opened up more to universal standards while offering a truly more elegant approach to OS design. Products across the board have been sharper; today’s Hotmail is a million times better than Gmail. And WP7? It’s the first phone that I loved when I first got it and didn’t start hating it the week after.

Redmond’s firing on all cylinders, and I couldn’t be more pleased.

The joy continued yesterday when I installed the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. The process went smoothly and everything worked just fine out of the gate. I had to uninstall two applications for compatibility reasons, but the Win8 installer gave me warning and I had no difficulty with it.

I’m using the Consumer Preview now, on my main desktop device — a Toshiba DX735-D3201. The machine features 4 GB RAM, a 2.4 Ghz Core i5 2430M processor and a 23″ two-point touch display. My computer isn’t exactly a speed demon, but it’s respectable. And you know what? I’ve been able to test out the touch characteristics of Windows 8 on a desktop machine.

A few preliminary thoughts:

  1. It took me all of an hour to adjust to a Start screen instead of a Start menu. Users who upgrade an existing system — and thus retain apps and settings — will find it more intuitive than people who perform a fresh install.
  2. Touch works on the desktop as well as a phone and a tablet. I’ve been forcing myself to use the touch features as much as possible, just to see how it works. I find I prefer it to always grabbing the mouse … for certain tasks.  Not everything.  But given the angled orientation of my screen, away from the mouse/keyboard, some tasks are faster and more intuitive using a finger than a peripheral.  Only challenge: Swipes from the top of the screen rarely work on the first try. Whether it’s Win8 or the Toshiba hardware, I cannot say.
  3. The Metro-style apps have a lot going for them. People who complain about full-screen apps (and I am one who does have some reservations about it) I think will come around, simply because you can Alt-Tab or swipe around quickly. I’m the type who often has a lot of apps running simultaneously, but realistically, I rarely have the need to have several apps open in the same display space simultaneously.  There are some exceptions, though — particularly when I’m cutting-and-pasting between Word and OneNote, for example, or editing documents in different apps (Word and Scrivener) that require a visual side-by-side review. For now, I can simply work in the Desktop mode, but if more powerful apps (I’m looking at you, Office 16) go full-monty Metro, then the Metro interface will need more than just the snap-in feature or I’ll probably go batshit insane.

Knowing full well that Windows 8 Consumer Preview is a beta product, I do have some thoughts about what could be improved:

  • The SkyDrive implementation into the file system — which, yes, I know is coming — can’t come soon enough.  SkyDrive isn’t helpful to me if I can’t move folders.
  • Right now, the Share charm doesn’t let me set social identities. A few apps can share by email, but that’s it.  When that functionality goes live, I really hope I can attach several accounts under the same service to my Windows Account. I have three separate Twitter accounts, for example — a personal one, a business one and one I co-maintain for a hobby.  Please don’t make me select only one for deep OS integration and force me to use a third-party client for the other accounts.  And when you can use the People hub to, you know, actually post a status update, life would be swell.
  • I know the Mail app is beta, but … no IMAP?  WTF?  How do you ship a mail program, even in beta, without IMAP support?  This makes the app completely useless to me.  On the other hand, I appreciate the hook into EAS — I did set it up with an OWA account and it works nicely, but there’s no chance I can use it in lieu of Outlook (which doesn’t have a live tile for notifications).  Plus, I’d really prefer the ability to drag messages to folders instead of having to go through several steps of selecting them and then moving them using menus.
  • I like the music app, but … no playlists?  And for some strange reason, the program reads only two of the 14 folders in my Music library. No DRM issues, so I’m not sure what’s up with that. So, Zune it is. Or WMP.

These suggestions notwithstanding, I’m digging Windows 8 so far. It’s a sea change in how the OS works, for the GUI as well as the cloud sync, but if Microsoft can pull it off successfully, they’ll have a real victory on their hands. Here’s to being back on the winning team!

Computers & Technology, Personal, Philosophy, Politics & Culture, Social Media, Marketing & Privacy, Vices, Writing, Editing & Journalism

Assorted Ruminations

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Well. What an interesting couple of weeks it’s been. Summary commentary follows, on subjects as diverse as writing, politics, socializing and privacy. Read on, dear friends, and be enlightened.

“Society” Isn’t Responsible For Your Bad Choices

Big Al and I have engaged in several recent conversations about Occupy Wall Street, and in particular, about the nature of the main claims emanating like a vile penumbra from the protestors’ wish lists. The crux of the debate: To what extent is society responsible for the condition of people saddled with huge student loan debt and no strong employment opportunity?

Although Alaric refuses to state categorically that he thinks the protestors are totally free of moral culpability for the current condition, he does seem to argue that they aren’t solely culpable and therefore deserve a personal bailout. He asserts that the overwhelming social message that “college is the key to success” means that people really had no other choice if they wanted to be successful, and that colleges have misled many students about the value of their chosen courses of study. As best as I can tell, his position is that the social pressure to attend college mixed with bad or misleading counsel about the options available for majors means that many unemployed students were effectively sold a bill of goods. Therefore, in the interests of the macro economy, it makes sense to lighten their load and to implement reforms to prevent such from happening again.

Our debates have been lively. Although I appreciate his perspective — and do, in fact, concede that social pressure is a not-insignificant contributor to the higher ed bubble — I cannot agree that debt-laden students get a pass. For one thing, imprudence isn’t a virtue. Yes, I’m sure some people really did think that a degree in puppetry would be fulfilling — but did they bother to check the expected labor market for such a focus? Research is abundant and free, beginning with the Department of Labor public databases. As an ethics major, I realize that the only job I’m qualified for is one that requires “a degree, any degree” — no one is actively looking for someone with a B.A. in moral philosophy. I knew that going into it. I made my choices, and I have to accept my consequences. Choosing to go in willfully blind doesn’t provide a layer of insulation for when times get tough.

I get that for many people, life is challenging. I don’t think it’s society’s problem.

Evening of Cocktails and Fine Dining

Last Saturday I welcomed the opportunity to have dinner with Jon and Emilie, Tony and Jen, and Joe. We started with cocktails at Tony’s office in Lansing, then went to Copper for dinner. The meal was delightful and the company was heavenly. We had a great time and settled on the dates for the “All Things Tony” trek to The Happiest Place on Earth in early June.

Scotch Is Good for the Soul

Good Scotch whisky is proof of the existence of a benevolent God. In recent weeks, I’ve enjoyed Ardbeg 10-year (a staple of Jim Murray’s list of top whiskys) and now I’ve laid hands upon another rare bottle of Ballentine’s 17-year. Add to that a good deal on Lagavulin 16-year, and life is good.

But added to the mix: Gentleman Jack. I saw a fascinating Discovery Channel documentary on how Jack Daniel’s is made, and it impelled me to pick up a bottle. Glad I did. GJ may become my default sipping whiskey.

NaNoWriMo Is Harder Than It Looks

So I’m writing a novel. It’s harder than it looks. The goal of National Novel Writing Month is to produce a minimum of 50,000 words in the month of November. Some people have already met their goal, and bully for them. I remain stuck in the low four figures, mostly because I started late and have been planning as I go. The prose I’ve generated so far, I’m mostly happy with. And I purchased Scrivener for Windows — an all-in-one writing application for professional writers — and sync its data files with SkyDrive so I can pick up on any of my computers. So far, so good.

The “discipline thing” presents something of a self-improvement opportunity. My goal is to generate 80,000 words and shop it for sale. As a published writer of non-fiction work, I hope I have at least a tiny bit of credibility to get an agent to look twice at my submission. But if not — it doesn’t matter much. I’m enjoying the craft of writing for writing’s sake.

The fun thing about NaNoWriMo? The social aspect. There are active forums and chatrooms for local areas. The “Ottawa County – Grand Rapids” group has been a blast. I’ve done two write-ins with fellow novelists already, and will do more in the coming weeks. It’s been motivating, and fun to connect with fellow local writers. Even if Elizabeth insists on circulating a paper chat room while I try to write and even if Jennifer won’t bring me Scotch. At least Adrianne gave me chocolate because she’s a nice person.

I’m Not a Commodity: Or, Facebook+Spotify Sucks Huge Donkey Dick

Having read of the hype around Spotify, the streaming music service recently made available in the U.S., I was eager to install the app on my phone and enjoy a wide library of musical bliss. The downside? The only way you can actually register for Spotify is to log in with your Facebook account and agree to share an astonishing amount of personal information (including your name, age, location, friends, and profile details) with Spotify. There is no other way to gain access to the music service. Spotify, seemingly caught off-guard, insists that people can create dummy, empty Facebook accounts if they wish — which seems to defeat the purpose.

Long story short: I refuse. I uninstalled Spotify. And for good measure, I logged into Facebook and stripped all of my data from the service. I deleted all my photos (except a really crappy one for the profile), untagged myself from everyone else’s photos, removed all my personal profile details, and set all privacy settings to the most restrictive level. I even “unliked” almost everything I’ve liked in the history of Facebook — only a few dozen things, but still. My profile is now mostly an empty shell devoid of useful marketing data. Fuck you, Mark Zuckerberg.

Note to Big New Media: I’m a human being, not a data profile. I own my information. You don’t. I grow weary of being offered “free” apps or services only to discover later that the fine print says that you get to commodify me into a package of information that you can sell to others and that I have no say in the matter (not even to opt out or to at least curate what gets shared). I’m also out of the game of “logging in with Facebook” (or Google, or Twitter, or …) — give me the chance to log in using de-identified information, or forego me as a customer. Next up for scubbing: Google. I’m watching you, Mountain View.

State of the GOP Presidential Race

Here’s what I know. Most significantly, Rick Perry managed to disappoint me; I can forgive a bad debate performance, but not a 100 percent failure rate in debate performances. Mitt Romney really does look like the default nominee, and despite Erick Erickson’s bloviations, I think he’d be a strong contender and a solid POTUS. Notwithstanding my lack of enthusiasm for his early debate performances (where he came off arrogant and picking fights on social issues he didn’t need to wage) I think Jon Huntsman might be the best man for the job — he’s sufficiently conservative, smart, polished and experienced. Paul, Gingrich, Bachmann and Johnson should probably exit, stage right. And Herman Cain? He just needs to implode and retire from the race before too much damage is done to the GOP brand. Between the sex scandals and the implausibility of 9-9-9, the risk to Republican seriousness is high.

What a Difference A Gigabyte Makes …

Last week, I acquired for the low, low price of $44 a 2 GB memory chip for my netbook (the package also included an 8 GB micro-SD card). I installed it, booted up the machine — and it purrs like a kitten. Still not quite as fast as my full-sized laptop at home (what, with its dual-core Athlon processor and 4 GB of RAM) but the netbook is keeping up admirably with a dual-boot Win7+Fedora16 setup.

Truth be told, I think I’ve finally settled on an all-Microsoft approach to data management. My laptop, netbook and smart phone all run Microsoft OSes, and I use Windows Live SkyDrive for all my personal cloud storage. I’m increasingly centralizing information with OneNote, conveniently synchronized across all my screens. Although it’s not a perfect setup, I’m satisfied with it and am more productive than I was in the days of miscellaneous FTP syncing and random OS mixes.

… Also, a Single Settings Tweak

The only non-MS device left in my portfolio is my HP TouchPad. Granted that I acquired it at firesale prices, I find WebOS to be snappy and elegant. I was tempted to install the CyanogenMod tweak to push it to Android, but why screw around when WebOS works? The only problem I had — and it frustrated me to no end — was TouchFeeds, an RSS reader that’s simple and robust. However, it would hang the tablet on occasion and sometimes be mind-numbingly slow. Slow, to the point I wanted to chuck it at the window and grind my boots on the shards just to show it who’s boss. Funny thing, though: Simply changing the TouchFeeds setting to stop auto-mark-read-as-you-scroll completely fixed the problem. Now, I just push the “mark all read” button and it flies like a dream. Sometimes, just screwing around with settings solves problems.

Pictures on the Wall

Last weekend, I finally got around to printing 21 4-by-6 photos for the huge wall-mounted photo display I got for a steal a while back. Picking which 21 I wanted to print prompted a delightful trek down memory lane. It also reminded me of how bad of a job I do at taking pictures, despite having a 5 MP camera in my HD7. Now the display is prominenly affixed to the wall of my living room.

Computers & Technology

Moving from Android to Windows Phone 7

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When I got my Samsung Epic last fall, I thought Android was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Having updated from Blackberry (two years on the Curve 8330, then two years before that on the “brick” of a 7100i), Android seemed like a dream come true: A touch display with a large, crystal-clear screen, assorted multimedia capabilities, Wi-Fi hotspot, etc. And for a while, my Android device was my new vade mecum, replacing my erstwhile MP3 player and dedicated digital camera.

But the luster soon faded. Android is still something of a Wild West platform. Too much doesn’t work quite right. Too many apps are too buggy to run, leaving an inconsistent look-and-feel to the operating environment and leading to endless frustration and battery yanking. Google pervades the OS; without selling your soul to Mountain View, you cannot take full advantage of the device. Given the challenges from Google on privacy and data aggregation, the less that company knows about me, the better.

The worst part, though, was battery life. The Epic would work five or six hours on a full charge. If I unplugged it at 8 a.m., I’d need to plug it in by 2 p.m. or it would die. And that’s with not-exactly-intensive use. As it happens, the problem isn’t solely Samsung’s fault; apparently, there’s a glitch in the Epic’s programming that forces it to look for cell signals when it loses one. And Sprint’s network, which had been great for me for nine years, took a noticeable dive in quality in the West Michigan market this past January. So, most of the battery drain is the result of an unpatched bug on a now-spotty network. Not fun.

On Friday, I took delivery of a replacement device — an HTC HD7 from T-Mobile. The phone runs Windows Phone 7 (with a WP 7.5 Mango update due in the next few weeks). So far, I get a solid 12 to 14 hours of battery life under the same usability conditions as I would subject the Epic. I went a full day yesterday — unplugged at 8:15 a.m. and when I plugged it in at 10:30 p.m., I still had juice remaining. And that was after several phone calls, text messages, emails, Web browsing, an hour of listening to music via Bluetooth and 45 minutes of continuous screen use while I was reading some RSS feeds.

The thing about the HD7 (and more to the point, WP7) that delights me is the responsiveness of the OS. Microsoft appears to have taken a page from Apple’s play book in setting very tight OEM requirements on the device manufacturers. No bloatware, no special device branding. Just pure WP7. And the minimum tech specs to run WP7 are solid: So far, no matter what I do, I haven’t seen a single stutter or system slowdown. No crashes, no hangs, no trouble.

In addition, I can sync real-time and with no challenges to my OneNote notebooks — long since stored on my Windows Live SkyDrive — and interact seamlessly with Facebook and several different email accounts.

Much of the usual customization that users expect from Microsoft products seem hidden. Unlike the Android, and more like WebOS and iOS, the user has fewer options to tweak the OS or apps. Whether this is a good thing is an open question. I’m a “tweaker” — but if the OS runs smoothly and I can do what I need to do, I may accept a certain loss of control in favor of a consistently high quality of experience. 

There are a few minor disappointments — the Marketplace is still on the anemic side, and I wish the Zune media player had more capability — but for the core features I’ve always needed from a smart phone, WP7 delivers far better than Android 2.2 or Blackberry OS ever did. And with Windows 8 on the horizon, I am confident that Windows Phone apps will come into their own.

Count me as a satisfied customer of Microsoft and T-Mobile. Here’s looking to the Mango update.

Computers & Technology

Review: HP TouchPad

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Last week I was able to acquire an HP TouchPad at an excellent price. I’ve been using it the last few days. Herewith my thoughts on the technology.

Platform
The TouchPad runs WebOS, the mobile operating system developed by Palm and developed by HP after HP’s acquisition of Palm. The TouchPad’s hardware specs are quite delightful. From an Engadget review:

Other specifications include webOS 3.0, “true multitasking,” Touch-to-share, instant-on productivity, a 9.7-inch display (1024 x 768 screen resolution), a dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon CPU (!), inbuilt gyroscope, accelerometer, compass and 16GB / 32GB of internal storage space. There’s also a front-facing 1.3 megapixel webcam, support for video calling, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, A-GPS (3G model only), “twice the memory of a Pre 2” and a set of stereo speakers. 

Strengths
The TouchPad is nothing short of a miracle. The OS is smooth and snappy, outclassing Android Honeycomb by a country mile and giving iOS a serious run for its money. The device’s instant-on capability works perfectly. The integrated speakers are the best I’ve seen on any sort of mobile device — loud and clear. I conducted a test call using the native calling app (Skype account) and found that the conversation was clearer using the external speaker a mic on the TouchPad on a cell call routed to Skype via Google Voice, than that same call would have been on a direct Sprint-to-Sprint cell connection in the same city. (Yeah.)

The native apps are generally well done. The integrated music player and email client do their jobs well, although power users may find a few features lacking. Battery life is very good. The WebOS notification system is efficient and unobtrusive. The various gestures used to navigate the OS are intuitive and the OS handles input well. The tablet syncs well with two Bluetooth devices — an HP external full-sized keyboard (with a wonderful assortment of shortcut keys) and a headset.

Multitasking is excellent. The TouchPad allows multiple apps to run simultaneously, with the user switching “cards” with a simple swipe. I was able to run the music player, a Web browser session, the app store, a task client, and the WordPress app (via Bluetooth keyboard) with no apparent impact on system responsiveness.

Opportunities
A few things do grate. The default UI for native and non-native apps alike is generally beautiful, but scrolling lists have no scroll bar. Technically, no scroll bar should be necessary — but its inclusion helps judge the overall length of a list. It’s an underappreciated visual cue. There is also no “go back” function in the system applications menu: If you want to modify more than one aspect of the TouchPad, you have to dismiss the current applet and start a new one instead of going back to the main menu. And the lack of a native tasks application is perplexing.

The OS has plenty of hooks into various Google products, but none to Microsoft (except Exchange, in the email client). The OS also falls closer to Apple than to Microsoft in terms of limiting the options and customizability of both the device and to most applications. If you like to tinker, you won’t find a lot to keep you busy with the TouchPad. This isn’t a bad thing, since the thing just works, but it’s mildly inconsistent with my usual preference.

The content of the App Store is still light, but core apps are available and it’s not exactly slim pickings. I don’t think there are any basic functions I can’t do, although there are more paid apps than free apps (it seems) than in the Android Market and the OS is new enough (in TouchPad format, anyway) that community commentary is still building. Some of the Flash is inconsistent; I can’t use Bank of America’s Web site because the SafePass system requires a particular Flash combo the TouchPad doesn’t support. 

Assessment
The TouchPad is a first-class device. The OS is beautiful and fluid. The hardware is beyond reproach. Having originally decided to look for an Android-based tablet — then being left wanting by Google’s inconsistent development practices — I am pleased I was able to snag a TouchPad. This is a worthy device, and I hope that the app ecosystem evolves enough to make WebOS-based tablets give Cupertino the night sweats.

Computers & Technology, Personal

Of Late, in the Life of Jason

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It’s been a while since I’ve shared a comprehensive update. Here are a few highlights, in no particular order:

  1. I finally traded up on cell phones. My two-year-old Blackberry Curve 8330 had been limping along for months; the screen was cracked, the space bar barely functioned and the device randomly froze for up to two minutes at a time. So I now own a Samsung Epic. This top-of-the-line Android phone, on Sprint, is phenomenal. It simultaneously runs a 60-feed RSS reader, TweetDeck with several different accounts, multiple email accounts, weather widgets, and the whole shebang — and it hasn’t even stuttered once. Fast, responsive, sleek. Even the camera rocks; the on-board camera fires up instantly, takes immediate photos, and renders them at a lovely 5 MP. I’m seriously in love with this phone.
  2. Life at the hospital has been fun. We incorporated more people into my team, and we lost one. Matt was let go for budget reasons, but we gained Pat, Ronda and Keron. This means that our department now consists of me and five others. We are making great progress on bringing together a group of analysts who had been “lone rangers” into a solid, well-performing team.
  3. My copy editing for Demand Media Studios proceeds apace. I’ve had two formal reviews now. I was mildly smacked for letting a couple of AP errors slip by (so I subscribed to the AP Stylebook Online, an invaluable resource) but I got very high marks for “gate keeping” — that is, exercising good judgment about what to pass and what to reject, and what sorts of content edits to ask of the writers.
  4. I had the great privilege of having a lovely salmon dinner with my friends Emilie and Jon a few weeks ago. They make wonderful hosts and their company warms even the most shriveled of souls.
  5. Tony and My Favorite are now engaged. The wedding is planned for late April at Lake Las Vegas. I am uber-excited.
  6. Well and truly enjoyed watching the election returns last Tuesday. More on that later.
  7. Just passed the two-year point with Pumpkin. Wow.
  8. Upgraded my netbook to Ubuntu 10.10. I am quite pleased with this version, although I am skeptical about Canonical’s decision to go with Unity in 11.04.
  9. Speaking of technology, IE9 beta, 64-bit, is Microsoft’s best browser yet, bar none. With IE9, Windows 7, Kinect, Windows Phone 7, Office 2010, and Office365, Microsoft is on a roll. I hope it continues, and I hope MS pays attention to Ray Ozzie’s farewell memo. As much as I like my new Android phone, I’d rather put my faith in Microsoft than in Google or Apple.
  10. Today’s sociology lesson: Listen to Eminem. Pay attention to the lyrics. There’s some real power there.
  11. The penultimate volume of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series was just released. I picked it up yesterday and am excited to tear into it. Brandon Samuelson has done a great job of wrapping up the series after Jordan’s death, and I’m glad this franchise will have a definitive closing.  I had been introduced to the series by my friend Aaron, during my freshman year at WMU. I regret that I haven’t seen Aaron since then; I fear I destroyed that friendship. I wonder if he has kept up with series.
  12. Saw RED yesterday — the CIA-action flick starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, and Karl Urban. I especially appreciated the cameo by Ernest Borgnine. This was a light-hearted, fun action movie. I enjoyed it more than I expected based on the reviews. Mirren makes me smile.
  13. Weight has been stable but not moving. This is because of (poor) diet and (lack of ) exercise. I keep saying I should get to the gym, and return to a healthier diet, but the mental block persists. Probably time to dive into the depths of my psyche to find an explanation.
  14. Helped my friend Ken move last weekend. He now has an upper-level apartment in Heritage Hill.
  15. Finished reading “On Evil” by Terry Eagleton. Wholly unsatisfying. The abbreviated review from Publisher’s Weekly is probably better and more charitable than I could offer: “An engaging if ultimately unsatisfactory argument in favor of the reality of evil by one of Britain’s most distinguished Marxist literary critics. Analyzing some of Western literature’s major pronouncements on evil from Thomas Aquinas to William Golding, Eagleton (Reason, Faith and Revolution) pieces together what he sees as the defining features of evil in a rather unsystematic way, before grounding his own vision of evil in Freud’s notion of the death drive, describing evildoers as suffering from an unbearable sense of non-being which must be taken out on the other. Despite its undeniably enjoyable verve and wit, the book’s claims are undermined by a rather arbitrary use of source material as well as a belated and inadequate articulation of its major theoretical claim. Muddy talk about different levels of evil and an undeveloped but evidently important distinction between wickedness and evil suggest that the author’s notions on the topic would be better served by a larger, more sustained work. Nonetheless, as an attempt to take seriously the reality of extreme wrongdoing without recourse to either religiously grounded certitudes or a total sociological determinism, it offers a promising alternative.”
  16. I ran a few errands yesterday. A lot of people are out shopping — all of the stores and malls were packed to an extent I haven’t seen since last Christmas.
  17. If you’re a young, balding male — shaving your head is ok, provided you have a sharp blade. No one needs to see a scalp inflamed by razor burn.
  18. I’ve been enjoying some adult beverages with Alaric and Sondra at their condo a few times these last few months. I bring Scotch, they bring gin or some exotic liqueur. Yummy.
  19. Speaking of Scotch, two thumbs up for Johnnie Walker Swing.
  20. I don’t see the point of funny hats with dangly strings by the ears.

OK, all for now.

Computers & Technology, Personal, Politics & Culture, Writing, Editing & Journalism

Dog Days

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‘Tis the dog days of summer. The heat and humidity have been consistently, oppressively high in Grand Rapids this month, punctuated only by the occasional thunderstorm. This has led to a wonderful case of the blahs.

A few reflections and updates, in no particular order:

  1. Technology. I continue to be frustrated by my lack of data synchronization across  platforms. My primary computer is an HP laptop, and my traveling machine is an Asus netbook. The laptop runs Windows 7 and Office 2010; the netbook runs Ubuntu Linux 10.04 LTS with Evolution as the default mail client. I lease a private Exchange server with SharePoint services, but Evolution cannot speak to Exchange 2007 or higher. I’m stuck in this horrid limbo where unless I wish to use a Web application for consistent PIM use (which, I really, really don’t — especially when I’m running the netbook offline), then I’m screwed. I have Hotmail, Gmail, a personal web host running Horde, a business Exchange server, and a BlackBerry that talks to the hospital.  And none of it will just work. As much as it pains me to say it, I may just wipe the netbook and install Windows 7 and Office 2010 and hope for adequate performance.
  2. Writing. I am being evaluated for a position as the media guide for About.com. The position pays pretty well — a monthly stipend of $675 minimum for the first two years, with additional bonuses for increases in pageveiws — but I have to do a fair amount of work to be considered a finalist.  Today I wrote a 950-word article on branding strategies for newspapers, which was the first requested work product.  I should know more in a few weeks. Additionally, some of my DS work is now showing up on the Small Business section of the Houston Chronicle‘s chron.com.
  3. Work. Hospital life is interesting. The transition into a pseudo-supervisory position has been successful so far, but a lot of work remains and we are likely going to have additional changes in staffing over the next six months that will color how things unfold.  On the bright side, I do have a nice new office with a door and my own pet giant orb weaver outside the window (I call her Bertha, and I would NOT want to be a fly on her web).
  4. Friends. Social life has been somewhat sedate. Last Friday, I had a meeting with Alaric that transitioned to Cambridge House. It was quite nice chatting business while sipping a Johnnie Walker Blue, and I even had the high privilege of seeing the lovely and gracious Sondra again for the first time since the wedding reception.
  5. Family. My brother is home from Iraq, although he is returning soon for a second year-long contract. Oh, and my mother’s kitchen renovation is moving along nicely. And Gradey had a nasty bacterial infection earlier this month.
  6. School. People seem to be doing well in school.  Ryan and Jess are doing great in their classes this semester (and they both got solid A’s in anatomy!) and my mom rocked out her American Government class. Almost makes me want to go back to grad school.
  7. Physical. My weight continues to be stable. I still think I’m about 40 pounds too heavy, but stability is good. I can go down from there.
  8. Hair. I dyed my hair yesterday. I was going to have it done the last time I went in for a trim, but the stylist nearly decapitated me so THAT was out of the question. The last time I had color done, I went a few shades lighter than my natural brown. Unfortunately, some gray was appearing and the old color was fading and I though I looked like some sort of queer calico cat, so it was high time to fix it. I went darker this time, a deep oak brown, and I did it myself. And I didn’t even stain anything, woohoo.
  9. Politics. I have been trading emails with a woman about the governor’s race, presumably off the “Vote Hoekstra” post (which was cross-posted to Red County). Interesting how diligent she has been in tracking down who supports whom. Speaking of the governor’s race, I still encourage support for Pete Hoekstra. Of all the candidates, I think he is the best choice for Michigan.
  10. Transportation. Looks like I’ll be getting a new car, as soon as next weekend. That will be nice. I think I’m going to just buy something outright and avoid a payment, so I may go the “short-term beater” route for now.  I’m sort of in a bind, insofar as I am now expected to do a lot more traveling for the hospital (e.g., to Freemont) and can’t spend as much time in transit as I used to.

All for now.

Computers & Technology, Politics & Culture, Religion, Social Media, Marketing & Privacy

News Roundup III

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Of interest —

  • Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City argues that making illegal immigrants pay a fine, catch up on back taxes and learn English in order to become lawful residents is not “amnesty” because the illegals aren’t getting something for nothing.  Ummm, OK.  He also says that the Catholic Church supports a country’s right to enforce its borders, although the U.S. bishops believe (apparently, anyway; straight answers are hard to come by) that current U.S. policy is unjust because … well, just because.  Inasmuch as there are signs of hope within the U.S. episcopacy regarding its recovery from its jackbooted leftism following Vatican II (remember how the bishops got involved with nuclear disarmament?), on some issues the Men in Purple haven’t quite figured out how to reconcile state sovereignty against the nostrums of left-wing human-rights activists.  Although I am sympathetic to the plight of many poor Mexicans who seek employment in the United States — I dealt with some of them, working for a Meijer store near a farming community, and came away from that experience with a positive impression of itinerant laborers — one would think the bishops would seek first to influence the socioeconomic situation in Mexico before reflexively criticizing the push by some conservatives to enforce existing border-security laws.  This is a supply-and-demand problem, but wouldn’t it be more consistent with authentic Gospel teachings to agitate for reform in Mexico’s redistributionist, crime-ridden culture than to berate Americans who oppose an open border and all the social and economic externalities it entails?
  • I am giving serious consideration to dumping my Facebook profile. The growing privacy/security instability of that platform is really starting to worry me; I am not a fan of having my personally identifiable information made available to the masses, shared without my consent and sold like a commodity with no compensation pushed in my direction.  There is a call for an open-source set of APIs to replicate Facebook functions without needing to use Facebook.  I’m considering doing something similar with this blog — deleting the Facebook and using gillikin.org as my central social-networking repository, with Twitter as the outbound push and all of my data focused inward, under my complete control.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Computers & Technology

Tech Industry 2015

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Blogger Charlie Stross makes some interesting five-year predictions for the tech industry. The short version is that he senses a certain blood-in-the-water mentality among the major tech players because the future of computing rests not with hardware or software, per se, but rather in consumer devices that seamlessly connect to a cloud for distributed data and applications. The world of desktop computers with locally installed software that have occasional use of the Internet — a paradigm dominant since the early 1990s — is about to be radically upended.

He seems to suggest that HP’s recent Palm bid, and Microsoft’s dropping of the Courier tablet project, and Apple’s Fort-Knox security practices, and Google’s cloud focus, and the leapfrogging in wireless infrastructure in the U.S., all point in one direction: Hardware will become a secondary, generic, low-margin commodity even as applications that reside on a single hard drive lose market share and visibility. In Stross’s view, as I take it, the future lies with Apple’s business model of a walled-off garden of propriety software and strictly regulated third-party applications, which users access seamlessly through devices that sync with centralized servers that perform OS upgrades, store data and configuration settings, and push subscribed applications directly to the user.

To some degree, I agree that Stross’s hypothetical has potential. There is an unambiguous drive toward centralization and coordination of the user experience. Cloud computing has a real benefit to people who move from place to place, and having a trusted vendor coordinate access and security rights is useful.

That said, I question (in a constructive sense only) his overall conclusion, for a couple of reasons:

  1. Many people have information that they refuse to push into the publicly accessible ecosphere. Ever wonder what people do with the billions of dollars each year they download in porn?  Hint: It’s not going on a discoverable cloud server, nor will trillions of pirated MP3s. As long as people desire privacy for critical files, including most importantly pirated media files, local storage will be essential, and as long as local storage is essential, the role of the cloud (although perhaps strong) will not “kill” hardware. The RIAA and the Apple App Store actually work against widespread public adoption of cloud storage: Why risk a lawsuit and the risk of peeking by the vendor or law enforcement, or a vendor making your decisions for you about which applications and data you are allowed to have, when local storage is faster/cheaper/more secure?
  2. High-end computer gaming — just try it on an Atom processor.  Have *you* experienced Barrens chat on a netbook?  Likewise with apps that require large datasets, like some statistics packages. And don’t get me started on high-end video and image editing, or publication design.  Tablet or netbooks have their obvious benefits, but they just aren’t capable, in current form, of replacing a full-strength desktop/laptop system, and until they do, these new devices may serve a niche role in the lives of those who own them, but they will compliment, not displace, the current computing paradigm.
  3. A backlash may be brewing on privacy. As Facebook and Twitter grow, so also does a sense that perhaps we are “too connected.” I suspect that there is an upper limit to how much personal information — including sensitive data — we are willing to push into the cloud, and as society matures about social-media concepts, my gut says we will err on less sharing than today, rather than more. The initial rejection of Google Buzz was significant, as is ongoing user (and Congressional!) scrutiny of Facebook’s shifting privacy standards. We may be willing to share information early on, before we are aware of the drawbacks, but eventually we will pull back from the brink.
  4. Sometimes some files and applications are too important to trust that always-on network connectivity will be an option. Too many places still have too sporadic access to data services. Data access is also so slow that syncing and using a massive filesystem remotely using Wifi or 3G is prohibitive: If I want to browse for a song in my 30 GB music library, am I really going to wait for the library to stream, or to wait as the file cache reloads?  Or will I sync my Blackberry music library via USB every couple of months, and call it good?  I’m not sure that widespread, high-quality, high-speed wireless access will be ubiquitous enough to support a mobile-device/cloud-access model for at least a decade. We just aren’t where we need to be with open-access infrastructure.
  5. Users like consistency. As long as I have a radically difference experience working on my laptop with local data versus using a Web app for cloud data versus using my Blackberry for yet other data, I’m going to be in a “roll your own” environment that speaks against a desire to look to a single vendor’s all-in-one solution as my default go-to strategy. I suspect savvy users will act similarly. I will never buy an iPhone or an iPad because I refuse to be locked into Apple’s proprietary model, nor do I put anything but the bare minimum into Google’s “free” services.  Instead, I have my laptop and a long-running contract with a professional hosting company. I have my own private browser-accessible cloud (I use Gladinet software to sync critical files real-time with a protected file tree on my hosted account), my own IMAP server that won’t be shut unless I shut it down, my own public FTP directory on my private server for world-sharing sharing files (and occasionally, hosting them for others), and my own WordPress blog that won’t be shut down because a user complains about content. Everything I need, I have on my own, at little cost and hassle, and customized to my exact preferences.  Although most users aren’t going to go to the same level as I do, enough will, I suspect, especially when the cost of the walled garden is a nickle here and a dime there, every day of the week.
  6. Hubris is a powerful roadblock.  Yes, Apple’s recent strategic moves are suggestive. But what happens when Apple’s market share is eroded overnight by something new and disruptive? What if a kick-ass HTC unit running Windows Phone 7 Series, this autumn, gives the iPhone a run for its money? What if the FTC signals it’s interested in breaking up Google? What if Microsoft gets its act together and develops a truly comprehensive, seamless online suite that transparently extends Windows 7 with Office 2010 and its new smartphone OS?

My gut prediction for the tech industry in 2015:

  • Apple’s market share remains constant, and people continue to give Apple the credit for having more influence than it really does.
  • Consumer pushback against invasive data practices by Facebook and Google result in a rollback of data-sharing, prompted by the threat of legislation and FTC inquiries and as a strategic move against online-ad monopoly lawsuits against Google. As aggressive opt-in strategies proliferate, people choose to opt-in less frequently, thereby undercutting a data-commodity revenue model that undergirds a chunk of Google’s strategic plan.
  • Open-source solutions (led, most iconically, by Canonical) grow in sophistication and polish but cannot significantly improve market share.
  • Infrastructure improves but is still not capable of reliably supporting ubiquitous cloud computing on mobile devices.
  • Hardware complexity continues to advance (more and more cores, more and more memory, increasingly powerful GPUs) but almost no consumer applications will tax the new standard of hardware resources. This will have serious implications in the enterprise market.
  • Microsoft has an internal shake-up that starts to move from a “battlin’ business unit” model into a more top-down and centralized hierarchy; this has implications for core business decisions.
  • Search is concentrated between Google and Bing, and the browser wars are largely as they are today.

Of course, the nice thing about predictions is that it’s mostly just a random guess.