My PC is becoming irrelevant… or at least boring

I started seriously using Pinterest yesterday. And it is really cool – it’s a place to pin web content that you don’t want to lose, as well as find stuff that others have shared.  I can see that it could be huge.

The problem is, Pinterest is oriented around finding things on my PC browser.  And I very rarely use my PC for casual browsing (the kind of activity that I might stumble upon something that I want to share).  For blogs, news, videos or music, I am typically using a handheld device (tablet, phone or Kindle) rather than a PC.  In the morning I’ll flip through news feeds on Flipboard and curated articles on Zite — both on my iPad.  I may open up the New York Times or Wired in their dedicated apps.  I read Technology Review on my Kindle. And none of these devices offer me an easy way of “pinning” to Pinterest.

And while I could take this article off onto a tagngent about what Pinterest needs to do to survive, I think the general point is more interesting: My PC has morphed from a general purpose device to a very specific one: it is my content creation station. Whether it’s coding a Powershell utility or editing a document, when I need to do “real work” I do it on one of my PCs.

So this isn’t news, right?  Everyone’s been talking about this for a year or more.  But here’s the new data point: Even if I wanted to switch back to the PC, it would be difficult.  I tried today.  I had to keep my iPad open to remember which sites were the original sources of the articles, and then go to those sites.  The app-centric behavior of the iPad gets us away from URLs.

The lesson here for Microsoft is simple: To make Windows 8 successful, it needs to make my PC act like my tablet.  WIth a seamless interface so I can switch between the two at will.  At that point my PC will be relevant again.

Dear WordPress: You’re a blogging service. Don’t be so clever.

This morning I was reading Scott Andersen’s blog on my iPad and wanted to make a comment. As I’ve said before, the iPad is a greta consumption device. I have several newsfeed readers that I use depending on my mood; today it was FlipBook.

After trying unsuccessfully to navigate a bizarre presentation format, I decided that maybe I had to open the blog in a browser rather than trying to do it in the limited window that FlipBook provides. So I tried that and had the same experience. So I thought that Scott was being too clever in his blog design. Sensing a topic for my own blog, I switched to my blog (in the Atomic Web browser) and started to write. And I couldn’t. The text didn’t display, the interface was difficult to navigate… it was a complete mess.

After playing around with this a bit (because I didn’t make the design changes that WordPress was showing me) I realized that WordPress, in a misguided effort to “optimize” their site for the iPad, had created this monster with animated page flips and different background colors, and then arbitrarily applied it to their hosted blogs. And while the pages are almost attractive, the site takes far longer to load on my lowly iPad, and is completely unusable once I’m there. I can’t leave a comment, I can’t post, and most importantly, I CAN’T TURN IT OFF.

Of course there is a very usable iPad client app for WordPress, and that’s what I am using right now. But apps for a web-based service should merely be a convenience, not a necessity. In trying to copy Flipbook’s page-based graphics-focused look they’ve made their site pretty much unusable. And that’s a shame, ‘cuz I hate changing blogging services.

So here are the lessons learned today.

1. Pretty does not equal usable.
2. Make sure you know where the fault lies before getting mad.

…jeff

On living a transient life

I just spent a week visiting with my uncle in Winnipeg, MB.  He has lived in essentially the same city for roughly 70 years.  From his current home we were able to walk to all of the other houses he lived in, as well as all of the homes his parents lived in after he left home.  He’s very well-travelled and has had an extremely rich life, including some amazing careers, and all from the same place.  This has allowed him to achieve a very deep and rich connection to the city that he calls home.

I’ve lived in 2 countries and 7 cities since leaving home at 18. I’ve loved the breadth of experiences. I’ve met some amazing people (a few of whom I’ve kept in touch with).  But the last week makes me question how much we give up by wandering rather than staying in one place.  Every time we move we spend a ton of time and energy getting to know the new area and new neighbors.  We create new friends and new networks. We learn where to shop for groceries and how to get rid of garbage.

I can’t go back, and I don’t have a way to test the hypothesis, and it is probably very different for every individual.  But it is worth thinking about as we consider our next move.

I finally understand military inspections

I’m trying to sell my house right now, an effort that achieves somewhat greater urgency with the purchase of my new house this afternoon.

As part of the sales process, we have staged the house and now have to keep the whole thing in a museum-like perfect state, so that it looks like no one lives there but a potential buyer could move right in. With two kids and two cats, this is a challenging exercise. Every morning I spend an hour or more tidying, cleaning, vacuuming, dusting, making beds, and generally getting the house back to perfect.

The house has never been cleaner or prettier. I feel like I’m violating the laws of nature, somehow reversing the cloud of entropy that surrounds every house and gradually turns it from order into chaos.

As I go through this morning routine, two things come to mind.

First, I like the house this way. And the only way it gets this way is if there is some amount of accountability (in this case, the daily showings to potential buyers). And this is why the military has inspections: to prevent individual units from devolving into chaos because no one checks to see if the socks are put away and the rifles are well-maintained.

And my second epiphany is that this is what my mother (an obsessive housekeeper) used to do for hours every single day. Vacuum, dust, clean walls, clean floors, do laundry, etc etc etc. And now I get why she did it — there’s a certain satisfaction in having a really immaculate house with every single thing put away. “A place for every thing, and every thing in its place.”

I don’t want to live like this forever, but I am going to try and schedule enough social events at our house that once a month or so it has to get back to this state. Just so that things don’t get completely out of hand.

Location:Between the house I am selling and the one that I’m buying

Windows Phone… still a hit, still unknown

So #1 Daughter has had her Windows Phone (Samsung Focus) for a month now and still loves it… thinks I should ditch my iPhone and get one.  Gotta admit I like it — great UI, good battery life, great music integration with Zune, gaming integration with Xbox Live, good camera.

My iPhone is coming up for renewal soon… I may just go for it.

It may mean migrating from Evernote to OneNote, a product that I’ve had an on-again/off-again love affair with for several years now.

The parallels between Google and Microsoft (take 1)

When I joined Microsoft in 1997, the company had just over 20,000 employees. By the year 2000, it had grown to almost 40,000 employees, had a disastrous court appearance culminating in a DoJ consent decree, and was starting to question its future and its role in changing the world. Employees were talking (privately at first) that it wasn’t the same anymore, that the push for short-term profit was edging out the push for innovation and long-term successs. People were starting to question whether their role really was to “change the world”.

Now as I read the articles of about Google’s issues: only having one real product, employees complaining about bureaucracy, eliminating private projects, and being investigated around the world, I believe that there is a natual cycle to this. Google, like Microsoft, grew out of an idea held by a couple of really bright people who had the drive to make their idea stick. And once both companies got to that 20,000-30,000 employee level, the ability of that leadership to keep the entire company on task was starting to wane. I think Google is actually hitting this earlier than Microsoft did and their problems are in some ways more acute because their revenue is, even more than Microsoft’s was, completely focused on one single product. But it’s a natural evolution. The trick will be to get through it and get back to innovating… or fall by the wayside as an example of what could have been. Anyone remember Novell?

Sometimes technology is just too good

This morning while syncing my iPhone I decided to import the pictures as well.  Since I use Windows Live Photo Gallery to manage our family photos, after importing I used the facial recognition feature to tag pictures with family names.  Usually this just finds the photos I haven’t yet tagged.  This time it showed a skewed and old picture of my son and daughter.  When I hovered over the thumbnail to see the whole picture it showed a completely different picture, of my daughter and I six years ago (in the image below, the two top photos are the thumbnails of recognized faces, while the bottom photo is the actual photo that was shown when I hovered):

When software tries too hard

But if you look really closely you’ll see that behind my head there’s a framed photo of the kids when they were much younger.  And since the main faces were already tagged, WLPG was going through the photos trying to find other faces… and found them in a photograph.

So yes, those are faces.  But I won’t bother tagging them.

Sometimes software tries just a bit too hard.

Okay so the iPad isn’t perfect…

This week I’m trying to get along without my laptop when I’m out of the office; instead I am taking my iPad and an Apple Bluetooth keyboard.

This mostly works. Some of the reasons it doesn’t are my fault — I’m a PC guy so some of the Mac conventions on the iPad and keyboard throw me, for example the lack of a key to delete the current character (the Mac “delete” key deletes the character to the left, like the PC Backspace key).

But other times I just get tripped up by the general orneriness of iOS. For example, I wanted to post a picture that I downloaded from my camera using the Camera Connection Kit. On my iPad I can view the JPEG image embedded in a raw (.NEF) file, but I can’t extract that image to post it. And Facebook doesn’t know what to do with an NEF file. So while there are other ways to do this, they’re all complicated and time-consuming.

I was also cursing at Mobile Safari until I discovered Atomic Web Browser, which is faster than Safari and seems to have less trouble with odd sites.

But with Office^2 HD and Dropbox on my iPad, connected via the Keyboard and using the Pogo Sketch stylus rather than my finger, the iPad starts to feel like a real productivity tool. Certainly it feels very good to be typing this blog on it.

So I’m going to keep trying, and I’m going to keep talking about it. And we’ll see how it goes.

iPhone vs Windows Phone – Steel cage death match

I keep getting asked about whether someone should be an iPhone or a Windows Phone now that Microsoft has shipped a decent phone. Rather than repeat the same info every time I’m going to try and summarize my thoughts here. Bear in mind that these are MY thoughts… your mileage may vary, dealer may sell for less, slightly higher in Canada. I have an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.1, and my wife has a Samsung Focus running Windows Phone 7. So I am speaking purely from personal experience.  And I know

First off, they’re both great phones. You can pick either one and be, in turn, elated and frustrated. But how frustrated and how elated you are will depend on what specifically you’re looking for. So here are the bulleted advantages & disadvantages of each platform.  I tried to focus on the positive of each, so where one phone wins I list that as an advantage for one, not as a disadvantage for the other.

Also, there are a lot of things that are great about BOTH platforms.  That list is at the end.

iPhone

Advantages

• Lots of productivity apps – from ToodleDo to Evernote to CamCard you’ll have your pick.
• Multiple mailboxes of different types (ActiveSync, IMAP, POP) all aggregated so if you want to you can see all your mail in one list.
• Contacts sync with GMail and Hotmail and Exchange… can aggregate contacts from several sources.
• Kindle app and iBook app so you can take your pick of e-reader bookstores.
• If you use iTunes you will feel right at home.  iTunes integration, AAC and MP3 support.
• Lots of games.  Your kids will love to borrow this phone.
• Lots of accessories – cases, speaker docks, alarm clocks — so you can personalize your device.
• Several turn-by-turn GPS options (I prefer Motion-X) as well as Bing Maps and Google Maps… if you get lost it’s your own fault!
• Multitasking with an app picker and cut&paste — it’s easy to move data between apps if they’ve been modified for iOS4.

Disadvantages

• Voice calls drop frequently.  And while Apple blames this on AT&T, I have a lot of AT&T phones.  This is an iPhone problem.
• If you use a lot of multitasking apps, you’ll be rebooting your phone frequently.
• No expandable storage.
• Requires AAC & iTunes for DRM music…  doesn’t play well with Xbox media extenders.
• Voice Control is hit-or-miss.
• Uses the painful 30-pin iPod connector.  You’ll need a bunch of these cables.  Haven’t these people heard of Micro USB?

Windows Phone 7

Advantages

• Better battery life… you can get through a whole day without a charge if you don’t use GPS.
• Tiles let you quickly jump to people or apps you need quickly, and show you things like # of unread messages or texts quickly.
• Easier to dial and use one-handed.
• Voice dial works great.  Speaker-independant voice recognition.  ”Call Beth Newfeld at Home” works.
• Facebook integration and Skydrive integration allow you to stay on top of your family events while at work (and vice versa)
• Xbox Live integration… Xbox Live Arcade games are making their way to Windows Phone
• Zune Pass – if you have one ($15/month) you can download or stream unlimited music.
• Facebook integration means when you take a picture you can immediately post it without jumping between apps.
• People tiles let you get quick updates on the important people in your life.  These work very well.  One-touch and you can call, text, email or check their Facebook status.
• Several form factors – thin touchscreen, landscape slider.
• Great soft keyboard with multiple suggestions.  This can really speed your typing and in my opinion is a better approach than iPhone’s Auto-correct.
• Wireless sync via wi-fi for backing up the phone and synching playlists and photos.  No cables needed.
• Photos can be auto-uploaded to Facebook, Skydrive or both.  No more “take a picture, start an app, upload a picture” cycles.

Disadvantages

• No twitter integration.  So it’s not really a “social” phone, it’s a Facebook phone.
• Apps save context rather than multitask – this is good for 90% of use cases (and is easier on the processor) but apps still have to be written properly to do this.
• No cut & paste although rumor is that this is coming in Q1 of 2011.
• The only turn-by-turn guidance is a pay service from AT&T :(
• Many, many fewer apps.  While more are coming, the app store is less than 1% of the iPhone or Android stores.
• After the Home screen for a few favorite apps, there’s no app organization.  Apps are displayed alphabetically.  I don’t know if search works for apps… hopefully it does.

Things that I love about BOTH phones

• Netflix app.  You can stream movies over 3G or Wifi.  Wow.  I love being able to watch an episode of Babylon 5 while I am working out!
• A lot of great productivity apps exist that synchronize with the cloud, so you’re data isn’t just trapped on your phone.  I don’t like anything to be “just on my phone” and so all of my critical apps synch with other places.  Evernote is one of my favorite things.
• Calendar integration with Windows Live Mail and GMail.  I have 9 separate calendars for different parts of my life and I can view one or all of them.

 

My next adventure — Zilladog

You never know where or when you’re going to make a business connection that clicks.  At a party a few months ago we were talking about “widgets”: great ideas that need technical execution to take off.  And I mentioned that after several months of quasi-retirement I was looking for a couple of widgets rather than go back to working as an employee.  And our hostess mentioned that she had such a widget.  Fast forward a couple of months, throw in some brainstorming sessions and a lot of meetings with far too much coffee, and one intense 24-hour trip to San Diego, and here I am, putting together the final details on joining Zilladog as partner and CTO.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Zilladog, it’s safe email and more for kids.  The target is elementary and middle-school kids whose parents are concerned about the spam and ads that kids on a free email account like Gmail or Hotmail could be exposed to.  It’s a great concept and even with minimal marketing has a lot of subscribers.  My job is to figure out how we can efficiently update the site, prioritize the new features, build a development plan and roll out several new releases in the next year.  I can’t announce too much about the plans yet but you’re going to be hearing more shortly.

It’s great working on this, mainly because it’s small enough to get up tp speed quickly, yet challenging enough to keep my brain fully engaged.  In the past year, I’ve spent a lot of time doing volunteer work.  And while it’s rewarding and time-consuming, the things that I was doing really didn’t challenge my mind.  I’m an engineer and engineering projects get my mind working.  Startups are a lot of fun as long as you have the resources to continue to put food on the table while you’re waiting for them to take off.  And they’re also a lot of fun when you have some experience to help you decide what to do.  And what the heck, I haven’t worked on something this small in 20 years.  So it’s back to my roots!

Wish me luck!