BKeeney Briefs

There is a thoughtful blog post from Mattias Sandström on the Association of REALbasic Professionals site.  (Direct Link)

I think it fits in rather well with my post back in May about the REAL Software beta process.  Mattias’ standpoint as a user of a lot of other IDE’s is well taken.  I really like the idea of polling the beta users about the release.  I wish it was possible to ask about every change but I know that’s not feasible but the number of bugs that were marked as fixed but were obviously not in the past couple of releases is insane.  There has to be a better way!

I would agree with Mattias regarding the beta mailing list.  I find it to be waste of time and energy.  I prefer forum style discussions.

Here is my prediction though, if RS tried to switch to the forums:  Instead of using the forum, the RB “old-timers” will insist upon the mailing list because they feel it’s better.  How do I know this?  When RS tried to kill the NUG mailing list a few years ago the “old-timers” threatened to create their own mailing list and many threatened to stop using RB altogether!  In the long run RS backed down and I lost a lot of respect for RS and the RB community as a whole.  They were being held hostage by a very select and vocal group of users.

For the beta program to get better, RS has to do what’s best for RS – not necessarily for us users.  If the beta program isn’t doing what it’s supposed to be doing then it’s time to kill it and start over with testers that can do it right.

I discovered, today, that automated backups are only good if the backup actually takes place.  A directory on the BKeeney website got corrupted and unusable today (don’t ask since that’s a really good question) wiping out the key to, well, everything.  After scrambling to figure it out I called the ISP to see if they could help (like maybe from their backup).

They gladly said that, of course, they could help.  They usually have 2 backups that they can restore from.  The tech looked up the info and then sheepishly said, “Until it gets too big”.  Which of course, with 20 hours of video (in both H.264 and Flash formats), easily exceeds their limit.

So, for now, the bkeeney site is down until I can get things reinstalled.  Oh, and just to make matters worse, the website of the software author we use is also currently down (related?  possibly but I doubt it) so if it takes a full install to recover I’ll have to wait until they come back up to download the install packages.

Did I mention that I’ve been incredibly busy with consulting work?  I don’t have time for this crap.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time you know that I really like my Sony eReader.  Well, I used to really like my Sony eReader.  Now that the iPad has been announced I look at my eReader with fond memories and can’t wait for the iPad.  My Sony eReader is now dead to me.

The eReader is fine for what it does but it’s a one-trick-pony.  I’ve grumbled on more than one occasion that I don’t like seeing book graphics in 16 shades of gray and the slow refresh rate is annoying (but livable).  Not being able to zoom graphics is annoying too.  The ability to play MP3′s on my eReader is totally worthless (to me at least) since I always have my iPhone with me.  I’ve never used it so why pay for it?

I have an accessory that allows my eReader to be read at night that works fairly well.  But, it uses regular batteries that wear out in a couple of weeks and it makes using the eReader during the day a pain because it makes the text less readable.  The iPad won’t have those problems.

Let’s talk briefly about software.  The Library application that comes with the Sony eReader stinks.  It’s not a native Mac app, it’s not a native Windows app.  It sucks on both platforms.  In fact, I hate it so much that unless I buy a book through their store I use an application called Calibre.  I hate it too, I just hate it much less because it manages my books much better.  iTunes does a great job of managing my music, movies, and podcasts so I can’t imagine that it would suddenly suck at managing my books.

I thought that selling the iPad to my wife was going to be hard but it turned out to the be exact opposite.  She wants one in the kitchen.  Why?  A little background is needed first.

My lovely wife is also a very talented cook.  She’s adventurous and is always trying a new recipe or even making one up from several she’s found on the internet.  She prints the recipe out and then takes it into the kitchen.  Imagine being able to do that from the iPad which she just puts on the counter.  If there’s not an iPhone app for a chef (I bet there are several already) there will be a couple of specific ones for the iPad (soon)!  And with a nice glass screen, there’s not too much worry about getting the device dirty.

The iPad has one huge advantage for me – the app store.  Our family already has 3 iPhones.  Don’t make me count up how many apps we’ve downloaded (both free and commercial) but I’d bet that it’s probably close to a hundred.  When we get our iPad we’ll already have the software for it.  No researching and purchasing new pieces of software that may or may not do what we want – we already have them!

I think the iPad will be awesome for Boomers.  How many of you have Boomer friends or relatives that call you for tech support on the Windows or Macintosh computers?  Show of hands?  Thought so.  The iPad is so for them.  Do any of your friends and relatives call you on how to use their iPhone or iPod Touch?  Didn’t think so.  The iPhone is so simple that hardly anyone has issues figuring it out.

Anyone who says the iPad won’t be a huge for business is nuts.  I have clients, right now, that could sell an iPad application if we converted their app to work on it.  Imagine an HVAC service technician, rather than lugging around a ton of paperwork and a big, clunky laptop, showing up at your house, logging all of his work, including when he arrived, what tests he performed, results, and then showing you the iPad display showing all of this and then billing your credit card directly (though an add-on card reader) and then emailing your the results?

Another example:  My doctor is all electronic and the interface to his current tablet stinks – they all hate using it!  They spend minutes clicking and doing crazy things in the interface.  I can imagine them using an iPad with the keyboard attachment and being more efficient with their time when they use an interface designed around a touch screen rather than an interface meant for a desktop app that’s been forced onto a tablet.

The list goes on but the possibilities are limitless.  You think Apple demonstrating the iWork apps on the iPad was a fluke?  Nope.  Apple thinks this thing is going to sell like hotcakes to business and I happen to think they’re right.

What do you think?

Yay!  It’s about flipping’ time!  Sony finally came to their senses and released a version of the eReader software for Mac OS X.

The installation is fairly onerous as it makes you restart your Macintosh.  When’s the last time you had an installer do that that wasn’t part of the operating system?

Once you restart your Mac and start the eBook Library application (version 3.0) looks just like its Windows counterpart even down to the non-standard (on either platform) scroll-bars and generic listbox.  On the left side of the application you have a typical listbox with your library, a link to the eBook Store and a search field.

At the bottom of the listbox is bevel button that allows you to create a new collection.  The developers left a few things out that would have been handy like being able to right click in the listbox and a menu command to do the same things.

One of the things that I really dislike about the eBook Libarary software (on either platform) is that it makes absolutely no attempt at managing the book files.  Whether you import a file or a folder full of books it keeps track of its currently location.  So if you move your books or delete by accident the eBook software won’t know it until you try  to access them.

Perhaps worse is the cryptic message when you delete things from the eBook Library listbox.

Huh?  Doesn’t that look like your files are going to get deleted?  Don’t worry, they’re not.

Drag and drop is a sorely needed addition to this application.  There are only two ways to import books into the library:  Use the Import File or Import Folder menu command from the File menu.  How long has drag and drop been around now?

One of the things that I like about iTunes is its ability to manage the files for me.  If I import a bunch of files it puts them into a single location.  I’m sure some people hate that feature but I have over 13,000 music files.  I like that it manages them and puts them in the proper spot.  I don’t have nearly that many eBooks titles but even managing a hundred soon gets tiring.

Why is it tiring?  Well, besides having to come up with my own location there’s no way to add/edit meta information about the books.  I’d love to have a Read/Unread field so I can easily track which books I’ve read and not read.  How about a rating field so that I can easily track which books I’ve liked?  After a couple of hundred books I don’t remember which book titles I do or do not like other than some vague recollections about which author it is.  Of course I can create my own collections to do this but it’s not very intuitive.

One thing that IS nice about the eBook Library software for Mac OS X is that you can now read your sony DRM books on your Mac without having to resort to running Windows in Parallels or VMWare or even rebooting using Bootcamp.  As far as I know, there is no way of doing this with the Kindle (although I know there is synchronizing between the Kindle and iPhone app).

All-in-all, the Mac OS X version is very simple application that lets Mac users work with their Sony eReader.  It is a poor port from its Windows brethren but I will give Sony for coming up with a Mac version.  However, all the things I don’t like about the Windows version they did to the Mac version too.  Sorry, Sony but I think you can do a better job and I’m hoping that the next version is better for both Mac AND Windows users.

I’ve had a sudden uptick in time spent at the gym and I have a heart rate monitor. I’d love to be able to track my workouts to see if I’m doing okay or need to up the intensity a little.  Apple and Nike have the Nike+ where millions of people are storing and tracking their running statistics.

In the July issue of Wired there’s an article on how Nike unleashed the power of personal metrics.   This is what I want for my heart rate monitor.  I want to track and be reminded of what I can push myself to do and I want it in an easy-to-use, no-brainer iPhone application.

I’ve even looked into it a bit.  There’s the SMHeart Link heart rate monitor but it uses a ‘wireless bridge’ (does that mean it’s wifi?) and the reviews on the Apple App store have not been stellar (but is that in part due to the free app requiring a $125 adapter?).  Is there a BlueTooth heart rate monitor that I can use with the iPhone (even if I have to develop it myself!)?

I found this page that has a lot of iPhone apps that aid in your workout.  But after reading through the reviews none of them use a heart rate monitor (I might have missed one so please be gentle!).

Is it really that hard or is the technology not available yet?

One of the things that’s tough as a small business owner is getting away from work.  Heck, even if you’re not ‘working’ you’re thinking about work and stressed about work or the lack thereof or any one of a million things.  So it’s important to get away every now and then.

I know that a lot of my peers aren’t this lucky, but I have an employee that can handle a lot of stuff while I’m gone.  We put that to the test this past week and a half as the family took an Alaskan cruise.  Traveling can be stressful in its own right but I’ve discovered a couple of things about cruises:  if you are hungry or bored you’re doing it intentionally.

Our cruise ports were Seattle, Ketchikan, fjording, Juneau, Skagway, Victoria and finally back to Seattle.  We had three cameras, one video recorder and two iPhones.  Without even looking at the video we have over 1500 pictures from 10 days.  This does not include any that my brother-in-law and his family took.  I think I might have to cull it down a bit to fit it on to the iMovie DVD tradition. 

The weather was perfect the entire time.  No rain at all – which had some of the Alaskan’s concerned (because the new Walmart had run out of hoses).  I enjoyed Seattle far more than I expected.  The Science Fiction Hall of Fame was cool (the gift shop sucked).  The Glass Museum in Tacoma was pretty cool as well though the real highlight was taking the bridge across the highway with all the Don Chiluhy samples.

Without a doubt the wildlife and scenery were the highlights of the Alaskan trip.  I can honestly say, though, that I’m done with ‘pretty mountains with snow’ for a while.  We saw a couple of glaciers but didn’t see any calving.  Oh well, the bald Eagles, whales and the bear cub made up for it.

I’m writing this after a hectic day of catching up on emails that my employee couldn’t deal with and doing all the things to catch up on news in the tech world.  It was a busy week with all of the Apple announcements.  Being disconnected from the internet left me feeling ‘disconnected’ but that in itself is a very good thing because I needed it – it had been well over a year since I took any significant time off.

I feel refreshed (though tired) and ready to get back into multiple projects.  My employee handled the minor situations that came up with absolutely no issues and now he’s ready to go on his vacation.  It seems that there are a half-dozen projects that are very close to happening which means we’ll be crazy busy for a while.  But that’s okay.  Being disconnected for a while has restored my sense of balance.  You should try it sometime.

I have a confession.  I am an email junkie. My in box is my to do list and I keep it fastidiously clean.  I get an email and deal with it NOW.  I get hundreds of emails a day (most of it spam that I have to make sure isn’t legitimate) and this was distracting me to the point of making my productivity on real work go down.  I can’t live without email because it’s the bread and butter of my business.

My solution?  I simply cut down on the frequency of checking for new mail.  Instead of every 5 minutes (I don’t remember if that’s the default in Apple’s Mail or not) I now have it set for every 30 minutes.

Seems like a simple thing but 30 minutes of uninterrupted work is worth it.

Do you have similar problems?  What have you done to increase your productivity?

Kindle schmindle.  Despite the hype I still like my Sony eReader.

I’ve written before that I had a Sony eReader and for the most part I’ve enjoyed it.  I decided to upgrade and I went from the first generation PRS-500 to the PRS-505.  I seriously thought about getting the PRS-700 since it has a touchscreen interface and is backlit, but it’s also $150 more expensive and the contrast ratio on the E-INK wasn’t a good as 505.

I really like the PRS-505 though.  It’s E-INK contrast is better and much more responsive than the original.  The button placement makes a whole lot more sense and when reading it ‘feels’ like your holding a book.  With the 500 the back/forward buttons were both on the same side of the unit and were in the wrong spot so my thumbs used to get sore.  The 505′s buttons are in a much more natural position and in particular the right side buttons are almost perfect.

I say almost perfect because the next page button is right next to the 7 menu button and I occasionally hit it.  The buttons are raised but they reside on the curved bevel and this makes me wish they were a bit larger and/or raised more.  Thankfully the unit is smart enough to not go to the menu and simply hitting the menu button goes back to where you’re reading.

Also, the 505 puts the power button on the top as well as the SD expansion slots and the volumn buttons are on the bottom of the unit.  On the 500 all of those buttons were on the left side and were just in an awkward spot.  If you happened to have the Cover Light it would seriously interfere with those function.

The Cover Light unit was a good news/bad news scenario for me.  The good news is that I can now read in bed without having my wife ask me when I’m going to go to bed.  The bad news is that I read a LOT later because reading a good story keeps me awake.  The cover light is clear plastic screen the swings around to cover the eReader screen and when lit up, the edges provide the illumination.  It does a decent job of illuminating the text.  It’s not perfect but good enough for darkened rooms.  Durring daylight hours the cover light is a kind of a pain but not horribly so.  The cover light unit is an additional $50 and is pretty pricey for what it does in my opinion.

The eReader software is how you load books on to your eReader.  It is still Windows only and still very simplistic and in my opinion the weakest part of the whole Sony eReader system.  There is no auto syncing of the books and the eReader.  There is no meta data available so there’s no way to distinguish between read and not read books unless you manually sort them yourself (which is a big deal when you start to have several hundred books in your library).  There’s also no additional information like series title, sequence in the series or any of the little things you expect from an online store.

Some could argue (successfully I might add) that the eBook software is also its strength.  You can read any book on the screen and this may or may not be appealing.  A friend of mine whose eReader died on a business trip was still able to read the book he was on because he had it on his laptop.  However, there is no smart syncing between the eReader and the software so if you’ve been reading on one the other device won’t know about it.

The Sony store appears to be a bit more expensive (20 to 30%) than the equivalent book in the Amazon Kindle store.  The Sony store doesn’t have nearly as many titles either so you might want to check out the genre you like to read in both stores.  Since I’m a huge science fiction fan I’ve been discovering some new authors at Baen’s Webscription website with hundreds of books at reasonable prices including some free ones (be forewarned that a lot of the free ones are the first book in a series which I think it a brilliant move to get avid readers hooked!)

A few other thoughts:  The eReader plays music.  Who cares?  I have my iPhone/iPod.  You can put pictures on it.  Really?!  Again, I have a COLOR display on my iPhone/iPod and 16 shades of grey is an awful substitute.  I think the music and picture capabilities are pretty pointless for most folks but I suppose someone might like them.

Windows only?  Puhlease!  Sony, get off your collective butts and make a Macintosh version.  It’s not that hard – really!  Find yourself a good cross-platform developer and just do it.  I happen to know a few *cough* BKeeney Software *cough* that might be able to help.

I don’t know where this rumor started.  It might have been an offhand comment and it’s been blown out of proportion but here’s my take on it anyway.

So why have the SuperBowl in Europe?  To create a new market?  Football, American football to be exact, has never caught on in Europe or Asia or Australia.  In 2007 the NFL owners discontinued the NFL Europe league.  As it is, the NFL already has a regular season game that’s played in Wembley Stadium in London and the players hate it.

The NFL is a business.  Make no mistake about that.  I appreciate that they are trying to expand the market to bring in new viewers (along with new advertising and merchandizing opportunities).  However, if the owners felt they could make money in Europe I don’t think they would have disbanded the league.

Speaking of business, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to an NFL game or watched a local team on TV (I’ve lived in Southern Wisconsin, Chicago, and Kansas City where the local team was the Packers, Bears and the Chiefs respectively) but local businesses spend a fair amount of time, effort, and money to advertise and promote their products and services with their team.  With an incredibly short home schedule moving a regular season overseas messes with local businesses and takes money out of the local economy with direct sales and indirect sales tax revenue.

No other sport has such a short schedule.  Sixteen regular seasons games makes every game important.  I think it’s one of the reasons why football is so popular.  Not only does every game count but you have huge numbers of people involved in every single play.  All 22 players on the field could make some incredibly important contribution to a play that makes a difference in the game.

Going to a SuperBowl is incredibly expensive.  I’ve heard of people paying more than $1k for an upper level nose-bleed seat just to see their team play in the SuperBowl.  I must admit that if the Chiefs make it to another SuperBowl I’d probably pony up the money as well (the chances of that seem to be slim to none the way the Chiefs have played in the past 10 years but I digress).  If the SuperBowl is played overseas am I going to tack on another couple of grand for a round-trip plane ticket?  Perhaps, but it certainly makes it harder.  As it is, most fans can’t afford an NFL game.  Pushing it overseas makes the SuperBowl even more out of reach.

My opinion is that the NFL SuperBowl should only be played in cities that have an existing (or perhaps former) NFL team.  If the NFL ever expands to Canada, Mexico or Europe or anywhere else with expansion teams and play there in the regular season then I’m all for them playing a SuperBowl there.  Until then, keep the SuperBowl in the United States where the real fans are.

I’ve written about Battlestar Galactica and how it was gritty and showed all of the human flaws and that there were many gray areas to debate.  I think the reason why I like the new Bond is the same thing.  He’s not a pretty boy who’s suave and confident and has an air of aristocracy that gives him a commanding presence.  He takes his shirt off and you see scars and bruises and you see a brutal and savage history that the old Bonds never had (in the movies at least).

In the old Bond movies the bad guys were bad and the good guys good and never the two shall meet.  This is not so in the new Bond.  In Quantum of Solace I don’t think there is a single truly bad or good guy, including Bond himself.  Remember how the bad guy would also tell Bond his plan to control the world (remember that in The Incredibles they called it ‘monologuing’) while they were going about the business of killing him.  How stupid was that?  In the real world they don’t tell you why – they just put a bullet in your head.

No more cute little gadgets from Q that would save his life.  Now the technology isn’t as in your face and out of this world.  The movies we saw in the 60’s to recently are so dated now they’re almost unwatchable from a technology perspective.  The new series doesn’t make it a big deal of it though they certainly use it in a reasonable manner.  I think this means that these Bond fills will still be watchable in 10 years and not feel so outdated.

So being heavily influenced by TV shows from the 80’s, how would they be done nowadays?  A number of TV shows had easy to identify the good and bad guys.  Those shows would tank today.  But here are a few suggestions if anyone from Hollywood is thinking about reviving them.

Bo and Luke Duke would probably be robbing banks to keep Daisy from working the strip club (because she’s got to feed her cute kid and her sometimes drug habit).   Boss Hogg skims money from public works projects and funnels money to the orphanage he grew up in (and a little to his boy toy who’s threatening to expose him to his minister and his wife – in that order).

ChiP’s would have Jon leading an ‘alternative lifestyle’ which is threatening his job due to his excessive partying and drug/alcohol use.  Meanwhile, Ponch would be “looking the other way” when the local gang causes trouble because his little sister is in love and has the child of the gang leader (with another one on the way from a rival gang leader).  Their boss, meanwhile would be a recovering alcoholic that’s on the outs with her husband, her police chief ex-lover and is fending off the advances of Ponch’s sisters boyfriend (the gang leader).

The A-Team?  Please.  Remember how nobody died even with a ton of lead flying around?  I don’t think so.  Their leader, Hannibal Smith would actually be a war criminal with the Hague after him for following orders in Iraq.  He would make no apologies for it and because he felt he was screwed by his government he’d be uncovering atrocities (both his country and allies) at an alarming rate.  Lt. Peck would appear to be a suave playboy millionaire but is really from a poor community in the sticks of West Virginia and joined the military to get an education and away from his dysfunctional family.  Murdock wouldn’t just be acting crazy, he would have severe mental illness using a never ending sequence of drugs that don’t fully help him.  Murdock is always just a bit away from either going berserk or committing suicide.  BA Baracus would be a buff, but sensitive man who struggles with his sexual identity.  He purposely mutilates himself because he’s trying to push everyone away but still wants people to notice him.  They’d steal, they lie and in general would do the bidding of the highest bidder.

Those 80’s shows were awful in their own right because they were too black and white – but it was what we wanted at the time.  In those days the US was the good guy and the Soviets were the bad guys.  Simple as that.  We didn’t want to explore anything else.  They didn’t spend a whole lot of time exploring the human condition.  They failed to show us the weaknesses that people have and their lives were too simple and too easy.

Bond, Battlestar Galactica, The Watchmen, FireFly, and even House all give a mirror into our own psyche and push our buttons because of their moral ambiguity.  The good guys aren’t always good and the bad guys aren’t always bad.  Is Hollywood a reflection of what we think of the world around us or will Hollywood change our view and attitude of the world?  I don’t know about you, but I like seeing a movie/show that is a little less certain of what black and white is.  It certainly makes for better entertainment.  What about you?