Not too long ago, I wrote about how much I liked Safari 4 for Windows and how I’ve made it my default browser.  Well, after some use now, I’m not quite as enamored with Safari as I was just a few weeks ago.  In fact, I am really starting to despise the browser.  For something that many are pinning hopes and dreams on, so to speak, for that Utopian web experience, the browser is really a piece of junk.  I have yet to find one that will:  simply start up in a short time, one that FULLY RENDERS THE FREAKING PAGE EVERYTIME I go there, one that does not crash, hang, become unresponsive or is developed by a bunch of whining people who go running to a governing body because they cannot compete.  Can I have a browser that does all of that?  Seriously.  NONE of them work as advertised.  Of them, Safari 4 is the best, but the is not saying much.  Firefox 3.5 seems to be a bit better than its predecessors, but, again, not saying much there either.  Internet Explorer 8 (32 bit) is still a steaming pile of poo, but IE 8 (64) is pretty solid, but there are zero plugins for it, meaning no Flash and, I think, even Silverlight is missing but I’m not sure about that, I could be wrong.  It has happened once or twice.

What about Opera you say?  I’m not even going to try it and have removed it from all of my devices except for the Wii, because it is the only game in town there.  Why?  Simple.  The whining they have done over Internet Explorer is ridiculous.  They are about as credible as SCO.  (For the two of you who do not know: Opera went crying to the EU over Internet Explorer.  Never mind the fact that there are quite a few other browsers that are in use, never mind that Apple and Ubuntu (or any other Linux) distribute a browser with said OS, never mind the fact that IE 8 is crap, no, Opera went to the EU to FORCE Microsoft to ‘give users a choice.’  Last week, Microsoft finally said they would include a ‘ballot’ screen where users could choose a browser.  Apparently, the little children who run Opera decided that was not enough and want Microsoft to remove any icons from the screen AND thrust it on ALL users of Windows EVERYWHERE.  Like anyone would choose Opera anyway.  People will choose IE, Firefox or Safari.)  Opera is no longer a choice for me.  There are several other real browsers, I seen no reason to waste my time with Opera.  Now, back to the rant…

Safari 4 crashes ALOT.  For no apparent reason, either.  At least IE 8 is stable.  It may not render the pages every time, but it does not crash.  Firefox decides to go to sleep.  Frequently.  It just stops responding.  Then, after several minutes, wakes up and goes on to work.  Oh, 3.5 crashes too.  Not as often as Safari, but often enough to be irritating.  I suspect it is one of the add ins I use, but I am not sure.

Maybe it is time to give Chrome another shot.  I see that Google is adding theme support and other features that bring it more in line with the real browsers.

I still find it astonishing that companies are building entire suites of applications on the browser platform.  While I think Safari is still the better of the four big browsers (IE, Safari, Firefox and Chrome) it seems that Firefox is probably the best suited browser for most things.  It has far better support from developers, better name recognition than Apple’s browser and far better rendering ability than Chrome.  Microsoft should probably look at rebranding Firefox.  It might be dog slow at times, but, hey, it does render the page.

Wow…I sure have been cranky the last few days. 

OK, it’s rant time.  I think I’ve probably ranted about this before, but I am too lazy to search my own blog, so you have my apologies if I am repeating an already ranted about subject.  So, what is it?  Well, it is the lame programming coming out of IBM.  Specifically, the lame shortcuts that whomever developed the templates that ship with Lotus Notes. OH MY.  Not only are the templates a mess, the multitude of coding techniques used are sloppy, poorly thought out and just bad. 

I’ve been doing Lotus Notes development work since 1995 and have noticed the quality and quantity of the shipping templates has been on the decline since Big Blue assimilated Lotus.  Throughout that entire time, Lotus/IBM have preached ‘thou shalt not use undocumented features’.  Meaning, there are undocumented functions in the Notes formula and LotusScript languages that should not be used because they are: unstable, may be deprecated later, unfinished or just don’t work as they were supposed to work.  I’ve pretty much stayed away from such things.  I got bit once and do not wish to have that happen again.

IBM, however, does not practice what it preaches.  In fact, they stopped shipping several templates because they removed one or two of these ‘features’ and rendered the templates useless.  That, though, has NOT kept them from doing the very thing they tell us NOT to do.

The company that employs me is currently making the switch from Notes mail to an Exchange environment, but they are keeping the Notes servers and other Domino infrastructure.  We went through a several months long period where we tested our Notes applications and found a few minor issues, but nothing major.  Unfortunately, one thing we did not test very well were those bloody templates.  Oh, we did some testing but, apparently, it was not good enough. 

Before I go on, let me explain something.  Since we are not getting rid of Notes right away, we still have to maintain the Domino Directory.  Everyone will still get a Notes ID.  In the person document, we have the Exchange mail address in the ‘forward’ field.  It works well.  Very well, in fact.  Very well until you try to use one of those damned IBM designed templates. 

We have many databases that are derived from those templates and, of course, they all send mail.  Well, in IBM’s INIFINITE WISDOM, they use a function that will explode a list of names.  This function will lookup the names in the address book and return the proper Notes name, UNLESS YOU USE THE BLOODY FORWARD field.  If that is populated, this function (@ExplodeNameList) returns THAT value.  Of course, it NEVER, EVER corresponds to a valid Notes name.  This causes problems with author and reader fields, can block access to some or all of the application and other numerous issues.  In some cases, there is no getting around this:  the application becomes useless.

It’s no wonder my company and many others have decided that Lotus Notes is NOT the way to proceed in the future.  With practices such as this, IBM will kill its own product and the sole reason they spent billions of dollars buying Lotus and running it over the last decade.  It is also indicative of a company that lacks any real pride in its own products.  People deride Microsoft for what they perceive as poorly developed products.  Those people have, obviously, never had to deal with Lotus Notes and IBM code.

So, it’s been one of those weeks, already, where nothing seems to go right and you just need some escapism.  Having burned through my DVD collection, I turn to music.  Looking through my collection, I discovered, or, rather, rediscovered one of the true greats of twentieth century music.  A man whose abilities never cease to amaze.  A man who, over the last fifty years has provided gobs and gobs of entertainment.  His multitude of television shows and, as I had forgotten, records are all works of art, though I am not sure just what KIND of art some of it really is.  Who is this master of entertainment?  To whom am I heaping such praise?  Why, none other than Captain Kirk himself:  William Shatner.

Years ago, I purchased a CD called Golden Throats II (yes, there were at least two.)  This collection of songs by unlikely people is a mixed bag.  There’s some real surprises on there, like Cassius Clay singing Stand By Me.  He was not that bad.  He wasn’t that good, but not all that bad.  Bing Crosby singing Hey Jude was listenable, though not something I want to hear too much.  It was, however, William Shatner singing 'It was a very good year’ that puts the collection over the top. Naturally, I had to find more.  Fortunately, the Zune Marketplace and the Amazon MP3 store has much of the Shatner collection.  Nimoy is there too.  His renditions are better, but not by much.  You have to hear Nimoy singing Ruby to truly appreciate Kenny Rogers’ version.

You might think that Shatner would try to sing like Captain Kirk.  It’s far worse than that at times.  His Mr. Tambourine Man is, well, you have to hear it to understand.  It sounds like he was really pissed off AND high at the same time.  Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds is a real gem.  Shatner was known to have a massive ego and, so I am guessing, when he said ‘I wanna make a record’, no one argued.  Why should they?  He was not a singer.  I suppose someone figured he cut the record and forget it.  Well, he didn’t.  He had MANY records.  Even one with Nimoy.  At least Nimoy had a little singing talent.  Shatner…was…enter…taining, though.  Hell, he recently performed with Ben Folds Five.  How about that?  Personally, I like him better as Denny Crane.  Classic Shatner.  And he’s even gotten lots of kudos for, well, being himself.

Link: William Shatner collection

For several years now, we’ve been bombarded with the news that soon everything will be ‘cloud’ based. We are constantly being told that physical media will go the way of the eight track tape and analog television.  High speed, reliable internet access will not only make this wonderful world possible, but it will be ubiquitous and cheap. Unfortunately, all of that remains a pipe dream.  And will be for the foreseeable future.

The thing is, not everyone WANTS to be connected like that, at least, not all of the time.  Yes, there is quite a benefit to ‘cloud’ computing, but there are as many pitfalls as well.  That cheap, reliable and ubiquitous internet access is the start.  We are not there yet.  Not by a long shot.  Oh, we are farther along than we were, but we are not close.  We are probably ten years, or more, away from that.  For that goal to be achieved, the providers and the users need to change. 

Internet providers depend on an old and broken model to make money.  The model is based on either the phone service model for ISP’s who are primarily telcos, or on the cable TV model for the cable operators.  None of them operate strictly as an ISP.  Not the big companies, anyway.  As for the small ones, they have to, at some point, rely on cable or phone operators.  So, what’s the problem, it works, right?  Well, yes and no.  It works in that we have fair to OK internet access in a lot of places.  Our cell phones sort of kind of gets you the internet.  Some phones do a better job than others.  But, availability is not even the bigger problem.

The bigger problem is bandwidth and bandwidth caps.  First and foremost are those caps.  Each ISP touts its network and the services it offers as well as all the marvelous things you can do with that speedy network.  That’s all fine and dandy, but if your ISP gives you only 40gb a month or 250gb a month, you could blow through that in no time.  And, mind you, many ISPs limit you to 1 to 10gb a month. Most cell providers ‘unlimited’ access is really 5gb a month and then they start charging you two arms, two legs, your house and your first born.  Some, like Comcast, just get nasty and cut you off for a YEAR and consider you a pirate for using all of that bandwidth. 

And don’t be fooled, those services the ISP provides WILL count toward your bandwidth cap.  I asked ‘Comcast Betty’ over Twitter about that. She told me that ANYTHING you do on the ‘net counts to that bandwidth cap.  And before we vilify Comcast Betty, she was just the messenger.  (Here’s where I do have to commend Comcast:  They have several employees who monitor Twitter and are VERY, VERY helpful.  I thank Comcast Bill and Comcast Betty for the help they have given me.  My only question about this is why do I need to resort to Twitter?  Why can’t I get the same level of support over the phone? At least they are doing this, though.)

ISP aside, the next problem is privacy.  Privacy to many is an after thought.  That’s quite a shame.  It should be the most important thing.  I don’t care how well intentioned a company is, all it takes is a court order or even suspicion in some cases, and companies will bend and hand over YOUR information.    I am not being paranoid here.  This is a real consequence of storing YOUR data in the ‘cloud.’

Another HUGE issue is digital rights management.  There have been some strides made here in quashing this scourge of technology, but, as witnessed recently by Kindle owners, it WILL rear its ugly head.  Recently, Amazon removed two George Orwell books from owners of the Kindle.  While they were correct to refund whatever people had paid, the simple fact is they had that ability.  I fully understand having to be compliant with the law, but I think that removing it from personal libraries was overstepping.  Likewise, other DRM issues can and do arise.  A few years back, several online music sites went dark.  Because the DRM servers were decommissioned,  the content that people PAID for was rendered useless unless they burned it to CDs.  And what happens when content providers want to charge you more for what you already paid for?  It WILL happen.

And there are the cloud based applications.  There is already a plethora of them.  Prior to Apple releasing the iPhone software development kit, the only way one could write an application for the device was to develop a web ‘app’.  Thousands of them were developed.  Some good, some not so good.  Problem was that they were only available while you were connected to the net.  Once you lost connection, you lost use of the app.  iPhone web apps are not the only ones either.  Google, notably, has a whole suite of online apps.  Again, some good, some not so good. They have, as well as Microsoft and Adobe, tried to alleviate the offline issue somewhat by creating tools that allow you to download and run the apps on your device.  Tools like Google gears, Adobe Air and Microsoft Silverlight will allow some of these online apps to run locally and that is a start.  But, just as the online versions, they have limits.  None of these solutions are as robust as a dedicated application that runs native on your device.  Palm, with the introduction of the Pre Smartphone has taken the step of marrying the web to a physical device, but, again, it is not quite as robust as it should be.  Local apps on the Pre are a collection of HTML, JavaScript and other web technologies.  You still have this interpreted layer, which, by the way, was one of the biggest complaints about Visual Basic back in the early nineties: it was interpreted and not truly compiled.  That seems to be a non issue now, but it should be.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there is tremendous benefit to cloud computing.  Having my most important information anywhere I go is a huge plus.  Having my wife update a a to do or shopping list on line that I can then access on my Smartphone is a time saver.  The mixed metaphor applications like Evernote that have both a device application and web application are probably the best:  you can work offline while also having the advantages of being ‘in the cloud.’  Microsoft recently announced its next generation Office Suite, Office 2010, which will have both PC and web versions and they will be able to interact.  OneNote will take on some of EverNote’s better features this way.  Other applications like Picasa, a photo management tool, are also pretty nicely integrated with web solutions.  Applications are but one area where this integration needs to take place.  Entertainment is another.

I’m old fashioned in many ways.  I LOVE to go to a brick and mortar store and BUY a DVD or CD.  I like opening that package and actually touching my movies or music.  I have no problems with actually keeping something I paid for, like a CD or DVD.  I have found, though, through listening to podcasts and talking to people, mostly people younger than I, that they don’t have such a love of physical media and, in fact, loathe it.  Some don’t even wish to keep what they bought.  Some of them will pay the ten bucks to buy a movie on iTunes, watch it and then delete it.  This, to me, is a foreign concept.  If I buy a film or song, I want to be able to watch it over and over or listen to it many times.  And this is one reason why I am very hesitant to rely on services such as iTunes or the Zune Marketplace.  You are too restricted in what you can do with what you have paid for:  you are limited to certain devices and you are limited to specific formats that can only be played in certain software.  With a CD, I can play that thing in ANY CD player.  I can watch that DVD in ANY DVD player.  I still have a collection of VHS tapes and Laserdiscs that I can still play.  Granted, devices that plays those formats are no longer made, but there is nothing preventing me from playing them right now.  My point is that, while Pioneer no longer makes or supports the Laserdisc format, I can still use the player and watch my movies.  You can bet that if Apple decides to get out of the video business, you will have a finite amount of time to enjoy what you paid for and they will NOT refund your money.

One day, I’m sure, all or most of the issues I mention will have been resolved.  That day, though, is still pretty far away. 

• Microsoft confirmed the Windows 7 ‘family pack’ – Microsoft confirmed that it was releasing a ‘family pack’ for Windows 7 that will allow installation on upto three computers.  No pricing was announced, but it is expected to be in the $180 range.
• Microsoft revised its latest ‘Laptop Hunter’ commercial to reflect the change in Apple Mac pricing (they did, after all, drop the price a whole hundred dollars) allegedly at the ‘request’ of Apple.  Hmm, the campaign must be working.
• Microsoft also announced lowered revenue-the first time in the company’s history.  The company really needs Windows 7 to be a hit in order to bolster its position.  XBOX and Office have been bright spots, but the entertainment division, of which XBOX is part of, took a big hit as did online ad revenue.  Bing may help that if the current trends continue.
• Windows 7 was released to manufacturing this week.  Certain clients will get the code early.  The software is due to ship to consumers in October.
• Also this week, Microsoft showed off an early build of Office 2010 and its online counterpart.  Word, Excel, PowerPoint and the fantastic OneNote will all have ‘cloud’ versions.
• Apple also released earnings this week. It was, contrary to earlier reports, a very good quarter for the company.  The numbers say that 91% of the overpriced computer market belongs to Apple.  Oh, I meant ‘premium’ market…
• Palm ‘fixed’ iTunes 8.2.1 syncing, which Apple thought it had disabled because, you know, they only want you to buy songs if you are using an iPod or iPhone.  Palm released webOS 1.1 this past week and, among the many fixes and improvements, managed to repair the sync function.  Sniping aside, I really don’t understand the need to do this, I use the Amazon store, which is right on the phone. Of course, I have been using the superior Zune Marketplace-which, even with the faults it has, is far better than iTunes.
• The EU, savior of the European market, reached an agreement with Microsoft that will allow Internet Explorer 8 to be included with Windows 7.  The agreement says that Microsoft must present a ‘ballot’ to the user when installing the operating system that will give the choice of a default browser.  Gee, I wish they were here in the States to protect us too…because, you know, we aren’t smart enough to decide for ourselves. 
• Jupiter suffers major collision.  The Hubble space telescope took some interesting photos of  the ‘scar’ left from the collision.
• KDE gets a facelift.  KDE, if you do not know, is one of the MANY interface/window managers available for Linux.  It got lots of new eye candy that will…oh, who cares.  If you want to check it out, VirtualBox 3.x will allow that without messing up your system.

Well, that was brief.  Apple releases iTunes 8.2.1 to break syncing with the Pre and Palm releases webOS 1.1 and restores that ability.  In fact, 1.1 does that and quite a bit more.  Performance seems to be improved, Exchange support is better. Some of the system sounds are different.  Drop down menus have new animations.  The photo app is improved.  You can now email memos.  The browser has a few changes, including a different font.  The JavaScript interpreter has been enhanced (hence the aforementioned performance improvement.)  Sprint added a spiffy new NFL app that is much like the NASCAR app (even down to the cry ‘I can’t remove this.) 

For the corporation, Exchange support also includes remote wipe and more profiles.

That Palm has released three system upgrades since the device was released just over a month ago proves that they responsive and probably released the phone a bit early.  The hardware was probably fully baked before the webOS was.  I’m not going to criticize Palm for releasing the product when they did, I wanted the phone way before June 6.  At any rate, Palm is fixing the OS and enhancing it at the same time.  No complaints here about that and Palm is certainly a lot faster at it than another certain company.

If you own a Pre and have not updated, go to that update app and download it.  It is a worthwhile update.

Well, it looks like the Kindle will finally have some real competition.  Next year.  The Kindle DX, that is.  The reader is the Plastic Logic eReader, the store is Barnes and Noble and the carrier is, get ready for it…AT&T.  The reader will be an 8.5 by 11 inch device, use a similar screen as the Kindle, feature Wi-Fi and 3G.  Because of the size of the device, many books, magazines and newspapers will look pretty good and natural on the Plastic Logic device, just as on the DX.

PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint support, as well as other formats, are to be part of the software built into the device.  No word on email support or web browsing support as in the Kindle.

Since Plastic Logic has signed with AT&T, we have to question the whether or not AT&T’s 3G network can handle the millions of iPhones, net access cars AND the eReaders.  Hopefully, the tales of woe for the network will be corrected before the reader is released.

Barnes and Noble just announced its new store and an iPhone application.  The company sees these steps as a way to better compete with Amazon. 

Although Barnes and Nobles claims to have over 700,000 titles, nearly 500,000 of them are public domain books from Google.  Amazon has more that 300,000 titles.

No other details, like pricing and exact availability have been announced for the device.

At 10:56p.m., July 20, 1969, Neil A. Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the surface of the moon.  The entire planet watched as Armstrong came down the ladder of the lunar landing module.  They watched the first step on the moon by a human via a small television that was mounted on the side of the lander.

Upon descending that last step, Armstrong uttered that famous line “That’s one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.”

Minutes later, Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. also descended the same ladder and became the second human to set foot on the celestial body.

Neither astronaut encountered difficulty in moving around the surface, but the fine dust did cling to the space suits and, consequently, made a bit of a mess inside the lander.

The landing itself was a bit harrowing for both mission control and the astronauts.  Problems with the landing radar forced Armstrong to land the craft manually.  The landing was nearly a disaster, with only thirty seconds of fuel remaining in the tanks. 

Among the highlights of the astronauts stay on the moon were planting the American flag, gathering rock and soil samples, and the longest long distance phone call placed by then President Richard M. Nixon. The two also placed several scientific instruments and a reflector that was designed to reflect laser beams back to earth for measuring the distance between the earth and the moon.  Ironically, 39 years after it was placed there by Armstrong and Aldrin, the reflector was used to prove that the two men had actually set foot on the moon.

Armstrong and Aldrin spent a total of 21 hours on the moon before reuniting with the Columbia and Michael Collins.  The three astronauts returned to earth on July 24 and brought with them 46 pounds of lunar rocks.

This feat is the second most important event in human history.  What’s the first?  Well, I’d say that has to be the invention of the printing press.  Without the printing press, nothing that has happened since could have happened.  

It seems that all is not well in the land of honey and unicorns.  I speak of iPhone development and the iPhone App Store.  There have been tales of woe trickling out since the start of the App Store, but, lately, there have been more details about just how tightly controlled the approval process and the lack of approval or denial of approval in the App Store.

Marco, at Marco.org, has written several posts about the process and his dissatisfaction about the new rating system that Apple has employed.  He’s not the only one who has become disenchanted with the process.  TUAW, for example, has also written about the new rating system and the effect it could have on the types of applications that are approved and the new label they must carry.

In a nutshell, any application that uses an embedded browser will automatically receive the 17+ label.  Essentially, it equates to a MATURE rating.  Now, mind you, this does not just apply to something this IS adult in nature, but it also applies to RSS readers, chat applications, e-book readers, and more.  Not only that, but it also precludes a developer from using promo codes.

Marco outlines the problems he’s encountered just trying to submit changes to one of his applications.  The mechanism to submit the app, iTunes Connect, is buggy.  He writes that, on many occasions, it has posted screenshots and descriptions to an in-review update to the LIVE APP PAGE causing confusion among users and revealing features that are not yet released.  He also says there are form validation bugs that prevent him from updating his app’s information for days.

While I have seen one or two disgruntled developers write about having problems with the approval process, I’ve not seen them as detailed as Marco’s or even as openly discussed in a usually pro-Apple blog such as TUAW. 

I would venture to guess that most Apple fans won’t care or will come up with some kind of excuse to let Apple off the hook.  They would probably even label me as a ‘hater’, which I am not.  The problem, though, is that by giving Apple such breaks, they are not inclined to fix these problems.  And the danger in ignoring them is that they will drive away the developers.  A few here and there won’t matter, but, collectively, it could really hurt the iPhone.  Perhaps, though, Apple’s biggest defense here is that there could be A LOT OF MONEY to be made. Supposedly, the author of one the more popular ‘fart’ apps brings in ten grand a day.  With that kind of money dangling around, the developers will probably just put up with the mess that Apple has created.  And, I am sure, there are many ‘favored’ developers who get things in very quickly.  I am sure that Electronic Arts gets priority treatment over our friend Marco.  Apple would be stupid to treat EA the same way as Marco.  But, I think it is the smaller developers-like Marco-that are Apple’s bread and butter developers.  They are the ones who have churned out the thousands of applications that have made the App Store such a success and they are the ones that Apple should be treating well.

I sure hope that Palm takes a look at Apple’s process and does not repeat the same mistakes.  The Apple model worked well at first, but it seems to be broken now and if they don’t fix it, they could have a real problem.

UPDATE (7/27/2009): TUAW is reporting that Apple has restored the promo codes for the 17+ iPhone apps.  Seems Apple was paying attention.  Good for them, this was a smart thing for them to do.  Kudos to Apple for paying attention.

OneNote 2007 and OneNote 2010

The jkontherun website is reporting the OneNote 2010 is compatible with OneNote 2007.  This is important since there will be a web version of OneNote 2010 that will use Live Sync.  This could be a terrific answer to the EverNote advantage.  I’m hoping it will be as it will allow me to completely get rid of EverNote.

OneNote 2010 will, reportedly, have a new format as well.  Not sure what new features will be included in the new release.  Hopefully, we will find out soon enough with the public beta.

Palm released the MOJO SDK for Palm Pre

Thursday, Palm surprised us and released the Pre’s SDK.  It appears to still be a beta level release, but it still works well.  To make it really easy to use, you should download and install Eclipse and the MOJO add in.  The latest release of Eclipse works great and is no longer evil stepchild of yesterday.  Submissions to the Pre App Catalog will begin in the fall.

DRM on Kindle rears is nasty head as Amazon removes books from the device

Many Kindle owners awoke to find that novels they had paid for were gone.  According to Amazon, publishers have the right to pull their content from the Amazon Kindle store.  And, because this happened, owner who had purchased the novels received a full refund.  However, in this case, the books were recalled because the publisher did not have the rights to the books.  Amazon stated that this incident would not be repeated in the future.  The two books that were recalled were submitted through the Amazon self service platform. 

Ironically, the content in question was from George Orwell, the author of ‘1984’ and ‘Animal Farm’. 

Apple broke Pre sync with iTunes when they released 8.2.1 of iTunes.  A company called Salling Media has released a free tool that restores the sync ability with iTunes.  The tool will sync music and playlists, video, podcasts and photos. 

You can set it to sync automatically every time you plug in your Pre, just like iTunes.

There is a paid version of the tool.  It is exactly the same as the free version, but it transfers your content about four to seven times faster.

The key to the tool, is that it does not directly interact with the iTunes software.  The photo sync does not use iTunes at all.  Instead, it requires Adobe Photoshop Album or Photoshop Elements. 

Blackberry Bold and Storm are also supported.

You can read more here.  Salling’s web site is here.

It was forty years ago today, on July 16, 1969 at 9:32 am(Eastern), that the Saturn V rocket carrying the Apollo 11 to the moon, launched.  Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins began an epic journey that lasted just over eight days.  Four days after that launch, the Eagle Lunar Landing Module touched down in the Sea of Tranquility.  Neil Armstrong, commander of the mission, became the first human to set foot on the moon.  Upon doing so, he said the following:

“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Armstrong and Aldrin spent a total of 21 hours on the moons surface before mating with Columbia and returning to Earth.  Mike Collins stayed aboard the Columbia during the moon landing.

The mission ended on July 24, 1969 when the Columbia splashed down and ended the long trip.  The United States would follow up with several more moon missions, including the aborted Apollo 13 mission.  An explosion crippled that spacecraft forcing the Astronauts to live in the LEM until reaching Earth orbit.

Man has not returned to the moon since 1972.

Back when the Pre first released, much was made over its ability to sync non-DRM music with iTunes.  Back then Apple made the oh-so-intelligent comment that it could not guarantee that future versions of the software would continue to sync with non-Apple devices (read PRE.)  True to that statement, Apple released an update to iTunes today that, among other things, ‘addresses an issue with verification of Apple Devices.’  Huh.

Now, I’m not going to moan about this.  We all knew it was coming.  Apple’s statement from June pretty much guaranteed that.  Frankly, I’m surprised it took them this long.  Certainly, they could not have been worried about quality control since iTunes is one of the buggiest and worst behaved application around.  I did install it just to try out the sync abilities.  I still have that version installed and do not plan to update it since I don’t use an iPod.  I will keep my son’s laptop updated with the newest release of iTunes since the Pre won’t be used with that machine anyway.

Now, I totally understand why Apple is acting the way they are in regard to the Pre.  It IS competition to the iPhone, no matter what anyone says.  That’s not the entire reason they did this, though it is a major reason.  No, I’m sure Apple wanted to plug this hole anyway.  I know that other devices did the same thing that Pre did and ‘fooled’ iTunes into thinking that they were iPods.  Apple does not want this. You might think it is stupid for them to prevent other devices from syncing since it would spur the user into buying more music.  Remember, the iTunes Store does not provide as much revenue to Apple as the sale of the hardware would.  Apple probably makes more from the sale of the device than they will from the sale of music for that device over its lifetime.  Apple’s content providers take a huge chunk of the income from each track, add in the cost of running the store and that, most likely, only leaves a few cents from each track.  Collectively, that adds up, but if you only count the sales for each device, it is a really low number.  Unless someone just spends hundreds on the store each month, Apple could actually lose money if you use the store and iTunes with a device OTHER THAN an Apple branded device.

So, there we are.  The Pre syncing with iTunes was highly publicized.  If people started purchasing tracks who did not actually own an iPod (like I will do from time to time,) then Apple COULD potentially lose money.  And since they are in the business of making money, they had to close this hole.

Personally, I have begun to buy music from the Amazon MP3 store.  The quality seems better, the tracks are mostly .99 cents and I can buy and download directly on the phone.  Plus, I can also use those tracks on my Zune and the family iPod.

iTunes was great, about four years ago.  It is showing its age now and, because Apple is using it for so many things now, it has become a real pig.  It is in dire need of an overhaul.

Yes, this seems like a boneheaded move on Apple’s part.  Yes it seems disingenuous, and on many levels, it is.  But, they had to do it.  There are alternatives out there.  Windows Media Player is a good choice for Windows users.  For Mac users, there is the Missing Sync for Pre. 

Another Richmond institution may be disappearing soon: Ukrop’s Grocery Stores.  According to Food World magazine, Ukrop’s issued a prospectus giving its information and gauging interest in a sale. According to the report, Harris Teeter is a front runner.

Ukrop’s opened in Richmond in 1937 and currently operates 28 stores in the Richmond market, with stores also located near Fredericksburg, Roanoke and Williamsburg.  The out of market stores have not done as well as the Richmond stores.

The company also owns a sixty percent stake in First Market Bank, but have sold its interest to Union Bankshares of Bowling Green.  That sale is expected to be complete in October. 

Richmond has suffered the loss of many national companies of late, including Circuit City, S&K Menswear, and others.  While these companies are gone, others like MeadWestvaco and Philip Morris now call Richmond, home.

App-Store Madness

Verizon has informed its Smartphone partners that only its Verizon App Store will be bundled with the phones.  That means that the Blackberry App World and Windows Mobile Marketplace will, initially, not be available to customers when they purchase those shiny new smart phones.  I am guessing this also applies to the Pre and its App Catalog, though I don’t know how else the apps will get on that particular phone-and it also presupposes Verizon actually gets that phone.

Customers will have to manually add the portals to the devices, a move that will, most likely, hinder the growth of those portals, though how much is yet to be determined.  It also means that developers will have to undergo multiple approval cycles if they wish to cover as many potential customers. 

This just smells bad and is pretty much a smack in the face of those partners.  If Apple has proven anything with the iPhone App Store, its that it is something best left to the ‘owner’ of the operating system.

iPhone gets a real operating system: Windows 95

Yep, that’s right: iPhone finally got a real operating system in the guise of Windows 95.  An enterprising soul managed to shoehorn an x86 emulator onto a jail broken iPhone and install Windows 95.  The 5 to 10 minute boot time, naturally, precludes its use for anything other than a novelty.  Slide over to Engadget to have a look.

A new Pre commercial airs!

Why people are making a big deal out of Pre commercials is a total mystery to me, but, they are.  Another Engadget post even critiques the spot.  While, as a Pre owner and Palm fan, I am happy for the attention the phone is getting, announcing new commercials is just puzzling.  I suppose it is not any different than what the fan kids did for every bloody iPod/iPhone commercial that came out.  Still, buzz is buzz and I’m sure Sprint and Palm are happy about that.

SkyFire browser a step closer on Blackberry

A second alpha release and private testing invite was sent out by Skyfire.  The browser, when released on the Blackberry platform, will be a huge improvement over the current browser for that device.  Browsing on Blackberry devices is so bad, it makes the version of Internet Explorer that shipped with version of Windows Mobile prior to 6.5 look great.  Needless to say, that’s not much of a complement to mobile IE.

Sprint to require WIFI on all future Smartphones

According to various reports, Sprint will begin to require that all Smartphones that it carries be capable of WIFI.  I suppose the thought behind this is that with the burgeoning WIFI hotspot availability, customers should consume the large amounts of data via WIFI first and not bog down the Sprint network.  No matter the motive, I see this as positive.  I’d much rather eat data on my WIFI connection, which is almost always faster, than chew up my data plan.

VirtualBox 3.x is the best version of Sun’s virtualization software yet.  I say that for a variety of reasons, including the limited, but much better, direct3d support which allows for certain graphically intense applications and games to be run in the virtual environment.  But, there is one more killer feature that I have discovered:  seamless mode.

Seamless mode integrates nicely with the host operating system.  In my case, I am running Windows 7, RC1 as the host and Windows XP Professional, SP3, as the guest.  In seamless mode, I can see the XP task bar sitting on top of the Windows 7 task bar, so it looks like I have two task bars.  I can run Windows XP apps right alongside Vista/Windows 7 apps.  This gives the APPEARANCE of a seamless integration, however, there are limitations to that 'seamless’ integration.  You cannot, for example, drag and drop files from a Windows 7 explorer window to an XP explorer window.  You can, however, specify shared directories in the settings dialog for the virtual environment.  While it is not completely seamless, it is pretty darn close.  It is also a viable alternative to the ‘XP Mode’ that Microsoft is offering for Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate editions.  The caveat here is that you must supply your own, valid copy of XP whereas the Microsoft version supplies a fully licensed and activated XP.

The more I use VirtualBox the more I like it.  It not only solve a few compatibility issues, it also provides a sand box for me to play around with other operating systems without ‘committing’ a real machine to the new OS.  It will allow me to play around with Google’s Chrome OS if  and when that comes out.

You can download VirtualBox here.

Microsoft laid out its plans for the next major Office release.  Office 2010 (what an oh-so-clever title) will be available in many flavors, including a Windows/Mac client version and a, GASP, web version. Yes, a web version.  There will be a free version of the web suite and a paid version. 

The free online version will consist of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and, my favorite, a OneNote version.  Finally, a OneNote that will work on any computer.  Pretty danged cool.  The suite will be available via the Windows Live portal and launch directly in the browser.

This latest offering is Microsoft’s attempt to blunt competitive wares from Google, Lotus and other suites like Open Office.  Perhaps, though, Microsoft’s biggest threat is Google.  Not only in the form of Google’s online offerings, but also the recently announced ‘Google OS’.  Though, I don’t think that offering will be that big of a threat. 

While the online stuff certainly will be pretty powerful for browser based apps, they will not be the full featured, high performance apps that currently make up Office.  The web version of PowerPoint, for example, will lack the higher performance video capabilities.  Likewise, the online version will have some features that are not in the desktop versions, such as the ability to embed tags in documents and then post them on blogs.

For businesses who purchase volume subscriptions to Office, they will also get access to the online versions for no additional cost.

There will be a closed beta starting today and a public beta will be made available later this year.

While the iPhone 3GS has managed to sell millions of units and the overall thought is that it is a worthwhile upgrade, it seems that all is not well in iPhone 3GS land.  Apparently, the the WIFI and Bluetooth radios have problems.  Signal strength on the WIFI fluctuates, even standing next to the router.
Speed decreases, when compare with the 3G model, are the more widely reported issue.

Reportedly, speeds are nearly a third of what the iPod Touch has, on both download and upload speeds.  The problems seem to compounded when the devices are used in conjunction with the Airport Extreme/Time Capsule.

Interestingly enough, Apple has sort of admitted there is a problem.  They released a Knowledgebase article detailing a few potential ‘fixes’ for the problems.  They range from resetting networks settings, restoring the device to a bare 3.0 intallation.  The last solution involves a call to Apple for service.

While the Apple Knowledgebase article may help in getting WIFI working, it does not address the issue of speed or signal strength.

For a device that is being sold as ‘the fastest iPhone yet’, having one’s WIFI speeds cut to a third of what the previous iteration was, has got to be quite a blow to the device.  Apple will, surely, fix this soon, right?

Well, just as I was starting to really warm up to EverNote and it’s new web focus, it proves my original assumption about this web focus was correct:  if you cannot connect, you don’t get your data.  On the Windows client, you can have a local copy of your notebooks, but that is not true on the mobile version, at least for the Pre anyway.  If I recall, the old Windows Mobile client did allow you to copy a notebook to the device. 

For the last couple of days, I’ve not been able to reliably connect to EverNote and sync my notes.  And this is the real problem with the web based applications.  Be it poor programming, poor infrastructure or poor administration, NeverNote seems to have missed the boat.  At least Google’s services are up much of the time.  I have more luck logging into the Zune Marketplace-another poor web service-than I’ve had with NeverNote. 

I’m certainly glad I do have a local copy of my notes-in OneNote and was only relying on the EverNote cloud service to sync up several computers and my Pre.  Looks like I need to find an alternative means. 

One thing I am doing, for now, is ‘printing’ my OneNotes to pdf and emailing them to my gmail account. That way, I can, at least, access the data. 

EverNote’s syncing had some promise, too bad it failed to live up to that promise.

Today, Google announced its brand new ‘Chrome OS.’  Only, it’s not really new. And what Google is bringing to the table is not really an operating system.  They are marrying the Chrome browser to a new windowing environment that runs on Linux.  This windowing system will present a user interface that is minimal and will ‘stay out of your way.’  There goes the Mac crowd and many of the Windows fan boys too.

Chrome OS will run on Intel and ARM chips and, initially, will target the oh-so-coveted netbook market.  Now, I’m sure there will be more than one company that will jump at the chance to put out one of these devices sans a ‘real’ operating system like Windows or OS X in favor of this lightweight Chrome OS because it will be free and will have taken the ‘shine’ from Ubuntu (what will Shuttleworth do now?)

Applications for the ‘OS’ will be similar to those that run on Palm’s webOS:  use JavaScript, CSS and HTML.  In other words, web 'apps’.  So, rather use traditional tools and take advantage of the real underlying operating system, these applications will be limited to web standards.  Don’t get me wrong, there is quite a bit that you can do with applications built this way, but there is quite a bit that you cannot.  Technologies such as Flash and Silverlight might enable web applications with more sophisticated abilities, but those technologies are not built with web standards.  Those are ‘native’ to the underlying operating system.  They have to be.

Where Chrome OS might find a good home are the devices like the Crunchpad and other so-called ‘mids’.   Small, hand held devices like these could benefit from something like ChromeOS.  You are not going to be running Photoshop or even PowerPoint on these things, but you will be playing simple games and browsing the internet.  Chrome OS might be perfect for such simple tasks like that.

I do have questions about this whole scheme.  Google says they will open source Chrome OS.  So, how are they going to make money with this? Ads?  As soon as you connect, are you going to get an ad?  What happens when there is no connectivity?  Do you lose your ability to run applications?  Since Linux is the underlying-and REAL-operating system, I’m guessing you could run Linux apps.  But, how rich would that experience be with a user interface that stays out of the way?  Questions, so many questions.

I don’t think Microsoft nor Apple (or even Ubuntu) have anything to be concerned with as far as Chrome OS goes. 

Link: Google Chrome OS announcement