For a long time I was a pretty regular IE user – never really paying much attention to Firefox or other browsers. I was impressed with tabs in IE – as this is a great usability feature. Most everything I needed to do worked fine in IE – and it was very dominant in the market share. Then I started to have problems – when IE would try to restore the tabs after a reboot (which we know doesn’t happen very often with windows) and would seem to crash. It seemed to get less and less stable over time…
Sometime last year I finally made the plunge and tried Firefox. I was quite impressed with Firefox – especially with it’s support for more standards (like curved borders!!) and the extensions. It’s just neat to be able to apply a theme to the browser so it looks cooler.
Recently I decided to try out Google Chrome as I had heard a lot about it too. Read more »
I just finished reading “Team of Rivals – The Polical Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I enjoyed reading this book – in large part because of how much respect and admiration I have for Abraham Lincoln. I think Lincoln has become one of the people that represents the greatness of America – one of our heroes. I would definitely recommend this book – but if you don’t like to read you might try an audiobook version as it’s 700+ pages.
This book took an interesting approach – constrasting Lincoln with some of his rivals – those who would become part of his cabinet during his presidency. It was fascinating to understand more the context of the life of Lincoln – in terms of what was normal for a man of his era to experience. It was an age of America where many men went “West” – to create for themselves a new life – one of economic opportunity. Lincoln was a complex man – suffering from depression, anger – but all of those life experiences culminated in a powerful personality as President.
Earlier this week I had the opportunity to visit the Kansas City Symphony with my daughter’s school class. It was a great experience – they had an very educational focus – a program aimed at the kids that started before the concert. My daughter enjoyed it and likely learned a lot from the event. I also like the symphony a lot – wishing I could go more often. I played the French horn up through High School and I love music – so the symphony has my sympathy and support.
What was interesting though was how concerned they were about people taking pictures or video of the performance. I wonder if they should be encouraging people to take pictures/video or should continue with their policy to ban it? It is in their best interest to tightly control their content or should they engage with their audience – encouraging them to share about their experience? Read more »
One of the most interesting things I’ve read today about the Apple iPad (http://www.apple.com/ipad/) was that it featured it’s own processor- the Apple A4. This is a custom processor that runs at 1Ghz and is supposed to be very power efficient – which would be essential in a tablet. From what I can tell a consumer company creating it’s own chip is a break from trends – as even Apple switched to Intel for it’s computers.
Overall I was a little underwhelmed by the iPad – except for the price. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t as expensive as I thought it might be – going from $499 to $899 – based on memory and 3G capability. This price point may actually be reasonable – considering the device essentially compares to the netbook niche. That’s what I see this as – as Apple’s positioning between a smartphone and a laptop. For that price you may actually get some sales – more than just Apple addicts – but for people who just want to surf the web, check their e-mail, read a book, listen to music, watch a movie – not a full computer but something easy to use.
I don’t know how much of an advantage their own chip has – it might depend on how much it cost – versus how much better it is than Atom or ARM based chips. It is an interesting trend toward power efficient processors – after the era of chips being a fire hazard. I think that’s where windows mobile as always had a problem – as it’s not very power efficient – vs. the old Palm phone I have. This tells you something about Apple – they made it themselves instead of using someone’s technology -because they could. It’s something Google would do (oh wait – they made their own phone hardware and OS). It definitely has a better cool factor than a Chrome based PC – even though those might be more functional in some core ways – but the “thinner” device seems to be in now…
I read this article on Techcrunch: http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/26/lessig-calls-google-book-settlement-a-path-to-insanity/ about a view on the Google Book project. The author, Lawrence Lessig, criticizes the Google Book project settlement on concerns over how this might change copyright law. He’s concerned with if books are treated in parts – instead of in totality – it will make future usability very difficult.
I agree that this digital world has seriously challenged the role of intellectual property in our society. The power of technology has changed our ability to use “intellectual” property in new ways – to make it much easier to store, use, copy, share, etc. what is someone else’s work. Read more »
Here’s a brief guide to creating a customer twitter background. I put one together – I’m not completely happy with it but I wanted to experiment with it – see https://twitter.com/andrewhelpme for what it looks like at present. Here are the basic steps I took to make one:
I started with a basic rectangle that was 1600 x 1200 – so that it fills most monitor screens without repeating.
I added in a 200 pixel wide rectangle on the left. This represents the maximum size my custom sidebar can take up. (I left this in place for demonstration purposes).
I then added a rectangle as the background. In my case I picked a color off the header of my website (a bluish color). I then picked a gradient option for that fill color and played around with gradient points to get a decent look.
I then started adding my own content:
I put a picture of me in the upper left-hand corner (unfortunately this doesn’t look as good as I hoped)
I put the logo of my corporation toward the bottom
I added in a catch phrase for my businesss
I put my website name vertically along the side
Here is the initial version of the background:
I wasn’t happy how that came out so I played around with it some more.
I made my picture smaller as it was too grainy.
I moved the website name to the top so it’s along the left edge – but starting from the top.
I made the logo smaller and moved it underneath the picture.
I then made a box around my picture, logo, etc. that had no interior but a hazy white exterior.
I removed the corporate log – as it was extraneous
I also then applied a “pattern” to the background rectangle to make it more interesting.
Here is the 2nd version of my custom twitter background
I did all my graphic editing in Macromedia Fireworks (now owned by Adobe) – but you could do this in pretty much any picture editing suite – except for paint. I’m definitely not a graphics designer – so I’m trying something pretty simple…
I was directed to this by a LinkedIn discussion – a video about video blogging. This seems like an interesting trend – as it may make blogging with your customers more interesting – as they get to see you face to face. For some people video may be more natural than typing – so they may be more effective communicators. I can also see how you could use this for more than just talking about something – you could show it. If you are working on a project you could show intermediate progress – or a prototype of a product.
I enjoyed reading “What Would Google Do?” by Jeff Jarvis. This book, despite the title, was not so much about Google but about the impact of Google/Internet has had on companies – especially looking to the future. Overall this book was a good read – as you can tell Jeff Jarvis is a college professor by the insights he has into the effect of Google. If you wondering what the future will possibly be like for many businesses in an Internet age I would highly recommend this book.
For my own sake (and hopefully yours) I will now note some of the items I really learned from this book:
I was talking to some people this morning and I recommended they upgrade any Vista Computers they have from Windows Vista to Windows 7. To me Windows 7 is like Vista the way it was supposed to be. I don’t have it myself (my computers are still on XP and are not Windows 7 ready) but I from what I’ve seen and heard it’s a good operating system. So I don’t hesitate to recommend it – especially as it comes on new computers. If I had a Vista computer I would upgrade it to Windows 7 -as it will work better and has some more features.
Here are some steps I would recommend to upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7:
I just realized today that a game my daughter was playing on the New York Philharmonic’s kids site is as powerful as a physic’s program on a Mac in high school. I remember being over at a friend’s house in high school (probably about 1990, 1991) and playing with some physics program – things bouncing around. That was cutting edge at the time – I think it was a Macintosh Classic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Classic) – because I remember you could carry it around.
Recommendations | andrew | 
February 6, 2010 9:10 pm | 
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