Computers & Technology, Personal

Retail: Pissing Me Off Since The Rise of Amazon

No Comments

What’s with retail these days?

Two weeks ago, I needed a specific audio patch cable — a 3.5mm TRRS cord to link my stereo mixer with my Surface Pro. The TRRS standard, which works with single-jack inputs blending stereo audio with a microphone, has been the de facto standard for iProducts as well as newer smartphones and tablets. It’s distinguished from other 3.5mm connectors by virtue of having three, instead of one or two, bands on the jack. Do you think Best Buy carries them? Nope — only online, although the company is happy to stock about a dozen identical versions of the TRS (two-band) patch cables by a dozen different manufacturers. Neither Radio Shack nor Staples had them, either. A common cord, using common plugs, used by a wide array of popular consumer electronics, is only available online. Despite that its less useful offspring is carried in superabundance. Couldn’t we maybe have just eight TRS plugs on the shelf, with four TRRS offerings? Why must it be 12-0?

This weekend, I wanted two books. One, an overview of the R statistical programming language, and the other, a product manual for the current version of SAS and its Enterprise Guide. I need them for my new job. After having visited both of the Barnes and Noble stores in Grand Rapids, as well as Schuler Books and Music, what did I find? If you guessed “nothing,” congrats! These retailers are happy to stack 20 different iterations of the same title — how many “Introduction to Photoshop” books does the world need, anyway? — but zero copies of somewhat rarer books.

I know, I know — just go to Amazon. Which is what I’ll have to do. But I remember a time when stores carried more diverse product offerings. Heck, I remember the old days, before Menards and Home Depot, when general-merchandise stores like Meijer had robust hardware departments with plywood sheets, shingles, custom-cut glass, 2x4s and the like. Now, the average Meijer may have two or three rows of generic tools and fasteners in its “hardware” section. And don’t get me started on the wonder that was Sears, Roebuck or Whitmark or Montgomery Ward. Or even Radio Shack, back when they sold more than cell phones.

It seems like the widespread adoption of online shopping has freed bricks-and-mortar retailers from carrying products that have a slower turnover rate. So you end up with bookstores that carry two dozen different titles about how to use Excel but no titles about using R, SAS, SPSS, Stata, Minitab, etc. Titles intended for the lowest common denominator move faster than rarer or more obscure titles, so bookstores shelve the faster-selling product. Thus, the rarer or more obscure your need, the less likely it is that you’ll find it locally — a distressing change from the pre-Amazon/pre-eBay days.

Sometimes I miss the pre-Internet world. At least then, when I wanted something, I could buy it in a store and take it home the same day I wanted it.

Computers & Technology

Twenty First Impressions: Microsoft @Surface Pro

No Comments

I’ve had my new 64-GB model of the Microsoft Surface Pro since Tuesday, and I’ve made heavy use of it since.

Some thoughts, in no particular order:

  1. The device is elegantly designed — the VaporMg case resists smudges and the buttons are well-placed. The magnetic connectors work nicely, although I’m a bit worried that the stylus may slip off if I’m not careful. I bought a carrying case with a pocket and usually keep the stylus and Wedge Mouse inside the pocket.
  2. The device runs cool. I can sense a small bit of warmth on the back when I’m using it, but it’s not unpleasant. And the fans are dead silent. The Surface Pro runs cooler than my old HP laptop, which would burn your skin if you got within five feet of it.
  3. Concerns about using the Surface on your lap feel overblown. Maybe it’s just how I sit — usually with crossed legs — but I can prop the Surface Pro on my lap and work for hours without difficulty. I usually spend an hour or two after work with a cigar and cocktail and use Nextgen Reader to work through about 1,200 RSS stories. I can read the news and not feel uncomfortable.
  4. The stylus works great, but there’s some inconsistency in how apps respond to it. I can’t get pressure recognition to work to save my life. And the Windows Store version of OneNote sometimes just doesn’t recognize the stylus at all. That said, I took meeting minutes in OneNote using just the stylus and a quick on-the-fly template I created, and it worked like a dream. I was ambivalent about pen computing before this, but now that I’ve tried it, I’m hooked.
  5. The Type Cover is perfect in almost every respect. I may be a bit biased on this one, since my last mobile computer was an Asus netbook, but the keys are nicely sized with good travel. If you’re accustomed to a netbook, the Type Cover feels luxurious. Granted that it’s not a full-sized keyboard, as a substitute, it’s more than up to the task. I could type on this thing for hours (and, in fact, have done so) without feeling that I’m losing anything.
  6. The Surface Pro is wicked fast. Photoshop loads in seconds and I’ve yet to see any sort of UI slowdown. The Surface Pro is actually faster than my desktop machine, a 2nd-generation Core i5 Toshiba all-in-one with the same amount of RAM.
  7. Although I’ve had Windows 8 on the Toshiba since the Developer Preview, and I’ve actually used touch features on that machine, I discovered the hard way just how little I understood touch in Windows 8 until I had to figure it out on the Surface. Granted, I did figure it out — in less than an hour, ThankYouVeryMuch — but still. I was surprised by the little things, like teaching myself how to edit tiles on the Start Screen without a keyboard and mouse.
  8. The 64-GB model can be problematic if you have a lot of files. I slimmed down what I synced from SkyDrive to a mere 9 GB and even then, after installing just a handful of small Windows 7 apps, I was approaching the limits of drive space. Add to that my install of several apps in the Adobe Creative Suite 6 package, and I literally ran out of space. I inserted an SD card and transferred the recovery drive to it — freeing 8 GB of space on the primary drive — and now have about 5 GB free. Part of the problem, actually, is my 7-year-old, ginormous IMAP email account. Since Outlook syncs a shadow copy of the IMAP file tree by default, the PST file grows in a hurry. If you use IMAP and Outlook, think carefully about what you cache.
  9. Speaking of the SD card … it would be lovely if Microsoft supported SkyDrive installations to removable media. My storage-space problems would be non-existent if I could have just installed SkyDrive to the SD card in the first place (or, if Adobe let me install CS6 to the SD card). I’m aware of unofficial workarounds, but … seriously.
  10. The Wedge Mouse delights. It’s small, perfectly responsive, and the touch surface is addicting. Well done. I’ve actually had as much interest in the mouse as I have had in the tablet PC itself.
  11. Generally speaking, the touch calibration is spot-on. In most cases, even with small controls, I can tap once and the device correctly captures my intent. In particular, Outlook 2013’s touch mode makes using Outlook with fingers a breeze (if only the app didn’t consistently crash, ugh). I rarely have erroneous touch input to correct. Except, curiously, in the Edit box in WordPress — wherein touch responses can be off by a centimeter or more. More on this in #13, below.
  12. The on-screen keyboard’s layout is great … but when I’m using some Windows Store apps, I can’t actually activate the keyboard. The input control seems to default to some sort of “select” mode with the dot-selector cursor in some apps (and the Share Charm) and it’s a pain to try to trick it to think it’s in data-entry mode and thereby gain access to the OSK. I still pine for an on-screen keyboard like the HP TouchPad, which had a small number row. Shifting into number mode is fine, but … ugh. More unnecessary clicks for entering passwords and such.
  13. The PC’s assumption that certain input controls, when touched, should activate a “select” mode instead of an “edit” mode is the most vexing problem I’ve encountered so far. If I want to enter select mode, I’ll drag the finger/pen/mouse/cursor. A mere selection should not activate “select” mode in any context.
  14. Scaling of certain fonts and UI elements in Desktop Mode remains inconsistent. It’s not a problem for me, but it’s noticeable. You practically need a magnifying glass to read the menu items in Photoshop, for example. Good thing my near vision is flawless! I understand that the size/scale issue relates to the device’s very high screen resolution. For that matter — Retina can suck it. The Surface Pro display is gorgeous.
  15. Battery life runs roughly 4 hours. I think Microsoft’s decision to favor performance over battery life proved prudent. The charger is small enough that carrying it in my bag isn’t exactly a tribulation worthy of Sisyphus, and four hours’ unplugged time isn’t anything to sneeze at. I have no power worries when I take the device into the cigar shop to read the news, check Twitter and enjoy a fine adult beverage. All things being equal, I’d rather have a more substantial tablet PC that can do everything on a power budget, than an entertainment device like an iPad that will run for a long time but not really permit advanced functionality. I know MS is taking flak over battery life from the tech press, but I think the calculation was right and the tech press is just looking for a reason to land a few gratuitous kicks at Redmond.
  16. I wish there were more Windows Store apps. Take Facebook, for example. I adore the Windows Phone 8 version of Facebook, but I don’t like using the Facebook website. There isn’t a decent official app, so … I usually just skip reading FB on the Surface. Furthermore, some other apps (I’m looking at you, Amazon Kindle) don’t provide full functionality. I actually canceled my USA Today subscription for Kindle because the Win8 Kindle app doesn’t support magazine subscription syncing like it does for iOS.
  17. While I’m at it — I wish Windows 8 appreciated that a person can have more than one Twitter account, and that the People hub let me filter the activity feed by service. If I could import my two other Twitter accounts into Windows and then use the People hub to scan only, say, Facebook or LinkedIn updates, I’d be in hog heaven. For that app, anyway.
  18. The acquisition process for this thing proved vexing. I got the run-around at two local Staples stores and was blatantly lied to by a Best Buy employee. I ended up purchasing online through the Microsoft Store; the process was fast and easy, but the shipment process was somewhat less than optimal — the order split into three boxes, which was fine, but each shipment was “pending” for a while before it flipped to “shipped” status. As it happened, everything arrived when I expected, but the Microsoft Store didn’t make it clear that this would prove true.
  19. From a hardware perspective … I’d give my left nut for an audio-in jack. As a podcaster, I’d love to use Audition or Audacity for our show, but without a way of getting the audio onto the PC, I am condemned to forever lug my laptop along with our mixer and mics.
  20. The speakers are clear but a bit under-powered; the cameras are responsive and generally good. I’d prefer a higher-resolution rear camera, but it’s not a huge deal (I can snap pics with my HTC 8X and just pull them from SkyDrive four seconds later).

All for now.

Business Development, Computers & Technology, Personal

Rejoice! I've Created the Ultimate Daily Tracking System with @MSOneNote

No Comments

For many long, bitter years I’ve lamented the utter lack of harmony among my various personal-organizational systems. I’ve tried paper. I’ve tried smartphones. I’ve tried an Outlook-only solution. I even tried to put everything into a giant Access database with a Web front-end, only to be stymied by a back-end discontinuity. Never could get any solution to work, though — the stuff I wanted to record, in the way I wanted to record it, in all the different form factors I might want to access it, never seemed to align in satisfactory manner.
Until now, that is.log2

The solution I’ve developed squares the circle that connects data tracking, idea-gathering and journaling into a single front-end solution that synchronizes natively across three screens. I use Microsoft OneNote (although presumably Evernote would work too) with a separate notebook called “Chron” containing a tab called “Daily.” I’ve saved the template shown to the left as the default template for this tab, and my Windows Phone 8 links to the template page (I’ve pinned it, so I can open it up to today’s notes with just a single tap.)

The section contains the things I care about recording, but with only as much detail as I’m interested in gathering. The form includes a “focus” bar, which is simply a phrase or sentence that summarizes something I need to keep top-of-mind; it might be task-oriented or it might just be a song quote to provide inspiration.

The “Today’s Deliverables” list marks all the deadlines I have to get done — I refresh it every morning by scanning my task list in Outlook and picking the that that I need to keep in front of my face.  By design, this list doesn’t sync directly to Outlook; I sometimes include quick tasks or short-term lists here that really don’t warrant the time/effort of adding it to Outlook. I also sometimes schedule myself to do things before their Outlook due date if I know I have the flex to get it done.

The “Schedule” list provides a skeleton of my appointments — both on-calendar and in-the-moment — and beneath each item I can then add my meeting notes and (as needed) create Outlook tasks for anything I need to do as a result of that meeting.

If I did something special worth preserving, it’s listed as a “Significant Accomplishment” — helpful if I wanted to look back over the last few months to see progress on life goals. Many days, this line will be blank, just to preserve its value of highlighting the things that matter.

Then I record data about myself — how many calories I’ve consumed, how much exercising I’ve done and how much money I’ve transacted. Weekly, I record “body metrics,” including regular weigh-ins and blood pressure checks with an “other” category for other health milestones worth documenting. Like my sketchy Vitamin D levels. At the bottom of the list, a section for “Ideas/Reflections” permits free-form recording of ideas or longer journal entries. Consider it a form of diary integration.

One of my biggest peeves with existing third-party life-organization tools is that (a) data often aren’t portable, and (b) you’re at the mercy of the vendor. With my solution, I own my data and don’t need to give private information to a company that may or may not be in operation six months from now.

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed a “tag” line beneath several of the sections. This little sentence identifies a specific data-recording paradigm. Under “Calorie Counts,” for example, I’ve reminded myself to record today’s date, the meal — breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack — and the meal’s net calories. If I need to add a comment, I can do so. Each piece of information is comma-separated. Then, I can highlight the row of data and use one of OneNote’s tags (I have CTRL+4 hot-keyed as a “calorie count” tag). For example: “1/1/13,breakfast,120,Greek yogurt and coffee with creamer.” Quick and easy to type — something I could do on my phone at the Starbucks counter, even. If it’s easy to record, it’s more likely that it’ll be recorded. Notes are optional. If you’re in line at Panera, how hard is it to tap your log button on the phone and type “1/1/13,lunch,350,Panera” if you’re enjoying a 350-calorie meal? If you can’t log something that succinct ….

But why do it this way, instead of using a third-party service or a spreadsheet or something? Because a uniform method of recording, coupled with OneNote’s heavily customizable internal tags, lets me do a tag search and dump all instances of a specific tab to a summary page. The upshot is that I can just copy/paste the “calorie count” data and dump it into Excel if I want to track/trend/graph my data over time; the uniform mechanism of tracking individual records, separated by commas, permits painless sorting into columns. For example, if I wanted to measure my average daily gross calorie count for all of January, and subtract from it my gross calorie burn from exercise, to arrive at net calories by day, I can just search for the “calorie count” and “exercise record” tags, do a quick copy/paste into Excel, and arrive at the results in less than a minute. No need to try fiddling with MyFitnessPal or Livescape, or a separate mobile version of a spreadsheet; the data’s your own and you can manipulate it how you wish.

So. I now have an electronic solution that allows for daily metrics tracking in one tool, synced over three screens, with a data-collection and tagging infrastructure to permit fairly simple longitudinal analysis of performance. Not bad, eh?

Business Development, Computers & Technology, Personal

Rejoice! I’ve Created the Ultimate Daily Tracking System with @MSOneNote

No Comments

For many long, bitter years I’ve lamented the utter lack of harmony among my various personal-organizational systems. I’ve tried paper. I’ve tried smartphones. I’ve tried an Outlook-only solution. I even tried to put everything into a giant Access database with a Web front-end, only to be stymied by a back-end discontinuity. Never could get any solution to work, though — the stuff I wanted to record, in the way I wanted to record it, in all the different form factors I might want to access it, never seemed to align in satisfactory manner.

Until now, that is.log2

The solution I’ve developed squares the circle that connects data tracking, idea-gathering and journaling into a single front-end solution that synchronizes natively across three screens. I use Microsoft OneNote (although presumably Evernote would work too) with a separate notebook called “Chron” containing a tab called “Daily.” I’ve saved the template shown to the left as the default template for this tab, and my Windows Phone 8 links to the template page (I’ve pinned it, so I can open it up to today’s notes with just a single tap.)

The section contains the things I care about recording, but with only as much detail as I’m interested in gathering. The form includes a “focus” bar, which is simply a phrase or sentence that summarizes something I need to keep top-of-mind; it might be task-oriented or it might just be a song quote to provide inspiration.

The “Today’s Deliverables” list marks all the deadlines I have to get done — I refresh it every morning by scanning my task list in Outlook and picking the that that I need to keep in front of my face.  By design, this list doesn’t sync directly to Outlook; I sometimes include quick tasks or short-term lists here that really don’t warrant the time/effort of adding it to Outlook. I also sometimes schedule myself to do things before their Outlook due date if I know I have the flex to get it done.

The “Schedule” list provides a skeleton of my appointments — both on-calendar and in-the-moment — and beneath each item I can then add my meeting notes and (as needed) create Outlook tasks for anything I need to do as a result of that meeting.

If I did something special worth preserving, it’s listed as a “Significant Accomplishment” — helpful if I wanted to look back over the last few months to see progress on life goals. Many days, this line will be blank, just to preserve its value of highlighting the things that matter.

Then I record data about myself — how many calories I’ve consumed, how much exercising I’ve done and how much money I’ve transacted. Weekly, I record “body metrics,” including regular weigh-ins and blood pressure checks with an “other” category for other health milestones worth documenting. Like my sketchy Vitamin D levels. At the bottom of the list, a section for “Ideas/Reflections” permits free-form recording of ideas or longer journal entries. Consider it a form of diary integration.

One of my biggest peeves with existing third-party life-organization tools is that (a) data often aren’t portable, and (b) you’re at the mercy of the vendor. With my solution, I own my data and don’t need to give private information to a company that may or may not be in operation six months from now.

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed a “tag” line beneath several of the sections. This little sentence identifies a specific data-recording paradigm. Under “Calorie Counts,” for example, I’ve reminded myself to record today’s date, the meal — breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack — and the meal’s net calories. If I need to add a comment, I can do so. Each piece of information is comma-separated. Then, I can highlight the row of data and use one of OneNote’s tags (I have CTRL+4 hot-keyed as a “calorie count” tag). For example: “1/1/13,breakfast,120,Greek yogurt and coffee with creamer.” Quick and easy to type — something I could do on my phone at the Starbucks counter, even. If it’s easy to record, it’s more likely that it’ll be recorded. Notes are optional. If you’re in line at Panera, how hard is it to tap your log button on the phone and type “1/1/13,lunch,350,Panera” if you’re enjoying a 350-calorie meal? If you can’t log something that succinct ….

But why do it this way, instead of using a third-party service or a spreadsheet or something? Because a uniform method of recording, coupled with OneNote’s heavily customizable internal tags, lets me do a tag search and dump all instances of a specific tab to a summary page. The upshot is that I can just copy/paste the “calorie count” data and dump it into Excel if I want to track/trend/graph my data over time; the uniform mechanism of tracking individual records, separated by commas, permits painless sorting into columns. For example, if I wanted to measure my average daily gross calorie count for all of January, and subtract from it my gross calorie burn from exercise, to arrive at net calories by day, I can just search for the “calorie count” and “exercise record” tags, do a quick copy/paste into Excel, and arrive at the results in less than a minute. No need to try fiddling with MyFitnessPal or Livescape, or a separate mobile version of a spreadsheet; the data’s your own and you can manipulate it how you wish.

So. I now have an electronic solution that allows for daily metrics tracking in one tool, synced over three screens, with a data-collection and tagging infrastructure to permit fairly simple longitudinal analysis of performance. Not bad, eh?

Computers & Technology, Personal

Odds & Ends

No Comments

A handful of updates:

  • I traded up, replacing my HTC HD7 (running Windows Phone 7.5) for an HTC Windows Phone 8X. The 8X is a flagship device that’s astonishing — larger than the HD7, but lighter. Sound quality is phenomenal, boosted by the on-board Beats Audio. The 8 MP rear-facing camera rocks; I snapped a photo yesterday of a cigar I was smoking and the camera picked up with astonishing sharpness not only the fine veins of the cigar wrapper but I could also clearly see fine hairs on my wrist and even the fingerprint on my little finger.
  • I had to replace my laptop, too, because it well-and-truly died. I wanted to upgrade to a Win8 tablet but there aren’t non-RT models actually available (except for the Samsung ATIV) on the market. And the ATIV is an online-only order with a weeks-long fulfillment. So I ended up grabbing an HP Pavilion G6. It’s a perfectly serviceable machine with an AMD A8 processor, 4 GB of RAM and the usual specs for a lower-mid-grade laptop. Only glitch was that I had to buy it twice; the first model had a hardware failure straight from the box, so I had to swap it for a replacement at Best Buy. HP, your build quality is going the way of Compaq.
  • NaNoWriMo is … going. I have all the tools I need to be successful (well, almost; my Scrivener files haven’t yet synced to the new laptop — but having more than 30 GB on SkyDrive to sync on a slow connection might be the culprit) and a good plot. I’m behind on word count but at this point is more a discipline thing than an organization thing.
  • All’s quiet on the work front. Holding pattern.
  • Tony came to town yesterday. That was fun. In my head, I thought he was still going to be in California.
  • Been unusually tired lately.
  • I saw Skyfall last week. Not bad. I’ve seen people go on both directions about the film, but I thought it was a successful pseudo-reboot of the franchise.

Computers & Technology, Personal

Odds & Ends

No Comments

A handful of updates:

  • I traded up, replacing my HTC HD7 (running Windows Phone 7.5) for an HTC Windows Phone 8X. The 8X is a flagship device that’s astonishing — larger than the HD7, but lighter. Sound quality is phenomenal, boosted by the on-board Beats Audio. The 8 MP rear-facing camera rocks; I snapped a photo yesterday of a cigar I was smoking and the camera picked up with astonishing sharpness not only the fine veins of the cigar wrapper but I could also clearly see fine hairs on my wrist and even the fingerprint on my little finger.
  • I had to replace my laptop, too, because it well-and-truly died. I wanted to upgrade to a Win8 tablet but there aren’t non-RT models actually available (except for the Samsung ATIV) on the market. And the ATIV is an online-only order with a weeks-long fulfillment. So I ended up grabbing an HP Pavilion G6. It’s a perfectly serviceable machine with an AMD A8 processor, 4 GB of RAM and the usual specs for a lower-mid-grade laptop. Only glitch was that I had to buy it twice; the first model had a hardware failure straight from the box, so I had to swap it for a replacement at Best Buy. HP, your build quality is going the way of Compaq.
  • NaNoWriMo is … going. I have all the tools I need to be successful (well, almost; my Scrivener files haven’t yet synced to the new laptop — but having more than 30 GB on SkyDrive to sync on a slow connection might be the culprit) and a good plot. I’m behind on word count but at this point is more a discipline thing than an organization thing.
  • All’s quiet on the work front. Holding pattern.
  • Tony came to town yesterday. That was fun. In my head, I thought he was still going to be in California.
  • Been unusually tired lately.
  • I saw Skyfall last week. Not bad. I’ve seen people go on both directions about the film, but I thought it was a successful pseudo-reboot of the franchise.

Computers & Technology

Review: Windows 8 Pro

No Comments

Having purchased the Windows 8 upgrade on the first day of availability, I’ve since installed it on my primary desktop computer (a Toshiba all-in-one with a large, two-point touchscreen) and my ancient netbook.

Observations:

  • The netbook installation was slow but the OS performs more efficiently than Win7 did. Total install time was slightly more than four hours, but almost all of it was unattended.
  • The netbook’s display is only capable of 1064×600 — the LCD is VGA capable, but the Intel mobile graphics adapter only allows the slightly small resolution. There’s a simple registry hack around this, which worked fine, but the display is now slightly stretched. Not enough to be annoying, but enough to be noticeable. VGA resolution or higher is required to run the Store or Win8-style apps, although the core OS will still run in 1024×600 and look quite lovely if you have no need of … apps.
  • Integration of SkyDrive, the newly update Skype and cross-hardware user settings under the new Microsoft Account worked like a charm. When I installed Win8 on the netbook, after I had already configured the desktop like I wanted, my apps were accessible and settings like desktop backgrounds and email accounts were already in place. Nice touch: The Mail app included my accounts but required password entry before they’d fetch messages, thus protecting my security if I ever logged in to someone else’s machine with my Microsoft Account.
  • The Store seems to think of upgrades on a per-account instead of a per-device basis. I couldn’t figure out why my desktop machine kept telling me I had app updates that wouldn’t process, until I saw that those same apps needed updating on the netbook and processed just fine. It’d be nice if app updates were device-specific.
  • Win8 UI is fluid and I have no problems using either a mouse (on the desktop) or the integrated touchpad (on the netbook) to navigate the OS. I find it easier to do routine work, because I can just use Win-key shortcuts to do things faster (even with keyboard and mouse) than I often could using Win7.
  • The new Start screen, once you get used to it, is superior to the old Start menu. Seeing real-time app statuses makes life easier. I disagree with some folks who want to nest app tiles like iOS does — nesting them off the main Start screen defeats the whole purpose of accessible live tiles.
  • No problem with device installation, like printers and peripherals.
  • Upgrade path from netbook (running Win7) and desktop (running Win8 Consumer Preview) were both efficient. Only quibble with installer is that although the timers for the different phases of installation were accurate, you didn’t get a sense of how many phases were left.
  • SkyDrive integration is seamless.
  • The app store was far more robust than I thought. I understand there were nearly 8k apps available at launch. I found the apps I wanted and discovered some that look supremely useful that weren’t even on my radar screen. My concerns about buying a Windows RT tablet have plummeted to near zero at this point.
  • Win8-style apps that already exist and meet my needs: Amazon Kindle, Bank of America, Cocktail Flow, Flixster, Flux, iHeartRadio, Netflix, OneNote, SkyDrive, Skype, USA Today.
  • Win8-style apps I’d still like to see for a tablet: Fly Delta, LiveScape, MyFitnessPal, Paypal, Stitcher. I’d love to see an RSS reader like Feedly (although Flux is kinda close).
  • I have high hopes for Xbox Music. I had a Zune Pass that I didn’t really use too much. The ability to synchronize playlists across screens is, in itself, worth it.

I’m glad I updated to Windows 8 and I encourage others to follow suit. It’s a bit of a change, in terms of workflow, but the “everyone will be confused and angry” thing is overblown. A few hours of use and you’ll see the benefits.

Plus, the integration across three screens means that pairing a desktop or laptop with a Win8/WinRT tablet and a Windows Phone 8 smartphone will provide continuity of data and experience.

Microsoft is consolidating its ecosystem. To which the only valid response is: Huzzah!

Computers & Technology, Politics & Culture

MMORPGs Make the Baby Jeebus Cry

2 Comments

Having chortled a bit on some off-color commentary about the recent expansion toWorld of Warcraft,in which kung-fu pandas proliferate through Azeroth, it occurred to me that I’m not playing any games … because all the games seem to suck.

  • I don’t play WoW anymore because the game stopped being fun when Blizzard started dumbing it down. I miss vanilla WoW, from the days when we still had combat ranks and warlocks actually expended soul shards. Every subsequent change has done two things — dumbed down gameplay, and made the game increasingly inaccessible for solo players.
  • I haven’t seen anything fun lately. I dabbled with Everquest II, Tabula Rasa, Star Trek Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic and The Secret World, but none really caught my fancy enough to keep me playing … mostly because the mechanics weren’t quite right.
  • Eve Online might be fun, but the barrier to entry is so high as to be prohibitive.

Were I to counsel an MMORPG designer, I’d say stuff like this:

  1. Don’t penalize players for playing solo. One of my biggest gripes about WoW is that you only get good gear from being in a raiding guild. If you journey alone, you’re stuck with whatever crap you grab on a drop or at the Auction House. Not fair for those of us who lack the time or the desire to group frequently.
  2. Give us a world to explore and reasons to explore it.  Put stuff somewhere, even the items have no real purpose. Paint large maps — like Azeroth — and stick Easter eggs or stunning vistas or hidden treasures or something to reward players for looking beyond the beaten path.
  3. Enough, already, with FedEx and grind missions.  I will kill monsters; I don’t need to be tasked to kill 100 monsters just to advance to the next quest. Nor do I need a quest to go from Point A to Point B; if the quests need to prompt this, then there’s something wrong with the game design.
  4. Write quest lines take a choose-your-own-adventure path. Don’t just chain quests together blindly, or just make them available when you hit a level. The choices you make in what quests you choose, and how you choose to complete them, should make a noticeable difference. SWTOR came closest to making this work; you could end a quest by making a Light or Dark choice, but it didn’t really affect quest lines. The mid-game gameplay shouldn’t be exactly the same for every character at the same level.
  5. Don’t skimp on the UI. The most vexing thing about The Secret World? It had lovely cut scenes, but no voice talent for your character. Lame.
  6. Don’t skimp on the backstory. Create a lush narrative universe and put us in the middle of it. Give us a reason to invest emotionally in our character.
  7. De-emphasize levels. Perhaps Ultima Online got it right: Don’t treat Player A as more powerful than Player B just because Player B out-leveled him. Instead, focus on skill levels. And don’t make these level so rigid that you get locked into only one “optimal” build — because then you’re just grinding for points without any sense of adventure. I’d rather be able to allocate points across stats and skills in free-form style than being tied to a tree you already know. And give me points for earning them instead of when I grind to fill a progress bar — maybe for finishing a quest, or killing a difficult monster, or earning an in-game achievement. Leveling up because the spider you killed tipped your progress bar is just lame.
  8. Don’t be afraid to be risqué. One of the fun things about SWTOR was the flirting and even the possibility of same-sex romance with your companions. Many, many game players are adults. Give us adult content from time to time.
  9. Expand the customizability of players. Don’t bore me with a handful of default character builds; let me customize everything, exactly how I want. Heck, I’d spend hours in the character-design part of the game just to get my persona just right. And I’d invest more into him or her, too.
  10. For the love of all that’s holy, vary up gameplay for the earliest levels. I’m a tweaker; I roll a whole bunch of characters for the newbie zone to see what I like. If I have to play the exact same content the exact same way a dozen times … forget it.

There.

/rant

Computers & Technology

The New @SkyDrive: Positive First Impressions

No Comments

Earlier this week our friends in Redmond launched the next major update for Microsoft’s cloud service, called SkyDrive. I’ve had a SkyDrive account for, oh, years and was a fan of Windows Live Mesh. My only beef with the SkyDrive service? A depressing lack of integration with the Windows operating system. You had to open a browser to upload files and you couldn’t upload entire folders. Booo.

The newest SkyDrive release fixes these shortcomings. The beta app released on Monday adds a set of folders under the user account that background sync across connected devices and the cloud service; the devices and account are managed through a single Windows Live ID. Better yet, Mesh becomes superfluous because users can remotely traverse the complete file systems of connected computers (with SMS-based two-step authorization required) provided they’re powered-up.

Initial impressions:

  • The SkyDrive desktop app installed quickly and provided adequate instruction about the new SkyDrive folder under the user’s account.
  • First-pass uploading took a while. I had the 25 GB storage option already enabled by virtue of having had more than 5 GB of data on my account. I purchased an additional 20 GB ($10/year) to give me a total of 45 GB. Uploading roughly 25 GB of additional data took almost two full days. Whether this slowness is because of Microsoft bottlenecks or because our local Comcast service provides blazing-fast downloads but snail-like uploads, is a question I cannot answer.
  • Once all my files migrated between my desktop computer (running Windows 8 Consumer Preview) and my netbook (running Windows 7 Professional) through the SkyDrive tool, life was good. I’ve tested a few different sync scenarios and the service performs flawlessly.
  • The SkyDrive app for my Windows Phone 7.5 took it all in stride. The recently refreshed WP7 app added multi-select capability — a delicious addition to the feature set.
  • For some odd reason, I cannot actually access SkyDrive on IE 10 on the Win8 CP.  The site kills the IE instance. Every. Single. Time.
  • The desktop app’s notification icon provides a lovely little green bar animation to indicate a synchronization action in progress. Nice touch.

Suggestions for other SkyDrive users:

  1. The SkyDrive folder tree on your local machine contains real files, not pointers to network files. If you re-map your Windows libraries to point to your SkyDrive folder tree, you get an instant, full-fledged cloud option with zero additional work and complete transparency as you go about your daily computer-related tasks.  If you work offline, you need not worry about losing data; the service will sync the next time you have a network connection.
  2. Another tip: Put a desktop shortcut to a “temp” folder that’s stored in your SkyDrive folder tree to keep work-in-progress/unsorted files up-to-date across all your devices with a minimum of drama.
  3. I formerly employed an external hard drive as my “source of truth” storage location, with Live Mesh keeping a subset of folders in sync between that HDD and the Mesh servers (and, thereby, a folder tree on my netbook). I no longer have a need for Mesh at all. Team Microsoft fixed the “wall between Skydrive and Mesh” that so haunted my nightmares these past few years. And I probably will use the external drive only for archiving huge raw temp audio files from the podcast I produce.
  4. Have an Android tablet? Microsoft highlights a few third-party apps that integrate with SkyDrive. I use one on my dual-boot Touchpad and have no trouble with it whatsoever.

Short version: The SkyDrive update brings this cloud solution into maturity; it’s fast, easy-to-use and comprehensive — earning this humble scribe’s enthusiastic endorsement.

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

Short Reflections on Recent Items of Note

No Comments

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

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

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

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

All for now.