Google has gone to the Moon

I saw THIS article today. Google is selling high fashion signature scarves. What? Yes, you heard that right, Google inspired scarves. More and more recently I have been realizing that Google is operating like they are on another planet. Rules don't apply to them. They can do anything they want. They are big and big means they can bully and get away with stuff etc. This feels a lot like another company that acted this way about 20 or so years ago. Microsoft. Google is acting the same way. They will eventually be slapped down and suffer the same fate that M$ is suffering now. A long slow decline into irrelevance. Why? Well, one reason, and it may be the primary reason, is that much of Google's employee base has come from former Microsofties. So, a new company was created and populated with people that "grew up" in a culture of arrogance and have brought that to their new company.
A second symptom stems from American business culture's need to grow at all costs. Diversify or die. Continued growth and increased revenues are a must or your stock price will go down. Just being successful isn't good enough, you have to be ubersuccessful or you might as well close your doors. This gets companies like Microsoft and Google in trouble. This makes companies like Google decide to sell designer scarves and other crazy things like make cell phones.

Post iPad, what's next from Apple?

So Apple announced the iPad tablet computer yesterday. I can't wait to touch one...and buy one. I'll write more about it later.
What I want to write about today is what almost nobody is talking about. Everyone is busy chatting up the iPad. Do you think Apple is done for the year? HELL NO!!!! They even hinted in their quarterly earnings call about multiple products this year. So, do you think I'm gonna start talking about the next iPhone due out sometime this summer? No. What I am going to talk about and predict is the next AppleTV. Or, whatever Apple will release that will replace the AppleTV. Watching the iPad keynote yesterday it became clear to me where Apple is going. Sony (PS3), Nintendo (Wii) and Microsoft (XBox) are their next targets. Maybe not direct targets but you'll understand in a second.
As of yesterday, January 27th 2010, the iPhone App Store had over 140,000 separate applications available for download. Most of those apps will work on the iPad out of the box. There will be at least 10,000 apps made specifically for the iPad available on the day it ships. At least 10,000. I wouldn't be surprised to see more than 10,000.
Here is my prediction. An App Store for the AppleTV. I know I'm not the first to suggest this but I have seen very very little written about it lately. I'm sure this is because of the iPad. However, it is all interconnected into Apple's strategy. An App Store for the AppleTV would turn gaming on it's ear. All the thousands of games available for the iPhone/Touch/iPad available for use on your HDTV. And of course specific apps developed specifically for the TV. I don't think that hard core gaming would be the goal here. I think the casual gaming space would be perfect for a device like the AppleTV. There will still be a market for the Xbox and Wii for hard core and longer form gaming. Thousands of relatively cheap games available for purchase and download right from your TV. You would also have access to all of your other media from the same device, TV shows, Movies, Music and photos. I know you're gonna say that Microsoft already has something like this. The XBox 360 XBMC right now does most of this. However, the XBox 360 is a game machine first and all that other stuff second. The AppleTV is opposite. This is where I see an opportunity. Not everyone wants to spend $200-300 for a game machine. Yes, there are millions out there but not hundreds of millions. There are hundreds of millions of TV's. All Apple has to do is update the AppleTV. Beef it up a bit, make it more current, add a faster processor a little more RAM and a bigger hard drive. Tune the software to add an App Store and come up with some kind of wireless game controller/remote and voila! you suddenly have access to thousands of games and internet connectivity all from your TV. Play a game, rent a movie, purchase/rent a TV show, check Facebook, send a Tweet, check the weather, play some music, watch some YouTube, play another game, check your email. You get the idea.
This is definitely not "new", the idea has been around since Microsoft's WebTV gambit. The difference here is Apple. In the same way they revolutionized the music industry and then spun the cell phone world on it's ear and now are resurrecting the Tablet they are going to nail the TV thing.
I am convinced Apple is going to do something like this this year. AppleTV the "hobby" has allowed Apple to learn and they have not done a major update in more than 2 years. There is no way Apple is NOT going to play in this space. They already are but we are on the cusp of them taking it to the next level. Plan on it. Write it down. It is coming. You WILL want one. My crystal ball has a picture of me in 2011 sitting on my couch with an iPad on my lap watching a rented movie on my new AppleTV. Oh, and I'll be controlling my TV using my iPad.

iPhone saves a life

It's true. A man trapped in the earthquake in Haiti this week is crediting his iPhone with saving his life!!!
He used the iPhone screen and his digital camera to shed light in the dark spot he was trapped in. He made his way to a safer spot to wait for rescue. He then used a "medical app" he had installed on his iPhone to diagnose and treat his wounds.
I hope I am never in this situation but what a great comfort to know there are tools that can help in such times.

Google = Ironic

So, here is the best irony of the New Year!
Google started selling their own smartphone recently. The Nexus One. People are having trouble with it. The irony is that Google is selling a phone that has no phone support to provide customer service. Now wait, what was that? Google sells a cell phone you can only buy online and only provides online support for it. I can see the geeky Google guys sitting in their offices patting each other on the back for coming up with this one. Google doesn't own the entire world quite yet, so they still have to do business under the rules the rest of us work under. If they want to change the world then they needed to work harder to make the online support dead simple and rock solid. I guess they have a little bit of work to do.

My Worst Fear

This clip shows a disaster in a warehouse that is "man caused" but my worst fear is being inside a Costco and an earthquake hits and this happens. If you're not inside a forklift like these guys I don't think you survive. Does Costco sell life insurance?

Android Doomed

HERE is the most concise explanation thus far as to why, at this writing anyway, the Android ecosystem seems doomed.
The news this week about The Googs new "Nexus One" phone is evidence that even Google sees the problem. They are trying to fix it by making their own phone. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, everyone is chasing the iPhone. Even Google. I'm not saying they are giving up on the open source Android OS but by making and shipping their own phone they are taking a stand that will piss of handset manufacturers and Cell carriers at the same time. Thus making things wildly more complicated than just making a phone and controlling it from beginning to end ala Apple. Good luck Goog!

Why didn't I think of that?

Check out THIS new iPhone app. It uses the phones camera to make the phone transparent while you're texting. So you can see where you are going. Hmm. Of course! Seems so obvious now. Now if I'm texting in the car I can see the crash I'm about to get into before it happens. Sweet!

Peaceful Word Processing

Found this new software today.
It is a simple word processor for Mac OSX only. Sorry PC guys, you'll have to wait. (I love saying that ;) For those poor non-Mac guys you can go to their site and watch a video of how it works.

Anyway, download the beta of Ommwriter and check it out.

I spent many years in my career working on word processors for WordPerfect (for Mac), Adobe (Framemaker) and Microsoft (Office), and word processing always seemed very businesslike. Straightforward even sterile interfaces. Nothing fancy or aesthetic about them at all. These guys take a very simple approach. Take everything away but the writing. It is unique and I kind of like it. I can see using Ommwriter for creative writing. Everyday business writing would require too much re-formatting in a more full featured word processor.
Your desktop icons and dock go away and you have a simple background. Soothing sounds and/or music plays. All interface elements fade away as you write leaving you with just the words your are writing and nothing else to distract you. If the music does distract you can turn it off. I personally found it soothing. I'm sure they will iterate on this concept and add more features but maybe they don't need to. What do you think? Give Ommwriter a try and come back and comment I would love to hear what you think.

Kindle Krap

I've been waiting for awhile now to get my hands on an Amazon Kindle for the first time. I've been waiting to review/remark on the Kindle until I could actually use one. Thanks to my friend I had my first contact yesterday.

Here are my thoughts.

So, the unit I used was a first gen Kindle. I understand it has been improved since. If I ever get my hands on the newer models I will update my feelings here. That being said, my feelings on a lot of points will probably be the same despite the improvements I have read about.
First thought was, wow this thing is small. I couldn't believe how small the screen is. The newer models have bigger screens. Good. I knew that this device was not a touch screen so I found the scroll ball device pretty quickly. What surprised me was the scroll indicator window directly above the scroll wheel. What the heck? This vertical indicator thingey is totally bizarre. What is it? I don't think it is LCD like the eInk screen the book text displays on. I quickly figured out what it was telling me and moved on. However, it was a little odd to figure out and doesn't feel very intuitive to me. It isn't part of the main display screen. Nowadays this seems completely odd, backwards and unnecessary.
The power button and wireless button are on the back. Bad. I have to turn the unit over to turn it on. The unit I was using was in a leather carrying case which seemed kind of nice. I had to remove the Kindle from the case in order to turn it on and then place it back in the case.
eInk. It looks a little different than the usual experience of a non-backlit LCD screen. Text seemed smooth and very readable but it also looked a little muddy and I was just not "wowed" by it. The background is a dull grayish color and seems decidedly darker than if I were reading an actual "real paper" book. I would like the eInk background to be brighter.
I found a book on the main menu and clicked to open it to start reading. I expected a full page of text like I would see in a book. No. I found maybe a quarter page of text, flush left. I had to click the "next" button often to read. This would be distracting I think if I were actually sitting down to read an entire book. I "expected" and/or "wanted" something different. I wanted this device to mimic at least in some fashion what reading a real book would be like. I am not a real book purist. I love books but I totally want an electronic device that I can comfortably read books on. The Kindle is not it. This surprised me. I expected that I would like this device, that it would immediately appeal to me and that I would want one and it would start the usual multi-month or year long longing to have one.
The interface was decidedly basic and lacked design and any sort of layout. Basic text lists of titles and options. Boring. I tried several books and noticed that on each one the text is just thrown on the screen without any consideration for typography or layout. Most books I read don't have a lot of "design" to them but at least I can see a chapter heading and page number and a pleasing typeface. This experience felt "less than". Less than even a basic paper back book. I must say it again that this surprised me. How hard is it to mimic a page full of black and white 12pt Times Roman text with a chapter heading and page number? Maybe this varies by book and I just picked books that didn't have any layout etc. I don't know.

In summary, I guess it's true that my expectations are too high. I am continually disappointed by my experiences with electronic devices. I am eternally hopeful however that someone somewhere will meet my expectations and make my life better. I hope this new fad of late in the eBook reader space will turn out something special at some point. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the Barnes & Noble Nook. It looks interesting but I fear it will suffer some of the same downfalls of the Kindle. There are dozens of others but they all seem even less exciting than the Kindle. Maybe Apple's rumored tablet will hit the ebook ball out of the park. It won't be an ebook reader only so I fear that it's cost will be too great. However, the Apple experience and polish give it a very good chance of exceeding the Kindle. Having other features and uses could be a plus too. We'll have to see what they deliver. My guess is even their first version won't completely meet my high expectations. I fear I will have to wait a couple more years till something comes along I find exciting. You can be sure I will write about it here!

ClickToFlash

Thanks to The Fireball, I just found this really cool plugin for Safari on OSX. ClickToFlash blocks all Flash until you click on the flash to start it. It makes pages load tons faster. My browsing speed experience just doubled if not more. Since most flash is for advertisements I don't really miss much. If I want to see it I just click the flash button and it will load and run the flash. I don't use a laptop but this would increase battery life exponentially. Flash is a resource hog. For those sites that you visit often and want to see the flash you can "whitelist" sites easily.
I hear FireFox has a similar plugin but don't know anything about it since I don't use FF. If you are "Foxtard" you're on your own.
Cheers!

My Courageous Kids

I went to a church sponsored talent show that my daughter has been preparing weeks for. As I sat watching her sing in front of a couple of hundred people I was predictably filled with parental pride. As I think about it more I am even more deeply impressed with the courage it took for her to get up and perform on a stage. She did not get this from me. I have never and will never grace a stage in front of any amount of people. Here is the video of the performance. It was taken with my phone and the sound isn't the best. Lots of noise from people talking etc. But you can get the gist.



As I sat last night pondering Shelby's performance I was reminded of my other child and his decisions and efforts lately. His courage to leave home and live in a college dorm with a total stranger was nothing short of courageous as well. It's not an easy thing to do. I did it and remember how hard it was to leave home. He has also made the decision to serve a volunteer mission for our church and will be leaving for 2 years in Taiwan next March. Giving 2 years of your life in service is a courageous choice.
Today I am proud of and in awe of my 2 very courageous children.

Hallelujah - Priceless!

Found this on my neighbors Facebook post today.
Lovin it!

Kewl Klok

Check this Digital clock out! Very clever!

UP-Lifting

Here is a short "up" lifting inspirational message. Not a lot of meat or depth but very very good reminders in a clever way. I enjoyed it I hope you do to.