Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

  • 04 Apr

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    Oh and I got a new phone

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    Note: I meant to write this post a day or two after our engagement, but time has gotten the better of me. Better late than never.

    The other less exciting event on the 19th was the day that I got my new phone. I finally ended up settling on the HTC Mogul XV6800. It was actually a comment from my earlier post that pushed me over the fence to choose it over the Samsung SCH-i760, as it would be nice to have the ability to upgrade to EV-DO Rev A when Verizon gets it, plus the extra storage memory makes a big difference.

    htc-mogul

    I am now almost 20 days into owning the phone, and it’s an exponential improvement over the Treo 700w.  The fold-out keyboard takes a bit of adjustment, but I’ve grown to appreciate the larger screen.  I love the scroll wheel on the side (which I know is common for many smart phones these days).  The extra memory is wonderful, and I’ve never had to worry about running programs degrading phone performance (which I obsessed about over the Treo).  It’s a breeze to switch between the Wi-Fi and EV-DO service, as well as the camera is a good quality for camera-phone.

    There aren’t many things that trouble me over the phone, although I did struggle with the battery life initially.  I solved that by simply turning Bluetooth off when I wasn’t using it (I previously left it on all the time on my Treo), it hasn’t been a show-stopper.  Also, I was excited to see that the Mogul received an announcement that it was going to be upgraded to Windows Mobile 6.1 that was announced earlier this week… for Sprint customers. I hope that Verizon makes a similar announcement soon.

    I’m nearing the end of the 30 day return period, but I’m going to stick with this phone.  It’s not perfect, but I still think it’s the best one that Verizon offers.

    And my Treo…  still not destroyed.  I hung onto it to make sure all the data I needed was off. It’s on my desk at work, but it’ll probably be meeting a hammer pretty soon.

  • 03 Apr

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    Expression show-stopper… bummer

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    I’ve always been extremely interested in what goes on in the Web Design tools space.  I remember when Adobe came out with PageMill back in the mid-90′s, making great waves in that direction.  I then became a fan of FrontPage when they released their ’97 and ’98 versions.  However, FrontPage fell out of favor rather quickly when it became a crutch for people who had no business designing web sites, as well as generating it’s Extension-needed, non-standard, we’ll-wipe-out-your-code behavior.  I quickly switched over to Dreamweaver and didn’t look back… until a few months ago.

    I became intrigued with the work Microsoft has been doing in the Expression Web space, and was delighted when they made it part of their MSDN Subscription tools.  It’s not that I’ve grown tired of Dreamweaver, but more of that “grass is greener” interest.  However, my interest abruptly halted when I realized that Expression – for all of it’s touting of standards and non-mucking of code (being the anti-Frontpage) -  still doesn’t support one of the most basic features: specifying a virtual path to root in links & references (like a stylesheet or menu).  Basically this removes any of the WYSIWYG and interactive functionality, which leads to the question: why would I want to be using this program again?

    I can appreciate not trying to duplicate every competitor function, but when other market leaders like DreamWeaver & GoLive both support this function, how have you been ignoring this for so long?  This is the second-highest rated bug in their “Connect” feedback site, used to log bugs.  What’s disappointing is that MS came out with the beta of Expression 2, but that feature is still nowhere to be found.  Moreover, there’s an acknowledgement that it’s not really on their roadmap just being “considered” for a “future version”.

    It’s unfortunate to see an application with so much potential be plagued by their inability to incorporate the most essential features to be competitive.  It’s too bad, designers may have liked this tool.

  • 19 Mar

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    Vista Business SP1 = No pretty Alt+Tab?

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    I just upgraded my desktop here at work (which runs Vista Business) over to SP1, only to find that I no longer have the pretty Alt+Tab interface.  I loved that interface, where I pressed Alt+Tab to switch between programs, then while holding it down, was able to click on the program that I really wanted (I am notorious for having tons of windows open).

    What the heck?  Was my Vista Business not supposed to have that in the first place?  Did it think my graphics card was good enough Pre-Sp1 and now it’s not?  I still have Aero Glass, so I don’t know what is going on with this.

    Argh, that’s what I get for adopting things early – and in this case when it’s released to the public.

    Update: A reboot seems to have refreshed my graphics driver.  It reset my resolution to very low, but after adjusting it I once again have my pretty Alt+Tabs.  Note that this reboot took place after it said the Installation as complete (and already rebooted my system).

    Update2: This seems to be rooted within how windows switches back and forth between Remote Desktop and how Windows switches between Windows Basic and Areo.  It seems when I just do a disconnect from Remote Desktop, Vista stays in the Basic form until the next reboot (I haven’t tried the logout yet).  This is better than RD on my home computer, which simply goes to a blank screen that I need to lock my computer and then unlock to fix.  The Remote Desktop experience has been quirky to say the least.

  • 16 Mar

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    Countdown drawing near: 2 days

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    It first became months, then became weeks, then days and now hours.  It is only hours until I am eligible for my "New Every Two" discount from Verizon. 

    Treo700w

    With that, I plan on finally relinquishing myself from my cursed Treo 700w.  I have been waiting for this day for so long.  It’s not that I’m happy to end my association with the Treo as much as I have grown to hate the phone with every bone in my body.

    My association with the Treo started with the 650, with the Palm/Garnet OS.  The phone worked pretty well for the most part, but was still pretty quirky. Shortly thereafter I "upgraded" to the Treo 700w.  I put quotes around that word because while I love the high-speed EV-DO access that’s pretty much all I loved with that phone.  The call quality is miserable (and that was just the beginning).  The phone had an extremely low amount of memory, so much that running applications in parallel caused the phone to start screwing up.  I became extremely familiar with the Task Manager, shutting down virtually every application after I used it.  I had to deal with the shoddy Bluetooth ability (until an update helped that), as well as troubles pairing the device with my computer.  Any of my friends can tell you how much I’ve been frustrated with this phone, and how eager I am to be rid of it.  Besides the EV-DO the only other benefit about this phone is that it’s pretty durable, I’ve thrown in frustration so many times and it still manages to stay in one piece.

    I’ve narrowed down my replacement to two different choices: the Samsung SCH-i760 and the (UTStarcom) XV6800. Both devices look great.  They’re both running Windows Mobile 6 – which isn’t the best mobile OS, but after transitioning from Palm to Windows Mobile, it’s too much effort to make another switch.  They both have EV-DO, along with the Wi-Fi option.  Both of them have a fold-out keyboard.  The XV6800 looks like an amazing, sleek device, but I am pretty concerned about the comments made about the call quality.  After my Treo experience I am extremely sensitive to having less-than-stellar call quality.  With that in mind, I’m leaning more towards the Samsung.  We’ll see how things go on Wednesday:

    SamSung-SCHi760

  • 11 Mar

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    Updated setup software list

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    I had meant to post this sooner, but I recently got a new desktop machine at work.  I didn’t have the login for the new machine, so I took it as an opportunity to wipe the hard drive and start off fresh. I wanted to talk a bit about my setup experience and about the software I put on the new machine.

    First off I put Windows Vista Business on the machine.  I was lucky enough to get 3GB of RAM and since I’ve had a decent experience with my home desktop, I’ve decided to stick with Vista for now.

    It should be noted that I am a MSDN member, which enables to me to install the Microsoft Suite of Applications & Developer tools:

    • Office 2007 (including OneNote, Project &Visio)
    • Expression Web (for Web Design & Dev)
    • Visual Studio 2008

    These tools are wonderful, but I realize they may not be available to everyone.  If you’re a college student (or have a college email address) you can get office for really cheap at TheUltimateSteal.com – a Microsoft purchase program for students.  Also student developers can qualify to get Expression & Visual Studio for free at Microsoft DreamSpark.  This is a great strategy to get students acclimated to the MS applications, which means that it’ll transfer to employees demanding the tools when they enter the workplace.

    The next thing I did was go to my favorite software site – FileHippo.  FileHippo is a repository for freeware – a one-stop-shop for downloads.  From here I grab the following (in no particular order):

    Internet:

    Apps & Utilities:

    • MS Office 2007
    • FoxIt Reader a PDF alternative to the bloated Adobe Reader
    • PDF Creator – Free PDF creating, although I am starting to try out Primo PDF
    • UltraVNC – The viewer on my work desktop, VNC installed on my home desktop
    • Burnaware – CD/DVD Burning
    • Launchy – Perfect application launcher for keyboard junkies
    • ObjectDock – “Sidebar” application launching
    • Windows Live Writer – What I use for blogging
    • MRemote – To manage multiple MS Remote Desktops/Terminal Servies, I haven’t had great results with VNC though

    Scripting:

    • NotePad++ – Best general purpose editor hands-down

    Photos & Multimedia:

    System Utilities:

    • Defraggler – Disk Defragmenting
    • AutoRuns – eliminate annoying startup programs
    • CCleaner – Get rid of crap, cookies and temp files
    • Unlocker – Gets you out of those “access denied” binds during deletions
    • Process Explorer – Task manager on steroids
    • Java Runtime Environment
    • Tugzip – Great alternative to Winzip, not quite WinRar, but free and open-source
    • Synctoy – to synchronize files between my work desktop and laptop, works great if you’re on the same network

    Security:

    • Windows Vista Firewall works pretty well, but at home I use Comodo
    • AVG Anti-Virus (for the home computer, we use a separate solution at work)

    Are there any essential tools that I’m missing?

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