Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (or other), and why?
Tim Horton's, Country Style or Robin's?
I had just about given up on Grand Central, and so had many other people. It is a cool idea and I really like it, but it seemed Google had no intention of actually doing anything with it. Well after 21 months, Google is re-launching it as Google Voice.
For those of us lucky enough to get in on the original beta, we should be able to convert over to the new service in the next few days. There are lots of new features, but the top two that impressed me are 1. Text messages to your Google Voice number to be forwarded to your mobile and elsewhere for you to respond. This is the tech gateway used in Google chat. 2. Voice mail transcription. Voice mails are transcribed and forwarded to you. The system is organized like Gmail and also lets you add notes and tags.
It should be pretty cool. I can't wait to try it out. I hope they fixed the one thing that was broken for me... the fact that you always had to press a number on the keypad to accept and incoming call - even from someone on your friend list. This had two major problems: 1. If you are on a bluetooth headset and your phone is in your pocket, you have to scramble to get your phone out to accept the call. 2. If you forward your calls to a soft-phone like Fring, you can't accept the call at all. This is because many soft-phones only give you a numeric keypad when dialing out, not when accepting an incoming call.
Rumors are rising indicating that Amazon is soon to release an ebook reader for iphone. I fully expect this to happen, and I think it will be good for the ebook cause as a whole. It is hard to predict what the ratio of kindle to iPhone usage will be. Speaking of the kindle, I thought that the text to speech feature was the coolest thing. It is kind of a holy grail of mine to be able to switch between reading a book and listening to is without losing my spot. But of course the publishers pretty much killed that straight away. So that also means my hope of having this same feature in the iPhone version is dead as well.
There is a new browser war brewing, and this time IE and Firefox are left on the sidelines. The new Safari 4 went live today and things sure have changed.
It looks like they went straight after Chrome and matched many of its top features. New Safari has:
On top of that they add a visual 'wall' top sites page, cover flow for bookmarks and history, native Windows fonts, real zoom (pictures and text). Some of the notable Chrome features Safari is missing such as unified address and search bar, application shortcuts, process per tab, re-sizable text entry field and of course that wicked cool download toolbar.
All feature comparisons aside there is one area (that I care about) where Safari beats out the competition...
Continue reading "New Browser War"...Sometimes the firmware elves toil for days and nights to bring new features to a product that you didn't expect when you bought it. I booted up my Netflix enabled Blueray player last night and it told me I needed to download an update. I was mildly annoyed at having to wait before I could watch my movie, but I was rewarded with the ability to stream YouTube to my TV.
If you don't already have a custom Key Binding Set then this gives good info:
http://www.typeoneerror.com/custom-key-bindings-in-xcode-for-textmate-users/
And this is a reference of commands and keys.
http://www.erasetotheleft.com/post/mac-os-x-key-bindings/#comment-101
If you DO have a customer key binding set already like I do, then you have to use the Property List Editor to load your binding file:
~/Library/Application Support/Xcode/Key Bindings/*.pbxkeys
In the editor, select View > Show Strings as Non-lossy ASCII. Add your key bindings to the "text" dictionary. If you want more than one command bound to a key you need to create an Array with your keystroke. Expand the new key with the triangle on the side, then use the 'add Child' tool bar button to create a new child for each command. Or hit the + on the side for each new entry.
My move line macros (ctrl-shift+up arrow, ctrl-shift+down arrow):
^$\UF700
selectLine:
cut:
moveUp:
paste:
moveUp:
^$\UF701
selectLine:
cut:
moveDown:
paste:
moveUp:
These macros allow you to 'drag' lines up and down with the keyboard. The first link gives a kill line command and a duplicate line (which can also duplicate a multi-line selection).
(By the way I blame the need for these macros on Paul who hooked me on the habit of arranging my local variables by type length.)
Windows 7 is going to have a number of flavors, sorta like Vista except maybe less so. Why can't they have one version and let IT admins just make their own install image for Enterprise? The explanation has a lot of corporate speak that doesn't really say anything:
"Windows 7 Enterprise edition offers advanced data protection, lower cost compliance and IT tools to streamline PC management and help save costs, while enabling access to information from anywhere for business users."
So, uh, why wouldn't all users want those things? Apple takes great pleasure in pointing out that they don't do this, that you get all the features they have in one version, but of course you have to buy Mac hardware to run it (ahem).
Anyone planning on installing W7? If I end up buying a PC, I'll likely go with W7 Ultimate (why miss out on Visual Notepad Extreme or whatever?). I just need to convince myself I actually need a PC.
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Google is bluring the line between desktop and web apps again. This time GMail goes offline. It is only experemental (in the labs) but it looks promising so far. When. Combined with chrome it becomes something that seems a lot like a native app. This is something people have been waiting for ever since they released gears long ago.
I have been trapped in my town due to flooding since Wednesday night. All roads and and out are flooded and although the river crested late yesterday, there is no schedule for when the roads will be cleared or opened. It could be a couple more days. This is the second major flood we have experienced in 2 months. This time the Snoqualmie river reached the highest on record, since 1932.
What you see in the picture is the main road I take across the valley to work. The rivers normal width can be seen in the width of the structure on the bridge and in outline of the row of trees snaking along.
One annoying side effect of having a flood disaster immediately following a snow disaster is that we have only had 1 garbage pickup since December 12.
Any good?