Google, the Innovator

Today I was thinking about Google and why I like it so much. I was asked what was so cool about the current doodle on the Google Search home page. The cool thing about it is that it is animated completed in HTML5. They couldn't see the movement. So I explained you have to be using a browser that is HTML5 compliant like Chrome or Firefox or even Opera. IE8 (which is the corporate standard because 1)Programmers keep writing for IE specific browser versions and 2)Because IE9 breakes those corporate things that require IE. So they loaded Chrome and Ah.... There is was, "First HTML5 Google Doodle Honors Alexander Calder, 'Inventor of the Mobile'" moving slowly around the screen. I started to tell them if they blew on the screen it would move, but that seemed cruel.

Google Innovates. How long did browsers stay stagnent until Chrome came along? Yes, it could easily be argued Mozilla caused the current browser wars but Chrome is winning and now Mozzila is promising more frequent updates to their browser after it took years to get out of version 3.x after being influenced by Google's rapid releases. Additionally Google practially make it required to download updates rather than optional. Now this is push behavior but if you asked Microsoft their feelings about this and IE6, they would say that is a neat option. Being that Microsoft has to keep the Enterprise Overlords happy as well, they can't easily play this card. But people let Google get away with this.

Google pushed the HTML5 standards to allow for better video and they and others really pushed AJAX into the forefront and brought us pages that seem to come to life without any plugin software (namely Adobe Flash). So we kind of wound up waiting for everyone to play catch up to Google and now Apple hates Adobe and Joanie Loves Chachi and Microsoft and Oracle and Apple all hate Google...
So Google must be doing some thing right.

I love my Android phone. I thought the iPhone would be the only game in town for so long. Apple deserves its own posting thanking it for making mobile phones useful. The word Smart and phone didn't go together until Apple came alone. I digress.The Android phone has given iPhone a run for the money. It is a great phone and for the most part I enjoy the fact that the Android phones are usually (given what mobile provider you have) open. I could root my Android phone but there isn't much reason to. There isn't really anything I am prevented from doing on my phone that I want to do. The only missing piece I have found is there isn't a Cisco VPN client for my phone. I would be willing to pay Cisco for this option. To be able to connect to work and fix a problem from my phone would be awesome.

Windows Run Line Commando

I have always found it faster to run many commands via commandline or a DOS command window than to do Start, Programs, Accessories, Notepad (for example). Start, Run, Notepad cranks up fast and I don't have to take my fingers from the keyboard. I have also written some batch files that do some amazing things. I need to become a wizard on PowerShell.

Someone asked me about sysedit. Strangely this still exists in Windows XP but I see no trace of it in Windows 7. It isn't on my Mac either, ha ha. So I explain about msconfig and how those config.sys and autoexec.bat files are no more and if they exist at all it is because you may have a 16 bit program that for some reason you have clung to for dear life. And of course, there is dxconfig to tweak Direct X settings as well. So I was Googling around to find other command line options. I was amazed to see a long list for XP (most still work on Windows 7). I have used many of these before but I don't really considered them commandline options. But if you can kick it off via Start, Run, it is pretty cool.

Here are over 100 Windows Run Commands

If you want to control what starts up on boot, then these utilities are a great way to resolve and keep a watchful eye.

Startup Monitor This monitors things that attempt to put themselves in Run Once or HKCU/Run or HKLM/Run. So many things try to run on Start up. Granted this program is really XP-ish and hasn't really been rewritten to be used on Windows Vista or Windows 7. But I am using it and it is working.

Additionally is the Startup Control Panel. This is an easy way to tweak after the fact. Granted in Windows 7 it takes some changing of the view in Control Panel to see it but it still a great program.

When you install this on Windows 7, you will have to right click and choose "Run As Administrator" in order for it to copy its cpl file into the correct Windows directory.

If you really like to tweak things or you really want to find that peskey trojan that is still running after running antispyware software ten times, HijackThis is another way to go.

WARNING: THIS CAN REALLY MESS UP YOUR COMPUTER IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With HijackThis you can tweak what starts and what doesn't every time your computer boots as well as often track down evil things that are starting that should not be.

Off Topic-- Government at its finest

When you have the opportunity to enjoy quantity time with your state and local government offices, take it. It is a level of comedy and irony.

I went to the local department of vital records to request a replacement birth certificate for my daughter. My daughter has four names or I should say a first name, two middle names, and a last name. We had gotten a replacement birth certificate a few years ago so I thought no big deal. After waiting a long time, after being told I would have to wait a long time, the lady looks at my application and tells me she can't give me a birth certificate because her typewriter was recently replaced and the font size on it is too big to print out the 38 characters my daughter's name entails. So I have to request it from the state office near the state capital as they have a typewriter with smaller fonts.

Welcome to the 20th century.

Calibre - an awesome ebook manager regardless of your reader

I was looking for some thing to manage my ebooks. I have several PDFs that I wanted to read on my new Nook (see previous entries about that). Sure, I could open up the microSD card I have placed in my Nook and use the USB cable to upload to it. But I noticed my PDFs did not have pretty covers when I looked at them on my reader. At first I thought this was because they were PDFs instead of ePubs, but in reality, the PDFs just didn't have the appropriate metadata. So at first I was Googling ™ ™
to find a way to turn a PDF into an ePub document. Many of the options cost money and I prefer to find an open source or freeware method that sort of works than to spend money on something I will not use very often. That is when I came across Calibre. It will convert books from PDF to ePub format. But in my experimentation it did a horrendous job with images in PDFs so I gave up. (On a side note, I have Adobe CS3 Design Suite, which includes inDesign. So I looked to see if I could import a PDF into inDesign and create an ePub document. This particular version doesn't give me the option so bummer.) So I gave up on this tangent.
I played around with Calibre more and discovered it was an awesome ebook manager. It can edit metadata on PDFs (though strangely not consistently), import metadata from Barnes and Nobel and Amazon for books it can parse the titles of, and add "covers" to your books so they show the thumb nails on your reader.

Take a look at the interface.

Notice the drop down to allow access to move files to the microSD card in my Nook. It even recognizes my Nook when I plug it up. It has support for Kindle, Nook, Sony's eReader, and others.

(Soapbox) Also notice the book, Head First PMP (Second Edition) from O'Reilly And Associates. I love that O'Reilly doesn't put DRM on their books so when I buy a book from them, I can read it on any device I want. DRM free doesn't mean sharing with others, but supports the fact that once you buy a book, you own it. It is yours to use until you lose it. (/Soapbox).

I am not going into log tutorials about Calibre as the author of the program has gone to great strides to provide great tutorials on his site. The software is available for multiple OSes and even has a portable version you can take anywhere on your Thumb drive.

Barnes and Noble and the Great Nook adventure

First up, I am still for the most part in love with my Nook. As a reading device it is great. It is a one trick pony and it does it very well. I am currently reading a book called Brains: How They Seem to Work by Dale Purves. It seemed interesting and I have been very surprised at how good a book it is. Yes, the book is full of technical terms that I am trying hard to wrap my brain around, but it is a very good read. It is fascinating how the field of neuroscience developed since the early days and how much we have learned about the brain and the methods discovered to study the brain, the nervous system, and how it all interacts together. I am a good ways into the book and I am really enjoying it.

I have told myself I will not buy any more books until I finish the first one. I read about study that said it takes longer to read ebooks and in another study, most users never finish reading ebooks. I hope this is not the case. So far I am enjoying the fact there are so many free ebooks and being able to load my PDFs onto the device to read as well. But PDFs do not read as well as epub books. The font clarity is not the same on the Nook and it is not as easy to select text in PDFs. Also it would be good if one could zoom in on images in the book. With the small screen, it would be good to be able to do this. Granted if these pictures were in a paperback book, I would have the same issue.

I do have one big complaint about the Nook though. Barnes and Noble markets books that will only work on the Nook Color. In fact at times it seems they "prefer" I use one of the software ereaders or the Nook Color over the device I purchased. I would be happy if under preferences if I could filter my search so it only shows books that will work on my display. Barnes and Noble offered a free book on Mickey Mantle by Jane Leavy to suck me into the Nook world. It isn't free now. But I added it to My Library looking forward to reading it on my Nook (I started stockpiling free and paid books just to read when my Nook would arrive), but this book can't be read on my Nook (the New Simple Touch Reader one). Even worse, it won't let me download it on my Nook for PC or Nook for Mac. So the book is in "My Library" but is unreadable for me so far. My Android phone seems to have an option to download it but not anything else I have.

So Barnes and Noble, please fix this one small thing. Let me be able to search and only find books that my reader can actually use.

By Hook or by Nook

Okay. So I put off picking a winner in the ebooks war for the longest time. Then I decided I didn't want to pay the price it costs for the winner, but instead base it on features that mattered to me. So I bought a Nook (the new edition) I would prefer to call it the Nook Touch, but that isn't want Barnes and Noble is calling it.

When a geek decides subconsciously that he wants new technology items, he goes through a justification processes. Some how he logics that that he can justify the cost of the device by some notion. In this case I am using the lame excuse I need to study for my PMP exam. And because this device has limited functionality (meaning it has less bells and whistles) I would be able to focus. I have a really short attention span so I thought if I had a device that only does one thing and it does it really well, then I would read and focus.

Why I choose the "All-New Nook 'The Simple Touch Reader'"?
1. microSD card port - This way I can easily add my own books and pdfs.
2. Two months of battery life -- Okay, this is more cool and mostly marketing as you have to turn wireless off and it is assuming you will read one hour a day.
3. Super light -- It weighs about the same as a paperback book. Seriously.
4. Touch -- The Kindle just has so many buttons on it and is bigger than it needs to be because of this. I know the Kindle will come out in a touch screen version. I even guestimate Amazon will be releasing their own Android based tablet with Kindle eInk built in. I also speculate the next iPad will have a way to display eInk to save on power and improve readability and then bounce back into normal display mode when you want to do other stuff. So perhaps I jumped in the wrong place. Let's not talk that way as you will cause me buyers remorse.

I see some cons to this device already.
1. Not color, which means there are books on barnesandnoble.com that I can not download to my device. Ugh!
2. Device can't do a lot with pdfs except display them. I can't really zoom a lot with a pdf to try and get bigger texted. I am not going blind but it displays the table of contents really small.
3. The site does not tell you easily that your particular nook won't work with it. They seem to want you to buy the color nook yet they are hyping the newest one.

What I really like...
1. The display quality is amazing.
2. The touch functionality works great.
3. There are so many free books on barnesandnoble.com and other sites I have yet to actually buy a book, but I will. I have my eye on some already.
4. Wireless works great.
5. Response time is great. Books pop up quick and pages turn fast.

My next post I will tell you about the amazing software I downloaded, Calibre. It is a great ebook manager for what ever device you choose.