The differences between the Windows 7 Taskbar and the OSX Dock

I recently installed Windows 7 Beta on an old laptop of mine (Pentium M, 1.69 GHz, 1GB RAM) to see how it runs on older hardware and basically test out the new OS from Redmond. I'm very impressed at the overall feel (it's quite snappy!) and seems to be running great.

The most noticeable change is the Taskbar. Here's an article from arstechnica.com that does a great job outlining the functionality of the new Windows 7 Taskbar, and even talks about how it's different than Apple's OSX Dock. Worth a read!

I hate being an Apple hater

It's based on my long history with PC's. Back when it was Apple IIc versus TRS-80's. Back when I could hack around with my Tandy 1000 and add more memory. Back when I ran a BBS. It was all about PC's. They were more flexible, expandable, prevalent.

Apple was a curious sidenote...more expensive and less configurable. There was no reason for me to like it. As time marched on, it got worse for Apple. If you were into gaming at all (and I was...still am), then Apple was not the camp for you.

All this added up to a deep hatred for a cocky company that felt it was doing things better, yet I had no proof of it. If it was truly better, than I would have been able to get one at a reasonable price, open it up and add 3rd party parts to improve it, and play all the cool games i wanted to on it. But that was not the case. So in my mind, Apple = Crapple.

Fast forward to now. Apple is gaining market share like crazy, and they are being heralded as the best thing to happen to the industry since the Internet. Why is this? Here is what makes them the golden child right now:

• Marketing: Brilliant ads that make it cool to like Apple, and nerdy to like Windows
• Simplicity: A perception that Apple products are just easier to use
• Functionality: Whiz-bang, flashy apps (cover flow, iPhone UI, etc)
• Security: How many times do I have to hear "there are no viruses for the Mac"
• Dependibility: Apple zealots are always telling me "it just works"

Some of these have merits. Others are hyped up. But in this day and age, it's really a user preference to go Apple vs. Microsoft. You can accomplish the same things with either, so pick your favorite.

Vista has been getting bad press (I actually like it better than XP, but whatever). So Microsoft's image to the unwashed masses is marred by good Apple marketing and bad general press (maybe because many writers have switched to Mac? hmmm...)

In any case, Steve Jobs is the new hero, Bill Gates is a nerdy geek, and Steve Ballmer is...well, a little out of his mind. All these things add up to Apple market share.

So do I still hate Apple? Yes. It's hard not to given my history. But do I like hating them? No, I really don't.

Apple has done some great things with user interfaces. The iPhone's multi-touch display is revolutionary (though NOT invented by Apple...but they definitely brought that technology to the public's consciousness). How they captured the MP3 player market with the iPod is historically significant.

I hate being an Apple hater because many of my friends and colleagues are fans of Apple (to varying degrees), and are always talking about this cool new feature, or that cool new device. I bring up that there are similar solutions outside of Apple, but they just look at me and and say things like "whatever, Apple hater!".

Am I missing out on the new direction in the industry? Should I swallow my pride and join the crowd? Well, I'm probably not to that point yet. The only Apple product I own is an iPod, and mostly because it's the industry standard. Try finding a Zune adapter for your car.

With this post I am trying to open up and become less of an Apple basher. This is hard for me. I hate the fanaticism that surrounds the company. I hate Steve Jobs' cult like status. I hate all the hype. I hate the smear campaigns. But I don't hate the technology. I don't hate the user interfaces. I don't hate what they are trying to do...reach out to the common man and bring technology to their reach. A noble cause no matter who is doing it.

Crapple by ecaggiani
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OneNote 2007, Tablet PC's, and Smartphones

Been a while since I've posted anything here. Been busy. But now I feel I have something to share...and it's almost entirely not Zazzle related! :-)

So I've recently shifted positions at Zazzle (I said "almost"!). My new role is in our product group, specifically acting as an Interaction Designer. This means more mockups, prototypes, and wireframes. It also means being involved in a few more meetings every week, where I need to be a bit more organized about my To Do lists. Before, as an engineer, I was more focused on writing code, so it was always more obvious what I needed to be working on at any given time.

Getting digitally organized - The Hardware
Now, I am involved in more projects, and need to prioritize my time better. So I decided to get an old Tablet PC to take notes. I wanted a pen device because I wanted to be able to draw ideas and have it in a digital format. I searched eBay and found a Motion Computing M1400 Tablet PC, and got it for around $400.

Yes, it's a few years old, but it's powerful enough for what I need. It runs Windows XP Tablet Edition, which means I can install any Windows software I'm already used to or depend on. To that end, I installed Microsoft Office 2007 and noticed something interesting.

Getting digitally organized - The Software
I chose to do a custom install of Office because I knew I wouldn't need to install the whole suite. When I saw the list of programs that I could choose from, I saw something called OneNote 2007. I decided to try it out.

Here's what the Amazon product page for OneNote says:

• Digital notebook provides one place to gather and manage notes and information
• Offers powerful search capabilities to find what you're looking for quickly, and easy-to-use shared notebooks to help manage information overload and work with others more effectively
• An integrated part of the 2007 Microsoft Office system
• Helps consolidate various types of information-- including freeform notes, images, documents, files from other Microsoft Office system programs, and rich media-- and organize it in the way that works best for you
• Creates a living repository of group decisions and brainstorming sessions that adds continuity and context to business meetings and memos

Well that's perfect! So I set it up on my tablet as well as on my desktop, and now I can take notes in meetings using digital ink, and have it fully integrated into my work Outlook! I can even create To Do items in OneNote that automatically get added to my tasks in Outlook. And as long as my OneNote notebook files are on our network, I have access to it from both my desktop and tablet.

Going Mobile
So this now brings me to the Smartphone part of this post. I will be getting a new phone come June, when my current phone turns two years old and Sprint will give me a nice discount on any new phone to keep me as a customer.

While researching smartphones on Sprint, I liked the Samsung Ace (Windows Mobile), Blackberry 8130 (Blackberry, duh), and Moto Q9c (Windows Mobile). Sprint is also slated to get the shiny new Blackberry Curve soon, and I love the specs on that thing.

But now that I am using OneNote, it changes my view a bit. See, OneNote comes with a Windows Mobile version, but NOT a Blackberry version. Hmmm. So come June, I have a choice to make. I could get one of the Windows phones (which are pretty cool), or go with the slightly better specs of the new Curve.

Decisions, decisions. If I keep using OneNote and find it increasingly useful (as I do so far), then I'll probably lean toward a Windows Mobile phone. It's nice to be completely synced with all my devices (I hear push email on a Windows Mobile device is better than Blackberry if you are using Microsoft Exchange). But I still need to do more research and weigh the pros and cons.

I mean, I may not really need to use OneNote on my phone. At the office, I'll always have my tablet with me, so the phone is extra. But if I can sync offline notes I take on the phone with my OneNote notebook at work, it's a no brainer. Or, better yet, if I can open my office notebook remotely on my phone, that would rock! I kind of doubt that will be possible, however, since it resides on our corporate network.

But maybe I can VPN from a Windows Mobile smartphone....hmmmmm?

Vista better than OS X?

As you may or may not know, I am NOT an Apple fan. As a matter of fact, I have an irrational hatred for the company, which probably stems from some childhood trauma regarding a cracked monitor and a guy named Steve.

So I am probably not the right guy to write any sort of review of Apple's OS X since whenever I get near a Mac, my skin starts to burn and I inexplicably start vomiting pea soup.

But thanks to Meowcules, I can now read about how OS X is not all that...which is music to my ears after hearing nothing but brainwashed praise for Jobs and his minions.

Muy buena Vista!

I recently upgraded my Dell laptop to Windows Vista Ultimate and have been running it for the past 11 days. I have used the betas and release candidates in the past but always in a dual boot configuration. This time, I took the plunge and decided to make Vista my primary operating system.

After backing up my files to my home network, I put in the DVD and let Microsoft take over. The install was smooth and painless, and in within the hour I was up and running. I had to install a few updates, and that was it. A brand spanking new OS on my old Inspiron 8600.

Now, my laptop is a few years old, but when I got it, it was pretty sweet. I have now upgraded it to 2GB RAM, but the rest is the same...a Pentium M 1700Mhz, 60 GB 7200 RPM hard drive, and ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 with 128MB RAM. Not too shabby, but definitely not a power gaming machine. Vista rates my laptop a 3.5 on the Windows Experience Index, a scale from 1 to 5.9, where the lowest number your PC gets in any of the five categories (Processor, RAM, Graphics, Gaming Graphics, and Primary Hard Disk) becomes your overall score. In other words, it's not an average. It's a "long pole", or "bottleneck" rating. In any case, I think a 3.5 is not too bad for a laptop. It allows me to run all the bells and whistles, including the Aero UI.

I was concerned about ATI drivers that supported OpenGL properly, since none have been seen with any of the betas or release candidates, and I need to be able to run Second Life, an OpenGL application. I decided to take the leap anyway, since I could still login to SL with my desktop machine if I couldn't get it to work in Vista.

The good news is that ATI had upgraded drivers, and OpenGL support was part of the update, but the bad news is that they still caused SL to crash on startup. After searching a bit, I found VistaSL, a homebrew version of the SL client that had removed some of the offending OpenGL calls to get it to run in Vista. Works like a charm! Granted, this is a temporary solution, and updated ATI drivers and a proper SL client from Linden Labs would be best.

In any case, in the 11 days I've been running Vista, I've managed to do a few things:

• Get a working version of Second Life
• Install Virtual PC 2007
• Get Windows XP SP2 to run in a virtual machine
• Get Linux (Ubuntu v6.10) to run in a virtual machine
• Install a sidebar gadget called Vista Hot Corners that provides Exposé-like window shuffling
• Install Outlook, Photoshop, Firefox, VNC, SnagIt, Trillian, Notepad++, and TweakVI
• Burn a DVD (with Windows DVD Maker) of short video clips I had laying around, complete with animated menus and scene selections.

And so far, it's been a treat! Being able to run Windows XP is great since I can still have access to IE6 if I need to test any web pages. Also, it's fun to play with Ubuntu as well. Windows DVD Maker was drop dead simple, and the result was very professional looking.

It seems to me that everything is running just as well or better as with XP (with the exception of Second Life, which seems a bit choppier, but that may be the result of ATI's bad OpenGL support mixed with an unoptimized SL client).

All I have to say so far is that Vista is a definite step up from XP, but could benefit from better driver support from ATI. Hopefully that will come in time.

Bottom line: Muy buena Vista!

Why I hate Apple

For those of you who know me, you've undoubtedly heard me say bad things about Apple computers, and probably think of me as a PC fanboy, or simply an Apple bigot. Let me explain my reasons, and say some things you may find surprising.

First, I started hating Apple way back when they were a small, proprietary hardware shop with an OS that was very closed to tweakers. Back then, it made sense to dislike them because anyone savvy with computers knew that an open hardware architecture meant you could do lots more, and the Mac of the day was anything but open, not to mention how much more money the hardware cost. PC's were cheap, modifiable, expandable. No brainer for me.

Apple floundered for a while to the point where I was getting ready to celebrate their demise. But then they had a turnaround (in part due to the success of the iPod), Steve Jobs rejoined, the fanatics rejoiced, and Apple actually did something I never thought possible: they switched their OS from a proprietary system to a UNIX based system which is much more open, mature, and expandable. Apple added their lipstick and made it pretty. Contrary to what you may think, I have always appreciated Apple's design skills. Their stuff always "looked" good.

My opinion of Apple, at this point, raised significantly and I now actually respect them for this decision. So why do I still dislike them in general?

First, the company is "elitist". What do I mean by that? Well, their attitude is basically "Our shit don't stink". That by itself is not a big deal, since they are a company and are entitled to profess their greatness. But they do take it to extremes, with Steve Jobs acting as the savior, prolonging and hyping product releases until people salivate and their heads explode. And those commercials, although funny, position Apple as the "cool" computer, and PC's as "nerds".

Ok, so the company is a little bit snobby, and I *could* look the other way, but what really grinds my gears are the elitist Apple "fanboys". Yes, that term gets tossed around a lot these days, but a fanboy is a good term for the most die hard of Apple worshippers. Now, I have lots of friends who use Macs, and are NOT fanboys. They simply use it because it's the best tool for them. Fanboys are the ones who look down on PC users and let them know it. They are the ones who "ooooh" and "ahhhh" when Jobs pulls a Shuffle out of his pocket. They are the ones who abbreviate Microsoft as M$. They are the ones who blindly buy anything and everything Apple just because it is made by Apple. They are, quite frankly, akin to religious zealots who can never have their faith thwarted. Honestly, these people give a decent platform a bad name...at least to me.

For example, I went to an Apple store to look for a case for my iPod (yes, I have an iPod and I DO like it), and the person behind the counter was a total fanboy snob. I simply asked if they had any other cases other than what was on the wall, and he gave me a look that said "omg, I can't believe how big an idiot you are, Mr. Uncool geek", and actually said to me, in a mildly condescending tone, "If it's not on the wall we don't have it", and then just walked away, all bothered. I felt like saying "get a real job", but held back.

For those that will inevitably tell me that Macs are just better than PC's because "they just work" or "they are virus free", well, you can all just eat me. Yes, I agree the Mac arguably has a better user interface. Yes, it does work well and it IS a solid machine. And YES, it has less viruses (because it has a lower market share and is therefore less of a target). But, NO it is NOT the platform of choice for anyone who considers themseleves gamers. And NO, it is not cheaper than comparably equipped PC's, although it has made strides in that direction. And NO, they are not perfect. Neither are PC's. Far from it.

But I will always be a PC guy as long as Windows remains the market leader. Compatibility with the rest of the world is useful. And yes, I know that the Mac can output Word files, write Excel spreadsheets, read email as good as any PC. But where do you go if you need any sort of tech support? It's a bit harder to find that geek friend who can help you with your computer if what you have is a Mac. Sure, the numbers are growing, but let's face it. Right now, the industry standard platform for most businesses (as well as the gaming industry) is Windows on a PC.

My bottom line here is that I respect the quality of Apple products, but severely dislike the environment in which the company thrives...faith and fanaticism from a crowd of sheep who think the company can do no wrong. Again, not everyone who uses a Mac falls into that category...but enough do to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

With that, I leave you with one of my Zazzle creations:

Crapple by ecaggiani
Create Customized T-Shirts with zazzle

Welcome, IE7

With tabs, increased security, and better standards support, Microsoft Internet Explorer version 7 makes its debut. Yes, I am aware it was released on Wednesday, the 18th, but I've only just now had the time to write about it :-)

I've been using the betas and release candidate versions for a while, and I quite like it. It took a little getting used to the location of the home button, but I'm there now.

My favorite trick is CTRL-Q. If you have multiple tabs open to various web sites, hitting CTRL-Q shows real time thumbnails (see below)

Click to enlarge

Some sites display very minor visual glitches, but I suspect that may have to do with sites that have made CSS hacks for IE6 that they don't need anymore for IE7.

So far, all sites have been fully functional, better behaved, and faster with IE7. A huge step forward!

Is it better than Firefox? Honestly, I can't say yet. It seems to render pages a lot like Firefox...at least a lot closer than IE6 ever did. Hopefully the days of CSS compromises and workarounds are nearing an end. Of course, we'll still have to support IE6 for some time to come, but with it being released through Windows Update, and Vista coming early next year, I believe IE7 will become the new dominant web browser in a matter of months.

How much is that Vista in the Window?

C|NET News announced today that Microsoft has published its pricing for Windows Vista, and expands testing to over 5 million "tech enthusiasts".

Pricing for full retail versions of the software will be Windows Vista Ultimate, $399; Windows Vista Business, $299; Windows Vista Home Premium, $239; and Windows Vista Home Basic, $199. Start saving up now!

Get your Windows Vista today!

Windows Vista, Microsoft's next operating system, is still in beta. But Microsoft just announced that it has opened the beta to the public with its Windows Vista Customer Preview Program (CPP). Are you brave enough to try it?

Linux still not ready for desktop primetime

Many people in Silicon Valley tout the benefits of using Linux instead of Windows as their desktop operating system of choice. It's faster, more secure, and way cheaper. So why hasn't it overtaken Microsoft in the desktop OS war?

Mark Golden of The Wall Street Journal
puts several Linux distributions through their paces and tells us why. What does it boil down to? Compatibility...specifically with multimedia hardware and software. Have an iPod? You will have to work extra hard to get it to work on Linux. Want to see online streaming video? Not just a click away.

Something not mentioned in this article is how Linux works with the latest PC games. The short answer: It doesn't. The latest hot games are built for Windows and use DirectX technology, something not easily or successfully emulated. Being a gamer, this immediately negates the option of using Linux for me.

Now don't get me wrong...Linux is a wonderful OS that has its place. That place is in the background, running servers. It wins hands down.