A Review of a Kindle

Six months ago I purchased a Kindle 2.  I originally bought the Kindle to make travelling easier.  I tend to carry a lot of books with me when I take a trip and those books get heavy.  With the Kindle, I could carry just this one device instead of 5 books.  The Kindle didn’t disappoint.  It weighs less than the typical paperback book.  It fits nicely in my Scottevest jacket.  I typically have about 80 books on mine at any given time giving me plenty of potential reading material.  If that isn’t enough, there is the Kindle store with some 360,000 books.

The Kindle satisfied the purpose I bought it for, but has exceeded my expectations.  Not only do I use the Kindle when travelling, but it has become my preferred reading device.  The screen is a delight to read on.  The contrast may not be quite what it is on a real book, but it is plenty good.  The screen on the Kindle is much more comfortable to read on than the screen on a phone or a laptop.  There is no refresh rate and no backlighting.  This results in a significant reduction in eye fatigue.  I can read on the Kindle as easily and as long as I can read a paper book.

In addition to being a great place to read, there are several features of the Kindle that make it my preferred reading tool.  The first is the built-in dictionary and the second is the ease of taking notes.  When reading a dead tree book, if I come across a word that I don’t know, I will usually guess at the meaning from the context and move along.  With the Kindle, I can just move the cursor over the word in question and get a definition at the bottom of the screen.  In this way I am able to understand the nuances of the text and expand my vocabulary.  The Kindle is also a great place to take notes.  Want to add a note?  Just start typing using the integrated keyboard.  Want to highlight some text?  Move the cursor to the start, press down, move to the end, press down again.  The notes and highlighted areas are collected in a text file that you can upload to your computer.  They are also available on http://kindle.amazon.com/.  The notes will follow the book to other devices (like the new Windows software).

So what isn’t to like?  The Kindle is an excellent book-reading platform.  It is a single-task device.  It is great at what it does and not good at anything else.  It has a built-in web browser, but it is the sort of thing you would only want to use in case of emergencies.  It does not render pages well, is difficult to navigate, and is very slow.  For instance, when composing an e-mail via either hotmail or gmail, it writes the letter, deletes it, then writes it again.  It is very easy to get well ahead of the cursor even on the limited keyboard.

The Kindle supports MP3 playback, but not in any useful fashion.  You cannot see the songs.  You cannot select the songs.  You can skip to the next song, but that is all.  There is no shuffle.  Playback happens in the order the songs were put on the Kindle.  To say this feature is limited is an understatement.

The Kindle only reads its own formats.  It can read variations of the mobipocket format but cannot read pdf, epub (the standard ebook format for everyone else), or even the encrypted mobipocket format found for free at many libraries.  This choice perplexes me.

The note-taking is simple and works well, but it is capped.  If you highlight too much of a book, the highlights will continue, but the material will not end up in the notes file.  This wouldn’t be quite so bad if you were warned but you aren’t.  Instead you find out later when you go to the notes file and see a warning instead of the highlighted text.

Perhaps the most disappointing part is the lack of software innovation going on.  As someone accustomed to the rate of innovation on other devices, it is disappointing to see no new firmware or features being pushed.  The hardware platform is stable, but why not improve the mp3 playback?  Why not add new formats?  Why not add support for tags or folders?

A few questions and answers:

How is the battery life?  It is amazing.  With the wireless left on, it will last several days.  With the wireless off (and there is no reason to leave it on), it will last weeks.

Is it economical?  No.  If you buy a Kindle, don’t buy it to save money on books.  Sure, they are a little cheaper than the hardcover, but maybe 10%.  At $259 for a Kindle 2, it is going to take a long time to make up the difference.  If you watch, there are many free books available which can help, but it is not a cheap device. 

Are most books available?  That depends what sort of books you like to read.  I have found that a large percentage of what I read is available.  I still run into many books I want that are not available, but I’m not running out of books on it either.

How about technical books?  Surprisingly, it is pretty good.  I have read a few programming books on it including Programming Clojure and Javascript:  The Good Parts.  It renders them just fine.  Where it falls down is in the random access.  I don’t recommend using it for reference material.

How does it compare to the Nook?  I don’t know.  I haven’t used the Nook.  It appears to have superior hardware in most respects, but the book pricing is much worse.  If I were making the choice today, I would still choose the Kindle.  The Nook does appear to be giving it a run for its money though.  Strong competition is probably what the Kindle needed.

Do you recommend the Kindle?  Yes.  Highly.  If you like to read, get one. 

Be Intentional

My old manager used to always say, “Be intentional.”  It took me a long time to comprehend exactly what he meant by this, but eventually I did and have come to appreciate the advice.  What he meant was to always make active, conscious decisions rather than just letting things happen.  It also means to verify things rather than assuming they are a certain way.  For example, if you don’t have enough time to do everything on your plate, think carefully about which items will not get done rather than just working on items in no particular order.  It should be your intent which specific items go undone.

This is a good principle to act by.  All too often people think about what they *are* doing but don’t consider what they *are not* doing.  It is just as important to be conscious about what you are not doing as it is to be aware of what you are.  If you don’t actively choose that which is not done, it is likely that the wrong things will drop off your plate.  It is easy to be busy working on something that is important to the detriment of something that is really important.  It is best to make all decisions, both positive and negative, conscious ones.  I’ll often ask my team when something goes undone whether that was intentional or not.  If there is only time to do 3 items and there are 4 that should be done, I’m fine with the 4th being dropped.  It is a poor manager who is upset when the impossible isn’t accomplished.  I do, however, hold my team accountable for that 4th item being something they intend to not get done rather than whatever just happened to be left at the end of the day.

I’ve seen this come up in testing features.  I recall a time when a report of mine was testing a particular feature with two aspects to it.  For good reasons he started working on the first part, a complex parser for device attributes.  Being complex, this took a long time to thoroughly test.  In fact, it was taking long enough that he was not going to be able to get to the second aspect of the feature at all.  I inquired whether this was really the right approach.  Did he think it was better to thoroughly test the parser and test the other part none or would it be better to test the parser to some level, then test the other aspect, and finally return (in the future) to cover the less important parts of the parser.  Upon reflection he decided it was a better idea to cover both to some extent than one fully and the other none.  The trouble here is that he wasn’t acting intentionally.  The test plan called for testing both aspects thoroughly.  The plan didn’t call for ignoring the second part.  It was just because of the unexpected difficulty of testing the parser that the second was going to be missed.  He needed to step back, re-evaluate, and decide intentionally rather than just letting events dictate what was going to be dropped.

This principle is also good to apply when dealing with other people.  Instead of just assuming that the other party will do the right thing, being intentional means specifically outlining expectations of them.  It is easy to think you’ve told someone what to do without them realizing that you did.  Being intentional means verifying that your assumptions were communicated and following up later.  It means being explicit when handing work to another person.  Make sure they understand that it is your expectation that they now have the action item before you clear it from your to-do list.

Inbox Zero, Take Two

A year and a half ago I tried to get to “Inbox Zero” and failed.  This is the idea that you get your inbox down to zero mails every day.  I’m making another run at it and this time have been a little more successful.  I’m not perfect, but I haven’t fallen off the horse yet either.  Here’s what I have found to work.

• Let all interesting mail fall directly into the inbox.  Don’t use separate folders for stuff from your boss or an alias/list that is important.
• Move non-interesting mail into a separate folder by a rule.  I have rules to shunt off aliases I find merely interesting but not important into their own folders automatically.
• Read or skim every mail that is in your inbox.  For each, make one of the following decisions:
• Respond.  Read it and take the appropriate action.  If you can do this in a minute or two, just do it.
• Delete it.  You have the information or it wasn’t interesting.  Either way, you don’t need to keep it around.
• Archive it.  You may need to refer back to it later, but you don’t need to take any action on it.
• Mark it for further reading.  It’s not critical to act on it, but too long to read now.  Put it in a folder to read later.
• Mark it for further action.  It will take longer than you have to respond, but a response is necessary.  Put it in a folder for later response.

Following these rules makes my inbox look something like this:

• Inbox
• Action Required
• Archive
• Read Later
• Interests
• Various subfolders for the non-critical aliases I am part of.

I also have a rule to move all mail sent to: or cc: me directly to my inbox.  This way mail intended for my eyes won’t get filtered into an “interests” folder.

I have found this system simple enough to keep up with it.  It also means I no longer miss mails which got filtered into some folder I haven’t yet read for today.  I now see every interesting mail and am at least aware of it.  It also helps me keep track of the mails I really need to go back and respond to.  My old system was just to leave them unread, but this got unwieldy very quickly and I never made it back to most of them.

Some useful traveling gear

I just returned from a trip to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.  I brought some items with me that turned out to be very useful so I thought I'd pass along the tips in case you are in the market for such items.

Headphones - I brought several pairs along, but I really enjoyed my Sennheiser HD 280 Pros.  They are full-size headphones, not earbuds or anything.  This gives them much better sound than most smaller headphones.  They also provide a lot of sound isolation.  They are not actively noise canceling, but keep out most external noise due to their design.  What makes these better than most full-size headphones is that the earpieces both pivot so that they are aligned with the body of the headpiece.  This allows them to be stored in 1 1/2-2" of space rather than the 4-inches or so that would be required of other headphones.

Jacket - I wore my Scottevest Evolution jacket.  This jacket has 15 functional pockets (and several other smaller ones) which makes it great for packing things.  Instead of trying to put a backpack or laptop back under the seat, I just put all the items I want for a plane flight into my jacket which stows easily and still leaves room for my feet to move.  There is a pocket perfectly sized for a paperback book, one just right for a magazine (in the back), one that perfectly fits my Eee PC (below), space for a water bottle, plus pockets for Zune, phone, etc.  In addition, the arms come off turning it quickly into a vest.  I found the full jacket a bit warm for most airports and airplanes, but the vest to be quite comfortable.  The arm pieces stow easily in the back pocket and attach quickly when you are ready to leave the airport and face the elements.

Laptop - I brought along my Asus Eee 1000h on the trip.  It has several benefits over the Lenovo and Dell laptops I have brought on previous trips.  First, it is very light.  It weight around 3 lbs which is a lot nicer to lug through an airport than the 6+ lb notebooks I was accustomed to.  Second, the battery life is amazing.  I'm currently looking at 75% of my battery left and an estimated 5 hours, 27 minutes of time remaining.  The time drops when doing more than reading papers and typing blog posts, but it is still very respectable.  The third advantage is the size.  The 1000h is big enough to have a functional keyboard, but small enough that it is easy to stow in a backpack or even the inside pocket of my Evolution jacket.  It's also small enough to comfortably open in a coach airplane seat.  A 15" laptop can't fully open in those cramped quarters.  The problem gets even worse if the person in front of you decides to recline.  The 1000h suffers from no such problem.

[Updated SEV link - Thanks Bill]

22,500 Paper Airplanes

Rainn Wilson (Dwight K. Schrute from the Office) was the MC at this year's Microsoft company meeting.  Ever since they tore down the Kingdome, the meeting has taken place at SafeCo field.  Sitting up in the 300-level seats, it is tempting to throw paper airplanes.  Each year some people do.  This causes some strange moments when a speaker mistakes the applause for a particularly long airplane flight for applause for whatever they just said.  At this year's company meeting they decided that everyone should throw paper airplanes.  All at the same time.  Rainn orchestrated it dressed in a flight jacket.  It was a pretty impressive sight.

Video at 11.

 

Loving My Eee 1000H

I was attracted to the "netbook" market with the release of the initial Eee PC from Asus.  The laptop was cheap and very small.  Unfortunately, it had a really small screen and an even smaller keyboard.  Then the next generation of netbooks was announced including the MSI Wind and the Eee 1000.  These are a bit pricier but still light.  They have bigger screens and keyboards and look quite usable.  I'm tired of carrying my 6 lb. laptop around on trips and so I decided I would take the plunge on one of these new devices.

At first I was attracted to the MSI Wind.  It is a little lighter than the 1000H and was supposed to be $150 cheaper.  When the Wind didn't ship, then shipped with only a 3-cell battery, then raised the price, I looked around and settled on the Eee 1000H.  What follows is my review of the 1000H.

The screen on the 1000H is gorgeous.  It's 1024x768 and is bright and clear.  It has a matte finish so it can be used with your back to a window or even outside.  It is bright enough that I usually run it on 1/2 brightness and it still works just fine.  The Eee has a really cool feature which allows you to change the screen resolution with the press of a button.  You can set it to 1024x600, 800x600, 1024x768 (which seems to cut off the bottom of the screen, and 1024x768 compressed.  This latter mode is very useful for programs that insist on a square aspect ratio.  One other nice feature is there is a button to turn off the screen.  This comes in handy for privacy or saving battery life.

The keyboard on the 1000H has received some criticism for being a little loose.  There is a little flex in the right-side of the keyboard.  It doesn't seem to be fully fastened to the tray beneath it.  It's not bad but does take some getting used to.  The keys are plenty big that I can easily touch-type on it.  The one downside is the right-shift key.  It is located to the right of the up arrow key.  There's no easy way to touch-type like that.  Luckily, there is a very cool utility called SharpKeys that allows you to swap the two.  After doing that, all is well.

The 1000H comes with a 1.6 GHz Atom processor.  This appears to be plenty fast enough for browsing the web, coding, writing documents, etc.  It's not going to set any land speed records but it works fine.  It does run quite cool though.  The Eee doesn't get hot even after hours of use.  I've tried a few older games on the system and it plays them fine.  Anything modern is probably too much for the Intel 945 graphics chip.

The 1000H ships with Windows XP SP3 Home.  I upgraded to Professional so I could join the domain at work.  I intend to try Mojave Vista on it which reportedly works, but I'll wait for my 2 GB memory to arrive first.  I must say that after using Vista for a few years, XP feels very antiquated.

The speakers have some sort of "Dolby Sound Room" thing on them.  I haven't looked into what that might actually be but I can say that the sound is much better than you would expect out of a laptop.

I find the size and weight to be just about right.  The Eee at 3.2 lbs is not quite as light as I expected, but it's pretty light.  The size is small.  It's literally 1/2 the size of my previous Dell Inspiron 6400.  The battery sticks out slightly which actually makes a great handgrip when carrying it.  The system is well balanced and feel very sturdy.  The case is a high-gloss black and does attract fingerprints. 

Finally, the battery life.  I took it to an all-day conference on Friday and it lasted all day without a recharge.  The battery is rated at 4.5-5 hours and that seems to correspond well with my experience so far.

So, am I glad I bought the Eee over the Wind?  Yes.  The Wind is lighter and the keyboard probably doesn't have the flex in it.  However, the Eee has many advantages.  It has 802.11n wireless networking.  The compressed screen resolution is nice.  The touchpad is a little bigger than the one on the Wind.  The Eee can be overclocked via software.  Another advantage is that the Eee can be upgraded (memory or hard drive) without voiding the warranty.

If you want more information, check out these great forums:

http://forums.msiwind.net/

http://forum.eeeuser.com/

 

A Microsoft-Yahoo Takeover Primer

Marc Andreessen has a great blog post today laying out the possibilities in the Microsoft-Yahoo talks.  Unlike most posts on the subject, this one isn't trying to guess what might happen.  Instead, it lays out the options and the forces affecting those options.  What is a proxy battle?  How would it take place?  Who are the investors we're talking about?  What is a tender offer?  How is it affected by a poison pill?  If you are following the subject, check out his post.  It's a good primer for the rest of the pontificating on the subject.

Your Hard Drive Probably Isn't Running At Full Speed

Here's a little known fact that could speed up your life.  Most SATA hard drives in the market today ship in 1.5 Gb/s mode instead of the 3.0 Gb/s mode they are capable of.  I know for sure that Seagate and Maxtor both ship retail drives with jumpers set to the slower mode.  I can only assume that this is for compatibility reasons.  Unless you need the compatibility though, you can get some extra speed out of your drive by changing the jumpers.  Look on the drive or in the manual for which jumpers to change.  It usually inolves merely removing the jumper but check to be sure.

Is That A Wiki In Your Pocket?

Here's a cool little tool I discovered recently.  It's called DokuWiki on a Stick.  DokuWiki is a PHP-based wiki that stores its data in text files instead of a database.  This makes configuration and backup a little simpler.  DokuWiki on a Stick takes MicroApache and marries it with PHP and DokuWiki in a small, 6MB package.  There is no install necessary.  Everything runs out of the install directory.  This makes it perfect to take with you.  Throw it on a thumb drive and you can carry a wiki in your pocket.  Why would you want to do that?  Wikis are great for documentation.  Whenever you have something you want to preserve, just open the wiki and add it.  Whenever you have something to look up, just open the wiki and take a peek.  Better still, because this wiki uses text files for storage, it should be pretty simple to merge it with a live web-based wiki running DokuWiki so you can keep a personal copy of your wiki with you at all times.

 

To simplify the execution of DokuWiki on a Stick, create wikistick.cmd in the same directory and put these commands in it:

start .\mapache
start http://localhost:8800/

Then you are a double-click away from running.  I suppose you could even set it up to autorun off of your thumb drive if you were so inclined.

Modularization vs. Integration - Which Is Best?

Clayton Christensen's second book, The Innovator's Solution, produces several important theories in the realm of innovation.  Like his first book, The Innovator's Dilemma, the second book should be required reading for anyone in technology and especially managers of technology.  Among the theories, one stands out as the most important and, I think, most applicable to the world of software development.  Christensen calls this the Law of Conservation of Attractive Profits.  In essence it states that the profits in a system move over time.  When a market segment is under-served, profits are made in vertically integrated products.  When a market becomes over-served, the profits instead flow to more modular solutions.  In this post I will lay out the theory.  In a future post, I'll apply it to software development.

For every market segment--whether PCs or winter jackets--there are certain metrics that matter.  In the world of PCs for a long time it was speed.  People bought one computer over another because it was faster.  In an early market, the products do not sufficiently satisfy the demand for that metric.  Computers were too slow.  In these markets, there is a performance gap.  To make the fastest computer required tightly integrating the hardware, the operating system, and often the application software.  The interfaces between each of the parts had to be flexible so they could evolve quickly.  This meant the parrts were proprietary  and interdependent.  Companies trying to work on only a single part of the problem found that they couldn't move fast enough.  Look at the world of computer workstations.  When WindowsNT first tried to take on the Sun and HP workstations of the world, it wasn't as fast.  Intel made the processors, Dell made PCs, Microsoft made the operating system.  By comparison, Sun made the Sparc processor, the Solaris operating system, and the Sparcstation.  It was difficult to squeeze as much speed out of an NT system as Sun could get out of its.  Because Sun's workstations provided more performance where the market wanted it, Sun was able to extract higher "rents" (economist-speak for profits).

Eventually every market's primary metric is sufficiently supplied by available solutions.  Products can be said to have a performance surplus.  At this point, customers no longer make purchasing decisions based on the metric--speed--because most solutions provide enough.  Customers are willing to accept higher performance, but they aren't willing to pay for it.  Instead, their purchasing criteria switches to metrics like price, customization and functionality.  Modular architectures trade off performance for the ability to introduce new products more quickly, lower costs, etc.  Products become more commoditized and it is hard to extract high rents for high performance.  However, Christensen says that the profits don't disappear, they only shift to another location in the value chain.  Those companies who are able to best provide the market's new metrics will make the most money.  In the example of the workstations, once computers became fast enough, the modular solutions based around WindowsNT began to make a lot more of the money.  The costs for these were lower, the ability to customize greater, and the support ecosystem (3rd party devices and software) larger.

Looking closely, it becomes apparent that markets are a lot like fractals.  No matter how close the zoom, there is still a complex world.  Each of the modular parts are themselves a market segment with their own primary metrics.  Each one is subject to the modularization/integration cycle.  When a system becomes ripe for modularization, the profits move to the integrated modules which best satisfy the new metrics.  The secret to continuing to gain attractive profits is to notice when this transition is taking place and give up vertical integration at the right moment, choosing instead to integrate across the parts of the value chain least able to satisfy customer demand.

This theory seems to explain Apple's success with the iPod.  The Plays-For-Sure approach taken by Microsoft was a modular approach.  Vendors like creative supplied the hardware.  Microsoft supplied the DRM and the player.  Companies like Napster supplied the music.  There are 3 tiers and 2 seems between them that must be standardized.  In an emerging market where the technology on all fronts was not good enough, is it any wonder that this approach was beaten by an integrated strategy?  Of course, hindsight is 20-20 and what is obvious to us now may not have been obvious then.  Still, Apple came at the problem controlling all 3 pieces of the puzzle.  It was able to satisfy the metric--ease of use--much better than the competition.  We all know how that turned out.  The theory indicates that at some point the metric will be satisfied well enough and people the advantage of the integrated player will dissipate.  With the move away from DRM'd music and the increase quality of the available hardware, this day may be upon us.  Amazon's MP3 store seems to be gaining traction.  Competitors like the Zune and the Sansa players are making some inroads in the player space.  A dis-integrated model may be emerging.

The Tipping Point: Not True?

There's a popular business book out right now called the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.  In it he explains how big trends are started by a few people.  He calls them connectors and mavens.  These are the people who know everyone.

I read the book about a year ago and found myself skeptical.  Some parts resonated with me, others rang hollow.  For example, the author explains Paul Revere's successful ride and the failure of William Dawes (who made a similar ride with much less effect) by saying that Paul Revere was a connector while Dawes was not.  Except, he never proves Revere was a connector except by way of results.  Connectors are able to move the masses and we can see this because Paul Revere was a connector and moved the masses.  How do we know he was a connector?  Well, because he moved the masses.  That's circular at best. 

 Fast Company examines the phenomemon described by Gladwell and finds it lacking.  A very interesting read.

Unboxing Drobo

My Drobo arrived today.  It is a slick device.  As one accustomed to the PC world, even the unboxing was a treat.  The typical piece of PC hardware comes in utilitarian packaging.  You're just going to throw it away anyway, so why put effort into it?  Drobo takes a more Macintosh-like approach.  Unboxing is an experience.  The box is just brown cardboard like any other, but opening it one is greeted with the words, "Welcome to the world of..." on top.  Lifting the smaller box out reveals the word "Drobo" on a cloth bag surrounding the unit.  The inside of the main box is all colored black.  Even the polystyrene protectors--typically white--are colored black. 

The drobo itself is solid.  It is smaller than I imagined and looks slick with the glossy front panel and matte sides.  The faceplate comes off to reveal the drive bays.  The front panel appears to be held in place by magnets making for an easy fit that won't break when the plastic connectors become weak. 

I bought Western Digital's new Green Power (GP) drives for it.  These have variable spindle speeds and some other features to reduce the power consumption to about half of a typical drive.  Along with this comes a reduction in sound and heat.  They're a little slower than the top drives, but not too much.  Inserting the drives is trivial.  Just push them into place.

I'll post later on how well it actually works.

Welcome to 2008

Not a great start for 2008 out here in Seattle.  We had a big fireworks display at midnight on the Space Needle.  Unfortunately, there were some glitches.  The fireworks were coordinated by a computer, but it had some "glitches" and eventually they had to set them off by hand.

Here's to a great new year.  Time to wipe the slates clean, make a few resolutions, and try some new things.

First EMI, Then Universal, Now Warner...

Apparently Warner Music just announced that they were releasing all of their tracks DRM-free.  That makes 3 of the big four giving the heave-ho to DRM.  Sony is now the lone holdout against the future.  How long until they give in to the inevitable?  Next up, the movie industry?  We can only hope.

Welcome Matthew van Eerde to the Blogosphere

One of my team members, Matthew van Eerde, just joined the blog world.  Check out his inaugural post.

Inbox Zero

If you're anything like me, you have way too much e-mail to read it all.  To try to cope with this, I've resorted to a collection of rules that sorts my mail into a Byzantine structure of folders.  This helps a little, but has the problem of helping me miss a lot of mail as well.  Things get neatly sorted into specific folders where they are summarily ignored for large periods of time.  I just ran across a talk by Merlin Mann discussing a concept he calls "Inbox Zero."  There are basically two main concepts:

1. Don't let e-mail run your life.  Check it only periodically.
2. When you do check it, take action on each piece of mail right away.  The key is the nature of the action taken.  In my world, taking action has always meant reading and responding to the mail.  This takes a long time and it's hard to get through the mailbox this way.  Instead, Merlin suggests doing one of the following, all of which are quick:
1. Delete.  If the mail isn't important, delete it immediately.
2. Archive.  If this isn't something you need now but might want later, move it to an archive folder.  He says to use just one.  That way you don't need to think about how to file it.  In Outlook 2007 (or earlier if you used desktop search or Lookout) and online mail programs, searching can solve the problem folders were intended to solve.  The advantage of only one is that you don't need to think about how to file it.
3. Respond Quickly.  If you can answer in 1-5 sentences, just do it.  Then delete (or archive) the mail.
4. Just Do It.  If action is required that can be done now, get up and do it.
5. Flag For Follow-up.  If the mail requires more time, move it to a follow-up folder or mark in such a way that you know to get back to it.  This lets you move on.  Come back to this folder at the end of the day and clean it out.

That's all.  I'm going to give it a shot and see how it works.

Apparently this talk was based on a series of blog posts.

The New Zune Revue

Over the past few years I have become an avid podcast listener.  I've been using Creative MP3 players until this point.  I have owned a Zen Nano, Zen Stone Plus, and a Zen Vision M.  The first was good its 1 GB size became restricting.  The second was a good size, but the battery life was terrible.  It's supposed to be 10 hours but it felt more like I was getting 5-7.  Worse, it's not clear when you are about to run out of battery.  The Zen Vision M is nice, but too heavy for my liking.  The UI is also quite a mess.  It's very inconsistent and not always intuitive.  For various reasons, I've never owned an iPod.  I also skipped the first Zune due mostly to the form factor.  I want to carry my player in my pocket all the time.  A hard drive player is just too big for that to be comfortable for me.

About a month ago I started seeing and reading about the new second generation Zune.  I liked the firmware on the first one but the PC software was pretty bad.  The new one did two things that piqued my interest.  First, they came out with a flash model.  Second, they totally rewrote the PC software.  As an added bonus, there is finally podcasting support.  The new unit looked promising so on the first day it was available, I bought one of the black 8GB Zunes.  I was not disappointed.  The device is solid, the firmware great, and the PC software very well done.  It's not perfect, there are certainly things that could be better, but overall the experience is amazing.

Highlights

When you unbox a new Zune, there is no CD included.  Instead, you have to go to the web to download the software.  The first thing I noticed is that there is a native 64-bit version of the Zune Player.  I run a 64-bit version of Vista on my main home machine so this was a welcome thing. 

The new player is elegant.  It is very streamlined.  This means that some functionality you might want is missing, but for the purpose of playing media and syncing to a Zune it is great.  In fact, I don't think I've loaded Windows Media Player since installing the Zune player.  It's that good.  It uses the same 2D control system that the Zune uses.  Visually, it looks great.  It makes iTunes look like a spreadsheet by comparison.

The support for podcasting is well done.  There is a list of hundreds of podcasts included in the marketplace.  You can search for them by keyword or browse by category.  Subscribing is as easy as hitting a subscribe button.  If the podcast you want isn't in the marketplace, you can just enter the url of the rss feed and it works the same.  It will then download the 3 most recent episodes and upload them one at a time to the Zune.  You are free to change these defaults if you want.  On the Zune, the podcasts show up in their own menu and are separated into audio and video podcasts.  When you finish listening to a podcast, it is automatically marked as watched and will be removed next time you sync.  In a really cool touch, each podcast has its own bookmark.  Unlike the Creative players I'm used to, I'm no longer hostage to the podcast.  It's easy to switch to music or even another podcast and come back to the same place later.

The screen on the Zune 4 and 8 GB models is a bit small, but it's fine for watching many shows.  I have watched video podcasts and TV shows transcoded from my Media Center and both are definitely watchable.  The screen is bright and the colors vivid.

Wireless sync is really cool.  Once you set up the Zune on your wireless lan, you can cause the Zune to sync any time you want.  It works well.  Look Ma!  No wires.

Lowlights

Unfortunately, not all is wonderful in Zune land.  The first thing I noticed is that I couldn't install the updated firmware.  I got an error 0xC00D11CD.  Searching the web I found that I'm definitely not the only one hitting this error.  Luckily, I also found a solution hidden in the forums.  If you see this error, try plugging in the cable directly into one of the motherboard mounted USB ports.  I get the error every time I'm plugged into the front jack but never in the back.  Your mileage may vary but hopefully this will help someone.

I really miss the ability to force a transcode before syncing.  The Zune can play audio at high bitrates and video at high resolutions.  If I'm not going to copy the file elsewhere, though, the extra resolution is wasted.  I want an easy way to down-res the audio and video files before syncing.  I can't find a way to do this presently.  This becomes a big problem when I'm trying to sync files from Media Center.  These are often 2-3 GB .dvr-ms files.  Because the Zune can play them directly, it doesn't transcode them.  Unfortunately, I don't want to waste 3 gigs of my 8 for one TV show.

While I'm at it, I'd like to see support for Divx and Audible formats.  Neither are on the device or in the software presently.

Conclusion

While there are definitely some things that could be better, this is a major leap forward from the first Zune.  The device UI is easy to use.  The new player is great.  The support is much broader than the first time out.  I haven't used an iPod extensively so I can't compare, but I don't feel like I'm missing anything with the Zune.  In fact, there are features like wireless sync I would miss if I did have an iPod.  If you are in the market for a new MP3 player this Christmas, give the Zune a good look.  You might be surprised at what you find.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It is Thanksgiving today.  My wife and I will be having a small gathering of about nine family members.  I always enjoy getting some time to put work aside for a few days just hang out with family.  I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving today and that many of you get to spend time with family and friends.  I've often said that 80% of happiness is just deciding to be happy.  I encourage everyone to take the opportunity today to reflect on the good things in life.

The Ultimate Geek Jacket

With Christmas approaching, here is a cool idea for the gadget-lover.  The ScottEVest Evolution Jacket is a waterproof jacket with 25 pockets for all the cellphones, Zunes, PDAs, pens, etc. that we tend to carry these days.  The jacket also has special ducting for headphones from the iPod/Zune pocket, space for books, water bottles, and magazines.  The sleeves come off to make it into a vest.  In short, it looks very cool.  If a coat isn't what you are looking for, they also have shirts, hats, and pants with special pockets for gear.

You can get 20% off if you go through TWIT.  Here is a cool video of the CEO showing this off on Donny Deutsch's show.

New Blade Runner Coming!

25 years after Ridley Scott's masterpiece was first released, another version is nearly upon us.  Blade Runner:  The Final Cut is coming December 18.  What I find most cool about this is not the new cut, but rather the original.  When it was released in 1982, the movie had a voiceover by Harrison Ford.  When It was re-cut in 1992 as the Director's Cut, the voiceover was left out.  Many disagree with me, but I actually liked the voiceovers.  I would prefer that they be there.  Alas, the only version to have made it to DVD has been the director's cut.  Now, along with this new cut, there will be a collector's edition DVD set which includes the original cut as well.  Looks like I'll be buying this movie one more time.  I'm crossing my fingers that perhaps the new cut will  be accompanied by some sort of limited theatrical release.  It's been a long time since I saw Blade Runner on the big screen.  There are a few video clips from the new cut here.