The one thing missing from making GV feature complete for me was voice dialing from the iPhone- a feature I use quite frequently as I often need to make and receive calls while I’m otherwise too occupied to bring up the keypad. Really. Also, it’s cool.

Took me a while to figure this out but its quite simple:

Choose the contact you want to voice dial. For me there are only a few I’m really interested in so I’ve no need for this, though you can do something like that too if you want.

Add a new number for this contact or edit a current number, though I prefer to have their legitimate number in there as well.  In the field for their new number add:

your google voice number, your google pin number, 2 (to make a call) and finally the number you are calling.  It’ll look like this:

(777)555-1212,1234,2,4123919500

This page shows how to find the comma (pause) in the iPhone menu.

No matter how well optimized Flash could ever possibly be on the iPhone, it would always offer a substandard experience with the slightly possible exception of video playback. And while Flash playback is important, it is also obviously becoming less so with HTML5 video players quickly picking up the slack.

The big problem comes with all the other things users expect and experience from Flash on the Desktop. You’ve got games, you’ve got banner ads, you’ve got entire sites designed in flash (when they really should be HTML). These Flash movies are almost always designed for a specific desktop size or higher, be it 800×600 or 1024×768. Many of them allow you to right click. They all ultimately expect you to be interfacing with a mouse and keyboard easily at the ready. At best you’re going to get a mix-and-max of sub-standard to downright awful browsing experiences. One could even argue that Apple got full web browsing so right on Mobile Safari by ignoring Flash completely.

At best a Flash designer could possibly create two versions of the Flash interface: one Desktop, one “mobile.” And then of course you’d be designing for every potential Flash enabled phone out there, regardless of speed, screen size, or interface.

Whether you chose to write your Flash for the desktop or you chose to “optimize” for mobile, if you targeted both at any point you are now providing a lowest-common-denominator, feature incomplete interface that will likely not look or interact as well as versions specifically designed for Desktop or mobile. So let Flash be Flash, a time wasting game interface and the bane of mobile users searching for restaurant menus everywhere. The iPhone doesn’t need it, and if it had it it would be worse for it.

• Quick and easy to use Ad Network built into OS
• Forced upgrade path for those users who wish to take care of new features
  • Said new features already implemented on jailbroken iphones
  • Your not-yet-two year old phone will be obsolete when OS 4 comes out, just in time to re-up your AT&T contract
• Blocking 3rd party application frameworks like Flash and Unity
• Openness leads to pornography?

The problem, and honestly this wasn’t much of a problem until now, is that they are rather bulky.

The netbook was supposed to be the solution to the bulkiness of a “full sized” laptop.  Early adds for the EEE series of laptops featured a rather unrealistic image of a woman sitting on a beach, computing her heart out on the toy-like EEE.  But as we’ve seen the netbook evolve from a tiny keyboard, tiny screen computer to a more or less full sized but underpowered laptop.  This evolution speaks to the problem of netbooks:  A tiny form factor and tiny screen don’t mean much if the way you use them is the same as on a full sized computer.  The squinting and key-hunting become more a burden quickly.

The potential of the iPad is that it takes the small-form factor and makes it true.  This is a device you will take to the beach, into the kitchen and undoubtedly into the bathroom.  Gestures and quick magnification will make using it second nature, and unlike Microsoft’s ultimately failed Tablet PC, the fact that the machine’s operating system was built from the ground up with this form factor in mind will mean that this time it will work.  The stripped down feature set and relatively powerful processor mean that not only can we watch high quality video but we’ll likely be able to edit it to some degree as well.  The same goes for music.

The funny thing is that I thought that all of this was what made the iPhone special, but it was not enough to take the laptop out of the equation, and the reason was that the iPhone is simply too small.

Low impact lifestyle computing is what the Netbook promised; its what the iPad will actually deliver.

Group Policy Batch Tools by Markus Stephany

I don’t know that he is supporting them any more but they let you manipulate Group Policy in Windows environments in incredibly powerful and dangerous.  The tool I’ve been using most: Gpscript.exe, lets you dump an entire group policy file out of Active Directory into what is essentially a registry file.  You can then manipulate the text files and reupload them into AD Group Policy.   Of course the potential to destroy the universe is great, but if you take your time and use this wisely, it is a fantastic tool.  Particularly for large, unwieldy policies that involve a lot of hand input- Windows Firewall Group Policy can be pretty robust, but if you want to use it to its fullest, applying different policies to different sets of devices and the like, it is a practically impossible task because of the sheer amount of work you’ve got to put into creating exceptions and lists.  GPscript.exe has made that task  at least functional.

Criteria:

• At least 1 TB of storage.
• DLNA (and optionally iTunes) streaming
• RAID1 or some other type of data redundancy
• Time Machine compatibility to back up our laptops
• An operating system that will allow the installation of apps, either through a console or graphically.

Options:

• Time Capsule Unfortunately no redundancy.
• HP MediaSmart Server (too expensive, limited storage options unless you go really expensive- bonus iTunes streaming)
• Drobo (nice in that it uses as many drives as  you can throw in it, network is an additional cost and slowed down due to USB)
• Roll my own- yeah I think that’s it.

Roll Your Own NAS

Many advantages here:

• I can put whatever operating system I want on it- Windows Home Server or some Linux NAS distribution, even XP
• I can install apps I’d like to include, from backup, bittorrent, itunes, streaming tools, or anything else I can think of.
• I choose the hard drive size and I know it will be mirrored.
• I can set up Time Machine backups to it.
• All things considered, its very reasonably priced.

Negatives:

• WHS is by all accounts not great, despite its potential.  Roll your own NAS tools can be cumbersome to configure and maintain.
• Buying barebones pc hardware almost always results in a return or two before everything works.
• Time Machine is a kludge and certainly not guaranteed by Apple to work.

The Server:

APEX MI-100 Black / Mirror finish Steel Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case 250W Power Supply:
One of the few Mini-ITX computer cases that are compatible with the Atom based NVIDIA ION platform I want to use.  Fits two drives and has enough power to drive my equipment.  $36

ASUS AT3N7A-I Intel Atom 330 (1M Cache, 1.6GHz, Dual-Core) NVIDIA ION Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU Combo
I wanted an Atom and ION combo board so I’d have enough power to drive a few apps and maybe even transcode video if necessary while keeping the power draw low.  $150

HITACHI Deskstar HD31000 IDK/7K (0S00163) 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive
Eh, its a hard drive.  I’m buying 2, so that’s $180

CORSAIR 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Desktop Memory Model VS2GB667D2
It’s RAM. $86

$452 before shipping.  All things considered that is pretty darn competitive.  I’m taking donations.

As a gaming device, it is simply nothing special, as by all accounts it is a giant iPod Touch, the only thing you get as a gamer is a larger screen and in most cases, blown up graphics rather than improved graphics.  The problem of iPod gaming is there is no tactile interface beyond holding the device and sliding your fingers across the screen, the iPad does nothing to resolve it.  This isn’t to say gaming on it won’t be fun, but at $500 minimum you’re better off staying with an iPod touch, or your other sub-$200 portable gaming device.

Beyond gaming, a bigger screen is nice for reading, but not as good as e-ink.  Nice for movies and television and podcasts, but not widescreen?  Functionally, there are almost no differentiating features between it and Apple’s iPad-nanos.  Where are the rumored two camera’s for video chat?  Where is the facial recognition for passing the device around the room?  No mention of medical use when that is the only functional market for tablet computing?

Granted, this is a first generation Apple device and one need only look at the iPhone to see what can happen in a single software (or hardware) generation, but the iPad has a long way to go.

Jamie’s got some excellent points (especially regarding how it is a closed platform) here.

The problem for me has always been finding similar functionality on the Windows side.  QT still has extremely robust programmability through COM, but accessing it has been difficult because I am a shitty programmer.

Enter: QTControlCommandLine

This wonderful little tool lets you perform practically any Quicktime operation you would want from the command line, which means setting up batch scripts is a cinch.  It even gives you complete control over export settings, something the QT exporting tools I’ve seen have not been able to offer.

A few notes though, the precompiled EXE that came with the tool did not work on my 64-bit Windows 7 device, so I recompiled it specifically for 32-bit using VS2008 and it is running fine using the 32-bit Quicktime install on my PC.  Also for some reason it is not taking configuration settings from the xml file it lets you designate as you export files.  Hopefully I’ll get to the bottom of that.

Update:
When in doubt, make sure you’re case sensitive…

Ballmer is driving the company into the ground.  I don’t know if it is zealous focus on “winning Search” or his love of the cash cow that is Microsoft in the Enterprise but all of their Consumer Electronics seem to be flagging or flatlining.

Off the top of my head.

• Did they even mention Windows Media Center?  What was once the centerpiece of Microsoft’s attempt at taking over the living room has been completely overshadowed by cheap set top boxes and game consoles.
• Hardly touched on WinMo 7 and Zune, out of what I can only assume is embarrassment.  They have nothing even approaching Android let alone iPhone OS and they know it.
• Their Xbox announcement wasn’t really the “game changing” user interface breakthrough Project Natal, but a pay-to-play MAME ripoff for old people?
• Their game lineup for 2010 is pretty lackluster (not including Mass Effect 2)
• They even kind of waffled on their “Slate” announcement.  For good reason though- no one really has any idea what Apple is up to with their new tablet concept, and from what it sounds like, “iSlate” is so far removed from the tacked on uselessness that was Microsoft’s Tablet PC initiative that they might as well not show anything at all.
• Huge focus on Windows 7?  That’s all well and good but “Windows Everywhere” ain’t exactly what it used to be and we’re seeing Linux (Android, embedded, etc) ALL OVER THE PLACE at this show.

Bottom line: Microsoft’s corporate inertia has rendered them unable to keep up with the ecosystem they had a huge hand in creating.  Blame Steve Ballmer, blame their org chart, whatever, they’re done.