The Gadgets Page

I am totally stoked to announce that I’ve been chosen to speak at the Utah Open Source Conference this year.

• UTOSC 2009 | (Afford|Scal|Reli)Ability – Home

These are my presentations:

• UTOSC 2009 | Open Source Basics: What are you a bunch of hippies?
• UTOSC 2009 | Intermediate GIMP: Face Swapping
• UTOSC 2009 | Advanced GIMP: The Digital Diet

This is the first time I’ve done a presentation like this since my student teaching so many years ago, so I’m feeling pretty nervous and excited all at the same time. If you are in the Utah area on October 10th, please drop by the Utah Open Source Conference and give me a boost of morale. I’ll probably need it!

Microsoft’s latest desktop operating system, Windows 7, has been released to manufacturing, which means that it will be available pre-loaded on PCs and in retail boxes in October. Being geeks, the gadgets page got early access to the release version and installed it on the Sony UX 390N to compare Windows 7 to its predecessor, Windows Vista.

In a word, Windows 7 is a sigh of relief. The Sony UX390 is an Ultra-mobile PC, and not very powerful: It has a 1.5GHz Core Solo processor, 1GB of ram, and a 32GB solid state hard disk. It’s basically minimum spec for a modern computer. Vista ran poorly on it, and only with considerable tuning and customization by an expert was it even remotely tolerable. Application “whiteouts” were common, search indexing had to be disabled, and apps ran out of RAM all the time. Beyond using it for Outlook, there was little that it was good for. Sony should never have moved from Windows XP for these UMPC machines.

Windows 7 changes all of that. I performed a clean installation from a boot CD in less than 30 minutes, which in itself is amazing. Secondly, by the time the installation was done (with literally no input from me beyond partitioning), it had nearly all the devices, including the fingerprint scanner, correctly identified and working. Of all of Sony’s original drivers and applications, I only need to install drivers for the memory stick slot, Sony’s firmware extensions device on the motherboard, the onboard camera, and the touch screen calibration application. Everything else was handled out of the box, and the Vista drivers for the missing devices worked in Windows 7. The new Printers and Devices app is a joy—it’s way easier and faster to deal with devices in Windows using this separate control panel. In less than an hour total, I had a new computer.

It’s hard to describe how much better the computer is now. Office 2007 runs just fine—it’s quite snappy. I’ve done literally no tuning—I haven’t had to turn off indexing, add ReadyBoost, or anything else to make the computer perform. It runs just fine by default. Everything is faster—hooking up to wireless networks, running multiple simultaneous applications—everything. The fan isn’t on all the time and the hard disk isn’t constantly accessing. Features that used to be add-on programs, such as Fingerprint logon and burning ISO images to CD or DVD, are now part of the operating system.

The new taskbar works just like the OS X dock. I wasn’t a fan of the dock in OS X when it came out, but I’m quite used to it now, and it’s definitely better than the Start menu ever was. The new taskbar is faster and easier to use than the start menu (which is also still there) and the screen looks a lot more coherent. I wish they’d gone all the way and put the Recycle Bin on it so there’s not just one lonely icon on my desktop, but they didn’t.

The organization of the user interface is a quite a bit better than Vista. Vista was clearly just a bunch of silly layers on top of the old user-interface that rarely made anything easier—they just made it take longer to get to the functionality you were looking for. In Windows 7, finding your way around makes more sense—probably more sense than it ever has in the past. You can generally just find the functionality you need by looking around and clicking in the obvious places.

When you can’t, typing the name of an application in the search box in the start menu will pull up whatever you need quickly. Searching in Windows 7 is dramatically improved, although not yet on par with OS X in terms of speed and low background processing impact. It is finally good enough to use, however.

Finally, every one of the buggy glitches I’d been dealing with in Vista is resolved. File copies are fast. Drag and drop operations actually work the first time. UAC pop-ups are considerably reduced. Applications that aren’t compatible with Vista can be run in a built-in XP virtual mode in the Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate versions of Windows 7. But mostly, it’s just much, much faster.

I strongly recommend upgrading all of your modern PCs to Windows 7. If it runs Windows XP well, it will run Windows 7 even better. And if it runs Vista, Windows 7 will run like the operating system you were promised but didn’t get. Is it better than OS X 10.5 on a Mac? Not quite, but it is a heck of a lot closer, and it runs all your apps.

It has been a LONG time since I’ve been able to say that I’ve enjoyed a Microsoft advertisement for anything other than train wreck gawking. This ad for Microsoft Office 2010, however, is enjoyable!

I’m sure that no one is mourning the loss of Clippy, but I’m most excited about the return of Visio. I used to use that program for everything from flow charts to floor plans. I hope it’s just as easy to use as it was when it was a Visio Corporation property.

Via: A funny Microsoft ad? Yes

Columbia University has developed a fully automatic face swapping system. They describe it here:

I can see this sort of thing being included in iPhoto in the next five years. I especially love the ability to replace one face in a group of people using a few of the photos you’ve taken. I don’t know HOW many times we’ve taken family photos where one (or more) of the kids weren’t quite looking at the camera.

How many times have I thought, “Dangit! If we could use Kristen’s face on this one and Sammie’s face on that one, THEN we’d have the perfect family photo!” With this automatic face swapping techniques, we could easily do that without having to burden my Photoshopping Skillz!

I switched over to a Mac a little over two years ago. I have used iCal for that long and it has always bugged me that the calendar didn’t show my holidays. Since computers are used all over the world, it’s a little egocentric for me to expect the built in calendar program to have U.S. holidays, but I had no idea how to get the holidays into my calendar without putting them in myself.

Fortunately, there IS a way. When you’re in iCal, you choose Calendar and then Subscribe. It will ask for a URL to subscribe to. Finding the appropriate calendar for your country is DIFFICULT, so I looked at our traffic and found the calendars for the top five countries that access The Gadgets Page:

• Apple – US Holiday Calendar
• Apple – United Kingdom Holiday Calendar
• Apple – Canadian Holiday Calendar
• Apple – Australian Holiday Calendar – New South Wales (NSW)
• Apple – German Holiday Calendar

Once you’ve subscribed to a calendar, all your holidays are there for you. If there is a holiday that is continually moved with no rhyme nor reason (like the Daylight Savings fiasco in the U.S.), then you might want to have your calendar check for updates. To do that, highlight the calendar, right click on it and choose Get Info. Once you’re there, choose Auto-Refresh and change the setting appropriately.

I thought that I could live without having the U.S. Holidays on my iCal until last year when I scheduled a geek event on Easter weekend. It wasn’t until it was too late that I realized that we wouldn’t have anyone attend because of the overlooked holiday. If the lack of holidays on iCal had caused you similar troubles, you can now add your country’s holiday to your calendar.

After all of those Twitter entries, just a humorous look at what would happen if Apple decided to buy Twitter:

• The Joy of Tech comic: What If Apple Bought Twitter?

My favorite event:

Microsoft introduces Zzitter, its entry into the social networking scene. By month’s end, over 35 people have signed up to send “zits” to their friends.

I have enjoyed using Twitter over the last two years and I love to see how things have changed since then. For me, it has become more of a note-taking tool and a quick way to say hi to a lot of my friends, both near and far. I have felt less lonely in this isolated world of the Internet because if Twitter and for that, I’ll be eternally grateful.

Tweetie is an iPhone app recommended to me by my friend, Brad McCall. It’s cheaper than most of the other apps and has the most features.

Here is a review of Tweetie:

• Tweetie on iTunes – $2.99

It’s organized a lot like Twittelator Pro and I can even find people who are nearby who use Tweetie. The Nearby feature alone is worth the three bucks. That’s why Tweetie is has quickly become my favorite Twitter app, because sometimes I feel alone and I want to find people in my neighborhood who are using Twitter.

The use of multiple accounts is the easiest with Tweetie. Just a quick click to the left and I can choose a different Twitter account. Instead of using the SubGroups function on Twittelator Pro, I have started putting my friends into various Twitter accounts. All my Utah friends are on CodeAway, all my fitness friends are on the Starling Fitness account, and all my entertaining Twitter friends are on my personal account. Following each group is very easy with Tweetie!

There is also a Tweetie for the Mac application on the computer. You can see an introductory video on their website.

Twitterrific was the first iPhone app that I ever tried. I NEVER use it now. First, it was replaced by Twinkle because I loved being able to see other Twinkle users near me. Then both of them were replaced by Twittelator because it promised me the use of sub-groups. Finally, I’ve settled on Tweetie so I get the Nearby features AND the multiple accounts.

I have always used the free version, which has advertisements on your feed. I don’t care whether there are ads on my screen, so the free version was fine with me. There are a couple other features that the Premium version has that I don’t have. You can see a review of it here:

• Twitterific on iTunes – Free

My biggest problem with Twitterific is the fact that it starts at my last read tweet. If I haven’t loaded it for several days, it will show me the last time I looked at it and I will have to scroll all the way to the top in order to see what’s going on RIGHT NOW. I haven’t been able to find a setting to change that and it is so irritating that I haven’t used Twitterific because of it.

Just like the other Twitter apps, you can read your friends’ tweets, send your own (including photos), and see who is messaging and replying to you. It’s a great app for free with only one drawback that maybe others might consider a feature.

“Twinkle, Twinkle Little App, Posting Tweets Is Now A Snap!” With a slogan like that, how could Twinkle go wrong?

Twinkle is a free Twitter iPhone app that works very well doing what it does. You can send tweets, including a photo taken within the application or previously. You can read your friend’s tweets and messages sent to you.

Here is a brief video showing the features of Twinkle:

• Twinkle on iTunes – Free

The truly killer apps in Twinkle are the Location and Nearby features. If you turn it on, Twinkle will broadcast your location so other Twinkle users nearby can find you. You can use the Nearby feature to read the tweets of people who are near you. You can choose anywhere between 1 mile and 1000 miles (although I suspect the usefulness of this feature is diminished at that great of a distance). I have found lots of Utah Geeks just by looking at Twinkle’s nearby feature and finding people who live in my neighborhood who are just as cool as I am.

Long ago, I heard about DodgeBall, which was a location-based Twitter-like service that you could use with your cellphone. DodgeBall only worked in big cities like New York and San Francisco. They never did come to Salt Lake City before Google axed them. Google never really gave DodgeBall a chance, but now that I have Twinkle, I don’t need DodgeBall.

If you are feeling like you’re the only person on the planet, download Twinkle on your iPhone and see all the people like you nearby. It’s the best cure for loneliness and it’s free.

For the longest time, my favorite Twitter app was Twittelator Pro. I like it because it’s so versatile and I can easily use it with several accounts. I can read my friends’ tweets, of course, but I can also see who has replied to me using the @ feature, even when I’m not following that person.

Twittelator Pro’s most useful feature is Sub-Groups. Under the More section, I can set up a group of the people I am following. For instance, if I want to read the tweets of just my friends in Salt Lake City, I can set up a group for that. If I’m at a conference, like SXSWi, I can set up a subgroup of my Twitter friends who are attending the same conference so I can see what they are up to. This feature alone would be worth the five bucks, if it didn’t crash my iPhone every time I use it. Sadly, it does, so I had to abandon using that feature.

Here is a video review of Twittelator Pro (although it shows screen shots from the free version in addition to the Pro version):

• Twittelator Pro on iTunes – $4.99

Twittelator Pro does have the GPS features that some other Twitter apps have, but it doesn’t have a search feature to find people using Twitter near you (even if you’re not following them). You can broadcast your location with Twittelator Pro, but you can’t use that information to find others around you. It appears that the free version of Twittelator has this feature, but I couldn’t find it in the Pro version.

When I pull out my iPhone to tweet, Twittelator Pro used to be the app that I used the most, but Tweetie has slowly taken its place.