This is post I’ve been meaning to write for a while, but time (as it does) has gotten away from me. I started thinking about this issue back around the end of 2008 or so when it was announced that, globally, laptop sales had exceeded desktops. It’s easy to see the appeal: setting up camp … [Read more…]
I’m running the Windows 7 Release Candidate, and pulled down Apple’s new iTunes 9, which debuted on last Wednesday. I noticed a little added feature: It seems iTunes 9 takes advantage of the Windows 7 taskbar enhancements and adds a back, play/pause, and forward button below the live preview. It also adds a balloon above … [Read more…]
In terms of our interaction, email used to be essentially snail mail that you could send and receive instantly. But our interaction with email has moved far beyond this simple analogue of open mailbox, get messages. The postman comes to my house once a day; whatever letters come, that’s all there is until tomorrow. The … [Read more…]
So, I’ve decided to use my Saturday to geek-out and try some new computer stuff. While Microsoft is making a somewhat lackluster presentation at CES compared to the likes of Sony, Palm, and Dell which have announced slick-looking gadgets, in terms of things to try right now, two Microsoft betas have caught my attention. The … [Read more…]
The Oxford Bodeian Library‘s collection is one of the main tangible things that makes Oxford a world-class research institution. The troves of primary sources, obscure titles, and first editions make it a mecca for historical and literary research. This is a promise which I don’t think the Oxford Libraries live up to in practice, because … [Read more…]
My iPhone was gimped, but not yet dead. The problem was with the “home” button, and being the only button on the front face, you can imagine it gets used frequently. It had lost the crisp, original clickyness and trying to press it was like using a sausage to play a snare drum. Sometimes I’d … [Read more…]
Every new site that provides a personal service needs to authenticate you the next time you return. They need to make sure you are able to access your account and others are denied. The standard way to do this is to have you create a secret password to identify yourself when you return. And there … [Read more…]
Maybe Microsoft should move its headquarters to 1 Infinite Loop. This morning, while trying to send out some mail in Microsoft’s Outlook 2007, I noticed that after nearly 10 minutes, the message I tried to send was still sitting in my Outbox. When I clicked “Send/Receive,” like ya do, Outlook decided to get stuck in … [Read more…]
If you don’t have access to a Windows installation, this post is not for you (yet, Microsoft claims to be working on a Mac version), sorry! Photosynth is really cool. It’s a tool from Microsoft to visualize spatial environments using overlapping photos. It really is something else—way better than a static slideshow, it manages to … [Read more…]
Microsoft’s Office Labs has posted a tool for launching programs called SpeedLaunch. Now, there are a lot of launchers out there, as the creators of SpeedLaunch point out on their blog. What seems unique about theirs, they say, is the drag-n-drop functionality for creating shortcuts: you get a big ‘ole target in the corner of … [Read more…]