Yesterday, on our date night to the B Spot in Crocker Park, Westlake, OH, we did a visit to the Apple Store. Lisa was (finally) ready to upgrade from her iPhone 4 to a newer model. She ended up jumping to the newest, the iPhone 6 (there is a 6 Plus, but it is the size of a small SUV). I wanted to encourage her to move up to the iPhone 6, because whereas I tend to buy the "newest" technology (a.k.a. "early adopter" - wanna buy a Zune, or Surface RT?), she tends to get the almost-obsolete-but-it-will-work technology.
I said she was "finally" ready, because she has been using this iPhone 4 since December 5, 2011 (do the math). Her cell phone had officially died that day, so we went to our carrier and both got set up with the iPhone 4 smartphones. So, that was way past the two-year contract time that Verizon had us tied to, so the option to upgrade has been there awhile.
Sometime in the late spring of 2014 I upgraded to the Lumia Icon (the "flagship" Windows phone on Verizon). Again, latest and greatest. Of course, since then, the only way to get upgrades is to join the Developer Preview, which only helped with the OS upgrades. The firmware still needs to go through the carriers (Microsoft, you guys are morons), so I'm still waiting two firmware versions behind the phone maker.
My wife is using a laptop running Windows Vista. Yeah, I said "Vista". Me? I'm running Windows 8.1 on our desktop and Windows 10 Developer Preview on a laptop (again, "early adopter"). So, you'll understand why I was thrilled that she upgraded to the latest and greatest iPhone.
Why this blog article? Yesterday during date night, while walking into Walmart (what? You don't go to Walmart on YOUR dates?!?), I saw a display of Valentine's items and made the stupid comment: "I hope you like your Valentine's Day gift." She replied, "It finally took me nine years to realize that we don't do Valentine's Day."
Open mouth. Insert foot.
I have said for years that "we don't do Valentine's Day". Why? I believe that a holiday like Valentine's is just a reminder to men to do something nice for their lady, whereas I believe that men should do nice things for their lady all year round.
Husbands (boyfriends, etc.): you want to know how to be good in your "role"? Love her with everything that you have and are. Don't hold anything back. Make it a point to surprise her whenever possible. I make it a point of bringing home flowers when I'm NOT trying to apologize for being an idiot. She always tells me that I shouldn't buy her flowers, but I don't listen. And that is exactly the point. After all, she IS the latest and greatest.
And if doing something nice happens to fall on a holiday designed to remind men to not be idiots, so be it.
© Emittravel 2015
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Developers! Developers! Developers!
Some of you who follow tech news will undoubtedly recognize the title of this blog article as a quote from former Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer. I feel a kinship to Mr. Ballmer: we both like to rant. He, from the stage of Microsoft events - and possibly the sidelines of Los Angeles Clippers' games, and me, from the digital pages of this blog.
Rest assured, even though this particular article will deal with technology and developers, I have great affection for those who spend their days huddled in front of computer monitors writing line after line of code. My day job is that of Executive Assistant to the Chief Technology Officer, and administrative assistant to a staff of over 150 I.T. and business analytics folks. I also spend much leisure time listening to podcasts from the likes of individuals as Tom Merritt (@acedtect), Paul Thurrott (@thurrott), Mary Jo Foley (@maryjofoley), Patrick Beja (@NotPatrick), Jonathon Strickland (@JonStrickland), and a "digital Jesuit" named Robert Ballecer, SJ (@padresj). Sometimes, though, I think that what comes out of the keyboards of some developers leave the customer's best interests out of the mix.
This past summer, my wife and I had the pleasure of meeting a number of great folks at an event in Salt Lake City, Utah called "Nerdtacular". Along with some fantastic artists, musicians, and simply "geeky" podcasters, we got to meet people like Josh Freeman (@jdfreeman11) from San Antonio, Texas. His Twitter bio states: "Software Engineer. @thefullformat host. Netflix C-list horror connoisseur." He also tweets statements like "Design better software today than you did yesterday. Continue doing so until the day you stop writing software." and "If sleeping is the human version of rebooting, is dying the result of an uncaught exception?". Josh is the inspiration for this article.
"Dear Developers. The removal of a feature is NEVER considered an upgrade. Signed, Your Customers." - me.
The above is one of my major gripes regarding technology. Here's an example why:
Back in the day, Microsoft came out with their iPod competitor: the Zune. I have one of the 30 GB brown "bricks", and I really like it. It holds a large chunk of my music collection, but not all of it. I have auto playlists that I use to dynamically go through my music collection. For instance, I have one that pulls all songs, minus genre:Christmas, with a play count of less than one, shuffles it, and limits the playlist to no more than 30 GBs. I sync that playlist and start enjoying the music. When next I synchronize it, those songs that no longer fall into the playlist criteria (for instance, a play count of less than one) will fall off, which updates the overall playlist, and syncs new songs back to the device. This way I can work through the 26k+ songs in my collection without hearing the same Billy Joel song over and over (not that THAT would be a bad thing!)
The desktop software the Zune used was also called Zune - a kind of iTunes. You could play music through your computer, or sync it to a device. This was built on Microsoft Media Player (11?) All was happy in the world, until Microsoft came out with its new Zune HD player. When this device came out, a "new" desktop software was released as well. Microsoft came out with their own Market Place, and the Media Player core was not sufficient to do it. So, they rebuilt it from the ground up. And, since they were under a deadline to get the software out there to match the Zune HD hitting the shelves, many of the features were missing.
"A fast approaching deadline is the most important reason to have code reviews, not to skip them." - Josh Freeman
One of those missing features was the ability to generate auto playlists. Yup! One of the most useful features - a carryover from Media Player - and it was "removed". Okay, maybe not "removed". Just not in that current build. After a time of many people complaining in the forums, missing features slowly returned. But that took time. (And don't get me started about the mainly-useless Xbox Music either!)
I understand that sometimes a program needs to be rewritten from the ground up. Sometimes the program becomes so large that it slows down your computer just running it!
"More code doesn't necessarily mean more better." - Josh Freeman
What's even more annoying, is when you install an update to software and it "breaks". One of the reasons TO update is to fix security holes. Not updating software can therefore be a risky proposition. Unfortunately, most updates do not let you know what is changing, until after you've updated and it becomes a mess. Let me give you an example:
You have replaced your refrigerator with the newest model. Not only does it keep the food cold, it has many adjustable shelves, an ice maker, a water dispenser, and a beautiful stainless steel exterior. Very nice. One day, overnight, an "update" gets pushed. When you walk in your kitchen you find that your refrigerator is missing all of the shelves (the food is piled on the bottom), the ice maker doesn't work, the water dispenser is missing, and the stainless steel exterior is now a vinyl-clad hot pink. When you go online you find many other people complaining. The only responses you get are "the shelves will be returned in a future update", "we are aware of the ice maker issue and are working on it", "what water dispenser?", and "the color is a UI upgrade." At least the food still stays cold.
So, please, developers, and those managers pushing the deadlines, keep us, your customers in mind when you make changes. The future of your products depend on it! (Remember Vista, Microsoft?)
"Feature - feature - break - feature - break - fix - break - test - fix - test - fix - break - feature - break - break." - Josh Freeman
(Special thanks to Josh for inspiring this post: looking forward to seeing you at a Nerdtacular again soon! -j.p.)
© Emittravel 2014
Rest assured, even though this particular article will deal with technology and developers, I have great affection for those who spend their days huddled in front of computer monitors writing line after line of code. My day job is that of Executive Assistant to the Chief Technology Officer, and administrative assistant to a staff of over 150 I.T. and business analytics folks. I also spend much leisure time listening to podcasts from the likes of individuals as Tom Merritt (@acedtect), Paul Thurrott (@thurrott), Mary Jo Foley (@maryjofoley), Patrick Beja (@NotPatrick), Jonathon Strickland (@JonStrickland), and a "digital Jesuit" named Robert Ballecer, SJ (@padresj). Sometimes, though, I think that what comes out of the keyboards of some developers leave the customer's best interests out of the mix.
This past summer, my wife and I had the pleasure of meeting a number of great folks at an event in Salt Lake City, Utah called "Nerdtacular". Along with some fantastic artists, musicians, and simply "geeky" podcasters, we got to meet people like Josh Freeman (@jdfreeman11) from San Antonio, Texas. His Twitter bio states: "Software Engineer. @thefullformat host. Netflix C-list horror connoisseur." He also tweets statements like "Design better software today than you did yesterday. Continue doing so until the day you stop writing software." and "If sleeping is the human version of rebooting, is dying the result of an uncaught exception?". Josh is the inspiration for this article.
"Dear Developers. The removal of a feature is NEVER considered an upgrade. Signed, Your Customers." - me.
The above is one of my major gripes regarding technology. Here's an example why:
Back in the day, Microsoft came out with their iPod competitor: the Zune. I have one of the 30 GB brown "bricks", and I really like it. It holds a large chunk of my music collection, but not all of it. I have auto playlists that I use to dynamically go through my music collection. For instance, I have one that pulls all songs, minus genre:Christmas, with a play count of less than one, shuffles it, and limits the playlist to no more than 30 GBs. I sync that playlist and start enjoying the music. When next I synchronize it, those songs that no longer fall into the playlist criteria (for instance, a play count of less than one) will fall off, which updates the overall playlist, and syncs new songs back to the device. This way I can work through the 26k+ songs in my collection without hearing the same Billy Joel song over and over (not that THAT would be a bad thing!)
The desktop software the Zune used was also called Zune - a kind of iTunes. You could play music through your computer, or sync it to a device. This was built on Microsoft Media Player (11?) All was happy in the world, until Microsoft came out with its new Zune HD player. When this device came out, a "new" desktop software was released as well. Microsoft came out with their own Market Place, and the Media Player core was not sufficient to do it. So, they rebuilt it from the ground up. And, since they were under a deadline to get the software out there to match the Zune HD hitting the shelves, many of the features were missing.
"A fast approaching deadline is the most important reason to have code reviews, not to skip them." - Josh Freeman
One of those missing features was the ability to generate auto playlists. Yup! One of the most useful features - a carryover from Media Player - and it was "removed". Okay, maybe not "removed". Just not in that current build. After a time of many people complaining in the forums, missing features slowly returned. But that took time. (And don't get me started about the mainly-useless Xbox Music either!)
I understand that sometimes a program needs to be rewritten from the ground up. Sometimes the program becomes so large that it slows down your computer just running it!
"More code doesn't necessarily mean more better." - Josh Freeman
What's even more annoying, is when you install an update to software and it "breaks". One of the reasons TO update is to fix security holes. Not updating software can therefore be a risky proposition. Unfortunately, most updates do not let you know what is changing, until after you've updated and it becomes a mess. Let me give you an example:
You have replaced your refrigerator with the newest model. Not only does it keep the food cold, it has many adjustable shelves, an ice maker, a water dispenser, and a beautiful stainless steel exterior. Very nice. One day, overnight, an "update" gets pushed. When you walk in your kitchen you find that your refrigerator is missing all of the shelves (the food is piled on the bottom), the ice maker doesn't work, the water dispenser is missing, and the stainless steel exterior is now a vinyl-clad hot pink. When you go online you find many other people complaining. The only responses you get are "the shelves will be returned in a future update", "we are aware of the ice maker issue and are working on it", "what water dispenser?", and "the color is a UI upgrade." At least the food still stays cold.
So, please, developers, and those managers pushing the deadlines, keep us, your customers in mind when you make changes. The future of your products depend on it! (Remember Vista, Microsoft?)
"Feature - feature - break - feature - break - fix - break - test - fix - test - fix - break - feature - break - break." - Josh Freeman
(Special thanks to Josh for inspiring this post: looking forward to seeing you at a Nerdtacular again soon! -j.p.)
© Emittravel 2014
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Speak Now, Or Forever …
One day I thought it would be fun to experiment with Microsoft's Speech Recognition (MSR) software. I have a Surface RT, which has a decent built-in microphone, so I started the program and played. MSR has the ability to let you do most operations on the unit, along with dictation. For me, the dictation feature was what I was interested in. After all, the Surface RT has terrific touch screen functionality, so outside of the times my hands have recently been coated with hand lotion, touch is great.
I opened up OneNote (one of my favorite apps) and tried to "blog".
Total disaster. Not MSR. That worked very well. I just realized that not only am I terrible at public speaking, but I also stink at private speaking. It is much more efficient for me to express my thoughts through my fingers than my tongue. That's where I find that writing becomes such a valuable tool for self-expression.
As I wrote previously in "Pleased to Meet You, Hope You Guess My Name", writing can be great therapy. People say that you need to get things off of your chest by sharing it with others. Sometimes I think that speaking something can unknowingly give it "power". Kind of like sharing a fish story, the issue can grow with each telling. But with writing, there is a "finality" to it. You craft your thoughts and lay them out on paper (or a screen, as the case may be), and they become solidified. There is a firmness to it. That "finality" becomes a marker. Like a head stone. (Get it?)
When you write, you can't lie as easily either. Every time you reread what you wrote, the lie will glare back at you - and you will get no "deliverance". Writing practically forces you to be honest with yourself. And that's where all healing begins.
If you have something that needs to be expressed, go ahead and write it out. You'll feel better.
© Emittravel 2013
I opened up OneNote (one of my favorite apps) and tried to "blog".
Total disaster. Not MSR. That worked very well. I just realized that not only am I terrible at public speaking, but I also stink at private speaking. It is much more efficient for me to express my thoughts through my fingers than my tongue. That's where I find that writing becomes such a valuable tool for self-expression.
As I wrote previously in "Pleased to Meet You, Hope You Guess My Name", writing can be great therapy. People say that you need to get things off of your chest by sharing it with others. Sometimes I think that speaking something can unknowingly give it "power". Kind of like sharing a fish story, the issue can grow with each telling. But with writing, there is a "finality" to it. You craft your thoughts and lay them out on paper (or a screen, as the case may be), and they become solidified. There is a firmness to it. That "finality" becomes a marker. Like a head stone. (Get it?)
When you write, you can't lie as easily either. Every time you reread what you wrote, the lie will glare back at you - and you will get no "deliverance". Writing practically forces you to be honest with yourself. And that's where all healing begins.
If you have something that needs to be expressed, go ahead and write it out. You'll feel better.
© Emittravel 2013
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Win(RT)s & Losses
Microsoft has proven once again that they are completely out of touch with the consumer market, and have NO intention of EVER reaching out to them.
First off, let’s look at the new operating system on the horizon: Windows 8. Nothing new here. We've been hearing about this "reimaged Windows" for over a year now, and there has been quite a bit of excitement over it. I admit, I've had a "thrill up my leg" whenever I heard news of it. But, just like a politician's ability to deflate any campaign promise, Microsoft has gone out of its way to pop that balloon. They have come out with the name(s) for the new operating system: Windows 8 (obvious?), Windows 8 Pro, Windows 8 Enterprise (which is different from Pro how?), and WinRT. What? WinRT? What the hell is that?
There has been many guesses to what WinRT stands for, but the (sarcasm alert) funny part to me is that it is the one that will be natively installed on new store-bought tablet devices. So, you are sitting in that local coffee shop and pull out your tablet. Someone at the next table asks you, "Hey. Is that an iPad? An Android tablet? Or a Windows 8 tablet?" And you answer, "No, it's a WinRT tablet." Because you CAN'T call it Windows 8, because that would be lying (which is okay IF you ARE a politician . . . ). And since it's been called Windows 8 for so long, that person will think you are some kind of obnoxious engineer or developer, and knock over that expensive cup of coffee all over your table when they walk away from you.
Another thing. I've been using my HP Touchsmart tx2 convertible laptop for about three years now, and have recently upgraded it from Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Home Premium. One of the things I like to use is Windows Media Center (WMC) to watch movies while at lunch (temporarily ripped from DVDs). A nice feature of WMC is that, since my lunch is only an hour, I can pause a movie and continue it from there the next day (without having to leave the software running the whole time - like if I had an actual DVD in the player). One of the things WMC was not able to do was to automatically play an inserted DVD, or even allow me to select DVD when in the program. I went online for help and discovered that, according to Microsoft, in order to play DVDs with WMC I would need to be using AT LEAST the Home Premium version of Windows 7. Uh, that is what I'm running. If I want to be able to play DVDs with WMC, I would need to upgrade, and here are some handy
links to help me purchase that. Morons.
So, I went to Microsoft's Contact page for some support. I searched their support page and wouldn't you know it? No WMC. That's right. There is no support assistance available for this program. Are they discontinuing it? Well, if you WANT WMC to run on your new Windows 8 device (not including purchased tablets with WinRT on it, because that's not Windows 8), you must be using the Pro version, and PURCHASE it separately. So, I'd say that yes, they are discontinuing it.
Microsoft has had one major problem (and many, many minor ones): their marketing department SUCKS. I think that the department is not full of marketing people, but computer engineers. You know, those same folks that think WinNT and WinRT are such friendly consumer-grabbing names. Microsoft comes out with a terrific product, does their best to keep it a secret from the public, spend lots of money developing it, and when it starts to catch on - BAM!! They drop it.
Sorry Microsoft, but the "thrill up my leg" is gone. I think I will stick with my Windows 7 convertible laptop (another first that has gone away) until I HAVE to make the change. And this is not just me talking - do you think businesses (many STILL running Windows XP - another "great" name) are going to invest in cosmetic changes and funky names? Only when they have to. Only when they have to.
Morons.
© Emittravel 2012
© Emittravel 2012
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