Category: Technology

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Let me start out by saying I am a huge fan of Google’s Gmail service. It provides a ton of storage for free, and it doesn’t have nearly as many restrictions on attachment sizes as the other free email services. I also really like how they have integrated Google Talk into Gmail so I have a record of all of my electronic communications in one place.

One thing that really bothers me, though, is that Gmail does not fully support the Safari browser on the Macintosh. There is no rich text email or Google Talk integration in Safari. What can possibly be so different about Safari that Gmail cannot fully support the browser? It works on Internet Explorer 6, which is really a piece of junk. It works on Firefox on both Windows and Macintosh. Why not Safari?

I’m sure at this point, you might be thinking why doesn’t this dude just use Firefox on the Mac? Well, I do from time to time, but I prefer Safari not only because it is faster but also because of the RSS functionality.

I guess the whole point of my rant is that I want my favorite email service to work on my favorite browser. Is that too much to ask?

Google, get to work!

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Well, the talk is heating up again for Apple’s all but certain entry into the mobile phone market.

ThinkSecret reported today that Apple has once again hooked up with Cingular to help them launch the iPhone. While this is great for me and millions of other Cingular customers, my hope is that Apple doesn’t tie themselves down to one service provider for too long. There are just too many potential Apple customers that use the other major cellular providers to ignore them for long, and I don’t really see people switching providers just to get a new fancy phone. It costs too much in fees and penalties to do that.

Of course, because it’s an Apple product, maybe it will be sweet and cool enough to cause a revolution in cellular phones just as the iPod has changed the digital music market for the better.

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So, I was reading MacRumors.com the other day and found their post about Wal-Mart retaliating against Apple to be very disturbing. The post cited a New York Post article claiming that Wal-Mart threatened movie studios so that they wouldn’t sell their movies on the iTunes Store. From what I’ve read about Wal-Mart’s tactics, this does not surprise me one bit.

Personally, I do not buy media from Wal-Mart because of their demands to censor albums and movies. Besides that, I can’t really stand going in to their stores in larger cities because they’re completely trashed. The employees or associates or whatever they call them couldn’t care less about the way the stores look. I wish I could say this is an isolated situation, but I have been in Wal-Mart stores all over the country, and they’re always the same. The only time I’ve enjoyed a trip to one of their stores was when I was in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin. The people there had pride in their store, and it was a nice experience. Store managers from large cities should go out to these stores out in the country to see how to do their jobs.

Anyway, back to my main point. If Wal-Mart did indeed threaten their suppliers, they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Time to take down the Goliath of Retail and let Apple take over the world (big sinister laugh).

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Ever since Microsoft and PC makers started marketing and selling Windows Media Center PCs, I’ve thought that they were just taking the wrong approach. While a geek like me would want a PC in their living room, the average person most likely does not want to have a PC as the centerpiece of their entertainment center. Using a computer is a very active form of entertainment whether a person is surfing the Internet or playing games. Watching television, on the other hand, is a very passive activity. People just want to relax and enjoy the show, and they want it to be very easy. As Aerosmith once said, “Just Push Play.”

In comes Apple with the iTV. They’re going to change the name before the official release, and my bet is that it will be part of the Mac family rather than the iPod family. I’m sure Steve Jobs and co. will come up with a snappy, marketable name. The iTV allows users to stream movies and media from their Mac or PC that’s sitting anywhere in their house through a wireless or wired connection. There will be no need to have a computer sitting next to the TV. Using the handy little remote included with the iTV, users will be able to browse through their media and select the movie or media they want to watch.

Apple once again has taken something insanely complex and made it accessible to the average person. That’s how they won the MP3 player market and the digital download market. It is also how they will continue their dominance in the digital media age by bringing the media into the living room. Congrats Apple! I can’t wait to see the finished product.

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For those of you that keep track of my blog and read the comments posted here, you know that my buddy, Scott, has been pestering me about writing more. Well, I’m going to do my best to write more about everything that is going on around me. That’s the problem, really. I have too much going on in my life. If all goes as planned, I’ll have more time to write, but only time will tell.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Scott, who happens to be a really great writer, has finally broken down and started a blog. In his posts so far, he has related real life experiences to technology projects and working life in general. His blog almost has an Office Space kind of feel to it. It is most definitely worth a visit.

I found one post to be just vintage Scott. In the post, he writes about the first six days of a new job. It’s one of those it’s-funny-because-it’s-true moments working in corporate America. Anyway, check out his post and the rest of his blog. I think you’ll find it amusing to say the least.

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My buddy, Scott Driza, started DocBuilder.com Incorporated back in 1999. Scott is a great programmer and has written several books and articles on document automation. He got me in to the document automation business while we worked together back in Chicago, and thanks to his initial push, I know a thing or two about programming. Right now, DocBuilder.com Incorporated is having a Document Automation Challenge. For between $10 and $50 per page, the company will automate any document in Microsoft Word. Check out DocBuilder.com for more information.

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Yesterday, Apple (AAPL) released yet another iPod model to further their dominance in the portable music player market. The 1GB iPod nano is perfectly priced at $149 and should draw interest from the people that have been holding out for a cheaper iPod with a screen. The price drop for the iPod shuffle to $69 for the 512MB model is really going to put pressure on the competition. No company has come close to the integration and ease of use that the iPod/iTunes combination provides.

The latest company that has succumb to the power of the iPod is Dell (DELL). You’re not seeing things. I mean that Dell. The company quietly exited the music business yesterday. Check out this article from The Motley Fool for more information. Now, let’s hope that this news translates into a higher stock price for Apple.

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Okay, I’d like to apologize for taking almost a month to comment on what happened at Macworld last month. Every time I’ve tried to sit down and write anything, something else comes up, or I find myself passed out on the couch. Anyway . . . as expected, Apple (AAPL) came out with some really great new stuff. The Intel Macs came out six months early starting with the new iMac. From what I’ve read, these things scream when they’re using software written for the Intel processors inside of them. Even with the transition layer, old PowerPC software runs very well. I really think that once all software has transitioned to run natively on Intel Macs, individuals and businesses will think twice about buying a Windows (or is it Windose) machine. The Macs will look and run too well to pass up.

Apple also introduced the new MacBook Pro which is pretty much the notebook computer I’ve been waiting for all these years. If only I could justify the cost to get one. Hey, if any of you have a suggestion on how to convince my wife and me to get one of these, I’m open to suggestions.

Apple also updated the iLife and iWork packages. I have to tell you, I wouldn’t enjoy working with digital photos and digital movies nearly as much without iPhoto and iMovie at my disposal. Those two programs make it so easy! Then there’s iTunes. I think no comment is necessary about how iTunes has changed the world.

Anyway, that’s my wrap-up of the announcements at Macworld. I can’t wait to see what Steve Jobs has up his sleeve for the next Apple event. Until then . .

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Well, it’s that time of year again. It’s the time of year when the King of the Reality Distortion Field presides over the Mac universe to let us know what is and should be the next big thing. I always look forward to each Steve Jobs keynote because of the anticipation and buzz it causes. The media has, of course, been all over this year’s Expo. For some reason, I feel like something insanely cool will be introduced tomorrow. There’s bound to be something introduced that will change the way people think about or use their computers. My hope is that there is a mix of hardware and software announcements so I have some new programs to play with on my trusty Power Mac G4. In either case, I will be glued to my Mac news sites to keep up with what’s going on up in San Francisco.

Now, I would like to throw in my two cents about what I’d like to see Apple (AAPL) do tomorrow so here it goes.

Intel-Based Notebooks

Apple needs new notebooks like it needs air. The iBooks and PowerBooks feel slow compared to Windows-based notebooks. It’s time for Apple to release Intel-based notebooks and let a real comparison of Mac OS X and Windows XP commence. For the first time in history, Apple and Microsoft will be playing on the same field, and a real, meaningful comparison of the two operating systems can be performed. My bet is that OS X will blow the socks off of Windows XP, but only time will tell.

What is this iWeb thing?

I have seen a few rumors referencing some new web page creation tool from Apple. My hope is that Apple took a page from the Microsoft playbook and just bought RapidWeaver from the guys at Real Mac Software. RapidWeaver is one of the best programs I’ve ever used, and as far as I’m concerned, it is already an iApp. It would fit seamlessly with the rest of the iLife suite of applications and would make .Mac even more valuable.

Now, if I could have everything I wanted in a web development program, I would have RapidWeaver with the ability to create PHP/MySQL applications automatically. It would be great if I didn’t have HTML pages and CSS files spread out in directories for each photo album. RapidWeaver could create the PHP-based pages and create a MySQL database to store the data for each of the albums. To make the application completely easy to use, they would need to find some way to make it insanely easy to upload the web site and database to .Mac or other hosting service that supports PHP. I have no doubt that the guys at Apple and Real Mac Software could pull off something like this.

So that’s about it for now. We’ll all know more tomorrow morning.

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I have been a closet developer for several years now. At my previous job, I spent a lot of time developing document automation solutions using Microsoft Word and Visual Basic for Applications. Those solutions used data from several internal systems to create completely automated, data-driven documents. I had a lot of fun working on those projects, and hopefully, I’ll get an opportunity to use those skills again some day.

Lately, I have been struggling with deciding which direction I should go in pursuing new web development skills. On one side, there’s PHP and MySQL. They’re free, hosting plans are relatively inexpensive, and they’re cross-platform so I can use my Mac or Windows PC to develop. On the other side, there’s ASP.NET. Microsoft is providing Visual Web Developer and SQL Server 2005 Express at no cost for a year, hosting plans are slightly more expensive, and I would be limited to using my Windows PC to develop.

I am currently leaning towards ASP.NET because of my previous experience using Visual Basic. Visual Web Developer provides a familiar environment, and it makes it very easy to connect to data sources. Microsoft has also come a long way in supporting XHTML and CSS standards with this release.

I’m still torn every time I sit down at my Mac, though, because I do prefer Mac OS X to Windows XP, but which technology will provide the most opportunities in the long run? In either case, I have a lot to learn. Decisions, decisions . .