Thursday, December 28, 2006
Zune Impressions
I got a Zune. It was a ship gift. If you look at the logo on the back of my Zune, it should be clear what occasion was being celebrated:
I've owned the Zune for a couple weeks and wanted to jot down my impressions. I'm not a typical "first adopter" but I think there's plenty to like about the Zune.
It's thinner than my 4G iPod Photo and slightly longer. The screen is bigger and brighter. I like the UI;l it's flashier than the iPod but not just eye candy. It really takes advantage of the screen. Photos and videos make more sense on the larger screen. I haven't tried to watch a movie on it but we loaded some short videos that we made (and a couple from Youtube) and they looked great. Music sounds a bit better on the Zune than my iPod. I can't quantify it exactly. Just a bit crisper.
The Zune desktop software was easy to install. Overall it's comparable to iTunes, maybe a bit less glitz than iTunes 7.0. Setting up Zune sync was straight-forward. It found my iTunes library and imported everything including playlists — that is, except for the small number of songs purchased from iTunes — iTunes DRM only works on iPods. The Zune handles multiple audio codecs including Apple's non-DRM AAC format. The one notable item lacking is podcast support. For now, I'm letting iTunes update my podcasts and then syncing the Zune to pull them down.
I've owned my 4G iPod for a few years. My wife has an iPod nano and my younger son has a new iPod Shuffle. The Zune is comparable to my 4G iPod in size but pictures and videos are much nicer on the larger screen.
The phyiscal look of the Zune and the UI don't come across well in photos. The tactile outer skin and slightly transluscent top are really attractive. And, as I said, the UI is slick. While I do like the iPod's wheel, the Zune's controls feel very natural. And I don't accidently adjust the volume as I often do on my iPod.
What about music sharing over WiFi? I've tried this with co-workers. It's cool but I'd like to be able to do more with the WiFi. At the very least, it would be great to be able sync over WiFi. Given how much Nintendo has been able to do with WiFI on the DS, I'm sure that there are other applications for this feature.
We got an XBox 360 for Christmas — it was quite a geek gadget Christmas at our house this year. One thing that's really nice on the 360 is the integration with the Zune. Plug it into a USB port and the Zune's music, photos and videos are instantly available. And it can charge the Zune as well. You can also plug an iPod into the XBox 360 as well and share music (except for music from the iTunes store due to DRM).
I've owned the Zune for a couple weeks and wanted to jot down my impressions. I'm not a typical "first adopter" but I think there's plenty to like about the Zune.
It's thinner than my 4G iPod Photo and slightly longer. The screen is bigger and brighter. I like the UI;l it's flashier than the iPod but not just eye candy. It really takes advantage of the screen. Photos and videos make more sense on the larger screen. I haven't tried to watch a movie on it but we loaded some short videos that we made (and a couple from Youtube) and they looked great. Music sounds a bit better on the Zune than my iPod. I can't quantify it exactly. Just a bit crisper.
The Zune desktop software was easy to install. Overall it's comparable to iTunes, maybe a bit less glitz than iTunes 7.0. Setting up Zune sync was straight-forward. It found my iTunes library and imported everything including playlists — that is, except for the small number of songs purchased from iTunes — iTunes DRM only works on iPods. The Zune handles multiple audio codecs including Apple's non-DRM AAC format. The one notable item lacking is podcast support. For now, I'm letting iTunes update my podcasts and then syncing the Zune to pull them down.
I've owned my 4G iPod for a few years. My wife has an iPod nano and my younger son has a new iPod Shuffle. The Zune is comparable to my 4G iPod in size but pictures and videos are much nicer on the larger screen.
The phyiscal look of the Zune and the UI don't come across well in photos. The tactile outer skin and slightly transluscent top are really attractive. And, as I said, the UI is slick. While I do like the iPod's wheel, the Zune's controls feel very natural. And I don't accidently adjust the volume as I often do on my iPod.
What about music sharing over WiFi? I've tried this with co-workers. It's cool but I'd like to be able to do more with the WiFi. At the very least, it would be great to be able sync over WiFi. Given how much Nintendo has been able to do with WiFI on the DS, I'm sure that there are other applications for this feature.
We got an XBox 360 for Christmas — it was quite a geek gadget Christmas at our house this year. One thing that's really nice on the 360 is the integration with the Zune. Plug it into a USB port and the Zune's music, photos and videos are instantly available. And it can charge the Zune as well. You can also plug an iPod into the XBox 360 as well and share music (except for music from the iTunes store due to DRM).
Wii Help Cat
The Nintendo Wii has a truly bizarre feature: the Wii Help Cat. It's contextual help that you have to catch. The cat appears on the screen but is easily spooked. You have to sneak up on it in order to grab it. Funny idea but I wonder what users who actually want help will think about it after the third or fourth failed attempt to catch it?
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Scott Berkun: Thoughts on 7 days without power
Scott Berkun's essay Thoughts on 7 days without power matches our experience during the lengthy power outage. We were luckier, after it got really cold we were able to stay with friends in Seattle. For us the main problem was heat. Staying warm with a wood fireplace meant constant feeding and attention to the fire. And some of our wood pile had gotten wet which made it even more challenging. By the second day without power, the whole thing felt a bit like The 1900 House. Trying to figure out how to live without modern conveniences. The distractions of television, video games, email, etc. were all gone. So you talk. You try to keep one another entertained. It was kinda nice. Except for the cold.
We lost phone service when the power went out but cellphone service was fine. The only problem was keeping the phones charged. My wife's car charger was broken and I never bought one for my phone. Lesson learned. Fortunately, despite the power outage, the local Sprint store was open and we were able to buy chargers with cash. Which is another issue. No power, no ATMs. It's good to have some emergency cash during situations like this.
We lost phone service when the power went out but cellphone service was fine. The only problem was keeping the phones charged. My wife's car charger was broken and I never bought one for my phone. Lesson learned. Fortunately, despite the power outage, the local Sprint store was open and we were able to buy chargers with cash. Which is another issue. No power, no ATMs. It's good to have some emergency cash during situations like this.
RTM
A couple weeks ago we signed off on E12. My first Microsoft product will be shipping soon. At Microsoft this is called RTM (Release To Manufacturing). Other software companies refer to this as "going Gold" or GM (Gold Master). The bits that make up the release are copied to DVD. It's not much of a manufacturing process; just disk duplication.When I worked at Lotus, during the heyday of destkop software, going Gold meant taking a field trip to the manufacturing center. You'd see disk duplicators crank out floppies of your code and then watch workers assemble boxes with your disks and manuals. Then you'd see the same boxes lining the shelves at Egghead Software or other retailers. It felt tangible.
But I'm not complaining. Regardless of the means by which software is shipped, it still feels good to be done.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
White (Post) Christmas
We didn't get snow on Christmas Day. Not that we were expecting any. It doesn't snow very often in Seattle. But it's snowing today; covering the ground with white fluffy flakes. It won't last too long. Tomorrow it's going to warm up and change over to rain. But right now there's a thick coating on the ground and the flakes are visible through the lights outside.One thing we miss about New England is watching it snow. There's plenty of snow an hour away in the Cascades but it's not the same experience. Today we got our White Christmas wish; a day late but still nice.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Name The Wind Storm
Hurricanes have a naming scheme. Blizzards are usually named after the year in which they occur (for example, The Blizzard of '78). But what about wind storms? The National Weather Service is taking suggestions for the wind storm last week that knocked out power for much of the Seattle area. Any suggestions?
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Mocie
As I mentioned last week, we're getting a dog. Actually we now have a dog. In the middle of all of the drama of the wind storm and power outage, we picked her up on Friday. She spent her first night with us in a cold house and then at our friends' house in Seattle along with their two dogs. Good thing that she's flexible.
We had dogs (and cats) when I was growing up but my wife and sons have never had a dog before. Walking the dog is a new experience for them. Our old cat has never been around dogs before either. So far, she doesn't know what to make of Mocie; she's not particularly scared, just a little annoyed. We're all still adjusting.
We had dogs (and cats) when I was growing up but my wife and sons have never had a dog before. Walking the dog is a new experience for them. Our old cat has never been around dogs before either. So far, she doesn't know what to make of Mocie; she's not particularly scared, just a little annoyed. We're all still adjusting.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
A Mighty Wind
As you may have heard, last Thursday night Western Washington was hit with a severe wind storm — hurricane force winds. It knocked out power for about 1 million homes in the area. We lost power at 10pm. Shortly after the lights went out, the wind knocked down a large Douglas Fir tree in our backyard — thankfully it missed the house and pretty much everything else in the backyard.
But we're back home again. The power is on, the house is warm and we're happy. Back to what were doing before the lights went out — speaking of that, I just watched a couple of television shows that were recorded on Thursday night. It was creepy watching the news crawl at the bottom of the screen reporting, with increasing urgency, highway closures, increasing wind speeds, power outages all over, etc.
But we're back home again. The power is on, the house is warm and we're happy. Back to what were doing before the lights went out — speaking of that, I just watched a couple of television shows that were recorded on Thursday night. It was creepy watching the news crawl at the bottom of the screen reporting, with increasing urgency, highway closures, increasing wind speeds, power outages all over, etc.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Name Our Dog
We're adopting a dog. She's a 10 month-old Australian Labradoodle named Ocie. She's very sweet, even tempered, great with the kids, doesn't bark, she even gets along with our cat. The only problem is that her name is going to be a source of confusion. Our kids call my father-in-law Oci which sounds pretty much the same. So we're trying to think of a new name for the dog. We've thought of a few similar sounding names but nothing that fits yet. Any suggestions?
Christmas Favorites
In response to Pete's challenge to list five favorite Christmas songs, here's my list:
- White Christmas
- I'll Be Home For Christmas
- Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah
- The Twelve Days of Christmas
- Jingle Bells
Thursday, December 07, 2006
eBay Architecture
Very interesting presentation on the evolution of eBay's architecture. The scale and growth of their operations is daunting. In the early years, eBay was served by a monolithic ISAPI DLL that grew to 3.3 million lines of C++ code by 2002 (Yikes!) They rewrote the entire application in Java but without a complete embrace of J2EE. The best line appears on slide 26 which describes how they got their Application Tier to scale:Amen to that.
Throw out most of J2EE
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Thumb Luck
Late on Sunday afternoon I put up some Christmas lights. It got dark while I was finishing up. As I went to put away a step ladder in the garage, I tripped in the darkness and fell onto the driveway. (Note to self: I should have come up with something more interesting than the truth. Um, you think this is bad, you should see the other guy?)I didn't fall hard but hard enough — I scraped knuckles on both hands and hit my thumb. The thumb was bruised and swollen so I had it checked out. An avulsion fracture. I have to wear a splint for four weeks to keep the thumb immobile. Unfortunately it's my left hand and I'm left handed. Oh well. This is the first (hopefully only) time I've broken a bone. And it's really more of a tear than a break. But I'll be happy when I can take off the splint. And I'll be a little more careful when I take the Christmas lights down.
We've been watching Star Wars Episodes 4-6 recently. The thumb splint is black and keeps my upper arm immobile so I started to emphathize with Darth Vader — although I don't want to think too much about what happened to his hand when he was Anakin.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Cheese Puffs?
John Belushi did a commercial parody on SNL about a champion Olympic athelete who claims that his success is due to Little Chocoloate Donuts. Pretty funny.
Could cheese puffs have a similar effect on a cat's lifespan? Watch this story about Baby, a 36 year-old cat. Pretty impressive since this is triple a cat's life expectency. We thought that our 17 year-old cat was elderly. This cat is more than double her age.
Could cheese puffs have a similar effect on a cat's lifespan? Watch this story about Baby, a 36 year-old cat. Pretty impressive since this is triple a cat's life expectency. We thought that our 17 year-old cat was elderly. This cat is more than double her age.
Transparent Egg
This video reminds me of some long-forgotten classroom science experiment. Very cool how the eggshell dissolves in the vinegar just leaving the rubbery membrane around the contents.
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