In the meantime, check out the new HTML5/JS Chrome “Apps” I discovered last night.

It appears that companies are (very sneakily) starting to push out HTML5 versions of their sites.  So far, it looks like this URL (http://nytimes.com/chrome/) works both in Chrome and in Safari.  Try it out.  It’s really cool!

For all you nerds like me, enjoy:

After four years of loving my old, 15″ MacBook Pro, one of the first Intel machines to roll out of Apple’s headquarters in January 2006, my well-used friend is going the way of all computers – to the recycle bin – to make way for a new era in WhiteEyebrows computing…

…My shiny new 15″ MacBook Pro!

While the computers share the same name, don’t let them fool you.  This is a great advancement in both hardware and software!

Here is my initial design review after using this computer a week.

Unibody: The biggest design advancement in this machine is the fact that the base is carved out of a single, solid block of aluminum.  Its biggest advancement is also it’s best.  This manufacturing process gives the computer an incredible rigidity not found in any other laptop I’ve ever used.  The case will definitely not suffer from the same fate that my four-year-old Mac did, with the various adhesives and fasteners coming loose and with various parts of the case starting to come apart from the others.

Keyboard: Initially, I didn’t think I’d like the new keyboard.  I liked the look and feel of the old one and thought that the new design would prevent your fingers from as easily sliding from key to key.  However, I like the new keyboard.  It feels less mushy that the last one, and is very tightly sealed.  I’m not willing to spill a Diet Coke on it to test the seal, but my guess is I’d have less seep-through with this keyboard than with the last.  Apple has also updating the functions of the F Keys.  The old MacBook had several functions that were missing (music controls) and were poorly labeled.  It looks like they’ve re-prioritized the functions as well as refreshed the icon design on the keys.  Works for me.

Color Scheme: The introduction of black-on-grey give teh computer a slightly more serious look, and is a bit more dramatic than the old grey-on-grey approach.  Also, the black band around the display helps focus your eyes on the screen, rather than the boundaries around the screen.  Nice touch!

Screen: Speaking of the screen… I have a few gripes here.  Glass.  I hate the glass.  A great majority of Apple users will use this computer around a light source, probably a fluorescent one, which is gonna glare like MAD on the glass covered screen.  I know they offer a non-glare screen (which essentially removes the glass and puts a grey border around the screen), and I would have gotten it had my work offered the option.  Matte!  Matte, people!  I don’t want to be looking back at myself every time I look at this computer!

The glass does offer one or two advantages, though.  My old MacBook, over time, saw permanent imprints from the keyboard on the LCD.  It didn’t degrade the actual usage of the LCD, but was noticeable when the machine was turned off.  Also – fingerprints.  I hate when people come and touch their grubby, oily fingers on my LCD screen, and this glass will at least prevent them from poking their pointy little fingers through the backside of my LCD and permanently ruining the color in that particular spot.

Overall, the LED backlit display is brighter than its predecessor.  I like the power-savings from the LED backlight on this display, but Apple has traded off a lot of color accuracy for brightness in the default configuration.  You’d better believe that a graphics professional, such as myself, will have to calibrate the heck out of this thing so that blacks look black and not grey.  It’s a dirty trick to play on users, but one that makes them look awesome.

Ports Plugs and Drives: This one is easy.  I like the DVD drive’s move to the side of the computer, and the slot-load (as opposed to tray load) has always been one of my favorite Apple details.  With the DVD on the left, all of the ports have been moved to the right, which actually helps the user locate the correct port. No more picking up and rotating your computer looking for the location of a particular port!  Even people who own computers forever forget where their ports are when they are divided between sides like that.  The built in SD card reader is a great addition, but I’m no fan of the new MiniDisplay port.  I just don’t like the fact that it now requires me to carry around and keep track of yet another doohickey!  (A doohickey is the technical term for the adapter that allows you to convert MiniDisplay to VGA or DVI)  I love that Apple lives on the edge and is a leader in display technology adoption, but VGA is just not dying fast enough in today’s world!

Odds and Ends: I like the multi-touch mouse pad, but it has taken some getting used to.  I’m trying to master the art of one-handed drag and drop and other new gestures it has enabled.  Ninety percent of the time, though, I find myself clicking exactly where the the mouse button used to be on the old trackpad.  So, I guess it’s good that Apple left the size and proportion of the trackpad area alone so it wouldn’t be as error prone.

My coworker also pointed out the pointy edges near the trackpad (the part that is carved out so that you can lift the lid).  While I have yet to draw blood on this part of the computer, it seems like something Apple could have very easily refined in the aluminum milling process.

Lack of Removable Battery: This is my greatest point of contention with Apple.  Battery technology has NOT advanced to the point that a computer with a life of 3-4 years will not need a fresh battery sometime in there.  In fact, I changed the battery in my old computer 3 times during its lifespan.  Especially for the everyday user and mobile user, a new or extra battery is crucial!

Software: Snow Leopard is great, though it’s nothing to really write a long blog about.  It’s just better in every way, but not in any single way.  I like the inclusion of a native Cisco VPN.  I like the clean break from the PowerPC architecture.  I like the native Exchange support.

Well, I think that’s all.  Happy computing, everyone!

Are they equally important?  Or does the box become more important because, without it, the sand would not stay put?  Or are neither important, and the children who play in the sand of the most importance?

My own conclusion was: they are an ecosystem.  They rely and depend on each other, and none are as individually important as they are all together.

Today is Mozilla Firefox’s 5th birthday.  Firefox has slowly and transparently changed the face of the internet since its launch in 2002.  It launched at a time when Microsoft held a stranglehold on web browsing, and when most people didn’t even know that there was an alternative to using Internet Explorer for their internet browsing.

Talk about a tough row to hoe!

If I were to pick a market to launch a business in, the last one I would challenge was one held by a powerful, multi-billion dollar corporation who controlled 95% of the world’s computers.  But Mozilla did, and they did it as a not-for-profit foundation for free software.

Amazing.

In the beginning, Firefox was just a better browser based on features.  It had tabs.  Anyone who was a moderate user of the internet quickly tired of Microsoft’s “new window” paradigm, and quickly saw the benefit of tabbed browsing.  Without that single feature that quickly gained popularity, Firefox might have died in infancy.  But that wasn’t all it had.  The incorporation of a search bar, dynamic feeds, and other features have helped sway users as well over the last five years.

Mozilla’s largest accomplishment was not innovative browser features (some features were long enjoyed by the Opera browser community).  Its largest accomplishment was it’s popularity, which threatened Microsoft into completely buying into more strict, open web standards.  The winners: web developers!

For years, web developers struggled to hack together websites that behaved in Internet Explorer.  Their lax implementation of the simplest parts of HTML standards drove us all nuts as we carefully counted pixels, developed CSS hacks, and did whatever else was necessary to get functionality out of the flawed sandbox.

Mozilla’s popularity, due largely to their first-to-market browser features, has forced everyone else to sign up to useful, timely browser standards.  IE7, IE8, Safari 3, Safari 4, and Google’s Chrome have all been directly impacted by Mozilla’s work.  The fact that those other browsers even exist is a testament to Mozilla’s success.

So today, I salute the men and women of the important but transparent sandbox that I use to play in every day.  Here’s to another 5 years of great web browsing!

With every launched operating system, they’ve promised that it’s better. They’ve promised improvement… and they’ve delivered baby steps forward with every (other) OS. (Vista & ME… sorry…)

Well, they’re going to have to do better than that. They need a leap forward. They need a grand slam out of the park home-run.

Notwithstanding the anecdotal evidence suggesting that Windows 7 appears to be lighter-weight, faster, and a smidgin‘ better than Windows XP, it is only that. Slightly better. Not great. Not near what it could be. It’s just a bit better.

This is a true disappointment, given that XP was launched in 2001, and launching an operating system 8 years later that is only an incremental improvement is hardly impressive.

The truth is that Windows continues to play catchup to Mac OS X. While Apple is focusing on stuff like hyper-threading and optimizing for multi-core processors (aka making your apps run faster, better, and preparing for the future of processor hardware and 64-bit software), Windows is still trying to figure out startup and standby times.

Pathetic.

My previous post on Tech Support was perfectly timed for me to immediately stick my foot in my mouth.  The following day, my car started having a run of bad luck!  First it was a transmission problem then an engine misfire problem.  My first response?  Call “Big Bro”, my personal ASE Certified Master Technician.

See, I forgot how helpless it feels to have a critical system for my life (my car) fail, and feel powerless to overcome the failure.  I understand now the pain that most people feel when their computers crash or fail.  They don’t understand the system and feel powerless to troubleshoot.  They dont’ even know where to start.

I have, however, diagnosed the exact person I’m now unwilling to support.  I’m unwilling to support someone who refuses to follow the specific instructions I send them, on the basis that they are non-technical.  These people are simply free-loaders who just want you to do it for them and who are unwilling to get their hands dirty and learn.  I have no problem teaching people to fish, but I’m not going to spend my life handing out fishes.

Obama Video

This movie cracks me up… I dont’ necessarily agree with saying that Obama has accomplished “nothing”, but he clearly has time horizons that are absurdly unrealistic.

Enjoy:

Cousinly Nuptials

My dear cousin Rachal is getting married this weekend.  I’m very proud of her, and very excited for Kevin to join our family.  I moved to Texas 4 years ago (yup… Oct 30 will mark my 4th anniversary as a Texas resident), and am so glad I did so solely on the basis that I have been able to grow closer to some of my most long-distance cousins.

Watching her grow from a teenager into a young adult has been a fun-filled (and at times emotional) process.  The last 4 years have seen some great highs and a few lows – but that’s what life is all about!

I’m very happy that you and Kevin have found each other and that you love each other so much.  I know you will be very happy!

That being said, here are the things I’ve been lusting after recently:

1. Land

I don’t know what it is, but I want a big chunk of dirt to call my own.  My wife and I have been dreaming about our “dream house” a bit, and well, we figure a good way to start is to invest in a nice, large lot to one day build it on.  With real estate values at their lowest in a long while, we just can’t resist the urge to shop, even though we can’t afford anything.

Specs:

1.5-2.5 acres of moderately to heavily wooded land in a rural-feeling neighborhood with great access to highways leading into Dallas.  Prefer friendly neighbors, no HOA, and all utilities (including high speed fiber optic telecommunications).  No more than a 30 minute commute.  Price: $75,000 – 100,000

2. Car

Not just any car, mind you.  I want a Tesla Model S.  What is a Tesla, you ask?  Tesla Motors is a relatively new automaker focused on developing the technology for battery powered automobiles.  Yes, my friends, the electric car is making a comeback!

Their first car was a $120,000 sports car, which rivaled the Porche or Lambourghini in speed, handling, and get-up-and-go.  They were essentially made in-house, one at a time.

The new Model S is a luxury sedan, which will be mass produced in Southern California.  It is a laptop on wheels.  It has a beautiful 17″ touch screen as it’s entire center console, and will come with built in wireless, etc.  You will even be able to skin the interface yourself, if you should want (and yes, I WANT!)

Specs:

Beautiful luxury sedan, which is on the bleeding edge of technology. (The door handles pop out automatically when you put your hand near them, for heaven’s sake!)

Price: $50,000

3. A Trip to Europe

As cultured and sophisticated as I am, I have never been east of New York City.  (Or west of Los Angeles)

I want to go and spend some time with stuff that is over 200 years old.  We don’t have much of that here in this hemisphere.  I’d like to spend some quality time.  Maybe even learn a new language.

Specs:

Life changing trip to Europe with my best friend, my wife.

Price: $12,000

4.  HD Video Camera

I don’t have kids to video, but I have had two or three good excuses to need a nice video camera this year.  The one I want, however, is (of course) the latest and greatest HD Prosumer Camera available from Canon, the VIXIA HFS100

Specs:

HD Video Camera – Capable of Recording Hours of High Definition video at 1920×1080.

Price: $1000

Whew!  It’s fun to dream, and it’s fun to go make those dreams a reality, as well.  It’s not fun to live in la la land.  I think that with the right combination of hard work and luck, I might be able to make most of these things a reality – if not immediately – maybe a little later in life.

But now that I have that all out of my system, I can just go back to being perfectly content with what I have.  I have good health, a wonderful wife, all my needs and most of my reasonable wants, and a good job that’s paying the bills.

I couldn’t be happier, or more content!

(But I could always have more cool stuff!)

This is me trying to carve a turkey last November while also trying to keep others from picking the skin.

Microsoft wants to open its own retails stores, just like Apple.  My question is, what product is Microsoft going to stock the shelves with that will sufficiently capture the imagination of regular people — not it’s core customer base — but regular every day people to walk in and touch and see?

I am going to be an uncle today for the 11th time.  I think I’m starting to get this right.  Father?  That can wait.

My cousin wants me to buy a video camera so I can video her wedding.  I’m not opposed to the idea of videoing her wedding, but if the video camera I want was too expensive four months ago to video my own wedding, what makes her think that I will be able to justify the expense now for someone else’s wedding?

Was thinking on the way to work about bigger vs better, prompted by a story on NPR about high-rise buildings in America which are now being ‘green’ retrofitted in order to compete in the contemporary commercial real estate market.   I noted that even though we are obsessed in this country with size (see your nearest cell phone carrier commercial), bigger isn’t always better.  In fact, better is usually always better than bigger.  I’d rather have two great kids than ten screwed up kids.  I’d rather have a clean 1,000 sq ft house than a trashed out 10,000 sq ft mansion.  I’d rather have my reliable, small Civic than any kind of trashy GM car.

I can’t get permalinks to work in WordPress on IIS.  Just one more reason to hate Microsoft.

Sotomaior’s confirmation hearing has been a snoozer.  Why can’t she say something like, “I can’t wait to get in there and start sticking it to the white man!”  I’m also not looking forward to the onslaught of Lantinos asking (as did the African American community after Obama’s election) “What has she done for us?”  News flash: she’s gonna be a supreme court justice for the entire United States of America, not the United Latinos of America.  Barack is not only the President of the United Black People of America, he’s my prez too!

I fixed the projector last night.  We celebrated by watching an old-school re-run of Mission: Impossible with Peter Graves.  My wife had never seen it before.  She made fun of it the whole time.  Sad.

I got about 10 things checked off my to-do list yesterday.  It was a good, productive day.

Here’s hoping today is just as good.

Me looking BAD with my new iPhone!

It has happened!

After three long years of planning, justifying, feature watching, and hoping for Apple to get it right, I am finally the proud owner of an iPhone.

Perhaps you’ll recall this post from a few years ago, when I originally decided why I didn’t want an iPhone… I’d like you to note that none of those reasons exist any longer, and now I am on my merry way…

1. Voice Dialing — works like a champ.  I LOVE it!  Love it love it love it.  I couldn’t own an iPhone w/o it.

2. GPS seems to work great with Google maps.  It does make me nervous though that so many apps are requesting to use my location with it.  I guess I’m still too much of a privacy nut (or still need the opening for creative embellishment of my true location) to allow a device in my pocket to constantly broadcast my current location. Although, I can’t seem to get the compass to turn the map the right direction… hmm…

3. The iPhone replaces so many devices!  It replaces my phone, my music player, my game boy and even my laptop (in certain situations).

I’m so tickled pink!

Let me say, though, that I think the Apple’s hoarding the iPhones in the Apple stores rather than selling them through the at&t stores is a mistake.  at&t sells wireless phones.  They are good at it.  The Apple store is NOT set up to be a mobile phone retailer, helping customers choose plans, manage discounts, switch around lines on family plans, etc etc etc.  Apple store employees are good at 2 things: 1) looking cool and beatnik and 2) ramming Apple products down people’s throats.

Long story short: I had to go across town to the Apple store to get my iPhone, even though there was an at&t store across the street.  Then when I got there, the guy messed up adding the phone plans to the account, and didn’t apply the correct discounts.  His response was that I have to call at&t to fix it.  Bah!  at&t has a 60 minute wait time to speak with a representative.  Boo.

I really appreciate and value people who can get things done right the first time.

Now… off to the apps store…

I think the Amazon Kindle is an incredibly innovative device… that has an excruciatingly limited appeal.

If you don’t know what the Kindle is, basically it’s an electronic book reader.  You can download books, blogs, and newspapers to it, and it will allow you to read them just as you would a book.  (If you still don’t get it, go here.)

Two Innovations

The device uses never-before-commercialized ‘electronic paper’.  This stuff is really cool.  It’s not a LCD screen, which are the power-sucking type of screens used in mobile devices, computers, etc.  This e-paper reduces eyestrain (no backlight), can be read in direct sunlight (unlike LCD), and works just like paper.  Your eye is perceiving pigment on a surface, rather than perceiving light.

While this is a cool technolgical enhancement (the next will be color e-paper), the biggest innovation Amazon achieved with this device was a breakthrough agreement with Sprint.

What does an ebook reader have to do with a cell phone company?  No, the kindle doesn’t make phone calls…

When you buy a Kindle, you receive a free wireless internet connection through Sprint’s 3G cell phone data network for the life of the device.  No subscription to manage.  No recurring payments.  No options for screwing it up.  Your device connects, when necessary, to Sprint’s network and downloads everything it needs.

It just works.

I like the simplicity of it.  Even the iPhone, in an effort to offload traffic from the slower cell data grid, offers a power draining additional chip for Wi-fi.  People don’t care what network their on, they just want the network to be there.  The network of the future is a ubiquitous, transparent network not tied to a service provider’s brand and technical details.

Limited Appeal

Music is cool.  Videos are cool.  Sharing music and videos are cool. Books are boring.

We have two iron-clad stereotypes in this country: rockstars vs. bookworms.

Exhibit A: Bookworm

Exhibit B: Rock Star

Will the Kindle make reading cool based on the coolness of the device?  Probably not.  Will writers and readers ever be cool?  Probably not.  Even Apple couldn’t pull that one off, even if it were a super-thin black plastic, aluminum and glass device with a premium feel and an ‘i’ in front of whatever they called it… it still wouldn’t fly.  Reading is for old people and college students.

Summary

• I love the industrial design.  Thin, light, and portable.  Not sure how it feels in the hand (based on the older one with more substance to it), but I’m guessing it’s not too bad.
• I love the fact that I can get a new book or blog wherever I go (in Sprint’s network)
• I love the e-paper.  Needs to work in color too.
• I love that it might alieviate backstrain and shoulder pain all over the world from students who carry backpacks that are 3x their body mass.
• I only hate that I might not use it enough to justify owning it.

Maybe I should just take up a new hobby: reading.

Google’s Chrome browser now has 5% of usage among my blog readership!  Wow!  I’m super-impressed!

While I was swept up in all the hype surrounding Google’s new browser, complete with its super-fast javascript rendering engine, I have seen a very slow adoption rate out there.

Why is that?  Well, it’s because most people don’t even have a concept that there is more than Internet Explorer out there… or as Grape likes to call it “The big E”.

Truth is, if Internet Explorer went away, my life as a web developer would be infinitely easier!  Internet Explorer is the poop of all browsers.  It is the sole, solid peg in the tent that is holding the internet back.  Most developers (including me) are getting so fed up with it, that we simply refuse to support versions of Internet Explorer before IE7.  (That’s the one with the big tabs on it.  If your browser doesn’t have big tabs at the top, then chances are you’re using IE6 and should be shot.)

So… Chrome is cool.  Get Chrome.  Firefox is awesome.  Get it.  Ditch Internet Explorer and Windows.

This is the key to happiness.

The fax machine I purchased a few weeks ago has proven very valuable.  Since its acquisition, I have sent faxes for:

• State of Texas
• Invoice for reception decorator
• Confirmation to a Hotel

This doesn’t even count the joke faxes I’ve sent my mother on this machine.

One more fax, and this machine will have paid for itself!!!

They’ve resorted to using children.  Check it out:

Now, in “showbiz” there’s one rule that everyone knows: Never work with children or animals! Why? Because they always steal the spotlight!  This might have been what Microsoft was going for.  I mean, who can deny the cuteness of the four and half year old on TV?  Will it make people want to buy Windows?  Probably not.

Really, I think they’ve finally hit the nail on the head with this latest metaphor.  Apple is wrong!  Microsoft is right!  A red letter day!  PC isn’t a nerdy, quirky guy with a bad haircut and no fashion.  No, PC (Windows) is a four year old child!

“I’m a PC and I am four and a half,” she says!

Why is this so fitting, you ask?  Well, the four year olds I know are known for:

• general instability
• never working when you need and doing a terrible job when you finally get them to work
• fits, tantrums, and illogical behavior
• insistence on doing a task THEIR WAY
• inability to understanding or comprehend simple instructions
• takes forever to get going on some mornings
• and takes forever to shut down at nights

Hmm… the only thing worse would be to  make Windows a TEENAGER instead!

Today’s post is to extol and expound my love for something that I use every day.

The Macintosh trash can.

Yesterday night, I was doing some housekeeping on my home Mac and after deleting a grundle of stuff, I decided to open my trash can to see what was in there.

I had 28,000 items.

I pushed the button to empty my trash “securely,” meaning that the head of the disk goes over the data and scrambles it.  I started the operation last night at midnight and now, 12 hours later, it is about 2/3 of the way through the operation.

I guess I should take out the trash more often.

Thankfully, this trash can never overflows on you like the regular trash can does.  I forgot to take my regular trash can out to the curb for 3 weeks in a row.  By doing that, I finally filled it up completely!  (I don’t generate much garbage)

At least the Mac trash never overflows, never stinks, never produces fruit flies, and doesn’t need to be taken out for years!

I’d like to continue this conversation by pointing out that the internet has been going through a dramatic change.  In the technology industry we call it “Web 2.0″, but no one really knows what that actually means… so let me try to explain what this is and what I see it doing to our society.

First, a little history:

• The internet started as an information resource.  The web was just online advertising.  Businesses simply posted information about their business, product, or services.
• In the next phase of the internet,  it was all about transactions – buying and selling stuff online.  You would get the information about a product but then also be able to purchase it and have it shipped directly to you.  Think Amazon, eBay, and all the other eTailers.
• In “Web 2.0″ the experience totally changes.  Now besides getting information and buying it, you find the community around a product.  You read other customer’s reviews on it, find the recommendation for the cheapest reseller of it, and then purchase it.

Web 2.0 is the shift away from a controlled message from the site owner and moves toward a collaborative, community approach, where content comes from the users of the site themselves.  (After all, what is a better way of getting site loyalty than making everyone who goes there a part-owner?!) Web 2.0 is all about the user. We make connections online to like-minded individuals.  We create communities of friends and coworkers.

Blogging itself is perhaps the epitome of Web 2.0.  Users run their own site and post content as they please which everyone can view and comment on. (Hi Mom!)

But there is another oft-ignored phenomenon of Web 2.0 – channelization of the internet.

What is Channelization?  Think TV.  Parents hate TV because it is a device they have no control over that their children mindlessly plug themselves into.  You tuned the set to your favorite station (or channel) and just let it feed you content for hours on end.  It is the ultimate time-waster, but super entertaining and enjoyable!

We used to go to the internet only to seek information.  We would find the information or make our transaction, and then we were done.  Now, we are shifting toward ‘plugging in’ to the internet as we did the TV.  We now go to the internet to seek informational entertainment.

We get that information entertainment as serial feeds from certain sites.  Blogs are serial feeds.  We then aggregate feeds into things like Google Reader or iGoogle.  We can see a ‘Live Feed’ from Facebook or Twitter of everything our friends are doing.  We read blogs which are just personalized, serialized soap operas of people’s lives.  We poke and prod and voyeur ourselves into other people’s worlds.

TV was more harmless because you were a passive observer of the content.  You sat back and were fed, but could choose to tune out at any time without batting an eyelash.  Because of the dependency of Web 2.0 on the user to be the content generator, the channel will effectively die without you.  This increases an importance and an urgency to our participation in the web, and creates even a stronger addiction to it.

The internet is becoming smarter, too.  Now you can set up all kinds of ways to get just the content you want.  Just want news from the conservative rags?  Just want to know what Billy or Sally is doing all day long?  Want to read everything WhiteEyebrows is thinking?  Just subscribe, tune in, and lose yourself in the content of the day.

Not only can you create your own channels of information, but you can hyper-personalize your channel to fit only that which you are most interested in.  This is evidence that even though the world continually expands, our minds and worldviews continue to narrow. We, by choice, limit our exposure to that which we are comfortable with and the chances become less and less that we will ever be exposed to things outside of our comfort zone.

I’m not saying this is all bad, just making an observation of the trend that we seem to be following.  I certainly don’t want you to discontinue following my little soap opera here on WhiteEyebrows.com.  In fact, why don’t you ‘Web 2.0′ yourself and comment already!