Archive for the ‘Review’ Category:
9 HTPC Plugins that Should Exist
Much of my site is dedicated to home theater computers because it is one of those hobbies that never seems to get old. Even though HTPCs are very niche, I can’t help but love having one and love the freedom it brings to my TV.
Despite the great things they can do, I always find features that are missing no matter what the software. Thanks to plugin support, most HTPC software can easily be extended beyond what features “come out of the box”. Here are a few plugin ideas I have for anyone willing to code them.
- Movie Watcher – I don’t aimlessly watch TV very often, but when I do I usually end up on either A) a movie I have never seen before and don’t care to pay attention to, or B) a movie I own and have seen a million times. The thing is, I have all of my movies ripped onto my HTPC. So why can’t my HTPC software know that I am watching The Rock and offer to switch me to the copy I have in higher quality without commercials? It would be even better if it offered to either start me at the beginning of the movie or try to sync the time so I start watching from my rip in roughly the same place.
- Automatic Login – I know not many people have webcams plugged into their HTPCs. I believe that is only because there is no compelling reason to. But what if when you sat down in front of the TV your experience was customized to you favorite channels and shows? Facial recognition is fairly common on personal laptops so why can’t my HTPC know who I am and customize the TV just for what I like? Only a few HTPC software applications even allow individual logins (XBMC and Boxee come to mind), but I think it is time we start using it to it’s fullest.
- Pandora TV – If the software knows who we are, cause we logged in by sitting down, we should be able to just push a “comedy station” or “drama station” and the software already knows what shows we like and can recommend shows we might like based on our tastes. Of course there would be a way to “thumb-up” or “thumb-down” a show and the software can fine tune its results for us. Sometimes it would just be nice to have my TV pick something for me.
- Universal Video Chat – Yet another reason to have a webcam plugged into our HTPC. I don’t want to buy a Google TV, Cisco Umi, or PS3 just so I can video chat with people that have the same box. Why is there no good video chat client for HTPC software that incorporates Skype, Google chat, and Facetime all in one interface? If software like pidgin can incorporate every chat protocol known to man, I wouldn’t think 3 video chat clients would be so hard.
- Multi-room Simulcast Viewing – Some software can sorta do this with a funky hack. But really, why can’t I just tell the TV to broadcast what I am watching to all TVs (in case of a big game) or why can’t I tell the TV I am going to the garage so continue my show out there in 30 seconds? If all of the systems are communicating, the only limitation would be if your network is fast enough.
- PIPIPIPIP – I don’t really want 5 nested picture in pictures, but I think I should at least have the option of displaying a picture for each tuner I have (or up to 4 recordings at once). Why would you want to do this, sports. Windows Media Center has a pretty neat sports center and things like the NFL Red Zone drive customers to spend money every month. I know you would have to have a pretty beefy computer to display 4 HD videos at once. But I don’t think that has ever stopped people in the past from trying. Sure beats dragging out 4 TVs, especially if you can easily select one to view in full screen mode. Think expose or multiple workspaces but with multiple channels.
- Live Buffers – I have 2 channels and I keep switching between the two. I also have 2 tuners that aren’t doing anything and 2 terabytes of storage. Why is it so hard to keep 2 buffers so that I don’t miss anything while I am watching the other channel? I could understand 3-4 buffers needing some serious disk throughput, but 2 buffers seems absolutely reasonable.
- Search and Browser – These are two ideas taken straight from Google TV but they were the best two ideas Google TV had. All HTPC software should have an easy way to search for shows/music/movies/actors/whatever. I don’t care if it is a button on the remote or just type like webOS, in any case, the remote should be the first thing we go for when trying to look up information while watching TV, not our laptops, tablets, or phones. Oh and the browser can’t suck.
- More appliances – I know this isn’t a plugin per se but I think a lot of HTPC software can’t truly shine because the average person doesn’t know how or want to know how to set it up. Boxee has a great idea with building a box based on their software and focusing on that box for compatibility and features. Sure it isn’t the best seller out there, but it is a good start for them. XBMC, MythTV, MediaPortal, etc. all need to have some sort of all in one TiVo-killer box that is an appliance and not a computer. Just look at the AppleTV and Roku, and their software sucks in comparison to XBMC and MythTV.
Samsung Chromebook Review
I spent a weekend with the latest Google Chromebook and wanted to update real quick with my impressions. I tried to do as much as possible from the machine so I could really get a feel for what it would be like if it were my only computer. I like some of Chrome OSs ideals, but have never spent “hard time” with one of the Chromebooks to be able to see how it would work for me. I also really wanted to figure out if it would be something I could recommend to my family and friends looking for a cheap notebook.
First of all, the Samsung is not that cheap, $500 is the price of a low end notebook and a high end netbook. It is also right in the sweet spot for tablets and about 1/2 the price of any notebook I’d consider good. So does a $500 web browser live up to it’s expectations? No. Here’s a quick breakdown.
Good:
- Portability – Small and light, but not as small or light as a netbook or tablet.
- User management – There is nothing to manage here, that’s a good thing.
- OS management/updates – Automatic, until there are problems. Trust me, someday, there will be problems.
- Boot/resume time – Good, but only on par with a SSD equipped netbook and less than a tablet.
- Keyboard spacing – Better spacing than a netbook and no need to muck around with onscreen keys. Oh and Dvorak support was a good surprise.
Bad:
- Build quality – Worse than low end netbooks I have used.
- Touchpad – Multitouch scrolling wasn’t as bad as the CR-48, but clicking was a nightmare.
- Missing keys (home, end, f*, delete, super) – With such a terrible touchpad I turned to the keyboard to make up for shortcomings, too bad a lot of the hotkeys I rely on for writing were absent
- missing tools (citrix/rdp, screenshots, storage) – It came down to the fact that I could not do my job with this computer, and that’s a deal breaker.
- Price – As stated above, when the price is around the same as a low end notebook running Windows, something is wrong.
- Display auto brightness – I had multiple occasions when the screen ignored all brightness level I set and did its own thing. Very rough on the eyes.
- Video out/adapter – No extended monitor means, why put video out on the thing at all?
As you can probably see, I wasn’t a fan. I used the Chromebook for 2 solid days before I gave up and went back to my HP 2560p which costs twice as much but does 1,000,000 more things (even run Chrome OS). Battery life on the Chromebook was about the same as my notebook and so was resume/sleep times which are typically two of the selling points of the Chromebook.
Because the Chromebook is not a serious work notebook, if someone asked me what they should get for casual internet browsing and games for ~$500, I’d recommend a TouchPad. If they said they needed a real keyboard, I’d tell them to get the bluetooth keyboard and touchstone. If they still didn’t want that, I’d recommend a netbook.
The Chromebook only makes sense for businesses doing the monthly rental, and if they have a Citrix environment set up so users could get real work done. As my companies Citrix XenDesktop engineer, I look forward to that day, but for my family and friends, never.
HP 8460p Review
HP has been drastically trying to re-brand their computer models for a few cycles now. They have openly stated they want to be Apple and they are starting with trying to make laptops that look like Apple’s Mac computers. Their latest attempt that I was able to use for a while was the 8460p which is a step in the right direction but still a ways off from the hardware and software experience that you can expect with the business forbidden fruit.
The particular model that I was able to use had:
- 14″ 1600×900 screen
- Intel Core i7 2620m 2.7 GHz processor
- 4 GB of RAM
- AMD Radeon HD 6470M video card
- 160 GB Intel SSD
Needless to say the specs on this machine were quite good, but that is to be expected for any new laptop in 2011 now that Intel has released their sandy bridge processor line. To be honest the best part about this laptop was the Intel SSD which was an option on previous models as well.
Some of the less-spec-more-Apple features that HP incorporated into this laptop were the extra large glass trackpad (more on that later), the front indicator lights (redesigned), the bottom access panel, and looks-like-unibody design. Other welcome changes are the return of the hardware volume and wireless buttons, instead of previous infuriating capacitive slider, and new screen latch which is a huge improvement over the 8440p’s joint & knuckle that rarely worked.
Hardware
Because this notebook is a business machine it directly competes with Apple’s MacBook Pro which is why I make so many comparisons. The problem is, the base HP 8460p starts $100 more than the base 13″ MacBook Pro and has the ability to climb up to $3581 with no accessories. This is more than the highest price 13″ MacBook Pro even when you add the $1,200 512 GB SSD. In a world when Google is trying to make their way into business with $30/month laptops, price is a big selling point, and HP is pricing themselves out of the game. For businesses HP can give discounts, better support, and fewer man hours to configure machines, but for end users there is no contest to the Apple store.
While HP is making some progress with making their laptops look and feel just like Apple’s they are still quite a ways off. Not only is this laptop 1/2 thicker than a 13″ MacBook Pro, but the case is still riddled with stickers, which you can’t order without, the bottom casing is still plastic, and the battery life is still lacking despite HP’s claim of 32 hours per charge. Granted I was able to go 3.5-4 hours with the battery, but the MacBook still has better life and the only way I’d even get close to 8-10 hours is with the 9 cell battery which is three times the capacity of the standard.
Disappointingly HP still does not have a backlit keyboard and instead still uses a screen mounted keyboard light which is inadequate for lighting anything especially if your hands are on the keyboard where they are supposed to be. They moved to function keys for their volume controls, but there is no option to change the default F key behavior. Instead you still need to hold the function key to change volume which can be a stretch with one hand and a nuisance with two.
On the plus side, HP added a quick release bottom panel that gets you access to everything with a simple slide of a button. The panel is a great idea for a business minded machine but may lead to security issues if documents are sensitive even if the hard drive is still held in place with three screws. I’m not sure how often the average user needs to swap out their RAM, but for me I would have rather seen this engineering go into a screwed on bottom with larger battery capacity than quick access to something I never need.
Trackpad
The large glass trackpad is a welcome change to HP’s normal minuscule trackpads, and supported two finger scrolling is also a welcome driver update even if it isn’t implemented very well. I can’t blame the hardware for that drawback though because it seems like a Windows 7 limitation that two finger scrolling is so delayed. Even on Mac hardware with Windows 7 installed the two finger scrolling is not as good as it is in OS X or Linux. If you got the touchstyk with your trackpad there is also the option to program all 4 buttons to do their own thing which is completely broken in the driver because the driver requires that each set of keys have a primary click which leaves you with only one button that you have the option to change. The feel of the trackpad is a big step up from the normal plastic coating and the rim on the edge of the pad makes sensing the touchpad better than on a Mac where often I tend to rub the casing next to the touchpad without looking.
Screen
The screen on the HP 8460p was one of the worst screens I have ever looked at on a modern laptop. The color and lines were so washed out it brought me back to the days of my original black and white Gameboy when the batteries were on their last leg but I still refused to change them until I couldn’t see Mario anymore with my 5″ magnifying glass. Things like Gmail’s stars and calendar lines were incomprehensible on the screen no matter what brightness was chosen. Luckily I know from repetition and keyboard shortcuts how to deal with this, but the terrible panel quality showed itself on many occasions. I may be slightly spoiled with the IPS panel used in my Dell monitor, but even my HP 2740p with a not-so-great TN panel, anti-glare, and plastic capacitive top sheet is better than the standard view I got from the 8460p.
I tried updating video drivers, changing resolution, and viewing angles but no matter what the built in display washed out subtle details and color in any application. An external display had no problem compensating but this really should have been addressed before release. This may not be an issue with the default 1366×768 panels but I won’t know that until I get my next model to test.
The ambient light sensor also had a mind of it’s own. HP moved the sensor from the normal bottom of the screen bezel to the top, next to the keyboard light, and even when the sensor was disabled the screen would constantly change brightness depending on what webpage I was viewing. It was very distracting in day to day use but I expect will be fixed with a driver or BIOS update in the future.
Added Software
HP continues to put crapware even on their business laptops and this is not exception. While I would have liked to see a webOS splashtop OS, instead it had the default HP QuickWeb which runs a base OS of Fedora with Skype, HP molested Firefox, and Thunderbird installed. This was the first time I have ever actually thought QuickWeb was marginally useful but that was outweighed by the fact that this machine had an SSD. Boot times to HP QuickWeb was 10 seconds while boot time into Windows was 17 seconds and resume was typically less than 2 seconds. While I do think the splashtop OS has it’s place, particularly the way Sony handles it on the Vaio’s as a low powered media hub, the way HP does it currently is just unnecessary clutter that adds no benefit to the user.
If webOS was the splashtop with a media center app, DVD playback, and access to the internal storage, all while keeping power low and battery life high, this would be a feature worth noting on the box.
Wrap Up
When it comes down to it, the new 8460p is a good laptop that improves on last years 8440p, but there are too many nagging things that make this laptop not consumer friendly and still over priced for what you get. Businesses will still buy this machine without a second thought and it still has better flexibility than its Apple counterparts, but HP is lacking an ecosystem that can rival the bitten fruit and does not add enough software differentiation to stand out among the other PC drones like Dell or Acer.
Here’s to hoping that HP’s next refresh cycle with webOS will add something new to the game.
WebOS 2.0 Wishlist
I have been a webOS advocate since I first installed the emulator on my computer and saw just what the software could do. WebOS has seen some much needed updates over the past year but there are still some things that I feel are lacking or even completely missing as it is today. I just wanted to put together a wishlist of features I would love to see in webOS 2.0.
Gmail integration – This is obviously something that Android does great and even Blackberry’s have great support for. WebOS however is lacking some key features when it comes to Gmail. Even if webOS simply got Gmail tagging and archiving down that would probably be good enough for my mobile needs. Gmail as it currently stands just leaves something to be desired on webOS.
Google Navigation – One of my favorite features on any modern mobile platforms is Google Maps. When using an Android phone that experience is amplified 1000% by the simple fact that if I want to search for something I can get free turn-by-turn directions to my destination. Google has already said Google Navigation will be coming to more mobile platforms, let’s just hope webOS is one of them.
Unified preferences app – It is great that you can have a whole page of the menu for preferences, but it really should all be combined in one app for device preferences. This not only includes sounds, notifications, screen brightness, and bluetooth, but it should also have things like email accounts, chat accounts etc. This way you can go one place for everything and not have to open up individual programs to find the settings for your email/chat/calendar/etc.
Customize quick menu I was informed that this is possible just the same way you can reorganize the launcher menu. I had no idea but I feel like an idiot now that I never tried it. – This can be accomplished with an easy hack, but what if I don’t want my contacts on my quick menu? I have too many contacts to scroll through anyway. In order for me to find anyone I need to call I use the universal search feature. I just don’t understand why this feature hasn’t been there all along.
On screen keyboard – I got used to the Pre’s keyboard faster than I thought I would. The keys are a little cramped but the layout is one of the best I have ever used. That being said, sliding open the Pre for all typing gets to be a hassle. The lack of voice recognition and on screen keyboard actually makes me prefer the Pixi’s form factor more than the Pre’s. If webOS had either speech recognition or on-screen keyboard the Pre’s form factor would be the clear winner.
Speech to text – I typically am not one to like voice recognition software but sometimes it comes in really handy. If I want to place a call while driving, or do a quick search in Google or IMDB, typing isn’t always the easiest way to do it. If this feature doesn’t work well it could be a disaster. But if it works about as well as speech to text in Android I will be satisfied. Also voice activation for calls and voice announcements for who is calling would be a great added bonus.
Swipe down action for cards – Swiping left and right is great, swiping up makes sense, but how about swiping down? I don’t exactly know what it could do but the option seems like it could be beneficial in some apps. The only thing that comes to mind would be on webOS printers. Swiping up gets rid of the picture/document you want to print, while swiping down prints. Maybe on phones swiping down can send information to another program like sending a picture in an email.
More Gestures – There’s lot of potential for the gesture area and while forward, backward, and scrolling makes good use in apps, there is plenty more that can be done with the gesture area. Maybe a two finger pinch brings up voice command, or two finger swipe up to open the on screen keyboard.
Video chat – Video chat is over-hyped and I am sure under used. But if HP can bring a true open standard, cross platform, and 3G usable app to webOS I think it may see a bit more use than just a check box on a spec sheet.
Macro mode for camera – This could be a software or hardware issue, in either case, it is badly needed on all webOS hardware. Apps for scanning barcodes, OCR, and augmented reality suffer from no macro mode on the camera.
Information on wallpaper/widgets – Widgets would kill the aesthetics of webOS. But not having any information available for my upcoming calendar appointments, unread emails, or messages really makes webOS inefficient for business users. If I want to check my schedule for the day I need to turn on the phone, unlock the phone, open the calendar app, and then scroll through my day. That requires a minimum of 1 button push and 2 clicks. Calendar information should be available either on the wallpaper itself (embedded text or widget) or be able to be added to the lock screen. I should be able to see what I need to be doing or working on with 1 button.
More pages in menu – I know it is an easy hack, but the average user does not hack their phone. If webOS is going to be getting more great apps, 3 pages just won’t cut it. Consolidating preferences may help, but there needs to be more room besides scrolling down. If Palm has some good ideas about app organization (besides folders) I am all ears.
This is just some of the things I have thought of over the past couple of weeks and honestly I am super excited to hear what Palm has in store for webOS fans. How about you, what are your much desired webOS 2.0 features. Please let me know in the comments.
I’m Sorry Lifehacker, but you’re wrong
I was thinking the other day, you know what my site needs? More rants. That is exactly what I bring you today cause I am finally fed up with something in the technology industry. What exactly am I fed up with? Well, a lot of things, but this particular post is about the complete disregard for what I argue is the best mobile operating system available, webOS.
I understand that the iPhone is the king of the hill (well technically RIM is but they suck anyway and are only ahead because of the giant corporate following) and Android is the new buzz word, but how can so many comparisons just ignore the most intuitive, productive, and flexible platform? Honestly I really am sick of the fact that webOS is left out of most mobile device comparisons simply because the “tech industry” doesn’t use it because it isn’t cool enough to get headlines. The only thing that gets webOS into the headlines is when one of their amazing and thought provoking creators leaves Palm to work for another company. Why is this big news if webOS sucks? The truth is, webOS is fantastic and these other mobile operating systems will benefit from the talent behind webOS. But that doesn’t mean webOS is going to lose out because webOS is already ahead of all the competition.
The thing that has held webOS back is the fact that it was only on 2 phones and one of those phones had questionable build quality. But lets face it, there will be a new webOS phone in the future and I think we can all assume that Palm/HP aren’t stupid about what hardware they need to use for the next webOS phone. The thing that finally made me write this rant was lifehacker’s article comparing iPhone to Android. I mean really, I understand that both platforms just announced major updates, (iOS 4 and Android 2.2) but I think that webOS, which hasn’t seen a major update for at least 4 months, is still ahead of the game and I think it is about time that people start to recognize it.
I took the liberty to fix Lifehacker’s article to actually take into account all three competing mobile operating systems in the consumer market.
Ease of use; Winner: 2-way tie
This one we can call a tie between iOS 4 and webOS because both interfaces are just as easy to launch and run apps and both have little things that you need to get used to. Double tapping the home screen to switch apps isn’t super intuitive and neither is forward/back gestures in webOS. In either case, Android is the loser.
Openness; Winner: webOS
Obviously iOS loses here, Android is open source for its core OS and allows installing apps from outside of the marketplace but so does webOS. Where webOS takes the cake is the fact that there is no rooting of your phone to get access to parts that are supposed to be locked down. How to root the phone is FREAKING IN THE DOCUMENTATION!!! It doesn’t get any more open then that. And lets not forget the open nature of the platform to allow apps to be written in HTML, CSS, Javascript, or C/C++ if you want. Due to this wide open nature, amazing things like Preware has been made available to tweak every last “kernel” of your phone.
Google also loses by making their “default” apps (Gmail, Maps, etc.) completely closed source and even takes down anyone who tries to share them. Palm on the other hand has written every built in app according to the standards they hold their developers to and made the apps all open source so you could see exactly how they built the app. Android and webOS are both fairly open, but webOS is more open and is the winner here.
Battery Life; Winner: Bogus Category
WTF is this doing here?!? This has everything to do with hardware and almost nothing to do with software. In any case, I think we can agree that Android loses this category with almost zero battery conserving settings and complaints on almost every Android device. This is a bogus comparison when trying to compare mobile operating systems. If this were a debate between the iPhone 4, Evo 4G, and Palm Pre Plus this would be a perfectly valid comparison.
Multitasking; Winner: webOS
This is a no brainer. WebOS does multitasking better than any other mobile OS available period. Android is the only other one that even can run apps in the background but there is a reason that a task killer is the first thing every Android phone needs. And lets not even get into the difference between running apps and using approved services and fast app switching.
Software Keyboard; Winner: 2-way tie
iOS has evolved into the best software keyboard and Android actually gives you options for keyboards, I would call this a tie because if you want to use swype on Android, you can. A software keyboard is only good if you are used to its idiosyncrasies and can use it. Personally, I rarely have to get used to a hardware keyboard, but webOS doesn’t even have a proper soft keyboard option.
System-Wide Search; Winner: 3-way tie
They all have it, they all work about the same with the same oddities and features. It is a tie. But just for the record, Android and webOS did it first.
Notification System; Winner: webOS
Once again iOS is the clear loser here, and while I liked the idea of Android’s curtain at first it just plain sucks after using it for a few months. I can’t clear a single notification without clearing all of the notifications and I can’t have extended controls in a notification. I know it is possible, but in all the apps I have installed, I have never seen actual controls inside the notification, just an icon that always stays there and opens the app when pressed.
Voice-to-text; Winner: Android
This works really well 80% of the time in Android and is the clear winner without a doubt. The bad thing is, I only use it 5% of the time I am inputting any text. So it is great 4% of the time I input text but really wouldn’t be a missed function and I still would prefer a proper physical keyboard.
Syncing; Winner: 2-way tie
Who the hell wants to plug their phone into their computer anyway? iOS loses here because you need iTunes for updates and setup. Android is great as long as you use Gmail and have a Google account. WebOS creates an account for you and stores all of your settings AND apps installed. So with webOS, if you break/lose your phone, you can log in with your Palm account and not only do all your settings from every service (sans Facebook) come back, but the apps you had installed come too.
Non-Google Syncing; Winner: webOS
Ever heard of Synergy? You probably haven’t, but it wins. Gmail, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, and Exchange are all there, out of the box. There is not contest here.
Tethering; Winner: webOS
iOS is just now putting this feature in but because it has the typical Apple restrictions, (no teather in to the iPad, really?) and Android still costs money on any carrier that will allow it, webOS wins because it is available on the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus and is completely free on Verizon. Yes I know if you root your Android phone you can do it for free, guess what, you can do the same thing in iOS and webOS so no one cares. Heck, Windows Mobile 6.1 had this feature and it worked great and was always free, doesn’t mean WM is any good.
Release/Update Consistancy; Winner: Bogus Category
HUH?!? really? What does this have to do with how good a mobile OS is? because you know you will get an update every year? Is Windows better because you get patches every first Tuesday of the month? Or the fact that a new and improved Windows will come out every 3-5 years? NO it makes it worse. This shouldn’t even be on this list.
Customizable; Winner: 2-way tie
If we are talking about user customizations, Android wins hands down. Widgets are great, icons can be placed almost anywhere, and you can set anything you want as a background image. But if we want to talk about the underlying OS, that is a win for webOS. Just go look up Preware and kernel patches and then come back and see why I picked this as a tie for Android and webOS. Oh and I agree, webOS needs to allow more home/lock screen customizations. Widgets sure would be nice but not at the cost of slowing my phone down like it does in Android.
Apps; Winner: 2-way tie
WebOS cannot complete here. Both Android and iOS have >50,000 apps and at that point it just doesn’t matter. There will probably be an app for just about everything. I would actually call this one a slight win for Android just because you can still install apps outside of the marketplace and the web store they have announced should be a huge success. Oh ya, and that whole Apple approval process is a joke.
Web Browsing; Winner: 3-way tie
They are all based on webKit so what does it matter. Some will scroll faster than others and some have better resolutions, but that all depends on the phone and doesn’t matter for rendering. Android and webOS may have slight wins over iOS because they have embraced Adobe flash but once again, that is a phone specific thing because the device has to be up-to-snuff for playing flash content. A three way tie.
Gaming; Winner: 2-way tie
Android doesn’t even have a language that enables the rich games that iOS and webOS allow. And besides the quantity, webOS has every bit of the quality as iOS so it is a tie.
Music Player; Winner: 2-way tie
Android’s built in music player is terrible, iOS’ is as good as any iPod’s (which doesn’t really say much), and webOS’ is just OK. The fact that webOS’ player is open source makes the player really stand out from the crowd when you install simple things like lyrics, and wikipedia searches straight from the player. I know there are better 3rd party players on all the platforms but that is not what we are comparing here. So it is a tie between stock iOS and stock webOS.
Free Turn-by-Turn Navigation; Winner: Android
This is a killer feature, but lets be honest, this will probably come to iOS and webOS simply because Google can sell more ads if it exists on all the platforms. For right now though, it is a win for Android.
Google Apps Integration; Winner: Android
This is like saying iOS has the best iTunes integration. OF COURSE ANDROID IS INTEGRATED WITH GOOGLE APPS. If Android did not have the best app for Gmail I think we would all be very worried. This is one of those arguments that fluffs Androids numbers IMO, but I will leave it in just for the sake of argument. Every mobile OS will integrate with their own offerings, the problem is, Apple and Palm don’t have email or web app offerings. This is more a win for Google and less of a win for Android.
Google Voice; Winner: 2-way tie
Yes this is a cool feature, I have it (and have had it since it was Grand Central) but I never use it because it is iffy and I don’t think the service is quite there yet. In any case, both Android and webOS have native apps for Google Voice and iOS is stuck using a web page. Android integrates deeper into the system, but all of the basic features/settings can be set on either platform so it is a tie.It has come to my attention that webOS no longer has a native GV dialer since some of the recent webOS API changes. I was unaware that a recent update broke this compatibility. In any case, it is somewhat of a bogus category seeing as accounts are still invite only and I am sure only 1-2% of people who have GV even use it for their daily calls.
So what is that total again? This time taking out the stupid frivolous comparisons.
iOS = 7
Android = 10
webOS = 13
Do I own a iPhone, Android phone, or Palm device? No. I have a 4 year old Windows Mobile device (HTC Vogue) running Android 2.1. I have use plenty of iPhones and have convinced quite a few people to buy webOS devices. I just needed to let the few people who read this site know webOS is the best mobile operating system currently available on the market. I just hope other technology sites can finally recognize how great webOS is, and maybe stop focusing on flaws with a phone that came out when the original iPhone was still big news.
Making of webOS (r)evolution commercial
I know what you are thinking, “how did my wife create that amazing (r)evolution commercial?”
I would like to take a couple minutes to share with everyone how she made it, and what software I used to help her edit it.
First of all here was the setup.
She started with a piece of poster board paper taped to our kitchen floor. Then added a microphone boom with a mini tripod zip tied to the end of the boom. This allowed her to take pictures from the same height every time and also gave a little flexibility in moving the camera around. Finally she added two small halogen lights to either side of the paper to light the “stage”. When taking pictures she took a picture of the whole piece of paper every time and we used software to edit the photos later.
For the commercial she needed 3 full size webOS cards and 6 smaller phones. She started with making the phones.
The phones were made so well it was almost painful to do this to them. The animation was made by crumpling the phones and then playing the animation backward in the commercial.
The cards were pretty easy to make. The hardest part was the animation of the media player. To animate the media player we had to cut slivers off of each album art and then tape them back together one piece at a time. It was time consuming but we were very pleased with the result. The calendar was intentionally longer than the other cards to compensate for when it would be folded.
Once all of the pictures were taken we needed to figure out how to manage 1000+ pictures to make a 1 minute commercial. To start we split up the pictures into folders labeled for each scene and numbered them in order 01_dynatac, 02_nokia, etc. We then used Phatch to trim off edges of each picture and essentially “zoom” into each picture to the size we wanted. Once the pictures were trimmed Métomorphose renamed all the pictures in sequence and then Stopmotion stitched all the pictures together into one video file. To add music and narration to the commercial I used Audacity to record the script she wrote for me and then OpenShot and PiTiVi to match up the audio and video and then export to a finished file. We could have just used one video editor, but OpenShot had a weird white frame at the end of the video so we tried PiTiVi and didn’t have a problem.
We hope you all enjoy the video and I just wanted to take the time to show a little behind the scenes for everything that went into making it. If you listen to mintCast you will know how impressed I was with this finished product, and the fact that it was made entirely with free and opensource software.
If you get a chance, head over to webOS Roundup and vote for the commercial.
Biometric Devices Missing from Windows 7 Control Panel
AuthenTec, a company that makes fingerprint scanning devices, worked closely with Microsoft to enable fingerprint authentication without third-party software for Windows 7. Unfortunately, the settings to set up the fingerprint scanner do not always show up in the Windows 7 control panel. To set up the fingerprint scanner you usually can navigate to Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Biometric Devices. From there you can enter your password and register your fingerprints. What if biometric devices is missing from control panel?
To get the biometric devices to show up in Windows 7 control panel download the drivers from AuthenTec’s website (mirror here). I am not sure if this next step is necessary, but the directions I found said to extract the driver with uniextractor. I have extracted the driver for you and zipped it up here (x32, x64) so you don’t have to. Open the zip file and extract the files somewhere and run setup.exe. This installer will create a folder under C:\Program Files\ called WIN7TS and will install the drivers for your finger print scanner. It will also load the necessary components so you can use the fingerprint scanner from the control panel. Once the biometric devices option shows up you can set up everything from the control panel.
If you are getting the ‘Set-up Failure’ error, then try running C:\Program Files\WIN7TS\TrueSuiteApplication.exe directly. It is the same program that runs from the control panel but sometimes has less errors on setup.
Let me know in the comments if you have any problems or questions.
HP MediaSmart Server ex485 review
I bought my HP MediaSmart Server quite a while ago and I have had a few random posts about it but I wanted to do an official review to let you know what I think of it. In order to successfully review this I am going to break it up into 2 sections: hardware and software.
Hardware:
The hardware is almost identical to HP’s old ex475 MediaSmart servers on the outside but the inside now has a Intel Celeron 2.0 Ghz processor with 2 GB of RAM. That is a pretty big upgrade compared to the old AMD 1.8 Sempron with 512 MB RAM. One of the biggest jumps internally for the ex485/ex487 is the jump to a 64-bit processor. While this currently doesn’t matter to much, Microsoft’s next version of Windows Home Server is going to be built off of Windows Server 2008 R8 which is 64-bit only. This means that the ex480 family can technically run the future software without another hardware upgrade.
Externally, the hardware is great. Four hard drive bays right where they should be, three USB in the back, eSATA, and gigabit ethernet. At first I didn’t even think I would use the front USB port but I find that I use it quite often when copying large amounts of information to the server.
I can’t say much about the hardware except for the fact that it is wonderful. I haven’t had any hardware problems and the device is small enough and quiet enough to leave next to my laser printer and no one knows it’s there. The device is fairly quite, but one of my hard drives is a bit old and I think makes more noise than necessary. I would say I have never heard the device over the TV being on, but when the room is completely silent, the hard drive noise is enough to not let me fall asleep.
Pros:
Small
Relatively Quiet
Lots of storage options (4 hard drive bays, 4 USB ports, 1 eSATA port)
Plenty of speed
Cons:
The bays were a little awkard at first
eSATA not replicating (no daisy chaining eSATA devices like you could with the old systems)
Software:
First of all, the NAS solutions I have used in the past have always been DIY solutions. Even the Buffalo Linkstation I hacked so that I could load a full Debian Linux install on it for more flexibility. Other than that I have used Ubuntu Server, FreeNAS, Windows, and a few other solutions, and have looked at solutions like unRAID, Linksys, and QNap. So far every single system I have used just seemed pieced together and not a finished product. That was until I used Windows Home Server.
Windows Home Server is built off of Windows Server 2003 and this is a very good thing. Windows Home Server is available as a retail purchase or you can buy it pre-installed on a lot of NAS systems out there. The retail version allows you to build your NAS from the ground up. Everything from the hardware, OS, and add-on software can be customized which is great for people that want a bit more control but don’t want all the headaches of some Linux incompatibilities. Plus if you buy the software retail you can start with cheap hardware and then work your way up as you get small amounts of budget instead of plopping down ~$600 for a all-in-on retail solution.
The key feature of WHS is the folder duplication. It allows you to use any hard drive and adds all the storage to a pool of available space, similar to the Drobo. The reason this kicks the Drobo’s ass is if your WHS machine dies, all of the drives are formatted with NTFS so you can just pull the hard drives and get the information off of a new computer. With the Drobo, if your Drobo dies, so does everything stored on it cause it uses a proprietary format. This type of storage is really the way things are moving because people are finally realizing that RAID is not a backup solution. RAID is for speed and eliminates down time, period.
The software does what you would expect and the configuration is handled in a stupidly simple Home Server
Console. I actually dislike the console just because I feel like it makes things too easy. As much as you can do with the console some things just aren’t there yet (such as copying from a local USB drive to a share). But because the system runs Windows Server you can just RDP to the machine and copy things that way. I hope small tasks like this are fixed in future releases and it would also be nice to see some sort of official add-on store/repository or at least a official Microsoft site for them. It gets annoying trying to rummage the internet to find the best add-ons.
Add-ons is one area that I find very feature lacking and yet is something that should be so much better. Where is the add-on to let me ping my DNSomatic account? How about the one that integrates with my webcam for security viewing/recording when there is movement? Home automation? Game server? Heck even some more advanced features like Active Directory would be nice for the power users, and people with more than just 1 computer in the house.
I haven’t tried printer sharing through the system but the good news is, if it works in Windows Server 2003 it will work in Windows Home Server. And that is the main thing that separates Windows Home Server from all of the other DIY and Linux systems I have used. Windows Home Server takes a very successfully platform and strips it down to just what you need, and then they allow anyone to make minor additions to the system using add-ons. The software is the same across all platforms that use Windows Home Server. It doesn’t matter if you build it yourself or buy it from HP, Acer, or Shuttle.
This kind of flexibility makes me very excited for the next release which is based off of Windows Server 2008 R2 (a.k.a. Windows 7). If the next version of Windows Home Server lives up to 1/2 of it’s expectations it will still be a killer system that will be worth every penny for a upgrade.
Pros:
DIY availability
Add-ons are compatible with any WHS system
Easy to use
Remote desktop
The first NAS I don’t manage on a weekly basis
Cons:
Console can sometimes be too simple
Key Add-ins are missing
Network warnings for stupid things (firewall turned off, updates needed, etc.)
The HP MediaSmart Server came with one other thing that you won’t get on any other WHS system. Custom HP software built just for the MediaSmart servers. When I first bought the MSS the software wasn’t very feature rich for my needs. I don’t use iTunes so I don’t need the iTunes music server, I don’t have a Mac so I don’t need Time Machine backups, I don’t use snapfish, flickr, facebook, or Picasa for my pictures so I don’t need the Photo Publisher, and I don’t want the server collecting all of my media and putting it wherever it wanted to so I don’t want the HP Media Collector. The other features the MSS includes that retail installs of WHS don’t get are Twonky Media Server, Remote Access, HP Media Streamer, and HP Video Converter. Here is why they all suck.
Twonky Media Server is basically why I bought a MSS and didn’t build my own. You can easily buy Twonky from their site for $30 and install it and you are probably better off. HP by default locks me out of a lot of the advanced settings (but there is a way around it), but at the time I thought I might actually use some of the other features HP includes. Also to compare, I had Twonky on my Linkstation Live and it worked wonderfully with my PS3. With the MSS, Twonkey reports that I don’t have any music, photos, or videos stored on my MSS.
Remote Access lets you set up a website so you can access your WHS from anywhere in the world. While this is just fine (and Microsoft allows for free sites using *.homeserver.com), HP wants you to pay for a TZO site at $30 $10 a year. Not terrible but when free sites like www.dyndns.org and a million others let you do this for free it just seems like a waste. As a matter of fact before the HP 2.5 upgrade there was no option to have a *.homeserver.com site so you had to pay to get access to your server. Unless of course you set that portion up on your router.
HP Photo Viewer is probably the best software out of all the crappy software HP includes in the MSS. Of course first you have to publish all of your pictures locally to the HP Photo Viewer and make sure you put them in albums manually.
Once they are “published” you can password protect them let users order prints download a full album view pictures full screen view the pictures in a small area of your web browser. OK maybe this software does suck. Don’t use it. The only benefit it could possibly have over online sites is you have unlimited storage because it is served locally. But if you need that just buy a domain and set up a gallary2 installation, or pay for flickr, Picasa, etc. At least then you get a off site backup of your pictures at the same time.
So how about the HP Media Streamer and HP Video Converter those at least are worth looking at right? Not for me. The idea is the Video Converter runs in the background and converts your files so that you can share them in the HP Media Streamer and to your iPhone/iPod Touch. The media streamer is supposed to play your music, pictures, and videos to a flash player in your browser wherever you are. The good news is the HP Media Streamer is password protected so at least not just anyone can access your files. The bad news is, ever since I upgraded to the 2.5 version software the HP Media Streamer doesn’t see any of my music or videos. That seems to defeat the purpose. Oh and the video converter converted all of my video files and then seems to have misplaced them because it started to convert all of my video files again, thus overwriting the old video files it just converted. So I just turned it off and forgot the feature was even there. I also have yet to be able to play any music, photos, or video to any of the 3 iPhones I have tested. Every single one either says it cannot connect or there are no files to be played.
Pros:
A good feature list to compare to other WHS’s on the market
Cons:
Nothing works the way it is advertised
Closing
My next WHS box will probably be a home built system with 8-10 hard drive bays. In the long run that will probably be cheaper and I can make sure only the software I need is installed. I still do like the MSS and if you don’t want to mess with it (or have Apple products) it really is the way to go for mass storage on your network.
HP 2730p Review
I am up for a new computer at work and I couldn’t force myself to go with a netbook as my main laptop just yet. I currently have a HP 8510p and it works well for my needs. My biggest problem is its size. Sure the 15″ 1680×1050 screen is great but 80% of the time I am using it docked at my desk with a 24″ screen as my only display. So really what is the point of having that big of a machine 20% of the time.
So instead I opted for the HP 2730p. While not quite netbook size (12.1″ screen) it is still almost half the weight of my current laptop (3.7 lbs vs. 6.2 lbs). I had used the 2730p predecessor (2710p) last year as a demo and I had 3 major complaints with the system.
1. No touchpad (TouchStyk only)
2. No soft keys around the screen (like every other HP tablet has ever had)
3. Super slow performance (1.3 Ghz processor, 4200 RPM hard drive, GMA X3100 video)
The 2730 has fixed 2 of those issues so I thought I would give it a try as my main system this time.
The first complaint I had met was the lack of a touchpad below the keyboard. HP managed to squeeze in what looks like the touchpad from the HP 2140 (a.k.a. mini 1000) netbook but instead of having the buttons on the sides (thank heavens) they managed to cut out two slits from the metal casing which makes buttons that I think are even more worthless than the 2140 buttons. These buttons are so flush to the case and so hard to push you almost have to push straight down just to make sure you hit one. If I try to hit the buttons with my thumb I find I miss 70% of the time. I really wish they would have followed in Apple’s footsteps and made a buttonless touchpad because then at least there would be some space to move my finger on a normal size pad. I have actually just adapted to using the TouchStyk to avoid the touchpad all together. And as far as TouchStyk’s go (I wouldn’t say I was a fan but I loved the option), this is by far the best one I have ever used. The buttons feel just right and the sensitivity is almost perfect. It reminds me of my friends old IBM T42p.
HP did not see it fit to add any soft buttons back around the screen on the 2730p but they did put the ambient light sensor in the most ridiculous place possible. While they put it on the screen bezel just like they do for every laptop, if you want to use the tablet to, oh I don’t know, write on the screen, your hand constantly moves across the sensor making the screen dim and brighten with every line that you write. It is by far the most annoying part about this laptop. Luckily Fn+F11 still does work to disable this “feature”.
The performance has been bumped up significantly from the previous model. The model I have been demoing has a 1.86 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 3 GB ram (vs. 2 in my last 2710p), Intel 4500 MHD video card (still integrated but way better), and a 80 GB SSD which is awesome. The final machine I will be getting will have everything except the 80 GB SSD hard drive (mine will have a 160 GB 5400 RPM drive) which should still be an improvement over the 2710p. In case you are curious, the SSD option costs almost as much as the tablet itself.
After using the 2730p for about a week now I have 3 new things that I still just don’t like about the device and hope HP gets it right in the next model they put out.
1. Touchpad still sucks and might as well not be there.
2. Screen is not multitouch and only works with the stylus. (I have Dell envy right now) I have also seen some HP training material and know they plan to fix this with their next tablet line. It will function similar to the current Touchsmart tx2 but for busness users.
3. When the screen is flipped there isn’t much you can do (especially if you don’t have the pen out). I can’t change the volume, I can’t launch a program, and I can’t even click on a link or go back in the web browser.
The functionality in this laptop just seems to be lacking verses the old tc4400/tc4200 series tablets which my wife and sister-in-law have and enjoy. If the screen didn’t require the stylus (capacitive screen preferred) this wouldn’t matter at all but I still thought it was a relevant complaint on the current model.
Overall I still do love the size and reading in bed is much more enjoyable, so long as I have the stylus out. At work I don’t notice any of the shortcomings because I have a full mouse, keyboard, and monitor and at home I love the fact that I don’t have to be tethered to my plug to get enough juice for a whole evening of web browsing.
Overall the 2730p is what the 2710p should have been (and with the 2710′s short life of ~3 months it shows that HP knew this). Despite this review sounding very negative, I am fully satisfied with the performance, screen, size, battery life, and keyboard of this machine. Would I personally buy one for $1700? No. I would go get a current model Dell with a capacitive screen or maybe wait till HP rolls out their new tablet with a Intel Core i5 next year. Let me know if you have any questions or anything to add in the comments.
I added comments to a lot of the pictures so click through the gallery if you want some more info that I just didn’t put in the review.
MR2 Head Job
On my way home one day I downshifted in my 1987 Toyota MR2 going up a big hill and downshifted a bit too far. I over-revved the engine and the engine died on me. I was able to get the car running but there was obviously something wrong. I did a little bit of troubleshooting the next weekend and found I had lost all compression in my number two cylinder. I didn’t have the time/money/place to fix it so I just let it sit for a couple months while I decided what I was going to do. However, with my DMV renewal quickly approaching I realized I had to do something. Last month I brought the car to a friend of my dad who does some mechanic work on the side. He quickly narrowed the problem down to something wrong with one of the the exhaust valves and I left the car with him to fix it. 
Of course this meant pulling the head, replacing gaskets, and obviously doing some head work. While he was going to be doing that, I gave him a few other things to look at since I knew the car would be there for at least a couple weeks. 
I just got the car back last week, after many trips dropping off parts and getting status updates, and I don’t think the car has ever run this well since I have owned it. I just wanted to share a couple before and after pictures of the head in case anyone else is planning on having head work done on their own cars. In total the head machining cost $210 and included 2 valve replacements, a 3 angle valve job, and decking the head (making sure it is level). Enjoy the pictures, I think I might go for another drive!
