Some Thoughts…

Over the last year, I have grown quite fond of reading books on my iPhone. I use the Kindle app for the most part, but I also have purchased a couple of books in mobi format, and for those I use the Stanza app. I have probably read more in the last year than in the several years previous. I’m not sure why, but I seem to be able to read for longer periods of time on the iPhone than I can reading a physical book.

I’ve wanted to try out an actual Kindle, but I don’t know anyone who has one – despite the fact that Amazon claims it is their number one selling product. So this week I took the plunge and bought a Kindle 2 from Amazon. I decided I can always send it back if it doesn’t meet my needs, and I am definitely leaning in that direction already. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a nice product. For me, however, the advantages over using the iPhone don’t justify the price.

There are some Kindle features that are definite improvements over the iPhone experience, including the larger screen size and the ability to read newspapers and magazines. The latter is actually quite nice – I spent quite a bit of time last night reading the latest USA Today and Newsweek. The Kindle also does a respectable job displaying the books I have purchased in mobi format.

However, one of the things I had hoped to do with the Kindle was read PDF documents. I deal with so many documents, especially at work, and I either have to read them on the computer (which I don’t like doing for any significant length of time) or I have to print them out to read (which is a huge waste of paper, time and clutter). I thought the Kindle would be a great alternative but the 6" screen is still too small to read most documents comfortably. This has been a big disappointment.

I’m starting to look on Ebay now to see how cheaply I can get a used Kindle DX . The PDF experience should be much more palatable on it’s 9.7" screen, but will it be too big and heavy? And is it worth the additional $100-$150 over the price of a Kindle 2?

Several hours after I posted The Comcast Show , I received a comment from Detreon Roberts of Comcast National Customer Operations asking me to contact his department. I spoke with Derrick Dunn on the phone on Wednesday, September 23. Derrick, of course, apologized and assured me they were looking into why this happened. Derrick made three promises:

• He would make sure that my next installation appointment would be changed to September 26. It was in the system for September 25, even though I had explicitly told the installer making the appointment through the dispatcher that I wanted a Saturday appointment so I didn’t have to miss any more work.
• He would make sure that the porting would happen at this appointment.
• He told me not to pay my first bill – he would issue a credit.

I was getting ready to leave for work this morning when who should show up at my door but the Comcast installer! I decided to let him at it, even though it meant being late for work. Guess what? The porting order still hadn’t been placed. Through the installer I have made a new appointment for Saturday, October 3. This will be the fifth attempt and porting my number.

After he left, I checked my ‘Recent Activity’ on the website, and there was no credit. Three strikes and you’re out, Derrick.

Update: I received an e-mail and voice mail this evening from Anthony Robinson, who has the title of ‘Executive Care Manager’ and is evidently Derrick’s boss. According to him, Derrick has put a credit on my account that covers all installation and service charges through Oct 19.

Update: I just received a call from Jacob Carruthers who is working with Anthony Robinson on this issue. Jacob assured me that they were looking into why this happened and that the porting would take place on October 3. Also, the promised credit has shown up under ‘Recent Activity’ on the website.

A comedy of errors, if you will.

On August 28, I ordered the Triple Play – digital cable TV, Internet, and phone – from Comcast. I was already getting analog cable TV from Comcast, but my phone and Internet was through Verizon, and I figured I could save money each month by getting all three services from Comcast.

I ordered the service online, and the order process concluded with a chat with ‘Michael’ that included the following exchange:

Michael > Would you like to have a new phone number Bruce?
Bruce_ > no we want to keep our existing
Michael > May I have the number please and the service provider?
Bruce_ > 574-875-xxxx Verizon
Michael > Thank you.
Michael > To ensure that you can keep your number from your previous carrier, you need to complete Third Party Verification. Please click on this link http://www.comcast.com/eloa and visit the verification Web site.
Bruce_ > ok
Michael > Thank you.

On September 1st, the installer came to the house. He said the order called for one cable box, I told him I had ordered two DVRs. Unfortunately, I didn’t receive any confirmation on my order, so I had no proof of what I had ordered.  After an exchange with his home office, in which he appeared more concerned about getting his ‘points’ then he was about pleasing me the customer, he produced two DVRs from his truck and proceeded to install the system. When he had finished, he showed me my new Comcast phone number! Oh wait…I didn’t want a new number, and I showed him the transcript of the chat I had with ‘Michael’. As it turns out, Comcast had no record of my request to keep the same number. After the installer talked to seven different people at Comcast, the plan was to reschedule the phone installation (at one point, Comcast wanted the installer to rip out the TV and Internet installation as well).

Over an hour after the installer left, I received a call from ‘Paul’ (I think that was what he called himself) that I was told would come in fifteen minutes. The purpose of this call was to complete the Third Party Verification which, by the way, I had already completed online the day I placed my original order.

It soon became apparent that one of the DVR units was bad, so a technician came out a couple of days later to swap out the unit. In the process, while trying to deactivate the faulty unit, he actually deactivated the second DVR, which was working just fine. Of course I didn’t realize this until after he had left. It took another call to customer service to straighten this out, and a second call a day later to get all the channels on that unit that I was supposed to get.

On September 8, another installer came out to finally port the phone number, only to find out the porting order had never been placed with Verizon. Say what? Because it takes six business days to complete a port, they rescheduled for September 18.

On September 18, another installer came out to finally port the phone number, only to find out the porting order had never been placed with Verizon. Yup, it’s true. I took off of work AGAIN for no good reason.

We are rescheduled for September 26. This is a Saturday, so at least I won’t have to take off of work.

To top it all off, I just received my first bill for the Triple Play and they charged me for my phone service, even though I was told by ‘Paul’ that they wouldn’t.

Can a company be any more incompetent?

(For the answer click here…)

IF you enjoy listening to (or just appreciate) acoustic guitar music, you may like this (I did).

Rick Warren opened the Saddleback Forum a couple of weeks ago with the following statement:

I have to tell you up front, both these guys are my friends. I don’t happen to agree with everything either of them teach or believe but they both care deeply about America. They’re both patriots and they have very different views on how America can be strengthened in America. We’ve got to learn to disagree without demonizing each other and we need to restore civility. We need to restore civility in our civil discourse and that’s the goal of the Saddleback Civil Forum.

Barak Obama echoed this sentiment last night in his moving acceptance speech:

But what I will not do is suggest that [John McCain ] takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other’s character and each other’s patriotism.

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America — they have served the United States of America.

I enjoy rational political discussion with those who agree with me and those who don’t. But those discussions can soon get uncomfortable when we let our emotions and/or partisanship drive us to attack each other’s character, patriotism, and faith.

I’m convinced that the issues we face today are much more complicated than the black and white picture painted by partisan politicians. There are no easy solutions to the issues we face both at home and abroad. It’s going to take time and a commitment to work together. It’s going to take trying some new things and other things we haven’t been willing to do for awhile (like talking to our enemies).

Still, I’m not convinced that the political process will ever give us the country and the world that we all want. Until you and I stop living for ourselves and start (as Jesus taught) doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, we will never have peace, justice and equality.

The older I get, the less information I seem to be able to retain, and I’m finding it increasingly necessary to write things down so I can reference them later. Since it seems I have forgotten how to use a pen or pencil to make legible characters on a piece of paper, I usually type this information into the computer. I have tried a number of ways to organize these digital "sticky notes". For awhile I was using the Notes feature in Microsoft Outlook , but that doesn’t really allow me to access my notes wherever I am, and it was awkward to use. I discovered I could use Yahoo! Notepad to sync with Outlook Notes, so I began to use that quite a bit – until I moved to Vista and Office 2007. For a long time, there wasn’t a sync client from Yahoo! that would work, and I found myself looking at other alternatives. A couple of weeks ago I discovered an application that is really working well for me. Evernote describes itself this way:

Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.

What’s nice about Evernote is that it is provides a Windows client that synchronizes with a web interface, so your information is truly available to you wherever you go. There are Mac, Windows Mobile, and IPhone clients as well.

This is not just for text. There is a simple rich text editor for taking notes in meetings or entering the bits of information you need to do your job or manage your life. Beyond that, you can store entire web sites (or just selected portions) quite easily using a Firefox extension. The program will also store scanned images, PDF files, and audio clips, but I haven’t really taken it that far.

Searching works well, and they claim to also search PDF files and text within images. Like Outlook Notes and Yahoo! Notepad, each note is assigned a title based on the first line. Evernote, however, allows you to rename the title. Notes can be organized into folders and assigned tags.

Synchronization also works well – even behind the firewall at work (it appears to use whatever HTTP proxy is configured in Internet Explorer). By default it syncs once an hour, but this is configurable, and you can force a sync at any time. I haven’t really tried using the web client. I have the Windows client running in the system tray so it quickly accessible.

Did I mention it was free? There is a monthly cap, but in my regular use I am not even coming close to the allotted upload allowance. The premium version is $45/year, which gives you SSL encryption as well as a much larger upload allowance.

If you are like me and need an application that will allow you to create your own personal knowledgebase , than I highly recommend Evernote .

Today I voted in a primary election for the first time. In the almost thirty years that I have been eligible to vote, this is the first time (that I can remember) that both presidential nominees have not been selected before Indiana holds it’s primaries.

Indiana has an open primary, so I chose to vote for Democrats, and I voted for Barack Obama as the presidential nominee. It’s hard to distinguish between Obama and Clinton as far as the issues are concerned, so it comes down to who would be the most effective leader. Obama strikes me as a man of integrity, and I think he can be most effective in pulling this country together and bringing about real change.

I am voting today for the choice I want to have in November – Obama or McCain. Depending on the issue, I resonate strongly with both of these candidates. Fortunately, I have a few months to sort this out.

Any attempt at simplifying my life hasn’t had any impact my work computer, apparently.

The lease was up on my work laptop, so I was issued a new Lenovo T61p last week. Typically, our IT department will reinstall Windows XP on all new laptops, but because we need to be able to test our software under Windows Vista, they let me keep the WIndows Vista Ultimate that came pre-installed.

The first step was to get rid of as much of the pre-installed "crapware" as I could. I did keep the software for the fingerprint reader. though. It is pretty cool being able to use that to log in to Windows!

Here is a list of all the software I had to install and configure:

Applications

• Vista Service Pack 1 and additional updates
• Microsoft Office Pro 2007
• Firefox
  • RoboForm
  • Extensions:
    • Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer
    • AdBlock Plus
    • IE Tab
    • QuickProxy
    • Forecastfox
    • Better GMail 2
• Symantec AntiVirus
• VMWare Workstation
• AT&T Global Network Client (VPN client)
• Wireshark (and WinPcap)
• TextPad
• Google Desktop

Development Tools

• Visual Studio 2008
  • Visual Assist X
  • Syncfusion Essential Studio 3.3
  • Infragistics NetAdvantage (2007.1 and 2007.3)
  • IP*Works
  • CodeSite
  • TeeChart for .NET
• Borland Delphi 2007 (plus four updates)
  • Rave Reports
  • Castalia
  • Developer’s Express VCL
• Perforce (P4V and P4Win, plus API tools for C# and Ruby)
• ActivePerl
• Ruby
• Doxygen
• DIAB-SDS Compiler
• Help & Manual (and HTML Help Workshop)
• Inno Setup
• Consolas font

Utilities

• 7-Zip
• Foxit Reader
• Foxit Creator
• Beyond Compare (plus four plug-ins)
• CCCleaner
• Cmd Prompt Here Power Toys
• Daemon Tools Lite (for mounting ISO files)
• TreeSize Free
• XYplorer (Explorer replacement)
• GoodSync
• Revo Uninstaller
• SysInternals Suite (Autoruns, Process Explorer, etc)
• SlickRun

Not to mention configuring Windows, copying files over from my old computer, pulling down all of our source code out of Perforce and ensuring that it all built, etc.

That didn’t take long at all!

The lease was up on my work laptop, so I was issued a new Lenovo T61p last week: Here are the specs:

T7700(2.4GHz), 2GB RAM, 100GB 7200rpm HD, 15.4in 1920×1200 LCD, 256MB nVIDIA Quadro FX 570M, CDRW/DVDRW, Intel 802.11agn(n-disabled), Bluetooth, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 9c Li-Ion battery, Windows Vista Ultimate.

This an awesome machine…..except for the screen resolution. A 15.4" screen with a resolution of 1920×1200 results in a whopping 147 pixels per inch! Compare that to these popular sizes:

17" – 1280×1024 – 96ppi

19"- 1280×1024- 86ppi

20.1" – 1680×1050 – 99ppi

I bought a 20.1" monitor with my new Dell last year, and that is about as high as I can go (in terms of PPI) and still work comfortably for any length of time.

So what are my options? I could go back to our IT guy and ask him to swap it out for the same model with a WSXGA (1680×1050) display. At 128ppi, this is only marginally better, but it is the only other option for this model. I spent a lot of time getting all my applications installed and configured this weekend. If I get the same model, I should be able to image the drive and move it over to the new machine. If I opt for a different model, I may not be so lucky.

The second option is to simply run at a lower resolution. Running at a non-native resolution does blur the display a bit, and this can result in eye strain after working for any length of time.

The third option is to change the font size (DPI) in Windows, but this also has it’s problems. You would be surprised how many applications are designed and developed without any thought to the possibility that the user may be running at a non-standard font size. Changing the font size also has little impact on how web sites are rendered in the browser. Sure, you can increase the text size in the browser, but most web sites are optimized to look good under a few popular resolutions, and increasing the text size within the same page layout can look really bad in a hurry.

None of these options are attractive. What would you do?

Welcome to my blog experiment. I’ve been wanting to try this for some time, and time will tell whether I can come up with enough stuff that would be interesting to others.