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?

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 .

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?