Archive for November, 2007
California
Thursday, November 29th, 2007
I love the tech – the companies, the buildings, the people you just bump into who work for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Mozilla, Kliner, Apple, et all. I also love the conversations – all things tech. I miss that. I don’t like – the traffic, the price of everything, and the pollution.
One more day and it’s time to go home to clean, low intensity, low tech Florida. Yeah!
(I will also miss Google’s ever present free wifi signal. 
)
Telecommuting
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
“Our results show that telecommuting has an overall beneficial effect because the arrangement provides employees with more control over how they do their work,” said Dr Ravi Gajendran of Pennsylvania State University. “Telecommuting seems to have some mildly positive effects on employee morale, on work-family balance and on stress,”
HSA Benefits
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
HSA investment: $2850.00
3 month return: $200.00
Return percentage: 7%
That should cover my next four dental exams/cleanings.
HDHC Benefits
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
With an HDHC, the healthcare company will negotiate the service rates you’ll be paying out of your deductible, so you end up saving money both on the low monthly payment and on your typical healthcare costs like dental exams and annual checkups.
Another Gene Analysis Company
Sunday, November 18th, 2007
deCODE Genetics, like 23 and me is currently offering a similar service for about the same price. (hat tip to a commenter on my last post.) They are also public, trading under the symbol DCGN. I think I might go with these guys, they seem to provide more information. I pinged my sis though and will wait to see what she has to say about both.
Googling Your DNA
Saturday, November 17th, 2007
For $1000.00 the company 23 and me will analyze your genetic code and give you some clues as to what life might hold. The company was apparently started by the wife of a Google founder, and has a ton of VC.
The New York Times has a humorous write-up on the service –
I don’t like brussels sprouts. Who knew it was genetic? But I have the snippet of DNA that gives me the ability to taste a compound that makes many vegetables taste bitter. I differ from people who are blind to bitter taste — who actually like brussels sprouts — by a single spelling change in our four-letter genetic alphabet: somewhere on human chromosome 7, I have a G where they have a C.
I asked my sister the geneticist to take a look, she said “It will definitely get you genotypic data, but then you need to do your homework to decide how strong the data is to support association with a particular trait.” I don’t have a clue what that means but I’m curious. She’s going to get back to me with more info later. I think I might do it, seems pretty cool, but it’s also scary to think what you might find. (I’m also going to read over their privacy statement very carefully before doing so.)
Monopoly
Saturday, November 17th, 2007
“We’re getting way off track here.”
Wikipedia has a nice write-up on the monopoly concept. Personally I don’t see Apple as a monopoly and I wouldn’t consider Microsoft a monopoly either. ITunes control over the music market can be undone just as easily as Internet Explorer’s 95% market share – through the production of a better product by a competitor. I think though it’s funny to see Apple PR freak out at the mere mention of the word.
Long Zheng Digs Into Marketplace
Friday, November 16th, 2007
Where this guy finds the time for this stuff I’ll never understand, but I appreciate the fact that he does.
Mysterious Microsoft Iris UI Framework “UIX” behind the new Zune software eye-candy
Which might explain why 2.0 feels a little like a base starting point for the platform. (A rather feature rich starting point at that.)
Zune Marketplace 2.0
Friday, November 16th, 2007
Pros:
- Clearly marked, wide selection of high bandwidth mp3 albums and songs within the interface. No price increase simply because it’s mp3.
- New “heart it” rating system replaces the blurry 5-star system. I’m a big fan of this. I can’t remember the last time I marked something as anything other than 1 star or 5 stars. I sense Microsoft’s market research picked up on this and so they simplified the system.
- Overall layout and accessibility of various options is vastly improved, more intuitive. Too many little things to mention here. It just feels much simpler to use than the last version.
- New search functionality is excellent. The search results page clearly lists music in your library, artists, albums, songs, and public playlists that contain the term you search for. Very useful.
- Artist main pages are really slick, with lots of cool artwork and information.
- The Now Playing screen is slick.
- Wireless syncing. No more USB cables except when you’re charging. You buy a new album and boom, it’s on the device from half way across the house. Very very cool.
- Larger album art is nice. I’ve noticed WMP seems to be tapping into this as well. Very cool.
Cons:
- No shared playlists among users within Marketplace / Zune.net. This is really needed, it’s one of the killer features of apps like iTunes and stores like Amazon. It makes it easy to find related music you might like based on the playlists / purchasing habits of other users. According to the forums this feature is in the works.
I should point out though that there is some sharing of music going on through Zune’s new social site Zune.net. The site has links to it throughout the software, which will open in your browser -
From here you have related music from other users, including favorite albums and most played songs, but no playlists. This is useful, but it would be nice to see all this content and shared playlists inlined into the app rather than having to open a seperate browser window.
- No UPNP support / home network sharing. For the life of me I can’t understand why they haven’t turned this on. Marketplace is based on Windows Media Player, which supports streaming music around the house to any UPNP compatible device. For some reason Microsoft refuses to enable this functionality in the new Zune software. That means you have to fall back to WMP to share your music around the house. To make matters worse, Zune has its own playlist file format which WMP can’t read (They share everything else – storage locations, watch folders, etc., but not playlists) so you can’t create playlists in Zune Marketplace if you want those to be accessible on other devices through WMP. This is crazy because the sharing functionality in WMP is a “killer feature” compared to other sharing services like iTunes. Why the folks on the Zune Team haven’t figured this out is beyond me.
- Poor Vista integration. This relates mostly to the lack of sharing functionality mentioned above. WMP sharing tightly integrated with Vista’s networking, which makes it easy to find libraries on other computers. Zune doesn’t.
- Lack of options on individual albums in the library view. It would be nice to be able to go directly from an album in your library to the artist on Marketplace to find information on the artist, other albums, and related music. A quick search link option would be really useful as well. As it stands now you have to manually type the artist name into the search entry to do this. Try doing that a few times with artists like “Madeleine Peyroux” and it really starts to annoy. The context menu on the album cover could easily support all these options – and seems like an obvious feature to have. I’m amazed it’s not in there.
- Smallish album art in the main view. Zune still uses the same tiled (and tired) thumbnail view for album covers available in WMP. Microsoft really needs to update this by providing more album cover view options. I’d like a “detailed view”, and a “big cover art view”, as well.
Misc:
- The new Zune Social site (zune.net) and Zune Cards feature are really neat. These are really going to help attract people to the platform.
Recs:
As a general purpose music purchasing store Marketplace is excellent. It’s now the first place I go before Amazon or iTunes when shopping for mp3s. (I don’t buy DRM’s music.) In the past I’d go to Amazon to buy the CD then wait to ship it after reaching free super saver shipping. Lately I haven’t had to do that thanks to Amazon, Marketplace, and now even iTunes mp3 selections.
As a replacement to iTunes – I can’t recommend it. The lack of home network sharing is a deal killer for anybody who’s become reliant on that kind of functionality. iTunes also has a wider selection of drm’d music, but I get the feeling there’s more mp3 music available on Marketplace now which shows potential. (Amazon trumps both Marketplace and iTunes when it comes to selection.) If you’re not into wireless sharing, Marketplace is a fine alternative to iTunes.
As a replacement to WMP – man I wish the answer was yes, but it’s no. I would love to recommend to everybody they should switch entirely over to Zune in place of WMP. But without better Vista integration, UPNP streaming support, and WMP playlist support, I can’t. This really sucks too because new features like Zune’s Now Playing really kick ass over WMP’s ancient plug-in visualizations, and the Zune interface is beautiful to look and fun to use compared to the now rather dated interface on WMP.
Overall – if Microsoft really listens to all the feedback they are getting through the social site zune.net, and implement the best new ideas flowing there, the next rev of Marketplace is really going to kick ass. They’ve come a long way and the new 2.0 version really makes for a solid base to build on. Zune is definitely here to stay, and is only going get better and grow in popularity over time.
Democratic Debate
Friday, November 16th, 2007
Somehow I missed this one. I’m kinda bummed because it sounds like this debate was quite a show.
25 to 31 minutes (in). A conversation about immigration boils down to the Blitz’s hypothetical question: If there is no comprehensive immigration reform, would you support driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants? Edwards says no, but. Obama says yes, but. Dodd, Biden and Clinton say no, though Clinton previously said yes. Richardson says yes. And Kucinich just gets mad at Blitz all over again. “I take issue with your description of there being illegal immigrants,” Kucinich says. “There aren’t any illegal human beings.” This is another fortune cookie that the Blitz does not want to open.
