New Personal Blog
In an effort to streamline all of my blogging activity, my blog can be found at http://www.puhala.com/blog. For the time being, this site will remain where it is.
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A year ago, shortly after the Amazon Kindle was announced/released, I became an early adopter and plunked down $400 for the device. The concept of having an entire bookstore within wireless reach was intriguing to say the least. I am pleased to say that one year later, I am still impressed and happy I made the purchase.
That’s not to say it’s perfect — it’s not. However, the highly practical nature of the device overcomes its shortcomings. Flawless and fast wireless delivery, amazing battery life (with wireless turned off), great implementation of e-ink technology, and general usability are strengths that make it a joy to use. My wish-list for the Kindle has remained fairly static over the last year: More metal (or how about some metal) in the physical design as opposed to an all plastic design, smaller page buttons and the ability to gift books directly to someone’s Kindle.
As far as content goes, the Kindle has more than doubled its available titles to over 200,000 now. The Kindle team has done a reasonably good job in making more newspapers available. I agree with Joe Wikert’s take that more magazines need to be available on the Kindle format. My number one magazine request would be The Economist. Of course, it’s a two-way street between Amazon and the magazine publishers, so I am sure the hold-up is not because the Kindle team is limiting content to the device.
Today, Tech-Crunch released news that Kindle 2.0 is forthcoming in early 2009. By the looks of it, it does not look like a major technological jump, but rather a small design refresh based on user feedback. So, I probably will wait until version 3 or perhaps the student version with a larger screen to follow the V2 as mentioned in the Tech-Crunch article.
The advancement that I would like to see (my ultimate Kindle) beyond my above wish-list is:
- Color e-ink display with little to no compromise in battery performance
- Touch-screen with multi-gesture support (think page swipes rather than button presses)
- Tablet-like features for note-taking and audio recording (think LiveScribe for the Kindle), which would be a killer classroom feature.
I’m still of the opinion that Amazon should license the Kindle platform to hardware manufacturers. Competition among seasoned hardware designers would bring about more rapid renditions while still having exclusivity to the Amazon Kindle store.
I am surprised that a year later and there is still no real competition for the Kindle. Of course, there are other e-ink readers, but none with wireless access with the ability to instantly download a book, magazines, newspapers and limited Internet content. This single attribute remains the killer feature that no one can touch yet and is why I recommend the Kindle over every other reader on the market.
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Tags: kindle
A friend of mine, Larry Chiang has got game. He’s making quite the splash with duck9 and he is also making waves as an author (both online and in print). One of his ambitious projects is his latest educational offering:
9 Things Stanford B-School Won’t Teach You
Check it out. Also – follow him on Twitter for more Larry insights: http://twitter.com/larrychiang
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Evernote Review
I’ve been wanting to write about Evernote for some time but I thought I would wait until I could also review the iPhone version. I’m glad I waited, because Evernote on the iPhone is probably what I’m most excited about.
Evernote at its core is a notes application, that is, a application to capture anything you might need to keep for later retrieval. If you’re thinking Wordpad (windows) or Text-Edit (mac), think again. While it can do the same thing that those programs can do, it does so much more. Screen capture or partial screen clips, audio notes, integration with the iSight camera on your mac or camera on the iPhone, Evernote is a virtual swiss army knife of capturing thoughts and breadcrumbs of anything you might need to recall. Rather than to describe it, here is a video review.
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Tags: design, review
One of the most frustrating aspects of almost any set-top box is the absence of a keyboard. Being forced to use a selector together with an on-screen keyboard is painful to say the least. The Apple TV is no exception. Of course, there are hacks to make a wireless keyboard work, but how cool would it be to connect your iPhone to the Apple TV such that it becomes a remote keyboard and extended remote control? I hope something like this is in the works or perhaps the developer community is working on a similar solution.
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Tags: apple
On deck
Sorry for the infrequent posting lately. It’s not for lack of content, just lack of time. Here are the upcoming mini reviews (in random order):
- Evernote
- CoverSutra
- ScreenFlow
- Box.net
At the very least, I’ll add a new post at least once a week.
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I’ve completely abandoned using Microsoft Office on the Mac and have entirely converted over to iWork. That being said, there are plenty of times when I need to review a MS Office document. Whether you use MS Office or not, QuickLook has to be the most under-rated feature in Leopard. The sheer time-savings alone is worth the upgrade to Leopard. Gone are the days of having to open up Word, Excel or PowerPoint to view the contents of a file. Select the file, hit the space bar and almost instantly, the file is ready to be viewed with most formatting in tact. Of course, images, PDF files, and several other formats are fully supported in QuickLook as well.
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Tags: apple
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjgVeJkdBn0
I have an infatuation with latte art. Perhaps because I suck at it. But I press on and keep trying. This is cheating a bit but I thought it was an interesting concept.
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Tags: random
As I use twitter more, I am finding more uses for it. One of my more recent discoveries is to use twitter in conjunction with the ever-so useful Automator application that comes with Mac OS X to perform remote functions on my Mac. Specifically, I solved the problem of checking mail on my iPhone and having the Mac Mail application open at the same time — where it will often ask you to re-input your password in the Mail on the Mac (very annoying). I don’t always remember to shut down my mail application prior to leaving the house, so I wanted a way to quit the mail application remotely using my iPhone prior to checking for mail. Combining twitter with Automator, a simple script and Mail rules, I am able to send twitter a text message with a specific command, and it will automatically close my Mail application on my Mac at home. Cool. So how did I do it? There are probably several ways to accomplish this task but here is the path that I took:
- Setup a secondary twitter account for the sole purpose of sending commands to my Mac. Setup your mobile phone to use this twitter account for text messaging.
- ‘Followed’ this other twitter account using my main twitter ID and turned on notifications when this twitter account is updated.
- Created an ‘application’ using Automator to quit the Mail application (this is where you can piece together any workflow of your liking).
- Created a simple Apple script to call the above Automator application.
- Created a Mail rule to look for the notification from Twitter, look for specific text in the body, and run the Apple script I created above once the criteria is met. The rule also deletes the message once it’s finished.
That’s it! Now, I just send a direct message to my main twitter account from my phone (d puhala <command>) and it will automatically shut down my mail application. Of course, you don’t have to use twitter to accomplish the end result. You could just as easily send yourself a mail from your phone. The caveat to both of these methods is that your Mail application must remain open (ironically, I am using it to quit the mail application).
If you want to see the specifics in action here, make a request in comments and I will put together a screen-cast of the above steps.
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Tags: apple, iPhone
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Mint.com Review
Since money applications have been appearing on the web for several years now, I think I have looked at most of them. Online banking has made things easier but also made managing multiple accounts rather tricky. Sure, they offer export to Quicken, or Microsoft Money, but these are the tools that I have been trying to avoid.
Enter Mint.com. Their tag line is ‘refreshing money management’ and I have to agree. One of the draw-backs of online account consolidation is that one or more of your accounts will fail to be recognized. However, with Mint, all of my accounts were able to be brought together. Bank accounts, credit cards, investment accounts, my entire financial life available in one consolidated view.
Transaction categorization is automated and can be overridden on an ongoing basis. Graphing, budgeting, and a host of other powerful management features are presented in a intuitive manner. Best of all, Mint is free (for now).
Technically, Mint is in beta still but you would be hard-pressed to know it. I’m sure features and different versions will be offered (paid subscriptions?), but right now, I think Mint is the best online money manager available.
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