Desktop Superman

2008-02-04T12:18:00.000-05:00

Once in a while a product comes along that is truly brilliant. PicLens is just such a software product. If you use Flickr then this is probably one of the best ways to view pictures in a pool (group) or even to show off your own photostream.

http://www.piclens.com/site/firefox/win/

2007-06-25T09:46:00.000-04:00

Google is buying GrandCentral.com -- a company that came up with the idea of giving you a single phone number that you can use to get all your calls -- home or office or cell -- whatever.

Everyday Google buys a company. I cannot think of any other company that had a more voracious appetite. I am not sure Google will be left with any companies to buy. Or maybe it will because its buying frenzy is certainly creating entrepreneurial frenzy in turn.

2007-06-18T14:16:00.000-04:00

Nowhere than in in software is it truer that every change is for the worse.

I launched Parallels Desktop just to run some Windows program like I generally do every few days. This time it came up with a message that I should upgrade as a newer version is available. I thought for a second as my inner anti-tech angel warned me against it. However, I decided to go ahead. What harm could it possibly do?

After a few minutes it was installed. I tried to launch XP virtual machine and it failed with a fatal error message -- "Virtual Bridge not found. Is it running?" What the hell do I know? You tell me it is running or not! It won't work anymore. As usual, I switched to Google and searched for the error message. The only place I found it was in Parallels user forums. I duly clicked on the link only to be notified that the "forums are down for maintenance."

Nothing succeeds as planned.

2007-06-14T13:43:00.000-04:00

I have sort of gotten used to the buggy, sluggish Aperture to get my photography work flow going. I was just reading this story about how Leopard will impact Aperture and all I did was shuddered. I didn't want a change -- even for the better -- because there is no such thing -- at least not in software -- and at least not often. Change is for the worse. More stuff gets added to the software that you don't want and only makes apps buggier and harder to use.

Boy, do I sound like one or my clients!

2007-03-22T15:10:00.000-04:00

Apple's airport base station that supports the new faster 802.11n standard is similar to other things apple. Cool but not very useful and quite expensive. I bought it a few months ago mostly to be able to take backups on the usb hard-disk that it can supposedly share with other computers on the network and can be used for backups. I've tried to take backups several times and it has never finished. It dies after a few hours due to broken network connection. The disk works fine when connected directly to the mac. The performance is decent. The wep protocol for security is poorly implemented and confuses the hell out of my old tivo that thinks it is wpa. So, in order to connect my tivo -- I need to remove all security from my wireless connection -- which is of course a bummer.

I haven't tried sharing a printer yet but I don't have high hopes.

Another product that basically just disappoints.

2007-02-18T20:51:00.000-05:00

You know what is a pain to use? Blogger! Google with all its might cannot get this FTP publishing right. Once you click publish you get the web equivalent of an hourglass for several minutes and then the page simply errors out. Everyday Google becomes a bit more like Microsoft. The question is whether their general incompetence will ever reach at the highest level and make them change their direction from: "lets do everything" to "lets do good things."

2007-02-02T16:11:00.000-05:00

I knew I should not be doing it but the curious in me one again. I installed Firefox 2 on my iMac and now tabbed browsing is completely broken. If I open a tab is opens in a half inch thick strip on the left and overlays the original tab as well and rest of the screen is blank white on the right. I tried removing plug-ins and extensions but to no avail.

I hate technology more every day.

2007-01-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

I just got a Mac Equivalent of the Windows Blue Screen of death. I must say it was a tad prettier and a little jazzy. Good job, Mac -- though you could not eliminate the death -- you at least made it prettier.

2006-11-29T10:18:00.000-05:00

So we finally saw our first movie on the big screen Plasma we got over the weekend. And its was "First Blood" no less. It was quite an experience. I've also been watching some HDTV, regular TV and TiVo content and have the following observations.

The DVD experience was not so much because of quality which was excellent on my older CRT but because of the size. Man, the 50 inch does make a difference! Instead of squinting and trying peep into the screen you just sit back and relax. You actually "see" the film instead of just "looking" at it.
The HDTV experience is just too good. The large screen size and the clarity is just outstanding. However, it may be a bit too much. Human faces in close-ups, if not shot flatteringly in soft light, tend to look too bumpy and unnatural -- even though they are completely natural but our eyes don't expect to see all those details and faces and the brain perceives of them as fake.
Regular Analog TV (non-HDTV content straight from the cable-box but broadcasted by the station as an analog signal) is pretty awful. The colors bleed and the low resolution bumped up by the TV to its native resolution compounded by the large size of the TV makes the broadcast look quite bad.
Regular Digital TV (non-HDTV content straight from the cable-box) is decent but not that good.
TiVo suffers from the analog problem. One would really have to get their TiVo upgraded to series 3 where possible to enable HDTV storage for the TV to be really useful. Essentially, you need to get rid of TiVo for all your favorite programs and use Comcast's DVR.

Conclusion: The TV is still a bit ahead of its times and if most of what you watch are movies and those shows that are available in HD then you are fine. However, you will have to use your cable company's DVR instead of TiVo's which might be a huge issue or might not be an issue at all based on how much you love your TiVo. For me it is a huge issue obviously.

2006-11-26T22:05:00.000-05:00

Yes, finally couldn't resist the $800 off from Best Buy on a 50" Panasonic. Not the best in the World but good enough for the price. However, it was a nightmare getting it home. First, it won't fit in the car vertically and cannot lay the sucker down. We had to open the box and tilt it on one of the back seats while laying the other one flat. It was quite an adventure. Getting it inside the apartment from downstairs was an even more challenging task. Sheru and I finally managed to get it in.

However, much to our chagrin the piece was defective. We got a rainbow band every once in a while toward the left edge of the screen. After trying for over a day we finally decided to return it on Sunday. Thankfully Best Buy had another piece in stock and we took it with the pedestal downstairs and into the car. I couldn't believe we had to repeat the whole nightmare. However, we somehow managed to get it back. It's been running well since yesterday so far. Let's see how it goes. Hopefully better luck this time.

2006-11-20T10:04:00.000-05:00

Happened to pick up the new Shuffle in-ear headphones with the old mini by mistake this morning. The new headphones are much better: much more fuller sound, more bass, less tinny. Excellent.

2006-11-04T09:21:00.000-05:00

When I woke up around 6.00 am the first thing I did was to switch the computer on and let Aperture continue building its previews. After building the remaining thumbnails for the 11k photos it went on to 'process' previews and the sluggishness of it put the thumbnail previews to shame. It took over 5 hours to build all previews. It was somewhat faster after that but not merely enough.

== 4.00 p.m. ==
Printing support is decent but not as good as Adobe Lightroom. Of course it is much better than iPhoto which is pretty much useless. The options are just not there to do enough margins. Presets are fine but they don't store printer settings which makes them sort of useless because you also have to select the printer settings again and again.

Biggst drawback of all is the adjustments area. You don't get to store an adjustment preset that spans across adjustment settings. So if you always sharpen and much with vibrance you need to adjust the image twice. Sort of lame.

2006-11-03T20:59:00.000-05:00

== 8.30 pm ==
Apple finally made Aperture 1.5 available as a demo download. I've been attracted to Aperture simply because iPhoto is pretty primitive and doesn't suite my needs exactly. However, just to prevent myself from having to deal with another tool, I've tried hard and told myself that the step $300 price is what is going to keep me away. With the free demo version it is not an issue anymore and I cannot help it. I download the demo version about an hour ago and spent some time reviewing some of the online tutorials. I know that at the end of the month I will be paying Apple three hundred dollars. I know it but I am doing it anyway.

I've started importing my iPhoto library (about 11,000 photos) at 8.51 pm. I choose to duplicate it in the Aperture library. It is working hard on it now and it says it needs about another hour. I would be impressed if it gets everything in by 10.00 pm and is up and running without a glitch.

== 10.30 pm ==
All photos were imported around 10.25 so took about two hours. In true Apple fashion Aperture decided to simply not create any smart folders for me. The performace is so terrible that had I not known about the preview creation issue I would have probably quit now.

== 11.30 pm ==
Liking certain things but getting annoyed with others. Its been chewing up anywhere from 120 to 160 % of the CPU. Thank God for dual core.

2006-11-03T10:39:00.000-05:00

Just got mine day before and it is so unbelievably cool. It is a gig of storage in about 1 inch by 2 inch and .3 inch think. It is so light you don't even feel you have it. It was up and running in less than 10 minutes including opening the box, which BTW, was just as pretty as the player itself.

Apple has done it again. If you though the iPod was overrated all you need to do is try using this this amazing little thing.

2006-09-29T09:38:00.000-04:00

Another stupid idea dies. Not sure why this type of news gives me immense satisfaction:

"ESPN pulls plug on cell operations. Apparently people are not interested in watching sports on their cell phone"

story:
http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2006/09/28/espn_pulls_plug_on_cell_operation_seeks_to_partner_with_carriers/

2006-09-26T16:46:00.000-04:00

Microsoft's onslaught of useless technology continues. This time it is 'Wallop', a social networking site.

Bill to Ballmer: "Hey, we haven't failed in the social networking arena yet, let's try that!"
Ballmer: "Wow! What a groundbreaking idea!"

What is best is that I can almost picture Sony coming up with a new service for the same shortly.

2006-09-19T07:09:00.000-04:00

It seems impossible for Microsoft to keep its lousy old hands off of anything. It now wants to compete with YouTube and has launched 'Soapbox.' How about hiring a QA intern to test Vista pals?

2006-07-31T06:42:00.000-04:00

I've been using the Google Maps API for the last few days to test certain concepts out and I have to say it is one of the most stable, featured and efficient pieces of code that I've ever worked with. It is just awesome. Google really is the company that has the software developers that can make a difference to the world. Yes, not in a small way, if they are that good they are really impacting the lives of so many individuals all over the globe and hopefully abetting the creation of systems that helps everyone.

2006-06-24T15:35:00.000-04:00

Well, after wasting half a day last weekend and still not succeeding in getting a half-decent printout from iPhoto on my 500 dollar epson r800 -- I finally gave up. Another aspct of the Mac that is best left alone. Printing support is abysmal. You first do a page setup and then you do a print setup and it is your responsibility that the two page in terms of paper sizes. I see no logic for the page setup. Moreover, the settings you do on page setup are carried over to other programs so it took me forever to print a simple document from Adobe today because somehow the page setup was set to 4x6 -- an obvious carryover from printing attempts from within iPhoto. Just terrible. Is anyone dealing with all this or is it just me?

2006-06-20T14:01:00.000-04:00

So tired of not being able to run some software (citrix, money, tivo desktop, etc.) on the Mac, I finally installed Parallels Desktop and was surprised to find how good the product was. Easy to install and then Windows XP was even easier! In fact, it was easier to install XP on parallels as a virtual machine than it has been to install on it on a native box. After installation -- the software XP was fast!

2006-04-01T17:39:00.000-05:00

Sony's UMD is dead. Now that's a good feeling. I always maintained that Sony had lost it as a company just about the year 2000 when they decided that instead of innovation the only way to keep customers was to keep coming up with new media formats. So, memory stick, magic gate, micro MV, UMD, blue ray and so on happened. Oh yeah, there was that stupid digital music player that would not play MP3s. The UMD was the latest one -- a stupid new disc format that would play only on the PSP. So all the movies one already has would be useless and one would have to buy new discs that would only play on the stupid hand-held device. What a ridiculous idea. What a stupid stupid company.

2006-03-26T07:35:00.000-05:00

The alienation continues. I just discovered yesterday that my Polar Heart Rate Monitor software does not work with Macs. Great. This is the third software in the last week itself. The Logitech control center that would allow me to customize my mouse (at least the back button for the browser!) doesn't work and the Tivo desktop does not work either. My guess is that this is because of the incompatibility with the Intel Macs but wasn't the whole idea behind Rosetta to allow users to run programs not written for the Intel Macs?

2006-03-08T11:19:00.000-05:00

Now Google is coming out with an Ajax based calendar. I would assume Yahoo to follow suite in about a couple of months. I like Yahoo for almost everything they do but they are such copycats. Yahoo reminds me of Microsoft and how they would copy the cool features of their competitors and build even cooler ones of their own. Yahoo copied from Google Maps, GMail and now calendar. Long live Yahoo! There is something very reassuring about a company that never needs to have an idea of its own.

2006-03-04T08:33:00.000-05:00

Wow! the iMac must be an advanced system. I was actually able to print from it!

I guess you just have to use the drive from epson's sight rather than the one that ships with the Mac which is a little strange when you think about it because the Mac's version is newer than the version on Epson's website.

As long as I can print!

2006-03-01T06:08:00.000-05:00

So 3 days after I spend over 300 dollars buying the Bose sound dock for the iPod, apple introduces a much cooler product of its own.

Not sure this is such a great move for apple. It seems to be eating into the vendor movement that is making iPod such a success.