Cutting edges can be sharp...

So, it has been a week or so since getting all this new technology going, so it is time for some updates.

X301 - I'm trying really hard to think of something critical to say about it, but I can't find it. It is simply the best ThinkPad ever, and that puts it on a pinnacle above every notebook in the universe. Seriously.

Windows 7 - I'm missing some of the ThinkVantage Technologies that are available for XP and Vista, but with the exception of the issue with tdx.sys discussed below, it is stable, fast and easy. Winner.

ReadyNAS Duo - you don't see a review of the Duo for a reason. If you're running Win7 and an antivirus program, you're likely to have an issue with bluescreens faulting a file called "tdx.sys" when you try to access a remote share or mapped netword drive...

like a ReadyNAS...
















While it works on the Mac, the setup wasn't happy, and I didn't have much time to work with it. I'll try again, but the Win7 bug is was pretty much 100% - every time I tried to access it, it was an invitation to the BSOD party.

I'll try to get it running in the next week or two, but time is a little limited.

DIR-655 - My ThinkPad likes it and my iPhone likes it, but my wife's iMac isn't as happy. She's complaining of very slow running, so I have a little more debugging to do. Everything else seems OK, so I'm wondering if the security and how it is implemented with OS-X. Will be interesting to see if it works out OK.

I'm a little bummed that the 655 and the ReadyNAS aren't running without hitches, but I'm still optimistic about them both.

N Marks the Spot

To really leverage the wireless speed of the ThinkPad X301 as well as provide a high-performance backbone for the NetGear ReadyNAS Duo, selected D-Link's DIR-655. The reviews have been excellent on this router, and the combination of 802.11n and a gigabit ethernet switch really offers a lot of capability.

Since I'm running Win7, I had to launch the setup wizard in "Compatibility Mode" and I'm unsure how much impact that had on the setup. The wizard itself is pretty simple, though I don't think the instructions make it clear enough that they want you attached to the router via the included Ethernet cable to complete the setup.

The steps were clear enough - it took a while sometimes for the setup to move to the next step, but I'm not sure if that was due to the fact that I wasn't connected via ethernet. When setting up the wireless configuration and activating WPA2 security, the browser would occasionally error out as if it couldn't connect. Powering off the router and all the goodies attached and restarting the ThinkPad seemed to fix that issue.

WPA2 wireless security generates a huge key. Anyone who can hack into this thing should be working on Madoff's Swiss accounts instead of messing with me. You can choose a passphrase that generates the key to make it easier to remember.

Everything seemed OK getting the ThinkPad and iPhone connected (though I hate typing that long key, especially on the iPhone - shoulda used the passphrase). My wife's iMax doesn't seem to see the gigabit connection I'm offering it. Wireless works great, and was just as easy as the reast, but I really don't want it running to the ReadyNAS over wireless. Something to figure out for later.

Wireless speed on the X301is noticably faster than the 802.11g router it replaced. It even seems faster on the iPhone and iMac. I'll give it an "A-" for the setup experience, even allowing for the fact that Win7 might have been throwing it a curveball. Initial performance is an "A" even though I haven't really positioned it in the closet yet for best signal. I'll reserve the manageability grade once I've installed the ReadyNAS, configured everything and started doing backus and remote access. That will have to wait - the Carolina vs. Duke game is tonight

The First Step...two at a time...

The ThinkPad X301 is simply an amazing machine - quiet (SSD hard drive and if there is a fan I haven't heard it), fast, solid, light, terrific keyboard and screen and all the touches that make a ThinkPad the best notebook PC on the market. If you are measuring for anything more than sheer specs, the ThinkPad trounces everything. The attention to detail in the design borders on obsessive, and the X301 is everything I wanted in a notebook: a great LED-backlit screen, a full-size keyboard with terrific feel, ~3 pounds, an optical (no I don't use it much, yes I want it anyway) and built like you could throw it at a brick wall and it would work (and pretty much it would).

So I took the leap of running Win7 on it out of the gate. I am running Win7 as my daily machine, with Notes, Office 2008, the VPN and all the other things I run standard. Everything works perfectly, though I've had to set several things to "compatibility mode" which is simple. I'm running and working fine.

What impresses me is how amazingly fast it all is: boot, resume from sleep, shut down, connecting, everything seems to just happen. I've had no lockups or blue screens at all.

I really like the new task bar - it is a far cry from the Vista Sidebar in terms of style and function. Connectivity seems a little limited and but is very simple, somtimes to the point of confusion if you want to do some advanced setup. There are many things (including Lenovo's Access Connections which will be available for Win7 I'm sure) to help on that in any case. Also, I'm guessing I'll look back at the new arrangement in Win7 and wonder why they didn't do it that way before.

I like the "preview" feature when you hover over icons on the task bar - really useful and inuitive. I could go on, but Gizmodo's writeup on Win7 covers the bases well.

I was early to Vista as well, and went back to XP, tired of all the battles I had to fight to run my PC. I tried again later with the same result. Couldn't solve the performance, the compatibility or the ease of use well enough to be worth it. And it ran like a pig.

Win7 is putting the "Win" back in "winner" - I expect Microsoft to be running downhill with consumer customers as well as enterprise looking for a way out of XP without having to do Vista.

Win7 appears to have it all, and it will be interesting to see how things play out. It won't be dull...

Much to do...

Wow - it has been a long time since I've picked up the...er...keyboard, and I'm on the technology side of things for the moment (though Sharkfest is coming up...)

Several new things coming up: I've upgraded to a ThinkPad X301, and to net it out, this is the best notebook I've ever seen. Truly a work of art.

Next up: Win7 Beta, currently running on the X301 and the quick word on that s Win7 is going to be a huge winner.

The house is getting some new gear, too.

My new D-Link DIR-655 arrives tomorrow to match the 802.11N capability of the ThinkPad as well as provide the Gigabit backbone for the last (but not least) interesting piece of technology - the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo.


The ReadyNAS gives me 500GB of mirrored, Web-accessible storage that can host folders, backups, song and picture libraries and more.

All of this promises to be an interesting journey, and I'm really looking forward to getting it all running together. I'll get to the ThinkPad and Win7 first (and soon).

Thanksgiving

As Thanksgiving approaches, I'm one of those sappy types that actually thinks about what I'm thankful for, and thankfully enough, I don't have to ponder too long.

I'm so thankful for my wife and kids. All of them are wonderful in their way, and the degree to which they enrich my life isn't something that can be measured. Only their absence while they were at the beach this summer while I had to work gave me a peek into how much they fill up my life and heart - I'm one pathetic cat without them.

I'm thankful for my family. Crazy as they are, hers and mine are wonderfully diverse and never, ever dull. I hope for health and happiness for them all.

I'm thankful for the BMW community, a group of enthusiasts who by and large understand the transition between an appreciation for the brand and products to the friendship of others who have the same perspective. For me, the balance falls with the people, a reminder of which came with the death of Dan Erwin. Despite the true tragedy and sadness of the occasion, his funeral was time with people who are lifelong friends and we had a good time in his honor.

I'm thankful for my friends, now scattered all over the place and their continued well-being. Each of them has a special place in my heart, and one day I hope I can return all the favors they've done for me.

I'm thankful for what I've accomplished in my career. I've traveled the world, seen a lot of things and been a part of many really rewarding parts of the business. At the end of the day, a career that lets you express your passion and get rewarded for it is hard to argue with, and I've been very lucky overall.

I'm thankful for my health, and the fact that I can play basketball three days a week and not completely suck...most of the time...

I'm thankful for all the things that I enjoy - my house, my BMW's and other nits and bits. It is hard for me to say I don't live well.

I'm leaving things out. I know I am, and you are probably thankful for that as I wrap up this particularly sappy blog. But in these tough times, I know I'm a lucky guy, and that is a lot.

Happy Thanksgiving!

BlackBerry Storm Unboxed

Well, it is finally showing up on-line (pictures at CrackBerry.com), and I have to say it looks pretty slick. If I were a BlackBerry guy, I'd be a lot more attracted to this than the BlackBerry Bold. The unboxing makes it look like a lot of homework has been done - I'm definitely going to find one as soon as they're out there and have a peek!

Android - Is it scary?

Ed Baig at USAToday just offered up his view of T-Mobile's Andriod-based G1 phone, and wonders aloud how much of a hit it is to the iPhone. If you aren't familiar with Android, it is Google's competitor to Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS (WM6) for smart phones and less directly Apple and the iPhone.

Why do I say "less directly" in the case of Apple? Easy:
- iPhone is a "locked" hardware and software platform
- WM6 is a somewhat locked software platform that has certain hardware requirements (though that is less true than it was 18 months ago - we'll get to that later...)
- Android is an open software platform that has virtually no direct requirements on hardware.

So Android is a much more direct shot in my mind at WM6 than iPhone, at least in my mind...

With the iPhone, Apple has the luxury of owning both the hardware and the software, and like it or not has some control over what applications run on the platform. The benefits are extreme consistency of experience and stability. The downside is it gives Apple more power than some would like. It makes great sense in terms of a business model and branding, and the ultimate benefit to the user community is a level of quality I'm guessing will be lacking on other platforms at the price of full freedom of the development community.

Contrast that to WM6. On the one hand, Microsoft had some pretty rigid rules for the hardware - the buttons had to be placed just so, but Microsoft didn't do much more than that to provide rules and structure to the user experience. The result was that the best devices running the OS like the Palm Treo, the Samsung BlackJack and the Motorola Q weren't all that different in a lot of ways, and their utility lived and died by how well Microsoft implemented the WM6 platform. Also, there isn't any central way to get applications for WM6 devices, which can be a good thing and a bad thing. Lastly, the lack of any enforced guidelines for application behavior means that you'll get the absolute best of the developer community as well as the worst. And the worst can be pretty bad. (This isn't to say that there aren't bad apps on the iPhone, by the way...). Given how decentralized application purchasing is, it seems hard to bet on the platform as a developer.

Enter Andriod. Cool, open-sourced, no rules on hardware design, lots available tools and complete freedom to make it work like you want it to work. There will also be both the decentralized purchase options (e.g. websites from the developer, the phone provider, etc.) for buying apps for the phone as well as the Android Marketplace as a one-stop shop. AAAAAaaah freedom!!

But just like the world outside of technology, freedom carries a price. Most mobile phone providers aren't used to developing their own OS (except Palm, who shot their touch enabled, widget-like mobile OS a while back in favor of Windows Mobile). As someone who has some insight on integrating hardware and software, I can tell you it isn't a picnic. The virtual chains of WM6 (and the iPhone OS) do have a couple of huge benefits: consistency and predictability. As a former Samsung BlackJack user, I could pick up a Treo or a Q and be in business right away. With Android, you'll have a range of hardware and implementations as the manufacturers extend from the Android base. The very modularity of Android will guarantee that the manufacturers who take it and make it their own experience will more than likely make it virtually unrecognizable.

The closest parallel I can think of right now is the latest products from HTC (who also happen to make T-Mobile's G1...) that are based on WM6.1. The HTC Diamond and more recent Touch HD run a really gorgeous user interface that really leverages touch to a high degree. It also solves one of my big complaints as a WM6 user, which was I had to "dig" too far for many common things - pictures, music, browser, calculator, note-taking and others. Excellent? Yes! Recognizable as a Windows Mobile experience? Not really. I suppose Microsoft looked at Android coming and loosened the chains, and it is hard to argue with the results - the HTC products are extremely slick.

So Android is really open and Microsoft is becoming more open. Does this mean bad things for Apple? I think it certainly means more competition. Apple has been very careful in what they've allowed the iPhone to do. It still doesn't do video, multimedia messaging, cut and paste and more. It seems like they are doing only the things they can do well, which also offers the ability to improve the product from version to version. But you can bet that the non-Apple providers will go straight at those gaps in the iPhone feature set and attack with a vengeance. What is Apple's biggest defense and advantage in the face of this competitive inferno?

My answer? Chains.

The rigidity of the hardware and software platform ensures that how things work will be extremely consistent, and consistency is a good thing. An iPhone will always feel like an iPhone and simplicity is a good thing. Also, the central experience for adding applications to the iPhone through iTunes and the iTunes store means you'll always know where to go (and Apple with always profit).

The decentralization of the experience and adding applications/utilities will mean that Android will likely evolve to be a very rich platform, but a decentralized one. Hardware vendors who understand leveraging hardware and software together will make it their own and benefit from the results. Trying to make hardware and software beautiful together isn't simple (just check out RIM's bumpy road developing the Blackberry Storm...). Application developers will have to struggle with potential hardware diversity, so in a real way there will be some limitations on what they can do if they choose to reach down to phones that aren't touch enabled or have unique hardware.

Don't get me wrong, I think both WM6.x is far from dead and Android is very important for the industry, but it will take a little while for the dust to settle and for the winners to challenge Apple's "keep-it-simple" iPhone. Ultimately, Apple is going to have to up the ante a bit, but they've been pretty savvy to date, and frankly the engine that allows them to profit from most dimensions of the iPhone wave positions them well to invest.

It certainly won't be dull to watch...