Verizon, Please

I'm loving my new Droid Charge phone, but I'm hating Verizon for installing a bunch of crap-ware on it that I cannot remove. I accept the fact that when I buy a Dell laptop, it will come full of crap-ware.... but I can uninstall it, or reinstall a clean OS from scratch. Not so with my phone. I have 2 choices: Root the phone which voids my warranty and negates my insurance, or install a different launcher (Launcher Pro) which allows me to hide apps from the launcher. I chose the latter. It doesn't keep their junk from running their bad services and taking up memory though. I also installed Car Home which allows me to select my icons for car mode. This is the one that really made me mad. When I put the phone into my car dock, their navigation button went to VZNavigation, which costs money! WTF would I use that for when Google Nav is FREE and also installed on the phone. I suppose they're depending on the naive people to think that VZNav is their only choice. Come on Verizon, do the right thing. Allow uninstall of the crap ware.

I almost returned the phone on principal, but I need a good phone with a decent internet connection when I travel. Verizon has 3G damn near everywhere.

Wow. Maybe it's time for a new TV.

I can't believe how nice these new TVs are these days.

VIZIO M470NV 47-Inch 1080p LED LCD HDTV with VIZIO Internet Application, Black

I think I may have to buy that TV.

Simplification in Software

"Successful software needs to be simple". I've been saying this for quite a while, but I've never really thought much about why. Recently I noticed that a major company that I've been critical of on many fronts has been using this as sort of a mantra for a long time. Apple. But they do it with hardware also. One button is all you need. One button on the mouse, one button on the iPhone, one button on the iPod touch, one button on the iPad. I used to really complain about their approach to hardware. It was just so wrong to have a mouse with one button, and it forces you to use the other hand to hold a key on the keyboard while clicking if you want the menu. I still prefer a multi-button mouse, but I think I understand the reasoning behind the single button. It's a policy of simplicity. I'm not overly familiar with Apple's OS, but I think they try to balance between usability and simplicity. I do know their licensing. It's simple. One license for a desktop computer, one license for a server. They know that confusing the buyer with names like "starter edition", "professional edition", "media edition", "ultimate edition", "basic edition", "home edition", and whatever else... doesn't help them sell the software. It just muddies the water.

I wish Microsoft followed the simplicity mantra a little more. I'd love to see their licensing simplified. I'm a professional in the industry and their server licensing makes no sense to me. I've asked people that work directly for Microsoft, and they don't understand it either. I've even heard, "you'll have to talk with one of our licensing professionals for questions about that". They do volume licensing, service provider licensing, OEM licensing, select licensing, open licensing, and a whole slew more. Maybe they just need something for the lawyers to do.

I've seen projects try to be simple, but that can easily be lost with "scope creep". It's so easy to lose sight of a goal like, "let's make it easy for all ages to use", with a simple question like, "wouldn't it be cool if it could do this?" This is where a good project manager should pull back on the reigns, and remind that person of the goals. If you try to add all the features you can think of, you only end up with a product that needs training just to do the basic things that 90% of your users want to do.

One approach that I like when adding features is to try to keep it modular. Have a core functionality that does the job, and does it easily. Then you can have an "advanced" section that shows other features that are available. This is where adding modules can also be an opportunity for revenue. You can sell or give the new features to each customer when they want them. It keeps the core product simple, but allows for growth. The Firefox browser is an excellent example of modularity.

It seems rather obvious that the interface is the key to simplicity in the software, but a lot of developers overlook the code. If your code is kept simple, it's much easier to integrate new people to the project. If it's a complex hodge-podge, it'll be a nightmare whenever you try to ramp up, or lose someone.

Simplicity rules. I think we, as software developers need to use this approach more often. Not just with licenses, but with software design.

Virtual Machines are awesome.

I've recently started using Virtual Box. It's a lot better than it used to be a few years ago when I last tried it. I can actually play games in a virtual box running Windows XP. It can be installed on all platforms, and has extensions for them all too. These extensions are important for interacting nicely with the host operating system. I've used it both for hosting XP, and for hosting Ubuntu Desktop 9.10. One minor issue I've had with this is that I have to run a command line tool in order to replicate a virtual disk. It's not just a drag and drop action, because there is a GUID attached to each virtual disk, and it needs to be different than all the others on the host machine.

I've played with VMWare too. Also very nice. I've only done Ubuntu 9.10 on it so far, but I like it. Very fast, but a bit odd to get going. I'm just no used to it. I'm happy enough with Virtual Box, that I'm not sure I want to spend a lot of time on this. I also didn't like that the website wants me to log in every time I download it, even if the current version just told me to download an update.

Microsoft Virtual PC is good, but I've had a lot of problems with it recently. Slow response, and sound that breaks up from time to time are the major frustrations. I still use it regularly for some things like IE 6 testing for work, just because I've already had the machines built with Virtual PC. I do love that fact that I can just drag and drop the hard drive to a new folder to create a brand new virtual machine. Keep in mind, that if you're going to do this, and run more than one cloned OS at a time, you'll need to change each one's MAC address so that they appear as different machines on the network.

I've used Microsoft's Virtual Server 2005 R2 for a few years, and it's works well, but I don't like the virtual machine manager, based on IE and IIS. They need a real desktop tool. Other than that, it works well, and I'd even recommend it, but I haven't tried Hyper-V Server 2008 yet. My brother has used it and thinks it is the future. I have to find some time and the right hardware to play with it very soon, so I can give a proper opinion. So far, what I've read and heard has been very positive.

Opera 10.5 is out and holy crap is it fast.

I've been trying out the newest Opera, and I'm amazed at how fast it is. All of the good browsers have been sparring to be the one with the "fastest" title, but Opera just smacked the rest of them down a peg. I'm sure Google Chrome (Webkit) or Firefox (Gecko) will come back with another scripting optimization that puts them back in the game soon. But hey, I don't care. This is where competition is great for the consumer. We get the best and fastest browsers... for free.

Now what can I do with all this speed?

Stop using Internet Explorer !

Let me first preface this post with the following disclaimer. I don't have a problem with Microsoft. I've been a Microsoft Certified Developer for at least 10 years, and plan to continue with the certifications. I personally use many of their fine products, and see no reason to stop with most of them. I only have a problem with Internet Explorer.

I've recently read about yet another Internet Explorer security problem. Apparently there is a vulnerability in VBScript (IE is the only browser that supports this I believe), that can use the F1 key to run remote code. The offending website just has to ask you to click F1 to see Microsoft help on a subject, and that's it, "arbitrary code could be executed in the security context of the currently logged-on user." That means that they probably just installed a virus, or spyware on your machine with a single keystroke from you.

I used to just tell people to upgrade their IE, especially if they were running IE7 or lower, but now, I'm just advising against using it all together. It's just not safe for day to day browsing.

As a web designer, IE 6 is the bane of my existence. It easily adds 20% to the schedule of our design implementation. IE 7 and 8 also add, but to a much lesser extent.

As a family technician, I see IE as the doorway to many security problems, which lead to the calls, "can you take a look at my computer? It's doing something really weird." I usually have to clean one or more viruses off, and install an automatically updated free anti-virus program. Then I always install and strongly suggest using Firefox. Many times, they just don't listen.

These are all very good browsers, that are free, more secure, more standards compliant, and much faster.

http://getfirefox.com
http://opera.com
http://google.com/chrome

If after reading this, you decide to continue using Internet Explorer, I have no respect for you.

HP Apple Dell software importance fail

I was shocked the other day when I went to clean some junk off of an employee laptop when it was returned. I found the HP software installed that might come with a new "all in one" printer. No big deal, except there were eight different programs for me to uninstall. Most of them were programs that would be running all the time on the system (they were Windows Services). This is a printer! I'm going to say that again. It's just a stupid printer! Why do you need 8 separate programs on a system for a stupid printer?!

I've been seeing this as a trend lately, and I don't like it. Why can't they just have a link on your system to check for updates. Or, have it check for updates when launched like Firefox does. It seems so simple to me. Does it really need to be a service that runs on your system all the time? No. Unacceptable. HP does it for printers, Apple does it for their iTunes / Quicktime, Google does it for their browser, Dell even does it. That doesn't make it right. The only one that makes any sense, is that Microsoft does it to keep the operating system updated with security patches.

This may seem unintuitive, but I uninstall all update programs to keep my system running smoother. If I need an update, I'll just get it myself.