gdp's Comments

Feld Thoughts : Trying Gmail For A Week

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:36:55 +0000

Totally agree. Rapportive is insanely cool. Brad - learn the mail specific search operators. Things like 'is:starred' etc. There are a couple of odd ones, for example is:unread will work, but is:unstarred will not (you need to do -is:starred). It might not matter for a week, but over time it's useful. If you end up using labels to tag things, you can do a search like 'label:foo' to return all things with the foo label.

Feld Thoughts : What Do You Hate The Most About Your Mac?

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:00:26 +0000

Um... CMD+SHIFT+3 for full screen or 4 for a selection is hard?

Feld Thoughts : A Month of Mac

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 23:09:53 +0000

Transmit 4 for FTP if Brad needs it... you can mount remote servers on the desktop as volumes (it uses MacFuse). $35. Oh and Brad - Exchange - kill it. No, really. :) (I know, you can't really... )

Feld Thoughts : A Month of Mac

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 22:43:41 +0000

Actually I'd have dumped Outlook... :) But since you're on a Mac, try... 1) Chat client - Adium (http://adium.im/) 2) WP client - Marsedit (http://www.red-sweater.com/marsedit/)

TechCrunch : Facebook For iPhone Updated: No iOS 4 Support, No iPad Support, Broken UI

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 09:38:16 +0000

nice troll. Almost got me.

TechCrunch : Facebook For iPhone Updated: No iOS 4 Support, No iPad Support, Broken UI

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 09:36:29 +0000

hmmm 70 million iPhone users. 400 million FB users. Do the math.

Feld Thoughts : Rethinking The Laptop

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 18:36:49 +0000

However the difference between a 60 second wait to access email and what Brad describes here is significant. That's my basic point re the post - Brad's chosen to use Exchange etc for functional reasons and is suffering operational pain because of that. At some point the functional reasons no longer justify the operational pain. Where that point is will be different for different companies. "A much bigger reason is the fact that you can easily find and install applications without constantly worrying that they're infecting their computer with something horrible by doing so. That's a big deal for the less computer-savvy members of my family. " THIS is a point we agree on 100%. A lot of the appeal of tablets will be to Windows users who can shed things like that. It won't be a strong selling point to Mac users simply because we don't have a history of viruses etc on the Mac. I also think that a lot of people will start picking up iPads and their Android equivalents because they'll be CHEAP. $500 now isn't cheap... but in 2-3 years entry price will be $250-$300 and they'll become gifts at birthdays, the holidays, or spur of the moment buys for a set of people. I hope (and believe) that we'll see a plethora of computing devices. We started off the PC revolution in the 70s with a desktop. Moving computing out of the IT room onto a desktop was radical then. We're poised to decentralize again with computing moving off the desktop and even off the laptop to phones, tablets and consumer devices like the TV BUT people will still continue to use desktops and laptops for somethings because of things like screen size. However, people will expect things that CAN have computing intelligence to have it. Witness Chris Brogan's 4 yo kid who went up to the new HDTV and tried swiping on the screen... after all, Dad's phone does that, the TV should too.... "Do you see an advantage of the macbook-running-OSX over the Macbook-plus-touchscreen-running-iOS we'll likely see come out in a year or two. " I don't see iOS migrating to the desktop or laptop. That move would be a poor one for Apple as a touch based UI doesn't make sense in those environments. Certainly they might add touch features here and there, but diversity is a good thing, unification isn't

Feld Thoughts : Rethinking The Laptop

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 17:44:14 +0000

"And for those with OSX laptops it's going to eliminate OSX for them. " Nope. Because I don't start my Macbook up, I sleep it by closing the top and when i open the top it's ready to go, network connection live in 2-3 seconds. I don't sync Outlook, because I use GMail and assorted calendars and task lists that live in the cloud. Honestly, nothing Brad talks about here has anything to do with the laptop - it's his software choices and the way he shuts his laptop down vs letting it sleep. ". If you can do everything you need on the iPad, why even carry the laptop?" But I can't right now and even if the software was available to enable me to replicate tasks th iPad's screen is smaller than i'd want to work on regularly. And, frankly, if i"m going to do a lot of work that needs a keyboard I don't see the advantage of an iPad + keyboard over the macbook I'm typing this on (no, battery doesn't count - this thing lasts 10 hours). I do think phones and tablets will become important, but we need to stop doing the "A is going to kill B" dance in tech analysis. It's an unsophisticated way to look at things and is almost never actually true.

Feld Thoughts : Open Android vs. Closed iPhone

Thu, 20 May 2010 23:27:07 +0000

Brad - I don't see anything in your post that indicates you moved to Android because of openness. You moved because of features. That's fine, but let's face it, had Android not solved any of the issues you had with the iPhone you would not have switched, open source OS or not. If the iPhone is released at WWDC and eliminates each of the issues you had, is launched on multiple carriers and has awesome features you'd love, would you move back? If not, why not? Don't give me the "Apple's closed, Google's open" line because, frankly that had zero to do with your decision as you explain it here. The open vs closed debate is as silly and meaningless as 'what's better, black or white" - both have points and reality just isn't that simple. It's very disappointing to see you fall into this simplistic trap and it's tiring to see tech commentators mindlessly spew "Apple's closed! Google's open!!" They each make products and do what they feel will serve their company best. Neither is perfect, but don't start off a post telling me that Google being open was compelling and then list off a bunch of product features. From what this post says, you'd have switched had Android been closed source and the Android market had the same policies as Apples' App Store as long as the new version of Android and the EVO given you the features you outline. Oh and if you're going to argue that being open somehow led to those features... no. Just no. What led to those features as a good product team.

Feld Thoughts : Hint To Startups – Use Your Domain In Your Email Address

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:56:27 +0000

Heck, if you want to use the Gmail interface, you can get Google Apps Standard for FREE and have joe@coolthing.com & the GMail UI. Register the domain, get GA Standard, update a couple of settings, and boom, you're good to go. The only time I can see this being acceptable is if the founder's VERY early on and hasn't chosen a company name or setup a company yet. Other than that.... Brad, is this a red flag for you on an investment? Because this seems incredibly basic.

Feld Thoughts : Are Apple’s Competitors Stealing Its Patented Inventions?

Thu, 4 Mar 2010 17:05:56 +0000

But is HTC innovating? While I'm not about to get into the legal niceties on this since I'm not a lawyer of any sort, it seems to me that substantial copying of A by B can't be defended as innovation, so I don't see that argument in this case. Where's the line between substantial copying and exact copying? Don't ask me... but a multitouch interface that uses most or all of the same gestures seems like a copy to me whether or not it meets the legal definition. Let's be clear - I think most software patents are silly, the USPTO grants far too freely and Apple's making a mistake with this suit. But using this case to argue that patents limit innovation doesn't work. How is, say, an Android implementation of multitouch an innovation? What we've seen is predictable and exactly what I thought would happen when the iPhone became a hit - instead of realizing that there was a great thirst for usable, connected interfaces everyone looked at the iPhone and said "Ohh it's a hit - let's do what they're doing!!" and so we have a disheartening flood of 3.5" screen touch phones that directly compare to the iPhone. So... where's the innovation here? The rest of the post... meh. Jobs wasn't speaking legally, that was a PR quote meant for the general public. Getting worked up about a PR quote that slants the debate toward the party giving the quote is a waste of emotion.

Feld Thoughts : The Lights in the Tunnel

Mon, 4 Jan 2010 04:44:39 +0000

There's actually a SF treatment of a society like this. I want to say it's Sterling.... I'll try to find it and post a link. I suspect the bigger issue is one of human psychology. What do we do when 25% of the people are working, but 3/4ths aren't? with the 25% really be OK with that? Can people really sit around and mostly consume doing just what they want? What does society look like? Is this the economic equivalent of immortality, i.e. does having to work to live spur us to build things in a way analogous to the way limited lifespan spurs us to do what we can before we die?

Feld Thoughts : How To Be Skinnier

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:59:01 +0000

Brad, Ian's post isn't anything really new. If you eat well, eat limited amounts and work out, you'll stay skinny/lose weight. Um, yeah. The thing I didn't like about it and generally don't like about those kinds of posts is that it was either/or. Either his kind of a diet or Totino's Pizza. Those aren't the only choices though and his regimen sounds, well, dull and boring. That doesn't mean you have to fall back to prepared garbage though. What we've lost since the 80s is the habit of actually cooking stuff from scratch. Prepared food is evi - usually high salt, sugar and fats which means calorie dense. All people need to do is learn to cook a dozen health meals that they like and then try variations. You can easily end up with 20 or 30 different meals that take 30 minutes to prep - and I reject the notion that most people don't have the 30 minutes.

Feld Thoughts : How To Be Skinnier

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:39:09 +0000

Tons of science contradicts you. The point is to eat some food - not to eat 3000 calories. Instead of the crap you list, have some decent cereal or oatmeal. Will you lose 10 pounds if you eat nothing for breakfast vs high fat high calorie meals? Duh...

Feld Thoughts : Enterprise RSS at NewsGator is Alive and Well

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:25:37 +0000

Um, Marshall... before you use a prominent blog like RWW to declare a market dead... didn't you CALL any of these companies? Talk to people? Do research? You didn't even watch their screencasts? I get the pressure at RWW to remain current, but stuff like this is worrying.

Feld Thoughts : Oblong - Seeing Is Believing

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:18:45 +0000

Hmm. 10/10 for coolness. But I didn't see anything in that video that I can imagine doing in my day to day life even 20 years from now. Yes, I get that you can grab things and manipulate them and zoom around in 3D information environments - I just don't get why I'd do that outside of needing to demo a product. I'm not being snarky - I honestly don't see a lot of use cases for this. As an adjunct to other things? Yeah. As a primary way that I interact with computing? No. For example, how would this make your authoring of this post better? Or my reading it? Or commenting? Or online banking or a myriad of other things? ON the positive side, I can imagine some amazing things you could do in data analysis with this and I can see flicking a cool video onto a friend's picture with that gesture meaning 'send this to ben'. The future of HCI doesn't have just one path and thinking it does holds us back - some things are better done with a keyboard, the Oblong UI will excel in other areas and a simpler mobile interface will be great in still other areas. People 20 years from now will fluidly move from one to another much as we turn on a radio, flick on a light and grab a remote to turn on the TV (all of which are interfacing to a technology) today. And finally, we'll have implicit HCI too, ala wearable computing. 20 years from now I'll be 70 (ack!) and fully expect to have detailed health monitoring that I don't even notice with data flowing from a small data patch to my 'phone' and then being distributed to my home network, my doctor etc. Emergencies will be handled automatically - a heart attack changes blood chemistry, so if the monitor detects that change it can alert 911 even if I can't. Mundane tasks too - automatic uploading of data from the patch to my fitness program with recommendations on how to adjust my routine based on my results. Short version? As computing becomes ubiquitous and situational. HCI will become fragment and adapt the uses. g speak is cool, but is just one niche of what HCI will be.

Entrepreneurial Quest : Elections and Entrepreneurs

Sun, 2 Nov 2008 22:33:05 +0000

People have the option of firing their Rep or Senator every few years. You might have heard of these opportunities - they're called elections. Oh, right, you want to rig the elections so they conform to your idea of what's right. You want people like us... well, we just had 8 years of a president who was 'ilke us'. How'd that work out? Yeah, not so freaking well. I don't WANT Joe the Plumber running the country - I want people are top notch, people who are intelligent, thoughtful and who don't seek simple solutions to hard problems but who try to understand the problems and work for real solutions, not nice talking points. While people will whine and bitch about 'Congress,' they overwhelming re-elect their own representative and senators. Either people are hypocrites, they genuinely believe their congresspeople are good and others are bad, or they don't feel that replacing an incumbent will bring change. But it's still, one by one, the people CHOOSING to re-elect Congress. It's a system that's worked tolerably well for close to two and a third centuries... and we should toss it and adopt your idea... why? So you can feel better? As for your analysis of how we got here... Where's the responsibility of the various banks? Not just Freddie and Fannie, but AIG, Lehman, Wachovia, WaMu etc? You seem gung-ho to blame government, but it was by and large private enterprise unchecked by much regulation that created this mess. How about we fire every board and the senior management of the banks that have been poorly managed first?

Feld Thoughts : A New Approach To The US Election Process

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:38:04 +0000

Sure... if you want to elect people who are well known. Because that's what happens in systems where you shorten the cycle too much and eliminate primaries. You favor the well-known candidates who can raise a lot of money initially. Bill Clinton might well not have been President and it's very likely Obama would not be the nominee this year. The problem with the length of the cycle is that the media tries to crown a nominee based on the first couple of primaries, so you need to campaign for a while before those to make sure you show well... then you have to slog though the others. And, usually, the primary cycle is meaningless after about March 1 as the nominee is almost always decided by then... but you still need to hold all of the rest of them even though they mean nothing. Another way to solve this is to mandate regional primaries separated by, say, 2-3 weeks. The cycle starts on March 1 and is over by June 1. This STILL favors known candidates though and I think we benefit by letting lesser known candidates emerge somehow.

Feld Thoughts : A Very Good String Of Books

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:58:19 +0000

Hmmm I *am* a wine geek... I'll have to check out the Billionaire's Vinegar. Glad you enjoyed Glasshouse - cool book. Not sure if you got it, but Stross just released Saturn's Children last week too. Oh and if you like SF... check John Scalzi's stuff. Excellent mental floss. Start at Old Man's War, then Ghost Brigades.

Feld Thoughts : A Book A Day Keeps The Sun Away

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:41:02 +0000

Hmm... I like most of his stuff and love several of the books. Try the Tears of Autumn and the Miernik Dossier to start. The Last Supper is also quite good. Several of his books contain a recurring character, Paul Christopher and I think those are generally his best. Don't start with Old Boys or Christopher's Ghosts though - they're the last two in the series and, while you could read them as standalones they're better if you've read previous books. Oh and if you want to read something eerie, grab The Better Angels. it posits a divided America at the time of a closely contested election, under threat by islamic terrorists using suicide techniques and loaded planes as bombs. The reason it's eerie? He wrote it in 1979.