New stuff: Vista, Lightroom, GeForce 8800

Some recent product launches of note:

- Microsoft Vista Home
Overall, its a great improvement over XP - looks good, works well; I like it. But underwhelming after all this time (not sure there's a killer feature), and a mess from a consumer perspective, in two ways in particular (thus far that I've noticed):

a) It takes a loooooong time to get installed and started. I bought a brand spankin' new PC with Vista pre-installed, turned it on (expecting to be able to play with Vista), and it was probably, oh, 45 minutes to an hour, if not longer, before I actually made it to the desktop. Between the install, performance check, customization, etc. - oy. I mean, it was probably much less time if you sat there the entire time, but of course, like most real users, I kept getting up to do other stuff after any progress bar took more than a minute or two. Contrast that to the Mac mini I just bought, which was an out-of-the-box joy... that "what if Microsoft produced the iPod" spoof spot really rang true whilst I waited...

b) The "everybody's-a-limited-user" mentality in the pursuit of security is well intentioned, but just awful in practice. Everytime my kids put in a CD to play some game, they get two different dialogs - one to ask whether they want to run whatever autorun application the CD has, and another asking if its OK to run that file. The dialogs look completely different, and you click in different places on different actions to continue, and to add aesthetic insult to injury, the entire screen flashes black in-between the dialogs (the second dialog, for security, is a hardware interrupt, like ctrl-alt-del). All this is teaching my kids is to click "ok" or "allow" ALL THE TIME because these warnings pops up so often - but I guess it permits Microsoft the legal high ground, so that's good, right?

I can see the marketing slogan now: "Vista! Now with less Class Actions!"...

- Adobe Lightroom
Its shipped, and its a really nice execution of a productivity tool for photographers. But although its a good value at $199, I think unfortunately that the preponderance of good free image organization/editing software (most notably Picasa) will limit the impact and reach. Adobe should consider a version that's free, but limited in some way (for example, only support 8-bit channels so that they can preserve the pro-market, who are the only people who are going to pay anyway).

- GeForce 8800
Holy mother of god is that thing fast! I bought the GeForce 8800 GTS, the "lesser" of the two models, which has a mere 640MB (on my video card - hah! :)), and only a 24 BILLION pixel fillrate. That's with a "B".

Installing it was a mess, and its HUUUUGE, but its cool... though the gap between the low end and high end for consumer graphics continues to widen, which means in practice, no game looks as good as the demos ATI and nVidia produced 3 years ago (and yes, I've played Oblivion :P)

SEO and the real world

The impact of the internet (and search applications specifically) on editorial and programming (not programmer programming :P) in the real world seems to bubble up every few months (case in point, courtesy of slashdot). I've been sucked into discussing it before (and again now, I guess :)).

Ultimately, I guess its appropriate that headlines adjust, even if it seems arbitrarily driven by our new content navigation overlords.

So I think we're left with either news content as a business, in which case this is simply adapting to new influx channels, or that its a service, in which case clarity over wit doesn't seem like a bad thing (even if it happens to be today's search tech view of "clarity").

But it still bugs me. Go figure.

Review: Pure Digital DV Camera - Nice Product

I was talking to John McKinley the other day - he of "I'm leaving, and I'll tell you about it on Valleywag" fame (sorry John, couldn't resist :P)... but I digress... I was talking to John, and he recommended a product he'd been using recently - which I purchased and had sent to me two day overnight from Amazon.

John was the one who first turned me onto Flickr, Skype, and LinkedIn (waaaay back when), so his track record for "cool tech/products" is pretty good, with me, at least.

And I have to say, he's right again... John's been using the Pure Digital PSV Flash RAM DV camera, which looks (and feels) a little like a piece of junk you'd buy at the checkout counter at Rite Aid.

But its not.

First of all, its hyper easy to setup and use: it has all of four buttons, and you're literally recording video within two clicks of opening the box (hit "power", hit "record" - it comes preloaded with the two AA batteries it requires to function). It has a built in USB port/jack for connecting to your computer, and stores a full hour of MPEG-2 (I think) video. You can also connect it right to your TV for display with included cables.

It records at VGA resolution, and I have to admit that although the quality isn't QUITE good enough to replace my 3CCD mini-DV Panasonic just yet, I'll still be using it quite a bit. It also does a fabulous job adjusting to all manner of lighting conditions automagically - its a category defining product in my opinion; its really that polished.

The aesthetics of device and software could really use some work (for example, I've often stopping my recording when trying to zoom-in/out because of poor button placement), but the thing is small, light, durable, completely portable, entirely self contained and easy to use. It even includes software to immediately upload, e-mail, or copy your videos on your PC right on the flash RAM on the device, so when you plug-it into your computer, it just works - nothing else you really need.

I'm not sure if Pure Digital's specific implementation will carry the day, but its a good execution.

Go buy it. It's even cheap(ish)!

Reading online

I've been trying to do more long form reading online, and it kind of sucks. Anything more than a page, and it get annoying. I've tried online books, PDFs, technical specs, long form comics, and its just not comfortable.

Short stuff is fine - though even long magazine articles are taxing...

I don't think its a tech issue, per se (resolution, rendering, or the like) - I think its a device form factor thing. One of the things I always really like about the swivel/arm generation of iMac was that it entered your plane... it wasn't distant in the way most monitor configurations are.

Its also very possible that its simply an age/comfort thing - enough effort and I'll get used it. Nevertheless, I think it contributes to the cycle of ever shortening attention spans.

On the flipside, it encouraged me to get a wireless printer, which I love and use regularly to read anything more than a few pages. I think somebody will get this right at some point - PDAs/phones are too small, and computers (even laptops) are too far and too ... not right.

Sampling theory, pt 1: WPFE in pictures

I got a few questions and comments about my comment that WPFE "botched" the sampling rules for bitmaps/images. I tried to explain in the comments, but its clear I wasn't clear.

So, I'll post a clearer text/mathematical explanation shortly but here's the issue, by visual example.

First a simple "linework" image:


Next, the same image if I apply a 400% scale to the canvas, as rendered by WPFE (I cropped the result to the upper left corner):


And now, the same image, with a 400% scale as produced by my (new) rasterizer - this is also the same image that Flash 8+ and OpenGL will produce:


See the problem?

I'll explain why this isn't a black and white issue, but why I think MS landed on the wrong side of it shortly, in a follow-up. The problem is covered well in the seminal computer graphics memo from Alvy Ray Smith, "A Pixel is NOT a little square..."

Alvy Ray, of course (being Alvy Ray), is not wrong in his final conclusion, but that doesn't make his point right for all applications either, and therein lies the rub... most UI designers, I'll posit, think of images as exactly little bags of rectangles...

MLK, Jr. Reflections: Name that Source

Monday was the official US holiday in remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his contributions to the Civil Rights movement.

So in honour of that, I'd thought I'd share three quotes from, let's say, karmically connected sources - I'm not going to provide attribution. Its easy enough to find out on any search engine, but before you look it up - think about who you THINK said it; you might be surprised (OK, *I* was surprised - you might not be...)

Quote 1: "Hate the sin, not the sinner"
Why this was interesting: I've heard this forever and always, and had always assumed that it was a theologically derived philosopohy. Not so much - turns out it has a very secular origin, and the source provided much of MLK's inspiration. And I really should have known this one.

Quote 2: "Good fences make good neighbors"
Why this was interesting: Like "chuffed" or "droll" (or "absence makes the heart grow fonder..."), this phrase is often used in support of the thing that was intended as its antithesis. By that I mean, the originator meant that fences make boundaries, not neighbors, but its taken literally quite often, which is quite ironic. I think Dr. King would have agreed with the original sentiment - being a "together" guy and all.

Quote 3: "If we don't stand for something, we may fall for anything."
Why this was interesting: Its kinda of a "philosophical" gimme.... you know, like you said something important, but you didn't really say anything at all. Still makes you feel good saying it!