Back In Action
I’ve been stuck without a working PC for way too long now. I’m back.
I was relying on a cheap ($120.00) tablet or My smart phone for email an such, but My Polaroid T7 internet tablet sucked so bad for typing because of the incapability of its insensitive touch screen that the attempt was pointless. And although I managed some email with My DroidX, I do not recommend counting on a smartphone (of any type) for managing your digital life. They can enhance your mobile life, but to rely on them as a digital answer is going well beyond what they are capable of doing.
I would like to grab an Asus Prime Transformer to replace My broken netbook PC, but at least I have my Sony Full HD Laptop working again. The power supply (the AC converter) went out on it and now I am using a 3 prong version from Batteries Plus while I await My order for the Sony stock replacement (which isn’t the one that it came with, as My computer has become obsolete).
But at least I can blog again. And I will in the future. Let Me tell you, cheap tablet touchscreens suck and tiny smartphone touchscreens are better, but they are still so tiny that they are too much of a chore to use.
I have lots of Android apps and hardware to recommend in the future, and I’ll be reviewing the Polaroid T7 as well as the Pandigital Planet (that I had been stuck with for 3 months), some android accessories that I think are cool and lots of cool apps, games and even some apps that need their creator(s) scolded.
I’ll be writing again, soon!
Glad to be back.
Crap, WordPress has changed. This will take a great deal of getting used to. I hate advertising. I’ll look for a non-spammy alternative. Maybe Tumblr…
Why FF4 is so Slow
After Twittering that FireFox 4 was incredibly slow I was met with disbelief on Twitter and elsewhere that I mentioned it. I was told how fast FF4 is, now.
I seriously do not like FireFox because it was so pathetically slow and because it ignores good user interface experience strategies. I was actually baffled how anyone would think that the thing was any faster, as it was so slow that it nearly crashed my Asus EeePC netbook.
Well, I finally fired-up that little Windows 7 netbook again yesterday and discovered what the problem is. FF4 is allowing multiple and simultaneous video streams to run all at once. What? C’MON MAN! Who the hell designs anything with multiple active video streams on the same page?
To further complicate this issue, FireFox 4 is allowing these simultaneous video streams to run even though the page it is loading isn’t active. Huh? C’MON MAN! That is uncalled for.
Why would anyone want to load multiple pages at the same time, you may ask? Why not? If you are loading a page from an African web host (which have notoriously slow connections), you may load another website in another tab while you are waiting for the African website to load over seemingly slow dial-up speeds.
This isn’t even close to being every case. I am a webmaster, a hostmaster and a web designer. As a part of my daily duties I like to insure that my sites, as well as my client’s sites, are loading as expected each day. So my “Home” page button is a collection of all the sites I have to check. I need to ensure that the various hosting solutions I am offering are performing well, that my websites are loading quickly and correctly, that my sites have not been hacked, that the system is working correctly for myself & my clientel.
As it happens, a variety of those websites each have video on them, and as a part of the marketing it loads and plays by default. Anyone may pause the play. And until FF4, only one of these sites were streaming video when the web page they reside on wasn’t active (in focus).
But FireFox 4 has changed all that. And because FF4 is loading all these different video streams in the background, the browser slows to a crawl. As I press buttons, maybe something will happen, eventually. The user interface is nearly useless. The multiple videos that are playing are completely broken-up as the system races to deliver all the data, including those out-of-focus video streams on tabs that aren’t even viewable. And it runs every single video stream as if they all needed to be run at the same time.
C’MON MAN!
As designers we can do much better jobs of designing apps that work. The user is robbed of any ability to navigate. The video stream is corrupted, the user experience is destroyed through excessive stupidity in implementation.
C’MON MOZILLA! Get your head out of its ass.
BApps.com up for Auction
BApps.com is available for sale to the highest bidder at Sedo.
This domain WILL BE SOLD at auction as the reserve price has been met.
The auction for BApps.com will conclude on May/05/11 @ 05:51 AM Eastern Standard Time.
When the nameservers are reset by the new owner (or the transfer authority @ Sedo), the old blog will expire. It could be replaced by another should the new owner want one at the same old address, but that, of course, will all be up to the new registrant.
I have moved a couple posts to blog.widgetdroid.com and most of the rest I have moved here to domainating.com. Still updating a few with Categories and Post Tags.
Google Voice Takes Over
The other day my friend showed me how he had setup Google Voice on his Droid Incredible. He even had a widget that displayed what was transcribed after voice recognition tried to interpret his voice mail messages.
Eventually, I thought that it was a good idea and I thought I’d give it a try, thinking that I could always revert to my Verizon Voicemail if Google Voice didn’t work out for me.
To my surprise, I was getting a great deal more hang-ups and fewer voice mail messages with Voice than when using Verizon’s voicemail. On top of this, it appears that Google’s voice recognition technology, which works well on my DroidX for short sentences, is often fooled or stumped when interpreting any other message left me, probably due to its longer length.
That said, the voice recognition for Voice is at least attempting to do something when it comes to those longer messages which would stump the android 2 device, but it does seem that the longer the message left, the more silly that the Google Voice transcript became.
However, because of all of these extra hang-ups, I decided to to revert back to the Verizon default voice mail system. Unfortunately, Google Voice seems to have hijacked the answering system. Although I have used the Settings menu to set my Call Settings for Voicemail Service to “My carrier” and I am using the *86 number which is the default for Verizon’s Voicemail Settings. And Google Voice is still answering every single call that I miss.
I can’t find any other Voicemail settings in my DroidX. I even went down to my local Verizon store where I bought the phone and they can’t tell me what’s wrong. So now I have to call Verizon’s support line (which is what they were going to do at the Verizon store, but I didn’t have enough time to hang around at the time).
Verizon Support: Uninstall Google Voice.
I uninstalled Voice.
Verizon Support: It still goes straight to Google Voice.
Me: “I didn’t know it was going straight to voice.”
Transfered to a new Verizon tech support guy who took off call forwarding.
Me: “I had call forwarding?”
OK, now my voicemail is working again. If you are a business, you might want to stay away from Google Voice, but if you don’t like it, stop the call forwarding. That might require a call to a tech. I was told that I can always put call forwarding back on if I want it.
I’m glad this Verizon tech knew what was going on. Glad its over with, as well. 
I’m not so sure that Google Voice is a good idea for business after all this. At least you know what to do after reading this should you not like it. But taking some calls straight to voicemail without ringing? That indicates a problem in the business world. Not so sure I would like it doing anything like that for a personal phone, either.
Always something. I’m glad this little dilemma is over.
Update (May 1st, 2011): Google Voice has taken over my VoiceMail functions once again. I am so busy that I don’t have time to address this with Verizon. But Google Voice is answering my missed calls all over again (for at least a week now) and we had this fixed at one point. GRRRR…
The reason its a problem is that people are hanging up when Google Voice answers where they usually leave a message with Verizon VoiceMail. That sucks.
Had to rant…
I just had to rant, I am getting sick and tired of the pathetic state of our industry…
http://blog.abitofallright.com/2011/03/illogical-web-standards.html
If anyone wants to take the reigns and contact me about revamping our current web standards, and has the muscle to make it actually work this time, please contact me immediately.
This is no joke. Our industry is crap and I am ashamed of it. We appear to be engineering in nonsense just to secure our positions as online media experts, and that is just plain wrong. The reason that business needs to hire web designers is not because they can’t do these things themselves, it’s because they simply don’t have the time to dedicate to the project.
I want to change how websites are designed and developed. I want to make it easier, more logical, easy. And it is such a simple thing to do, but it requires someone with push. The push I don’t have, and very few do.
It is long past time. Things are getting worse and they are already bad… really bad.
Busines Card Reader
If you have ever wanted a Business Card Reader (BCR), I just bet that it would have to be something handy. This is one of those cases where, if you were offered a program that you would install on your computer that would scan in business cards, you probably wouldn’t even bother with it unless it was free, am I right?
Well, the reason is simple, it just isn’t convenient. Having to take a business card home and scan it in just to have it available with all its contact information is actually more like a huge chore. But now-a-days we are all walking around with smartphones and finally, the convenience we require is available as a little app for our Android or iPhone!
Check out my article which covers the Android based version of the CamCard – BCR (western) which I absolutely love on My DroidX. But note that there is also a version for the asian market (Chinese/Japanese/Korean characters), another version for business, and that there are also alternate versions of each for the iPhone market as well.
With the convenience of hand held devices, the Business Card Reader has finally become a reliable and useful reality.
Business Apps: Password Safe
Although I have already reviewed Kuff’s Password safe on my android apps & widgets blog called Widget Droid, most readers here probably don’t realize that Kuff’s Password Safe is also the very best Password Safe/Vault application on Windows machines, as well.
So here is a link to my article on the very best Password organizer and encrypted safety app on the market…
What’s the Very Best Password Safe?
Just remember the master password that gets you into the program.
Outlook 2010
Well, my wife has had a little time to get used to how Outlook 2010 does things now. So this is a brief update on our impression of it…
My wife likes it, but has some issues. The same issues cause me to think that it is a worthless piece of crap.
- Old contacts from Windows Vista Mail were never imported. Not doing this automatically (or at least asking permission to) is just pure stupidity. What was the sense in transferring everything over from Vista in the first place? To have the old files, yes, but also to have the very same application data and configuration. Outlook 2010 is pathetic because it craps on the whole idea of maintaining a so-called “seamless” upgrade path. This is absolutely inexcusable and stands a testament to the absolute thoughtlessness and complete lack of vision of the entire Outlook development team.
- Multiple accounts?: Multiple Inboxes! This in itself is completely void of intelligence. The fact that Outlook has to have multiple inboxes for multiple email addresses and never incorporates them all into a streamlined universal inbox is beyond the realm of stupidity. This is yet another stupid task that should have been done completely automatically.
- Adding contacts is pretty awkward as well. You don’t get access to this function unless you have an email previewed. THEN you can add its contact and have access to the contacts. But not until you have an email cued-up somehow. Really? I mean, maybe the only reason I ran the damn program was to change Aunt Len’s address because she moved. And the social contacts is just in the way. My wife doesn’t participate in any social networking sites, so it is just in the way and confusing her.
Really Microsoft? With the release of Windows 7 I was finally ready to take you seriously, and more than just a necessary business toy that I was required to have and support. But Outlook 2010 can’t incorporate the simple email functionality that we have come to expect from every other email program in the world? C’MON, MAN! C’MON YOU MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION! Get with it.
I already started taking Microsoft seriously when I found that their hardware products were so damn good (XBOX, mice and keyboards). But I have still been waiting a very long time for them to develop any usable software products. With Windows 7 I thought that Microsoft had started producing software that actually worked, but they have completely dropped the ball with any other software packages they produce (Expression, Publisher and IE8/9 are direct examples of this ineptness). With Outlook 2010′s pathetic featureless release I don’t really expect Microsoft to ever get what users expect out of their computing experience.
DroidX Adventures – New Blog Posts
Over the past couple days I’ve been posting about my adventures with my DroidX, android apps, and the evil genius at Microsoft.
Getting the DroidX:
Finally, I have an Android!
…Got a comment from an Android development Guru, there!
Getting a Deal on a DroidX
…How we finessed a discount and why it wasn’t better than it was.
App Reviews:
What’s the Very Best Password Safe?
…This is a great app from Kuffs.
Need to Squirrel Away a Contact’s Info in your Droid Quickly and Easily?
…A review of the CamCard Business Card Reader, a great app that works well and is extremely convenient.
I also started a new blog about business application software:
Welcome to BApps, for Business Applications of All Kinds, on Any Platform
…Offers an intro and why I decided to write it.
And then we discover the evil genius in marketing behind Win 7 and the Office 2010 packages…
Windows 7 Mail Issues, Outlook and Office 2010 Purchase Woes
…which is more on my adventures in computing.
All of those blogs are on Google’s Blogspot. I only customized a few of the templates there, but I purposely kept them skinny. Because in today’s age, even though we are viewing web pages on widescreen Hi-Def monitor resolutions of 720P scan lines, we rarely use all of that space when browsing the web and now more and more people are browsing the web on handheld devices there are just now getting to be 640 or 800 pixels wide (max).
Obviously, I have been influenced by my DroidX recently in my creative thinking and design. Though I will sometimes push the envelope and experiment with Hi-Def widescreen web designs, unless we have at least another page for small device presentations, we really should be alert when we form singlular minded resolution designs.
Fortunately, This blog at WordPress.com is served up differently when accessed by a mobile device, so I don’t have to change this big ol’ honk’n template. But the Blogster blogs are served up using the exact same web page design template for mobile devices. Plus, I honestly think that not all of the players have arrived in the hand held market yet because the small device phenomena is set to explode. But, that’s just me. Of course, when I said that “Everyone who wants one will have a computer.”, back when the hottest piece of business technology was an electric typewriter (1968 or 1970, about), my father and brother laughed at me then, too. Then they ran around joking about it and teasing me. Oh yeah, they don’t remember that, now. LOL.
Oh, yeah…
For quite some time now I’ve been working on a new project and I can’t wait to show every one. But it’s just not quite ready to be revealed just yet. In a few days, maybe. 
-Doug
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