My Digital Life

iPhone Day is Here!

The month of June is such a great month for Apple iPhone users. We usually get access to the next hardware model and the latest major release of the iOS.

You have to give credit to Apple for plodding along on a regular basis delivering both hardware and software updates. Which other smartphone maker does that? I had been a long time Windows Phone user, tried Android and one of the most annoying aspects of owning a device using those OS' was the lack of regularity and delivery of updates to your specific device. Not that the iPhone is perfect (there is still room for much improvement, i.e. mail flags and Bluetooth AVCRP next/last track), but knowing that I will get regular updates and will not be forced to buy a new phone on a yearly basis (yes, the original iPhone is no longer supported) to receive those updates goes a long way to making me an Apple iPhone fan.

Happy Memorial Day USA, the traditional start to summer...

Happy Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a United States public holiday that takes place on the last Monday of May. It was formerly known as Decoration Day. This holiday commemorates U.S. men and women who died in military service for their country. It began first to honor Union soldiers who died during the American Civil War. After World War I, it expanded to include those who died in any war or military action. Today, many Americans use Memorial Day weekend to also honor family members who have passed away.

The weekend of June 12^th and 13^th, the US Air Force is sponsoring three cycling events; the Clarendon Cup, the Crystal Cup, and the Crystal Ride. All of these events are in support of the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund.  One of the goals of this fund is to support the design and construction of the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE), an advanced facility dedicated to research, diagnosis and treatment of military personnel and veterans suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and psychological health issues. On Sunday June 13th, I plan on riding as a member of Team Intrepid Heroes.

Help support this event and our troops by donating using this link http://www.active.com/donate/teamintrepid2010/sskarlatos (donations are anonymous). Thank You.

Memorial Day is a United States public holiday that takes place on the last Monday of May. It was formerly known as Decoration Day. This holiday commemorates U.S. men and women who died in military service for their country. It began first to honor Union soldiers who died during the American Civil War. After World War I, it expanded to include those who died in any war or military action. Today, many Americans use Memorial Day weekend to also honor family members who have passed away.

The weekend of June 12^th and 13^th, the US Air Force is sponsoring three cycling events; the Clarendon Cup, the Crystal Cup, and the Crystal Ride. All of these events are in support of the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund.  One of the goals of this fund is to support the design and construction of the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE), an advanced facility dedicated to research, diagnosis and treatment of military personnel and veterans suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and psychological health issues. On Sunday June 13th, I plan on riding as a member of Team Intrepid Heroes.

Help support this event and our troops by donating using this link http://www.active.com/donate/teamintrepid2010/sskarlatos (donations are anonymous). Thank You.

Android 2.1 Finally Makes It to My Droid Eris (update)

Back in February rumors about the coming Android 2.1 update for the Verizon Droid Eris by HTC were fairly rampant, however after weeks of checking my upgrade status page, I got tired of looking and set my Eris aside. Let's face it Android 1.5 was not very exciting and the responsiveness touch was frustrating and just led me back to my iPhone.

Last week I decided to check once more and I was happy to see that the update was available for my device. The upgrade experience was excellent and fairly seamless. There was no need to connect the Eris to a PC, the process was performed over the air and I used Verizon's 3G network. It took two steps, download, and then confirm reboot/upgrade. I did lose my Exchange ActiveSync settings and icon/page customizations.

I am now using the Verizon Eris again and love the integration between the calendar, Google maps on the PC and Android's Google Maps/Navigation. The navigation works very well. I would say that it is one of the killer out of the box functions in Android. No wonder rumors that Jobs and Ballmer may announce Bing as the default search/map engine for the iPhone at WWDC may actually be true. Update: The rumor that Ballmer would be showing up at WWDC seem to be false, however the switch from Google to Bing still has legs (Gizmodo).

It is too bad that this is probably the end of the road for updates on the Eris.

Will the iPad survive Without Flash?

The answer is more than likely yes, but what I find interesting is that Steve Jobs has been unusually vocal for such a secretive person. It seems that critics are pushing his buttons. Although his responses have been well thought through from the Apple corporate perspective, I think it just gives more ammunition to the critics to answer them. CNN's Money web site had an interesting piece today "What's the bug up Apple's @$$" which describes Apple's behavior towards critics. This fits right into the published email thread between Steve Jobs and Gawker writer Ryan Tate. Are we heading into a soap opera...

During the iPhone's ascendency, Apple's response to critics was very tame and yes Steve Jobs was sick for a big part of that time, however over the last three years I have been impressed how Apple has added key features in the iPhone OS demanded by critics and users. These include Apps, cut and paste, turn by turn GPS, voice control, Bluetooth A2DP stereo streaming (although no AVRCP remote control), MS Exchange ActiveSync, and probably some others that I am forgetting. The Apps and the cut and paste were biggies. I remember Apple's saying Apps were not necessary, since they provided such a rich web browser environment. Apple came to their senses and provided a good development platform, although at the time no multitasking; now we are on the cusp of having that feature implemented. We went through the same pattern with Cut and Paste, first it was we did not need it with the new touch paradigm, then that morphed into we need our time to design correctly (they did).

My hope and point is that the same will be true for Flash. I agree that HTML 5 and H.264 are probably the future. However for a device like the iPad which is supposed to be about consuming content and Steve Jobs touting it as an all-encompassing browsing device, how can you ignore a major part of the web? On the iPhone not having flash can be irritating, but since it is not my primary browsing device I can live without it. If I were to buy an iPad I would want to use as a primary browser and not having Flash is a show stopper. This does not make sense to me, and I think Steve Jobs ego is getting in the way. I am hoping that Apple will go through its no no phase, then will accede to users demands, and go through a thoughtful design and implementation (provide Adobe with the APIs they need to be efficient) as it did with Apps, cut and paste, and multitasking.

If you want to make your voice sort of heard, you can sign a petition at Flash4iPad.com. I say sort of, but the more users and potential customers complain it will start to weigh on Apple's future plans. 500 iPad users were asked by Laura DiDio, principal analyst at ITIC about Flash. According to the CNN article I mentioned previously, "she found that customers are clamoring for Flash support, but said they would continue to buy Apple products even without it". It is a mixed message but we are talking about the initial customer pool and not the average customer who is now buying the iPhone.

Until then my common sense is telling not to purchase an iPad, even though my techy side really wants one. I feel resigned to wait until next March to see what happens with iPad 2.0.

2010 Air Force Cycling Classic Fallen Heroes Fundraiser

The weekend of June 12^th and 13^th, the US Air Force is sponsoring three cycling events; the Clarendon Cup, the Crystal Cup, and the Crystal Ride. All of these events are in support of the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund.  One of the goals of this fund is to support the design and construction of the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE), an advanced facility dedicated to research, diagnosis and treatment of military personnel and veterans suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and psychological health issues. On Sunday June 13th, I plan on riding as a member of Team Intrepid Heroes.

Help support this event by donating and sponsoring my ride @ http://www.active.com/donate/teamintrepid2010/sskarlatos (donations are anonymous).

The troops and I thank you in advance.

Malware Masquerading As Anti Virus Getting Worse

There seems to be a trend in web based malware today, masquerading as what looks to be a valid anti-virus message to the untrained eye. Click on the message and your system is infected with nasty malware which demands what amounts to ransom to fix your system and who knows whether the fix really works. This is the second time I am dealing with a friend's computer being infected by such malware. Both masqueraded as anti-virus/anti-malware solutions requesting payment to clean up the machine. The Washington Post this week published an article on the subject of these extortion schemes and how this malware morphs its messages based on the anti-virus software you have installed on the machine. The latest malware on my friend's machine was called "Advanced XP Defender" (the first one was Internet Security 2010), because the last go around I had installed Microsoft Defender and Security Essentials.

This malware was particularly nasty because it changes some key administrator privileges in the system where you can't even run .exe applications and corrupts your current anti-virus installation, in my case Microsoft's Security Essentials. I could not even reinstall security essentials.

In the end the two things that worked where to follow these Microsoft instructions (down the page) and installing the Malwarebytes free scanner. I can't say enough good things about Malwarebytes, it installed when MS Security Essentials would not and once updated with the latest signatures it was able to fully clean the machine. I was then able to install MS Security Essentials.

I think that MS Security Essentials' Real Time scanner would have caught this piece of malware but it did not. My question now is whether the free MS Security Essentials works well and maybe it's time to pony up the $24.95 for Malwarebytes full version.

iPad – Migration Away From Flash Will Take A Long Time

The reality is that Steve Jobs cannot eradicate Flash overnight. I agree with his stance on HTML 5, although I think there is still room for debate on H.264 for video. That said how can you tout a device's browsing experience when you don't support a large part of the web. Even MacRumors had this to say yesterday:

"So while developing Flash-free versions of websites may be reasonable for certain publications with the structure and resources to accomplish the feat, it is by no means an easy solution for the many sites out there currently relying on Flash to display their standard Web content. During a visit to New York City to promote the iPad to publishers, Apple CEO Steve Jobs reportedly argued against the need for Flash, pushing publications toward adoption of other technologies such as H.264 video and JavaScript that are more iPad-friendly."

There is no doubt that the iPad will be an initial success, but how long will people stand not being able to browse the full internet. All the claims that Flash is on its way out are fine, but how long it will take to migrate those millions and possibly billions lines of code. People shouted the demise of the mainframe in the 90's and IBM is still selling them at a pretty good clip.

The Coming E-Reader Debate; E Ink vs Backlit LCD

Over the last year, I debated which E-Reader I should purchase. It was clear that the Kindle was way ahead in the ECO system war, however when Sony announced its Daily Reader with a 7" E Ink touch screen, 3G connectivity, and EPUB book format; this was the E-Reader I wanted. Although pricey at $399, I went ahead and ordered it as a Christmas present to myself. Sony did not disappoint by delivering it on December 22^nd.

I love the Daily Reader for its size, battery life, built in protective cover and touch screen (being able to turn the pages with my thumb enhances my reading experience), Apple threw a wrench in the E-Reader world by announcing the iPad. This is a major upheaval in the E-Reader world which was originally conceived as a single purpose device with a specially design E Ink screen which provides paper like contrast and allows reading in direct sunlight. Apple is now touting its In Plane Switching LCD screen as the answer to the E Ink technology with color, high contrast and the ability to read in direct sunlight (I want to see this for myself). In addition to the E-Reader functionality of the iPad you get a Touch iPod on steroids with a 10" screen. Who would not want this type of functionality?

My first impression of the iPad was that it may fail as an E-Reader because of the backlit LCD screen and my assumption that backlit screen might cause eye strain. After doing some research, this seems to be an inaccurate assumption on my part and well described in this February New Times articles entitled "Do E-Readers Cause Eye Strain?".

My big problem with the iPad, is that at 10", I want it to do more since it could replace carrying my Sony VAIO-P and Daily Reader while traveling. The biggest issues I have are:

• No Flash support
• No multitasking
• Weak email client functionality (no flagging support, no push of sent items, no category support, etc…)

Apparently that is not what most people think; last week, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky released survey results showing pent up demand for the iPad (via MacRumors).

This was a WOW moment for me, shows the strength of the Apple brand and what people think about their products trusting them to provide the right mix of functionality.

In the end the HP Slate with Windows 7 might be the better choice for my use, but given the lack luster performance of Netbooks, will it perform? Adobe is not waiting for the June release of the HP Slate; it has launched a salvo with this video (via engadget):

This should be interesting year for the E-Reader world...

iPhone Backup Quick Fix; Not Really But It Works

iTunes is one of those application I love and hate at the same time.

I don't sync my iPhone with iTunes very often, but in the last month I have tried several times to sync and the process seemed to be stuck during the backup phase. In order to complete the sync, I had to terminate the backup by clicking on the little x on the right of the top middle status window in iTunes. Not having a full backup left me with an uneasy feeling, I would hate to lose most of the application data I have gathered on my iPhone. After some Binging/Googling, I found that this is a fairly common problem but the fixes seemed over complicated and risky.

Finally yesterday I put some time aside where I could work on the issue. My first approach was to let the sync process go for an hour and periodically monitor its progress. Over the course of the hour I could see the status progress albeit slowly (If you don't look closely, you might believe that iTunes is hung). I decided to let it go another 30 minutes. At the end of an hour and half the backup completed. I decided to sync again, and now the backup is back to normal time (less than 1 minute). Who knows what activity iTunes was performing to complete the backup but patience seems to have triumphed.

My Rant of the Day: the Wall Street Journal’s Pricing Model Makes No Sense

I understand the need for newspapers to find ways to fund their reporting and paying for subscriptions is fair way to generate revenue. I pay for an annual Wall Street Journal online subscription. I was happy to see WSJ develop an iPhone application which is top notch, however they are now charging for content I already get via a web browser (IE or Safari). This makes no sense to me, once you purchase an online subscription you should be able use any device to view their content. They are currently discounting the additional feature for $52 per year, but will charge an additional $104 per year for the privilege of using the iPhone app. They are not going to get that from me!

 

Blocked WSJ content using the iPhone app.

 

This is the same article, viewed using my online subscription in Safari.