Goodbye Blackberry - Hello Nexus One and Android

I've been a pretty devout Blackberry user these past 10 years, starting with the original, clunky pager-looking model and ending with the Curve 8900. And between that time I must have cycled through half a dozen other models including the 7100T, 8700 and 8320. The main reason I've stuck with Blackberry so long is because it does a few things really well, push email being at the top of the list. And if you happen to be using the combination of Microsoft Outlook/Exchange on your desktop then the integration with Blackberry is rock solid and hard to beat.

So...what's finally gotten me to make a move after all these years? Well, three things really. First off, the popularity of the iPhone and other newer smartphones has certainly made me think of all the functionality I am losing out on by sticking with Blackberry. Though the Blackberry has made good strides to close the gap, I feel it's quite stuck in the stone ages by comparison. Secondly, as I mentioned in my last blog post my dependency on all things Microsoft has been drastically reduced over the past few years, corresponding with my increased dependency on Google-based apps. And finally, one year after the launch of Android there's finally a device cool enough that captures my imagination and allows me to migrate without having to switch cell phone carriers - that device is the new Google Nexus One.

I ordered the Nexus One on the day of the official launch and received it promptly the next morning via FedEx. Setting up the device was an absolute breeze, especially since I am a Gmail user. I entered the credentials for both my work and personal accounts, and it automatically began syncing all my email, contacts and calendar with my new phone. No software installation, no tethering of the device in order to sync...very painless! I then configured some of the preloaded applications such as Facebook, Google Voice and Google Maps...the latter is simply awesome, BTW. Finally, I downloaded a number of my "must have" applications including Yelp, OpenTable, Pandora and an RSS reader. All were downloaded and installed painlessly from the Android Market. I was actually quite surprised (in a good way) at the abundance of good applications already in the Android Market.

How do I like the phone? Well, I have to say that I love it and I'm never going back to the Blackberry! In addition to do all the normal phone sorts of things the apps themselves are highly functional, and the built-in browser is quite good as well. I'm one of those types that always likes to be near my computer in case I need to have access to something, and with the Blackberry I never felt that it could replace much of the functionality of my computer except when it came to email. But with the Nexus One I feel that I'm not compromised much, if at all, when using its browser or applications in lieu of my PC. In fact, being less dependent on my PC now feels quite liberating.

Inevitably there will be questions regarding the Nexus One and whether or not it is an "iPhone killer". There is plenty written about this already, so I'm not going to even make an attempt to tackle the topic. I suspect that most people will feel right now that the iPhone is still a better device, mainly because of the thousands upon thousands of cool apps that have already been written for it. But I also think that with the emergence of Android, along the hype surrounding some of the latest Android-based phones such as the Nexus One and Motorola Droid, that the gap will start to diminish rapidly. But there are a number of other reasons why I feel the Android platform has a good shot at beating Apple in the long run:

• Carrier independence - In the US you can already purchase Android phones that work on the T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint networks. And AT&T just announced upcoming availability of several Android-based phones by this summer. With the iPhone your choice is currently limited to AT&T and AT&T...lousy 3G and all. Yes, there are rumors floating around about some deal being cut with Verizon, but nothing official just yet.
• Device manufacturer independence - If you're an iPhone user you've got just one single handset choice. Yes, it's a great handset. But what if your requirement is that you need a hard keyboard, or maybe a flip-style phone? Sorry folks, you're just out of luck. But with Android you can already purchase handsets made by a variety of manufacturers such as HTC, Motorola and Samsung...and more are on the way. Device independence also allows for things that we sometimes take for granted, such as the ability to expand memory or replace the battery. Sorry, you can't do either of these on the iPhone.
• Developer frustration - The iPhone application approval process has been a source of consternation for many developers, and many have expressed their disdain over the sometimes draconian attitude that Apple seems to impose. As an open source platform I feel that Android is much more developer friendly. Yes, being more open can have its drawbacks too, but overall I think in the long run both the developer community as well as the end users are better served by an open model.
• Background applications - Being able to run Pandora in the background while using another Android application is pure joy. Part of the reason Google Voice works so well on Android is because it also runs the background. Apple claims that background applications can negatively affect the user experience, so that's why they don't allow it. Well, I say screw their lame excuse and tell them to get on board with every operating system that's been in existence since the 1950's.

Apple is this decade's version of the "Microsoft Monopoly". That monopoly has started to crumble apart, and I can foresee the same thing happening to Apple if they continue with this display of arrogance. It's good for them that their products are the ultimate in "cool" at the moment, but at some point the luster will wear off and they will have to start playing some ball.

My Ever-Decreasing Dependence on Microsoft, aka My Growing Dependence on Community and Open Source

Ten years ago I was an IT executive at a Fortune 500 financial services company, and I had overall responsibility for all the desktop and server technology that ran our internal applications. At the time we were on the leading edge of Microsoft technologies, and had rolled out Windows NT-based desktops to the entire company along with hundreds of Windows servers that ran everything from our corporate email to our internal CRM application. I was a staunch proponent of Microsoft during this time, as not only were their solutions a lot cheaper to run than the alternatives at the time (mostly UNIX-based) but the tight integration between Windows-based apps and the relative simplicity of dealing with a single platform seemed to make a lot of sense to me. Plus, some of their apps were clearly the best at the time, e.g. Microsoft Exchange which arguably still provides the best email experience out there.

Fast forward now to present day. I am now the co-founder in a Web 2.0 startup with less than 40 employees, and like most startups we try to do as much as we can on the cheap. How much Microsoft technology am I using today? Well, I am still quite dependent on my Windows laptop which is now running the latest and greatest OS, Windows 7. And I do spend a great deal of time within the Microsoft Office suite, whether it's managing my calendar and email or working on slides for a presentation. But that's pretty much it. Our major IT expense outside of people costs are the hardware and datacenter fees associated with running our website, but outside of that our IT expenses are close to zero. Let's look at some of the details.

The Wigix website is run completely on open source, mainly the LAMP stack plus some Java that is required for our search engine, which is also based on open source. The corporate IT types may shudder at the thought of relying on the community for support instead of going with one of the big players (e.g. IBM, Oracle), but my experience has been that the community provides a level of support and interaction that often exceeds that of the big software companies. And from an installation, integration and ease-of-use standpoint open source tends to be far easier to deal with than their licensed software counterparts. We are not in the minority here, as nearly all startups are heavy users of open source technology. BTW, does anyone even care about IIS anymore?

Like all other companies we are quite dependent on email. While I would love nothing better than to have the rich experienced associated with Exchange, I find that the free mail service provided by Google Apps (based on Gmail) is more than sufficient for our use. In fact, in this day and age of "real-time" I believe most people place a higher priority on accessibility and ease-of-use over pure functionality. Google has been nothing short of masterful on this front. I still use Outlook in order to access my mail, because I never got used to the way Gmail threads its discussions. But my fondness for Outlook is diminishing over time as well...right now it is the one app that routinely seems to bog down my laptop. Some of my employees have been pleading with me to switch to Thunderbird or another open source solution. I may eventually do that, probably at the same time I ditch my Blackberry Curve and switch to the upcoming Google Phone.

Another good example is the web browser. Up until 2 years ago I used Internet Explorer exclusively, as I felt I needed all of its rich functionality, all of its toolbars and plug-ins, etc. But when Chrome came out I decided to give it a try, and I haven't looked back since. The speed and simplicity of the browser seemed to outweigh everything else, and I realized that I didn't even really miss all the add-ons and extensions of IE. In fact, in the time it just takes to launch IE 8 on my laptop I could bring up Chrome and already be browsing a few websites...seriously. And now that Chrome supports extensions and does so in an elegant manner that does not bog the system down there is simply no reason to ever go back.

Microsoft has a huge challenge in front of itself competing with free. For sure, they can feel secure for awhile that the Fortune 500 types will continue to provide a steady revenue stream for them, but for how long? Except for Windows itself and the Office suite I've completely removed my dependency on them, and I suspect it won't be too long before I no longer have a need for Office either. And I have to think that many others feel the same way that I do too. This is unfortunate, because despite my commentary I've always had much admiration for the company, its leadership and the innovative technology they've brought to the market over the years.

Windows 7 - Nothing to Write Home About

A few of my co-workers had been playing around with Windows 7 for the past few months, so I finally bit the bullet myself and upgraded one of my machines to the RTM code, specifically the 32-bit Ultimate version. Before the install I had to make the always difficult choice of performing a fresh install or upgrading from my current OS (Vista Ultimate). I decided on the latter, because I was feeling lazy and didn't want to bother with figuring out all the apps that needed to be re-installed, configuring them correct post-install, etc. This actually turned out to be a mistake, which I will talk more about in a second. I was also disappointed to discover that there was no option to upgrade directly to the 64-bit version of Windows 7 from my 32-bit Vista, although I guess in putting on my techie hat and thinking about this more I have to admit it would be a difficult process for Microsoft to pull off.

The actual upgrade process itself is easily the most straightforward and hassle-free upgrade that Microsoft has ever come up with for any of its operating systems, so congratulations are in order here. Once the upgrade begins you're asked just a minimal amount of questions and once the process gets going it's pretty much hands-off until it completes. One of the really nice things it does right at the beginning of the process is take inventory of all your applications and tells you which ones it thinks has known issues and what the workarounds might be, along with other warnings. For example, even though iTunes is compatible with Windows 7 it reminded me that I should deauthorize my machine from iTunes before the upgrade and reauthorize it afterwards. I've often forgotten to do this, so that was a great reminder!

Anyway, I began the upgrade around 11pm and things were chugging along pretty well, but at around midnight or so I hit upon what I thought was a major snag. The upgrade was in the final step, which was titled something like "transferring program files and settings". The progress bar had gotten "stuck" at 42%, and didn't move at all for the next hour and a half or so, though you could still hear constant disk activity on my machine. Feeling a bit panicked I did a bunch of Google searches on the problem and found that a number of other users had come across the same issue. Some of them decided to just abandon the process and reboot their machines...fortunately, the install process detects this and restores the prior OS properly, according to the reports I read. Others claimed that the upgrade will actually complete given enough time and patience. Since it was nearly 2am by now and I was getting sleepy, I decided to take the "hope and pray" approach and went to bed.

Fortunately, when I got up the next morning my prayers were answered and the install completed successfully - all I needed to perform was one final reboot. So now this begs the question...Is Windows 7 really worth the upgrade? I would have to say that generally speaking the answer is no. Probably the biggest benefit I've seen so far is that fact that the OS loads a fair amount quicker and generally speaking apps seem to be more responsive when compared to running under Vista. It seems like Microsoft devoted much of its efforts to streamlining the OS and making it less resource intensive. Outside of the performance improvements I think the other changes are relatively minor and are mainly UI tweaks...In fact, I can't even think of a single "must have" feature that the OS provides. Check out Engadget's Windows 7 review for more specifics on all the new features.

The other problem I ran into is that several of my applications no longer worked correctly post-upgrade. These were mainly shareware-type applications that installed their own device drivers, and for the most part all it took was a simple uninstall/reinstall for the app to begin working correctly again. Some apps require being run in "compatibility mode" in order to work correctly, and Windows 7 provides a nice wizard to help you select which mode to run in. I only have one application, Acronis TruImage, that doesn't run 100% correctly.

In conclusion, here are my recommendations for those of you considering the upgrade:

• If you are already running Vista and are happy with its performance, stick with it unless you just need to have the latest and greatest.
• If you're stuck on XP and haven't upgraded to Vista because of its stiff hardware requirements and/or were concerned about performance, Windows 7 might be the ticket here.
• If you do decided to upgrade, do so by performing a fresh install. Even though you'll have to hassle with reinstalling your applications, I think at the end of the day it will be less time consuming for you.
  

The Portable GPS is Fast Becoming a Dinosaur

As we were driving down to our monthly Wigix board meeting last week, I was looking down at the Garmin Nuvi 260W GPS in our car and remarked to my co-founders how I felt the standalone GPS device will soon become extinct. The technology behind them has become quite commoditized, as evidenced by the incredible drop in prices over the past few years...the GPS you can now get for $200 outperforms the $700 GPS from just 2 years ago. But price isn't the only thing at play here...there are a couple of other significant factors that weigh into my assertion:

• Automobile manufacturers make it very difficult for one not to purchase the navigation option on new cars. Despite the fact that built-in navigation typically adds $1000 or more to the price of the car and the units are generally less feature-rich than their standalone counterparts, the tight integration they have with the car itself outweighs this and so people don't seem to have a huge problem paying for it. Plus, since most people finance their automobile purchases adding another thousand bucks to the total cost isn't going to make a huge difference in their monthly payments.

• The proliferation of smartphones such as the latest iPhone 3G S allows for GPS applications to be run from the phones themselves. Many smartphones now include an embedded GPS chip, and it won't be too much longer before mapping applications will rival those now seen on the standalone units. In fact, I believe TomTom announced during the 3G S launch that plan to release a full-fledged mapping app for the iPhone this summer. In this era of device convergence this is another nail in the coffin for the standalones.

What will save the GPS companies is their ability to recognize the above and to adjust their business models accordingly. I really don't follow the specific companies too closely, but I will say that Garmin seems to have a done a pretty good job in tweaking their model in anticipation of this technology shift. A few years back they launched their first activity-specific units, i.e. devices for specific activities that benefit from having built-in GPS. As an avid cyclist I jumped on this immediately by purchasing a Garmin Edge 305, which I still use on a daily basis. The nice thing about the 305 is that it offers all the standard functions of a cycling computer (time, distance, altitude, etc.) but other capabilities such as course mapping and integration with Google Maps that would be impossible without GPS technology. And no ugly wires, magnets or wheel sensors to mount on the bike either...very cool. Anyway, I recently noticed that Garmin has expanded their offerings to include a golfing device which allows you to display where you are on the course and determine your distance to the pin, and believe it or not...a dog collar with built-in GPS that allows you track the whereabouts of your furry friend. Now how cool is that?

Tivo Just Keeps Getting Better

I bought my first Tivo right around the time they first came out, about 10 years ago now. I remember feeling like a kid in a candy store at the time, as this completely changed the way I viewed television, and since then it's changed the way most everyone viewed television and made VCR's a thing of the past. As I recall, I also switched from TCI Cable (remember them?) to DirecTV right around the same time, so when the Philips DirecTivo came out which combined both the satellite receiver and Tivo onto one box I snatched up a couple of those to replace my original Tivo. Then a couple of years after that DirecTV came out with the excellent HR10-250 which supported high definition broadcasts over both satellite and over the air (i.e. antenna). I was happy as a clam at this point. Unfortunately, not too long after the HR10 was released DirecTV and Tivo decided to part ways, and DirecTV decided to go forward with its own DVR technology. They initially launched the HR20 and a few follow-on models, and though they were pretty good units and DirecTV was adding lots of bells and whistles like media serving, they never matched the ease of use and intuitive UI of the Tivo. To DirecTV's credit they still supported the HR10, but unfortunately the unit was destined for obsolescence because its internal hardware was unable to support the newer MPEG-4 video streams DirecTV was rolling out for all the newer HD channels.

Well, about a year ago I ended up switching from DirecTV to Comcast, and during that span of time I endured the pain of having to use the incredibly horrible Comcast HD DVR. Why I lived with it for so long I have no idea, but after putting up with its multiple quirks and screwups, and having suffered through the occasional missed or premature stoppage of a scheduled recording I could put up with it no longer. I went out and purchased a new Tivo HD unit, and after getting it all setup I really question why I waited so freaking long to do this...the unit is simply awesome! Since I hadn't used Tivo in a few years I discovered a whole raft of new functions that I hadn't been exposed to before; in no particular order:

• The new Tivos appear to be quite a bit speedier than my old HR10; there isn't nearly as much delay when setting up season passes, setting up complex searches, etc.
• The free Tivo Desktop software that you can download from tivo.com is very handy, as among other things it allows you to download recorded shows to your PC for offline viewing; definitely a great thing to have for those long plane trips. One caveat, though....the transfer rate is pretty slow, so if you're thinking about taking HD-recorded content on the road then you might consider recording the non-HD version of the show first.
• Multi-room viewing, which allows you to stream content recorded on one Tivo onto another Tivo within your home. You can even pause a show on one Tivo and resume it on another!
• Built-in support for Netflix and Amazon video streaming. I had previously purchased the excellent Roku box that support both Netflix and Amazon, but now that I have these services on the Tivo I can conveniently switch from DVR to on demand all on the same box...might be time to sell the Roku.
• YouTube access - Wow, I think the Tivo folks delivered as good of a UI as possible here short of having an actual browser and keyboard. Very, very nice implementation.
• Pizza anyone? Yes, you can order a Domino's pizza right from the Tivo..no need to break a sweat and move off the couch!
• A mulitude of other on demand and content subscription options, too numerous to mention here. Many of these are free.
  
• Real-time traffic and weather reports - Yes, it's easy enough to get these on my PC and/or Blackberry, but if I'm already watching TV and need to check the weather or traffic I can do so with a few button clicks and not have to budge.
• Media serving - The Tivo has the ability to serve up video content from your PC. If your PC is running the free Tivo Desktop software, then your Tivo can serve up a few basic video formats such as MPG. If you upgrade to Tivo Desktop Plus ($25) a few additional file formats are supported. But if you're a little more technically inclined, then the absolute best solution is to download and install pyTivo. This is a fantastic piece of software, as it supports every video file type under the sun, even ones which the Tivo doesn't natively support (e.g. MKV) - those are re-encoded on-the-fly as they are sent to your Tivo.
• Need more storage space? Sure, like all models of Tivo you hack into it and replace the factory drive with a larger one. But if you don't want to spend the time playing tech geek and/or don't want to void your warranty Tivo makes it super easy to add more disk space if you purchase the Western Digital MyDVR Expander. All you have to do is turn off the Tivo, attach the Western Digital to the Tivo's eSATA port, turn on the Western Digital and then turn on the Tivo. After a few minutes to initialize, whoala...instant storage added!
  

Whew, that's a lot of cool stuff...and there's even more available that I neglected to mention. Suffice it to say that the Tivo continues to be the king of DVR's and set top boxes in general. I can't imagine settling for anything else now!