Feature Requests for the next iPhone

Dear Apple: For the next iPhone, please do the following:

1. Higher-quality camera. The target should be pictures comparable to those I can get from my Canon Powershot SD550. (That's a few years old, shouldn't be too high a bar.) I'm willing to live without zoom or flash, but the optics have to be able to pull in more light (so they can take better pictures in dimmer conditions).

2. A solution for video chat. I don't care if you have two cameras, or two lenses, or whatever - just make it work so I can see the screen and be seen by a video camera.

3. Support expansion storage. (I know that doesn't fit your business model, charging more for higher capacity devices is a HUGE profit center, just like addtional RAM in laptops are for all OEM's, and just like computer accessories like surge protectors and mouse pads are for retailers. I can still dream.)

4. More storage space - I'd like to have 64-128gb please - and faster CPU. (Well, I'll get this one no matter what.)

5. Don't treat your customers like criminals; don't ask for the law to make jailbreaking illegal.

Guidance on Windows Deployments for Business Customers - Windows for your Business - The Windows Blog

Gavriella Schuster, who leads Product Management for Windows Client, including the Windows OS, the MDOP products, and the client virtualization strategy for Microsoft's commercial customers, provides Guidance on Windows Deployments for Business Customers
on the brand-new Windows for your Business Blog.

Gavriella, welcome to the party! As one of those you're focused on, I'm glad to have the chance to talk. (I should however point out that this blog doesn't represent my employer's yada yada; see disclaimer below.)

I'm glad to see this guidance coming out so clearly. It's really helpful to have Microsoft publicly recommending the same things I'm saying. :-)

For example:

"If you are running Windows 2000 in your environment: Migrate your Windows 2000 PCs to Windows Vista as soon as possible. Extended support for Windows 2000 ends Q2 2010, and as an commerical customer, you may soon find your business’s critical applications are unsupported."

This is exactly what we are doing. And it's precisely and explicitly because of this reason:

Testing and remediating applications on Windows Vista will ease your Windows 7 deployment due to the high degree of compatibility.

So - we'll have Vista for some deployments and upgrades that just have to happen. Gotta get off Win2k before July 2010. (Can't believe I have to say that...)

What I'd like, Gavriella, is to know that since I'm deploying Vista now, I'll be able to do an IN PLACE UPGRADE to Windows 7 on those Vista PC's, and it will be a comparable experience to deploying a service pack upgrade. (Sure, it'll be bigger and the install process will likely take longer - but I don't want it to have to be any more complex than that.) I don't want to have to put my users through another round of USMT, app reinstallation, etc. They have more important things to do!

We know Microsoft is working on an in-place upgrade program for OEM customers. I hope Microsoft is doing the same for Enterprise customers.

Windows 7 Enterprise Edition will have DVD playback (Vista EE doesn't)

You're saying "So what? Doesn't Vista have DVD playback?"

Yeah, it does - but not Enterprise Edition. When I learned this (back in about 2006) I was baffled.

I told Microsoft that enterprise customers really DO want DVD playback support in Enterprise edition of Windows. (It's not in Vista Enterprise, grr.

This is annoying because now we get to choose between paying an extra fee per user to get native DVD playback support, or having to install the stupid DVD software that comes from the OEM.

And the lovely OEM's have different versions of the packages, each of which will only consent to work on a few of their models - so we have to keep a whole library of DVD playback software and coordinate it with each model. And we can't include it in the core image, so it's a deploy-time addition, which means time waiting for the install to happen. What an annoying waste of time and effort! But not quite annoying enough to justify paying a few bucks per user times tens of thousands of users to those who pay the bills.

Happily, Microsoft listened! And Windows 7 Enterprise WILL include DVD playback. Thank goodness. And thanks for listening, Microsoft.

Windows 7 Enterprise Edition Customer Benefits - Windows for your Business - The Windows Blog: "Windows 7 Enterprise includes all end user features available in Windows 7 Professional, as well as the DVD Playback Codec"

To those of you who say "what do business users need to play DVD's for?" I say "have you ever traveled on business? what kind of jerks would your company be if they didn't even let you watch a friggin' movie on your laptop?"

But more seriously, there are business purposes for this, even without the employee perk of entertainment. Enterprise customers often have videos that are on DVD's that they want people to watch! Crazy, I know, that DVD's could hold stuff other than movies, and that some people in business could get some use from that.... but it happens!

Now, let's see if we can get MS to agree to let us use the DVD playback in Vista for free until they can ship Win7. :-)

Maxims: reading material

Always bring something to read.

(Back in my day sonny, this was actually something that required conscious effort and planning! To get books, we had to walk 10 miles to the library, barefoot, in the snow, and it was uphill -- both ways!

Now you've got your shiny, always-connected, infinite-reading-supply devices you can bring in your pocket. You kids have it so easy! Hey! Get off my lawn!

Staying secure while surfing - from GoDaddy.com CEO's video blog

I've been using GoDaddy.com since way before they started advertising on the super bowl - Jerry Pournelle has long vouched for them.

Similarly, I was a fan of Danica Patrick back when all she did in the public eye was drive race cars very quickly. I do snarkily note that even though her website is "enhanced" it doesn't even have her 2008 race results listed on the stat sheet! Little bit o' style over substance in that "enhancement"....then again probably < 1% of visitors to her website are looking for info on her racing career these days. :-)

This is my blog, so I can bury the lede if I darned well feel like it. I don't see any "editor" name listed here, do you? So here's the lede:

This video has a really good presentation of "how to stay safe on the internet" in just a few minutes, in a very engaging and memorable way.

I think it would have a lot more impact than a standard written list of tips or interactive eLearning. Let me know what you think!

Or if you know of other good, engaging, quick user 'safe surfing' and infosec awareness, let me know.

(This is a matter of professional interest for me at present. No, I wouldn't use this very video at work. I'm crazy, but not stupid.)

Of course it IS an internet video from the CEO of GoDaddy's blog - so if tanktops offend you, stay away!

Dan's Maxims: Two of everything, Keep the Source, and Max out your RAM - Eventually

Always get two chargers.

It's usually easier to just accept the cost of duplication than to attempt synchronization and deduplication. The latter is really hard to get right and the costs of mistakes can be very high. The former is just a matter of storage capacity. I know which I'd rather pay the bill for.

Always keep the original source files in the highest resolution possible. You can always throw out unnecessary pixels as needed for a particular use, but you can never get them back again if you get rid of your originals. And what's unnecssary resolution/detail today will work great.

Max out your RAM - eventually. But don't do it when you buy the computer - wait a year and then buy 3rd party upgrade from a really good RAM manufacturer like Kingston or Crucial. The cost will be 25% of what it would've been to max out the RAM from the OEM. Plus you'll get a nice shiny "whole new computer" feeling just when that first blush is wearing out. (This strategy is optimized for budget-conscious geeks. Businesses and non-geeks should probably use different approaches to system capacity planning. Except businesses that are comprised of budget-conscious geeks.))

high resolution displays, netbooks, iphones

These are notes that I was going to turn into a full blog post. They've been sitting as draft for a while. Then I just realized: hey, this is my blog. I can just publish notes. So, blah:

ibm 200dpi display prototypes

dpi of laser printers vs dot matrix

(selling inkjets vs dot matrix @ future shop)

solve the netbook tradeoff - small screen size now means not much information tradeoff. but what if you could get 1400x900 res on a 12" netbook?

compare that res to iPhone display and tell me people would have a hard time with that.

pixels = productivity

My Kindle 2.0 wish - "one more thing..."

Dear Amazon - I hope that at your super secret Feb 9 press conference, you tell us about the next version of the Kindle - and then I want Jeff Bezos to say:

"There's one more thing...

...a Kindle app for iPhone."

I'd love to see some competition with Stanza!

(Did you see that one million people have downloaded Stanza? Yikes!)

Netbook or notebook?

jkOnTheRun poses a poll question: netbook or notebook?:

"I grab a notebook and head out the door to work quite a bit and it seems that each time I do so I have to give pause and decide what gear to take with me. On the one hand I usually have a netbook to take, small and light and powerful enough to handle most of what I need to do. On the other hand I can grab a full notebook like the MacBook and take it instead."

As I commented there: I go with a netbook if I’m going to be moving around pretty much constantly, AND only need to do writing/note-taking/email/web.

But if I’m doing “heads-down” technical work - getting in the zone and grinding for a few hours straight - I really want a bigger window into my work. I need a powerful system that can run a bunch of specialized tools, maybe a VM or two in addition to the host OS, and let me view a bunch of information all together.

That spells bigger screen, higher resolution (at least 1440×900-ish), plenty of RAM (I prefer 4gb) and disk space to handle those VMs, and a relatively powerful multi-core CPU (Intel Core 2 Duo at least).

So - my perfect scenarios for netbook use are:

1. At a conference. You’re walking all day, moving from room to room, and taking notes, IM’ing or emailing the whole time. A super-light machine that fits in a small bag, has long battery life, super fast sleep/wake, and great mobile connectivity is perfect here. That's a netbook to a T.

2. A short business trip that is mostly f2f meetings and staying on top of email/IM/web communications.

3. Just running out to the coffeeshop, library or whatever for a change of scene.

4. A machine to take home to check email in the morning if I’m not rushing into the office. (This last scenario is pretty much competely unneeded now that I’ve got decent webmail from work.)

I’ve been using proto-netbook-like PC’s back since the PowerBook 100 got closed out at Costco for $900. I’m super excited that this looks like the year they breaks through into the mainstream.

Imagine, the Newton finally made it (iPhone), eBook readers (Kindle, Sony) and now netbooks too. What’s next?

I hope the answer will be Sandbenders.

I do expect we'll start seeing some super-cool tablets in a few years when OLED displays make the display part super-sleek. An HP 2730p tablet form factor but with a display only 3mm thick sure would rock....

Rhapsody can't count, doesn't realize that Firefox 3 *IS* "Firefox 1.5 or higher"

I used to be able use Rhapsody on my Mac in earlier v3.0x versions of Firefox, but now it whinges at me:



Still works fine on Safari. But I want my unlimited music in Firefox darn it! It's Saturday morning, the house is quiet, the bills are paid, and I've got a fresh pot of coffee. Let's get this done.

Hmm, let's see if I can repro this problem on another instance of Firefox.
Fire up VMware, boot my old XP VM - it still has Firefox 2 installed, so is a very good test case.
Rhapsody on FF2 works.
(FF2 nags me, as it should, to update to FF3 as FF2 is no longer being patched.) I update to FF3, and...
Rhapsody works.

Ok, so it's not a general problem. What's different about FF3 on my MacBook Pro?

Let me check the user-agent strings from both the XP and Mac instances of FF3. That's usually where apps check to see what browser version you're running check before coplaining about the browser version you're using.

Handily, there's a website www.useragentstring.com for just this purpose.

Oh, Ubiquity threw an extra item into my user-agent string, that seems to have wigged out Rhapsody.

No problem, easy enough to fix that with the incredibly useful User-Agent-Switcher Firefox extension.

And voila Rhapsody works again on Firefox on my Mac.

(PS: did you notice I snuck a lesson on troubleshooting user-agent string problems into this blog post? Can't help it. I'm a bit of a pedant you see....)