Technically Speaking

I stumbled across a new feature from Google today that I have to tell you about. It’s on Google Maps / Google Local (http://local.google.com). The feature allows you to call any business you find listed on Google Local. For free.

Here’s how it works: You go to the Google Local website. You do a search. Business listings pop up in the sidebar and on the map. Next to any business’s phone number, there is a link to call that business. You click the call link. Google asks you for your phone number. Google then calls you. You pick up, and Google calls the business. You’re connected. Google pays the phone bill.

So, lets say you want to send flowers to your mother that lives in a different state. You search for a florist in you mom’s city. You find one, and click the call button. Google calls you and then calls the florist in your mom’s city. You don’t pay a dime. Well, the flowers are your responsibility, but Google can hardly help that.

Those of you with caller ID should be aware of the following: When Google calls you, the originator, Google populates the caller ID info with the info of the person you are trying to call. This means that if you are using your cell phone, you can later store the phone number in your phone’s address book. You also have the number now in your caller ID memory, if you are using a land line. If the person you are calling has caller ID, they will see Google’s name and phone number on the caller ID display. (It would be nice if Google would change this to populate it with the originator’s phone number, with an option to hide it completely. Maybe in a future iteration.)

So go check it out! Unfortunately it doesn’t work for calls to non-businesses. But I guess that is a good thing. Google would go broke if we all used it to call our mothers. Just call a local florist and send flowers instead.

PS: Apparently this feature has been around since mid-November. I’m going to claim ignorance and say it was because of my new baby that I missed it. In any case, it is still cool.

You’ve probably heard about Apple’s much touted Apple iPhone — a device whose announcement sent Apple stock shares soaring 12% the day after it was announced. Apple claims it will sell 10 million of the devices in the year and a half of selling the phone. I’m simply not convinced.

Today I read an article on Computerworld’s website on how Steve Jobs blew the iPhone announcement. Reading this article solidified some thoughts I’ve had about the iPhone since its announcement.

First: 4GB or even 8GB is pitifully small for a device that seemingly was built for mobile video. I own a 60GB 5th generation iPod. I’ve put a couple of movies on it, and my experience mirrors that discussed in the Comptuerworld article: each movie takes around a gigabyte. Not to mention my music and podcasts and photos. I’ve got 9 GB of audio, and 3 GB of video, in addition to the movies I’ve loaded onto my iPod. Who is going to pay more than the price of a 60 GB iPod to only get 8 GB of storage? I mean, serious audio users would need a gen-5 iPod in addition to the iPhone. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?

Second, with the iPhone, Apple is trying to go head-to-head with the Blackberry. I know that there are a lot of people who have decided they can’t live without their Blackberry’s. They can even make a legitimate business use case. I’m not convinced that the iPhone will be as useful in a business setting: you can’t edit your Word files; You can’t synchronize your task list and e-mail with Microsoft Outlook. I mean, hey, the interface is beautiful, but, I’m guessing beautiful won’t be enough if users determine the iPhone doesn’t do what they want it to.

Finally, what is the deal with only pairing with AT&T/Cingular? Does Apple really think that they are going to sell 10 million units by getting the whole world to switch to AT&T? I’ve been there, and I’m not going to do that again. Just because AT&T dropped “Wireless” from their name, doesn’t mean service has improved. But that’s a different rant for a different post.

With the iPod, Apple got a lot right, and they improved over time. Early iPods didn’t support synchronizing with Windows-based machines, and it wasn’t until the 5th generation that they supported video. With the iPhone, Apple may get there in a few iterations, but I don’t think they are there yet.

My bet: If you’re looking for a sleek interface, be prepared to be amazed. Just don’t be surprised if the iPhone doesn’t do as much as a Blackberry. Just wait a couple of generations. Apple may get it right yet. If they don’t get beat to it.

I’ve written about this a couple of times already, but I discovered some new functionality in Internet Explorer 7 (IE 7) today that I thought I’d share.

Currently I’ve got a development box at work that I’ve upgraded (if you can call it that) to IE 7 while I keep my main box in IE 6, so it allows me to try out some of the “features” of IE 7 without sacrificing productivity on my regular box. Today I was attempting to log in to an FTP site using IE 7, and I got it to work.

If you are trying to use FTP in IE 7, try the following procedure:

• Open IE 7
• Enter a FTP user name, password, and site in the URL bar using the following pattern:
  ftp://<username>:<password>@<site.tld>So if you had a username of johndoe, a password of pa55word, and your site is example.com, you would use the following URL:
  ftp://johndoe:pa55word@example.com
• IE will display a directory listing of the FTP site.
• Click the Page menu (hint: it’s on the right hand side, under the search bar)
• Select Open FTP Site in Windows Explorer.
• Windows explorer opens. Windows can’t remember that we’ve already given the username and password, so we have to do it again.
• Click the File menu and select Login As….
• Enter your user name and password, and click the Log On button.

Yeah, it isn’t as smooth as IE 6, but hey, its doable!

I used to think that I was the technological forerunner for our family. You know, the early adopter who tries out the newest tech toys first. The one who can lend advice to my other family members because of my extensive technological expertise.

Then I thought about it. Who had the first CD player in our family? My sister Wendy. In fact, not long after she got her CD player, she gave me my first CD for my birthday (Kenny G’s “Breathless” album). I would sneak into her bedroom when she wasn’t home, carefully (VERY CAREFULLY) take her Alabama’s Greatest Hits CD out of the player and put in my prized Kenny G, and listen to the clarity of the music. Then I had to have a CD player. But it turns out that I’m what Dilbert creator Scott Adams might call a “technological topper”. I had to get a better CD player. Mine had a remote control.

A few years later, who was the first person in the family to have an e-mail account? Not me. It was Wendy again. After that, who was the first person in the family to get a Palm Pilot? That would be Wendy. She bought the Palm IIIe. I followed a few months later with the Palm IIIxe — more memory (that I never used– but hey, it was better!).

Who got the first cell phone? This one I’m not sure about, but I’m pretty sure it was Wendy. Who got the first laptop computer? Wendy. Who got the first iPod? Again, Wendy.

In each case, I wasn’t far behind. But I’ve always been behind. Yes, it turns out that the technological early adopter in the family is my sister Wendy. She gets all the newest toys and from her I decide that I can’t live without whatever toy it is she has now.

Such happened recently with her iPod. She has had an iPod for quite a while now. Long enough that my brother got one. Then my parents got one. Now Christina and I have one. I think Wendy is on her second. She graduated from the 5GB iPod a Nano. Rick bought one; it was a U2 edition, which was pretty cool, but it got stolen out of his locked office.

I’ve been looking at them for a while now, and when we first heard about the possibility of a new job at my new company, Christina and I decided that if I got the job, I could get an iPod. When the new job became a more possible reality, Christina had to warn me to not take the new job simply for the iPod. (Don’t worry. I didn’t.)

I was going to wait to buy the iPod until after I had started my new job, but we realized that I have a ton of stuff on my work box. I love to listen to music while I work, so during the course of the two years I’ve been at this job, I brought my favorite CDs and made MP3 files out of them. I also took some of our digital camera images and used my work box to upload them to our web site, since we didn’t used to have a high-speed connection at home.

All told, I have a lot of stuff. Transferring with a 250 MB USB key is impractical, and I don’t have a CD burner at work, just your basic 20th century CD-ROM. So any data transfer was going to have to take place over USB.

Instead, we decided to go with the iPod. It gives me plenty of storage space to handle my music and all my files. I’m really excited about the iPod. I am going to start running for exercise, and I think it will be a lot of fun to run while listening to my favorite tunes.

So I wasn’t the first one in the family to get an iPod. In fact, I was the last. But mine has more storage capacity. So there.

In a previous post I complained about how hard it was to use FTP in Internet Explorer’s newest browser version, 7.0. The problem is that in keeping with the Windows Vista-type theme, IE 7.0 hides the File menu by default. That means that when you hit your FTP site, you can’t go to “File | Login as…” to give your FTP credentials.

Never fear. I’ve found a partial solution!

The key is in the words stated above: “by default”. It turns out that Microsoft includes the feature in a menu option called “Classic Menu.” Activate the Classic Menu toolbar, and you now have access to the File menu.

Here’s the rub: there is no longer a “File | Login as…” option in IE 7. Instead, you can now use the File menu to select the “Open FTP in Explorer” option. Then you have to go to “File | Login as…”. See IE 6 did this step for you. It changed the window from an IE 6 window to a Windows Explorer window. In IE 7, you have to go the extra step.

If you’d rather skip this step, you can simply right-click on the Start Menu, and select the “Explore” option. Then, in the address bar, enter your FTP location (i.e. ftp://ftp.example.com; don’t forget the ftp://, or it won’t work!) Then use Windows Explorer’s “File | Login as…” option to access your site via FTP as you were used to with IE 6.

This Windows Explorer problem may be an issue with Windows XP, and may go away when Windows Vista comes out next year. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. In the mean time, you can still achieve your IE 6 expected functionality by using one of the choices outlined above.

Update (11/20/06): I’ve posted again on this topic… Click here for the new post.