In an earlier post, I mentioned that my biggest criticism of the Kindle was the inability to share content. Really, it's my only MAJOR criticism of the Kindle device and platform. but this criticism is a big one.

With the Kindle 2 release announcement, I'd hoped that Amazon would come out with software/system updates that would allow for some method of sharing books/magazines/newspapers. The Microsoft Zune, which admittedly isn't tearing up the consumer electronics bestseller chart, has a feature that allows its owners to temporarily share songs with friends. It's a cool feature and helps promote the sale of new music among Zune owners. Sadly, when I currently finish reading a purchased book on the Kindle, it ends up in the online equivalent of a banker's box in the basement. I can pull it up later and re-read it, but mostly it's buried. The cynic in me says "Eh, whatever - the publisher and seller are both happy and have no incentive to let me share an e-book."

Now I knew this going into my purchase, so it's not like I can gripe too loudly - but it seems like such an obvious area for potential improvement with Kindle 2. Had they addressed this issue, I'd already have my current Kindle on Ebay or Craigslist and an order placed for the new version. Then again, I'm not convinced that allowing for the sharing of content would require the newer hardware version.

Here's how I could see it working. as a Kindle owner, I'd have a "Friends" list (not unlike IM, the Xbox 360, etc). I could choose to transfer a title (book, magazine issue, or newspaper daily) to someone on that Friends list. While it's available to them for reading on their device, it would NOT be available for me to read on mine. At some point, that title comes back to me and is then unavailable to the Friend. Like a physical book I loan out, I can't read the book at the same time as my friend.

I could see all sorts of arguments against this from the publishers. we'd lose sales to those Friends because why would they buy it if they could borrow it from you? What would stop someone from setting up their own mini Netflix-for-Ebooks and buying once to share many times? Here are a number of ideas for ways to accommodate publishers, free for the taking by the Kindle team. I think putting one or two of these in place would alleviate many concerns:

1. Limit my list of Friends to a small number - 3, even - to discourage any sort of mass sharing.
2. Limit the number of times I can add/remove people to/from my Friends list in a given period of time.
3. Limit the number of times that a title can be shared among Friends. For example, if a title has been shared with two other people, that's it. No more sharing unless someone else buys it.
4. Limit the length of time that a title can be over on that Friends list. Maybe they only get it for a week or two? 30 days?
5. Don't allow a new title to be transferred among Friends during the first 60-90 days after its release.
6. Charge the Friend receiving the book one-third of the purchase price.
7. Charge me and my Friends a premium for access to the "Sharing Among Friends" feature.

It's worth noting that NONE of these constraints are in place for physical books. When I buy the physical version of a book, I can lend it to as many people as I want. For as long as I want. Doing so doesn't cost either of us a cent. Further, I can put it into the "used books" ecosystem and the publisher doesn't see a dime after my initial purchase.

In fact, the ability to share physical books is the ONLY incentive I currently have to buy physical books that are otherwise available in Kindle form. If it's a book I'm likely to want to share among friends or family, it makes more sense for me to buy the physical book.

For example: I'm considering reading "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The physical version of that book on Amazon is $12.60, while the Kindle version is $11.34. It's the type of book that I'm likely to read and then share with a few family members and friends. So if I buy the physical version, Amazon gets my $12.60 and the publisher gets some portion of that. Beyond that, neither sees more money from me or the people I choose to share it with for this title. Like most people, I talk with friends and family about what I'm reading. so it's unlikely that they'd all rush out to buy the physical version also if they know they can borrow it from me in a couple of weeks. Even if they have Kindles, it's more likely that we'd buy the physical book just so we could share it and avoid spending the $11 EACH to read it.

BUT - imagine that I buy the Kindle version and have three friends with Kindles that would also like to read it. Assuming they've implement suggestions #1, #2, and #6 above, I could lend it to those three people. I'd have to lend it to one after another because the "license to read" the book can only be on one Kindle at a time. but each of those three people would pay $3.75 to have the book on their device for a period of time. In total, Amazon would have collected over $22 from my circle of just THREE "reading friends". A nice premium over the $12.60 they get if I go the physical route. which is the only option now for groups of friends/colleagues who like to share books.

In my view, providing some premium-level service that includes sharing could be a nice way for Amazon and the publishers to make some aftermarket money - and it doesn't have to cannibalize new sales. In fact, I think it will spur a lot of new sales for the Kindle. many people I've shown it to say they'd love to own one but they don't want to lose the flexibility of sharing a book with a friend. The ability to share via the "Whispernet" book download service would lower that hurdle, which could only be good for publisher's sales of ebooks.

Technorati Tags: amazon kindle , kindle , amazon , ebooks , publishing

Amazon announced the Kindle 2 a couple of weeks ago and a few people have asked me if I'm tempted to upgrade my Kindle to the newer version. Short answer: not really. The rest of this post is the longer answer.

I got my Kindle last April (after a wait of about three weeks) and it's been my constant companion since. It goes everywhere I go. It charges on my nightstand (though it only needs it once a week) and is in my bag when I leave the house each day. It goes to every appointment and travels anywhere I do.

There are a number of things I love about the Kindle:

• It's small and lightweight. Fits easily in a bag and the weight is negligible.
• It's got an amazing screen. I can (and have) read on this screen for hours without any eye fatigue. It looks like black text on light gray paper - not like a screen at all.
• It's convenient. I can have a new book, paper, or magazine on it in seconds.
• It enables me to read more. It lets me carry a number of different books in a single, small form factor.
• It's expandable. I could add 2GB of space to it via an SD card, which cost something like $.14. And given that any Amazon purchases can be deleted from the device and re-downloaded later, space isn't much of an issue.

Then there are some minor quibbles:

• The buttons for turning the page are too big and easy to hit accidentally.
• While the marketing materials tell you that it's got a web browser and an MP3 player, don't kid yourself. This thing is an amazing e-book reader, but a portable wireless device or MP3 player it ain't. The browser in it is rudimentary and not up to the task for anything other than very simple pages, and the MP3 player doesn't provide any controls - seriously, it can play/pause tracks in random order and that's about it.
• The relationship between my Amazon.com wishlist(s) and the Kindle's "Save for Later" list is non-existent. I can't add to the "Save for Later" list via the web, nor can I add a book to my wishlist via the Kindle.
• Technical content is best avoided. Between issues with monospace fonts and the disparity in pricing, it's just not worth the hassle. For example. at this time, "Essential WPF" by Chris Anderson (Addison-Wesley) is available in physical form for $31.49 and in the electronic Kindle edition for $28.34. With a savings of just $3.15, no monospace font support, and the inability to share among friends/colleagues, why bother? Compare that to the NY Times Bestseller from James Patterson, "Run For Your Life" - it's $16.79 in physical form and $9.99 in e-book form.

Based on the Kindle 2 product page, it looks like the only one of these that's been addressed is the button issue. The new model (shown above) does have smaller navigation buttons and it looks like holding it without pushing a button will be easier.

Then there's the major drawback. just one really: I can't share my Kindle content. More on this in another post, but this isn't addressed in the new version either.

So does the new version have any features that interest me? Just one: Text-to-speech . Apparently, it can read your book aloud to you using either built-in speakers (which are new to this model) or the headphone jack. This feature is compelling because there are times that I'm in the middle of a really good book and don't want to put it down - but life calls and I have to head to the office, an appointment, or somewhere else. At times, it'd be pretty slick to have the option of plugging the Kindle into the car's AUX jack and letting the story continue.

But are better-designed buttons and the text-to-speech feature enough to warrant an upgrade? Not to me. Maybe there is some class of Kindle user out there that REALLY can't stand the buttons or REALLY wants text-to-speech. But that seems like a pretty small niche, so I find it hard to believe that a large percentage of current Kindle owners will be scrambling to upgrade. The new version isn't yet shipping. so I guess time will tell.

Technorati Tags: kindle , amazon kindle , amazon

When the Kindle was released late last year, I was skeptical. I like the idea of an e-book reader, but it's so expensive. Eventually, a few things occurred that convinced me to order one:

• I contemplated having instant access to major papers like the NY Times and Washington Post each morning, as well as local papers like the Denver Post.
• I took a family trip and packed a bunch of books to take with me. I typically have a few books that I'm reading at once -- some fiction, a non-fiction, and a technical book. I can't two of the same type at once, though, lest I get facts or characters mixed up.
• I saw the screen in person.

So at the end of March, I placed my order and started the backorder wait. It arrived a couple of weeks ago and, since then, it looks like Amazon's manufacturers are caught up. My total wait was almost three weeks (18 days), but at this point, the Kindle product page on Amazon.com says that it's in stock and available for shipping... they're even showing photos of an Amazon warehouse with pallets of Kindles.

Short Review

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the device. I'm not yet 100% convinced that I'll always be a paperless reader (when content's available), but if I have a choice between paper version and Kindle version, I think paper will be a rare exception rather than the norm.

Longer Review

Some other thoughts (in no particular order):

• The design's general "look" an aesthetics are not terrible, but not great either. I'll call it "functional." Some of the reviews and feedback out there have really bashed the industrial design of this thing -- calling for Amazon to hire some Apple designers and that sort of thing. I actually don't think it's quite that bad. It certainly is smaller and lighter than I expected it to be (both are good things!).
  
• The design's high points are the screen (the e-ink is AMAZING. No, seriously... AMAZING!), providing an integrated keyboard (vs on-screen "soft" keys), and the main navigation element -- the scrolling wheel/button. The wheel is a very easy way to move through your library, look things up, bookmark, etc. I don't know what the material is they're using to indicate the scroll position along the right margin, but it's pretty cool and works well even in low-light (the Kindle is NOT backlit).
  
• The design's main low point is the fact that 75-80% or so of both sides of the device are dedicated to buttons for Next/Prev page. It's WAY too easy to hit those buttons accidentally. I'd have preferred to see the top 50% of both sides dedicated to buttons so that there are more ways to hold it without accidentally hitting them. Also, the device can play MP3 and audio books - but the volume buttons and headphone jack are on the bottom. If I'm reading in bed, I'm usually holding it from the bottom or resting it on my chest as I read. Also not great - the power on/off and wireless on/off buttons are on the back of the device, which make them hard to reach when its in the cover. On the cover front -- it's not bad, but lots of people seem to have flakey covers that don't really "grip" the reader as it should. Mine seems fine... I definitely prefer reading with it in the cover as that gives me more flexibility in how I hold it. I can see getting a different cover later, though, that holds the Kindle in place at all four corners.
  
• From a software/functionality perspective, I'm very impressed. With the wireless turned on, it's very easy to search and navigate the online Kindle store. You can buy material right from the device and it shows up within a minute or so. Very slick. When looking at a book's product page on the device, you have the option to "Save for Later" (essentially bookmarking the product page) or you can download a sample chapter. When browsing the Kindle store from your PC, you can send a sample chapter to your device with just one click. In either case, the sample is on the device in less than a minute. When viewing your library on the device, you can change how things are sorted and set filters for books, periodicals, or both. Personally, I'd also like the ability to organize things into folders and show/hide downloaded samples.
  
• The "lookup" feature is slick - you can choose "lookup" on any line of text and it provides quick definitions for each of the non-trivial words in that line of text. You can further dive into each word for a more in-depth definition, or search the web and/or Wikipedia for the word.
  
• Speaking of the web, there is an experimental web browser on the device... it seems similar in capability to the Pocket IE browser I have on my Windows Mobile phone. Plain HTML pages are fine -- but sites that use any sort of Flash, JavaScript, or fancier rendering will suffer. Still, it's good enough for occasional basic use.
  
• The keyboard is usable enough for searches and quick notes, but not something I'd want to compose long email messages with. Conveniently, it's got a dedicated "Search" button that calls up a context-sensitive search bar from anywhere (i.e., if in the Kindle Store, the Search bar will search the store for your criteria). There are also shortcuts you can use in the search bar to search other contexts - @wiki searches wikipedia, @store searches the Kindle store, etc. There are a few other shortcuts, such as ALT+T, which displays the current time in the corner (humorously, it often shows it in plain English ("six minutes till four").

There are some things I'd like to see changed down the road, either through firmware or in a later hardware generation:

• It seems there's no relationship between my on-device "Save For Later" selections and an Amazon wishlist. I'd much rather have a Kindle-specific wishlist that I can add to and manage from both the device and the Amazon.com site. Even if I create another Wishlist on the site and force myself to use it just for Kindle books, I don't see a way to get at that wishlist from the device. And while I can use the "Send Sample Chapter" option from the site, I can't add something to my "Save for Later" list from the site.
  
• For subscriptions, such as the New York Times, I'd like to be able to tell it how many days I want to keep on the device by default. Currently, it stores several days of periodicals... choosing NY Times from the "Home" list displays all of the publication days so I have to make another selection. Since all of my Kindle content is backed up and available from Amazon (should I delete it from the device), I'd like an option to only keep the most recent issue of a periodical. It's rare that I'd want the Saturday paper on Sunday... so delete it when Sunday arrives and I can manually download it if the need arises.
  
• I want to see more content, particularly with magazines. The list of available magazines is pretty slim... I'd love to see Wired, Esquire, Inc, and a few others become available. I recognize that the lack of color and quality photos would be a sacrifice for magazines, particularly for something like Wired, but I'd forego that for the convenience of having the article content with me all the time.
  
• No "Chronicles of Narnia" in Kindle form?! There's also little in the way of Tom Clancy, John Grisham, and classic Stephen King (if you're into those authors).
  
• You can subscribe to blogs on the device, but most of them are $1.99/month. Not a freakin' chance, Amazon. Between Newsgator Go on my phone, FeedDemon on my PCs, and the basic web browser built into the Kindle, I can't imagine paying for content that is available for free in so many other ways.
  
• The price has GOT to come down... I thought long and hard about this purchase. Ultimately, I figured I could Ebay the device if I decide I don't like it and recoup most of my cost... so I went for it. If it were $100 cheaper, though, I think it'd be more of a no-brainer. I suspect a lot of the cost is tied up in the "Whispernet" wireless service (provided by Sprint) - which doesn't cost the customer anything after the initial purchase.

Again, I'm very happy with the purchase and haven't had any buyer's remorse at all. The Kindle has been with me constantly over the last couple of weeks and... so far, at least, the convenience of having lots of different reading material on me all the time is worth any of the drawbacks I've run into.

Technorati Tags: amazon , kindle , amazon kindle , ebook , review

Looks like Amazon is starting to shorten the delay on Kindle orders... when Jeff Bezos posted this on their front page apologizing for the long shipping delays, the typical wait was six weeks (with some reports of almost 8 weeks!).

In his open letter to customers, Bezos promised they were ramping up production and hoped that, within a "few weeks", they'd be able to announce enough stock for same-day shipping... and backorders would be a distant memory.

At the time, I hadn't yet ordered one... but I had been considering it for weeks. I have to admit to not (yet) being 100% convinced that an e-book reader will be for me. However, I typically have a few things I'm reading at once (fiction, non-fiction, a tech book, magazines, etc)... so the idea of having all of that (along with some reference material) with me all the time is very intriguing. After taking a trip last month where I brought a few fairly thick books (and wanted to bring a couple others), I figured I'd give it a shot. What's the worst that can happen -- I hate it, put it on Ebay, and possibly take a slight loss on it (though Ebay sales are currently closing for well over the Amazon retail price). So we'll see.

Anyway, I pulled the trigger and went for it. I ordered on March 31, settled in for a 6 week wait, and was surprised to get this email tonight (2 weeks to the day from my order):

We now have estimated delivery dates for the Kindle order you placed
on 3/31/08, #XXX-XXXXXXX-XXXXXXX. We are now estimating that
your Kindle will arrive between 4/22/2008 and 4/29/2008. We'll contact you
again to let you know when your order is shipped.

Based on the Kindle forums, Amazon's shipping then slightly earlier than their estimates - so with some luck I'll see it early in the week after next.

Technorati Tags: amazon , kindle , ebook

Regular readers of this blog will know that my background is primarily in the Microsoft development world, with the odd foray into Java (and more recently, experiments with Ruby and Processing). So when Microsoft announces some new tool or framework, I'll pay attention and see what's up.

Right now, there's a good deal of hype and excitement around Silverlight... which sounds great to me in theory, but in practice has been largely a disappointment.

And I saw that as a user, not a developer. I can't even think about using it for development at this point because, frankly... it simply doesn't run for me as a casual web user.

Rich Ziade nails some of the issues in his post from Friday, called "Microsoft-Centered Design":

So I'm perusing the various blog posts that have streamed out of the MIX 08 conference and some interesting talks are available online. So I head on over to the MIX 08 site to view some sessions and I run into this:  [image of the "You need Silverlight" placeholder] ..  Yep, I need to download Real Player, I mean Silverlight to watch these videos. Silverlight, for the less enlightened, is Microsoft's foray into streaming video, rich media and rich apps on the Web (aka Microsoft's Flash).

I agree with Rich's premise that Silverlight apps (or at least the demos we've seen so far) don't really provide much reason to use it over Flash -- a time-tested, well-supported platform for rich web apps.

But I find the problem with Silverlight to go even deeper:  For me, it simply doesn't work.

I use Firefox as my browser... and despite lots of examples and statements about Silverlight being not only cross-browser, but also cross-platform, I can't get it to run in Firefox. On any machine I've tried. To date, that's five machines. All of them are running similar setups:

• The most recent production version of Firefox (currently 2.0.0.12), with extensions:
• del.icio.us Bookmarks (for quick access to my bookmarks)
• Firebug (for debugging and development)
• Flashblock  (to block Flash content from loading until/unless I want to see it)
• Google Toolbar  (because... well... because it's the Google toolbar)
• Remember the Milk for Gmail   (because seeing my tasks right next to email rocks)
• Tab Mix Plus  (because I want to choose how/when/where new tabs are opened in Firefox)
• IE Tab (see below)

Note that what I'm NOT running is the NoScript extension, which reportedly causes problems for Silverlight in Firefox.

I can't tell you how many times on these machines I've gone to download the various versions of Silverlight and see if maybe... just maybe... THIS TIME will be different. So far, no joy.

The issue isn't made any easier by the various versions floating around... Silverlight 1.0, Silverlight 1.1 Alpha, some sort of refresh/CTP version for 1.1, and now Silverlight 2.0 as of Mix08. This thing's been around for just a year now and there are already more SKUs of Silverlight than there are of Windows XP.

Of course, things do appear to work fine in IE7. But I don't want to run IE7 as my browser. I've got Firefox and its extensions tweaked to be exactly the way I like it.

The only way I'm able to get Silverlight content to run inside of a Firefox window currently is via the "IE Tab" extension -- which loads the IE rendering engine inside of a Firefox tab. In doing that, though, I lose the integration with the rest of Firefox. And it's only cosmetically different from having two browsers open to begin with. I don't want that.

I would like this to work. I really would. So far, it seems that the newer Silverlight 2.0 will run inside of Firefox -- however, the vast majority of the Silverlight content out there (which, as Rich points out, could be provided in Flash without losing any functionality) is NOT targeting Silverlight 2.0. It seems to mostly be in 1.0 or 1.1.

So until Microsoft gets this working correctly in Firefox, I find myself having to make a decision every time I come across that drives-me-up-a-wall "Get Microsoft Silverlight" badge -- do I really care enough about this content to deal with the frustration and go outside my normal workflow to view it?

More often than not, the answer is "no," which is a shame because there are some interesting videos out there in Silverlight format (the screenshot above is from Jon Udell'sPerspectivesvideo audio interview on MS Robotics).

As a developer, the notion of using XAML to build applications that can be run via Silverlight as well as via a WPF rich client sounds really cool. But how can I get excited about a new developer platform that's completely broken for me as a user?

Update: In the comments, Jon Udell clarified that the Perspectives link above is audio and not video and I've since downloaded the MP3 version. The "Get Silverlight" badge made it look like a video to me and seeing that badge repeatedly without being able to get it working in Firefox prompted the post. Thanks, Jon!

Technorati Tags: silverlight , mix08 , firefox , microsoft , web development

A couple weeks ago, I set up Windows Home Server in the house, opting to go the DIY route rather than with an out-of-the-box solution like the HP MediaSmart. I saved a bit of money in the process, though it wasn't without some issues getting started.

For a machine, I turned to the Dell Outlet site, which I've used in the past and haven't had much trouble with. I've purchased a bunch of machines via the Outlet over the years and only one has ever had issues (blogged about last year). Odds are that it would happen at some point with a non-Outlet machine at some point, so I wasn't worried about ordering another box that way.

The machine is an Inspiron 531 desktop, with 2GB of RAM and a 250GB drive in it. It also has a DVD burner, mid-sized tower case, and the standard integrated network and video (the latter isn't needed by WHS). It was $249. Dell had sent me a coupon the week I was watching the Outlet, which basically took care of the shipping and tax. I spent another $150 or so at NewEgg to add a 750GB -- Roughly $400 total for that machine with 1TB of storage. (Note: looks like the only option now is to get a 530 rather than a 531. The difference is that the 530 uses an Intel CPU while the 531 has an AMD processor).

The setup started off fine, but I ran into issues later when I had to put drivers on the machine (after installing WHS). The Inspiron had shipped with Vista Home Premium, which I didn't need, but WHS is based on Windows Server 2003. The drivers that came with the machine (and available via Dell Support) were Vista drivers and didn't fly with WHS. Some Googling and experimentation led to trying the Windows XP drivers, which seem to be working just fine. The main holdup here was the network card's driver... with no network, I had to use sneakernet to get the drivers on to the WHS box.

So I saved money over going with an off-the-shelf Home Server... but paid a DIY tax with an hour or two of setup time and tinkering around with drivers. I'm happy with that.

Once set up, the experience has been awesome. The machine is running "headless" at this point, but the client software is on a few different machines now and works great for managing the server. In a pinch, I've used Remote Desktop a couple times to look at the server's control panel.

The features I like the most:

• Access to the file shares on the server just plain works. There's no futzing with ACLs, Windows firewall, or anything else. Each user account on the server has its own private share, there's a public share for general use, and dedicated shares for music, photos, videos, and software. An admin account can control access to those in simple fashion -- each user account gets no access, read-only, or read-write. From the client perspective, it's just \\SERVERNAME\SHARENAME and you're good to go.
• Backup is solid and runs seamlessly ... it takes a while when you initially run it (go wired for that first backup!), but after that, the incremental updates aren't really noticeable.
• There's a Tivo add-in that hooks write into your music, photos, and videos. That adds access to our Tivo Series 2 (Home Media Option), along with the Xbox 360 Media access that just works out of the box with WHS. I don't need to publish photos and music from a spare desktop machine any more. As an added bonus, the machine's faster than that spare was so scrolling through images and music is way fast.
• Related note... remotely installing an add-in is dead simple. Copy an MSI into a share on the server, run the remote management client, and tell it to run the MSI for the add-in. Removing an add-in later looks just as easy.
• Remote access to the server over the internet is very cool . The WHS setup process gets you a subdomain under the homeserver.com domain and you can log into the server from any web browser to get at the files stored there. That's already proven handy when I wanted to show someone in the office a photo that we were talking about.

A few things I'd like to see improve or change:

• I still think that Microsoft needs to make WHS available via MSDN . I've got a few different ideas for add-ins I'd like to develop, but I'm not interested in doing development and debugging on the home server that's actually in "real world" use at the house. Unless they change this decision, it'll mean I need to purchase a separate WHS license if I want to get serious about add-in development. Incidentally, they've received a LOT of feedback on the issue, but currently say it's not available on MSDN due to some "valid logistical issues"... who knows?
• It doesn't seem like there's a real great solution yet for managing our music via an iTunes library . Aside from WHS add-ins, installing software on a WHS machine is discouraged... so iTunes has to be on a separate machine. But honestly, the only time iTunes gets used is for syncing our iPods (and related playlist management). Playback in the house is done via the Tivo or Xbox 360. So all the music is in two places now -- WHS and that spare desktop machine (with iTunes) that we plug the iPods into. I think (but am not certain) that I could have the iTunes library on that machine simply reference the files on the WHS box -- but haven't tried that route yet (mostly for fear of hosing up the iTunes metadata and "device awareness" for our iPods). Need to do more research here.
• Obviously a big issue that MUST get addressed soon is the widely-reported corruption problem. Thankfully, we're not editing files directly on the server shares (and won't anytime soon). The editing/manipulation tends to happen on our client machines, with the results being backed-up or simply stored for shared-access on the server.

I suspect that corruption issue is THE top priority for the WHS team in Redmond... once it's resolved, my next hurdle will be to figure out the best way to set up Lightroom catalog(s?) for the 7+ years of photos we have stored. Currently, I use fairly "transient" catalogs with Lightroom since all the photo files (both RAW shots, XMP sidecars, and JPG images) are being stored up on the server. But in doing that, I miss out on many features of having everything in a catalog.

All in all, I'm very happy with the WHS experience thus far. If you can live without the option to remotely edit files (to avoid the corruption problem), I'd recommend it.

Technorati Tags: windows home server , whs , msdn , dell , inspiron , tivo

I have to be honest... When Twitter was first released and the hype was deafening, I was among the skeptics who questioned the point of the service -- why would I want to constantly update the world on 'my thoughts'? Where I am? What I'm doing, eating, thinking, saying, wondering... or worse? Who would want to read that? And why would I want to read those types of updates from others?

The fact that there was so much emphasis on using SMS/text messages for everything only added to my skepticism. I'm getting these updates on my phone? I only have 140 characters to use?

So I stayed away and chalked it up as one of those "silly web 2.0 fads" that gets announced, hyped, and then drops off the radar while still in perma-beta mode.

Recently, though, a few different things got me to take a look and (finally) create an account:

• A few services I'm using have Twitter "Bots" that I can use to communicate with the service. "Remember the Milk," for example, lets me use Twitter to add things to my task list. The "I Want Sandy" service lets me use Twitter to set reminders for some point in the future. This type of service automation has been around via IM for a while, but the user experience through Twitter seems better to me.
  
• The authors of severalblogs I subscribe to have begunputting links to their Twitter streams in their blog templates and sidebars. Maybe they've been there for a while and I'm just now noticing them? In any case, I see subscribing to a blogger's Twitter stream in the same way as subscribing to their del.icio.us bookmarks. If I enjoy reading their blog posts, it stands to reason that I might enjoy their "smaller" thoughts (via Twitter) and the bookmarks they're creating (via del.icio.us). The benefits here are more passive -- I can drop in, read what I like, and then move on -- but they're benefits nonetheless.
  
• My team at work is distributed between Colorado and Tennessee. In addition, we have a fairly flexible environment that allows for telecommuting when necessary (snow days, waiting for the cable guy, and general "life happens" stuff). We use IM and email pretty heavily, but have found that those don't always work well for certain scenarios. Specifically, there are times when we'd like to have some ad hoc group communication. People thinking out loud, asking general questions of the group, or even coordinating around things like issue tracking items, builds, and more. In these cases, IM is a bit too "point to point" because those conversations often turn into "let's email the group and get some more input". Email isn't great because of the latency between arrival, reading, replying, and sending... during which people start to reply on top of one another. It's great for many things... but sometimes you just need a "chat room" for the in-between stuff that happens all day.
  
  So I thought Twitter might be useful for this and created an account... it's easy to use and that ad hoc "one-to-many" style of communicating updates and status is its strong suit. I discovered later that the downside of this is that there's a lot of other noise going on as well -- so unless I subscribe ONLY to my team members' Twitter streams, I'm sifting through other people's updates to get the ones that are work-related. For now, we're going with Campfire from 37Signals and it seems to be working well. Kinda like "private Twitter with file attachments"...

So with these thoughts in mind, I've been giving it a shot and posting occasional status updates. I'm not yet totally convinced - but neither am I as skeptical as I once was. And while the value's not there for work-related team communications (the original point of the exercise), I definitely think the "bot" services are useful and I've enjoyed seeing the updates from others whose blogs I follow...

In using it for a week or two now, I've been "following" (in Twitter's parlance) a few streams that are really worthwhile. One of those is Merlin Mann, the guy behind the 43 Folders productivity site... his Twitter stream seems to be used for stream-of-consciousness thoughts he has throughout the day. And they're usually hilarious... You know how most people have that filter that stops them from saying all the hilarious/cynical/disturbing/obscure things that come to mind throughout the day? I think Merlin just piped his filter to his Twitter stream. One example, recently posted as I type this on Super Bowl Sunday, demonstrates his ability to turn a phrase [say it in the voice of an NFL player]:

"I'm just so humbled that my freakish physique and tolerance for head trauma can be leveraged to sell lite beer. I also wanna thank 'God.'"

In addition to bloggers, I've found other types of streams to be worthwhile - including New York Times (which streams headlines throughout the day as news articles are posted), Woot (which publishes the daily Woot bargain), and TechMeme (which tracks hot topics in tech news).

There's a pretty good "fan wiki" going that provides some other ideas for using the service, including collections of Twitter mashups, "Non Human" streams, organizations, weather for various cities, and even airport status (e.g., Chicago O'Hare)!

So... for now I'm sticking it out to see how it goes. Time will tell whether the value I'm getting now lasts or if it's just short-term novelty.

Who knows... maybe in another 12-18 months, I'll look into this whole Facebook thing. ;-)

Technorati Tags: twitter , social networks , im

A few months back, probably after deleting my daily allotment of 100+ spam messages per day, I decided to look into a better way of handling email. The hosting company I use for my domain (Server Intellect) provides a web-based mail client (Smarter Mail) that I often used when out and about. On my machine at home, I used Outlook 2007 to fetch that email. And while Smarter Mail's UI was fine for a web-based mail program, the spam that made it through the filters was ridiculous.

In addition to my personal email, this affected a few other family members who also use email on the domain... and let's face it, no guy wants to hear from his Mother about "how to get rid of all that male enlargement spam."

So I went in search of a better way... as a listener to Scott Hanselman's podcast (and reader of his blog), I knew that he'd recently moved his domain's mail (and other services) over to Google Apps for Domains. His recounting of the tale in the podcast sounded pretty painless, so I went to check it out.

I was very impressed with how seamless and easy the whole thing was. Google provides excellent instructions for how to make the transition, including walkthroughs for the control panels used by many web hosting companies. The process amounts to just a few steps:

1. You prove to Google that you own the domain. The easiest way to do that is to put a file at a certain URL that contains some data they provide. You create it with a text editor, upload it to your site, and let Google know you're done. Google looks for that file and then reads the contents... if it matches what they provided, you're good to go.
2. You decide which services you want to use -- GMail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Start Page, and public pages -- and you can turn them on and configure them as you like. This was great because I could turn on calendar, docs, and start page right away, but figure out how I wanted to transition email later.
3. You use Google's instructions for your hosting company's control panel to make some changes in the routing of traffic in your domain. For me, this was as simple as logging into the domain, adding some A records to indicate where traffic should go (i.e., sending it to special Google URLs where the apps live), and then hit that URL in a browser to see the result.
4. With email, I was originally worried that there would be an awkward transition period... not at all. First, I created all of our accounts in the Google Apps interface so that there were mailboxes in place. Google even gives you a temporary URL you can use to check that mailbox before transitioning to the URL you want (e.g., mail.domain.com), as well as a temporary email address that goes to each mailbox. Google gives nice step-by-step instructions for handling mail transitions in particular.
5. With those in hand, I logged into SmarterMail and set up Forwarding rules on each mailbox -- so that mail sent to me (for example) would automatically be forwarded to my mailbox's special email address over on Google's system. With those rules in place, I changed the MX records with my hosting company so that mail traffic would start to go to Google's servers rather than Server Intellect's.
6. After that change is made, there's a brief transition time while records get updated and the tubes get re-routed. With the forwarding rules, though, nothing is lost or in limbo. Within hours, it seemed, everything was being processed through Google and we were good to go.

That all sounds a little more involved than it actually was... someone moderately familiar with their hosting company's control panel could get the whole thing done in a couple hours in the evening. Maybe more if you had a bunch of mailboxes to go through and set up forwarding rules on.

In addition to Scott's podcast, he also had a few posts on his blog that were helpful when I looked into this. Unlike with Scott's situation, I didn't have a bunch of email to transition UP to the Google mailboxes. I do still have a large Outlook PST file locally, but I'm not convinced I'd get a lot of value out of pushing it all up to my mailbox on the server.

For now, I'm pretty much just using GMail as intended (e.g., leave it all on the server), but I take advantage of the IMAP capability occasionally to move things into some Personal Folders that I want to archive. I do see that, over time, I'll likely start using labels and the "archive" feature of Google Mail and keep more and more info on the server... but that will be a transition that occurs naturally over time rather than jamming all of my current archives up there at once.

Others in the family are using the new setup the same way they used the old one -- use the web interface to handle mail when traveling or when using a different computer, but then let Outlook slurp it all down via POP when they're on their personal machine... but they're increasingly seeing that it's useful to leave it up on the server for convenient access.

It's been a few months since the transition... and overall, we couldn't be happier with it. The service is free, fast, and has added a lot to the way we're tracking things. My wife and I frequently share Google Docs for various things (Christmas shopping lists, chore charts, etc) and we're just starting to use the calendar to keep track of household schedules.

And that spam problem? It's pretty much licked... Google's filters are great. I think the number of spam messages I've seen in roughly three months can be counted in the single digits. I did keep an eye out on the Spam folder to watch for false positives and there were a few. But those could be counted on one hand and, more importantly, I understood why Google wanted to filter them -- mostly they were messages that mentioned poker, a pastime of mine but a frequent topic for spammers.

Bottom line:

Pros

• Virtually no spam.
• Couldn't be easier to setup.
• Uptime and stability of Google services.
• Access to Google's "search" for email.
• Other services we can grow into.
• Free (unless you have more advanced needs)

Cons

• It does require familiarity with your host's control panel... but if you have one of the many standard interfaces they support, that's an easy hurdle.
• I know people will say "use labels!" and "use search!", but I still wish Gmail had folders.
• Some of the Google Apps For Domains services get new features and capabilities slower than their "regular" Google cousins. As Scott has pointed out, it's clear they're not running the same codebase in both places... so things like IMAP support, colored labels, and lots of iGoogle add-ins don't work in Google Apps until weeks after they're generally available elsewhere (if at all).
• Those differences mentioned above also mean you need to be careful when looking at 3rd-party add-ins or tools. Some that work fine with regular Google tools may require hacks, or may not work at all, with the tools available via Google Apps.

Highly recommended!

Note:    This post is the first in a series of posts about moving more of my personal data and productivity tools on to web-based services (i.e., "the cloud"). It's a process that's largely on-going (only mail is "fully" transitioned for us), but I'm working on transitioning my tasks (which Google doesn't yet support), my calendar (both home and office), as well as personal data (important docs, photos, etc) to web-based services.

Technorati Tags: google , google apps , productivity , web services , gmail