Ivory Terminal

This year, I gave in and got a Blu Ray player to complement my first TV, and other than the hilarious-if -not-waiting boot up times (JVM!) everything has been working perfectly. The discs look great, they are no more expensive to rent than DVD’s, etc.

All was well until I actually splurged and bought a disc. I decided to grad the Blu Ray version of HBO’s “Generation Kill”. An excellent derivative of the book, and the latest work by several people associated with “The Wire”, which I consider to be the greatest television show of all time with nothing in second place. I was willing to support the series in its own right, but I hoped that by purchasing it might somehow help “The Wire” to get to Blu Ray.

So, with a few friends over, after waiting for my Sharp BD-HP22U player to book up, we inserted the first disc and… Nothing. The player refused to do anything, showing a dead black screen. When I tried to access the menu I got nothing, and when I attempted to advance the scene, the player showed that it was already on scene 4 of 81 and would not move.

I am not entirely sure who is at fault, the Blu Ray consortium, Sharp, or HBO, but it hardly matters. In front of an audience of four, I think I accidentally sold three Apple TVs when we decided to watch a movie on that instead. Sharp certainly did not sell any BD players that night.

I am now a few weeks into waiting for answer from Sharp about what is going on, and getting increasingly aggravated at the unhelpful responses. At this point, every time I insert a disc, I wonder if it will work, not something that one should be thinking about a high-end product. To save myself from an unsuccessful trip to the video store, I have been getting HD movies on the Apple TV whenever possible, which actually ends up being slightly cheaper due to some weird tax/fee from Blockbuster.

I have not yet decided what to do with the player if I have more problems, but I am seriously starting to doubt the future of Blu Ray. The picture and sound are great, but I honestly do not feel that my experience is lesser when watching a good movie on the Apple TV or a DVD. I hope they get it together…

I have now gone three weeks without the visual voicemail “feature” on my iPhone working.  AT&T cannot tell me why, and the Apple team is as usual clueless. 

Being without visual voicemail alerted me to a couple of things to add to the growing complaints about the iPhone’s lack of security, such as the fact that an iPhone comes set up without a voicemail password.  I never had to think about this issue until I found that my visual voicemail had stopped working.  Like my other AT&T phone, a venerable Blackberry, I began to dial “1” to get my voicemail.  However, with the iPhone, there was no password set up as a default.  Thankfully, I have one set up now, but for all of you other iPhone owners out there, your voicemail box is just a single caller-ID spoof away from the rest of the world, no 10,000 attempts necessary.

I like my iPhone so much, and could not imagine switching full-time to another device after two years of seeing how good things can get, but it seems like at least in the US, the combination of Apple and AT&T cannot quite get things done.  I do not imagine for a second that the incompetents at any of the other three national carriers could do half as well, but it is disappointing to see at least one supposedly current  feature (3G, visual voicemail, tethering, etc) always on the wrong side of the horizon.

If Visual voicemail is down much longer, I am going to change my iPhone plan to a Blackberry one and at least have the access to the great e-mail options when I switch my SIM out.

                With the recent attention on the economy, it is difficult to go more than a couple of days without seeing articles giving tips to job seekers.  My favorite articles are always the ones with tips from recruiters talking about their pet peeves, like this one found on the front page of Yahoo! today (I consider Yahoo!’s front page to be a general barometer of what the “average” Internet user cares about).  After spending more time than I would have liked over a lifetime dealing with HR as both a candidate and as someone attempting to hire, I think it is high time that we start seeing some articles about how to make the process better from within.  Here are some of my suggestions:

1.  Stop lying about open positions:  In an attempt to prevent sub-optimal hiring from within (a valid concern), many firms have instituted policies that require openings to be advertised prior to promoting or moving an internal candidate.  This practice has so many problems that it deserves its own list:

a.  This practice floods the market with bogus job listings.  “Entry programmer, salary $12/hr.  Would prefer Ph.D. in Anthropology, fluency in dead languages, and ability to carry up to 250lbs.  Must provide own transportation and computer”.

b.  The process wastes everyone’s time.  The hiring manager wants a person right now, and knows who it is.  An interview process can take weeks.  The time of interviewees is also wasted.

c.  The practice makes it more difficult to be promoted from within, which is a huge problem for employees in an economy where they are not getting significant raises or bonuses otherwise.

2.  Recognize job hunters who are and are not fishing with dynamite:  After returning to school and looking for an internship for the summer, I applied for four positions after doing a ton of research.  One was a position at a huge company that several of my peers applied for, and the others were positions at small or unconventional companies that were not even specifically looking for interns.  Because I did my homework, knew about the companies, and knew that I could fill true gaps in their workflows, I was able to physically interview for all four positions.   After meeting them, thanking them, and being told that I would be updated on their hiring process, I only received further uninitiated contact from the firms where I was given an offer.  I view the remaining firms as unorganized and unprofessional not because I was not chosen as the best candidate, but because a verbal agreement was broken by their HR representatives who inconvenienced me by not letting me know that they found a better fit.

Many of my peers applied for dozens or even hundreds of positions, and were hardly able to keep track of them.  Admittedly, this is a turn off described in almost every article, but the important difference is that many of the most qualified candidates do not attempt this type of application.  I feel that if you take the time to apply for a position that you are qualified for (and there cannot be that many), then it is the responsibility of the searching firm to acknowledge your application.  A non-response should only be used as a clear indication that you are not qualified for a position.  This practice could discourage candidates from fishing with dynamite.

3.  Recognize that job applications are time-sensitive:  In one case, I applied for a position, and received a call close to a year later from a hiring manager who was then upset that I was no longer interested in the position.  Qualified candidates are not applying for positions for fun, and there needs to be a relatively short statute of limitations for contact.  Once I left the corporate world for school, I received calls asking if I was looking for full-time work because I was no longer listed at my old company.  Ironically, this was well after I had begun looking for an internship.

4.  People that left a promising career to go to a full-time competitive graduate program likely did not get laid-off:  I am asked if I was laid-off at almost every interview.  Many people do not seem to understand the 9-12 month process of applying to a physical graduate program.  I cannot help but blame the uncompetitive for-profit online degrees for cheapening my academic pursuit.  If you are a recruiter, take five minutes to browse the website of the graduate school on an application.  This can tell you a lot very quickly.

  5.  You are not a detective:  Until you catch a candidate being dishonest, drop the ridiculous attitude.  Odds are, you are not going to break someone talented at lying to you, and you are guaranteed to turn off genuine candidates.  The ones in the middle that are bad at lying will reveal themselves long before the end of the hiring process, so the combative demeanor is not needed.  More than once, I have had to ask HR screeners if I am wasting my time applying based on their attitude when questioning me.  Based on my experience, lying employees will reveal themselves.  When in doubt, give them a simple computer skills test, regardless of the position.  I have been asked extensively about computer skills in almost every interview, regardless of the position.  I have only been on one interview where I was asked to demonstrate them.

            Recently, the makers of Quickoffice released their iPhone port, and I believe it will have major implications for the iPhone/iPod Touch platform.  It is one of the first productivity tools that is not a glorified browser.  Importantly, Quickoffice allows users to create and save local versions of the file, meaning that Internet access is not required to access any features. 

            I have not yet spent very much time with the platform, but it has already paid for itself as I have been able to quickly edit documents and return them to their sender.  You can access e-mail attachments and then send the altered files back to the sender, a huge victory for the iPhone platform. 

            The Quickoffice program shows proof of concept for powerful applications that exist independently of browsers, and I look forward to seeing what is possible with the relaxed limitations of the 3.0 software platform.  Once I can connect a Bluetooth keyboard to the iPhone, I will be much more comfortable leaving laptops at home, even for short trips.  The Quickoffice platform is the first piece of software that should rattle RIM and Palm, since it brings the iPhone up to par with the editing capabilities of the more established business platforms.  Obvious features like spell-check and formatting are missing for now, but hopefully some friendly competition will bring these all to market quickly.

Sticking with the topic of screen resolution, I am happy to see that the resolution of laptops is making it into mainstream technology news. Recently, the topic has been revived by Microsoft’s news ads targeting Macs, when many of the Apple fanboys pointed out that a 17” laptop picked in the first ad contained a 1440×900 display.

We have not yet arrived in the land of resolution independence, but consumers are becoming used to high-density screens, likely because of popular mobile phones like the new Blackberry models and the iPhone, with some DPI’s in the 200s.

As an Apple user, I am thrilled to see tech reviewers mention laptop screen resolution as a buying guide. Beyond gaming laptops, few manufacturers are adding high-resolution screens. Lenovo deserves a mention for their fantastic Thinkpad line, recently bolstered with the x200s with a 12.1” 1440×900 screen. By comparison, the 1280×800 panel in my MacBook Air is like a Lite Brite.

Hopefully Windows 7 and Snow Leopard will turn more people onto higher resolution screens, and pressure more manufacturers to offer models (at least BTO options) with higher densities.

In the mean time, it is starting to look like the x200s is the perfect “netbook”. The Dell Mini 10 with high-density screen seemed almost perfect (1366×768), but I have been tempted by the hopped-up Japanese-market Vaio P-Series computers available on Dynamism (1600×768). However, for a price similar to the P-Series, the x200s offers a C2D chip and an available 9-cell battery. High density options are here, and it is time to reward the manufacturers giving us more desktop space with less. Hopefully Apple and others will take notice.

Like most Mac users addicted to megapixels, I add new spaces even more often than I add new monitors. Currently, with about 8MP of LCD’s and six spaces, I stare into a glorious ~48 megapixel world from my desk.

Spaces, Apple’s name for virtual desktops, allows users to create different environments, seemingly for different tasks. It is a savior for everything from work/life balance to privacy, and it is one of the most compelling arguments for why Windows only lives in VMs on my workstation.

Compliments aside, I think that spaces and virtual desktops have a long way to grow. Currently, I run several VM’s and applications that I would like to have a dedicated physical monitor, something that is not possible with the current software. Of course, one can dictate that an application always be on the forefront of the desktop space that it occupies, but that does not quite do it for me. Digital graphics representation is becoming an ever more important part of our lives, and it would be fantastic to be able to control each monitor like a separate physical machine.

In the next iteration of OSX and Linux environments, I would like to see a number of features. First, I would like to have the ability to assign applications and VMs their own monitors, treating them like completely separate machines. This would mean that if other monitors were turned on or off, the separated panels would not be impacted. This could allow for substantial energy savings by giving a user the ability to turn off unneeded monitors while still being able to see necessary output. Next, I would like to be able to select which monitors participate in spaces, leaving a scratch monitor that is application agnostic like a clipboard for applications. This would allow a user to drag an “alias” of output or programs onto a monitor that would remain identical in every space, comparing graphics or figures from programs that normally occupy different spaces. This can be done by dragging applications to corners in the current environment, but there is no command I know of that will put them back. Finally, I would like to see a command that would create “derivative” spaces where the visible applications do not change, but which monitor they are displayed on does. For instance, if using three identical monitors (positioned L-C-R), a derivative command could be created to move applications from L or R to the center panel.

The virtual desktops currently available are miles ahead of any other workflow options, but I have been given an inch and want a mile. Particularly for Apple, these enhanced features could be coupled with the Fingerworks-offshoot multi-touch gestures. If implemented correctly, an improved spaces could approach the usability of the fabled “touch wall”. I cannot think of a better excuse to add multi-touch to the desktop input devices, creating a truly unique hardware/software line.

 Last week, hulu.com was forced to remove Boxee media center compatibility. As someone currently calibrating my very first television (not a typo), I find this maddening.

Admittedly, my willingness to get a television centered on the fact that I could use it primarily as a large computer monitor. I imagine that computing/viewing will be about a four to one ratio. Personally, I have never been a cable television customer, and I do not intend to ever be one. To me, viewing Hulu content via Boxee would have added a set of eyeballs to Hulu content without taking away a customer from broadcast or cable television. It would have been a win for everyone. Little did I know that when I signed up for Hulu (after signing up for Boxee), the content stream already had a kill date.

The biggest advantage of Boxee is the easy interface with remote controls. I could use Boxee without having a keyboard and mouse on the couch, something rather important to me when watching content with other people. I have been busy ripping my movies (all owned) to a hard disk so they are all available on the panel.

I set up my media center around Boxee, not around Hulu, and I almost feel bad about punishing Hulu’s great model by no longer watching it. However, I just do not see myself breaking out the keyboard to access Hulu programming. I would like to have some space between myself and the keyboard when entertaining myself or others.

I realize that I am in a small minority being so averse to television, but I feel like it is worth mentioning that there are technologically inclined users with disposable income for whom Hulu via Boxee added net eyeballs with no corresponding loss to traditional broadcasting methods.

Related, it must be a humungous victory for Boxee, OSX, and Linux to have a media center that terrifies the broadcasters before even having a public Windows version. My guess is that anybody hacking an Apple TV (is there a use for them stock?) or creating a dedicated computer-based media center was probably not a huge cable customer in the first place, and in this case the content owners are angering an enthusiast market that will find a way around them out of spite in addition to necessity.

And now back to my regularly scheduled computer interface…

Previously, I wrote about how Facebook was becoming another Myspace, and it was time for the nerds to move on. Taking my own advice, I deleted both accounts today.

As when leaving a job, I thought for a moment about sending a mass message, but that seemed to be completely besides the point. I did use both services to keep up with marginal friends, mostly from previous geographic locations. In my haste, I will lose contact information for some of them, but I figure if they need me, I am easier to find than I would like to be, and if I truly need them and a search is not working, I can always write a mutual aquintance and get contact info.

The process was a little different for the two services, and I would give Facebook a win* **. Deleting a Myspace account was a surprisingly easy task. I think it shows how little money these sites make per user by how easy it is to delete. Try to do the same with a Verizon wireless account (still pending for me, and it is sure not making me want to use them ever again).

I am going to keep my Twitter account for now, figuring that it is good for most of what I used other social networks for, and Twitter is at least on the rise of the social network lifecycle.

*Only easy because instructions to permanently delete an account was the top FAQ after the privacy thing.

**Account is only deleted if one does not log into the service for 14 days, an impossibly long time in the virtual world.

 Citi broke the double-buck today, as the market considers nationalization. It looks as though Citi and Bank of America are both being viewed through the scope. This is certainly not comfortable, but it is likely time. These two monsters are managed by clueless and passive boards and some of the most arrogant executive leadership in power today. Things are not getting better.

When things first went south, BofA bit off CountryWide and Merrill Lynch, tasty uncooked morsels that simply expanded too much. Coming from the other direction, Citi made so many bad decisions that there is likely not a “turning point” to be found, although we will hear of claims of many in the coming years as the “Citi story” turns from that of a centuries-old banking conglomerate to case-studies designed to insert fear into the hearts of business students.

Burying the shells of these companies will likely be the first step to recovery, and will go a long way to showing “Wall Street” that the government does not exist to enable their tantrums. In percentage terms, those that bought Citi in 50’s will hardly notice the difference, but the speculators will get a proper spanking. I has been far too easy in the past few months to collect quick profits from insolvent companies when bailouts are announced, and wiping out some of the vultures (including myself) is in the long-run a positive move. It should not be simple to profit by temporarily throwing money behind companies that the investors believe to be insolvent, so in some ways a wipeout will be a return to normalcy.

Welcome to the weekend…

Disclosure: I still own a small position of Citi common equity, which I plan to take down like the band playing on the Titanic. I already have some Zimbabwean Currency, and I figure a Citi stock certificate would be nice to have when teaching some of the above-mentioned case studies.

As the British government should well know by now, the problem of hiring people who know what they’re talking about is that they tell you what you don’t want to hear.  

Chairman of the UK’s Government Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Proffessor David J Nutt, has advised the government to downgrade the legal classification of LSD and MDMA from Class A down to Class B.  In the US system, this would be tantamount to reducing these drugs from their current Schedule 1 status to a non-existant grey area between Schedule 2 and 3.

Side word; A quick search has left me without a cirriculum vitae for Dr. Nutt, but I have found evidence that he at least has had graduate students and he conducts research (gasp, shock).  You would think that being chairman of a nation’s governmental council would be enough of an indicator that you have the right stuff. But, you know government…

Some quick words on British and American drug policy and history:  Britain dropped marijuana from a Class B to a Class C drug, only to bring it up to Class B again this year (1/26/09).  In the United States, marijuana still stands tall next to all other drugz that DARE told you were bad, m’kay.  The legal classification for Meth Amphetamine, in both countries, defines it as being more safe than LSD and MDMA (Schedule 1 vs. 2; Class A vs. Class B).  Now, if you cook it in your basement, that’s a prison sentence.  But, if you get it in a schedule 2 pill, you’re in the clear, because of meth’s obvious beneficial medical properties…  Which, I might add, are totally more valid than psychologists recommendations for MDMA therapy for numerous disorders, most importantly PTSD.  I could explode over the court cases of good people apparently doing the wrong thing But, the ACMD gives me hope that government will pay attention to reality over ignorance.