shahine.com/omar/

Walt Mossberg has a great write up on the Suckiness of the Comcast DVR. It echoes my experiences with that horrible piece of junk.

I like this quote:

"The answer is that, at least in my recent experience with the nation's biggest cable company, Comcast, the high-definition DVR it supplies is just awful. If cable boxes were sold at retail like consumer-electronics devices, the Comcast DVR I tested, built by Motorola, would get creamed by better competitors."

and this one:

"Also, the user interface on the Comcast box is crude and confusing -- nothing like the elegant interfaces people have become used to on their personal computers and devices like iPods. The TiVo interface, by contrast, is effective and attractive."

and this one:

"In the program grid, even on a 50-inch, high-definition screen with acres of room, the Comcast box displays just four rows of stations at a time. Until recently, there was a fifth row, but now that has been replaced by an ad. The ad not only sucks up space, but also is aggravating because it gets selected each time you reach the bottom of the grid screen.

Advertising is fine, but in this case, sacrificing 20% of an already paltry information screen for an ad just shows contempt for users."

This is by far the most scathing comments I've seen Walt make about any product. "crude and confusing", "contempt for users" are not things you want Walt saying about your product or company.

I wonder if the BigCo media execs at Comcast are at all embarrassed? Probably not.

Starting Jan 1st I'll be using Quicken 2007 and my existing Money 2007 side by side for as many days as it takes me to make a decision about which one is better.

I wrote about how I might switch back in August, but when I started to do so it was too daunting to do in the middle of the year. Since the export/import story is impossible I decided to wait till Jan 1st and start with a clean file and only bring over my necessary information to keep my financial life chugging a long.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Scott has a great post on the relative pros and cons of the iPod, Zune and Clix.

This post is my delta of his, so go read his first.

I currently own the following

• iPod 30GB (5.5G, the new video one)
• iPod 4GB Nano (1G)
• Zune 30GB (Black)

I used to have two Nano's, one for me and one for my wife. However, mine broke, I returned it to Costco for a full refund and got the iPod 30GB (sidenote: Coscto has the most amazing return policy).

The Zune I have is on loan to me as I was an internal beta tester. I've had the thing for a while.

Since I stopped commuting from San Francisco to Mountain View every day, my usage of the device has changed. Back then it was all about the Nano cause I wanted convenience and smallness. I would just keep the thing around my neck and use the Lanyard Headphones and never had to worry about packing it up etc.

Now that I drive to work every day, smallness is less important. The Nano pretty much stays in the car all the time. If our second Nano broke I'd get something bigger.

Since I got the iPod Video though, I've radically altered how much we use the thing. Lora LOVES the iPod video. She has loaded that thing up with Video Podcast, Audio Podcast and TV Shows like Lost Season 3 and Heroes Season 1. Lora and I are spending a few hours a day in our Daughter's room feeding and trying to get her to bed in her crib, so it's awesome to have tons of content to listen to and watch. We just plop the iPod in our JBL On Stage B and entertain ourselves (and Sarah... she likes John Meyer and Jack Johnson).

Basically, TV Shows and Podcasts are the killer app for us at this point in our lives. We can't get enough of this. Sadly all these season passes are going to but a dent in our budget (they aren't cheap). When we start to travel more with Sarah, I imagine the video features will continue to be important.

Now the Zune. I think the video screen is better, but I have no video to watch on it. The Zune Marketplace is great for audio (I have a Zune Pass which is great for downloading new music I would not normally buy) but lacks any kind of video. Also the Zune SUCKS for Podcasting. You cannot "bookmark" a podcast, or advance chapters. This makes it a non-starter for anything but music... and for music I really don't need a 30GB player that's huge. Basically I'm never out of the house long enough to warrant having that much darn music. and needing something the size of a first generation iPod. Furthermore, I don't need or listen to all my music all the time. I pretty much stick to 20 or so albums and anything else I put into a playlist. Oh, and I definitely don't need Wifi right now. Not till a few more peeps are using the Zune.

That leaves all the other stuff (like the Clix). I stopped using Windows Media Player... seriously what's the point? PlaysForSure is dead to me, and the Zune app is new and different and it's bad enough that I need to run iTunes and the Zune app. I don't have room in my life for WMP (other than being a great ripping app, it's shown me no love over the years).... Oh, there is one small exception. That's what works on Windows Media Center, so till Zune has a 10 foot UX for Media Center I will continue to rip my CDs using WMP to WMA lossless and then Rip my Audio to AAC using iTunes. The beauty of the Zune app is that it can play my AAC files that sync to the iPod as well as any WMA files.

Oh, and I'm really quite close to getting a Shuffle. Why? Well as I mentioned, I no longer commute, and any traveling that we do I'll be bringing along either the iPod or the Zune or both. Size is no problem when you have a laptop bag etc. But when I'm out and about (like in town, or at the mall) it would be nice to have some tunes and I like the idea of clipping something the size of  a remote to my clothing and using my super sweet Shure E500PTH with their small cord (19 inches) and drowning my self in nothing but my music.

What's more important, cool whizbang features or logging in every day and seeing the info you expect to see? While Hotmail Windows Live Mail has had it's share of problems over the years, one thing we've learned over time is that no mater what you do, if a customer logs in one day and doesn't see their email, nothing else matters at that point. It doesn't matter if the reason they lost their mail was because they didn't log in for the last x number of days before their account was deleted, or if a server blew up containing all their mail.

Trading off between investments in new stuff, and keeping the service running for your millions of users is not an easy decision. Sometimes you need to put things on hold and double up in your QoS efforts.

In fact, I remember a story some one told me a year or so ago. Over the holidays (when things were quiet at work) a man walked into our building in Mountain View hysterical that all his mail was gone. Luckily the receptionist got some one on our team to talk to him. In the end we were able to restore his mail . Don't ask me how.

I hope those 60 GMail users get their mail back (and hopefully it's only 60). It's probably not a fun time for the Googlers that are currently at the Googleplex figuring out how to undelete lots of deleted data.

What are people using to backup to Amazon S3? I've tried a number of tools and they all fall short for one reason or another.

The basic problem with Amazon S3 is this:

1. They do not support rename/moves (you must do a delete/copy)
2. They write the current upload time as the modified time. This breaks programs that rely on date/time to detect changes.

Jungle Disk

Great app, it allows you to map a drive letter to your Amazon S3 account. It has built in backup, however, it does not remove things in the destination that no longer exist in the source. I personally want my backup to be a mirror of my source because I tend to organize/move files around a lot.

Jungle Disk + SyncBackSE

This combo proved to be horrible because SyncBackSE relies on file date/time modifications to detect changes. The end result is that lots of unchanged files get sync' ed again. To make matters worse, when SyncBackSE copies a file to a remote drive, it will upload a temp file and then rename it. Well since Amazon S3 does not support rename, this results in two file uploads by Jungle Disk (and wastes time and bandwidth).

SyncBackSE has an option to use file hashes to detect changes, but this is far slower and requires that each file be downloaded to get the hash. No good for remote backup where you are paying for the bandwidth.

Jungle Disk + SyncToy

If you configure SyncToy to "echo" files from your local machine to Amazon using Jungle Drive you get what appears to be perfection. However, I have noticed that renames and deletes on the source are not mirrored on the destination. I suspect this has to do with either a bug in Jungle Disk or some issue with amazon's lack of support for rename.

Furthermore, SyncToy does not delete directories on the destination using echo.

S3 Backup

I'm currently trying this out, but it lacks any backup scheduling support. I also do not know if it will delete files on the destination that are no longer on the source. I Will find out soon enough I guess.

update: looks like this scenerio is possible, but the option to delete files on the destination that are no longer on the source is greyed out in the current beta. hmm.

Anyone else have any tips here?

My favorite feature of RDC 6.0 is that when connecting to a Vista machine, ClearType is supported. Seriously, I hated to connect to other computers because I'm so used to ClearType and fonts are so darned ugly without it... not to mention that the new Office 2007 and Vista fonts are ClearType hinted and look terrible if ClearType is disabled. 

As for Network Level Authentication, I can't get that to work at all (I still have to auth).

The last cool feature is I can connect to my PC at work without having to VPN to the office. This is done using my smartcard.

Source: Microsoft releases Remote Desktop Connection 6.0

If the Roth 401K is an option for you, and you are not contributing to it, or are wondering if you should, I found a fantastic article by Vanguard that goes into great detail about this 401K plan.

Basically, what it amounts to is this. Do you think you will be in a higher tax bracket in retirement than you are now? Remember that money withdrawn from a Roth 401 will actually help to reduce your taxable income in retirement assuming you will have other forms of taxable income (normal 401k, pension etc). Also of note is that any corporate matching donations are still taxed for either type of plan.

One interesting wrinkle is if you are paying the AMT now. If you are that puts you in a potentially higher tax bracket now and the additional amount due for the AMT may not be reduced much relative to your normal tax liability with a pre-tax 401k. Something to think about. Because I live in California, have high property taxes + state income taxes, I'm pretty much going to be paying AMT till congress changes the tax law.

Anyway, read the article and decide for yourself. I think next year I'll be doing 50/50 traditional/roth.

I was looking for a way to put my PC to sleep from the command line (and found one). Why? Cause my new keyboard (the Microsoft Natural Ergo Keyboard 4000) doesn't have a sleep button and I wanted to set the 5th customized key to do that but all it can do is launch an application. So I set it to Run:

rundll32 powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState

and Voila.

Does anyone know of a similar command that will invoke the User Screen under Fast User Switching? The following command simply locks the computer. It's then an extra step to get to the user selection screen on vista. The reason I ask is that it's to much of a pain to go to the vista start menu to switch users.

rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation

update: well that was fast, an anonymous commenter let me know that running tsdiscon.exe will switch users and bring you back to the logon screen. Acording to Windows this command line app "Disconnects a terminal session.".

Jeff Atwood inspired me to write this. It's a parody of this Logging in with the Keyboard Post and I've tried to keep it word for word, just on a different topic. Hope you don't mind Jeff!

The standard address bar is in every browser window.

As much as we see the address bar every day, you'd think we would have mastered them by now. Unfortunately, we haven't. Here's what I've observed users doing, over and over again:

1. Launch IE
2. Click the mouse to the address bar field
3. Type "www."
4. Type "google"
5. Type ".com"

Every time I watch someone do this, a little part of me dies inside. And I see it all the time.

I'm not just talking about casual users like our parents. I'm talking about our fellow software developers, and other users who work with the computer for most of the day. People who really should know better.

What kills me about this is all the needless, painful keystrokes. You've needlessly entered "www." and ".com" millions of times-- just add a little control-Enter to the mix! I'm no keyboard Nazi. All I want is to save users a few precious seconds of their day as they slog through the endless web pages during their work day. And it's so darn easy:

1. Launch IE
2. Click the mouse to the address bar field (or better yet, Type Alt-D)
3. Type "google"
4. Type control-enter

See? Wasn't that nice? Now it's your turn to play Keyboard Appleseed and spread the word so your fellow coworkers can spend less time logging in-- and more time getting actual work done.

Sidenote: Mac IE was much smarter in this respect. All you had to do was type "google" enter and it did the rest. No big deal you say? Well you could type "shahine/omar" and it would take you to www.shahine.com/omar. If you try that in Win IE you get http://www.shahine/omar.com. Not smart.

Funny, Raymond Chen linked to my post on "My" Documents from earlier this year.

I'm still pissed about this, especially at Adobe cause it still insists on placing it's temporary Updater downloads in My Documents folder. The programmer who did that should be sent to Programmer Jail™.

Anyway, the world is a bit better on Vista. Actually I really like how the whole Documents things works.

My Moniker

First of all the "My" moniker  has been dropped. Yay! However, old applications still don't know this yet and still litter your folder with the My namespace. Luckily it's easy to spot the offenders now.

Pictures, Videos, Music

Second, all the "My Pictures", "My Videos", "My Music" folders now live in your User folder, not your Documents folder. Great.

User folder

There is a new User folder that you can get to from your Start menu (the topmost item in the start menu). It's named after your user name.

When you select Omar you get the following items:

• Contacts (\Users\Omar\Contacts)
• Documents (\Users\Omar\Documents)
• Favorites (\Users\Omar\Favorites)
• Music (\Users\Omar\Music )
• Saved Games (\Users\Omar\Saved Games)
• Desktop (\Users\Omar\Desktop)
• Downloads (\Users\Omar\Downloads)
• Links (\Users\Omar\Links)
• Pictures (\Users\Omar\Pictures)
• Searches (\Users\Omar\Searches)
• Videos (\Users\Omar\Videos)

as well as some hidden folders like

• AppData
• a few others.

This is great as now there is a user friendly place to get to stuff that's not "Documents" but stuff you want access to. This also greatly improves backing up the Documents folder as you won't accidentally include multi gigabyte folders like Saved Games, Pictures and Music (you can back those up using separate schedules and schemes).

Another side benefit to the Users folder is that what used to be in:

\Documents and Settings\<username>

is now in:

\Users\<username>

this is much shorter for command line users, and lacks a space so you don't need to place it in quotes.

BTW - I'm pretty sure this is all modeled after Unix, and now Mac OS X.

Also nice is that all application data now lives in AppData and from there you can find the Local and Roaming folders that are clear on their intent and use. In XP you had \Local Settings\Application data and \Application Data and I always forgot which one was which and when to use one vs the other.

Public

Finally, the last great improvement is that there is a notion of "Public" now which replaces "Shared Documents", "Shared Videos" etc. For multi user computers, this is great as you have a real user to place all your stuff in. This is also true for shortcuts and settings that were previously mapped to the "Documents and Settings\All Users".

There is also another great feature for the multi user PC that existed in Windows XP but was not made available in the GUI, and that's Junction Points.

Junction Points, or how to share files on your family PC

Why should you care about Junction Points? Well let me illustrate something.

Say you are sharing your computer with your spouse. You have your pictures, music and documents that you share. This may include an iTunes library etc. You don't want each user to have their own Pictures and Music because this is a "family pc". Well, in XP you had the good old Shared folders, but if you didn't know to use them then they never got used. To make matters worse, Photo and Music programs still insisted on defaulting to the individual user folders. This meant that now you had photos and music in two places. Not good.

Well, in Vista, there is a really easy way to say "Point folder x at folder y permanently".

So for example:

\Users\omar\Pictures and \Users\lora\Pictures can point to \Uses\Public\Pictures.

This means that files can no longer be stored in the individual folders for each user, but instead all file system access to those folders is automatically redirected to the Public folder.

How do you do this?

Simple:

1. Right click on any folder (try the Pictures folder)
2. Select Properties
3. Click the Location tab.
4. Click the Move button
5. Select the new location (try \Users\Public\Pictures)
6. Vista will ask you if you want to move the current contents of your folder to the new location. Say yes or no depending on what you want to do.

Now go to any application and click the Pictures shortcut. Cool eh?

Now repeat this process for each user on your machine.

Another sweet Vista feature.

Hopefully Application Developers will take advantage of this new organization.

I love life hacks like this. Mike Torres and I were emailing back and forth today about our backup strategies, and recent discovery of JungleDisk (which is an excellent program) and cheap storage via Amazon S3 when the discussion spiraled into how to deal with "journaling" changes that a daily backup will not address (if you delete a file, then the backup no longer has the tombstoned file etc).

Anyway, Mike told me that he hid his Recycle Bin and basically has ignored it. You see the problem with the Recycle Bin is that since the beginning of time (since I used a Mac) I used to empty the thing a few times a day. Why is that? In fact, my father suffers from this same problem. He cannot stand seeing the Recycle Bin full.

Much like the trash cans in our lives, they are meant to be emptied. But, if you think about it there is no good reason to empty it these days. In fact, if you let Windows do its thing, the Recycle Bin will just sit there and get bigger and bigger till it reaches it's allotted size, then it will automatically purge itself. You can specify how large it's allowed to get:

But in order to realize this benefit, you should hide your Recycle Bin. I just did this  on all my machines and I feel better already.

To disable the Recycle Bin do the following:

Vista

• Select Recycle Bin
• Press the Delete key

Windows XP

Method 1

• Start->Run
• Type gpedit.msc
• Go to User Configuration -> Administrative Templates
• Select Desktop
• Double Click Remove Recycle Bin icon from desktop
• Click Enabled
• Click OK
• Logoff/Logon to see your changes

Method 2

• Use Tweak UI

BTW, my backup strategy is totally influx now. I'm using Carbonite, Amazon S3 (via JungleDisk), a local server and FolderShare. The things I have to backup are a bit complex (my stuff, shared stuff, my wife's stuff etc). When things settle down I'll blog about it cause I hope to have a system that can be cloned into a LifeHack. Right now I have 5 computers between work/home and they all have data I want everywhere and want backed up... not easy.

Ed Bott detailed his recent experience with his Shuttle PC. I had a similar problem a while back except, this happened right away, and I was able to return it to Fry's. I am not as patient as Ed, and would not have gone through all that before giving up.

Here is a great quote from my old post:

"Never buy a Shuttle PC. They are buggy, the BIOS releases are buggy, and if you read the release notes for the BIOS you’d understand. If you even read the forums for but a brief moment you’d come to the same conclusion."

Oh, and I will never buy a Shuttle PC. If you are building a PC yourself, you are better off getting a small form factor case (like the SilverStone SG01) taht can take a Mini-ATX motherboard. You will have a lot of selection to chose from any all standard components.

My Tiny USB Keychain (the OCZ Mini-Kart) finally died the other day. I had bypassed the little thread loop to attach it to my keychain and finally the plastic gave way and now I can't keep it on my keychain.

Well, lo and behold, Sony produced an even smaller USB Keychain. The 2GB Micro Vault Tiny is half the size (really), comes with a protective pouch for your keychain, and is Vista ReadyBoost compatible. Heck, I got 2 of them... a 1GB model to use as a ReadyBoost Drive for my iMac and a 2GB model for my keychain.

For a great site compiling all the compatibility issues with lots of USB drives and Vista ReadyBoost go here.

For the longest time I've wanted to get a digital picture frame. Well, they are finally big enough and affordable enough that I took the plunge and purchased one. Now that we have a little one, I wanted something at work that I can keep on my desk at work and keep the pictures fresh. Right now I have a bunch of ancient analog pictures that are really dusty.

So, with that in mind I was in Costco the other day and saw the Digital Spectrum NV700 for like $120. Since I was thinking of getting the Philips 9 inch frame which is twice that price I jumped at the chance to get a frame almost as big for cheaper. Well big mistake. That thing is a piece of junk. For one thing, it's got some bizarre resolution (I could not actually figure out the resolution from a bunch of test images I tried) and it will always scale your images using it's cheap horrible scaler which will make any good looking picture look distorted. Their web site claims the resolution is 480 x 234 pixels. Just so you know how weird that looks, most digital cameras shoot pictures in 4:3 or 3:2 ratio of horizontal to vertical pixels. Consumer point and shoot are generally are 4:3 while SLRs are 3:2.

Here are some examples of what that translates to.

The Digital Spectrum would be effectively 2:1

Who wants to look a a frame that makes people either look extra skinny or extra fat?

Anyway, back to Costco it went (within 2 hours). Next I took advantage of our Microsoft Employee Purchase Discount at Philips and got the frame I should have gotten in the first place. The quality of the Philips frame is amazing, and it also has a built in battery allowing you to unplug it from it's location, move it to your PC so you can upload some new pics over USB. The viewing angle is great and I'm really pleased with the frame.

The Philips frame comes in two sizes, 9 inch and 7 inch. Each is available in a number of finishes. I got the 9 inch milk frame. Note that Amazon and Philips are using different metrics to size the frame. I have no idea what's going on there. The Native Resolution of the Philips 9 inch or 8 inch (depending on who you believe) is 720 x 480 which is good old 3:2 (thanks for pointing out my mistake Tommy).