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My Blackberry Feature Wishlist

Posted on January 30, 2008
Filed Under Consumer Electronics, Corporate IT, Miscellaneous | 8 Comments

The Blackberry has been so successful as a mobile email device in part because it offers good enough completeness of experience and integration with corporate email systems (Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes being the canonical examples). By “completeness of experience” I’m referring to the fact that most of what you can do natively in the email lifecycle in Outlook/Exchange and Notes you can do on the device. There are a number of gaps - gaps which force me to use the native email client to accomplish basic tasks - and I’d like to see them addressed.

In no particular order (and from a Lotus Notes-centric point of view):

• Rich text support including the bare basics like bold, italics and support for colored text
• Usage of the Notes Drafts folder from the Blackberry, so that the Notes client and the Blackberry have equal access to message drafts
• Usage of the Notes Trash folder from the Blackberry, so that the Notes client and the Blackberry have equal access to deleted items. This would support undelete from the Blackberry as well.
• Ability to copy and paste attachments between messages, or for a functionally equivalent result the ability to forward a message containing an attachment and then delete all text except for the attachment
• Ability to edit portions of existing messages when replying to or forwarding them. The message body is immutable.
• Tab, indentation and bullet support

Any Blackberry/Notes experts out there that can comment?

The iPod Touch Could Do a Better Job with Podcasts

Posted on January 23, 2008
Filed Under Consumer Electronics, Miscellaneous | 4 Comments

I’m a big fan of podcasts; I think the medium is excellent. I’ve used the 5G Video iPod and the iPod Touch and I think Apple took a step backwards with the Touch’s support for podcasts. The experience just isn’t optimal.

The following are annoyances and/or problems (in no particular order) which I hope Apple will address with a firmware update:

• Landscape mode is more difficult for podcast listening than is portrait mode. In landscape for example, the play and pause buttons become miniscule and you can’t slew back and forth in a podcast.
• I do most of my listening in the car. When I put the Touch down, the screen invariably switches from portrait to landscape mode as the device turns sideways along it’s journey from my hand to the seat. (This is a case where a “feature” becomes an annoyance.) When you pick up the device you need to wait the second or two it takes to flip back to portrait mode. Note that this problem isn’t unique to podcasts.
• My fingers move faster than most devices can keep pace, and the iPod Touch is no exception. I wish the CPU was faster or the UI was more responsive or that keystrokes and gestures were buffered in hardware.
• Titles that are longer than approximately 20 (give or take, since the font is proportional) characters are cut off and there’s no horizontal scroll mode or marquee behavior to show you the remaining characters. Turning the Touch to landscape mode provides a marginal improvement since the screen is wider, but even then many titles display truncated.
• Screen real estate is poorly used. While a podcast is playing the majority of the screen is filled with the show image (if the audio file included an image) and the title displays in a micro-mini font.
• Almost nothing in the UI is customizable. Fonts, font sizes, screen colors are all fixed.
• Show notes (may include the text of the podcast, summary info, links, etc.) aren’t supported and aren’t displayed. Previous iPod models (and likely the new Nano and iPod Classic) display the show notes when you click the center button. I know the information is encoded in the audio files but the device just isn’t exploiting it.
• The volume should be adjustable with a tactile button on the unit. You often want to adjust volume in very fine increments and this is difficult as a touch control.
• Fast forward and reverse within a podcast are nearly impossible with one hand. The position control is so fine grained that you have to be holding the unit in one hand (or have the device sitting very stationary on a surface - not exactly the conditions while driving) and adjust the position with the other, while looking directly at the screen. Even with both hands you frequently overshoot your destination - makes it very difficult if you want to listen to the last several seconds or jump forward or back to different places in the audio. The click wheel-based iPods do a good job of this by giving you good control over the position. The Microsoft Zune gets this right as well - hitting forward or back jumps a given number of seconds or minutes, and if you hold down forward or back the device does a VCR-type fast forward/reverse behavior.
• Podcasts are marked as played even if you only listen to the first few seconds. This is unfortunate because you can’t turn to landscape mode to get longer titles until you start playing. So to just view a fuller title you’ve marked the show as played. The Zune doesn’t mark a podcast as played until you listen to the majority of the show (I’m not sure I like this method better.)
• You can’t download new podcast episodes or subscribe to new podcasts over WiFi. The iTunes WiFi interface doesn’t support podcasts at all. The root of this issue is that the Touch doesn’t contain a full blown iTunes client with separate podcast subscription capabilities and as a result, there’s no direct device-to-Internet podcast retrieval. The Zune doesn’t have a direct-to-Internet podcast capability either; you have to sync content from a PC running the Zune Marketplace software which in turn does the Internet downloads. See my previously written related rant.

Update 2-3-08: Added additional bullet.

• While in landscape mode you don’t get volume or position controls.

These annoyances are somewhat compensated for by the fact that the Touch is a pleasure to use, but it would be nice if Apple could address these issues.

Usng Google’s “Did you mean?” Feature as a Better Spell Cheker

Posted on January 20, 2008
Filed Under Internet | 18 Comments

Over the years I’ve used Dictionary.com to spell-check the odd word here and there. Recently however I’ve started using Google’s “Did you mean?” feature as my official spell-checker.

Most people have used Google’s “Did you mean?” feature even without knowing it. It works very simply - if you do a Google search on a misspelled word, you’ll most likely be asked, “Did you mean: correctly_spelled_word“. This feature wasn’t built as a spell-checker per-se (in other words, the audience for this feature isn’t generally people looking up the proper spelling of words but rather the person who incorrectly types a search term. Recognizing that the search term is spelled incorrectly (which would return poor results) Google suggests the proper spelling so you can get the results you expect.

However, there’s no reason that “Did you mean?” can’t be used directly as a spell checker, and that’s exactly how I use it now. I like it better than the dictionary sites because a) I get just the results I want (the correctly spelled word), b) the results are nearly instant since I have a Google search box just a single click or keystroke away and c) most dictionary sites are built to define words that you spell correctly, not correct incorrectly spelled words (therefore, you end up typing in the incorrectly spelled word several times in trial and error mode until you get the answer you’re looking for).

Give it a try. Go to Google and type in an incorrectly spelled word or search phase and you should get a “Did you mean?” suggestion.

Interesting Points from the Book “Standing Next to History: An Agent’s Life Inside the Secret Service” by Joseph Petro

Posted on January 19, 2008
Filed Under Books | 27 Comments

I’ve always been fascinated by the United States Secret Service, especially the procedures, regiment and strict discipline associated with presidential protection. (The Secret Service actually started out as an arm of the U.S. Treasury department with the responsibility of fighting the counterfeiting of U.S. currency, however aspect is far less sexy and interesting to me.) I just finished the book, “Standing Next to History: An Agent’s Life Inside the Secret Service“, written by Joseph Petro, a former agent who spent 4 years of his service protecting Ronald Reagan. The book was interesting and an easy read.

The following are some facts (according to the author) that I found especially interesting (in order of mention in the book):

• The President doesn’t eat anything unless the origin of the contents and who handled it are known.  At state banquets for example, it appears that the President is eating the same food as everyone else, but his meal is cooked by White House stewards who actually source the same ingredients themselves.  There are exceptions, like when the President is at a baseball game and wants a hot dog.  In this case an agent will randomly select a vendor and make a purchase.
• While at an Orioles game, Reagan ordered three hot dogs, handed the vendor $5 and said keep the change.  However the hot dogs were $2 a piece and Reagan’s staff had to chip in the difference.
• Upon hearing gunshots, most people instinctively duck and cover.  Secret Service agents are trained to unholster their weapons, stand up and return fire.
• By design, the President is never more than 10 minutes away from a trauma center.  In the case of foreign soil where there may not be a trusted hospital within range, the Navy may actually locate a ship with full trauma and medical facilities in proximity.
• The legislation creating the Secret Service was actually on Lincoln’s desk waiting to be signed on the same day he was assassinated.  However it wasn’t until 1901 that the charter of the Secret Service grew to include presidential protection.
• The Secret Service has protected the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Gutenberg Bible and the Mona Lisa, in addition to human protectees.
• Secret Service protection of the President and Vice President are mandatory; it cannot be turned down.  Spousal protection is optional.
• Most presidential trips are preceded by three Service Service visits for surveying and planning purposes.  The first trip is typically 3 to 5 months prior and is called the “survey”.  The second trip is 1 month prior and is called the “preadvance”.  One week prior to the President’s trip the site is visited by advance team.  Other agents arrive 1-2 days prior to the President’s visit for bug sweeping and securing and final prep.
• The President travels with a password (although it’s carried by an aide).  It needs to be processed like any other.
• Early in his Secret Service career, Petro was advised never to put the President higher than the 9th floor in a hotel, which is the maximum height that ladder trucks can reach.  In addition, the Secret Service takes over three entire floors.  The President would go in the middle with agents above and below.
• The Oval Office doors are always locked and they don’t open like regular doors; there’s a trick to it.  The same applies to the doors on the limo.
• Protectees are assigned code names by the White House Communications Agency (WHCA), with family member’s code names starting with the same letter.  For example, George Bush 41 was “Timberwolf” and Barbara Bush was “Tranquility”.
• Family and friends who send letters to the President use a special, private mailing address. 
• When the President travels, the Secret Service flies around their own cars  They typically bring two complete sets in case there’s a problem.  This includes two presidential limos.
• Reagan worked in his residence in the early morning and always came to the Oval Office at 9 AM - no sooner and no later.  If Reagan was ready earlier he’d pace for a few minutes while looking at his watch.
• When the President or First Lady went shopping, the Secret Service would never carry their bags as it would interfere with their “operational readiness”.
• Whenever the President traveled, he had with him a slew of Secret Service agents, a doctor, a WHCA officer and the military aide (the person who carries the nuclear football) at all times.
• 95% of the threats against the President and Vice President come from people in mental institutions or are otherwise disturbed.
• Nearly everyone who comes under the attention of the Secret Service as a potential threat is interviewed.
• Reagan’s Secret Service detail took intensive horseback riding training because he was such an avid rider.
• To get off his horse, Reagan always did the Italian dismount.  In this maneuver, the rider swings one leg forward and over the horse and then slides down off the side.
• The Secretary of State is protected by State Department Security, who conduct separate advance trips than the Secret Service, even if they’ll be traveling together to the same place.
• During trips, a Secret Service agent would be stationed at the nearest hospital trauma center.
• The Secret Service has to be in the presence of the President at all times, so Petro attended several of Reagan’s colonoscopies during his colon cancer recuperation.
• An AOP is an Attack on the President.  The Secret Service trained for multiple kinds of AOP scenarios, including during normal walks or motorcades, skiing, scuba diving, and horseback riding.
• AOPs scenarios don’t get run at the White House because agents running around with guns drawn would upset the staff.  As a result, a model of the White House facade was built at the Secret Service training facility in Beltsville, MD.
• Dan Quayle would make impromptu visits to Dairy Queen because he and Dairy Queen have the same initials.
• The inaugural ceremony is a military event run by the Military District of Washington.
• Air Traffic Control (ATC) clears the airspace wherever Air Force One flies.
• President Reagan logged more miles (631,640) on Air Force One than Nixon, Ford and Carter combined (566,386).
• The largest Secret Service protective effort ever was during the Pope’s 1987 visit to the US.