If you sense a pattern to my post titles, you're really paying attention. Recently I spent a few weeks using the Samsung Blackjack, a new Windows-mobile smartphone. Within the first 24 hours, as I wrote last month, it became clear to me that the phone wasn't going to work for me, being a power user of mobile technology for critical, fast-paced business. In other words, Crackberry-style. You can read my experiences here, and also know that while I was able to adjust somewhat to the Blackjack, the three weeks that followed that first "24 Hours" post were not significantly better than my initial impressions.

For the past few days I reverted to using my tried-and-true Blackberry 8700 again. I went back because using the Blackjack was holding me back in a substantial way, and I am so busy at work right now I needed to get back to something that would perform and work the way I work. It's worthy of mention that after about 10 minutes using the Blackberry my old wrist pain started to come back. Not a good sign. the 8700 is wider then the Blackjack and the Treo, and I found that holding it was stretching my thumb out in a way that was causing me pain. So, that's a good thing to discover. Also, while I enjoyed the quick usability of the Blackberry the moment I went back to it, I found the screen and general look and feel to be plain and stark after living in Windows Mobile for a few weeks.

Anyhow, on Wednesday this week, a new box arrived via FedEx from Cingular (despite the much-hyped winter storm) and I swapped the Blackjack and the Blackberry back out again in order to give the new Palm Treo 750 a try. This is the latest of the Windows Mobile 2005 enabled Palm devices. It runs Windows Mobile Phone Edition v5, plus Palm has made some nice little enhancements to the home screen (or "Today" screen, as they say) and other software interfaces. To be honest, I was quite skeptical about whether this new device would be sufficient after my experiences over the past few weeks with the Smartphone version of Windows Mobile running on the Blackjack hardware. But I can report today that I am pleasantly surprised, and that I may have actually found a Windows Mobile phone that can replace my Blackberry for real-world use.

To be certain, the Treo 750 is a significantly beefier (both physically and figuratively) device than the Blackjack. But it is fast and smooth, very well designed and crafted, and is thought-out in a way that most other devices are not. Palm's attention to the enhancements they made to the home screen and some of the underlying software is indicative of their usability focus, and that's important. In fact, it may just make the technology sufficiently usable for what I need. Pretty much anything I need is accessible right there on the home screen. Because it's a PocketPC version of Windows Mobile, it has the touch screen and a stylus, so I can use my finger or the metal pen thing. Of course there is also the ubiquitous five-way button pointer just above the keyboard pad that works quite well for navigation, too.

So, what is it that is so much better about the Treo 750 that has me singing it's praises? Let me count a few of the ways:

• It's fast and more powerful. The Treo doesn't miss keystrokes or pause for several to many seconds when you launch an application or try to do normal everyday tasks.
• The way Palm approached text and MMS messaging is very cool - It looks a lot like an instant messaging interface and makes for a fast and positive text messaging experience.
• Better speakerphone.
• More advanced Windows Mobile software, with the ability to run PocketPC applications.
• The keyboard is pretty darned terrific, leaps and bounds better than the Blackjack's.
• The Treo loads web pages reliably and faster than the Blackjack, which is interesting since the 3G network the Treo uses is not (yet) HSPDA. The Treo currently runs on the UMTS network, with a HSPDA software upgrade slated for the first half of this year.
• Check out some of the ease-of-use enhancements in a one-minute PC WORLD video here.
• Check out Cingular's Treo 750 interactive tutorial (about 20 minutes) here.

What are some remaining Treo 750 and Windows Mobile shortcomings? There are a few, if I want to get nit-picky:

• Battery life in my subjective first-day use on the high speed network was better than the Blackjack, but it is still not up to par with what one gets out of the Blackberry (which is and EDGE network device, for the record - slower yet again).
• More proprietary connectors?? I know, it's a Palm creation. But seriously, why the heck can't we just charge and sync via a standard Mini-USB2.0 port? Time to locate and buy some more accessories. If I had $29.00 for every cheap plastic vehicle charger I ever bought, I'd be just about break-even.
• The Inbox application on Windows mobile doesn't let you aggregate all your mail into the main inbox if you use subfolders in Outlook/Exchange to organize your email. More on that and what I did to alleviate the problem this evening can be found below.

Quick sidebar: My friend Trevin reacted in an IM conversation tonight to my petty complaints about the devices by saying, "Oh, cry me a river Hughes." Heh. Hey, man... You know, it's picky, difficult people like me that gently drive usability experts back into their corners and holes (in a friendly way, of course) where they make technology miracles happen in the next rev, and we also provide them with wish lists of things that would make us buy their stuff. Everything I say is intended to be taken from the perspective of "room and opportunity for improvement." Now, Trevin tells me he likes the smaller form factor of the Blackjack. The Treo is just too large and unwieldy for him, he says. Well in my book the Treo is smaller than my Blackberry 8700, at least width-wise, and that's a good thing. The Blackjack was almost too small. And yes, too small is possible - especially when you have to fit a QWERTY keyboard on the thing. Also - Trevin's a truly terrific guy, and I respect his opinions greatly. We have different perspectives, different jobs and use our devices differently. And he was being sarcastc in our IM chat - a little poking fun at friends kind of thing.

For some additional perspective, I'd suggest reading Walter Mossberg's Personal Technology article from Thursday, in which he says he thinks the Blackjack is a better device than the Treo 750 overall, although he recognizes some of the benefits of the Treo. It's clearly a purchase decision to be made based on individual and specific needs. Walt also points out that the newly-announced Apple iPhone (or whatever they end up calling it), which won't be released for several months, will likely be a killer for an of the Windows Mobile phones. Time will tell. The iPhone looks terrific for sure, but until I see one and use it, I am not convinced it would work for my particular business power-user needs. But that's also not likely to be the target market.

As I noted in my Blackjack review and above, I have always been a hyper-organizer of email, using folders and subfolders in Outlook and Exchange to organize email by type and recipient. As a result, due to the way the Windows Mobile Inbox works, in order to see if any email has arrived that gets distributed to any folder other than the inbox, I have to navigate the folder tree on the mobile phone, which requires a whole bunch of clicks and scrolls. Now, the full Windows Mobile edition on the Treo 750 includes a much simpler and easier mechanism in the form of a Folders menu, which allows me to much more easily access the folder list. But what I really wanted was what I was used to: A mobile inbox where all email sits, regardless of how I organize it in my desktop Outlook client.

So, I found myself in a bit of a stuck situation, until I got to thinking about it and spent a few minutes this evening IMing with Trevin. I had briefly thought of dumping all of my Exchange folder hierarchy completely and changing over to using Search Folders in Outlook. Trevin told me he only uses search folders and that he uses them extensively. I am running Outlook 2007, and the search performance in that application pretty slick, so I made up my mind and went straight to my Outlook rules and exported them (just in case), then deleted them all. Now all my email would go to my inbox. I started setting up search folders and found I could actually do a lot more with those than I realized - That's something I will be getting deeper into at a later date. Anyhow, I replicated and created the necessary functionality and effectively solved by mobile inbox issue. Now the phone puts everything where I want it and Outlook shows me what I need to see the way I need to see it, only even better than it did before.

I will always like Blackberries, and I am sure I will be running new ones now and then (since I tend to be the guy who tests the new stuff). But for now, the 8700 is gone and the Treo 750 is in its place. It will be interesting to see how it performs over time, but this time around I have a level of confidence that was not present on the last WinMobile trial. That's a good thing.

What do you think? Have experience with these devices? Any PocketPC/Windows Mobile software you think I can't live without (or would not want to live without)?

Every now and then you find a real gem worthy of pointing to. It's one of those days. A few of the guys who work on my team apparently had an interesting conversation today - one of those ones that, well... As Brent says:

"Today I had one of those conversations. You know, the mildly creative, useless, on the verge of non-pc, feeling giddy, make you laugh conversations."

Read all about it at his blog. They did the math and arrived at the definition for some pretty important technology figures. 'Nuf said. Heh.

Recently I wrote about my frustrations with the several WRT-54G Linksys routers I have bricked and suffered through over the past few years. I've been on a search for a good replacement. A number of people have recommended sticking with the Linksys hardware, but since I have been through a few of them, I really just wanted to make a change. My friend Omar and a few others suggested the D-link routers, specifically the ones that do QoS traffic shaping for a variety of network services. Those people using the D-Link Platinum series routers spoke so highly of them, I decided to look at them seriously and decide which one would be best for me. Omar uses a model that is billed as a gaming router and he loves it.

While at Costco earlier today, I discovered they were stocking a Pre-N "RangeBooster" wireless router, the D-Link DIR-625 model. I saw that it had the QoS engine that people were heralding, and being a -N model it has some future to it, which is nice. Omar had noted to me that these routers have the ability to be configured and tweaked in fine detail right out of the box (in other words the firmware you get on the thing is incredibly capable and sufficiently detailed for advanced users), and he was certainly right. You can granularly configure almost anything you can think of. The device will even email you when system events occur or when a new firmware upgrade is available, if you want it to. Quite cool.

I have been up and running with it all evening and am very, very happy. My wireless network connection is now rock-solid and the user interface for the router is top-notch. Not once has the network paused, glitched, dropped or otherwise puked on itself, which is quite a change. I could get used to this, heh.

You can check out an online emulator of the DIR-625 router's web interface here (use a blank password). Product information can be found here. The support and firmware page for this model is here.

Setup was quick and easy, simple enough for anyone due to good packaging and a CD-wizard driven installation routine. This router is highly recommended for both home users and geeks.

UPDATE: 1/15/2007 - I have been running the router for about a week now with exactly zero problems. This thing is as solid as a rock and shapes traffic quite well. I should have made this move long ago.

In May, the National Security Agency (yes, that one) published a guide in PDF form (818KB PDF file) called "The 60 Minute Network Security Guide - First Steps Towards a Secure Network Environment."

It's good stuff. Sure, it's not a 100% guide to everything you need to know and do, but it covers the bases quite well. Some have balked at the complex password and rotation requirements and made the requisite "that won't work in the real world" noise, but those of us who actually do operate in the real world know it can be done and that 90 days is a bad number (it's too long IMO, and lacks usability - it should be either 84 or 42 days). Sure, a few people will complain (it's human nature and it takes all kinds), but the vast majority are more than happy to do their part. Don't let the vocal few chase you away from what is proven over and over to be right.

There are always good and effective ways to accomplish goal while meeting requirements: For example, the use of passphrases instead of regular passwords makes complex, long passwords a cinch, and all it takes is about 5 minutes of user education to show people how well it can work (use your all-hands meetings and you'll be amazed what you'll get accomplished in a short period).

Read the guide, use it, and you'll be better off. A variety of other security configuration guides from the NSA can be found here. There are more than 80 guides covering server and client operating systems, network infrastructure, database platforms, and more.

(via lifehacker.com)

I've decided after juggling multiple remotes for a bunch of different equipment for far too long that it's time to go on the search for an advanced universal home theater remote that will let me control my projector, surround system, various components like DVD players and XBOXes and whatnot, as well as my room lighting. Programmable one-button setups for multiple devices is what I have in mind. I want to be able to hit a button and have al these systems lines themselves up, set the volume, turn down the lights, etc. In fact, bonus points if it can also control other items in other parts of the house and if I can set up enough macros to where my roomie can have his own preferences for lighting, volume, etc.

In my early searches, I have found a number of very expensive models that I would have to take a new mortgage out for in order to acquire. People actually spend that much money on remotes? Holy cow! We're talking in the thousands of dollars for some of these things. It's ridiculous. There is no way in the world I can spend more than say $800, and even that would really be way too much unless it does everything I am looking for. I'd hope to be able to do some Froogling and find some street prices that get it all under $500. I'm not holding my breath.

Anyhow, what do people recommend? There are a number of home theater geeks at my work and I am sure they'll each have their opinions and experiences, and I hope to get some more ideas before diving into the water myself. Please leave a comment with your thoughts and experiences, or with descriptions of remotes you may have run across in your own research. Thanks!

Scott tagged me and four others on this tell-me-something-new meme, so now it's my turn. In no particular order, here are my five things you (seriously) didn't know about me. Not the easiest thing to do, but as they say, I am bound by honor to post and tag...

1. I took only one computer class in college, and didn't pass it. In fact, it was so boring and elementary I could not stand to be there. Instead I spent the semester figuring out how to get an Appletalk network to communicate with a bunch of IBM 5150s that we had networked with 10-Base-2 coax. The grade killed me, but the alternative experience was worth so much more.
2. I was a foster parent for many years. Fourteen kids, over about eight years. Single parent style, almost all of them special needs kids. All of them were terrific in their own ways. I lived in a foster home for a very short time when I was a teenager, and the people who I lived with I have never thanked. I need to do that. They influenced me in a unique way that no one else ever did, for the good. Their selfless act motivated me to do a lot of things that I hope helped others in some way. My desire (or need, or whatever you chose to call it) to help others in ways similar to the manners in which others have helped me has been the root of both pain and passion for me over the years.
3. My senior year in high school I played Tony in West Side Story. Like as in the lead, sang all the songs and did all the dance and acted all the lines. Orchestra in the pit, chain link fence massive set, the works. Yes, I can still sing the songs. People look at me with a blank stare when they hear this. I was also an all-state tenor that year. These days I limit myself pretty much to singing with my guitar at home and the occasional church hymn from the pews.
4. I've been a halftime highlight on ESPN and a major television network twice, and I was injured both times. Once was when I was photographing a NCAA tournament I was landed on by a player who was fouled (hard) under the basket. The other time I was pummeled by a football player who was out of control coming off the field while being tackled. He tackled me, but good. Oh, and I used to be a photojournalist and did a lot of sports and news photography for about eight years.
5. After working as a photojournalist, I was a police officer for about 7 years. You could say I chased ambulances and then did something close to driving them, I guess. It was a great experience and I have nothing but the utmost respect for the good people who do that job. I was pretty good at the job, but it was not so good for me. So, here I am - a professional computer jock. Or manager thereof, I suppose. Ah, how I long for the days of doing respectable, real work. Heh.

That's it.

Oh, wait... I'm tagging Brent, Matt, Rich, Simon and Alex. Alright guys - You're it!

Just a few goofballs hanging out on New Year's Day. We watched WWE, played the 20Q game, did party poppers, ate nachos, and whatever. And hey, goofball is fun.

Above: Greg, Rogan and Cory hanging out at the place (listed in order seated in the picture, left to right and I explain that just so Cory doesn't get upset about being last, heh).

I'm in the process of moving my email for the greghughes.net domain to a new mail server, and I've realized - once again - just how complicated spammers have made our lives. Especially from a technical standpoint.

PTR records in DNS and RBL records on services that no one ever heard of and which have no set rules to determine what gets on the list or how to engage them in getting off a list. What a mess. Luckily I am not on any RBL lists (with the exception of one idiotic one that everyone seems to be on, and which I certainly hope no one ever uses). But I have friends and acquaintances who have been in that boat before and it's not fun.

But the biggest pain with moving a mail server has to be DNS propagation and the wrenches people throw into it. Enough time has passed that all locations should be pointing to the new mail server, because the old DNS records have expired. Yet there are a significant number of (large and prominent) email and Internet service providers (including my own) that are apparently caching longer than the record provides. Fun. That means I am checking two mail servers (and that's a bit of a challenge, let me tell you), and that I cannot send email to pretty much anyone until the planets align and the name server records line up.

Even my web site still has a few bots and spiders and other systems munging through it. I wonder if they'll notice when I turn it off?

One other thing I have observed. The spammers also don't respect caching of DNS records, but in the opposite manner. Instead of caching a record for too long, they completely ignore the cache settings to make sure they can flood your new mail server with as much crap as possible, as quickly as possible.

Ah, gotta love it!

MS has released v6 of it's Remote Desktop Connection client.

Remote Desktop Connection (Terminal Services Client 6.0) provides a way to use any new Terminal Services features introduced in Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Windows Server Code Name “Longhorn” from a computer running Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1.

The features in this release are really about Vista and Longhorn server for the most part. But, one feature that works in XP while connecting to Windows Server 2003 (and I was prompted to do this by default after upgrading, by the way) is the option to provide the username and password in the client before logging on, and the option to save that information so you don't have to re-enter it each time (not sure I like that specific idea for security purposes, but it has its place, and there are several security enhancements when connecting to Vista and Longhorn server).

Download it from Microsoft here. Read the KB article here (which includes links to versions for OSes other than 32-bit XP, as well).

(via Omar)

To add to my totally analog Christmas (and the subsequent mostly-analog vacation week that's followed), my friend Cory and I started building a shed in the back yard this morning. We only had a few hours to work today, but we got a lot done. It was 32 degrees out but we hardly noticed. Below are some pics, which I will update periodically as we make progress. Click on each to see a larger view.

A few notes for anyone who is considering taking on a project like this one:

• Having someone around who actually knows what they're doing is a great thing. My buddy Cory's done a lot of carpentry and construction work, so he's The Boss. Foreman. Teacher. All that stuff. Thank goodness.
• Seriously, don't even think about picking all the stuff out yourself and trying to haul it home in your truck or car. For this project we went to Home Depot for the materials (due to some reasonable prices and a very attractive zero-payments/interest-for-a-year financing deal). We went to the pro desk, handed over the plans and the parts list, along with $59.00 for site delivery, which was done on a semi truck with a big forklift. This was definitely more than worth the cost. The pro desk helped tweak things, checked the plans and corrected a couple assumptions I'd made, and generally made it a better experience (so far, anyhow - heh).
• Speaking of plans, shedplans.com is a great place to go and spend a small amount of money for a quality, detailed building plan. I spent $15 with them and it would have been worth it even if I didn't use the plans at all - The building information in there was great and worth the price alone. Of course, we are using their plans for our structure (which is a 12x16-foot gable-roof shed).
  

Day one: Floor framing

Cory pretty much leveled the site the day before with a shovel, a rake and the 4-wheeler. So today we put together the framed floor. It's in two sections, which were later "wrapped" with a second layer of treated 2x's:

The site is ready to go, and the floor sections are laid out in the general area:

On the piers, it starts to look more substantial - like you got something done. In the last picture Cory and Diogi survey the work we did.

More to come when it gets done. :)

Joel Spolsky points to a blog entry by Dmitri Zimine that does a good job pointing out the problem with interruptions when a software developer or team needs to be heads-down on a project. The posts are more than a month old, but they're still just as relevant. As an agile development team manager, I know a significant part of my job is to provide a layer of abstraction between the dev staff and everything else in the world. Interruptions and distractions have a compounding, maybe even exponential delay effect on major software projects - a half-day interruption can result in several days of lost productivity (especially if the half day is scattered an hour or half-hour at a time over a couple days, for example).

I've often wrestled with trying to strike a balance between what needs to get done on some project and the rest of the needs (and wants) that are out there. Ultimately, here is what I have come up with:

1. Bugs that impact real customers simply have to be fixed. Bugs happen, and so fixing happens. How important and impactful the bug is determines the priority of the effort and whether or not (and when) to interrupt the programmers.
2. It's my job to put myself in the communication loop, as a filter. I have fallen down on the job a bit in that regard recently, partly because of my work travel schedule. I need to re-insert myself to enable the development staff do their jobs even better.
3. It seems obvious but it's worth saying: You cannot make everyone happy all the time, and you should never try to do so. All you'll get is disappointment, and that's not a worthy goal.
4. Nothing is ever as big a deal as it seems. Everyone has their own priorities, and it's human nature for people to make their own priorities seem highest. But that's not the way it really works. See Number 2, above, for a solution.
5. Focused developer and QA people are happy. Distracted ones are grumpy, much less productive and complain a lot. In other words, there is a domino effect. Professionals expect their managers to help them do their jobs well, and that's a reasonable expectation. My job is to hire good people, make sure they have what they need, and then let them do what they do best.

I truly enjoy working with my team in an agile world. It's always a fight to strike that perfect balance, and since true perfection is impossible, it's always a moving target. But a good manager will stay on top of that target, anticipate problems, adjust to the environment, and head those pesky issues off at the pass whenever possible.

For the record, I'm about as far from an optimal agile dev team manager as one could find. I am learning something new every day, much of it OTJ style, and there are other people where I work that are quite literally pros in the agile management field. For all I know, they may have something to say that contradicts what I've espoused. Should be interesting.

I just realized something interesting. This year I had a completely non-techie Christmas. Of the gifts I received, only one was even remotely computer related (but hey, no need to go cold-turkey, right?). I think that's kind of cool. Plus this Christmas was a good one once again, spent at home with friends.

My friend Cory (who appears to have started blogging for Christmas, heh) points out that the act of giving is a good one to practice. I agree.

Of course, receiving is quite fun as well, and I received some very thoughtful gifts this year. Perhaps my favorite (it's hard to choose you know) is a painting that Cory made for me to hang in my office. It's based on a painting by Peter Pongratz from Austria - we saw a bunch of his (rather interesting and crazy) art at the Belvedere museum in Vienna a couple months ago in a display called Sweet Home Vienna. Cory took the Pongratz-style phrases in the painting and replaced them with Office Space lines. Heh. Pongratz and Office Space are a lot alike.

An analog Christmas. Nice.

People who have noticed the site's been unavailable recently will understand why I'm making some changes here. While DNS propogation completes the availability of the site may be a little whacky, since you might be bounced between two servers for a little while. Not much I can do about that, but it will all be better very soon. I've moved this site to a dedicated host server, since the traffic and web server hits are too much for the shared hosting environment it's been on up 'til this point.

Sorry for the mess.

I've pretty much had enough. The WRT54G has proven to be a fun router to play with, but I've bricked a few of them over the past couple years, and the one I have now is less than optimal. It drops wireless connections fairly regularly. I can try upgrading the Talisman firmware to the latest (I am running 1.0.5 and there have been two releases since), but I'm not convinced it's a software issue really.

So, the question is: Which wireless router is best for me? I'll do some research of my own, of course, but I know some of you smart people will let me know what your experiences are.

Here's a bit off the old Stuff-I-Need list as it relates to the router:

• I use Vonage for phone service. For the past year I have had the Vonage terminal adapter sitting on the Internet, and the wireless router plugs into the TA's LAN port.
• I'd like to be able to define QoS for a variety of apps, network destinations and service types.
• Security security security. It must have a good firewall and the ability to DMZ properly.
• Geekiness geekiness geekiness. Plus points for ability to configure and tweak a lot.

Any ideas out there? I'm off to do some research. This will be my Christmas present to myself, if and when I decide to do the replacement. I have a week off from work to catch up on life and things at home, so this is on my list (not at the top, priority-wise, but it's on there).

Starting point: This Buffalo router looks pretty good.

UPDATE: I tried upgrading to the latest Talisman/SveaSoft firmware, but problems persisted and in fact even got worse. DHCP completely failed and . I removed the router from the network, hooked up to the Vonage TA directly, connected to Linksys.com, and downloaded the latest factory firmware. Once I managed to get that installed, everything seems to be back up and running and looks stable at first glance. But the Linksys firmware, although greatly improved since I last looked at the Linksys factory stuff, doesn't have the same great options. But I'll let this run for a while and see if it's more stable. Fingers crossed. I still want to replace this thing. Thanks for the emails and comments so far. Any more ideas to consider?

Effective immediately and as of today, Microsoft has extended the warranty period for the Xbox 360 console to one full year. And those of us who bought one in the past get the benefits of the new warranty period, too - not just new purchasers.

On top of that, if you paid for any repairs in the first year of ownership, you'll be getting a reimbursement check. Wow, not how's that for a good deal eh?

From the Xbox web site:

Effective today (December 22), the one year warranty is now the standard for all Xbox 360 consoles. Customers that experience hardware issues with their Xbox 360 within one year of purchase will have their consoles repaired at no cost. Moreover, the new warranty policy is retroactive, so consumers that may have already paid for out-of-warranty Xbox 360 repair within one year of the console's purchase will be eligible for reimbursement of their console repair charges.

Nice!