Its been quite awhile since I’ve posted or updated the site. This new design has been in development for almost 3 months; I’ve been working on it as much as I can. I decided to go ahead with it, even though it’s still got some kinks to be worked out.

I had been putting my Tweets right into the blog as posts but now that I’ve implemented a sidebar element with a Twitter box, I won’t be doing that anymore. My first priority is to clean up some of the Tweets/posts that don’t look right. The second bug to fix is that some of the posts with embedded videos aren’t formatted correctly. Something happens in Wordpress that messes up the html.

Lastly, the photos section needs some enhancements. I’ll be working on those and including some new photos.

A demonstration of the Skyfire mobile browser in action, including its capability to present server-rendered Flash video, plus its local capability to zoom into localized regions of the page using a stylus control. The device used here is a Windows Mobile device connected to the Sprint network via 1x EV-DO.

BetaNews | New mobile browser enables Flash video through server-side rendering

For the longest time, I was against using an online email client like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, or Gmail. I remember thinking that I couldn’t afford to have my valuable emails sitting on some other computer (i.e., their server). I needed to have emails stored locally so I could access them when I didn’t have a connection to the internet.

But that all changed over a number of years as I, and many others I’m sure, came to embrace the “network is the computer” mentality. Eventually, it was a rare occurrence that you couldn’t find an easy wi-fi connection. You might have to pay T-Mobile at Starbucks or you’d have to wait just a little bit until you found a place. Now, its just ridiculous to think of a hotel without a connection. Besides, many individuals and companies don’t really take wi-fi security that seriously so open connections can be found just about anywhere. We were recently in a hotel in San Diego which offered $10/day internet access but I was able to find three other wi-fi connections to the internet from my room. Our local airport has had free wi-fi for years.

And as this mentality in local versus network computer was taking hold, a new equation was developing. Part of the old way of thinking was that checking one’s email meant sitting down at one particular computer. But now, I have multiple computers. There’s the household computer, my laptop, and my work computer. So, the new equation is “checking email = having a connection”. A connection, not any particular computer. You’re probably thinking, “No Duh, you’re just now realizing this.” But think about it for a while. Think about it in terms of how we as a society are tied to the internet. Just as revolutionary was the advent of the internet is the way we use the internet. And now that the connection is virtually everwhere, so is email.

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Web sites that provide useful information and FAQs about products have become ubiquitous. If a software application or hand-held product is giving us difficulties or if there are features we’ve heard about but don’t know how to access, going to the manufacturer’s web site has become second nature. And, just as important, is that we check such sites before we buy a product to see if its going to do the things we want it to do.

Yet, sometimes, I think that manufacturers don’t really take time to think about questions that users will ask and instead rely upon empirical information from similar products. For example, if company X has decided to produce an MP3 player, instead of asking themselves “what might I want to know about this product in particular?”, the site designer looks at other support sites for competing products (from company Y or company Z) for producing an FAQ. I’ve never done the research nor designed such a site; its just my impression by looking around at various sites. Similar products don’t necessarily require similar support.

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