It isn’t often that I feel the need to rant, but sometimes ya just gotta tell someone some of the stuff that drives ya crazy.

So here ya have it, my top end of the year rants.

Walking into Best Buy and having the guy in the computer department assume that I know very little about the system I am looking at, only to discover that he knows far less than I do.

Buying a preloaded system and finding a zillion trial programs that I have no desire to own, already installed. If you want to offer me a free trial, give me the CD and let me decide. Don’t put me in the position of spending hours removing all the junk.

Firefox getting slower and slower, to the point of being a pain to use for casual surfing. What happened to the simple barebones browser that we came to love?

Antivirus program that use more resources than any other program on my system, bogging down normal usage.

iTunes constantly trying to download stuff that I don’t want or need. If I want to download Safari, I will go to the site and download it, dang it! Quit trying to include it in regular updates.

Dell finally deciding to bring tech support back to the US but then charging us for the service. Are you nuts Dell? Do you really want to lose the customers you have left?

J. Cricket Walker of CricketWalker.com

The year is 1999 and we’re driving through a blizzard to see a movie. The snow is about 10 inches on the road and everyone is going about 10mph. It’s slow, but we’re keeping ourselves busy.

I ask the passengers, since we’re all pretty computer literate, “What do you think the next evolution of computer I/O will be?” We chat for the next 20 minutes about the current state of I/O devices and where they can go and where it would be ‘cool’ if they went. The conversation swings from the ‘glove’ to the ubiquitous floating holo-monitor of sci-fi lore, the touch screen concept, the goggles… And then came the implants. All of us were ex-Cyberpunk players so we immediately knew the ramifications of such technology.

Although, nothing short of fantastic, hardware implants have been in the news over the last few year:

Slashdot: Hardware Implants Mimic Brain Cells
Wired: Vision Quest
ScienceDaily: Brain Implants May Help Stroke Patients

And considering the level of technological advancement from year to year… Well, you get the point.

So the question remains… What do you think the next evolution of computer I/O will be?

Well it’s 2008 and we’re all still reeling from the ‘glove’ and the ‘goggles’, the touch-screen monitor is fairly standard for buying tickets and checking out at Home Depot and implants, well… Implants are still a way’s away. However, there is some light at the end of that tunnel.

Emotiv Systems: http://www.emotiv.com/ 

Although they’ve been around for a while, I first saw their EPOC headset on an episode of  ‘Prototype: This’: on the Discovery channel.

In the show, the team used the EPOC headset to measure the drivers’ stress levels to engage or disengage their vehicle and thus disallowing a stressed out, pissed off driver from continuing. Pretty cool concept, but ridiculously over produced.

However the EPOC headset is what got me all excited.

The system basically works like this. The sensors on the headset read the brains electrical signals produces from a series of expressions and/or non-conscious emotions. Simple enough.

If you’ve ever had an EEG, (which I have) you’ll know that to enable proper conductivity between the sensors and the signals produced by the brain, the nurse usually douses (not literally of course) your skull in a conductive gel. Well not the EPOC headset. Their technology (called non-invasive electroencephalography) allows for a signal read without the conductive gel. That’s good news for the who have hair (:

So where does this take us? I mean, the EPOC headset isn’t a ‘new’ concept, it is however the only one out there positioning themselves to flood market. Does this mean your keyboard is becoming outmoded? Maybe your mouse…? Well, no.

Not yet anyways.

So far, the EPOC headset is poised to engage you in video games and that’s about it. But it’s not to much of stretch to assume that, once available, someone or some SourceForge groups will start building those hacks and add-ons to allow you to get more use from it than Emotiv Systems has time to test and implement.

Though they haven’t gone into full production mode, you can pre-order your EPOC headset for a relatively cheap $299 USD and be one of the first to start blinking, winking, smiling and screaming at your computer and actually have it react to you.

yt
jay.
www.opticaldevotee.com

Okay, although I wrote the post questioning if cell phones improve communication or not, I have to admit it. I am a cell phone junky. I have had a few Motorola phones, and never had a single problem with them, but I am in love with my Samsung Messenger. It makes sending text messages so much easier for me.

As long as cell phones are used in moderation, there are so many ways that they can save us time and a lot of frustration.

This is especially true in today’s busy households where sometimes it seems that finding something as simple as a pen can be a major challenge.

Here are my top 10 ways to use a cell phone . . .

(1) Before I go grocery shopping, I snap a few quick shots of the inside of the pantry. That way when I get to the store and instantly forget what things I already have, I can take a quick peek at the picture! This is also very helpful when I need a specific part or tool at the Home Depot. I can just take a quick picture of what I am trying to fix, instead of using my hands to try to explain to the salesperson what I need!

(2) It helps my daughter and me keep track of each other in the store, especially since we both have a tendency to wander off when we are looking at things.

(3) If I get lost, I can either do a quick search on Google using my cell, or better yet, call my son and he will get me out of the maze I always seem to find myself in when I go into the city.

(4) It is so much easier than yelling out the front door when it is time for my daughter to come inside. Instead I can call or send her a quick text message.

(5) I’m not tied to my land line when I am expecting an important call. I can forward my calls to my cell phone and still go to the park and enjoy a sunny afternoon feeding the ducks.

(6) Sometimes, I just want to let someone know I am thinking of them, but don’t want to disturb their work with a phone call. A quick text message will do the trick in a hurry. And, the truth is, when I am buried in work, it’s nice to get those same types of quick notes.

(7) If I am stuck waiting at the doctor’s office, I can text message with a friend without disturbing those around me. This is always a better option that reading 3-year-old magazines for the tenth time! (Don’t forget to put your phone on silent or vibrate!)

(8) If I am involved in a fender bender (knock on wood) I can take a few quick pics of the scene before moving the vehicles out of the way.

(9) Okay, this one is one of my favorites. If I am stuck in a long line at the grocery store, instead of twiddling my thumbs, I can play games!

(10) And of course, in case of an emergency, it is nice to not have to look for a phone. It’s right there in your pocket.

If you are not careful though, you can easily find yourself addicted to your cell phone, so remember, everything in moderation. (smiles)

J. Cricket Walker of CricketWalker.com

 ”I thought the war was over. Years ago”.

Apparently some haven’t gotten that message or rather just don’t care. 

Since the early 90’s we’ve been inundated with browser after browser. Along with the dead, the dying and the incompatible web standard implementations we suffered and we cried but we surfed on.

Let’s get this straight. There is one Internet. How many browsers do we need for it?

Granted, we should have choice. That’s always a good thing. Well, mostly. But I think we have plenty at this point. From corporate releases to open source, the browser wars degraded into a skirmish. Which is how we like it. It’s quiet, personal and just over the hill where most of us can’t hear it.

I look at it this way. We’re handed half a dozen first class tickets to a 5 star hotel in Bermuda, so which one do we choose? The seats are all next to each other and the hotel rooms are side by side so there’s really no difference. Okay sure, maybe there are some slight differences. Maybe you want to be closer to the bathroom on the plane or the elevator in the hotel. But really, they’re all pretty much the same and they take you to the same place.

Well Google thinks they can do better than a first class ticket and 5 star hotel room in Bermuda. Or do they?

What do they bring to the fight?

Google Chrome really just builds on the same ideas we’ve all become accustomed too via the more popular browser. Functionality that is so ubiquitous that not having them breaks the cease-fire. Google says it uses some future-proof technical mumbo jumbo but is this Goggle’s version of the future or do they somehow have a magic 120mm cannon that shows them how users will surf on the Internet of the future?

Mozilla Labs and Adaptive Path have a 120mm future telling canon. It’s called Aurora. I’m not sure I’ll buy into it. I mean, it’s only a concept browser, but who is their canon aimed at? Farmers, old people and couples? Well none of those are me. And just for the record I have no issues with old people. (;

No, the war is over. Unfortunately some just haven’t gotten the message. Let me enlighten those who might be interested in developing the next great browser.

Wait for it…

Don’t bother unless you’re bringing an atom bomb to the market. Google Chrome is far from an atom bomb and Aurora is just an empty casing looking for a spark. 

The more this goes on, the more we’re going to lose as users. We will be relegated to ‘consumers’ and ad based browsers will become the norm as more and more of them fight for our habits and more and more of the developers think ‘they’ have something over the ‘others’ and sink millions into their ideas.

You know what I want? I want the Internet to evolve first. Then the browser. Or in tandem; A united front, so to speak. They should be allies bound together to move the Internet and the way we interact with it to the next level. Beyond atom bomb. Take me to future… Not the mass grave.

yt
Jay
www.opticaldevotee.com

I recently had a conversation about peripherals and something got me thinking.

See, we were both complaining about our peripherals dying and how we’ve worn the finish off with the sweat of our palms from such constant usage.

What, uh, happened to the finish? Did we absorb it? I don’t see anywhere.  Where are all those chemicals?

Seriously.

My trackball? Has no logo anymore. That whole area is pretty much black because I’ve worn off that dark silver finish. My keyboard palm rest? The whole left side is worn. It’s not shinny anymore. She complained about having to go through keyboard after keyboard because of the wear and tear she puts on them, like missing letters.

Over time, you got to wonder… By now, she must have the whole alphabet flowing through her bloodstream.

yt
jay.
www.opticaldevotee.com

Do cell phones actually improve communication? Or, are they destroying it? While walking around downtown yesterday, I noticed that no matter which direction I looked, it seemed that everyone was talking on their cell phone.

It didn’t appear to matter if they were on a date, or an outing with their family. The moment their cell phone rang, the people they were with ceased to exist.

When did we stop talking to each other face to face? Don’t get me wrong. The convenience and time saving benefits of a cell phone are numerous, but I wonder what that convenience is costing us in terms of our relationships and families. Perhaps equally important to owning a cell phone, is knowing when to turn it off.