My Thoughts on the Verizon Droid

Here's a few of my thoughts on the Droid. Be sure to recognize my bias as a recent purchaser of the device, but most of these features speak for themselves.

They seem to have developed a really intelligent way to run simultaneous applications without too much system resource usage. You can listen to Pandora while flipping between reading Facebook updates and mapping out your trip in Google Maps.

Android allows you to add widgets to your home screen, which would be more enjoyable if it had more pages. It has three as opposed to other Android phones which can have around 8. With room for only 16 shortcuts on a home screen minus the 4 spaces the Google search bar occupies, I was feeling cramped and wanting more room pretty quickly. You want to have shortcuts to your applications and try out the widgets as well.

One annoying aspect of the Droid's design is that to wake it from sleep/lock mode, I have to feel around among the hard edges of my protective case to find a thin little button in the top right corner of the device. Even with the case off, the button has really bad ergonomics.

Another problem is battery life. With heavy use, it might not make it through the day. Fortunately, it uses the same connector as the ubiquitous Moto RAZR, so adapters are inexpensive.

I'd been dying to try Geocaching for a long time now, and this thing does it pretty well, if you can figure out how to use the apps that are available right now. Currently I have to manually download the waypoint files to my computer and copy them onto the device because of a bug in the android code. After working though the process I found my first cache with Geena the Saturday after I got it.

The tie in with Google's services such as Gmail, contacts, and Google Voice is a huge convenience for those of us already enjoying them. Google has developed some incredible applications. Google Maps with turn-by-turn navigation does way more than your Tom Tom does. Google Sky creates an augmented reality view of the sky, showing you the locations of all the celestial bodies.

The new Motorola Droid runs Android 2.0 as opposed to other Android phones on the market, including the new Verizon HTC Eris that runs Android 1.2. The Eris was released at Verizon Wireless on the same day as the Droid, but they didn't advertise it at all. I strongly considered it because of it's small size, but opted for the bigger, more powerful Droid. Eris advantages are 8 desktop screens, pinch zoom for web browsing and pictures, and it's comfortable size. It lacks a physical keyboard, and it has less impressive specs in general.

The Linux-based Android operating system requires some sort of technical aptitude. I really appreciate the openness of the platform. The hackers haven't figured out how to "root" the 2.0 version of the Android operating system, but most people won't need to bother with this. It doesn't seem like Verizon has been able to lock it down in any meaningful way, so you can install just about any software that you, or some kind soul on the internet has written. Because Linux is simpler and easier to work with for many programmers, it is likely that there will be an exponential increase in the number of apps in the marketplace.

Bad Color Combinations

You'll see these color choices all over the place. Designers should void them like the plague.

Poor Contrast

This is the keypad at a gas station I use sometimes. I am always struck by how difficult it is to read the Enter and Clear keys. These are two of the most important keys. It seems obvious, doesn't it? Or am I colorblind?

Amazon MP3 Collection

This is a pretty good list put together by the folks at Amazon MP3.

100 Greatest Indie Rock Albums!

Do Not Enter

This is the worst "Enter" sign I've seen. It looks exactly like a "Do Not Enter" sign. This almost makes me feel unwelcome. I prefer a solid green enter sign. I wonder if there are any non-english speakers shopping at Shaw's? Yes, most likely. OK, I've complained enough.

 

Live Mesh Usability Tweak

 

Dear Microsoft Live Mesh team.
I recommend that you change the blue text on blue background to another color, such as white. I sometimes have trouble reading the text. There is even less contrast between text and background as the text extends lower on the message box.

Thank You!

Ubuntu Usability

I've been experimenting with Ubuntu for a few months now, and it is a great operating system. With netbooks on the rise, and increased notoriety, more and more average consumers are trying it out. As far as it has come, there are still problems with hardware and software incompatibility that will keep many users away. Putting technical issues aside, I wondered how usable Ubuntu was for an average Windows user. Usability could play a major role in the adoption rate of the Ubuntu OS. I worked with a team of my fellow Bentley students to perform a usability test on the operating system.

Six individuals participated in a usability test of Ubuntu version 8.04.1. The test aimed to assess Ubuntu’s usability and identify barriers that might hinder Windows users from converting.

Participants completed some tasks with relative ease (reorganizing files, using the word processing application). However, participants struggled to complete other tasks (connecting to a wireless network, changing the screen resolution).

A few participants reported interest in using Ubuntu, others hesitated to abandon their current Windows operating system and voiced concerns about application incompatibility and leaving their comfort zone.

This report presents the project’s goals, our usability test methodology, and our findings and associated recommendations.

Ubuntu Usability Test Report

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: usability ux)

UPDATE: Original PowerPoint Presentation: View ubuntu-testreport-final

I think I really like these guys.

Fun music.

Powered by Lala

Favtape

Mixtape from http://favtape.com/fitech/Goods

Favtape is a good website for playlist creation and consumption.

Aaaah!

This guy is at the Museum of Natural History in Cambridge

Mofro Show

JJ Grey and Mofro at the Paradise.

Good show. The crowd was really into it. Bass was played on a keyboard. There was also trumpet, trombone, saxophone and harmonica.

New Mitch Hedberg Album Released Today

Today, Comedy Central released a posthumous album from the great comedian Mitch Hedberg. It's called "Do You Believe In Gosh?"

They have it over at AmazonMP3

The Landmine Classic

Today's Landmine Classic Mountain Bike Race at Wompatuck was unbelievably difficult. It was way more grueling than the 100 mile road ride that I did a few years ago in Portsmouth, NH. I'm proud to say that I finished all 25 miles, even if just barely. I had to take Geena's car, which got all muddy , because my car had a flat, which I didn't notice until I had loaded the bikes on it and started driving towards Hingham...

I laugh when I think back to the beginning of the race, when I was actually trying to keep up with the pack and minimize the amount of riders who were passing me. Eventually, I gave in and just rode at my own pace. My reasonably good downhill abilities were not even close to being enough to compensate for my lack of endurance. It probably would have been better if I had known about the race for longer than 1 day before it. The deep mud didn't make things easier.

I was still doing OK when I met up with Geena at the second feed station around 9 miles in. She had biked to Wompatuck to cheer me on. She told me that I would see her again soon when I rode by it again on the way back through. It wasn't long after that when I started seriously thinking that I had to bail out of this race. I had gotten in over my head and I needed to cut my losses. I'll admit that I wanted to quit, and I thought that it would be a good time to do it as soon as I got to the feed station for the second time. Unfortunately, I had not remembered that the course ran for another 10 miles or so before I would pass by the feed station again. I was really hungry, tired, and my legs were cramping up on me frequently. I was foolish not to bring food with me. All I brought were some energy gels, and the feed stations only had water and more gel packets. I came upon this kid, Nate, who had just had his second flat tire of the race. He offered me half of his Cliff Bar when I told him how hungry I was. I felt it was only right to offer him my spare tube and let him use my pump to fix his flat. It also gave me a great excuse to lie down for a couple of minutes.

By the time I got back to the feed station, Geena had been worrying because the loop had taken me about an hour longer than it should have. I had already ridden 21 miles, so I decided to suck it up and finish the race. I was constantly cursing the ridiculous number of exposed roots and rocks that were sapping every bit of energy from my body the entire way. I was also daydreaming about the barbeque that I knew was awaiting me at a tent near the finish line. It took me a total of about 5 and a half hours to finish, but I'm proud to have made it. I'm looking forward to seeing the results. Hopefully some of my competitors in the "Sport, Age 12-29" category didn't finish so I won't have come in last, but I'm not holding out much hope. If I do this again, I'm going to try a shorter race.

Cheers,
Dan

Ubiquity

This is revolutionary. It's still early in development, but it is something I've been thinking about and seeking for some time now. These guys at Mozilla labs will certainly pull it off. I use a similar product developed by Aza Raskin called ENSO, which helped to spawn this new project.

Check it out

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

LogMeIn

I love free online services; especially when they are well designed and serve an unmet need.

LogMeIn.com is one of those services. The free account is all I need and I can log in remotely to any of my computers or a client's machine for computer systems support.

Olympic Cycling

Frenchman Julien Absalon dominated to win the Gold Medal in Beijing. They have some great footage here. He really utilizes his BMX skills. The course looks pretty fun.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=0823_HD_CMM_EN183

Where are the American riders? I may have to start training. They do over 6,000' of climbing in 2 hours.

Incredible Animation

Thanks Dr. Tiki. It's really worth watching.

L'animateur
Uploaded by nicop

New Music Video From Noberalice

I've been waiting for this for years, and it's finally here!

Check it out.

SXSW 2008

I'm psyched about SXSW. I wish I could be there. It's neat that they have an interactive section as well as the music and movies that I already knew about.

Here's a video of Veronica Belmont checking out the interactive goods.


The bands I wish I was there to see... Spoon, Tapes 'n Tapes, Okkervil River, Del the Funky Homosapien, and Yeasayer.

A picture from my phone

I'm testing my ability to post to my blog from my mobile phone.