The iPad is equipped with many things. One of those things is a double-edged sword that can reach out and cut you. The beauty of the iPad is it’s simplicity. However, when you live in a Windows world and use an iPad, you often run into places where Apple’s simplicity runs counter to getting things done. Now, many of you will snicker at what follows. Some will shake your head, and say, “WTH?”. Still others will say, “Why doesn’t he…
After I graduated from college, I briefly sold Volkswagens. As I’ve pondered the metamorphosis of Windows from a desktop-focused to a tablet-focused operating system, I keep reliving an experience with a specific customer during that time. This customer came in, and when engaged, said – perhaps unsurprisingly, “I want to buy a car”. I asked him what kind of car he was looking for. He replied, “either a VW Cabrio or a Toyota pickup”. I’d heard customers thinking of a…
I’ve spent a fair amount of time recently trying to get to know PowerShell. I’ve never been a developer, but I did write a fair amount of Windows Script Host (WSH) both at Microsoft and since then – much to the chagrin of some of the developers I worked with. The more time I’ve spent with PowerShell, Windows Server 2012, and Windows 8, the more I’ve realized that we’re at the beginning of something pretty unusual – in a way,…
Many years ago, when I worked at Microsoft, I took a trip with a person several rungs up my management chain to talk to a software vendor. The purpose of our trip was to figure out what could be achieved if we worked more closely together with them, as they were filling a gap for our customers that we did not (and couldn’t for at least the foreseeable future). I still recall at lunch that day, when one of their…
TODO: Google Search Google Reader Google Chrome Google Maps Google Analytics for the blog In my blog last weekend, I set out to discuss whether I could quit Google’s software and services. To begin, I decided to start just with using Bing instead of Google. This caused no end of amusement to friends on Twitter who mocked be because I wasn’t searching with Google, but worse, I was using their browser all the time. That, exactly, was the reason why…
If you asked me a few years ago about Google, odds are I would talk your ear off about privacy, about how Google aggregates your life together in a manner you can’t imagine. Ask any co-worker at my last job before I left Austin – it’s true. Yet while I’ve still held up my stance as someone concerned about online security and privacy… I’ve lowered my guard. I’ve used Google. I use Google a lot, actually. But Google has been…
In January of 2011, I wrote my first suppositions about “Windows 8” and the ARM processor architecture. Though we now know the version of Windows that will land on ARM will be called Windows RT, and the Windows 8 name will be reserved for editions of the operating system that will run on x86/x64 processors. In that blog post early last year, I stated: Microsoft has never sustained Windows on any platform besides x86. What would make Windows on ARM…
In 1998, while on vacation, I recall having an idea about a new kind of computer. A computer where you could use it as a laptop, or flip the display around and use it with your fingers. I let the idea pass, since I figured it was novel, but nobody would pay a premium price for such a device. Several years later, I recall when Windows Tablet PC was in it’s infancy, seeing a convertible Tablet PC, and thinking, “maybe…
On Friday Morning, Splashtop introduced a new application, the Win8 Metro Testbed – powered by Splashtop. With both of the releases of Windows 8 so far, a key criticism of mine has been how hard it is to fairly evaluate the OS without a device that supports touch properly. Where Windows 7 is a desktop OS that offers little value when used with touch, Windows 8 is so touch-centric that evaluating it with only a keyboard and mouse is, I believe,…
I don’t have a Ph.D. in ergonomics. I didn’t even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. But still, I have to say, I have to disagree with Jakob Nielsen in his blog post. Jakob states that if you build a mobile site (and he recommends that you do), that you redirect users to it automatically. This is not that different from the incredibly annoying tendency of sites to offer you their mobile app with the persistence that the talking toaster from…