Amazon Kindle

Posted on November 19, 2007 by halberenson

I haven’t actually used a Kindle yet, but I like what I’m seeing.  Before I read anything about the device I was commenting to a colleague that the way you expand the early adoption for a Reader is to make newspapers available wirelessly.  My model was commuting from Long Island into Manhattan every day early in my career.  Every day I (and hundreds of thousands or millions of other commuters) would stop at a newsstand and pick up a New York Times or Wall Street Journal (and more recently, Investors Business Daily) to read on the LIRR.  If a device had existed that just magically had the morning’s editions of those publications on it when I sat down on the train, I’d buy it in an instant.  So when I saw that the Kindle had EVDO, and offered exactly that feature, and offered it for the NYT and WSJ amongst others, I knew this device was special.

The use of EVDO, rather than having to use my home WiFi or find a hotspot, is brilliant.  (At least in the U.S.) And not charging a subscription fee for it, but rather bundling the cost into the prices of things you purchase, eliminates a lot of potential friction to device adoption.

I haven’t used a train for commuting in decades, but I am a frequent flyer.  I commute between Denver and Redmond a few times per month.  Plus other business travel.  And I never have the right reading material with me.  I’m often tired, and just want to read a newspaper or magazine.  Other times I’m deeply into a book and want to keep reading it.  Occasionally I’m looking for a book to kill time but it has to be pretty lightweight, not in physical size but in brainpower required.  With a Kindle I could always have something with me that fit the mood.  So, I’m certainly going to give one a try.

Posted in Home Entertainment, Mobile | Comments Off on Amazon Kindle

Talking about Where did all the Zunes go? – Gadgets- msnbc.com

Posted on November 19, 2007 by halberenson

I was in a Walmart today and they had 80GB Zunes available.  Not that I really cared…I wanted an 8GB model.  Small size and a preference for avoiding rotating memory in a device I am certainly going to shake, bake, and drop, dictated my choice.  But that 80GB certainly was tempting…

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Where did all the Zunes go? – Gadgets- msnbc.com
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Posted in Home Entertainment, Mobile | Comments Off on Talking about Where did all the Zunes go? – Gadgets- msnbc.com

Actual mail I sent relatives on Live Search

Posted on November 13, 2007 by halberenson

Ok, this technically can’t be SPAM because it’s not commercial.  Right?  RIGHT?  Ok, take it any way you want Smile

For the last year I’ve been using Windows Live Search rather than Google to do most of my searching.  Call it company loyalty, or a desire to help out the search team here (since I regularly give them feedback on searches they do a poor job on), or even self-interest (since my compensation is influenced by Microsoft’s Search share).   Until now I’ve been reluctant to encourage family and friends to use Live Search because, frankly, it sucked.  But a few weeks ago they started rolling out a new release and now I think it is generally better than Google.  I’ve gone from preferring the Google result 80% of the time to preferring the Live Search result 80% of the time.  And it’s not just general web search that has improved, it’s that they focused on making specific kinds of searches work better and creating a better experience around others.  For example, searches for Videos.  I showed this cool thing to a friend just the other day.  If you use Live Search to find a video you can hover your mouse over the search results and it will play a short clip in-place.  So you can quickly see if that video is of interest to you before you click through to Youtube (or better yet, Soapbox.msn.com) or wherever to watch one.  Most of you probably don’t search for videos very often, but little things like this are sprinkled throughout Live Search at this point.

Today they rolled out the final parts of the so-called “fall release”.  One of the interesting new things is a free Directory Information (411) service that uses a voice recognition system connected to Live Search.  You just call 800-225-5411.  Perfect for saving on those expensive 411 calls on your cell phone.  I tested it on my favorite 411 call, for Boriello Bros. Pizzeria in Colorado Springs.  Yes, I am apparently too dumb to put the number in my address book and call 411 every time we are driving down there so we can get their number to pre-order our pizza.  It worked like a charm.

Here are the things they rolled out today:

Local Search and Mapping Enhancements (can be accessed via www.live.com maps tab or directly from maps.live.com)

· Innovative driving directions. The new Live Search offers more accurate and easy-to-use driving directions, including dynamic rerouting of directions based on real-time traffic information, one-click directions that allow drivers to get only essential directions to their destination with no starting point needed, and inline hints that tell drivers if they have gone too far based on local landmarks. Combined with new, one-page printing, these new enhancements have taken driving directions to the next level.

· Innovative visualization and 3-D.  Live Search has increased its coverage of bird’s-eye and 3-D imagery and now includes 80 percent of the U.S. population.

· Innovative local content index including user-generated content. Live Search now includes broad access to user-generated content from Live Search and from across the entire Web.

Mobile Enhancements (can be accessed via m.live.com from any phone)

· Live Search for Windows Mobile with voice input. The updated Live Search for Windows Mobile now includes voice input (beta version), gas prices, and hours of operation for businesses.

· Live Search 411.  Live Search now has a new toll-free number, users can simply dial (800) CALL-411 (800-225-5411) and say the city and state, then ask for the business or business category to hear a list of options. Users say “Connect me,” to instantly connect to the business.

· Live Search for use with BlackBerry® Devices. Live Search designed for use with BlackBerry devices is in beta.

So you can guess why I’m writing this!  Please try using Live Search (http://search.live.com)  instead of Google.  Even better, make it the default search engine for your browser and install the Windows Live Toolbar (http://toolbar.live.com).  If you find things you don’t like let me know and I’ll pass them along to the Search team.

Posted in Microsoft | Comments Off on Actual mail I sent relatives on Live Search

Future Vision video

Posted on November 13, 2007 by halberenson

What really got me going today was coming across this future vision video blog entry.  This is a video my team commissioned to show a possible (and IMHO a highly desirable) future.  There is a lot you can read into it about how Microsoft thinks about computing a number of years out.  But trying to study UI details or derive anything about specific deliverables in a future product is pointless.  It’s all about the scenario!

Posted in Microsoft | Comments Off on Future Vision video

Discrete Transactions and benchmark cheating

Posted on November 12, 2007 by halberenson

I can’t believe The Register is bringing up Discrete Transactions after all these years.  Yes, most of the industry thought "Discrete Transactions" were a benchmark special.  I was, I admit, incensed, about them.  The reason was simple, we couldn’t figure out any real application that could make use of them!  They were just so anti-Oracle in architecture, intent, and restrictions that the only reason we could see for their existence was to improve the benchmark score.  And that caused us (DEC) to push hard to add the benchmark special clause to the specification.

All products, including DEC (now Oracle) Rdb have features that were inspired by the TPC benchmarks.  And some of those have fairly narrow applicability in general applications.  But we used the test that their had to be some class(es) of real applications that could use the feature/tuning knob before we would add it to the product.  So we were in the spirit of "no benchmark specials" long before there was such a clause.  But that doesn’t mean we weren’t pushing the limit at every opportunity.  Just like rules in NASCAR and other sports, if something is open to interpretation you interpret it to your benefit.  At some point someone crosses the line and the rules are changed to reduce the size of the gray area.  That’s what happened with Discrete Transactions.  No big deal.

Ok, I can say "no big deal" now.  Back in 1993 it was a huge deal to me, DEC, and the entire database industry.  But why bring it up now?

Posted in Computer and Internet | Comments Off on Discrete Transactions and benchmark cheating

Live Search Example

Posted on November 9, 2007 by halberenson

I just had another "delight" from Live Search.  I went into the side-by-side tool and searched for "1407 North Park Street, 80109".  Live Search included a map with this address on it, Google did not.  A map was exactly what I was looking for.

Posted in Computer and Internet, Microsoft | Comments Off on Live Search Example

Live Search really is good!

Posted on November 9, 2007 by halberenson

One of my friends recently mentioned that he had completely switched over to Live Search (from Google).  This was a particularly pleasant surprise to me because when Live Search 2.0 shipped I sent mail to friends and family urging them to give it a try.  I did this only after becoming comfortable that it wouldn’t backfire on me, with everyone upset that I’d sent them off to an inferior solution.

For the last year I’ve been using a tool that performs side-by-side searches on Live Search and another search engine.  For Live Search 1.0 I found I preferred the results from Google about 70% of the time.  For Live Search 2.0 the numbers flipped around and I prefer Live Search 70% of the time (and most of the remaining 30% is a tie).  It’s so dramatically better that I have to force myself to continue to use the side-by-side tool (and provide feedback to the Search team when they aren’t doing as well as another search engine) rather than just use Live Search.

Now if we can just get a few hundred million more people to make Live Search their search engine of choice….

Posted in Microsoft | Comments Off on Live Search really is good!

Welcome!

Posted on September 11, 2007 by halberenson

It’s my turn to start blogging.  Ok, I did have a political blog a few years ago.  But this one should be more general

Posted in Housekeeping | Comments Off on Welcome!