Every now and then I receive a link to a YouTube video from Honda. Usually it’s something their latest Asimo is capable of, but this time it was a little different. Honda is taking what they learned and applying to something humans can use. Think of the possibilities for the disabled!
It Is What It Is
Sometimes it just looks different.
Archive for the ‘Personal Notes’ Category
Honda Personal Mobility
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010What Does an iPad Really Cost?
Sunday, May 30th, 2010My personal opinion on the iPad is that it is not something you buy out of necessity. Unlike and iPod or iPhone, I don’t think that anyone can sit back and justify the purchase. The combined features make it compelling, but at a starting price of $499 it is a very expensive eBook reader. I have been trying to find ways that I could integrate my iPad into my daily work and been marginally successful. However the integration necessitated the purchase of several additional programs. I work in IT, so I understand that I may not be the norm, but here is a list of what I needed.
| Tool | App | Price |
| Built In | ||
| Calendar – Exchange | Calendar | Built In |
| Calendar – Google | Calendar | Built In |
| Contacts | Contacts | Built In |
| Cisco VPN | VPN | Built In |
| Microsoft Word | Pages | 9.99 |
| Microsoft Excel | Numbers | 9.99 |
| Microsoft PowerPoint | Keynote | 9.99 |
| SSH Client | iSSH | 9.99 |
| Windows Remote | WinAdmin | 8.99 |
| LogMeIn | LogMeIn Ignition | 29.99 |
| VNC | Mocha VNC Lite | Free |
| FTP | FTPOnTheGo | 9.99 |
| Printing | Print n Share | 6.99 |
| PDF Reader | GoodReader | 0.99 |
| Tasks | TaskTask HD | 4.99 |
If I count Accessories (Capacitive Pen, Dock, Case), I have spend over $200 trying to make my iPad be more useful at work. There are plenty of other accessories, like a bluetooth keyboard and TV/VGA adapters on the market. On the app side it’s just the apps I use; I’ve been pretty discerning, but there have been a few failures. Many do not have trial versions, you are entirely dependent on customer feedback and have no options for refunds should the app not work the way you need it to. I have friends who have spent much more than I have finding the tools that were right for them.
Many of these apps have special requirements like ActiveSync on your mail server or require a level of technical expertise to configure. It’s fair to say that even with all of these additions, I still mostly use my iPad for email and quick fixes when I don’t want to boot my laptop up.
If I were to be asked today if the iPad was something the company I worked for could easily use and was worth the purchase price, I would have to answer with a resounding no. The iPad is certainly marketed for consumers, not businesses. While there is an undercurrent of Business Productivity apps on the market, the ability to integrate the iPad into an existing business infrastructure is not easily or inexpensively achieved.
TidySongs & TuneUp
Monday, May 10th, 2010In my ongoing quest to clean up my music library, I decided to try the two front runner *commercial* programs. The first being TidySongs, formerly TidyTunes. The second being TuneUp, known for cleaning up the mess “automagically.” I started with TidySongs, because the commercials for TuneUp were annoying. Let’s start with the basics, shall we?
TidySongs
First off, the website is very clean. The most noticeable thing missing was any type of forums or other support mechanism. They only offer a FAQ, which does not cover any real issues and an email address to send to when you have problems. The email address has a note that the person on the other side works 8-5 and will respond as soon as possible. Not very comforting…
At any rate, the install requires Flash and Adobe Air. Once you meet the requirements the link to install works, which I thought was pretty cool. The install downloads the files, dumps an installer on your desktop and then tells you to run it, which I did not think was pretty cool. I went ahead and ran it. After install, I double clicked the application icon, and was presented with a very uninformative error.
Back to the website, no information about this error. Google has failed me. Email support. Now I wait.
If you are like me, and searching for information to make TidySongs work, skip to the end of the article.
TuneUp
The TuneUp website, at first glance, is not very informative about the product. There are two purchase options, one being Gold, the other being Annual. There is no detail on what each option gives you, but I’m a smart guy – I suspect Gold is lifetime and Annual is, well, annual. Digging a little, they offer support forums as well, which you can read without registering.
I downloaded the file, and it installed with no issues or mess. I ran the program, logged in and felt immediately productive. Now, it’s worth noting that TuneUp does not yet offer a way to remove Duplicates. I did some initial analysis and was told that 90% of my library was “messed up”. I found that funny. At any rate, the cleanup was pretty easy, but recommended you only clean 500 songs at a time. I ran into two issues at this point, album artwork caused some songs to fail on the cleanup (fixable) and TuneUp seemed to randomly crash during the cleanup (annoying). I found that if I left the crash message up, TuneUp would continue cleaning.
First impressions are critical. Right now, TuneUp has the lead, but I still have high hopes for TidySongs. I really want the duplicate removal. Onward!
iTunes Agony
Sunday, May 9th, 2010I have been an iTunes user since it first came out. Despite the fact that my family needs it to sync my music, movies and podcasts to the various “iHardware” we have, I think it is a pretty good application. It presents media in a way that allows you to find it, and keeps it all very simple. With all of that organization and the intuitive design Apple puts into other products, one would think that it could do a better job managing duplicate media. I recently went through my library and found that I had about 2500 duplicate songs/albums! iTunes has no way to clean these up automatically? No it doesn’t. It will tell you what’s duplicated but will not help you sort it out. So the drama begins…
I am certain that many people have been in this situation before me. Someone, somewhere, most certainly has written a program to do just that. Enter Marklesoft… I did some research, read the reviews and determined they were the real thing. So I downloaded their program Dup Remover, and started the process. Much to my surprise, not only did it wipe out the dupe, but it wiped all of the files that had dupes. So I lost 2500 songs, just like that. Before anyone says it, I’m not stupid – I have more backups of my music library then I do anything else.
Before I went down the restore road, I decided it was time to do a little discovery. How hard would it be to clean up my library and get the ID3 updated to reflect the correct songs, artists and albums? I found a few more open source programs, they do clever searches to organize music based on ID3 tags and audio signatures – but in the end, they just made the mess even worse. Most of them could not handle 15,000 files and crashed half way through. They do work though: MusicBrainz, Picard, Jaikoz, etc… They all do some of the work for you, but no one tool seems to be able to do it all.. or be accurate in the entire process.
So, now that I’ve turned my current library into a spaghetti mess of files I am restoring from backup. In the mean time, I am looking at a couple of other paid programs: TidySong and TuneUp. If I decide to go that route, I will let you all know how it goes.
Moral of the story, backup your library before you decide to do any housekeeping!
Challenging “Can’t”
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010It can’t do that. It’s not possible. There’s no way to make it happen. Don’t bother, there’s no way to do it.
I hear statements like this all the time. In many cases, I hear the words before work has even started. Which always leads me to ask questions. Why won’t it work? What have you tried? Who did you work with? In variably, the answers lead more questions. Frequently I find that the challenge was handled in a “bubble” without drawing on the resources that could help. Problem solving is a core competency for most Information Technology professionals; more than half our time is spent trying to figure out how to make new ideas work or fixing something that suddenly stopped working. IT is all about challenges, opportunities, a chance to learn, a chance to do something amazing.
IT Professionals have to keep on top of the latest in their field, and as a result they should be in a constant learning mode. I believe that the ability to continue learning is what makes an IT Professional go from good to great. Those same IT Professionals will freely share what they know and surround themselves with other “learners” seeking advice when necessary. You will rarely, if ever, hear the word “can’t” from them. These are the guys that have worked on systems designed to cooperate that sometimes took persuasion and every now and then stopped their cooperation altogether. They support and configure systems that were not designed to work together but were adapted to do just that. They make it happen when others have said it couldn’t be done.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are IT Professionals that are very good at what they do, but when a problem exceeds their skills, the impossible happens. Whatever it is, it cannot be done. Everyone has run into these guys. They don’t ask questions, are happy with the status quo and rarely break out of the box (if ever). I call the people I hear this response from “slugs”. Nothing irritates me more than hearing a can’t statement and then recognizing this as the source. I’m not going to rant, I surely could – but what good would it do? The people that read my articles, certainly sympathize with the difficulty slugs cause.
Is there a time to say, it can’t be done? I don’t think so. There does come a point when the cost, time and or effort exceeds the value of what you want to do. So then the answer is “We shouldn’t do this right now.” It’s not a matter of can’t, it’s a matter of cost. Which, in business terms is the Return On Investment (ROI) and is a whole separate discussion. Having said that, I know plenty of projects postponed due to cost, that have later returned. The “learners” spent time (one could call it obsessing) on the challenge and found a way…
For any IT Professional that is or wants to be great: The word “can’t” should be a challenge, never a surrender.
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