Leopard trounces Vista in a Corporate Satisfaction Survey

I saw this on ComputerWorld and just had to comment on this.  I don't know many businesses that have either OS implemented as their enterprise OS, but its very interesting none the less.

Apparently, enterprise Leopard users are five times more likely to say they were satisfied with the OS on their computer than Vista users. A survey conducted in February of this year indicated that 53% of Leopard users were satisfied with their OS, compared with 40% of XP users and 8% of Vista users.

What I find even more interesting is that 7% of those surveyed who were planning on purchasing laptops in the next 90 days said they were planning on buying a Mac.  This number is flat, compared to a similar survey done in November of 2007.  However, its still very interesting and further information speaks to a growing trend.

Fewer companies are planning on purchasing notebooks from more traditional channels.  Purchasing plans for Dell and Toshiba purchases are down a point and for HP and Lenovo are down two points, from the same November survey.

Regardless of all of this, Apple still remains a minor player in the corporate, enterprise market.  More than half of the companies surveyed, 53%, were planning on purchasing computers with Windows XP, 20% with Vista and just 8% with OSX.

While this in NO way speaks to overall market share, again, it does speak to an interesting trend - Its not just a Microsoft world anymore.  Unfortunately, Vista is so VASTLY different than XP and what most of Corporate America is used to, most companies seem unwilling to spend the 3-4 weeks per user, in a Vista learning curve.  Most of the Vista users I bump into and speak with, say that it takes them that long to get past the UI differences and confusion that many are reporting.  It did take me about as long to become comfortable with everything...and I'm still not 100% there.  I've been using Vista for well over a year.  I still use XP at work and feel more at home (and with OSX, believe it or not) than with Vista.

While I'm not quite a switcher, I am very interested in apps like VMWare's Fusion and the newer version of Parallels Desktop. While I spend 95% or more of my time in Windows, the popping back and forth is becoming a bit tiring when I want to update my iPod...

In an interesting move, iTunes has a shot fired across its distribution-bow...

I've been into digital music since 1998. I bought a Diamond MP3 player and a 32MB storage card back in the day, and was listening to MP3's I had ripped from MY CD collection at all times of the day and night. It was a wonderful thing.  Then, I bought an iPod, and the entire world changed for me.

I found out earlier that Atlanta-based ZapMedia is suing Apple over 2 different music distribution patents it says it owns. These patents outline the distribution of music from a server to multiple players.  While the patents were applied for back in 2000, the first wasn't approved until March of 2006.  The other, within the last couple of weeks... One details distributing digital media assets to "a plurality of users;" and the other expands upon it.

Apparently, Apple and ZapMedia were at the table talking about all of this, but the talks broke down, and ZapMedia came across with the law suit. They are asking for a cut of both iPod sales as well as iTunes music sales.  While Apple doesn't comment on pending litigation, I'm certain they aren't budging.  ZapMedia says the move was necessary to protect their technology.

What is most interesting about this, to me, is that the patents can be applied to any and every music delivery system currently available, and all of the most popular services are at risk for a similar suit.  Why ZapMedia is only going after Apple at this time has me a bit curious... Yes, Apple has the most popular player and delivery model/online music store, but Microsoft, Wal-Mart, (the new) Napster, RealMedia, etc. all stand at risk.

I'm a talker... Always have been, and will likely be yackin' my head off the day I die.  I... have the gift of gab. We all know its true, so who are we kidding.

With the influx of new devices I've got, E-TEN X800, E-TEN X650, and BB Curve 8310, I've been doing a lot of talking lately. I've been using the Palm Bluetooth Headset since Palm gave me one with the Treo Trip kit they gave all of the original 700w reviewers a couple-three years ago. its been a dependable, and half-way decent headset.  However, it leaves a bit to be desired: the volume isn't loud enough, and wind noise is a problem.  As such, I've been searching for a new headset.  When I was presented with the opportunity to look at the Yada YD-V1 Universal Phone Holder and Headset, I jumped at the chance.  Let's take just a quick look and see how it did.

All pictures were taken with the E-TEN X800's built in rear facing camera.

The Yada, charging in my car. BTW, what's with the blue LED in the middle of the holder..?  There's nothing on it in the manual and no power going to it...

The Yada YD-V1 Universal phone holder and headset is an interesting little combo. The holder should hold just about any mobile device or cell phone.  The expandable arms hold your device securely and safely. I drive the 53/290/355 corridor here in Chicago for my commute every day. Those that are familiar with the area know that the stretch of 53 right before Lake Cook Road is a pot hole jungle.  The road is BAD.  If the Yada can hold my Curve securely without it bouncing out of the holder, it can hold just about any device safely...which is pretty cool. 

As you can see from the photo below, the YD-V1 is attached to the top of the dash of my CR-V.  The device comes with 2 mounting options -

My BB Curve 8310 sitting in the YD-V1 (and yes, its still charging. The red/blue light flashes when its sitting in the holder just flashed off when I snapped this picture.

I've got a pretty long commute...about 75-90 minutes on a good day, without much traffic; but who am I kidding..?  This is Chicago; and there's all sorts of traffic and delays. For me, having a good headset is important.  I don't want to have to hold a phone to my head if I want or need to talk to someone.  Having a unit that holds both my phone and charges my headset is really nice. I wish I had  spot to hold them closer to me, rather than mounting the thing on my dash; but Yada doesn't offer a floor mounting system.

The whole sha-bang is held on a vent (I don't like those...they block the air that I want flowing into the car...) or via 3M adhesive tape.  Unfortunately, I had no other choice than the tape.

 
The YD-V1, with the headset removed. Removing the headset from the holder stops charging it and answers any incoming call.

Using the YD-V1 wasn't a bad experience, but it could have been a bit better.  As I mentioned above, when you take the headset from the charger, it automatically answers any incoming call.  Getting the headset out of the charger while driving was a challenge... the clip it sits in hangs on to it very well.  I've missed a call or two trying to get the thing out while my Curve was ringing.

A close-up of the YD-V1's headset.

As you can see from the above, the YD-V1's headset just sticks in your ear. There's nothing that hangs on or clips over  your ear.  At first, I liked this because the Palm BlueTooth headset I've been using hurts my ear after a while. It DOES clip over your ear.  After about 2/3 of the way through my 90 minute commute, my ear starts to ache.  Like I said, I was excited for a while until I started having trouble keeping the headset in my ear. I've nearly lost the headset on 3 separate occasions while driving.  Its fallen out of my ear!  All three times, I've been fortunate. While the headset dropped out of my ear canal, it dropped down the front of me, and into my lap.  However, this merely tells me I can't use the thing outside of my car. 

The car is a closed space, and if it does fall out of my ear and hit the floor, at least it still will be in my car.  If this happens when I'm out and about, who knows where it will end up.  Worst case scenario... I lose the headset and then I've got this cell holder glued to my dash...without the matching headset. Not good.  While the YD-V1 does come with 3 different size ear buds, none of them really fit my ear very well, and hence the problem.

A close-up of the bottom of the YD-V1's headset.  The two silver lines are charging contacts.  You can also vaguely make out the microphone hole...

At the end of the day, this isn't a bad setup; but with my ears, it gave me problems.  For the money (see purchasing link below), the device is a pretty good buy, although Gear Diary team member, Chris G. has told me on several occasions that my voice sounded very compressed, tinny, and missing both high and low ends.  He sounded like his normal annoying self to me...so at least the speaker in the headset sounded good...

MSRP: $ 59.99. The WinPlus Yada YD-V1 can be purchased from Amazon, here.
What I Like: Headset charges while sitting in a secure holder. Headset auto answers incoming calls when pulled from the charger
What Needs improvement: Securing the headset in your ear can be problematic if the ear bud cover isn't a solid fit.

I've seen a bunch of news on this today (Tuesday 18-Mar-08) that Vista SP1 is going to hit Microsoft Update as early as today. Retail copies of the software will be available via B&M and online stores as early as tomorrow, and will sport new, lower prices.

Vista SP1 shipped to duplication and resellers on 04-Feb-08.  Before that, It was only been available to beta testers, volume-licensing customers and subscribers to subscription services like MSDN and TechNet, but only after they caused a big stink, threatening to cancel their subscriptions. It seems that David does that some power over this software Goliath.

Many users haven't been able to get their hands on the code, however. Microsoft delayed its release due to driver compatibility issues. As many users have read recently, some drivers won't properly reinstall during the SP1 upgrade. While Microsoft has worked through most of these issues with most of the vendors, they needed to set up blocking mechanisms to prevent PC's with errant drivers from receiving and installing the service pack.

If you're in the market for a new PC, you'll likely get SP1 with your new machine.  Fortunately, those folks shouldn't have to worry about any driver compatibility issues. Microsoft has stated that OEM and retail copies should be good to go, beginning tomorrow, 19-Mar-08.

In one of my recent blogs on the X800, I mentioned that I thought the unit E-TEN sent me was defective. It was.  They sent me a replacement unit, and I have some interesting news regarding its battery life.

What a difference a new device makes!!

Wow!

Interesting thing was, I noticed the improvement right away.  With the older unit, the device might last about 3.5 - 4.0 hours...if I was lucky. The new device can go (and has) nearly 48 hours without a charge.  The interesting thing is that I live in a 3G coverage area. 3G is harder on the battery than just plain EDGE.  Oh, and by the way, to answer the lurking question - No, I haven't seen the device struggle to hold a 3G signal. It nearly always has 3G, and I have never seen it drop down to EDGE.

To be honest, though, I rarely use WiFi. With an all you can eat data plan, I rarely have the need.  However, I suspect that with moderate radio use (WiFi, voice calls and data usage), you should be able to go most of the day before really needing a charge or battery change.

I am really impressed with the battery life in this device. Its not bad...not bad at all

There's been a lot of buzz lately around something called Hulu.  Until recently, I had no idea what it was.  I saw a couple of articles here and there on the Internet, but nothing really told me what it was...and I wasn't sure why...just that it would be really cool. Then I decided to click on one of the document links to hulu.com.  That's when I was blown away.

I am a huge fan of nostalgia TV.  I am not so crazy about The Love Boat and Fantasy Island...that's where old, really BAD 70's TV stars when to try to revive their careers during the 1980's.  In many cases, their career's heartbeat would blip a couple more times, but that was it.  If you got relegated to repeats on either, you were done.
Anyway, until recently, if you wanted to watch any nostalgic TV, you were stuck with Nick at Night or TVLand or some other channel like that.  Not any more!  Now you can go to the internet to get your Nostalgia TV fix with Hulu!

Hulu is a service that reruns really old TV shows and some newer, cool movies.  You can watch TV shows like Nanny and the Professor (I had such a crush on Juliet Mills as a kid...), or Johnny Soko and his Giant Robot (this and Ultraman were a staple for me).

I was sitting in bed with my wife, showing her some of the shows you can watch, and its really kinda cool. The video comes across with limited commercial breaks (yes, there's some advertising to pay for all the content); and did really well via 802.11g wireless. I was really kinda impressed.

The service is free, the content is free for personal use, and it really kinda took me back.  There's a lot of memories for me in some of these shows... Its going to be fun going back through them and reliving memories while I watch them.

You can view all of the Hulu content at hulu.com.

I first heard about the Sling Box on Mobility Today. Dave Ciccone was in the process of reviewing a beta version of WM Sling Box client, and posted a video review of what he was looking at. I thought that the idea of a Sling Box was right on the money: I'm in a strange city on business/on vacation/etc., and I want to watch (what ever); but its not on here/on an unknown channel/blacked out/etc.

Enter the Hava Gold. With it, you can watch YOUR TV, anywhere you can get an Internet connection.  Does the Hava Gold give you what you want, or does it provide a gilded experience?  Let's take a quick look and see how it goes...

Hardware Installation

Software Installation
Installing the software went about as you thought it would. However, there were a couple of interesting steps that I'd like to take you through.  Before anything else happened, after inserting the software CD into the drive and clicking on the software installation link, the following graphic appeared:

Hava Driver installation

The start of the device installation. After the software is in, the Hava Wizard starts...

The Hava Wizard takes you through configuration of all necessary steps to get the player up and running, and you, watching TV on your PC.  In order to get things going, you've got to go through about 13 different screens; after which you're ready to go.

Select the video input type	Configure your remote control unit	Tune your remote

There are a lot of configuration steps to take care of here; but the end result is definitely worth the work, AND isn't too complicated.  You will need to know a little bit about your cable system in the house, as well as a bit about your home network, but again, its not that complicated.  Thankfully, Hava includes a very easy to understand getting started poster that helps you connect everything, including detailed instructions on getting the IR Blaster setup.

This is the one thing that really bothers me the most about the Hava. There really should be a better way for the software to activate remote control functions than by sticking wired IR emitters on your cable box with foam tape. That really bothers me.  Foam tape never comes off cleanly; and has a tendency to stick to the wrong spot if you're not careful. But that may just be me... In all, it took me about 25 minutes to set the device up, and about 10 minutes to get the software installed and configured. You CAN get access to your Hava via wireless network; but you're going to be better off using the CAT5 or CAT6 cabling in your house.

Actual Use
The screen on my MacBook Pro is awesome. It can display digital TV, as well as HDTV signals with remarkable clarity. I am truly loving the daylights out of this PC. Before I bought this PC, I was using a Dell Latitude C610 with the large docking station (with 2 PCI slots). I had a WinTVGo card in one slot, and could watch TV on it while I wrote. That was nice, as I had my desk in the extended area of the master bedroom suite in our Nashville home, and I could use my headphones to listen to TV audio while I wrote. Very nice.

Yeah... The Steelers lost this game... :(

When I switched to my MBP, I lost this capability.  The MBP doesn't even have a docking station, let alone one with PCI slots to hold my TV, or any other desktop card.  While I think that's a huge hole that has yet to be plugged for any Mac laptop, it was a problem for me. The desk in the new house has been moved out of my basement, near our 25" console TV, to our living room.  I can't watch any kind of TV there. I have no cable connection and no TV in my living/dining room.  However, with the Hava Gold, this really isn't a problem.

I have a 17" ViewSonic LCD monitor sitting above my MBP. With the Hava software installed there, I can watch TV on it, playing full screen, while I use my PC to write.  When my wife is on the computer, I can use the Hava software on my MBP to play TV on it and work at the same time.  Performance over wireless connection on my home network is ok.  Performance over my wired network is much better (obviously). The connection is about 10 times faster.

That's one thing that you really need to be cognizant of...network speed and reliability. The better your connection (faster, more reliable, etc.), the better the viewing experience with the Hava is going to be. If there is any caching going on with the software, I'd like it to be a bit more aggressive, or at least to have some kind of setting in either the Hava Setup Wizard or the settings dialog

Hava Player Settings Dialog Video Tab	Hava Player Settings Dialog Quality Tab	Hava Player Settings Dialog Audio Tab

As you can see from the above, the Hava settings dialog doesn't have ANY kind of caching settings on either the Video or Quality tabs. In fact, I wouldn't recommend messing with anything on the Quality tab unless you know exactly how changing the bitrate values will effect the quality of the picture you want to receive. 

Final Thoughts
I don't like the fact that you can't directly connect a cable connection to the Gold; but you can't do that to any of the currently available Sling Boxes, either.  It would be a HECK of a lot easier if a cable connection could be placed right on the Hava Gold. The coax connection could then carry both stereo audio and video directly to the box. The whole process of also attaching IR emitters directly to my cable box really bothers me. I don't like semi-permanent foam tape on my electronics.  There really needs to be a better way to make channel changing work. I was hoping for something a little more elegant and sophisticated. However, for just under $100 bucks, this is a decent solution and does a good job.

The biggest problem I had with the Hava Gold had nothing to do with the unit itself, but with my office network.  They block access to any streaming video or audio, so I could not get access to my Gold from my office network. As such, I really haven't been able to test whether or not I can get access to everything outside my home network. Its too bad too, as I haven't had a business trip (and won't for my current job, as my last day is 1/4); and won't for my new job until the end of the month at the earliest, I think. I don't like pulling my MBP out in public, as it tends to draw just a little too much attention (and a little too much laptop envy) in downtown Chicago.