Jonathan Stein's Blog

Netflix: A Marketing Mystery

Jonathan Stein — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 02:58:04 +0000

It's clear to me that Netflix wants to stop mailing DVD's to customers. They want everything to be delivered via the Internet - not only their current Instant Streaming library, but everything in their DVD library as well. They want DVD-by-mail to die. The trouble is - no one seem to know how to make that happen. With the Qwikster spin-off, Netflix was trying to further differentiate the products, even more so than the September price-hike attempted to achieve.

Charitable Web Design

Jonathan Stein — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 05:18:12 +0000

It's been a long time, but I've finally been granted a web design project for someone other than me. I've spent the last few days working on a pro-bono website for a local non-profit fundraising event, so anyone who reads this blog (all none of you), please take a moment to visit the site, and maybe you'll decide to make a small donation to the cause in recognition of my efforts.

This March, the Central Florida Navy League will be hosting the 2nd Annual Wounded Warrior / Lone Sailor Memorial 5K race in Winter Park, Florida. The event is being held to raise funds for two causes: The Wounded Warrior Project and the Lone Sailor Memorial Project.

The Wounded Warrior Project supports injured veterans returning from service with physical and mental injuries. Their signature project is the "Wounded Warrior Backpack", delivered bedside to wounded Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen.

The Lone Sailor Memorial Project is a project of the Central Florida Navy League. The project will establish a memorial site on the former grounds of Navy Recruit Training Center Orlando. The memorial will feature the famous "Lone Sailor" statue, nine of which are currently displayed around the United States, the original being at the Navy Memorial in Arlington, VA. I have personally visited three of these sites (San Francisco, Norfolk, and Great Lakes), and I can attest to the inspiration and dignity the sculpture conveys.

Please visit the website for the 5k at www.orlandowoundedwarrior5k.com.

The Wounded Warrior Project - www.woundedwarriorproject.org
The Lone Sailor Memorial Project - www.lonesailorfl.com

Motorola CLIQ may be forever resigned to Cupcake

Jonathan Stein — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 19:51:08 +0000

I was lucky (I suppose) to be chosen as one of the 2,000 people who's being allowed to officially test-drive, or "soak" Android 2.1 with MOTOBLUR on the Motorola CLIQ for T-Mobile. I've kindly agreed not to share any details of any surveys, discussions, or the software I'm testing on my CLIQ - so I won't share any details, even though many CLIQ and DEXT users, like me, have been using the build for some time now - but I can't imagine that three-and-a-half months of delay wasn't enough time to identify and fix the many problems with this build.

Motorola's official test-release honestly sucks in many, many ways. There are some good things, and there are many bad things that have existed since the first Eclair builds for the phone leaked out of Motorola late this summer. Some of the bugs absolutely cripple the usefulness of the device and others are mere nuisances. I honestly can't believe Moto even thought this build was ready for an official soak period. It's pretty obvious that Motorola has been devoting its resources to the Droid line of phones and creating new entry-level Android devices like the "Flipout" for other carriers. The build is simply not anywhere near ready for a full public OTA push. In my opinion, the CLIQ may likely join the DEXT as an example of Motorola's continued failure in the mobile phone market, as I can't imagine Motorola devoting any more time and developers to this device. I simply don't believe that Motorola has any desire to continue with the CLIQ.

As @sudoadam pointed out, Blur 2.1.5 for the CLIQ was built more than six weeks prior to the trial announcement, and that may be the clearest evidence of Motorola's lack of commitment and how badly they've been dragging their feet in bringing Eclair to the CLIQ.

Vanilla-Flavored CLIQ

Jonathan Stein — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 04:23:33 +0000

The latest ROM for the Motorola CLIQ is HandlerExploit's Vanilla w/ Eclair 1.1. It's not the first Eclair ROM for the device. It's not built from the Android source code. It's not a feature-rich must have. In fact, it's not a lot of things - but it is the essential Android OS that will let you truly experience the CLIQ in ways you never have before.

It's pretty refreshing to see a lightweight Eclair ROM for the CLIQ that works to nearly every detail. Vanilla w/ Eclair 1.1 started out as Motorola's own Blur 2.0.26, which was leaked some time ago. VwE is almost purely vanilla - there are very few pre-installed apps, and the system has been completely stripped of MOTOBLUR. The default installation has pretty much nothing on it but what comes built into the Android OS. There are a few additions - Barnacle WiFi Tether is built in, and a few AOSP apps have been replaced by nicer and more functional cousins (more on that in a moment).

VwE greets you with an beautiful bootscreen, captioned by the word "Simplicity". This says it all, as once you've gotten through the initial startup, the UI enhancements, snazzy icons, and overlays characteristic of so many customizations seem to be completely ignored. I tooled around in the default installation for a while, and I can say it is fast and very responsive. That's nice to say, but what good is it without all my apps and settings? I restored my latest backup and really took VwE for a spin.

My phone is quickly loaded down with LauncherPro Plus, Watchdog, WeatherBug Elite, and a variety of other apps that are always running on my phone. I've got Facebook running, Seesmic watching my Twitter feed, and Swype as my touchscreen keyboard. The phone barely breaks a sweat. In the same state under Adlxmod 2.1 - a BLURry Eclair ROM for the CLIQ - my phone would be working at least 32-35 apps running in the foreground, background, or wherever. Right now, I'm staring at a solid 21 and I have twice as much free memory. It's amazing (but not the least bit surprising) what removing BLUR from Android will do to a device.

While there are some excellent strong points to this release, there are nevertheless some drawbacks - though none are in any way serious. VwE doesn't have the visual appeal that Adlxmod 2.1 provides, but users who recognize its intentionally "simplistic" approach should have no concerns about it. I am a big fan of having Barnacle Wifi Tether built-in to the ROM, but expect it to fail once or twice when you start tethering before it finally works. This issue is the same in other CLIQ ROM's. Also, access to Wifi Tethering has been buried deep within the Settings menus, and I'd like to see a widget added to VwE so tethering can be accessed from the homescreen. Live Wallpapers are natively supported in VwE, and they're fun to play with, but don't expect to be using one full-time. There's really no point to Live Wallpapers on an underpowered device like the CLIQ, as a lightweight one will draw about 20% of my CPU time, and an intensive one will put a serious strain on the device until it Force Closes.

I've mentioned the lack of visual appeal in Vanilla w/ Eclair, but I digress for a moment -- it hasn't been completely ignored in VwE. The inclusion of HTC's Music Player makes the music listening experience on the device much more pleasant, especially considering the Music app that unrooted CLIQ users are still using in Android 1.5. The default Alarm Clock app has also been switched out for DeskClock, which is a much nicer bedside clock; however, the app crashes if you click the Music button, as I assume it's looking for the wrong Music app.

When it comes down to it, I'm going to keep Vanilla w/ Eclair on my phone - at least for a while. I think it'll take more than the half-hour of tinkering I've done to really experience the performance boost that clarity (vice "BLURiness") brings to the CLIQ. Flash it today! You won't regret it.

CLIQ ROM Rumble: Adlxmod, Vanilla w/ Eclair, MOTOBLUR 2.1

Jonathan Stein — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 03:09:14 +0000

For a device that is no longer sold at retail and has been plagued by shoddy support from Motorola, there are a plethora of new and forthcoming ROM's and updates to the CLIQ. Discussing the latest...

Why Hasn't iGoogle Gone Instant?

Jonathan Stein — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 17:27:38 +0000

It's a simple question... Once upon a time, I used my iGoogle as my default homepage, but since the introduction of Instant Search, I haven't wanted to use the seemingly deprecated search box (with only suggestions) on any other page, and I've all but abandoned my iGoogle. I had to choose between a feature that gave me real-time results and one that was, for the most part, relatively static. I want results now!

So why hasn't iGoogle recieved the Instant treatment yet? I can't imagine it would be particularly difficult to engineer it into code for iGoogle, so there has to be some reason.

The only argument I've come across is that iGoogle is a content page - people don't want all their stuff to disappear as soon as they start making keystrokes - which is the same reason I'm a bit skeptical of Instant creeping into Chrome's "Omnibox" address bar. I'll address that in a moment.

In my opinion, once a user starts typing a search query in iGoogle's search box, they're actively moving away from the content that has already been presented. It's time to show them something new, and show it FAST! Google is all about fast (down to milliseconds), so Instant Search in iGoogle seems like a no-brainer to me.

Now consider moving the search activity from the page (iGoogle) to the browser itself. Chrome's Omnibar already gives me search suggestions and recent history items as I type, but what if it fed directly into Google Instant? Will I be redirected from the page I'm currently viewing as soon as I start typing? In some cases, I could see that being just fine; in other - not so much. What if I'm just spell-checking someone's name? I would need to open a new tab first, and that's a time consuming process (at least to a Googler). I have no doubts that Google's engineers are considering the limitations of Instant Search in the Omnibar and will present an outstanding solution. I could see it displaying in the drop-down below the Omnibar.

Instant itself certainly has some shortcomings - there are plenty of censored terms (try an instant search for "Butt"), and the entire Instant experience breaks when you try to use advanced search prefixes like "filetype:" and "define:". The later, I use quite often to look up a list of definitions for a word, but an instant search for "define a word" turns up one result with a link to more - not a total loss.

Google Instant is a wonderful feature, and I love the experience it gives, but it needs greater flexibility and more integration into other Google services to really take off.

Welcome

Jonathan Stein — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 18:21:53 +0000

I'd like to welcome you, whoever you are, to my redesigned website and new blog. Previously, this site was designed for a Web Systems course, which I long since passed. It's finally time to do something new; so, here I go.

I've also tried my hand at blogging before - relatively unsuccessfully. I tried too hard to capture an audience, and didn't like writing to no one, so I quit. This time, I'll write what I please, and if someone out there catches my musings - awesome! At the very least, I'll be feeding this blog to my twitter (@tpettyrox), so maybe that will bring in some readers.