Frederick's Timelog

On coffee

So. It’s been quite a while since I last posted, so I decided to put up something that’s been on my mind: coffee.

McDonald’s Canada (@McD_Canada) has been offering free coffee all day from March 1 up to March 14, and they claim it has nothing to do with Tim Horton’s Roll Up the Rim promotion.

I went to try it, but I don’t really have an opinion about the taste or quality of McDonald’s coffee. (I haven’t bought coffee at a coffee shop for more than 3 months.) Apparently “experts” say it beats Starbucks and Tim Hortons.

Stay awake!

I don’t like coffee. However, I can understand why people might like it, or need it. I can’t think of anyone who could be happy and energetic all day, unless they’re on drugs—and that’s my point. Coffee serves as a drug; caffeine, of course, is a narcotic. It’s a psychoactive stimulant that makes you more alert and aware. You already know that.

If not for this wonderful effect of caffeine products like coffee, the demand for coffee would probably be rather low.

Health risks benefits

I guess caffeine could have benefits; apparently it has a role in preventing Parkinson’s disease. The fact that caffeine doesn’t directly cause any health concerns for most users explains why it is one of the only unregulated drugs in the world. (Of course, that’s partly because the lawmakers are staying awake on it too.)

Taste

In any case, I’m not a coffee person. This brown … substance … is too bitter, too caffeinated.

I don’t understand how people get used to the bitter taste (even with a few creams and sugars). Sure, it might smell great, but smell ≠ taste. The most popular foods in life not only smell good, they have to taste good. (Unless you go by this definition of delicacy.) Coffee just doesn’t taste good.

Tea

Personally, I prefer things like tea. To me, the bitter taste of coffee can never match the aromas of Earl Grey, orange pekoe, rooibos & honeybush tea (more easily acquired in South Africa), or the easily tolerable green tea. I take it with a little sugar and sometimes a little milk. The result, of course, is something that smells wonderful, tastes great, and is much more natural and healthy than coffee. (I should note that while true teas from the Camellia sinensis plant do contain caffeine, rooibos & honeybush tea is herbal, ‘red’ tea that lacks caffeine.)

In this, I’m not alone. Coffee might be ‘enjoyed’ by 90% of North Americans (or so Wikipedia tells me), but tea is the second most popular drink in the world after water. I’m also glad to know that I’m consuming something that originated from processes as natural as immersing plant leaves in boiling water, as opposed to the complex process that involves roasting and grinding.

What do you like?

Everything I’ve just talked about is only my preference. You’re free to feel differently, to enjoy your bitter beverage and to convince me that coffee is absolutely delicious.

At the end of the day, though, if I’m in need of a boost, I won’t be turning to coffee. I’ll boil some water in the kettle, find my container of tea bags, and make myself some soothing, delicious, and natural tea.

Ctrl+F for real life?

There are so many computer features that we’ve become accustomed to. Who hasn’t used Ctrl+F to search for text on a Web page or a document? Who hasn’t used Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V to copy and paste something? (…obviously, I’m not targeting people who have never used a computer before, or who manage to use them without a keyboard)

If you could have any of these keyboard shortcuts as a real-life (super)power, which one would you want? Vote below.

So far, the results have been interesting. Looks like most people don’t want to deal with real life.

Happy New Year!

It’s the end of another year and the end of a ground-breaking decade. Let’s look back at what’s been accomplished in the years of 2000–2009, focusing on technology.

Technology

Windows has entered a new era

The decade—indeed, the century—began with Windows 2000, which I consider the first great version of the operating system. XP was the version that brought widespread success, and people just seem to refuse to upgrade; even today, almost three quarters of the computers on the net are on XP.

Despite the dismal failure of Windows Vista, it too brought change, which was followed by the enhancements of Windows 7. Compare my desktop today to the ugly screens of a decade ago:

Apple deserves an honourable mention for the ground-breaking work they’ve done on the Mac, elevating it to a newly trendy status.

Portable media players have completely changed

A decade ago, CD players and tape-based Walkmans were still the norm for ‘portable’ audio players. The iPod, launched in 2001, entirely changed the game. (I suppose this and the iPhone were the “comeback of the decade”.) It was no longer a device that played removable media. That was followed by thousands of other portable media players, to which the public generally refers inaccurately as “MP3 players”, reflecting the popularity of the 15-year-old MP3 format that has also been notorious for illegal file sharing (see below).

Cell phones and mobile devices have become ubiquitous

These devices used to be ugly, huge and heavy objects. As we move into 2010, cell phones have become more compact (usually this means thinner and lighter) and more powerful.

In China, about 739 million people have cell phones; that’s more than there are Internet users in China (which is about 360 million).

Mobile devices have become truly powerful. The iPhone, purportedly the most popular cell phone of 2009, is one of the biggest platforms for software development. And it has a touch screen. RIM’s BlackBerry, initially launched in 1999, is the most popular smartphone among business users.

Ordinary people begin to embrace ultra-portable netbooks for lightweight computing. The move to mobile is probably the most noticeable trend in end-user gadgetry in this decade.

Illegal file sharing has emerged

I don’t personally think of torrenting itself as a major problem, and it’s difficult to sympathize with big companies when the RIAA is being stupid. At the same time, it’s pretty easy to see how having hundreds of movies, TV shows and music albums distributed through torrents can take away from earnings for content producers. (Some dispute this and argue that those who pirate movies and TV shows are those who will purchase related memorabilia or boxed sets.)

In any case, it is virtually undisputed that new technologies have made distribution of such content much easier. In the previous decade, pretty much everyone was on dial-up Internet and only the students at universities with blazing connections were able to do it (think about the controversial Napster).

YouTube happened

YouTube and hundreds of other video sites have revolutionized the way we watch video. What used to be distributed on tapes and discs has moved onto the Internet in a way that allows ordinary folks—not videophiles or geeks—to share their multimedia with the world.

YouTube is also the icon of the so-called Web 2.0, which is oriented on user-generated content. (Flickr deserves an honourable mention for high quality pictures, just like Vimeo for high class videos.) It has made it possible for teens with crazy personalities and high-pitched edited voices, artists who post music videos, and crazy dancers who travel the world to reach out to a vast audience. Above all, it’s a legitimate new form of entertainment.

Following the success of online video, major content producers began to license music for online distribution (think Pandora or Last.fm, not to mention Internet radio) as well as movies and TV shows (think Hulu).

Open source projects have become worthy challengers

More than a decade ago, in 1996, the Apache HTTP server became the most popular web server in use; today it has surpassed 100 million web sites served.

Mozilla Firefox, having risen out of the ashes of the Netscape browser, although not the most widely used browser in the world (it’s 2nd), is apparently used by 32% of the market analyzed by StatCounter.

While I still use Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org is also a notable alternative to the proprietary and dominant office suite, especially on non-Windows operating systems.

And then there are the programs used by geeks, like the Eclipse IDE or Aptana Studio, that are depended upon. (For all of you multimedia geeks, there are open source programs that do the job much better than their closed source counterparts; think about Handbrake, VLC…)

Businesses can now also depend on open source projects like Sugar CRM that build their revenue model around support and premium features.

News has moved onto the Web

My primary news source  now is the Web. Google News is one of my frequently visited sites, as it is a fantastic aggregator of headlines. I subscribe to e-mail summaries from the Toronto Star and breaking news alerts from the New York Times. ArsTechnica and TechCrunch are my sources for technology-related news, and occasionally Mashable and Neowin. Those pesky short links in the tweets of people I follow also make for engaging news articles.

Wikipedia happened

At the beginning of this decade, I was researching in books and print encyclopedias. The conventional wisdom today of “just Google it” didn’t work so well then. And certainly there wasn’t a Wikipedia for the wealth of human knowledge that it now contains.

Today, I can near-instantly read up on the history of Wal-Mart or read up on the Beslan school hostage crisis and its media coverage. If I truly need it, Wikipedia connects with Wikisource, the free library and Wikibooks where I can read Anna Karenina online (and I wouldn’t, because Constance Garnett’s translations are really lacking).

It’s truly amazing that the sum of all human knowledge can be collaboratively archived and updated through the likes of Wikipedia. Perhaps they need your support this holiday season!

What do you think? Did I miss out on something big that happened in this decade in the world of tech? Write a comment!

(I did, however, intentionally exclude social networking—i.e. Facebook—because I don’t think it’s been revolutionary in any major way. Sure, it has connected people in new ways, but it’s still relatively fresh and more time is needed to see where it goes. Similarly, I omitted touch because it hasn’t entirely caught on yet; tablet PCs were a dismal failure a few years ago and I haven’t yet seen their widespread success. Furthermore, I omitted cloud computing because it doesn’t directly affect a large number of people. Feel free to disagree with me in the comments.)

Worldly Matters

I think September 11, 2001 marked the start of a new era of warfare and international affairs. The terrorist attacks, inasmuch as they have been abused to justify ill-advised battles, did shock the world.

I recommend you head over to the Big Picture where you’ll be dazzled by splendid photos of this decade, including commentaries on the World Trade Center attacks and war. And dozens of other things like natural disasters (remember Katrina, or the Sichuan earthquake?), the Beijing Olympics, and terrorist attacks in London.

2009 has been a fantastic year. I look forward to the future.

Happy holidays and all the best in 2010!

A sad week for web hosts

It’s a sad week (well, two weeks) for web hosts. First, the company with which I have been a customer for over 2 years encountered issues after migrating to a new datacenter; these problems broke a number of my sites and caused me unending headaches. Then DreamHost, which hosts this blog and a number of other sites, had to perform network hardware maintenance, which was followed by sporadic periods of network failures. Finally, today I received an e-mail saying that the first company was shutting down in January and that I’d need to find a new place to host those sites.

What happened? Why do I feel like the Internet is collapsing? Aiya!

I’m really disappointed. More »

Support the Ride to Conquer Cancer

As someone who has life thanks to science, and who values the science of life, I ask you support the Ride to Conquer Cancer 2010 for scientific research to help the lives of others.

A friend of mine, who has run 5 km and 10 km marathons before, is participating in this year’s Ride to Conquer Cancer — riding 320 km on a bike! Please do what you can, and donate if you can, and most of all cheer on Astrorider! He will need your support to fundraise $10 for each kilometre of hard work.

4 online document hosting services

Over a year ago, I compared two online services designed specifically for PowerPoint slideshows. Today, I want to review 4 free online document hosting services that take your document files and convert them to a format that can be embedded and shared on the Internet.

I’ll be giving scores based on these factors:

• Web site design / usability
• Compatibility
• Converted appearance
• Embeds

In case you’re wondering, these 4 document publishing services are Docstoc, edocr, Issuu and Scribd. Of these, Scribd and Docstoc are likely the best known and the best established.

I should give a warning for those on low bandwidth connections: this is a screenshot/media-heavy post.

More »

Introducing Dropbox

Syncing files across computer has never been easier. Dropbox is one of the leading services in this field, with 2 million users and growing.

Free 2GB cloud storage

As a free user, you get 2 GB of space to start, and files in those 2 GB will be synced not only to your other computers, but also to the cloud. You can access those files anywhere you can open up a browser to the Dropbox Web site, and you can even share links to files in your Public folder to help collaboration with others.

PCs, Macs, Linux and the iPhone

The desktop software works on PCs, Macs and Linux machines; updates with great improvements come out often. For example, some of the recent versions of the software added LAN syncing, which speeds up the sharing of files between computers on the same network by connecting directly to one another instead of uploading and downloading from their servers in the cloud. Moreover, there’s now a Dropbox app for the iPhone that syncs your files on the go.

Free extra 250 MB

Try it out for free; there’s no cost to getting started. You can get a free account (2 GB) with 250 MB as a gift from me for signing up. Reliable sync and backup has never been easier.

I give up

I absolutely give up on writing about the Technical Preview for Office 2010. I’ve simply had way too many problems with it over the past two months of testing. Word’s typographic features are admirable, but I’ve seen a TON of the issues; anything from Word taking the content from a text box and showing/printing it in a different text box, and random crashes that occur when moving shapes around. Strangely, too, a Word 2010 document with an embedded font loses about 30% of its file size when re-saved in Word 2007.

There is reasonable hype about Office 2010, but I don’t recommend using pre-release versions — at least until a new one comes out — and I will also be uninstalling and going back to Office 2007. (I’ll note, of course, that I’m usually a bleeding edge software user who ignores the warnings that “pre-release software is unsafe for production use”. Windows 7 RC is my main machine’s operating system, I’m using the dev channel of Google Chrome, and I use pre-release versions of Firefox.)

In short, I’m not going to write any more about my experiences with the Technical Preview.