Somebody recently asked me how I keep up-to-date with the changes in technology. The short answer is reading. The long answer is I read a lot of different materials. Most of my technical reading is online technical articles. Yes, I know that I am a dork, but I can't help myself, I love this stuff. Most of this reading is random, based on comments from the day's meetings, emails that go to the reading list, links from blogs or articles I am reading, etc. I have found that I can't store the information for too long, so it is best for me to be a bit reactive to where and what I will be discussing.
Like most tech geeks I consume reading materials from many devices. Right now I have both the Kindle and Nook apps loaded on my phone, laptop, Surface Pro, and Surface RT (this has been confiscated by my wife), and I have a Kindle, my wife has a Nook. I use all of these regularly depending on where I am. So onto the lists.
I am currently reading the following books:
4 Hour Body
Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play
The New Solution Selling
Lean Six Sigma for Dummies
A Cancer Therapy, Results of Fifty Cases
Hamlet
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels
I recently finished reading:
Pumpkin Plan Your Business
The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur
Being an Effective Executive
Lean, Agile and Six Sigma for IT Management
4 Hour Workweek
Holiness
The Complete Husband
Then of course, there are the books I am always reading:
Bible
The Encyclopedia of Golf
What are you reading? How do you stay up-to-date?
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Showing posts with label whatever. Show all posts
Monday, September 9, 2013
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Windows Phone 8 - Almost There
I switched to Windows Phone 8 a few months ago, and so far it has been an OK experience. There are definitely things I love about the phone, but there are some issues with a few key, simple tasks that can make for a very frustrating experience, especially when you spend half of every day using the device.
First, the things I love. As silly as this sounds, being able to pin a live tile of my wife is great. I can see all the updates she shares, get a glimpse of how her day is going and have a bit of involvement in my kids lives through this simple connection. Could I live without this? Sure, but it is a definite feature that makes this device great. Alright, so not everyone wants to see status updates from a favorite friend, so what else is there?
Office. Yes, Office as in Microsoft Office. I can view and edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, etc all from my phone. Since I don't have a tethering plan, nor a hotspot, this makes sending data to colleagues and customers very easy while on the go. Also, this means I don't have to jump through hokey hoops of using half featured apps that I think find obscure ways to synchronize into the apps I use everyday to get real work done. I just open Word and there is my list of recent documents ready to go. Did I mention Lync 2013 for the Phone? Single button to launch a conference and share data, presentations, chat, conference calls, etc?!!! Saweeeet!
Voice recognition. Microsoft simply kicks butt when it comes to voice recognition. I remember my old Windows Mobile device had a voice search feature that worked flawlessly. When I switched to the iPhone and it couldn't do this I found myself missing it every day. Along came Siri and I thought Apple had finally figured out how to do search. Boy was I wrong. Siri was about as useful as talking to a cat. She would politely tell me she was useless and couldn't find what I was looking for, or wasn't able to take requests right now. Microsoft got this right and I can simply tell my phone what I want and up it comes, the first time.
Ok, now second for the bad. While voice recognition is great, search leaves me scratching my head. When I hit the search button that is conveniently built into the bottom right side of the phone, it searches the web, but totally ignores all of the contacts, documents, music, etc that I have stored locally on the device. So how do I search those things? Oh, I have to open the individual application, say Music, and then click a different search button that appears on the screen to search my library. Wait?! You sent it out like this? I'm sorry but even Apple got this right (even if the results are useless) they at least search the device.
Then there is the lack of support for comma's in phone numbers. This kills me. Nine times out of ten, I am in my car when making calls. This means I need to be able to click a number that shows up in those terribly long conference invites and just let the phone do the dialing. If I have to switch back to the invite, try to memorize the ever increasing number of digits for the conference ID, hit #, *, and whatever else these conference systems make you do, I am going to crash. And yes, Microsoft, if the number is in the location field it is still a phone number, so you can't just ignore it because it doesn't look like an address. This has to be a simple fix since they can detect numbers, so please add support for commas, and the location field (like Microsoft is going to read this).
This leads to my final issue, although unfortunately there are more but this covers the big ones. When I am in a call and switch to another app, the screen goes black and then locks the phone. Yes, I did update to the latest firmware, apps, etc and the issue persists. Not as bad as it was, but it still goes black and takes a second or two to let me unlock the phone and go back to the app.
Office. Yes, Office as in Microsoft Office. I can view and edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, etc all from my phone. Since I don't have a tethering plan, nor a hotspot, this makes sending data to colleagues and customers very easy while on the go. Also, this means I don't have to jump through hokey hoops of using half featured apps that I think find obscure ways to synchronize into the apps I use everyday to get real work done. I just open Word and there is my list of recent documents ready to go. Did I mention Lync 2013 for the Phone? Single button to launch a conference and share data, presentations, chat, conference calls, etc?!!! Saweeeet!
Voice recognition. Microsoft simply kicks butt when it comes to voice recognition. I remember my old Windows Mobile device had a voice search feature that worked flawlessly. When I switched to the iPhone and it couldn't do this I found myself missing it every day. Along came Siri and I thought Apple had finally figured out how to do search. Boy was I wrong. Siri was about as useful as talking to a cat. She would politely tell me she was useless and couldn't find what I was looking for, or wasn't able to take requests right now. Microsoft got this right and I can simply tell my phone what I want and up it comes, the first time.
Ok, now second for the bad. While voice recognition is great, search leaves me scratching my head. When I hit the search button that is conveniently built into the bottom right side of the phone, it searches the web, but totally ignores all of the contacts, documents, music, etc that I have stored locally on the device. So how do I search those things? Oh, I have to open the individual application, say Music, and then click a different search button that appears on the screen to search my library. Wait?! You sent it out like this? I'm sorry but even Apple got this right (even if the results are useless) they at least search the device.
Then there is the lack of support for comma's in phone numbers. This kills me. Nine times out of ten, I am in my car when making calls. This means I need to be able to click a number that shows up in those terribly long conference invites and just let the phone do the dialing. If I have to switch back to the invite, try to memorize the ever increasing number of digits for the conference ID, hit #, *, and whatever else these conference systems make you do, I am going to crash. And yes, Microsoft, if the number is in the location field it is still a phone number, so you can't just ignore it because it doesn't look like an address. This has to be a simple fix since they can detect numbers, so please add support for commas, and the location field (like Microsoft is going to read this).
This leads to my final issue, although unfortunately there are more but this covers the big ones. When I am in a call and switch to another app, the screen goes black and then locks the phone. Yes, I did update to the latest firmware, apps, etc and the issue persists. Not as bad as it was, but it still goes black and takes a second or two to let me unlock the phone and go back to the app.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
weekly flow
there was a day called monday
it came and then it went
i know that i participated
although i must lament
i can remember little of it
and this i most resent
tuesday come and gone
and not much more to show
with plenty more tomorrow
amidst the weekly flow
what is the point of this short poem
another i don't know
it came and then it went
i know that i participated
although i must lament
i can remember little of it
and this i most resent
tuesday come and gone
and not much more to show
with plenty more tomorrow
amidst the weekly flow
what is the point of this short poem
another i don't know
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