Tandy 5000 MC Professional System

New for 89

Monitor and mouse not included

• 20 MHz Intel 80386 Microprocessor
• VGA Graphics
• 2 MB RAM (16 MB Capacity)
• Cache Memory

Our most powerful computer ever! The Tandy 5000 MC Micro Computer is strictly business, from the look of its 256,000-color VGA graphics to the tactile feel of its newly-designed keyboard. Its Intel 80386 processor operates at a lightning-fast 20 MHz, and a memory cache controller provides RAM-fast access to your data. IBM Micro Channel compatible architecture provides a 32-bit wide data path for virtually simultaneous data transfer between peripherals. Will operate MS-DOS 3.3, MS OS/2, SCO XENIX 386 and network operating software. The 5000 MC’s technology performance and price all add up to an incredible value. VGA graphics, serial and parallel ports and mouse support included.

$8499.00

** My personal favorites or most frequently used

• AdFree Android (root) – I stopped using this b/c it slowed browsing down considerably.  It uses a hosts file to block known ad sources.  I wish there was a regex ad blocker like AdBlock Plus for Android.
• Amazon MP3 – streaming my mp3s from the cloud.  pretty stinkin’ cool
• Amazon.com
• Android Terminal Emulator (root)
• Androidify
• Angry Birds – finished this one and got bored with the holiday one.
• AppBrain App Market – i like this because of the sorting and filtering of app listings.
• Arctic Orange LP Theme – been messing with LauncherPro widget skins.  this is my favorite so far.
• ASTRO File Manager
• Barcode Scanner – the go-to app for QR code scanning
• Basecamp – haven’t used this much yet.  but I see some basecamp projects coming up soon.
• Battery Calibration (root) – I keep experimenting with settings, etc to see  how long I can get my battery to last.
• **Bible – YouVersion is such a great app.  Do all of my Bible reading here.  I wish the phrase search was better.  That’s it, though.
• c:geo ~ geocaching for Android
• Camera360 Ultimate (paid) – I like this, but it’s a little buggy on my phone.
• CamScanner -Phone PDF Creator
• COLLAPSE!
• Craigslist
• Documents To Go 3.0 Main App
• Dropbox
• EasyTether Lite
• ESPN ScoreCenter
• Evernote
• Facebook for Android
• Flash Player 10.3
• **Foursquare
• Fruit Ninja
• **Gmail (sys) – this by far gets the most use on my phone
• Google Books
• Google Chrome to Phone
• **Google Docs – awesome now that it’s an app.  I see Google Docs giving Basecamp a run for it’s money
• Google Goggles
• Google Maps
• **Google Reader
• Google Search (sys)
• Google Shopper
• Google Translate
• **Google Voice – probably my second most used app.  Voice calls and text messaging all go through here.
• GroupMe
• GTasks
• **HootSuite – I think this is way better than all of the other Twitter apps (including the official Twitter one)
• IMDb Movies & TV
• Jewels
• Kindle (sys) – I really don’t mind reading books on my phone, thanks to YouVersion.
• **LauncherPro
• **LauncherPro Plus Unlocker (paid)
• LauncherPro Sense skin (Free)
• Lookout Mobile Security (sys)
• Mobile Maniac (sys)
• Mozy
• Music Player from the CliqXT (sys)
• Newegg Mobile
• Official eBay Android App
• Paper Toss
• **picplz – Instagram for Android.  It’s real nice.
• **Pocket Empires:300 Gems – this is my Farmville.  Been playing it forever it seems like.
• QuickPic
• redbox – this is better than their website, since their horrid redesign.
• Revolver TV (sys)
• Roller – skee ball.  pretty fun.
• Save my Attach – this helps with saving Gmail attachments
• Scrabble Helper
• Scrabble Helper Unlock Key (paid)
• ShootMe (Screen Grabber) (root)
• Slacker Radio (sys)
• Solitaire MegaPack
• SoundHound 8
• SportsTap – this is good but I think the ESPN one is better.
• StopWatch & Timer
• Street View on Google Maps
• **SwiftKey Keyboard (paid) – i’ve tried a ton of keyboard replacements.  I like this one the best.  Using a beta version.
• Swype Keyboard (sys)
• T-Mobile AppPack – BETA (sys)
• T-Mobile My Account (sys)
• T-Mobile Visual Voicemail (sys)
• TeleNav GPS Navigator (sys)
• Terminal Emulator (root)
• That was easy – love to bust this out every so often
• Titanium Backup (root)
• TV Guide Mobile
• Twitter – see comments on Hootsuite
• Uloops Studio Lite
• Unscrambler Beta (Ads)
• Voice Search
• WeatherBug Elite (paid) – best weather app I’ve found
• Widgetsoid2.x – I use this for my toggle widgets.
• Wifi Analyzer
• Winamp
• Wordfeud FREE
• WordPress
• **Words With Friends Free – I think WordFeud is better but my iPhone friends can play with WWF
• Wordsmith
• X Construction
• XDA-Developers
• Yahoo! Fantasy Football ’10
• YouTube

What’d I miss?

So someone sent me a Word Document yesterday.  Opened my e-mail on my Android phone (rooted Motorola Defy, if you are interested).  Clicked Preview to view the attachment. QuickOffice opens, then disappears.

Grrr.

Uninstalling QuickOffice…. with Root Uninstaller.

Fire up Gmail again.  Click Preview on the attachment.  Gmail crashes.

GRRRRR.

Download and install Documents To Go.

Fire up Gmail again.  Click Preview on the attachment.   Choose Documents To Go Word Viewer.   OK.  I can see it now.

What a pain in the butt.

Some questions:

• Why can’t I view MS Office files (Word, Excel, etc) in HTML from the Gmail App natively?  Why depend on another app (Documents to Go, QuickOffice) when you have the technology already in the browser version of Gmail?
• There’s no Google Docs app for Android? Shocking.  I’m sure Google Docs are complex enough in the browser, let alone an app, but, come on, the Gmail app is complex.  Where’s the love for Google Docs?
• What?  There’s no simple way download attachments in the Gmail app?  Doesn’t make any sense.   Save My Attach by Lexa is a good solution, but it took some digging to find it.

What Android annoyances have you found?

Amazing stuff.

Makes me want to tear apart an old LCD monitor that I have in my shop.

8BIT Reviews a Chrome Netbook

I’d like to thank those guys for the opportunity to do a guest post.

——————————————————–

A mysterious box showed up on my doorstep a few weeks ago.

Inside?

A CR-48 Google Chrome netbook.

Little excited?  You bet.

Here are a few observations after giving it a work-out.

Hardware

• The CR-48 is just the right size.  It’s very lightweight and sleek.  It feels cool.  The black matte finish shows every greasy fingerprint, but that’s OK.
• Google took some liberties with the keyboard.  There are no Fn, Home, Delete, PgUp and PgDn keys.  It wasn’t real apparent right out of the box what all of the keyboard shortcuts were.  Here is the best list I found.  Ctrl-Alt-/ is your friend.
• The clickable touchpad is a real bummer.  Two-finger scrolling is often slow and the sensitivity gets wonky some times.  Right and middle clicking required some Googling to figure out. (Ctrl-Click/Tap is middle click and Alt-Click/Tap is right click if you’re curious)
• Other than the touchpad, the only moving part is a small cooling fan.  I’ve only heard it once.
• This bad-boy boots in under 20 seconds.  There’s no real “shutting down” either.  It‘s more of a log-out-and-go-to-sleep deal.
• The battery life is amazing.  It will last a full 8 hours of continuous use.
• There’s a webcam for Google Chat.  There’s also a light sensor that will adjust the screen brightness depending on the ambient light in the room.  Slick.
• I did hook it up to a large LCD TV and it handled it surprisingly well.  Seemed to be mirror mode only.
• If you’re wondering about the processor, memory, etc, here’s a good summary of all the technical specs.

Software

• The New Tab window is the desktop.  That’s it.  There are some windows that float up from the bottom of the page.  Other than that, it’s all Chrome tabs and web apps.
• There is some media browsing functionality.  The media browser window appears as a window from the bottom of the screen when you insert a device or hit Ctrl-O. It allows you to view certain media files in local storage, on some USB flash drives and SD cards.  You can attach or upload files from all of those places.
• There are two OS update channels available: Beta and Development.  The Development channel is the sandbox for the bleeding-edge new stuff.  It’s pretty slow and unstable and gets updated frequently. The Beta channel is more refined and definitely faster.  It has been updated once since I’ve had the device.  The release included a slew of noticeable improvements.
• Yes, you can install Ubuntu on the CR-48 and make it into a traditional machine if you want.  It’s complicated, but nicely documented by the Chromium folks.

Options for doing web development

Hitting Ctrl-Alt-T will get you to the limited command-line interface called “crosh”.  From there you can use ssh to connect to another box.  If you’re comfortable coding from command-line with vim or emacs, this will work.

However, if you need the brawn of an IDE, some FTP tools, etc, then things get a little more complicated and tedious.  There are a some cloud-based IDEs/editors like ShiftEdit, PHPAnywhere.net and SourceKit that will work…if you can massage your workflow into them.

If you need more options, then flipping the developer switch switch is the way to go.  The switch is behind a sticker inside the battery compartment.   Enabling developer mode will provide more unrestricted shell access.  This is the starting point for installing another OS on the machine, if you decide to go that route.

I did switch to the Chrome OS Development channel and flip the developer switch. I ran it like that for about a week.  Eventually, I restored it back to the Beta channel with an image on a flash drive.  It was just a little too unstable for the simple browsing and note-taking that I was doing.

Conclusions

• The CR-48 is really more like an iPad (minus the touchscreen, plus a keyboard) than it is a traditional netbook.
• How the ChromeOS works with files in local storage is definitely a work in progress.  Video is mostly slow and choppy.  I don’t see Chrome OS making a lot of mainstream headway until these two things get ironed out.
• If ChromeOS and Android converge as Google’s Eric Schmidt suggested then I guess I’ll install Ubuntu on it.
• The CR-48 is a nice and uncomfortably simple device.  It’s made me think a lot about how reliant I am on local storage.
• I’m still excited and humbled that I even have one of these devices.  Thank you, Google.

Helpful Links

• Official CR-48 Google Group
• ChromeOSSite.com
• chromeos-cr48.blogspot.com
• TheChromeSource.com

Look what came in the mail today! I am in complete shock. I signed up, whew, a long time ago. I think I submitted “google is awesome” in binary as my reason for wanting to be a Chrome Netbook test-pilot. Guess that worked.

This is a really cool way to visualize the scope of what Google makes available to developers.  Amazing.

• Bible (YouVersion) – an amazing app
• Barcode Scanner – for scanning QR codes and other shopping.
• Angry Birds – I can now know why this game is so popular
• SwiftKey Keyboard ($3.99) – worth the $3.99, IMO.
• eBay
• Evernote
• Google Reader – just released this week
• DroidLight – helpful when I’m getting around in the morning
• Google Sky Map
• Yahoo Fantasy Football
• Yahoo Fantasy Basketball
• Advanced Task Killer – essential if you want your battery charge to last longer than a day
• Dropbox – allows me to download anything from my Dropbox account to my phone
• Pocket Cloud Free – Remote desktop app
• WordPress

• Quoting from books
• Quoting the speaker at a conference
• Tweeting the score during a sporting event as it happens
• Only re-tweeting
• Telling your friends on Twitter not to spoil the show you DVR’d
• Tweeting a whole bunch things in a short amount of time
• Automated direct messages after a follow
• Excessive self-promotion of your company/blog/product
• Receiving a direct message from someone who doesn’t follow you
• Automated follows from people with <100 tweets

What did I miss?

So I just got back from a nice vacation with my family. I borrowed the department Asus Eee Pc 900 for the trip. It had CrunchBang Linux on it, which wouldn’t update anymore. I reformatted it with Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Edition in about 45 minutes. Everything worked with the base install.  Sweet.

On my Dell Inspirion lappy running Ubuntu 10.04, I installed and tried several DVD ripping utilities.  I settled on Thoggen which was much simpler than the others.  I ripped several DVDs into .ogv format, copied them to the netbook with my 2GB USB flash drive.  Boom.

Then I installed VLC on the netbook to play them.  ”F” for full screen mode is your friend.  Awesome.

The default screen saver and power management settings were not conducive to watching a 2 hour video.  I found Caffeine, which allowed me to override the power management settings for a specific period.  Perfect.

Not long after we got on the road, I noticed my wife’s iPod Nano is missing all of it’s playlists.  GTKPod to the rescue.  I plugged in the iPod, specified the model, mounted it, re-created a few playlists and wrote them right back to the iPod. All without iTunes.  Easy-peasy.

• Adblock – this extension is what got me using Chrome as my primary browser.  Still don’t like some things in the current implementation, but it does the job.
• Browser Button for Adblock – Not used to the hotkeys yet, so I needed this.
• Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer (by Google) – It’s nice not using a plug-in to view PDFs.
• Easy Youtube Video Downloader – This can download a video as an MP3, which is cool.
• GMail Sender’s Picture Extension – Shows Google profile pics in Gmail threads.  Nice and lightweight.
• RSS Subscription Extension (by Google) – Must have this for RSS subscribing.
• Xmarks Bookmarks Sync – love this. cross-platform, sync profiles, etc.

(image courtesy of digitaltrends.com)

• iTunesKeys – Since I have a Dell SK-8135 keyboard at home and work, being able to use the media buttons run iTunes is nice.
• DropBox – Just started using this to share files between computers now that I have a new notebook.  it’s pretty handy, I must say.
• Daum Blue Firefox Theme – I think I’ve finally found a Firefox theme that I like.
• HootSuite – This online Twitter client is excellent, except for the Ping.Fm integration sends @replies.  It should be interesting how all of the Twitter clients handle the new Twitter list functionality.
• VLC – This media player is like a Swiss Army knife.  It plays everything.  And yes, you can have it play full screen on a second monitor by default.  The “f” hotkey sets it to full screen.  It does simple video conversions, too.
• Jing – Done a couple of screencasts with this bad boy.  Very nice.
• Google Wave – I was a little frustrated that it took so long to get an invite.  I think Wave has a bunch of potential.  I do agree with some that instant collaboration has it’s drawbacks.
• IETester – Excellent for cross-browser testing.  Yes, people still do that.
• FileHippo.com Update Checker – I’m a little anal about keeping my software up to date.  I run this, like, once a week.
• Notepad++ – I don’t really want to ever use the standard Windows Notepad again.  Macro recording functionality and code highlighting is nice for the quick edit.
• Irfanview – Did you know that Irfanview can open multipage PDFs and convert them to single page with a watermark?  Now you do.  There’s a reason why Irfanview is always on my favorites list.  It’s amazing.
• MozBackup – Need to move all of your Firefox settings from one computer to another?  Use this.
• Launchy I like Launchy.  It seems weird sitting at a computer that doesn’t have it.  If you want to use Win-Space as your hotkey and you have Google Desktop installed, do this.

1. Adblock Plus – ‘Nuff said.  First add-on I load after a fresh Firefox install.
2. Google Advertising Cookie Opt-Out
3. Autofill Forms – I use this for testing at work.
4. Customize Google – Lets me force strict filtering in SafeSearch for Google searches.
5. DownThemAll – If you ever need to download a bunch of whatever from a page, this is what you need.
6. Firebug – This tool is amazing. still feel like I have a ton to learn about it.
7. Greasemonkey – Love this, especially during NFL and NBA seasons.  Free live fantasy stats, baby.
8. TwitterBar – As if I need another place to tweet.
9. Web Developer – Yes, I know most of this functionality is in Firebug, but I started using Web Developer Toolbar first, so there’s some things I find easier.
10. XMarks – I love having my bookmarks and toolbars sync’d up.

How about you?  Any add-ons you can’t live without?

1. Create your signature in HTML in a text file named temp.html.  Here’s mine:

   <font style="font-family: Verdana;" size="1">
   Adam Spriggs //
   <a href="http://sprignaturemoves.com">sprignaturemoves.com</a> //
   <a href="http://yourchurch.tv">yourchurch.tv</a> //
   <a href="http://twitter.com/wvpv">twitter.com/wvpv</a> //
   816-555-1212<br>
   "what others do with talent, I do with obstinate fixation"
   </font>
   

2. Open temp.html in your browser — in another window
3. Enable Labs in Gmail
4. Enable the Canned Response feature
5. Compose a new email
6. Highlight your signature in the other browser window
7. Drag it into the body of your e-mail
8. In the Canned responses drop-down, choose new canned response.
9. Name it “html sig”
10. Click Settings turn off the signature
11. From now on when you compose an e-mail, simply choose “html sig” from the canned response drop-down.
12. Voilà

I’ve been trying figure out how I can integrate Google Voice into my phone interactions since I got an invite a couple of weeks ago.

Overall it’s a pretty amazing service. Good job, Google.

I would use it a LOT more if:

• I could enter a number with pauses, which would allow me to dial an extension.  Then I’d be able use it with my work phone.
• I could send short SMS codes and use GV with Twitter
• I could send an e-mail to my GV number like most of the wireless service do.  Then I could use the e-mail address with the server monitoring that I do at work.
• I could port my home number to GV.  This would be perfect when I wanted to dump my land line.

Top 5 Quotes from John Saddington at the National Worship Leader’s Conference, during The New Media Maze seminar:

5.  Simple is better.  Sustainable.

4.  Soup to nuts

3.  Linear experience model — it’s just something I made up.

2.  Bam!  It’s so good.

1.  Google, you’re the mother-load.  Thank you.

No doubt you’ve seen this ridiculous “Get the Facts” browser comparison chart put out by Microsoft last week.

It’s insulting and misleading, IMO.

Of course they are comparing the brand-new IE8 and Firefox 2.0.7, which is not even the current version.  Guess they are figuring that people are really that stupid.

Here are some comments on each thing in the grid:

• Security – Let me guess — more user access control prompt nonsense built right in on whether accept ActiveX on a site by site basis?
• Privacy – Yeah, Chrome and Firefox 3.5 have both of those.
• Ease of Use – Blah, blah, blah about the Accelerators, Web Slices and Visual Search.  People don’t really care about that stuff.  The interface of IE6 was more intuitive than IE7 and IE8, in my opinion.  I still don’t understand why they moved the home button and buried the Tools and Internet Options
• Web Standards – Firefox is open source and has consistently done a better job complying to web standards that IE for years.
• Developer Tools – Uh, OK.  Who cares if you have add Firebug to Firefox?  Oooh, that’s really hard.
• Reliability – Yeah, nice try.
• Customizability – IE and Chrome can’t beat Firefox add-ons.   Yeah, but the add-ons I’m using in Firefox are features that aren’t currently in even IE8.
• Compatibility – Really??  IE is compatible??   As a web developer that’s had to code around IE bugs for years, spare me.
• Manageability – Microsoft controls the desktops in most companies.  Of course, it has better manageability. Not only that but IE8 is a critical Windows Update.
• Performance – Chrome is snappy. Firefox 3.5 is just as fast.

Like a wise Lifehacker commenter said:

IE8 is pretty reliable. It finished downloading Firefox without a single crash.

UPDATE: Here’s a funny parody site.

(h/t geekologie)

I use vi a lot at work.  It really became a lot more useful when I figured out how to copy and paste blocks of code.

All of these are done in command mode:

shift-v =  select a line
ctrl-v = select a rectangle
Y = yank selection to buffer
P = paste from buffer before cursor
p = paste from buffer after cursor position
dd = delete a line (this also moves the line to the buffer, so you can still paste it)

Here are some other handy ones:

u = convert a selection to lowercase
u = undo previous action (if nothing is selected)
ctrl-R = redo an action
gg = go to the top of the document
G = go to the end of the document
###gg = go to line number ###
:%s/blah/whee/gc = replace “blah” with “whee” globally with confirmation
:%r~/whee.txt = insert text into the current document from a file (~ = your home directory)

I use Google Reader…a lot.  It’s really where I read most things on the web.

I share articles I find interesting.  My shared items get automatically get sucked into Facebook and into Twitter (via Twitterfeed).  I star content to revisit at some point.  I e-mail things I think people might find helpful.

Regarding e-mailed items, it’s annoying that those e-mailed items don’t get filed under your Gmail sent-items. There is a remedy, however. Google has several special URLs for accessing all sorts of interactions that you’ve made. Here’s the or viewing posts that you’ve e-mailed:

http://www.google.com/reader/view/user/-/state/com.google/tracking-emailed

You can find the entire list here.

Here’s my shared item feed, if you’d like to subscribe.