It seems like everyday Engadget and Gizmodo are bombarding us with tablet rumors.  We already have the horribly named JooJoo and the Archos Tablet.  And, now there are rumors that Dell, Apple, Asus, and maybe even Google are going to produce tablets.  I am all for new form factors for computing.  But, this one does not seem to make too much sense to me.  So, I pose the following questions:  would you buy a tablet PC?  And, how would you use it?

I follow these questions with my thoughts.  I definitely would consider this form factor.  But, I am not sure that it would be much more than a novelty for me because I do most of my computing on a couch or at a desk.  In both those situations, a light-weight laptop makes much more sense.  With that said, I could see the tablet having mass appeal to travelers.  Laptops suck on planes, trains, and automobiles because usually you are in cramped quarters.  But, travelers already split their times between iPhones (and similar devices) and Kindles.  Could a tablet replace any of these devices?  I am not so sure.  I think that the Kindle has been successful because e-ink has a huge advantage over LCDs for reading.  And, I think that iPhone-like devices are good enough for 90% of your media and browsing needs.  So, in the end, I think it would be a tough sell even toward this demographic as well.  What are your thoughts?

Chrome’s Market Share—Buried in an article that points out gains in Win7, Firefox, and IE8 is a statistic that Chrome’s market share (measured by Net Applications) is nearing 4%.  I am a big fan of Chrome.  Its speed, security, and simplicity tower over the competition right now.  I install it on every machine I configure and use.  This is also good news for web developers because it is a great browser to develop on.

Retailer email craziness—This shopping holiday has brought a flood of retailer email.  Personally, I don’t mind receiving an occasional email from retailers that I use on a regular basis.  But, it is getting ridiculous.  I am receiving about 2 an hour.  I am going to have to start unsubscribing if the insanity continues.  Listen marketing and communications folk: as a rule of thumb, you should send 1 email per week per mailing list.  No more.

Dropped call etiquette —Because of the crappy state of mobile voice technology, I propose a dropped call etiquette.  If a call is dropped, the original caller should call back.  If not, it turns into a crazy mess of busy signals and voice mails.

As I was reading about the ChromeOS announcement on Engadget and Techcrunch this afternoon and early evening, my reaction slowly went from “Is that it?” to “Huh?” to “That is brilliant”.  And, finally I settled on my overall opinion of the announcement—ChromeOS is brilliant, but a couple years too early.

On the surface, the OS looks pretty good.   The early UI concept video shows an intuitive interface, although I think it needs a lot of work.  The two big UI issues I noticed were the panels and the window management.  I thought how the panels hovered above the browser was pretty annoying.  And, the window switching seemed like an afterthought.   I really didn’t like how there is no indication on the screen on how many windows you have open.

The idea behind the OS itself is pretty brilliant—the browser is the OS.   Your images would be stored on Flickr.  Your music would come from GrooveShark.  Your email and documents would come from Gmail, Office Live, etc.  And best of all, the OS will run on extremely cheap hardware.  This means that we could potentially have it running on $100 laptops, tablets, and MIDs.

But, like I said at the beginning, the idea is still a couple years too early.  I think Gizmodo did the best job of laying out the requirements for this new OS to be successful.  The Internet needs to be ubiquitous, it needs to be faster, and web applications need to be better.  In the short term, I don’t think Google OS will be too useful to me.  I cannot develop on it.  I cannot run Photoshop on it.  And, I really don’t want to do word processing on it.  All these tasks are still better on Windows.  With that said, I could definitely see myself running this OS on a complementary device in the near future.  For example, if you stuck it on a multi-touch tablet for $200, it could be a killer device.  In the long term, I think that ChromeOS has the potential to be a large competitor in the OS market, because it is perfectly positioned to take full advantage of the coming advances in web technology.

That was quick, pundits are already predicting ChromeOS to be a failure. I don’t agree.  Like I said, for this OS to be successful in the short term, it has to be on really cheap, single purpose hardware.  Listen Google, put this on $200 multi-touch tablet and people will buy it.

I just got done reading Jon Gruber’s article The OS Opportunity.  In his article, Gruber posits that now is the time for large companies, such as Dell, to start making and marketing their own consumer desktop OS.   He references the success Apple has had doing so.  And his main point of reason is that it is the only way these companies can successfully differentiate.

Seems like a reasonable assertion, right?   Sure, Apple as of late has had a lot of success by coupling hardware and software in the mobile market.  And, even has had a modest level of success doing so in the consumer PC market.  But, lets not so easily forget, that this strategy almost bankrupted the company in the 90s.  It was the iPod and its logical extension, the iPhone, that saved the company.  These devices succeeded because they were new, innovative, and most importantly, disruptive.

By that same measure, does it make sense for a company like Dell to have its own OS?  I would argue a resounding “no” (although, I might be in the minority).  I think this is an incredibly dumb idea for two reasons.  The first is that a new desktop OS is not at all disruptive (unless you look at it from the consumer perspective).   The desktop OS market is extremely mature and a new entry will at the minimum have to match the existing competitors.  The second reason is that building an OS is in no way part of most hardware vendors core competency.  The investment to build a new OS would take away from where these companies should be focusing—building new an innovative form factors using Window 7, Android, and the soon to be announced Google Chrome OS.

For awhile now, I have wanted to have a personal logo. I really can’t continue to let Kobe, Lebron, and Tiger show me up.  So, here is my first attempt at creating one.  It combines two things I really like:  vintage logos and robots.

Here is the logo:

And, this is how it would appear on the page:

What do you think?  …too much like Obamas?, not enough lasers?

Update:  Eric said the robot needed eyes.  Personally, I see no point to a robot with eyes unless it is shooting lasers out of them.  So, here is an update to the logo.

And, this is what it will look like on the page:

Nickie and I were Wall E and Eve for Halloween. Here is our costume.

The Wall E costume took me about 2 hours to make. I made it from a cardboard moving box (thanks Nick!), spray paint, and duct tape. In this picture, I am holding up the head. Apparently, duct tape is not good as forming lasting joints.

I am not sure if I posted this before, but here is the logo for our basketball team: boom boom pau! The name for the team came from my Laker’s obsessed friend, Eric.  Also, “you’re welcome” for putting that song in your head for the rest of the day.

Last weekend, I attended the spirit crushing college (?) football game between Mizzou and Texas.  We bought seats in the bleacher section that was setup behind the end zone near the scoreboard.  We were there to enjoy the game and most importantly cheer for our team (Mizzou).  But rather than spending the night cheering, my friends and I spent the night deflecting nagging comments from a few fans behind us.  They seemed to not like the fact that we were standing.  Despite my attempts to explain that we were at a football game and not at the opera and my multiple offers to switch seats, the nagging continued.  As the game progressed, it got worse.  One particular “fan” was verbally assaulting my friend calling him names and stuff that I will not repeat.  You can read Eric’s version of the events here.  Personally, I got sick of the nagging and moved about 10 feet down where other fans were standing and cheering.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I am all for fans being able to enjoy the game in their own way.  But, I personally believe that when you purchase a ticket to a sporting event (and especially a ticket in general admission), you have the right to stand up and cheer.  I personally accept that this is part of the game and have never complained about people in front of me doing the same.

The worst part of this situation was the atmosphere created by these fans.  When the opposing team was threatening to score on our end zone, I swear that I could hear a pin drop.  All these “fans” who were content to sit and nag us for standing, did not make a single sound when we were defending the end zone.  Of course, my friends tried to compensate with boistrous cheering.  But, it definitely did not make up for the fans who were sitting on their hands.  This is not a coincidence.  Fans that sit, do not cheer because they are comfortable and lathargic.  And in the end, this is why standing is part of the fan experience for sporting events and why fans should continue to accept this as part of the game.

As today is the consumer release of Windows 7, I thought I would take a few minutes to share my thoughts.  I have been using Windows 7 for a number of months now.  I started on the beta and soon after moved to the RC.  In my experience, this is not only the best Windows to date, but the best OS out on the market right now.

Yeah, that is pretty big praise.  So, let me qualify it a bit.  In the past year, I have used a number of flavors of Linux and purchased my first OSX machine.  Linux is cool, but the overall experience lags behind its closed source rivals.  I can go on-and-on about how much I like OSX.  It’s stable, beautiful, and simple.  But when it comes to taking care of business, it falls far behind Windows 7.   The new taskbar, peak, snap, and alt-tab features have really upped the ante in OS usability.  When I use the OS, I just feel more productive; and to me, that is the holy grail of OS value.

Have you used Windows 7 yet?  What are your thoughts?

One of my big purchases for next year is going to be a new phone.  So, I thought I would take a few minutes to compile a list of potential suitors for my next mobile device.  The list below is ordered in terms of my excitement level for a phone.

1.  Droid—Motorola’s Droid has quickly risen to the top of my list.  Android 2.0 is looking much better than its predecessors.  Right now, it seems to have everything I am looking for:  a big screen, a fast processor, a QWERTY keboard, and a solid OS with a good browser and a lot of apps.  Since this device has still not been extensively reviewed, I am curious as to how it looks in person and how well the keyboard works.

2. Sony Xperia X3—This device is rumored to be Sony’s first Android phone.  The Xperia X3 1-ups the Droid in form and its UI leaks look pretty amazing.  The big negative for this device is that I do not think it has a QWERTY keyboard.

3. Nokia N900 and N920—If you haven’t watched videos of Maemo 5, then you better hit up youtube.  It is one of the most promising mobile platforms because it features true multi-tasking and a Firefox browser that actually supports flash (good for youtube, bad for ads).  The N900 is the first device to sport Maemo 5 and it looks pretty sweet.  The main problems I have with the device is that (1) it is a from Nokia, and their overall OS strategy is a bit confusing and (2) it doesn’t support multi-touch.  Hopefully both these issues are rectified in 2010, allowing this device to move up my list.

4. iPhone—This is my number 4 phone in the list right now.  And if Droid and Sony’s Android devices are a bust, I could definitely see myself owning an iPhone.  It has the most cohesive UI and large third party app support.  My big problems with the device are that the home screen is pretty much useless less useful—an app menu as a home screen in 2010 seems a bit dated, and I am not a big fan of iTunes.  But, if the device continues to open up like the Mac has, I could definitely see myself owning one.

5. Blackberry Storm 2 or Bold 9700—I have used my friend’s Bold on a number of occasions and really dig it.  The UI is good, and it seems to handle the day-to-day phone operations really well.  I am leaning away from the Bold at this point, because  I think I want to try a new form factor.  The Storm 2 might suffice, but it is a tough sell (versus the iPhone) without a QWERTY keyboard.

Dark Horses—Given that I will not be buying a new device until early-to-mid 2010, there is potential for a few other options to creep in.  The first and most promising is a new Palm device.  I will definitely not be buying a Pre or a Pixie.  While I think Palm by far has the best mobile OS, I think the hardware sucks.  I would much rather have to type on an iPhone than on those rubber keys.  But, if Palm matches its awesome software with some better hardware in 2010, I could be converted to their Web OS platform.  The next darkhorse is Windows Mobile.  Like Palm, I will not be buying their current generation devices.  Windows Mobile 6.5 has the opposite problem as Palm.  They have great hardware, but bad software.  With that said, if Windows Mobile 7 launches early next year and features a better UI and Zune and/or Xbox integration, I would be quickly sold on the new platform.

So there is my top 5 potential phones.  What are yours?