Making the Perfect Email Client

Ok, so I use email all day, everyday. As a Customer Support Specialist for my day job I am constantly sending, receiving, reading, writing, and generally living in my email client. My company originally used our its own hosted Exchange server, thus I used Outlook to manage my email and calendar.  However, we have since moved to Google Apps, so I am using the web client.  I like the web client and it does just about everything I want, but it’s just not quite there for me and the way I like to work.  Therefore, I have started a search for the perfect email client.  I have a lot of requirements, and I’m sure I’ll never find the one that meets all of my needs, but I can hope.

Requirements for the perfect email client:

1. Speed.  In order for an email client to be considered even useful, much less perfect, it must be fast.  One of the fastest clients that I have used recently is Sparrow.  This is a Mac only app that is light, useful, and fast.  The engine in this app is great and, in my limited use and comparison, much faster than any other client that I have ever used.  Unfortunately, Google swooped in and bought them and I suspect that it will be the death of Sparrow.
2. Great Calendar Integration. I use my calendar to manage my schedule, as many of you do.  I have my work calendar with meetings, my personal calendar with all of the stuff I have to do outside of work, and I link to my wife’s calendar so I can see what she has coming up.  All-in-all, my calendar is pretty important to me.  For my money, Outlook has been the leader in this area for a long time.  The ease with which I can move meetings, create invites, and generally manage everything is wonderful.  I like the Google calendar, but there’s just always been something that has made me less that happy with it.  I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s just something missing.
3. Social Integration. I’m not the type of person that is constantly on Twitter or Facebook sharing every detail of my life.  However, I do read it often for news.  My Twitter stream is full of breaking news, geeky commentary, and other fun stuff to get me through the day and keep me informed.  I want to be able to easily integrate this into my email client so that I don’t have to go to my browser or other application to get this.  One of the clients that gets this right is Inbox2.  The integration of Twitter and Facebook is simple and fast, and it is easy to hide if I want to ignore it and just get some work done.
4. Ease of Setup.  One of the things I hate about setting up an email client is the process of choosing the service, choosing the port to enter, trying to remember if it is POP3 or IMAP, etc.  I just want to choose the service, enter my userid and password, and be done.  The easiest client that I have found for setting up new accounts is eM Client.  To setup your GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail, or many other accounts you simply select the service, add in your userid and password and it does the rest.  It really is that simple, as it should be.  eM Client is not the only client to make it this simple.  The setup for Thunderbird is just as simple, so it deserves a mention here as well.
5. RSS Integration.  I follow lots of blogs via RSS and I currently use Google Reader to gather these all together for me.  It’s the best RSS reader that I have found since it is simple, easy, and it just plain works for me.  I would love to have this in my email client to further my desire to have everything in one complete application.  Outlook has an RSS tool in it, but quite frankly, it’s horrible.  Thunderbird has an add-on for RSS, but it’s not much better than the one in Outlook.
6. Google Options. I use a lot of the extra options in the Google web client that make my job easier.  One of my favorites is the stars.  This option allows for the use of stars beyond the basic yellow.  I use different colored stars and the exclamation points to mark messages that require different actions.  If I just need to reply I use the blue start.  If it needs some research I may use a question mark.  I have yet to find a single email client that supports these stars.  Outlook will let you use different colored flags, but they are harder to implement than the simple mouse clicks that you can use in the GMail web client.  I also like the options of being able to customize my keyboard shortcuts, and the threaded conversations.  So many of the other clients fail miserably in this area.
7. Markdown Support.  While I’m not completely sold on Markdown, I would really like to be able to use it much more simply when creating emails.  None of the other email clients that I have tried fully support this.
8. Multi-platform.  I use a Mac at home and a PC at work.  I want my perfect email client to work in both places, with no exceptions.
9. Cost.  Free would be the best, but if you could give me the perfect client with all of the options above then I would pay $50-100 for it.  It would make that much of a difference in my life.

So, if you are a software developer looking for a new challenge, this is it.  Build the perfect email client for the pickiest email user you will ever meet and I’m sure that you will satisfy just about every user out there and be in line to make a pile of cash.  So, quit reading and get coding.

If you have found an email client that will do all, or even most, of the things above, please let me know.  If you have an email client that you love, let me know why in the comments.

Your Next Computer Could Cost Just $35

If the folks at Raspberry Pi have their way, the future of educational and personal computing could soon look a lot different. Their version of the next great educational computer (seen in the picture here) is a miracle of modern technology that combines all of the basics of the modern computer on a silicone board the size of a credit card.

Before talking about why this could be the future of educational computing, let’s talk about what you get.

There are two models of the RasPi (as fans have come to call the Raspberry Pi device); the A model and the B model. The things that both have in common is the core processor which is a 700MHz Arm processor, HDMI out, one USB 2.0, one SD card slot, one analog audio out, and one analog video out. Both models will require the use of the SD card slot to boot into one of three varieties of officially supported linux: Debian, Fedora, and ARCHLinux.

Where the models differ is in the amout of RAM and the presence/absense of a network connection. The A model does not have a network connection and has 128MB of RAM. The B model comes with an ethernet connection and has 256MB of RAM.

So, after seeing the setup of the small device you might be wondering what makes this so important. Well, simply put, it’s the price. For the A model the price will be $25, and for the B model the price will be $35. Which, once the value of the components and the flexibility of the device is considere, is quite a bargain. Especially considering the orginial target for this device is as use as an educational device. Picture a school that needs one hundred new computers to begin teaching programming to their students. The school could try to find a several thousand dollars to by a cheap PC, or they could spend a $3500 dollars on 100 RasPi devices. This is where the real importance of this device comes through.

Another great feature of the RasPi is not just the device, but the community that comes with it. There are alreay hundreds of people actively participating in the forums on the RasPi web site. Everything from what programming language is the best to learn to how to create a home theater device using the RasPi is being discussed. This for a device that people haven’t had a chance to use yet. Once these devices are in the hands of the smart and creative people that await them there is no telling how the community will take off.

So, if your interested in what could be the new future of educational and personal computing, head over to RaspberryPi.com and check it out. The device is not available for purchase yet, but if you sign up for their newsletter you will be alerted as to when it is available. At last word, that appears to be at the very beginnig of 2012.

The Truth About the Kindle Fire

With the introduction of the new Kindle Fire, Amazon appears to have a hit on their hands. You can find all of the usual sites raving about the device in their reviews. Some are even calling it the newest and best iPad competitor. But is it? Is it worth all of the hype and, most importantly, is it worth your money?

To get to the truth, let’s take a look at the hits and misses for the Fire.

Hits

Interface
If you have spent anytime playing with any other Android-based device you will undoubtedly feel like many others that the interface is often clunky and can be frustrating. The Kindle Fire, however, does not suffer from this problem. In fact, the interface is down-right smooth and simple. This is due to the fact that the developers at Amazon actually took the time to move the interface forward to a point that a non-geek would be willing, able, and happy to interact with the Android OS.

Size
The size of the Kindle Fire is a big hit as well. Unlike the iPad and other larger tablets, the Kindle fire is easily held in one hand, and weighs only 14.6 ounces, which is considerably less than its competitors. The screen is still large enough to be able to watch a movie or other video comfortably. If you are going to be using this as a reading device very often, you will be comfortable with the page size as it approximates a paperback book.

Display
Displaying 16 million colors on 169 pixels per inch gives the Kindle Fire a great looking display that is worthy of high definition content. Reading books on this may not be quite the experience that the Kindle is with its superior eInk display, but it is still comfortable to read from.

Apps in the Cloud
The internal storage of the Kindle Fire is only 8GB, but with the availability of being able to run apps from the cloud when connected to wifi, thus not having to save them to the device, makes it possible to save space on the device for just what you want to have available when you are away from wifi. This makes it possible to save many more apps than the device could actually hold with the amount of memory it has.

Amazon Markets
Just like Apple has developed an ecosystem of movies, TV shows, and music for purchasing from their device, Amazon has developed an infrastructure to make sure you aren’t missing your iTunes and App Store. With over 17 million songs, thousands of movies, and hundreds of TV shows available you will have plenty of media available to devour on the Kindle Fire. Of course there are still the hundreds of thousands of books, the Amazon Android app market and the rest of the shopping options on Amazon. The Amazon Kindle will give you plenty of options for all of your shopping and media needs.

Whisper Sync for Movies
One of the cool features of the Kindle reading devices was the fact that if you were reading a book on your Kindle and then later picked up your iPhone, iPad, or other device with the Kindle app on it, you could start from the page you stopped on the last time. This same feature has been introduced for movies. If you start a movie on the Kindle Fire and have to stop it, you can pick up where you left off on any device that will stream Amazon content.

Price
One of the best selling points for the Kindle Fire is the price. At $199 it is amazingly priced hundreds of dollars lower than any of it’s real competitors. You could buy two Kindle Fires for the price of one iPad and have money left over for apps, music, and an Amazon Prime membership. This may be the most bang-for-the-buck device released in a long time!!

OK, so after all of the good, you may be thinking that this is a no-brainer and that this device is perfect. Well, lets get the to the areas where the Kindle Fire may have missed the mark.

Misses

Camera
The Kindle Fire has no camera. None. Not even a bad one. Many will think that this is not a big deal, and if you are in that group, then this will not be a big deal for you. For me, however, this is a big miss. I carry my iPhone everywhere and I am always snapping pictures with it. I have more photography apps on my iPhone than any other two types of apps compared. Keeping the price low on the device was probably the reason for the missing camera, but for me this is major.

Expandable Memory
As mentioned earlier, there is only 8GB of memory on the Kindle Fire. Even with the Apps in the Cloud feature mentioned above, it would be nice to have the ability to insert an SD Card with all of my favorite images, ripped DVD’s, etc.

Sound Input
One of my favorite apps is Skype. Being able to be out and pull this up and make calls to others without having to dig out my phone is a great thing. With the Kindle Fire this will not be a possibility. There is no built-in microphone and the jack for the headset does not work with the headsets with a microphone. There is no way to use a microphone. Again, a big miss for me.

Bluetooth
As far as I can tell there is no Bluetooth available on the Kindle Fire. With the absence of any kind of connection for external devices like a keyboard Bluetooth would be a way to use these types of device. True, this device may not be intended for heavy use for things like blogging, but what if I’m at the coffee shop and I need to check my email or share a long thought on Facebook? I’m not going to want to do all of that typing on the screen.

There you have it, the big hits and misses for the Kindle Fire. If you take a look at this and the positives outweigh the negatives, then I’m sure you will be happy with the Kindle Fire, however, if you are still on the fence, like I am, waiting might be a good idea. I will be waiting for the second generation that I suspect will be coming sooner rather than later. I have a feeling that this will just be a stop-gap measure for Amazon until they can put out an actual iPad competitor with the missing features listed above. Getting a great new tablet to market before Christmas is a great idea. The Kindle Fire will be a big hit, and it deserves to be, but it’s just not quite there for me yet.

Amazon, if you happen to be reading this, I’ll gladly give you the originally rumored price of $250 for an improved Kindle Fire with the missing features listed above.

Video: A Look At The Fastest Chronograph Watch Ever Made

This is one of the coolest watches I have ever seen.  Just watch how fast this thing moves!!!

Too bad its just a concept piece right now.

via TechCrunch

via Video: A Look At The Fastest Chronograph Watch Ever Made.

If You Like Motorcycles BikeEXIF.com is the Place for You[Cool Sites]

Do you like photography? Style? Motorcycles? If you said yes to any of these you need to check out BikeEXIF.com

BikeEXIF is a unique site in that it not only features very cool custom motorcycles, classic motorcycles, and cafe racers, it does it with an eye to design of the bikes being shown and backs it up with wonderful photographs of these same bikes. It’s not often that a motorhead, a shutterbug, and a design enthusiast can look at a blog post and all agree that it is amazing.

Looking at this post through the eyes of someone who appreciates the beauty of a classic motorcycle, I appreciate the passion that this site treats the classic motorcycles it profiles. As a shutterbug I appreciate the unique and beautiful pictures that are used to illustrate these same motorcycles.

So, for a great view of some classic motorcycles that is just a little more artsy, but still manly, check out BikeEXIF.com. You won’t be disappointed.

Noise-Cancelling versus Noise-Isolating Headphone [Knowledge]

So, you’ve seen the commercials on TV or heard them on the radio about how great the noise-cancelling headphones.  Maybe, like me, you’ve also seen the great deals on the internet deal sites for the noise-isolating earbuds and wondered just how they can be so cheap when the others are so expensive.  What’s the difference?  Is one better that the other, or do they both have their own place.

Well, to answer that question we have to look at what each of these devices do and how they work.  After that we can see where they are useful and which one is worth the money.

Noise-Isolating Headphones

Lets first look at the so-called “noise-isolating” headphones.  The main feature of this type of headphone, whether they are ear buds, over ear, or around ear types, is that they simply create a barrier to outside noise entering your ears.  This barrier is only as good as the fit of the device you are using.  I have several pairs of ear buds that I use when working, exercising, or even mowing my lawn, and with the correct tips on them they work well and I can wear them for extended amounts of time.  I’ve stayed relatively simple with my choices by sticking with the Ink’d version of the Skullcandy brand of ear buds.  I can also tell you from experience that the cheap ear buds that come with iPods and iPhones are not suitable if you need noise cancellation.

Noise-Isolating headphones are very suitable if you don’t mind the subtle background noise or droning that is common in the workplace or on an airplane.  This type of noise is just not completely stopped by noise-isolating head phones, unless you are willing to pay more for the large around ear variety which do a great job of stopping external noise, while also providing excellent sound via the larger drivers that can be put into them when compared to the ear bud variety.  Again, Skullcandy makes several great options.

Noise-Cancelling Headphones

In contrast to noise-isolating headphones, noise-canelling headphones actively cancel out external noise to keep it from entering your ears.  This is done by using a microphone that is built in to either the ear piece or the cord of the device.  This microphone samples the surrounding noise and passes that information to a processor in the device.  The processor then creates a sound that is the inverse of the sound that is picked up by the microphone.  When these two sounds are put together the sound is simply cancelled out.  Add that to the processor knowing the difference between the outside noise and the sound that you are trying to listen to the result is a greatly reduced amount of external noise.  Add to that the fact that the quality devices that are made by companies like Bose also use noise-isolating mechanisms in their devices, you get a superior sound that is hard to beat.

Which is right for me?

This is the question that you are looking to get answered, so here it is:  It depends.  If, like me, you want good sound with limited external sound, but don’t mind the minor sounds that go on in the background, and also don’t have deep pockets, go for a quality pair of noise-isolating headphones or ear buds.  I’ve used them for years and am very happy.

However, if you need to eliminate distractions and just want you music or podcast in all of it’s noise-free beauty and don’t mind investing some cash in a quality pair, go for the noise-cancelling.  After all, you’re reading a geek blog about headphone technology, so you probably want the cool tech anyway.

I hope this was useful.  If so, please share.

Rumor Starter: SUN to Kill MySQL?

So, with Sun spending $1 billion to by MySQL, you have to wonder why they did it. Is an open source software company that reported $60 million dollars in earnings recently really worth $1 billion? I have a hard time buying the idea that Sun is buying MySQL to expand the open source community.

Instead, I do think that this could be a back door move to benefit Oracle. Afterall, Oracle hates the competition from MySQL and have always been friendly with SUN. So, what if Oracle simply slipped the $1 billion to Sun to buy MySQL and in return simply asked them to bury the product. This would give Sun some technology to build on and help their friend Oracle in the market place.

With all of that said, this is simply me thinking out loud, and there is no evidence to support it. I just think it would be an interesting move for Oracle and Sun that would benefit each.

For a Productivity Boost, Try gOS

The (relatively) new gOS has been written and talked about for it’s simplicity, ease of use, and low system requirements, but it’s ability to improve productivity has been completely overlooked.

I downloaded the gOS a couple of weeks ago to run on an older machine in my home, and to see what the fuss was about. After running it both in the live CD form and natively as a dual boot with Windows Vista, I was amazed at the speed of this OS. However, after playing around with it for a while, I realized that there was a hidden benefit to the stripped down, high speed, easy to use gOS: improved productivity.

The mere fact that gOS lacks the usual games, desktop sidebar, and other annoyances of Windows is the first asset to it’s use as a productivity booster. Being able to sit down to a clean screen without the usual distractions puts you one step ahead.

Also, the fact that there is what amounts to a shortcut on the desktop to Google, gMail, Blogger, Facebook, and Wikipedia makes it easy to jump on, get where you need to go and eliminate the use of other bookmarks. This allows for reduced time on the net, which can lead to distraction.

When I want to sit down and do some research, write a blog post, catch up on email, or anything else and not be distracted, I simply boot into gOS, get my work done, and boot back to Windows. It’s that easy.

So, if you want a simple way to boost your productivity by eliminating distractions and having just what you need, give gOS a try. Then, pop back here and let me know what you think.

How To: Listen LESS and Learn MORE

In this day and time of ever-increasing amounts of information, it can be hard to keep up. If you’re like me, you may have started supplementing your reading with audio books or podcasts. However, with the large amount of audio available, how do you ever listen to it all AND retain any of it?

Well, my solution to one accidentally presented a solution to the other. It all began when I bought my mp3 player last December. I started downloading different podcasts to listen to on my way to and from work and on my lunch break. Soon, I found several that I really liked and was going back and getting new ones from the same source each week. It wasn’t long before I found that I had more audio to listen to than I had time to listen. So, while I was playing around some of the menus one day, I found the setting that allows for me to speed up or slow down the audio that I am playing. The scale on my player goes from -8 to +8. Using the +8 setting increases the speed of the audio approximately 20% over the original recording speed. Doing this allowed me to speed up my audio (without any noticable change in pitch or quality) and allow me to listen to more in less time.

At the same time, I found that I was having to pay closer attention to what I was listening to, simply because everyone was talking faster than I was used to. So, as I began to get used to the speed of the audio, I found that I was actually able to remember more about what I had just heard than I was when I was listening to the audio at normal speed. Now, I don’t know why this is, I just know that it works for me. I’m sure there is some theory or psychological explanation for it, but, frankly, I don’t care why it works, just that it does.

So, if you want to pack more listening and learning into your day and not sacrifice time, try speeding up you audio.

WARNING: I have found that once I’ve gotten used to the higher speed audio, I want to speed it up even more, which I can do on my mp3 player. Also, if you get used to the faster speed of the audio, listening to the same program at normal speed can be dangerous to your sanity. It just seems like everyone is talking sooooo sloooooowww.

Excel Tip: Create a Hidden Workbook to Save All Your Macros, Scripts, and Formulas

If you’re like me, you use MS Excel quite a bit.  I love Excel.  I personally think that it is the greatest piece of software ever created.  In my position with my company I get a chance to use it quite a bit, and often find myself reusing the same bit of VBA script or the same formula for many different projects.  I get really tired of rewriting the same script, recording the same macro, or trying to remember exactly how I built that last formula before I can use it again.  If this ever happens to you, you will understand the frustration.

Well, a couple of years ago I stumbled upon a great tip that has saved me considerable time and frustration, and has even made me look like a hero several times.  The magic lies in a small, somewhat hidden folder within the Microsoft Office installation folder called “XLStart”.

“What’s so magical about this folder,” you may ask.

Well, that’s what I am about to show you.

First, let’s focus on those often used macros, scripts, and formulas that you have saved in many other Excel workbooks, text files, Post-It Notes, and other divers sources.  Round all of the little nuggets up and save them to one work book.  Make sure that your macros and scripts do not make references to specifically named sheets in the original source.  If they do, I have found that it is best to either change them to the generic “Sheet#” naming that Excel uses by default.  You can also have the script prompt you for the desired sheet name if you like.

Second, try to find a way to organize all of the formulas and macros in a way that you will be able to easily find them.  I find it very useful to put the name of the formula and/or a small explanation of it just above the cell you are saving the formula in.  You should also have some sample data for the formula to use, just so you can remember exactly what it does, just in case you don’t use it for a long time.

Next, save the workbook you have just populated to the “XLStart” folder.  If you used the default installation, the folder should be located using the following path:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\XLSTART
Just remember to name this something beside Book1.  I named mine “MacroBook”, just to make things obvious for me.

The last and my favorite part of this is to hide the workbook so that it doesn’t get in your way every time you open Excel. To do this, just go to the menu bar and click “Window” and the “Hide” and select the workbook you saved.  Now, close Excel.  It will ask if you want to save the changes you made to your workbook.  Click “Yes”.

Now, every time you open Excel, this new workbook with your great macros and formulas will be opened in the background and ready for use.  To use a macro, simple click on the macro button like you would to run a macro as if you just made it in your current workbook.  The macro selection box will pop up and you will see all of the macros listed for all open workbooks.  They will show up in the format WorkbookName.xls!Macroname.  Simply select it an run it.  To use your formulas, simply go to the toolbar, click “Window” and then “Unhide”, select your hidden workbook and it will appear.  Then, simply copy and paste the formula you would like to use into the workbook you are working on.  When done, simply re-hide the book you had hidden.

This may seem like a long way to go save some simple formulas, but trust me, if you have any complicated formulas or macros that you find yourself re-creating very often, you will quickly come to love this little tip.  So, give it a try and let me know how you like it.