Sony gives you the option to remove crapware from certain new Windows 7 PCs. They call it their “Fresh Start” option, as shown here:

Problems:

• A crapware-free PC should be the DEFAULT selection, not an easily missed opt-out selection
• Fresh Start is only available for Win 7 Professional

This leaves me with a very uneasy feeling about Sony. If I were to buy a laptop from them, it would be Win 7 Home Premium. But since Fresh Start is not available with Home Premium, what kind of crap is pre-loaded?

From the moment I heard about Google Chrome Frame, the idea bothered me. Here is the situation:

• Many big companies still run IE 6
• These companies depend on legacy web apps that only work in IE 6
• Because so many companies are stuck on IE 6, everybody else has trouble moving forward with modern web sites

The Google Fix

Google Chrome Frame runs inside of IE. It allows IE users to access modern web sites, so long as those sites include this tag:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="chrome=1">

This is a clever workaround and is probably the best Google can do.

What Bothers Me

The workaround is backwards. It means 99% of your web usage remains stuck in old fashioned IE 6, treating modern web sites as special cases. Instead, I propose that Microsoft do exactly the opposite of what Google did.

Microsoft should create an IE 6 Frame. It would work like this:

• Everybody installs a modern web browser. IE 8, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc.
• Companies with ancient, mission critical IE 6 proprietary web sites could install the IE 6 Frame plugin.
• Most web sites would use the modern browser. Old web sites — ones that only work in IE 6 — would run in the IE 6 Frame plugin.

I believe this approach would be far more beneficial. You want the old crappy stuff to be the “special case” that runs in a plugin.

REST-*.org arrived today. I think the name is highly unfortunate, immediately evoking bad impressions from WS-*.

In their defense, they are doing many things right. These bullets come from their site:

• Specifications may not require any field of use restrictions or fees to get access to a certification testsuite or to pass certification.
• All source code for certification tests must be open sourced under the ASL 2.0 license.
• Specifications must be discussed in the open on a public mailing list.
• All drafts, source code, and any issue tracking system must be made available for anyone to read.
• Specifications, source code, and certification efforts must be licensed under ASL 2.0.
• etc…basically, don’t be like Sun and the JCP. (my take)

A big chunk of the fledgling web site is devoted to explaining how REST-* is different than WS-*. I do hope someone re-thinks the name.

Homing Pigeons are still faster than broadband.

Bobnet is good, too.

So you still want to back up your photos and videos online?

Wolfram Alpha is the hot new search engine. Of course I searched for “Eric Burke” first, and found nothing.

Next, I searched for my city and state (O’Fallon, MO) as shown here:

OK, that didn’t work. Let’s try removing the apostrophe:

As you can see, it worked. Oddly, their own “Input Interpretation” displayed the city name with the apostrophe. They just won’t let you search that way.

See also: Apostrophe Abuse.

Which link do you *really* want to click on?

Taken from a real time tracking web app.

If you want to learn how to draw, Kindle isn’t looking so hot:

In this category, you’ll find 6,197 printed books and only 16 Kindle books. I just bought Drawing for the Absolute Beginner — in paperback.

I assumed I’d find more Kindle books in other categories, such as Science Fiction and Fantasy. Instead, that category shows 33,619 printed books and 155 Kindle editions.

I was hoping for a lot more than this:

I certainly hoped the Kindle 2 would be a LOT less than $359. It also seems like it wastes a huge amount of real estate on the keyboard, a rarely used feature in a reading device. A soft iPhone-like keyboard would be great.

I plan to wait for the Kindle 3. At the rate technology evolves, I expect them to create my dream device at my dream price in a few years.

I just installed iPhoto ‘09 and tried the face recognition feature:

Wickedly cool.

Would you be interested in an 11 pound notebook? That is a LOT of weight to lug around.

Here’s a thought. Why doesn’t someone manufacture a cheap, super-thin, lightweight mobile 15″ LCD display? You can buy a 17″ LCD for $99 on NewEgg. Why aren’t companies manufacturing cheap, thin, “mobile LCDs” that you can easily slide into a notebook bag to take on the road?

A normal notebook plus a mobile secondary display would offer these benefits over the Lenovo computer:

• Cheaper
• Lighter
• Gives you the option to travel with or without the secondary display
• You could choose a big or small secondary display

This seems like a completely untapped market.