First bike ride out west and out pops a Halloween rainbow, yippee!

The mouth of the Merrimack River at Plum Island, MA.

Amazon Cloud Drive along with Amazon Cloud Player is a really nice service but it’s not completely ready for prime time. It has “Drive” in it’s name but there’s no good way to access it as if it were any type of physical or virtual drive and there are very limited options for downloading more than 1 file at a time. I’ve tried the client software “Amazon MP3 Downloader” and “Amazon MP3 Uploader” as well as the web tools. The best I could do for downloading more than one file at a time was a non-intuitive combination of Amazon Cloud Player on the web combined with the Amazon MP3 Downloader software. I don’t necessarily need Cloud Drive to sync on every PC/device the way Dropbox does but it really could use a simple way to manually upload/download folders or at least FTP access. Overall I can’t complain though because for a first iteration it does a lot of great things and 20GB space for a year only cost me the price of one MP3 album. It also converted the Amazon MP3 app on my Nexus One from a useless app I couldn’t remove to one that can now stream my music collection anywhere.

This site is 10 years old as of March 7th. That doesn’t seem like it could be possible. Over the next 10 years some of my plans include…well, I actually haven’t done a ton of things here over the last few years so who knows.

Luckily when I first got the laptop I was responsible enough to create a recovery DVD. I popped in the disc to see if it could help me. Unfortunately I realized the disc will only let you reformat and I’d lose all my data and settings. There may be an option also to return to an earlier state, but that wouldn’t work for my needs so I didn’t go that route. I ran the HDD Diagnostic Program from the BIOS to see if my hard drive seemed ok. It ran successfully, which solidified my theory that it was just a booting problem.

What I really needed was the actual Windows disc which provides an option to repair Windows. I’d attempt to repair the boot process. I contacted Lenovo for suggestions since they didn’t provide a CD. They agreed I needed a Windows disc but could not provide me one nor was there anything I could pull off the web from them. While I’m all for keeping the price tag low, this is a pretty big flaw in the way they sell their product. Microsoft also does not offer anyway to download a copy of Windows unless you previously bought it from their store. It was up to me to come up with a Windows 7 disc and until I got my hands on one I was without the use of my laptop. It was kind of annoying but after thinking about it I realized I have could probably poke around the web and find a copy of it. I wouldn’t need to register it because all I was going to do was boot from it and run the repair process.

Sure enough after a few minutes I found an .iso image of Windows 7. I used ImgBurn to burn the image to a DVD and voila I had my boot disc. I restarted and booted from it. When the Windows 7 screen came up I chose “Repair Your Computer.” You then get a list of System Recovery Options. I tried “Startup Repair” and “Command Prompt”.

I did Startup Repair first, but it didn’t work. After some Googling I used the DOS Prompt to run the following three commands:

bootrec.exe /fixmbr (fix Master Boot Record)
bootrec.exe /fixboot
bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd (rebuild Boot Configuration Data)

This time I restarted and boo-ya, my Windows 7 was back! What a relief, back in business.

For starters, the Verizon coverage for voice and data is superb. I have already tested it out on some trips and as usual with Verizon I am pretty shocked to get coverage in some remote places.

I like the Google Android operating system a lot so far and it should only get better. The Droid is the first phone to use the improved Android version 2.0. Navigating around the phone is not as smooth as the iPhone. That’s a very high standard though and the way it is currently is much better than any other smartphone I have tried. As you would expect, there is tight integration with all Google products which is really nice if you use a lot of them as I do. Unlike the iPhone, you can take full advantage of Google Voice. You can multitask which you also, surprisingly still can’t do on the iPhone. The Droid GPS is excellent and any use I have made of it has worked very well including the free voice navigation. Another feature I really like is the ability to see everything that is consuming the battery and what percentage each function is using. Scrolling in Android 2.0 is still a bit choppy and not nearly as smooth as it is on the iPhone. The Android OS has the option for widgets, which are bigger than app icons and perform multiple related functions. I’m not a big fan of them. The way I see it is on mobile OS you have very little space to work with so what you have must be utilized well. I just turn off any widgets.

The Android Market does not have nearly the amount of apps the iPhone App Store has, but it is increasing rapidly with almost everyday bringing significant new Android apps. The Android Market just hit 16,000 and a couple of months ago it was at 10,000. 2010 is looking like it’s going to be the year of the Android explosion.

The Motorola hardware has strong points but also some parts that are my least favorite parts of the phone. Unfortunately hardware issues can’t be improved with a software update. The Droid has a really big 854 x 480 pixel resolution. This is higher than the iPhone, but I actually find the lower resolution iPhone a lot easier to do extended reading on. This is probably has more to with the fact that the Android app creators haven’t refined their apps as much iPhone apps which have been around longer. This being said the Droid’s screen is crisp and very impressive to look at. The 5 MP camera isn’t perfect, but it’s the best one I’ve had on a phone. At first I didn’t like the four haptic touch common keys(back, menu, home and search buttons), but I quickly realized I liked the feedback and feeling they provided. The universal back button is both a blessing and a curse. Unlike the iPhone where going back is someplace different in every single app, it’s really easy to get in the habit of using a back button that is the same for every app. I really like this aspect of it. The problem with it though is where it’s located and how easy it is to be pressed. With it near the lower left corner of the phone I found it way too easy to inadvertently hit it and go back multiple steps rapid-fire. I do like the feel of the haptic touch but if the common buttons were pressure-sensitive instead of touch-sensitive or just positioned differently, perhaps this wouldn’t be as much of a problem.

One of the biggest problems I have with the hardware is the placement of the light sensor. The sensor can be used to automatically adjust the brightness of the screen, physical keyboard and haptic buttons based on light levels. You have the option of disabling the auto-brightness but on the Droid you really can’t because you won’t be able to see the keyboard and haptic buttons in a low-light or dark area. The problem with light sensor comes about for me because when reading on a phone I often find it comfortable to hold hold it with my fingers hugging the top right corner. Because the light sensor is there and you are partially covering it, the screen brightness will flicker as you move your fingers. This is not really a problem on the iPhone because all buttons are virtual and thus you are not dependent on a light sensor to illuminate them. The simple way to fix this problem for me would be to place the light sensor towards the middle or on the left. Of course this issue really depends on your preference for holding the phone, but for me it was damn annoying.

And then there is the much discussed physical keyboard. Some people hate it and some people can’t live without it. To me a physical keyboard seems old school and the iPhone has proven to me that you can type quickly and accurately on a virtual keyboard. Even if you really want a physical keyboard, you may not like the Droid keyboard. The keys are fairly scrunched together and don’t have much in the way of feedback when pressed. I never use the directional pad and it’s a waste of space. The whole point of a touch phone is to use your finger on the screen to do everything. Also, if the directional pad weren’t there the physical keyboard could be far wider. I’ve been trying to use the keyboard to give it a chance but I keep having this fear I’m just going to be carrying around the dead weight. Sometimes when I use it I wind up doing some combination of all 3 keyboards (physical, virtual vertical and virtual horizontal) for one task and it’s hard to get a good rhythm going. I say just give me a virtual keyboard only and good or bad I’ll learn to live with it. I trust that the virtual keyboards will improve as the Android OS improves. There are also alternative virtual keyboards on the way like Swype.

I’d say the Droid gets 2.5 out of 3 things right, and that ain’t bad. Great cell service, strong operating system and hardware that is good but has some significant design flaws. Despite the hardware issues, the Droid is one of the best options after the iPhone and the best Android phone. For now.

So I recently started using an Android phone, the Motorola Droid. The Android Market only has a fraction of the apps in the iPhone App Store, but there is an app for most of the key things you would want to do. There should be a ton more on the way with the Droid nearing one million units sold and the amount of Android phones growing quickly. Here is a list of some of the best and most useful apps I have downloaded so far. Oh and they are all free!

Shazam
Yes the free music identification app is available for Android phones too!

My Tracks
Awesome free app that let’s you record GPS and get lots of statistics like distance, time, elevation, speed and more. Lifehacker described it perfectly: My Tracks for Android is a Fitness Geek’s Dream.

Swift / Twidroid
Both are free Twitter apps but I’m currently kind of deadlocked on which one is the best. Swift easily has the better UI but Twidroid is a little more ahead on features.

USA Today
Probably the best news app currently available for Android. Unfortunately there is no New York Times app yet.

Google Voice
Besides getting Verizon coverage instead of AT&T, another HUGE advantage of going Droid instead of iPhone, you can use the Google Voice app. Like any other Google product, the integration with Android is very nice.

The Weather Channel
Not perfect, but the best weather app I have tried so far. Android could use some kind of basic, built-in weather app like you get on the iPhone.

Google Sky Map
A very nifty app that let’s you point your phone to the night sky and shows you what stars you are looking at.

AP Mobile
Another news app and one of the most polished apps for Android.

Talk to Me
A nice real time language translator. Good for helping you learn a langauge or getting by when traveling.

ShopSavvy
Allows you to scan bar codes to find the best prices. Handy if you’re standing in Best Buy. Their regular website is pretty cool too.

Where
You can do a LOT with this, but I tend to prefer my apps like I like meals. I’d rather have one good high quality meal than gorge myself with average food at a buffet. Where is like a buffet. It’s not a bad app at all, but I’d rather use individual apps that are designed precisely for a certain task. For now though while there aren’t that many Android apps, it can be somewhat useful.

PicSay
Really simple image editor and the only app I have used so far that actually does use multitouch in Android 2.0.

Google Finance
A solid app for monitoring stocks and finance and it’s made by Google so you know it has to be decent.

Key Ring
I refuse to carry a bunch of special cards in order to get the best price from a store. I already have enough crap to carry around. I won’t shop at Shaw’s supermarket because of this. Using Key Ring makes it a slightly more acceptable as it lets you copy the bar codes and/or keys from the cards.

Wapedia
It’s nothing mind blowing, but it’s the best Wikipedia app I could find.

It will be interesting to see how puny this list looks a year from now. My basic wishlist for future apps includes New York Times, Instapaper, a ready for prime-time sports app app like Sportacular, a Kindle app or other e-book Reader and better apps for food/restaurants. There is a Facebook app that is pretty terrible and it would be nice if Facebook got their act together and did some Android representin’. Also games are a hugely weak area for Android when compared to the gold standard, the iPhone.

By default there is no userChrome.css file. To make it you first have to find userChrome-example.css at one of these locations:

Windows XP/Vista
C:Documents and Settings[user]Application DataMozillaFirefoxProfilesxxxxxxxx.defaultchrome

Mac OS X
~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/[profile-name]/chrome/

Once you find userChrome-example.css in the /chrome directory, make a copy of it to keep the original as a backup, rename the copy userChrome.css and place the copy in the same directory. Firefox looks for userChrome.css here and if it exists will respect the style rules you put in it. Then you simply add your styles, restart Firefox and voila! Here are some examples of common styles:

/* Make the Location (URL) Bar use a bigger font */
#urlbar {font-size: 14pt !important;}

/* Add more space to the Personal Toolbar */
toolbarbutton.bookmark-item {margin: 3px !important;}

/* Force bigger display of folder tree within “bookmark this page” popup */
#editBMPanel_folderTree {min-width:600px !important;min-height:500px !important;}

/* Force wider display of “bookmark this page” popup */
#editBookmarkPanelContent {min-width:600px !important;}

More information on CSS selectors that can be utilized in userChrome.css can be found at: http://kb.mozillazine.org/UserChrome.css_Element_Names/IDs