Favorite Windows Freebies–New and Old

I call them utilities; some of you call them tools. They’re small, free programs that make computing life easier, less tedious, and more productive.

Generally, I tell you only about tried and true utilities–the ones I call keepers — and that I regularly use. I was thinking, though, that as so many of you are power users, you might be interested in two that are new (to me, at least): Lexmark’s Toolbar and Stardock’s Fences. I just started playing with them and I’m curious to hear what you think.

Continue reading this story…

5Words for February 12th 2009

Looks pretty quiet out there:

Nice Web site, Your Majesty!

Sprint posts Palm Pre specs.

Movie-and-game combo discs.

Microsoft’s advice: Get Vista. Now!

Shorty Awards honor popular Tweeters.

Fujitsu’s $900 e-book does color.

Sirius XM: Help! Help! Help!

Pioneer quits the TV business.

The Great iTunes in the Sky?

AppleInsider is reporting a rumor that Apple is working on something called iTunes Replay that would let you stream movies and TV shows you’d purchased across the Net and onto a computer, iPhone,iPod Touch, or Apple TV, eliminating the need to download them and store them locally. Says who? Um, AppleInsider is so vague on that point that its story doesn’t even deserve the honorific “thinly sourced.” All the site says is that it’s “believed” that iTunes Replay is in the works. The person doing the believing could be…well, anyone. Including a clueless nincompoop, or perhaps the guy who told AppleInsider about the cheap iPhone Lite that Apple was going to launch in the fall of 2007.

Or maybe not–CNet says that somebody in the movie biz has confirmed AppleInsider’s report. I’ll believe it when I stream it, but I hope it’s accurate–in a world in which digital video is more popular than ever and even a terabyte hard drive can’t store that much of it, it would make a lot of sense to have the option of leaving the storing to Apple. At first blush, the concept is similar to the streaming services offered by NetFlix and Amazon, but you’d hope that Apple’s approach would be beautifully integrated with its existing iTunes options. You’d buy a movie once, then download it or stream it as your needs required.

Everybody who’s writing about this is noting Apple’s recent deal with Internet content distribution company Limelight Networks. Apple making arrangements to be able to pump more content quickly and reliably across the Internet doesn’t mean that iTunes Replay is a reality…but for what it’s worth, it’s exactly the sort of thing Apple might do if were planning to let its customers stream their hearts out.

Nokia Cuts R&D, Production

Singing the macro-economic woes, Finnish telecommuncations giant Nokia has decided to cut production and to close one of its R&D sites. Ultimately, the company has failed to capitalize on the strength of the smartphone market.

Nokia is reducing production at its plant in Salo, Finland, and has begun to phase in furlough days that will affect 20 to 30% of the plant’s 2,500 employees, on a rotational basis. The company is also shuttering its facility in Jyvaskyla, Finland, costing 320 people their jobs.

Nokia told investors in January that it expects cell phone demand to fall 10 percent in 2009. However, it managed to increase its share of the worldwide mobile market in 2008 even while demand was weakened by lowered consumer confidence, according to a September 5 report by Nordic Business Report. It experienced a 69 percent drop in its 2008 fourth-quarter net profit.

In many markets, Nokia’s sales grew–it’s the U.S. market that has remained its albatross. RCR Wireless News reported in July that Nokia claimed 40% of the market in 2008, and its sales were particularly strong in the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, and Middle East.

The company is relying upon high-end smartphones to help them cope with economic crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported in a December interview with Jonas Geust, vice president of Nokia Nseries unit. The smart phone market is growing, but Nokia is not a benefiting much. It is losing out to fierce competition from Apple and Research In Motion.

It seems counterintuitive for Nokia to cut its expenses when its most advanced devices are failing to sell. The 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia’s initial answer to the iPhone, lacked multitouch capabilities. That should have been an indication that it needed to invest more, not less. I don’t see how a move away from innovation is good for customers.

Blockbuster to Offer Games By Mail

Looking to up the ante against both Netflix and Gamefly, Blockbuster is rolling out a mail order rental service for video games. As part of the “Total Access” program, a select number of customers will soon test the new venture, with nationwide availability coming in the second half of this year, Kotaku reports.

The news raises some key questions, mostly in regards to pricing. Considering that a two-disc subscription to Gamefly costs $9 more per month than Netflix’s movie plan and $6 more than the plan at Blockbuster, I can’t imagine that existing Total Access customers will be able to rent video games without ponying up extra dough. On a related note, I wonder if it will be a separate plan that subscribers can choose instead of movies, or if it will only come as part of the whole package.

To be honest, it’s going to take significant cost savings for me to drop Gamefly. Sure, it can take a week or longer to get high demand titles, but otherwise I’ve had very few problems with the service. Plus, Gamefly offers nice perks, such as coupons and discounts for purchasing used games and respectable trade-in rates that help offset subscription costs. Besides, poor selection and availability of games at Blockbuster’s brick-and-mortar stores brought me to Gamefly in the first place, so I won’t even consider switching until Blockbuster can prove itself.

And then there’s Netflix. The movie-by-mail company doesn’t offer games, leaving the door open for Blockbuster to be the be-all end-all of media rentals. Unfortunately, we’re still waiting on Blockbuster’s streaming movie partnership with Sonic Solutions, and I can already watch streaming Netflix movies from my Xbox 360.

Here’s a thought: Blockbuster becomes the Playstation 3′s movie streamer as part of an all-inclusive game and movie rental package. That’d make me jealous of Sony’s console for sure.

Update: Joystiq has dug up some more information on the program. It’ll cost $5 more per month than any existing plan, but only if you add games to your queue that month. Blockbuster Online VP Bob Barr dodged questions about game availability compared to Gamefly but said the company won’t be augmenting its library for the program. There are “no conversations explicitly going on” in regards to a streaming service for Sony, Barr said.

Microsoft Shoots Back at Adobe Over Silverlight

Adobe CFO Mark Garrett seems to think that Silverlight is “fizzling,” but Microsoft begs to differ. The exec’s comments came as part of a broader talk on Adobe’s business at the homas Weisel Partners Technology & Telecom Conference being held this week in San Francisco.

Garrett’s contention is that while Silverlight may have launched strong, demand has fizzled out and Adobe has moved ahead in terms of innovation, with Microsoft struggling to catch up. He also suggested that the company may not have the “mindset” to be aggressive with pushing the technology forward, BetaNews reports.

Microsoft seems to beg to differer however. In a response to Garrett’s comments, the company told us that one in four computer users have access to Silverlight, with 100 million downloads of the newest version of the platform since October of last year.

There have also been some important wins for Microsoft as of late:

• CBS extensively uses the platform to serve its content across its network of sites;
• The Presidential Inauguration Committee chose Silverlight to webcast the swearing in of President Obama in January;
• Netflix’s online streaming service is powered by Silverlight, allowing it to stream to both PC and Mac platforms.

Not too shabby for a platform that is apparently fizzling if Adobe is to be believed. Of course, Flash adoption is by far much more widespread, but let’s take into account the fact that the technology has been available for many more years than Silverlight has.

On a related side note, Moonlight 1.0 was officially released today, which is a open-source project to bring Silverlight to the Linux platform. The platform got its first big test during the inauguaration, when a preview version was released to allow Linux users to view the webcast.

According to Microsoft, the applicaition was downloaded some 20,000 times.

Palm OS is Dead! Long Live Web OS!

This is news, but it’s anything but unexpected: Palm CEO Ed Colligan says that the company won’t be making any new devices that run the Palm OS. The operating system which was synonymous with the company for almost a decade and a half (even after Palm started making Windows Mobile devices, too) is going away, and the company will focus its OS energies on Web OS, which will debut in the Palm Pre smartphone.

I assume that there will be at least a few folks who will argue that Palm OS should have survived–hardcore Palm fans, maybe, and certainly at least some developers who make apps for the platform. But for many of us who are Palm users and admirers (past or present) the notion that Palm OS is giving way to Web OS isn’t just acceptable, it’s kind of delightful. It’s been painfully obvious for years that Palm OS was hopelessly antiquated, but until Palm unveiled the Pre last month, it wasn’t clear that it had any kind of viable strategy for replacing it.

Web OS doesn’t run Palm OS programs, and has only a few specific interface features which are pretty much the same as in Palm OS. But from what I’ve seen of it so far, it’s got the Palm DNA in spades. The philosophies behind the original PalmPilots are the same as those reflected in the Pre–it’s just that the technology that Palm can call on is unimaginably better than they were in the mid 1990s.

I was a Palm fan for years; then I became someone who thought that chances were he’d never own another Palm device. Now I think I might again–and saying goodbye to the Palm OS is part of the remarkable rebirth that Palm now stands a reasonably good chance of pulling off.

Sirius XM: The Writing Has Been on The Wall Since August

Harry’s post earlier today regarding the possibility of a bankruptcy filing by satellite provider Sirius XM should come as a shock to no one. In fact, the news reminded me of a story I wrote back in August of last year for BetaNews that essentially warned of significant financial problems for the company.

At the time, Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin admitted to reporters that the company was not in the best of financial health — including to Bloomberg TV that same day. Essentially, the company had just taken on unfavorable financing terms for debt, which would put $1 billion in debt repayments due this year.

For almost any company, such a large amount of money would be quite painful to repay. For Sirius XM, it could be deadly. It’s stock price has fallen from about $1.50 at the time of that story to only 6 cents now. Add to this a sagging economy, and apparently slow growth, and the company does not have much money to work with.

The company up until recently had seemed to argue that it was fine and would survive its debt issues. But reality has set in for Sirius XM. It is not in good financial shape at all, and never has been. The chickens have come home to roost, as they say.

Sirius XM’s problems are probably most damaging to Mel Karmazin. Up until Sirius he had great successes in turning businesses profitable. This time, there are just too many problems with the way the satellite radio business has been structured for it to be turned around.

Raising your rates is not going to solve the problem either: if anything, its going to drive folks away. Also with the quality of service dropping — from audio artifacts and cut-outs in the broadcast to questionable programming decisions and service reductions — Sirius XM may have very little time to turn itself around.

What is next? The loss of signature content like Howard Stern or sporting events? More rate hikes? More cuts in programming so that the service sounds even more like FM than it already does lately?

I ask then, what is the point of satellite radio? Might as well go to streaming media via 3G, as Harry has repeatedly suggested.

Could it come down to Sirius being bought out by someone like EchoStar? It may have to: it owes about $575 million in debt repayments to the company, $175 million due next week, and another $400 million due in December.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that — but it looks like Mr. Karmazin is resisting. Sir, I hate to say it, but you may have no choice, you’ve had your chance. Declaring bankruptcy would open the company up to possible shareholder lawsuits, while a deal with EchoStar may keep the company afloat.

In the meantime, I think for shareholders sake, Sirius XM needs to be honest and forthcoming with us all about its financial health. After the way it handled its channel merge, I just get the feeling that this company either does not understand how, or does not want to communicate with its customers.

Is Gmail Down? Ask Twitter!

[NOTE: If you're reading this on September first, 2009, here's a more current post on today's outage.]

Gmail seems to be choking at the moment. It failed to load for me a few minutes ago, then came back–and I know I’m not the only one who’s having problems with it, because I did a simple Twitter search and got lots and lots of tweets like these:

Twitter’s search feature is a terrific resource when it comes to quickly answering questions about what’s happening on the Web. I remain baffled as to why Twitter buries it in the site’s footer rather than giving it prominent real estate so that everyone who’d find it useful can find it. But that’s just one of multiple Twitter mysteries (Twysteries?).

Meanwhile: Is Gmail working for you right now?

Did Google Really Cripple Android to Please Apple?

VentureBeat has one of the more surprising stories that I’ve seen so far this year: that Google may have intentionally crippled Android in an effort to please Apple. Multi-touch support was apparently part of the G1 until Cupertino got wind of it, the site reports.

Apple asked Google not to use the technology, and it was removed. Something tells me it wasn’t just a simple “please:” look at the company’s not-so-veiled threats against Palm. It appears as if Apple is going to be quite protective of its intellectual property, and the functionality that separates the iPhone from the pack.

I personally do not like the fact that Google caved in so easily. While yes, Apple does have a significant stake in multi-touch as Harry pointed out in January, companies should not let this get in the way of innovation. In fact, its questionable whether apple was really the first to come up with the multi-touch user interface.

Then again, I see why Google would want to please Apple. The two companies are quite close, and Google’s mapping software is one of the signature featurs of the iPhone. Add to this the fact that Google CEO Eric Schmidt is an Apple board member, and well, you can see why they might be more willing to bend over backwards.

Personally, I think its only a matter of time — probably months — before Google has to turn to Apple and say, “I’m sorry, but business is business.”

5Words for February 11th, 2009

Howdy–here’s what’s going on:

Twenty thousand iPhone apps? Wow.

For-pay Android apps imminent.

Remember BeOs? Haiku clones it.

Windows Mobile Firefox movin’ along.

New BlackBerry Curve arriving soon.

Ahoy! Treasure found in Google Earth.

Book authors hate talking Kindle.

Zuckerberg college buddies paid fortune.

Canadian bookseller launches Kindle rival.

No more Windows 7 downloads.

Microsoft ships four security patches.

Google Launches Co-branded Mobile Search

Mobile publishers and carriers will now be able to cash in on Google’s moves into mobile advertising through a new program launched by the search giant on Tuesday. Called AdSense for Mobile Search, it would allow developers to easily integrate Google search into their applications.

The offering is much like its preexisiting program for non-mobile sites. The developer would be able to add a custom logo to the results, as well as custom links back to its site. If users click on an ad, a portion of that revenue is shared with the developer.

Google had already been offering a version of the AdSense service for mobile websites: that has been available since September 2007. This solution however is hosted completely on Google’s servers.

Interested beta testers are being asked to fill out this form.

Mighty Morphin’ Gmail: Dawn of the Daily Upgrade

We all know that one of the virtues of Web-based services compared to desktop software is that their creators can add new features on the fly, making them available to every user instantly. And we know that Google (even in somewhat smaller form) is a company that rarely meets an idea it doesn’t like enough to at least throw up as an experimental beta.

But in the past few weeks, something’s been going on with Gmail that’s kind of startling. Google is adding new features–mostly significant ones–at a clip that I can’t remember any other Web service matching, ever. And it it seems to be accelerating.

Continue reading this story…

Sirius XM Girds Itself For Bankruptcy

Sirius XM, the spawn the of the merger that was supposed to save satellite radio, isn’t doing so hot. According to the New York Times, it’s on the brink of bankruptcy and could file for Chapter 11 protection any moment now. If it does so, service shouldn’t be affected, but those pricey contracts with personalities such as Howard Stern and businesses such as Major League Baseball might be. In other words, the very content that’s supposed to make satellite radio worth the bucks could be at risk.

As I wrote when Sirius XM recently raised some of its fees, I was once a hardcore XM fan, and still find much to like in the service–but I have the sneaking feeling that I’ll eventually do my radio listening in the car via my iPhone or another smartphone. And “eventually” may not be all that far away. Especially if the bankruptcy or further aftershocks from the merger impacts any of the programming I’m paying for. (I still can’t figure out why both the pre-merger XM and Sirius carried Harry Shearer’s Le Show…but the combined enterprise doesn’t.)

Meanwhile, satellite radio’s fragile condition would seem to be more evidence that sending satellites into the skies to beam stuff back to earth is so hugely expensive a proposition that it’s hard to turn it into a business. (Earlier examples: Boeing’s short-lived Connexion airplane broadband and Iridium’s satellite phone service.) Although I guess it’s possible that Sirius XM’s woes have less to do with outer space and more to do with money that stayed right here on earth–and went into the pockets of Howard Stern, Martha Stewart, Oprah, and pals.

Twitter May Begin Charging for Commercial Accounts

Twitter may yet prove that it is more than the gilded plaything of venture capitalists , and a productivity killer for those of us who tweet while we should be working. In an interview with UK-based Marketing newspaper, co-founder Biz Stone said that the company was identifying ways to charge for commercial accounts.

Stone told Marketing, “We are noticing more companies using Twitter and individuals following them. We can identify ways to make this experience even more valuable and charge for commercial accounts,” without specifying how much the company would charge. In a Twitter blog post today, he stressed that the company isn’t ready to make any announcements about how it’ll make money. But he did say “we hope to begin iterating on revenue products this year,” which is Silicon Valleyspeak for “Sooner or later we’re gonna need to make some money.”

An actual revenue model –fancy that. Twitter’s popularity has exploded, but there has not been so much as a single advertisement served up on its Web site. Since it is unlikely that anyone will pony up another $500 million offer to buy it out anytime soon (as Facebook is rumored to have done), it’s time for Twitter to face up to the reality of 2009 and earn some money.

Since its inception, venture capitalists Bezos Expeditions, Digital Garage, Spark Capital, and Union Square Ventures have showered a combined $20 million in private equity on Stone and crew. Meanwhile, Twitter hasnever publicly explained (or demonstrated) how it would turn a profit.

Now that it has an established user base, it makes perfect sense for Twitter to leverage the direct access that it has afforded brands to their customers. Twitter has the opportunity to create several products that could keep the failwhale at bay, and to keep its employees’ lights on.

Microsoft Patentmania

Microsoft is celebrating its ten thousandth patent. And so am I, sort of–I just browsed through some of its 9,999 earlier ones, and found ten that were intriguing for one reason or another, with evocative drawings.  (Did you know the company once patented a floppy-shaped PDA you could stick in a disk drive? I sure didn’t.)

I’ve assembled the images into an annotated slideshow, as is my wont. You can view it here.