Digital Parsimony

Does this remind you of anything? It’s almost like taking out that brand new HP/Dell/Sony/Toshiba laptop from its packaging. The first thing to do was format it and get rid of all the garbage it comes with.

There are of course a suite of applications pre-installed that you’ll have whether you want them or not. Many apps are mostly unwanted, like the ubiquitous Lets Golf 2. Some apps will be wanted by some, like NFL Mobile and Best Buy, and some are actually quite useful, like Quickoffice and Verizons Backup Assistant. Thankfully its not quite the onslaught of crapware weve seen with devices like the Charge or more recently the Incredible 2, and we had no problem uninstalling most of them. That said, if youre feeling noncommittal you can use the customized applications list to create a group of the apps you actually use and set the phone to display only those, hiding the whole big mess.

via Droid X2 review — Engadget.

Not a good start.

I’ve spent the past few hours trying to navigate my way through Music Beta and ended up finding new frustrations at nearly every turn. Music Beta in its current form is far from what we’d expect from a Google product— it’s a web of confusing programs without a lot of instruction as to how to actually get to the music you want to hear.

via Google’s Music Beta first look: it’s miserable | VentureBeat and Daring Fireball.

Almost one year later. Embarrassing.

Apple has finally announced it will release the white iPhone 4 tomorrow around the world. Here in the US itll come in both AT&T and Verizon flavors, warming the hearts and minds of those who like a little less pigment on their handsets.

via White iPhone 4 releases tomorrow, finally — Engadget.

Seems strange that bringing simple basics like email/live chat access and customer ratings to an industry can still be considered “groundbreaking.” So it’s nice to see companies like these challenging the status quo and picking a fight. The health care industry could use the shakeup.

What’s really nuts is that doctors have access to some of the latest in technology, yet email and online appointment scheduling is still “new”. I’ve written about this before, and I’m glad it’s coming to fruition.

via Shaking up the bizarre habits ingrained in primary health care – (37signals).

I take representing digital culture in film very seriously in lieu of having grown up in a world of very badly researched user interface greeble. I cringed during the part in Hackers (1995) when a screen saver with extruded “equations” is used to signify that the hacker has reached some sort of neural flow or ambiguous destination. I cringed for Swordfish and Jurassic Park as well. I cheered when Trinity in The Matrix used nmap and ssh (and so did you).

via jtnimoy – Tron Legacy (2010).

I’m so glad I’m not alone.

I sold [MicroSolutions] after 7 years and made enough money to take time off and have a whole lot of fun.

Back then I can remember vividly people telling me how lucky I was to sell my business at the right time.

Then when I took that money and started trading technology stocks that were in the areas that MicroSolutions focused on, I remember vividly being told how lucky I was to have expertise in such a hot area, as technology stocks started to trade up.

Of course, no one wanted to comment on how lucky I was to spend time reading software manuals, or Cisco Router manuals, or sitting in my house testing and comparing new technologies, but that’s a topic for another blog post.

— Mark Cuban

via Quote: I sold [MicroSolutions] after 7 years and… – (37signals).

I really feel the same way. People have said I’m lucky to be at the place I work, I’m lucky that I’ve got an eye for design and a technical side, I’m lucky to get into the stock market at the right time, I’m lucky to have a place to call my own right now.

No one talked about how lucky I was to finish writing my first program when others went to their first high-school football game.

Didn’t Sony offer an option to install Linux on your PS3 and do what you want with it? How is that different than installing home-brew applications?

“Anonymous” attacks Sony to protest PS3 hacker lawsuit.

I just learned something new today. I’ve been using Quartz filters in OS X’s Preview for the longest time to reduce the file size of PDF presentations. My only gripe has been that the image quality is significantly reduced and visible.

The built-in “Reduce File Size” Quartz filter can take a 10.2mb presentation down to 0.6mb in a flash. I’ve always wanted an in-between; something that can take 10.2mb down to 3.0mb or so and still look nice. To do this, you use a little built-in utility called ColorSync.

ColorSync allows you to create your own Quartz filters.

1. Open ColorSync (Applications > Utilities > ColorSync Utility)
2. Hit “Filters”
3. Hit the arrow to the right of the “Reduce File Size” filter and select “Duplicate Filter”
4. Double click on the new filter “Reduce File Size copy” and rename it to something like “Reduce File Size HQ”
5. Hit the drop-down arrow next to “Reduce File Size HQ”
6. Hit the drop-down arrow next to “Image Sampling”
7. Fill in the following options:

   Scale: 80%
   Resolution: <leave blank>
   Max: 768
   Min: 128
   Quality: High

8. You’re done! Now open any PDF, and select File > Save As…
9. Select your newly-created Quartz filter under the “Quarts” drop-down menu, and save your new PDF.

Mimsy: Quality reduced file size in Mac OS X Preview.

Android Honeycomb (for tablets) launched with 15 native apps. iPad launched with 1000. A month later, Honeycomb still only has about 50.

Big problem.

Ars Technica