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iPhone: MobileMe vs. Google services

Via Macintouch, a reader compares two competing solutions, to which I add inline comments and emphases:

MobileMe

... MacInTouch Reader

Quick comparison: Google services vs Apple MobileMe

COST:
Google: free [jf: Google Apps custom domain is currently $10/year for 100 people]
MobileMe: $99/year [jf: MobileMe family pack is $93 on sale now for 5 people]

SUPPORT:
Google: web-only, no access to live staff
MobileMe: web-only, no access to live staff

RELIABILITY:
Google: pretty damn good
MobileMe: pretty damn bad

SYNC SERVICES:
Google: limited
MobileMe: dangerous

iPHONE SUPPORT:
Google: okay, iTunes sync required
[jf: Pretty bad honestly, but that's because Apple won't provide a phone API for Calendar items]
MobileMe: great when it works

WEB SITE HOSTING:
Google: Google Sites enables you to build sites with rich functionality
MobileMe: Hope you bought iLife... the web based HomePage tool is dead and gone!

PHOTO SHARING:
Google: Picassa -- fast, feature rich, and free
MobileMe: Hope you bought iLife...

VIDEO SHARING:
Google: YouTube
MobileMe: Hope you bought iLife...

My extras

CHAT SUPPORT:
Google: Flaky video on OS X
MobileMe: iChat 10.6 is good

CALENDAR SUBSCRIBE/PUBLISH
Google: Superb.
MobileMe: None

FILE SHARING/WEBDAV
Google: None except the feeble Google Apps/PDF sharing
MobileMe: Excellent.

ABILITY to INTEROPERATE with iPhone/EXCHANGE services
Google: None
MobileMe: Good in theory, I have no actual experience nor do I ever read of anyone doing thsi.

If Apple were to open up the iPhone APIs it would be a total blow-out for Google, with a nasty hit on MobileMe revenue.

Gee, I wonder when Apple will do that ...

Fixing a demented Blackberry Pearl

I've said some good things about my wife's Blackberry Pearl, but that was a while ago.

Now I'm less kind.

For example, tonight I spent 2-3 hours debugging my wife's BB Pearl -- and Missing Sync for the BlackBerry.

I'll simplify by splitting out the problems into two parts:

Missing Sync for BlackBerry problems

1. When I connected my wife's BB it didn't mount as a USB drive and it gave the "insufficient power to charge warming" (meaning it's getting USB 1 100mA power, and it needs USB 2 500 mA power). This means that Missing Sync's device driver wasn't working.
2. Missing Sync gave some absurd error message basically saying something was wrong.

This was entropy at work. I hadn't done a sync of Emily's Pearl in eons, and Missing Sync had been clobbered. I reinstalled, moved the USB cable and got it working. Then I was able to backup her contacts.

The BlackBerry Pearl was demented due to memory problems

Emily's BB was slow, erratic and increasingly crashy. Removing the battery to reset it (no reset button or software command on this baby!) helped but only transiently. Today she couldn't even make calls.

I'd removed apps to free up memory before, but it was down to only @2MB free.

This time I backed up the contacts via Missing Sync then did used the obscure security setting option to 'wipe the phone'. That left all the apps (there doesn't seem to be ANY way to return the phone to factory condition) but suddenly I had 24MB free. (Yeah, the BB OS is ancient -- makes Palm look modern.)

The phone came to life.

So where was all the memory going? I'm not sure, but here's my guess:

1. Eons ago I'd setup Missing Sync to put iTunes non-DRMd AAC music on the Pearl. I'd accepted the default "leave 5MB free". Unfortunately this puts the music on the system memory, not the useless 1GB memory card I've added to the phone.
2. Since I did a sync so rarely that 5MB free buffer was being eaten away by installing other apps and by ePocrates growth. Missing Sync was never getting a chance to beat back the music install.

So, gradually, 5MB went to so little free memory that the JVM was thrashing constantly, paging out memory, and making the phone unresponsive and crashy.

I probably could have fixed things by simply removing all the music, but I only figured that out after I'd done a wipe.

I reentered Emily's Google Apps data, restarted her BB push email, restored the address book via Missing Sync and changed Missing Sync so that there's no longer any music on the wimpy phone.

If all of this works I can put off replacing her BB until Apple introduces a non-worthless version of MobileMe and/or suddenly remembers customers are not supposed to be abused and hands a Calendar API over to Google.

PS. I installed the BB Desktop software on my XP box, but it really adds very little. Basically just backup, and I didn't want that since it would have restored my problems!

See also

1. Google App services for the BB (this works quite well now)
2. ePocrates: I'm very suspicious of this one, but giving it another try.
3. Missing Sync for Blackberry: I think it's languishing - since the iPhone came out BB sales to OS X users have probably dropped to near zero. I feel sorry for 'em though - synchronization is hell.
4. iTunes, Missing Sync and the Pearl: I think this was the cause of my downfall.
   
5. BB Pearl usage tips - keyboard mostly
6. Our Google Apps/iPhone/BlackBerry Pearl calendar setup. We still do this.
7. Our phone migration - AT&T is the Devil
   

OS X RSS Visualizer Screen saver works with Google Reader Atom feeds

I found this one by accident.

There's an RSS visualizer in my 10.5.5 OS X screen saver collection. The name is misleading, it works with Atom feeds too. So, for example, my Google Reader generated family newspaper feed will display that way. I haven't tested Flickr or other image feeds, but I suppose they should work.

I prefer our family photos, but it's a nice touch.

BeejiveIM - push notification via MobileMe email

One of several iPhone disappointments is the lack of a subscription/notification API. So only Apple's applications can do background processing and notification. Since Apple doesn't want to give up its share of AT&T's massive texting profits there's no Apple application to support Instant Messaging alternatives to obscenely overpriced SMS messages.

Happily, some applications have found a workaround -- such as Beejive Instant Messaging ...

BeejiveIM - Review | whatsoniphone.com... Get notified instantly when you get a new message (requires with MobileMe or Exchange/ActiveSync push email)...

I presume it's routing an IM notification through email services. That's a bit awkward, but workable. Of course if you're going that route, why not just use email instead of IM?

Now that Google has an SMS/IM gateway it seems one could cobble something together with MobileMe and Gmail ...

Update: Yahoo has push email for the iPhone. I'd forgotten about that. There's a BeejiveIM client for Blackberry, where Push works. Maybe I can make this work ...

Update: I tested using a Yahoo! account I keep for junk email. If you add a Yahoo account to iPhone Mail.app you do indeed get Push services. That is, the settings for Push will show the Yahoo account. Problem is, it's incredibly slow push. Like over a ten minute delay. So Yahoo! email isn't worth bothering with. Just as well, Yahoo gives me a headache every time I visit. This time I see that their user account settings page doesn't render correctly in Firefox. Yahoo is the Detroit of cyberspace.

iPhone: status update and my apps

Gear Diary made a list of the types of iPhone apps professional geek bloggers use. I have many of them, with the exception that Twitter isn't useful for me and I've only now trying to see if there's something useful about Facebook...

Gear Diary's Favorite iPhone/iPod Touch Apps | whatsoniphone.com

On four different lists were:

Evernote
ToDo [jf: Appigo]

On three of the lists are:
Facebook
Twittelator Pro [jf: still trying to figure out a Twitter use case]
eWallet [jf I use 1Password]
Safari

And on two of the lists are:
eReader
Jott
Byline [jf: I use Google Reader]
Around Me [jf: I have Where To?]

My Apps are above, click to make 'em readable. This list, taken from iTunes, doesn't show my heavily used web apps (eg. Google Reader) and it includes a couple I no longer sync to the phone.

Google Reader is my favorite iPhone app - it's amazing. The Google Calendar app for our family calendar is another superb Google web app, then there's Google iPhone search, etc.

The games are for the kids (really) -- and they're invaluable in tight spots (my 9yo played one game during his flu immunization -- worked great).

So lots of good stuff there, but the bad news is that the iPhone sucks as a business tool.

I really thought it would be better than it is, but Apple has dropped the ball. No Calendar API to support over-the-air sync to Google Calendar, a complete lock-out on the cable which means corporate outlook calendars are a no-go [1], and, of course, no cut/copy/paste and truncation of longish notes/memos associated with contacts and calendars. (Oh, and I wish the phone had GPS compass capabilities, but that's a nice-to-have.)

I'm back to carrying around a very aged Palm PDA so I can get access to my corporate contacts and calendar. The only thing that saves Apple for me is that the alternatives are equally lousy.

[1] The only way to get a half-decent business access is to simultaneously use MobileMe for personal data (pathetic) and Exchange Server for corporate data (requires corporate IT approval -- fugget-about-it).

Update 1/5/09: A friend asked for some recommendations, so I've provided some more detail. Some of this duplicates my original post ...

1. Air Sharing: turns phone into webdav server -- store documents there.
2. Remote: control air tunes library
3. Google Mobile: many different web apps, Google Reader is essential
4. Google Earth
5. i41CX: HP 41 emulator - amazing
6. Evernote: take picture, it uploads, does OCR, indexes, store other data in cloud. Now acceptable since they've delivered a way to move data out.
7. AirMe: take picture, send Picasa web album
8. Notebook and Todo: Appigo "notes" and "tasks" management (these have a treacherous design flaw when used together however)
9. NYTimes reader: could be better, but still good
10. Pandora radio: explore music. Terrific.
11. Shazam: recognize music (best for pop though, fails with Jazz, classical.)
12 Wikipanion: great! Optimized Wikipedia client.

I don't have Byline but since it integrates with Google Reader I'm considering it.

Then there are the built-in apps. The huge issue with the iPhone now is the inability to sync directly, or even efficiently, with Google Calendar and the lack of a Calendar API. That's bad enough, but Apple's MobileMe alternative is awful. (Corporate sync is a MUCH harder problem). Eventually people are going to figure out how big a problem this is. (Vendors are starting to deliver entire calendaring/task solutions that completely ignore Apple's built-in solutions and that sync with Google -- but these will only be coming out in the next few months.)

The other big missing app, which I suspect is due to a nasty conflict of interests, is that Apple won't enable any effective instant messaging client -- in fact they have failed to deliver a promised 'push/notification' API so they're foreclosing that entire domain of apps. They want, of course, to keep the huge SMS revenue they share with AT&T.

Update 1/1/10: Jott is now trying to do automated transcription instead of human transcription - obviously to save money. It doesn't work at all for my voice. So Jott is really just a voice snippet recorder now.

Digital video: codecs and containers (wrappers)

An excellent and brief overview of video formats - meaning codecs and wrappers/containers as of late 2008.By Gizmodo. For example: Apple's MOV is a wrapper specification, not a codec. They omit DV (used in camcorder tapes) and the formats Apple uses in their pro video editing packages but it's as good as anything I've seen.

iTunes gift certificates: Use is limited to country of purchase

Each year our children's Aunt and Uncle send iTunes gift certificates. They love 'em.

This year, though, the relatives moved to Canada. When I entered the codes I got this error message:

Your iTunes Store (US) does not match that of the gift certificate (Canadian).

There's nothing about this in the iTunes Store - Credit Card FAQ.

I sent a support email to Apple. I want to at least get a refund back to our relatives.

Apple should include notification of this limitation during the purchase process, and they should have support information on their FAQ including an explanation of how to obtain a refund.

I'll update this post with Apple's response. If the response isn't satisfactory, I'll suggest my relatives ask their credit card company to contest the charge.

Update 12/26/08: Apple has thus far processed one return, I'm hopeful they'll refund the other two certs my in-laws sent.

Update 12/28/08: iTunes support says they've all been refunded.

Camino 2 is coming - and Chrome for OS X

I really like the auto-complete URL feature of Firefox, and nothing beats Firefox's compatibility. Google Chat, for example, works in Firefox, but not in Camino.

On the other hand Firefox 3 is slow and ill-behaved on OS X PPC machines. Camino 1.6.x is much nicer. So I've drifted back to Firefox on my iMac where Google Video Chat doesn't work anyway.

So it's good to know that a new version of Camino is on the way. The new features include an OmniWeb like ability to view tabs over browser windows, though for me OS X Spaces has broken my love of tabs. It's so nice to be able to hit the F9 key and see every open window and move them between Spaces.

It's also great to read that Chrome is coming to OS X ...

Mozilla launches a slick first beta of Camino 2.0 VentureBeat

... Users of Camino will also be happy to know that the team’s project lead, Mike Pinkerton, is currently also working on Chrome, Google’s web browser, for the Mac platform. Progress is being made on it (though slowly) and it should be done at some point in the coming months. Until then, it’ll be Camino-only browsing for me...

The big problem with Safari has been incompatibility and bugs with Google's advanced services. Firefox and Camino have been much better, but Firefox has quality issues and Camino doesn't get the love it deserves. So for a Google-customer like me, the Chrome news is interesting.

Weird Firefox bug: can't uninstall incompatible Add-ons

This is a weird bug. I'm surprised it persists.

Firefox 3 won't run Add-ons that aren't compatible with it.

That's fine, but it won't let you uninstall or remove them either. I think FF 2 did, so this is a new bug.

It's a cosmetic annoyance since the incompatible add-on isn't doing anything, but I'm surprised it hasn't been fixed. It's not exactly subtle.

Outlook's persistent problem with closing the outlook.exe process

I frequently run into problems where Outlook 2007 is behaving oddly - including not sending mail, not responding to some instructions, using up CPU, etc.

On inspection I often find several instances of the Outlook.exe process running. Terminating them all fixes the problem.

This multiple-instance non-existing process problem is longstanding. It's easy to find reports for Outlook 2000 to 2007. Part of the problem is that Outlook's COM add-in infrastructure smells like raw sewage.

This Slipstick page gives a good overview of known causes and management options: Microsoft Outlook: Outlook.exe won't exit.

Other more or less useful references all illustrate how damned problematic Outlook is:

• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954642/en-us: Microsoft’s own Office Communicator is a bad actor.
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948733/en-us: More Communicator problems. Mercifully, I killed that foul spawn.
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957909/en-us: The post-SP1 hotfix may help, but most of us will want to wait for Office 2007 SP2.
• http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/rtrent/archive/2008/06/07/its-not-better-to-shut-down-windows-before-shutting-down-outlook.aspx
• http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsto/thread/bfced604-c52c-433a-86f6-73bea924a2bf/
• From 2005, but still valid: Note in comments Outlook's iTunes add-in is a potential bad actor. I killed that one, but it didn't help. There are a lot of Add-In issues out there, I don't think it's possible to write a safe Outlook 2007 add-in.

Using File:Exit rather than Alt-F4 helps some people. Certainly everyone should be very cautious about installing any Add-Ins to Outlook -- not least Add-Ins authored by Microsoft.

Note that many corporate customers cannot turn off antiviral scanning of Outlook, a common problem that I suspect occurs when PST files get large (mine are GBs).

Rumor has it Office 2007 SP2 will fix these problems, but the Outlook shutdown and COM architecture problems have been around for over 9 years. They won't go away easily.

Update 12/23/08: In comments William Lefkovics points us to more optimistic  spin on SP2. Microsoft will cut off dangling references – whether the Add-ins are ready or not.

My cynical suspicion is that Microsoft will find they’re going to kill large pieces of their LiveMeeting/Sharepoint/Communicator platform by doing this. I’m also a bit skeptical of Ryan’s explanation; the problem is not only that the processes hang, it’s that on relaunch Outlook creates a new process rather than reconnecting to the running process.

Google Video Chat - a status report - Grade B-

I've been updating my initial post on Google Video Chat, but I think I've enough experience now to offer a status report. I've been testing XP to XP, and XP to OS X connections using Firefox.

1. It takes a lot of CPU capacity. Practically speaking I think you want a dual core machine. It takes a lot of CPU capacity on OS X machines. On XP, compared to other video solutions, it's relatively efficient. It's Intel only of course, so G5 need not apply.
2. The XP connections are pretty stable. If there's a nasty firewall involved, especially a nasty firewall with lousy bandwidth (some hotels for example) things get choppy and sound lags. If the connections are decent the results are quite good.
3. OS X to XP connections are unstable. They work within a LAN, and they may work point-to-point with reasonably good connections, but when you add firewalls and VPN into the mix it falls apart.
4. Google's Chat Help Forum is pretty worthless and so is their FAQ. I can't find any significant documentation.
5. The workflow for establishing a "trust relationship" so that chat is possible is awkward and cryptic.
6. The Chat contacts list UI is a mess, don't bother with it. Things work best if you type the gmail address of the person you wish to contact. Searching for a name then reviewing the menu of options isn't too bad.
7. The Gmail integration is awkward.
8. Google's notification / availability status workflow is a mess.
9. Be sure to use the Settings menu of Gmail -> Chat Settings -> test connection.

I'd grade Google's Video Chat effort as C+. That sounds bad, but the rest of the class is B- to F, and the B-kids are trending downwards and might drop out of school.

I'll update the grades in a month or so.

Update 1/6/09: I bumped the grade in the post title to B-. We've been doing more corporate testing and have found:

1. The voice quality when used with our Logitech Vision Pro (OS X, but we use them on XP machines because they don't require drivers and don't burden the CPU to do light correction and focusing) webcams is superb.
2. Even on our creaky Dell laptops and feeble VPN network connections we can run both a point-to-point video conference and a LiveMeeting 2003 screen sharing session at the same time. Video degrades gracefully and audio remains excellent. This is actually pretty amazing, if you try to use LiveMeeting's native low quality video alongside LiveMeeting screensharing the video simply dies.

All the other problems persist, but the fundamental technology on XP is truly amazing.

Now if they can fix their OS X problems and come up with a $#!Now if they can fix their OS X problems and come up with a $#!$&^ notification solution ...
amp;^ notification solution ...

Update 2/24/09: Grade A-: The OS X client now seems comparable to the Windows client. Both drop sessions every hour or so. The quality can be astounding. Usability is astoundingly bad however. Still, beats Skype and iChat easily.

Update 10/29/09: We had too many connection drops for this to be really feasible for use at work. We're retrying with 'nice to have' non-critical video only connections. We assume this is more issues with our network than with GVC. I have discovered a way to separate the chat from the image; if you have Google Talk installed (XP only) you have an extra chat window, so that can be managed separately from the video-associated chat box.

Mac OS 10.5.6 problem - the quick summary

The 10.5.6 installer was screwed up. It may be fixed now, but most geeks will download the entire 700MB+ Compo Update.

There are other things broken however ...

Mac OS 10.5.6 problems? Apple suggests shampoo | Register Hardware

.... It should also be mentioned that Apple's 'advice' doesn't address any of the other problems experienced by 10.5.6 updaters, such as dropped network connections, audio 'pops' upon restart, Mail.app refusing to quit or failing to connect, problems with Apache and Contribute, and iSights going blind. (Oh, and if this last one has happened to you, make sure to reset both the SMU and the SMC.)...

I'll wait another week.

Google -- please give me those backlinks ...

Come on Blogger, please give me backlinks ...

Gordon's Notes: WordPress's possibly related posts -- I want this from Blogger

.... This feature is core to my memory extension strategy ....

I want a Google Blogger "possibly related posts" feature that follows links and tags and, heck, textual analysis to create entries -- and that lets me choose whether to restrict to my own domains or open it up....

Google, I'll give you money if you do this.

Pretty puh-lease?

PS. Oh, yeah. And fix BlogThis, and give us label (tag) feeds, and emulate Yahoo Pipes! and ...

Update for the PS - 2/2/09: Damnit, there are label feeds -- it's just not documented.

Blogger is not updating web pages correctly -> the fix

I've just discovered that nothing I've published since Dec 11th is appearing on the primary web page (front page) of Gordon's Notes.

My posts are all visible in Blogger, they are being published, they are appearing in the monthly indices, they show in my feeds, but the main page isn't displaying them.

Weird Blogger bug. I'll see if I can fix it by switching templates.

Update: It was easy to fix. I made some small edits to the most recent post that displayed on the main page, then saved it as draft. All the missing posts then appeared on the front page. I then republished the "bad" post and all seems well. If that hadn't worked I would have tried editing the oldest "hidden" post.