A use for Scroll Lock... but not on a keyboard.

Back when I first bought my e-ink Nook I kept trying to put into words everything I was thinking about ebooks as a concept. There was always something nagging at me about the format and I couldn't exactly place it, though I knew it had something to do with the "page " metaphor.

Now that I'm reading a couple books on my full tablet, I think I'm realizing the issue more: "pages" make no sense to an ebook. My problem before was that they DO make sense for current e-ink devices, since they update so slowly and can't handle scrolling well.

Books have pages because that's the format that was convenient for the medium. When I'm reading a novel on a computer screen, why can't I just endlessly scroll? It's annoying to have to "flip the page"... *there is no page*.

I understand the desire to keep page numbers to compare with the physical book, but that's also part of the problem. Since you can adjust type size and other elements in e-readers, it might take you several "next page" to advance to the next displayed page number... it's all very arbitrary for the format. An e-reader "next page" is actually a "next screen" command... which works like the "Page Down" key on a keyboard...

Luckily, this is something that can be addressed in the reader without having to alter the books themselves. Now if I could get someone at Barnes and Noble to add an "infinite scroll" option to their Android reader, perhaps with some sort of "scroll lock" feature to prevent accidental scrolling...

Of course, this still assumes that a "book" is a single-directional flow of text in one giant progression, which is barely less shortsighted than forcing the page metaphor in the first place. Ultimately, "e-books" can and will be more like websites, with internal cross-referencing, and large scrolling "pages" that may (or may not) progress in a fixed order one after another. For example, it might make sense to break apart each chapter in a novel into separate sections. Or how about one long epic story following multiple characters, where you choose *which* characters to follow, and you see only the appropriate chunks?

Oooh. That one's good.

Already regretting it?

I've been using Linux as my primary OS for a good number of years now. However, a series of events has convinced me to use Windows as the OS for my next computer. I feel a little dirty about it, but now is not the time to discuss my reasons.

Now is the time to discuss my comeuppance.

Since the soon-to-exist Windows box will be my primary (or, at least, most powerful) box, it is of course necessary that all my data be accessible on that machine. I've been doing occasional backups of all my data from my Ubuntu box onto an external drive formatted as NTFS, so it would be possible to recover to Windows if necessary.

Today I started the process of moving things over, and figuring out how to live within the file structure chaos that is Windows 7. And that's when I hit my first "... Really? I mean... really?" moment.

Linux filesystems allow for more characters than NTFS does, both in length of file or path names and in individual characters. While copying a folder with hardware user guides, I hit an error.

"Right," I thought, "Windows doesn't allow quotation marks in the filename. I'll just fix it."

Only... I can't. It's impossible. Windows won't let you do it.

See, in order to rename a file, SOMETHING has to specify the OLD name. And when you try to give it a new name, it fails because the old name is invalid. Of course, Windows Explorer has no trouble SHOWING you the supposedly invalid name; it just can't DO anything with it. The error dialog even TELLS you to use a different name. Notice that it doesn't give the option to "specify a different name" RIGHT THERE.

In the end, I had to power up my Ubuntu box, find the same file, rename it on that box, copy it to a shared drive on the Windows box, and then, finally, move it to the proper place.

Other things I copied over were my music files. Several album names (ad downloaded via Amazon) were too long, and a few others contained invalid symbols ( : " ). Before tonight I didn't even know that WinMerge could compare directory structures. I don't know what I should have expected from an operating system that thinks you're too stupid to understand file extensions.

I haven't even started shopping for what will become my new Windows box. Already I wonder if I've made a poor decision. But it's the only way I'll be able to take full advantage of Diablo 3, so...

Edit: Oh, and of course the perennial favorite: Windows can't handle filenames with "only" extensions like, say .htaccess ... Right. Good job.

Managing Simplicity on Mobile Devices

I finally figured out what really bugs me about the way you're expected to use mobile devices (Android, iOS).

You're limited to one application, full-screen at a time (widgets and such not withstanding) but you must deal with EVERY app installed at once when not using one particular one.

There's no nice little organization unless you specifically create one on your home screens. The Android "app drawer" is the worst combination of the Windows Start Menu and your desk's junk drawer; everything's in one place regardless of their purpose, how often you use them, or whether they're related to each other.

Even running apps work this way. Android has a method to switch to recent apps, which roughly means ones you may have been in recently. But since there's no way to technically *exit* apps, there's no distinction between ones you're done with and ones you may have just switched out of for a minute.

A standard desktop has multiple states: Not running, active (windowed/fullscreen), and inactive (minimized to various places or just not the active program). Android has equivalents, but no control over any of those states except Active.

Usually this isn't much of a problem, honestly. But just now I accidentally clicked a link in a Twitter client that sent me to my browser. Normally, the global "back" button would send me back a screen/app, except that the Browser intercepts that as "back in history", which OFTEN makes sense, but not here. Since the browser never actually closes, I would have to Back though tons of pages to get the expected behavior. So instead, I hit the "recent apps" button and see 18 apps, very few of which I would consider "running". Some I haven't accessed for 20 hours!

I realize these aren't meant to be desktop replacements, but management of application state would be wonderful.

Android in the House

My Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 arrived last week. Due to various events, I've only had limited time to play with it, but here are several of my initial observations:

Android syncing is awesome.  This is only my second Android device. I've had my Nexus One for a year and a half now, but I'm not the type to throw out perfectly good technology for a new Shiny (though I have been having more issues with storage space, recently...). As such, this was the first time I experienced logging into a new device and watching all my apps and contacts immediately start syncing. That was pretty cool.

Android syncing is...odd. Later, I noticed that it didn't download all the apps I have on my phone, and there wasn't an obvious pattern. Some of the larger ones (Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons) didn't download, but neither did an alternate keyboard and some other odds and ends.


Honeycomb is not Gingerbread. I was expecting the interface to feel different; I'd seen enough videos of it, after all. But it does feel like an entirely different system. Much of that is because of a sense of freedom. The larger screen is just a lot less claustrophobic. The configuration screens are familiar but different and, most noticeably, the "App Drawer" is completely different. Similar to the market, you can look at either All Apps or My Apps and, honestly, I'm not sure I can tell the difference other than the preinstalled apps (stock and Samsung-specific) don't show up under "my apps". But that didn't stop some of them from suddenly showing up on my phone, either. Very strange.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is not stock Android. Though I'd tried, I hadn't seen much discussion only about whether this device was stock Android. I figured it wouldn't be far off and, honestly, I still don't know if it's been modified beyond the base installed apps, including a Samsung App Market, which makes no sense to me (especially since it wasn't even on the home screen by default). However, it DOES ship with a Samsung keyboard replacement. And... I don't know why. It seems to have no benefit over the stock keyboard whatsoever. In fact, it feels exactly like the stock keyboard, but with ugly gray buttons like it was written for Windows 95. Mostly I was frustrated by the missing quick-access for the numbers on the top row of keys, until I switched to the stock keyboard and found that that, too, didn't have it. So I bought Thumb Keyboard and haven't looked back.

Honestly, I haven't bothered to look at the preinstalled apps much (except for Pulse, just because I recognized it). I plan on doing so, but I generally consider anything preinstalled to be bloadware, so it'll take me a while.


Android Honeycomb apps... need... more... apps. The app environment for Android tablets is nowhere as evolved as it is for the iPad, and I expected that. I was surprised, however, to realize that not even the Facebook app is Honeycomb-optimized. Neither is Tweetdeck, which I would have thought was a shoe-in, if it weren't generally expected that Twitter is just going to kill it off. Even though this is the same OS as my phone and it runs the same apps, I feel like I'm starting a whole new search for the right tools.

In general, I'm still getting used to the concept of having a tablet; deciding what things work best on the phone vs a larger screen, finding new apps to take advantage of the increased space, etc. But I do love the batter life so far. It's never been far from the charger, but the only time I've had to plug it in came after several sessions of various games chewing through the screen and processor.

Android on the Way

I ordered myself a Galaxy Tab 10.1, and it will arrive on Wednesday. I pretend I bought it as my birthday present to myself, to negate the guilt for buying another gadget I don't really need.

I had previously told myself that I would hold out for a bit longer For the next full version of Android/Honeycomb, to find out if the rumors of an "official" Nexus Tablet were going to pan out... to just generally get to the next generation of the Android tablets.

In the end, I decided opting for the polished end of the first generation would work for me. I had to convince myself it would be okay to upgrade later, should a more ideal device come along. In this case, I am willing to take the hit on selling a device used in order to have one sooner. I also tell myself I could try developing for it.

I went into this year planning to buy no less than three tablet devices. One, the ASUS Eee Slate is a Windows-based tablet with Wacom pen input. I bought that specifically to play with Photoshop and a pen.  The second was an ASUS Eee Note... a non-backlit grayscale LCD device with pen input, specifically for note taking. See, I love the idea of pen-based input, at least for things you'd usually use a pen for: notes, drawing, etc. Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn't really gotten it right and the Eee Note is given up as a no-show in the US. So... I'm one for three.

The third tablet was always going to be an Android tablet, I just wasn't sure which one. The iPad is still the best-in-breed for this type of device, but I just have no interest to step into that ecosystem; I deal with enough companies fighting to pull me into their exclusive environment already.

So... tablet two of the threatened three arrives this week. We'll see how I integrate it into my day. Unfortunately, I let one of my criteria slip and learned only recently that this device doesn't yet support the Netflix app. Oops. Well, if it's not supported by the end of the year, there just might be a device that convinces me to upgrade, and I'll feel no guilt for it.