OnLive puts Windows 7 on your iPad

OnLive announced a new cloud service this week called OnLive Desktop which gives you access to a Windows 7 machine running on the cloud with Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. The free "as-available" version of OnLive Desktop provides you with 2GB of storage, while the $9/month Pro plan offers 50GB of storage and high priority access. The company states that OnLive Desktop will soon be available for Android, iPhone, PC (oh, the irony), and Mac.

Presumably the OnLive Desktop service will provide fast, maintenance-free access to a Windows PC and its applications from your iPad without having to keep the remote machine updated with security patches and anti-virus software. While such remote desktop applications have been available on the iOS and Android devices for years, this move should come as no surprise. The decision to sell its extra capacity makes sense for OnLive, whose business model has traditionally been selling online access to video games running on its servers.

It will be interesting to see how the market reacts to this new service. The awkwardness of using Windows 7 with the iPad's touch interface could might be enough to deter large-scale adoption. While there are still a lot of unanswered questions, OnLive Desktop is sure to be the source of geeky experiments, fun hacks, and technical debates in the coming weeks.

Adblock Plus Now Allows "Non-Intrusive" Ads by Default

Firefox extension Adblock Plus has long been useful for removing annoying ads from web sites (including video pre-roll ads). Recently, the developer made an interesting change that allows "non-intrusive" advertisements by default. The following explains the change and is taken directly from the Adblock Plus site:

"Starting with Adblock Plus 2.0 you can allow some of the advertising that is considered not annoying. By doing this you support websites that rely on advertising but choose to do it in a non-intrusive way. And you give these websites an advantage over their competition which encourages other websites to use non-intrusive advertising as well. In the long term the web will become a better place for everybody, not only Adblock Plus users. Without this feature we run the danger that increasing Adblock Plus usage will make small websites unsustainable."

However noble their mission, most Adblock Plus users would probably prefer to continue to block all ads. To change the behavior to revert back to blocking all ads, click the Adblock Plus icon in Firefox and select Filter preferences...

Then, un-check the option "Allow non-intrusive advertising"

What happens when your hard drive dies on your Mac

As if you needed another reason to backup your important data such as years of family photos, videos, digital works of art, or other irreplaceable files, this will serve as another reminder. I visited the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store this evening and while waiting I witnessed the desperation of a woman whose hard drive failed on her MacBook Pro. The young man at the Genius Bar said they would replace the hard drive for $132, but they had to take the old hard drive, and they would not do any data recovery on it. The woman was in shock and lamented the fact that if she were to let the Apple Store replace her hard drive, she would lose all her files and Apple would not give her the opportunity to try to recover the data on the failed drive.

It is apparently Apple's policy to not attempt any data recovery on any failed drives, likely due to liability and privacy concerns. Feeling bad for the woman, and knowing that I might be able to salvage her data using some data recovery tools, I offered to try to recover her files myself (I'm a consumer IT moonlighter in addition to my day job working in IT for a large corporation). I stated that I would not charge her if I was unable to retrieve any data from her failed hard drive. Due to logistics with her travel, she needed to get her MacBook Pro running immediately and so she chose to have Apple replace the hard drive and lost all data from her old hard drive.

Whether you choose Backblaze, Carbonite, CrashPlan, Dropbox, Live Mesh, Mozy, SpiderOak, SugarSync (my personal favorite), Wuala, or one of the hundreds of other online backup/sync services out there, having a backup will save you in cases such as this where your data is damaged, irretrievable, or stolen. Be safe!

The beginning of the end for Firefox

The web browser is probably one of the most important applications we run on our computers today. For many, it's the one application that remains open during an entire work day and is the means by which we connect, share, troubleshoot, learn, create, entertain and socialize. Think about what it would be like to go through your day without launching your web browser at all. Given that the web browser is such an important component of modern computing, it goes without saying that the stability and performance of a web browser is critical to its success and utility. In the last year or so, the performance and stability of the popular Firefox web browser has started to crumble.

Firefox has a memory leak problem (and has for some time starting around version 4, possibly even version 3). Mozilla's support site even states, "Firefox sometimes uses more memory (RAM) than it should. This can make Firefox slower, and in extreme cases, it can even make Firefox crash." The article then goes on to provide suggestions on how you (yes, YOU) can help Firefox use less memory. It's just sad that the web browser that upset Internet Explorer's dominance back in the early 2000s, and that was once the browser king in techie circles has started to show its age. Now on version 8, Firefox is performing extremely slow and is consuming too much memory for users that run the browser for an extended period of time with multiple tabs open.

For example, I'm running Firefox 8 on Mac OS X 10.6.8 and have the following app tabs pinned: Gmail, Hotmail, Google+, Twitter, and Google Reader (with additional tabs occasionally opened as needed). I'm using the following Firefox add-ons: Ad-Block Plus, Advertising Cookie Opt-Out (Google), Firebug, LastPass, NoScript, RSS Icon (necessitated by Mozilla removing the RSS icon from Firefox), Stylish, User Agent Switcher, Web Developer, and Xmarks. I've had Firefox running since this morning at around 7:30 am and it is now about 4:15 pm. Firefox is currently consuming 1.31GB of memory and spiking the CPU utilization around 15-26% with switching between tabs and user input becoming extremely sluggish:

I tried switching to Google's Chrome browser for a few weeks and noticed better performance, but I found myself missing the add-ons (notably NoScript and Ad-Block Plus, which don't have equivalent-performing Chrome counterparts) that I have become dependent upon over the years. There are also certain features of Firefox that I prefer over Chrome.  Such as when a pinned app tab lights up whenever there's an update, a new email, tweet, etc. Or, the ability to customize the user interface using Stylish to reduce the excessive space between bookmarks on the bookmarks toolbar.

Firefox has been a web browser favorite of geeks and power users in the past due to its rich ecosystem of add-ons and its ability to be highly customized. It has also not suffered from as many security exploits as Internet Explorer over the years. Third party developers have even developed Firefox add-ons to help fix the memory leak issue, which is particularly telling of the loyalty of the Firefox community. Between March 22, 2011 and Nov 8, 2011 Firefox went from version 4 to version 8. Firefox 9 is planned for Dec 20, 2011 with regular release cycles planned up through March 13, 2012 when Firefox 12 will be released. Regardless of the rapid release cycles and promised fixes to the browser, Firefox continues to be plagued with serious performance and stability issues. Let's hope Mozilla is able to resolve these issues soon, otherwise, there's going to be a major migration to Chrome and other more stable browsers. Thoughts?

How wireless carriers rip you off when you port your number

We recently ported our numbers from T-Mobile to Sprint, and then to AT&T all within a couple of weeks. We had a bad experience with Sprint, and bailed to AT&T after one week. We initially ported our number from T-Mobile on 10/14/11, but T-Mobile still charged for services through the remainder of our billing cycle which went to 11/06/11. Apparently, it is a common practice for wireless carriers to continue to charge you for services that you are not using when you port your number (because porting your number effectively cancels your service with a wireless carrier). Even though you cancel your service (we were on a month-to-month contract with T-Mobile and otherwise paid no early termination fees), the last bill is not prorated. T-Mobile does it, Sprint does it, Verizon does it, AT&T does it (although I could not specifically find it in their lengthy wireless customer agreement), and I'm sure every other wireless carrier does as well.

I was unaware of and annoyed by this sneaky little arrangement which is definitely spelled out in the T-Mobile terms and conditions. No one wants to pay two full cell phone bills in one month, even though you are effectively only using one carrier at a time. I'm not aware of too many other services where canceling your service doesn't result in a prorated final bill (maybe gym memberships?). How is the wireless industry able to do this? Indeed, the world still asks how they are able to keep charging so much for the quaint, old service we call text messaging when it only consumes 160 bytes of data. I suppose it's their way of recouping the costs of number porting. When I spoke to a T-Mobile representative about it, I got reprimanded that I should have read the terms and conditions more carefully.

UPDATE 11/16/11: Today I received our final bill from Sprint for the 7 days we were with them: $230. Ouch! Yes, $230 for 7 days of miserable Sprint service, during which time we dropped 99% of all voice calls and got only 1 bar of signal at my house and averaged data speeds of about 500kbps. The bill was originally $245, but they erroneously began charging me for Sprint service from October 11, even though our iPhone 4S phones didn't show up at our house and get activated until October 14. There is something morally wrong with the wireless industry forcing consumers into such anti-competitive agreements that discourage subscribers from switching mobile carriers, and continuing to charge for service when no service is actually being used by the consumer.

"Where are we going?" Another amazingly beautiful time-lapse photography video

Amazon Prime customers can now checkout books from the "Lending Library" on Kindle devices

You can now checkout books on your Kindle device from Amazon's "Lending Library" if you are a subscriber to Amazon Prime ($79/year). There are no due dates, but hold on there, bookworm! Only one book at a time, and it is only available on Kindle devices, not on Kindle apps. The Kindle app is available on virtually all mobile platforms and computer operating systems, and is often preferred over more limited platforms such as Apple's iBooks, which is limited to iOS devices. This might have been enough for me to keep my Amazon Prime subscription for another year, if the Lending Library were available on all Kindle apps! (Sources: Amazon, The Verge)

My Nerdy Apple Fanboy Halloween Costume

iOS 5 Draining iPhone 4/4S Battery

A number of iPhone users are reporting that iOS 5 appears to be draining the iPhone battery way faster than it should (dropping 12% every 30 minutes in some cases), and that the phone is hot to the touch. Indeed my wife and I have experienced extremely short battery life on our iPhone 4S on Sprint. I have also noticed that the iPhone 4S seems to run a little hot. One user suggested that resetting the network settings appears to have helped some (General > Reset > Reset Network Settings). Too bad that fix won't do anything to fix the poor quality of Sprint's network. ZING!

UPDATE #1 (10/29/11): One possible explanation for poor battery life in the iPhone 4S is a bug in a location-based setting that detects your time zone based on your location. The bug causes the iPhone 4S to continually poll cell phone towers to update your location and calculate your time zone. The bug "causes the Setting Time Zone function to keep the location tracking circuitry running constantly, draining battery power considerably." This would also explain why the iPhone 4S feels warmer than it should. It might be worth it to try disabling this setting temporarily, at least until an official fix is available from Apple.

UPDATE #2 (11/3/11): Apple formally acknowledged the iPhone 4S/iOS 5 battery issues and promised a fix within a couple of weeks.

It's Official: Sprint's network stinks

Article first published as It's Official: Sprint's Network Stinks on Technorati.

Last Friday, my wife and I received our new iPhone 4S phones after pre-ordering them on Sprint.com. We chose Sprint because it was the cheapest plan and offered unlimited data with the iPhone. After spending 4 days with the iPhone 4S on Sprint, we are canceling and switching to AT&T. Sprint's 3G data network is terribly slow when compared to AT&T, we only get 1 signal bar at home, and we've dropped almost all calls today from our home.

This evening, we tested an iPhone 4S side-by-side on AT&T and Sprint, and it was very telling (see this speed test comparison for further validation). Sprint averaged about 1 Mbps or less on download while AT&T averaged around 3 Mbps. I went to the Sprint store to return my phone, and while waiting, I ran a speed test (with a full 5 signal bars) and sadly got the following dismal results (543ms ping, 0.14 Mbps download, 0.01 Mbps upload):

Netflix: Just kidding, no Qwikster

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced in a company blog post that it will be keeping DVDs under the Netflix.com site and the company will continue to offer both streaming video and physical DVDs under one company. This change comes after Netflix announced last month that Netflix would no longer be offering DVDs by mail, but instead would spin off the DVD portion of its service to a new company with a separate website called Qwikster. Due to customer feedback, Netflix has reversed this decision. "This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster," Hastings said. Long live the red Netflix DVD envelopes!

Apple announces the iPhone 4S

Tim Cook, Phil Shiller, and Scott Forstall took the stage in Cupertino, CA today and announced the iPhone 4S. It didn't have the same excitement as events from the days of Steve Jobs (no "one more thing"), but some of the things they showed off were pretty impressive.

Specs

Image courtesy of Engadget

While not a major form factor redesign, the iPhone 4S features significant internal upgrades including: A5 dual-core processor, a dual-core graphics processor (up to 7x faster), an upgraded 8MP camera (f2.4 lens), the ability to shoot full 1080p HD video with image stabilization, and iOS 5 with Apple's "Siri" voice-recognition intelligent assistant (iPhone 4S only). In terms of battery life, Phil Schiller stated that the iPhone 4S will have up to 8 hours talk time (up from 7 hours with iPhone 4).  The antenna has also been re-engineered to utilize two separate antennae (one for sending and one for receiving, which purportedly allow for 4G-like speeds), and now includes the ability to operate on both GSM and CDMA cellular networks (a true world phone).

Pricing and Availability
The iPhone 4S will go on sale October 14 (pre orders Oct 7) in US, Canada, Australia, UK, France, Germany and Japan. iPhone 4S pricing: 16GB ($199), 32GB ($299), 64GB ($399). The iPhone 4S will be available on AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. iPhone 4 will cost $99 and the iPhone 3GS 8GB will be free with a 2-year contract.

iOS5
iOS5 received quite a bit of coverage this June at WWDC, and Apple today reminded us of many of its features. Aside from Siri, which promises to let you do everything on your phone with voice commands, one feature in particular that I think is super cool is the location-based reminders. For example, you could set a reminder to alert you when you leave work, etc. Also new in iOS 5 is a "Find My Friends" feature that will allow you to see the location of friends who have opted to share their location (even if it is only temporarily, such as at a sporting event or concert). iOS 5 will be released October 12 and will only work with iPhone 3GS or newer iPhones and iPod touch versions 3 or newer (Siri will only work with iPhone 4S).

The iPhone 4S doesn't appear to be an earth-shattering redesign promising to upset the whole mobile industry, as anticipated by some; however, with a significant internal hardware upgrade, and tons of new features in iOS 5, Apple has further strengthened its position in the market. For someone like me who is using a jailbroken iPhone 3G on T-Mobile, I am due for an upgrade, and the iPhone 4S seems like a perfect opportunity to do so. Now, AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint? (Sources: Engadget, Mashable, gdgt)