Prediction: The browser as a dominant computing platformJanuary 12, 2009
This one is rocket science either, but I expect the next decade, ok, even the next two decades, will see the Internet/Web/Browser become a more and more dominant computing platform.
Part of this power will come from the "cloud", but part of it will come from browsers that allow powerful programming languages to be used to develop in-browser software that rivals desktop software for richness. Quite likely the distinction between these in-browser applications and desktop applications will become increasingly blurred. Want to use a word processor, spreadsheet, graphics program? Easy. Regardless of OS, fire up the program via the web without sacrificing much if any functionality, and have all of your data available to you via the cloud.
Google Chrome is starting to drive this process by introducing what I consider to be revolutionary JavaScript performance. But this is just the first step: Ultimately, the browser needs to allow a truly powerful language like C# to run at near-native speeds, and to be able to interact with the browser page in ways much simpler/richer than happens today.
Once this really comes to fruition, it will make our software so much easier to update, like it is today using a web app, but without sacrificing functionality, and our data will be anywhere and everywhere. What a great computing platform.
A few minutes with Windows 7January 12, 2009
It has been a fun couple of weeks with the introduction of an iMac to our house, completing my Grace project, and today, installing Windows 7.
I've only had a few minutes to play with Windows 7, but already I'm very impressed. I think that any time you install a new OS and find, first of all, that the installer is very easy, and secondly, that the OS boots up quickly once you're done -- it makes for a very strong first impression.
Windows boots up on my P4 3.0GHz machine in 72 seconds, compared with 5-10 minutes for my XP partition to boot up and have the hard disk settle down. What struck me even more than the 72 seconds was that the hard disk was completely inactive once the OS was up and running. A beautiful silence. Not something I'm used to with Windows!
And then of course I start noticing things in the UI. The most noticeable thing is that the task bar looks a bit different, and when you open multiple copies of IE, they stack nicely together. I'm extremely impressed with this UI design. It is very space efficient and intuitive.
There is also some very pretty visual polish: When you mouse over the IE icon in the task bar, there is a dynamic lighting effect below the icon that is buttery smooth. Nice!
Next is the system tray, which sports a new "action centre". It groups notification messages from tray programs in a very convenient way, reducing the distracting "noise" from this area. Another solid improvement.
Interestingly, the "show desktop" button is an unlabeled rectangle just to the right of the system tray. I like it. Sometimes UI designers can get away with things that are, yes, less intuitive to start, but once you know they're there, your brain doesn't have any trouble finding them. The result is a very space efficient "show desktop" button. Well done.
Next up: The "Libraries" item in the task bar. One click gets you to a new window that gives you access to your documents, music, pictures, and videos. I like it. These things deserve one-click access.
Some more impressive visual polish is the pane on the left side of the Libraries window: It's a tree view, but all of the "+" and "-" icons that were replaced with arrow-ey icons are hidden by default. Once you mouse over the left pane, they fade in. Beautiful. It reduces clutter. This is a UI technique that I've never really seen before, but I like it a lot.
Borrowing from Vista, the Start Menu has a "search program and files" text box that allows you to start a program by simply typing, for example, "calc", and pressing enter. What this does is harness some of the power of the command line (DOS, UNIX, etc.) right at the core of a graphical OS. It really is brilliant if you ask me, one of the best additions that Vista brought to Windows. If your hands are on the keyboard, you can simply press the "Windows" key to open the Start Menu and then type right away without any clicking, since the text box has focus by default. Take for example the driver I just downloaded for my wireless adapter. I remember it's name started with "wua", so I press the Windows key and type "wua", and within half a second the file is staring me right in the face. One bit of polish that is missing is that you have to press the down arrow on your keyboard twice before the first item in the list becomes selected for you to then press ENTER to open it. But hey, it's minor.
Feedback: Microsoft has put a "Send Feedback" hyperlink in the title bar of each Window. Fantastic! The whole point of a beta is to get feedback, so why not make it incredibly easy. Example after example, I'm really really impressed with the Windows UI team.
There are a lot of good things happening in Redmond these days, which is such a sigh of relief after Vista.
A significant day
January 11, 2009
Today was a significant day for me: I finished work on the first phase of my "Grace" project, which concludes about 7 months and 250 hours of work. The application is up and running in the kitchen, powered by a 20" iMac, a Voice Tracker array microphone, and a lot of elbow grease!
I opened up our calendar and spoke each of our January appointments to the application, followed by a few spoken queries, and things appear to be working quite well. Meredith came downstairs for me to show it off, and we had some good laughs as we often do. If it wasn't for Meredith's idea to get an iMac, we'd have a 2" hole drilled in our kitchen counter right now!
Working on this project has been a phenomenal opportunity for me personally. There is something magical about using your imagination, letting your mind dream, and then with hard work turning that vision into reality.
Along those lines, one of the over arching themes of this project has been to use my own imagination rather than researching and adapting what others have done, and I think that is the aspect of the project that I enjoyed the most. Surely research is important, and the way things are usually done, but I wonder whether progress is sometimes limited by the approach of always adapting the work of others. For me, it is wonderfully freeing to blow the doors wide open and simply dive in with as much imagination as possible.
So with that, I express my thankfulness to our Heavenly Creator for a wonderful opportunity, when life is sweet and appreciated dearly.
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