I firmly believe in paying for the movies you own.  In doing so, I believe you should be able to move them to your media server and play them back however you please.  BD+ protection (DRM) prevented this with recent Blu-Ray titles, but latest version of Slysoft's AnyDVD HD overcomes this limitation.

Here is the update notification:

6.4.0.0 2008-03-19

• New (Blu-ray): Removes the BD+ protection from Blu-ray discs! (for increased compatibility with titles released by Twentieth Century Fox )
• New (Blu-ray): Added option to enable / disable BD+ removal
• New (DVD): AnyDVD ripper no longer uses the Windows filesystem, it has now its own UDF parser / reader. Discs which cannot be read by Windows can now be copied with the AnyDVD ripper.
• Fix (Blu-ray): Black display with some BD discs, e.g., "Layer Cake", second release, "The Fugitive", "Wild Things" (all Region B)
• Fix (DVD): Small bugfix in "repairing defective disc structure" function of AnyDVD ripper
• Fix (DVD): Problems with some Arccos protected titles, e.g. "The Grudge", R1, US
• Some minor fixes and improvements
• Updated languages

The update is free for all registered customers, of course. Just install the new version on top of your current version, regardless which version you have installed: http://www.slysoft.com/download.html

Update 8-Apr-2008: Chris Lanier just posted about the program MC Menu Customizer, which automates editing of the start menu. A great alternative to what is posted below!

I recently posted about automatically launching plugins within Vista Media Center. I just came across another improvement that allows editing the order and contents of the Vista Media Center start menu. This, combined with automatic plug-in launching, goes a long way toward giving whatever startup experience you desire.

Quoting bluebucket on The Green Button forums:

I've found a way to edit the standard start menu items in Vista Media Center, but its a hack.

Using this hack I've successfully removed items and even entire strips from the start menu. I suspect that its also possible to change the position of menu items, but I haven't tried yet.

You'll need a resource editor like ResourceTuner from HeavenTools.com.

1. Make a backup of the %SYSTEMROOT%\ehome\ehres.dll
2. Change the security settings of the %SYSTEMROOT%\ehome\ehres.dll to give yourself ownership of the dll. Afterwards change the file rights to full control. If you're running with UAC, then you might need to do some more steps here.
3. Open the ehres.dll in the ResourceTuner.
4. Expand the HTML node

Now the files we're interested in are among others:

STARTMENU.XML - defines the main start menu stripes
SM.ACTIVITIES.XML - defines the menu items under the Task menu
SM.MUSIC.XML - defines the menu items under the Music menu
SM.PICTURES.XML - defines the menu items under the Pictures & Video menu
SM.TV.XML - defines the menu under the Tv menu

5. Choose SM.MUSIC.XML for example, rightclick the node and select Edit Resource. The XML file opens.
6. Now remove the XML tags defining the menu items you do not want. Alternatively make the element into a comment by changing the tag to <!– old tag content –>. It might take a while to get an overview of the structure and maybe some trial and error before the logic of the xml file sinks in. Do not remove the <home:App /> elements though.
7. When you're happy with the changes, click Ok and accept the changes.
8. Select Save As and select the original file (overwriting the existing).
9. Open Vista Media Center and check that the changes work.

Now, since this is a hack, I take no responsibility of how you might break Vista Media Center, destroy your computer or otherwise corrupt the world using this hack.
Also note, that a software update might overwrite your hacked ehres.dll file effectively removing your changes.

For me, Brian Binnerup's My Movies plugin is the most important function of Vista Media Center. It's so useful that I want it to be the default start page every time I turn-on my Vista Media Center PC.

I couldn't figure out how to do that, and this I came across this post on TheGreenButton forums. Here are the details on launching a Media Center plug-in from via the startup folder or from a key on your remote control.

Associate Media Center Plug ins with the Media Center Application:

• Open My Computer or Explorer and navigate to: C:\Program Files\MCE\My Movies\
• Right click on the file MyMovies.mcl
• From the menu choose Open With and choose Media Center.
  • Make sure the checkbox for "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" is checked.

Option 1: Set the Plugin to Automatically Launch when the computer boots:

• Right click on the file C:\Program Files\MCE\My Movies\MyMovies.mcl and create a shortcut
• Copy that shortcut to the Startup folder in the Windows Start menu

Option 2: Have the asterisk key on the remote launch the plug-in:

• Down load a program called HotkeyP (free / open source)
• In the program add a new Hotkey:
  • Check the box for the Shift button
  • In the input box type: 8
  • In the Command input type or navigate to: C:\Program Files\MCE\My Movies\MyMovies.mcl
  • Click OK to save

HotkeyP will need to be running in the System tray, and Now when you press the Asterisks key it will open My Movies.

If you are using the Harmony 880 remote, you can add a button to the LCD display window and name it My Movies. This is necessary because these remotes do not have an Asterisk Key.

Option 3:  Have the Media Center Button or some other dedicated button lauch the plugin
The key c0mbination of Windows logo key+ALT+ENTER launches Windows Media Center. Assign this hotkey to launch the Media Center plugin file instead. For a list of all available keyboard shortcuts in Media Center, see the Microsoft article.

I received a class action law suit notice a couple of weeks ago for my Palm Treo 650. Long story short: the settlement is worthless to the cosnumer and benefits only Palm and the Lawyers. Here's a link to the official settlement site, here is my summary:

• You must provide proof that you sent your Treo 600 or 650 to Palm for repair and fill-out the claim forms.
• You wait for the settlement to be finalized.
• You then purchase a new Palm phone.
• You return your old Treo to Palm along with proof of purchase.
• You receive a $75 rebate.

Here are the reason I think the settlement is terrible:

• The rebate amount is market value for the old phone. Looking a prices of used Treos 650s on Ebay, $75 is somewhere near market value ($50 for a Treo 600). So basically, the settlement gives you market value for a used phone only if you purchase a new Palm phone. Where is the benefit to the consumer? Anyone can sell their used phone for market value, and you don't even have to purchase a new Palm Treo.

• Most repairs were a very long time ago; receipts aren't kept that long.  I had a terrible experience getting my Treo repaired: post 1, post 2. They fixed my screen but flashed an old version of firmware that locked-up the phone and then blamed me for water damage. That was 32 months ago; I don't still have a receipt.  Palm should be providing proof of repair, not the consumer.

• Most people get new phones every two years and won't have 4-year-old Treos to send back to Palm. Treo 600s came out much, much longer than 2 years ago. How many people are going to still have their old Treo 600s to send back to Palm? I replaced my first Treo 650 about 29 months ago and would have already gotten rid of my second one since my contract is up.

• Who wants to buy a new Palm phone anyway? I know I don't. Compensate me for the problems with the old phone; don't force a new one on me. Especially after the bad experiences people are apparently having. Most people want either a Blackberry or an iPhone to replace their Treo. Not a new Treo that looks and acts the same as their old Treo — it's not as if they have some new, compelling products.

Here's what we as consumers can do: Complain. We need a representative in court to complain about the fairness of this settlement. Here are the details from the official claim site:

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that the Final Fairness Hearing, previously scheduled for May
2, 2008, has been continued to May 23, 2008 at 9:30 a.m. at the United States District Court for
the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, 280 South First Street, Courtroom Number
6, San Jose, California 95113.

At this hearing the Court will consider whether the settlement is fair, reasonable, and
adequate. If there are objections, the Court will consider them. Judge Whyte will listen to people
who have asked to speak at the hearing. The Court may also consider how much to pay Co-Lead
Class Counsel. After the hearing, the Court will decide whether to approve the settlement.

I recently needed to removed the drive from a Western Digital My Book External USB/eSATA drive enclosure. Unfortunately, this wasn't an obvious process and this excellent article by Scott Cramer didn't apply to the newer version (1 TB drive) enclosure I have. So here you go, the steps required to disassemble a new-style Western Digital My Book drive enclosure.

1. Locate the two rubber pads on the bottom of the enclosure near the front, curved surface. Remove these two pads. Depress the two tabs below using a small flat-head screwdriver.

1a. With a couple of credit cards, pry the back edge of the casing apart and hold them open with the credit cards. There are some locking mechanisms there that need to be held apart. You can now slide the plastic casings apart.

2. Slide the clear plastic LED front panel conduit forward and remove.

3. Rotate the hard drive/carrier assembly sideways and then lift away from the case

4. Remove the two screws holding the metal connector casing. Slide it upwards and remove it

5. Slide the circuit board upwards (away from the drive), just like you did for the metal casing.

6. Remove the 4 screws holding the hard drive to the metal carrier. You'll see that it is a standard 3.5" desktop SATA drive.

You're done!

Repeat the steps in reverse order to re-assemble the enclosure.

I was very excited to get my new TiVo HD DVRs due to the fact that I didn't have to hack them, add a network adapter, and install MFS_FTP to pull shows (which was a ton of work for my DirecTV TiVos.)  Unfortunately, TiVoToGo show downloads fail on almost all of the programs I've tried to pull.  For example, for a 1 hour show, I can only download the first 1 minute (68 MB).

At first I tried using TiVo Desktop (free download from TiVo.com) to download the programs and experienced the problem.  I figured it was an issue with that software, so I searched for a different method of downloading.  It turns out you can download shows directly from with your browser (details here.)  I tried downloading multiple shows from different browsers on 2 different computers and came up with the same result each time: a very short, partial, incomplete download.

I think this is a bug with the TiVo HD sofware not being able to properly generate the *.tivo file that is re-packaged as it is downloaded to your computer. Each shows bugged-out at the exact same spot regardless which download method was used.  In fact, the only show that downloaded fully was one that pulled from TiVo HD 1 -> TiVo HD 2 -> computer (using multi-room viewing, then downloading to PC.)

At this point, I don't know what the solution is.  It's probably going to require a new version of TiVo software.  I'm hoping they fixed it sooner rather than later.  I know it's not just me; I've seen a few other posts on TiVo Community Forum.  I'm guessing as more people play around with the feature, it will become more of an issue.

I'll post an update when I have one.  In the meantime, if you have any suggestions, please let me know.

I've been unimpressed with Windows Vista on my new Thinkpad T61 so I decided to give Ubuntu Linux a try, despite the fact that there are a few programs I would be missing (Slysoft AnyDVD HD for DVD decryption, TiVo Desktop for extracting files from TiVo HDs, Philips Pronto Edit for updating my Pronto, etc.)

I pre-read this excellent wiki article atThinkWiki.com. As the article mentioned, I did have problems with a blank screen when the CD booted, but the optional Safe Graphics boot option solved that. The installation was very easy. For the first time in the 20 or so times I've installed Linux, I wasn't worried about accidentally partition my hard drive incorrectly and deleting my existing Windows installation. The wizard took care of resizing existing and creating new partitions automatically.

Unfortunately, I ran into to way too many problems to use Ubuntu 7.10 on a daily basis. Some of these may be resolvable, but not without a lot of work. Truthfully, I don't care to devote that much time to it. Here are the issues that are making me stick to Windows Vista:

• The wireless will not connect. I'm using a Linksys WRT54G router with the Linux-based DD-WRT firmware the the plain old WEP encryption. I can see the wireless network, but I can't connect to it. There is no error message and indication how to resolve it. I connected via a wired network and downloaded all the updates, but it still wouldn't connect.
• If I reboot without powering off, the sound card "sticks" and repeats the first 2 seconds of any sound, over and over and over, until I shutdown.
• The sound card continually "chatters" in the background. It sounds like muted Morse Code, perhaps caused by some type of driver interference. Muting the speakers makes no difference. It doesn't do this in Windows.
• The display brightness can't be adjusted once the nVidia drivers were loaded. I can't use the advanced Compiz desktop without these drivers, so I'm missing out on a feature either way. There is a work-around to adjust brightness from a terminal window, but I'd really just rather use the hot keys.
• Tapping the upper right corner of the touchpad caused Ubuntu to switch to a different desktop. But I couldn't consistently pick the right or left desktop; it was random selection. Worst of all, it happened accidentally far too often. I'm guessing this would be a very easy setting to find, but there were too many other issues at this point for me to look into it.
• The Ubuntu boot menu gave me two identically-named options for Windows Vista. The first turned out to be the automated recovery partition and didn't really have anything to do with booting Windows. I know it's easy to edit the config file, but it would have been nice if this were correct from the beginning.

In the end, I'm beginning to feel like this is the best laptop hardware I've ever owned but I'm still is in search of a great operating system. The default Windows Vista Home Basic is OK, but I still have a couple of programs that need XP. And there is still the temporary freeze and "chuck-chuck" sound from the hard drive every 30 or so minutes. But still, it's much better than the Ubuntu install.

To be honest, I'm starting to regret not going for a MacBook Pro. It could dual-boot to Windows when necessary, and I'd be able to run OS X the rest of the time. The purchase would have cost about $800 more, and that is a large price difference to justify, but I think I'd be more pleased with the overall experience.

Update (26-Feb-2008): I've spent more time messing with Ubuntu and am much more pleased with it than I was initially.

• Wireless Works: I was able to get the wireless working flawlessly, no script or configuration required. My problem was due to confusion with the Ubuntu network protocol naming (WEP Passkey vs. WEP HEX, etc.) Too bad it doesn't auto-detect the network type and then try the password you enter to figure out phasskey vs. hex vs. decimal. But at least I finally figured out what was needed and got it working.
• Screen Brightness works: Following the thinkwiki article, I installed ENVY (after multiple unavailable package problems were resolved) and got the latest nVidia drivers, which allows screen brightness to be adjusted.
• Sound Problems Disappeared: The sound problems went away after a few reboots / updates. I don't know what the deal was. I had to switch the default volume control (in the upper nav bar) to control the speaker volume instead of the microphone volume, per the think wiki article.
• System Dock: I installed the AWN (Avant Window Navigator) dock and highly recommend it.
• Touchpad Config & App Launcher: The advanced touchpad configuration tool QSynaptics and keyboard application launcher Gnome Do are two other must-haves.
• Unresolved: I installed Skype (after adding the skype repository) but it will not detect sound from the internal or an external microphone. I can make calls and hear people, but they can't hear me. I worked on this for an hour and gave up.
• Unresolved: Going into sleep mode or hibernate mode causes bad things to happen. It might resume the first time, but never the second time. I have to hold the power button down and reboot. Power management is terrible.
• Unresolved: There is no native AccurateRip compatible CD ripping software; dbPowerAmp Music Converter for Windows has no equal. There is no DVD ripping software that nears the reliability (every DVD protection scheme) and functionality (re-authoring) of AnyDVD and CloneDVD.
• Conclusion: If you have the time, you can get a pretty OS install from Ubuntu. But it's going to take time and I'd rather spend it other ways. Vista Basic is horrible. I'm going to switch to either Vista Ultimate or XP as both do more of what I need with less effort. In the end, I think a Mac hardware and OS is still the best option: great hardware, great software, less time messing with stuff, but at a higher monetary cost.

I needed a new server case due to Antec P180 case becoming much to cramped. After reading many positive forums posts about the Cooler Master Stacker cases, I made my purchase. Here are my thoughts.

To be clear, this is the older Stacker 810 case, not the newer Stacker 830 Evolution. I think the 810 offers many for features for a much lower price; I'm not sure why the 830 is even around.

Th Stacker 810 is a great case if you have a bunch of drives and need a large, well cooled case. If you purchase 2 additional 4-in-3 modules, this case has 14 5.25" drive bays, so it can handle 12 hard drives plus a DVD and a floppy drive. It is extremely large inside and can easily handle pretty much any motherbaord, plus there is a removable motherboard tray. There is a 120mm fan on the top as well as one on the front of each drive bay and the case has provision for two power supplies (one above and one below the motherboard tray.)

My DVD drive was very easy to install in the case, just place a plastic guide rail on the side and slide it into the locking drive bay.

The 4-in-3 drive bay (which fits four 3.5" hard drives in three 5.25" bays and includes a 120mm cooling fan) was not so easy. The drives are secured using screws, but there are 2 panels and 4 rails that must be held in place before sliding it into the front of the case. And if you take it out, it completely fall apart. I would prefer these snap together somehow, but I guess I won't be removing the drives all that often.

If you really want to stretch the capacity of the case, you can use three SuperMicro CSE-M35T-1B 5-in-3 hot-swap SATA enclosures and fit 15 hard drives plus two more 5.25" drives. Personally, I think spending more on drive enclosures than you do on a case is a waste of money. I seen no need to hot-swap drives in a home server, but it is an option if you need the space and can tolerate the loud, high-pitched fan of these SuperMicro enclosures.

This case is designed for a bunch of airflow. The downside of this is that it creates more noise as compared to my almost-completely-sealed-and-silent Antec P180 case. The perforated covers on front of each of the Stacker 810 drive bays are great for airflow, not so great for sound blocking. Luckily, due to the large 120mm fans and super-quiet Samsung drives, the noise is a soft, background noise rather than a higher-pitched, shrill, annoying noise. But hey, this is a server case, and servers should be hidden away in a back room, and not in your living room or home theater. Cooling trumps noise for a server case, and this one has great cooling. I monitored my hard drive temps, and all were at or below 26-degrees C.

Conclusion

Pros:  This is a great case because it is very simple to work with, supports multiple motherboard sizes, has great cooling, and has a large number of drive bays. For the price, it is a very well-made server case.

Cons:  The disadvantages are that it is not super-quiet and it takes up quite a bit of space (more than it really needs to due to so much unused space inside.) Unfortunately, it does not come with a power supply and it only includes one 4-in-3 hard drive module.

Extra Info: Part Number Detail

Unfortunately, there are a bunch of different Stacker 810 cases and the differences are not clear. After some research, I figured out which is which. Here are the details and the part numbers:

• STC-T01-UW - Silver; Dual Power Supply Locations (top & bottom); ATX, mATX, BTX, mBTX motherboards
• STC-T01-UWK - Black; Dual Power Supply Locations (top & bottom; ATX, mATX, BTX, mBTX motherboards
• RC-810-SSN1 - Silver; Single Power Supply Location (bottom); ATX, mATX motherboards
• RC-810-SKN1 - Black; Single Power Supply Location (bottom); ATX, mATX motherboards

If you are looking for accessories, here are some part numbers:

• STB-3T4-E1-GP - 4-in-3 drive bay adapter with fan (case comes with 1 of these)
• RC-880-FKR1 - 3.5" drive bay cover (case comes with 1 of these)
• SPB-S01-E1 - PlexiGlass side window - Silver
• STF-B01-E1-GP - Cross-flow fan

After two years of use, it's time to say farewell to my Palm Treo 650 and start looking for a new phone; this is my longterm wrap-up review. I've used a Palm OS device for the past 8 years. The OS is ancient and hasn't received any significant updates in years, but even so, the Palm Treo line could be so much more they just put some effort into what the consider the status quo. Palm has a new executive chairman (Jonathan Rubinstein of iPod fame), and their new Treo 500 is the first significant step forward in years. Hopefully they will continue to make improvements.

What's Great about the Treo 650

• Ability to install third-party Apps - Treo usability is lacking in many areas, but at least they allow third parties to develop software to make up for them. Password managers, area code look-ups, etc.
• Stability - Other than occasional bluetooth problems, the the Palm OS Treo 650 is extremely stable and reliable — as long as there are no third-party utilities runnings, which add great features but can cause instability with the operating system and each other.
• Battery Life - I always get at least 2 full days out of each charge, and often 4 days. Battery life has never been a problem, even with a 2-year old battery.
• The Keyboard - The keyboard with the hard keys is awesome. People praise the touchscreen keyboard of the iPhone, I'll take a Treo hard key keyboard any day.

Improvements that are Needed - for the pretty much the Entire Palm Treo Lineup

• Too Much Need for Third-Party Software: I think third party apps such be programs such as Password Managers, not utilities that modify the core operating system. But there are so many usability problems, I'd venture a guess that most every Treo Palm OS user has installed a Phone App replacement, a Calender/Launcher replacement, or a Utility to modify behavior of the O/S (Butler, Phone Technician.) These are key applications; the defaults should delight uses, not send them looking for replacements and add-on. Improve the core applications and the interface — because applications that make these type of changes to a device make it much less reliable (I've installed and then been required to uninstall enough of them to know.)
• Bluetooth Headset Auto-transfer is Annoying: When the phone rings, I want to know who is calling and whether or not I should answer it. I don't want to think if I left my bluetooth headset on, if so which pocket it is in, and decide whether or not I need to install it on my ear before answering the phone. What I'd like to see is buttons on the phone for "Ignore Call" or "Answer on Phone" or "Answer via Bluetooth Headset." I don't want the phone to auto-connect to my headset and have me yelling at my pocket while I take the phone from my ear and de-activate the headset. Apple figured this out with the iPhone and I complained about this years ago on Treo forums. But still this feature is not available.
• Power and Data Sync Connector Unreliable and Non-standard: The power connector is fine for charging at home, but I can't get it to stay in the phone when charging in the car. How about a connector with a locking mechanism on it, like Motorola has? Also, the data sync connector is very unreliable; I have to disconnect and reconnect it several times before it will sync with my laptop. I've taken a toothbrush to the contacts on the phone and there has been no improvement. Yeah, the connector has a hotsync button on it, but so what. Why not just use a mini-USB connector to attach to the PC and software to active the sync? The phone could even charge over USB. The current connector sucks. (Note: The new Palm 500 addresses this complaint!)
• No Voice Dialing: There is no voice dialing feature on any Treo. Voice dialing is available on $50 phones but not on a Treo costing several hundred dollars? Ridiculous! Sure, you can purchase the VoiceSignal software to add voice recognition, but the demo version caused me many stability problems. Palm needs to release an integrated, reliable, and fully-functional voice dialing solution.
• No WiFi: A few years ago, Palm stated that wireless carriers would not sell phones with WiFi due to potential for VoIP taking their revenue away. Now every major carrier has a WiFi phone, and Palm hasn't even released drivers to allow use of a SD WiFi card, much less a new model with built-in WiFi. They should have been the first company with a WiFi smartphone, not the last.
• Phone is Off after Crash/Reboot: My Treo did occasionally crash and reboot. When it did, the phone application would not turn on, so my phone would be off and I wouldn't know it. The phone should return to its previous state after a reboot, or at least give the user the option for it to always power-on the phone. (There are 3rd party utilities to add this feature.)
• Main buttons behave differently based on when they are pressed, leading to user confusion. There are 49 buttons and 1 switch on a Treo 650. With so many buttons, why can't they behave consistently? When you press the home button on an iPhone, it does exactly what you'd expect. Not one singe button on a Treo 650 does this!!! Here are some specific compalints:
  • When the "Home" button is pressed once, it goes to the the application list screen, showing the last-viewed category; twice or more and it switches to the next application category as well as the SD memory card applications, or prehaps a list of all applications. Why can't is just go to the same home screen each time so I know what to expect?
  • When the Green "answer button" is pressed once it turns on the phone in the phone screen; twice and it brings up the previous call list, three times and it redials the last number. And if you get stuck in the wrong one of these functions, there is no way to go back. Relegate some of these functions to soft buttons on the screen!
  • Short-cuts to applications and contacts can be assigned to keyboard keys, but shortcuts only work when the phone application is open and won't work when in any other view. Shortcuts need consistency!
    
  • When the Calender button is pressed, it displays the same daily view, which is a good thing. Repeated presses toggle the view between week, month, and daily summary/ to do. Assign discrete functions to buttons. One press of the calender button should only switch to one calender view. Assign an additional view to a double-press of the button. An action (button press) should always result in the same result!
• Bluetooth is very unstable. I have to reboot my phone every 2 weeks because it starts acting weird when using my Palm bluetooth headset and eventually stops working all together. I thought it was the headset, but eventually figured out that it was the phone causing the problems.
• Unable to Copy Files Directly To/From SD Memory Card: When connected to a computer, the SD card doesn't show up as a drive, so you can't copy software to/from the SD card. To make matters worse, Palm Desktop has a utility to copy files to the SD card, but it only allows *.prc files. To get this functionality, you have to purchase yet another third part utility. This should be included by default by Palm.
• No built-in Audio or Video Player - OK, my Treo 650 came with Real Player, but it sucks. We passed the year 2000 mark almost 8 years ago. Include a great music player with support for every file format available and a great video player with support for every video format available. Basically, if you put a great front-end on the TCPMP (The Core Pocket Media Player), you'd make a lot of people happy.
• A New Form Factor Is Needed: The Treo 500 / 800 is a step in the right direction. Thin is in. But how about a larger (iPhone-like) screen and a slide-out keyboard (HTC Kaiser.) In fact, why not take a HTC Titan and put your name on OS on it. It even has WiFi.
• HotSync Manager Odd Pop-up Messages: Every time I boot, I get a message stating "the selected port, COM1, is not available at this time." No kidding. My computer has never had a COM1. It has a COM4 for my Bluetooth connection, and when I open the HotSync config it shows COM4 being selected and no other options, so why must I be subjected to this error message every time I logon to my PC?

• Palm Desktop Software Availability: Why can't I download the latest released version from the Palm site? Why is it only included on a CD that shipped with my Treo? Just give me the latest download. And while I'm at it, why did it take 6 months after the launch of Windows Vista to release a beta version that is compatible? Shouldn't the beta have been available 6 months before Vista was launched?
• Palm Desktop Alarm Reminder Application Crashes: It crashes every time I come out of hibernation. When I finally reboot, the Alarm program starts and pop-up reminders from the past 2 weeks fill my screen. Why must it crash? If it does crash, why doesn't it restart itself? Shouldn't I be able to depend on it to remind me of appointments?

Conclusion

There are many, many opportunities for Palm to make improvements and delight their customers the way Apple has with the iPhone. I really hope Palm does just that.

As I stated in an earlier post, Google Reader is the best RSS Feed Reader on the Internet. However, it is not perfect. And the more I use it, the more potential for improvement I see. Here is my list of what I'd like to see changed with Google Reader:

• Lack of Different Default Views for Sites: Some websites (such as Digg.com) have hundreds of posts each day. For them, I'd like the default videw to be the List View, where it shows only the post title and the first 20 or so words from the entry. This is a much more space-efficient view and allows for quicker browsing through the headlines, since with this many entries, you're going to ignore most of them. But for sites with only a few entries, say less than 10 or so unread items, I'd like the default view to be the Expanded View, where the entire content is shown for each post. I don't like having to switch between views based on which feed I'm viewing; there needs to be a way to specify a default for each feed or specify it based on number of unread posts.
• Too Many Entries for Some Sites — Show me the Best: As I stated above, some sites have way, way too many entries for me to read all of them. Right now, I have 754 unread digg.com articles, and that's only because I used the "mark all as read" feature a day or two ago. Truthfully, I will never, ever take the time to read all of these entries and I probably should just delete my subscription to that feed. I wish Digg would provide a feed listing only the most popular of the popular stories, but they don't because they want people on their site voting up articles. So I wish Google would implement a tracking system for high volume sites, so that the most popular unread items are at the top of Google Reader, rather than the most recent.
• Too Many Entries for Some Sites — Only Show the Latest Stories: If Google Reader won't show me the most popular stories on "high volume" sites, at least autoamtically mark the older posts as "read". I'd like to see a per-site option to show "only the most recent ### number of posts."
• No Images When Using Google Reader in Offline Mode: First of all, I have to say that having an offline viewing mode for a browser-based application is awesome! I installed Google Gears, clicked the "offline" icon in Google Reader, and all the feeds could be read without an internet connection! Unfortunately, all of the offline feeds had the pictures omitted. Sure, having pictures would require more cache to be used on my PC for the offline content, but a picture is worth 1000 words in most cases, and the omission of pictures makes reading some posts worthless.