Three years ago, I set up an Exchange 2003 server with the goal of having a single, unified mailbox, calendar, and address book that would always remain synchronized across my computers and Windows Mobile smartphone. The setup has held up really well with very little maintenance all these years, and it continues to work seamlessly even with the iPhone 3G that I bought last year.

But there’s one thing I was never quite happy with — Outlook Web Access (OWA), the Exchange web-mail interface. If you’re using any browser other than Internet Explorer, OWA falls back to a clumsy, limited-functionality version. While cross-browser support has improved somewhat in OWA 2007 (which I tested in a virtualized environment recently), it’s still not quite where I’d like it to be.

When it comes to web-based email, I consider Gmail the shining star — the UI is clean and simple, navigation is blisteringly fast, and its threaded messaging implementation is a killer feature. Offline access to Gmail and Google Calendar is now possible using Google Gears. iPhones and other smartphones can synchronize with Google Contacts and Calendar using the recently released Google Sync service (which, interestingly, happens to use Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync engine to “push” updates back and forth). The only missing piece is “push” Gmail, and that might be coming soon too.

So the question is — in the coming months, will the Google Apps suite finally be a truly viable, free alternative to small-scale Exchange Server installations like mine?  I think so. After all, it’s well on its way towards becoming something like a hosted Exchange account with a vastly better web-mail interface. If and when “push” Gmail does become available, I’ll definitely be giving it a very close second look.

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After my previous post on the subject, I decided that I really needed to get some hands-on time with a few netbooks in order to make a decision. Because they’re all so similar in terms of hardware configuration, it really comes down to the smaller details.

So I went downtown to the J&R store here in NYC to have a look. They seem to have the widest selection of netbooks on display, compared to other retailers like Best Buy, etc. For about 20 minutes, I tried out a few different ASUS Eee PCs, the MSI Wind, two HP Mini models, the Acer Aspire One, and a white Samsung NC10. They didn’t have the Dell Mini and the Lenovo S10. The choice wasn’t very difficult…

I immediately realized that I simply couldn’t put up with anything smaller than a 10″ display, and that narrowed down the selection considerably. Next, I knew I wanted all the battery life I could get — after all, these things are meant to be on-the-go machines, so you don’t want to worry about hunting for the nearest power source all the time. The Samsung NC10 ships with a 6-cell battery;  reviews indicated that it could easily pull off 6 – 7 hours with WiFi on, and the brightness turned down a bit. And because the 6-cell is standard on the NC10, it doesn’t stick out like the “extended” batteries do on most other machines.

I liked what I saw of the NC10 — the build quality was solid, the screen appeared bright and sharp without the awful glossy coating that seems all too common these days, the keyboard had a good size and feel, and it was tiny and light. But I wasn’t quite sold on the toy-like white model that J&R had in stock.

So that night, I ordered a black one from Newegg, and it arrived the next day in a shockingly small box. My initial impressions were summarized in less than 140 characters, and that opinion hasn’t changed since… :)

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My last laptop was a Gateway M285-E Tablet PC that was given to me when I was a Microsoft Student Partner at UCLA a couple of years ago. It served me quite well during my last year at university, but after I moved to NYC, I found myself using the desktop far more often, while the laptop sat on the desk, collecting dust. So I decided to sell it sometime last year…

Recently, I’ve been thinking about getting a laptop again. I still don’t foresee myself using it every day, but I’d like to have one to carry on trips, and something that I can occasionally use outdoors, or in the living room, etc. Plus, it’s always handy to have a second machine to experiment with.

With that in mind, my requirements this time are a little different…

1) Small and light.
2) Great battery life. Higher the better.
3) Cheap.

Since it’s a secondary machine, I’m willing to settle for a small display and take a hit on performance. After all, the desktop’s always around when I need two big screens and enough horsepower to run three operating systems simultaneously. :)

Looking back at that list, I realized something. I realized that this relatively new class of sub-notebooks that people are calling “netbooks” fits the bill almost perfectly. And with nearly every major computer company jumping on the bandwagon, there’s certainly no shortage of choices!

So which one is it going to be?

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This is one of those incredibly creative ideas that you simply can’t help but appreciate…

“Garamond Powerline” is something of an intricate experiment in typography — a typeface composed entirely of images of electrical power lines. Each letter of the alphabet is beautifully crafted with its own unique personality.

Taken as a whole, the typeface is also surprisingly usable; scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the “quick brown fox” sample.

Kudos to the designer, Daniel, for this little gem!

[via waxy.org]

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So I’ve been receiving quite a bit of mail lately, asking whether Twessenger works with the latest Windows Live Messenger 2009 Beta. The short answer, unfortunately, is – no, it doesn’t.

The latest Messenger beta build introduced a number of major changes, including what appears to be the removal of the “Shared Folders” feature and the official “add-ins” API. As you might imagine, Twessenger relied on this API in order to hook into the application.

I haven’t had the time to dig deeper to figure out if there’s anything I can do to work around this, but the odds of a fix coming anytime soon, if ever, are very low at this point. I’m going to steer away from attempting to use undocumented and unofficial methods because they’re bound to break with any future Messenger updates, and I really don’t have the time to provide support and write patches.

I’m sorry if this answer is a let-down for you. I hope that someone out there can provide a working solution that you can migrate over to soon. Thanks for all the feedback and kind words that many of you sent in during Twessenger’s lifetime. It was fun while it lasted. :)

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Twessenger 2.0 is here!

So what’s new?

• More reliable: Completely re-written from scratch to use the latest Twitter API.
• Easier to set up: Just install, enable the plugin, and enter your Twitter username. You no longer need to search for your numeric Twitter ID.
• New options: You can now change the update interval, and choose to ignore all Twitter replies – i.e. messages beginning with @
• Automatic update notifications: Twessenger 2.0 will automatically notify you when new versions are available!

Download: Twessenger 2.0

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If you’re a Firefox user, and you haven’t tried out Firefox 3 yet, you’re missing out on some genuinely awesome features. I’ve been testing it since the early beta bits were available, but I think that the recently released RC2 build is stable enough for anyone to use.

If you’re still hesitant, watch this screencast by Mozilla’s Mike Beltzner, in which he introduces some of the major new features; you’re bound to be impressed.

If I had to pick my favorite feature, it would have to be the revamped address bar (check out the screencast to see it in action), but I also like the integrated add-on manager, and pause/resume support in the new download manager.

Vista users – install the Glasser extension to enable the Aero Glass effect on the browser chrome. Now you’ve got a browser that fits in much better, visually, with the rest of the system. :)

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It’s not the car you idolized as a kid.
It never made your bedroom wall, or high school locker.
And there were no 1/18th scale models of it on your shelf.

Because it didn’t exist.

The Audi R8 – Revise your list of dream cars.

Consider that list revised! Move over, Ferraris, Lambos, and Porsches; we have a new winner. In fact, I feel a sudden, strong urge to save up $100K, just so that I can get my hands on one of these some day.

A car this stunning deserves an equally impressive ad campaign, and Audi’s promo site for the R8 doesn’t disappoint. Their “Dimension R8″ sequence is quite simply the best ad for a car I have ever come across — the music, the matrix-esque camera angles, and the lighting and scenery just set your pulse racing. Don’t miss it!

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There’s no doubt that Batman is my favorite comic book superhero, and Batman Begins is easily my favorite superhero movie of all time.

So naturally, I’ve been closely following all the little tidbits of news that have been trickling in about the sequel, The Dark Knight, which is scheduled to hit the big screen in July next year.

This evening, Batman fans in a few select cities across the country (including NYC, of course) were in for a real treat – a six minute long prologue, introducing the Joker, filmed in glorious 70mm IMAX sweetness. And let me tell you – it was badass.

If you didn’t get a chance to catch this first look, don’t worry. It’s supposed to play again at every IMAX screening of the new Will Smith movie, I Am Legend, starting next week. The clip is probably already on YouTube by now (or will be), but trust me – you really have to watch it on the massive 80-foot-tall screen to experience the full effect.

Damn, it’s going to be a long and difficult wait until July!

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In case you missed the news a few days ago – Microsoft is offering full, legitimate copies of Office 2007 Ultimate to students for $60 from now until April 2008 through a promotion called “The Ultimate Steal.”

A number of universities offer free MSDNAA subscriptions to students, which include licensed copies of several Microsoft apps, but Office is not part of the package, so this is a good way to get the missing piece on a student budget.

A retail copy of the full suite costs over $600 on Amazon, and even the discounted “Home and Student” edition (which only includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote, but surprisingly not Outlook!) would set you back ~$120. This is a fantastic deal if you’re eligible.

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