Three short years after my post about the need for a central software repository in a mainstream operating system, Apple has gone ahead and done it. The huge success of the iOS App Store model has prompted Apple to create a similar App Store for its upcoming version of Mac OS X.

As an iPhone user for the last three years, I’ve had mixed feelings about the App Store model of software distribution. Or rather, with Apple’s implementation of it. On one hand, the approval process that an application has to go through before it makes its way into the Store ensures a certain baseline level of quality for users, at least in theory. On the other hand, it also means that the decision on whether or not you can install a third-party application on your device lies in the hands of one entity — and it’s not you, it’s Apple.

One of the key distinctions between Apple’s App Store implementation on iOS versus Mac OS X is that “jailbreaking” aside, the App Store on iOS is your one-and-only source of third-party applications, whereas on OS X, the App Store is just one of the ways to download and install third-party applications. This is important, because it means that Mac users get all of the benefits of the App Store model (such as centralized searching and billing, automatic updates, quality control, etc.)  without any of the restrictions that come with the iOS implementation. This is great for independent developers and end-users. And Apple gets its cut every time an application is sold. Everyone wins.

Has Microsoft realized this yet? How long before something like this shows up on Windows?

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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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