Fleembo

It’s been a long time since we first saw both the Mac Mini and the first Apple TV come out to the market. Both products have seen their fare share of ups and downs but now have become kinda stale. Even with these two products they have made one or two updates but no real big change since most of the focus seems to be iphone and macbook. Now with the tablet on the horizon who knows where these two potential jewels could end up.

I mention this from a predicament I currently have getting media to my TV. There are literally tons of different combinations and routes one can go to create a streaming media center. Boxee is a strong competitor and with the Boxee Box coming out soon, I think it will destroy AppleTV even though the competition isn’t that big right now. Apple however is sitting on two products that could potentially win over streaming media fans and even the average consumer if they would simple combine the features of these products together.
AppleTV just seems too underpowered at this point and doesn’t have that functionality of being the end all media streaming service. On the other hand the Mac Mini has the power but also lacks that interface to doing media other than Front Row. Why not just turn the Mac Mini into the AppleTV. Upgrade the user interface to get access to services like Boxee or even create a custom page that displays shows easier to people so anyone can pick it up and go. Not just shows, iTunes content, music, movies, etc. All they would need to do is create an interface that was fast and simple to access all media. They would really only be competing with Boxee Box at that point but they already have the business of the iTunes store to support paid content. Now they have completely covered the potential features customers are looking at in Boxee and bringing them in a nice package. They could even extend Boxee’s current interface to suit their needs with the iTunes store.
Now I know I don’t understand Apple’s business model and I’m sure I never will fully understand it but really I have always thought that these two products would be complete;y improved and more profitable just by combining them together.

I really have never done any reflection blog posts of any years but I felt compelled to either make my list of the resolutions I wanted or to look back on this year as a whole.

This year was pretty epic from both a global standpoint and personal. This was the year I graduated from college. This has to be the most proud moment of my life and I don’t regret anything in those years. Not even skipping some studying for a social life. My college tried to encourage some social life but really you had no luck in that. On top of this year, I really had made a lot more friends from school then year combined of others and have some lasting friendships to look forward to. Sadly I no longer had my two best friends from college that I lived with essentially four years of my college career but was given the interesting and fun task of living with five others in a house while still in my last year of school. 2009 brought many emotions and interesting predicaments to the table but all balanced quite well. The year will always have the tough times and the times where you want to curl up in a ball and not do anything but they make you a better person in the end and add to your well of experiences for future situations.

With the year closed on 2009, I’m brought back to decisions I have to make for the new year and what I’m trying to do to survive. Living on your own is completely different when you have no roommates or college friends around you. Things like money now become important to survive and with the downfall of the economy many questions arise of how we can all keep it up.

Here is my resolution list:

1) More tea drinking vs. coffee drinking
2) Workout 3 times a week
3) Ring
4) Go on a vacation
5) Make a design/drawing everyday
6) Cook more including massive amounts of dessert making
7) Watch more movies
Rally
9) Make a website
10) Be happy with myself

Share your resolutions in the comments or tell me what you think about this year. I have a lot of hope for this year.

This post is just a brain dump on a session I had with myself trying to get the words I wanted. I didn’t edit it so sorry for that. This was just a complete brainstorm, no form.

“You have your Digg which allows you raise or lower stories, Twitter that is whats going on, Yelp for great shopping in the area and food, and Yahoo answers, well let’s not get into that, but I want more. There are thousands of services around but I still run into one problem. There isn’t something that combines these ideas.

I want a service that takes a question or maybe a subject and gives me the best resource on the internet for that resource, compares it to my locale, and lets people respond to why its the best resource, what are its pros and cons.

Let’s make an example, let’s say I want to the best place to buy slippers online.

So I search online for “slipper stores”, I get millions of results of stores I have absolutely no clue about. What do I see?

Review Sites:

Their are reviews sites telling me “The service was terrible. Never will buy slippers from again”. What review sites lack to me is credibility. I’m not going to read the good reviews on review sites, I’m going to read the crappy ones to find out the real dirt on it. The sheer amount of time it takes to read all the reviews and make a comprehensive decision on if you trust someone or not, is too long. Most of these sites too just have a 1-5 rating scale. That tells me nothing. How many times have you filled out a 1-5 rating and had a tough choice between a 3 and a 4 or a 4 and a 5. It’s not accurate enough for decision to be made unless I read your review as well.

What if a model exist to have a rating system, style up or down for that store online. Give me the options of the others who place in line but put that one resource at the top. Based on this many users, who said “thumbs up”, “positive”, whatever this site/store has been the best place to buy from for that item.

The next way we find out where to get a resource is Twitter. I will sometimes tweet “Hey where is the best place to get this item or information?”. Their really isn’t anything collecting all these great places to shop or find resources. They are just shared between you and your friends or loss in the sea of the public timeline. Now parsers of the public timeline could help in this concept but what if you could also connect into Twitter to add a store to the website or resource and it would automatically be given a “thumbs up” and added to the site. Almost like API calls made through Tweets to add to a site. This concept is already practiced in some online resources and should be practiced in more. The problem that arise is how to figure out how to deal with submissions.

So using Twitter to collect these great resources and add a tally to its total on the website.

On top of all of this filters should be put in place for the searching on subjects and resources. Allow to only show online resources, local resources, both. Use GPS data of these local store locations or internet locations to create a more accurate radius from the user using this resource.”

I had this thought in my head tonight as I sit downloading new software for an operating system. What possible advantages could it be for an application to be fully downloaded vs. just downloading the installer and let the install process download the extra components. For me this is a question that seems to be tough to rationalize in a pros or cons matter. Both seem like an option that wouldn’t have much effect but I wonder if really thats the case. I can’t seem to find much studies on it but taking a look maybe we can contribute something to this option. Could perceptions play into this idea?

Full Downloaded App:
From this point you could say well the application is fully downloaded and all one has to do is install it. No worries about any further network issues and the user won’t have to download any additional data. They now can install and use the application. Would a user prefer this method or prefer just the installer download method and during the install process download any extra data needed? It’s tough to say. The problem with this method is some people might believe that they must take longer to download the app and then wait for the installer to make it through to give a full running program. This might give the impression to users that they are taking a longer amount of time to get what they want and we all know that can be troublesome.

Installer App:
From this perspective we have usually a vary small download size because we are just downloading the installer, which on execution downloads the rest of the app. One could say that having connectivity could be an issue. You are giving a false sense of the app is fully ready to run. On the other hand you are giving a small file for people to download quick and execute to begin the installer process. In this matter you are distributing the app easier with a less size more easily and therefore reaching more people. I think also this might make the perspective of spending more time installing seem less. The reason is that people already expect an installer to take some time and it downloading a file wouldn’t “add” to what users perceive as a longer period of time.

Possible Alternative Hybrid model:
I think to my for the best user experience this would have to be the case. First have just the installer download the bare minimum for the program to run. Allowing the user to basic functions whenever the application is loaded, look for an network connection and download in the background. In this case the user has the instant experience with out larger install times and they will soon enough as using the application get the downloaded additional content.

I want to hear what you think. Post your thoughts in the comments. Do you prefer full download vs. installer? Let me know.

Some of you may have seen the commercials for Miller Lite claiming to have gone and done something other lite beers don’t. The claim you might have seen is they “triple hop” their beer.

Direct from their website they have this to say:
“Step 1: Create Flavor”
“Step 2: Develop Balance”
“Step 3: Lock-in Taste”

Now I’m all about marketing and attempting to make your product sell more but as an avid beer drinker I’m going to have to call bullshit. If you look at countless brewing instructions, there are clearly stated two steps. I take my favorite chef Alton Brown on his episode entitled “Good Eats: Amber Waves”.

“You usually add hops twice during brewing: once for flavor early on and then at the end just for aroma.”

So if we compare this sentence to the three steps Miller Lite has given us. Step 1 is a match. Step 2, develop balance, I don’t know what that really means guessing balance is flavor and aroma, and that is stretching it really bad. Alright I will give half a match. Step 3, lock in-taste is just a repeat of flavor idea.

Now I think that Miller Lite is trying to convince people that their method of “Triple Hopping” will obviously make a better tasting and more enjoyable lite beer. Really does this matter? I think anyone who drinks beer realizes what lite beer is going to taste like and aren’t really phased if it isn’t as full-flavored as a regular beer. You decide what you think but I’m calling bullshit on Miller Lite. I think ad campaigns may be great but don’t misinform people on the basics of how brewing is performed.

References:

Good Eats Transcripts

It’s that time of the year again. Halloween! One of my favorite holidays of all time. Why might you ask? Well it’s all because of one thing. That one thing is horror movies.
Now I know they have been all over the place. Terrible ones and great ones, but lately they have been pretty bad.

Why do you say they are so bad lately?
I think honestly it is because they have fallen back in creativity or even story. Think back to the last horror movie you have seen that you really liked. To me this is hard. I can think back to one “horror” movie and I don’t even consider it a horror movie. That movie was 28 Days Later. It really wasn’t a horror movie as much as it was a survival/apocalyptic movie. Even though the marketing attempted to make it look like a scary movie, it really wasn’t at all.

Imagine the creative deaths or kills that happened back in the horror movies of the 80’s. The intense scenes of uncertainty and fear with a hint of cheesiness have all seemed to faded with the modern horror films of today. Most of the films seem to bank on one of two factors.

1) Pure grossness
2) Pure “jump” effects

Look at any movie that has been released recently, the gross factor is always high. It seems that producers try to associate fear with gross. I really don’t think this is the best approach. If you want fear bring in factors such as uncertainty,lack of control, or even restrictions of some nature to give the horror movie that extra element.

Now that I got those comments out of the way I might just think up some crazy new kills.

Well I have decided to move my files and hosting to a new area. I have also renamed the site to Fleembo.com. This will be my designation on the internet that I hope to bring some pretty cool subjects to. You can look forward to more beer reviews and some new subjects to hopefully make you laugh. This will also be the testing grounds for new projects I’m working on and of course feedback is always welcome. So for the time being this is the start of it all and hopefully there will be more soon.