Ok so I am 48 hours into my Windows Phone trial with the Nokia Lumia 900 and so far the experience is pretty good. I think most people would be pretty happy with the phone and experience.

There are some things done very well:

* Placing snippets of content on the home screen, not just apps. A specific note out of evernote, a mail folder, a contact – this is so right. I can get my kids, my spouse right on my home screen and have quick access to calling them, texting them, seeing fb updates, etc. I can get the Evernote for a current project right on the one screen. The phone experience becomes much more personal, this is way better than an unending grid of app icons. * Cyclic panes within an app. I can just keep swiping to the right or left and see all options, they are not lists with fixed beginnings and ends. This is highly useful. * Most of the apps I need are there. Evernote, Spotify, Wordpress, ESPN, I’m really not feeling bad about the depth of the app catalog. Plenty of nice games. I do need a Markdown/Dropbox editor. * The AMOLED display is beautiful.

Some things I am undecided on:

* I am always fumbling around trying to figure out which end is up. No obvious physical guide like the iPhone home button. Maybe I will get used to using the camera lens as a guide. * Tango video calling but no Skype? And you can’t even find Skype in the marketplace but have to know the URL? I don’t mind having Tango preinstalled but c’mon, I need reasonable access to Skype. * The UI for apps has less decoration (icons, menus, bars, buttons) but way more whitespace and big fonts than iOS. Looks a little nicer than iOS but no denser, I’m not sure it is any more productive.

And some things are Wrong:

* I am one of the 7 people that have Zune subscriptions, no OTA sync of my music subscriptions, I have to plug into my PC? Lame. Of course no one else on the planet will see this because they will all be using Spotify which seems to work fine. * Linking inboxes or contacts. I had to got thru and link my inboxes so that I could see all my mail in one place (thanks Henry) and I had to link my contacts with facebook contacts so that I could see facebook and contact details in one place. This was a PITA and should be automagic. (iOS links mail automagically but not contacts and doesn’t even have the Facebook integration) * Browser. When resizing and dragging content, lots of repaint issues. Lots. There needs to be some substantial work done on this. * Search buttons. Permanent button always goes to bing. App specific button with the same graphic goes to app search. Does anything search my whole phone – ie search across email and contacts and music and apps? * The app marketplace needs some serious merchandising work. First I have an App Highlights app which seems to showcase good apps but has no search function. So not very helpful. Then I have the Marketplace which gives up premier placement to Nokia and AT&T which they both squander. And first page placement given to podcasts, seriously??? There is no clear editorial guidance on great apps. This thing is kind of a mess. * And the biggest problem – my existing Shure mic/headset doesn’t work, apparently you have to buy headsets specific to this phone? Seriously Nokia? This is so f$&ked up. You are light years behind in the market and so you decide not to work with all the existing 3rd party headphones? Thanks guys. Really making switching from iOS easy.

Ok I don’t want to finish on a downer. Again most people will find this to be a pretty good experience – the hardware feels solid, the software is easy on the eye, there are plenty of apps covering most needs.

I’ve decided to move away from the iPhone for a while, I just got the new Nokia Lumia 900 and am filling it up with apps right now.

Why? Well, iOS is starting to feeling stale – I have an unending grid of apps, there have to be other ways to organize tasks and data. iOS has poor integration across apps, very limited integration between apps and the shell, little data sharing between apps, etc.

And only exposing myself to iOS makes my brain stale – I start to let myself be constrained by the iOS grid and app model. I need to experience are other ways to skin the cat, and Windows Phone is trying some different things which are worth understanding – the facebook integration, pinning of content to the shell, etc.

Switching to Windows Phone also appeals to the contrarian in me. How cool can it be to have an iPhone if everybody has one?

So off I go. Hanselman has a “good list of essential apps”:hnsl.mn/wyuZhY. And I’ve installed the WordPress, ESPN, and Starbucks apps. It is interesting that I can bill apps to either ATT or to a credit card on file with my Zune app – I wonder what the rev split is between carrier and MSFT and app developer for these two different models.

One very positive initial reaction – no stupid pair of crappy earbuds in the box. I’ve thrown so many of the useless Apple ones away.

Stuff I recently saw which intrigued…

* “GeometricTools”:http://geometrictools.com (via @donpark) – great repository of code snippets for math and geo operations. * “How to find freely usable photos on the net”:http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505143_162-57399598/how-to-find-photos-you-can-legally-use-anywhere/ – excellent tips, I’d been using Wikimedia Commons as well (thanks @ellegold) * “The Lean Startup Bundle”:http://www.appsumo.com/lean2012/?gid=WzYsIDM2MCwgIjIwMTIwMzI5MTE1NCIsICJ0dyIsICJib3RkZXRhaWwiLCBudWxsLCAiZWtpIl0= OK I hope to gosh I would never need all these things but some good ideas in here * Step by step diffeq solutions in “WolframAlpha”:http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2012/01/30/step-by-step-differential-equation-solutions-in-wolframalpha/. What a resource. * Charlie Kindel articulates “why I need to flip to Powershell”:http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/03/25/update-coping-with-the-oss-command-line-on-windows/ on my Windows box. He also makes a strong case for switching to “Sublime Text 2”:http://www.sublimetext.com/2

I love games, online or board. We always have a gamefest at family get-togethers – this year’s mania was “Survive: Escape from Atlantis”:http://theludwigs.com/2011/12/survive-escape-from-atlantis-is-our-board-game-of-the-season/. And if you tracked my minutes of computer use during the week, I’m pretty sure the “game of the moment”:http://masseffect.com/ would be in the top 5-10. Games are what sucked me into software and computers long ago, I still love them.

So I get games and gaming, they are a durable source of entertainment. We’ve played games for all of human history and we will continue to do so. Betting on games seems like a sound investment strategy tho we’ve never found an investment that worked for us (man I wish we’d had money in PopCap).

However, games have their place, and I don’t want to play games all day long. If you look at the rest of the top 10 sites or services that I engage with, none of them have gamification features. No badges, or levels, or reward systems, or points, or whatever. I use sites because they are great tools (Wordpress, Evernote, Twitter, Amazon, etc) or because they have great content (various sports, tech, econ, news sites) or they are in some other way very effective at helping me run my life or get my job done. All these sites invest a lot in user engagement I am sure – tracking my use, trying out alternatives and watching my response, moving UI elements around to encourage engagement, etc etc. But they don’t push explicit game features at me as part of the site (the sports sites obviously offer fantasy game experiences as an optional part of their site).

“Gamification”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification seems to take engagement management a step too far, where gamification means putting explicit badges/levels/etc on an otherwise non-game site, to encourage engagement. First, real engagement comes from deep utility – great content or a great tool that really saves people time. No amount of gamification window dressing will overcome shortfalls in utility or content over time.

Second, gamification seems to miss the point of what makes games engaging. Great games have great stories, great characters, great head-to-head combat, are beautiful to look at, respond naturally to your input, etc. Level systems and awards are a part of the experience but only a minor part. Yes I get some gratification from leveling up in COD or other games, but if the game sucked, the level rewards wouldn’t keep me there.

Investing in user engagement makes total sense, and there are a ton of techniques to use, and some of them may start to resemble some elements of games – for instance “Keas”:www.keas.com is using team-building and team competition to encourage engagement in health programs, and this seems to work (we have an investment in Keas) – social is an excellent motivator in many arenas. But gamification as it is generally defined doesn’t really make sense to me. Active management of user engagement, sure, that makes sense. Building great games, that makes total sense. Applying minor elements of gaming to non-game properties, ehh, it just feels manipulative.

I do wonder if applying the deeper elements of games – story, characters – to non-game properties would be a smart thing to try. Obviously requires a lot more creativity and skill, but stories are very very powerful.

Unfortunately I have more ideas than offspring…

* “pivoting power cord”:http://www.quirky.com/products/44-Pivot-Power-Flexible-Power-Strip. I’ve often wondered why powerstrips are so ugly. We all have them and they all suck. * “quirky”:http://www.quirky.com/. Recommended by Blake, lots of cool stuff here. * “Fireball Crosswords”:http://www.fireballcrossword.com/. Recommended by Bruce. * “Snapguide”:http://snapguide.com/. Also recommended by Blake. * I’m a sucker for “nice laptop skins”:http://society6.com/laptop-skins * I would love to get into astrophotography with the new “Canon 60Da”:http://www.petapixel.com/2012/04/04/canon-60da-sample-star-photographs/ * I love the idea behind “Lost Crates”:https://lostcrates.com/?a=dm * Prototyping bundles for Keynote and PPT from “Keynotopia”:http://keynotopia.com/themes/ * “Press to open Keyrings”:http://design-milk.com/freekey-press-to-open-key-ring/ – I’d buy today if available

Per “ElevenWarriors”:http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2012/04/deshaun-thomas-staying-for-junior-year and multiple other sites. This is just huge, I felt Deshaun was actually more central to the team’s success this year than Sullinger, tho it was the combo of them that made the team lethal.

29 buttons on the front panel and almost none of them do what I want. The designers have optimized for packaged convenience foods and I never eat those, but cooking those is the default on the damn thing. All I want to do is defrost frozen foods and reheat leftovers. And 90% of the time I reheat, not defrost. Why is this so hard?

If this is my biggest problem I guess life is ok.

I love Motif and if “you check it out I could win an iPad”:http://motif.extole.com/a/clk/2JwBDQ. OK I will probably have to give the iPad back as we are investors but still I do love Motif, it is worth looking at if you do any investing whatsoever – a much more natural way to invest.

There was a “Sunday NYT article on voice recognition”:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/technology/nuance-communications-wants-a-world-of-voice-recognition.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=dragon%20tv&st=cse and how we are all going to control our TVs and other devices with voice. Building on the Siri wave, there is a popular belief that voice will become a significant or even dominant way we interact with devices and services.

I’m a big believer in voice. Ignition is an investor in “Spoken”:http://www.spoken.com/ who is doing great with their existing cloud voice processing business, and have some great ideas for the future. We’re an investor in “AVST”:http://www.avst.com/, “Twisted Pair”:http://www.twistpair.com/, “Public Mobile”:http://www.publicmobile.ca/pmconsumer/ – all voice-based businesses, all doing great. People are never going to get tired of talking to one another.

And that is what voice is really all about – people talking to people, not to devices. I will invest all day long in technologies that improve people talking to people – making it easier, more accessible, cheaper, augmenting with additional services, hosting conversations, etc.

On the other hand, we don’t talk to our tools and instruments. We touch them. A well designed tool or instrument fits the hands naturally, and in the hand of a skilled practitioner allows great creativity and/or great performances. The feedback during its use is important, we are very sensitive to the feedback and can adjust our use in very fine increments. We don’t attempt to use voice which is an imprecise, error-prone method – in fact, trying to talk very precisely can be quite annoying and unnatural.

So are our computational devices more like tools, or more like people? Do we want to interact with them as tools, or as people? My gut says more like tools, and that we will be more effective using touch and gestures than voice.

There are always going to be edge cases in which voice control is preferred – people with disabilities, handsfree situations. But I’m not convinced voice control will become significant.

He had a terrible attitude. He didn’t play well with other dogs. He’d bite you if you just looked at him wrong. He was fearful and was useless as a guard dog, retreating into his crate at any disturbance. He’d wander off and get lost if you didn’t constantly watch him. He had ugly “cherry eyes”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_eye which scared off a lot of people. He was incredibly picky about his food and had to be coaxed to eat. He had allergies and constant ear infections and bad teeth. He was so cranky he scared the vets. If you tried to pick him up he’d turn into a wild animal and try to rip your arm off.

But he was our dog, and we adapted to him, and made a home for him. And in his last year, he got sweeter and more attached to us, and accepted our carrying him and helping him through his day.

We will miss him.

* “Dream Park”:amazon by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. Not sure how I missed this one 30 years ago, a very nice murder mystery set in a futuristic theme park. Has aged well, the story is solid. * “The Barsoom Project”:amazon by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. The followon to Dream Park, not nearly as good. I gave up. Too much wandering around in mythology and the psych aspects of Dream Park. * “Avogadro Corp”:amazon by William Hertling. Interesting ideas about the emergence of a worldwide artificial intelligence, but terrible writing, terrible characters, terrible story telling. In the hands of a good writer this would have been quite a tale. * “Backstage Wall Street”:amazon by Joshua M. Brown. The author pulls the curtains back on some of the sell side antics of financial services firms. If you were confused and thought that financial firms were working on your behalf, this is the book for you. * “The Filter Bubble”:amazon by Eli Pariser. Great book on how the major players on the Internet are collaborating to feed us pablum. Reminds me that I need to challenge myself in my reading and force different thinking into my life.

Reasons to hate Kansas. Or at least feel really sorry for them:

* Tornados. Lots of them. * A state so bad, even it’s namesake city refuses to be in the state. * Just like the Wizard of Oz suggests, the entire state is colorless. * Wikipedia says the name means “people passing wind”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas or something like that * The first us state to adopt prohibition – the least fun most humor impaired state ever. * There is an official state soil. If all you have to celebrate is your dirt, you are one sorry state.

And a joke:

Q. How do you know the toothbrush was invented in Kansas? A. If it was invented anywhere else, it would have been called a teethbrush.

Good “article in PNW mag”:http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pacificnw/2017740454_pacificpnerds25.html?cmpid=2628 yesterday about maker resources here in the Seattle area. The particular things I noted:

* “Ignite Seattle”:http://www.igniteseattle.com/ – regular talks about projects, tho next event postponed, hope this is still active * “Dorkbot Seattle”:http://dorkbotsea.org/ – also on hiatus this month but seems like my kind of thing (apparently lots of electricity involved) * “Nerdnite”:http://seattle.nerdnite.com/ – more talks and sharing * “Metrix create space”:http://metrixcreatespace.com/ – parts, workshop, courses, community * “ALTSpace”:http://www.airlighttimespace.org/ – another maker space * “Jigsaw Renaissance”:http://www.jigsawrenaissance.org/ – and another * “Seattle Maker Faire”:http://www.makerfaireseattle.com/ – annual event showcasing projects * “make Seattle”:http://www.makeseattle.net/ * “Geekwire”:http://www.geekwire.com/events/ – really more startup focused but leaking into maker space a little

As an aside, it is so odd that in 2012, the Seattle Times would go to the trouble to research, write, and distribute this article, but then in the web-published version, not link to any of the resources mentioned in it, leaving it to people like me to scrounge together all the links. The web version of the article seems like the afterthought, and the Times misses the opportunity to create the web-based page of record for “Seattle Maker”. I would have thought by now the web version of the article would be paramount, and the print version would be a derivative of that page. But obviously I don’t get it.

In general I don’t get the whole Seattle Times web strategy – and in 2012 that means I don’t get their overall business strategy. Why do they continue to hide their brand under the nwsource domain? It clearly seems like they just don’t care about the web. No other media company of substance behaves this way. Strange.

So apparently all our tvs will have cameras and mics soon, and hopefully the mfrs will be a little smarter about privacy and usage rights than “this abysmal first Samsung attempt”:http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/03/21/2117236/new-samsung-tv-watches-you-watching-it.

I also note that Xfinity keeps sending me mail about “their home security offering”:http://www.comcast.com/homesecurity/index.htm?SCRedirect=true, they want to come in my house and install a bunch of sensors and extract even a higher monthly fee from me.

So the obvious thought – why do I need a bunch of distributed sensors in the house? If I can put several cameras and mics in the tv (they are basically free), with full directionality and distance sensing, then my tv could sense in-room movement, perimeter movement, glass breakage, basically all the things a security system senses. Heck, throw in heat, smoke, and CO sensing too for fun, and an accelerometer to detect theft.

I’ve got a TV in our family room/kitchen, my office, our bedroom – if each of these provided full room monitoring for security, that would cover the bulk of the issues in the house. There is some great software that needs to be written to process the signals, identify perimeter movement, let me establish baselines to be ignored, set up different watch conditions for times when home versus times when away etc. But I don’t see why I should need to go thru the braindamage of putting sensors everywhere, solving wiring or battery issues for them, etc.