idea for an iPhone competitor

The iPhone is great because of its advances, its big multi-touch screen in particular. Competitors need to out-iPhone the iPhone to beat it. The screen should be stretched to 4.3". To mitigate the increase in the size of the device, you could make the occupy the whole front of the device, even more than the iPhone's screen does. While some may find that putting power-sucking screen behind your thumbs, at the edge of the device is pointless, it would serve two purposes. One: it would make the experience more immersive, like the light some TVs emit to match what's on the screen. Secondly, the edges of the screen on the sides also serve as a dedicated navigation area on sites where content doesn't stretch to the edge of the screen. Continuing with this concept of "dead space" at the edge of the screen, these margins could be the boundary between the page you're looking at and the previous one in history. You would swipe from left to right to go back a page, but if you wanted to open a new tab, you would swipe from right to left, which would bring up your most often-accessed sites.
Put a power button on top. Give it 16 GBof flash memory. Connect to Sprint's 3G network by making an MVNO that buys minutes from them. Include Wi-Fi. Throw in GPS-connected GMaps. Create a Gecko-based browser compatible with Google Toolbar. Pare down the OS so it runs fast on a low-power processor, like the new AMD 1W processor. Have the device boot to iGoogle. Have Google subsidize the whole thing.

Review of Windows Vista

Windows Vista

A small improvement with a big price

Windows Vista looks better than Windows XP.  That's its only major advantage.  Apart from that, searching for files and programs with a mere click on the Start button is nice, and Microsoft also throws in the ability to search from any window.  The only other notable thing about is its price: $120 and up for versions featuring the better looks.

Rated 2/5 on Jun 27 2007 by Coleman Foley

LouderVoice Review Tags: operating system

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Review of Windows Media Player 11

Windows Media Player 11

Good media player with a touch of style

Windows Media Player 11 matches iTunes' key features--such as search results appearing as you type your query, and album art-- but puts them in a more intuitive package.  The play/pause button is the size of a coin.  The close, maximize and minimize buttons are larger too.  These little touches make the program a little more enjoyable to use.  It arguably looks a little better than iTunes, too, rounding out its set of slight improvements to Apple's winning formula.

Rated 4/5 on Jun 26 2007 by Coleman Foley

LouderVoice Review Tags: audio, media player

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Review of Mozy Remote Backup

Mozy Remote Backup

Slow online storage

Mozy automatically backs up files and folders you choose, at times you would like it to--such as when you are not using your computer.  It is fairly easy to set it up for the first time, as it automatically selects the My Documents, My Music folder, and others for backup, but you have to navigate a Windows Explorer-like file tree to choose other files and folders you want backed up. 

Then the wait begins.  Mozy moves your files to a safe location--but very slowly.  Sometimes the process fails altogether. You can pay nothing to back up 2 GB, or $5 a month for unlimited space.

Rated 3/5 on Jun 26 2007 by Coleman Foley

LouderVoice Review Tags: backup, offsite backup, online backup

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Review of Google Desktop

Google Desktop

Solid Overall; A Boon to Widescreen Users

Google Desktop gives you a sidebar, an area at the edge of your screen where you can place a clock, a calendar, and more. The analog clock makes checking the time easy. The calendar is what you would expect, and it also displays upcoming events you have scheduled (using Google Calendar) in a list. You can search your computer using the search box. If you don't want to use the sidebar, you can tuck the search box at the bottom of the screen and get rid of the rest of the gadgets. The search returns results faster than Windows' Find feature does. This is useful for finding and playing an mp3, or finding a program without searching through the Start menu. Overall, the program is very useful, especially if you have a widescreen monitor, because then you can take advantage of the extra space at the edge of your monitor to view data you choose.

Rated 4/5 on Jun 20 2007 by Coleman Foley

LouderVoice Review Tags: konfabulator, sidebar, widgets

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Review of Google Reader

Google Reader

Top-of-the-line Feed Reader

Google Reader aggregates RSS feeds.  Adding feeds is easy, and navigating them is a joy. You can view all items, or only those from a specific website.  While viewing an item (a summary of a story) in a feed, you can press j to move on to the next item, k to return to the previous item, or s to star the item.  Starring is handy; it's like bookmarking, but doesn't require a toolbar, so you can use it at any computer.  You can share items, too, by emailing them or putting them at a URL Google Reader provides.  This URL will display all items you share.  You can also embed your shared items in a blog.  

Google Reader is a lens to view the Internet through.  I do most of my reading on the Internet through Google Reader and find it an efficient way of browsing the news in any browser, from any computer.

Rated 5/5 on Jun 19 2007 by Coleman Foley

LouderVoice Review Tags: feed aggregator, feed reader, rss aggregator, rss reader

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Review of Google Calendar

Google Calendar

Quick and Easy Calendar Software

Calendars are handy.  Web-based calendars are extremely handy, as Google Calendar shows.  Google Calendar is easy to use and simple, but one feature stands out; you can add events to the calendar by typing them in natural language.  For example, you could schedule walking your dog at 5 PM tomorrow by typing in "walk dog 5 PM tomorrow."  The event would then show up on your Google Calendar on the date you indicated, at the time you specified.  You could also set it to remind you by email and by text message. 

Additional options include adding public calendars, such as baseball teams' season schedules, to your calendar.   You can do this quickly.  Finally, if you use Google Desktop, you can download a Google Calendar gadget that shows your calendar, your agenda (your upcoming events) and allows you to add events using natural language as mentioned before.  This program is convenient, and a boon to web users.

Rated 5/5 on Jun 19 2007 by Coleman Foley

LouderVoice Review Tags: calendar, google, online, web-based

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Review of Nokia N800

Nokia N800

Big-screen browsing on a pocketable device.

The Nokia N800 has a 4-inch touch screen, which enables you to do almost everything by touch. Just a few keys populate the left side of the device, including a back button and an application switching button. These are handy when you put the browser in full screen. Even when using this mode, though, text is sometimes too small, so you can press a button on top of the device to zoom in on a page. Next to that button is another one that toggles full screen mode. Another button allows you to zoom out from pages.
You will be zooming and scrolling for hours because the battery lasts a long time. You can also burn the battery up calling people, because the free Gizmo Project software, which you can download, allows calling, even to landlines and cell phones. Another useful service available on the N800 is Rhapsody, the subscription-based music streaming service. You must download and install the program to find and play music. The software is reasonably well-suited to use on a small touch screen-only device. The buttons are big enough to thumb through.
The touch screen experience is more frustrating on the browser, where it can be hard to aim your thumb well enough to land on links you want to hit. Pressing links is another issue altogether. You have to tap them quickly or they won't open. Otherwise, this device performs beautifully. Thumbs up.

Rated 5/5 on Jun 17 2007 by Coleman Foley

LouderVoice Review Tags: internet tablet, pda, touch screen, umpc

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Google Page Creator: Easy to Use Web Page Maker

You can make a good-looking website easily using Google Page Creator. After signing up (or signing in with your Google account), you can choose a template and insert content. The default template gives your site a professional look. Updating your creation is easy. Just go to the Page Creator site and choose which page to edit and you're ready to work on your site.

Software Package for Businesses

Google Apps for Your Domain offers Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Talk (an instant messaging client) with twists that businesses will welcome. When you use Gmail as part of this package, your email address can end in your domain name. You can also create a website that uses your own domain name, which doesn't take long at all and is quite easy. Google hosts all of this, and it is all free.

Foxit Reader

If you would like to open PDFs more quickly, Foxit Reader will help you. It opens PDFs much faster than Acrobat Reader. Forget about dealing with update reminders, too, because this program doesn't give them. If this sounds good, you are well on your way to using this program. You can download and install Foxit Reader quickly. Then, you will have to manually set Foxit Reader as your default PDF viewer. Just open the program and click "Ok" to use it to open PDFs.