Tag: Technology

EndNote X1 released

Today Thomson ISI ResearchSoft released EndNote X1 for the Mac.  EndNote is a bibliography program that is used by many scholars to format citations, search online databases and manage reference libraries.  The Windows version of EndNote X1 was released in June.

I’ve been using EndNote since the very first version was developed by Richard Niles at Niles Scientific.  The early versions of EndNote were such a pleasure to use, as they were clearly and simply designed to provide quick access to references while writing.  I remember writing most of my journal articles and convention papers in the early 1990s with EndNote, and building up a massive library of references “the hard way” by entering in the data myself.  While manually entering references took a lot of time, the process helped me feel much closer to the articles and authors I was citing.

My early love affair with EndNote started to fade about eight years ago.  I used to be a regular upgrader, buying every new version as soon as it was released.  But when EndNote was acquired by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in 1999, the product started to gradually deteriorate.  Like many other software ventures started by a small group of passionate individuals, EndNote lost a lot of its charm when it was gobbled up by a large company with widely divergent interests.

Philadelphia-based ISI was a big company with a long history in the reference library industry, perhaps most famous for the Current Contents series of bibliographic indexes, and of particular note for communication researchers, the Social Sciences Citation Index. ISI had been purchased by publishing giant Thomson in 1992, which added another layer of management on top of an already large company. ISI had developed its own bibliographic software, Reference Manager, which used to compete with EndNote.  The year before ISI acquired EndNote, it bought another popular reference program called ProCite from Personal Bibliographic Software. 

So when ISI added EndNote to its software stable, the company had three different bibliographic  programs: Reference Manager, ProCite, and EndNote.  Rather than merge the three programs together, ISI has continued to market them as separate products to this day. During the last eight years, development of EndNote has become slow and incremental. Upgrades have became more expensive, while the value of features added to each upgrade has declined.  And the Mac versions of EndNote have been particularly lackluster, consistently lagging the Windows versions.

I may begrudgingly upgrade to the latest version, if for no other reason than to see if it is any better than the rather buggy EndNote X.  But sometimes I wish I could just turn back the clock to the early days of EndNote, when the program was such a joy to use, and just plain worked.

More on Verizon Fios Triple Play

Now that I’ve had a couple of days with the Verizon Fios “Triple Play” (internet, TV and phone), I’m still convinced that it’s a good value. But, as with any product, there are some idiosyncrasies that I’m still getting used to.

For one thing, I’ve found a few quirks with audio when watching TV, especially when switching between DVR recordings and regular “live” channels. At one point, while watching a DVR recording, I switched channels, and the audio went out completely. I tried changing channels, but the only way to get audio back was to turn the set top box off and back on. I think this may be related to the software in the Motorola QIP6416, as I haven’t had problems with the standard STBs. I’ll be watching this situation closely, and searching the various discussion groups for clues about what may be going on here. I suspect that the Home Media DVR STB is still a work in progress, and that there are still a few kinks to iron out.

We’ve also noticed some quirks with the phone service. On one call, my wife heard a distinctive echo on the line (but the caller didn’t hear it). The echo may be related to our cordless phone, but I’m not sure. Long distance calls now require the dialing of a “1” before the area code (just like in the old days before VOIP and cell phone long distance). There’s currently no web interface for voicemail messages, and in order to retrieve voicemail, one must dial a separate number. This is more cumbersome than the simple * shortcut that we had with SunRocket, but at least Verizon is still in business!

The speed of the Fios internet is still good, but my speed tests at dslreports.com show some slight deterioration of download speed. Interestingly, upload speeds are as good if not better than before I had the triple play installed (when I just had the Fios internet service). I’m averaging about 70 to 80% of advertised speeds on the download side, and 90 to 110% on the upload side.

One disappointment I have with the multi-room DVR is that while I can watch recordings on any STB in the house, I can only program recordings from the DVR. This has prompted me to move the DVR once again, this time to the living room from the basement. Each time I move a set-top box, there is about a 10 to 15 minute wait while program information is downloaded. The main menu and program guides are unavailable during this updating process.

I’m also not impressed with the Media Manager software that allows you to share photos and music from a computer to the other STBs. The software interface on Windows is clunky and cumbersome, with rather limited functionality. It doesn’t even come close to the features available with TIVO or Apple’s AirTunes. It also seems to be a resource hog on the host computer. I’ll live with it for now, but if there isn’t some substantial development in the works for this software, I doubt if I’ll keep it.

All things considered, I’m still quite happy with the Verizon Fios package. The picture quality is amazing, the channel selection is unsurpassed, and the price can’t be beat.

Verizon Fios TV…It really is good

Today I had Verizon Fios TV installed in my home, as part of a “triple play” package of TV, phone and broadband service. After watching it for a few hours this evening, I’ve got to say it really is as good as the advertisements would lead you to believe. And it’s a lot better than the cable and satellite systems I’ve had in the past few years, including Comcast, DirectTV and Dish TV.

I’ve had the Fios broadband service for over a year now, and it has been fast and reliable. In fact the only real issue I had was with the D-Link router they originally gave me. Today I got a new router which has additional capabilities. Of particular note is the MoCA (Multimedia over Coax) functions, which allow me to distribute photos and music from a computer to watch on a TV. The router also enables the distribution of an extensive library of on-demand programming to any set-top box in the house.

The quality of the picture is excellent, in both standard and high definition. There is a brief moment of pixelation during channel changing, but the signal “locks in” at full quality within a second. My guess is that the pixelation is a trade-off for lower latency while changing channels; it reminds me of the interlaced GIF or progressive JPEG images that were common in the “modem era” of the internet, when it took a second or so for a web page to load. But the pixelation moment is very brief, and is quite tolerable. It certainly is no worse than the pixelation on digital cable, and much better than the pixelation I would frequently experience with satellite reception.

One issue that I still have to resolve is the location of the “Home Media DVR” set-top box. I had originally planned to put the box in bedroom, but I have already had to move it to another room. Like the TIVO and ReplayTV boxes I’ve had, the Motorola QIP6416 that Verizon provides is too noisy for a bedroom. The sound of the fan is noticeable in a quiet room, and the sound of the hard drive is even more audible during read/write operations. So I’ve switched the bedroom TV to one of the standard set-top boxes, the whisper quiet QIP2500.

I’m sure I’ll discover some other idiosyncrasies over time, but so far, I’m very happy with Verizon Fios TV. The picture quality is great, the channel selection is unsurpassed, and the cost is a good value compared to cable, even when factoring in the monthly equipment fees. I’m still not sure about the Home Media DVR, as it’s not nearly as user-friendly as TIVO. But I understand some interface improvements may be forthcoming, so I’ll wait and see what the future brings.

SunRocket’s sunset

What a difference a day makes. Just yesterday, I had mentioned to a friend that SunRocket was a great value for internet phone service. At just $199 for a year of unlimited local and long distance VOIP (voice over internet protocol) service, it was arguably one of the least expensive telephone plans available.

At least it was. This morning I discovered that SunRocket has gone out of business. Kaput. Belly up. Bye-bye birdy.

This was confirmed by The New York Times, which reported that SunRocket “has ceased operation and is moving its customers to one or more other companies.” Yet many SunRocket customers have posted on Digg that their SunRocket phone service has stopped working, without any warning.

My SunRocket phone service this morning is flakey, but not completely out, at least not yet. I still have a dial tone, but I’m finding that outgoing calls don’t always go through on the first try. I suspect that the various vendors that SunRocket uses to provision their VOIP service are staggering the service disruptions, and that in some states there may be regulatory roadblocks that are keeping some services afloat.

According to this Reuters report, SunRocket is “the second biggest U.S. supplier of Internet phone services,” with more than 200,000 customers. Only industry-leader Vonage has more customers, but they have been bleeding red ink lately, and their stock price has seen a persistent decline.

Thankfully, I paid for my current year of SunRocket service on a credit card less than 60 days ago. As a result, this morning I was able to request a charge dispute with my credit card company. The nice woman on the phone told me that she had been getting a lot of calls this morning disputing SunRocket charges, and she was able to issue me a pro-rated credit of the disputed amount.

My advice to anyone who has SunRocket service now is to call your credit card company. Calls to the SunRocket office won’t help, as they just have a recording stating that they are no longer accepting sales or customer service calls. Some technically inclined folks may be interested in these directions to unlock the SunRocket Gizmo in order to use it with ViaTalk or other VOIP services. But personally, I’m planning to switch my phone service to Verizon FIOS as soon as possible.

Update: Vonage is now offering a special deal to provide service to SunRocket refugees. See the feed from the PR Newswire below…

Analog TV’s days are numbered

I’ve been watching digital TV signals on computers for a couple of years now, using both internal ATSC tuner cards in Windows Media Center and an external Elgato EyeTV ATSC tuner on a Mac. But I had resisted buying an actual digital television set…until a couple of days ago.

I’ve been watching the prices of digital TV sets drop in cost, especially for LCD models. At the same time, the quality of LCD televisions has risen substantially, so that they are almost on a par with plasma sets. But the real clincher for me was the growing trend to include QAM as well as ATSC digital tuners in even inexpensive sets.

Getting a set with a QAM tuner is essential if you want to be able to use a television to receive unencrypted digital signals sent over cable (or fiber optic) systems. A set with the ability to pull in QAM signals has a significant advantage over one that only has an ATSC/NTSC tuner. It seems that many set manufacturers are now including QAM tuners as standard equipment (although there are still many digital TV sets being sold that lack QAM).

Less than 600 days remain before February 17, 2009. That’s the FCC deadline for broadcasters to switch from analog to digital. Many stations already have switched to digital, and it won’t be long before analog TV will be a distant memory. It’s time to start making plans to replace analog televisions with digital sets…before they become obsolete. But if you’re looking into buying one, and you plan to use a digital cable connection, make sure to verify that the set has QAM. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

Now I’m watching for the price of sets with CableCards to come down…

Why I didn’t get an iPhone…yet

I couldn’t stand it any longer. After playing with an iPhone on Saturday at an AT&T store, I decided to go to an Apple store on Sunday to see the iPhone in a more “natural” environment. What a difference! The marketing of the iPhone at the Apple Store was much more polished and appealing than what I saw in the AT&T store. For one thing, you could see the stock on hand, boxes stacked up behind a roped off area of the store. Also, there were plenty of activated iPhones ready to play with and make test calls on. And perhaps most importantly, there were people there who were interested in selling iPhones.

So why didn’t I buy one? I almost did, but a series of events led me to leave the mall without this beautiful gadget. I decided not to satisfy my “technolust” not because of Apple, but because of two other companies who got in the way of an impulse purchase: Juniper Bank and AT&T.

Juniper Bank is the company that offers the Apple “iTunes Rewards” Visa card. Since I’m one who always looks to take advantage of every possible premium, even on hot products like the iPhone, I had intended to apply for this card in the Apple Store and use it to purchase the iPhone. I didn’t think there would be a problem with getting this card, as I have excellent credit, and in fact already have a couple of other credit cards from Juniper Bank. Alas, after I had filled out the application on one of the computers in the store (using private browsing in Safari, of course) I received a message that the bank needed additional information to process my information. I then called the phone number for Juniper Bank on their web site, and after navigating through a number of menus, finally got to speak to a real person. She was not very helpful at all, basically giving me the same response that I got from the web application. Indeed, I think she may have just been reading it off of the same web page I was looking at. So, strike one for getting an iPhone on July 1. But I wasn’t giving up.

I called my wife on one of the demo iPhones in the store to test the sound quality. It was as good, if not better, than the sound quality on the Verizon “Chocolate” phone I currently use. And my ear didn’t accidentally activate the touch screen, as it does on my Chocolate. Yet if I wasn’t going to get my free iTunes from the Visa card, I had to be really impressed with the whole package. Hardware wise, I certainly was very impressed. This was the best cellular phone I had ever used. It may have been the best consumer electronics device I had ever used, and I have used a lot. But then I began studying the AT&T side of the deal.

The service plans from AT&T are reasonable, but I had to check out a few more details. The mall I visited had two AT&T stores, and I visited both to discuss the iPhone service plans. The first place I visited was the AT&T kiosk nearest to the Apple Store. A woman there was discussing the iPhone service options to another interested customer, and gave conflicting information about the “family plan” options. She said that you could have an iPhone on a family plan, but only if it wasn’t the primary phone. In other words, she was saying that if you wanted an iPhone with a family plan, you could only do so if you got a different phone first, then added the iPhone as an additional line. That didn’t make much sense to me, so I asked to look at the brochures she had. When I pointed out to her that the AT&T iPhone service plan brochure does indicate a family plan is available with the iPhone as the primarily line, she seemed confused for a moment. Then she said that maybe you could get the iPhone as the primarily line, but only if all other phones on the family plan were iPhones. When I asked her if I could apply my 15% employee discount that AT&T provides to faculty at my university, at first she said yes, then she said no, then she said she wasn’t sure. It was obvious to me at this point that she really didn’t know enough about the iPhone service plans to give a straight answer. Strike two.

Then I decided to walk to the other end of the mall where there was a “real” AT&T store. I thought that perhaps the folks at the kiosk weren’t trained as well as employees at full-fledged AT&T stores. That hunch was correct; I talked to a woman who seemed to be quite clear about the options for iPhone service. Yes, I could have an iPhone on a family plan. No, it didn’t matter if it was a primary line or not; I could have any combination of iPhones with other phones on a family plan. No, I couldn’t get the employee discount on either the iPhone or the monthly service fees. At that point, she said that wasn’t an AT&T decision, but something that Apple had insisted upon…that Apple had stipulated with AT&T that no service plan discounts could be applied to any account that had an iPhone. I found that rather suspicious, but she said it with such authority that I didn’t question it. But then she asked me a rather unexpected question…

“What is it about the iPhone that appeals to you so much?” the AT&T salesperson asked. I replied that I liked a lot of things about the iPhone, and proceeded to mention many of its features that impressed me. Then she told me that I could get all of those features “and more” with another phone she could sell me. Walking away from the people crowding around the iPhone display, she led me to a much less busy part of the store where they were displaying a number of Windows Mobile Edition “smartphones.” She proudly demonstrated all of the features on one particularly ugly phone that she said was her favorite, and that it “had all of the features of the iPhone” at a much lower price. Plus I could get my employee discount on the service plan. Plus it would work much better with Windows than would the iPhone. Sure, the iPhone will be popular with the “die hard Apple fans,” but once the dust settles, she was confident that I would be much happier with a Windows-based smartphone.

Now I was getting really concerned. Her spiel sounded so well-rehearsed and polished that I couldn’t help but wonder if AT&T may be encouraging employees to play down the iPhone. Maybe it had to do with commissions or something. Maybe it had to do with this particular employee’s obvious preference for Windows. Or maybe there was something even more sinister going on. Could it be that some people at AT&T don’t want the iPhone to succeed? Not the top brass, but maybe middle managers who may feel a bit threatened by the iPhone? If nothing else, it was clear to me that the iPhone marketing approach at the Apple Store was worlds apart from the approach at the AT&T stores I visited.

And that gave me enough uncertainty about my purchase that I decided to wait. Strike three. No iPhone for me today. Until it becomes clearer to me whether AT&T is really on board with Apple on the iPhone, I’m not sure I’m ready to bite. The phone itself is great. But my impression of the company providing the phone service is considerably less than great. It may well be that the only thing standing in the way of the iPhone’s success is AT&T. As a stockholder in both companies, I’d really like them to see the value of working together…not just “at the top” where the deals are made, but “in the trenches” where the sales are made.

At the very least, I’ll wait until I hear what Juniper Bank’s story is. Gotta get those iTunes rewards!