Immediately I ran into compatibility problems with Google’s Android SDK and the current versions of Eclipse (Helios) and the Java Developer Kit (JDK Version 6). In a nutshell Google’s cool Android dev tools don’t work with Helios–you need to install Eclipse 3.5 (Galileo). Galileo require’s JDK Version 5. All this info is prominently featured on the Android system reqs page–but who reads any more?

Digging up old versions of Eclipse is easy. You can find Galileo here.

Digging up old versions of the JDK is a bureaucratic nightmare. You can find JDK Version 5 here but to install it you have to fill out a form, give away PII, and then wait for an email.

One way around Sun Oracle’s walled garden is to install Open Office 3.2.1 which installs Java 1.6 (JDK Version 6) in such away that everything compiles.

Now that Google is throwing away all their Windows PC’s I’m sure this compatibility nonsense will get even worse. Here is a note from Google about enabling debugging of Android Phones:

If you develop on Mac OS X or Linux, you do not need a special driver to debug your application on an Android-powered device.

Damn it! I might have to go back to coding on the Mac and only using my PC for trival tasks like gaming and web browsing. Ironic huh?

I nearly lost all my data a couple of weeks ago. Actually, I was in no danger at all of losing my data but the terribad UI of Apple’s Time Machine and Time Capsule made me think I did! Apple’s backup solution is like a good looking school yard bully with a hidden inferiority complex.

I used to back up everything manually and it was messy. To be fair Apple seemed to conserve all that backup mess with the Time Capsule wireless base station/terabyte network drive and its slick Time Machine backup application. It just seemed to work: No settings, no maintenance, no hunting for the disk with the 3rd season of Buffy on it.

On the rare occasion when I did need a missing or deleted file Time Machine made it easy, and entertaining, to find (nothing like zooming back in time to give lulz).

One evening last week my MacBook Pro died and upon restart got stuck at the kernel panic screen. I took it Tek Serve in NYC (where they are a million time smarter than Apple’s Genius Bar) and learned that a fresh re-install of Mac OS X was the solution.

To make a long story short, when I connected my revived MacBook Pro to Time Capsule it restored a backup from 4 months ago! That’s a generation in Internet years! Also it took over 12 hours! I was aghast!

With grim determination I started the whole process over and tried to get support from Apple. But nothing helped until I just gave up and accessed Time Machine to confirm it was operational. And lo and behold: There was my data from the previous week. Right up to 30 minutes before the kernel panic attack!

%*@:-(

Just before I joined Apple I got some coaching from Bruce Tognizzni (I was designing a set of never-to-be-released apps for Letraset back in 1991). Tog explained that good user centered design doesn’t just hide complexity–it enables the user to navigate it. Time Machine and Time Capsule are bad user centered design according to this definition since they are pretty faces and not much more.

I can’t think of any better example of user centered design than the original Mac OS (version 3) and apps like MacPaint and MacWrite. And since you can’t run it anymore (but you can see screen shots at the Vintage Mac Museum) I decided to bring the Mac OS 3 back to life in flash. Embedded above is version 0.1 of the Mac OS 3 Flash Sim. It don’t do much but I promise to whittle away at it as time permits. I’ll post the source code shortly as well. Right now you can selected the trash can and pull down the apple menu.

It’s funny but the constrained yet expressive capabilities of the original Mac OS are much more like the user experience of the iPhone and iPod Touch then the current Mac OS X. There is something to be said for the power of limitations.

I don’t own a physical Kindle. I don’t need a another electronic device. All the sockets on my power strip are filled! The iPhone is my phone, emailer, broswer, PIM, GPS, notebook, music player, camera, and now e-book reader. While I don’t agree with Steve that Americans have stopped reading I do agree that that specialized single function harward like the Kindle has a dim future. Kindle software, and book readers in general, on small multifunctional devices like the iPhone have a bright future.

Since I downloaded the Kindle software I’ve bought and read 6 digital books in 60 days. But here’s the important point–I would not have read these books otherwise. I don’t get a lot of traditional time to read between a busy startup and a house full of kids. With the iPhone I can read while waiting on a line at the pharmacy, or while sitting on a stalled train somewhere between Newark and New York, or while waiting for soccer practice to fishing up.

When I was younger (by several decades) I used to carry around a paperback book on the off chance that I’d get a moment to read it. These days I don’t have the time to think that far ahead. Downloading and reading books on the iPhone is just so damn convenient it has replaced Blocked as my favorite time biding activity.

The only real issue is Amazon’s digital supply of Nebula Award winners is running dry. Some important books from the list, The Quantum Rose, Parable of the Talents, Forever Peace, and Moon and Sun, are tragically missing. I’m anxious to download Barns & Noble’s Bookstore reader and see if they can pick up the digital slack.