I still use a dumb phone. The front screen doesn't work, and I just added a piece of duct tape to keep the battery cover on. One of the biggest reasons that I haven't switched is that when I'm walking across campus at work 95% of the people have their face buried in a screen. There is zero eye contact.
A desperate plea to phone manufacturers, even though I realize I'm in the extreme minority. I would snap-purchase a dumb phone that had the following feature list and a $200 price tag:
1. Crystal clear voice quality.
2. There is no 2.
I don't want a camera. I don't want a voice recorder. I don't want an mp3 player. I don't want a web browser. I don't want a flashlight. I don't want text messaging or email. This might sound insane, but I actually just want a phone.
No camera?! But how do you get arrested for taping a cop?!
Serious note: I have the dumbest phone possible with a camera for purpose of emergency documentation. Think car accidents, property damage, lost kid, etc.
Buy a pocket camera. Those are really cheap right now, with far better image quality, including taking a photo in a very low light environment. Those things are also very fast to get started. Press power button, aim, shoot. (instead of turn on the phone, tap the camera button, aim, pinch to zoom, then tap camera button)
I thought the purpose of having a 'dumb' phone would be to simplify things, not carry around multiple gadgets!
Also, taking a photo with an iPhone is very quick. Press home button, swipe up and you're ready to go. Arguably faster than a lot of pocket cameras (plus, are you really going to carry a pocket camera with you everywhere you go???).
My first smartphone literally cost 50$. It was an LG Optimus One. No contract, no obligation. It was 200$ but it came with 100$ gift card for BestBuy and a rebate of 50$. It was first on a monthly contract but it was WAY too expensive (30$) for my use so I switched to prepaid (100$ a year).
3 MPX camera (don't need more for an emergency camera), AM/FM radio (always useful) and enough battery to last more than a week. It was really solid, only a cheap plastic on the screen, it's not flip, so you can't break that.
There was a button for the camera too, which means that you could press the power button, aim, shoot, like your pocket camera.
I fail to see why I would pay the exact same price for an old phone... it has ALL the quality of the old phone. Also most of theses old phone in Quebec doesn't have a SIM slot, which means that you CAN'T change the carrier, like I did.
I've actually been thinking of setting up some sort of ubiquitous monitoring system (like a button camera that is nearly always running). Still on the drawing board... Google Glass might fit the bill, but they're too obvious.
I would take a dumb phone that didn't call anyone but only texted if it had the advantages of my last dumb phone: week long batter life, drop-ability, and the ability for me to leave it in cabs and have it returned because no one wants it.
I get/make a vanishingly small number of actual voice calls these days.
The thing is, most people don't use their "phones" for talking, anymore. And "phone" manufacturers realize that. They're putting their money into smartphones, which is where the market demand is. I'd be shocked to see any improvements in "dumb" phones.
Voice quality isn't a manufacturer problem but a carrier technology problem. It's easy to get $200 good microphones (see podcasting). (My electrical engineering friend works in the cellular tech industry and tells me such.)
That said, I think we're getting there. LTE dumbphones that transmit using VOIP instead of standard voice tech could work, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were rules about 911 connectivity or something similar that prevent them from coming out.
Do you want an address book? Once you have a screen capable of displaying a couple lines of text it's basically zero cost or effort to implement mp3 playing and text messaging, so you're probably stuck with those features. Oh, and a clock too.
Also, I completely understand you not wanting most features, but why would you not want a flashlight? Flashlight mode is very convenient 1% of the time, trivially ignored the other 99%.
This brings to mind an unrelated product design gripe of mine. Two things that I hate about my kitchen are the clock on my microwave and the clock on my stovetop. I've got a perfectly serviceable clock on the wall in my kitchen; I neither need nor want clocks on those displays.
Sadly, it seems as though every manufacturer of anything with an LCD takes this same approach: we can put a clock on our widget, so of course we should put one on it. In the case of my microwave, this leads to dedicated buttons for configuring the clock. And naturally, every time the power cuts out, these clocks end up blinking at me in anger. Naturally, neither appliance provides a means to disable the clocks. And a piece of tape doesn't do the job, since the same LCD is used for all other cooking metrics.
A plea to product designers everywhere: please don't add mandatory features just because you can.
> This brings to mind an unrelated product design gripe of mine. Two things that I hate about my kitchen are the clock on my microwave and the clock on my stovetop. I've got a perfectly serviceable clock on the wall in my kitchen; I neither need nor want clocks on those displays.
I love them. Well except that they get out of sync, much to my dismay!
I haven't hung a clock on the wall in years.
Likewise I use my cellphone for time.
Why shouldn't I take advantage of the tech that is around me? Know what else I love? That microwaves have a timer feature! It is amazing, I burn so much less food now. And the granularity is second based rather than the "plus or minus a minute" of the old egg timers.
A mobile phone is the one exception for that rule. The clock sets itself up, and it's something you carry around, sometimes to places that don't have other clocks.
But yes, to the people designing every other product: When people want clocks, they go out and buy one.
My kitchen is even worse, because every appliance there use LED displays. They don't just stay there blinking, they also shine.
I wish I could find a dumb phone with that capability. On my old Nokia (new dumb models as well) the clock is reset each time SIM card is changed (and I think sometimes if the phone runs out of battery).
The blog post is a type of hipster humble-brag about the non-disadvantages of old tech. It's like posting about how physical books are superior because they don't require power sources and are easy to trade between friends without DRM.
My phone is nearly indestructible.
I've had my HTC Incredible for at least 3 years. I have an ugly case on the back and the same scratch guard over the screen as almost everyone else. And I built a cardholder on the back of it, so the phone is also my wallet.
I will drop it from waist height onto concrete at will, as a demonstration. I'm clumsy and I've dropped it at least 30 times, but it's still 100% functional. No screen cracks or case issues.
(Except for the LED melting the back a bit because I had the flashlight on High Intensity and it turned on in my pocket)
(ps: Why are there icons and a login box covering part of the text of the blog post? The blog was difficult to read because UI elements were in the way.)
As usual, it's an enumeration of things that have nothing to do with your phone.
The author paints a picture of a life of serendipity, surprise, getting lost in a quaint cobblestone village, giggling with strangers, discovering a hidden coffee shop, like your life suddenly becomes a romantic comedy on the streets of Prague because your smartphone has been keeping you from bumping into Hugh Grant.
My smartphone was stolen, then i decide to buy a dumb phone. Then i felt a better life. No waiting for notification, focus on my work. I can forget everything and focus on what i am doing. Email, Twitter, Whatsapp, Instant Message notification on smartphone isn't a good thing for me.
I think my stolen smartphone nearly ruin my life. Previously i really attached to that phone, waiting for "not-yet-known" notification. Thanks God i aware about that thing, and i am really grateful with my dumbphone.
I honestly don't like articles like these anymore. It's pretty much the same things regurgitated over and over, and typically comes off as holier-than-thou, at least a big portion of the time. Especially once you meet someone like this in person. By "someone like this", I don't mean your grandparents (or parents?) or relatives living out in the woods...
Being poor is about the only good reason, and another $10 - $30 a month wouldn't really break the bank for most people...
If you can't keep a smartphone for ideological reasons, that has nearly nothing to do with the phone, and almost everything to do with you and your personality.
Someone mentioned "owning" their dumb phone as a pro. Pretty sure I own my smartphones. All of them that I've ever had have been mine. I can do whatever I want with it, no questions asked. I don't even have to pay for it if I don't feel like it, with no repercussions other than having my service turned off and a credit ding, just like any other phone. Technologically, I own it even more, as I can do much more with a smartphone in regards to customization than I can with a dumb phone.
I'm surprised the author didn't mention battery life. My dumb phone can go several days without needed a recharge, it isn't unusual for the battery to last one week or more if I'm in an area with good reception.
Indeed. I bought a "dumb" GSM Nokia before flying to Sri Lanka and * gasp * not only was I able to have 2 lines, even two different carriers on the same phone, without too much hassle (something nearly unheard of the U.S.) I just drop a bit of cash at any ol' cell shop and I'm good to go.
Just because you have a smart phone, does not mean you automatically have to hook it up to all of your email or "hangouts." It is quite possible to have a phone and use it for your own purposes. To think that the only way to "get lost" is to avoid a smart phone is akin to saying you refuse to ever buy a map of where you are going because that would be too easy.
That said, we avoided them for a time simply because of the cost. Paying upwards of $100 a month is insane for a phone bill. We are currently trying out republic wireless. They've been rather nice so far.
These articles seem like bizarre humble brags to me. You want to get lost? Really? That seems absurd, but you can totally just not use the map feature if you want.
Battery life. My phone lasts all day easily. Is it really hard to plug it in next to the bed at night? Not something I have trouble with.
My dumb phone helps me know myself because I don't have angry birds? What does that even mean? Just don't play angry birds?
Waiting for not yet known notification? Really, you just stop living your life and stare at your phone waiting for it to buzz? Sounds like you have bigger issues than your phone.
I have a dumb phone, it was the cheapest phone I could buy. I sit behind a computer all day for work; I program at home as a hobby. The ability to contact people is essential, however I don't see the need to insert yet another computer into my life in order to do so.
Sometimed I wish I still had a dumb phone. I used to charge my phone once or twice a week, when it was just a basic GSM phone with voice and SMS. Now I have to charge my iPhone pretty much every night. I could probably get away with charging it every 1.5-2 days though running out of battery on the second day could be rather inconvenient. The biggest challenge is when I'm away from electricity for a few days. The irony is that I sometimes have to keep my phone switched off when I'm away on camping trips, so I end up being less connected than in the past.
I seem to be giving up on modern technology after being totally enveloped in it for the past decade. Fountain pen, vinyl, feature phone, automatic watch etc.
Maybe it's a side effect of the recession, maybe I don't like what the internet/technology is becoming, but I'm realising that these older products are in many ways better.
A watch that doesn't run on a battery and is a work of art; an album that's collectable and real; a phone that lasts weeks on the same charge; a pen that feels more like I'm using some sort of artistic tool and so on.
You know what I miss? Landlines. For a lot of reasons, probably most of them nostalgia.. still, when I'm rich I will only be reachable by landline or letter, that's kind of my goal in life.
I have a tablet and a dumb phone. One is for media consumption on the go, I have a keyword in case I want to do something on it, and if I want to make a phone call I use the dumb phone.
The tradeoffs to get a good interactive experience in your pocket (screen size, mainly) negatively impact the functional behavior of a smartphone as an earpiece (for phone calls). I think my preferred all in one device would be a tablet with a headset jack. Keeping the screen on the thing that goes next to the ear makes one end of the deal suffer.
Or you could get a smart phone, and not suscribe to social networks on it. If you like getting lost, maybe you should just a) not check your GPS on the phone b) take trips to go to places you've never heard of. The internet can help, but doesn't need to me your source. I respect your decision, but at the end it's all a matter of self-discipline. In H.S. people were face in dumb phones as well...
Smart phones can go days without recharge if you disable the data (edge or 3g/4g). I was traveling with my iphone 3gs in France without data and didnt have to recharge for over a week. Only light SMS usage, may be 1 txt a day.
I use my smartphone as an iPod/Audio Books reader, occasional snap of whiteboarding/documents.
Unfortunately voice quality is almost entirely a function of the network you're on, which is obviously outside the phone's control. Regardless of how awesome the phone is, call quality will be terrible if it can only suck bits through a straw one at a time.
I don't have smart phone mainly because I think their recurring costs are a rip off. Besides, I have no need to carry computer in my pocket for just a few hours when I'm away from the desk computer.
Just because you phone does email, instant messaging, facebook, twitter, or whatever, you are not required to use them. You can even go out and let the phone home if you want.
I also still use a dumb phone (flip phone, no internet, no apps). Here's my logic for not getting a smartphone:
1. similar to the author of the blog post, I appreciate the idealistic benefits of not having a smartphone. I already spend too much time on the internet, and I feel no desire to spend more time online. Additionally, I've somewhat come to enjoy asking people for directions in cities when I'm lost (particularly when I don't speak the language of the city).
2. Cost. As of now, the only times when I think "A smartphone would be convenient" is when I'm in a new city and I don't know my way around. I figure this only happens for a couple of weeks per year for me, and the small amount of convenience a smartphone would add is not worth the cost of a phone. I recognize that I would probably get more hooked on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/whatever and that I might view that as utility if I owned a smartphone, but right now I view that as a time/productivity cost to avoid.
3. Shit like http://www.beneaththewaves.net/Projects/Motorola_Is_Listenin... . I have much less idea what sort of things are happening on a smartphone compared to a desktop/laptop, and I don't think I'm satisfied with the current state of mobile security. Also, having a smart phone is essentially moving the sensors closer to yourself (front facing camera, GPS, accelerometer, etc) and leads to a much more intimate form of computing. This just makes the eventual privacy violations even more damaging.
On the other hand, here are some things that made me wish I had a smartphone:
1. Currently, I wish I could use Simple (formerly Bank Simple) for my banking. However, "to be eligible (for Simple), you must: Own an iOS device with iOS 5.0 or higher, or an Android phone running Android OS 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) or higher.". :(
2. I'm in the process of writing an application that needs to know if I've completely tasks (real world offline tasks) at given times. Without a smartphone, I can push requests no further than email, which I only see when I check my laptop. Being able to push requests into my pocket would be very useful.
3. I'm somewhat interested in gathering personal data throughout the day (such as heart rate, how many steps I've walked, etc). A smartphone is pretty much necessary to use any products like Jawbone UP that allow this.
I realize some of my reasons against getting a smartphone directly contradict some of my reasons for wanting a smartphone, but I think that's actually very representative of the mixed bag smartphones are.
Don't thing your phone is not spying on you just because you can't program it. A dumb phone is still a computer, it just lacks a touchscreen and a different OS.
That's the current plan. My application requires me to respond to these text messages, but a richer interaction through some sort of GUI (either web app or native smartphone app) would be much more practical here.
His phone is "dumb" but mobile. So, I'm
more old fashioned than he is because
my phone is "dumb" but a wire-linedesk set and not mobile.
Why? Because when I use the phone, I
want the rest of my relevant stuff
handy -- paper and pen for notes,
various papers, and relevant data on
my computer.
But I can't make or receive mobile calls? Right.
To receive a call while I am traveling,
my voice phone provider, also my ISP,
has a message recorder, and then I
can get the message via e-mail
and download it. Really, for most
calls, I would not want to receive a call
while traveling because then
I would not have materials,
desk, etc. to
be able to handle the
call well. E.g., maybe I'm walking
down an isle at a grocery store
looking for a one quart or larger
jar of sweet pickle relish
and get a phone call about something
important where I have no
desk to take notes, note pad,
background info, privacy, etc. No thanks.
For making calls
while traveling, mostly I don't
want to do that either.
My work is to write my software, and
I don't travel much. So, when traveling,
I would only call for car emergencies,
and those are too rare to be worth
having a mobile phone, data plan,
keeping batteries charged, etc.
And now I'm concerned about privacy:
As it is, there is no way the NSA
or FBI can track me via my
smartphone signal because I have
no smartphone! So, the NSA and
FBI can't use a smartphone to
track me to my local convenience
store to buy gas for my car and lawn mower, milk,
French vanilla ice cream, and
wheat bread, to a local pizza
shop for a pickup for dinner, to Sam's Club,
Wal-Mart, and A&P for groceries,
cat food, etc., to a coin laundry
(until I get my Maytag fixed),
to Chinese carry-out, to
a hardware store to get epoxy
resin glue to fix loose joints in
wooden furniture, two cycle oil for
my grass trimmer, wet-dry sand paper
to use for sharpening my French chef's
kitchen knife -- really top
national security stuff like that!
Mostly my information, especially that
relevant to phone calls,
is on my computer
which is in a mid-tower case on a
table at home and usually in front of me and, thus, also
not mobile. E.g., for a phone number,
that's on my computer with other
relevant info and easy to find with
some of my software. And I have a
little very simple software to
dial phone numbers -- just write
some characters to a COM port
starting with AT and have the
phone wires going into and out
of an old FAX modem (also good
for sending letters via FAX
to my reps in Congress).
For a mobile
phone to have my collection of phone numbers, I would
have to copy over the data and, in the
future, sync the two locations of
my data. Also a smart phone, with
maybe something from Microsoft an
exception, won't run my most heavily
used piece of software that, in particular I use for
managing information relevant to
phone calls, my favorite text editor.
If my favorite editor were emacs,
then maybe it would also run on
a Linux based smartphone. But, as it is
a smartphone is a computer
but a pain to use instead of
my main computer and, then, a
sync issue.
If Microsoft wants to do something
to get ahead, then they should
make much more clear how to
do syncs, backups, restores,
including of options on software,
and the boot partition, and how
to use a home computer as a
server for mobile devices,
e.g., give good explanations of
VPNs and other security issues
of opening my main computer to
access from mobile devices.
Finally, if I had a smartphone,
then it might get stolen, and
the data on it might be confidential.
Even worse, if the smartphone had
an easy way to get a VPN connection
back to my main computer as a server,
then maybe all of the data on my
main computer -- e.g., my software
which should be treated as a
trade secret -- could be stolen.
Also, now police seem to like to
take smartphones and look through
all the data, photographs, etc.
there and strain to find excuses
to start big legal cases. Also,
with my smartphone in their hands
and a VPN connection back to my
main computer, they would
also have my trade secret software.
If I
have no smartphone, then police
can't grab it and violate my
Fourth Amendment rights.
If
I had a smartphone and had it
visible and if there were some
police doing something or other,
then the police could go wacko
(they basically don't like
citizens recording or even
watching what they do and know
that in practice they can
get away with a lot of
bullying of citizens they don't like),
accuse me of taking their pictures,
rough me up, arrest me,
search my car, plant drugs in my
car and then charge me with
possession of drugs, take my
smartphone, etc. They could
take my car. In searching
my car, they could find excuses
to trash my car, e.g., cut open
the seats.
If I had a dog,
then they could find an excuse
to shoot my dog. Just having
a smartphone could trigger some
not very nice police to get
me into a lot of legal trouble
for no more reason than my
just having a smartphone.
Indeed, likely police are afraid
of smartphones.
With no
smartphone, police have
fewer excuses to bully me
around, get their sadistic
enjoys, and get me into a
lot of legal trouble for
no reason at all.
My favorite editor is KEdit. Mostly
at my computer, I'm looking at a Web page
in Firefox or a text file in KEdit.
I use KEdit for notes of wide variety,
phone numbers, mailing addresses, etc.,
any high quality word processing via TeX,
typing in source code for software, looking
at the log files from my Web site development,
etc. Since I use KEdit on Windows XP
(hope it works on Windows 7 and Windows
Server when I convert to them),
maybe it would work on Windows phone.
> 3. Who still uses paper? That's such an edge-case :p
During a phone call, that's the only way
I know to capture info quickly. E.g.,
if the call is for me to get some info,
say, a name, phone-number, or e-mail address,
then I write it quickly on paper.
Maybe I should type in the info, but
I don't use a head set on my phone so
only have one hand available for
capturing the info.
I inscribe so infrequently that it takes me some concentration to actually draw each letter with my hand. If I don't focus it becomes an illegible mess. Typing on a full-size keyboard takes no focus at all.
I'm unusually fluent with SlideIt on my tiny 1" x 2" phone keyboard.
> "Shouldering" the phone is an age-old technique.
I used to play violin! Still I'm not good
at shouldering a phone. When I try I
pick up one of the hundred or so square
terry cloth towels I use for everything
from kitchen spills to napkins and use
the towel as a shoulder rest.
I need
to get a shoulder rest for my phone, but
my phone is an old AT&T thing with a
hand piece with a strange cross section
so that I didn't try to find a shoulder
rest.
The Microsoft editor Notepad is no competition
for KEdit (except for some strange cases
of files with Unicode); I've heard of
notepad++ and assume that there's a Windows
version but have not tried to use it.
Using a service like dropbox? I'd want
to have encryption, and I haven't set that
up yet. For de/encryption, I just want
a little command line program that reads
in data in base 64 and writes a file in
base 64. I do have some little base
64 utilities I wrote maybe 15 years ago!
I have the source
of an old, very simple version of PGP
-- that likely doesn't have any
back doors --
that I could use to create the little
de/encryption command line program,
and I have some references to some
such programs in open source
that likely also have no back doors,
but setting that up is just another
little project on the back burner.
Maybe I'm over thinking sync: I've
got several file types of my own
and in total some thousands of instances
of those types, and a true sync operation,
for each instance,
would essentially merge the contents
of a few of the instances; the merge
would have to be particular to the
file type of mine, and I couldn't find
any software to do that and don't
want to write any.
For me, if I really made good usage of
a smartphone, then during a busy few
days I'd have a file on my main PC
and a file on my smartphone, each file
with several additions (changes are
also possible), and have to sync,
i.e., essentially merge, the two files.
Else I'd have two files where I only
want one and/or lose some data.
More generally I'd also want to
sync two file system
directory trees; I don't want to
write code for that, code that would be
so good I'd want to
depend on, and haven't seen any code
for such an operation
that looks nicely polished.
I've been staying with the Microsoft
world and avoiding the Linux world
and guess that there are pros/cons
with that decision. My main consideration is that I
want the best software, documentation,
and live technical support
I can get
as a foundation for my servers in my
business; that Microsoft software I'm
counting on includes Windows XP and 7,
the .NET Framework, IIS,
Windows Server, SQL Server, and
various other of the Microsoft
products. And I want to be able to
continue to run my favorite text
editor KEdit (for which I have
about 150 macros) and my long standard
scripting language ObjectRexx.
And I have a TeX setup I like which
now is a bit non-standard, works
on Windows, but likely doesn't
have a Linux equivalent. Why not
on Linux? Because what I like is
some parts and pieces I've pulled together
from more than
one Windows distribution of TeX.
Broadly, doing things with Linux,
de/encryption, dropbox, smartphones
(VPN, backup/recovery, sync, Notepad++)
is all on the back burner instead of
crucial for getting my production
software done and my Web site live.
You're telling me that you've never shouldered an old handset? Inconceivable!
You are overthinking sync. The whole point is that when you save the file on your PC, it gets synced before you access it on your smartphone, then it gets synced again before you get back to your PC. And the whole point of these various services is that you pick one, set it up, then you can forget about it. With sync, the point is that you only have 1 file regardless of which client (text editor) or terminal (computing device) you use. You only have 1 file and folder tree which is constantly synchronized between all of your devices. There is no merge, as the file you edit on your PC has already synced the changes you made on your smartphone. I do understand the desire for encryption, and some of these services have that built in to varying degrees.
Notepad++ is one of the best text editors for Windows -- it is way better than Notepad or even Wordpad. Living down the 5 from Redmond means I've used MS products my entire life too. It's also somewhat of an IDE in that you can select a language for it to interpret a file, and it will provide keyword highlighting, bracket highlighting, and other language-specific features.
> You're telling me that you've never shouldered an old handset? Inconceivable!
Sure I've done it, including, as I mentioned,
with a towel as
an aid, but still I don't get good use of
both hands for typing. E.g., today I paid
two bills on-line. I used my computer for the
URLs, UIDs, PWs, of the Web sites, which
didn't work. Then I used a voice phone call
finding and
dialing the number from my main PC via my
text editor. Then I used the telephone voice
response and telephone touch tone pad to
do the work but had my paper based checkbook
right there, open, and used with a pen to
record my side of the transaction. I wouldn't
have wanted to have tried any of that
while traveling and/or with a mobile device.
Notepad++ sounds like a decent editor. So is
KEdit! Since I've got about 150 macros
for KEdit I wrote in their version of Rexx,
I won't change. But Notepad++ might
be help make some mobile computer that won't
run KEdit more useful.
Your idea of sync is not nearly the same as
mine. My view of sync is two files or two
hierarchical file systems where, roughly, want
to make them equal by keeping the latest
inputs
and also honoring appropriate deletes. Not so
easy to do well in general.
Your view of sync is much simpler and looks like
essentially just a file server that permits
at most one user at a time. Fine. That would
be very useful. And maybe there would be a
drive letter remote mount command so that
could access the file system on a public service
such as you mentioned.
But for that approach to sync, what I had in mind
was just leaving my main PC (likely with Windows
Server when I get that far) on all the time and
using it, in part, as a remote file server,
for my Windows XP, 7 system, Windows phone,
or iPhone if I have one and it can use
Windows Server as a file server. Then I
communicate between the mobile device and
my main server with Windows Server with
a VPN. Then since the server is locked
inside my house, maybe I will trust
in the Fourth Amendment and not encrypt
the files as they are on the server
but use the encryption in VPN for
security. Then I'll try not to have
any serious files on my mobile device.
Then losing the mobile device might not
be a huge security problem.
I'm sure Windows Server can provide the
functionality I'd need to use it
as a file server from some mobile devices over VPN.
Then with your definition of sync,
which has functionality fine with me,
the whole sync problem goes away simply
because I can't be in two places at once
and in one place would have no great reason
to be using two client devices connected
to the server at once!
That is, net, for files on a mobile device, I'd
just use VPN to connect to my main file
server which, for all purposes, has the
one and only copy of the file (except for
backups). That is, client devices, mobile,
even Windows XP or 7, just don't
have local copies of the files and, thus,
don't have files that need my complicated
version of sync.
I tried to indicate that I wanted to use
Windows Server as a file server in this
way. What I don't know is, what mobile
devices can use Windows Server and VPN
for all their file access? For security
in case I lose control of the mobile device,
I want all copies of all files
on the mobile device to be deleted, and
really deleted like overwritten and really
gone and out'a here.
I'm guessing that a lot of people are
going to be highly concerned about data
security for mobile devices, e.g., with
local police grabbing mobile devices,
the FBI/NSA snooping, mobile payments,
bitcoins, serious work with confidential
data done on a mobile device, etc. For
me for now, my solution to all those
problems is not to use a mobile device
(I do have one someone gave me,
but I don't use it!), and all like
right now within a millisecond as
I push this little button which
does not stop and ask me
"Do you really want to delete all
those files?".
My approach to an IDE seems to be unique:
To me, especially for the code I'm writing
for my business, the most important content
is not the executable statements but various
kinds of comments. When I return to some code
after a month, to heck with reading the darned
code, even though the code is typed with
beautiful indentation rules, long, mnemonic
identifier names, simple approaches to
classes, if-then-else, log file writing, and exceptional
condition handling, and, instead, just read
the comments. When I have questions,
sometimes the comments have cross references
typically with a 'target' such as
' Modified at 23:13:45 on Friday, July 19th, 2013.
which is in VB comment syntax and from a macro in
KEdit. But when there are not enough cross
references (e.g., where the heck is this
variable declared, set, used, changed?;
e.g., in this file of code, what are
all the functions/subroutines declared?),
I use the nicely functional locate
facilities of KEdit souped up with some
of my own macros.
Two of the biggies for my approach to
an IDE are:
(1) Screen Real Estate. I'd like a huge
screen or several huge screens but so far
am staying with the very nice NEC 17 inch
CRT I got when I plugged together my
Windows XP system. I will plug together
a Windows 7 system with a bigger screen, but
not today.
So, for more screen
real estate, when writing code typically I have
about a dozen windows open. And I have some
little programs of my own in ObjectRexx to
arrange the windows in nice ways.
Then I can bring any of the dozen windows
to the top of the Z order and use it without
moving any windows. So, I have close enough
to a dozen screens.
For
> keyword highlighting, bracket highlighting
KEdit has some of that functionality, but
I want nothing to do with it and keep it
turned off in KEdit! About all I let my
editor know that is "language specific"
is the comment syntax!
To me one of the great things in computing
is that source code is still essentially
just simple text in essentially just old
7 bit ASCII. Such text is really easy to
handle in many ways!
Net, I find that just making basic use of the
windowing system of Windows is a better way to
display information for my coding than the
panels in, say, Visual Studio.
(2) Documentation. My code has links
to lots of external documentation. Some of
this I wrote; some more are HTML of
articles from, say, Stack Overflow or some
Microsoft forum, but most of them are
from the 4000+ Web pages I have from
MSDN. So, each such Web page I have
described, abstracted, in a text file
I maintain with KEdit, and the abstracting
is usually good enough to let me find,
with a KEdit key word locate operation,
the right Web page when I need it.
Then in my code, I insert, say,
' SortedList Class
' H:/data05/projects/software/vb/msdn475.htm
where, of course, the tree name is on my file
system of a Web page from MSDN and the line above is the title
of the Web page. Then, right, one keystroke
in KEdit, using a macro I wrote, causes Firefox
to display the Web page. So, that's most of
my replacement of Microsoft's Intellisense,
and my version gives me the whole MSDN Web
page from which, of course, I can use the
subtree there to walk to related materials.
I have to type into something, and hopefully the
programs I type into can
be small in number and high in functionality.
So, KEdit is mostly what I type into.
For me, its macro language, based on Rexx,
is most of what makes it great. There's no
way I want to type into Visual Studio
instead of KEdit.
So far I don't want a mobile device. In time
as I do more traveling I may have to become
mobile, and then I will be highly concerned
about security, will want to keep essentially
all data on my main server in my home/office,
and access it via VPN. The sync problem
will go away because for each file,
there will be only one copy and that on
my file server (except for backups). Then,
right, for an editor for, say, light
work on a mobile device, I'd still hope
to use KEdit but otherwise would have
to try Notepad++, emacs, vi, etc.
A desperate plea to phone manufacturers, even though I realize I'm in the extreme minority. I would snap-purchase a dumb phone that had the following feature list and a $200 price tag:
1. Crystal clear voice quality.
2. There is no 2.
I don't want a camera. I don't want a voice recorder. I don't want an mp3 player. I don't want a web browser. I don't want a flashlight. I don't want text messaging or email. This might sound insane, but I actually just want a phone.