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here is the desc
Recently we made a family trip to the Sammamish Plateau for a gathering at some friends house that we had never visited before in an unfamiliar part of town. These days the ubiquity of online mapping has rendered the art of providing directions to ones house passe. So as is our custom, on our way out the door we pasted the address into Google maps, printed the output, and were on our way. Little did we know that this particular address presented a perfect storm of all that can go wrong with online driving directions.
The trouble began when the printout instructed us to turn right on NE 22nd St. which turned out to be a dirt road terminating at a heavy steel barricade. A paved version of NE 22nd St. continued on the other side of the gate, but a beefy padlock would prevent us from making any further progress in the car. Unfortunately we had only printed the text driving instructions and not the accompanying map – a mistake I vow never to repeat. Without a visual reference, randomly exploring different avenues in hopes of getting back to where the directions picked up seemed at the time like a fool’s errand, so we determined the best course of action would be to park at the gate and walk the remaining supposed 0.6 miles to the house.
Looking at the map now, I have no idea why Google determined the ideal route (steel gate not withstanding) involved the circuitous path shown in green instead of just proceeding straight on 22nd – not that it would have mattered as I’ll explain soon.
We gathered up our belongings and 1 year old son and faithfully meandered through the neighborhood on foot according to our instructions: right on 39th Ave NE, left on NE 24th St., left on 239th Ave. NE, and finally arrived at 235th Pl NE. Yay! Oops, not so fast, these house numbers weren’t anywhere close to the address we were seeking. Looking closer at the printout, the directions did not specifically lead to the house number, but only to the street itself. Turns out that if Google Maps can’t locate the house number, it still prints a map, but it isn’t readily apparent that the map is not leading to your precise destination. However even if I had noticed this fact sooner, I don’t know that it would have been a cause for alarm. Perhaps the house is brand new and the number just hasn’t made it into the Google database yet. Surely there isn’t another street called 235 Pl. NE in the same general vicinity; that would just be crazy right?
At this point I shift my ire from Google to the clever city planners of Sammamish, WA, who have devised the most bewilderingly convoluted street naming convention imaginable. Most every street number is repeated in multiple formats – be it Ct, Ave, or St – in some instances one intersecting the other. Sometimes the compass abbreviation appears at the beginning of the street name, other times at the end. In the unfortunate case of 235th Pl NE, they determined it was logical to re-use the name outright on a brand new street a quarter mile away bearing no spatial association with the original. Madness!
Getting back to the story; upon discovering that our directions had led us on a wild goose chase, I jogged back to the car asking some homeowners along the way for directions for an alternate route into the neighborhood. Fortunately I was able to navigate my way through the numbered street maze back to where I left my wife and son. At this point I was ready to throw in the towel and head for home, but my wife resourcefully had her father get on MapQuest (which, as it turns out, was able to accurately map the address) and vocally guide us to our destination. Why, you may ask, didn’t we just call our friends directly to ask for help. Well we certainly would have had we bothered to record their phone number – yet another lesson learned. Ultimately, and most importantly, we made it to the party so the effort was not in vain. As I enjoy saying – despite a complete lack of comprehension of French – c‘est la ie.
P.S. Perhaps a GPS navigation system would have been of assistance in this situation, but even they are not without their shortcomings as evidenced by the tale of some unfortunate Norwegians attempting a shortcut back to the airport in Rio.
Jeff Atwood over at Coding Horror has recently been blogging about netbooks, a new class of small low-cost laptops optimized for web browsing and emailing. To date I’ve resisted investing in a laptop since I already spend an inordinate amount of time at a desktop either at work or home, so I figure my remaining waking hours would be better spent not staring at a computer screen. But after reading more, I must admit the concept of a simple (and cheap) device to surf the web and check email at a coffee shop or on the couch has a lot of appeal. However my ideal device would be a slight departure from the current netbook incarnation. Like Jeff mentions, the browser is by far the most important application, and for a device like this, I would argue should be the only application – not so much a conventional laptop but a dedicated internet appliance where the browser constitutes the entire GUI for a no-frills minimalist (almost certainly Linux based) operating system.
Turning the device on (note I didn’t say boot up), would immediately connect to the internet and load my home page – or perhaps it would remember the last set of tabs I had open. Instant on/off is a must have feature. There are netbooks on the market today with integrated SplashTop technology that allows for 5-8 second boot times, but from what I can tell, it runs as a secondary operating system. For this device, there would be only one instant-on option so the interstitial splash screen could be eliminated making the browser the very first thing you see.
The UI would be very minimal with only those buttons and controls that are critical for browsing visible which reduces clutter and maximizes the available screen real estate for displaying web pages. Clearly Google Chrome has set the bar in this regard.
Although an integrated keyboard is present, most interactions – principally clicking hyperlinks – will take place via a touch screen interface.
Interaction with web sites and web applications is the device’s principal raison d’être, but a small suite of ancillary apps would be available and would open in browser tabs. Logical candidates include a media library/player and a blog authoring tool (along the lines of Windows Live Writer).
So here, in no specific order are the features and specifications I would desire in my fictitious notebook web browser appliance:
- Time from pressing the power button to being connected to the web and my home page displaying – 5 seconds or less.
- Near instantaneous power off.
- Built-in wireless capability (duh)
- Biometric password manager – when a web page requesting a password is loaded, a notification will appear indicating that I can simply press a finger to an on-board reader which will auto-fill the username/password fields and submit the form.
- Form-fill manager to minimize keyboard usage
- Screen large enough to comfortably read text at 1024×768
- Integrated ergonomic wheel dial for easy and comfortable vertical scrolling.
- Priced at under $200
There is much speculation that Google is seeking to position Chrome as a bona fide OS replacement. In the near term, this strikes me as unlikely for a primary productivity machine where thick client applications are still the norm. But for devices such as the one I describe, whose primary purpose is web browsing and web application access (which probably addresses the needs of the majority of computer users), I think the browser OS will indeed become a reality soon. And at $200 a pop, it could be a real game changer; I know I would buy one.
netsandbolts 