Super High Output a No-SHO: Ford and the Dumbing Down of America

Apparently, Ford has little regard for its potential customers and their intellect. It feels either their memories are too short or their brains are too full to understand S.H.O. versus "SHO."

In 1989, Ford set the automotive world afire with with the 3.0L, 220hp, V6, Taurus Super High Output, or S.H.O.

Back in the day, we were impressed with 220 hp from a naturally aspirated V6.

Today, Ford has revived the S.H.O. moniker for a 3.5L 365hp, twin-turbo charged V6. To be honest, 365 hp from a 3.5L, force inducted engine can hardly be considered "Super High Output", but come on! "SHO?" Have you no shame?

Interestingly, this is not the first occasion Ford has taken to spoon feed a naming convention to its customers. Take for instance the 1993-1998 Lincoln Mk VIII. If you were interested in one of babies, you would go to your local dealership and inquire about the "Lincoln Mark Eight". Today, after skipping the Mk IX, we have the MKX. Ford apparently felt customers had so much difficulty with Roman Numerals that they couldn't be troubled with the name "Mark Ten" so they have thrown in the towel and refer to the vehicle as the "MKX".

Aside from being a complete departure from decades of "Mark" names, this adds to the confusion in the alphabet soup names of the Luxury market.

Order Of Operations

We all remember FOIL from Algebra I.

First

Outer

Inner

Last

Following these steps was the key to unlocking binomials. While almost everybody is able to maneuver through basic Algebra, why do I see the order of operations violated so many times during everyday life?

How many people do you see fill their paper cup with piping hot coffee before putting on a cup sleeve?

Isn't it much easier, quicker and safer to put the sleeve on before filling it with a potentially law-suit inducing, hot, beverage?

I can't wait for Android 2.0! My Treo 750P's days are numbered

I am so excited about the coming barrage of Android phones. I have been a sideline fan of the iPhone since it was released, only to quickly realize, it was still an Apple product :(

I quickly got on the Palm Pre bandwangon, only to discover it was simply an iPhone-lite. By lite, I don't mean to imply that it is less capable than the iPhone, but rather it was developed in the same walled garden vein as the iPhone, by ex-Apple employees.

• No Expansion Card
• No Video @ Launch
• Sacrifice usability for style- ie. Useless center button in lieu of a time / motion saving directional pad
• <100>
• Limited memory allotted to Apps in System Memory

I wish Palm had adopted the Android platform and customized it to the extend they appear to have made WinMo usable on their earlier WinMo phones.

Today, I get a lot out of my 750P. More than the iPhone has to offer regarding streaming podcasts with Kinoma. I can stream my TV to my phone via Slingplayer Mobile and am not tied to WiFi networks.

It seems SlingMedia has such a bad taste in its mouth from creating a marginalized Slingplayer Mobile for the iPhone that only works on a WiFi network, that they are not anxious to develop an app for the Android or Palm community. Let them know what you think here.

I checked out the HTC Hero on Sprint's launch day. Loved the phone and Sense UI interface, Despised the virtual keyboard. NOTE: I have since heard there is an extensive calibration process that I did not try. Hopefully that will make the keyboard at least as good as the iPhone, which I can barely tolerate.

Next up, Samsung Moment. I have never been much of a physical keyboard fan, but no longer have Palm's Graffiti to rely on. The Moment should be miles ahead of the Hero with its keyboard. The improved processor and flash is also attractive as well, but it is without Sense UI.

The DROID on Verizon seems to incorporate a much improved Android 2.0 interface with a physical keyboard and fast processor.

If Verizon hadn't lied to me on multiple occasions, I would be lining up for the new DROID. Motorola's questionable user interfaces of the RAZR also make me wary of the end-all-be-all, iPhone killer that Droid is made out to be.

Hopefully I will make the jump soon!

Thankfully, They Don't Build 'Em Like They Used To!

Unbelievable!

Google Listen - Android's Answer to Kinoma Player?

It looks like the PalmOS legacy may be one step closer to being overtaken by the iPhone, WebOS and Android tri-fecta. With the October 11th release of the HTC Hero, it seems like I will finally make the jump into the modern era of smartphones. I really, really wanted to like the Palm Pre, but there is too much Apple influence and it is growing too slowly for my tastes at the moment, I may check back with Palm WebOS in a year or so, but the HTC Hero with the Sense UI have me really intrigued right now. What did Palm do in anticipation of the Hero launch? They served up the Pixi with a fantastic form factor, but dumbed it down by omitting WiFi and an external memory slot.

I have been a hold-out Treo 700P user for over 3 years. I wanted to like the iPhone when it was introduced. I went to the Apple store the day after it was launched and played with the stunning GUI for over 30 minutes before admitting it was definitely not for me. Simple? Yes. Easy to use? Check. Useful? Not Quite.

I am so accustomed to:

Kinoma Player- I listen to podcasts literally every day. NPR hourly news multiple times, TED talks on occasion, Adam Carolla, This Week in Google. I don't have a set listening schedule and I can't be bothered with subscribing to podcasts in iTunes and downloading them to my phone. I want to find and listen to casts instantaneously. Kinoma player allows me to do this on my Treo 700P. The user interface is tired, yet functional after all these years.

-----> Google Listen and DoggCatcher both seem to offer the functionality of Kinoma on a modern platform. I am VERY enouraged by this.

Documents to Go- Creating and editing real MS Office documents and syncing them with my laptop. Rarely does a day go by that I don't jot a business idea or blog post into a word file. I could use a "cloud" version of google docs, but I do find myself on planes enough that I am much more comfortable with native files. For all you sneering about my comments regarding audio streaming above, calm down. When I am preparing for a trip, I may stream & download a few podcasts to the phone in the airport lounge prior to boarding. I like to keep my options open all the time.

----->Available for $29.99 in the Android Market! I paid $30 for Kinoma player and a similar amount for Docs 2 Go several Palm OS devices ago.

SlingPlayer- This is the tricky one. iPhone has a useless version of this that restricts use to WiFi networks only. If I have access to a WiFi network, there is a good chance that:
A. I am at Home and can watch my own TV
B. I am in a public location that does not lend itself to uninterrupted TV viewing.

Sling seems unwilling to develop an app for Android. Orb seems like it may be a convoluted option.

Google Android Slingbox Update 9-11-09

Sling has officially "declined" the feedback started in the ROCK THE VOTE post.

Click here and you may still leave comments and vote for this idea.

Thinkpad, It's the little things

Since Lenovo's purchase of the ThinkPad brand of business oriented laptops from IBM, they have made subtle changes to the product without really diluting the features that made the IBM's so great.

In my opinion, there have been two, minute changes that annoyed me in the Lenovo era.

1. The Power, Volume and Access IBM keys- The design of these keys changed on from the T40 series to the T60 series. The keys looked cheap. I have no data to prove that the design was driven by cost savings concerns, but they sure appeared to be that way.

2. The Blue and Red highlights on the TrackPoint were removed. It seems hard to argue that this was not a cost savings effort. Although I never look at the keyboard or TrackPoint when I type, I have to say I missed the color contrast with the stark black (which I loved).

David Hill, ThinkPad Designer, has given us a breif peak at the a new ThinkPad. The video below shows small improvements to the proven keyboard. Simply increasing the size of the ESC and Delete keys seems like a no-brainer, now that they took that step...

Items 1 & 2 have also been addressed:

New Volume & Power Buttons

Touchpad Color

The keys in the video have the color accents and I beleive the newer X300's also have this feature.

David, keep up the good work!