Easily my 2 favorite companies right now are Google and Amazon. Google seems to get smarter by the day…have you seen the new Google Docs stuff they got goin on? It’s crazappy! And then there’s android (you’re soaking in it, since I’m writing this on my droid). And Amazon just seems to have most of the stuff I need, er, want right now (what can’t you buy on Amazon?). I think we got half of our Christmas on Amazon this year, and I get all my mp3 downloads from them now. But what happened yesterday just blew my mind.

I got my wife a kindle for Christmas…you know, Amazon’s cool, eBook eReader…the one with the display that looks like real paper & ink…the one that can hold something like 1500-2000 digital books…the one that lets you hook up with Amazon’s amazing bookstore, click a button, and download a book in seconds, all without a network anywhere nearby? Well, she loves it and has been kindling away for almost 7 months now. But then, a couple of weeks ago, tragedy…her screen froze on a nasty looking image of one of kindle’s screensavers, with horizontal lines covering a good portion of the screen.

Being the typical tech support rep that I am, I did some investigating and found out that this problem has been occurring with other kindle users for several months now. I told her we’d have to call Amazon and hope they honored their warranty. And being the typical husband that I am, I waited for over a week before I got around to it.

To tell you the truth, I was dreading the conversation I would have to have with a support rep, probably some dude from India who’s way smarter than me but has just enough of a language barrier to turn a 2 minute conversation into 10. So I sent an email from their “Kindle support” page first, and thought I might get lucky and get back an email with detailed instructions…no such luck. Instead I got back an email that essentially said “sorry you’re having trouble with your Kindle…please give us a call…” Crap.

Ok, here we go…gotta call ‘em after all. Luckily I noticed the details in the email that suggested I could initiate the call from the support page, and they would call me back. Really? That’s different…so I gave it a try. Wow…what a support experience. I entered my home number, and about 2 seconds after I clicked submit, my phone rang. An automated message told me there was currently a wait time of less than a minute, and about 30 seconds later a guy came on live…his name, Mike…his accent, American…his help, perfect. They ended up overnighting a new Kindle, and told me I could ship the dead one back (for free) in the same box. She even had access to all the old books she had on her old one, so she’s back in business, less than 24 hours after I contacted Amazon…now that’s customer service.

Pretty slick idea, and it does come in handy…but I had to laugh when I saw that i’d missed a call from my brother who was apparently asking about my “copy rooster.” Of course I could tell he was asking about my coffee roaster. So for now, Voice remains a cool idea, but needs some work before it can tell a rooster from a roaster.

I was heading into Indy to go to a credit union I don’t typically use, and even though I’ve been there before, I looked it up on the droid and asked it to navigate me there. This was partly because it will estimate the driving time and I was on a tight schedule…ok, it was also because I still love to say things like “navigate to the credit union on West 56th street in Indianapolis, Indiana” and watch it do its thing. Yeah…still cool.

Anyway, I fired up the droid navigation thingy and got on my way. Well, about 10 minutes down I65, I was deep in thought and completely lost in my little mobile world when some awful-sounding woman, who seemed to be virtually sitting in my lap, shouted at me, “IN ONE AND ONE HALF MILES TAKE EXIT ONE TWENTY FOUR…” I nearly jumped off the seat, and it took me a second to realize it was the female synthesized navigation voice coming from my droid, which was literally sitting in my lap. I have to tell you, it really scared the crap out of me. Then I laughed at myself…I’d been scared by the voice I now refer to as the Nav-Hag.

I promised myself I wouldn’t let her scare me like that again, so I intentionally left the navigation on even as I got closer and closer to my destination, well past the point where I needed it anymore, just so I could get used to it. And as I got closer, and it kept telling me things I already knew (I even found myself talking to it irately…”yes, I know I need to turn right on Lafayette Rd! You think I didn’t know that!?! Shut up already!”), I came up with another name for it. I called it my Nagivator.

This will certainly be a work-in-progress, as I change my mind or find new examples of dos and don’ts, but for the most part, I think this is fairly complete.  So, for anyone wanting my general thoughts on software or other things technical, here’s my take.

1 – Try free first

Use free and open source alternatives when possible and appropriate.  For the majority of everyday tasks for the majority of personal and even business users, there are perfectly capable, full-featured, and completely free programs and tools available for everything from office documents, to graphics, to accounting…even professional-level desktop publishing.  And for those of us who like to do more and more of our computing on the net (assuming we’ve got a decent connection), many online services use a “freemium” model in which they offer a basic, limited, and/or low volume version of their service for free with an option to step up to paid levels for higher volumes or additional features.

2 – Use the net

Use online services, including freemium sites (see above) when possible so you have instant access to your data no matter where you are. There are definitely risks inherent to letting a net-based program keep all of your data (especially for business users), but there are pros as well as cons that tend to balance out that risk.  For example, using online systems instead of PC-based, local programs can help upgrade-proof and crash-proof your data…if you change computers, you need only fire up a browser to get access again.

3 – Know your ‘-ability’ profile

Making a decision about what software or system you want to use involves a multi-pronged decision process. What’s most important to you can change over time and according to the type of system in question. In general, you need to take these factors into account and decide which is more important than the next:

Stability
Extendability
Accessibility
Usability
Affordability

Once you’ve got a picture of how each of these “-abilities” stacks up against one another, you can start to figure out what system you’re leaning toward.

4 – I ain’t your Big Brother…I’m more like your Cool Uncle

I’m not necessarily going to tell you exactly what to do (or what you can’t do), but I’ve got some opinions on what’s a good idea (and what ain’t). Id rather let you try something yourself than impose rigorous limitations, but I’ve got your back if you get in over your head, and I’ll let you know if you’re wanting something that’s just downright dangerous.

I haven’t added a ton of games on my droid, but I have to admit the Alien Abduction game is addicting. Just goes to show you don’t need anything spectacular to keep you occupied for long periods of downtime.

So why a cow? Why is it bouncing? Why is it being abducted by aliens? I dunno….it’s just fun.

I wrote earlier about Google’s vision of a cloud-based, device-neutral future with the emergence of their Android and Chrome OSes. I think those pieces of the puzzle will continue to mature, but it will never work until we have usable speed on devices running those OSes, and the usability of that speed will depend on connectivity more than productity or scalability.

One of the coolest things about my new droid phone is the GPS and mapping capability. The marriage of GPS with real-time access to google’s massively indexed search info is just an absolutely beautiful thing.

When you can speak into your phone (android’s speech recognition is also amazing) something like “find the nearest pizza” and it instantly pops up a map with markers for pizza joints overlaid…well, that’s just downright cool. But it blows my mind when I can touch on any of those markers and it brings up the address (with an offer to navigate there), and the phone number (with an offer to call automatically), and reviews, and the web address, and a ‘street view’ of what the place and its surroundings look like…you have to see it to believe it.

The droid I’m typing (tapping? texting? thumbing?) this on, or any other Android-based, GPS-enabled smart phone for that matter, is one piece. Their Chrome browser-like operating system will be another. But the necessary glue that makes the whole thing click is Google’s massively-indexed, near realtime, ubiquitous web search capability.

I’m still not convinced that we’ll be at a point anytime soon where we can all ditch our local apps and data. I’m a huge fan of open source tools like OpenOffice, the Gimp, Inkscape, and Scribus, and I can’t yet envision a time when a browser-based document or image processing app will ever provide the richness or power of those PC-based apps. But I’m more and more convinced now that we’ll very quickly be at a point where the majority of tasks for the majority of users could be handled with Google’s brave new web-based paradigm. And when they release their Chrome OS later this year (hopefully), I think we’ll be still one step closer to realizing the potential of that paradigm.

Well…let me tell you, Google has just about figured that all out. I’m not saying they put all that stuff on a phone, but they’ve put together an incredibly useful and rich mobile OS and toolset. And Motorola has partnered that environment with a downright sexy phone. I’ve always liked Motorola phones and this one doesn’t disappoint. It feels solid and substantial. The keyboard is small but functional (I’m typing on it!). The screen is bright and beautiful. And the phone sound quality, signal, etc are all fine. But what makes the Droid a truly exceptional device is Google’s Android OS. Wow…Google just gets it. And now, thanks to my wife, I get it too.

All that aside, the new Kindle 2 from Amazon does look cool.  I still think I’ll hang on to my old hard-backs, but these devices could start to get really interesting in another generation or 2.

Oh yeah, one more thing…any coincidence that Ian Freed’s name can be anagrammatized as “Read Fine?”