If I can stereotype for a moment – I admire Indian people – and enjoy their food.

I’ve spent some time working with Indian engineers in the tech industry, and they are some of the most hardworking, good-natured, and polite people I know, with strong family values.

Like the French, Indian culture holds some qualities which America is relatively lacking in. Unlike the French (or Americans, for that matter), they would never be so rude as to point it out.

Since several of the Indian engineers I worked with were vegetarian, group lunches would more often than not wind up at an Indian Buffet, of which there are several in Silicon Valley. Fine with me. Set me up with some Vindaloo and mango soft-serve ice cream and I’m a happy camper.

Unfortunately, I have probably driven by ‘Chili Chicken‘ on Summer St. in Stamford several times without it ever occurring to me that it might be an Indian restaurant. Their sign doesn’t offer any clues as to this either. I mean, just look at it – how would anyone ever guess that this is anything but a very American restaurant?

It looks like some sort of third-tier chain that specializes in Chili made from Chicken. Seriously, who wants Chicken Chili? No one! That’s something you eat because you’re watching your weight, or there is a mad cow outbreak, or you pulled the wrong meat out of the freezer to defrost before leaving for work.

So, it’s Indian food – with an American logo – with clues that it serves American dishes of marginal interest at best.

Not good.

But that’s not half of Chili Chicken‘s marketing dilemma. You see, they are a Indian-Chinese restaurant – which for me, is twice as intriguing, if even less knowable.

Chili Chicken is named after their signature dish. Unfortunately, they dropped the ‘Hakka‘ from the front of the dish’s name – the only clue whatsoever as to its nature. I figured since they were so proud of this dish they were willing to cloak their restaurant’s identity in it, I had to at least try it.

Besides being far less American on the inside than their awning implies, Chili Chicken is also far more tasteful, even calming – befitting any good Indian restaurant. The staff was Indian, and only reinforced my stereotype of Indian hospitality and polite, friendly, demeanor.

The Chili Chicken arrived promptly with a generous portion of perfectly cooked Jasmine rice to bed it on. I would describe it as an better-than-average sesame chicken – but with the promised ‘Indian Twist‘ coming from the heat. It’s a nice, slow burn that builds over time rather than jolts at first bite. I cooled it off with a sweet Mango Lasse. Yum.

My only regret after eating at Chili Chicken was not having come with more people and dined family style so I could have sampled more of their menu, which is full of all kinds of interesting Chinese and Indian based-dishes that promised a little something special.

I will definitely be back again to check out more of what’s to offer at Chili Chicken, and glad to now be amongst the locals who know what really goes on under the misleading awning at Chili Chicken.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Chili Chicken Restaurant – Good Indian-Chinese Food, Unfortunate Name

It’s ‘girl’s weekend’ at my house, (3 women + their 7 daughters under 5!) , so I got greenlit to get a hotel for the weekend and chill! I booked the Stamford Plaza Hotel on Summer St., a former Sheraton now under new management.

I didn’t want to go far or pay alot of money, I just wanted a decent place to stay close to home where I could work and relax. After scanning Expedia and almost booking the Stamford Marriott ($109/night), I decided for once I was going to roll the dice and try one of those ‘unpublished rates’ – you know, where they offer you a super-low rate IF you book without knowing what hotel it is first (like Priceline).

Frankly, I would normally *never* do this, unless, say, it was for an overnight stay on a road trip and they promised me a 3-star and the next option was twice as much. But I was intrigued, and convinced I could figure out which hotel it was before booking.

It was described as a 3.5 star hotel, and I used the other amenity clues they gave me to narrow down the list of their ‘published rate’ hotels to about 4. The giveaway was an amenity ‘tennis nearby’ – that had to be unique – it was – unique to The Stamford Plaza, which had good reviews. I was sure of it, so I booked it, and was rewarded with a $59/night rate – $50 less a night than the Stamford Marriott. Nice!

The first thing you notice walking into the Stamford Plaza is that it is big. The atrium reminded me of the Las Vegas Luxor – while it obviously was not that big, the size is impressive. It is also meticulously clean, and rather quiet. I suspect the hotel is largely supported by traveling staff and events for their next-door neighbors, GE Asset Management, which is how they could afford keeping their superdomish atrium air conditioned.

The Plaza is also very clean, without exception, and check-in was quick and staff helpful and polite.

The one issue I had was with parking – you have to check-in before you park, as you need your room key to get into the parking garage. No big deal, but the street to the parking garage has several gratuitously huge speed bumps which scratched the bottom of my car – and from the looks of the tops of them, many other cars as well. They are just too high and too many. I am glad I would not be going to and from the hotel frequently.

I did, however, get a spot right next to the elevator, as the massive parking garage was barely populated. Parking is $10/day for guests (The Stamford Marriott is $12).

Although it seemed the hotel was lightly booked, they assigned me a room as far from the elevator as possible, which was really annoying and puzzling – because, again, the hotel is pretty big.

While I knew from the atrium that I was going to be fine staying at the Stamford Plaza, I was still taken aback with how nice the room was. It was very standard-sized – the bathroom a little smaller than most, but very tastefully decorated. The couch and coffee table were a plus.

My only complaint was the 20-inch CRT TV – although most hotels have been very slow on the upgrade to flat screens, so this was no surprise.

Although I had a very strong wireless signal, the speed was disappointing, about .3 Mbps. I couldn’t get the wired ethernet connection to work, but didn’t care enough to call the desk for help either.

Regardless, overall, this place was a lot better than I expected and I can heartily recommend the Stamford Plaza as a super value hotel (even the published rate was only $89/night). I don’t know how to describe it, but it has that atmosphere of ‘chain buyout’ – there are giveaways, like the canvas sign on the front with the logo that looks kinda-like-but-not-really Sheraton’s – but that’s not a negative, the owner is towing the line well and in exchange you get a great room at a great price.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Stamford Plaza Hotel Review

As primarily a unix developer who prefers running Windows and MacOS on the desktop, I’ve relied on powerful terminal clients for years to get my job done. On Windows, that client has always been SecureCRT. Ever since the day I installed it, it has been the most powerful, usable, and well-supported terminal client I have used on any platform.

Moving to Terminal in MacOS X was hard. Only recently have I dug into the nuts and bolts of Terminal configuration, including .term and .command files, to do things like ‘open 5 connections to 5 different servers and login’, which is something anyone who manages server farms needs to do frequently. In SecureCRT, there is no editing configuration files to do this – the interface is designed to make all of this very easily accessible and configurable.

Probably the worst thing about Terminal is that it is good enough that there doesn’t seem to be much interest in commercial-grade third-party remote terminal development for MacOS.

So, when I did switch to Mac, it wasn’t long before I begged VanDyke to port to MacOS via their support email – which is probably the most reliable, informed, and expedient support service of any software I have ever owned.

I didn’t know the status of any port until today, when I noticed it had already been launched into beta. It looks and works just like the Windows version, which is fine with me. In just minutes I had configurations for all my servers up and running which took me an afternoon in Terminal – and it works better to boot.

One thing I did notice as missing was a vt100 font which has always been included in the Windows version. It is my favorite terminal font, but doesn’t seem to be included in the MacOS version. Besides the default font that used to ship with Konsole (Linux), it is the only terminal font I like using.

There is no question in my mind that it will be a huge boost to my productivity under MacOS – if you ssh alot I recommend trying it out.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: SecureCRT for MacOS Beta Released!

Wow, is all I can say.

While in some very busy multiplayer running FRAPS under Win 7 Pro 64-bit/ Boot Camp, I was seeing a very consistent 65 frames per second, and a 60-s benchmark showed frame rates peaking in the 90′s (MW2 is FPS capped at 90, I think), and never dipping below 40, which is not just playable – its great!

Here is a video I posted of the game which shows it running great – but since its a FRAPS recording, the recording itself is affecting gameplay, even though I recorded it at half-res with no sound @30FPS. Actual gameplay is much better than you see here.

Historically any serious gamer will tell you to avoid a Mac. First and foremost because they never ship with great gaming video cards, and only recently started to use good ones. Mac OS X, of course, has a tiny percentage of hit game titles, usually ported late, and although Valve’s great Steam was recently ported to Mac, the OS itself does not deliver the performance of the Windows version (yet).

There has always been the option to buy a Power Mac, but in terms of gaming *value*, that’s money poorly spent. Most of the Power Mac’s cost is based in it’s use of Workstation-grade CPUs, RAM, and motherboards, super-fancy enclosure and Apple Tax, which in practice really only delivers a lower failure rate, and perhaps some I/O performance that isn’t really relative to gamers.

The new 27″ iMac with Radeon 5750 is a really interesting first for Apple, because as long as you also want that display, the combination of computer and display at $2000 starts to become reasonable. An equivalent Dell box and monitor would be about $1700, and that’s about as close as Apple gets to Dell prices in terms of hardware bang-for-the-buck.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Summer 2010 iMac Refresh Shows Great Gaming Performance [Video]

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: 27″ Apple iMac 2.8 Ghz Quad Core i5 Unboxing – Summer 2010 Refresh

So, here I am going to try very hard to do a brief writeup on my top-level thoughts.

1. The iPad is not a fad. The iPad is for reals.

The iPad is real and I use it every day, as does my wife and mother in law.

The iPad has several important usability aspects which make it unique. First of all, it is *more* portable than a notebook, much more – and the battery lasts longer. It is an ideal companion for the train, much more so than the iPhone or a netbook. It’s quick to open, does not ‘boot up’, the battery lasts all day and the larger screen makes video playback and web browsing a much better experience than an phone.

As an e-Book reader it is unbeatable. Its a better Kindle than the Kindle. I have a lot of PDF books and the iPad is the first device which is just perfect for reading them.

The iPad’s only major problem now is the lack of multitasking. What was annoying on the iPhone is infuriating on iPad, as you could actually get some major work done with this device if it weren’t for losing state when switching apps.

Prediction: A future version of the iPad will also have application windows and a desktop like MacOS. The iPhone model of multitasking and app management holds the iPad back.

2. The iPhone 4 is not a failure, but a major misstep.

Yes the display on the iPhone 4 is gorgeous, and the battery life and camera are much better. Facetime is a nice novelty but its embarrassing to Apple to have this launch in the US without 3G support – its just another footnote in the long list of abysmal AT&T service iPhone users have to deal with.

However, the iPhone 4 did not fix ANYTHING that users had clamored for, and broke some stuff that worked fine.

CARRIER

Steve, we would give back every iPhone 4 feature there was and pay an extra $100 to just have Verizon in July. Seriously, 4 years with a carrier you and every iPhone user knows does not deliver quality service is turning a blind eye to your customers.

FORM FACTOR

Everyone has always loved the form factor of the iPhone, and haven’t really complained that much about a lack of serious refresh. Yet, here we have a new iPhone which neither feels as comfortable in your hand or can withstand drops, and aesthetically its little more than ‘just different’.

RECEPTION

From the very first review of the very first iPhone, the major complaint was data speed and dropped calls. It’s always been a mystery to me why iPhone originally shipped with EDGE when 3G was well-established in the marketplace (I never even considered buying an iPhone before the 3G). The problem continued however with the poor QOS of AT&T service and what was probably a reception shortcoming of the iPhone as well.

Again, at this stage in the iPhone’s development to ship the 4th generation product with a reception issue is beyond belief. Stop testing the iPhone in Silicon Valley – it works fine there – test it in NYC.

MULTITASKING

I don’t have a problem with the iPhone’s ‘limited’ multitasking concept – in fact, I think its a great idea – not just for phones, but for computers as well. It a process isn’t doing anything it shouldn’t be using any resources at all as long as you can switch back to it quickly. That’s a tough engineering problem but a very worthwhile goal for energy conservation. Apple’s implementation is sound.

However, they don’t do task switching as well as Android, and it’s not leveraged as well either. With Android, users can select their own default mail app, web browser, what have you, and most of your task switching involves not running back and forth to the home button/app selection screen but simply by pressing the ‘back’ button. It’s a seemingly subtle difference but in practice makes multitasking – and overall usability – much more efficient on Android.

3. The Sprint EVO isn’t perfect either, but it is absolutely on par with the iPhone 4 and has 2 MAJOR secret weapons…but first lets get this out of the way….

ITS BIG AND THE BATTERY SUCKS

The Sprint EVO is big – people with small hands will probably hate it – and the battery life is indeed an issue. However, neither are deal-killers. In fact, I am seriously considering returning my iPhone 4 and canceling my AT&T service, because it just doesn’t return any value for me relative to the Sprint/EVO combo.

APPS LOOK SLOPPY

The other shortcoming of EVO is related to Android. The Android SDK, unlike iOS, does not result in a lot of pretty apps by default. You *can* make a great looking app on Android, its just that unlike the iPhone SDK, its easier ‘not to’. It reminds me a lot of linux desktop in this regard. It has loose and unenforced design guidelines that make for a sloppy-looking catalog.

One of the major reasons for this is that unlike the iPhone, the iPad has no fixed display resolution (notice how interface elements on iPhone 4 did not change size or result in more ‘real estate’ for UI elements- they just scaled them 2:1 to avoid this issue).

OS AND APPS ARE MORE POWERFUL

As for apps, you will have no problem finding the apps you need in Android Marketplace, and most of them will have the same if not more features than the iPhone version thanks to the lack of restrictions imposed by the iTunes App store and AT&T on what an app can do.

For example, when I commonly take a photo on the iPhone, I want to upload it to Facebook. So I pull up the send menu, and…no Facebook. This is because you can only send the photo to places which have been ‘blessed’ (EMail, MMS, and MobileMe). Now you have to leave the app, find the Facebook app, go to your profile, click the camera, select the photo, and post it as an update.

This is unnecessary on Android – the camera app can send photos wherever you want and the locations are extendable.

Similarly, you can use Gmail as your default mail app on Android, and stuff like the ‘Archive’ button will actually be available, unlike using Gmail sync on iPhone.

Beyond that, the entire OS is open source and there are no real limits on what parts of the OS can be programmed. There is a program ‘ROM Manager‘ which basically lets you point and shoot completely unique builds of Android right on the phone.

YOU CAN USE THE APPS YOU LIKE BEST AS DEFAULTS

Most importantly is the ability to use any app as your default for web browsing and email (or viewing images, etc..). I have been using ‘Perfect Browser’ on the iPhone and iPad for months now as it actually has ‘features’ unlike the very bare-bones Mobile Safari browser. Using tabs on the iPad works perfectly, I have no idea why Apple decided to use their tiresome window-switching scheme on the iPad.

I cannot make ‘Perfect Browser‘ my default browser on iPad, however, which cuts my opportunity to take advantage of this much better browser in half. This is really important, because the iPad is so large, you might find yourself choosing to use a regular web version of an service you used as an app on the iPhone (example: Facebook – I suspect this is why they haven’t bothered to make an iPad app).

On the EVO, I use Dolphin HD as my browser – its not perfect, but its jam-packed with features and under constant development and update.

THE EVO’S ‘SECRET WEAPONS’

The EVO has some secret weapons that the iPhone doesn’t even come close to competing with. These aren’t just ‘features’ but serious cornerstone elements of the device which are of unique and of massive value.

#1 WIFI HOTSPOT

Before the first iPhone was even released, I had enjoyed unlimited 1.5+ Mbps USB tethering for free on my Sprint Blackberry for over a year. It worked amazingly well. 4 years later, the iPhone is just *now* getting USB tethering – for a fee, and with a download limit.

Not that I would ever pay for that service, because:

a. data throughput on the iPhone 4 is awful
b. tethering is usually unlimited and/or free on other carriers/handsets
c. USB tethering is obsolete

The last one is the biggie. USB tethering is obsolete. It’s awkward, requires you to have a cable with you all the time, only works with one device at a time, and that device is pretty much limited to a computer.

With the Sprint EVO, I just press the ‘hotspot’ button and I am a walking ISP. My iPad works (using my EVO as a 3G hotspot with my iPad is *much* faster than my wife’s AT&T 3G iPad service!), My MacBook works – and none of them need a cable or any special config at all. Heck even 6 other people sitting around me on the train can use it – what do I care? It’s basically as fast a a mid-level Verizon DSL account, and costs less.

Also, when my power goes out at home, we still have internet! We have a squirrel chew through a line on our street a week ago and lost power or 90 minutes – my FiOS was down. I just fired up the EVO and we surfed it on our iPads for an hour.

I would even go so far as to say the EVO hotspot feature could completely replace a DSL line for casual users (not gamers or heavy downloaders of course, but emailers and web surfers absolutely).

Other Android phones with Froyo have the hotspot feature now also – for free – although its unclear how long the carriers will allow that before charging for it.

#2 GOOGLE NAVIGATION

I guess that I never knew about Google Navigation because it sounded ambiguous and I figured it was the same thing as Google directions on Google Maps.

Its not.

Google Navigation is nothing more or less than the best realtime GPS navigation app I have ever used on ANY platform or standalone device, period. It so good, I commonly set the EVO on its (indispensable) kickstand in my car and use it in place of the Nuvi already on the dashboard!

The screen is bigger, the maps are better and always up-to-date, it has real-time traffic (!), and the voice instructions are SO much better than other apps – you can drive 100 miles with it, and it will not speak unless it has something you need to hear, unlike a Nuvi, which will tell you to ‘stay right’ if there is a slight bend in the interstate, or warn you 10 times of an upcoming turn.

But best of all is inputting locations – you can do it BY VOICE. Voice search is the next ‘secret weapon’ we will discuss, and its most powerful implementation is with Google Navigation. Anyone who has tried to find a location on a Nuvi will understand – it doesn’t know about ‘all’ stores and stuff, and you need to drill down POIs and categories to find them anyway. Keyboard input on the Nuvi is slow and cumbersome. Its slow to find stuff and build routes.

With the EVO, you just press the ‘search’ button on the phone, and speak the destination. Of course, its also tied into Google Local so the power of what you can do just goes on and on.

#3 VOICE SEARCH

I’ve always liked Google’s app on the iPhone with Voice Search, but because its buried in an app and is limited to the SDK browser I never used it as much as I could have.

On Android phones, there is a dedicated search button, and it can use voice as input anytime. Its also *contextual*, so when you click search in a restaurant app it implements search in that app.

It’s very clear to me that every phone should have this.

#4 MORE BANDWIDTH NOW, EVEN MORE LATER

A lot of people have complained that the EVO’s 4G is kind of a bust locally since we don’t have 4G yet.The thing is, I commonly get 3x better 3G speed on the EVO over my iPhone 4 anyway – but the idea that will only get better in the future is a feature no other phone has right now. Future proof data is just nice to have anyway you look at it.

IN CONCLUSION

OK, well, I tried to make it brief and of course I failed once again.

Contrary to what I have written here, I don’t recommend the Sprint EVO over the iPhone 4. I prefer the EVO, but that’s me, and I *know* many people will be happier with the iPhone 4.

Everyone wants to know which is better, etc. Well, neither is better, of that I am certain – not only that, but there is an argument for other Android phones on the market now. The Droid X for example, is much like the EVO but with Verizon service. The upcoming Samsung Galaxy on T-Mobile should have great service and a more affordable plan than EVO.

I would even go so far as to say that a lot of people would be better off keeping their iPhone 3GS.

The iPhone 4 has a serious reception/carrier service issue, and IMHO always has. Its bad, and it needs to be fixed – both on the handset and with a new carrier. The tethering option on iPhone is uninteresting and uncompetitive. The new display is great but really only comes to bear with photos and apps which make unique use of it (See the new game ‘Archetype‘!).

The iPhone 4 also has a faster processor, but 3GS upgraders who already have iOS 4 will not really notice – again, unless there is an app which makes good use of it.

The EVO has battery life issues (but you can swap batteries and buy third-party extended batteries) and is a bit large and clunky (it took a few weeks but I am now accustomed to the size, thought I never would be). Its larger screen may not fool your retinas but I would absolutely say the larger screen size and resolution is way more *functional* then the retina display – especially when using it as a GPS or viewing streaming video.

The kickstand is a ‘why does every smartphone NOT have this?’ feature. Hotspotting is a game-changing feature. The Voice Search is a mobile phone paradigm shift but you have to remind yourself to use it.

Oh, and what about the iPad? That was part of this review also.

It’s great. No one *needs* an iPad, but train commuters will absolutely love it. If you get one, you will see it replacing notebook, phone, and notebook usage all around the house every day.

Because of the limited flexibility, performance, and cost of the 3G iPad with AT&T service, the EVO’s hotspot makes it the perfect companion for the iPad.

The iPad is screaming for multitasking and multiwindow app management. The first will come in October.

Another thing the iPad needs is mouse support. It supports an external keyboard, but using the iPad with a keyboard and swiping while sitting at a desk is awkward. Mouse support combined with many of the great remote desktop apps on the iPad would create entirely new use cases in the replacement of desktops and notebooks.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Reviewing and Comparing the iPad, iPhone 4, and Sprint EVO

Here is the link to get it in the iTunes Store.

Originally appeared on: StationStops - Metro-North Train Schedules and NYC Commuting Blog See the original post here: Osmos for iPad is Outstanding – Just Get It!