You know how you like products to perform as advertised? I have a printer attached to one of the three computers in my office on a USB cable. I decided I wanted a wireless print server so I could use the printer with any of the three computers. I did some minimal research (look at user comments on amazon.com and a few other sites) and decided to buy a Linksys WPS54G from www.macconnection.com on the theory that Linksys knows what it’s doing and MacConnection tends to sell stuff that works for Macintoshes (two of the three computers in my office). Plus the product promise seemed promising, to wit: “Share your printer without running wires!“It doesn’t work, even after 25 minutes on the phone with a very friendly and helpful individual who did the print server to work on the wire and get a test page printed on the printer. But remove the wire and you can’t see the print server on the wireless network. But the worst part of the whole experience? The really easy to use, step-by-step installation instructions require that you connect the wireless print server with a wire directly to the network outer. In other words, it is not possible to actually install and configure this device, which promises to share your printer without running wires, without actually running a wire! Someone should go to jail for lying like this.

I can’t believe how bad Evite is as a Web application. It was bad before it got old, but now it’s old and really bad. Auren Hoffman has already described what’s wrong with Evite in this post.I’m not saying that Alsop Louie will fund it, but I can imagine that some youngster can make a new invitation manager that’s fully buzzword compliant, an Ajax-based, Web 2.0 service replete with mashups (integration with Maps, Calendar, Contacts, skype, Flikr, Youtube; shoot, everything you can imagine!), tagging, categorization, and so forth. And it wouldn’t cost that much; I might even fund it personally!

And there would be more than a little bite of pleasure in giving IAC a run for its money: its Ticketmaster division bought Evite.com in 2001 and then IAC itself bought ZeroDegrees in 2004, but I’ll be darned if I can tell the difference in Evite’s functionality despite the number of years in between.

Yes, I’m really talking about Bluetooth.

But I swear I must have gotten the wrong version, Greentooth or something. Because it hasn’t worked yet. The really cool Logitech headset with noise reduction to minimize wind noise and an audio user interface just didn’t work. Could be Logitech. Could be Palm (Treo 700p). Could be that I had Greentooth. But the Treo would turn the phone connection off (presumably to save power) and the phone couldn’t get it back. Kind of defeated the purpose of having a wireless headset, particularly in the Mini, which is a stick shift. I’m back to balancing the phone on my shoulder and shifting with my left hand. (Logitech has gone above and beyond trying to figure out why I was having this problem, byt the way. Palm has shown indifference.)
And there’s my digital camera, the Kodak v610, which is really a pretty outstanding camera. But it’s Bluetooth? “Normally” when you plug the camera into the USB port, it launches your favorite photo program and copies your pictures over automatically. But with the Bluetooth connection, you have to “send” your photos to the computer device, which accepts them as a JPG data files and puts them in a pre-determined folder, Documents in my case. (My computer is a Macintosh; maybe the PC is better, but I haven’t often had that experience.) There are no settings on either the Macintosh or the Kodak v610 that let me set the Bluetooth connection up to auto launch iPhoto. So the process takes five clicks on the camera (Share, Select All, Send, Select Device and then, in a triumph of ergonomic design on Kodak’s part, I have say Continue after the warning that videos will not be sent) plus another click on the Macintosh saying “Accept All” to avoid having to confirm each file before it is sent.
1. Why aren’t videos sent?
2. Why can’t I have a setting that says I know this and therefore don’t have to confirm it every single time
3. Not to mention, if you’re going to give a Bluetooth option for transferring pictures, why wouldn’t you make it work the same way the wired connection works?

I am completely unimpressed by Bluetooth, both the way it has been implemented as a standard technology and individual manufacturers decisions about how to design it into products. Bottom line: It has been so badly productizied that it has taken at least an extra three and maybe five years for it to become useable.

I hear my new 2007 Mini Cooper S has Bluetooth. I wonder if that means I’ll have to stand on one leg while driving 70 miles per hour and resetting my phone?