Tech Wishlist For 2007
This five-piece wishlist, while initially spun out of boredom at the laundromat, covers several core things I really would like to see happen this year. Solutions to frustrations, random ideas and common sense evolutions populate this list. Take it as you will, but I'm counting it down... in Roman numerals.
V A Free MSStyles Editor
Why hasn't anyone tried to blow the doors off of TGT's StyleBuilder [>link] yet? XP has been out and hacked into for over five years now and no one has developed a free solution to work around the resource hacking needed to create a Visual Style.
IV Better Mainstream Skinning Adaptation
It would be really nice if all of the mainstream, commercial developers and software companies could make their interfaces open-ended. A user would can simply alter a program's UI to suit his or her needs is a happy customer, so long as the customization method is user-friendly. I would love to see a widely-adapted, open standard, perhaps PNG and XML-based, method of skinning.
III A Free Implementation of AeroGlass on XP.
If StarDock could pull it off in the new WindowBlinds [>link] release and a handful of hobbyists can implement examples of it in functionless, test programs, some single or group of developers can slap this beastie together for XP and give it away for free. I just want the AeroGlass window/menu transparency eye candy that doesn't take the buttons and icons of a program with it.
II The Ultimate Mobile Device
What happens when you cram a Blackjack [>link], iPod [>link] and a camera-phone into a slick Razr-style casing and sell it for under $300? My wonderful idea (and the natural evolution of the cellphone/mobile device) that will likely not originate at under $300. Slap a USB2 and a Firewire port, as well as a slot for a microSD card in that sucker and you've got a beaut. She needs to be a replacement for the PDA, cellphone, low-end digital camera, audio player (Ogg Vorbis support, baby!) and video player with full WiFi capabilities. Make it GSM and hack it up with a custom Linux and you're good to go.
And the number one wish for 2007 is...
I Old-MP3.com Replacement
The internet's hordes of independent musicians kicking it on the web took two big hits when IUMA's assimilation into Vitaminic [>link] and, most notably, MP3.com's purchase by Vivendi Universal (who eventually sold it to CNet) and subsequent shutdown and archive deletion occurred. With video and photo websites like YouTube and Flikr being so successful, why can't another audio website take off? Give this one open-ended formatting (MP3, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, etc.) and all the great statistical functions the original MP3.com had, and it just might take off. Just make sure there's a decent (maybe 150mb of audio hosting) free account type involved and don't charge users one bit for downloading.
So there you have it, this year's wishlist. Lets see if we can make some of these things happen, alright?