Nexo is a company that strives to do one thing well: online groups. Scoble says it's better than Yahoo! Groups. I don't have a use for something like this right now, but I'll probably check it out when I do.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Nexo
Uncrate tells you where to get Jack Bauer gear
Some of it is surprisingly affordable.
Now why doesn't the 24 website list all this stuff?
Oh, and good luck getting the Uncrate site to load, it seems like it's buried under all the attention.
Link
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Scoble introduces Seagate's DAVE
Seagate introduced their new product called "DAVE," which standards for "Digital Audio Video Experience" to Robert Scoble and Scoble has a video of the introduction on his blog. What is DAVE? According to the post and the video, DAVE is a 10GB-20GB hard drive with bluetooth, wifi, and USB capabilities and no screen -- essentially Seagate once you to use this as a storage extension for a mobile device be it a cellphone, smartphone, etc. Furthermore, DAVE units can interact/communicate with each other, meaning that you have storage devices that can interact (read "peer") directly assuming that you allow that peering to occur through your cellphone interface. Scoble reports that the device should be less than $200.
I have a few observations:
- The device is using a hard drive with drop protection features rather than solid state memory While I assume that's what helps keep the cost in the sub-$200 range, one more device to cart around with a traditional hard drive makes me nervous about storage reliability.
- 802.11n support. There's not mention what wifi protocols the box will support, but there is not specific mention that it will support 802.11n. Once again, I'm sure this helps keep the product retail cost down, but if I had one of these, I would want to be able to connect to it using the fastest wifi connection possible.
- Battery endurance. If this device is going to be the media storage hub for my mobile lifestyle, it needs to last at least as long as my cellphone battery. Traditionally using wifi and/or bluetooth on a phone tends to drain the battery with extraordinary rapidity, so it is not unreasonable to assume that using those connection methods on DAVE would result in the same battery issues.
- Phone interface. Hopefully this is developed in some sort of universal language (i.e., J2ME) that makes it work on most phones regardless of the OS -- one of my big complaints about phone-based applications is when they only work on certain phones with certain OS versions.
Overall the big win for this device will be what application programmers come up with to use it for. The device does have an application processor inside it and an available API, so to some degree it's all about whatever a programmer can think of to do with a net-connectable/phone-connectable hard drive.
At this point I wouldn't rush out to buy one, but there's quite a bit of time for cool stuff to come out between now and when the product luanches that might sway my decision.
Here's the video:
Link
Reminder: please update your feed
As I will be discontinuing the ATOM feed for this blog at the end of February (yes, I finally set a date), please click the RSS logo below to subscribe to this feed using FeedBurner. Thanks to everyone that's already done so.
Special characters in OSX via a widget
Probably the widget that I use most in OSX is CharacterPal -- click a symbol and ChracterPal gives you the keyboard combination that will produce the character. For example, the copyright symbol can be input using Option-g -- ©.
iPod Shuffle now available in colors
Not that it effects the functionality one bit, but the iPod Shuffle is now available in colors (although black doesn't seem to be one of them). I actually received a Shuffle for Christmas and have to say that I'm impressed with it: battery endurance is pretty good, the user interface is very easy, the size is awesome, and though I chose to load it myself, the shuffle feature works pretty well. Not bad for a $79 MP3 player, and, no, the new colors do not cost more.
Apple 802.11n enable officially available for online purchase
If you can't wait to get it included with your new Airport Extreme, you can now purchase the Apple 802.11n enabler for the following machines:
- MacBook Pro with Intel Core 2 Duo
- MacBook with Intel Core 2 Duo
- Mac Pro with AirPort Extreme option
- iMac with Intel Core 2 Duo (except the 17-inch, 1.83GHz iMac)
The price is $1.99 and the site does show you how to check to ensure that you don't already have the enabler before you drop money on something you don't need although if you've had your qualifying machine for a few months, chances are good that you need the enabler.
Configure Nokia 770 for Bluetooth DUN with Cingular 2125
I have to tell you that getting my Nokia 770 to do Bluetooth DUN with my Cingular 2125 has been totally painful, but with the introduction of a new OS for the Nokia 770, I no longer have to be a Unix geek to make it work; with that said, I wasn't able to find full instructions, so I'll provide them if you find yourself in the same situation. Please note that these instructions assume that you are trying to do DUN with a MediaNET plan
- Upgrade your Nokia 770 to the latest operating system:
- Go to the Nokia 770 Software Download site
- Download the software to a Windows XP machine and ensure the machine is running .NET 2.0 or greater framework -- you can get .NET 3.0 through Windows Update, just run the update, select "Custom", and select the .NET framework for install (note: currently you cannot update the Nokia 770 with Parallels on a Mac due to USB problems).
- Run the Nokia Software Update once it has installed and it will likely want to update itself, which takes about 2 minutes.
- Close the Nokia Software Update.
- Connect the USB cable to your computer.
- Turn off your 770 and connect it to the USB cable.
- Hold down the "Home" key (the one with a house on it) and power up your 770.
- Once you see the USB symbol in the upper right corner, let go of the Home key.
- Launch the Nokia Software Update and follow the instructions -- note that the software update will delete everything on the device, so use the backup utility to store everything on your memory card; you can restore all of your data once the install is complete.
- Once the Nokia is upgraded, you will be presented with some configuration screens -- set the language, date, and time.
- When you reach the Phone Configuration Wizard, turn the Cingular 2125 Bluetooth on and make sure in the Settings that it is set to "Discoverable". (I'm going to assume you know how to do this)
- The 770 will detect your phone and provide you with an authentication key to put into the phone.
- The 2125 will ask if you want to pair with the 770 -- follow the instructions on the phone: enter the authentication key, name the 770, and add the 770 to the list on the phone so that you don't have to do this again.
- After the devices have paired, the 770 will run the Service Provider Wizard:
- Select "United States"
- Select "Cingular"
- Note that although you have used the wizard to create a connection, it is not properly configured for DUN with MediaNET.
- On the 770 we need to change the Connection Settings:
- Click the icon with the 2 overlapping windows on the left side below the instant messaging icon.
- Go to "Tools".
- Go to "Control Panel".
- Click "Connectivity".
- Click "Connections".
- Click "Cingular Internet" (this is the connection created for you by the wizard).
- Click "Edit".
- You can change the name at this point if you would like and ensure that the "Packet Data" radio button is checked -- click "Next".
- Here are the settings for the next page -- please note that settings are case-sensitive:
- "Access point name": WAP.CINGULAR
- "Dial-up number": *99#
- "User name": WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
- "Password": CINGULAR1
- Click "Next".
- Click "Finish".
- Click the icon with the 2 overlapping windows on the left side below the instant messaging icon.
- Click "Done".
- Click "Cancel".
- Click the globe icon on the upper right.
- Select "Cingular Internet" or whatever you called the connection.
- Presuming that you configured everything correctly, the 770 should take a few seconds and then inform you that you are connected.
- Test the connection by going to an internet page in the browser.
Note that while Cingular markets their MediaNET plan as "unlimited," there have been reports of Cingular either canceling data plans and/or forcing customers to upgrade to a more expensive data plan based on extraordinary data access rates.
As with all of my configuration posts, your mileage may vary, though I am happy to try and help you if you have any specific questions.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Alt-tab functionality for OSX that works
If you're like me, you may get frustrated that you can't alt-tab through open windows in like you in XP -- luckily for me Witch allows you to bring the alt-tab functionality that you know an love to OSX and it's donation-ware.
Go download it via the link below.
Parallels USB problem
So I went to update the software on my Nokia 770 (only works with Windows, which blows) and ran into what is apparently an existing USB problem with Parallels -- the virtual machine will not detect a USB device and then tells you that there is some other service that's using the device, suggesting that you manually locate the service and un-hang the device.
In Googling about this it seems that Parallels is aware of the issue, but there are no really good solutions at this point.
For what it's worth. Good thing I still have a crappy Windows machine around to take care of these kinds of issues.
You can read more abou this issue and similar issues with Bluetooth in the link below.
Skype on Cingular 2125
Skype has a beta client for Windows Mobile 5, so I figured I would toss it onto my Cingular 2125. Here's the thing: the Cingular 2125 is not an officially supported model, so not only did I download beta software, but I also but it on an unsupported piece of hardware.
Here are my observations:
- In the world of CAB files for Windows Mobile, the Skype beta is a huge file weighing in at 3+ MB -- I installed it to my 2GB storage card, but you don't have to do that.
- Installation was very easy and the home screen got reformatted after installation to include a Skype icon and presence control -- why can't someone design an AIM module like this?
- I tried to login and immediately read that Skype was recommending wifi and/or a 3G connection -- with only EDGE on the Cingular 2125, I figured I'd designate my connection as "wifi/3G' and see what happened.
- I'm guessing the login time and contact download is much faster over wifi or 3G, but it happened after about 30 seconds.
- I have the SkypeOut unlimited North America plan, so I tried a SkypeOut call. I'm guessing that due to the speed of the network there was a significant delay in voice transmission.
CONCLUSION: use Skype beta on your 2125 if you want to do text, but the network's not fast enough for voice.
I'm posting the direct download link below, but remember that if you download and install the CAB file on your 2125, you'll be installing beta software on an unsupported piece of hardware, so your mileage may definitely vary.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
I'll be watching the SlingCatcher closely
After all I've written about AppleTV it sort of sounds like I've made up my mind, right? Maybe I have for now, but I'll be keeping a close eye on the SlingCatcher device that promises to provide similar (or maybe better) functionality to the AppleTV, but be not reliant at all on iTunes. Read the full details in the link below.
Seth Godin's new book is called "The Dip"
If you work for a large or small organization, you can visit the link below to find out more about the book before it is released in May of 2007.
HDMI switcher and cables
XtremeMac is a good place to look for HDMI cables, but in February (I'm guessing right around the same date that the AppleTV drops) they will start shipping a $60 HDMI switcher that looks to have a very similar form factor to the AppleTV box. As many plasma and LCD TVs, mine included, only have 1 HDMI input, it will become increasingly necessary to have a HDMI switcher. The drawback of this switcher is that it's not autoswitching, but for the price, you can probably deal with using the remote especially if you have a universal remote that supports macros in which you would be able to program the input change on the switcher.
Although I stated it earlier, you should also check out their cable prices because $19.95 for a HDMI cable is pretty damn aggressive.
Enhance your TiVo experience
Gizmodo links to a post on Consumerist that has 23 tips on improving your TiVo experience -- I'm not too proud to admit that I learned a few things. If you are a new TiVo user, you should definitely check this out.
Easy kitchen upgrades today
I'm doing some simple kitchen upgrades today. Here are the 5 projects:
- Mount paper towel dispenser. Basically we'll save counter space by getting the paper towel dispenser mounted to the wall. Although designed to be mounted horizontally, we are mounting it vertically next to the sink, which is typically where we need to use paper towels any way. Total cost of $20 for the stainless steel version; total installation time of 5 minutes.
- Mount magnetic knife holder. Again, to save counter space and get rid of the wooden knife block, we're mounting an 18" stainless steel magnetic knife holder to the wall. One of the "happy accidents" of doing this project will actually put the knives right above where we typically use the cutting boards and do most of the food prep, so from a time and motion perspective, we'll actually gain cooking efficiencies. There have been some chefs and knife sites that have said that using a magnetic mount for your knives is actually better on the knife blades than any sort of block, so I guess that's another nice ancillary benefit. Total cost of $25 for the holder; total installation time of 5 minutes.
- Install a pot rack over the sink. We found a ceiling-mounted pot rack that will allow us to hang all of our pots and pans directly over the sink. Most importantly this will clear out a fair amount of cabinet space, but secondarily, the pots just look really cool hanging right over the sink (you might walk into my kitchen and actually think that I know what I'm doing). Total cost of $45; total installation time of 15 minutes (note that most of this time was measuring to ensure that the rack was centered exactly where we wanted it).
- Put a custom-fit flatware organizer in the silverware drawer. This is totally easy, but our silverware drawer was just a mes, even with the old organizer in place. The custom-fit organizer slides in and leaves very little wasted space in the drawer from front to back, and the sides of the organizer slide out to fill in the space from side-to-side. Most importantly we now have space to sort out all of the chopsticks from the take-out places, all of the sauces and crap from the takeout places, and not have to worry about everything clumped together with the silverware. Total cost of $20; total install time of 30 seconds.
- Put a custom-fit utensil organizer in the utensil drawer. Pretty much exactly the same as the flatware organizer, but the sections are different sizes. Now we don't have to worry about cutting our hands on the pizza wheels when sticking out hands in the drawer. Total cost of $20; total install time of 30 seconds.
Be warned: it's damn easy to go in an spend a bunch of money at the Container Store on this kind of stuff, so it's best to do some research on their site beforehand and go in with a list of exactly what you want.
Link -- Paper towel dispenser
Link -- Magnetic knife holder
Link -- Pot rack
Link -- Flatware organizer
Link -- Utensil organizer
Hey!Watch
In my current mode of creating all kinds of video files to test over AppleTV I ran across Hey!Watch, which is a site that lets you convert any video file format to any other video format -- pretty cool. The best part of the service is the "podcast" feed of your converted files that you can then subscribe to in iTunes so that the converted video files can be automatically downloaded and integrated into your iTunes library. There are limitation on the free version, but there's an upgraded version for $5/month. Basically if you don't want to dedicate a machine to DVD ripping and video conversion or don't have a machine to devote to the aforementioned tasks, Hey!Watch is certainly an alternative worth evaluating.
Note that there are other services out there doing much the same thing, but the "podcast" feature is not something I've seen on competitor sites.
Mark Cuban doesn't wear a suit and can't figure out why anyone else does
This is timely as I just invested in a new suit for myself, but I don't disagree with Cuban's take on things. If you're a guy, you probably should have a nice black suit in your closet for certain occasions -- black works well for weddings, funerals, and if it's nice enough, formal dinners and parties. On the whole, however, I very much dislike having to wear suits at all and do not disagree one bit with what Cuban says in his post. My $0.12 on purchasing suits is that if you are going to make the investment, you should spend enough to get a suit that looks custom-tailored and that is extraordinarily light and comfortable to wear.
I remember when I was looking at jobs after graduating from college and some companies were offering "wardrobe bonuses" to allow new college graduates to go out and purchase a bunch of suits so that they had the right "uniform" for the job. I love Cuban's take on this:
Give your suit wearing employees a raise. Tell them every day is casual day.
My biggest personal argument against suits has always been that they do not help you do better work -- wear what you are comfortable in and produce extraordinary results. Change your dress code policy simply to: "You must."
Belkin's laptop@home
Belkin has some funky, cool laptop holders and carriers designed for home use, but certainly usable in other situations. Seems like the products are each around $30.
Open-source Photoshop
Unless you are an advanced user of Photoshop, there's no reason not to consider GIMP for your photo and image manipulation needs. Sure, it's not quite as robust as the Adobe product, but it is free.
Wasting money on your car
MSN Money has a pretty good article on how to prevent wasting money on your car. Here are some of my personal recommendations:
- Get your oil changed with synthetic, use a premium filter, and only change your oil 1-2 times per year depending on usage. You can run a car that's lubricated with synthetic oil for a couple of hundred miles even after the oil has been drained.
- Go buy a K&N air filter. Chances are good that the air filter will last longer than the car -- just hose the thing off every so often and let it dry before you put it back in. For better performance use the K&N cleaning and lubrication kit.
- Think hard about extended warranties for 4WD vehicles. My general experience has been that you start having seal leaks somewhere between 50K and 75K miles and costs for seal replacements can go right up in to the thousands. Consider how long you'll keep the vehicle and how aggressive you'll drive the vehicle before investing.
Link
Twitter Dahboard widgets
Once you start using Twitter then you want to have a widget to support it -- here are 2:
Note: I'm kind of partial to Twitterlex, but I'm not completely sold on either one yet.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Using a Mac-friendly NAS with lots of cinfguration options
Greg Keene describes his use of the Infrant ReadyNAS to back up files, centralize shared iTunes and photo libraries, and generally handle his network storage issues in his Mac environment. Something to think about is that the Infrant solution costs about $1,100.00 for a 1TB set-up that includes 4 250GB drives.
A worthy read for those that are looking for storage solutions.
The end-all anti-EULA
The folks over at Boing Boing have come up with the anti-End User Licensing Agreement. Here's the text:
I might just have to start using this myself. Stickers, t-shirts, etc. are available direct from the site.
JustOneClubCard
This really cool site allows you to put the barcodes of up to 6 club cards on one easy to carry card. Provided you don't have any privacy concerns (you shouldn't if you know what the card issuers do with your data), you should really check this out.
Here's a tip: click the "Advanced View" button at the top for more merchant options.
Visual voicemail now
If you were all impressed with the visual voicemail that Apple's iPhone and Cingular will be serving up, Gizmodo had a post about a visual voicemail service that you can start using now called Callwave.
If you really want to get close to some of the same features and especially my favorite feature of being able to listen in while people are recording a voicemail and deciding whether or not to cut in, I suggest Grand Central, which is currently free. Sure, Grand Central doesn't have a nifty little widget for your phone, but you almost don't need it if you use the service correctly.
Host your iTunes library on S3
Though I've considered doing it, I haven't taken the plunge to host my iTunes library on S3. As with most web-based services, it just makes me nervous to not have a local version of something like my iTunes library that I would want to enjoy even if my high-speed connection wasn't working. I'm looking forward to the new Airport Extreme to which I intend on connecting a redundant (hardware mirrored/RAID1) 500GB drive to share among all of the machines on my network.
Anyway, Lifehacker has a post about a guy that has put his iTunes library on S3, so take a look if you're interested.
Playing around with Twitter
Twitter is an interesting service -- essentially it's a social service that allows me to update what I'm doing through a variety of methods including sending a SMS from my mobile phone. There are interesting applications, I think, for using this product in business, in families, etc.
The biggest failure point for Twitter is not having its users actually update what they are doing.
Link -- my Twitter page (note that I have to approve you in order for you to actually receive my Twitter notifications)
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Would you miss Gap?
Bran Autopsy poses the question in regards to Gap:
“If your company went out of business tomorrow, who would really miss you and why?”
Well, I'm willing to stick my hand up in the air and say that I would miss Gap and for these 2 very specific reasons:
- They make pants in my length. If this has never been a problem for you, then you probably don't understand why this is a big deal. Consider this: if you have to get your pants tailored, it generally costs you about $10-$15 per pair, making a pair of $50 pants have a true cost of $60-$65 not including taxes. Further consider that having a tailor modify the length of your jeans, cargo pants, etc. generally doesn't turn out very well unless you have a very good tailor (and, yes, it also makes for a very expensive pair of jeans). Being able to find pants, jeans, cargo pants, etc. off the shelf in my perfect length is a very big deal to me. Note that I can only find my length at Gap.com, but that's ok based on number 2 below.
- All of their pants are cut the same way. Straight-style jeans are cut the same as straight-style khakis are cut the same as straight-style slacks -- I simply find the one style that works for me and then I choose the type of fabric that I'm looking for. Having cut styles that transcend across fabric lines is rare for a clothing company.
Beyond the 2 points above, there's not a whole lot else that drives me to care about Gap.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
ANTHEM from Intercasting
You probably haven't heard about ANTHEM yet, but you will soon. Shawn Conahan, CEO of ANTHEM, in response to some Associated Press inquires made to mobile carriers about social networking pulled back the curtain on the Social Networking Services (SNS) gateway that Intercasting has been working on for the last year.
I've included a link to the ANTHEM product on the Intercasting site below and you should click through it to learn more, but allow me to quote some of Shawn's blog posting on the product:
From the carrier perspective, here's what ANTHEM does:
"There are literally dozens of social networking sites that need to be
presented to consumers to comprise a complete offering, and there is no
way any carrier could process so many deals and integrations. So when
the carriers started looking at social networking as a product
opportunity, they needed a solution that offloaded the business
development and technical integration, which is what ANTHEM does for
them. Through one touchpoint with us, they can light up as many social
networking partners as they want, ensuring that they are always
providing a current offering of the most popular sites to their
subscribers."
From the SNS provider perspective, here's what ANTHEM does:
"We give SNS providers a turn-key mobile strategy and their users a
pocket version of their web-based experience. There is a one-time
integration to the platform, and then nothing else to do except
possibly building new APIs when functionality changes in the future.
This deep integration enables a fully customized version of every SNS
partner. The SNS providers get to offload development to us, and since
an increasing number of carriers are plugged into the platform from the
other side, they are ensured high-profile distribution without having
to go through the whole carrier business development process"
You should read Shawn's full post on the product to get some more in-depth information and what ANTHEM provides from a consumer perspective.
Congratulations to Shawn and all of the Intercasting team!
Link -- Shawn's blog post about ANTHEM
Monday, January 22, 2007
Reminder: Please update your feed subscription
Please subscribe to the Feedburner feed if you read this blog via RSS.
Thanks to everyone who had already switched.
My electronic resume is finally live
You can now view my electronic resume that hosted on my site: http://www.rosshollman.com/rosshollmanresume.
Why would I take the time to do this?
- It was very simple to create with Google Page Creator , which is included as part of Google Apps for Your Domain (note that Page Creator can also be used without GAFYD). Basically I just copied out of MS Word and manipulated some of the formatting.
- My resume is now electronic, which means it can be indexed by search engines.
- I can now provide a hyperlink to my resume, which allows me to do all kinds of interesting things electronically and on paper (think business cards, think this blog post, etc.).
- Due to formatting, etc. I did not feel that I had to constrain myself to a single 8.5x11 page like I do with the hard copy version of my resume.
I will be adding some PDF versions of my resume that can be downloaded by the end of this week.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Why TiVo should kill other video solutions like AppleTV
Am I crazy or am I proposing the obvious? Read on . . .
A few facts about TiVo Series2:
- It's already on my network. If you have one, chances are good that it's on your network and if it's not, it could be for a $60 maximum investment in either a wired USB or wireless USB donlge (note: if you're going wireless and your network is (hopefully) using WPA2 for security, be sure to purchase the TiVo-brand wireless dongle)
- TiVo already has software that interacts with your computer over my network -- the software is available for both Windows and OSX. With either operating system TiVo can access and play iTunes music (non-DRM, of course) and access and display my pictures.
- TiVo is a computer. My/your TiVo box has a processor, has a hard drive, and runs linux.
A few general facts:
- All the manufacturers seem to be ratifying the 802.11 draft-n standard. This is the standard that Apple is using and including in all of their products and all of the other players in the space (i.e., Linksys, Netgear, etc.) are using the same standard.
- Rumor has it that Apple is going to open up its DRM software known as "FairPlay" to other manufacturers.
- Network gear manufacturers are selling relatively inexpensive devices that allow you to use your home's electrical system to transmit data at 100mbps.
- Gigabit ethernet is being incorporated into most new products that have ethernet ports.
- Broadband penetration continues to escalate and get less and less expensive.
- Hard drive memory is very cheap. Many manufacturers now sell enclosures with multiple drives inside and offer a variety of options for RAID configurations while Apple includes RAID software in the OSX operating system.
Let's put it all together:
TiVo should easily be able to modify their software to address the movie library in iTunes -- they have already figured out how to access the music, so from a programming perspective, it should not be too intensive. It should be relatively easy for TiVo to produce either a 802.11 draft-n dongle and a gigabit ethernet dongle to raise network connection speed; the network owner will then have multiple high-speed options (see above) to connect to the TiVo which is important as video is bandwidth-intensive and the files are large.
In examining the details on AppleTV, it turns out that, just like the TiVo, the AppleTV box will have a processor and hard drive, meaning that the AppleTV will be storing and/or buffering some content on its hard drive in order to provide an uninterrupted video display. Currently, although it's not supported by TiVo and voids your warranty, you can upgrade the hard drive in your TiVo to make it much larger than the stock configuration, which means that you could, say, double the size of your stock drive, dedicate 1/2 the space for movies/stream buffering and the other 1/2 of the space for television recording.
TiVo should be easily able to change the "Now Playing" interface in their software to display categories such as: "Music," "Pictures," "Recorded Shows," and "Movies." Perhaps they could even design a more Front Row-style interface for accessing all of your media through the TiVo.
Assuming that some of the changes to the device and software were made by TiVo, it could very easily function as your single media component, offering not only access tolive television and recorded television, but also to your movie library. It would be nice to see an option to automatically store television shows that you want to keep back on a computer/NAS on your network as well to alleviate the somewhat painful process of having to semi-manually do that yourself.
One of the big drawbacks for TiVo Series 2 is that the best video connection it provides is s-video while devices like the AppleTV will be providing HDMI or DVI. Furthermore, the TiVo Series 2 only outputs audio via standard RCA (i.e., red and white) while competitors such as AppleTV will provide optical out (note that HDMI connections carry digital audio and video over the single cable). TiVo Series 3 solves many of the aforementioned issues, but the price of entry for Series 3 is currently $800 for the box.
Just my $0.02.
Why TiVo should kill other video solutions like AppleTV
Am I crazy am I proposing the obvious? Read on . . .
A few facts about TiVo Series2:
- It's already on my network. If you have one, chances are good that it's on your network and if it's not, it could be for a $60 maximum investment in either a wired USB or wireless USB donlge (note: if you're going wireless and your network is (hopefully) using WPA2 for security, be sure to purchase the TiVo-brand wireless dongle)
- TiVo already has software that interacts with your computer over my network -- the software is available for both Windows and OSX. With either operating system TiVo can access and play iTunes music (non-DRM, of course) and access and display my pictures.
- TiVo is a computer. My/your TiVo box has a processor, has a hard drive, and runs linux.
A few general facts:
- All the manufacturers seem to be ratifying the 802.11 draft-n standard. This is the standard that Apple is using and including in all of their products and all of the other players in the space (i.e., Linksys, Netgear, etc.) are using the same standard.
- Rumor has it that Apple is going to open up its DRM software known as "FairPlay" to other manufacturers.
- Network gear manufacturers are selling relatively inexpensive devices that allow you to use your home's electrical system to transmit data at 100mbps.
- Gigabit ethernet is being incorporated into most new products that have ethernet ports.
- Broadband penetration continues to escalate and get less and less expensive.
- Hard drive memory is very cheap. Many manufacturers now sell enclosures with multiple drives inside and offer a variety of options for RAID configurations while Apple includes RAID software in the OSX operating system.
Let's put it all together:
TiVo should easily be able to modify their software to address the movie library in iTunes -- they have already figured out how to access the music, so from a programming perspective, it should not be too intensive. It should be relatively easy for TiVo to produce either a 802.11 draft-n dongle and a gigabit ethernet dongle to raise network connection speed; the network owner will then have multiple high-speed options (see above) to connect to the TiVo which is important as video is bandwidth-intensive and the files are large.
In examining the details on AppleTV, it turns out that, just like the TiVo, the AppleTV box will have a processor and hard drive, meaning that the AppleTV will be storing and/or buffering some content on its hard drive in order to provide an uninterrupted video display. Currently, although it's not supported by TiVo and voids your warranty, you can upgrade the hard drive in your TiVo to make it much larger than the stock configuration, which means that you could, say, double the size of your stock drive, dedicate 1/2 the space for movies/stream buffering and the other 1/2 of the space for television recording.
TiVo should be easily able to change the "Now Playing" interface in their software to display categories such as: "Music," "Pictures," "Recorded Shows," and "Movies." Perhaps they could even design a more Front Row-style interface for accessing all of your media through the TiVo.
Assuming that some of the changes to the device and software were made by TiVo, it could very easily function as your single media component, offering not only access tolive television and recorded television, but also to your movie library. It would be nice to see an option to automatically store television shows that you want to keep back on a computer/NAS on your network as well to alleviate the somewhat painful process of having to semi-manually do that yourself.
One of the big drawbacks for TiVo Series 2 is that the best video connection it provides is s-video while devices like the AppleTV will be providing HDMI or DVI. Furthermore, the TiVo Series 2 only outputs audio via standard RCA (i.e., red and white) while competitors such as AppleTV will provide optical out (note that HDMI connections carry digital audio and video over the single cable). TiVo Series 3 solves many of the aforementioned issues, but the price of entry for Series 3 is currently $800 for the box.
Just my $0.02.
Friday, January 19, 2007
New address: blog.rosshollman.com
If you visit this site via the web and you went to the (now) old address http://strategize.blogspot.com, you may have noticed that you were automatically redirected to http://blog.rosshollman.com. As part of my purchase of my personal domain, I am switching my blog over to my domain as well; nothing fancy with the switch as Blogger now supports custom domain publishing provided you configure your domain correctly (I'll cover how to do this if you registered your domain with Google in a later post).
Also, for those of you that subscribe to this blog via a feed, I plan on switching over to only the Feedburner feed in the next couple of weeks, so please adjust your reader accordingly.
Link -- Blogger custom domains
It's official: $1.99 to unlock the 802.11n portion of your Apple
If you are an Apple Core2Duo machine owner, are not planning on purchasing a new Apple Airport Extreme, and want 802.11n to work on your machine, Apple has confirmed that they will be charging $1.99 in order to meet accounting standards. Chances are good that the first person that receives their Airport Extreme/pays the $1.99 will post it somewhere that you can probably download it, so the choice will most likely be yours.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Taxes
I found this on Steve's Nude Memphis blog and am linking to his post up here because it's a long way to the end. Here's the post in its entirety, and as Steve points out: be sure to read all the way to the end . . .
Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table
At which he's fed.
Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.
Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.
Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.
Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries, then
Tax his tears.
Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his a__.
Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won't be done
Till he has no dough.
When he screams and hollers,
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He's good and sore.
Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he's laid.
Put these words
upon his tomb,
"Taxes drove me
to my doom..."
When he's gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax,
Fuel permit tax
Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Interest expense
Inventory tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road usage taxes
Sales Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone federal excise tax
Telephone federal universal service fee tax
Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes
Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax
Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax
Telephone state and local tax
Telephone usage charge tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago,
and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
We had absolutely no national debt,
had the largest middle class in the world,
and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What happened?
And I still have to "press 1" for English!
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Why do interactive booklets in iTunes wind up in the "Movies" section?
It seems like there are enough bands including interactive booklets with full CDs that are sold on iTunes that there should be a separate bucket entitled "Interactive Booklets." In my mind interactive booklets are most certainly not movies and they are most certainly not music, television shows, podcasts, or radio stations either.
Just my $0.02.
DVD ripping is like CD ripping 12 years ago
Ok, let me clarify the title by providing you with the specs for the machine I'm using to rip DVDs:
- Mac Mini
- 1.42 GHZ PowerPC
- 1 GB RAM
- Handbrake using the MPEG4 codec
I remember 12 years ago when I first ripped a CD into MP3 format -- it basically ripped the CD in the time that it would have taken for the CD to play. When I burned the CD on what, at the time was a first generation burner, it took the entire time that it would have taken to play the CD to write it to blank media.
In ripping all of my DVDs to have them available for AppleTV, I find myself at what seems like the beginning of the same sort of process: it seems to take about the amount of time to rip the DVD and encode it as it would to watch it.
Would the process be faster with a faster machine? Probably. But we're not yet at the level of design, speed, and sophistication that iTunes is currently at from the music side: insert a CD, click "import", and the CD music is put into your library at 16x-24x normal listening speed.
I should probably try the process on my Core2Duo machine just to see what the speed difference is like, but the nice part about using the Mini is that it leaves the Macbook free for me to do everything else.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
The Venice Project is now known as "Joost"
Got an e-mail from Joost this morning:
Yesterday we were The Venice Project... today we are Joost!
While we're still in beta, we hope that Joost will become synonymous
with the best of TV and the best of the Web.
That's really all I've got except that they say they'll be doing another round of beta invites and they've redesigned the web page. Still no OSX client available and the Windows clients still doesn't work with Parallels.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Who is the Gracenote of the video business?
After having imported some TiVo shows into iTunes, I realized that the "artwork" it was displaying for the shows was simply a capture of a frame from the show, not the actually artwork for the show. This was somewhat easily solved by simply searching for the show name, copying the artwork for the DVD or other appropriate artwork, getting info on the file in iTunes, deleting the existing artwork, and pasting in the copied artwork -- I remember doing something similar to this when ripping CDs first started out and there was no good database of album cover art.
All of the stuff above leads me to ask: Who is the Gracenote is of the video world? The Gracenote landing page actually gives an option for "Music and Movie Fans," but only allows me to search audio and CD information, which is interesting. I suppose it's entirely possible that Gracenote already has a massive catalog of DVD and television program artwork available to "Professionals" that might be integrated into, say, iTunes 7.1, which is required for the new AppleTV. Then again, perhaps there's another company that saw the opportunity to provide artwork and information in the video space and will wind up being the Gracenote of the video space.
Regardless of who it winds up being, I sure hope that the technology gets implemented quickyl because the solution I'm using now is most certainly sub-optimal.
Zimbra offers mobile sync
I've written about Zimbra several times as a very low-cost, open-source alternative to Exchange, but I was checking out the site today and realized that Zimbra now provides mobile sync to many popular handheld devices, including Blackberry devices (though the Blackberry portion is done through Notify Technology's NotifyLink) and Windows Mobile devices. It appears from reading the page that Zimbra natively supports Windows Mobile 5.0 devices, Nokia E-series devices, and Treo devices, which encompasses a good amount of devices and interesting alternatives to Blackberry devices as the data plans for some WM5 devices are dignificatnly cheaper than Blackberry data service.
Also, as I've pointed out before, Zimbra, unlike Exchange, works equally well on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.
I guess I would say that if Google Apps for Your Domain doesn't quite meet the needs of your company, then Zimbra would definitely be worth looking at before taking the plunge on Exchange.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
TiVoDecode Manager
I'd heard the news about a month ago that there were some programs floating around that would allow easy decoding of the .tivo format into the .mpg format, but these programs generally were run from the command line on OSX. In doing some searching -- need to clean out some of the stuff on the TiVo to accommodate new seasons of favorite shows -- I ran across the TiVoDecode Manager, which is essentially a GUI interface to the command line application for OSX.
TiVoDecode Manager is very simple to use: simply determine the IP address and media access key from within your TiVo settings, install the software on a OSX machine hooked into the same network as the TiVo, enter the IP address and media key, and TiVoDecode Manager connects to your TiVo and offers a list of download options. The software defaults to downloading and decoding files using MPEG-2 native, which is the same CODEC that TiVo natively uses -- I've been using the MPEG-2 and then batch-converting files to MPEG-4 using VLC because it allows me to manipulate lots of options, but it is important to note that TiVoDecode Manager does include the ability to download as MPEG-4 and even to import MPEG-4 files to iTunes once downloaded and decoded.
As part of m quest to digitive video in anticipation of AppleTV, TiVoDecode Manager is an important piece of software in my arsenal.
It's 9 degrees right now in Centennial, CO
And Weather Underground is reporting that it's -5 degrees with the windchill. We normally only get a week or 2 of this weather every year, but -5 degrees is damn cold. It's also snowing right now, which helps you get a little wet and makes it feel even a little colder.
I'll take this cold over shoveling a few feet of snow, although they're saying that we're not going to see temperatures above freezing until Thursday.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Venice Project on Parallels
So I got a beta invite to The Venice Project, but I can't get the software to run using Parallels on my MacBook Pro, which leaves me SOL. I'm pretty sure this has everything to do with how Parallels manages video RAM, RAM, and all kinds of other minimum requirements that the virtual machine doesn't meet. I guess I'll just have to wait for the OSX version.
P.S. -- at this point I have no invitation tokens, so please don't ask; I'll let you know if I get any.
Do you get tons of credit card offers in the mail?
I certainly do. It used to be that you had to call a phone number that was buried in the fine print on the back of those offers, but now there's actually a website that allows you to permanently opt out of those offers that clog your mailbox.
Found this on Lifehacker.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Cingular 2125 and MissingSync
There's no easy way to synchronize Windows Mobile devices on OSX unless you buy a copy of MissingSync for around $40. Overall the software works pretty well, but I do have some gripes:
- Bluetooth sync only works when I put the phone in flight mode. This is totally strange, but it is a documented problem on the MissingSync site.
- The MissingSync application bombs out whenever I have iSync open at the same time. I've been playing around with a Nokia phone I had lying around, so iSync was open a couple of times and the MissingSync definitely did not like that.
- For some reason all of the mobile phone fields in Address Book map to the "rdo" or "Radio" field on the Windows Mobile device -- I can't figure out a way to fix this and there's no documentation on it that I can find. The biggest problem with this is that when I try to sync the computer and the phone back, the phone wants to sync all of the mobile phone numbers back as "radio" numbers, which causes a sync exception that I do not allow due to the fact that I don't want Address Book to get all screwed up.
- Some times the sync process just stalls. No reason for it, but it just stalls -- this tends to mostly happen when connecting via bluetooth and never seems to happen when connecting via USB.
I think I'm going to carry around the Nokia 6126 and my 770 for a few days to see how it feels. The worst thing with the 6126 is that I can't seem to get Gmail Mobile to run on it.
Link -- MissingSync for Windows Mobile
I think it's time to start ripping all of my DVDs to disk
If the AppleTV shows up some time in February, I think I'll want to have all my DVDs ripped at that point.
Currently I'm using Handbrake on OSX, which gets the DVDs down into about a 700MB file compressed using a MP4 Codec -- anyone have other thoughts on better software for the job?
I might have to go out and get another couple of hard drives to build another mirrored RAID and it looks like my Amazon S3 usage will probably jump dramatically if I back up all the movies there.
AppleTV and the new Airport Extreme
Let's start with the new Airport Extreme, which didn't get much love in the MacWorld keynote, but is a key component to easily enabling AppleTV. The now old Airport Extreme had some things missing that are fixed in the new Airport Extreme, notably:
- Built-in security. Finally a hardware firewall without having to use a separate device. For wireless there is WPA/WPA2 natively built-in and 128-bit WEP if you still need to use that. An additional benefit is very detailed MAC address screening with rules definition that looks pretty easy to use.
- Sharing. Still only one built-in USB port, but you can add a USB hub to split the port into more functions. As with the last Airport Extreme, the USB port allows printer sharing, but now also allows disk sharing through the Extreme rather than needing a computer to share a disk, which is really cool. I'm interested to see more information about the Airport Disk Utility to see if it allows RAID configurations of attached disks, which would be a very useful feature.
- Form factor. The shape of the Extreme has changed dramatically, making it look much more like a Mac Mini -- perhaps it's even the same size as a Mini to allow stacking.
- 3 built-in ethernet ports. The last Extreme had only one port that you had to put into a hub in order to provide wired network connections, but the new Extreme has a 3-port hub built-in, which is very nice.
- Mac or PC. It use to be that you had to have a Mac to properly configure the Airport Extreme, though once it was configured, it worked with any wireless device. The new Airport Extreme will apparently be configurable from either platform.
- Speed. The new Extreme is 802.11 draft-n, which is a much faster wireless networking speed. In addition, the Extreme supposedly ships with an activation CD that allows you to turn on the 802.11 draft-n networking capabilities in your Intel Core2Duo machine (i.e., my MacBook Pro). This feature is also very important is it relates to AppleTV
AppleTV is the little box that will sit right next to your television set that will allow you to dump music and video from your computer. Inside the box is an Intel processor and a 40gb hard drive that will presumably buffer items sent from your Mac in order to ensure that you have uninterrupted clarity of video on your computer. Although the resolution coming out of the box is only 720P, which has some in the blogosphere up in arms, I am perfectly happy with 720P as a resolution especially as the AppleTV will include a HDMI connection to transmit both hi-def audio and video. Obviously AppleTV will work most effectively if you are streaming to it with 802.11 draft-n, which would presumably cause the purchase of an Airport Extreme.
Both AppleTV and the Airport Extreme are slated to ship in February and if you order them now, they each qualify for free shipping. I added both an AppleTV and an Airport Extreme to my shopping cart and came up with a total cost of $478 for both items with no AppleCare protection for either item -- AppleCare protection is available for both items at an additional cost.
Apple had revolutionized cell phones
For those that haven't seen it yet, Apple released the iPhone, which is truly a fundamental change in cellphones. There are lots of comments on the phone, so allow me to offer my opinions on a few things:
- No UMTS data. The main argument here is that Apple released a revolutionary phone, but it's not a "3G" phone because it doesn't have UMTS (the generation beyond Cingular's current EDGE high-speed data) support. However, the iPhone has yet to be reviewed by the FCC -- that's likely why no one found the filing on their site -- and is not due out until June, so it certainly is possible that Apple could easily add a UMTS radio.
- Cingular only. Quad-band GSM automatically makes it a world phone because most of the rest of the world uses GSM; strategically it's the play that I would have made, Cingular is the largest GSM carrier in the US with the best coverage, and Apple has history with Cingular. All of that having been said, I'm sure that Apple will consider a CDMA version if the demand is there.
- You can't load your own applications, which makes it not a "smartphone." Frequently smartphone users are adding applications because the base functionality included with the phone is limited and/or does not suit their needs. With all of the items included in the iPhone, the standard OSX ease of use, and the implementation of widgets that can presumably be added and removed by the user, it will be interesting to see if there really are a lot of "applications" that are missing. Also, I think it's a bit premature to say that someone won't figure out a way to add applications to the phone once it's out in the wild.
- It doesn't support MS Exchange or Blackberry. Ok, it's certainly not too surprising that it does not support MS Exchange and I guess it might not be too surprising that it does not support Blackberry as it has Yahoo "push" IMAP and presumably will have some sort of "push" solution for .Mac mail. Additionally, if Gmail were to implement a push IMAP or POP solution, I'm guessing the phone would support that too considering it will support POP and IMAP natively. Here's my biggest guess: some CEOs, COOs, and executives of companies are going to want this device and that's going to force their IT departments to either open up IMAP and POP access or look at solutions such as Consilient to push their mail.
Here are some points that I've come up with:
- How is Cingular going to treat this device on their network? If they class it as a smartphone like the Treo, Nokia 9300, etc., then the data plans will be in the $30 per month range. If, however, they class it as a phone like the Cingular 2125, then the unlimited data plan will be $19 per month. Chances are good that Cingular will choose the former because of the profitability of data plans and the fact that they can't hit it for a Blackberry data plan, but it would be a lot more palatable to a consumer like me if they only charged $19 per month for data.
- What's the price going to be unsubsidized? While phones like this are great to get new subscribers and to get existing subscribers to come in a re-up their contracts, the unsubsidized price is always nice to know -- I've purchased quite a few GSM phones from Craigslist and from LetsTalk unlocked and have generally been happier with them. My guess would be that the prices would go up by about $200 per phone if they were purchased without a Cingular contract.
- .Mac integration. There's been a lot of buzz about iPhone integration with .Mac, but little was mentioned about this at MacWorld -- I think there is a very good chance that more and more information about .Mac integration will come out as the phone gets closer to actual launch.
- Insurance. My guess is that this phone is going to be very hard to insure through normal Cingular insurance and that probably the best bet is going to be to purchase the AppleCare policy with the phone. I could be wrong about this, but just imagine how expensive it would be to replace the screen on one of these things.
Apple's built a great platform for the future of the iPod as well -- I would guess that it won't be too long before we see next generation iPods that have many of the features that are included in the iPhone, just without the calling capabilities. If Apple were really thinking, they could replace all of the GSM and EDGE radios with, say, and 802.11n radio and create a pretty effective Nokia 770/800-killer and possibly even a UMPC killer, depending on the number of features they would include in such a device.
This will be very interesting to observe and it will also be interesting to observe how Nokia, Motorola, RIM, and all of the others respond with their offerings.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Using the Gmail mobile app on small screen phones
Let's say you want to use the Gmail mobile application on your Java-enabled phone, but you have a really small screen. Chances are good that you'll download the MIDLET, launch it, and find that the font size is really small and you'll probably stop using it, which is what I did on my Cingular 2125 the first time. Do not give up so easily! Here are the steps to fix the font size issue:
- Launch the MIDLET
- Sign into Gmail
- Select "Menu"
- Select "Go to"
- Select "Settings"
- Uncheck "Use Small Fonts"
- Exit the MIDLET
- Restart the MIDLET
Assuming that you did everything correctly, you will now have a reasonably-sized font display for your small screen.
Monday, January 01, 2007
New Year cleaning of my starred items in Google Reader
Ok, so I need to clean out my starred items from Google Reader as they've built up over the last several months. Generally I star items that I want to share with you, write about in my blog, etc., but if I don't do a big post dump, I'm never going to be able to get through them, so here goes:
- End-user manifesto. Found on the Gaping Void, this is a multi-point manifesto that anyone who is creating software, web sites, and really anything that requires and ultimate end user should read. Certainly the post has a technical/software slant, but it is some points are applicable to things other than software and websites.
- The Chin. Seth Godin discusses how people that aren't used to using computers tend to stick out their chins while they are using them and how there is a whole generation of "Chinless" kids growing up behind them. Here's the one thing that Seth doesn't touch on: every generation eventually becomes The Chin because technology speeds along faster than the innate ability of older people to grasp it.
- Boot your iPod into diagnostic mode. I'm not sure that you really would ever need to do this unless your iPod is totally screwed up, but Lifehacker provides instructions on how to put your iPod into diagnostic mode. Repeat after me: it is not funny to put peoples' iPods into diagnostic mode to fuck with them.
- Robbie's Assembly Service. The Business Opportunities Weblog details Robbie McGregor's business of assembling toys for people during Christmas. Think about how easy it would be to set up a seasonal business like this with some of your friends, especially if you are good at putting together things from Ikea.
- The Tao of Warren Buffett. BusinessPundit shares some of the learnings from the book The Tao of Warren Buffett. I'll have to put this on my list of books to read. Here's my favorite one from the post: "What we learn from history is that people don't learn from history."
- 15 Lawyer Tips. Following his 15 Client Tips post, Matthew Homann at the[non]billable hour has posted his list of 15 Lawyer Tips. The list of tips is a worthy read for anyone in the law profession and some tips are applicable as simple business tips. Hey, Matt, you should submit these tips/manifestos to Hugh over at the gapingvoid .
- Tips for Dealing with Naive Prospects. Seth Godin has a great list of tips for dealing with people that are niave about the product that you are offering. The big takeaway is that intimidation is not going to win you business.
- Live Concerts on Lala.com. TechCrunch reports that you can now listen to live concerts on Lala.com, the $1 CD swapping service. How long until the bands realize that Lala.com has an inventory of their fans that the could sell live CDs to? At that point, you might as well cut out the middle medium and just sell live tracks to download. What's that you say? Selling live tracks isn't what Lala.com does? It didn't think that serving up live concert recordings was either, but they're doing that.
- OSXStartup Key Sequences. Useful if you want to boot from something other than your Mac's built-in hard drive or do other funky things when you boot up.
- FlickrBooth. A plug-in for Apple's Photo Booth that allows pictures taken with the built-in iSight to be sent directly to Flickr. If you didn't understand any of the last sentence, you probably don't use a Mac.
- Companies Making Holiday Donations on Your Behalf. Seth Godin details how Young Isaac creates its own holiday cards inside of which are checks for $8 that the person receiving the card can fill in and send to their favorite charity. Quite the novel idea.
- DIY Laser Hair Removal. It doesn't seem like it's been all that long since laser hair removal has been available in clinics and now it's about to be available at home -- the cycle of professional to do-it-yourself becomes shorter and shorter.
- Phling. Phling allows you to stream music from your home PC to your phone, which is pretty cool -- I wonder how long the carriers will let this operate through their walled gardens. Phling also has some social features.
- iPhoto2Gmail. Does what it says: allows you to simply send e-mails with pictures directly from iPhoto using your Gmail account.
- Zappo's 10 Rules for Customer-Centricity. If you've never used Zappos, it's hard to explain their dedication to customer service, but believe me, this list of 10 rules is a worthwhile read for anyone in the customer service business.
- MS PST Back-up Program. Your Exchange account usually only stores 50 or 100MB, which means that if you are not deleting all of your e-mail, you are probably storing it on your hard drive in the form of a PST file. PST files are notoriously hard to back up and/or forgotten about until it's too late, but Microsoft has released a free tool to address this issue.
- FLV Online Converter. YouTube to your iPod through an online interface.
- 22 Ways to Overclock Your Brain. Give it a read.
- 250 Free Office Templates. Chances are good that if you need a document template, you can find it here.
- True Cost of Being Overweight. Yes, the true dollar cost of being overweight can be calculated and Getting Rich Slowly has done it.
- Windows Local Street Level Views. You should really check this out -- it shows views of streets as if you were driving through them yourself.
- Kill It. Seth Godin points out that Google is shutting down Google Answers because it's not hitting Google's success metrics -- the takeaway is that you have to be willing to kill things that aren't working especially if you're in a business that releases lots of things.
- 7 Google Reader Tips. Sure, why not?
And now the starred items area is relatively clean for the new year.
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