It’s awesome and you should go set one up. This is almost tempting me to move my feeds from Bloglines to the Google Reader so that all of my stuff (search, maps/directions, e-mail, and RSS) are unified and mobilized.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Load Windows XP before you log in
BrainFuel provides the full details on how to do this and I’ve linked to the post below.
Allow me to explain why this is useful:
- It is only useful if you use the Windows secure login; if you don’t use secure login, then this is not for you. Secure login is when you have to press ctrl-alt-delete to login, so if you just lick a pretty icon to get to your desktop, you are not using secure login.
- If when you login to Windows you set there for a minute or more waiting for your background and applications to appear, then this is for you. My machine at home loads in less than a minute, so I would not apply this to my machine.
- If you use a machine in a corporate environment where they push a bunch of policy, scripts, etc. during login and it causes you to wait several minutes before you can see your desktop and/or use your machine, this is for you. Be aware that your network administrator may not be super-stoked about you applying this method to a company machine and you may potentially be violating your company's usage policy.
Note that the methods described in the post direct you to download a .reg file to merge into your computer — for many users this might be ok, but for those in a corporate environment or those that have already made many changes to their .reg file, you should follow the alternate instructions on how to use regedit to change your .reg file yourself. Should you choose to regedit yourself, be aware that you can do big-time damage to your machine if you do it incorrectly.
In 1997, Michael Dell proposed Apple be shutdown and monies refunded to shareholders
Om Malik remembers that Michael Dell said that, just like I do. So, take a look at the post on Malik’s blog that shows how Apple has just past Dell in market cap — $72B for Apple vs $71B for Dell.
There are some other great points in Malik’s post that analyze revenue vs. profits vs. market cap that are worth reading.
Friday, January 13, 2006
My impressions of IE7 beta 1
I finally got a chance to play with Internet Explorer 7 beta 1, which is currently only available to MSDN subscribers (I am not a MSDN subscriber). Here are some of my observations:
- After having been accessing Outlook Web Access through Firefox for the last several months, I had forgotten how much more robust it is to access OWA with IE. There is nothing specifically different about accessing OWA with IE6 vs. IE7, but I figured I would through that out there.
- Tabbed browsing is nice, but it’s no fundamentally any different than tabbed browsing in Firefox. Sure, the interface looks a little different, but IE has not done anything fundamentally different than what’s been available for a long time in Firefox.
- There is an anti-phishing filter that runs constantly, verifying sites that you visit against some sort of MS database (I’m guessing). I did not visit any sites that prompted any sort of warning.
- The current version of Google Toolbar seems to work just fine in IE7, which is weird because browser upgrades usually break the Toolbar; I did verify that it was the IE6 version of the Toolbar being used, not some sort of IE7 beta upgrade from Google.
- The whole interface seems a little more rounded out; sort of in the style of screenshots of seen of Vista.
- There’s a “Delete Browsing History” window that essentially functions in exactly the same way as “Clear Browsing History” in Firefox, so that’s not real different from what we can do now. I’ve heard that Administrators can disable some of these functions for users in a Windows environment, which I do not believe is an option in Firefox.
- It breaks Trillian and other multiple service instant messaging programs by installing some sort of new MSN files. I think that if you disable your MSN sign-on in Trillian that you are ok in to use it with other services, but I’m not sure. Trillian has no plans of patching until there is a public beta or final release of IE7.
- In order to install IE7, you have to go through the Windows Genuine Advantage certification. It’s not clear if this is just for the beta or if this will be required for the full version as well.
For lots more information, check out the IEBlog.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
iTunes is not spyware
At least according to an Apple spokesperson it’s not spying on us.
Ok, check out this Knowledge Base article (and note that it was created on Jan. 4, 2006, which is the same day that iTunes 6.0.2 was released and a day before everyone started freaking out that iTunes was transmitting data back to Apple).
You can also read this post on Boing Boing that has lots of information from an Apple “source” (that is rumored to be Steve Jobs himself) who states that any information sent to Apple is discarded. There’s a lot more information on the Boing Boing post with lots of updates, so read up if you feel like it.
Is it ok that iTunes 6.0.2 installs MiniStore by default without informing you that it is transmitting information? No. Is it ok that this is not specifically addressed in Apple’s privacy policy? No. Is it ok that you have to access a Knowledge Base article to figure out what is going on rather than having it clear and obvious on the main iTunes page? No.
You can also read the post on MacWorld’s blog about iTunes 6.0.2 and the statement issued by Apple.
What’s the moral here? People are smart. Smart people have the instant ability to publish their findings on the web in real time. Other people will pick up on what the smart people have found and greatly accelerate the dissemination of information. Transparency is absolutely critical. If you have designed a “feature” that potentially could cause concern and/or that a smart person can detect and construe as doing something malicious, disclose it and give people a way to disable it.
iTunes 6.0.2 does iPod compatible video conversion without Quicktime Pro
Just right-click and make a selection. More on the post by TUAW.
30 Boxes
As the name implies, 30 Boxes is a web calendar client. Currently 30 Boxes is in beta, but Om Malik posted some information about it, stating:
. . . it is safe to say 30 Boxes will be to calendars what GMail was to Email.
If I get a beta invite, I’ll post more information; for now, go read Malik’s post.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Some amazing facts that I extracted from the keynote at MacWorld
You can read full coverage of the whole keynote on Engadget, but here are some interesting figures:
- 26 million visitors to Apple Stores in the holiday quarter
- $5.7billion in revenue in the holiday quarter
- 14 million iPods sold in the holiday quarter (that’s more than 100 every minute, if you’re trying to do the math); over 42 million iPods sold worldwide to date
- 850 million songs sold to date on iTMS with the expectation of hitting 1 billion in the next few days (maybe they’ll run a 1 billionth song promotion)
- iTMS has an 83% market share
- 8 million videos sold since launch on Oct. 12, 2005
- 40% of cars sold in 2006 will have an iPod integration option
Wow!
So the new Macs with Intel processors are out in the wild
Who’s going to be the first person to get these to dual boot with Windows XP?
Anyone want to buy my “old” 15inch Powerbook?
Is it just me or is Bloglines starting to suck?
I seem to be having more and more problems with Bloglines and I’m guessing that it’s not just me. Although I have been using the service for a long time, server outages (you know, when the plumber shows up or when you get the “There is a problem with our database” message), weird formatting of My Feeds on some computers (it seems like sometimes Bloglines displays the mobile version on a regular computer), and clicking on feed folders only to have no feeds show up, I’m starting to get pretty frustrated.
Oh, looks like Jeremy Wright is having the same sorts of problems and frustrations, but he has solicited advice on what feedreader to switch to — 20 comments at the time of me writing this post, so I’m going to check out what others have to say.
Please feel free to leave me comments with any alternative feedreaders, but bear this in mind:
- I’m not really looking to install an application; I really like browsing on the web only.
- Ideally it would be a service that would retain the folders that I have things organized into on Bloglines.
- Just like Jeremy, I like how Bloglines displays feeds as one massive page by folder.
I started wearing a helmet while skiing
After much griping and resistance, I started wearing a helmet while skiing. I ski instead of snowboard and got a fantastic deal on a Leedom helmet (like $50 instead of $120). Due to a pretty advanced ventilation system, the Leedom kept my head pretty cool even in 35 degree weather and probably would have worked better if I had removed the earpads.
Lots of companies are introducing or have introduced earpads that are Bluetooth enabled or that have inputs for iPods or cellphones or both. If you ski/snowboard, I’m sure you’ve ridden on a lift with some person that was either tuned out on their iPod or talking very loudly on their phone. I must say that 2 of the things that I am not looking to do while skiing are listen to music or talk on my cell phone, but, hey, that’s just me.
How to know when it's time to quit
The Business Opportunities Weblog has posted this set of guidelines that help you know when it is time to quit:
- None of your closest friends or relatives has invested a dime — or even expressed any interest
- The total amount you’ve been able to raise is less than $25,000
- No one wants to join you in your madness and work for free (or stock)
- No customer has been persuaded to buy your product or service
- Your intellectual property attorney said there was nothing worth patenting
- The last investor you presented your idea to asked if you were joking
- You’ve been doing this for more than three years and still can’t support yourself or the company hasn’t hit break-even
Common sense stuff, but nice to see in an easily digestible bulleted list.
Full-featured PBX for less than $1,000
It’s a little hard to believe that you can get a PBX for less than $1,000 that does the kinds of things that $10K+ systems do, but Fonality can provide you with just such a system. Fonality uses Asterisk, which is an open-source PBX software and installs it onto a low-cost computer. Note that the $1,000 does not include any handsets, but that Fonality is compatible with all kinds of different IP-based handsets from various different manufacturers.
If I had a small– or medium-sized business looking for a PBX, I would take a hard look at Fonality.
A few thoughts on GM/Chevy
I’m just going to call GM and Chevrolet “GM” for the purposes of this post.
I went with my wife on December 30 (prior to January 3rd, which is when the Red Tag promotion ended) to look at 2005 Chevrolet Tahoes. We have some amount of negative equity in my wife’s current car, but based on the research I had done, it seemed that with red tag pricing and 0% financing, we could come out to a place where we felt ok. The dealership that we went to at least 50 (but more like 100) 2005 SUVs — Tahoes, Suburbans, and Trailblazers on the lot. Long story short, apparently we didn’t read the fine print that you either choose Red Tag pricing or 0% financing, but you don’t get both.
Now here’s the thing: I’ve driven by the dealership and it doesn’t seem like they moved too many of the 2005 new vehicles that were on their lot, nor does it look like they moved too many of the 2006 vehicles that are on their lot. The 2007 Tahoes, Yukons, and Suburbans either are on dealer lots, or will be within the next few days. So now a dealer like the one I went to has a whole lot of 2005 models that are new, a whole lot of 2006 models that are new, and is taking delivery of a whole lot of new 2007 models. Compound that with the fact that the 2007 models include a gas-saving feature that shuts down 4 of the engine cylinders when they are not needed and in my humble opinion, dealers might be in real inventory trouble.
As if everything in the last paragraph isn’t enough, Autoblog reports that GM just announced a hybrid Tahoe/Yukon for 2008, which is supposed to deliver a 25% fuel efficiency over the 2007 model.
With the car my wife drives now, a 2005 Tahoe/Yukon would be a vast improvement in gas mileage if the price was right. I’m just waiting to see what GM does with incentives and financing to help dealers move the 2005 and 2006 models. Currently (expiring 1/10/05), GM is offering $8,000 cash back or 0% for 72 months on Tahoe + option package discounts; I’m just waiting for $8,000 cash + 0% + option package discounts before we pull the trigger. Hey, if you’re a car dealer out of state and can get around residency restrictions, etc. and want to offer me the deal, I’m sure we can work something out prior to the 10th, otherwise, I’m content to wait.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Cuban's investment advice
None of this is anything new. It is very likely that you have heard this advice before.
Ok, here’s Mark Cuban’s investment advice:
- If interest rates stay where they are or go higher, look at 5 year or shorter maturity vehicles. It doesn't matter if its a bank CD, a money market fund, a tax free fund, treasuries or combinations there of. Bottom line is this, 4plus percent taxed, or up to 6 plus percent tax free equivalent (depending on your tax bracket), is not a bad way to go. If rates go down, do the same thing, even if you earn a lower rate. At the end of the year, you are guaranteed to have more than you started with. Interest rates at ING Direct are 3.8% with no minimum.
- Evaluate your lifestyle. People forget that sometimes the best investment they can make is in wisely buying things they know they will use. If you track what you use and consume, whether its gas vs bus fare, buying bulk quantities or other discretionary spending, you can save more and earn a far greater return than you could in the stock market. If you can save 10pct per month on a hundred dollar per month budget, thats 120 bucks you can put in the bank. Thats the equivalent of earning 12 pct on a 1k dollar investment. If you can cut 100 bucks per month off 1k dollar monthly budget, thats like earning 12 pct on 10k dollars. Thats pretty darn good. Spend smart, put your savings in risk averse, interest earning offerings. Stop smoking and put the money in a jar. Stop eating out for lunch every single day. Cut some of the premium channels from your cable or satellite subscription. See? It’s pretty easy when you think about.
- Invest in yourself. Do the things that can get you closer to your goals and dreams. It wont come from a brokerage commercial. It will come from preparing yourself , working hard and standing apart from your competition. You Inc is the best stock you can ever buy…if you are willing to do the work.
Read Cuban’s whole post — lots of interesting information about brokerage houses.
DICEE
Ok, here’s what Guy Kawasaki’s DICEE means:
- Deep. It’s not just the window dressing, the whole damn thing works and anticipates what you need.
- Indulgent. It’s luxurious and special and rewarding all at the same time.
- Complete. Every part of it is important, not just the “it.”
- Elegant. It works how you think it should work.
- Emotive. It is a call to action and creates an emotional attachment.
So exactly what is “it” that Guy is talking about? “It” is the product. Product is a broad word. A service can be a product if you work somewhere that does not produce widgets. You might be “it” — brand you, Wow! projects. Use DICEE to evaluate all of the “its” that you are involved with.
Do you know your mission statement?
I don’t because it’s too long and I’ve never taken the time to memorize it. Guy Kawasaki points out that a 3 or 4 word mantra is probably much more effective and if you feel strongly that you need a mission statement with all kinds of buzzwords, you can use the Dilbert Mission Statement Generator.
Ah yes. What’s my blog mantra?
Useful blog content.
Simple as that.
Business 2.0 content is now free
The good news? I don’t have to pay a subscription fee anymore because I used to read the magazine online anyway.
The bad news? Any links in my blog to Business 2.0 articles no longer work; they just redirect to the main site (that is now part of CNNMoney.com). Small price to pay.
Google video is pretty cool
I’ve been playing around with it. Pricing is flexible depending on content and there are lots of download options with PSP and iPod included.
Barriers to chnage in an organization
Great post (including graphics) on Dave Pollard’s blog — when you first vie the post, see if you start assigning names of people in your organization to the graphics like I did.
Vongo
Russell Beattie shares his thoughts about and experience with Vongo, which is the movie download and streaming service from Starz. I tried to visit the site and got a “Flash Failure” because I’m not running Flash 8; then I tried to access it with my Mac and that didn’t work because Windows XP is required. Basically at this point I gave up because I was going to have to close and restart Firefox and I didn’t feel like it. Russell seemed to dig the service though, so if you are interested, check out what he has to stay.
Acq-hire
What is “acq-hire”? It’s what Google’s doing when it buys web technology companies on the cheap and absorbs those companies’ staffs into the Google organization. It’s no longer “build, sell, repeat”, it’s now “build, sell, work at Google.” Om Malik posts some more information about this.
Interesting CES tidbits
All from Engadget:
- AuraGrid extends WiFi all over your house using existing coax (television) cabling. Unfortunately homes with satellite tv cannot use satellite and AuraGrid on the same network, but it’s been my experience that lots of satellite installers put in a separate grid, so you may be able to make something work. If I was Comcast, I’d bundle this if you signed up for a year of cable internet and cable television, but that’s just me.
- When you “upgrade” your Verizon phone to use the new Verizon download service, you will no longer be able to listen to MP3s on your phone due to an agreement between Microsoft and Verizon that only allows the phone to play songs in the Microsoft media format. If you don’t like your “upgraded” features, you can complain to Verizon and get an older version of the firmware. This is just weird.
From Gizmodo:
- DirecTV has partnered initially with FX to allow you to pay to watch shows before they actually air on the network channel for about $3 each. In addition, you can pay $1 to watch shows 6–7 days after they aired nationally. Future content will be coming from other major networks. Of course, this only works with a DirecTV-brand PVR, which means that you will need a land-based phone line for $30–$40 per month. I thought this was a great service until I read the part about the DirecTV PVR — I’m not paying for a phone line just to be able to use the service.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Safeway's new inventory control change and how it affected me
The family went went to Safeway tonight to pick up a few things, specifically things for dinner. Aside from the things that we actually went to purchase, I noticed that Glaceau Vitamin Water was on sale at $1 a bottle, which is a pretty good deal, so I loaded up a flat of 24 of my favorite flavors/colors. When I got to the checkstand, I handed the checker one bottle to scan and multiply by 24. She informed me that I would have to put the whole flat on the belt because there was a new inventory rule that Safeway had implemented that required her to scan every bottle. At this point there was no one in line behind me and I wasn’t necessarily in a huge hurry, so I simply observed.
The checker proceeded to grab a bottle of each color (there were only 2), count the quantity of each color, and scan the barcode of each color as many times as the quantity she had counted; I wasn’t paying much attention as I was scanning my Safeway Card and swiping my credit card. In order to verify what she had done, the checker then printed a receipt and proceeded to count the number of bottles that she had printed and came up 7 short, so she scanned 7 more bottles; this was the point that the line started forming and by this point all of the rest of groceries were loaded in my cart.
In order to verify, yet again, that the quantity was correct, the checker printed another receipt and counted. Because I had now done everything required of me to complete the transaction, I was watching her (albeit from an upside-down perspective) and noted that she had not counted 7 bottles that had printed on the receipt — essentially she had missed 7 bottles on her initial check and had scanned 7 bottles more than I had for a total 31 bottles. Not to be deterred, the checker then grabbed a bottle and started scanning the barcode (one swipe at a time) to void 7 bottles — at about the 4th bottle, the register timed out and required her to void the entire purchase. She told me that a manager could override and proceeded to call the manager on the PA system.
The manager arrived, scanned his manager card, and proclaimed that we had to re-scan the entire order. We started from scratch, unloading all of the items in the cart from their bags and then scanning each bottle of Vitamin Water individually (the checker insisted on scanning the 2 different flavors separately while the manager told her just to scan 1 bottle 24 times — this becomes important later). Luckily this time, now that the line was 5 deep, we all agreed on the correct quantity.
At this point, the checker went to give me my receipt. Safeway has a promotion where you receive scratchcards for various different reasons. Apparently the various combinations of things that we had purchased made us eligible for 9 of these scratchcards. The unfortunate part of the scratchcard process is that the register sounds and alert every time the checker is supposed to hand me a scratchcard and the checker must hit a button to clear the alert and verify that the card has been given before the register will print a receipt — for those doing the math, that meant that there were 9 instances of this sequence before my receipt would print. Had I not been there with my wife and daughter, I probably would have left long before round 3 of the scanning.
Here are my thoughts:
Obviously Safeway decided that they had a new inventory control process for whatever reason. This new process was communicated not only to the store management, but probably also to the union, both of whom communicated it to the checkers. The checker was following the new process and while it was a big pain in the ass for both her and I, I find it a little hard to fault her for doing her job. The manager, a non-union employee, instructed the checker to violate the new process to speed up and diffuse the situation, which I find interesting because he works directly for the corporation that came up with the process.
The whole inventory control process is silly for both sides: the consumer and the checker. Even if we had gotten things done correctly the first time, it would have been much easier for the checker to scan one bottle and enter the quantity than to have to continuously scan the barcode. If that can’t happen, then, in the case of Vitamin Water, put a SKU on the skid that rings up 24 bottles.
Scratchcard promotions are great and I’m sure that some person in some office realized that the only way to ensure that scratchcards are handed out was to interrupt the normal process with a verification mechanism. Unfortunately, this person with the brilliant idea never tested it in the real world. I have no idea what I purchased to get my 9 scratchcards (I only spent around $50 and $24 of that was in Vitamin Water), but I could not believe how hard it made it for both me and the checker.
Friday, January 06, 2006
TiVo Series 3 with HD capabilities revelaled at CES
Check out the post on Gizmodo for full details and pics, but here are some of the interesting points:
- HD recording
- Still need an external USB wifi device, which will no doubt spur sales of the TiVo-branded one
- Support for an external drive. The pictures show a TiVo-branded drive and it’s not clear if it’s open support for all kinds of drives or even how the drive connects to the TiVo.
- Base hard drive of 250GB.
- 2 CableCard slots — that means you can record one program while watching another. What’s the status on CableCards anyway? I wasn’t aware that DirecTV and Comcast were really supporting these, but maybe I’m behind the times or don’t know what I”m talking about.
UPDATE: I did a little more digging and found more information on the whole CableCard thing. Here’s the deal from TiVoLovers:
- To clarify, it supports analog cable, even any digital cable channels sent in the clear, without CableCARD. You only need CableCARD for any protected digital channels, to handle the descryption. And since all digital cable systems in the US *must* support CableCARD - it is an FCC mandate - then it should work with all cable systems, analog or digital.
- the unit is dual-tuner - actually, like the HD DirecTiVo it can use any two of the tuners it has, and it has six. 2 cable tuners, 2 ATSC tuners, and 2 NTSC tuners. Yes, it supports digital and analog cable, digital ATSC OTA, and analog NTSC OTA.
- And on the subject of outputs, since it was in the article and is an annoyance with Series 2 boxes: For output it has HDMI, Component Video, S-Video, and Composite Video. It has optical digital audio out, as well as RCA stereo out. Like the Series2 units it has 2 USB ports, and it also has a 10/100baseT Ethernet jack built-in.
- External drives apparently attach through a SATA port.
Link — Gizmodo
Link — TiVo Lovers
Google Pack
You can now download basically every free application (Windows only) that Google produces and some bonus free applications in one single installer complete with an updater. If you use all this stuff already, the updater install might be worth it. The pack includes:
- Google Earth
- Picasa
- Google Pack Screensaver
- Google Desktop
- Google Toolbar for IE
- Firefox with Google Toolbar
- Norton Anti-virus (free 6–month subscription to virus updates)
- AdAware
- Adobe Reader 7
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Mossberg blasts the Treo 700W
Read his whole review, but essentially it boils down to this:
The Treo 700w will appeal to some Windows Mobile fans, and to some corporate IT staffs. But for everyone else, I advise sticking with the Palm-based Treos.
Hey, a 650 at 1/2 the price of a 700W appeals to me even without the review.
Put polls on your site easily and for free
dPolls let’s you do it. You can create your own poll and download the code from the dPoll server and then view the results. Here’s the catch: any poll that you create in the free service is searchable by keyword by anyone that uses the dPoll site (i.e., the results are public), which may not be so much of a “catch” at all unless you are scared of your poll’s results.
Pretty cool.
YouSendIt
Have you ever been frustrated when trying to e-mail a really large file and the person you are trying to send it to can’t receive it because their e-mail single message size limit is really low? YouSendIt allows you to send files up to 1GB to anyone you want by storying the item you are trying to send on their servers and simply sending your recipient a link to the message.
I looked at the Privacy Policy and it does not appear that YouSendIt can view or read anything you post onto their servers.
Dolby is showcasing new technology
It’s called Audistry and you can sample it on your computer. However, to sample it on your computer you need external speakers and headphones; I don’t have either, so while I was able to get the sample to run, I couldn’t tell any difference on my built-in computer speakers (not that I was supposed to be able to, but I figured I’d try).
In any event, if you are so equipped with speakers and headphones, give it a try.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Are Bluetooth headsets finally getting to be the right form factor
I ranted in March of 2005 about how damn ugly Bluetooth headsets are. Although I have seen some headsets that are smaller since then, everyone using one still looks like a cyborg. I was surprised (happily) to see this Bluetooth headset from Motorola on Engadget:
Although I’d like to see a picture of this thing on someone’s head, it seems to be going the right direction. As would be expected, without the boom mic, the device picks up your voice from inside your ear canal; this tends to work better in noisier environments than a boom microphone unless the boom is specifically noise cancelling.
This is supposed to be out sometime in early 2006 and there is not pricing detail yet. As with any speaker you stuff in your ear, please read my views.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Nokia 770 review cont'd
I’ve been getting a lot of e-mail about my 770, so here are a few more points:
I primarily use the 770 for web browsing. To some extent I use the IMAP/POP client, but not extensively. The item I am most excited about, but have not yet installed is the VNC viewer so that I can remotely access my machines at work and at home.
I have not experienced an sort of annoying boot lags when launching the web browser. That said, I have experienced low memory errors when I inadvertently left to many instances of the web browser open.
The web browser works great, but I have so far been unsuccessful in installing Flash and some other plug-ins; this is strictly due to a lack of trying on my part as I am sure that it is possible.
I actually have 2 770s — 1 stays at home in the living room and is used extensively by my wife and 1 is carried around by me primarily for work stuff and as an alternative to lugging my laptop around. Here are my observations of how my wife uses the 770:
She learned how to use the device fairly quickly once I showed her how to use some of the basic functions; she even took it with her to show to her brother at a coffee shop and easily connected to unsecured wireless networks around the coffee shop so that she could show him the online functionality. Although she did not initially have any experience with pen-based computing, she is getting better and faster at entry with the pen; I think that she mostly uses the keyboard input panel as opposed to handwriting (i.e., ink) recognition.
Mostly she uses the device for web access and to play Mahjong (ok, she’s addicted to Mahjong), which is a game that comes pre-loaded on the 770. I have offered to set up her e-mail accounts so that she can access them through the mail application, but that doesn’t seem to be a huge priority for her as she has web access to all of her accounts.
The portability of the device, the instant-on, and the battery endurance all seem to be useful things to her. Additionally the battery on our Sony laptop that we leave in the living room is completely dead, so it is much easier to walk around the house with the 770 than to shutdown the laptop, unplug it, plug it back in, and reboot.
I have not tried to load pictures or videos on the 770. All of that stuff is generally handled by my iPod or on our Apple computers at home. All of my cameras (video and still and Treo) use SD cards, so it’s not as if I can take pictures or videos and easily load them on to the RS MMC card that the 770 uses.
Here are a few wishes that I have for the 770:
- Ability to use SD cards (probably not a likely conversion of the units that I already own).
- Ability to use the USB port to pull data on to the device. It would be very cool if I could plug my still camera, video camera, or Treo into the 770 and use the screen as a portable viewing system. Further, it would be cool if I could dump data (i.e., pictures and videos) onto the RS MMC card when traveling to open up some space on my SD cards.
- Vonage VOIP software. If this existed, I would probably up my plan to the $24.99 per month and most extensively use it through the 770; I might even pay a small extra fee per month for the privilege.
- Skype software. I might consider dumping Vonage if this was available.
There is a firmware update for the 770 that is supposed to fix some of the things that others are griping about that I have yet to install on either of my 770s (probably do that this weekend if I think about it), so all of my reviews above are based on the original firmware.
10/20/30 Powerpoint rule
Guy Kawasaki shares his “rule” for effective Powerpoint presentations, which I will paraphrase below:
- “10” is the optimal number of slides.
- “20” is the number of minutes it should take to give the presentation
- “30” is the minimum font size that you should be using (i.e., no smaller than 30)
Lots of other tips for those that a creating presentations for venture capitalists in Guy’s post, but the 10/20/30 rule is universally applicable.
MacWindows.com
TUAW reports on MacWindows.com, which is a resource for integrating between the two operating systems. Lots of useful stuff, especially if you are trying to network between Windows and OSX at home.
EchoSign
I work with a lot of contracts in my business, so I am especially intrigued by EchoSign. Essentially EchoSign seeks to make the contract signature process electronic, getting rid of multiple paper versions of contract. Furthermore, they seem to have built in signature control (i.e., who needs to sign first), which is especially important for many of my contracts. Essentially EchoSign uses a combination of e-mail and fax to retain signed copies of agreements in a digital format; it also looks like you get an online agreement storage account as well to store your agreements online.
The service is currently free and there does not seem to be any pricing information on the site. I looked at the Privacy Policy and it doesn’t seem that EchoSign can use any of the scanned information.
Pretty interesting, I might have to try it out. I imagine this would be a very useful thing for real estate agents and mortgage brokers.
Spotwave
Ok, it’s not available yet, but Spotwave has just announced a product called “Zen” for home users that is designed to improve cell coverage in your home (within a 2500 sq. ft. area). The key for the device is going to be pricing; if they can get it in the $300–$400 range, then it could wind up being very popular as many other solutions are spendy. Furthermore, from the renderings the Zen looks easy to install, which would give it another leg up over more commercial-grade repeater systems.
April 2006 is the projected date of release, so we’ll see what the pricing is once we get there.
Monday, January 02, 2006
AskMeNow
AskMeNow is a service for mobile phones that offers:
- 411 listings
- Weather
- Movie times
- Sports scores
- Directions
- Stock quotes
- Airline times
- All kinds of other stuff
There are a couple of ways to use AskMeNow:
- Dial 888–EZ-ASKME (IVR system)
- Download the AskMeNow application (Blackberries are supported)
All the services described above are free (with the exception of standard text messaging fees, minute fees, and other carrier charges), but the premium service called “AskMeAnything” that will answer anything charges your cell phone bill $0.49.
Hell, I’m going to give it a try.
ScanR
Ok, I had a little trouble figuring out what exactly it is that ScanR does initially, but here’s the deal:
Take a picture of a document or whiteboard with a 1MP or better camera phone and e-mail it to ScanR; ScanR will send you back, via e-mail, a PDF of what you took a picture of or you can send what you took a picture of as a fax.
Looking at the examples on their site, it appears that ScanR performs some re-touching and general cleaning up of what you take a picture of to make it look more like an actual scan. I guess if it works as advertised, this could be a pretty cool service.
I guess if I think about it a little more, I could use this for far more things than just business — wine labels, book covers, magazine articles, etc. Obviously, the higher the resolution of the camera on the phone, the better the “scan” will look.
You can try the service for free and there does not seem to be any information on a pricing model on the site.
My Treo has a 1.2MP camera, so perhaps I’ll give it a try.
ZapTXT
Scoble reported on ZapTXT originally as a service that can send RSS feed items via SMS, however, it does much more:
- Salesforce.com integration (CRM application)
- Craigslist integration — notification of items for sale, events, etc.
- Community/group messaging via SMS
- All kinds of other reminders and pre-defined tasks
Oh, and you can choose SMS or e-mail or both as your delivery method.
Mobilizing/WAPing my blog
Here’s what I did as a permanent solution:
- WINKsite. Set up an account, built a site, followed the instructions for Blogger and couldn’t get it to work with my Blogger ATOM feed or my Feedburner feed, but it worked with my Feedster feed. Here’s a tip: use the Feed Validator to validate your blog feed prior to signing up; if it validates, then it will work on WINKsite; if not, I guess I recommend Feedster. I now have a WINKsite for Strategize — http://winksite.com/rhollman/strategize.
These tools seem to work better to actually use on a WAP device and can be used by readers on the WAP side to view feeds or sites and/or authors on the non-WAP side to create WAP-compatible site/feed links:
- RSS2WAP.com. Didn’t work with my Feedburner feed, but worked with my Feedster feed.
- PHONifier. That worked — here’s the link. This is mobilizing my site, not my feed
- Skweezer. That worked too — here’s the link. This is mobilizing my main site, not my feed.
- IYHY. Looked the best of a;; those above, but mobilizes the site, not the feed — here’s the link.
These tools allow the reader to easily mobilize someone else’s feeds:
- Lifefeeds. Works much like Bloglines Mobile (see below), but requires the install of a Lifefeeds Reader — lots of platforms supported, including Blackberry. I’m not a big fan of having to install an application.
- Bloglines Mobile. Probably the best way to view feeds regardless of feed type; everything I read on my computer I can read on my mobile — I can even designate certain feeds not to appear on my mobile. Doesn’t solve for mobilizing non-feed sites, and may not be the best option if you don’t use Bloglines, but I like it. I’m sure Bloglines competitors have similar offerings.
One tool that seems cool, but I don’t have a phone it works with:
- Semacode. Essentially I can make a barcode that links to my Winksite that someone with a cell phone with a camera (that happens to be on the very limited list of supported phones) and Semacode software can take a picture of and link through to the WAP site. This seems like a really cool thing, especially to put on a business card, but I don’t think adoption and compatibility are high enough to justify its use.
Hey Scoble, I read your 2006 wish! Are these enough ways to get my site on you mobile?
Hat tip to Steve Rubel for some of the links.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Seth Godin's 2 secrets of customer service
- Take responsibility
- Pay attention to detail
It’s just that simple; read the rest of the post for more.
Business and firetrucks
I’m going to talk about business and firetrucks, but before I do, let me make the following clear:
- Firefighters spend lots of time on fire prevention: community education activities and inspections are 2 examples.
- Firefighters keep their firetrucks clean for lots of very good reasons.
- Lots of fire departments don’t just respond to fires, many also respond to medical emergencies.
- Movies and tv shows focus on and depict firefighters sitting around a lot, show pictures of lounge chairs, and show pictures of firefighters always sitting around eating or watching tv.
Ok, with all that out of the way, I have to say that from the perspective of creating a visual image, I like what Seth Godin had to say:
What a great way to describe a stuck but busy organization. "They sure have clean firetrucks."
Godin prefaced this statement with some sentences about how firefighters, when not responding to a fire, sit around and clean their trucks. Obviously some people got offended and Seth heard about it and apologized. Ok, so Seth made a broad statement that wasn’t necessarily factually correct and he admitted it and apologized for it, but the key is that Seth’s statement about business is not wrong. Furthermore, chances are good that when you read his post, you immediately pictures a shiny firetruck in your mind because you truly do not ever see dirty firetrucks (or ambulances or police cars for that matter) — the visual works.
How shiny are the firetrucks at your business?
What is blogging to your business?
The Work Better Weblog calls it your “back porch:”
Let’s say a business is a house, and the website is it’s front door - the formal method of greeting visitors - strangers or customers.
The blog then is the backporch. More informal. Probably can’t be seen from the street. Lots of voices and lots of conversations. A place where friends, customers, and colleagues all hangout together.
I’m using this the next time someone asks me why businesses need blogs. Read the rest of the post, there is lots more interesting stuff in there.
Magnatune
Magnatune is a record company “that is not evil.” Here’s the general idea:
Listen to fill songs in MP3; if you like the song, then download the album (for as little as $5) and/or buy a CD and/or license the music — no DRM. Artists make 50% of every purchase and retain full rights to their music.
I wonder if any other record companies can summarize their business in 2 sentences.
Oh, I forgot, and this is a pretty big deal: If you lose your music, you can download it again from Magnatune for free.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Some changes to my blog
A little “New Year’s cleaning”:
- Removal of Chitka. Why? Because it’s ugly and it’s not making any money for my daughter’s college fund.
- Removal of some Adsense advertising. Why? Just trying to clean up the site and make the main page cleaner.
- Change of feed icons to the new standard feed icon. This icon links to my blog RSS feed on Feedburner. The ATOM feed is still available and can be auto-discovered, but I like the level of service Feedburner provides to both me as an author and all of you as readers. I also added some Feedburner “chicklets” that allow you to quickly add my site feed to various aggregators; not an exhaustive list, but some of the more popular.
- Removed my listing of “Top Referrers.” Why? I used to be able to keep track when my blog was just starting out, but now it can change throughout the course of a day and I just can’t keep it up-to-date.
- Removed the “@” sign from all of my e-mail address links — the amount of spam I receive is astounding, so I replaced the “@” with “[at]”.
I’m thinking of removing the exhaustive listing of all the blogs I subscribe to with Bloglines and just replacing it with a hyperlink that will take you to my public listing on the Bloglines site. I think this will make the page load faster and get the HTML links list closer to the top. Anyone have an opinion?
Happy New Year!
Seth Godin's "squid soup"
Seth Godin had a 3–part post (at least it’s 3 parts right now) with some important lessons. Although I have excerpted some of the information, you should read the full posts:
- With regard to Crossing the Chasm: The truth is that for most ideas, for most markets, nothing happens at all.
- With regard to inertia: It’s always easier to do nothing (new).
- With regard to the early adopters: Marketing is now (potentially) much, much cheaper. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. The challenge now isn’t to raise a whole bunch of money. The challenge is to invent a product or service or idea or meme that’s so compelling that the tiny green portion of the curve, the geeks in whatever market you live in, can’t ignore what you have to offer. That, and once they adopt what you’ve got, they can’t help but spread it.
Read all of them to truly understand.
Another listing of web 2.0 companies
I previously posted on Sphere of Influence’s list of the best web 2.0 software.
Yesterday I ran across another such list on TechCrunch that had a lot of stuff I hadn’t heard of and that wasn’t on the previous list.
Walled gardens
Read Shawn Conahan’s post about openness and wireless carriers walled gardens. Then go take a look at the MAKEbot from Make Magazine.
The easy way to get through walled gardens is to utilize services that wireless carriers have already dedicated bandwidth to rather than demanding bandwidth for a new application.
All about Ajax
If you want to know about Ajax, which is used to author a lot of the new sites around the web, Web 2.0 Blog has a great post.
If you've ever ordered wine in a restaurant, you've got to read this
Here are a couple of my favorites from the list on Waiter Rant:
- DO NOT SMELL THE CORK! For the uninitiated, the only thing you do with the cork is to check the end that was in the bottle to be sure it’s wet; if it’s wet, it’s been stored correctly.
- DON’T SMELL THE PLASTIC CORK EITHER! And for that matter, as Waiter Rant points out, don’t sniff the screw cap (there are a lot of nice wines that now have screw caps).
- Merlot is a perfectly good wine. Don’t believe all that “Sideways” crap. God I hate that movie!
Read the rest; the list is both funny and educational.
Friday, December 30, 2005
Maintenance 3.2
If you use OSX, you should get Maintenance 3.2 — essentially it’s a bunch of scripts that run when you are asleep and keep your machine in the best shape possible.
Gaping Void reports on the results of the Stormhoek wine viral
You should read all the details, but here’s the short version: 100 bottles of wine were sent to bloggers and case sales volume doubled over the course of 1 year.
Pretty amazing stuff. Do you believe that blogs aren’t powerful?
A TV with plug-ins on the front
Signal vs. Noise reports that HP has finally put the plug-ins on the front of their newest rear projection TV — it’s about time.
Sony rootkit settlement update
According to a post on Ars Technica, I made the wrong assumption yesterday on what service you will have to use to download albums free from Sony. From the post:
Settlement Class Members may download albums from any one of three major download services. SONY BMG will use commercially reasonable efforts to offer Apple Computer, Inc.’s popular iTunes as one of the download services available to Settlement Class Members.
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Treonauts is performing an in-depth review of the Treo 700w
Lots of comparisons to the Palm OS in the 650 — worth a read especially if you are considering investing in a 700.
Nielsen to introduce DVR ratings
Why? Because there is no longer a choice — DVRs are here to stay and will only grow bigger and they have fundamentally changed television viewing and, therefore, Nielsen ratings.
iPods do not damage your hearing
Earbuds jammed into your ear at to high a volume damage your hearing. This is not a problem that is specific to iPods, it can happen with in-ear 2–way radio sets, any sort of earbuds regardless of the device they are attached to, handsfree calling kits for your cellphone, and anything else that you jam in your ear.
I’m just a little frustrated that news stations seem to be slanting stories so that it seems as if iPod devices themselves are the culprit.
If you jam a speaker inside your ear and crank up the volume of said speaker, you will damage your hearing.
VNC is working on the 770
This is awesome because VNC works on pretty much every platform and the application is free.
VNC makes the 770 infinitely more powerful. Talk about the ultimate iPod remote!
Sony proposes settlement for the rootkit class action lawsuit
Not surprisingly, News.com is reporting that Sony has proposed a settlement for the class action brought against them for their malicious rootkit software. From the story, here is a bulleted list of what Sony has agreed to for XCP CDs:
- Immediate recall of all CDs with XCP software
- Incentives to exchange XCP CDs — either a free download of 3 albums (probably from the Sony music store and encoded in ATRAC) or $7.50 cash and 1 free album download (see my previous parenthetical remark)
- In order to make a claim, consumers must return their CD to Sony with a receipt showing that the CD was purchased at a retailer after Nov. 14 (not like this is super-likely)
For CDs with MediaMax, Sony is not doing a recall, but will compensate buyers with 1 free album download and MP3 versions of the audio on the MediaMax CD.
I can’t say that I am super-impressed with what Sony is offering, but others might disagree.
USA Today reports that download music sales have doubled
In an article today, USA Today reports that year-on-year downloaded music sales have doubled from 134.2 million in 2004 to 332.7 million in 2005 (even though 2005 is not yet over). Furthermore, the article reports that traditional CD sales are down about 8% in the same time period. Here’s something interesting from the article:
Full-album downloads are counted under album sales along with other formats. Most digital downloads reflect single-track purchases.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Possible class action for a RAM issue on 15" Powerbooks
Lawyers and Settlements has the details, but essentially there is some issue with certain OSX versions that may cause a 15” Powerbook to not recognize RAM loaded into the second RAM bay at the bottom of the Powerbook. You can register your complaint if you want on the Lawyers and Settlements site.
iTMS experiences sales increases over the holidays
TUAW reports that the iTunes Music Store saw a 50% traffic increase on Dec. 24 & 25, and a 15% overall year-on-year increase to date in December; they may even see a million total downloads in the month of December, which would be a record. Hard to believe those people that are saying Apple is negatively affecting download sales.
Free voicemail for Skype (not from Skype)
Orb Networks has released V4S (yes, it mean “Voicemail For Skype” — clever). Nifty features abound and there seems to be no reason not to use this if you are a Skype user.
Build a web and file server for around $200
There’s a digg about building a $200 web and file server. While the site that digg forwards to provides a good basic framework, the fact that some parts were purchased on Ebay and that he had a “extra” copy of Windows XP may skew the results. However, it still goes to show how cheap it is to fund an idea these days.
RIAA recent stupidity -- all in one easy to digest blog post
Dark Lanternist has compiled a bulleted list of recent RIAA stupidity into a single blog post — worth reading.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
TiVo-branded Wireless G network adapter
Engadget is reporting that TiVo has released their own, branded Wireless G network adapter. Just in time for after the holiday rush (i.e., the time when they could have offered that as an upsell for all the people buying TiVo units as gifts for other people) when many people like me have already purchased a 3rd party “TiVo-approved” USB Wireless network adapter.
Apparently the adapter is different from other USB adapters in that it handles some amount of processing for multiple TiVo unit content transfer and TiVoToGo functions. I’d sure love to see performance tests between the TiVo-branded unit and non-TiVo-branded units before I was willing to plunk down another $50 to replace a USB adapter that’s not broken.
Leatherman Wave
I got a Leatherman Wave for Christmas, which was perfect timing as my 5–year-old Gerber multi-tool had finally broken. The Wave is cool because it has knife blades on the outside that you can access without folding out the whole tool.
Playing with the Wave, I was thinking that Leatherman is making a big mistake on not letting a guy like me customize the knife blade options on the exterior of the Wave (and other models that have exterior blades). If I could customize the Wave, (and, yes, I would pay a premium for it) I would have both of the exterior blades be serrated instead of one flat and one serrated; it’s just more useful for me that way.
I’m not saying that Leatherman (or Gerber or even Swiss Army, for that matter) have to allow the consumer to customize everything (although that would be damn cool), just allow enough customization that the thing feels personalized and cool — we would all pay a little more for it.
Flipping your ocmpany
Scoble links to Dare Obasanjo who writes about the key things that really matter if you want to flip your company to a bigger company — good read if that’s what you are looking to do.
Alan Guitierrez's steps for launching a corporate blog
Scoble points to Alan Guitierrez’s blog, where Alan discusses starting a corporate blog. One of my favorite quotes (and Scoble’s as well) is:
“If your employees are releasing confidential information, that’s not a blogging problem. It is a more general problem. It’s called incompetence.”
Read the whole thing, especially if your company has yet to jump into the blogosphere.
Rewardsnetwork.com handles the back-end for Upromise
How do I know this? I found out today when I went to update a credit card in Mileage Plus Dining. After I had entered my new card number to receive Mileage Plus miles on United, I received an error that stated my card was already enrolled in another program. Confused, I called Rewards Network customer service who informed me that the card was already registered for Upromise, so it could not be registered for 2 programs that Reward Network handled. Nowhere on the Rewards Network site is there a disclosure about Upromise nor is there a disclosure about Rewards Network conflicts on the Upromise site or on the Mileage Plus Dining site.
I wonder if the various program partners of Upromise and Mileage Plus Dining know about the Rewards Network system limitation. If I owned a restaurant and was paying to participate in Rewards Network to drive people to my restaurant by providing United Mileage Plus miles, I would definitely want to know that people subscribed to Upromise would not receive that benefit. Furthermore, it sucks for me as a consumer to not be able to receive both Upromise money for my daughter’s college as well as Mileage Plus miles for dining out.
Hard to Find 800 Numbers
Sorted by company name. Wouldn’t just be easier if companies made their numbers easy to find?
Mark Cuban vs. Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com
Mark Cuban has an interesting explanation of his position on Patrick Byrne. The story is almost too weird to believe, so it’s best just to read Cuban’s post. These words from Cuban should inspire you to read the full post:
. . . in a perfect world, if I want a company to fail, I wouldn’t go to the SEC, or to the DOJ . . . I would just try to get them to hire Patrick Byrne.
Should you edit your own Wikipedia page?
If you have an entry about you in the Wikipedia, should you edit it?
- Scoble thinks that you shouldn’t.
- Ross Mayfield doesn’t agree with Scoble
- I don’t have an entry about me, so I guess I’m not sure what I think
Perhaps I should go create an entry about me; if I do that, I think I’m leaning more towards Mayfield than towards Scoble — now I’ve confused myself.
Car thieves in New York are stealing car doors
I find it a little hard to believe, but according to AutoBlog, it’s actually happening. Apparently these folks are stealing the entire door from the car (i.e., removing it at the hinges).
Gadgets and gizmos
Rather than author a bunch of posts, here are some things that caught my eye:
- If you have a 3G iPod with a battery problem, you need to get on filing a claim in the class-action suit so that you can collect your $50 Apple store credit (sure, you can get a replacement battery, but that’s a pain).
- New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is looking at whether or not she should try to go after the music industry for price fixing of song downloads.
- The XBox Live Diamond Card is being given to XBox Live users as an added value item. Apparently the card lists your gamer ID (I don’t know how useful that really is), costs you nothing, and XBox is partnering with restaurants, stores, and other partners to offer discounts to cardholders.
- For $29.95 you can purchase the VIOlight toothbrush sanitizer that blasts your brush with UV light to kill germs. AA batteries required (and not included).
- Full specs, pricing, and release information for the Treo 700W on Verizon were posted in Howard Forums.
- Songbird could wind up being the open source competitor to iTunes, we’ll have to see.
- Evhead lists the top ten social media platforms as shown on the Alexa Top 100 List. There’s some stuff on there I haven’t really heard of before.
- Om Malik has posted about a whole bunch of blog tools.
Link — Engadget iPod class action
Link — Engadget Spitzer investigation
Link — Kotaku XBox Diamond card
Link — MobileWhack VIOlight toothbrush sanitizer
A Firefox plug-in that lets you blog directly from within the browser
Micro Persuasion provided information about Performancing for Firefox 1.5, which is a Firefox plug-in (that only works for version 1.5) that allows you to blog from directly within the Firefox browser. Though it is not as robust as some 3rd party applications, it’s not bad for being able to author posts from within the browser.
The new RSS/feed icon
This, courtesy of Micro Persuasion, is the new standard icon for RSS/feeds:
Mozilla and Microsoft have both agreed on the standardization of the icon above, so I guess it’s time to get with the program. I’ve included a link below to the original Micro Persuasion post that was the source of the graphic above as well as a link to a later Micro Persuasion post that provides a link to scalable vector art of the new graphic (if you are in need of such things).
Dental services across the border
I know some number of people that have gone across the border into Mexico to have extensive dental work done for less than their insurance contribution would have been in the US. According to someone that I know well in San Diego who has had work done in Mexico, the dentist he uses is very professional — a dental assistant meets him in San Diego, travels with him on the trolley to the border, walks across the border with him, has a car to drive him to the office, and repeats the process for the trip back.
TP Wire Service reports that a company called Dentimundo is providing a bit more structure and formality to the process.
Certainly worth looking at whether or not you have dental insurance if you need extensive work done (maybe even worth looking at for routine items if you don’t have insurance). As with all things like this, exercise the appropriate level of caution.
Southwest removes award travel blackouts
Notiflyer is reporting that effective Feb. 10, 2006, Southwest will remove all blackouts system-wide for awards travel, meaning that you will be able to more fully utilize your rewards.
Southwest starts service in and out of Denver on Jan. 3rd.
What are domain name decisions these days?
Live Nation is the name of the Clear Channel concerts and motorsports spin-off (formerly known as Clear Channel Spinco). If you go to http://www.livenation.com, you will go to the Live Nation company site, but if you go to http://www.livenation.net (this is most definitely NSFW), you will get automatically redirected to a porn site. So here are my questions:
- Do you investigate things like this before you register the primary domain for your company?
- Do you buy up every dot extension of your domain name when you do decide what to use?
- How much do you spend to buy something like livenation.net if you decide that your domain name has to be just one thing?
Back from Napa with lots to blog about
Napa was great — little bit of rain, but mostly weather in the 60s.
Did sparkling wine tasting at Mumm (I highly recommend the Santana DVX) and a private tour at Grgich Hills ( I highly recommend the 2000 Chardonnay).
Stayed at Silverado; I haven’t been there recently and the new grill has been tastefully re-done with an asian-themed menu.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
ReplayTV is going to release its DVR software for the PC
Some time in 2006, ReplayTV will release its DVR software for use on a PC. This should have a significant impact on the DVR market, especially if the processor and memory requirements are not too high — imagine being able to dump a bunch of cheap hard drives and a high-end video card into an old computer you have sitting around and turn it into a bad-ass DVR. It will be interesting to see how this develops.
Sync Macs without using (and paying for) .mac
One of the very attractive features of .mac is the ability to sync multiple Macintosh computers; lots of the other .mac features are available for free through other service providers. Now you can sync multiple Macs with MySync according to this post on TUAW. Apparently you set up one Mac as the master and the rest of the Macs you want to sync as slaves. The best part is that MySync is free (note that Tiger is required).
I can’t wait to give this a try.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Ajax custom startpages seem to grow by the second
Link — Pageflakes (only works with IE, which means I’ll probably not try it and probably never use it because I’ll be so comfortable with something else by the time it comes out of alpha)
Link — Favoor
Link — Netvibes
Link — Protopage (I like this because you can drag and drop stuff anywhere and put post-it notes all over the screen)
There’s probably more of them out there.
Is Apple holding back the music industry?
I don’t think so and most people I know don’t think so, but you may want to check out an article on BusinessWeek that quotes some people blaming Apple for a 0.44% decrease in illegal downloads; the CEO of Napster even goes so far as to kill Apple/Steve Jobs a “villain.”
Let’s see, the decline in sales probably has nothing to do with the Sony BMG/rootkit debacle or the fact that the labels are squeezing the consumer by wanting to charge more than $0.99 per track (of course they claim they only want to do this for new, popular tracks) or requiring consumers on iTunes to purchase an entire CD to get one hit single.
Apple is not the problem, the industry is the problem (it wasn’t that long ago that Napster was the villain). It wasn’t really so long ago that there were no legal download numbers to measure, it was all illegal download numbers that were measured. Perhaps the problem is not that consumers are downloading less legal music, perhaps the problem is that the record industry is not investing in new talent that would drive legal downloads.
You can give Nokia 770 developers feedback about the device
Ari Jaaksi, one of the 770 developers, is seeking feedback about the device on his blog. If you have one and want to sound off, this is a good place to do it.
Speaking of outages . . .
. . . Bloglines has a planned outage tomorrow:
- 2:00pm Pacific Daylight Time (10:00pm UTC): Your subscriptions will stop updating with new items.
- 4:00pm PDT (12:00am UTC December 20th): The Bloglines site will be completely offline. During this time you will not be able to access your account.
- 8:00pm PDT (4:00am UTC December 20th): The Bloglines site will be back online by this time. New articles posted during the outage will appear in your account.
Perhaps this is the best time of year for outages — people are out of the office and may not be using their connections at home (last minute shopping and all that family stuff).
Don't go to del.icio.us right now
You’ll get this message:
del.icio.us is down for emergency maintenance. we'll be back as soon possible
Measure Map
I’m always interested in blog statistics for my blog. I just ran across Measure Map and submitted my e-mail so that they can send me and invite; the information that the capture and how it’s presented looks pretty interesting and it’s all free. I’ll let you know how it is once I get it all set up.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
XBox 360 re-release is tomorrow at Best Buy
Remember, Best Buy has been stockpiling XBox 360s for another release tomorrow, December 18th.
It’s 16 degrees in Colorado, so I hope that you are not already in line; chances are good it will be single digits or below zero tonight if you are camping out.
If you are trying to get a XBox 360, you should check out the list of quantities by store number on Kotaku.
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