nullstream weblog - December 2004

Don't read this

Humour

December 31, 2004 10:59 PM PST

This is a long link, and once you start, you won't stop. Oh sure, once you get 25% through, you'll go get a coke, but you'll come back and stay 'til the end:

http://www.5ives.com

Comments (2)

I was accessing my companies mobile email site from my pocket PC like I've been doing for weeks now, and I finally got tired of re-entering my user name and password on the network login screen. So I thought I'd be clever and click the little check box that says 'save password'. As I sometimes do, I made a typo in my password and got an error message about invalide username / password etc. Oh well, no problem right, just refresh the page and enter it again... Doh! Same message.

Continue reading "PocketIE Saved Passwords"...

Comments (2)

Going Walkabout

December 31, 2004 12:36 PM PST

Sometimes I feel a bit cooped up in my office. Of course it doesn’t help that it is extremely small, I share it one someone else, it contains 7 noisy computers, and it’s about 90 degrees F in there. At any rate occasionally I find that I need a change of scenery. In these cases I find that the combination of a wifi laptop and remote desktop client comes in handy. I can just pickup and move to somewhere else within range.

Continue reading "Going Walkabout"...

Comments (3)

Cheap iMac Rumor

Cool Tech

December 29, 2004 03:36 PM PST

G4 Cube George says:

Think the headless imac rumor is real or some mac fanboy's wet dream? I want to believe and I would buy one if they really turn out to be $500 but it probably won't come to pass as it makes too much sense. For $500, I'd buy one for my inlaws also just to get out of providing IT support for an adware infested Windows 98 box."

Thoughts?
Comments (20)

J, December 29, 2004 05:05 PM:

I want to believe, but they ALWAYS let me down.

Even if it comes out it will be hobbled in some way like soldered-on 256mb
ram with no expansion, and no pci/agp card for graphics. If they do this it
will be completely non-upgradeable and basically disposable. Yes, my
prediction is that everything, including CPU will be soldered on. That's
how Jobs views a computer at that price point, and he can't cannibalize the
$2000 dual proc that can barely compete with an athlon64.

That all said, if they do come out with this, it might be nice as a toy -
I'd like to play with some of the latest mac stuff, and this would be great
for development.

Paul, December 29, 2004 05:26 PM:

I think that the market that something like this is targetted at (a casual computer user that like the iPod and uses Windows), having a disposable computer is reasonable.

Running iTunes, MSN Messenger, Safari, Terminal and AppMonitor, I'm using about 260 MB or RAM (of the 512 MB installed). This sounds like a lot, but then Unix (and I'm sure Windows) systems will keep using 'unused' RAM as a file buffer cache when other apps aren't requesting it, so I don't know how representative that number is. In a more limited machine, the RAM usage may be less for the same apps.

However, you certainly wouldn't want to run VirtualPC or GarageBand with 256 MB. 512 is pretty much the minimum for GarageBand, and you'd think that Apple would encourage people to use that. Or perhaps that's their strategy: "... hmmm, I wish I could run GarageBand, better get a full Mac!"

But then again, people who want to do GarageBand or other digital media creation (Photoshop, Final Cut, Logic Pro) should really invest in a G5 which can administer the proper spank on all those floating point ops.

J, December 29, 2004 08:10 PM:

The one thing that makes this pricing feasible is that the G4 14" iBook is already selling at $899, so I could see dropping the battery and screen for $699. Maybe $649. They wouldn't sell a whole mac for less than an iPod Photo @ $499.

Strategically, I think the iPod has made Apple "cool" again. This plus the massive inability for Microsoft to hit one out of the park has created a space for a simple mac that is as disposable as the iPod after the battery fails in 2 years. With the built in OS and applications, the non-root access to protect against viruses and .mac, Apple has something that may be compelling to the "parents" crowd that is trying to move off AOL and WebTV. Not the best market maybe, but certainly better than education and graphic design in recent years.

John, December 29, 2004 09:19 PM:

Every year the same speculative hype, followed by the same initial let down then gradual acceptance of what they do announce. Since everyone always spreads Apple rumors this time of year, let me join in. I have this information from a very reliable source (wink, wink).

Here’s my speculation; Apple announces that they are getting out of the PC business all together to focus on making money with the Ipod. They starts a slow phase out plan and then sell off their computer business to someone who runs it into the ground within 2 years. In the mean time Apple focuses on clever ways to feed the hungry Ipods, initially continuing to embrace Windows, followed by a short lived web appliance. Simultaneously they launch music kiosks in Malls and department stores where you browse for music then plug in your Ipod with one hand, while inserting your credit card with the other to load up on the tunes. Eventually they just wifi enable the Ipod and launch a partnership with TMobile and Starbucks. This enables you to shop, spend, download and listen on one device without so much as having to set down your latte’.

Remember, these rumors are worth what you paid for them.

George, December 29, 2004 10:42 PM:

As always I expect there will be a lot of disappoint and Apple mocking in the geek community after Macworld. Just like last year when Apple announced a lame new ipod that held less music but cost almost as much a full size ipod. Of course mini ipods were another home run by Steve and company, and a humbling reminder that Apple doesn't have 8 billion in sales per year by accident.

I still don't think there'll be a $500 headless imac announced, but maybe I'm just lowering my expectations to avoid disappointment. Regardless of what is announced it's nice that there is one computer maker that continues to produce innovative products that cause a buzz. I don't ever recall speculating what Michael Dell would be announcing during his keynote at the Dellworld expo.

john, December 30, 2004 01:27 AM:

Good point, few companies generate the yearly buz like Apple. But it is true that every year there is a lot of disappointment. But thats what people get I guess, for getting their hopes up beyond reason.

Paul, December 30, 2004 01:30 PM:

I heard a rumor on the internets that the iPod was going to get satellite radio capabilities.

John, December 30, 2004 02:08 PM:

That actually would be very cool. I wonder how much space it actually takes for a sat readio receiver / antenna. Would it fit?

Paul, December 30, 2004 09:26 PM:

Even FurryGoat is excited:

http://www.furrygoat.com/2004/12/headless_mac.html

John, December 31, 2004 09:33 AM:

Ok this one is getting crazy, even big houses like CNN Money are reporting on it. If this turns out to be wrong I think it will seriously overshadow what ever it is Steve is really going to announce.
http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/31/technology/apple.reut/?cnn=yes

John, December 31, 2004 12:42 PM:

Another rumor I heard :)
Apple is going to release a completly wireless Ipod. This device with come with bluetooth headphones and use either bluetooth or wifi to sync with the PC and stream music to other Ipods. In keeping with the completly 'wireless' theme it will use an inductive charging cradle instead of a power cord. While they are at it they are releasing a developer API and SDK complete with a free compiler and emulator. This will allow 3rd parties to develop plug in applications that will run nativly on the Ipod, effectivly turning it into a 'personal server'. Ok maybe I made this up.

Paul, December 31, 2004 08:04 PM:

I saw a segment on CNN about this rumor while at the gym this morning. Now from the Seattle Times:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002136262_cheapimac31.html

I guess people would be excited about this if they did it... imagine the free publicity they'd get.

George, December 31, 2004 10:54 PM:

I think the $599 to 699 price target in the Seattle Times article seems more reasonable. BTW, the cheap iMac rumot has totally overshawdowed the first Macworld expo leak that resulted in a lawsuite:

http://www.macworld.com/news/2004/12/17/lawsuit/index.php

This could be a very interesting Macworld expo if a flash iPod, Motorola iPhone and the low end iMac are announced. And isn't Tiger supposed to be offically released also?

John, January 5, 2005 04:23 PM:

Now Apple is sueing think secret. Info in the lawsuit seems to backup the headless mac theory. Of course the price remains to be seen. There is also a rumor of an new Apple Office product.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050105-4504.html

J, January 5, 2005 08:50 PM:

Think about the statement for a minute:
"Apple plans a G4-based iMac without display"
OMG! A computer WITHOUT a display. Wow! So much of the excitement people have about this is because Apple were such bastards in forcing the purchase of a monitor per machine. It's standard IT budgeting that a monitor lasts 2-3 machine upgrade cycles. It's not like this setup is anything revolutionary at all, but they get massive admiration for it. That said...

The interesting thing to me if this is even somewhat true is what Jobs is seeing now that he didn't several years ago about the low end market. And how will he position (read: cripple) this device to keep up his $2000 mac hardware? How will a limited device provide value? It has to provide this value in volumes too, given the lower price point.

Apple cannot release a functional mac for $499. With a $300 3rd party LCD, there would be no way they could sell the $1300-2000 LCD iMac. If the rumor is real, I see a price at around $699, and a machine that basically can just run the apple suite of software (their email, browser, office apps, etc) and .mac for subscription. So they'd basically have a .mac device (sort of thin client if you will).

They could make money on it, as the cheapness would be offset by:
1. The more rapid upgrade cycle for a non-expandible device
2. The still-huge profit margin on a device that would cost them $200-300 to build.
3. The additional .mac subscription, iTunes, software updates, external add on hardware (iPod), etc.

Apple could also feasibly come out with a $499 device if it didn't come with mouse, keyboard, HDD or optical. Basically a network computer. Maybe it could come with a small HDD so you could store applications and data, but not masive amounts of data (that's what your iPod is for, silly). You could go out and buy external drives (or why not an iPod?) You could buy software directly off the net and download it. I think this is a bit too forward thinking for Apple, and not sure that there is software and a market to support it now.

George, January 7, 2005 07:01 PM:

Another prank? iHome does have a nice ring to it. Too bad it doesn't have TV tuner input.

http://engadget.com/entry/1234000110026534/

george, January 7, 2005 07:03 PM:

Crap. Looks like a prank, just noticed "center" is spelled "centre". Probably some Canadian prankster...

J, January 8, 2005 06:14 PM:

Ha ha, I noticed the exact same thing! It sure does look realistic though. Someone put some time into that. I guess it will be interesting to see, but the last news I heard was they were blacking out the streaming video coverage of the event, which is lame if true.

I've always thought that Apple would make a great set top media box interface with QuickTime, iTunes and iPhoto. They've repeatedtly said they weren't going this direction though. And even though it would be useful without a TV tuner, it would get bad reviews without one.

John, January 10, 2005 02:18 PM:

apple.weblogsinc

No live webcast from Job's this year. I'm sure there will be plenty of 'play by play' posts though.

J, January 10, 2005 11:26 PM:

The iMac LC - Ha ha ha. Mac LC was a hillarious pizzabox machine. What if that's what they call it? Didn't they have an LC II right before the performa series? Dangerous territory Jobs is in...

Yeah, totally weak about no webcast. But it's not like they don't have enough hype anyway. I love this time of year. I went to 4 macworlds in a row in SF. The best one was with Be, Kai's Power Tools and PowerComputing clones.

Remember Sandra Bullock at MacWorld in "The Net"?

The Future Is Now

Cool Tech

December 26, 2004 11:37 PM PST

Back in the day of working at GoAhead, John and I were trying to find a way to have tasty food at lunch without paying a huge amount of money or getting bored of eating the same thing. Enter TastyBite.

Continue reading "The Future Is Now"...

Comments (2)

ExtremeTech Reviews Sage

Cool Tech

December 24, 2004 02:43 AM PST

SageTV is a popular PC based Tivo competitor. Now it is taking on Windows media player. ExtremeTech puts it through its paces here.
Sage is a favorite of several of our readers. Its strongest features in my opinion, are that you don't have a monthly fee and that your TV is stored in easy to archive, DRM free Mpeg2 format. There are lessons here for both Tivo and Microsoft.

Comments (5)

Firefox tweaks

Cool Tech

December 24, 2004 01:16 AM PST

Ever want to download more than 2 files at a time, but IE won't let you? Use Firefox! Type about:config in Firefox's address bar and adjust the following variable (by double-clicking on it) to something that makes you happy:

network.http.max-connections-per-server

I set mine to 8, but I hear it can go to 11.

I also noticed that the default settings of Firefox don't always get the freshest page. I had to 'ctrl-R' to get the latest page from a site occasionally, especially frequently updated blogs. The following tweak always gets the freshest page:

browser.cache.check_doc_frequency = 1

This variable can take the following values:

0 = check once per session
1 = check each time
2 = never check
3 = work out when to check from the info provided by the server.

Note that 3 is the default - anything higher than 3 is the same as 3, whatever the heck 'work out' means.

Comments (7)

J, December 24, 2004 12:37 PM:

Good tip! I definitely am converted over to Firefox, but there is one main thing missing from IE. On pages that refresh automatically or have animated gifs in IE, you can click the stop button once to stop them from auto refresh or silence the animated gifs. In Firefox, the stop button is disabled after the page is loaded. This means that on forums there's no way to prevent all the little "sig" images from pulsing, or to keep the puget sound traffic site from reloading every minute...

john, December 24, 2004 10:04 PM:

I'm not sticking up for IE, but in all fairness yoou can increase the number of concurent downlods here to. Its one of the first things I do when I get new machine. Its not very easy though. Crack open regedit and surf to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings

Then, you create 2 new DWORD values:
MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server
MaxConnectionsPerServer

Set these to your desired value in hex.

John, January 3, 2005 02:17 AM:

I found another treat that is Supposed to make fire fox scream. I'm not Sure thrush how you can tell if it works. For me it seems about the Same.

http://forums.winxpcentral.com/showthread.php?t=12604

J, January 3, 2005 11:38 PM:

I think I commented about that one before on your tabbed browsers post. More are listed on the official site: http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/tips
The main one is the "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" one. I tried the pipelining one a while ago and some sites wouldn't load so I turned it off. Let me know if you see problems.

Gavin, January 4, 2005 03:57 PM:

If you like Firefox's Extensions feature there is a network extension you can grab that does some of what you said above and a few other things. I grabbed it and it's pretty nice.
"Tweak Network 1.0"
I went to update the max connections and it had already updated it to 16.

Another favorite extension is Adblock v.5 d2. It's excellent at blocking ads. Just right click on an ad that is on a page, select Adblock. It will show the URL so you can use wildcards and just block all adds from a specific server (i.e. www.blah.com/ads/*) it's amazing how many servers are set up this way so using the wildcard works wonders.
The FoxyTunes 1.0 extension is also very nice to use. I can control my music device from a small control panel on the bottom of the browser. And it has two buttins ^ and (down arrow) that instantly brings up the player or hides it which is nice when I want to change something on the player.

J, January 11, 2005 06:02 PM:

More Firefox tweaks:
Secrets of Firefox 1.0 - I ran across this one looking for a fix for the massive memory leaks in Firefox 1.0. I'll see if the tips work.
Optimized Firefox builds - You AMD64 boys need to d/l the optimized version and let me know if it's faster.

Paul, March 5, 2005 01:38 PM:

Another tweak to prevent flash-based pop-ups is described here.

Notepad2

NocturnalCoder

December 23, 2004 06:46 PM PST

Yeah I know there are a zillion notepad replacements, but I've really found this one handly lately: Notepad2. It is lightweight, does color syntax highlighting for many formats including xml, has regular expressions, bookmarks and a bunch of other cool stuff. And yes Paul, it remembers its window position and size between runs.

Comments (3)

Christmas Song

Audioblog

December 22, 2004 11:24 PM PST

(removed because of direct linking)
Christmas Song
Live Feb. 18, 1997
Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds
6.45 MB mp3

First post of an occasional feature here - Audioblog. Around Christmas time I always think of this song. Whether or not you celebrate or what you believe, it to me is one of the best descriptions of the basis of Christianity and the message of Jesus that gets lost in both the doctrine of religion and the commercialization of the holiday. My Christmas wish is for people to see past their religion to the core of what each of the prophets convey - it's a simple feeling that we've all shared and should live life by.
Continue reading "Christmas Song"...

Comments (0)

Land of Smiles

Photoblog

December 20, 2004 02:08 AM PST

Thailand is truly the land of smiles. It is so refreshing to travel in a place with virtually a complete lack of xenophobia. Thailand is the #1 country for repeat tourism and it is not hard to see why. From the beautiful beaches and countryside to the temples and food and people, Thailand is the best place to become acquainted with Asia.

Fun fact: It's a recent fad among Thai teenagers to wear fake braces. They're kind of like jewelery for the teeth, given the cost of orthodontics for the average Thai family.

"He who has understanding and great wisdom does not think of harming himself or another, nor of harming both alike. He rather thinks of his own welfare, of that of others, of that of both, and of the welfare of the whole world. In that way one shows understanding and great wisdom.” - Buddha

Continue reading "Land of Smiles"...

Comments (3)

CHMReader.Net

Articles

December 18, 2004 04:30 PM PST

So in the process of setting up a new PocketPC I realized that I could not find my install or registration information for old CHM Reader 2.0. CHM files are compiled HTML help files used by various Windows apps etc. Many of Microsofts technical books used to come with the entire book on CD in this format. I have used this program off and on to read CHM files on my PocketPcs in the past. The program was slow and wouldn't handle large CHM files but was the only real solution at the time...

Continue reading "CHMReader.Net"...

Comments (1)

Bye bye Yahoo Money Manager

News

December 17, 2004 11:19 AM PST

I tried to log into my.yahoo Finance section today to check on my stocks and got this:

"Service Announcement
We regret to notify you that we are closing Yahoo! Money Manager, effective February 1, 2005..."

I'm not surprised as the service stopped pulling updates automatically from my accounts about two weeks ago. I am disapointed though. By dropping yahoo finance I no longer have a reason to make my.yahoo.com my home page and main portal. I guess it's finally time to move to my.msn. Sigh. I've used them for a long time and I admit to a sort of nostalgic attachment. By this time next year I predict we'll be yodeling a different tune: "Ya-Who?-ooooooo".

Comments (0)

HP4705 + Betaplayer = Portable Media Madness

Articles

December 15, 2004 12:06 AM PST

Ok the HP hx4705 pocketPc isn't exactly cheap, but it has some pretty impressive video specs: 4" True VGA screen powered by an ATI Imageon graphics chip. I decided to try and figure out what this hardware combination could really achieve in the mobile video department...

Now I've tried playing video on my pocketPc's before. It made for a pretty impressive demo on my original Ipaq, and I've done a little bit on my Dell Axim x5, but overall these machines didn't really have the horsepower to do anything fancy. If you wanted to get video to work you needed to encode your sources down to a very low resolution with a low framerate. That was a lot of work for not so impressive results. Boy how things change.

Continue reading "HP4705 + Betaplayer = Portable Media Madness"...

Comments (7)

Paul, December 15, 2004 12:23 AM:

I started laughing at the point you said, "... I installed the latest unstable BetaPlayer..." imagining what was going to come next: "... and then all the power in my house went out...".

John, December 15, 2004 12:30 AM:

Well you know how personal dev projects are.. you get things working up to a certain point and never bother to go through remaining 10% of work required to do a proper test / release cycle. In all honesty, the 'unstable' version of BetaPlayer is much much more stable than the 'released' version of PocketMVP I used to use.

Paul, December 15, 2004 12:40 AM:

This is cool, since my iPaq stylus holder (finally) broke today so I'm going to be in the market for a new PPC. Watching video on the shuttle would be really cool. I could divxify all my futurama DVDs...

Captain Sniffy, December 15, 2004 10:41 AM:

Heh, coincidentally, I also installed BetaPlayer this weekend on my ancient Toshiba e355. I'm still transcoding my old Divx files using a super one-button program called PocketDivx Encoder.

http://divx.ppccool.com/

But the results are awesome! It's real easy to do and now I've got my flash card full of cartoons for the kids to watch on the long flight home.

J, December 15, 2004 09:21 PM:

Cool stuff! My old overclocked celeron 300A can't even play that stuff! What do you think battery life is like? I wonder if a flash drive would use less power than a microdrive? Batteries seem like the biggest bottleneck, given that we have the handheld storage and horsepower. In the car or airport, you could plug it in, but on airplanes, power is still hard to come by.

John, December 15, 2004 10:25 PM:

A guy over on the pocketpcthoughts forum says he gets 2 hours 15 minutes of microdrive video with the bluetooth headphones going on a single battery. That's not bad. He always carries a second battery with him though. I agree about the flash. I orderd up a 1m 60x sd. The microdrive is great for music where it can spin down while the song plays but video is another story. Battery life will also depend on the brightness of the display.

George, December 15, 2004 10:25 PM:

There's a pretty slick way to deal with the battery life issue when traveling. 4 AA rechargable batteries in a holder wired to a barrel connector can be used to recharge and/or power your pda. Here's a review of one such device:

http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/ipowerpak-review.html

I built my own using stuff I had on hand but the parts would be about $5.00 at Radio Shack (http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&product%5Fid=270-409 + a little wire + connector). Before you build your own, a little googling is recommended as a few devices require slightly less voltage. For those devices I believe a diode can be wired in series to provide the necessary voltage drop.

I use this setup when I travel as I always carry a few sets of recharable batteries and a small travel charger for my digital camera. I don't even bother to bring a real AC adapter for my PDA.

Suck It Down, Blockbuster!

News

December 14, 2004 10:37 PM PST

Blockbuster is going to drop late fees so that they can compete with Netflix. This move will cost them around $300 million US each year.

Now for a local take...

When I lived in Bellevue, I used to go to the Blockbuster across from the Wendy's right near GoAhead. Very convenient. But it sure felt like there was a late fee scam going on. It seemed that every single time I went there, someone in line ahead of me was being charged late fees. Most people feign a bit of indignance, then cough up the dough because there is usually a long line and they don't want to embarrass themselves arguing over over a few bucks. The system is designed to use social pressure and people's general discomfort of arguing to charge them an additional few dollars.

But this happened so often that I suspect that there was something else going on. So I made sure to never ever return movies late to see what would happen. Eventually, while renting a movie, I got the tap: "You have unpaid late fees..."

Continue reading "Suck It Down, Blockbuster!"...

Comments (2)

Asus Wlan HD Box

Cool Tech

December 13, 2004 08:58 PM PST

I bumped into a comment about this over at FurryGoat. What could be cooler than a hard drive enclosure that you just plug into your LAN to serve out files? Try one that doesn't need to be plugged in at all! The new enclosure from from Asus has 802.11G in addition to ethernet. It has built in DHCP and FTP server support as well as NAS (Network Attached Storage) functionality. Just set one of these guys up in your house and serve out your media wirelessly. The downside, it only supports 2.5" hard drives. There is a review over at Tom's Networking. They also mention some interesting competition.

Comments (0)

OneNote

December 9, 2004 12:38 PM PST

OneNote is a great program, but for me it is totally useless as it doesn't fit my use case. The OneNote guys were giving a big demo in my building this week. But as I talked to them I released what I had only previously suspect... their marketing guys just don't see the world the way I do. They still do not have plans for a pocketPc version or two way sync solution. They did mention some sort of smartphone client, but what use this would be I don't know. My guess is it would be read only. This looks like another hole waiting for a 3rd party to fill.

Comments (0)

Babylon 5 Movie

December 9, 2004 09:41 AM PST

I know this has been slashed, but mentioning it again here. Work starts in April for a new Babylon 5 Movie to be released in theaters. It sounds like the time frame of the movie puts it during the 'crusades' years and I doubt it will have any of the original cast.

Comments (0)

Automatic SpeechCasting

Articles

December 4, 2004 09:34 PM PST

Blogging is big. That’s probably not accurate, blogging was big before it was called blogging, now it’s huge. In many cases blogging allows people to play amateur journalist posting their commentary online for the masses to read. The latest twist in blogging takes it up a notch by allowing you to be your own radio talk show host. This recent phenomena is known as ‘podcasting’. The short story is you record your precious audio content to MP3, upload it to your site and wrap it in RSS tags. Reader can then use various software to pull down your content and sync it to their Ipods, PocketPCs or other portable devices for listening on the go. It's becoming quite popular. You can read more about it at: http://www.ipodder.org/. You can find a directory of podcasts here: http://podcasting.net and here: http://www.podcasts.org.
As interesting as this is, it is not the main focus of this post...

Continue reading "Automatic SpeechCasting"...

Comments (1)

Swiss Army Knife or Batman Utility Belt?

Cool Tech

December 3, 2004 12:55 PM PST

This is the dilemma facing a mobile devices loving geeks such as myself. As the number of doodads and gizmos I want to have handy at all times grows, I feel the strong desire to munge them together into one uber-device. There are others however who argue against such a device saying it would be jack of all trades and master of none – not to mention expensive. Excluding the craziness of being locked in to a cell service provider, I'm pretty sure I would be willing to live with any trade-offs in my quest for 'one device to rule them all'.
An example of such a convergence device would be: A pocketPC with tri-band phone, 4" Vga screen, wifi, Bluetooth, integrated 1.3Mb camera, 4G hard drive (for mp3s), GPS, dual card slots, fast processor, 128Mb RAM, a slide out thumb board and some bluetooth headphones. Of course no such device exists today.
On the other end of the spectrum someone could achieve this level of mobile functionality by carrying around a PocketPC, a snap-on thumboard, a Bluetooth enabled Cell phone, a mini-ipod, wired head phones, a hand held GPS, and a digital camera. You would need a bat belt to carry them all. Of course real mobile die-hards use a ScotteVest. I'm not sure I'm man-nerd enough to attract this kind of attention.

Your thoughts?

Continue reading "Swiss Army Knife or Batman Utility Belt?"...

Comments (2)

Geek stuff I can’t live without.

Cool Tech

December 2, 2004 02:38 AM PST

Following Paul’s excellent lead, I did some thinking of geek things I really enjoy. While I wouldn’t classify these as brilliant pieces of coding per Paul’s definition, they are high on my ‘pry it from my cold dead fingers’ list.

XP Remote Desktop
This is by far my favorite feature of XP. I have tried quite possibly every windows remote control product that has come along since windows 3.0 in my holy quest to be able to work efficiently from home. Here are just a few I can remember off the top of my head: Remotely Possible, PC Anywhere, LapLink, Radmin, Netmeeting, numerous flavors of VNC. Nothing can compare to having highly tuned code right in the OS. Now granted bandwidth has radically improved since my first attempts caused me to upgrade my modems to 14.4k, but all things being equal this code blew away the competition. It has allowed me to put in numerous dog years of extra work (including the session I just finished) in without having to hang out at the office all night. My wife appreciates this.

Audible.com
The client code that backs up this service is far from elegant, but this is something I cannot live without. I travel on average between 1.5 and 2 hours a day in the car. Listening to audio books during this time has been a godsend. Now instead of nodding off a the wheel (which was a regular occurrence on the way home late at night during the ‘startup’ years), or fighting back road rage, I put my body into autopilot while I enjoy learning something new or a bit of fiction. It feels like I’ve reclaimed a ‘lost’ part of my day. I know that many balk at the subscription fee, but I feel I’m getting every dollars worth. In fact at close to two hours a day, I’m currently spending more time listening to audio books than watching TV. And by choosing long books I’m getting more hours of entertainment for my dollar than I am with Netflix. Of course my driving situation is not the norm for everyone, and I am locked in for two books a month at a lower rate than new subscribers can get, but I’d give up most of my other ‘frill’ services excluding power and internet access before I’ll let this one slip.

PocketPcs
I’m a big fan here, no surprise. I’ve managed to integrate my PocketPC into most aspects of my life. I’m always on the prowl for new add-ons (hardware and software) to get more use out of it. I’m currently in the market for my next pocketPc which will be my 3rd (or fourth if you count that I have two original Ipaqs.) I’ve got some big plans and some new potential use cases in mind. But that is a topic for another day.

Wifi
Not much to say here. Going wireless is true freedom and now that I've tasted it I won't be satisfied until I have wireless broadband access where every I am.

Oh and of course Xbox Live. I didn't really convert fully to consoles until this came out. :)

What geek items (hardware or software) really float your boat?

Comments (6)

George, December 2, 2004 10:08 AM:

Here's a few I'll toss in:

SageTv - I won't claim it's better or cheaper than Tivo but it's certainly more flexible and has a certain geek appeal. SageTv supports multiple turners, multiple clients that can share recordings from a central server and even provides a decent interface for playing music or DVDs. Orignally my intent was to attempt to build a linux pvr but I first installed SageTv (back at version 1.4)and haven't looked back.

Caligrapher/PenComander- Transcriber for the pocketpc is very functional but Caligrapher adds a slightly better UI (but only when needed, it can be hidden), nice pop up keyboards, popup correction window, spell checking and includes PenCommander. Pencommander is a hidden gem that essentially binds macros to text input (you "circle the text" after writing to invoke the macro). I've used this on every IPAQ I 've owned.

Linux - Not as an end user desktop OS but as an open technology that is enables some really cool things. I have three Linksys wrt54g wireless ap/routers flashed with 3rd party firmware (sveasoft satori v4.0 ) that greatly enhances the capabilities of the routers (local dns and bridging mode are the killer features for me). I also have a Hauppauge MediaMVP networked media player which is linux device at heart. Again, it's functionality has been extended by someone so that functions as a fully functionaly SageTV client.

SideTrack powerbook trackpad driver - We all mock Apple's allegiance to the one button mouse but I was really more envious of the cool functionality that the trackpad most pc laptops provide (like scrolling zones, hot corners, additional mouse button support). Sidetrack provides all the functionality I could ever wish for.

Paul, December 2, 2004 12:25 PM:

Good call on the Wi-Fi thing. I would have included it in my list except that I wanted to stay close to specific software. I feel a rant coming on about wires in general.

Audible sounds cool. My commute is almost 2 hours per day as well, hence the iPod. You could ditch the client software if you put the books on the iPod since it does have the capacity.

John, December 2, 2004 12:33 PM:

Ah yes wires. I have gone wireless keyboard and mouse at work and at home. The cost of batteries every 9 months or so is worth it. My next target is wireless headphones. I'm really looking at the bluetooth headphones from HP. They currently only work with bluetooth Ipaqs, but wouldn't you know it, I'm looking for a new PocketPC anyway.
To be honest this should be top priority for Apple. A blue tooth Ipod with matching wireless headset would be HUGE.

Paul, December 4, 2004 03:24 PM:

Actually, the whole "white headphone wires" thing is a marketing strategy for apple. When you see someone wearing white headphones, you know they have an iPod. Even the black U2 iPod comes with white headphones. It's like being in a gang when you see people you don't know wearing the same colours... it's an intangible attraction that entrenches the iPod's sense of cool. Wireless headphones, while more convenient, wouldn't be the same.

John, December 4, 2004 03:50 PM:

Well I hope Apple does keep the wires then. If their only reason is to keep the iPod 'cult' together, then it will serve them right when Creative or one of their other competitors do wireless and overtake them. I'm a bit too old and un-hip to make a technical choice based only on what is trendy. Besides if they went wireless, they could make the headphones white or some crazy IMac florescent color with pulsating neon apple logos on the side. Now that would get your branding across.

Paul, December 5, 2004 12:34 AM:

I don't think it's a cult, it is simply a great product that consumers are choosing. The regular PC makers might be able to get a cheaper device or better specs, but this isn't a PC that you can hide under your desk, or that IT managers order by the thousands. This is the consumer electronics industry and the way a device looks matters. But, I've looked at the Creative device, it is truly horrible to use. I didn't try the software, but I can't image some random PC company making something more usable than iTunes... MusicMatch / RealAudio anyone?

The iPod hit the sweet spot: a super usable device, the cool factor, and a price people are willing to pay.

New MSN Messenger Beta

December 2, 2004 02:08 AM PST

Looks like they are now doing a beta of MSN Messenger 7.0.
Here are the main new features quoted from the site:
"Winks: Express yourself with impact. Send animations with sound to really get some attention.
Drag and Drop Backgrounds: See an image you like? Drag it to your MSN Messenger window to set it as your background.
Set Status Before Logon: See who's online before others know you've logged in by setting your status! Subsequent logons can start you up in stealth mode."

Hmm, this doesn't seem significant enough to warrant a major version number, but maybe they have some more stuff in the queue for the final release.

Comments (4)

Half-Life2 Multiplayer

Cool Tech

December 1, 2004 10:09 AM PST

Well all this whining about HL2 only being single player was for not. They just released the deathmatch multiplayer update via steam. The are even offering a map creating contest with a $5000 prize. Ahh I'm looking forward to some old school Half Life Mayhem. I hope they still have the blue gun and trip mines. OCModShop has a quick review with some screen shots. Warning their site is a bit slow right now.

Comments (2)

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