Monthly Archives: September 2005

Right now I’m sitting on dial up via AOL. I haven’t dialed into an ISP since 1998, and I don’t miss it one bit. The boing beep boing boing sounds don’t bring back happy nostalgic BBS memories either. But the fact of the matter is, I’m connected to the internet. Having a computer that isn’t connected to the net is about as useful as a bike with no seat. Being connected is everything.

Verizon knows this, and has decided to push their 3G network just a bit harder than they have been. They lowered the prices and have helped integrate EV-DO ( a.k.a. 3G) chips into laptops. WiFi used to be an add-on only feature, but is now standard with almost any consumer laptop.

This way we could be connected all the time, Continue reading →

As someone who spends a lot of time online (I’m in love with the internet – what can I say?), I can definitely appreciate those who can critically analyze the system we’re using today and contextualize it with praise and suggestions for improvement.

BusinessWeek has this nice article up that includes a transcript of a discussion with Jakob Nielsen, a web design consultant apparently snazzy enough to earn praise from BW as “the acknowledged leader in making Web sites more usable.” I haven’t heard of him, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything – he makes some good points while talking about today’s ‘net and what we can do to make it better. Some stuff of interest:

• There is a glut of bad content out there, especially at company web sites. I wholeheartedly agree on this point. He accurately refers to many of these fluffy bits of eye candy as “brochureware,” which don’t actually provide information to potential consumers in plain language. Cut the flash crap and the blaring audio and give it to me in a clean package. Less IS more!

• Bad searching. While Google and its kin do a good job on the general web, we again return to company sites and their typically horrific proprietary search algorithms. I don’t know how many times I’ve searched through company web sites and found nothing even closely related to what I wanted.

• E-mail overload and the need for better spam filtering, as well as the rise of phishing (getting credit card and other personal information through illegitimate e-mails).

• Companies need to talk to real customers and find out what they want from the web. Teens and seniors are two important groups.

Ultimately, it all boils down to packaging content in ways that are more accesible to users. Blogs need to be written this way, RSS and its kin need to be de-geeked and podcasts…well…only time will tell on that one. Vodcasts/vidcasts, too – I think mobile video’s success will depend largely on how big of a screen people are willing to tote around – something no bigger than a PSP (such a stunning screen) that’s capable of mobile browsing and/or something like UMD might really push this over the edge.

I’ve fallen in love. Her simple looks yet complex features send tingles from my elbows to my fingertips and then back. She’s slightly on the bigger side, comparably, but she can go for almost 4 solid hours. I’m in love I tell you. The catch here is that I’m a Montague, and she, she’s a Capulet. The oldest story in the book, and I’m here singing the cliché anthem of someone who can’t get what they desire.

“Oh HTC-Apache, a.k.a. the PPC-6700, Oh HTC-Apache, a.k.a. the PPC-6700, where for art thou HTC-Apache, a.k.a. the PPC-6700?”

We’ve never formally met. She only arrived on the scene less than a week ago. She is exclusive to Sprint/Nextel and I’m under a contract signed in blood with T-Mobile. The 416 MHz Intel processor, WiFi, EV-DO, Bluetooth, MiniSD card expandability, Speakerphone, 1.3 megapixel camera/camcorder, and the sliding QWERTY keyboard make her the phone of my dreams. Oh, did I mention that you can make calls on this device as well? The PPC-6700 kicks the Sidekick II, squashes the Blackberry, and is a hatrick compared to the Treo.

I have heard rumors, and pray each night I rest my eyes, that she’ll be available at T-Mobile. Then my only problem will be mustering up the $479.99 to purchase the PPC-6700.

A bit of a ramble today (with a ton of links), but noteworthy in my opinion because it showcases how the desire to do what at first seems like a very simple thing can become a torturous ordeal that never seems to end. Thankfully, I think I might be in the home stretch:

A project I’ve been been doing in small chunks over the past few months is coming to a head, and one of the hurdles I’ve been facing is finding a way to turn a Flash (.swf) file into an MPEG. After a drawn-out process spent searching for an app to create high-quality movies from actions on the screen (I tried out Movie Grab, Ambrosia Software’s Snapz Pro and Screen Movie), I didn’t feel like coughing up the $69 for Ambrosia’s Snapz Pro, despite the fact that it did exactly what I wanted. I appreciate the quality of Ambrosia’s products but couldn’t justify the expense for what was very likely a one-time use. Thankfully, I just found out that QuickTime has the ability to open flash files! While the audio controls are nonexistent, you can export the file as an MPEG, sans audio…leaving me with one more problem: getting that sweet music.

We finally get to the tidbit responsible for the idea of the post in the first place: iPod Linux (also known as Podzilla)! I first heard about it via TUAW and others, in addition to the press generated by DOOM on the iPod. The geniuses behind Tux’s conquest of the pearly-white (and now black) portable media player included a recording function that allows you to sample at rates much higher than the paltry 8 kHz provided by third-party accessories like the iTalk and the phallic TuneTalk. The newest problem? Getting it onto my ‘Pod – I have a fourth-generation player and iPod Linux won’t run on it…yet.

I’ll get the audio from you, dear Flash flies. I SWEAR IT! Thus the race is on to see if iPod Linux for the 4th generation iPod comes out before I find some sort of workaround – I’ve tried recording audio from my speakers using my Skype headset, I’ll try using my roommate’s minidisc player to record sound from my line-out…there are still several options, seeing as how I just need the audio.

I’ll get there…

I think the board game “C-jump” is worth taking note of. It’s a board game like any other. You roll some die, you move some pieces and somebody wins. What’s different about this one, that makes it worthy of inclusion in the LD world; the rules consist of computer codes like Java or C++.

The games creator, Igor, was a computer programmer who wanted to teach his son about what he did. So after several years he developed the game C-jump, which he says is fun and helps kids learn the basics of computer programing.

I think it’s interesting to see where computer related culture spreads. Here we have a board game based on teaching kids computer programing. What’s next, a square night light which gives off the glow of an ever changing screen saver?

1UP.com got their hands on the much-anticipated controlled for Nintendo’s next-generation game system, the Revolution, and posted a nice review. A wireless system with a very remote control-like look, it comes with the ubiquitous directional pad and a series of buttons on top, along with a trigger button on the bottom and an expansion port at the end (pic shows analog stick attached).

Here’s the kicker: the controllers are not only wireless, they are also apparently sensitive to orientation. By relaying their position to a sensor placed near the television the controllers can supposedly be used to play games by simply moving the controller in space. 1up suggests in-game sword slashing, race car driving or pointing guns in first-person shooters. Awesome! Turn the “remote” on its side and it looks like a retro NES controller, which seems appropriate given the company’s promise that the Revolution will let owners play classic games on the system. I don’t know about you, but this gets me all hot and bothered.

Their conclusions? They really seem to enjoy the functionality of the controller; playing different games designed to showcase the design choice elicit positive responses (using the controller to “shoot” an area on screen, using it as a fishing pole, controlling a plane, etc.). According to the article, Nintendo wanted to break away from the design of traditional controllers and provide people with controllers that facilitate a “pick up and play” mentality.

I applaud the idea, and I’m excited to see the final product.

Grab those jars of coins sitting in the kitchen/bedroom/kid’s room and head to the Coinstar machine at the supermarket! It looks like Amazon is the most recent company to strike a deal with the coin gulping bandit, and this time the arrangement is doubly in the favor of you, dear consumer: according to CIO Insight, people submitting their coinage will be able to get an Amazon gift card for the full amount of money they fork over. Amazon sells the gift certificates to Coinstar at a discount, letting the company greedily fill its pockets cover its operating costs without taking their typical cut of 8.9 percent. After counting the change, the machines then use a modem to call a central server, report the amount and obtain a gift certificate number from Amazon, which gets printed on the receipt.

Yeah yeah, so in the end it’s all motivated by greed: Amazon wants to get a piece of the lucrative “spare change market,” which apparently amounts to some $10.5 billion in the US alone. Yowza. I guess I’m just not smart enough. I’d never pay someone to count my change for me, but apparently a lot of people do.

There are two kinds of people in this world. There are the pioneers who have a vision of the future and with hard work, make their dream a reality. Then there are the followers. Those who sit back and make fun of the pioneers for being nerds, or geeks, or losers.

Just because you’re always busy working on a PC that will go into your 1985 Nissan Sentra, and haven’t had a girlfriend in 4 solid years, doesn’t justify a constant teasing from the latter kinds of people in this world. Those people are pushing the automotive entertainment and productivity markets of tomorrow. Car PC’s, carputers, car computers, and mobile minis (mac minis in cars) are taking the car owning geek population by storm.

Mp3 playback, GPS, Bluetooth/WiFi internet connectivity, redefining wardriving, DVD playback, and everything else that you wish to come true at night is available on a car PC. Extremetech.com did a quick scan over about the basics of this new emerging geek fad. I’m personally in the works on a car PC myself, and have been using Mp3Car.com religiously, there are plenty of other forums out there as well. I’m warning you to keep watching these pioneers, we’re on to something.

Looks like our Google buddies just released another “beta” service: Google Blog Search. It looks like it’s designed to compete with Technorati, but my immediate reaction is “whoopee!” Yes, that’s right – I’m completely self-effacing when I say this. It has everything nothing to do with the fact that a search for “iksib” at blogsearch.google.com reveals all of my LIVEdigitally posts, while Technoriti shows me no love. Am I conceited? Please say no. PLEASE.

So get out there and search, ye, of blogly persuasion! Find stuff! Read! Learn! Or just laugh at all the completely arcane and ridiculous things you find…and then share them with your friends.

While I was in San Francisco last week I (obviously) did all of my computing on my laptop; it really got me thinking about the options that are out there when it comes to sychronizing stuff on different machines.

I found out about Portable Firefox this morning and spent a few minutes downloading and performing the steps required to get it working. Download the software, throw it on your flash drive and you have, as the name implies, a portable version of the browser with all of your bookmarks and extensions! Built on John Haller’s Portable Firefox 1.0.6 (for Windows), the latest version is cross-platform and requires a quick modification before being ready for the Mac. I’m still tinkering with mine, but it seems like a fantastic idea – I always have my flash drive handy and it’s so much easier than booting up both machines, connecting them and manually copying the appropriate files. Cross-platform compatibility makes it a no-brainer. If anyone out there has gotten it working and has any remarks, post ’em!

I hate losing my remote control. I’ll end up looking everywhere. Under the couch, in the bathroom, sometimes I’ll even check the fridge. But if my TV remote was my hand, I’d never be without it. Researchers at Australasian CRC for Interaction Design are working on doing just that.
They are creating a glove that when placed on your hand will control the TV using specific gestures. The TV will wirelessly recognize hand motions for on, off, channel up etc, you get the idea.

Hopefully they could integrate it with other household items like the lights, microwave, robotic maid and we will never have to leave the couch again.