Yearly Archives: 2005

Roxio just released a nice little bundle of software called The Boom Box. The 5 different applications are aimed at everything from recording LPs to mp3 to podcasting. Included with the neato looking iPod box comes:

CD Spin Doctor
Audio Hijack
iPodderX podcast software
MusicMagic Mixer Premium playlist software
iSpeak It text-to-audio software

I’m pretty excited about using iTunes as an alarm clock. I always wake up to some pop song on my clock radio that ends up sticking in my head for the first 3 hours of being awake. This way I can pre-determine my morning whistles and hums.

Found via TrendCentral

I called my pops yesterday. He didn’t answer the phone, so I left a voice mail. I’m unsure that he knows how to check the voicemail on his mobile phone. So I decided to call my mother instead and check in to see how momma was doing. I usually call mom on Sunday, and I usually talk for an hr so.

techdirt found a cool statistic that noted how Mother’s and Father’s Day, affect the amount of calls. Looks like there’s an 8% increase in phone usage during Father’s Day and 9% for Mother’s. From this you may jump to the conclusion that Father’s aren’t getting the love they deserve, that’s what I thought. But then I realized that Dad doesn’t really like to chat on the phone for so long, and that made it all better.

Yahoo! Bought Dialpad recently. Dialpad was a California based VoIP company that will soon enable Yahoo Messenger to not only do PC-to-PC calls but phone to phone or pc etc.

I feel that this isn’t the first type of deal that we’re going to see during this slow and painful VoIP movement. Using the internet to transfer voice in real time has had a few players to date. But I still feel that the big guys are sitting on their hands until the window of opportunity opens and mass market is ready to move into the next thing.

iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, Wal*Mart, Seven-11, and now Google. If you didn’t recognize the trend on this string of company names then just crawl back to that cave you were living in for the last few years. Oh wait, there’s a new member to the ‘I want to sell mp3’s on the internet’ list, and you guessed it right, Google. Digg.com reports that multiple sources confirm this rather late entry into the game. But then again, Google isn’t usually first at doing anything, they’re just the best at what they do*.

*See Internet Search (google.com), Email (gmail.com), Maps (maps.google.com), and Photo Management (Picasa 2)

There’s only one thing more fun than the reaction that your coworker has when they return from a trip to see their desk, and that’s taking pictures of your hard work. Gizmodo took note and allowed me to discover this great display of bored and creative coworkers. My favorite is the Aluminum Foil, I’d keep it if that was my desk. I may need to get a NASA coffee mug to feel like I’m in a real space station.

At my old work we’d change desktop wall papers, screen savers, or my signature move: put a piece of tape over the eye of the optical mouse and lie in wait for your victim to return.

When you get that email from “Bill” that promises naked photos of Britney Spears or a huge sum of money form Bill Gates, I urge you not to open it. Panda Software (anti-virus) states that celebs are often used to fool computer users into opening malicious email attachments or visit pages with mal intentions. This isn’t new news to anyone who has owned or operated a PC (since Macs are immune to such nonsense) for more than 10 consecutive minutes. But Panda has created a list that I find quite interesting.

The top 10 “Celebrities are frequently used to distribute mails which either contain [attached] malware (often camouflaged as an image), or which contain a URL where the malware is accessed”

When I’m unemployed it’s so hard to find a job. Not due to my lack of experience, but the fact that I miss all my daytime TV shows –like soap operas. DVRs aren’t the answer to this problem because when I get home from work there’s only so much time to watch recorded programs, and weekends full of soap opera recaps would be a waste. Singapore has the remedy to my unemployment issues, soap operas on cell phones.

The kickoff will be 3-minute episodes of a 90 minute story. The 30 episodes will pioneer more than 10 other soaps totaling around 200 episodes for next year. I confess, I’m not that into soaps. I do suppose I could join in the drama with three minute bites while waiting for the bus or sitting in the waiting room.

Looks like 3G and WiFi can work together in harmony. Let’s put this marriage into a mobile phone then magically provide it to the US market. Am I dreaming or is this still considered wishful thinking?

When Top Gun came out I was 6 years old. I had to be Maverick, and watched the movie approximately 2.3 times a day for the entire summer vacation. I distinctly recall riding my bike in the street one summer day when suddenly I heard “Highway To The Danger Zone” on a neighbor’s boombox radio. He was washing the car in the driveway. I darted over to my house, ditched my bike in the grass, ran to the TV, and frantically pushed channel up until I was at MTV. To my disappointment “Highway To The Danger Zone” wasn’t on MTV, it was that damn Madonna girl again. I didn’t really like the Top Gun song, but I yearned to see Tom Cruise’s F-14 Tomcat fly the skies and shoot missles.

Flash forward 20 years, I can watch that music video with the help of the internet anytime or place that I desire. Screw the music video, I can take the movie with me anywhere. The idea of Tom Cruise in your pocket was absurd in the mid 80’s (yet every woman pondered the fantasy).

Where will it go from here? What dreams that I can’t fathom possible are being made possible? The Cable-Tec Expo 2005 will give you a hint of what’s to come in the near future. VoIP, H.264/MPEG 4 Part 10, Everything on Demand, DVR + DVDRW, Wireless MetroMesh Networking, and the list goes on. Highway To The Digital Zone I say!