October 2006 – Page 3 – LIVEdigitally

The best intentions

Posted on October 10, 2006 by Jeremy Toeman

I am traveling this week from San Francisco to Boston to New York, then back (more on the trip some other time), and had booked a simple itinerary to get around. While in Boston, two colleagues of mine mentioned they much preferred the train to NYC over the flight, since it ends up being about the same amount of time. As a frequent traveler, I’m all for anything that is an easier journey, and the described train ride sounded quite blissful.

It took less than 10 minutes from leaving the station (maybe less than 5) for me to realize how much of a bad decision this was for me. I’m sure many folks find it more relaxing, less rushed, etc etc. I am sitting here pulling hairs out of my beard, one at a time.

First, I can’t do email because the bumpiness is causing a ton of retyping and this is about all I can bear.

Tried watching TV using my Sprint PPC6700 tethered to my Vaio to watch my Slingbox. Was painful, but killed an hour until I couldn’t deal with the dropouts anymore.

I’m sitting at an angle, because I’m too tall to have the laptop right in front of me, so I’m sure I’m putting a nice crick in my back.

I had a hot dog for dinner (Hebrew National at least).

It’s just one of those things where you realize how different people are. Me? I’m perfectly fine with a drive to the airport, dealing with security, boarding, flying, etc. Maybe I’ve just done it so much (~175K miles on the year). Maybe I like “the action” of it.

I think, at the end of the day, when you have a short flight you may spend “as much” time as you might on the train, but you only have to kill an hour or so. The ~4 hours on Amtrak is just too much for me.

Plus I think I feel a little safer in the air.

ps – to make matters worse, I forgot my DVD pack at home, so the only thing I have to watch is Monty Python and the Holy Grail – great flick, but you do have to be in the right mood for it. I’m listening to the Director’s Commentary this time through.

GoogleTube – it's official

Posted on October 9, 2006 by Jeremy Toeman

The rumors are all over the place (no fewer than twenty-five entries on techmeme today), but the AP reported a few minutes ago that YouTube was acquired for $1.65 billion.

The price makes YouTube, a still-unprofitable startup, by far the most expensive purchase made by Google during its eight-year history.

Holy cow, color me stunned. I am blown away by this. I had just finished reading Mark Cuban’s weekend post on the topic, and really didn’t think it was going to happen. Congrats to Hurley and his team – job well done.

Can the GreedTube guys do it too, ya think?

Geek Dinner ][+

Posted on October 9, 2006 by Jeremy Toeman

After Geek Dinner 1.0 was such a jolly good time, I knew I’d have to approach it the way a network approaches a mediocre sitcom with decent ratings: keep doing it for 7 years, then 5 more good years in syndication.

For Geek Dinner 2 we moved to a different venue (Indigo, reservation courtesy of OpenTable), where we had tasty wine, and if memory serves, all but one person had one of the specials. As food was served, we did our ’round the horn’ intros (starting on the left):

Ryan Block (writes for some little blog)
Veronica Belmont (yes, we have a genuine geekette!)
Brian Curtis (VC/entrepreneur with a keen eye on China)
Jeff Hagan (banker in the technology/digital media space)
Ron “the thinker” Hirson (redefining the telephone and professional kiteboarder)
Brad Dietrich (builds media streaming technology just for fun)
Dave Mathews (likes to take on inappropriate bets)
Jeremy Toeman (consumer technology guru and dinner planner extraordinaire)
Nicholas Menaker (still not completely sure what he does, but I know he does it well)

This week conversations roamed across the board. An interesting topic was regarding Adobe adding VoIP to Flash. Feelings were mixed, some felt it was a move toward getting easier adoption of VoIP (by cutting out install time), others thought it was part of a wider, mobile strategy. And a few of us guessed it was because Acrobat and Photoshop are already about as bloated as possible, and they only offer so many other products (zing! ouch… sorry, Adobe, I love your stuff, but why does Acrobat 7 take almost a minute to load on my dual-core laptop???).

Another fun topic was everyone’s “ultimate wishlist gadget” – if money were no object, what would you want for Hanukah or Christmas (or Winter Solstice or whatever)? Answers included:

Helicopter (a specific model was mentioned, but I don’t remember it) – specifically to speed up commuting, something that makes perfect sense in my book.
Macbook
HTC Excalibur
50″ Pioneer Elite plasma
A ride on SpaceShipOne (which didn’t technically count, since it wasn’t a specific gadget, but it was a cool thought)

I can’t really remember the others, but maybe everyone can chime in on the comments if they recall. One thing was for sure – everybody wanted a Slingbox Pro. Ok, I’m just kidding, but at least one person did!!!

Many other fun conversations ensued, we laughed, we cried, we laughed some more. Until we got distracted by the bunny. Look at the bunny!

As we all left, I walked with Brad to his car to get a ride home, and saw the following, horrible sight:

Turns out Brad accidentally left his laptop case in the footwell of the passenger seat. This means, on a very busy street in San Francisco, between the hours of 7-10pm, some miscreant had the time to walk car to car, peering into the window to find anything that looked valuable. He also had time to bash a window, reach in, and grab the case and (presumably) run off, all without anyone noticing.

I guess I just want to know how much more I need to pay in taxes to get rid of the car vandalism here, because I’d fork it over.

Accidentally Dugg?

Posted on October 6, 2006 by Jeremy Toeman

The other day I put up a fairly innocuous post on seeing a prop of the Batmobile from Batman Begins when I was down in LA a few weeks ago. If you read the post all the way through the very end, you’ll notice the final line is “No scoop for JT.”

Well, in a moment of near-perfect irony, a few people out there thought I did see something new! I think it started here, because the next thing I knew, I was on the front page of Digg with this post.

Here’s the results of my site traffic logs:

Getting Dugg

And since I do my photo hosting and sharing with flickr, here’s my updated “most popular photos” page (note that before this week, the #1 photo was viewed roughly 400 times):

Flickr stats

So there you have it – a non-rumor becomes a rumor, and it’s all because of my Internets. For more good reading on the impact of “getting dugg”, read this article by Ed Kohler.

I (heart) OpenTable

Posted on October 5, 2006 by Jeremy Toeman

So the scenario looks a little something like this: Having Geek Dinner 2 tonight and needed to find a place to seat 8 people, preferably in a quieter location where we can chat. Gotta find a spot. Where do I go? OpenTable.com.

I know they’ve been around since 1998, but they made it through the dot-collapse, and while I won’t say they vanished, they aren’t ‘exciting and new’ anymore. But I also know that there’s a lot of folks out there who haven’t heard of them, so I figured I’d give them a little shout-out.

Bottom line is it’s about the easiest site in the world to use. No need to register (although you can and there is a good incentive to do so, which I’ll mention in a moment), you can just start searching. For tonight’s dinner, I clicked on San Francisco and was given a very simple search page.

I selected a few options, including party size and price point, and clicked Search. One really nice option in their search system is grouping – most search engines require you to pick one or another option (e.g. all 2-star restaurants), but they intelligently include grouped options (e.g. up to 2-star restaurants).

Results come back quite quickly, and are presented in a very appealing layout, with simple easy-to-use search and sort options. Not only that, in addition to searching your target time, the OpenTable system automatically displays Earlier and Later options for each result:

Results

I picked my choice, and gave my phone number and email address. I was also able to add comments (such as “we’d like a private room if possible”) which go straight to the maitre d. Also, I’m given the option to register, which gets me “opentable points”. Again, if I don’t want to register, I’m all done, reservation made, voila.

For every reservation you make (and keep – because anyone can make reservations, but it’s keeping them that matters), you get 100 points. Every time you hit 2000 points, you can get a dining check for $20. That’s it, no fees, no nothing.

That’s it – I guess I’m 8 years late on reviewing the service (although I’ve been using it for 3), but hey, I’m not always the first on the block for things. I would like to see a tighter integration with CitySearch (or, yawn, Yelp, I guess), since they have that relationship already. Would be nice to see instant reviews, recommendations, etc all on the same place, but hey, I can always open another window or tab, right?

I wonder if I need a “food” category? 😉

Right under my nose

Posted on October 4, 2006 by Jeremy Toeman

I was (and remain) a huge fan of the original BBC show The Office. Huge. Watched em all multiple times (and while I may rewatch movies often, I rarely rewatch TV shows), never failed to enjoy.

When the NBC version started, I really had to force myself to stick with it, as the first few episodes seemed to be “weak” versions of the UK original. But then somewhere mid-season, all of a sudden the show changed. As if the actors and writers woke up one morning and decided to make their own show. I became a loyal fan, I even watched some of the Webisodes this summer (also great, but almost frustrating due to the shortness).

Anyhow, last season ended with a cliffhanger (for those catching up via DVD I won’t discuss plotlines or anything), and I was quite excited for the season premiere two weeks ago. While vacationing in Montreal I fired up my Slingbox, connected to my Comcast DVR, and there it was, right after My Name Is Earl, an episode of Globe Trekker. Huh?

Turns out, for whatever reason, the DVR missed it. Maybe it was marked as a repeat, I dunno. Not there. Nothing. Crap-all. So I panic, accuse the wife of deleting it, you know, all the usual things.

Next, I called all my friends, none of whom record it. While their whimsical agreement that the show’s pretty good was nice to hear, it most certainly didn’t put the episode in front of my eyes!

A ha! I remember a coworker also watches it, call to check. Yup, he has a Season Pass(TM). Awesome. Guess what? His DVR didn’t get it either! I felt like Charlie Brown playing football with Lucy!

Back at work, I mentioned my dilemma to my officemate who reminds me it’s on iTunes. Yes! She downloads it with the intent to burn it to a DVD so I can watch it on my flight today. Of course the download doesn’t end up on her office PC, but on her home PC, so it takes another day before she can bring it in. And there we have it, the “book on tape” equivalent of the show. Her suggestion that I act it out in my head while I listen didn’t quite help, but it did make me chuckle. Or growl, I can’t remember.

Another friend of mine offered to find it online, using one of those Internet tubes or something. A week goes by, no luck.

I’m about ready to give in, and then when my wife turned on the Comcast OnDemand channel today, I noticed “network shows”. My heartbeat raced. I selected it, then saw the channel lineup. Oh my, there’s NBC! Glory glory hallelujah. Two remote buttons later, and there it is. The Office, Season 3, Episode 1.

$0.99? no problem (although if I’m paying for a show that was already aired for free I don’t really like seeing the ad at the beginning – either make it paid-for or free, not both, but then again, right now I’m a beggar, not a chooser).

It was there the whole time, right under my nose.

Digital Life – perfect for those who Live Digitally

Posted on October 4, 2006 by Jeremy Toeman

Digital Life logo Yeah, I know it’s a silly post title, but some things are too hard to resist. A couple of years back, Ziff Davis started the DigitalLife conference in New York City as a very hands-on, consumer-focused event. The idea was to take the cool technology the people in the industry see and play with at ‘industry events’ and bring it directly in front of consumers.

The event is October 12-15 at the Javits Center in New York City. The best part is this year, it’s free to attend! All you have to do is go to their tickets page, and enter the code “INSIDER” – pretty easy.

It’s a fun show, I went last year. Lots of good stuff for any video game enthusiast, they even had quite a few tournaments that anyone could enter, with real prizes. Additionally, there are tons of exhibitors, ranging from SLAPPA (my favorite CD/DVD case manufacturer) to TiVo (I’ve got to assume we’ll see a Series3 there) to WowWee (wanna robot?) to ifrogz (okay, I don’t know what they do – but I’m sure going to find out).

If you’re going to make it, drop me a line (or leave a comment) and we can meet up. I’m sure there’s going to be a Sling demo going on there somewhere as well…

JT and the Batmobile

Posted on October 3, 2006 by Jeremy Toeman

So check this out. Last month I was in LA attending the CTIA conference, and as I’m walking to my hotel, I see a trailer truck drive by carrying the Batmobile (the one from Batman Begins). I see it, and think to myself, “Self. Is that the Batmobile? It sure is! And I’m here in LA. And they are making a sequel to Batman Begins (Batman Begins Again). That must be a prop from the new movie. Suh-weet!” (sp?)

I happened to be carrying my good ol Canon SD700 (with its wonderfully amazing shutter speed), and grabbed a bunch of pictures. I’m figuring I’ve got one of them there “movie scoops” and get closer and closer. To my utter amazement, the truck stops about a half a block down from my hotel!