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Author Archives: Jeremy Toeman

Come to Maker's Faire, Build Gadgets and More!

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If you haven’t heard of Maker’s Faire before, check out details here (don’t worry, I’ll wait for you before continuing).  I tried describing it on the phone to a friend earlier today, I said “it’s like a big county fair except instead of people throwing small items at smaller targets, you see them building flamethrowers and personal helicopters and solar-powered stuff.”  It really isn’t the easiest thing to describe, but if you have any shred of childhood creativity left, it’s the kinda place you should go for a few hours this weekend.

I say all that, but now, wait for it, the truth is, oh boy, I’ve never been.  As I mentioned on the Bug Labs blog today, I’ve managed to miss it year after year.  I really believe that MAKE magazine and the corresponding event represent the best possibilities of “growing up”.  Yes, I was one of those kids who took apart toys then put them back together again, albeit slightly worse than when I started (and even threw them out my bedroom window, just to see what might happen).  I still have a huge bag of Lego sitting in my closet waiting for my son to get old enough to not eat them.

Tickets are only $25, though Scott Beale’s going to give away a few to some lucky folks.  I’ll be at the Bug Labs “booth” along with others from the team.  We’ll make some gadgets, hack some gear, and try to find a way to hook the BUG up to a flamethrower.  Please join!

The Vaio Returneth

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Here’s the detailed account of Ed’s journey with the Vaio.

The above video should give you a pretty solid understanding, but if not, here’s the background:

  1. Had a Vaio, it was great, it got stolen.
  2. Bought a new Vaio ($2500 with insurance check), it ran Vista, it was terrible.
  3. Bought a MacBook 10 weeks later ($1100), it’s been great.
  4. Mocked the Vaio many many times until Ed Bott approached me, interested in seeing if he could fix its problems
  5. He did, it works great.

My thoughts on the matter, in no particular order:

  • It’s not Vista per se, it’s the PC manufacturers who are failing to deliver consumer-ready products. If you have either an IT department or an Ed Bott, you can do fine. If you don’t, you’re in a heap of problems.
  • PC manufacturers should massively separate the “home/consumer” group from the business groups. Further, there is a huge opportunity for a PC company to make a finely tuned, consumer-ready Vista laptop.
  • Making a great laptop requires a minimal quantity of options. For reference, call Apple. If the MacBook had 44,000 possible combinations, it would be just as bad as any off-the-shelf PC notebook.
  • This is a very classic Innovator’s Dilemma situation – “the market” is telling PC companies they want options, but the reality is they want easy to use, reliable, affordable computers.

Until a PC company follows any of this advice, Apple will continue to gain market share, and here’s why: Virtually all MacBook users today are happily recommending others to try MacBooks, with a predictable, reliable recommendation. PC users cannot as easily do the same. I had a great Vaio, then a terrible one. I’ve used Toshibas before (great – in the 90s), a Gateway (wasn’t bad), and 3 Dells now (one good, one bad, one ugly). But they are all vastly different.

Thanks and hats off to Mr. Ed Bott for putting in so much time with me. I’ve learned a lot from this process, and I sincerely recommend to any PC company who is listening: go spend some time talking to Ed and take his advice. If you really want to stop the slide (and trust me, the slide is happening even if the numbers you look at today seem like rounding errors), you need to get experts like him to better explain the consumer PC needs of today.

22 Predictions About iPhone 2.0

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Wouldn’t it be fun if they name it iPhone ][? It won’t happen, but … Then they could even have a mini-upgrade iPhone ][+! Okay, that’s enough geekiniscing for the day.

Spent the day hiking in Marin and having a BBQ with some old friends, somehow the iPhone came up as a topic numerous times, despite none of us being iPhone owners. There’ve been rumors aplenty about an iPhone 2.0, and I think it’s a pretty safe bet something‘s coming. As always, Steve’s playing it close to the chest, which is part of what makes Apple such a fun/special company (disclaimers: (1) I own Apple stock, (2) I own a MacBook, (3) I don’t own an iPod or iPhone, (4) I’m one of those guys that was fairly anti-Mac until mid-last year, (5) I don’t own any black turtlenecks).

In the day of chatting, a few ideas came through our conversations. I’ve decided to go throw my stage in the ground, even though I may be 4 or more months early on any timing. Further, I’m adding a little “likelihood” to each prediction.

  1. I believe Apple will have 2 different iPhones available on the market simultaneously (not just v1 and v2, but two distinct models with a lot of similarities). Likely
  2. At least one of these models will have a keyboard and will take on BlackBerry/Windows Mobile more aggressively in the business market. Possible
  3. 3G. I Garontee!
  4. Video recording. Very likely
  5. Deeper .mac integration will be built-into the phone(s). Very likely
  6. Put the above three statements together for a built-in live video streaming feature. Possible
  7. Bluetooth tethering will be possible. Likely
  8. A 4+ megapixel camera will be included. Possible
  9. One model will be somewhat smaller/lighter/thinner than the 1.0 model. Likely
  10. Microsoft will have some type of Office for iPhone available to coincide with the launch. Possible
  11. It will not have two cameras (Steve won’t even allow them to put two buttons on it!). Not a chance
  12. The battery still won’t be replacable. Likely
  13. Real GPS is included. Possible

And now for some more outlandish possibilities. All are a bit more… out there. Warning: to my more serious readers, this list gets increasingly goofy. If in a hurry, it’s probably best to skip it altogether.

  1. It might come in multiple colors.
  2. They include an ATSC tuner for live, real-time HDTV reception.
  3. They skip 3G but include Wimax support.
  4. Instead of just two (or one) models, Apple introduces two different distinct lines of iPhones. The second is a much smaller unit – think “iPhone Nano” – but is still all-touchscreen. In an even wackier move, it’s a flip-phone.
  5. They make the screen capable of playing 720p resolution video. Again, the more extreme prediction has an HDMI connector and IR interface and doubles as an AppleTV.
  6. It has an infrared emitter and supports the TV-B-Gone technology. Just kidding.
  7. Apple massively updates the .mac infrastructure to include mobile social networking features for iPhone users. This probably won’t be heavily used as iPhone people can actually feel the aura of other nearby iPhone people…
  8. Voice-operation for all controls. As a downside it has the voice of Marvin from Hitchhiker’s, and after 90 days of use goes crazy, HAL 9000-style. After this point, one in every ten times the user touches the screen the iPhone starts playing Rick Astley at max volume.
  9. Rather than continue support for YouTube, all videos are sourced from 1938Media, who Apple becomes a sponsor for and Loren introduces a Fake Steve Jobs puppet.
  10. Forget touchscreen, instead consider these three words: rotary dial interface.

Good job Comcast!

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Turns out the speculation was true, you don’t have to be an a-lister to get attention from Comcast online.  I must say, I’m impressed.  I’ve never seen another company react this way before, and they deserve full praise for such actions.  This is one of those stories that I will definitely be sure to echo in the future.  Well done, no snarky or cynical remarks for you today!

Comcast, please support ALL your services!

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Intro: Mike Arrington was able to get Comcast support via Twitter, I thought I’d do the same (although I am Canadian, I’m no Arrington and I’m not using Twitter).  I’m a subscriber to the NHL Center Ice package, offered via Comcast through iNDEMAND.  The regular season is over (Go Habs!), and now things got messy.

Center Ice screenshotIn the program guide, there’s no more information for the Center Ice package at all.  No listings, just baseball.  I googled, found a few scattered suggestions and possible answers.  I then proceeded to try Comcast’s support chat, the agent was polite and tried his/her best, but found nothing.  Eventually told me to call my regional office.  Which I did.

Local agent looked through a variety of things, and sooner or later started surfing the Web looking for more.  Nothing.  Found the Center Ice info page, which is missing all information about the playoffs.  Well, not all the info, just has a page showing where they would be, and nicely refers to them as the 2007 playoffs.

I called iNDEMAND.  The most help I got from them was that (a) there was a confirmed game on Versus, which I already knew, and (b) the channels to find Center Ice were numbers 461-470, which I already knew.  This information came just slightly after I managed to convince them that I was actually a paying subscriber.   Bottom line is at 4pm on Thursday I’m going to have to have my Slingbox ready so I can quickly find the right game and set it to record on my DVR.

First I blame iNDEMAND for not having the right information.  It’s not really Comcast’s fault since their vendor doesn’t have the data.  That said, Comcast shouldn’t do business with vendors who do not have the information needed to support their customers.  If Comcast made it an absolute requirement, I guarantee the iNDEMAND folks would have the answer already, but as it is, there’s little-to-no incentive for them.

As an aside, it’s like when I called Sony for support on my Vaio and they blamed Microsoft and NVIDIA.  They might be right, but nobody exactly forced Sony to use NVIDIA chips.  Then again, the laptop is on its way back from Ed Bott’s place, where he says it’s lightning fast!! Windows may just be re-entering my life (it still does have better keyboard shortcuts)…

Back to the topic at hand – customer service.  Service is as important as any marketing or promotion activity.  With the combination of blogs, Twitters, and Google, it’s impossible for a company’s bad habits to remain in the dark any longer.  Fundamentally I believe if you sell a product, you must support it to the fullest extend possible.  No passing the buck.  Setting the right standards for your organization isn’t hard to do, and in the long term can have a huge payoff.

Dash Seems Cool, But Can It Go the Distance?

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I’ve followed Dash, the Internet-enabled GPS company, for quite some time (I even tried to be a beta tester), as I utterly love the concept. GPS receivers should obviously have Internet access to download new maps, get traffic data, and then of course do some more clever things. Like have my entire address book and calendar built-in. And have Internet services that call my phone when it’s time to leave if I want to make my next meeting on time. I completely expect the category to standardize around these services in the next few years. In the meantime, Dash is trying to be first to market and grab a comfortable spot.

First, here’s the state of the GPS market as I see it (as it pertains to Dash)

  1. Dash is competing with massively entrenched, well-known players (Garmin, TomTom, Magellan, Mio, Pioneer, Sony, others, and of course, all the in-car receivers). The best of these companies (listed above in order) make great products, most of which are extremely well-liked by consumers.
  2. In my opinion, enabling Internet access into a GPS unit is at best a sustainable innovation. In other words, this isn’t a revolution, it’s an evolution, and Garmin/TomTom/others probably already have working prototypes with similar functionality.
  3. Major players are spending a lot of money on advertising (Garmin does Superbowl commercials!).
  4. It is likely to suffer as an industry as GPS-enabled cell phones become widely available and affordable (which is probably why Garmin has introduced a phone, and is simultaneously facing revenue/sales problems).

So if I interpret these signs, I see a startup attempting to enter a commodity industry with a product that I’ll label as “slightly better”. Before any Dash fans roar at me, I’m not trying to say they haven’t made a great product, as I haven’t used it at all – the key point here is the consumer perception of their product. In other words, to the average Joe about to buy a GPS receiver, the Dash only stands out with one additional feature, and that feature is fairly complicated, which drastically diminishes its true value in comparison.

It’s getting mixed user reviews on Amazon (with 4-ish stars and is placing nicely in the top-25 for GPS), Engadget’s happy, and Walt sorta likes it, the combination of which isn’t enough to help push it over the top. Somehow this Silicon Valley startup needs to get out of the Valley and into millions and millions of peoples’ cars before the rest of the industry catches up. Personally, I don’t see how they get there in time.

At a personal level, friends have challenged me on my doubts, making Slingbox-to-Sony comparisons. Here are the quick differences:

  • Slingbox/Sony LFTV was a brand new category to define – Dash is an existing, huge one (that may actually be on the verge of decline).
  • Sony’s product was terrible (sure I’m biased, but virtually every single user and professional review backs up this comment), whereas companies like Garmin/TomTom make great products. Further, these products are cheaper than Dash.
  • Slingbox averages 4.5 stars from Amazon users (181 reviews as of this writing), and had massive impact from strong word of mouth effects, yet Dash’s user reviews are nowhere near as glowing.
  • Slingbox had an instant “I get it, I need it” (or “I don’t need it”) response when people heard about it, one that left almost no room for discussion. Dash has to define itself around existing categories with incremental (albeit cool) technologies. Worse still, Dash has a monthly/annual service fee.

Part of me really wants to see Dash overcome these odds. Another part of me thinks this is a whole lot of money chasing an excessively elusive goal. I believe the company’s best chance at mere survival is through licensing, which is another tricky path to follow on its own.

I hate to say it, but I believe this is one of those disappointing moments where good technology doesn’t appear to have the legs it’s going to need to survive for the long haul. Can Dash navigate these windy roads? Will I come up with yet another terrible pun? Can this post get any longer? Only time will tell.

Updated: while re-reading this, I realized I’m leaving out a key point here: it is entirely possible that the cost structure for running Dash as a company is low enough that they do not need to be a top player in the space. It could be a healthy company without being as big as the Garmin/TomTom/other pool…

The Casio EX-F1. It will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.

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For years I’ve envisioned a future of digital cameras that would be smart enough to take more than one picture at a time, but instead would simply take a stream of pictures that you’d select from a little later.  I didn’t have all the details worked out, but it seemed like the logical evolution.  When I read David Pogue’s column a few minutes ago, it looks like the guys at Casio have in fact worked it out:

It takes 60 pictures per second (not 60 frames of a compressed movie file, which is different), all are 6MP.

After taking, you can keep em, delete em, or pick manually.

Per Pogue: “In pre-record mode, you half-press the shutter button when you’re awaiting an event that’s unpredictable: a breaching whale, a geyser’s eruption or a 5-year-old batter connecting with the ball. The camera silently, repeatedly records 60 shots a second, immediately discarding the old to make room for the new.

When you finally press the shutter button fully, the camera simply preserves the most recent shots, thus effectively photographing an event that, technically speaking, you missed.” – WOW!

It also has a motion detector.

For a full review, go back to David’s article, it’s very balanced and thorough.

Will I really buy one?  I don’t know, I still don’t like the idea of a big bulky camera to lug around.  I’m also not sure if this is exactly up the alley of a “prosumer” such as Thomas Hawk, as Pogue laments about the quality of the actual picture-taking-thingamajig inside the camera.

But this definitely marks the future of the entire category.  In fact it’ll always be features and functions like these that keep the digital camera sector enough steps ahead of cell phones to remain extremely relevant.  Me likey.

To Demo/TC50 Organizers: Go Clean Up Your Mess

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I posted last night on my marketing blog about how I feel marketeers will need to deal with the conference overlap situation.  As I’ve watched the news unfold, the following is clear:

Prediction one: it will get worse from here from both organizing groups

Prediction two: people will take sides, which will further antagonize the situation

Here’s the ultimate reality: It doesn’t matter whose “fault” this is, and there’s no point in trying to determine who was trying to screw the other one over. This is a LOSE-LOSE proposition.  NOBODY benefits.  Startup entrepreneurs will not get nearly the impact from attending EITHER conference this way.  Bloggers, press, and media will not get to see half the companies they’d like to see.  The first week of September will be just noise, no signal.

My recommendation is the groups GET ON THE PHONE with each other, and find a solution.  I doubt this will happen, as it’s probably too late to deal with the financial consequences, and there’s probably so much bad blood already that nobody will get off their perches.

In some industries competition is a very good and healthy thing.  PCs are probably going to get better because of the recent success of the Mac.  This is good.  When it comes to conferences that have similar offerings to a limited marketplace, this type of competition is plainly unhealthy.

Chris, Mike, Jason – you are intelligent, respected thought leaders in our community.  Please go take the steps needed to help the industry make smart decisions about what to do this September.

iPods are turning everyone into zombies

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I love that just by posting on 04/01 I have to give a disclaimer that this post is NOT an April Fool’s joke (thank you Anil). What a terrible day to be online.

I ride the bus to work every day. Everywhere I look I see the white headphones of cool iPod people. I get off the bus, walk to the office. People walk by with the whites on. On the plane. In line at Starbucks. On bicycles. In the tub. In the car. Up against the mini-bar…

It’s annoying.

Some might read this, think “it’s just like Walkmans were”, but thats definitely not the case. Walkmans were never so pervasive in our culture, they were just too darn bulky. iPods are so well designed they are close to invisible, and convenient to carry. And the clever commercials did such a good job branding the signature headphones that it’s a bit of a fashion statement to wear them (I still vote for Shures incidentally).

I’m tired of getting bumped into by people who don’t even realize it because they’re so focused on whatever it is they listen to. Here’s the thing people: YOU DON’T HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOUR IPOD ALL THE TIME. It’s true, studies have proven it. It’s okay to NOT be entertained 100% of your bus ride, walk, or other moment in life where you can just, you know, think about something or read a book.

In case I’m not clear here – I have no problems with iPods (though my Rio Karma was still the best MP3 player out there… once), nor using them when appropriate. As a wise man once said, “Life goes by pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Thus endeth the ranting.

One more thing:  If you DO have to have your iPod in use in a public place, please check the volume – the rest of us don’t want to hear the tinny aftertunes.

Gotta Love Bloggers Blogging About Bloggers Blogging!

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Dave Winer believes the end is near for blogging as we know it (or knew it?  sorry if I’ve misinterpreted, Dave), and Mark Evans feels there isn’t much original thought out there. These are two people I know, like, and respect, and two people I’m in complete disagreement with.  First of all, there’s tons of good, nay, great blogging out there.  A small fraction of it makes it to TechMeme. By the way, I’d recommend reading Ed Bott’s thoughts on the blogosphere, which seems to have kicked this whole thread off (good on ya, Ed!).

If I can make the analogy, think of the movie industry.  There’s a lot of creative, original movies being made every year.  Most of them don’t air at the uberplex, and the typical Blockbuster employee won’t recommend them to you.  Sometimes they “bubble up” like Little Miss Sunshine did last year (overrated by the way, but that’s not the point), or Sideways a few years back.  But if you read the mainstream reviews and movie sites, you have to deal with the Stiller-Wilson-Vaughn Theory (a modernization of the classic Caine-Hackman Theory).

TechMeme tracks “the conversation” and therefore is the worst agent possible for finding distinct, outlying content.  This isn’t saying TechMeme is bad, it’s not, it’s very good at what it does.  But now we are seeing a certain lament for the so-called 250, who appear to blog about an insular set of topics.  Well, let’s face it, a certain percentage of the incentive to blog is ego-driven, and it ranges from individual to individual.  The more one wants power or fame, the more one is likely to want to be found on TechMeme.  The more one wants to express individual, distinct thought, the less likely TechMeme acts as a motivator.  Ask Robin Williams why he did Good Will Hunting, my hunch is it’ll help clarify things.

Several months ago I made the decision to rarely get involved with TechMeme topics (which this post is most clearly defying, ain’t it ironic?).  It’s my feeling that there are enough other intelligent people out there getting into those “conversations” but the truth is, I started getting the feeling that they weren’t really conversations, they were more like discordant shouting matches (albeit occasionally polite ones).  I feel it’s unlikely that I have many readers (other than my family) who follow my blog but are completely in the dark on these other “popular” topics.  But more importantly, I just felt I wasn’t really blogging about things that inspired me as much as others.

I may not be in the 250.  I may not have hundreds of thousands of readers subscribing to my feed.  I don’t really know anymore, since I turned off all stats anyway.   Want to find some different voices?  Look for the bloggers who rarely make TechMeme, and subscribe to them, and take the time to read them regularly (here’s four to get you started:  Frank Piller, Shawn Morton, Umair Haque, Tom Evslin – no offense to my other friends, I just wanted to pick some that don’t fall into the mainstream as often!) .  Unsubscribe from “TechMeme Regulars” since it’s pretty likely you don’t need to read all their posts anyway.  In other words, if you really want to find the indie films, you’re going to have to stop renting from Blockbuster.

Geeks, please go do some more good!

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Last December we organized our first “Geeks Doing Good” event at the SF Food Bank.  We had a good time, and more importantly, did a lot of good (especially by inspiring others, such as Robert Scoble). We’ve since set up a Facebook group and my colleague Andrew Kippen has done a phenomenal job pulling together more activities and volunteers.

Not exactly sure why, but compared to things like FriendFeed we aren’t getting nearly the responsiveness we’d originally anticipated.  That said, the word did make it around the world to Cameron Reilly in Australia, who did a 30 minute podcast with me a few weeks ago.  I think a lot of people have a lot of preconceived notions about volunteering.  It certainly doesn’t seem “sexy” or “cool” to spend the day working in the SF Food Bank.  It’s true, it isn’t really “cool” but a quick recollection of the “cool kids” I knew back in high school places them today working at the local TJ Maxx and/or something that involves using packing tape many hours per day (not that there’s anything wrong with either job – but they aren’t quite the expectations those kids probably had back in the day when they were being very cool), so I’m all good with not being cool.

Which brings us back to this weekend.  Andrew & co have organized two more shifts at the Food Bank (morning and afternoon).  I personally won’t be able to join this time around, but maybe I can get one LIVEdigitally reader per shift to sign up and volunteer on my behalf?  I know there’s lots of other things you can do this weekend but I will promise you this – none of them are quite as rewarding.  Knowing you’ve contributed to making the world a better place feels great (yes, even better than calling in a helicopter in COD4!).

Prelim Vaio Update: Maybe Not So Sucky???

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When Ed Bott first told me he wanted to get a look (so to speak) under the Sony Vaio’s hood, I have to admit, I sorta snickered. Not because I didn’t think it would be interesting, but because I was pretty sure the situation was so hopeless. He’s had a few days with it now and it turns out he’s making some impressive progress. So impressive that I might not be able to write snarky headlines like this one anymore! Highlights:

  • Before shipping the machine off to me, Jeremy noted that he had wiped out Vista and installed Windows XP. Ironically, the machine with XP installed was practically unusable. (jt: yes, this I can attest to!)
  • With a clean install of Vista Business and enough custom drivers to enable all installed hardware devices, the system was a rocket. Boot time to the logon screen was 33 seconds. (jt: zomg!)
  • With that hardware and a clean copy of Vista, there’s no slowdown to be noted. (jt: wow!)

Ed will go into the nitty gritty of how he waded through the Sony murk and mire to accomplish this in a future post, but I do recommend reading his report so far. Especially the part where he’ll be talking to Sony reps, I’m very curious about their feedback.

Since I’ve never really talked about it, I wanted to clear up one potential misconception of “me vs Sony”. As I blogged about back in 2006, I loved my last Vaio. I told *the world* about my Vaio (literally, as that was the year I notched about 180K miles). I raved and raved. When someone wanted a reco, I said “buy-0 a Vaio” (not really, I’m not quite that corny). So when mine got stolen and I replaced it with the newer model it was as a previously very satisfied customer.

When you go from really loving something to finding its replacement utterly terrible (much like Crissy on Three’s Company), there’s a true feeling of betrayal. I am like a woman scorned, and plan to tell everyone in the world as such until I feel it’s been made right. Ed has very generously offered his time to do this “Vaio Speedup Challenge”, but frankly I feel that Sony “owes” me. Is that a fair feeling, probably not. I feel much of the same angst toward Microsoft right now, as a 15-year Windows veteran I am not happy with the fact that I felt I had no choice but to go Mac. It’s all a little irrational, but spending 8-16 hours a day with a computer over my career pretty much implies I’ve spent more waking hours with Windows than I have with my wife so far! That’s quite a relationship to burn.

Back to the topic at hand. I am very excited to see the new & improved Vaio. The Dell I’ve been checking out has performed very well (we had a minor snafu with a mouse we hooked up, but it turns out it was a negligible error that was fixable in minutes), and it’s refreshing to see a Vista experience that is leaps and bounds above what I’ve experienced so far. And huge thanks to Ed for taking the time to do this!!!