May 12, 2008
When a 7.8 Isn't Top News
I started going through my Google Reader feeds when I ran across folks blogging about the earthquake in China some number of hours ago. From the chatter about it, the quake sounded pretty big.
So, I figured I would go over to msnbc to check out more info about it. The top story, though, wasn't about the quake. Instead, it was about a large storm that went through a few states killing a couple of dozen people.
What a night, huh?
The quake, on the other hand, was supposedly felt from Beijing to as far south as Hanoi. That's a rather large radius, especially to not make top spot on news sites.
Don't get me wrong; the storm is probably more correctly the top news. That's really the part that's sad. It's even the same on Google News, which is supposedly all automatically generated.
Anyway, I'm off to find happy news. Does that exist anymore?
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(0)April 30, 2008
Nokia N95 GPS Tip on AT&T
Do you have a Nokia N95? Do you want to use GPS? Does the GPS seem very slow? If so, check out these couple of tips to see if you can speed it up. Mine is fast now, and works indoors.
First, check what your current settings are for positioning. These are found pretty deep down in the menus at: "Menu->Tools->Settings->General->Positioning->Positioning Methods". Is GPS on? Is assisted GPS on? What about Network Based?
Network based will work much like the iPhone currently works. It'll get you the general area, and might be close by accident. GPS is the true GPS. Assisted GPS, however, is what didn't work for me. Until I added Nokia's positioning server. This setting is under Positioning->Positioning Server->Server address. I made mine "supl.nokia.com" and now I can get a very accurate position indoors.
If your phone didn't need this or already had a setting, let us know what it is. Mine, which I just got from Amazon a week ago, didn't have any of this set up at all.
Also, if you want to tag images in a lighter way than ShoZu, try out Nokia's beta application, Location Tagger. The site implies this will eventually be in the firmware, but for now it's a beta application that runs in the background.
April 29, 2008
Why I Now Own a Nokia N95
Yeah, you read right. I have a Nokia N95. Technically, it's a Nokia N95-3. That's the US 3G version that has a measly 160MB of internal storage and microSDHC card slot for expansion (it came with a 1GB card in it, too). The N95-4 with 8GB of internal storage and a large screen is nice, but it has no memory card slot which is substantially less useful.
Don't I have an Apple iPhone? Why yes, I do! It's a very sad iPhone now, too, but it's not nearly as lonely -- I'm carrying both around.
But isn't the iPhone the best phone out there? Yes, it absolutely is. There's no doubt about that. It's not a perfect phone, but it really is the best. And by best, I mean the easiest and most intuitive to use. Even the on-screen keyboard is typically easier to use than most physical keyboards (how many of those do you see with a ".com" button or single click access to just about every symbol?).
So, why is it that you now have a Nokia N95? First let me tell you about SIM cards...
Read the rest of "Why I Now Own a Nokia N95"April 18, 2008
TV for Web Video
Why don't more people use their TVs for web video? Netflix, Hulu, Joost, Adobe Media Player, and the direct network sites such as abc.com, nbc.com, thecw.com, and so on all have streaming videos of many of their shows available for the low cost of only a few ads (compared to nearly 20 minutes of ads during broadcast for an hour long show) or none, in the case of Hulu. Some even provide movies (Netflix, of course, and Hulu). Some also do HD streaming. On ABC, this translates to 720p video at about 2 Mbps. The result is video that looks better than a DVD.
I'm constantly seeing how even relatively savvy people watch these services on their laptop but state that because it's still a so-called lean-forward experience that they don't use them much. Why is this? Both of our TVs have VGA input, with a standard DB25 connector. They're just LCD monitors that have a physical resolution of 1920x1080, which may even be lower than your laptops display (many 15+ inch displays have 1920x1200 displays). I tend to leave a VGA cable hanging out so all I have to do is plug it in to the machine. In Windows XP, you'll probably have to tell it a monitor is plugged in but in Vista it just figures it out and goes. Then you I just play the video full screen on the TV display. Simple.
Yet, very few people seem to do this. It can't get much easier than that short of a dedicate HTPC or set top box that can handle the video. So, why don't more people do it?
Even if their TVs don't have VGA input, DVI and HDMI are relatively common on TVs and are also starting to become common place on computers and even laptops (I've got a three year old laptop here that has DVI).
To me, doing this seems like the perfect way to not have to pay for cable or DVR service. Add Netflix to the mix, and you've got all the HD titles you can rent available to you in a day or two (arguably faster than some download services).
What's stopping you? Is it that you browse while watching TV? I can still do that -- the show is on the second screen and doesn't use all the power of even my 2 Ghz Core 2 to play. (My iPhone also works brilliantly for browsing in front of the TV.)
April 16, 2008
Big Changes
I don't talk about work a lot here. I have hardly talked here at all lately. I'm expecting that to change. I have talked about that recently. Now I have even more reason to change.
I'm leaving the company I've been with for 6.5 years. I've been there a long time and for a variety of reasons, it's time for me to move on. I still have a couple of weeks left, of course. I'm expecting it to be a relatively busy couple of weeks, so who knows how much I'll be here.
And then what am I doing? Yeah, that's what everyone is asking. And that's what I'm not talking about. If you know me and my Gmail address, then you can email me and ask questions, of course, and I'll say what I can.
Enough for now... I'm tired. It's been a long day.
