November 2005 Archives
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November 28, 2005
My iPod nano Grew Up!
Yeah, that's right. It's now physically bigger, now stores 30 times as much stuff, has a longer battery life (20 hours instead of 14 hours), and has a larger, higher resolution screen. Yep, that's right. It's now just a regular, plain iPod ('you know, with video").
It would appear that the craze to find XBox 360 consoles over the weekend left a supply of iPods laying about. So I picked one up. And then purchased it. I got a white one because I've determined that I actually like the white better. Don't get me wrong; the black one is nice looking. But something about the white one is cleaner to me. And I didn't buy it because it was the only choice. Between Fry's, Apple stores, and other places (but not Radio Shack) there were plenty of all iPods in stock (black and white nanos, black and white normals, all sizes). Ok, maybe not plenty, but I saw them in stock.
In any case, I've decided that I like the iPod. It's easy to use, has some nifty features, has decent battery life, and even the largest of the pack (the 60GB iPod, like I have) is still pretty small.
The iPod nano turned me on to the wonders of syncing with iTunes (which, clearly I like now) as well as some of the other nice features. One of those is that when you pull any wire from the headphone jack, it pauses the song. This saves me a step when getting out of the car ; I can just pull the wire between it and the stereo and it pauses. I don't even have to remove the iPod from its sleeve. (It also turns on when the jack is plugged in.)
I also really like the fast forward. I'm not talking about the fast forward by holding down the forward or back buttons. That's actually pretty slow -- no faster than the crazy slow MegaSound VRCD300-USB one. What I'm referring to is when you press the center button twice while music is playing you can then use the wheel to move to a specific location. Spinning it fast can get through an hour in just a few seconds -- much better than 6 seconds a minute where an hour will still take 6 minutes! I just wish this was available during video playback. However, with the ability to keep the play location in what appears to be all playable files, this also becomes less important. Unlike other players, I usually don't have to fast forward to where I was because it keeps it -- and sync it to iTunes!
Anyway, this isn't any sort of review; there are probably a thousand other real reviews out there of this thing.
like my iPod ("you know, with video").
Shane Conder's Whateveritis of Nothing: The iPod nano -- Issues and Impressions
November 22, 2005
Alltel Motorola RAZR V3c Available
I had my hands on this phone for only a little while. Although the hardware is basically identical to the upcoming Verizon RAZR, this handset has a normal Motorola user interface sans menu button.
It's curious that they list it as having an MP3 player since it doesn't have a memory card slot. How will music be put onto the handset? Hmmm... Makes one wonder, huh?
The price is actually rather nice at $199 with service. That's a bit more than the GSM RAZRs, but it does have more features, including the higher resolution camera.
I'll still be doing a more complete review of the Verizon RAZR when it is made available.
Check it out at Alltel's site.
November 20, 2005
Apple iPod vs. US Robotics Palm Pilot
After having owned an iPod for, oh, about a week now yet having been around them since late 2001 because of my friends that not only are early adopters, but tend to buy everything, I've now realized why they continued to buy new versions of the iPod and why it's so cool compared to other, cheaper MP3 players. At about the same time, I came to the realization that this particular reason is incredibly similar to what made the original US Robotics Palm Pilot popular.
What is this one, crucial thing? The ability to sync data. At the time of the Pilot 1000 and, similarly, the 5 GB first generition iPod, competing devices could copy data from the PC to the device. This, of course, is easy. "Look, our MP3 player comes up as a drive and you can just drag your songs to it to play!" "Our personal digital assistant comes with a serial cable so you can load up your contacts!"
What the Pilot did was actually sync your data -- even email -- between the computer and the device. That is, if you made a change to the data on either side it would be updated on the other side the next time you stuck it on the cradle. This same thing happens with the iPod: you play a song and that fact syncs to iTunes or you add a song to your collection and that syncs to your iPod.
Although earlier versions of the Palm could use attachable modems, it wasn't really until the Palm VII when the device could actually be used without a computer. However, even then, you'd usually want to cradle sync it. These days, a Treo doesn't really need to be cradled. Storage has increased from 128 kilobytes in 1995 to 4 GB in the LifeDrive (128 megabytes in the TX, the largest of the flash-only devices). (That's between 1,000x and 32,768x of the original device -- after only 10 years).
The iPod is behind in the product curve -- by about 6 years if the curve is developing at a similar rate. The product curve has been fairly similar, actually. Both made incremental improvements along the way, but if you compare pictures of the first generation iPod to even the most different of the modern iPods, the shuffle, you'll see similarities. Likewise, you'll see similarities between even a pilot 1000 and a Treo.
So, given similar rate of design changes over time and a surprisingly similar type of device with their own genre of portable devices, can we use this to predict the nature of future iPods?
One conclusion might be that we'll see 5 terabyte iPods by 2011. And don't ask why you'll need "that much storage." By then, it won't seem that way. With the 5G iPod, the current storage amount just got relatively smaller because of the video capability.
What else can we expect? I think we can continue to expect smaller sizes. (Think iPod nano mini -- or is that mini nano? Likewise, iPod shuffle mini.) In addition, we can expect to sign incremental improvements to both iTunes and the iPod software over time, much like we have been seeing. Exactly what those will be only time can tell.
But the real question is whether or not we'll see abilities that can cause the cradle to be unnecessary. Even with the ROKR handset, there is no ability to do anything wireless with the iTunes software built into the phone. However, on the Palm front, although most devices now have WiFi and Bluetooth, the primary ones that are used without cradles still seem to be the Treo's, or the phone versions. So, will this only come in the phone versions of the iPod, such as future ROKR generations?
Or will we see WiFi-enabled iPods that can download iTunes songs directly through a hotspot without needing the PC on? Who knows. Apple might not even know yet. They seem to move in small steps so they can react quickly. A good case of this is the video feature of the iPod. Long did they claim it wasn't going to happen, but look at them now.
November 16, 2005
Fizzling Fishes? Pêche Pop? Salmon Soda?
I suppose since Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans are still popular, it shouldn't come as quite such a surprise that a Seattle-based soda company is marketing some really weird new beverages for the holidays season...
...like Smoked Salmon Paté.
... or Brussels Sprout with Prosciutto.
... or Wild Herb Stuffing.
... or Corn on the Cob.
And what's with their hokey labels? Where are the nice, happy pink fishes with the empty eye sockets and the gaping mouths? I could have made better labels! But at least the holiday packs come with a pre-moistened towelette.
I can't even handle my husband eating smoked salmon in the same house, let alone having the juice around. Ugh! But I guess it's cheaper than buying the fish itself? Maybe drink it with a jigger of cream and some crackers and call it lox?
There are, of course, other flavors like Brussels Sprout with Prosciutto. While the sprouts sound cool, and it's a neat green color, I have issues with the pig-juicing process.
For beverage connoisseurs tired of turkey-and-gravy or green-beans-and-casserole-flavored sodas, there's a new choice being offered this year by specialty U.S. soda manufacturer Jones Soda Co.: salmon.
Jones Soda, the Seattle company that scored a hit during the last two holiday seasons with its turkey-and-gravy-flavored sodas, said it is offering the orange-hued fish-flavored drink this year in a nod to the Pacific Northwest's salmon catch."When you smell it, it's got that smoked salmon aroma," said Peter van Stolk, chief executive of Jones Soda.
...
Asked whether he liked his new salmon soda, van Stolk said: "I cannot finish a bottle, I just can't."
More at: CNN Money: Seattle's Jones Soda offering salmon-flavored soda
I really can't blame the guy. It sounds vile. (Although the Pumpkin Pie does sound promising)
Perfones? Phero-tones?
I was just listening to NPR the other day and they were talking about environmental concerns with the hazardous substances that cell phones are built from in order to keep them flame resistant and such - like lead and mercury. Therefore I find it even weirder that someone would want to keep flammable substances in their phone... or maybe not.
So now there's this stupid smelly phone that acts as a perfume spritzer, spewing flammable liquid left and right and possibly in my eyes as I fumble for it in the car. I mean really, I understand the wish to make cell phones as functional as possible, but why not improve upon the somewhat reflective mirror on the Samsung A970 instead and make it suitable for makeup?
Keitai KunKun’s Smelltones be damned, now we getting into the land of proper perfume spraying mobile devices. You’ve got to have yourself a damn intense affinity for fragrances — and a tolerance for otherwise lackluster looking gimmicky devices — to drop $1,200 on Hyundai’s MP 280 perfumephone, which gives a spritz whenever you open it up. But don’t worry, after you exhaust your supply of Marc Jacobs EDP you can refill the perfume chamber with a syringe — also somehow strangely appropriate.
November 13, 2005
The iPod nano -- Issues and Impressions
So, I picked up a nano recently to check out. Although, as an Apple product, it's quite nice and it's size is completely impressive, it does have a few issues that I've run across.
Having had it for only a few hours, and mostly just sitting in it's nice little leather-like case it came with, I'm surprised that it's already got scratches on it. Well, maybe I shouldn't be.
But that's what everyone else is complaining about. My issues are a bit different. FIrst, I find it annoying that the headphone jack is right next to the IO port since when the headphones are plugged in you can't get to the latch to unplug the cable.
I find it annoying with iTunes that you can't choose what will be synced up with the iPod without it being attached. I understand that's probably so you can deal with multiple iPods, but I sitll find it to be a nuisance.
As for the good things, well, I've already mentioned it's size. I also really like that I can control the volume through the case -- the touch sensor is apparently electrostatic so you don't need to be directly touching it.
I also really like that it synchronizes the location in an MP3 file. This is great because I can be listening to a podcast in the car, then go inside, sync the iPod, and continue listening to it with iTunes.
And I would need to do that because when you plug in the nano the playing stops until the synchronization is done. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if there was an alternate way to charge the device.
November 10, 2005
If Life Gives You Pumpkins...
... Then Build Yourself A Trebuchet?
Ok, so if you're not going to make nice little squirrel feeders with your leftover pumpkins, then this, at least, is another constructive way to fertilize a field. In this case, medieval-style.
Deep in the heart of credit card country, the locals have an annual pumpkin-chucking contest. Every year they build all manner of contraptions with one thought in mind: squash-projectile carnage with a focus on distance, if not accuracy..
And who can blaim them?
It's a tough month to be a pumpkin. The latest proof comes from southern Delaware, where competitors armed with canons, catapults, trebuchets, and other medieval seige weapons test their gourd-chucking mettle.
Check out the Video at: National Geo: Pumpkin-Chucking Catapults
And let me leave you with this thought... How Much Squash Could A Sasquatch Squash If A Sasquatch Could Squash Squash? Ok, sorry, I just had to say that. ;P
November 7, 2005
Firefox and Tabbrowser Extensions
So, I've been using Firefox solid since 1.0 preview (and since about 0.9 in a lighter way) so I'm a relative newcomer. However, when I first came in Tabbrowser Extensions, or Tabbed Browser Extension, or TBE, was pushed as one of the few extensions to fully configure the tab browsing experience. I like keeping everything in one window -- even popups. This makes for a cleaner OS, less worry of popups being an issue, but it also leaves some issues. Like you can't see two windows at once -- but Ctrl-# key makes that a non-issue. The other thing I like about TBE is that it provides a way to store and retrieve tab sessions.
One thing that really brought me to Firefox was that, in the beginning, it always seemed much faster than Internet Explorer (IE). However, lately, I've been using IE when I want to open up a single page and have it work fast. Clearly, something had changed.
Now, with Firefox 1.5 RC1 out I'm looking to upgrade. So, I decided to check out to see if TBE supported 1.5 RC1. And I found that the author was unrecommending the extension! A few threads later and the link at the bottom later, I had discovered that really early on this extension was very disliked and later on most of the functionality had been folded into Firefox, but not all. This extension has been updated quite frequently over time, but even the author admits that it's huge and makes Firefox slow.
Ack! And I've been using it the whole time. *sigh*
So, I think I'll be dumping it with the upgrade to 1.5 RC1. Hopefully I'll be able to fully enclose all browser windows and get some form of session management with some other plugin -- or maybe Fx1.5RC1 has this support now. I've gotten so used to it I don't know if I'll be able to manage without it. Heh. Yah, right. Change is good and fun. Of course, I'll be looking forward to the speed improvements due to the lack of TBE and the speed improvements that have been made in Fx1.5RC1. That should make for a super fast system. ;)
XUL Apps > Tabbrowser Extensions > Advantage and Disadvantage - outsider reflex
UPDATE: Of course, after installing, TBE works just fine (as it did before)... but my spell checker extenshun doesn't. Doh! Now I have to decide if I really want to remove TBE or not. ;)
November 6, 2005
Mobile AJAX: Can It Be?
So, AJAX is all the rage these days. One of the reasons I think it's become so popular recently is that it's very wide spread. Since it's been possible since 1998, browsers have had quite some time to get support in.
Well, with the power of mobile phones these days I thought I would do some research to see if there might be some mobile browser that supports something similar to AJAX. That is, being able to embed a scripting language on a web page that can make it's own web requests and parse the responses for placement into a DHTML page.
I figured the best way to go about doing this is by doing some googling. Ironically enough, the first thing that came up was about Google, AJAX, and their wifi network so it could enable mobile AJAX. Yeah, but from a laptop. Not quite what I was looking for.
Continuing down the list, I found a bunch of talk about a potential future language called MIL. There used to be WMLScript, but that seems to have gone away with WML. It didn't have much capability, anyway.
I haven't been able to figure out much about MIL. It seems like it's a language being developed by a new company. Unfortunately, that means it's both far out, risky, and not useful today.
So, it would appear that there is no mobile equivalent to AJAX available. Sure, you can do AJAX directly on Windows Mobile devices and the like. But if you wanted to try to do AJAX on the Openwave browser, well, you were dreaming.
For now, we'll have to stick with doing BREW and J2ME applications on our mobile devices.
So, no, it can't be.
Moblets: MIL is AJAX in disguise!
Ajaxian: Ajax for Mobile Devices: MIL
Enhancing Blog Traffic
Some people write blogs because they want to journal things they are doing, things around them, and their feelings about such things. Other people write blogs as particular format of a website with a specific topic in mind. Many others are somewhere in the middle. Regardless of the type you write, it's often nice to get feedback on posts.
This can be accomplished in a couple of different ways. One way is to keep your blog among friends and get your friends to take part. This is very common among the people around me. Another way is to drive traffic to your site. The links at the end of the post are mostly about the latter.
I've found that the primary way to get traffic on my site is by writing content that people want to read or that is very current. Since I tend to follow gadget news, this often means writing something about a very current toy. Another way that works well is by good content on forums where a signature has a link to it. You can't just write, "check me out!" Well, you can, but it won't be taken as seriously as real content -- nor will it come up in searches.
One of the ways mentioned in these articles that I hadn't considered was by signing up with each of the RSS aggregators and making sure to subscribe you'll make sure those sites spider your site. You don't have to rely on pinging them or other people to subscribe. (The User Agent these aggregators use usually lists the number of subscribers in it, which is very useful.)
Many of the normal website design patterns and rules also apply. However, it's my opinion that a successful blog can get away with breaking some of the rules. After all, it's your blog and you can do what you want. You aren't necessarily targetting everyone, anyway. Ultimately, people like you will find it and come. Sure, it is potentially a much smaller population of people, but that's your decision to make not some web designers.
Naturally, you could advertise. But do you really want to advertise to bring traffic to your blog? In one post on a forum site, I drove over 500 visitors to my site. At 10 cents a visitor, that had $50 in value. And the traffic was likely all much more real than that from advertising. Of course, I'm sure some of the blogs out there spend thousands to advertise. It would take a lot of work to match those results with a single person making some forum posts.
One of the sites mentions Technorati as being a way to generate a lot of traffic. My results haven't shown it to be any better or worse off than other sites. But then, maybe I'm not using it correctly. ;)
In any case, some of these methods to increase traffic can be fun, too. So, enjoy!
HOW TO: Boost Your Blog Traffic at PaulStamatiou.com
Intelligent Bacon: 16 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog. Tips for Terrific Telephone Interviews.
November 3, 2005
Virtual Blast from the Past!
This little (rather large, actually) post by Engadget a while back takes a great look at new gadgets -- from 1985! Complete with 16 color dithered graphics and a fixed width font. You gotta love it!
Engadget 1985 - Engadget - www.engadget.com
The Motorola V3c RAZR on Verizon
UPDATE: I'll have a review coming soon here.
Hey, you know what that is. Everyone knows what it is. What, you say you don't? Well, look at the picture. Pfft.
Yes, that's the RAZR. The CDMA RAZR, specifically. It looks like it's the big talk on Howard Forums and some of the gadget sites today. Apparently someone scanned in a Verizon ad for it. Mobile Prototype has a bunch more pictures of it. At least, more than I'm willing to put up until it ships. ;)
So I guess that means I can mention I've had one for a while. Well, I've had my hands on one for a while at least.
It's odd, though. After finally getting my hands on one and messing around with it, I can't figure out what the draw is. I remember when I first saw a picture of the RAZR I thought it was all cool and Star Trek like. I thought I had posted about it when images first surfaced on Phone Scoop before it was released, but a search doesn't reveal anything. Maybe it was on my old blog -- I still haven't moved all of that over to here.
In any case, yeah, I've touched it, used it, explored it, and fondled it. I came out really liking my LG VX9800. No, seriously. Well, I'm still planning on doing some sort of write-up for the RAZR. I'll probably do a brief overview of everything with my opinions and see if I get any questions about it. Heck, people may have questions now. I mean, if anyone reads this or cares.
So, what's so good about the RAZR? It's thin. What else? Not much. It's a Motorola, but does it have the Motorola UI? It does have a 1.3 MP camera, bluetooth (for headsets and stuff), a low resolution 176x220 screen (low compared to my VX9800, at least -- normal these days), a mini USB port (now that's cool), 1xEVDO (excellent), VCast service (gotta love The Daily Show!), and it's thin. Any questions?
November 2, 2005
Recyc-O-Lantern
I'm a big fan of reusing stuff so that it doesn't go to waste. Perhaps that's why bread pudding recipes are so nice, they turn stale bread into yumminess. Now the Ranger Rick magazine website is teaching kids how to make animal feeders out of their mushy pumpkin remains. What fun!
You can also use the pumpkins in pies and such, but I've had the worst luck roasting the seeds. Inevitably, I get distracted watching scary movies and they end up blackened. We've got lots of squirrels happy to eat anything we put in the backyard...
After the holiday, don't throw out your jack-o-lantern. Turn it into a feeder for backyard visitors such as squirrels, chipmunks, or birds.
More At: Snack-o-lantern: Recycle Halloween
