Who is Talking?

Another silly screenshot for you. I know who is popping up this messagebox (Adobe Reader 7), but why should I have to play detective? Why don't you just tell me the name of the app you want to upgrade?



Ohh, and software companies if you are listening, we are in the day and age of not rebooting our computers every other day. I will leave a system up for months if it will let me. This means, you need to figure out how to apply patches without rebooting, or at the very least, queue the patches so they all get applied the next time I reboot.

Finally, why does a simple PDF reader require a system reboot?

Amazon: A to B-side

Well looky there, people will buy music on the Internet. Now that Apple is rapidly approaching the sale of the 1 billionth track from the iTMS, it looks like there are going to be some late arrivals to the online music party. It's already a pretty jumpin' get together. Between iTMS, Napster, Rhapsody, some of the smaller players, and some of the dubious players, you'd think all of the angles were covered. Apparently Amazon doesn't think so. Rumor has it that they will launch their own music service this summer.

Amazon has a tough battle ahead. They already have a music store and I already buy a lot of music from them, but it comes on these shiny discs. The stuff that comes in digital form comes from iTMS and Beatport. They can however get some of my digital music dollars, and here is how.

• Don't make me choose. I don't want to pick between physical and digital. Let me buy the physical disc and instantly get access to the digital files for download.


• Give me more playback options. Make the music I buy available for playback from the web from any Internet connected computer. You might remember this idea from back in 1999 when MP3.com rose like a rocket and fell just as hard. Here it is, 2006 and we still don't have a stand out solution in this area. People are trying, but no one is winning. Amazon has the marketing power and cash to win.


• Allow reselling of digital music - Amazon has a well established used sales market. Nearly every product you can buy new, you can buy used. Having the ability to sell back the rights to a digital download would be huge.


• Better catalog than the rest - I buy a lot of music from Amazon because I can't buy it at my local Best Buy, or on iTMS. If Amazon can make that same catalog available digitally, they might get even more business.

I'll be watching this closely, but I'm not really expecting much. Just take a look at the mess (beta) that is the Google Video Store for my expectations of Amazon's offering.

The Other Multimedia

Like it or not, most of the music and movies we buy still comes on physical media. Whether it be CD, DVD, UMD, Blu-ray, HD-DVD. VHS, Vinyl, whatever, we have lots of choices, and lots of opportunity to buy the same thing twice. In today's world, we take media with us. We consume it in multiple places and multiple sizes. Some of us even spend a lot of time converting from one format to another. The question I have for all (both) of the readers out there, is...

Would you pay more to have multiple formats in a single shrinkwrapped package?

This isn't an original idea, but it is an interesting topic to me. Bandai is already shipping DVD and UMD together. Too bad UMD isn't doing too well. Is this a move to plant a few more UMDs? You can get BT's Monster soundtrack on both DVD and CD in the same package. DJ Shadow has done similar with his releases. This has been fantastic because I can grab the CD when I'm off to the car, or watch it at the computer or from the couch when I'm at home.

As we move to high-def movies, won't we still want to watch those movies on our old DVD players? You can watch DVDs on Blu-ray players, but not the other way around. In this case, I think I would pay an extra $5 to have a fully produced DVD along with my shiny new Blu-ray.

What about digital files? All of the media producers are scared to death that the second a movie is bits, it is shared with everyone with an Internet connection. I really don't think that's true. You'll always have the pirates (arrrrr) that, no matter what the price, will think it is too much and will delight in getting it free on the Internet. Those people are a lost cause. Forget about them. What about folks like myself? I pay for my media, and I am penalized for it. If I want to put a DVD on my iPod, I have to use illegal tools to do so. Even worse, the morons over at the RIAA want us to think the act of ripping tracks to play on our favorite MP3 player is not fair use. Would the world end if pre-shaped digital copies of our media were included with our DVDs and CDs? By pre-shaped, I mean mp3s formatted for DAPs and MPEGs with the appropriate bitrates and dimensions for iPods.

If it really is all about licensing content, rather than owning it, why don't we already get all of these physical formats for free, or at least at a small shipping cost if requested?

Would you buy it?

Dock, Dock, Goose

I started to write a comment on this post about iPod docks, but found I had enough material for a post of my own, so here we go.

The dock in that post looks very nice. I especially like that they included a screen shot of the TV interface on their website. Too often, companies leave out important details like that.

I have a love/hate relationship with iPod docks.

• I love the looks of an iPod in the dock.


• I love that Apple's latest universal dock, you can change out the inserts to support multiple iPods.


• I hate that you have to change the inserts to support multiple iPods. It is harder than I'd like and you still have to keep the inserts sitting around somewhere, waiting to be used. I wish they could make a two sided dock so you could just flip it over to use a different flavor of iPod.


• I hate that there aren't extra USB or Firewire ports on the docks. Not a big deal for many users, but as a Mac mini owner, my ports are precious. Sure, I can add a hub, but that adds clutter.


• I love that you can use remotes with the various iPod docks on the market.


• I hate that they are all IrDA. Bluetooth wouldn't require line of sight, could potentially go farther, would allow for 2 way data, and make it far easier to hack your own solution (Salling clicker anyone?)

I own an iPod and use it often, so I like the idea of a Mac with a built-in iPod dock. Then again, you have the same problem as the universal dock. You still have to keep silly inserts around to accomodate other iPods in your house.

Unconventional docks are another topic. You can dock your iPod in your alarm clock, in your living room stereo, and even your car.

These docks are great, but unless I need to charge, I'd rather just send the sound wirelessly and do away with the dock altogether. I want A2DP in my stereo so I can seamlessly finish the album that I was jammin to during the walk home from the bus. I want A2DP in my truck so I don't need an iTrip, and I don't need cables in my glovebox.

Throttle vs. Availability

I've been a Netflix subscriber since February 2001. I love it and I don't think I'll get rid of it anytime soon. That said, I'm not real happy about the word from Netflix, that they do, in fact, throttle users that burn through discs faster than most. The thing is, I'm less pissed that they artificially slow down the heavy users. I'm more pissed that I purposely stay away from their new releases to ease some of the crush, yet I don't get any preferential treatment.

I'm pretty much caught up on newer releases. The only new releases I need to see are the ones that are coming out week by week. Most of our queue is full of independent films, lesser known documentaries, sports films, and even a few dozen movies from the 80s and early 90s. As near as I can figure, I'm requesting the discs that are sitting around gathering dust. I'm doing Netflix a favor! I stick the available discs at the top and wait for the Short Wait, Long Wait, and Very Long Wait discs to fade in to the mass before putting them at the top.

So what do I want? I don't want to be throttled up. I wish they would ship me discs faster, but what I really want is a +1 modifier for my queue availability. In other words, Short Wait becomes Now. This modifier would stick as long as the majority of my discs (75%?) came from the Now population. This would allow me to see a new release every now and then without keeping discs longer, just to make me rise in the "to receive" pool.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you can't get new releases from Netflix, but you may have to wait a week or two for the popular ones, and maybe a month for discs like Doom. I guess the geeks are all over that one :) It's 104 in my queue. Left at that spot, I'll probably see it in 2007.

Fair Use?

Digital Rights Management is a tricky topic. I can certainly see both sides of the argument. Artists, and more importantly, the owners of the copyright to their works, have an interest in being compensated for their work. On the other hand, consumers of that work expect certain freedoms to use that work. The freedoms may be implicit, or they may be explicit.

Until today, I've never run in to a situation where I found Apple's DRM on music purchased from their iTunes Music Store to be unfair. I can load it on to my iPods (I really don't care if you can't load it on your favorite player). I can play it on computers I use at home, on the go, and at work. I can burn CDs for the car. I can make backups. I'm aware of their rules, and they seem to suit me fine. You could argue that I'm giving up some of the freedoms that purchasing a CD would provide, but this is amicable to me. I get convenient, instant, access to music that I may not otherwise get the opportunity to hear. In fact, in many cases, I am able to purchase the music at a discount compared to other sources.

In DRM discussions this week with my friends, a question arose. Could Apple's own software be used to remove the DRM on iTMS music? The answer to that is of course. You can burn the music to CD and then rip it right back in to iTunes. That part is clear. The thing I wondered, is if GarageBand could be scripted to load a track in and then saved back out, DRM free. It isn't that I want to do this, I was just curious how deep the DRM support in iLife went. If DRM removal was the goal, software like JHymn already does that sort of thing. From my earlier post on ring tones, we saw that GarageBand's media browser provides easy access to the iTunes music library. What I didn't realize, is that I happened to pick some music that was ripped from my own CDs, not a track from the iTMS.



Clicking on the purchased music source in the media browser results in an annoyingly blank window. GarageBand has apparently been told to ignore all DRM'd music. That's not cool. Certainly making a ring tone from a song from the iTMS is no different that making a ring tone from that same song ripped off of a purchased CD. Certainly using a track from the iTMS in a podcast about recently purchased music falls in to the fair use category of for illustration or clarification of the author's observations;. Not so fair, huh?

This leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Who decided that DRM'd music can't be used in GarageBand? It doesn't look like a technical problem. It isn't an AAC vs. MP3 thing. My other experiment used an AAC. It's not a playlist issue. Clicking on other playlists that are a mix of DRM'd and non-DRM'd music will show the nons only. Surely they didn't just forget to add in the support for DRM's music, right? So who decided this? Did Apple do it to avoid potential legal issues? Did the deals with the record companies require it? The iTunes Music Store Terms of Service tells me that You shall be entitled to export, burn (if applicable) or copy Products solely for personal, noncommercial use. They've already put it all on me, why are they pulling back once we are outside of the friendly confines of iTunes?

I'm not a DRM is bad kind of guy....yet.

5 More and Alternative Music Stores

I've been on an absolute music binge lately. This happens every so often. I just get to a point where I want to hear stuff I've never heard before for a couple of weeks. Because of this, you are getting to read more music posts than usual. Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad.

I have been so excited to get new music that I bought music from a source that I haven't bought from in nearly a year. Beatport is a great online music store for electronic music heads like myself. I have been very impressed with the electronic and dance selection on the iTMS. It, plus Amazon, are expansive enough to have kept me satisfied for the last year, but they don't even hold a candle to the stuff you can get on Beatport. Beatport is where you get the stuff that you'd find in big city record shops. Beatport is where you get the stuff that has just been recently pressed. Beatport is where you get the stuff that your favorite DJ is playing. Beatport is where you buy tracks that you hear on Progressive Sounds SpinCasts and just have to have!

Beatport is also interesting because it is one of the only online music stores to sell individual tracks, in plain ol' MP3 and even WAV. They don't use DRM and the sound quality is great. I'm not crazy about their silly site, but you should really give them a look.

Now on to the 5

• Dave Seaman Presents Group Therapy ft. Nat Leonard - Faith Again (Luke Chable Remix) : This is the one that got me back to Beatport. I'm loving this. [Get it on Beatport]


• Starkillers - Diskoteka (Kobbe & Austin Leeds Mix) : Deep in the Diskoteka, these beats can make you wetta [Get it on Beatport]


• Mylo - Destroy Rock & Roll
  
  Fantastic album that recently released to the iTMS although import variations have been on Amazon for awhile. I first took notice of Mylo with Drop the Pressure. That track now comes with a little Miami Sound Machine 80s flavor. The album is quite varied and definitely fresh.


• Freestylers - Push Up (Plump DJs Remix)


• Beanfield - Tides (C's Movement #1 [Carl Craig Remix]) I have been listening to my Sasha CDs again this week. Sasha's use of this in Fundacion NYC is tremendous.

Let the music play.

Fast Food Usability - Part 1

I eat a lot of fast food. I wish I ate less, but I must not wish it too badly because I haven't done much to change. Anyway, since I eat out so often, I encounter quite a few things that bother me about fast food. I'm going to note some of those things here over a series of posts. I'll do a lot of complaining. You'll see my pedantic side in full force. However, I will offer some suggestions for improvement as well. You have been warned.

Part 1 - The Receipt

Who decides what goes on a receipt? What is the point of the receipt? Is it to record my purchase for all eternity (at home, in the file, under 'D')? Is it to ensure that I get the proper order when it comes out? Is it to settle disputes when someone says they ordered 12 McFatpads with cheese and only got 11? Is it a legal requirement with some of the details required by the corporate bean counters? They all seem to have differences, so no one really knows.

Let's take a look at a couple of samples, shall we?


Taco Bell. I like the Bell. I eat there quite a bit, usually at least once a week. I enjoy their food. I enjoy their prices. I can't stand their ordering process. I'll save the physical layout for another day. Today we'll just concentrate on the receipt.

Taco Bell uses a "magic number" ordering process. When you order, you get a magic number assigned to you. Don't forget your number. If you lose it, NO SOUP FOR YOU! Thankfully, Taco Bell gives you some paper with your magic number on it, but good luck finding it.

1. We start with the resturant name. This receipt tells me we are eating at T A C O B E L L. What's with the caps? What happened to all of that corporate branding they spend millions of dollars on each year? This isn't the 70s. There aren't any spinning heads hammering out glyphs on these tickets. Usually, these are modern, thermal printers. I know a thing or two about thermal printers. I know that given the right esc sequences, they can draw some pretty damn good pictures. So why don't the super powers of the fast food world make use of that and draw the Taco Bell logo in its full bell-thunking glory? It probably costs too much to hire someone to figure out the details of that fancy cash register.



2. In item 2, you can see that they note the store number. It's mentioned twice within one inch, just in case you miss one. Are there times where these might not match? Maybe, but then what use are they to me?



3. Item 3 is the guy that sparked all of this. Some of the registers at my local Bell used to print the order number in a larger font. That's a giant plus. Too bad they don't do this anymore. Instead, we get the order number positioned way off to the left, far from the identifying text. As I said, I eat there a lot, so I know where the number is, but what about a new customer? Which of these magic numbers are they supposed to figure out as the one? Please remember, these are the same people that wait right by the registers thinking their food is going to come out prior to the nine people waiting behind them. Problem solving skills aren't necessarily their biggest strength. You better find that number. The guy is only going to shout it nicely once.



4. Register number. Great, I always like to know that. Tell me again why the register is numbered 5 when there are only 3 registers in the whole joint? Hmm, must have come from a bigger store. What does knowing the register number do for me? Is that so they know who to yell at when I call in and complain? Couldn't that be tacked on to the store number to clean it up a bit? 004470:5



5. The CMBGSB! Crunchy, spicy, CMBGSB! Either tell me what I bought or don't. CMBGSB doesn't tell me jack. BGS-CK means I wanted chicken (ohh crap, he cracked the code). What's wrong with it saying Chicken? Ohh, and PEP must mean Pepsi. Aren't the Bell and Pepsi one in the same? Why not print the whole product name. Say it loud, say it proud!



6. CASH TEND - I bet they save 12 million dollars a year leaving off that pesky ERED. We don't need to abbreviate anymore guys. The thermal head passes right by. You can let it print more stuff. I guess I can't say for sure, but I highly doubt those extra letters are going to kill their cash register budget. If they want to save letters, how about leaving off the "thanks for being you" crap they put on there. I won't get mad if they don't thank me on the document, trust me.

Ohh, I need a chalupa. Let's direct the hate towards our next victim.

1. I like Arby's too. They get a lot of business from me and my friends at work. Cleaner, better separation of the restaurant name. That's a good start.


2. Whoa, useful info. I even have a name to ask for when I'm pissed off. Score. Arby's is looking good.


3. Questions? Comments? Hmm, I'll have to email them a link to this post. Still not too bad. No, wait, they included the same damn info again at the bottom [3b].


4. Benjamin, you were great at taking my order, but I don't think you'll remember me, so why do I need to remember you? Also, why is your identity so important to be at the top? I feel left out. This is supposed to be about me! Please note your transeqno. Let go! Nobody listens to transeqno!


5. Your transeqno may, may, be similar to your Order Number, maybe. Again, we note it twice, just in case one breaks down. It is at this point that we note that Arby's also uses a magic number order system, only there's is built around some sort of subliminal nonsense. You can see your order number on their fancy new flatpanel screens, but then it disappears, never to be seen again. The order number they put onscreen is only a portion of the one noted on the ticket. Great. Ohh, and you don't get to hold your receipt, so you must remember that number. No wait, my bad, they don't call out the number, so I don't know why they bother showing it to you to begin with. Rather than confuse me with a split second display of 195, why not do your "thanks for choosing us" thing on the screen?


6. The Ckn is almost as good as the CMBGSB at the Bell.


7. What's this? Did I change my mind on the fries? No, they just default to curly. That's great, but why do I need to know that on the receipt? I didn't order a Jamocha shake either. How come it doesn't say - JamShk?


8. Why a ':' on some fields and not on the others? Yes, very picky. I blame the "one of these things is not like the other" song!


9. This one was just weird. I didn't pay cash, I paid Cash $20, and sure enough, it had a value of $20. That Jackson, he's a wacky dude.

Stay tuned for a post unveiling my super-duper-perfect receipt design.

5 of the Now

For this selection, I have 4 laid back and quiet songs, and 1 not :) I'd like to thank my brother for turning me on to LCD Soundsystem. I don't quite like all of their stuff yet, but it is growing on me.

Holmes Ives - Nux (Slumber Song)

Telefon Tel Aviv - Sound in a Dark Room

Morel - Wake-Up

S.J. Esau - Fat Cat

LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk Is Playing at My House

Create Ringtones in GarageBand

What can you do with a stock Mac? A whole lot of stuff.

Tonight I took a look at GarageBand 3, part of iLife '06. Specifically, I wanted to play with the new podcast studio. I didn't want to just mess around, so I decided I would try to create a ringtone for my home phone. A ringtone? Yeah, a ringtone. The podcast studio has this great media browser which lets you access your iTunes library and it lets you do some very basic editing, so I figured it could do the task.

The whole process was dead easy. 10 mintues and I was done.

1. Open GarageBand 3 and choose to make a New Podcast Episode
   
   



2. Using the Media Browser, find the song you want to chop in to a ringtone and drag it to your podcast.
   
   It doesn't really matter where you put it. We aren't going to do anything but edit it and play it back.
   
   



3. Using the Track Editor at the bottom, find the portion of the track you want to use as your ringtone and cut away the rest. To cut, just select with the mouse and hit Command-x. Use can playback and use the looping feature as necessary to make sure you have the chunk you want.
   
   



4. You should now have just the stuff you want in your ringtone. You can drag it clear to the left, or just position the play cursor at the start of it.
   



5. My phone, a Uniden CLX 485, requires that I record the ringtone live, so I prepared it to record.
   
   
   I then attached the audio cord from the phone to my audio source. I could have jacked directly in to my Mac mini, but my speaker control block has a headphone out, so I used that.
   
   



6. Next, I hit record on the phone and play in GarageBand. Audio plays, I hit stop on the phone, give it a name and I'm done.
   
   
   

That's it. I now get to hear DJ Shadow playing when the phone rings.

This entire post brought to you with stock software from a 10.4 OS X Mac mini. Screen captures done with Command Shift 4, music from iTunes, editing and playback from GarageBand, photo import and resizing from iPhoto, and blogging from Safari. iLife seems to fit my life.

Catch a Cast

I'm making my way though the new features of iLife '06. iPhoto is definitely faster, but I'm still pissed that it will crash on me when I'm simply browsing photos and applying star ratings. I don't think it likes that I've never gone beyond the default 512MB in my Mac mini.

The built-in photocasting was a breeze. I simply made an album, dropped in some photos and told it to make a photocast out of it. The rest was automagic. My machine already knows how to get to .mac because I use it for daily backups and other good stuff. I selected the photo size (high quality, but not full size) and iPhoto just did its thing. The photos were uploaded and then it asked me if I wanted to announce my new photocast. I selected yes and it opened Mail.app, created a new message and populated it with the necessary text and links to explain the photocast. That's beautiful integration. It's so integrated that I had to go to another machine to verify that it worked. If I enter the photocast RSS link in to Safari, it launches iPhoto and asks me if I want to subscribe :) I didn't have any doubt that would work. I wanted to make sure people that don't have iPhoto 6 could get to it. I have confirmed it works on another machine running an RSS reader, so now's your chance to give it a look.

A photocast of 10 of my favorite photos that I have taken.

Warming Up to Podcasts

Podcasts have never been very interesting to me. The problem with most podcasts is that they involve speaking or video and require concentration to get anything out of them. You can't enjoy these podcasts while working, and you can't enjoy the video while driving. That's not to say I have avoided podcasts. I've been known to let the Engadget one play while cleaning the house, but that was back when Phillip Torrone was doing them, before he left to run the MAKE: Blog.

Lately I've warmed up to podcasts. I now have the ability to view video podcasts on my iPod and I've recently started riding the public bus to work. That's a great combination. I now have 20 minutes, twice a day, that are perfect for enjoying podcasts.

It is quite enjoyable to subscribe to podcasts in iTunes and let the autosync magic happen. I'm especially enjoying the ABC news World News Now video podcast and the Progressive Sounds __SpinCast. I have enjoyed progsounds for years, so it is nice to see a proper podcast from the crew. As for the news, we don't watch the news at our house. I used to watch the news daily, world and local, but I just don't anymore. Having a 15 minute dose of world news in the morning should be good for me.

Podcasts still have a few problems. For one, you have to sync them, daily if you are wanting that daily content. That sucks. I don't want to take my iPod in to the computer room every night and I hate having to eject it before taking it out of the dock. Give me wireless docking already! Bluetooth, WiFi, Wireless USB, whatever. Make it happen Apple. Second, the podcasters need to stop trying so hard to be cool. The ABC news one is especially bad. They have flashy graphics touting that you are watching a super duper podcast. They talk about it during the content. We get it already! I had to make the decision to subscribe to your podcast. I was awake during the procedure. I'm aware that I'm getting an ABC news podcast. You've got me. Stop selling me something I already "bought".

So, I like podcasts. They are by no means the greatest tech idea to come along lately, but I have found use for them, so I'm glad they exist.

Hot Winter - A continuous DJ mix

I finally finished another mix! Here's the setlist.



James Zabiela - Robophobia
John Kelley - Force Ten
Adam Freeland - Heel N Toe (Album Version)
BT - Knowledge of Self
The Crystal Method - Badass
The Nextmen - High Score (Stanton Warriors Remix)
Plump DJs - In Stereo
James Zabiela - Skanksuary
Linus Loves - Stand Back (Young Punx Remix)
The Chemical Brothers - Spring

It feels like this one took forever. I started a few months ago with an idea for a mix that is absolutely nothing like this one. I played around with that one for a few nights when I had time, but one track kept sticking in my mind, begging me to make a mix around it.

I gave in to the robot powers (robot wants to kill me) and started gathering tracks for this mix. Other than Robophobia, I only knew of one other track that absolutely had to be in the mix, and that was Heel n Toe. With those two tracks as my anchors, I spent a few nights playing with various tracks, trying to find something I liked. Iteration after iteration and I'd end up throwing out 2 or 3 tracks and trying some others. During this time, I heard the Stanton Warriors mix of High Score, and of course I had to have that in there! Luckily I found a copy on Amazon, but it took a couple of weeks to arrive, further delaying completion.

Finally, all of the pieces were ready and I had some time this weekend to record the mix, and make that spiffy album art. For your listening pleasure, I present sadida - Hot Winter.

The mix was recorded live, so I'll use that as my excuse for my sucky mixing. I did add 2 samples from a certain movie later on. They are both pretty obvious. First comment to identify them correctly gets a cookie.

5 of the Now & Then

Welcome to another installment of 5 tracks I'm enjoying at the moment. Along with these fresh 5, I've put up a page with my past cinco supremes.

If you are getting lulled into thinking I only post links to dance and electronic music, keep sharp. I have R&B and Jazz in this set.

Lewis Taylor - Lovelight

Ramsey Lewis - Dear Prudence

Latyrx - Say That

Petter - These Days

The Freestylers - Don't Stop

Vote With Your Dollars

Mark Cuban is fun to listen to. I don't always agree with what he is saying, but when he gets going on movies, tv, dvd, high def, and the like, you better listen up. He gets what's happening in today's digital media world. He understands the forces at play and he is doing something about it. His recent post calling out movie theaters was especially enjoyable to me.

Now to the title of this post. By no means am I against try before you buy when it comes to music and movies. Most of my music purchases are spurred by tracks that I hear in DJ mixes that I download from the net. Many of these mixes are put out by the guys making the music, but many are not. Technically, they are illegal, but if it weren't for these mixes, these record companies would have a few thousand dollars less in their revenues. If I hear something I like, I make an effort to purchase it. I vote with my dollars because I want more of things that I like.

This works the same way with movies. It's cool to see friends borrow a movie and then like it enough to go buy their own copy. They are supporting the products they enjoy. Along with the success shown by direct delivery media stores, it would be nice to see expanded try before you buy opportunities because this is already happening every day and I'm not talking about file trading networks.

To bring this back around, there is a movie called Bubble that is releasing at the end of the month. It's worth noting because the movie is releasing in theaters, on DVD, and on TV, all on the same day. You can't get much more try before you buy than being able to watch it on TV and then go buy the DVD that same day. I plan to cast my vote for day and date and will buy the DVD. Will I like the movie? I sure hope so, but even if I don't, that's fine. This is a statement buy. A good movie will just be a bonus.

One Less Car

The new year calls for a new goal. That's the way it works, right? To help achive my goal, I'm going to put it in writing here and track it through the year. That will be a reminder to myself and allow you guys to harass me if I fall behind.


The goal is to ride my bike 100 days this year, with a large portion of those days to include commuting to work by bike instead of car. Now 100 days may sound like a lot to those that don't ride, and not very much to those that do. It's going to be a busy year, so I think 100 is enough to keep me pushing, but still achievable. I hear that's the best kind of goal.

I started off pretty good. I have 5 days of riding in so far, including 3 days of riding to work. I fell off a little this past week, but having the opportunity to ride at all in January is appreciated.

Winter riding is tough, not just because it is cold, but because of all of the gunk on the roads. The gunk likes to eat bicycles (and cars), just ask my crap-ass bike from college. To save wear and tear on my road bike, and just because I wanted to, I picked up a single speed bike in Chicago last September. I'm having a great time on my Langster. It's easy to clean, fun to ride, and mean looking. There are a few hills in CR that I can't get up on this bike, but I'm working on it.

So help me out guys. Ride your bike with me. If you live and work anywhere within 30 miles of Cedar Rapids, I'll even ride to your house and ride in to work with you. Great days start with bike rides.

5(3)/100

What's That Sound?

Here is the music that is making me smile this week. I'm taking it back a bit for a few of these.

The Chemical Brothers - The Boxer (DFA Version)

Eclat & Prudo - What's Happening In Piso?

The Prodigy - Out Of Space

Lo Fidelity All-Stars - Many Tentacles Pimping On the Keys

Ol' Dirty Bastard - Shimmy Shimmy Ya

Core Duo Dance

Between CES and Macworld, we've seen quite a few Core Duo notebook computers released over the last week and a half. I'm leaning, okay toppling, towards the Apple one, but I figured I would gather some juicy details and do some comparison.



First let's see who everyone brought to the party.

Acer Travelmate 8200
Apple MacBook Pro
Dell Inspiron 9400
Gateway NX560XL
Lenovo T2600
Sony FE11S

And now, the fun.

Manufacturer	Model	Processor/RAM/HD	Screen	Size	Weight	Wireless	Other	Price
Acer	TravelMate 8200	2GHz/RAM/120GB 5400	15.4" 1680x1050	14.3x10.7x1.5	?	WiFi, Bluetooth	Camera, Modem, 5 in 1 Card Reader	?
Apple	MacBook Pro	1.83GHz/1GB/100GB 5400	15.4" 1440x900	14.1x9.6x1	5.6lbs	WiFi, Bluetooth	Camera, MagSafe	$2499
Dell	Inspiron 9400	1.83GHz/1GB/100GB 5400	17" 1440x900	15.5x11.3x1.6	7.94lbs	WiFi, Bluetooth(+$50)	Express Card, 5 in 1 Card Reader	$2690
Gateway	NX560XL	1.83GHz/1GB/100GB 5400	15.4" 1400x1050	14x10.4x1.3	6.32lbs	WiFi, Bluetooth(+$50)		$1715
Lenovo	T2600	2.33GHz/?GB/100GB 5400	15" 1400x1050	13x10.6x1.4	4.8lbs	WiFi, Bluetooth(opt)	EV-DO opt	?
Sony	FE11S	1.83GHz/1GB/160GB 5400	15.4" ?x?	?x?x?	?	WiFi, Bluetooth	Camera, ExpressCard	$2069

Highlights

• Lenovo wins with the fastest processor


• Apple wins the smallest package (at least with the data I have). This is a big deal to me.


• Acer wins with pixel count


• Lenovo wins on weight


• The Gateway has decent dimensions, but man is it heavy.


• Sony packs in the biggest hard drive

It's interesting that even when comparing like stats, you don't get the whole picture. Things like Apple's 1GB of RAM being 1 DIMM where others are using 2 DIMMs, leaving no free slots. I also left out the video card stats. I haven't followed those closely and they are harder to compare manufacturer to manufacturer, so if you are a gamer, go do some more searching.

One final thought. It took forever to gather this info. Wouldn't it be nice to have consistent "window stickers" for computers like they have for cars?

Apple + Intel + Moby = Bliss

What kind of Moby collector would I be if I didn't point out that the music in the new Apple commercial is Moby's God Moving Over The Face of the Waters? One of my favorites for sure, the easiest place to find it is Moby's I Like To Score compilation from 1997.

Moby is regularly featured on Apple's iTMS, but strangely, that compilation, and the track in the new commercial are no where to be found there.

For the record, I have close to 90 unique Moby releases on CD and Vinyl. Yes, I have a problem.

My ReplayTV is Worth Thousands

If you watch TV and have a computer, it is an exciting time indeed. Between the shows sold through the iTMS and the recent announcement of a video marketplace by Google, many of your favorite shows should be available for purchase from the Internet, and I'm not even talking about the DVD sales.

Many of the shows are available for $1.99, which isn't too bad, but that's far more than people pay per show for cable or even when they buy the DVD season set. Along with primetime favorites such as CSI and Survivor, Google will be selling NBA games. Fantastic I thought, I'm lucky enough to catch the Lakers on TNT, ESPN, and whenever they play the Bulls, but I'd like to watch a few more games. That is until I found out I would have to pay out $4 for the privilege! No thanks guys. I'm a fan, but I'm not that much of a fan.

All that thinking about show pricing got me wondering how much I do spend for the TV we watch. I've tried a few times to calculate the per show cost, but I usually quit when I start to realize how much TV we watch. Ugg.

What I will try to calculate is how much money our treasured ReplayTV is worth. Of the shows available for purchase from iTMS and Google (soon), we watch Lost, Law & Order, Desperate Housewives, Survivor, CSI, The Amazing Race, and NBA games. Other than the NBA, I'd guess each and every episode from every season of those other shows has been recorded at some point on our Replay (syndication). The ReplayTV is now 3 years old. So, I'm going to note a rough calculation of the number of episodes we are talking about here.

(25+9 + 20*15 + 23+10 + 70 + 100 + 70 + 25*3)

Figuring out the NBA games was fun. First, I found a NBA TV schedule that was plain text. Then, I just paste that to a file, run it through grep a couple of times and count it with wc. Thank you OS X.

ryans-mac-mini:~/Music ryan$ grep Lakers lakers.txt | wc -l
33
ryans-mac-mini:~/Music ryan$ grep Lakers lakers.txt | grep NBATV | wc -l
9

The Lakers aren't on as much as they used to be when Shaq + Kobe = ratings so I upped the number a bit to compensate. I didn't watch all of those games (recording conflicts), so I'll leave them in the calculation and ignore the fact that they cost twice as much.

I calculate 682 * $1.99 = $1357.18

The ReplayTV itself was about $550, but that includes the lifetime subscription and I expect it to live a continued good life.

But you don't get to keep the episodes you say! Well, I could if I wanted to and don't forget about the thousands of other shows we have recorded and watched that aren't available for download (purchase). That's got to be worth some large sum of money. I know the time I saved by skipping commercials is close to priceless (the price is watching the TV in the first place).

I think the most shocking number to me was what 3 years of cable cost me. $45 a month for the 3 years used in these calculations is $1620! If it weren't for the throw away shows that we watch (not you Judy) and the spectacular viewing of HD (vs the crap resolutions they are selling), paying per show doesn't look all that bad.

Auxiliary Displays - It's Already Been Broughten

Back in March, I blogged about wanting auxiliary displays [Bring On the Auxiliary Displays]. Just today, I came across a fantastic Channel 9 video post from the Windows Sideshow team showing off their auxiliary display tech. People like to talk about how video blogs suck, but Microsoft is doing great stuff with Channel 9. Unrestrained tech content from the very guys making the tech, yes please! Take 17 minutes out of your day and go watch the video.

I'm not sure how I missed it, but Engadet covered Microsoft's aux display tech in April. I had no idea Microsoft was this far along when I wrote my original post. Go Microsoft. Make it happen.

After watching the video, I realize that Microsoft is going a slightly different direction. Their first targets are add-ons to notebook computers and keyboards. Logitech is already doing cool stuff with aux displays on their keyboards. Between them, Microsoft, and Asus, maybe this will gather momentum.

I think notebook computers have stagnated recently. For awhile, size and computing power were market drivers, but now you can choose from dozens of ho-hum notebooks that will get the job done. Integrating aux displays is a tremendous opportunity for a notebook manufacturer to make their device stand out and command an upgrade. As Microsoft shows, in many ways, these +1 displays on notebooks will provide PDA-like functionality which could allow a user to leave one more device and charger at home.

Microsoft says they are using some of the SPOT technology. How about using their Smartphone and Windows Mobile tech too? They say themselves that they want to use typical cell phone displays. Those would be the same displays that their mobile developers have already designed for when writing Smartphone apps. Wouldn't it be cool if you could run that code unchanged in the aux display? Emulators run on the desktop, why not on the aux display coprocessor or the main processor itself in a different power mode?

Finally, you knew I'd drag Apple in to this :) Apple could build in an aux display and allow Dashboard widgets to run in it. Run the weather widget when you are travelling. Run the iPhoto viewer widget when you want to show off. Run the iCal widget when you are on the run. That's juicy.

So, to go along with my previous mockup of an aux display tablet, I thought I'd see what a Powerbook would look like with iPod like controls integrated in to the lid.

This gives you the iPod experience with your music when you don't have your iPod with you. The clickwheel could also be the interface to the rest of the widgets that run in the aux display.

I'm liking the idea even if I'm luke warm on how it looks in the lid.

An iPod Full Of Nothing

My dreams have finally been realized. I have a simple, elegant way to watch Seinfeld episodes on the go!



The tool that has made this possible is Handbrake Lite. I have played around with the full Handbrake and have had mixed results. Handbrake Lite, however, is just what I need. It has one purpose in life, and that is to rip DVDs (that I own!) to a format that is optimized for iPods with video.

All it takes is a mac, a couple of clicks, and some time. This is amazing. I can't wait to rip the rest of my Seinfeld and Simpsons episodes. Yes, I'm aware that you could watch TV episodes on portable media players for quite some time, but show me where it only took a couple of clicks. This is finally to the point where it is worth the effort, because the effort is minimal. I would love for Apple to embed this functionality directly in to iTunes (iMedia?), but I doubt they will, especially with the CSS nonsense surrounding DVDs.

Now all I need is for public transport to come near my house and I can trade driving for Kramer each and every morning.

Did Lemmy Jump The Cliff?

Ever had any of your favorite software die? I'm a vi guy. I started my development career on various UNIX boxes and the places I worked for required (ok, highly recommended) that I use vi. The initial learning curve was steep, but I'm vi through and through now. I even toyed with a Windows Explorer replacement that would allow navigation via vi keys. You could blaze through the directory tree and renames, combined with the '.' command, would be the greatest ever. Alas, that's one of those free time projects that sits patiently, waiting for me to come back and tie it all together.

Back to Lemmy. Lemmy is/was a vi clone for Windows. When I started developing primarily on Windows, I pined for my vi. I can't remember the reasons, but I never liked Vim. Then again, I never gave it much of a chance. Lemmy met my needs and I didn't have a reason to look elsewhere. I've used Lemmy for years and watched it grow and change hands a couple of times. It's last owner was softwareonline.org. If you go there now, you just get a domain renewal form. Did Sofware Online give up trying to sell vi to the Windows masses? I paid $20 for a license at work 6 years ago. Can't they live on that $20? :)

Lemmy isn't really dead though. You can still download it from Download.com and you can bet that I have the installer saved in no less than 10 locations. Lemmy is one of the very first pieces of software I put on a new Windows machine.


While we are on the topic of vi. I love the Tarsier image that O'Reilly uses on the vi book. This guy loved it enough to laser etch it on his Powerbook (drool). That very same image can be found on the Limited Edition of DJ Shadow's The Private Press.
How's that for small world? The mascot of my favorite text editor combined with my favorite DJ. Wow, I'm a geek.

:wq

Product 6.0 2005 XP .NET for Pocket PC...Mobile

I'm going to do my best Andy Rooney impersonation here. I'm going to complain about how Microsoft names things. This is by far an original complaint, but at least I'm adding a fresh screenshot to the mix.

This screenshot is even better than the Firefox installing one.



As I'm installing Visual Studio 2005 today, I notice it is installing to a Microsoft Visual Studio 8 folder. Well that's dumb. Talk about confusing. What is the product name, VS 2005 or VS 8? Looks like the marketing guys changed things at the last moment and the engineers didn't have time to go back and scrub it.

We're supposed to be in the age (who says? I says) of usability and the biggest software company in the world can't even decide on a consistent product name. Stop confusing us!

Visual Studio has gone from numbers (6.0), to the silly .NET thing, to .NET with a year (2003), to years without the .NET (2005).

This isn't the only example of this from Microsoft. Why does the desktop Windows have Service Packs, but the mobile Windows have AKUs?

Why did Windows go from numbers (3.1) to years (95) to letters (XP) to nothing (Vista)?

Why did the portable Windows go from form factors (Handheld PC, Palm PC) to Pocket PC, to Windows Mobile with years (2003), to Windows Mobile with numbers (5.0)? Ohh yeah, don't forget, it is still a Pocket PC, but it doesn't run Pocket PC anymore, it runs Windows Mobile.

Why did Microsoft Office go from versions (6.0), to years (97), to letters (XP), back to years (2003)?

I really don't think that any of these are better than any of the rest. I just want them to pick one and stick to it!

Slushy Streets iMix

I put together a playlist for shoveling the driveway or driving to work in the muck. I call it Slushy Streets


Tracklist
1. Golan Globus - Blazer (2005 Radio Edit)
2. Quannum Projects - Quannum World
3. Gorillaz - Dare (Soulwax Remix)
4. The Orb - Aftermath (Album Version)
5. Dizzee Rascal - Fix Up, Look Sharp
6. Aesop Rock & L.I.F.E. Long - Inner City Hustle
7. Bloc Party - Tulips (Original Version)
8. Beck - Missing (Remix by Royskopp)
9. Littl Shyning Man - Hart of the Wud
10. Roots Manuva - Motion 5000
11. UNKLE - Reign (Radio Edit)

If you like ANY of that music, you'll probably dig the DFA Holiday Mix 2005, up on iTMS right now. A 45 minute mix for 99 cents? Must be the season of giving!

1 Box Please

As long as product functionality is not compromised, I'm all for convergence and a single item to do it all. Crappy cameras in cell phones, bad. High quality DVD players in home theater receivers, good, in certain uses.

I bring that up because we got a new AV setup for our living room. We were looking to free up some space in the room and getting rid of a massive component stack and big floor standing speakers was a great way to do that.



The box of choice is the Denon S-301. You can read my full review of it over on sadida.com. I even slicked it up a bit with pictures and a video (ooooo, a video). We're quite happy with it so far. It's been everything we wanted and the performance is top notch.

Another interesting thing I found is that Denon is running a blog for the S-301 and its little brother, the S-101. This isn't the first time a product has gotten its own blog. The iPod has dozens, but they aren't official ones. For offical products, I'm aware of myxda.com, but it is still refreshing to see companies connecting with their customers and bringing the post-sale details right to them. Too bad that I, a customer, had to find the site during searching while writing my review. I don't know how "regular" customers would find it.

I have been impressed with Denon lately. Not only are they doing this receiver blog, but their engineers and test teams frequent a few of the Denon DJ boards. Being a tech guy myself, I like it when I get straight technical answers that I can trust.

I Still Want Bluetooth in my iPod

Time flies. It's been nearly a year since I last posted about wanting Bluetooth in my iPod. If you don't feel like going back to read that post, I'll sum it up for you.

• Address Book, Contacts sync


• Audio to headphones (A2DP)


• Music file sync in small quantities

I think all of that still has value, but I have a few more things that Bluetooth would enable.

Playlist sync - The playlist I listen to the most is "Not Heard Recently". I like to keep my music rotating through. I'll listen to specific things when the mood strikes, but usually it is NHR or shuffle. I recently upgrade to a 5G iPod which left my 3G iPod to secondary purposes such as hooked to my home stereo. I also have a shuffle which I use while working out, mowing the lawn, and riding my bike (only while on trails). I still like to keep that NHR playlist updated, which requires me bringing the pods back to the main machine every so often. Sometimes I'll end up with playlist overlap and listen to the same songs 2 or 3 times before they get pulled off of the NHR playlist. Bluetooth would allow me to keep the playlist more up to date and avoid that.

Playlist sharing - If you follow my blog, you'll see me posting music I like and DJ sets that I work on. Lots of the music comes off of the iTMS and the stuff that doesn't is usually available on Amazon. How cool would it be if you came up to me at work and I could just send you that playlist over Bluetooth? I would send the songs, just the playlist metadata. It would take about 5 seconds and brings a social element to the iPod experience. You can share playlists with people on the bus, or friends at school. If you have the songs on the playlist, you can instantly play that playlist in the order your friend made. If you don't, you can check out the songs on the iTMS the next time you are synced to your computer. Apple isn't making much on the music sales, but more sales has to be a good thing. Getting your customers "in" to the store is half the battle. Why not let your other customers help fight that battle by getting their friends in to the store?

Music send - A2DP works great to headphones. I've heard it and I'm considering buying a pair of headphones. In addition to headphones, there's no reason car and home stereos can't be the A2DP "sink". Sure, we can cable up, but do you want a cable hanging out of your car's dashboard, even if it is in the glove box? I know I don't. Add in the hand-off technology you get with Bluetooth headsets for your cell phone and you can have your car start playing the same music you were listening to on headphones when you walked up. Don't laugh, I know friends that do this every day with FM senders on their iPods.

Remote control - Control the iPod using the Bluetooth AVRCP. I was very disappointed to see Apple use IR for their universal iPod dock and remote for the new iMac. If they do bring out a Mac Media for the living room, it better have Bluetooth for remote control. They can keep their stinky IR, but add Bluetooth too!

Printing - Without getting too far away from the purpose of an iPod (music), you could bury the ability to print things like album art, playlists, notes, and even photos to Bluetooth enabled printers using BPP, or as a simple Object Push. This is another social element, and all part of the Apple Experience. Bluetooth enabled printers are out there and this would avoid you connecting your iPod to someone else's computer which may or may not have the right cables and software. This isn't vaporware stuff. It's possible today with the right software.

Finally, I have to comment... have you seen the new Creative Zen Vison:M? I can't stop laughing at the thickness. They better have room for Bluetooth in there...and a waffle maker!

Video is an Internet Star

You like free videos, right? Good. Head on over to deepdish.com and check out the new video for their upcoming single, Sacremento. Keep a sharp eye out for BT making a cameo.

It's no Crooked, but I like Deep Dish, so it is worth a post.

Medium Definition?

So an article over at the Technology Liberation Front discusses the fact that many people who have HDTV, don't know what to do to see HDTV, or simply aren't making use of it. 49% of the people that HDTV aren't watching it. Well count me in to that 49%, but I'm not dumb, I'm frugal. I know what it takes to watch HDTV, I just don't want to pay for it.

I might be called an early adopter when it comes to HDTV. We bought our set in January 2001, nearly 5 years ago. At the time, HDTV in this area was nearly non-existant. There were a couple of OTA channels becoming available, but the content was few and far between. I didn't care though. I was at a point in my life where I was able to buy a nice TV, and I needed it to last awhile. I knew HD was coming, so if you are buying a big set, you pretty much had to drop a few more bucks and just do it right.

DVDs look fantastic on our WS-55807. Good thing too, because that's the only exercise I really give the thing. I guess I can call DVDs medium definition. Ohh, I tried HDTV. My set doesn't have an ATSC tuner, so I experimented with a few OTA tuners. In the end, they were expensive, marginally capable of receiving a signal, required an antenna, and there stilll wasn't a whole lot of content. I tried a couple and they both went back to the store. It wasn't worth spending $200-$300 to watch a few shows in HD.

Why don't I just go with digital cable? Good question. Good answer too, money. It is shameful what Mediacom wants for the privledge to watch HD. Granted, it has been a while since I checked, but it was going to cost me an extra $30-$40 a month to get HDTV over digital cable and that was going to require sticking a stupid digital cable box on my TVs. Uhh, no thanks. NBA in HD looks spectacular, but I can buy a lot of music with $40 a month and I'll enjoy that a whole lot more. HD needs to be free, and by that, I mean no add-on cost vs. regular cable. I know they need to cover their upgrade costs too, but the extra cost needs to trickle away. My friends that live in big cities (Denver, Milwaukee) get HD on their sets for pennies compared to what I'd have to pay.

So we've gone 5 years with no HD, but I'm ready to give it a another go. The content is finally there. All of the major networks are available in my area in HD. Every night has shows in HD that we normally watch. We sold our old college TVs at last summer's garage sale and we recently got a new set for the bedroom. It has a built-in ATSC tuner. This was a requirement. We weren't going to have an external tuner, especially not in the bedroom. We also strung coax through the house when it was being built, so hopefully I can put an antenna near a window in the basement and not have to have that eyesore in the bedroom. I'd love to explore cable card, but I don't know of anyone in my area that is offering it. Maybe in another 5 years :)

Mac mini in the Living Room?

You've probably already seen the rumor that a revamped Mac mini is on the way and will end its trek in your living room. It will be optimized for multi-media and possibly even contain PVR software. Ohh please let this be true. I can't help think that my beloved ReplayTV will die someday and TiVo isn't all that appealing to me, yet. I'm probably underestimating, but how hard can PVR software be? Once you've got the recording and playback handled, the rest is just file management, simple searches, and pretty GUIs. Apple has plenty of multi-media experience with Final Cut Studio, QuickTime, iTunes, and iMovie. They are well on their way with pretty GUIs in Front Row. They proved they can excel at managing type specific files with iPhoto and iTunes. Roll it up in one tasty software burrito and let us feast!

Ok, you get that I'd buy one of these, but what would it look like? Maybe we've already seen it. The Mac mini form factor is great, but I'm not sure it would fit in a typical home theater stack. What if it looked like Apple's xServe?



Certainly we don't need all of that stuff. It's too wide, so I'll chop it a bit. We have no need for the rack mounts, so I'll remove those. We don't need massive cooling, so say bye bye to the gigantic air ports. And, we won't need terabytes of data in it, so we'll cut it off at the knees. What's left? A 'shopped mockup of a Mac media, of course!



It still is too busy, but you get the idea. I'd put one of those next to my TV for sure.

Backup Some More

After my recent thoughts about backups, I figured it was time to give Apple's recent update to Backup a try.

My first impressions are positive. The software is definitely geared towards your data, not really your drive. It appears Backup is much better at restoring your iLife data than restoring your OS. It also may have problems with restoring to alternate locations, but a patch has been released that is supposed to address that.



The thing I like the most is the preset plans. I already made use of the plan to backup my iTMS Purchased Music. This required 2 DVDs but I can also choose my external drive to be the backup target and save the burnable media for every few months. The procedure was quite simple. It even popped up a message suggesting the label I should apply to the disc. I'm guessing it will ask for the disc based on the recommended name if I ever need to do a restore.

My next step is to create a plan to backup my home folder that does NOT include my music and movies. Those folders are huge and I don't want to mess with the incremental backups of those in my home folder backup. I'll keep seperate plans for those.

Now all that's left is to create a plan that will backup open files that I am working on :)

Whoa, Back it Up

Computers make everything easier. They especially make it easy to work for days on something and then make it disappear in a poof.

Backups are always hard. What do you backup? Who will do the backup? When do you backup? Where does it backup to? How do you restore the backup? Will the restored data be good?

If you are anything like me, your total backup procedures are pretty primitive. Every so often you will copy most of the stuff you want to backup off to an external drive, to CD/DVD, or maybe you'll archive it online somewhere. That's a start, but the absolute killer to me is when I work on a document or some code for a week, or even just a particualarly productive day, and that work gets lost. These near term backups are what inspired this post.

The problem with backing up that hard day's work is that sometimes you simply can't. You encounter stupid things like eMbedded Visual C++ holding on to files in an open project and not letting them be copied. You try to be smart and use a Save As... in Word, but that switches your active work to be on the Save As file, not your original one. Usually that's not what I want and then I have to go through extra steps to open up the original again. Even if I can make a copy of the file, I still have to go find it in File Explorer or Finder and copy it off to some other location which I hope I remember.



What I want is a very simple, Backup command in the File menu of every program that saves data. The idea of the Backup command is that you create a default location that will receive in-progress backups of your file. This is all really a hack until we have decent journaling file-systems in place that would do this sort of thing for us, but I'll take what I can get. Once you've worked a few hours on your latest PowerPoint, you can select File, Backup and a copy of your file will get saved off to your predetermined Backup location (you did put this on another disk, in case one fails, right?). Sure, we can include a dialog to change your Backup location if you'd like, but most times you'll just select 'Ok' on the default. The active document WILL NOT change. The software WILL BE smart enough to make a copy without closing the app. The backup will even get saved with metadata such as which file it is a copy of, the time elapsed since the last backup, and other fun stuff like that.

I think I might try to make such a beast using Automator under OS X. Hopefully I'll be able to make it smart enough to figure out the active app and the file/project it has open. I wonder if I'll encounter the same "I'm using that file, you can't copy it" nonsense that I get on Windows.

With this simple backup hack in place, maybe I'll have time to look at some more advanced backup techniques that I probably should be using anyway :)

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Hard Drive

Wow, they read my mind. Earlier this week, I was working on a post about how we needed a notebook computer that had no hard drive and included flash for storage.

NEC has announced such a beast, and I'm excited. The Engadgeteers can't get past the price and RAM. I agree with the Engadget comments, this does cost too much, and I would like to see 1 gig of RAM. However, if they'd take a moment to step back, they might see something cool here.

If you've been paying attention, you saw Apple release a sleek digital audio player with up to 4 gig of flash. They packed that flash in to a sleek package and let you take it home for a decent price. UBS says that 4 gig of flash costs about $115.

One of the biggest complaints with notebook computers these days is a reversal in weight trends. They seem to be getting larger, rather than smaller. Bigger screens, bigger drives, and bigger batteries to power it all. What I want is the opposite of this. I want a tight 12" notebook with unbelievable battery life that still let's me do all of the things I like to do with a notebook. So what do I like to do? Browse the web, author documents, watch DVDs, transfer files, and maybe play a few games of poker. None of these things require a large hard drive.

What if we could swap out the 60 gig hard drive for 20 gig of flash? We could save size, weight, power, and battery since we don't have to spin platters. Sounds just like what the iPod nano did, huh?

A typical 60 gig 2.5" notebook drive weighs about 120 grams. 1 gig of flash weighs about .5 grams, so 20 gig would be 10 grams, less than 10% of the hard drive weight.
That same hard drive has dimensions of 0.374" H x 2.75" W x 3.94" D. I can't find dimensions of the flash right now, but the entire iPod nano is about half that size, so I'd imagine my smaller size claim holds up.

What about the loss in hard drive space? You know what? People seemed to get by with less than 20 gig for the last few years with notebook computers. Ignoring music and video, file sizes haven't increased all that much. You can keep your music library on a portable music player and ignore video (other than DVD) for this product. That isn't it's focus.

In the end, we can make the notebook even thinner, and still have room for a bigger battery. We also gain some reliability because we get rid of the spinning drive. Finally, we ditch the slow 5400RPM notebook drives and kick it up a bit with flash.

The biggest issue I see is cost. Going by the numbers from earlier, 20 gig of flash is going to cost about $500 today. That's quite a bit more than the ~$60 for the 60 gig drive. As the Engadget comments already proved, people aren't going to like the idea of paying MORE for a simpler, less powerful, and probably secondary, computer. Fast forward a year or so, when prices have dropped, and I hope to have a flash-only iBook in my hands.

Play This on Your Playlist

Time to update the 5 of the now. I'll put the old ones here, just for future reference :)

The old 5

• Dirty Vegas - All or Nothing


• Death In Vegas - Dirt


• Paul Kalkbrenner - The Palisades


• Dr. Octagon - I'm Destructive


• Vogon - Decoy

The new 5

• Keane - We Might As Well Be Strangers (DJ Shadow Remix)


• Alex Dolby - Obsessive Sound


• High Contrast - Twilight's Last Gleaming


• Ulrich Schnauss - As If You've Never Been Far Away


• The Coffee Boys - Nipple Fish (One Life Mix)

The Keane track used to be on iTMS, no longer. I guess you'll have to settle for the original.

The Alex Dolby track is featured on Steve Lawler's latest Lights Out compilation. This is a great series and Vol. 3 is quickly becoming my favorite of the series.

The High Contrast track has been around a while and I just enjoyed it when it came up on shuffle so it made the list.

Ulrich made the 5 again with a track of the recently released (domestic) Far Away Trains Passing By

Finally, the Nipple Fish! Fantastic track that I've been rocking out to since 1997. Through the magic of the long tail, you can pick this up on iTMS. Imagine trying to find that on vinyl these days!