Google Themes Waste Pixels?

I use the custom Google homepage. It isn't the greatest thing ever, but it works well for me as a homepage with weather, RSS feeds, stock quotes, Gmail subjects, and of course, search.

I like the minimal style of Google, but when they added themes, I gave them a try. I'm using the cityscape theme, and I'm liking it.


We got in a discussion at work about how these themes waste your screen real estate. Some use more space than others. For me, I don't mind giving up the 56 pixels.

Add Features to Apple TV Using Automator

One of the things I really wish the Apple TV had was widgets. I'd find them far more useful on my TV than I do on my computer. Specifically, widgets that would show me the weather and TV schedules. So what do you do? Shove that content in any way possible!

The Apple TV can show images and things like weather and tv schedules are pretty easy to find on the web as images, or at least data that you can use to generate your own images. I was lucky enough to find a local TV station that hosts plain ol' jpegs of the weather at a fixed location. You get these by clicking on them in the website, perfect.

Through some trial and error in Automator, I came up with this set of actions.

1. Get Specified URLs - The ones that show the weather


2. Download URLS - Pull the content locally


3. Rename Finder Items - I tack on the date and time, mostly for initial testing, but eventually I'll set this up to run on a regular basis and I don't want to mess with the dupe import dialog in iPhoto


4. Import Photos into iPhoto - I made a Weather album that I'm importing into. I then set the Apple TV to sync the weather album and I'm all set.

This is pretty rough still. I haven't figured out a good way to clean out the old weather images and I haven't yet set a cron to make sure I have current data on the Apple TV. The final hurdle is figuring out how often the Apple TV autosyncs, or perhaps a way to force the sync programatically.

I already mentioned TV listings, but I'm sure you can think of all sorts of content you could sync, such as contact data, RSS feeds, Netflix queues, email headers, and on and on.

Apple TV is Worth It

2 cables and 2 minutes. That's all it took to get the Apple TV up and running. I connected power and the HDMI to my TV. I chose English, chose my wireless network, entered my password, and then entered the generated passcode into my Mac mini downstairs. That's all. I was live and living.

You probably don't like to read my paragraphs, so let me tell you why I'm loving the Apple TV in list form.

• Easy setup - I just covered that


• Tiny size


• Album art looks amazing. The "drifting" art screen saver is great. I could sit and watch it for hours.


• Menus are snappy and handsome - I don't know why people are saying the interface looks like crap. It's simple and sleek. What do you want it to be?


• Streaming is working great. The smallish hard drive doesn't seem to be a problem when the streaming works so well. For reference, both my iTunes library and the Apple TV are wireless.


• Syncing setup is simple, although slow on that first sync ;)


• It syncs your playcounts like an iPod! This might be my favorite feature so far. I know, I'm weird. If you think about this, it makes sense since it will sync only your unwatched shows by default, but since other playback of "shared" content doesn't update the playcounts (like playback from another computer over the network), I wasn't expecting this. I still need to see if streamed content updates. I know sync'd content does.


• Movie trailers start-up almost instantly. You could always do this in iTunes, but it was such a pain in the ass. Now you can be sitting in the family room with friends and decide what movie to go see as a group, right on the TV...without going and hooking up any other gear.


• Video podcasts - You'll hear folks saying the Apple TV doesn't do anything more than a video iPod with the video output cable. I agree, as long as you forget the fact that you have to leave a cable hanging from your TV for your iPod....and your iPod has to be charged...and your iPod has to be with you...and you don't mind running to the iPod every 3 minutes to start a new podcast...and you don't want to pause...and...and....hmmm, I'm writing paragraphs again :)


• Photos - I've sync'd photos to my ReplayTV before. It was great once they were there. Getting them there was terrible. Now I tick a box for the album I want and I'm done.

At this point, I'm definitely recommending this.

Apple TV and Mac Mini - Not the Same Size

Here's my contribution to the Apple TV mania. Lots of people are under the impression that the Apple TV is the same form factor as the Mac mini. While they are the same shape and colors, they are different in size (7.7" vs. 6.5"). Take a look at the pictures and decide for yourself whether they are meant to be stacked together or not.






I do like that the lights are in the same general spot so that they would look good if you stacked them.

When wondering why the mini is smaller, do remember that it has a big external power supply. I wouldn't mind seing Apple update the Mac mini to integrate the power supply and use the same footprint as the Apple TV.

Apple TV vs. Media Center Extender

Everywhere you look that has comments about the Apple TV are comments about how stupid you'd be to buy an Apple TV and how smart you'd be to buy a Media Center Extender, specifically an Xbox 360. Here are 5 reasons why I chose the Apple TV over an Xbox 360.

1. Availability - No, I don't mean the fact that the Apple TV is finally shipping. I mean that you can use an Apple TV with any computer that can run iTunes. That's a lot of computers. That covers about any Windows or OS X computer built in the last 3 or more years. On the other hand, to use an MCE, you need Media Center (MC). According to Microsoft, you can't install MC. You have to know you want it, and buy it up front, assuming the computer you want even has the option.
   
   

   I have a really powerful Windows XP-based computer. Can I upgrade it to be a Windows Media Center-based PC?
   Unfortunately, no. While a PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 is also a powerful Windows XP-based computer, Microsoft does not retail Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 as an upgrade. Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 is only available pre-installed by PC manufacturers or qualified computer system builders.




2. Size - This matters to me. You might have a huge entertainment center, and I do to, but not with the TV that I want to run the Apple TV with. To me, the Apple TV is perfect for its small size and integrated power supply. The Xbox 360, while more capable, is gigantic. It has an external power supply that is nearly as big as the Apple TV itself. I don't want another power brick to hide. The cord is bad enough. Ignoring that power supply, the Xbox 360 is still nearly 4 times the size of the Apple TV.



3. Power consumption - Apple TV has a 48 watt supply. The Xbox 360 has a 160 watt supply. Save money and the environment :) with an Apple TV!



4. Cost - Apple TV is $299 and plenty of folks say that's far too much. Xbox 360 with a hard drive is $399. The Xbox can do a lot more than the Apple TV, but we aren't really discussing that here. We're discussing the video playback functionality. If you want to use that Xbox wirelessly, add on $89 for the adapter. Another $20 for a remote. If you aren't going to buy games for the Xbox then it doesn't look like that great of a choice for Media Center Extender.



5. Store Tie-ins - I like the walled garden of iTunes. I don't want to trade money for points that I can trade for content. Folks are quick to point out that the Xbox can play Divx, xvid, exlax, exwife, and xterra. That doesn't matter to me. I don't download shows over bittorrent (yet?), so being able to play the latest ripper codecs aren't a selling point for me. The iTunes garden does have a big swinging gate. If you can get content in to iTunes, it sounds like the Apple TV will play it. I plan to use that gate to get my purchased DVDs into iTunes.

5 of the Now

• Lyrics Born - I Changed My Mind (Stereo MCs Rattlesnake Mix)
  I've always been a huge Stereo MCs fan. I was lucky enough to find this on vinyl. You can get it digital though. Funk it up boys!


• Funkdoobiest - Bow Wow Wow
  Bringing this one out of my archive. I haven't listened to this album in forever. This is from my Cypress HIll days when I just had to have anything produced by DJ Muggs.


• Citizen Cope - Let the Drummer Kick
  This should be called Let the Drummer Kick Back. Mellow, soulful stuff.


• Booka Shade - Night Falls
  You barely get the fell for this in a 30 second sample. It builds and builds and makes you glow from the inside. I'm in a dilema on Booka's albums. I love them enough that I want to buy them, but Amazon wants $18 for them! Based on my rules of purchase this almost fits in the import prices, but I really want the real album, even though they are available for $10 on iTunes. Luckily I have plenty of Booka stuff in DJ mixes to listen to while I decide if I want to pay Sam Goody like prices on Amazon.


• Dilated Peoples - Live on Stage
  Thanks to Jason for bringing some focus to these guys for me. There's always the groups that you are peripherally aware of, but it takes someone saying "listen to this" to make it sink in sometimes. That's one of the points of the 5otn right? It's me saying "listen to this" :)

Blur, It's Cold in Here

I haven't played video games at home for years. My Playstation 2 sits in a closet doing nothing. I have a game or two that I never even played. I've really never been a gamer, but I have enjoyed video games since the days of Atari.

I had myself convinced there was no way I'd buy any of the latest gen of consoles. They cost too much. The cames cost too much. I had no time. But, then there's the Wii. It costs less. The whole thing is geared towards fun. Best of all, it gets you up off the couch. Still, I wasn't buying.

More and more, the Wii is trying to creep into my life. I hear about people having a ball playing it. I see video podcasts of people playing and it looks awesome. Still, I wasn't buying.

Then I read that one of my favorite franchises is coming to the Wii. SSX Blur is coming and it's bringing new free-form controls that sound like they'd be fun for controlling snowboarders. Then I see that Junkie XL is doing the soundtrack and giving it a listen at iTunes, it sounds perfect for the game. Upbeat, fun tracks.

I'm real close to buying one. We'll see.

Hybrid iPods

I'm by no means the first to think of this idea, but the more and more I read about the hybrid hard drives, the more I think, hmm, could those work in an iPod? The idea is, you put the songs you think will be played in the flash and then you don't have to spin the hard drive. More on that in a sec.


For starters, this wouldn't work because the drives are physically too big. Right now, the drives I've read about only come in the 2.5 inch size, not the 1.8 size that the full size iPods use. It's only a matter of time before they get made in that size though, right?

Next, I wondered if the flash cache was big enough. Currently, they come with 512, or at most a gig. Is a gig enough? Ideally, you'd avoid the drive as much as you could and only play from the flash. If we assume a meg a minute, which is about right for 128 AACs or 192 MP3s, you'd get 1000 minutes or 16 and half hours of playback. That's more than a full run of the iPod's battery. This is starting to sound pretty good. If you could predictively populate the flash at sync time, when you have plenty of time and plenty of power, you skip the spinning drive and extend the battery life.

You'd get all of the benefits of a full iPod with the battery life of a nano. That would be cool.

So how would you fill the cache flash with the stuff you'd want, rather than the other 59 gigs of stuff you are carrying?
Well, iTunes could attempt some predictive algorithms to fill the flash, or perhaps they go the low tech route and just ask us. Just like the checkbox to "Play higher rated songs more often" in Party Shuffle, you could tick a box for flash-syncing the higher rated songs if you listen to those more often. Or, maybe you can designate a few playlists as flash-syncable because you know you listen to those the most. Combine that with smart playlists and you'd smart sync the right stuff a good portion of the time. I know I spend most of my time listening to a Not heard recently smart playlist that picks up any newly added content (including podcasts) along with the stuff I haven't listened to in months. This lets me get a nice mix of my new stuff while still keeping my whole library in rotation.

I wanted to see if you could do some predictive syncing and I also wanted to see how much music I listened to between syncs to see if this would work. I looked at my last 16 days of listening, which translates into 4-6 sessions. I'm defining a session as 3-4 days of playback. That's about how long a charge will last me and I need to do this because the last played times aren't the last synced times...unless you're using a shuffle which does set the last played at the time of sync.

I average about 3.5 hours of listening a day. Roll that up into a session and you have 10.5-14 hours which is less than the 16 hour figure from earlier. Still, that assumes a lot of positive hits coming out of the cache. Perhaps a 2 gig flash cache would work out better.

One last idea for those that like to shuffle. The set of tracks for the shuffle could be determined at sync time and populated in the flash. It would still be random, it just wouldn't be chosen at random at the time you were listening.

Some of My Recent Documents

The recently used documents feature is a good thing. I like having it in apps. I also like having it available system wide. Unfortunately, it always seems like the file I used recently doesn't show up on my recently used documents. I got tired of wondering why some files didn't show up in the list and did some quick checking. Here's a list of what will and won't show up under XP's Recent Documents.

Bluetooth File Transfer Out	No
Bluetooth File Transfer In	No
Copy/Paste from Network Computer	No
File save from Firefox	Yes
File save from Internet Explorer	Yes
Attachment save out of an Outlook email	No
Copy from flash card to C: drive	No
Copy/Paste from Network Computer	No
Rename a file	No
Open a text file in Lemmy	No
Open a text file in Notepad	Yes

Now certainly a random app's inability to add to the Recent Documents list isn't Microsoft's fault. They document the API to use.

The part that bothers me is that the rest of these tasks don't result in the file on the recent documents list either. I can't tell you how many times I've copied a file or saved an attachment and then went CRAP, where did I just put that. Why can't these show up on the list?

While we're at it, why can't recently changed files show up differently in the File Explorer for a configurable period of time. Download a file, open the folder, and then spend 30 seconds scanning the files trying to remember the name of the thing you just downloaded. Maybe I'll have to write my own Bluetooth file transfer client so I can populate that list myself.

If anyone reading is running Vista and can check to see if any of these behaviors work differently, I'd appreciate it.

iTunes and Content Production

iTunes has always been about the music. Well, it was until the podcasts, and then the TV shows, and then the movies. Ohh, and the audiobooks have been there too, and you can get digital booklets with albums....iTunes has always been about the content. We've got that established, but iTunes has mostly been about selling other peoples content.

Plenty of folks are calling for iTunes to be the savior of independent content everywhere. Skip the label and publish directly on iTunes. We've seen a little of that with services like CD Baby and we're starting to see things happen with video too. These things are great, and I hope they continue, but I want to connect the dots a little differently. It almost seems like things are shaping up for Apple themselves to be the content producers.

I pull together 3 nuggets of info to suggest that Apple might want to dive deeper into the content production business.

For starters, they've settled with Apple Records and can now produce music if they really wanted to.

Second, Apple appears to be having some success in their partnership with Nike selling exercise influenced mixes. I own two of them (Crystal Method and Aesop Rock ) and I love them. As of this writing, there are 15 such mixes available for purchase. I don't know who is actually financing these productions, but Apple is pushing them and they are iTunes exclusive.

Finally, we have the impending release of the Apple TV. Mine is on order and I expect to spend about $60 on content as soon as it arrives. I'll be more than happy to spend the money as I've cancelled my cable and I'm saving $60 a month already. Apple will want more reasons for people to buy Apple TVs. One of those reasons could be exclusive content. Just like HBO got a nice boost from The Sopranos and how Howard Stern sold buckets of Sirus subscriptions, Apple could snag customers with some exclusive content of their own and they could pay the production costs to make that happen.

Apple has historically had a creative base. How cool would it be for them to start employing some of their users to create content for them? Think about what would happen if the next Lost were an iTunes exclusive. That would seriously shake up the TV world, but it would also piss off the networks they've already signed deals with. Maybe the networks had wording in their contracts that said Apple couldn't produce television shows :)

Play Bar Brothers

I realize there aren't a whole lof of ways you can design a play bar, but I did think it was interesting to see how similar the Netflix Watch Now and iTunes Fullscreen Cover Flow play bars are.

The order is the same. Play/pause, scroll bar, volume, and then full screen control.



I actually like that these are similar. I don't want to learn a new layout for every app I use.

Thru-bike CR

Last year's cycling goal was days. This year's cycling goal is miles, but not just any miles. These will be the miles within the city limits of Cedar Rapids, IA. I plan to ride every road in the city this year.

I've created a separate blog for the topic. Partly because I don't want to skew the focus of this blog too much, and partly because I want to give iWeb a spin to see if it is worth using.

Go check out the Thru-bike CR site.

The Apple Drawer

I have a drawer dedicated for Apple stuff. Somehow this topic came up with my friends at work. I got the feeling they thought it was a little weird, and a touch fanatical. I think it's just a sign of being organized :)

I don't know that there are any real surprises or curiosities in the Apple drawer. There's unused iPod docks, extra headphones, and the crappy iPod cases that ship in the box. There's also my wireless Apple mouse that is current unused as I'm using a Wacom tablet and mouse instead (great Christmas gift Jeff).

I like that I can easily find a spare set of headphones when I'm running out the door. I like that I can find the external video cables I need when I'm packing for a trip. I like that it looks like an Iowa winter when I open the drawer.

So, take a look, see what you can identify, and have a laugh at my expense because I have an Apple drawer.

Can't Watch Now

So far, I haven't had much luck with Netflix's Watch Now service. I initially was able to watch a movie fine. My only issue was that I watched 10 minutes but it charged me for the whole movie. It seems I'm not the only one. That's not a big deal. I had hours to burn for the month anyway.



However, now, every time I try to watch a movie, it tells me I need to delete some random amound of MB before I can watch anything. I say random because I can hit back and then click Watch again and it gives me a different number, usually dozens of MBs different than the last time.

I've tried deleting how much it says and that never helps. I have nearly a gig and a half free. Is that not enough?

I also tried uninstalling and reinstalling the player. Still no love. I want this to work, but I'm reaching my mucking threshold and I'm not happy.

Don't Wash That

I'm sure the tag said not to, but the tag was cut off a long time ago. You know those squishy soft mini pillows you can buy at the airport? Yeah, don't put those in the washing machine.


We had our own personal blizzard in our washer. It took us at least a dozen washes with a full vacuuming afterwards to get those little pellets cleaned out of the washer. Luckily the ones that stuck to the clothes got trapped in the dryer lint catcher.

So, have a chuckle at our expense and remember, don't wash that.

Is the HD Up?

This one's for the locals.

The weather has been not so nice lately. Thousands of people were, or still are, without power for days after our weekend storm. I was lucky enough to only lose power for an hour.

With that stage set, I turned on the TV tonight and found no stations. I ditched cable and only have OTA digital and HD now. I immediately began cursing my antenna. Surely the power surges from all of the work going on in the state killed my antenna I thought. I switch the antenna over to the analog in put and was able to get something out of it. The antenna was fine.

I then immediately began cursing my TV. Stupid TV, it must have blown the ATSC tuner as I wasn't getting any signal. Ahh, but wait. With some more playing, I found FOX, on a different channel, so the ATSC tuner was working. So what was the problem.

I went to the trusty computer and did some digging. Turns out, the HD antenna farm near Walker was again without power and that was the source of the TV with no signal. My gear was working, thankfully, and now I have a resource to check to see if the HD signals are up. CFU plots OTA HD reception and is your one stop to see if the HD stations are up or down.

5 of The Now

• LCD Soundsystem - North American Scum [In college, I went on a 3 week study to central mexico. One of the things that really stood out from that trip was how much they hated that people in the US called themselves Americans. It's the perfect example of us being self-centered. There are a lot of Americans, including those in Mexico and Canada. They wanted to make sure we understood we were all Americans. That said, I think the lower half of North America would rather be left out of the topics in LCD Soundsystem's new track. I think LCD has the US squarely in their sights when they talk about North American scum. It's a great, dare I say, think piece, that hopefully opens a few eyes, and ears.]


• Aesop Rock - All Day [This is one of the Nike+ Mixes which I've been quite happy with so far. One of the comments on iTunes describes this as "nothing more than a crappy techno album". Uhh what? He's correct in that the lyrics are few and far between, but this is a mix about the run, not about rockin' the stage. It does tend towards the dancier side of hip-hop, but again, that's the point. They have to maintain a consistent flow for 45 minutes and Aesop succeeds. I'm really digging this. While we're talking about Aesop, be sure to subscribe to the Definitive Jux podcast.]


• Nelly Furtado - Say It Right [I'm still a sucker for Timbaland, even if he borrowed some beats for the other Furtado tracks. I heard this one enough on the radio to know I liked it and I listen to the radio infrequently enough that I'm probably not as tired of it as those that listen often :) I bought this off iTunes. Too bad the quality is crap and sounds muddier than a farm field in March. You can hear it in the sample, go listen.]


• Trentemoller - Take Me Into Your Skin [The problem with this track is that it is too good. It is the first track on the album and it sets a bar that is tough to get back to. Amazing music.]


• Tycho - The Disconnect [This one isn't available on iTunes but you can listen on his website. If you like it, he does have an album on iTunes
  and Amazon. If you like Tycho's minimal style, you'll like the rest of Trentemoller's album as well.]

Watch Now, Not on a Mac

I'm excited because my Netflix account has been enabled with their new Watch Now service. I've been checking daily since the announcement. I don't know if it had anything to do with it, but I actually did a search on the site for Watch Now and then when I followed the search results it told me my account was now enabled. Perhaps they enable you if you go looking for it?

So, I have it, but I'm pretty limited on how I can use it. First, no Mac support at all. You need Windows and you need Internet Explorer. Firefox isn't supported. Luckily I can boot in to XP through the magic of Boot Camp.


Their auto-detect for speed has me at good quality. I'm on 5Mb DSL for reference.


I love that Netflix added this service for free. More to follow as I put the service through the paces.

Be Concise, Be Consistent

Some people wonder why other people can't get the hang of computers. They find using computers to be pretty easy and can't fathom why others have such a hard time with them. I'm not one of those people. Plenty of people think computers are hard because they are. They're complex, they're confusing, and the worst part is that simple investments at design time could go a long way towards making them easier to use.

Today I'm going to pick on Foxit Software, makers of the great, free, PDF reader for Windows. Like many of you, I grew tired of the bloat in Adobe Reader and decided to try things without it. While installing Foxit Reader, I was presented with an installer that, on the surface, looked just fine. However, if you take a gaze with a critical eye, you'll notice plenty of things that us geeks just accept but confuse the crap out of non-technical users.

In the first screenshot, we're being asked to choose a folder to install our application to. A reasonable default is preselected.

My problem is the Disk Space section. First off, what's a disk? I thought we were picking a folder? Then we see some stuff about total disk space and free disk space. I'll be honest, I've seen these things hundreds of times but at first I thought the total disk space was how much the app was going to burn!

It took me a bit to notice that the "disk to use" info was down in another section of the window. Why is the focus of this window the disk space indicator? Shouldn't the focus be the folder to install to and the disk space required? They don't even give me any indication if the selected disk has the appropriate room to install. I guess I could do the math, but wait, can I? I see I have 2205 MB available and the app is going to use 2.5M. Now, I know they are using the same units here, and you know they are using the same units, but do non-technical users know that an MB and a M are going to be the same in this case?

Why didn't they use the same units? Why did they include a space on one and not the other?


In our second screeshot we see something called a destination location. What's that? I thought I just picked an install folder. If you want to call it a destination location, then ask me to pick a destination location, not an install folder.

Now, a lot of you have already cursed at the screen and decided that I'm overly critical. If you have, good. I writing this post to you. This stuff does matter and it does confuse people. It would have taken about 20 seconds to have changed the installer at design time to use consistent terminology and put focus on the things that needed focus.

IE7 UI Blunders

I've used IE7 for a little while now and it's high time I complained about it! :)

For the first round of complaints, I'll address my UI hot button. Here's where I think they made some blunders.

1. Separate reload and stop buttons - I think these should be the same button.


2. Reload and stop buttons not near the page navigation - This one bothers me the most. These buttons are frequently used while going back and forward. Right now, they're hanging out in no-man's land between the location and search boxes. Why are they there? I don't understand the placement.


3. Can't change the size of the address box - Anything beyond the first 20 or 30 characters is just script arguments and other junk that means nothing to users. IE7 makes sure you see it all.


4. Can't change the size of the search box - Longer searches are useful to see. I could find no way to make this box bigger. Making the window bigger only makes the address box bigger. Safari lets you slide between these two boxes. A bigger search equals a smaller address. Perfect!


5. Drop box on home button - How often do I need to change my home page? Almost never. How often to I go to my homepage? Dozens of times a day. How often would I miss the home button by 2 pixels and get the silly drop-down? Often.


6. Multiple home pages? What's the difference between an additional home page and a regular link? Why couldn't I create a Home folder of links if I wanted multiple home pages? Maybe the Microsoft guys, with their huge net worths from cashing in stock are under the impression that most people have multiple homes and therefore need multiple home pages. I have microsoft.com for my Redmond estate, weather.com for the beach house in Maui, and skireport.com for the Whistler condo. Aww, the more I thought about this, the more I thought it might be a cool idea, but I pretended it wasn't long enough to write the Whistler condo joke.
   

It's not all bad. I love the blank piece of tab that you click to make a new tab.

Link The Fabulous Manual

I think every homeowner has a drawer or a shelf full of the manuals from their house. Things like, how to change your garage door code and cleaning maintenance for your clothes washer. They are full of useful, but rarely used information. You'd like to just toss the manuals, but you can't...or can you?

Recently I needed to change my garage code. I was unable to find the printed manual so I went online, expecting to be disappointed. Thankfully, I wasn't. My keypad manufacturer had a great set of manuals online in PDF format. Further searching showed that plenty of my printed manuals could be found online. I expect this from electronics, but household applicances have lagged behind a bit.

Wanting to simplify things a little, I figured I can download these manuals, store them on my comptuer, and whip up a quick web page to let me find them quickly.


He's a screenshot of the start of that idea. I plan to replace my quick house drawing with an actual picture of the house and I'll probably not only link the downloaded manuals, but also the manufacturer sites for reference.

I doubt I'll really toss the manuals, but they will get tucked away in the downstairs storage rather than burn precious shelf space. LTFM

Desktop Generations

I happened to have all of my desktop computers together and unhooked from everything, so I took a family photo.



It's an interesting progression. My first real desktop (not pictured) was actually a hand-me-down from my family. It was a custom built 486 DX. Whoa baby, was that a smokin machine. It started life with a 300 MB harddrive and was later upgraded by me to a whopping gig for $300. I think I got 300 MB worth of spam today.

Anyway, the Gateway machine served me well. It took me through the backend of college and gave me a workout when I had to move it between school and home. That thing is a metal monster. I actually set it on my toe while arranging the picture and multiple curse words came out of my mouth. I purposedly bought the biggest tower they offered because I just knew I'd want to cram all sorts of hardware upgrades in there. I've been meaning to put a drive in the Gateway and give it to someone deserving for about 3 years now. One of these days...

The Dell was even better. Enough horsepower to pull a beer wagon, wicked stealth styling, and a really crappy flap on the front that hid the worst designed USB ports of all time! I dump on it now, but it was a great computer in its day too. I recently retired that one. I have little use for XP these days at home and it was just burning electricity and contributing to clutter. Plus, it is about a year past due for an OS reinstall. I swear it has malware of some sort on it even though scans show nothing. Every five minutes a program flashes in the task bar and then disappears. I haven't let it sit on the Internet longer than a few minutes in months. The Dell also shows one of the only times I carried forward hardware. I paid a premium for that Plextor burner because it did CD-TEXT. I used to rock a 300 disc CD changer and would dupe all of my CDs with CD-TEXT for that player. Nero had a great disc copy that would add CD-TEXT. That was mucking that I enjoyed because it helped me enjoy my music.

The Grandson in this photo is the Mac mini. The mini was my switcher experiment. If you've read any of my other posts, you know the experiment was a success. I like my mini, but I purposely bought it underpowered to save cash and it just isn't up to the task of being the main computer at home. It is fabulous in the office though. It is tiny, quiet, and not fugly. Notice the lack of silly stickers and a color scheme that doesn't remind you of roller blades.

The decreasing tower size directly reflects my disdain for mucking with my computers and desire to have a computing device that has a little more style. I used to think I had to have the biggest tower because what if I wanted to drop 5 drives inside? Well, I never went past 3 drives, and I've never gone past 2 optical drives. I don't see myself needing to add on a Blu-ray burner anytime soon, so I'd like my new desktop computer to skip the tower completely!

What does your computer lineage look like?

Google RSS Enhancements

I haven't seen any mention of this feature yet. When accessing my Google personalized homepage, my regular RSS headlines were enhanced with expanders to show the content behind the links. This brings the functionality more inline with dedicated RSS feed readers.

I took a screenshot and now the feature is gone again. Here you go.

Identicons vs. Autobots

I have discussed commenting systems before. A recent flurry of work is attempting to address some of the concerns. Don Park has invented identicons. I'll let you go read about them yourself, but essentially, an identicon is a visual cue to identity. It maps an IP address to an image. The idea is to help readers identify a person's comments in a group of comments, whether because they want to read those comments, or as a simple indicator that the comments may not belong to the person they think they belong to.

The title, aside from being a childhood reference, suggests that identicons could be a way of combatting comment spam. If the comment spam was not removed completely, perhaps its identicon could be learned as one to skip past when scanning the comments. Slashdot does something similar with their Friends and Foes system and I do find it useful when deciding what to read out of hundreds of comments. I'll for sure read the friends and the enemies of the friends to get the opposing view points.

The identicon idea does have drawbacks. For one, there are already a handful of me-too implementations that, while cool, contribute to the identity problem because you will end up with different identicons in different places.

In all, it's a very interesting solution to a very complex problem and is worth some thought.

Something for Nothing

There are a couple of items in the news right now that do a good job at pointing out how whiny people really are. First up, Apple is being nice and letting certain computer owners upgrade their Wi-Fi to pre-N. They are charging $5 for this. I think this is completely reasonable. Most commenters are pitching a fit. They foam at the mouth and scream at Apple's audacity to charge for something they already have.

I think free software updates have spoiled people. Software didn't use to have free updates. You ran the version that came in the box and you liked it. As the net began draining into homes around the globe, we had an easy way to provide software updates. Combine that with the continued acceleration of the world and we ended up with more software, faster, but often with more bugs. This combo led to free updates. Some might be inclined to view it as fixing the crap that should have worked the first time. There are new features that are added for free, but should we always expect that?

So now we've moved past free software updates and people now want free hardware updates. Go ahead and argue that the upgrade to 802.11n is just software. If that's true, I know someone with a drawer full of Lucent Orinoco cards that would love for you to upgrade to 802.11n for them. Apple could have left the hardware out completely and made you take your computer in for service or ship it back for including the hardware. Instead, they provided a way to enable the feature at a cost later on. Sounds a lot like the OnStar you get in vehicles doesn't it? One guy even claimed that he was owed this upgrade because he made his purchasing decision based on the fact that Apple was including 802.11n capable hardware. He has conveniently forgotten that Apple never told him this. That was all rumor and sleuthing provided by the fan sites.

It seems this cost might be due to legal and accounting reasons. Even if it isn't, $5 isn't much. If you don't want it, don't buy it. If $5 turns you in to one of those people that rails against a company for petty stuff, well don't let the dogcow bite you on the way out.

The flip of this is Netflix's announcement that they will add streaming movie downloads for their customers. I'm a long standing Netflix customer and this is the best thing I've heard out of them since they dropped their price. For every dollar you spend, you get an hour of streaming video. That's amazing. I'm on the 3-out plan, so that would be 18 hours. We don't even watch 18 hours from the DVDs we get every month. This will help in my battle to ditch cable TV. I think this will be great for those movies that you get that are more about one fight scene or car chase. You can watch the good stuff and skip the shipping turnaround. You're also never without a movie. You can fire up your browser during netflux.

Bringing this back to the whining theme. One guy noted that Netflix is launching this as IE/XP only. He then demanded that since he couldn't run that combo, that Netflix drop his monthly subscription cost to cover the functionality he can't use. WTF? Dude, they are adding this on. You aren't paying for it today. If you don't like it, bail.

iLife Invades Life

I was watching some stand-up on Comedy Central. I was enjoying the comic quite a bit and actually caught myself reaching for the remote so I could rate the set 4 stars. Yes, I am so used to applying my likings to music and photos in iTunes and iPhoto that my brain has decided to start rating things in the rest of my life.

Just last week, I was listening to the weather while waiting in the drive-thru line at Burger King. The weatherman said today's weather would be partly cloudy with a high of . When it was my turn, I ordered a Bacon Double . On my way out of the parking lot, some jerk cut me off and I nearly got in a wreck. I rolled down my window and yelled... "Hey moron, you drive like !"

iPhone Questions

To go along with my hits and misses, I have a few iPhone questions that haven't been fully answered yet.

• Will it be locked down? - Some articles say you can't run your own apps. Some might read in to the statements with a little more hope for loading their own code on their iPhone. From the NY Times article
  

  “These are devices that need to work, and you can’t do that if you load any software on them,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn’t mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.”

  
  I see hope in the Widgets. The phone appears to run the same Widgets from the desktop. I'm hoping that Dashcode isn't just for the desktop and will be the vehicle for custom development on the iPhone.


• Is the battery removable? - Most likely, not, and I'm ok with that, but I've talked to some folks that say there is no way they'd get one if it didn't have a second battery option.


• Full use Bluetooth? - Bluetooth headsets are a given. Apple is releasing their own, which is curious. Are they doing this to embed some simpler pairing or did they see an opportunity to design a nice headset. Personally, I think there are quite a few nice headsets on the market. They will have a tough time besting those already in the market. Apple has yet to post any details about their headset. I'm hoping they do that soon.
  
  Beyond headsets, what will we get? A2DP? Dial-up networking? HID? Object push? If A2DP is in there, I think I'll have to buy one, whether or not I want to use the phone portion (more on that in another question). A2DP would also allow for cleaner music sending and control without goofy solutions. Dial-up networking would sure make the data plan worth having. Apple has great Bluetooth networking support in OS X. Macbook + data enabled iPhone = high degree of connectibility. HID would shut up all of the folks that have to have plastic keys to be happy typing. I'd expect mini thumb boards and sewn-in keyboards to show up in droves. Object push would let you make use of that 4/8 GB of flash and get your pictures off without a cable. If it were Apple alone, I think all of this would work. Since this is a phone, I'm more concerned that the carriers will have a hand in blocking some of these features, as they've done in the past.


• Can you buy one without a contract? - Some folks are saying yes because they will be for sale in Apple stores. I don't think that means a darn thing. I'm pretty sure you'll be forced to buy a contract, even though the pricepoint seems to be an unsubsidized price. That's Cingular's payoff for keeping the secret, developing the back end for visual voicemail and generally relaxing their requirements to let Apple do what they want to do with a phone on their network. If the contract is required, I predict tons of cheap iPhones on eBay 2 years from June. People go through phones like bread. "Ohh, you have a RAZR? That's so stale. The KRZR is where it's at, doof!" If Apple doesn't follow on with non-phone widescreen touch iPods, then the used iPhone market is going to be jumping for those that don't care about the phone and just want the rest.


• Can you use it without a SIM? - I think it would be suicide to disable the device if it had no SIM, but who knows when you get mobile carriers involved. I guess we'll see.


• Can you send music wirelessly? - We all know the Zune can squirt, but will the iPhone? Will you be able to send non-DRM'd files over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or is that part of the no wireless synching that I've heard? Will you be able to send DRM'd music? I can see myself dropping an album or two on a friends computer or work computer to listen with the connected speakers. You auth that machine so it can play that content and then de-auth it when you leave. That's within the bounds of the DRM, as long as you can get the files off of the phone.

Do you have any links to help answer these questions? Leave a link in the comments.

iPhone Misses

To go with the hits, I definitely think the iPhone has a few misses.

• Can't sync over wireless - Please let this be untrue. I've been begging for wireless sync for years now. Now there is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth onboard and still no wireless sync?


• Phone contract - Ugg. I don't have a mobile phone now. This might make me get one, but it still would be nice to have this device for the iPod and communicator functionality without being locked into a contract. I'd prefer it to just be sold as a GSM phone that I can take to the carrier of my choice which might be no carrier at all.


• Can't buy songs from the iTunes store - Again, I want this to be untrue. Think of the thousands of songs a day that will be bought by people at the airport, waiting for the bus, or just hanging out with friends. The impulse buy is quite powerful. Here a track at the club that you love, buy it immediately so you don't forget.


• Development age - Maybe it's just me, but some of the included tech suggests that this has been in development for 2.5 years. EDGE but not 3G could be a deal-breaker for some. Also the 2 megapixel phone seems pretty basic. Again, I don't care that there is a phone at all, but some will complain about the camera. Hopefully the camera has better optics than most mobile phone cameras.


• Different Dock - The pictures of the iPhone in a dock look like it is a different dock than the iPod. What happened to the plastic inserts? It uses an iPod dock connector, but not the dock? That sucks. I hate docks all over my desk and without the ability to wirelessly sync, they force me to have a dock or a hanging cable. Both of those choices are crappy.

Lots are calling the price a miss. I actually called for a $499 price, but that was without a contract. If I'm thinking ahead, I think Apple had to go with that price point to leave room for a $399 100 GB iPod that has widescreen and multi-touch capabilities. If the phone were any cheaper, because of a subsidy from Cingular, people wouldn't be able to get past the mental block of an iPod that costs more than the iPhone with an iPod in it, completely disregarding the 2 year contract lock-in. I think the iPhone is actually going to bring revenue to all of the wireless carriers as folks pay a penalty to break their existing contracts to go with the iPhone.

I also really don't care if it has a removeable battery or not. Many people will, but it is nice to see a 5 hour talk time which is more than many Blackberries which state a 4 hour talk time.

Next up, the questions that I still have about the iPhone.

iPhone Hits

I think Apple has another hit on their hands with the iPhone. Here are some things I think they did right.

• No buttons - I doubt many Blackberry users will switch, but that's ok. I tend to agree with Steve's explanation. Buttons are in the way when you don't need them and when you think of a good interface idea, you have no option but to build new hardware. I like the sleek, simple face. Notice that they still don't have an Apple logo on the front. That makes me happy. I'm also glad to see no number buttons, just like I asked for. If you watch the keynote, Steve refers to dialing a phone number as being "real last century"


• Multi-touch - Wow, wow, wow. We've been getting a taste of this in movies and university research, but to see it in real life use is something to celebrate. Even if the iPhone is a complete flop as a phone, this technology will certainly creep in to lots of other places.


• Focus on contacts, not phone numbers - Yup, phone numbers are stupid. Keep one set of carefully polished contacts and sync them everywhere.


• Awesome unlock - Locking and unlocking phones until know have been a huge pain in the butt. This looks like a perfect solution.


• Dedicated ring/silent switch - Useful


• Flick to scroll - Looks amazing


• Call merging and adding - Yes, yes. Why is this still hard? I have no idea how to operate these functions on my work phone. I use them rarely, but I would like to use them at times if I knew how.


• Visual voicemail - Email inbox style voicemail. Everyone's thought of it. Now we have it.


• iPod dock connector - Reuse existing cables and possibly add-ons.


• Size - Looks like a good form factor. I can't wait to hold one.


• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth - These are must have technologies. I'm hoping for wide Bluetooth profile support.


• Google Maps - Location services are hot. I refuse to ask for directions, so this is great!

Notice I didn't say anything about the camera or texting. I think those will be marginally acceptable. I don't really like cameras in phones in the first place.

Next up, the misses and the questions.

Throw Hardware At It

When I saw the product announcement of the Popalive Remote & and Dock, I had to groan. This product is the wrong answer. The question is, How can I get songs from my iPod to play on my stereo and control the iPod simply from across the room.

I have to give Alive Style credit for trying to replicate the iPod's ease of use on the remote side. Unfortunately, it looks like they borrowed more of the style than of the substance. It looks like it has a scroll wheel, but it doesn't. It looks like the familiar iPod screen interface, but it isn't. It even adds buttons. I know most remotes have more buttons than the thing they control, but why? We're at a point where the interface can be on screen. We don't need more buttons on the remote, we need less.

I think the most depressing thing about this product category is using a thing like-an-iPod to control an iPod sitting near a stereo with even more wires. They've just tossed a bunch of hardware at the problem rather than solving it. To me, solving it is using the darn iPod as the controller. No need to learn a new interface. No need to charge an additional item. No need to drop another dock on the table with yet another wire. Have the iPod send the audio wirelessly to the stereo. I've posted at least half a dozen times about A2DP in an iPod. Here's hoping we see that tomorrow at Macworld. I'm not holding my breath. A2DP is showing up in players. Apple is getting their butt kicked on that one.

2006 Albums of the Year

Usually these sorts of lists get put out in late December. I guess I'm a little behind.

With the growing presence of online music, the album may be fading. I still like albums and have special respect for those artists that can put together a cohesive, quality, collection of music. I expand the definition of album just a little. I include DJ mixes as albums.

I started putting this list together with no set number of how many I wanted to list. As I began to whittle it down, I found these six to be the best of the best for 2006. So, in no particular order (err, alphabetical)...

• BT - This Binary Universe
  I think BT is a tremendous artist. It's nice that he took a little break from movie scoring to make this. I guess you could say this is still a movie score, except the movie is his life. This one will stand the test of time.


• DJ Shadow - The Outsider
  As usual, the albums that bug me at first become beloved over time. I guess I can't immediately appreciate the new directions. I'd still prefer to hear more stuff like Endtroducing, but I liked this enough to make my best of 2006.


• Evil Nine - Fabriclive.28
  Bumpin' mix. I wouldn't expect any less. Fabriclive is putting out great stuff.


• Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
  Easily my most played album of the year. This disc has yet to leave the 6 disc changer in my truck. I show no signs of tiring of it. This is how albums should be done. Each track is unique, but yet it feels whole.


• The Remote - Hard to Miss
  Global Underground has done a great job with their artist albums. The Remote is at the top of the stack.


• Stanton Warriors - The Stanton Sessions, Vol. 2
  Like Gnarls Barkley, this has seen heavy play on the roads. The artist tracks are my favorite, but the included DJ mix is a burner too.

2 Way iPod

By accident, I found that you can listen to your iPod using both the headphone jack and the dock connector. Many (most?) functionality that uses the dock port takes over the iPod. A Bluetooth dongle is one accessory that doesn't. I found I can listen to my Bluetooth headphones and it doesn't stop the output to the headphone jack.

You may not care in the slightest, but I do see some applications for this 2 way action. You can jack in to your friends iPod without disturbing them too much. This would be good for side by side machines at the gym, or road trips (think back of the van and front), or even listening to your cubicle neighbor's iPod, just for something different. The wireless aspect allows much more freedom than a traditional headphone splitter.

You can also use this method to hear the latency of the A2DP connection. It isn't much, and perfectly acceptable for most listening applications, but you can clearly hear why you won't be using Bluetooth headphones for DJing any time soon.