USB in the Dash Please

A positive trend in cars as of late is to include an aux input on the stereo. Many sell this as an iPod input, but it will work for a Zune, Dell Ditty, whatever. Here you see the dash of a Chevy SSR.

Now that the ball is rolling, how about we ditch the cigarette lighter power jacks and just go with USB? Tons of phones, music players, and other gadgets are capable of being charged over USB. I know it would put a hurt on the folks selling lighter adapter cables, but this is about the consumer :)


If you're a smoker, you can buy an adapter that plugs in to USB to light your cigs!

I really don't care if the USB is hooked to any data network. I'd imagine it wouldn't be for quite some time. I'm just looking for convenient charging solutions that don't require cable double-ups.

Add some bungees to the top of the dash and your gadget could charge without flying around the car.

Staring at the Start Menu

After reading Joel on Software's post about the Vista shutdown menu, I was moved to stare at the XP start menu for a bit. I wondered what I did and didn't like about it.


For reference, here's a mostly default XP start menu.

You can see that my default browser has been changed to Firefox and I've run a few programs which show up as frequently used.

Overall, it's not too bad. The placement of the All Programs probably makes sense because if I used the program alot, it would be in the recent icons, or perhaps an entry in the Quick Launch bar. One bad thing is the amount of crap that is shown by default. More on that in a sec.


My first WTF comes when you move the Start button to the top or the side. You can see that the menu doesn't change in the slightest. That's really odd to me because your mouse pointer is now approaching the menu from a complete different direction. It seems that the items would be rearranged to reflect this new orientation.

If the orientation doesn't matter, then the menu isn't designed for repetitive use and would lean towards being pretty rather than functional, wouldn't it?

The Start bar down the left of the screen is the orientation that I run on widescreen and dual-screen setups. I find this to be the only way to get reasonable window titles so I know which window to pick when I have dozens of them open. It's interesting that I don't have this problem when I use expose with the Mac.

You can see that you have to mouse past a giant username header on the menu every time you access the menu. That seems like a usability no-no to me, especially on home systems that probably only have one user. You can configure most of the rest of the menu. Why can't you turn the login name banner off?


I put my image editor where my mouth is and mocked up a flipped start menu. It isn't pixel perfect, but you get the idea.

I also configured the menu to a simpler presentation. I'm not sure I've ever accessed Set Program Defaults and Access, so I'm pretty sure I don't need it every time I click Start.

After looking at this for awhile, I find that I prefer the original start menu, but in the drop from the top orientation. If I could get rid of the login banner, I'd be all set. Things that I use least, like Turn Off and All Programs are far from the mouse pointer, which is good. Things like Internet and Mail are within ease reach.

I haven't actually tried out Vista yet, but it looks like things aren't much better there. Perhaps it allows more configuration. I'll let you know :)

5 of The Now

I'm in one of those funk, breaks, gritty brilliance, kind of moods. We have some old, some new, and some old that is being rereleased anew.

• Sound Directions - Dice Game Funky! Drums, horns, is that an oboe?


• Latryx - Lady Don't Tek No Lateef and Lyrics Born on the flow, DJ Shadow on the production. How can you go wrong? Of special note is the recently released live version!


• Incredible Bongo Band - Apache Ahh Apache. Much like the amen break, Apache has a long, storied musical history. I bet you a donut you've heard this break. Get a flavor of it at Wikipedia and soul-sides.com. Then check the list of songs that sample it. I feel like I've heard other uses and this is going to make me go digging in my collection to do a little sample spotting.


• Mandrill - Mango Meat


• Madvillain - Great Day (Four Tet Remix)
  

What I Love About Safari

I like the Safari web browser. When I'm using a Mac, I prefer it, even when Firefox is close at hand. There are times when I must leave Safari (stupid web devs), but I'd say that 98% of my Mac surfing is in Safari.

In addition to just working, there are a few features in Safari that bring extra delight. These aren't all unique to Safari, but Safari does rock them well.

1. Save PDF to Web Receipts Folder - This one is brilliant. No need to roll your own method for saving those "Print this page for your records" pages. You can even skip the paper storage because the PDF will let you print one years later if you really need it.
   


2. Simple, clean, and minimal UI. From the back button to the integrated Google search, I don't think you could get it any cleaner. I remove the home button. That leaves back, forward, stop/reload, address bar, and Google search. Exactly what I need.


3. Open in tabs - I use this on a daily basis. It is great for sites that don't have RSS feeds, or even ones that do that you prefer to browse directly.


4. Fill forms from address book card - I love the tight integration. Other browsers will learn who they think you are. My computer already knows who I am, it doesn't need to guess.


5. Sync bookmarks using .Mac - Yes, .Mac is probably too expensive for what it is, but I do like having my browsers on multiple machines keep the same set of bookmarks. This involves no mucking, where plenty of the other bookmark sync services do.

Nine of Evil

As you know, Evil Nine is one of my favorite artists. In tribute to them, I put together an Evil Nine based DJ mix. It's 9 tracks (how clever) that are all Evil Nine related in some way, be it their tracks, their remixes, or remixes of their tracks.

I'd hoped for a Halloween release (again, evil, clever, yes, I know), but it took a little longer to find the time.

Tracklisting:

1. Evil Nine - Crooked


2. Timo Maas - Pictures (Evil Nine Remix)


3. Ursula Rucker and Will Saul - Where Is It? (Evil Nine Remix)


4. Evil Nine - Restless


5. Evil Nine - We Have the Energy


6. Santos - Sabot (Evil Nine Remix)


7. Stone Lions - Immigrant Heel, Claw, & Toe Lovers - Whoah!


8. PET - Superpet (Evil Nine Remix)


9. Evil Nine - Cakehole (Midnight Son Mix)

If you want to give it a listen, let me know.

ChapterTool Error

If you get the following error using ChapterTool, check to see that your image pathnames exist. If they don't, or you have one spelled wrong, ChapterTool will fail. I learned this the hard way.

ChapterTool 2.0b8 (4)
Copyright (C) 2005, Apple Computer, Inc., all rights reserved.
ERROR: Couldn't add chapters to movie (-43)
status: failed
code: -43

5 of The Now

• The Remote - She's Going Out Tonight One of my favorite albums of the year. It's electronic, but has tinges of rock that should make it accessible to those that like bands such as the Killers, Panic! at the Disco, and the like.


• Hard Rock Sofa - Spatial Pleasure Uplifting and groovy. Hear the full track at their Myspace and then go buy it at Beatport.com.


• Fedde Le Grand - Put Your Hands Up for Detroit Good, floor-filling fun. If you like nurses, be sure to check out the video.


• James Holden - 10101 Amazon is still playing games with this release. They cancel my order. They raise the price. They say it isn't available. For now, I listen on the Myspace site.


• Eddie Temple-Morris - Snow Patrol vs. Loser More rock infusion.

Motorola Chargers For All

Unfortunately, this post will fail to be even mildly interesting to most. I just need to inject some knowledge into the Internet. I believe Jason calls these Googlecaches.

You'll remember that I bought the Motorola DJ Bluetooth Headphones and got stuck with a UK power supply. I took a shot and bought a Moto supply from Amazon that I thought might work.

Sure enough, it arrived and provides 5V/550mA which is exactly what the supply that came with the headphones provides.

The Moto part number is SPN5185A. You can find it for less than $2 at Amazon and other places on da information superhighway. You'll spend more to ship it than buy it.

For reference, this supply is supposed to work with the RAZR V3 and KRZR K1/K1m. Using the transitive property, this supply should also work with the Moto HT820 Bluetooth Headphones.

Swoon for Zune?

Engadget has a fantastic walkthru of the Zune. After watching that (twice), I think the Zune may have some staying power.

Here's what I like:

• Track flags - Yes, I happen to like this idea. Good job Microsoft.


• RDS - I don't really care for radio in my portable music player, but if it is in there, it's great that it makes use of identifying data that is available.


• Progress Bars - Ok, they don't work any better than an iPod, but they look snazzy!


• Pre-rated music - Just like Amazon and Netflix, items are pre-rated based on what the rest of the world thinks. This might help organize your music, and hopefully the pre-ratings get better as it knows more about you, like Netflix does.


• Backgrounds - This could look really bad, or it could be a nice way to customize your player. I say thumbs up.


• Brown - I like the brown color. No one else seems to, but I do.

What I don't like:

• Search everytime on wireless sends - This is terrible. If we've learned anything from Bluetooth, it's that recently and frequently used devices are good to remember. It is just silly that you have to search for the wireless device to send to every time you choose to send a file. Sending 10 items back to back? Looks like the Zune will make you search 10 times. Yay.


• No wireless sync - I don't really care that you can't buy music wirelessly. I'm more concerned that a (mainly) infrastructure technology is being used for peer to peer activities, and is not being used for wireless syncing. Unless I'm missing something, I have a Wi-Fi network, but I can't use it to sync with my Wi-Fi enabled Zune? What's up with that? If I want to burn my battery, that's my business. Microsoft must have other plans for the Wi-Fi. If they don't, why didn't they use Bluetooth 2.0? I'm curious to know the techincals of the search procedure that Microsoft is using. How does a Zune make itself discoverable and how do the other Zunes go find it?


• Cluttered - It isn't too bad, but the heading chains across the top are confusing. I still don't see what they're trying to tell me.

Cold night, calm river

One of the many reasons that I enjoy riding my bike at night.

iTunes thinks I moved

Click the iTunes Store link, page loads, text in Japanese. Well that's odd. I'm not sure how my store preference got changed. I don't remember clicking that box at the bottom. In fact, I can't say I remember there even being a box at the bottom to change the store I wanted to browse.

Changing the store location does seem like an interesting way to explore the music that is popular in other parts of the world. I think I'll give it a try, but for now, I just set it back to United States :)

Moby and the Long Tail

First, a follow-up to my recent 5otn post. Moby also liked the Medersten remix and has posted it to his MySpace site. That is very cool. Artists enjoying the work of other artists and sharing it. Good job Moby.

Continuing with Moby's online presence... I was browsing the iTunes store the other day and came across the very early release from Moby under the alias U.H.F. Unless you are a fan, you don't even know that Moby released music under a handful of names, and still does release as Voodoo Child. This is great. Music that would otherwise be left to collectors collections, MP3s, or record shop basements is legally obtainable. Too bad that legal part doesn't give me access to the downloads. I'm stuck listening to my less than mint vinyl copy :(

I like gadgets. I hate chargers.

Following along with my recent posts about my A2DP audio solution, you can't help but notice I went from charging my iPod to charging my iPod, my headphones, and the iPod dongle. That's out of control and a terrible solution. If you buy a package deal, like from Plantronics or Logitech, you can get a single charger with two connection points, but you still have two chargers and a bunch of wires to manage.

If your house is anything like mine, you have a bunch of wall warts that are semi-permanently installed because the gadgets they charge need frequent charges and it doesn't do any good to put the wall warts away daily. Anthro tried to address the problem with their eNook system. I think it is a good idea, but I'm not too sure about the $400 pricetag for what it is.

What I'd like to see is a combination valet + splashpad system. Splashpower hasn't caught on, but I wish it, or something like it, would. You could build a splashpad in to the bottom of a drawer, or a valet. I already have something like a valet that holds my watches, wallet, and iPod when I come home. I would be delighted if my iPod just charged while it sat in the box overnight. I don't carry a cellphone, but plenty of people do. Combine that with the number of people carrying Bluetooth headsets. Tell me those people wouldn't love to not plug-in their phones and headsets every night. I'd have the problem of my iPod not getting to sync, but that's one of the reasons I want wireless in it :)

People complain that putting wireless in portable media players, like the Zune has done, is a bad idea because of battery life. If the battery lasts longer than you use in a day, and you get automatic, hassle free, charging at night, do you care how long the battery lasts? Yeah, you still probably do for multi-day trips, but still.

If Apple ever does release a phone, there would be more than a few people carrying multiple, portable, Apple products. Perhaps not Splashpower, but Apple could create their own similar standard, perhaps along the lines of the MagSafe connector. I'd buy it....if it didn't cost $400 :)

Headphones From Harald - Part 2

Source and sink. I covered the sink, now let's talk about the source.

The source end of Bluetooth A2DP solutions is even worse than the state of the sinks. Headphones are finally coming out. The problem is, we're stuck with half-crap dongles for most of the A2DP sources. Bluetooth technology has been slow to catch on in portable media players. There are a few players on the market that support it, but if it isn't in the iPod, people really aren't noticing.

To A2DPize your iPod, you must use a dreaded dongle. Dongles suck. They add bulk. They ruin the visual design. They usually require their own charger. They lack features that could be achieved with tight integration. They can break off. These all apply to A2DP adapters.



The adapter I chose for my solution is the Jabra A125s. It connected to the dock connector, which allows for track skipping and volume control (AVRCP). It wasn't too huge. The colors matched. The price was right.

Well, it works, sort of. All of the player controls work just fine. You can play/pause, control the volume, and skip tracks. One delight feature was the fact that you can wake a sleeping iPod with a press of the play button on the headphones. One other nice thing is that when the dongle runs out of battery, it will pause the iPod as its last action before shutting down. Nice. Range is so-so. Line of sight can barely get 10m in a clean environment. This isn't a problem when you have your player in your pocket or backpack, but it doesn't allow you to sit your player on the front steps and mow the lawn listening to wireless music.



The dongle charges via mini-USB cable to a USB port on your computer. This is the best you can get other than not requiring it to be charged at all. I wish it could just suck juice from the iPod. The dongle runs out far before the iPod does. That leaves you switching back to wired mode, which sucks. You can use the dongle while it is charging, but I can't use my headphones while charging, so this has limited use.



The on/off switch is a little hard to use since you can barely see the indicator lights behind it when you are pushing it. The colors of the plastic match the iPod pretty well. They even mirrored the back to match the iPod. The depth is also pretty close to matching my 60GB iPod.

Pairing was simple and effective. I haven't had any problems with that.

Now the worst part. Either my unit is bad, or this thing has poor performance, antenna or error rate. If I'm at home, on the bus, or in open areas at work, things work fine. It will only skip about once an hour, which to me is usable. However, when I'm at my desk, which is awash in a sea of 2.4 GHz transmissions, the solution is unusable. It will work and then enter fits of skipping for up to 20 seconds at a time. I've used dongles from Plantronics and Logitech in the exact same environment and didn't have these problems. At this point, I can't use my Bluetooth audio solution for the reason I bought it (use at work). I'm going to have to try another dongle while I continue to wish for Apple to put it in the iPod.

Stay tuned.

Headphones From Harald

I'd like to start by saying that I love wireless headphones. I need to lay down a little love, because I'm certainly going to lay down a little hate.

Wireless headphones come in many flavors. The flavor I like, for now, tastes like Bluetooth. I choose Bluetooth for the multiuse radio, the interoperability amongst varied vendors, and the reasonable cost.

I've been complaining about the state of Bluetooth audio for quite some time. The headphones on the market sucked, or at least they weren't the style I was after. The support in, or attached to media players was nearly non-existant. Worst of all, the cost was still quite high.

As of late, the situation has gotten a whole lot better. I can't say that it is good, but it is at a usable point. I now have a complete, stereo audio, Bluetooth solution. I'm happy with it in some cases, and disappointed in others. Here we go.


The Headphones
I spend a fair bit of time monitoring what Bluetooth products are available on the market. During one of my routine weekly searches, I found something called the Motorola Bluetooth DJ Headphones. This instantly sparked my attention. Through further searching, I was able to determine that Motorola had released a set of A2DP enabled, on the head, big can, headphones.

They appeared to be more durable than any of the other Bluetooth enabled full headphones on the market. The price was reasonable. They seemed to meet all of my criteria. I had to have them. After a handful of delays, Mobile Planet finally shipped me a set. I was elated. I've been using the headphones for a few months now, so I can really give a honest review of them.


The Good

• Build quality - They aren't bombproof like my Sony MDR-700s, but they are the toughest built Bluetooth headphones I've handled. They have swivel ear cups that allow them to flatten for easier storage. The headband is adjustable and seems like it will hold up. The ear pads seem nice as well. They are soft and I haven't had any problems with wear so far, but it has only been a few months. My only complaint is that they hang a wire out a bit where the cups meet the band.
  If you really used these for DJing, that could snag on things, or just wear to the point where it would fail. I wish that the wire were routed through the interior of the phones like most "DJ" headphones.


• Comfort - Pillows of sound. My ears can start to hurt after a few hours with the MDR-700s. I can wear the Motos all day without the slightest discomfort.
  
  These are very comfortable headphones. I also like the traditional
  over the head design. I can't stand the behind the ear designs. I wore the Logitech A2DP headphones and my ears hurt after 7 minutes, I counted. I know that I probably look goofy with my giant headphones, but I don't really care.


• Battery life - Battery is good. It far outlasts the other end (dongle). I usually go a few days of listening between charging. This matches up well with how often I charge my iPod.


• Sound quality - A working A2DP setup is nice to listen to. A problematic A2DP setup will frustrate you to no end. More on that in a bit. I like the sound quality. I'm no audiophile, but the range is wide and the bass deep enough that I don't complain that it isn't enough.


• Ability to be wired - When you're on the plane or out of battery, you can cable up the headphones and use them traditionally. The headphone jack is hidden under a rubber flap on the ear cup, next to the charge port (mini-usb, type B)


• Interface - Moto keeps it pretty simple. There are two different actions and two instances of each action, left and right. You can push a button, or twist a ring on the ear cups. The left button is for connecting, disconnecting, turning the headphones on and off, and initiating a pairing. That sounds like a lot of options for one button, but it works pretty well. The right button is for play and pause. If you have an A2DP adapter on the other end that supports AVRCP, you can start and stop your music without touching the player. I love this. You can also skip tracks back and forth with a twist of the right ring. You can't fast forward and rewind however. The left ring is for controlling the volume. The volume is not affected by the volume you set on your iPod, at least not for those A2DP dongles that attach to the dock port. Those that connect to the headphone jack are affected by the volume set on the iPod.
  
  To put these controls in perspective, this morning I rode the city bus. I was waiting in the pouring rain for it to arrive. I had these motos on. I could change tracks, play/pause, and control the volume through the hood of my jacket. That's good design.


• Styling - The blue lights aren't too brash. The Moto logos are visible, but not overpowering. They aren't as clean as an iPod, but they also don't look like a label happy PDA (cough, Dell Axim, cough).

The Bad

• Buttons - I like the size and location of the buttons. My problem is the feel of them. Sometimes I'll push them, they'll depress, and nothing happens. I think the button contacts are poorly designed. You have to push the buttons pretty hard, or exactly perpendicular for them to work.


• Charging - I got these via import so they came with a UK power plug. It's massive and only gets worse when I add a US converter to it.
  
  I've found that the Motorola HT820 headphones expect the exact same power supply characteristics, so if I can find a replacement charger that works with them, I can do away with my charge lump. I also hate that the phones have a mini-USB plug, but don't seem to want to get charged from a real USB plug. They want 550mA of power. A USB port can provide 500 according to the spec. I hated my electronics classes and thus didn't learn a whole lot. I'm guessing I could get away with charging at 500mA, but I haven't tried it yet. If you have the knowledge, please smack me down in the comments on why this would or wouldn't work.

As for these headphones being "DJ" headphones, forget it. There is a slight latency between the source audio and what you hear in the headphones. You couldn't care less when you're listening to your iPod. You care a huge deal when you are trainwrecking your beatmix. We'll just assume that Moto is using the "DJ" descriptor to refer to the swiveling ear cups, and not the ability for them to actually be used by a performing DJ.

Overall, I really like these headphones and I would recommend them. Hopefully Motorola will give the US a proper release of them.

In a follow up post, I'll discuss the iPod adapter that I chose to complete my Bluetooth audio solution.

Apple Tax?

My lean towards the Apple side is quite obvious. With today's announcement of Core 2 Duos in the MacBook Pros, I decided to again look at the cost difference between Macs and Dells. The Apple Tax of the past is all but gone in most categories and in fact, a Dell Tax is emerging.

I compared a stock 15" MacBook Pro to a Dell Precision M65 that I configured up to match the MacBook. There might be a better Dell model to start at that requires less upgrades, but that's the one I found under the Mobile Workstation heading, so it seems like a competitor to the MacBook Pro.

Specs include

• 15" screen


• 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo


• 1GB RAM


• 120GB HDD


• DVD Burner

The Dell tax is in effect. I didn't capture screenshots of the entire configs, but the prices seem to change by the minute at Dell anyway, so go configure one yourself to see the current price.

This comparison doesn't account for added value on the Apple side. The value of the MagSafe connector, iSight camera, lighted keyboard, Front Row, iLife, OS X, etc. I was amazed that Dell still requires you to choose to add Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to a notebook computer. Sure, the cost differential was minimum, but these seem like must haves if you ask me. They charge $9 for Bluetooth. Man, just put it in. There has to be diminishing returns from choosing every last component that goes in the thing. Can I leave the Windows key off and save a $1?

Art of the Playlist

Just like a good album, a good playlist can be a work of art in itself. The playlist can create a mood, not only in the selected tracks, but the order of them. One of the downsides of today's track by track world is that listening to your music at complete random can be less than pleasing. A D'n'B track can lead in to classical, followed by a comedy set. Ugg. Luckily, the playlist is there to make things better.

I've found that some of my playlists become as loved as albums from favorite artists. I also find that listening to someone else's playlist can open doors for me. To that regard, here are a couple of playlists of mine for you to listen to. These are different than my 5 of the now because the 5otn are usually unrelated tracks and not meant to listen to as a group. To go along with the Slushy Streets playlist I posted last December, here are Sunrise Skyline and Dust and Rain. A few of the readers of this blog have already heard these, but not all. Let me know if you'd like a full listen, rather than the 30 sec iTS previews.

To help you post your own playlists, you can try my Perl script to convert an iTunes playlist XML file to HTML. For some odd reason, iTunes does not allow a simple playlist export of artist and track title. The script isn't the greatest in the world. It has a last second hack I had to put in when I encountered an Album Artist field, and I also discovered that the output is not saved in the file in the order of your playlist. You have to make use of the key IDs further down in the XML to get the order correct. That means this will output your playlist to HTML just fine, but you might need to manually fix the order, for now.

Game for Google's Benefit

I stumbled on to Google Image Labeler (Beta of course) the other day. It's a service offered by Google that lets the users tag images with appropriate keywords. What do you get out of it? Well, you get to have a little fun, and perhaps better search results.

Google says you need...
Just an interest in helping Google improve the relevance of image search results for users like yourself.

Google is smart. They've arranged the tagger in a way that makes it feel like a game. You get a partner and a time limit. You score points based on tags that match.

The points are just there to motivate the folks doing the tagging. The clock is there to get you tagging as many as you can, and perhaps they are just aiming at general classifying tags, so they don't want you spending a lot of time. The partner is probably there to make sure you can't muck up their database with a bunch of bad tags. Your partner is random and it seems that you'd need two malicious users with the same malicious tags to inject bad data in the system. I think they've effectively prevented that.

Even though I don't get anything out of it, I've still gone back a few times to play. I wish you could get a few cents here and there. It would be much like Amazon's Mechanical Turk system where you get small amounts of money to apply your human brain to problems that are easy to us, but hard for a computer.

What's next for Google Games? Spot the Spam? Add the ads? Appointment juggling?

5 of The Now

• Stanton Warriors - Get 'Em High (Club Mix) The worst thing about the Stanton Warriors is that they're so hard to pin down. You find their tracks and remixes everywhere but their relases are few and far between. Luckily, the iTS is here to help. No longer must you import at huge CD prices.


• James Figurine - 55566688833 (The Field Mix) I didn't figure out the track title right away. Maybe you will. If not, the album summary in the iTunes store will help :)


• Beck - Cellphone's Dead I'm still settling in to the new Beck album, but I do know I'm digging this one.


• Tim Deluxe - Espoo? RoseThis isn't the style I've come to expect from Tim Deluxe, but it is a standout.


• Moby - In My Heart (Medersten Love Mix) You have to give some credit to the amateurs making music for the love of it, or the love of their girlfriend in this case.

Shuttle Like NES

I think the new Shuttle XPC X100 pulls some retro design cues from the NES.




To see how similar, I made a morph between the two. I did some quick searching and found the MorphX to be a pretty nify application.