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March 31, 2005
How Do You Spell Netgear Router Relief? L-I-N-K-S-Y-S
04:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ PC - General
Posts have been a bit slow over the past few days. In fact, there have been no posts. Why? A little Netgear WGT624 (v2) router melt down.
The original problem with the router was very mysterious. It seemed to work fine, but I was having intermittent problems connecting to this site (Zoinger.com). Eventually, I couldn’t connect at all. My browser would just time out.
Of course, I thought this was my host’s (1and1) fault. A call to them indicated that this was not the case. Next up, Charter Communications, my cable modem supplier. Nope, they could get to Zoinger.com no problemo, but they did suggest that it might be the router.
WTF? The router. No waaay. However, by this time, about 5-6 hours worth of debugging time, I was getting desperate. I removed the router from my set up and… low and behold, I could get to Zoinger.com.
Indeed, it was the router causing the problem. I searched on Netgear’s “support” site (what a joke), and could find no reference to this issue. I then tried downgrading the firmware to an old version to no avail. Then I found this post on the Netgear forum site. 19 pages of people having a similar problem with no official response from Netgear.
I’ve owned routers from Sonicwall, SMC and Cisco and have never had a problem with any of them. My Netgear router has had problems from day one (it really doesn’t like renewing the dynamic IP address and would hang all the time requiring a reboot).
So how is Netgear router relief spelled? Linksys WRT54G… the damn router I should have purchased in the first place.
P.S. I wish I would have used Skype when I called Netgear’s technical support line. The router has a pretty cool feature to automatically upgrade the firmware. However, during an upgrade in my debugging process the router hung which ended up frying it. Anyway, the tech support person asked me why I would use the feature… implying that you really shouldn’t. OMG, it’s only the first thing you see when you boot into the admin screen, and it is all the time asking you if you want to upgrade when a new firmware version comes out. Classic!
March 28, 2005
Tomorrow's Supreme Court Peer-to-Peer Case
04:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - General
The NYTs has a series of articles on the MGM vs. Grokster peer-to-peer file-sharing case. Oral arguments will be heard tomorrow in the Supreme Court.
A Supreme Court Showdown for File Sharing
File - Sharing Case Worries Indie Artists
When David Steals Goliath’s Music
It’s interesting that some recording companies like V2 Records are taking advantage of peer-to-peer networks to promote their artists. With the decline of MTV (they basically don’t show videos anymore) and mainstream radio (they play the same 40 songs over and over) as promotional outlets, it is nearly impossible for independent labels to gain publicity. As Andy Gershon, president of V2 Records (home to artists such as the White Stripes and Moby), notes:
The cat is so far out of the bag and so far gone that it’s pointless to keep fighting it. I might as well make as many people fans of our music, whether they illegally download it or not.
Regarding peer-to-peer networks Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy adds :
“I look at it as a library. I look at it as our version of the radio,” Tweedy said. “It’s a place where basically we can encourage fans to be fans and not feel like they’re being exploited, which is basically what the whole industry is geared to do.”
Tweedy encourages fans to tape Wilco shows and has distributed tracks over the Internet for free months before releasing them on CDs.
He agrees artists should be compensated, but “you try to encourage people to feel more like a patron of the arts instead of a consumer.”
It will be very interesting to see how the Court will rule on this case.
Information Technology Industry "Graying?"
03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - General
Today’s NYTs New Economy article, referenced a Goldman Sachs survey of corporate spending. The survey noted that:
Technology looks to be firmly in the cyclical category for now.
The gist of the Times story was that this was too narrow of a view of “technology” (i.e., just corporate spending). The article sited technologies that might not be captured in the survey such as: Medsphere (a start-up that hopes to bring open-source clinical systems to hospitals), Epocrates (a handheld-based drug, disease and diagnostics tool for doctors) and social software such as wikis and Flickr.
Information technology is clearly much more pervasive than a corporate-spending figure would suggest.
Clear Channel to Start Podcasting
02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Internet
Also in the WSJ on Friday was a story about Clear Channel’s plans to start podcasting.
Clear Channel ‘s podcasting initiative will begin by May. The company will allow listeners to download programming such as comedy skits by popular morning show hosts. But music programming, which involves complicated licensing and royalty issues, won’t be included in the podcasts. Podcasting in general is focused mostly on talk-radio formats.
Well, I guess podcasting is finally going mainstream.
Blogging Ad Revenue
02:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Internet
The WSJ had ran an article last Friday which gave an overview of the ad market for blogs. In general, they noted that some brands (such as Audi and Sony) where experimenting with running ads on blogs. However, there is a general fear on the advertisers part about how their brands will be perceived, written about and commented on in blogs due to the more chaotic nature of blogs — especially when compared to mainstream media. This is definitely holding back ad revenue. However, there are some success stories.
…Weblogs Inc., which now operates 76 blogs, including its own high-traffic gadget and car titles, Engadget and Autoblog. Weblogs has taken in $925,000 in advertising revenue over the last four months.
Not a bad chunk of change, but still just a fraction of the $9.6 billion 2004 web advertising market.
WordPress Alexa Chart
10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Movable Type
Alexa is an Amazon-owned site which among other things attempts to measure the reach of web sites.
WordPress, an open-source content management system (blogging software), has been gaining popularity, especially since SixApart changed how it licenses it’s MovableType application — and from the ensuing controversy. WordPress’ recent gain in popularity seems to correlate to it’s growth in reach as measure by Alexa.
Google's "Evil" Blunder
08:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Brand
Google’s entry into the English languages (and others?) as a verb illustrates how high on a pedestal their brand stands. However, as history has shown, the higher up you are, the further you have to fall.
How does a downfall start? Well, for one thing, you make vague, grandiose, inflammatory and overly-broad statements like, “You can make money without doing evil.” I, like a lot of people I imagine, are probably a little confused by this concept. What exactly does Google mean in it’s use of “evil?” I think that it’s only naturally that people are going to interpret this in the broadest sense possible — which really places Google in a bind.
Take Google’s autolinking feature. Currently, it’s pretty innocuous, since it’s primary function is turning non-linked addresses on web pages into links to Google Maps. However, this feature shares some similarities to Microsoft’s ill-fated, never-launched Smart Tags — a “feature” which would have added Microsoft-controlled links to web pages by default. One could have made a very strong case that Smart Tags was “evil,” since Microsoft was unfairly leveraging it’s monopoly in browser share to influence web traffic. Now by association — however slim the analogy — Google’s Autolink starts to feel like evil.
Google could have avoided a lot of this controversy by never making references to “evil.” Imprecise and controversial concepts don’t belong in company mission statements, since they only incur downsides, not upsides. Just ask GW.
Update: 2005_03_28
Here’s a few more links on the building Google backlash:
Dan Gillmor’s Google and Transparency
Jeff Jarvis’ Google Nazis
ITConversations audio show on Autolink
Roger Simon’s Is Google Progressive or Reactionary?
March 26, 2005
An Open Letter to Sony
06:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - General
I follow Sony. What their new products look like, what their strategies are, etc. You have to if you’re into business and technology. They are too important of a brand not to (as is Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, etc.). However, I don’t like Sony. Did I mention that I don’t like Sony. In fact, I really, really go out of my way to not ever purchase a Sony product. The reason? Standards.
Sony tries to force standards on the market. Take MemoryStick, Sony’s flash memory product. I’ll never buy any product that uses it. I am friggin’ sick and tired of having to purchase first, Compact Flash, then SD and now with my Audiovox Smartphone, miniSD. Pretty soon it will be nanominihypersmallSD. Make it stop!
One way to make this stop is to never buy anything from Sony.
Russell Beattie's Video Review of the PSP UI
06:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Mobile
Check out Russell Beattie’s post reviewing the PSP’s XMB (“xross media bar”) UI.
Sony has plans to use XMB across their line of consumer electronics products (such as some of their newer TVs) to hopefully create differentiation and hence product margin improvement in an increasingly hyper-competitive consumer electronics market. Can you imagine trying to sell your products at BestBuy? Here’s a row of 20 LCD TVs which all look pretty much the same. Take your pick… as the eye searches to find the cheapest one.
However, buy the Sony because it has XMB.
“XMB” (xross media bar) user interface system
To allow viewers to enjoy various content from various devices, Sony’s “XMB” user interface enables viewers to switch channels easily via easy-to-recognize icons and to select their favorite programs and inputs from DVD or digital video camera quickly.
First introduced in the popular PSX computer entertainment systems, it operates via the high-speed processing of CPU “Emotion Engine” and a drawing processor “Graphics Synthesizer.”
Or so says Sony. I guess lots of emotively synthesized buzzwords are worth paying more for? Anyway Russell thinks pretty highly of Sony’s XMB UI efforts.
Neat - I love that Sony really made an effort here to perfect this UI and didn’t just throw Yet Another UI out there. This is what separates companies like Apple and Sony from the iRivers and Creative’s out there. Yeah, a gadget is a gadget, but the other companies willingness to launch products with insanely user-hostile UIs really shows, especially when you compare it to something so well thought out as the XMB.
Be sure to check out Russell’s XMB demonstration video too. He did it on his Nokia 6630 (oh, and btw, why are all Nokia phones now too big and just plain ugly?). The video runs about a MB a minute — roughly that of a decent MP3 recording. Hum… 7 minutes of audio (good audio) and video (it looks sort of ok) for 7 MBs. Not bad for a BUP.
P.S. I figure that Sony is not doing a very good job of branding XMB. I search on A9 (which uses Google results) for XMB, and I can’t find Sony anywhere in the top 10. Sony XMB gives slightly better results. Jeez, just try Microsoft Smartphone as a comparison. No wonder Sony needed a new boss.
Yahoo! Offically Doesn't Support Firefox
06:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Internet
Brilliant! As reported on ZDNet here.
“In the grand scheme of things Firefox is still a new technology. I’m not saying we are not going to be developing and exploring other areas — we are. But there are so many different products on the Yahoo network that there may be some products that are, perhaps, not appropriate for that browser,” the representative said.
Better to rely on your biggest competitor’s technology (yes, it’s Microsoft, not Google). In fact, it’s better to ignore the fact that a very large percentage of the power users on the web (the users you really want), are using Firefox (look at BoingBoing’s stats for example).
I guess Yahoo! really doesn’t understand strategy. Browser competition is good. Firefox’s success is good for everyone (except Microsoft). Yaho0!, get with the program and start really supporting and promoting Firefox.
March 25, 2005
Moving from a PC to a Mac
07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ PC - General
Doug Kaye, the creator of ITConversations, recently moved from a PC (Windows XP) to a Mac (OSX). He wrote up a status report of what he thought about the process and what he likes about the Mac. For example,
One other thing that blew me away: When you start OS X for the first time, you’re asked if you want to move from another Mac. I’ve been using an iBook – which will now become my wife’s as a replacement for her XP box – so I said yes. One Firewire connection and 20 minutes later, and everything I cared about on the iBook, including all of my personal configurations, was moved to the PowerBook.
Deeaammn. Try doing that with a PC. Not!
March 23, 2005
Microsoft Smartphone Bitch — More on the Audiovox SMT5600
11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Reviews
Ugh! I just found out that my Audiovox SMT5600 (that I did a mini review on here does not mount as a normal drive). You know, something that any USB drive does these days. Instead it appears as a special Mobile Device thingy mounted to My Computer in the Windows Explorer. WTF?
Now I can’t use my cool photo-downloading application (Downloader Pro from Breeze Systems). It can’t “see” that special Mobile Device thingy.
You know what I think? I think this smells like some sort of DRM fiasco. Smells like someone is trying to protect some lame-ass ringtone downloads from being copied or some such thing. Either that or Microsoft’s Smartphone Product Marketing Managers don’t know what they are doing.
I can help if it’s the latter.
- The Smartphone when connected to the user’s PC shall mount as a drive accessible to applications such as, by way of example, a photo downloading application.
Cut-and-paste that into the damn product marketing requirements document. Either that or stop screwing us with DRM.
WordPress — Initial Impressions
10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Movable Type
Wow! I kind of like it… WordPress that is. Like they say the world-famous five minute install is spot on. I might have even beaten that mark.
So far, I have noticed that it’s really fast when compared to MovableType. Sometimes MT just seems to hang for a bit when saving posts.
It took me a while, but I finally found (it took a long time to find one that actually worked) and installed (this was fast) a Textile2 plugin that I then had to debug (this took a long time too). Textile2 is a text-to-HTML interpreter that lets you more simply add HTML to your posts (test it out here). Anyway, the plugin for WordPress is called Text Control. On MT I’ve been using Brad Choate’s great Textile2 plugin.
The “bug” with Text Control has to do with the zip download file text-control.zip. This zip file didn’t automatically create a text-control sub-directory. This sub-directory is where all the files in the zip download should be placed with the exception of the main text-control.php file (i.e., into wordpress/wp-content/plugins/text-control/). By moving the files into this new sub-directory, I “fixed” the bug. It took a while to figure out what was going on, since the plugin kind of works without the text-control sub-directory — you can set up Text Control in the options menu, but it will not actually function and gives errors when publishing.
Aside from the minor plugin WOT, I’m really liking WordPress. I’m probably going to move my blog over to it, once I get more familiar with the interface and tweak the templates a bit.
Update: 2005_03_26
Jeremy Zawodny posts his thoughts on the future of WordPress and MovableType here. The comments section of the posts is worth reading if you are considering WP or MT.
The Flickr Massage — Not!
06:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Internet
How many times have you seen this message?
Flickr is not having a “massage” — it’s having a melt down. Let’s hope that the folks at Yahoo! can fix this.
I suspect that scaling problems like this helped the folks at Flickr choose Door Number One (a pile of cash from Yahoo!) vs. Door Number Two (a pile of cash from some VC conditional on becoming a “real” company — e.g., one that can scale, handle all the legal issues, start marketing, etc. Basically, a lot of work).
Update: 2005_03_25
This massage parody is a crack up. Replace the “www” in the address for fun.
Your Home RFID Starter Kit from iAutomate
05:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) ~ Whatever
Gizmodo posted this about the HomeSeer RFID Starter Kit sold by iAutomate.com. Kind of cool. With the kit you can…
- Control the lights, HVAC, garage door or security system when your car approaches or leaves your home.
- Detect if vehicle is in the garage.
- Detect a person entering or leaving a room or area.
- Arm or Disarm Security by individual tag.
- Automatically open a “pet” door when your pet approaches the door.
- Control, Lights, Music, and Temperature
…among other things. Not so sure about how secure all of this is (i.e., controlling your security system, etc.), but here’s a link to the user manual that might have some details. The HomeSeer RFID Starter Kit runs $477.95 (ouch!).
BTW, it uses COM ports! Uhhh… have they heard of this new thing called USB?
WordPress Blogging Software — Now Over 100K Served
10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Movable Type
errh, that’d be over 100K downloaded.
I’m looking at installing a copy of WordPress to try it out. It has some significant advantages over Movable Type such as: password-protected posts, multiple authors and instant publishing with no rebuilding. In addition, there is a very robust plug-in community. And with Six Apart now concentrating on Typepad (instead of just Movable Type), WordPress’ advantages vs. MT will probably grow in the future.
Here’s a handy how-to on migrating from MT to WordPress, and here’s a thread on WordPress’ site on MT vs. WordPress.
TiVo vs. MCE vs. Cable Box — by Ed Bott
10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Whatever
You just knew someone had to have a Tivo and a Windows Media Center box and a cable-company PVR now didn’t ya? Actually, I wouldn’t think anyone would have three PVRs, but whatever. Ed Bott’s the man.
Ed reviews all there PVRs in a head-to-head match up based on a recent NYT review of the Tivo (the article is behind their firewall now, so why link to it?).
Ed gives a slight advantage to WMC with the cable box a distant third. It should be noted that Ed’s Tivo is a series one, but even a series two probably won’t have changed the results. Ed also notes that Microsoft has been steadily making WMC better and better over the years, so watch out Tivo (and others).
P.S. Too bad that Ed didn’t have a MythTV setup to run in his review.
P.S.S. With WMC 2005, you can actually buy the OS separately instead of having to purchase a complete system which was the case with previous WMC versions.
March 22, 2005
Skype DUALphone Cordless Phone — from Square7
05:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Internet
Speaking of Skype, the techAddiction podcast number three also had a little bit on Square7’s DUALphone. It’s “dual” in that you can make normal PSTN phone calls and Skype calls from the handset. It has two input lines — one for your phone line and a USB connection for your PC. The software that comes with the phone allows you to scroll through your Skype contacts from the handset. Pretty cool.
Of course, only available in Europe for now.
Skype Voicemail and Podcasting
03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Podcasting
The folks over at The techADDICTION Show are using Skype’s new voicemail feature (which is in beta… whatever beta means these days) to allow interaction with their podcast audience. Listeners of their show can skype the Skype user techaddiction and leave a message about the show. Read more about it here.
Skype’s voicemail feature runs € 15 for 12 months or € 5 for 3 months. A pretty inexpensive way to add interactivity to a podcast.
Oh, as mentioned on the techAddiction show is a bit about Skype Answering Machine which is a freeware client voicemail application for Skype (Skype’s voicemail service is server based).
March 20, 2005
The Pocket Fisherman — 92nd Gadget of All Time
09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Whatever
Wanna catch a real lunker? Then Ronco’s Pocket Fisherman is for you! The Fisherman clocks in at number 92 in MobilePC’s The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time.
Also making the list are the Pez Dispenser at 98, the Trash-80 (erh, the Radio Shack TRS-80) at 87, the Space Pen at number 80, Atari’s Pong at 70, Sony’s ground-breaking digital camera the MVC-HD5 at 48, the SanDisk CompactFlash card at 38, Apple’s PowerBook 500 at 22, Tivo Series1 at 10… and at number 1… well, I’ll let you read the article.
MobilePC's History of the Laptop (aka, Notebook)
09:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ PC - General
MobilePC last week published The Birth of the Notebook, an extensive article looking at the birth and evolution of the laptop/notebook computer. The article spans from 1975 with IBM’s 5100 “portable” computer to today’s offerings such as the OQO. Some pretty good reading.
The article offers up some juicy bits like:
NEC also has the honor of claiming one of the industry’s most boneheaded moves: It dropped the UltraLite name in favor of “Versa,” and ultralight quickly became a generic term for small notebooks.
Hum… I wonder if this would fit on one of those airline tray tables?
SanDisk MobileMate — USB Dongle Card Reader
08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Digital Photo
SanDisk has a pretty cool link of compact, USB card readers called MobileMates. As the verbage on their site says:
SanDisk’s MobileMate line of Mobile Readers are the smallest readers on the market & unique in its compatibility class (SD/miniSD/MultiMediaCard/RS-MMC/TransFlash & Memory Stick/Memory Stick Duo/Memory Stick PRO/ Memory Stick PRO Duo), ideal for memory-enabled mobile phone users and photo travel needs. The flash memory cards can be plugged directly into the readers. No card adapters are required. Carry it with you so you always have access to your important data.
These would be pretty handy if you have an old laptop like mine that doesn’t have a card reader built into it. Plus, they are pretty cheap, running about $20.
March 19, 2005
Reducing Queues at Starbucks via SMS
11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Mobile
Starbucks is a lot like McDonald’s in that you trade quality for a consistent experience. That is, you’re not going to get great coffee at Starbucks, but you’re probably not going to get terrible coffee there either. Mediocrity for the masses.
One thing that isn’t mediocre about Starbucks is their queues — especially during the morning rush. I suspect that most Starbucks regulars go through the same ritual every morning. Get up, drive to Starbucks, see the queue streaming out the door, wait in the seemingly endless queue, get to the counter and explain in excruciating detail your custom drink order — the same damn order you give every single day. Of course, you have to repeat your order, because when you say “Venti, tipple, extra-foam latte,” the reply back is, “Would you like anything else with that short, no-whip mocha?” And to add insult to injury, you’re forced to shuffle to the back of the store where there is never enough room (in a scene straight out of a Tokyo subway) only to wait in yet another seemingly endless queue to pick up your drink.
It doesn’t have to be like this. Wouldn’t it be nice if all you had to do was send your local Starbucks a SMS message, so that when you arrived your drink would be ready at the “regular’s counter?” No waiting to pay for your coffee either, since it’d be automagically deducted from your Starbucks Card account.
The SMS used to place your order could be generated via a form on Starbucks website. The form would generate an SMS that would encode your Starbucks Card number, your local store location and your drink order. Once the form was completed, a SMS message would be sent to your mobile that you’d save and forward back to Starbucks anytime you wanted your coffee.
Obviously, there are lots of ways you could improve this process flow, but regardless, the end result would be a lot less waiting around by Starbucks customers. Heck Starbucks could even do some cool promotions with the carriers who’d love for their customers to be sending more SMS messages.
Tom's Hardware Reviews Skype via PocketPC PDA (WiFi & Bluetooth)
10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Mobile
Tom’s Hardware recently reviewed placing Skype calls through a WiFi-connected PocketPC PDA using a Bluetooth headset… I guess you’d call that mouthful of techno jargon cutting edge.
Skype offers a special client specifically designed for Microsoft’s PocketPC operating system. Most high-end PocketPC devices now integrate both WiFi and Bluetooth support, so theoretically one should be able to complete a Skype call via a PDA completely wireless (i.e., using WiFi to connect the PocketPC to the internet and a Bluetooth headset to connect the caller to the PDA). Indeed, Tom’s Hardware finds that this is the case.
Our Skype for Pocket PC operational trial revealed that a high-performing Pocket PC equipped with wireless functions can indeed be used as a device for Internet telephony. The voice quality obtainable is perfectly satisfactory for personal use, and the method offers the big advantage of the extremely low calling cost: frequent or long-distance callers will quickly notice the positive impact on their phone bills.
In a business environment, this solution is not yet mature, due to the limitations we described regarding voice quality for intercontinental calls, and the sometimes variable quality when calling fixed line and wireless numbers
The review also offers a lot of detail on how to set up your PDA to connect via WiFi and pairing the PDA with a Bluetooth headset.
Definitely a sign of telecommunications to come.
Update: 2005_03_22
Check out The techADDICTION Show #3 for an audio demo (part of their podcast) of Skype on a Pocket PC with a Bluetooth headset.
March 16, 2005
730 Million Mobiles Will Be Sold in 2005
07:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Mobile
From this News.com article on Motorola’s recent success with the Razor:
More than a million of the slim handsets have been sold.
But that’s not really the point. This is:
Overall, 674 million cell phones were sold worldwide in 2004, a 30 percent increase from the year before. Gartner credited the increase in part to emerging cell phone markets in Latin America. Growth is expected to remain robust in 2005, with Gartner predicting 730 million cell phone sales.
730 MILLON phones. That’s just a damn big lot of anything. All I have to say about that is this (well actually, it’s not me, it’s the Economist):
In the early 1980s AT&T asked McKinsey to estimate how many cellular phones would be in use in the world at the turn of the century. The consultancy noted all the problems with the new devices—the handsets were absurdly heavy, the batteries kept running out, the coverage was patchy and the cost per minute was exorbitant—and concluded that the total market would be about 900,000. At the time this persuaded AT&T to pull out of the market, although it changed its mind later.
Technorati's State of The Blogosphere
05:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Internet
David Sifry founder and CEO of Technorati has put together his take on the growth of the blogosphere in a two day post. The first post discusses the growth in the number of blogs, while the second post discusses the growth in posts.
In a nutshell, the number of blogs is doubling approximately every five months, and the number of posts is also growing, but not as consistently as the number of blogs. The posting frequency also shows huge swings apparently tied to major news events (e.g., the US presidential election, the Indian Ocean tsunami, etc.).
Update: 2005_03_16
From Greg Linden’s post regarding blogging spam (blam?) in the comments of David’s first post:
The spam has become increasingly sophisticated over the last several months. For example, we often see blogs that appear to be real with several articles posted. Careful inspection shows the articles are copied from elsewhere with shill links inserted to some website that’s trying to increase its PageRank.
And jkottke notes that:
I think it’s important to keep in mind that the number of weblogs added to the Technorati database and the number of weblogs being created are not the same, nor are the trends necessarily the same. In particular, I’m very skeptical about the huge jump in blogs created per day that happened in the last two months of 2004. It seems likely to me that could be more an artifact of how Technorati is finding blogs (found a previously undiscovered vein of blogs or something) or some other explanation.
benjamin’s suggests trying a search on Technorati for a Sony DSC-V3 to see how much blam there really is (it’s A LOT).
Is Microsoft Starting to "Get" the Web?
09:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Internet
Could it be after years of not getting the web (i.e., Active Channels, Smart Tags, ActiveX’s massive security holes, etc.) that Microsoft is starting to “get” the web. As evidence…
Mr Scoble seems to be worth his salary. He has become a minor celebrity among geeks worldwide, who read his blog religiously. Impressively, he has also succeeded where small armies of more conventional public-relations types have been failing abjectly for years: he has made Microsoft, with its history of monopolistic bullying, appear marginally but noticeably less evil to the outside world, and especially to the independent software developers that are his core audience. Bosses and PR people at other companies are taking note.
Sources say that IE 7.0 – which is code-named “Rincon,” they hear – will be a tabbed browser.
IE 7.0 will feature international domain name (IDN) support; transparent Portable Network Graphics (PNG) support, which will allow for the display of overlayed images in the browser; and new functionality that will simplify printing from inside IE 7.0, partner sources said. The new browser also will likely include a built-in news aggregator (emphisis mine).
We’ve been live now for less than six weeks, but the rate at which people have signed up and started their own Space has been phenomenal. We just found out that we hit the 1.5 million Spaces mark earlier today. You can imagine how excited we are that we’ve had that many people sign up in that short of a time, with people still signing on at an explosive rate.
Keyword Searching (WSJ Article)
For now, the new functions Microsoft is testing appear to be more advanced than those offered by its lead competitors. Today most services charge fees based on the number of “clicks” on a specific advertisement but provide little information about people who searched on a specific term.
An advertiser linked to “NCAA basketball,” for instance, on MSN adCenter could view graphs showing that mostly males age 16 to 60 searched for the term. Such information can be sued by Microsoft to tailor its fees based on the audience and move online advertisers from “buying keywords to buying an audience,” Microsoft Vice President Yusuf Mehdi said.
Pretty impressive especially considering that companies such as Yahoo! whose bread and butter is online services don’t even have a blogging offering yet… at least not until March 29th.
Worldcom Bernard Ebbers Trial — Part II
08:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - General
P.S. Part one here.
March 15, 2005
Kodak Keynote at CTIA — No Stinkin' Niche Application
09:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Mobile
If we’re not careful, imaging could fade to a niche application in phones. Some think it’s happening already.
Or so said Kodak Chief Executive Dan Carp during a keynote address at the CTIA wireless show on March 14th.
Aloha Dan. Of course camera phones suck right now! Friggin’ current state of the art in camera phones is 1998 in stand-alone digital camera years. Like that’s so 640×480. But no worries, pretty soon you’ll be able to purchase a seven megapixel camera phone. And I am sure that users complain about the ease difficultly of use, but that’ll be fixed too. Probably not anytime soon, but eventually.
Dan, this I do know; camera phones are gonna suck less this year and the next and the next, so that pretty soon they’re not gonna suck. Combine this with with the fact that humans inherently visual creatures and you won’t ever have a “niche application.”
P.S. Also in the News.com article linked to above is this:
Last year, 180 million camera phones were sold worldwide, a 130 percent increase over 2003. Most analysts believe the growth will continue, with about 280 million camera phones sold by the end of the year, and there may be one billion camera phones in circulation by year’s end.
ONE BILLION camera phones. Deeeaaamn. Far from being a niche application, imaging via phones is about to explode. Think about how that will effect societies and politics… especially local politics (just go take some pictures of the potholes in your neighborhood and send them to your local representative).
Audiovox SMT5600 Smartphone Mini Review
10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Reviews
I’ve been thinking a long time about upgrading my old Nokia 8265 mobile to something a little more modern. The 8265 is a TDMA phone that runs on AT&T Wireless Service’s network (now part of Cingular). Cingular is moving to an all GSM network, so folks with TDMA phones will be orphaned at some point. That point for me was a couple of months ago when the TDMA service in my area began acting really flaky… dropping calls all the time, service disappearing from areas, etc. This finally convinced me to upgrade both my phone and service.
My criteria for the new phone included: a “candy bar” form factor (as opposed to a flip phone), no external antenna (ruling out Verizon), internet capability and a size approximately equal to the 8265. My preference would have been to stick with Nokia, since my 8265 has served me well over the past four years or so (including numerous hard drops onto hard surfaces). However, all of the current Nokia phones are either two large and/or just plain ugly. Pretty much the only phone that met my criteria was the Audiovox SMT5600.
Size and Design
This SMT5600 is a great size easily fitting in your pocket. It looks great too. Hey, a female friend of mine told me the phone looked “cool” completely unprompted. But like most phones, it’s very slippery so hold on tight or you’ll see it bouncing across the floor. Hum… I might have to invest in some egrips.
Sound, Network and Phone UI Features
The sound and call quality are acceptable as is the network coverage (but being “acceptable” in the US is a very low standard). One thing that could be improved is the speaker. You have to place your ear directly over the little speaker hole to hear anything.
The phone UI features verge on awesome — mostly very ergonomic and quickly accessible. For example, you can quickly lock the keypad by holding down the large, red “hang up” button. Another clever UI feature is the unlock function. Instead of pushing the unlock softbutton once followed by the “#” key to unlock the phone, you have to push the unlock button twice followed by the # key. Originally, I didn’t like this (why push a button twice?), but I have found that it makes sense. You can quickly access the homescreen of the phone (which displays the time and other useful information) with the first push, while the second push displays a message to hit the # key to unlock the phone. One nit about the unlocking feature is that it is a hard thumb movement. That is, it is a natural thumb movement to move down the keypad to the from the unlock key to the * key (as on my old Nokia), but very unnatural to move down and across the keypad to the # key. Details count in something you use ALL THE TIME.
Other functions like contacts can be quickly accessed through the contacts softkey. Call history can be filter to display only missed calls, made calls, etc.
The supplied stereo headset is very uncomfortable in the ear, and not really loud enough. Sometimes I have to risk a ticket by using both of the ear buds just to hear the caller — it’s illegal in California to wear a stereo headset while driving. In addition, even though my old Nokia headset is compatible with the phone (since the phone uses a standard 2.5 mm jack not a proprietary jack like the new Nokias), the sound level is just too low for me to use it.
Texting
Texting on the SMT5600 is a bit of a mess. The menu structure of the texting application really needs to be changed. I commonly get into situations while texting where I don’t know what button to hit next. Overall, the texting application feels very uneven and amateur.
On the good side, T9 is supplied with the phone, which makes text messaging more rapid. The * button acts as toggle between T9, numeric and “normal” entry modes. It’s also easy to access the symbols menu by holding down the * key.
Keypad
The feel of the keypad is good. Button sizes in general are acceptable, but the # and * keys could be a bit larger. These keys are rounded off to make them look better. However, the five-way navigation button (the big, silver button in the middle of the phone) is flawed. The up, down, left and right functions are fine, but the middle push (pushing down the entire button) is terrible. Even after a couple of months of using the phone, I still activate a direction click instead of the desired middle click about half the time. Unfortunately, you use the middle click button a lot.
A Quick Bit About the Software/Operating System
The SMT5600 run Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition which doesn’t have a large install base (compared to Windows Mobile PocketPC version), so software for the phone is somewhat limited but growing. The default software supplied with the phone is very Microsoft centric, so most of it I don’t use. For example, you can only synchronize your contacts through Outlook. Since I don’t have Outlook bloatware loaded on my machine, I’m not about to install it just to synchronize contacts. This forced me to manually input my contacts into the phone — a pain, but not that big a deal.
Also included is a phone version of Windows Media Player which is something I’ll probably play around with once I get a miniSD memory card for the phone.
Camera
The camera on the phone is fine — about as good as the first Sony MVC-FD73 Mavica floppy disk based digital camera I purchased in 1998ish. To qualify, when I say “fine,” I really mean “not entirely useless” as I had expected it to be. It’s pretty convenient to have a camera with you all the time. You can take pictures to remind yourself of things such as cool designs or products that you want to look up later on the web. For those things the camera works well. For great pictures however, use a real camera.
Stability
I’d rate the SMT5600, or more generally the Windows Mobile OS, as somewhere between Windows 98 (crash-o-matic) and Windows XP (rarely crashes). That is, I have been able to crash the phone numerous times, but most of the time this occurs when using the more advanced features of the phone. General reliability is pretty good, but not up to the 8265’s standard — which to be fair is a very simple phone. And to be even more fair, my friend experiences similar stability problems with his Symbian-based Nokia 6600. But not to let Microsoft off the hook (bad pun), they really need to make the OS at least as bomber as Windows XP.
Internet Access
I can’t say much about this. Currently, Cingular charges so much for data that I haven’t used the internet capability of the phone. Once Cingular gets a clue and lowers the prices, I’m really to start surfing.
Battery Life
It seems like I need to charge the phone every couple of days or so. Battery life could be better, but I don’t think that it’s going to be a problem.
Settings
I found the settings, and there are a lot of them, for the phone to be complicated to find. It seems like they are randomly scatter about the phone’s menu structure. Simple things like turning on the ring/vibrate mode is a chore. Plan on spending several hours finding them and becoming familiar with their locations.
Overall
I really like the SMT5600. There are a few small nits like the unlock feature, settings menus and lack of software and some larger problems like the texting application and stability, but overall it’s a great phone which meets my needs.
March 14, 2005
Lots of New Mobiles from CEBIT and CTIA
04:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Mobile
With both CeBIT (“world’s leading event for information technology, telecommunications, software and services”) and CTIA (the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association) taking place recently you just knew that some ground-breaking mobile phones where going to be announced. Indeed some were! I’ve summarized some of mobiles I found interesting below:
Microsoft PocketPC Phones
Samsung i730 PocketPC mini form factor (with QWERTY keyboard)
Samsung SGH-i750 PocketPC mini form factor (with “normal” phone keypad)
T-Mobile MDA IV “communicator” style phone
Music Phones (iPod killas)
Samsung SGH-i300 with a three gig hard drive!
T-Mobile SDA II and SDA II add more music with a miniSD card
Sony Ericsson W800 featuring MemoryShit flash memory card
Other Phones of Note
Samsung SCH-V770 seven megapixel cameraphone
Firefly kids emergency phone
Nokia 2115i featuring a built-in flashlight
Siemens M75 rugged phone
Samsung WIP-6050M WiFi Phone
It’s good to see handset manufacturers trying out new form factors and adding features like dedicated music playback buttons, hard drives, QWERTY keypads, sliding keypads, “real” cameras, flashlights, etc. Clearly mobiles are becoming more personal (load ALL of your music on ‘em) and more of a always-on-ya necessity.
Damn, the power went out again! Where’s my flashlight… erh, I mean my mobile?
Update 2005_03_17
I’m kind of impressed with Motorola’s new offerings. I left a few off the list above. Here they are…
PEBL V6 Compact little flip phone. Nice!
MS400 Small, light CDMA/EVDO handset
MS550 Trick design on this 3-megapixel cameraphone
SLVR V8 and the V280 Candybar-style Razor-ish handsets
Update: 2005_03_22
Pantech PH-S8000T Trick, hinged flip-phone.
March 10, 2005
Dude, I'm Getting a Dell... Actually, Two Dell LCDs
03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ PC - Customizing
When I first purchased a PC back in the 90s, I had to have a big screen — one capable of running 1600×1200 resolution. Why such high resolution? Because the screen is your primary interface to the computer (you look at it all the time), so the more resolution you can run, the more windows you can have visible at once and the longer you can make your windows to avoid/reduce scrolling. At the time, I got a great deal from Viewsonic on a 21” CRT. I think it ended up costing me something like $1200.
My current monitor is a Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2040u (21” CRT). I picked it up around about five years ago, and it’s run like a champ since. However, it is very large and heavy as hell… so heavy I hate moving it. It probably a power hog too since 21” CRTs typically draw something like 140 watts of power. I think I paid something like $1100 for the monitor, which was also a great deal at the time.
CRTs are still the bomb for high-end graphics production, since they can more truly reproduce colors. The Sony GDM-C520K Artisan is the monitor of choice for this kind of work. However, for most general computing applications, LCD panels are the way to go. They are now relatively cheap and even fast enough to run games on.
It wasn’t too long ago that you’d have to pay almost two grand for a decent 1600×1200 LCD panel. With the huge demand for panels, economies of scale have kicked in and you can pick up a great 20” LCD for under $700… actually, I paid just a little over $500 for a Dell 2001FP.
Actually, that’s not quite correct. I actually paid a little over $500 each for two 2001FPs. Two? Yes two. Since my graphics card supports dual monitors (one through DVI and one analog), I’m going for a dual-monitor set up. Two monitors is almost a must for applications like Photoshop where you have a gillion of these little tool palettes (which control things like layers and color histograms) in addition to the main image window. With two monitors you can place all of the palettes on the second monitor leaving the primary monitor just for the image you are editing. It’s also nice to be able to place your music client, IM client and other applications in the second monitor leaving the primary just for web browsing.
Going with two 1600×1200 monitors will give me 3200×1200 pixels of screen real estate. I had thought about getting Dell’s new 2405FPW 24” LCD, but at $1200, it’s about the same price as two 20” panels, while only running 1920×1200. And if you think that I’m nuts to care about getting the maximum resolution possible, check out Dell’s multi-monitor page. Clearly, there’s a lot of people/businesses who what big screens.
If you’re interested in buying a Dell monitor (or any Dell product for that matter), be sure to check sites like Techbargains’ Dell coupon page to make sure you’re getting the best deal. I saved $125 on my monitors by using a coupon I found on their site.
The 2001FP doesn’t support portrait mode (rotating the monitor 90 degrees for 1200×1600 viewing), but you can buy portrait-enabling software from folks like Portrait Displays.
Dude, I’m gonna be stoked when my panels arrive.
Installing MediaWiki on 1and1 Hosted Server
06:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Whatever
MediaWiki is the wiki software that Wikipedia runs on. I downloaded it last night and installed it in about five minutes on my 1and1 hosted Unix server. Man, that was easy… now I just gotta figure out what I’m going to do with it!
To install MediaWiki on 1and1, make sure that you have created your MySQL database, then just plug in the appropriate information into the MediaWiki set up screen that loads in the set up process.
March 07, 2005
Bluetooth — TechWorld Bluetooth Article Series
08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Mobile
TechWorld, ‘The UK’s Infrastructure & Networking Knowledge Centre,’ recently published a series of articles on Bluetooth. I’ve put some links below to the articles for easy access.
The nuts and bolts of Bluetooth
Why Bluetooth version 2 matters
What do Bluetooth profiles do?
Bluetooth better than WLAN in mobile phones
Here’s an interesting quote from the WLAN article:
…a recent report from ARC Group, which says that shipments of Bluetooth smart phones will reach 87.5 million units - about 70 percent of the smart phone market - by 2009. This compares to WLAN smart phone shipments, which the group predicts will only reach 18.75 million units by the same year.
Some good reading. With the large number of Bluetooth devices shipping some interesting Bluetooth-enabled applications may finally be coming… but don’t hold your breath, because everything in the mobile world takes time.
I think a good metric for the true ‘arrival’ of Bluetooth will be things like: all iPods ship with Bluetooth, it becomes hard to purchase a desktop/laptop that doesn’t have Bluetooth (as it’s currently hard to purchase a motherboard without a built-in LAN chipset), aftermarket car stereos start shipping with Bluetooth, most automobiles ship with Bluetooth… oh, and of course, there’s some useful applications and peripherals that take advantage of Bluetooth.
P.S. Here’s a link to the Bluetooth specifications page, and here’s a link to PaloWireless’ page on Bluetooth protocol (it’s a bit more user friendly).
March 06, 2005
The Real Universal Remote — Bluetooth-enabled mobiles?
09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Mobile
Several applications are starting to show up that turn your Bluetooth-enabled mobile into a remote control for your PC/Mac/Linux box. For example, Bemused is an application that:
…is a system which allows you to control your music collection from your phone, using Bluetooth. It requires a Series 60 or UIQ phone (e.g. Nokia 7650/3650, or Sony Ericsson P800/P900), and a PC with a Bluetooth adapter.
and some of the things you can do with Bemused:
* Browse your music collection on your phone
* Play files in any format supported by Winamp - including MP3s, CDs, MIDIs, etc.
* Control Winamp versions 2, 3 and 5, Windows Media Player and PowerPoint Viewer
* Pause, stop, rewind, fast-forward etc.
* Add songs to the playlist and use shuffle and repeat
* Browse and select songs in your playlist
* Download songs to your phone (supported formats: WAV and MIDI; plus MP3 for UIQ)
* Customise the look of the system with skins
For the Mac you can purchase Salling Software’s Clicker application. Clicker is a Bluetooth remote control application that among other things allows you to control iTunes from a number of mobiles as well as Bluetooth Palm devices.
For Microsoft Smartphone owners, there’s a number of applications like RuttenSoft’s Media Remote 2004. At Microsoft’s Techfest (Seattle Times pain-in-the-ass registration required) Microsoft demonstrated a remote photo slide show application using Windows Media Center.
Of course, my PC doesn’t have Bluetooth, so I’m going to have to purchase a Bluetooth adapter for it. Someday ALL computers will be wirelessly enabled from the get-go (WiFi and Bluetooth or whatever the wireless standards du jour become)… as will all mobiles.
March 04, 2005
Worldcom Bernard Ebbers Trial
09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - General
Give me a break. I’ve been reading a few pieces on the trial of Mr. Ebbers lately (I’d link to them, but they were in the WSJ which is pay to play). This is a guy who cut out free coffee and water to save $4 million, but yet knew ‘nothing’ of the huge account fraud. Whatever. If he doesn’t get set away for a long time, something is wrong with the system (well, obviously there is since folks like Ms. Former HP Boss can make over $45 while getting fired for running the company into the ground).