Buzz Tech

Missing file names in WinXP Thumbnail View

2010-08-27T10:27:00.000-07:00

Select View>> Details
Hold down the Shift key and select Thumbnail View

Fixed.

How To Make iOS 4 Faster On iPhone 3G

2010-08-17T21:42:00.000-07:00

Seems like it should help.

Fromiphone-hacks.com:

To disable Spotlight Searching:
*Launch Settings app
*Go to General
*Go to Spotlight Search
*Deselect indexing for all or as many items as possible
*Enjoy faster iOS4 on iPhone 3G!

Is your iPhone's speaker broken?

2010-08-15T18:26:00.000-07:00

No, it's not. The bottom left thing that looks like a speaker is actually the mic.

I found this out here.

AT&T: We've Put a Tower Near You

2010-03-12T23:06:00.001-08:00

From an email I received today:

The nation's fastest 3G network now covers more of Woodland Hills.

Dear Marc Rifkin,

We wanted you to be among the first to know! We've built a new cell site on Dumetz Rd near Woodland Hills Country Club. It's just a part of our commitment to provide improved wireless coverage with stronger signal and better overall reception.

The great news is coverage in the Southern California area will continue to improve as we expand capacity, optimize and add more sites in the coming months.

With better coverage on the nation's fastest 3G network, there's never been a better time to be an AT&T customer.

We thank you for your continued loyalty and look forward to sharing more good news soon.

Vice President & General Manager
Greater Los Angeles

Sweet!

Magic Mouse in Boot Camp

2010-03-09T11:36:00.001-08:00

I had trouble getting my Magic Mouse working in Boot Camp, and found this Apple Support Article saying you may need to re-pair the mouse in Mac OS before it can pair properly in Windows. That still didn't work, but I found these steps that did (plus a reboot):

This is easiest to do when you have another mouse already working with the system...

1. Install your bluetooth support and service packs for XP
2. Go to Bluetooth devices from your control panel or system tray
3. Connect the Magic Mouse and wait until the machine settles down.
4. Click Add..
5. Check my device is set up and ready to be found
6. Click Next
7. Click the device from the list - it should appear as the address of the mouse (looks like a Mac address)
8. Click Next
9. Don't use a passkey
10. Wait until the bubble appears saying to click here because a device is requesting your attention (or whatever it says)
11. Pass key is 0000
12. Click Next
13. Click Finish
14. Go back to Bluetooth devices
15. Click on the device from the list
16. Click Properties
17. Give the device a reasonable name (like Magic Mouse?)
18. Click Services tab
19. Check drivers for keyboard, mice, etc (HID)
20. Click Ok.

In my case I had to reboot before it would et me select the keyboard services.

History of the Apple Startup Sound

2010-02-27T09:58:00.001-08:00

From TUAW.com:

...the creators of the Dutch site onemorething.nl have posted their interview with Apple sound designer Jim Reekes (who also appears in Welcome To Macintosh). They met up with Reekes while at Macworld in San Francisco a little while back -- he's the guy that programmed most of the sound in the early days, including the famous Mac startup chime and the legendary "sosumi" chime.

iMovie 09 Project Lost

2010-01-01T17:10:00.000-08:00

We went on a family trip to Las Vegas recently and shot some video and pics that I edited together into a nice piece to remember the trip. It even had a funny ending where it showed different people and made-up stories about their escapades in Sin City (yeah, I know whatever happens in Vegas, etc.).

After I had posted the video to YouTube, I wanted to export the project to iTunes so we could see it on our AppleTV. The project no longer showed up in iMovie. It was there in Finder, but even double clicking on it directly didn't help.

I wasn't able to recover the project, but since I had uploaded it to YouTube, the exported 720p file still existed. It wasn't a complete loss, and I reminded myself to back up more often.

To get to the exported file, I selected the project, right-clicked and picked 'Show Package Contents' (iMovie projects are actually special folders called 'packages'). Inside there's a folder called Movies which has the exported version(s).

FWIW, I checked out the project file itself, and it was full of the same character. The file appears to be a binary format, but normally there's something recognizable like a clip name. In this case it looks like iMovie decided to nuke the data. Too bad.

So, in addition to backing up I'm going through each of my projects and exporting the highest resolution possible to the Media Browser. That makes the files visible to other iLife programs and still gives me the option to export a separate file later.

How (not) to make a slideshow in iPhoto

2009-12-25T07:51:00.000-08:00

As you can see in this tutorial on Apple's site, you can quickly view photos in a slide show with the button at the bottom of the window. You can set the order, pick a theme, add music, transitions, etc. But don't get too far because you can only play that slideshow on your computer, you can't publish or covert it to video (unless you use a screen recording program).

In the same tutorial, you can see there is also a Slideshow Project you can create which can be exported. The only downside is the way you have to arrange photos is a small strip at the top of the project window rather than a proper iPhoto album.

So the lesson learned is if you plan to publish a slideshow, make a project, don't do one on the fly.

People do funny things with Apple products

2009-12-14T09:18:00.000-08:00

First there was this guy who turns an XBox into a killer MacOS video editing workstation.

Now this other guy has made a greeting card out of an iPhone.

Relocating iPhoto Library

2009-11-23T10:37:00.001-08:00

From Basics4Mac:

Once you have your new external hard drive, you can move your iPhoto library to it. This will free up the space on your main hard drive and let you grow your iPhoto library to thousands of photos.

This has been updated with instructions for iPhoto '09. Instructions for iPhoto '06 and '08 are still included.

Upgraded to Snow Leopard, Can't Scan

2009-10-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

After upgrading to Mac Snow Leopard OS everything seemed fine until trying to scan from our HP Photosmart C7200.

I suspected a driver update was in order, and found this article on Macrumors.com. The HP utilities were still not working after installing. Then I read this article on HP's website.

The article says:

New with Snow Leopard, the Scanning interface to these HP Inkjet All-in-One devices is now built into Snow Leopard and supported with the Apple Image Capture application. There are three ways to perform scanning from your HP All-in-One:

Preview program
Image Capture program
System Preferences > Print & Fax

It sounds like a positive thing, but I think they're also saying indirectly their own suite of apps are now totally useless?

I uninstalled all the HP-ware and am now using Image Capture. Hopefully that will be good enough going forward.

VMware Fusion 3 Coming

2009-10-06T17:26:00.001-07:00

From VMware.com:

VMware Fusion 3 – the Best Way to Run Windows on the Mac – Now Available for Pre-Order
VMware Fusion 3 with More than 50 New Features will be Available Worldwide on Oct 27
PALO ALTO, Calif., October 6, 2009 — VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop through the datacenter and to the cloud, today announced that VMware Fusion 3, the best way to run Windows on the Mac, will be available worldwide on October 27 and is available for pre-order today. VMware Fusion 3 makes it easier than ever for users to move to the Mac and to run Windows applications – including graphics-intensive games – alongside Mac applications, with a Mac user experience.
VMware Fusion 3 will include more than 50 new features and enhancements, delivering a better-than-ever Windows on Mac experience. Key highlights include:
Optimized for Snow Leopard. Built from the ground up for the Mac, VMware Fusion 3 leverages Mac OS X Snow Leopard’s advanced architecture with a new 64-bit core engine and native support for the 64-bit kernel, delivering even better Windows on Mac performance.
Ultimate Windows 7 Experience. VMware Fusion 3 will be the first to enable the full Windows 7 experience, side-by-side with your Mac, complete with Windows Aero and Flip 3D.
Switching Made Easy. VMware Fusion 3 will make it easy for users to bring their entire PC to their Mac in a few easy steps – wirelessly or with a simple Ethernet cable – allowing customers to protect investments in existing Windows software, and to keep using the programs they still need.
Best-in-Class 3D Graphics. Support for OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3 will enable users to run their favorite 3D Windows games and applications – all without rebooting.

I'll be putting my order in!

BusyCal Debuts

2009-09-29T09:46:00.001-07:00

From Macworld.com:

For many Mac users, Apple’s own iCal application is sufficient when it comes to scheduling their lives, but for those irked by its limitations, there are alternatives. BusyMac’s new BusyCal 1.0, released on Tuseday, is a dedicated calendaring program that aims to exploit the opening left by iCal’s own shortcomings for power users—BusyMac even goes so far as to bill it “iCal Pro.”

I've been using BusySync which lets you sync iCal with Google Calendar. Works pretty well. I'll take a look at BusyCal but I'm pretty happy what I have now.

Macbook Pro NVidia 8600 Defect [Finally home again!]

2009-09-14T22:49:00.000-07:00

I hadn't heard back yet, so I stopped by the Topanga Apple Store Friday night. The Macbook Pro was ready to go. New motherboard, and a new battery too. Can't complain except the whole repair service could have been a few days shorter. Total days from drop off to pick up: 12.

So far so good. The Apple Genius warned me they might have to wipe the hard drive, but it didn't come to that. I'm glad to not have to waste a day reinstalling everything and other day or two downloading all the frakking updates.

Macbook Pro NVidia 8600 Defect [Fixed, at the store, but can't pick it up yet!]

2009-09-10T15:16:00.000-07:00

So I watched my Macbook Pro get shipped from Houston to Canoga Park (aka Topanga). Fedex site says it was delivered and signed for.

I call the store to see if I can pick it up. At first they can't find it. But then he says it's there but they haven't "checked it in yet". They have to check it in, and run tests on it to make sure it is okay. I thought the repair center was supposed to take care of that. Hmm.

Waiting for Apple Store to call...

Macbook Pro NVidia 8600 Defect [Fixed, shipped back to store]

2009-09-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

Over the past week I've been obsessively checking my Macbook Pro's repair status. This morning it finally changed from "On hold" to "Repair Completed". Woohoo!

It's on it's way via Fedex from the repair center in Houston, TX to the Apple Store in Topanga where I dropped it off. Should arrive tomorrow.

Macbook Pro NVidia 8600 Defect

2009-09-08T10:37:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd escaped this, but it finally caught up with me. My Macbook Pro has an NVidia 8600GT and as we found out last year, most if not all of these chips have a defect that can cause it to no longer be functional.

The good news is that Apple's policy is to fix the problem for free even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.

I took it to my local Apple Store. They ran a test on it in the back to confirm it was indeed the NVidia problem. I signed some paperwork and off it went.

I'm number two in the queue.

That was Sunday August 30. It's now September 8th and still no word other than "On hold - Part on order" when I check my repair status. I've read accounts claiming repairs taking from just several hours to a few days. One said two weeks.

Broken iPhone replaced at Apple Store

2009-07-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

Last week the ringer switch on my iPhone 3G came off. I checked online to make sure it was still under warranty. It was, so I dropped by the Apple Store my next time at Topanga Mall.

They were swamped, so I had to make an appointment to come in later. If you have an issue like this I highly recommend doing this instead of walking in.

The Genius Bar was busy when I got in, but it worked to my favor as they helped me get through quickly so they could get back to other more needy customers. I walked out with a new iPhone in about 30 minutes.

CompUSA revives with open Internet policy

2009-04-10T10:10:00.001-07:00

From Electronista.com:

Following its bankruptcy and sale to Systemax, CompUSA has quietly been reopening new stores with a very different policy on Internet access. In a talk with Wired, Systemax's Technology Products chief Gilbert Fiorentino has confirmed both that there are now 30 new CompUSA stores but that the new shops have a largely open Internet policy that puts every computer in the store on an Internet connection. Shoppers are reportedly encouraged to use demo units to check prices and reviews, and are unrestricted from ordinary tasks like checking Facebook.
...
A revived store faces difficult economic conditions but may thrive with the recent liquidation of Circuit City, which both reduces CompUSA's immediate competition and opens the door to taking over the now-empty retail space of its former challenger. Circuit City had faced a similar crisis of high maintenance costs and losses to Best Buy but was unable to find a company willing to take it over in time to avoid a complete collapse.

Conficker Awakens, Starts Scamming

2009-04-10T10:06:00.001-07:00

From NetworkWorld.com:

The Conficker worm is back in action and stumping security experts once again. One of the most craftily designed pieces of malware recently got an update and is finally starting to behave like other worms.

Time Warner Changes -- But Keeps -- Bandwidth Caps

2009-04-10T10:04:00.001-07:00

From PCWorld.com:

Time Warner Cable decided it wanted to play with bandwidth capping, but after intense backlash from customers, the company has backed off its original plans.
...
Despite the outcry and Time Warner's response, the caps are still likely to be implemented, which spells bad news across the board.

Pick your passwords well

2009-02-08T15:27:00.001-08:00

From Slashdot.org:

Robert David Graham writes:
"The hacker who broke into phpbb.com posted the passwords online. I was sent the password list, so I ran it through my analysis tools and posted the results. Nothing terribly surprising here; 123456 and password are the most popular passwords as you would expect. I tried to be a bit more creative in my analysis, though, to get into the psychology of why people choose the passwords they do. '14% of passwords were patterns on the keyboard, like "1234" or "qwerty" or "asdf." There are a lot of different patterns people choose, like "1qaz2wsx" or "1q2w3e." I spent a while googling "159357" trying to figure out how to categorize it, then realized it was a pattern on the numeric keypad. I suppose whereas "1234" is popular among right-hand people, "159357" will be popular among lefties.'"

Gears of War DRM Bug

2009-02-01T15:56:00.001-08:00

From ArsTechnica.com:

Gamers who tried to play Gears of War on the PC Thursday ran into a slight snag: it seems that the digital certificate that allows the game to run expired on January 28, 2009. Basically that means if you keep your PC's clock up to date, you can no longer play the game. The official Epic forum is ablaze with complaints about this issue, as the still-kicking community becomes enraged.

...
Epic Games is aware of the issue, but don't expect much hard news about what to do about the inability to play the game. "We have been notified of the issue and are working with Microsoft to get it resolved," a super moderator posted on the forum. "Sorry for any problems related to this. I'll post more once we have a resolution." (Microsoft is the publisher, and GoW is a Games for Windows release.)
Until then? You can either fiddle with your computer's clock or not play. Neither choice is much fun.

Boot Camp Print Screen = fn+shift+f11

2009-01-03T19:28:00.001-08:00

I keep forgetting this, so here's the link to Apple's Knowledge Base.

Boot Camp Print Screen = fn+shift+f11
Boot Camp Print Window = fn+alt+shift+f11

Netflix, Hulu, etc. on XBox with PlayOn

2008-12-29T13:25:00.001-08:00

From MediaMall Technologies:

PlayOn enables consumers who own a PLAYSTATION 3, Xbox 360, or HP MediaSmart TV to access content from sites including Netflix, Hulu, CBS, YouTube, ESPN and more on their television. We have been testing PlayOn Beta for a number of months now, and the fully featured release will be coming shortly!
We will also be adding support for Nintendo Wii in early 2009. Stay tuned!

Excellent Time Lapse

2008-12-29T13:22:00.001-08:00

From Gizmodo.com:

As if our lives don't pass by fast enough, photographer Eirik Solheim managed to encapsulate the passage of an entire year into a 40 second HD clip using photos complied from his Canon 400D.

Kicking Apple TV up a notch

2008-12-26T10:51:00.001-08:00

From The Unofficial Apple Weblog:

I've made no secret about my unabashed love for boxee, the awesome media center with a social kick that can run on your Apple TV. It should be no surprise that my first piece of advice is that you set-up boxee on your Apple TV as soon as you get it connected to your TV and home theater.

Need an invite? If you don't have a friend to ask, check out the boxee forums, hit up the boxee Twitter feed or pester me (@film_girl) and you should be able to get one pretty quickly. On January 8th, 2009, boxee will be opening up the alpha for everyone.

After you've updated your Apple TV to the latest firmware, follow my instructions or take a look the information at the ATV USB Creator project page for the the details in making a patchstick. The process is extremely easy and you just need a USB stick (1 GB or more recommended) and a few minutes to get everything up and running.

Once boxee is installed, you can enjoy Hulu (if you live in the US), streaming video from other services, last.fm and playback of other file types that won't natively play on the Apple TV; you can store those files either on the Apple TV, or that you
access from another hard drive.

Why is there no title bar when I open Task Manager in Windows XP?

2008-11-08T01:13:00.001-08:00

From PCHell.com:

When you open up Task Manager in Windows XP, there is no title bar, menu bar, or program tabs showing. Only the running applications, End Task, Switch To, and New Task buttons show up.

This problem is easy to fix, the Task Manager is running in "tiny footprint mode". To correct this, simply double-click on the border around the window and it will return to its normal state. To place task manager back in "tiny footprint mode" again, double click again on the border around the window.

So I got a 3G iPhone...

2008-09-23T22:55:00.000-07:00

I said I wasn't going to do it. I already had a perfectly fine 1st gen 8GB iPhone. The 3G model wasn't worth it.

What changed my mind?

GPS
On a recent trip I heavily used the map application. It was fine for locating everything-- hotels, buildings, Starbucks, etc. -- except ME. Most of the time I got a huge circle, sometimes I got a very precise location that was definitely not where I was standing.

A colleague had the 3G model, which worked just like a real GPS should. It tells you exactly where you are. I was jealous.

Now with a proper GPS in my phone, I'm tempted to offload my Garmin Nuvi. This is a sweet device, but it's one more thing to carry around.

3G
I use my phone more for email and web than I do for calls. So if there's any way to speed that up, I'm all for it. 3G coverage in the States is not great, but it's getting better. Europe and Australia have excellent 3G.

???
I wish I could say there was something else compelling pushed me to upgrade. Unfortunately there isn't. I was sitting on the fence and it just took light breeze to push me over.

I would have grabbed this phone a month ago if it had a better camera, or could do video conferencing, or could be used as a modem. The "breeze" was seeing the GPS in action.

Upgrading cost me $340 plus a slightly higher monthly rate. I just hope they don't come out with a new model any time soon.

Mac Dock not doing the "zoom thing"

2008-08-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while I've noticed on our iMac that the dock highlighting stops working. The first icon you mouse over zooms up but it doesn't change if you move over other icons.

I've been Googling for an answer, and it took the right combination of keywords ("imac dock not highlighting") to find this thread on MacRumors.com.

In the first post, a person reports exactly what I'm experiencing. People replied with the usual suggestions: Reboot, Repair Permissions, Reinstall Updates, etc.

On the last post I found this comment:

Hi, I had the same problem but in Leopard. All mouse over effects spontaneously disappeared and stayed off even through reboots.

Once I unplugged and re-plugged my mouse, everything worked fine again.

I suppose if you're on a laptop then plugging in an external mouse might help.

Hope this helps!

I gave it a shot and it worked! I hadn't noticed, but now that I think of it, mouse-over highlighting in general seems to be not right. Hopefully by blogging this, other people will find this solution easier.

How Lame

2008-08-18T16:02:00.001-07:00

From tuaw.com:

The Washington Post is reporting that Pandora, the Internet radio station available on Mac, iPhone, and iPod touch, may be shutting down service soon.

The reason is that Sound Exchange, the ~~money-grubbing blackmailers~~ royalties collection arm affiliated with the Recording Industry Association of America, has imposed restrictive administrative fees ($500 per year per channel) and ridiculous royalty fees (2.91 cents per hour per listener) on Internet radio stations. While many companies that provide Internet radio services have been lobbying Congress for relief, there doesn't seem to be much of hope that happening in the near future.

Chat and VOIP on the iPhone

2008-07-18T15:49:00.001-07:00

From Fring.com:

OK. So if you’re one of the first lucky *#@$%&s to get your hands
on an iPhone, you just got even luckier. We’ve just made a special
pre-release R&D version of fring for your iPhone - a mobile VoIP
app publicly available for the iPhone?…yep that’s a world-first!

Text Editors

2008-07-18T14:42:00.001-07:00

Searching for a great text editor is like looking for a great photo in Yosemite-- you'll always find another one if you keep looking.

Look no further (for text editors).

Get Notepad ++ for the PC or TextMate for the Mac.

Features I was looking for:

Line numbers
Macros
Syntax highlighting
Fast editing
Folding of indented text
Parenthesis matching

Now go spend your new "free time" enjoying the outdoors.

iPhoto to Shutterfly

2008-07-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

Export Assistant for iPhoto
http://www.shutterfly.com/downloads/features_mac.jsp

Works great!

Mac Touchpad Tricks

2008-07-08T18:30:00.000-07:00

From Macworld.com:

Depending on the Mac notebook model, there are up to 10 specialized trackpad functions you can use to make navigating the screen, Mac OS X and various applications faster and easier.

The trackpad options discussed in this article are not enabled by default; you can enable them all in System Preferences using the Trackpad tab of the Keyboard & Mouse pane. The exact look of this pane will vary depending on the Mac model and on the version of Mac OS X installed, but most will look something like the figure shown below. Some options require hardware support and thus are available only on specific models.

XP - Out!

2008-06-16T21:05:00.000-07:00

From news.cnet.com:

After a long-announced transition, June 30 marks the end of an era at Microsoft. Well, really it's the end of two eras.
Most people think of Bill Gates, of course, and I'll have plenty more to say about his impending shift to part-time work in the coming days. But another epoch is also really coming to an end--that of Windows XP.
As of June 30, large PC makers will no longer be able to sell Windows XP-based PCs, at least on mainstream notebooks and desktops. Retailers will also have only until their current supply is exhausted to sell boxed copies of the operating system.

I want to keep my XP security blankie. ;-)

Boot Camp Update fixed video problems

2008-05-03T12:30:00.000-07:00

Well aside from the keyboard troubles (which appear to be gone after reinstalling Input Remapper), I also noticed a welcome improvement in video.

I mostly use Boot Camp with XP on my Macbook Pro. I call it my Macbook PC. The original video drives weren't very smart about whether you were connected to an external monitor or not. I had a Dell Inpsiron 9400 that handled this perfectly. It remembered the resolution of the monitor and would adjust depending on whether I was using the LCD or a monitor.

But the Macbook didn't. After connecting to a monitor at 1680x1050, later on it would keep the same res if I booted standalone. Since the LCD is 1400x900, I'd get a virtual desktop.

But after the recent Boot Camp update (which must have included a new video driver), it remembers the resolutions and adjusts correctly. All is well with my Macbook PC.

Macbook Pro Freezing Randomly

2008-05-02T21:33:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought it was safe... even Macs have problems.

I recently installed an Apple update for Boot Camp, then under XP the system started randomly freezing. It was incredibly frustrating.

After some searching around on the net, I found a few other people with the same problem. They mostly blamed the Apple keyboard driver for Windows. There was a mention that Input Remapper happens to disable that driver in order to do its thing.

That's when the light bulb went on.

I already have Input Remapper. But since installing that, I also did the Apple update. The update probably re-enabled the keyboard driver. So I re-installed Remapper and things seem to be much better.

Until I post otherwise, consider this a fix.

HP PhotoSmart 7280 All-in-One Printer

2008-04-16T07:34:00.001-07:00

Just got an HP 7280 for the home.

It was on sale, plus we were already looking for a new printer and had to replace our old parallel-port scanner (no more parallel ports on new PCs). So why not kill a few birds with one stone? Metaphorically speaking of course.

The 6280 was also on sale. That's just what we need: Print, Copy & Scan. But due to some weird price planning, the 7280 was cheaper. So we got Faxing too.

I had done some research on inkjet vs color laser. It seemed like the lower end color laser printers could do text or charts in color, but not good enough for photos. And their print speed is slow. You had to pay alot more for speed. Too bad. I was hoping to escape the constant cycle of buying new inkjet cartridges (up to SIX of them) all too often. Laser typically has a longer life span per cartridge. But inkjet makes better photos, and we're not printing that many charts at home.

The 7280 was on sale (and maybe still is) at several stores. I was looking at it in Fry's Electronics. I asked if it had a slide scanner and a sales person said "Yes, when you scan something, the scanner slides back and forth." Uggh. Does anyone know anything at these places?

I ended up getting one at Office Depot. There wasn't a sales person to ask any questions, so I just picked up the box and took it to the register.

I love having a networked printer. No more sharing from a USB connection. All the computers can see the printer.

Installing the "required" software went okay on a PC with Windows 2000. The installer crashed on our iMac. It ended up with just a fax driver but not printer. I deleted it and re-added it as a printer and was good to go.

I thought you needed the software, which consists of several utilities for printing, scanning, faxing, etc. But I was able to print on another Mac without it. I suppose I'd need the software for more than just printing. If you can get by without installing, do it.

We still haven't really put the printer to the test of printing photos yet. I had a chance to make a copy of something. That was really easy.

I'll post more results as they happen.

Flash on iPhone looking better

2008-03-18T23:30:00.000-07:00

From Engadget.com:

The word is out, kids. Adobe has apparently gone against old Jobsy's wishes, and it's planning a Flash player made all special for the iPhone (ala Windows Mobile) despite Apple's concerns that the technology -- in its current incarnation, anyway -- isn't cut out for mobile duty. During a conference call today, Chief Executive Shantanu Narayen said, "We believe Flash is synonymous with the Internet experience, and we are committed to bringing Flash to the iPhone," adding, "We have evaluated (the software developer tools) and we think we can develop an iPhone Flash player ourselves." We wouldn't be surprised if Adobe were to be given a pass on all those pesky SDK rules that would likely prevent a proper browser-based Flash component to be coded for the device, though those Apple dudes can be real sticklers for rules.

Flash on iPhone not looking too good

2008-03-05T21:53:00.000-08:00

From AppleInsider.com

Over the last year, many observers have wondered when Apple would deliver Adobe Flash support on the iPhone. At the company's shareholder meeting on Tuesday, Steve Jobs made comments that indicate that support isn't coming anytime soon, thanks to architectural limitations in Flash itself.

Input Remapper

2008-02-21T09:00:00.001-08:00

Heard about it on TWiT. Input Remapper re-assigns keys on the Mac keyboard when in Boot Camp to be less Mac-like. You can pretty much get the same key arrangement of Ctrl-Win-Alt-Space-Alt-Win-Ctrl that you have on a typical PC keyboard.

This really helps on a MacBook Pro, as long as you don't look at the keyboard and see the markings on the keys. Just go by memory and you'll do fine.

One problem I've had is sometimes at bootup it seems to lose its settings and go back to defaults. I'll have to search around and see if anyone else has this problem.

PhotoShop CS Stuck on Startup

2008-02-20T21:28:00.001-08:00

Every once in a while, PhotoShop CS2 gets stuck during startup. Right when it says "Reading Text Global Resources."

There's a Tech Note on Adobe.com that offers two solutions:

Delete the New Doc Sizes file.
Re-create Photoshop preferences.

The second one usually does the trick.

To re-create the preferences files for Photoshop, start the application while holding down Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift (Mac OS X). Then, click Yes to the message, "Delete the Adobe Photoshop Settings file?"

Wifi with your Latte

2008-02-11T10:55:00.000-08:00

From the CNN.com:

SEATTLE (AP) -- Starbucks Corp. is teaming up with AT&T Inc. and will start offering a mix of free and paid wireless Internet service in more than 7,000 of its U.S. coffee shops beginning this spring.
The world's largest specialty coffee retailer's move ends a six-year partnership with T-Mobile.
Starbucks (STUX) said Monday it will give customers that use its Starbucks purchase card two hours of free wireless access per day. After that, it will cost $3.99 for a two-hour session. Monthly memberships will cost $19.99 and include access to any of AT&T's 70,000 hot spots worldwide.
People who already use AT&T (T, Fortune 500) as their Internet service provider will have unlimited Wi-Fi access at Starbucks.

Apple TV

2008-01-29T08:34:00.000-08:00

At first wasn't sure what it was, and whether i needed it. After re-reading the descriptions on Apple's website a few times, and browsing reviews on ArsTechnica, Gizmodo and Engadget.

One way to look at it is an iPod that connects to a TV, but it can also view/stream live without syncing from a Mac or PC with iTunes. (though it takes a moment to scan the list of available content)

If you have a big screen TV, AppleTV is a great device for showing off photos. The built-in Ken Burns and transitions just about eliminates the need to make slideshows. It even adds background music from your iTunes library.

It also works with EyeTV, which can export to iTunes.

A recent software update lets you browse movies, shows, YouTube and podcasts directly on the Internet. So you're even less dependent on a computer. There are tons of HD podcasts to choose from.

I do find it strange that the main menu is text-only and arranged in two vertical columns where the entire rest of the interface is made up of visual horizontal scrolling views.

I could see renting movies with AppleTV. The selection and prices look good. I do wish the rental time was longer than 24 hrs.My main movie time would be on weekends.

Netflix's instant viewing gives iTunes a run for its money. We have an unlimited 3-movie account, which means we can stream an unlimited amount of movies for no extra cost. The selection isn't as good as the entire Netflix library and it only works on Windows after installing Windows Media Player 11 and a slew of updates and security patches. But like I said, no extra cost.

Useful Apps for the Mac

2008-01-29T08:29:00.003-08:00

Chat: Adium
Works with a dozen different chat networks. The owl is sooo cute too. :)

Remote Access: Chicken of the VNC, Remote Desktop

Browser, Email: Firefox, Thunderbird

FTP: FileZilla

Sharing mouse & kb with PC: Synergy
Use one mouse and keyboard with Mac, PC or Linux. The clipboard works too, most of the time.

Video conversion: Visual Hub
This does a great job converting to H.264 for iTunes. I can't believe it's only $23. You can use KeepVid.com to grab videos from YouTube, then Visual Hub to finish the job.

Playing video not supported by QT: VLC Player, WMP with Flip4Mac
VLC plays various flavors of MPEG.
Flip4Mac lets you play WMVs from a PC.

Backups: Carbon Copy Cloner, WinClone
Carbon Copy is a full disk image copier.
WinClone lets you back up your Boot Camp partition.

Elgato EyeTV

2008-01-29T08:29:00.001-08:00

Last year we switched to the Mac. After enjoying the benefits of Beyond TV on our PC, we still wanted to be able to have the same capabilities on our Mac. After some searching discussion boards and reviews, I settled on EyeTV by Elgato. It seemed to offer a similar feature range as Beyond TV and had decent reviews.

I ordered the Eyetv 250 Plus, which comes with the EyeTV software and supports for composite & S-Video as well as analog NTSC and over-the-air HDTV.

The EyeTV software runs in the Mac GUI. By contrast, BeyondTV had a non-Windows interface designed for TV viewing. This worked great when using their Beyond TV Link client program to view another PC's recorded shows running the main BeyondTV software. We'd hook a notebook up to the TV and start browsing. But on the main PC, the interface felt too clunky.

The first version of EyeTV that came in the box recorded only at scheduled times. A nice feature of BeyondTV was you could select a show and it would figure out the times for you and only record new episodes. The latest version of EyeTV now has a similar feature called Smart Schedules. The only problem I've had with this is that not all shows use the "new" (aka not a rerun) flag properly so either all shows come up as new or none at all. Smart Schedules let you also specify channel, show title, and other parameters, which gives more precise control than BeyondTV. For instance, Family Guy appears on several networks but new episodes are on Fox. You can tell it to only record from Fox (whatever channel that is in your area).

Like BeyondTV, it can export to iPod/AppleTV via iTunes. We just got an AppleTV, which took the place of the laptop running BeyondTV Link.

EyeTV has a unique feature called WiFi Streaming that runs a web server designed to be browsed by an iPhone or iPod Touch. You can select shows that have been specifically exported for streaming (not just any show). BeyondTV also has a web interface which lets you view the recording schedule, start export tasks (to WMV, QuickTime, etc.) and change system options. The EyeTV web interface is just for watching shows.

EyeTV gets its program guide from Titan TV. The data is accurate as far as I can tell. The interface fits lots of shows together very well, much better than the BeyondTV over-sized GUI.

Since we have an iMac, we had to go with an external capture device. Fortunately The EyeTV 250 Plus is small and attractive. We were using a Hauppague WinTV PVR-250 with Beyond TV. The quality is comparable. I specifically went for the 250 not just because it can input analog and digital TV, but also because it has on-board compression so the CPU isn't doing all the work when it's recording.

The first version of the software had a bug where encoding shows >1gb would stall. A recent update fixed that, showing Elgato's attention to customer issues. I also had purchased Elgato's Turbo.264 device. But that fails to encode every time. I'm currently in discussion with Elgato support to troubleshoot this. I'll post an update when it's resolved.

Error when opening iPhoto '08: Photos Have Been Found in the iPhoto Library That Were Not Imported

2007-12-29T19:17:00.000-08:00

While copying our photo library from our PC to the Mac, I started getting the above error whenever running iPhoto '08. The number goes up seemingly randomly. If I click No then iPhoto opens as normal. If I click Yes then iPhoto attempts to import these photos, even asking what I want to do with duplicates before quitting at some random point in the import.

After searching discussion forums, I found a solution:

There were files that had gotten "stuck" in the import process, causing iPhoto to crash when recovering the files every time it launches.

To get get rid of them, right click on the iPhoto Package File in the Pictures Folder and choose 'Show Package Contents'. A Finder window will open and you may see in there a folder called 'Importing' with these pics in it. Drag it to the desktop and then relaunch iPhoto. Then you can decide what to do with those files.

Hi I'm and Mac and I'm also a PC

2007-12-26T16:42:00.000-08:00

So far, I'm still liking life in with the Mac.

Had a few glitches...

Importing our photos from our PC to iPhoto lost all the organization we had done with folders. We had folders for events, and iPhoto tried to reorganize everything according to file date. That would have been okay except not all the file dates are related to when they were taken. Sometimes photos are copied or emailed long after it was shot. Also, we have multiple cameras, which causes parallel events (when both cameras were in use at the same time) to be unintentionally combined. So now I'm manually reorganizing everything into Events and Albums.
I'm running Windows in both Boot Camp and VMWare, and had to activate Windows twice. But every time I run Adobe CS2 in either mode, when I run it in the other mode (ie: run in Booth Camp, then run in VMWare), it asks to re-activate. I'm worried it's going to stop allowing this to work at some point, so I've stopped running it from VM.

On the plus side, what's really cool though is being able to run VMWare full-screen with Spaces. I can fly to and from Windows any time. The Unity feature is nice, but I'm using Spaces to reduce the amount of windows visible at once. I have chat & email in one, a browser in another, one is free and one has Windows VM.

I also have Remote Desktop and Chicken of the VNC so I can access other Windows PCs on the network.

Macbook Pro Keyboard Fix

2007-12-18T19:20:00.000-08:00

Just did a Software Update check on my MBP.

This showed up in the list:

This update addresses a responsiveness issue on MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook computers. Some MacBook and MacBook Pro systems may occasionally experience a temporary suspension of keyboard input which can last a minute or longer. The Mac OS X 10.5.1 update is required before installing the MacBook, MacBook Pro Software Update 1.1.

Thanks Apple! :)

James Kim Foundation

2007-12-08T11:23:00.000-08:00

Last year around this time, James Kim died trying to save his family from a cold winter storm in the Oregon outdoors. He was a tech guy, working for CNet.

CNet has a memorial on their site. A charity foundation has been set up as well.

Mac issues

2007-12-08T09:46:00.001-08:00

We're not switching to Mac overnight. We planned to overlap thing while we move our files over and make sure we didn't lose anything in the process.

So far, we've only had a few glitches with the Mac, all of which I read about on sites like MacRumors, AppleInsider, TUAW, and MacNN. The MacRumors Buyer's Guide is very useful.

I went for refurbished units. That seems to be the best way to get a deal since most stores sell at or very close to MSRP. No problems in that respect.

One thing I read was that iMacs were overheating and locking up. So far I haven't seen that happen but I really haven't used the iMac for long periods and it's been pretty cool this fall/winter.

I did run into the "dead keyboard" problem on the MacBook Pro. Both Macs came with Tiger installed and a Leopard "Drop-in" disc. I did a clean install on the MBP and within days the keyboard was randomly going dead. I read that people who upgraded instead of clean install were not experiencing the problem, so I re-installed Tiger and upgraded to Leopard. That seemed to fix it, but just yesterday it happened twice. The trackpad still works, so I can do a restart to get it working again.

The Mail app won't read our corporate MDaemon server IMAP Inbox. I've read that other people have this problem too. I can use Thunderbird in the time being. Some people have worked around it by having their MDaemon mail forwarded to a GMail account. SMTP does work through MDaemon, so you just need GMail to read messages.

I imported our iTunes music and photos from the PC this past week. On the PC, I shared the My Music folder and imported it from iTunes on the Mac. If you have purchased songs on iTunes, make sure to log in to your account and authorize the computer before copying over. That makes it work smoothly. Otherwise you'll get a pop-up message and it will wait for you to answer before finishing copying. Anyway, it looks like everything made it over.

I also exported our playlists from iTunes on the PC. Had to do that one at a time but they imported and worked fine on the Mac.

Moving photos was not as clean, since we use Windows folders to organize our pics. We have ACDSee but don't use it's database features.

The folder organization for people, events, etc. was lost in the transfer. iPhoto automatically groups pics into events based on the file dates, but the dates of photos are not always when they were taken. Sometimes a file was copied or received via email and the date is no longer correct. We'll take this as an opportunity to clean things up and re-organize.

I'm trying to decide on Safari vs Firefox and Mail vs Thunderbird. They all seem pretty good. I use FF and TB on the PC, so I'm leaning towards them on the Mac. The Apple apps have nicer interfaces and better integration with the OS and .Mac (trying out the 60-day trial now).

Switching to Mac

2007-12-08T09:39:00.000-08:00

Last month I decided to jump in the Mac world with both feet. We have an iMac at home and I have a MacBook Pro for work.

At home, we've had two hand-built PCs that I've been upgrading for the past few years. It's been a fun hobby, updating video cards, replacing power supplies, etc.

But after seeing the sleek all-in-one design of the iMac, the old, ugly, noisy boxes on our floor had to go. So I won't be able to upgrade the video or CPU. Now we'll spend more time using the computer instead of tweaking it. That's what the Mac is all about.

Happy B-Day C64

2007-12-08T09:38:00.000-08:00

From CNN.com:

On Monday, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, will celebrate the C64's 25th anniversary. Computer pioneers will reflect on the C64's achievements and contribution to the industry. Jack Tramiel, the founder and CEO of Commodore, will attend, along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and William C. Lowe, father of the IBM PC.

Bye, Bye, CompUSA

2007-12-08T09:33:00.000-08:00

Earlier this year CompUSA closed about half its stores, including the one in Woodland Hills, CA (the closest one to me).

Looks like they just decided to shut down the whole business.

They hadn't been competing very well with the newer all-things-to-everybody mega stores. But it was nice to have a choices of places you could go to be around techy things.

I bought my first PC at CompUSA. Packard Bell Pentium 133.

Apple deleted discussion

2007-11-05T08:13:00.000-08:00

New posting:

Somehow a large discussion on recent iPhone activation issues just disappeared.

I am in Dallas/Fort Worth and am STILL UNABLE to activate my new iPhone via iTunes. I get emails from ATT/Apple saying my number has been ported and the device is active, however when I reconnect the phone to iTunes, I continue to get a store is busy error. In effect, the phone is still physically inactive.

Here's the deleted discussion: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1213623&start=50&tstart=0

I would prefer that Apple address the issue rather than sweep it under the rug. Anyone else still having these problems?

Reply:

Probably due to the thread you referenced not accomplishing much filled with mostly ranting, name calling, threats and the like - the real mature stuff which is against the terms of use for these discussions.

This is a user to user help forum only for technical support issues and questions that is provided and moderated by Apple so no one here can help you with this and Apple does not address such issues here. Which I'm sure you have already done, you need to contact AppleCare for the iPhone in order to have this issue addressed or get an answer since it won't come from here.

I hate to say it, but I agree with the reply. Although it was nice to feel that I was not alone in my trouble, it doesn't help Apple to have alot of negative venting on their website. People should vent on their own sites. :)

Now I have an iPhone

2007-11-05T07:51:00.000-08:00

Okay, two days later, it activated. Only took 5 minutes.

Judging from the discussion thread on Apple Support, people were trying all through the night. I think the first person got through around 5am. Lots of angry yet dedicated people. Strange irony.

It also seems that the discussion is no longer accessible. Hmm....

First impressions...

Nice, slick design.
Screen looks great. Text is easy to read.
Browsing web pages is really cool. Zoom in, zoom out.
The on-screen keyboard works surprisingly well.
Wish I could cut/copy/paste.
Only sync's contacts and calendar with Outlook??? My Treo was sync'ed with my Yahoo account. I'd at least hope to have support for Thunderbird.
Only imports bookmarks from IE or Safari? How about FireFox?
Can't get Gmail to work yet. No support for HotMail.
All the weather and time settings default to Cupertino, CA. They could have made it change to your location.
The recently updated My Yahoo page warns that your browser may not be compatible. It seems to work however.
When you go to Google.com, you get the mobile version but the full version seems to be just fine.

Hopefully I'll find solutions to some of my problems and will be posting them here.

I (almost) have an iPhone

2007-11-03T22:46:00.001-07:00

After talking with several friends and coworkers, and reading blogs like this one, I decided to get an iPhone.

I really enjoy using our iPods. We have a 5.5G Classic and a Nano. The interface is easy, sound is great. We listen to our music (after importing most of our CD collection into iTunes, which was soooo easy to do) and podcasts.

I've had a Treo 680 for almost a year now. It's a great device. Phone calls are not overly complex despite being a "smart phone" (I know many Windows Mobile users who have to battle their phones to do basic things). It has decent browsing and email. It can play video and music, but those are not it's strong points.

So with the iPhone, I'm able to get the best of both worlds into one device- playing music & podcasts (iPod) and phone/email/web (Treo).

Plus I'll get to use features from both devices that I hadn't before. Now with the nice screen of the iPhone, I'll put some photos on it. And I'll probably watch more video as well.

By the way, another great product, Beyond TV, was just updated to export recorded TV shows in an iTunes compatible format. Great timing.

The web browser on the Treo is adequate. It did the job, although usually not very aesthetically. Sometimes pages get cut off or squeezed to fit the display. The way the iPhone handles it is just brilliant. Zoom in, Zoom out. But it's always showing you the "real" web page, not a processed version of it.

Well, all of this is just dreaming right now. I've had my iPhone for over a day now, but can't use it because activations aren't working.

Last night when I tried, I got this message:

iPhone activations are unavailable at this time. iPhone activations are temporarily unavailable due to routine AT&T maintenance. Please disconnect your iPhone and reconnect it after 3pm EST to begin again. We apologize for this inconvenience.

Today I get a similar message, but this time without a time or date indicating when it will be working.

This message thread on Apple Support just about sums up what I've been going through. I guess I'll keep trying. What a bummer.

Life with Roomba

2007-11-03T11:39:00.000-07:00

So articles are popping up about people's attachments to their Roomba. I can sympathize, when it cheerfully goes about doing such a mundane job, how can you resist wanting to thank it?

It's funny sometimes... when it gets stuck it cries for help with a repeating tune that sounds like a death march.

Last weekend our Roomba got trapped in the bathroom. I think it was going along the wall towards the door and ended up pushing the door closed. We felt so bad... finding the Roomba all tired out, not able to finish its task of cleaning the entire house. The bathroom is clean though.

One thing that is pretty amazing is how it finds its station. It goes all over the house, but it seems to get back to the charger even though it's in a completely different room.

Roombamania

2007-10-13T17:02:00.001-07:00

Looks like we're not alone...

Robots: Roomba Driving Owners Crazy with Anthropomorphic Robot Love - Gizmodo

A study of 30 Roomba users found the owners of the robotic vacuum cleaner often developing emotional attachments to their little bundles of plastic, metal and wiring.

Updated My Treo... no Brick

2007-10-13T08:36:00.000-07:00

Recently I updated my Treo 680 to the latest version for AT&T (1.09).

It took a while, but the process went pretty smoothly. It didn't even erase all my data or go brick on me.

I normally sync via Bluetooth, but I had to dig up the USB cable that came with the Treo to do the upgrade.

Was it worth it? Here's what was promised:

Improved power management for better battery life.
Camera update for improved battery life (available previously as a standalone update).
Helps correct distorted characters that can occur in the title bar of the Phone application.
Helps fix device "freezing" that may occur under certain conditions.
System Lockout improvement for increased security.
Support for the new Daylight Saving Time legislation (available previously as a standalone update).
Provides better support for networks unique to some Caribbean, Latin American, and Asian countries.
Updates Cingular branding, replacing it with the new AT&T branding.

That first item was my reason for doing. I'll have to keep track of when I charge to see if it's lasting any longer. I usually get about 2-3 days of moderate use before the battery meter goes red.

FYI, If you have an old phone or Treo, you can recycle it through Palm for free.

Tech Shopper's Paradise

2007-10-08T08:07:00.000-07:00

When I moved to California 10 years ago, I moved into the neighborhood of Fry's Electronics. I thought that was cool until I visited Akihabara in Tokyo, Japan. It's like Fry's times 1000. There are hundreds of stores with a big a selection as Fry's crammed together in a small section of the city. Despite the limited space, these stores still manage to have every single model of camera, computer, notebook, webcam, flatscreen, etc. on display.

This photo collection on CNet News.com reminded me of my trip.

Even if you don't buy anything, whether it's Fry's or Akihabara, it's worth going just for the experience.

Apple touches a nerve with its most loyal users (again)

2007-09-28T20:16:00.000-07:00

From Gizmodo:

It's understandable for Apple to wage a war on unlocking the iPhone, since the company shares revenue from fees with AT&T. But the truth is, if cellphone service was awesome, like it is on iTunes, there wouldn't be a need to unlock the iPhone. Secondly, bricking these things is totally uncool, and apparently, malicious—according to some early code investigations by the independent iPhone Dev Team, Apple could have avoided this entirely.

Learn how to live with Email

2007-09-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

From Presentation Zen:

Here's a good presentation you will enjoy. Merlin Mann, a well known productivity guru and creator of the popular 43 folders website talks about getting things done, the importance of getting your inbox to zero, and strategies for dealing with high volume email. Merlin spoke at Google earlier this summer and he told me (last night in fact) that Presentation Zen was an inspiration for his slides. The simple vector images Merlin uses are available at iStockPhoto. You do not need a drawing app like Illustrator since iStock provides you with a very large jpeg for each set of line art.

Good simple presentation. And a great speech too.

"Window" of Opportunity

2007-09-16T19:37:00.000-07:00

For the first time in a long time I've been thinking about getting a Mac. Looks like I'm not alone...

From NY Times:

A Window of Opportunity for Macs, Soon to Close

By RANDALL STROSS

Published: September 16, 2007

The Mac’s presence in the retail world remains limited, a shame given the rare opportunity for Apple to gain market share that opened up when Vista arrived.

Like the article says, a new PC with Vista is not terribly appealing until it becomes as solid (or even close) as XP is. The Mac OS is very sleek and evolved. And it comes with plenty of useful apps instead of a bunch of crippled programs that expire in 90 days.

Also I really like the design of the iMac. Everything is "in" the monitor. Such a huge improvement over the big PC noisy box. Cost-wise, an iMac is no bargain compared to similar Dell or HP models. But I'd be willing to pay more for less.

I did look at the MacBook Pro, but I don't see any advantages there. The MacBook Pro is not drastically different from any other notebook. If I had to get a notebook today, I'd grab a Dell XPS M1330. No question. But on the desktop, my decision is not that cut and dry.

Targus Backpack Update

2007-07-08T10:33:00.001-07:00

My Targus backpack started losing zipper pulls recently. The rubber Targus-branded ones were breaking off.

Fortunately, REI has these sturdy Zipper Pulls, so I'm replacing the Targus ones as they go.

Two PCs to drool over

2007-07-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

Dell has a new thin notebook, the XPS M1330. Looks a bit sleeker than the typical boxy shape of the Inspiron line. Not that I'm complaining, I think my Inspiron 9400 is pretty damn cool.

Ironically it looks like Sony, who has always been the leader in sleek notebooks, has copy-catted Apple with a silver boxy design.

And then there's OQO. All I can say is.... OOOOOOOQO.

iPhone Aftermath

2007-07-08T09:25:00.000-07:00

From CNNMoney.com:

It's now hard to imagine that the next iPod won't have the iPhone's gorgeous touchscreen features, the better to watch movies with. Conversely, the iPhone would be vastly improved with the iPod's supersized storage and easier access to iTunes. And while Apple engineers are at it, why not use the same basic motherboard, screen, and interface for both devices -- with touchscreen on the front and a trackwheel on the back, perhaps?

Here's an interesting observation: Optional Features

Not every iPod listener wants cell phone service. Not every iPhone user requires music. Some of us need only 5 gigabytes, while some of us won't be happy until we get our hands on 500 gigabytes. Some might even like the whole thing encased in zirconia.
In theory, there's nothing stopping your local Apple Store from selling you the feature set you need at a price that makes sense, just as so many Apple products have been sold in the soft pastel color of your choice.

P2P TV

2007-07-08T09:22:00.000-07:00

From Business2.0:

The bigger question is: On the Internet, does live TV even matter any more? The TV schedule is a product of the historical limitations of broadcast television, where you have to broadcast the same shows to everyone at the same time. But those limitations are falling away. Even in cable and satellite TV, the growth of pay-per-view and on-demand channels proves that if you give consumers more choices, they will grab them. The Internet is the ultimate on-demand television system, where the choices of what to watch and when have no practical limits.

The concept of live TV almost makes no sense in that context. Why limit your audience only to those people who can tune in at a certain time? With a few exceptions, such as sports and breaking news, live TV will be a liability on the Web unless those streams are also stored for later viewing. On the Web, nobody wants to make an appointment to watch TV.

Quest for a cool Start Page

2007-07-07T11:40:00.000-07:00

Many people have a Google Start Page (aka iGoogle). I think it looks kinda boring.

I tried Protopage, but found the windows can get too cluttered. I like how most of these types of sites organize things into columns. Protopage's free-form layout is a cool novelty but it wears off. Free form windows don't work on the desktop either. I wish Microsoft would figure that out.

I currently have a home page on Yahoo. But after trying out Netvibes, I think I've found what I've been looking for. It has a solid, clean layout. Stylish design (but not overdone). And it has lots of cool widgets.

Ubuntu 7.04 - Time to switch?

2007-04-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) arrived just a few days ago with promises of better hardware compatibility, included proprietary software and drivers, and more user friendliness. Was it worth the wait?

read more | digg story

Vista is here... now what?

2007-02-04T10:36:00.000-08:00

AnandTech has an excellent article on Windows Vista. If you're looking at buying a new computer (Mac or PC) or thinking about upgrading, read it.

The bottom line: If you buy a new PC, you pretty much don't have a choice (unless you buy a Mac). But for upgrading, better wait for SP1 and video driver updates.

Other points:

Vista needs at least 1GB of RAM to function smoothly, but 2-4 if you want to run more than one application at the same time.
Vista uses memory better than XP, so 3-4 GB actually makes a difference.
Vista's file system caches applications you use most in memory, so they launch faster.
A new video driver architecture was created, which means all the graphic card companies are basically starting from scratch. Performance and compatibility are average, but will get better.
The Aero interface is pretty but not practical. Contrast that with Mac OS, which merges both beautifully.
The default user account isn't a full Administrator level, and there are more security safeguards. However you can simply disable all that and be just as unsecure as XP.
The included apps like Windows Mail, Calendar, etc. are just as lame as they've always been.

Down on the farm at ILM

2007-01-27T09:22:00.000-08:00

Check out this video tour of Industrial Light and Magic's "render farm" of computers.

There's a full article on CNet's News.com.

And with a host of projects in the pipeline, including Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Evan Almighty, the next Harry Potter film, Transformers and more, it's important that Clark and his team keep up with the company's computing needs.

...films like Pirate of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, for which ILM received a best visual effects Oscar nomination Tuesday, can require 60 terabytes of storage, Clark said. And the next release in that franchise's series, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, will likely require at least 50 percent more storage, he said.

In total, he added, the storage farm has more than 300 terabytes of capacity.

Hard drive instructions: PC & Mac

2007-01-14T14:59:00.000-08:00

I picked up a Maxtor 320GB external drive at Best Buy this weekend. It normally goes for $199, but it was on sale for $129.

The funny part was the Quick Start Guide included in the box.

On one site, it says "Quick Start Guide for Windows." The steps are as follows:

Connect the vertical stand. (diagram showing plastic stand sliding into place)
Connect the power. (diagram showing power going to wall socket)
Connect the USB cable. (diagram showing cable connecting to back of a PC)

On the other side it says "Quick Start Guide for Mac." The steps are as follows:

Connect the vertical stand. (diagram showing plastic stand sliding into place)
Connect the power. (diagram showing power going to wall socket)
Connect the USB cable. (diagram showing cable connecting to back of a Mac)

Wow, it's amazing how similar PCs and Macs really are!

Do they really think people are that dumb? I haven't seen anything that silly since the mouse pad that had a sticker saying "Macintosh Compatible!"

Do you really want an iPhone?

2007-01-13T22:36:00.001-08:00

Be careful what you ask for...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tJpUN8cTY4w

Computer Commercials

2006-12-25T16:47:00.000-08:00

Here's a collection of classic computer commercials from over the past years. Amazingly enough, there are some Commodore's in there. Including a classic VIC 20 ad with William Shatner proclaiming the "wonder computer of the 1980's".

http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/002950.html

The Most Untold Story in the History of Computers

2006-12-25T09:45:00.000-08:00

If you want to know more about the history of computers than the shallow Apple vs Microsoft story most books, websites and movies dwell on, take a look at The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore. Here's a review from Slashdot.

Almost everyone recognizes the name, but most realize the scale and impact that Commodore had in the computer industry. First computer sold in retail, first computer to sell more than a million, first computer with multitasking, full-color graphics and video.

Every time I see a mention of Commodore, the C64 or Amiga computers, I get nostalgic for those days when I was making 3d animations while everyone else was either drawing 1-bit graphics in MacPaint or doing whatever DOS & Windows 3.1 did. The only things comparable were six figure Silicon Graphics workstations.

One year Commodore made a billion dollars. Not too much later, the company filed for bankruptcy and was liquidated. The technology and brand name traded hands several times, and there were several attempts to revive it. But Commodore had lost its greatest asset- the people who designed and used it. As people were laid off or left, they spread to startups and other companies, their talents diluted in the giant ocean of the technology industry.

As a user (VIC, 64, 128, A500, A2500, A1200) and former employee, I am grateful to have experienced Commodore from both sides. I learned to program in BASIC and Assembly. I made really cool graphics and animations. And I worked with some really innovative and dedicated people (I still do, actually).

You can get a taste of the nostalgia at the Amiga Forever website.

XBOX 360

2006-12-16T09:58:00.000-08:00

It's a game console, no it's a PC. Maybe a little both, but definitely made user friendly enough to fit in the game console market. I only wish PCs were this easy to set up and use.

It comes with a wireless controller. That's neat but with a load of batteries, it's kinda heavy. The XBox itself is also heavy, and the power supply is huge. When on, you can hear the fan running. It's a PC in game console disguise.

The controller has feedback, which is a nice added feature. It rumbles when you drive off the road or get shot in games.

The output works with a custom cable that lets you choose either composite or component video. The component can be either 720p or 1080i. Both look really nice. Since all XBoxes are the same, game designers can all work on a narrowed down spec and focus on quality instead of compatibility. The result is truly astonishing image quality and smoothness.

Mine came with Need for Speed. It's pretty cool. I've tried the demo for Ridge Racer 6 and I think I like that better.

I also have Gears of War, which is a must-have for the XBox 360. It's hard to control but I'm getting it. It must be good, after all there are over 2 million sold.

There's this thing called "XBox Live" which is supposed to be an online community. It's mostly a place where you can get demos, videos and other downloads. It has potential but needs more selections. There are both free and paid membership available. You can also get classic arcade games like Frogger, Pacman and Defender, which are fun and nostalgic to play.

I've tried out demos of current/upcoming games. The process of downloading and playing them is so much more convenient that a PC. There's no installation, downloads queue in the background and you get a little pop-up letting you know when they're ready to play.

But where's the community? There's no chat, bbs or similar thing. The closest is blowing up strangers in Battlefield: Modern Combat. How about a Sims or Second Life kind of place?

There are also some nice media features. It can play music, video or show pics from your PC, using extra software on your PC. You can use Windows Media Center Edition, Windows Media Player 11 (with Vista) or install the Zune software which is an iTunes ripoff.

It's pretty picky about file formats. Not all the WMVs I tried worked, like ones generated by Beyond TV's ShowSqueeze feature. And it doesn't work with video shared from another PC- the files show up but won't play. That was using a UNC path- I haven't tried mapping a drive yet.

I hear the XBox 360 is doing well against PS3 and Wii. I can see why. It's a good solid game system. The games aren't as innovative as Nintendo's, but they suite my tastes. I hope they can do more with the "community" thing.

Panasonic 50" Plasma

2006-12-02T18:46:00.000-08:00

After the past few years dreaming about a plasma screen, we finally decided to get one.

I did some research, reading both magazine and user reviews, I found the Panasonic models to get consistently good ratings. I'm pretty familiar with their industrial models since I work in the Digital Signage industry, so that also gave me a good feeling about spending a considerable amount of money on a big screen.

I picked the TH-50PX60U. I also considered the 42 inch model, but Fran said "just go with the 50" so how could I argue? :)

There's also a newer model, the 600 series. It has better audio, a cable card slot and VGA input. But I didn't think that was worth $500 more.

Buying a competitive product like a plasma, digital camera or PC requires good timing and persistence. Prices for this screen varied wildly from below $2000 to over $3000. When I saw a sale at Best Buy for $1999, we jumped on it. This turned out to be a good deal, as it's now going for around $2500.

As an aside, it's interesting to see who really makes plasmas. Not all companies make the products they put their name on. Some buy from others, some make their own. Here a useful article about this.

Another big consideration is Plasma vs LCD. On one hand, LCD the newer of the two technologies. It has higher res, usually has VGA and DVI inputs and is much brighter.

But all that extra detail is not really noticeable from a distance (ie: your sofa). And because LCDs are based on a back-light to illuminate the screen, they can look washed out in dark scenes.

Plasmas have richer color, but are not as bright. If you dim the lights, they're fine. Burn-in is not as much an issue anymore- new models have better engineering and anti-burn-in features. But most of the basic models lack VGA input. Fortunately ours has HDMI and you can use a DVI to HDMI cable with your PC.

All things considered, it really comes down to personal taste. Go to a store and look at the same video on both types of screens and decide for yourself. Make sure you see both HD as well as standard video to see how it treats detail and up-scaling.

Here's a good review with suggestions for the best settings. Apparently the default settings are are over-saturated which makes for a nice demo in the show room, but not easy on the eyes when watching movies at home. A little adjustment and you're good to go. BTW, you have to make the same adjustments for EVERY input. They each keep separate memory of visual settings.

The TH-50PX60U has plenty of connectors. 2 sets of Component, 2 HDMI, S-Video, Composite. The speakers are not very powerful, but do a pretty good job at surround sound simulation.

The built-in tuner handles SD and ATSC signals. I picked up an amplified HD antenna at Best Buy and can get the major local networks (CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX) and a few other stations in HD. The HD versions of hit shows like Lost are just awesome to look at. It's even more amazing that these broadcast signals are free!

The remote is pretty basic, and works as a universal remote for VCRs, DVDs, etc.

Palm Treo 680

2006-12-02T18:45:00.000-08:00

I thought I wouldn't go back to Palm. But I did.

I liked the software but, the hardware always had issues (not very sturdy, short battery life). Not to mention Palm having changed their name to PalmOne. That was just lame.

My last Palm was the Zire 72. Overall it was good. The screen was big and readable. But it didn't have a keyboard, so I had to scratch-type using the Graffiti handwriting recognition feature. But worse there was no battery backup, so when the battery runs out, everything goes. It only took two times for that to happen for me to give up on the Zire altogether.

The Treo 650 was tempting. 2nd generation, perfecting on the Treo 600. Phone as well as PDA. But I know people who have problems with voice quality and crashes. Most smart phones have issues or design flaws, but they're getting better as a whole. The Treo 700 came out, but only on Verizon. I'm on Cingular, and I want GSM so I can use the device overseas.

Then came the Treo 680.

It's smaller than other Treos but still bigger than most phones. It seems like they've worked out most of the rough edges from the 600 and 650. Palm is targeting this phone at non-techies, so it must be reliable and easy to use. I want that, plus all the potential of PalmOS and the cool but simple Palm PDA apps (Calendar, Contacts, Memo, Todo).

Other smart phones I considered:

Nokia E70 & E62 - I like Nokia alot. I think they spend alot of attention to usability. But I'd heard the Symbian OS used in their higher end models was sluggish. I tried it out and it is. Apps take too long to load and respond to actions. Not for me. Plus these devices don't have a touchscreen and rely solely on a four-way mini joystick.
Windows Mobile - Pro: Same OS as your PC. Con: Same OS as your PC.
Blackberry - Strong email client, but not much else. I like that there are many apps for PalmOS.

Treo 680 pros:

Good screen. Decent size, bright and readable.
Keyboard. A little small, but hey it's a mobile device.
It doesn't lose everything when the battery runs out. Yay!!
Great PalmOS and included apps. The GUI could use a little pizazz, but it works. And it's fast (compared to Symbian).
The email and browser work pretty well. It ain't a desktop, but for me it eliminates the need for a mini-notebook. I was pleasantly surprised when I was able to download and play a podcast from TWiT. It was even able to listen to live streaming audio from a local radio station, KFI 640. (Yes, I'm a Laporte fan.)

Like all Palm devices, you can either use the included Palm Desktop software or sync with Outlook. I find the Palm software a little lacking (and hard to access unless you're always at the PC it's installed on), and Outlook is a resource hog. Fortunately there are other choices- you can sync with Yahoo, for instance. That gives you online access anywhere, via the Web or Treo. Yahoo uses a program called Intellisync which uses the Palm software to sync, but lets you edit your contacts, calendar, etc. in your My Yahoo account.

I also configured my Nokia Bluetooth headset to work with it. Piece of cake. And dial-up networking with my Dell Inspiron 9400. That was not as easy, but once you get it set up you can get connected quickly.

Treo 680 Cons:

The battery runs out fast. Real fast! Like 2 days with minimal use. Pretty lame, but I can live with it.
The camera is awful. But it's better than the one I had in my Nokia 6820. :)
No WiFi. But do you really need it? What could you possibly want to do on that tiny screen that would require such bandwidth?
The case seems fragile. I hope I don't ever drop it because it feels like it would shatter into a million pieces.

Issues:
Not all phones are perfect. I did have a few problems where call volume was too low. But the next call was okay. Also it seemed to lose bluetooth settings once, but has worked fine ever since.

Size comparison: My old Nokia 6820 and Treo 680.

Airport Express

2006-12-02T18:39:00.000-08:00

The AirPort Express. This is one funky device. It has an ethernet port, USB and an audio out. And it's wireless (WiFi).

What is it? For Mac users mostly, it's a wireless router. Just without the line of blinking lights. Only one status light. Green is good. Red is bad.

But for Mac and PC, it can also act as remote speakers via WiFi/LAN.

Huh?

Yeah, you plug it into your home stereo, set up networking and run iTunes. iTunes sees it and lets you route audio via your network to the Airport.

Why would you use this instead of just plugging your iPod into the stereo? Well, it lets you use iTunes to pick music, which is easier to use than the iPod (more geared to mobile use). And if you happen to have a huge music library that's bigger than your iPod hard drive, you don't have to choose which songs to use from the whole collection. Just play it all. And it's cheaper than a new iPod.

Since it's networked, you can start something playing at your computer, then "move" the music to another room, or play it both locally and remotely. Pretty cool.

Setup was a little tricky. The first time around the device just went dead. I thought I had killed it. But I found the reset button and tried again and it's been working ever since.

Dell Inspiron 9400: Bye bye desktop

2006-11-12T11:25:00.000-08:00

I've been a Dell Inspiron owner for quite a few years now. 7500, 8200, 9300 and now the 9400.

But like most notebook owners, I had to keep a desktop PC around for heavy duty stuff like 3d animation rendering, editing video and playing games. But with the 9400, the notebook has just about caught up with the desktop. The latest Intel Core 2 Duo processor and NVidia bring the notebook really close to the realm of desktop performance. I still have a mini-tower, but use it alot less now.

My Inspiron Specs:

Core 2 Duo processor T7200 (4MB/2.00GHz/667MHz)
17 inch Wide Screen XGA+ Display
1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS
100GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive (fast drive plus fast bus speed)
Windows XP Professional
Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 Internal Wireless (B & G)
80 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (upgraded from standard battery)
Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Internal (for wireless mouse and cellphone-as-modem)

The screen is the same as the 9300 I had last year. Like then, I went for the lower res option of 1440x900 (vs 1920x1200). I struggled over the decision to go with a smaller screen this time. The 17" wide model is huge compared to other notebooks, and it's hard to find a case or backpack that fits it (even some that are advertised for 17" screens didn't fit-- I recommend brining your notebook to the store when shopping for a case). But as a desktop replacement, the big screen is the right choice.

At the time the graphics selection was between a lower end ATI chipset and a high end NVidia. Naturally I went with high end, but would have done so anyway regardless of which chip it was.

The 100GB drive was a good balance of cost/storage/speed. I'd rather have a smaller faster drive than a slow big one. You can always add external drives anyway.

The keyboard feels really good. I prefer it to a regular keyboard actually.

Connectors:

6 USB (more than enough- 4 here 2 on the side)
Both RGB & DVI (nice!)
1 S-Video

I've hooked it up to our new plasma screen with a DVI to HDMI cable. It looked excellent. You can find DVI to HDMI cables for around $30-40 at most computer stores.

Two more USBs
CD/DVD R/W

1 Firewire (mini connector)
SD-Card (useful w/digital cameras)
Mini audio in/out (standard)

Ordering from Dell.com is fun, since you get to customize the features. While building your Dell it always gives a super conservative delivery time. Only after you make the purchase does it give an accurate date which is always sooner than the estimated one.

Palm's new strategy

2006-10-22T18:23:00.000-07:00

Well I have all but given up on my Zire 72. I allowed the battery to run out again (before trying the backup software) and it got completely reset. Since I've stopped using it, I haven't really missed it. Especially all the time it took to keep it running and in sync.

My wife Fran has the Treo 650. It has several improvements over the Zire like a QWERTY keyboard, more memory and wireless HotSync. But it crashes alot and she sounds like she's calling from Sealab 2021 most of the time.

I've been a long time fan of PalmOS, and I hate to abandon it. There aren't any good alternatives either. Windows Mobile is okay, but people say it's lowsy for the phone part of the smart-phone. Nokia now has the E62, which is a decent contender with the Symbian OS.

I just read this article on TreoCentral about Palm's upcoming Treo 680. It's not a more advanced model, but a more stylish and user-friendly one. The article's author believes that Palm is not just trying to get a bigger slice of the smartphone pie, it's trying to make a bigger pie by attracting new users. I hope he's right.

In the meantime, I'll hold on to my Nokia 6820.

Can't talk while driving, but flying is okay.

2006-09-16T17:08:00.000-07:00

From Yahoo News:

California on Friday banned motorists from talking on cell phones unless they use a headset or speakerphone, although the law will not take effect until July 1, 2008, to allow time to educate the public.

Violators will be fined $20 the first time they are caught and $50 the second time. The new law makes exemptions for those placing emergency calls while driving.
Several other states, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, have similar bans. California, with 37 million people, is the most populous U.S. state.

But then on The Economist:

Last week Ryanair, a European low-cost carrier, announced that it would equip its entire fleet of Boeing 737s with small base stations, called picocells, provided by OnAir, a technology company backed by Airbus, Europe's aviation giant. The picocells will use satellite links to allow mobile phones to be used during flight without interfering with ground-based networks. (Such interference, rather than safety concerns, is the primary reason that in-flight use of mobile phones is banned at the moment.) Taking a cut of the resulting revenues will help Ryanair to keep its ticket prices down, according to Michael O'Leary, the firm's boss.

According to the latest survey, released by OnAir this week, 80% of airline passengers approve of the idea of being able to use telephones on aircraft, even if they do not plan to do so themselves. Indeed, only 54% of business travellers and 41% of leisure travellers said they would switch their phones on during a flight. One reason is cost: George Cooper, the boss of OnAir, says that at prices above $3 per minute, “demand drops off considerably”, according to the firm's research. He expects $2.50 per minute to be the norm when services based on his firm's technology are launched by Air France, Ryanair, bmi and TAP Portugal. But OnAir will then cut its prices by 10% a year for five years, he says.

Previous surveys have painted a less rosy picture. One survey of young mobile-phone users, carried out last year by IDC and SMS.ac, a mobile portal, found that 64% of young people favoured in-flight texting, and only 11% liked the idea of making calls. And 82% of respondents agreed with the statement “I don't want people talking on their phones during flights.”

I'm part of that 82%.

New Dell Battery

2006-09-01T16:35:00.000-07:00

Monday this week I got a new Dell Battery for my Inspiron 9300. It came with a return-shipping label, so I put the old battery in and sent it back. Done. Couldn't have been easier. Didn't cost anything either. Thanks Dell!!!!

In Defense of Dell

2006-08-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

Something about the general press and public is people who like to see a successful person or company fail.

I've been a Dell user for years, and have had great experience with their products. I've had Dell notebooks forever, from the 7500 (Pentium II), 8200 (Pentium 4) and now 9300 (Pentium M).

I've also had a Dell DJ, but switched to the iPod recently. Not because it's better, but to get features like photo and video.

Dell always has great prices for their products. Their specials are drool-worthy. But you have to know how to work their site because similar models are available in the Home, Small Business, etc. sections and you may be able to get more memory or a free monitor with a PC in one area for the same PC being sold for full price in another. Then there's the Dell Outlet where you can get refurbished models at even bigger discounts. I've purchased my notebooks this way, and also got PCs for my parents at great prices.

I've also had great experience with their customer service. In one case I ordered a docking station that came with the wrong power supply for my model and they shipped me a new one for free. I was also able to order an upgrade graphics card for my 8200, something you can't normally do for a notebook.

I know there are people who have Dell horror stories, but every company has problems. I'm sure you'll find equal numbers of both horror and happy stories for HP, Sony, Apple, etc. I've been lucky so far, but I don't expect to not have any problems. It just depends on whether you get a defective model, or who answers your call.

Ironically people are saying that Dell's "failure" with the battery recall is making way for competitors like HP to succeed. It wasn't too long ago that everyone was shining the spotlight on HP for their "failed" HP-Compaq merger, saying they wouldn't last long.

People like to watch successes turn to failures. It's a sort of morbid curiosity similar to slowing down to watch a car accident, or following celebrities who make public blunders. I try to stay focused on good news, myself.

Loving Life with Beyond TV

2006-08-13T10:35:00.001-07:00

After almost six months, I'm still loving Beyond TV. Who needs Tivo if you have a PC with big hard drive and a TV Tuner card?

I record all my favorite shows automatically. Some shows I record every episode that airs on any channel, some only new episodes. Or I'll spot a movie I want and record that- if it's already started, Beyond TV can find it airing again in the next 30 days.

Just like people I know who have Tivos, I no longer just channel surf. I now run Beyond TV and watch any one of my favorite shows, each of which has several episodes recorded. It's kinda like podcasts. You can watch the latest episode of TWiT, or re-watch the "What is a Podcast" episode of Ask A Ninja.

Even with a reasonably big HD, space can run low. At the compression level I've chosen, an hour show takes 2 gigabytes. Like Tivo and other PVRs, Beyond TV has auto-delete rules like "delete when I'm runing out of space" and "manually delete only."

I've also discovered some other features I'm just tapping into. It has an option to auto-convert recorded shows to a more compressed format like WMV or DivX so you can take them with you on a notebook or watch over your WiFi network.

I've also noticed that Beyond TV has a built-in web server that lets you browse and watch recorded shows from another PC. The other alternatives would be to just share the folder that contains your recorded shows, or buy an additional Beyond TV client app designed to work over a network. I may do that anyway- the interface is really nice and easy to read from a distance.

Great app. I hope they keep it around and don't get sued like some of the PVR companies have recently.

Garmin Nuvi 350

2006-08-13T10:35:00.000-07:00

The past few months I've been GPS hunting.

The big names in the biz are Garmin, Magellan & TomTom. Other big name electronics firms like Philips and Sony have entered the market, but I wanted to go with a company that had more experience with the application. I've had a Garmin eTrex Legend for a few years, so I had my eye on a Garmen model like the Streepilot. TomTom also looked pretty cool.

There was a sale at the local Fry's Electronics a few weeks ago- a really good deal too. $599 for the Garmin Nuvi 350 which normally goes for $700-900. Five other people were already lined up behind the sales guy opening the cabinet to see if there were any units left.

I purchased the additional warranty by Fry's, by the way. I usually don't go for that kind of stuff. Usually by the time something breaks, it's time to get something completely different. But for a portable device like a GPS, the odds were higher that it could get dropped or damaged in shorter time.

It has really good maps preinstalled, and has a search by name/type that so far has found just about everything I've tried. Restaraunts, stores, etc. And it gives great directions, viewable from a 3D perspective or straight down.

A voice gives turn-by-turn narration, and it calculates re-routes if you miss a turn. The speech is recognizable, and warns first when a turn is coming up, then again when it's time.

You can choose language and accent like English, American, Australian, etc. There's even a language translator (But how good can it be? I'll have to try it some time).

Reviews say it syncs quickly with satellites. It does. You can set a "home" preset location, that you can choose to navigate to/from. Plus there are favorites & recent searches that are stored.

The Nuvi has a bunch of extra features like MP3 & audiobook playback and a picture viewer (via SD card slot). Nice, but they're not why i bought the device and I don't know how much I'll use them. It does have a handy converter tool though.

The next model up, the 360, has Bluetooth for syncing data with a PC and acting as a wireless speakerphone for your mobile phone. Yet another feature what would be nice, but not worth the extra cost.

So far I haven't had a chance to really try it it out in a place where I needed it. I used it to find a nearby Starbucks while driving around Las Vegas (worked like a charm) and also found a Geocache while hiking. I'm sure I get a chance to find a place or get un-lost eventually.

Lightwave 9 Launch Party

2006-07-20T00:24:00.000-07:00

Newtek introduced the latest version of Lightwave recently. They celebrated with a party at the Spider Club in Los Angeles.

There were live demos being shown. Lots of mingling. I got the feeling everybody knew each other.

A demo video was shown with interviews and highlights of the new features.

CG industry pioneer Ron Thornton received an award for his contributions.

Fry's 2.0

2006-06-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

After bicycling in Ventura, we stopped by at the newest location for Fry's Electronics. Since I always shop at the one near me in Woodland Hills, this was a huge surpise inside. No theme, like Alice in Wonderland or Science Fiction. But it did have a really really nice cafe. I always wanted a geek-oriented shop with coffee. And this is it. :)

What if you don't have a backup?

2006-06-19T22:02:00.000-07:00

If you have a hard disk with important data that you don't back up, you're taking a big risk. I know, who has the time to do backups?

Sometimes Murphy's Law strikes before you get a chance. I had a drive that was a bit old and was starting to go.

I searched the web for data recovery products and services. There are companies that specialize in recovering lost drives that have been formatted, crashed or smashed. Those are expensive.

I decided to try out Data Rescue PC. It has a free version that tells you what it can recover, and it showed I could get back the majority of my files. I bought the full version, which makes a bootable CD. It's good to have a 2nd drive you can copy files to, rather than restore to the same drive that got you in trouble in the first place.

I hooked up a newly formatted drive & booted the Data Rescue CD. It takes a while to scan your bad drive, but if you can get your files back it's worth the wait. After a scan, it can save the scan results (another reason to have a good drive connected) so you can restore some files now, and others later.

It will rate the files it finds with a probability of whether it can successfully restore them. If your drive does go bad, don't mess around with recovery tools that try to fix it. I'd prefer a non-invasive program, which is why I chose Data Rescue.

Data Rescue performed as advertized. There were some files that didn't make it, but the majority survived. Whew!

I've learned my lesson- I'm backing up my new drive!

Leo Sighting

2006-06-18T10:21:00.000-07:00

Leo Laporte is a radio/TV/podcast celebrity who hosts a number of shows on technology and computers. He has a great personality and is fun to listen to. We happened to hear he was broacasting live from a camera store in Westwood, so we decided to pop in.

You can hear Leo in his weekly broadcast TWiT (This Week in Tech). It's the #1 tech podcast on iTunes.

Crow vs Tokyo

2006-06-18T08:53:00.000-07:00

From Australian IT:

Wily crows disconnect wired Tokyo

TOKYO'S futuristic image as the world's most technologically advanced broadband internet-enabled city is under attack from a vicious but decidedly low-tech foe: the crow.

Their destructive and unpredictable behaviour during the May-to-June mating season is always problematic for the Japanese capital. But this year the aggressive ink-black birds have created a new headache by developing a taste for fibre-optic internet cable.

In the past six weeks, hundreds of homes and offices have been left without high-speed internet services after the crows discovered that broadband cable can be pecked into usable strips more easily than power cables or telephone copper wire.

Crows have discovered that the broadband cables, which are strung from telegraph poles across Tokyo, are the perfect consistency for building nests.

Although the birds' appetite for fibre-optic cable was spotted last year, broadband service providers have begun reporting a sharp surge in instances of cable-pecking, in line with the rising population of crows.

Crows are drawn to Tokyo because of the large quantities of discarded food available. Every year there are reports of the birds attacking domestic pets or small children.

Why do backups?

2006-06-17T17:34:00.002-07:00

Backups are a pain to do. I have Acronis True Image. Every month I boot from a CD created by True Image and back up our two home PCs to external USB drives. It takes hours to run, but it's worth it.

Yesterday we accidentally deleted some important photo files, and Acronis was put to the test. I mounted the backed up image as a drive, and got back the files I needed. Didn't have to run a full restore or anything complicated.

We have thousands of photos of vacations, family, scenery, etc. I'd hate to lose all of that. That's why I do backups.

But being able to quickly retrieve a file from a backup is incredibly valuable. I always thought of backups as being something you never (hopefully) have to use. I have bad memories of flaky tape drives that took forever to restore from. True Image has certainly made my impression of backups alot brighter.

Nokia BH-200

2006-06-17T17:34:00.001-07:00

I have a Nokia 6820 phone, which has Bluetooth. I've seen alot of people with wireless headsets, walking around talking into thin air. If it weren't for the thing in their ear with a blinking light you'd think they're crazy. I couldn't use one in public, but driving would be great. So I started shopping.

Nokia lists the HS-26W and HS-11W on their website, but I had trouble finding it. The local Best Buy had a BH200, which is still Nokia. It looked cool, so I got it.

It paired with phone without problem. You scan for devices with your phone, then enter a key code to lock it to your phone.

It was hard to tell how it would fit on my ear, but it did, and comfortably. It's easy to turn on and off with a single button. It makes different sounds for each so you know which one you just did.

The sound quality is pretty good. It could be a little louder (but maybe that's a good thing). Battery life seems okay, but I haven't used it enough to know. It comes with a charger. The battery is not removable, which is not great.

I'm not sure how this model compares to the others, but it works. That was my main criteria.

Seagate 100GB USB

2006-06-17T17:34:00.000-07:00

I carry a home-built USB/FW drive for extra storage. It's fast, but bulky. I also have a 1 GB SanDisk Cruiser, which I highly recommend. But it's not big enough to hold the kinds of work files I'm dealing with these days. I need something somewhere between the two.

My choice: a Seagate Portable HD. It's USB2, powered by USB so no extra power supply to lug around. It's smaller than my clunky FW drive. I would have gone with the Western Digital Passport drive, but the local Best Buy had the Seagate at 100GB and the WD's were 40 and 60's.

The Seagate comes with a double-headed USB cable, which is supposedly required on older PCs that don't have enough power on a single cable. So far I haven't needed it. The speed is good and it's pretty quiet.

I'd recommend the Seagate, but check out the Western Digital- it's smaller.

Let's hear it for the kids!

2006-05-06T18:41:00.000-07:00

From CNN.com...

Teen's discovery could save millions of lives

E. coli poisoning is a huge problem in Third World countries, mostly due to poor sanitation. Millions of kids die every year from the severe diarrhea it causes. There is no quick cure, because most available shots require refrigeration.

For years, scientists have been working to find what can kill E. coli. Well, finally, someone found it. It turns out there is a good bacteria in yogurt that secretes a protein that kills E. coli. We know this now because a very smart, hard-working researcher discovered it...at the ripe old age of 13.

Serena Fasano, now 16 years old, earned a patent recently on her discovery, so we thought we'd interview her on "360." We learned Serena has spent countless hours of her free time in a lab and that she's very, very bright. She's also a normal high school kid with lots of friends. Yet, this "normal" kid's after-school activities could soon save the lives of millions of children.

What were you doing during your teen years? Actually, don't answer that. Better question is -- were you in a lab every day after school and on weekends looking for medical discoveries? Exactly.

From CBC News...

Students invent natural way to purify polluted water

HALIFAX - Scallop shells can be used to clean up polluted water, three teenagers in Halifax have discovered.

James Beaton-Johnson, Elias Fares and Amy Trottier began their award-winning research as Grade 12 students. They say the shells can be used to clean up contaminated rivers, lakes and even Halifax Harbour. The trio got the idea from a documentary about a Japanese fish farmer who tossed oyster shells into a pond and found it cleared the dirty water.

The students at J.L. Ilsley high school began experimenting with scallop shells immersed in dirty dish water. The water cleared in 24 hours.

Elias Fares, James Beaton-Johnson and Amy Trottier claimed second prize in the Aventis Biotech ChallengeCourtesy: BioNova The students then used their inexpensive, user-friendly method to improve the water quality on the MacIntosh Run, a river flowing through their school property.

They discovered the shells' shape and chemical makeup neutralizes pH and also helps filter out coliform bacteria, sediment and heavy metals.

Researchers at the National Research Council's Institute for Marine Biosciences say they don't know of anyone else doing similar research. The project has already won prizes at three science fairs.

Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly was so impressed with the students' research that he offered them summer jobs testing their method on the municipal water system. Their method successfully cleaned the water.

Next week, they'll present their project at the World Youth Parliament for Water in Quebec City. The conference brings together 100 teens from 30 countries to reflect on water management.

The students have applied to patent their water-cleaning method, and they are writing up their findings for a scientific journal. All three plan to study science at university.

BeyondTV

2006-03-26T21:42:00.000-08:00

For a while I've had a Hauppague PVR 150 card. It lets you watch or record TV from your cable feed. The software that came with it is crude, but works. It has a scheduler, but you have to manually enter the dates for each show you want to record. If you forget it, you miss it.

Everyone I know who has a Tivo says it changes the way you watch TV. You only watch your favorite shows because they are always being recorded, and waiting for you to see. I like that concept, but didn't want to buy another device to do it.

I was looking at alternative software for my PVR card. There are a couple options out there. The one that stood out the most was Beyond TV by Snapstream. Other options are MythTV and SageTV.

BeyondTV has a Tivo-like interface. The only thing missing is the little cartoon character. You can even can use a remote (sold separately), but a wireless keyboard works pretty well too.

It has a built-in TV guide, updated via internet. That works pretty well. You can scroll through channels and get descriptions for anything that's on.

But Beyond TV really shines in how it records. You can either pick shows from teh guide or look them up by name. Then you get to choose whether to record just one episode, new ones, or any ones that happen to play. This is the feature I most wanted from Tivo. It even has rules to determine when it can delete old shows to make room for new ones.

And, I didn't notice this until recently, it records in the background- cool!. The Happauge software always popped up when it was recording.

The interface is very similar most set-top boxes, which makes it a little funny running it on a PC. I could see it would work better if I had it on an extra PC connected to the TV, just like a set-top. I don't know why someone isn't selling it bundled like this. There are bundles available w/software + tv tuner card, but you have to install it yourself.

My Yahoo

2006-03-26T17:37:00.000-08:00

I've started using My Yahoo as a general contact/info tool. I'm reluctant to use my yahoo email so I don't start attracting huge amounts of spam, which I get on my Hotmail account.

Yahoo has great sync features. I imported everything from my Palm, imported bookmarks from IE, and was able to combine contact lists I've had in separate places. You can export everything too, so you don't feel locked in.

The My Yahoo home page is pretty well layed out. The graphics could be better but it loads fast. I have TV listings, movies, weather reports, plus my favorite RSS feeds from Digg, Techbargains, etc.

I use the Calendar feature alot, for both personal and business schedules. That way I can keep them from conflicting with each other. The calendar is connected to a Tasks List, so you can give things deadlines that show up on the calendar.

I know many people are gaga over anything Google. Some of their stuff is impressive, but the appearance leaves ALOT to be desired. Not that it's sparse- that's what I like about Yahoo versus, say, MSN. It's just really awkward. It's not designed at all. Yahoo got the right combination of form and function.

Buffalo Terastation

2006-03-17T15:36:00.000-08:00

After a laptop crash last year, I've become paranoid about losing data. I copy important files to multiple computers and assembled several D.I.Y. external USB HD's (thanks to generous rebates from Western Digital, et al). This distributed method of backup seems alot more reliable than putting everything in one place. But it does make collaborative projects (not to mention finding old files) a little cumbersome.

Fry's Electronics had a rebate on the Buffalo Terastation, a single device for network attached storage (big storage). It's a file server in a box.

It's conveniently accessible from Windows or Mac and can even do FTP. You can set up separate secure shares with user accounts and groups, all set up with a web-based admin page.

You get 4 250GB drives and can configure them in different ways:
- Standard - 4x 250GB drives (aka Raid-0)
- Spanning - 1 1TB drive
- Mirroring - 500MB with a 500MB mirror (aka Raid-1)
- RAID-5 - 1 750MB drive with parity

Learn about RAID Arrays on the Wikipedia.

The best option (and the default) is Raid-5 which gives you the best of both speed and redundancy. If one drive fails, you can replace it and your files are still intact. And the RAID architecture means you have 4 hard drives working in tandem.

It also has cool lights on the front cover.

Key Features
- Four operational modes: Standard, Spanning, Mirroring and RAID 5
- Removable hard drive rack to allow quick swapping of hard drives should a drive fail
- Advanced RAID system to continually check hard drive performance
- 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet port and Jumbo Frame capability for higher transfer speeds
- Heat-release conscious design with smart layout and ventilation supply
- Memeo Easy Backup Software Included
- Large silent fan to release HDD heat effectively and quietly
- Four USB 2.0 ports, allowing 4 simultaneous USB connections
- Built-in print server for sharing and managing a USB printer on the network
- Built-in FTP server functionality
- Easy setup wizard and management through intuitive web interface

I'll still use the external drives for backups, but the Terastation will be my new place for active and recent projects.