BlogAid

From Andy Budd’s BlogAid:

You can help the victims of this terrible natural disaster by pledging the proceeds of any advertising or affiliate schemes you have on your site for the month of January to your country’s Tsunami Earthquake appeal.

What a great idea. This is a no-brainer for me and I’m pretty sure most webloggers feel the same; this project has the potential to raise a lot of money. Good luck Andy.

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Top five (individual) weblogs

I’m occassionaly asked whose sites I read and which I most enjoy. My response usually involves a pointer back to my links page and/or my OPML file, which contains the addresses for all of the feeds I read each day. For those that don’t want to work your way though my admittedly long and somewhat eclectic list, I present to you my top five personal websites:

John Gruber

If you have a Mac and a single nerd bone in your body then there is a good chance you’ve read this site. John has a wonderful way with words and consistently writes interesting and compelling articles pertaining to “Mac nerdery.” His writing sometimes walks a fine line between flowery description and superfluous overkill, but he always seems to pull it around and make clear his point.

Jason Kottke

Let’s face it, when it comes to weblogging, Jason is the man. He’s been doing this for a very long time and is constantly bringing something new to his site and the medium. What is more is that I’m not sure I’ve ever felt someone was as “like” me as Jason seems to be — it’s absolutely uncanny how his posts sometimes read how I think.

Russell Beattie

Russ is me, squared — he takes my gadget passion to a whole new level (at least as far as mobile phones go; just wait until I have money Russ  :P). I think what I like most about him is the fact that he absolutely holds no punches — he’s going to tell you exactly how he feels whether he’s talking about the latest Symbian OS or the dingbat we currently call president.

Rui Carmo

There is no question that Rui is the most prolific writer of the bunch and I sometimes wonder how he has time work on his “day job.” One needs to look no further than his index to feel compelled to write about something, anything. He has a great grasp of “tech,” and like Russ above, has no problem telling you exactly what’s on his mind.

Dunstan Orchard

As I’ve said to many people (and probably even to Dunstan at some point), this is one of the best looking sites I’ve ever seen — his attention to detail is truly inspiring. Beyond the dynamic cartoon weather headers, the site is rich with content, not the least of which are his gorgeous photos (which he seems to be posting more frequently).

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Soliciting comments on the Belkin TuneBase FM

I recently got an iPod mini for the strict purpose of using it in my car (and on flights) to sample new music. I’m looking very seriously at the Belkin TuneBase FM for iPod mini and am pretty sure that quite a few readers of this site already have one. I’d appreciate any information you guys could give me. I played around with an iTrip on my 2G iPod a couple of years ago and was very disappointed — hopefully Belkin has made some progress in this space.

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Dear busy

We’ve had a good run and it pains me to say this, but I’m afraid you just don’t do it for me anymore. I need a new word; something that better describes the way I feel; something more accurate; a word that, when used to rebut friendly fire, provokes understanding and acceptance.

But, until I find that perfect word, it’s you and me baby.

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IOGEAR Bluetooth Mini Mouse

A couple of weeks ago I purchased IOGEAR’s Bluetooth Mini Mouse and have been rather pleased with it so far. This is my third Bluetooth mouse and while the first (Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer) was just horrible, the second (Logitech MX900) wasn’t that bad, thus the obvious question of why I got another mouse. Beyond my usual urge to get the newest [insert gadget here], the only real impetus behind me getting the third one was size (and resolution).

Admittedly, the “Mini” part of the name is not a misnomer — this thing is tiny, but despite its stature the mouse is packed with features, a lot of which its much larger competition is missing. The feature that initially drew me to the mouse was the fact that you can charge it while using it. A USB 2.0 cable plugs into the front of the mouse and charges the rechargeable batteries while you work (or don’t). The fact that there’s no cradle makes it very portable and eviscerates the need to worry about whether the batteries are going to go dead; simply pop the cable into your bag and you’re set. It also has an on/off switch so that you aren’t wasting the batteries when not using it. While this might seem like an obvious feature, my first two Bluetooth mice were without it.

I should also mention that the mouse has 800 dpi resolution and can reach up to 66ft (instead of the usual ~30); why one would need the extra distance is beyond me, but you never know.

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Road Tools PodiumPad

A few months ago I ‘reviewed’ the iLap and pointed out some problems I was having with it. I recently bought something similar, a Road Tools PodiumPad, and while it doesn’t work very well as a “lap rest” (not that it was designed for that), it is perfect for raising the height of your notebook to a more comfortable reading/typing level. It’s incredibly sturdy and there’s no noticeable movement as you pound away at the keyboard.

The same rubber is used throughout (both on the bottom of the pad and on the parts that touch the bottom of your notebook) and it’s very sticky — your notebook is not going to slide off. I mention this because the iLap would, depending on temperature, allow the PowerBook to slide right off the front of it; as the weather got colder the rubber feet on the bottom of the PowerBook became less apt to ‘stick’ to the aluminum iLap.

One very useful feature of the PodiumPad is that it can swivel 360°, which allows you to easily show others what you’re looking at and to move the notebook slightly to the left or right as you change seating positions.

As odd as this may seem, I really have nothing negative to say about it. It would be nice if there was an attachment that you could use for your lap, but, outside of that, I’m pretty pleased.

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One more week

I feel like I’ve been neglecting this site some lately. My time is being stretched incredibly thin between a certain someone and law school finals. As soon as exams are over, I should be back to my normal posting routine and will start replying to the growing mountain of ‘non-pressing’ e-mail.

As you were.

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Sharing TiVo data

There should be a way for me to share my TiVo “schedule” with other users. For instance, I’m headed back to Florida pretty soon for xmas break and I’d like my dad’s TiVo to record all the shows that my TiVo will be grabbing while I’m away (so I can watch them at his house and not have to wait until I return to California).

Here’s how I think the process should work:

1. X makes a request, through TiVo.com, of Y’s schedule
2. TiVo sends Y an e-mail asking for authorization to share the schedule
3. Y authorizes (or doesn’t)
4. TiVo alerts X that Y’s schedule is now available
5. TiVo automagically puts Y’s schedule on X’s TiVo
6. TiVo adds all of Y’s shows (that don’t conflict with X’s) to the “to-do” list
7. TiVo walks X through the conflicts and lets him configure accordingly
8. TiVo allows X, at any time, to remove all shows added from Y’s schedule

Simple, right? Right. In fact, the initial request should allow X to specify whether the schedule should be mirrored or if the shows should be recorded only on Y’s TiVo until X decides to have his TiVo start recording them again.

Forgive my ignorance if this can already be done, but I’m pretty sure it can’t (at least not through a method as simple as the one outlined above).

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I’ve got reservations

How can I convince you it’s me I don’t like
And not be so indifferent to the look in your eyes
When I’ve always been distant
And I’ve always told lies for love

I’m bound by these choices so hard to make
I’m bound by the feeling so easy to fake
None of this is real enough to take me from you

Oh I’ve got reservations
About so many things
But not about you

I know this isn’t what you were wanting me to say
How can I get closer and be further away
From the truth that proves it’s beautiful to lie

I’ve got reservations
About so many things
But not about you
I’ve reservations
About so many things
But not about you
Not about you
Not about you
Not about you
Not about you

From Wilco’s Reservations

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“Lots of Robots” redux

A few days ago a reader informed me that Andy Murdoch had released volume two of his Lots of Robots movie. This second installment is a continuation of the first and I suggest that you just watch the work in its entirety. Quoting from my previous post on volume one (almost two years ago, damn):

Andy Murdock’s Lots of Robots is one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen. As you watch the video, stay cognizant of the fact that this guy did everything himself: the story, the writing, the music, and all of the animation. Wow.

Nothing’s changed. Enjoy.

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Before the Internet

By Dave(?)

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Google Hacks

A few months ago Rael Dornfest asked me if I would like to contribute to the second edition of the Google Hacks book he writes for O’reilly (he’s actually in charge of the entire “hacks” series). More specifically, he wanted my input and knowledge as it pertained to Gmail, because there was going to be an entire chapter devoted to the webmail service in the new book.

After doing quite a bit of research I organized my ideas and findings and gave Rael everything I had come up with. A few days after I submitted my work, he asked if I would like to be the technical editor on the book. I of course jumped at the opportunity and really appreciated being asked to take on the task. I’ll admit, it got a little hairy there for a while trying to juggle my commitment to the book with law school and interviewing and this site and… you get the idea. Notwithstanding the time crunch, I would do it all over again and am actually in the process of making that happen.

That said, go out and buy the book — I thought I knew a lot about Google, but after poring over this book from cover to cover I realized that I was quite ignorant (not anymore!). Word from the top is that it should be on shelves by the end of the year.

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Kenyon & Kenyon

After nearly two months of interviewing and “hobnobbing,” I’ve accepted a summer associate position at Kenyon & Kenyon. To try and relay my excitement and relief here would be an exercise in futility, so I’ll simply state that I’m excited and relieved and will let you qualify those adjectives with whatever order of magnitude your imagination can come up with (you’ll likely still fall short).   :)

Not for nothing, but I genuinely feel that I could not have found a firm more in line with my interests and long-term goals. They’ve gone out of their way to make me feel wanted and I’m extremely appreciative of being given the opportunity to work there. It should be a great summer and I’m very much looking forward to making the most it.

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Browser session restoration on Mac OS X

There is one very specific thing that my browser must be able to do: restore my session (tabs and windows) upon browser quit/crash. It never ceases to amaze me, and moreso as the years march on, how few browsers actually have this ability. The only browsers I’m aware of that offer this natively are Opera (for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X) and OmniWeb 5 for Mac OS X. That’s it! I don’t get it, but I digress as I’ve complained about this many, many times in the past and more of the same drivel now isn’t going to change anything. It’s apparent that the masses don’t want, or rather, don’t realize that they need, this option. Where I can’t live without it, it seems that most don’t even know to want it, but that goes back to my argument that 99% of the population seems to be apathetic to the fact that they’re inefficient (which is fine *shrug*).

I’ve wanted to use Safari since it burst onto the scene, and for a very short time I did, but there was that nagging problem of not being able to restore my session when something went awry (you’d probably tell me “nagging problem” was too weak a description if you were sitting next to me and saw me lose all of my open tabs). Let there be no question, Safari is a great browser, but it couldn’t do the one required task that I needed (it can now; read on).

There are a few solutions under Mac OS X, but most have deal-breaking disadvantages (at least for me).

OmniWeb 5, which I actually put in my Required OS X Programs list earlier this year, and which John Gruber wrote a great review for, probably has the best implementation of session restoration that I’ve ever seen. Hell, the browser itself is one of the best I’ve ever used, but I just couldn’t bring myself to shell out $30 for it (a reasonable price, but with cheaper solutions available it went to the bottom of my list).

Another option for Mac OS X is Mozilla Firefox. I love Firefox and I have used it through all of its various versions and name changes since the very beginning many years ago. As you might have guessed, Firefox doesn’t restore tabs, though through extensions the capability is there. For the last few months I’ve been forced to use Firefox v0.8 even though they have been releasing newer versions for a while (including the big 1.0!). The reason for this inability to upgrade is simple: the SessionSaver extension that restores tabs for Mac OS X will only work in Firefox ≤ v0.8. The extension is excellent and really does a great job, but I don’t like the fact that I’m stuck in an “older” browser and I’m pretty sure that development has stopped entirely on the extension. Yes, there are other extensions that will do the same thing, but they don’t work quite right in Mac OS X. Take Tabbrowser Extensions for example. This plugin is perfect if you are using Firefox in Windows, but it has never worked correctly in Mac OS X. I check every new version, but it’s always the same story — “Last tabs don’t reopen at next startup in Mac OS X” — this has been the case for at least a year.

Sick of being stuck in v0.8 of Firefox, I started to look for other solutions. I heard about various AppleScripts that could essentially do what I wanted within Safari, but these required manual save and restore actions on the part of the user. So, not only does it require the user to remember to save/restore at quit/shutdown, it does nothing for the user who accidently quits the browser or who’s computer/browser crashes.

Another, ultimately equally useless option, is Safari Helper. While a decent program, it exists completely separate from Safari itself and requires the same manual interaction I was just talking about.

Despite the ostensible lack of solutions, there is actually one little program out there that does the trick. Saft for Safari is the best thing I’ve found for session restoration on Mac OS X, and it also offers quite a few other neat features to boot. I really put this “plugin” to the test before I actually bought it, and have yet to have a single problem with it — it handles tab/window restoration wonderfully. Notwithstanding the fact that I really don’t use any of its other functions, I paid my $10 with no real trepidation because it does exactly what I need and has made Safari usable for me.

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California snow

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The True Story of Audion

After reading this story and posting it to my Bits section, I came across John Gruber’s take on it, and instead of typing up something similar I figured I’d just steal from him.

Ordinarily, this is the sort of thing I’d post to the Linked List, but it’s simply too good — extraordinarily, wonderfully good — and thus deserves your full attention.

Get yourself a lovely beverage, disconnect the phone, quit your IM client, and enjoy The True Story of Audion, by Cabel Sasser of Panic Software. One of the greatest Mac stories I’ve ever read. Joyous, exciting, heartbreaking. Note: most of the links are pop-up footnotes; don’t skip them.

Seriously, read this. You’ll thank me. Plus, there will be a quiz next week.

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Favorite photos

I’ve just spent quite a while going through my photo collection and pulling out the pictures that I like most. I’ve put these into a new photo set I’m going to call Personal Favorites and will update it as new photos are shot (they’ll be put into the front of the set). You’ll notice that quite a few of these are not in any of the previous sets I’ve put up. Please keep in mind that all of the photos in the set were taken with a Canon PowerShot S30, which I’ve had for three years now!

On a related note, I’ve decided that I’m going to get a digital SLR as soon as I can — I’ve put it off for way too long. They’ve really started to come down in price and I have my eye on two models in particular, the Canon EOS 10D Digital and the Canon EOS Digital Rebel (300D) (now available with an all-black body). As far as I’m concerned, the main difference between the two is price. The 10D and the Rebel have the same CMOS sensor and essentially have the same firmware, but the Rebel’s is slightly crippled (though you can get back some of the functionality through a firmware ‘hack’). The Rebel ships with a lens, but the 10D does not (and the lens I want is ~$450!). The best part about the Rebel is that it takes the same lenses as all of the higher-end Canon SLRs (Canon’s EF lens lineup; I think there are now more than 50 available lenses). So, the way I see it, if I were to get the much cheaper Rebel (when you take the included lens into account) and then outfit it over time with the lenses that I want, those lenses would work on any future [Canon] SLR that I might get. Seems like an easy choice if you ask me, but if you feel that there’s something I’m missing here please let me know.

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Bay Area Events

For whatever reason I thought I already mentioned this here, but apparently not. For the last six months or so I’ve been subscribed to the Bay Area Events syndication feed. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area I strongly encourage you to take a look at the site. Every Friday it lays out the goings-on in the Bay Area for that weekend. It first lists the events that are going on all weekend and then lists those activities that are taking place on a particular day. Next to each listed event is a “$$$” label (if it isn’t free), a short description, and/or a link to the relevant site. It’s a great resource.

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Are you kidding me?

Shame on you America. Shame on you.

I just came across Todd Dominey’s post, and I might as well have written it myself. A couple of excerpts:

With the exception of the political cartoons, movies, and endorsements linked in my side bar, I resisted the urge to personally write about it. And I could have written plenty — the race had consumed nearly all my attention and energy, not to mention conversations among friends, family and coworkers. It permeated nearly every nook and cranny of my day to day life, and despite the outcome, I’m quietly thrilled to have it all back.

I strongly feel Bush doesn’t deserve another four years, and I would bet there are plenty of Bush voters who would privately admit the same. But there were clearly more powerful forces at play — most notably morality, religion, and fear — that not only solidified Bush’s base, but brought them out in record numbers.

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On why I don’t allow comments

I’m often asked why I don’t allow comments on this site. The short and simple answer is that I just don’t have time to moderate them. There’s no way I could let them go unmoderated and so to keep up with them would be more than I could handle. That, together with comment spam and the fact that I would have to reply to any question/comment directed towards me (I can’t help it), would be too much. I might open the site up to discussion in the future, but I doubt it as I seem to be getting exponentially busier as the years march on.

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I’ve moved to Dreamhost

After being made aware of the great deal going on over at DreamHost, I couldn’t resist moving my site (from Apollo) to their service. The entire transition took less than 36 hours and now, save a few DNS hiccups in various parts of the world, everything is as it should be. I don’t want to tout DreamHost too much just yet as I’ve only been using them for a few days, but I can say that I have nothing to complain about so far (which is rare). The following are just a few of the options I’m getting for $19.95/month:

• 2.5GB of space
• 64GB bandwidth/month
• Unlimited MySQL databases
• Access to raw log files
• 75 sub-domains
• …plus all the obligatory usuals like SSH, multiple server-side spam-filtering options, mod_rewrite, etc

If you end up getting an account with them, please do mention me, jblanton, as the referrer (their referral policy is great; you hear that Apple?).

I’m pretty sure I’ve covered all the bases, but if you notice that something is broken please let me know.

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Stuck in the middle

I’m currently in the process of moving justinblanton.com to a new hosting provider and so access to this site will likely be limited until the DNS changes fully propagate and I get all of the CMS stuff setup on the new server.

As you were.

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Quicksilver iTunes plugin

I just wanted to make sure all you Quicksilver users out there were aware of the ability, through the iTunes plugin, for you to have the name of the artist, the song name, and the album art displayed on top of whatever you’re doing each time a new track starts. I can’t begin to tell you how brilliant this is for someone like me. I often put all of the albums on shuffle and I like to know the name of the song and the artist as soon as I cut to the next track (using Quicksilver of course) without having to bring iTunes to the forefront.

Before this plugin I used iTunes Track, which is actually quite nice and provides customizable transparency levels and the ability to specify both the size and color of the display window. Until just recently though, it failed to update the song information unless you used iTunes Track itself to change the song. That’s since been fixed and you can now set the rate at which you want it to update, but the software still doesn’t display the album art. The iTunes plugin for Quicksilver handles this wonderfully by displaying the album art on top of the artist and song name in the middle of your screen for approximately two seconds each time a new song begins playing. Couple this plugin with Fetch Art (an AppleScript that connects to Amazon and pulls down the album art for every song in your collection) and you’re set.

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TiVo… finally

After years (literally!) of putting it off, I finally purchased a TiVo about two weeks ago. People that know me couldn’t quite understand how I could be without the technology, and frankly, given my propensity to watch anything and everything under the sun, I can’t say that their disbelief wasn’t well-founded. Despite my [ir]rational holdout, the service hasn’t completely eluded me the past few years; my dad has had it for quite a while (and has seen it through many variations, including the current 250GB HDTV model) and every time I came home from college I swore I was going to get one.

There were two reasons why I held out for so long. The first is that I don’t have a phone line; for the longest time TiVo required you to have a phone line for the initial setup. With the introduction of the “Series2″ devices, ethernet adapters (wired and wireless) could be plugged into the USB ports on the back of the box and used for service calls, but you were still required to have a phone line for the initial setup (this is no longer the case; see below). The other reason I waited so long was because Comcast kept telling me that they would be offering DVR services “soon.” “Soon” has turned into a year and a half of empty promises — you’d think that Silicon Valley might be where they’d like to rollout their new services, but apparently not. So, yah, that’s ~$15/mo they’ll never see from me.

My machine is a Series2 box running v4.0+ of the operating system; this version allows you to not only do all service calls over your broadband network, but the initial setup can also be done over the network (read: without a phone line). I first tried to get on the network using a very old Netgear USB-to-ethernet adapter I had lying around, but the TiVo didn’t recognize it and so I bought a cheap Netgear 802.11b wireless USB adapter. After inserting the adapter, rebooting, and setting up the machine to get on my wireless network (completely mindless), I was in business and immediately began to connect to the TiVo service and pull down channel information. Brilliant.

As usual, I do have some mild complaints. The first, and this is something we’ve been hearing for years, is that the TiVo “Suggestions” service is broken. My TiVo is constantly recommending (read: recording when there is free space) Spanish soap operas (I’ve never explicitly told it to record anything from the Spanish-speaking channels, much less a soap opera) and other equally random programs, such as “Totally Nascar!” I’d be much less annoyed by this if there was a way to “mark” multiple programs for deletion instead of having to delete each of them separately, but as far as I can tell this can’t be done. Granted, I could turn the feature off completely, but sometimes it grabs shows I wouldn’t mind watching.

My main gripe though is with the online scheduling. If you don’t know, this allows you to tell your TiVo to record something through the Internet. For example, I had class during the third presidential debate last week and forgot to tell my TiVo to record it. So, I logged into my TiVo account, went to TiVo Central Online and proceeded to tell it to record the debate that was to take place in a few hours. I was immediately sent an e-mail letting me know that my request was noted and that I would receive another e-mail once the TiVo service got confirmation from my machine at home that it would record the program. After not receiving the second e-mail for a couple of hours I began to think something was wrong.

I assumed that as soon as I made the online request my instructions would be immediately forwarded to my machine and that would be that. That’s not how it works. Your TiVo doesn’t actually see your request until the next time it connects to the TiVo service, which, for Series2 devices connected via broadband like mine, is supposed to be once an hour (or so says the FAQ), but for whatever reason, mine only updates once a day. I haven’t yet had time to figure that out, but notwithstanding the infrequent service calls, why doesn’t the website simply talk to the TiVo as soon I’m done making the request? Actually, extending that idea to its probable conclusion, why isn’t the TiVo a web server? Why can’t I simply login to my TiVo when I’m away from it? I’m sure this is just around the corner, but I’m still confused as to why I can’t do it now.

Another thing I’d like to see with the online service is the ability to view both the shows currently on my TiVo and the shows to be recorded later that day (again, something that will be taken care of when you can simply connect to your TiVo directly).

On a related note, yesterday Engadget interviewed Mike Ramsay, the CEO of TiVo (whom I met).

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A cursory look at the Sendo X

To make a long story short, I was recently asked to sell a Sendo X for one of the attorneys I worked for at Ariba this past summer. It was a little awkward because, well, I’m the one who pushed the X to begin with (my constant talk about mobile phones tends to make people listen… eventually), even though I told him that it probably wasn’t going to be what he wanted/needed and that the Treo 600 (which he ended up getting) would be the better choice for him.

Given current time constraints and limited time actually spent with the device, I don’t have too much to say about it. One thing I can say for sure is that I’m glad I didn’t buy it — it’s one of those phones that I would have sold rather quickly. Between the Sony Ericsson K700i, the Nokia 7610, and the Sendo X, I think the clear winner, at least for me, is the 7610 (my current phone). While it’s not really fair to lump the K700i into the same category as the other phones (it cannot be considered a “smartphone”), I pretty much had my “next phone” narrowed down to the above three. Anyways, I’m getting off course here and should probably bring the focus back to the X.

My main gripe with the X, and something I noticed immediately, was its thickness. This was my biggest worry after seeing pictures of it for the last few months (year?). It’s just too thick to carry around in jean pockets (at least for me). The phone also feels a little weird in my hands, which is surely due, at least in part, to its thickness. Sendo would have done well to “squish” the phone and sacrifice narrowness for less depth — usually a good tradeoff if you ask me. The phone is almost a little too narrow, especially in light of its depth — the whole form-factor just ‘feels’ weird.

It doesn’t feel very solid and ‘gives’ quite a bit if you squeeze it. From pictures I had seen online I was expecting a much more “polished” look, but when I saw it in person it just didn’t strike me as something that should cost as much as it does.

The best thing I can say about the phone is the “Sendo Now!” screen, which is an all-in-one display that takes over the screen when other applications aren’t in the foreground. It harbors all kinds of information including the last number you called/received, the number of unread e-mails and SMSs you have, your unfinished to-do items, calendar entries for the current day, and the ability to add shortcuts to any program on the phone. This software was one of the main reasons I was looking at this phone to begin with; it reminds me a lot of some of the better “launcher” and calendaring applications available for PalmOS (such as DateBK), or, dare I say, the Windows Mobile “Today” screen.

The “Now!” screen is the first in a series of customizable tabs available to you — you can add, delete, and configure these at will. One of the neater, built-in tabs, is “History,” which displays the last few programs you’ve selected. For each of the tabs, which Sendo calls “Panes,” you can also customize the function of the right softkey — very nice.

I’m kind of disappointed that I haven’t seen anything like this available for Symbian OS yet (at least not for free). Maybe Sendo will release this for Series 60, though I’m not holding my breath — it’s really all that sets the X apart from others in the Series 60 space.

Like I said, this wasn’t meant to be a review by any stretch, but more a glancing look at a phone I’d had my eye on for a while. I can say that I’m very happy with the 7610 so far and don’t see anything that’s going to knock it off its pedestal in the near future (save the Nokia 6670, which is basically the 7610 in a different body), though Russ might disagree with me on this one.

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You might live in Silicon Valley if…

…you’re waiting in line at the Nordstrom ebar in the mall and the guy in front of you is on a Segway. This you-might-live thing seems to be turning into a series.

(picture taken with phone)

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Misplaced love

I’ve never quite understood how I became the #1 result on Google for so many things. The search results that I’m most surprised about lately are those that have to do with mobile phones. At the time of this post, I was #1 for both K700i review and 7610 review (my last two mobile phones). Now, I certainly think that my reviews carry some weight, but even a perfunctory juxtaposition of my write-ups and those done by sites whose purpose is to review phones, would reveal that they can afford to (and have) put much more time and effort into the reviews than I can. I’ve written about this a couple of times before and I’m certainly not complaining about the traffic I get from Google — I always welcome more hits — it’s just that I don’t feel like I deserve the top position for some of the things that Google seems to think I do.  *shrug*

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4 Sale: One Beleaguered State

A friend recently sent me this in an e-mail, apparently from a classified ad in a Florida newspaper:

4 Sale: One Beleaguered State

Lots of waterlogged property, beautiful views of crashing tidal waves. Land already cleared of pesky trees (some cleanup required). Lack of electricity and gasoline makes for fun historic living environment. Increasingly popular “see the stars, feel the rain” roof modifications on housing. Plenty of insurance agents available for consultation, however may experience difficulty getting one to return your call.

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Sony’s smart about-face

It seems that Sony is waking up and starting to heed my advice.

Sony confirmed on Wednesday that it is working to add native MP3 support to its portable music players–a major strategy reversal that could help it compete more effectively with rivals such as Apple Computer.

The company is also considering expanding MP3 support to hard disk devices, sources told ZDNet France, but no decision has yet been made on that front.

It looks like they’re still waffling on MP3 compatibility for their hard disk players, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before they ‘fix’ those devices as well.

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Obviously the iPod is dead

This entry is a spinoff of another post I never got around to finishing. That post was about Apple’s current stranglehold on the mobile music market and what they’re going to have to do if they want to continue to dominate. Essentially, my argument was that Apple needed to start offering devices that could do more than just play music. If Steve Jobs thinks he can fight off the rest of the world with just music, he’s sadly mistaken — devices want to converge.

This segues nicely into what I’d like to talk about: the iPod as a mobile phone. At first glance, this might seem a little strange, but turn the logic around (i.e., the mobile phone as a music player) and it might not seem as far off. In fact, it isn’t “off” at all — a lot of the new mobile phones are capable of playing various audio formats, including MP3 (like my new Nokia 7610, and my SE K700i before that, and…). Why wouldn’t one want to consolidate the two devices? I’m obviously the wrong person to pose this question to because I’m that guy who absolutely can’t wait for my mobile phone (or whatever this all-in-one device will finally be called) to “contain” and “control” my life. That said, I can’t imagine a typical end-user who wouldn’t want to, at the very least, merge their portable music player with their mobile phone.

There are a few kinks in this chain to be sure, but nothing that can’t and won’t be resolved. The biggest hangup with moving music to a mobile phone is storage space. Currently the best mobile smartphones ship with 64MB or less of internal memory, though many of them also offer memory expansion in the form of various flash media. While the cost of solid-state media continues to fall, the reality is that it will take nothing less than hard drives to achieve the type of storage required for our music collections (solid-state drives will eventually rule this space, but we’re talking years). It should come as no surprise that this hurdle has already been cleared and mobile phones with HDDs are already upon us. Though there are serious issues related to hard drives in mobile phones, namely shock-resistance and the tradeoff between spinning platters and battery life, these issues are being taken care of and will soon be non-existent (hell, you need look no further than the iPod itself or Sony’s Network Walkman Digital Music Player to get a sense of how long a battery can be made to last and how durable such a device can be). Furthermore, these devices will be rather expensive (the Samsung linked to above will be $800) and I think it goes without saying that they will be treated with care (like most iPods now).

So, here’s the deal Apple, if you’d like to keep your competition down and sales of the iPod up, add a GSM or CDMA antenna to the music player and let it ride. I would be the first in line for such a device (shocking, I know) and I imagine that there would be a lot of people behind me.

As soon as smartphones start adding 1″ and .85″ drive bays, it’s not going to take long for end-users to realize that their two or three devices can be made into one, and there is no turning back when that happens. As good as the iPod interface is, and as pretty as the design can get, it’s not going to be able to compete with mass storage on a mobile phone.

Surely Apple is aware of the power they could wield if they came out with a mobile phone capable of playing music and has probably been contemplating such a device for a while now. There is some evidence available that leads one to believe that Apple is cognizant of what the future is going to require, most notably the recent deal struck between Apple and Motorola that will allow users to play iTunes AAC (FairPlay DRM) files on some Motorola phones. While this approach seems to belie the iTunes Music Store’s end-goal of selling more iPods, it could be working to do just that in the long run if the iPod is no longer just a music player. It’s well known that iTMS barely turns a profit and that the money, in this case, is in the device (and not the content… yet). Given this information, it’s quite possible that Apple is simply going to ‘tease’ the public for a while by allowing its files to be played on certain mobile phones. Then, and after the public is convinced that they need their iTMS music on their mobile phone, Apple will announce the ‘iPhone.’

I realize that this might sound odd, but quite frankly, there is no other option for Apple. You can’t convince me that consumers are going to buy a mobile phone based on whether it can play iTMS files as the Apple-Motorola agreement might have you believe. Nor can you convince me that Apple would be content with simply licensing its DRM technology to every mobile phone manufacturer and banking on iTMS sales. Apple needs to continue selling iPods to stay competitive in the digital music space and to continue selling iPods it is going to have to morph it into a more robust device.

If history is any indication, Microsoft’s format will ultimately be king and Apple will be left to fight for a share of the 10% of people that stay away from Microsoft as a rule. With that knowledge as a backdrop and the realization that Windows Mobile (Microsoft’s smartphone/PDA OS) is on a rapidly increasing number of smartphones, that Microsoft’s music format is competing directly with Apple’s, and that HDDs will soon be in mobile phones, one arrives at the logical conclusion that the iPod, as we have come to know it, is dead.

I’m not saying that Apple needs to create a full-fledged mobile platform to compete with Windows Mobile (oh, just imagine an OS X-based mobile phone though), but I am saying that they need a device capable of more than just playing music. It’s going to be hard to persuade Joe Public that he needs an iPod after Sprint offers him a Windows Mobile device with a 5GB hard drive and tells him that it can play WMA and MP3 files (in addition to being a, for lack of a better term, “pocket pc”).

While most everything I’ve brought up can be done today, Joe Public either doesn’t know about it or can’t afford it, and so Apple has a window, albeit a small one, to produce something before the cat’s out of the bag and service providers start offering these über-devices for $50 with a two-year service contract.

The quick and dirty solution for Apple would be to use the Palm or Symbian operating system to power a phone-capable device and bundle it with an iPod application that would emulate the Pixo interface (to satisfy those who’ve come to know and love the iPod user experience). While it’s anyone’s guess as to what Apple will ultimately come up with, I do hope they come up with something — the opportunity is huge — forget music and think ‘life.’

The incredibly satisfying part about all of this is that it doesn’t really affect me, at least not negatively. As soon as mobile phones with HDDs become affordable, I’ll have one. I couldn’t care less what proprietary audio formats it can decode because I don’t use, nor will I ever if I can help it, any of them. All I’ll require is that it be able to play the open, ubiquitous MP3 format — a very safe bet. Notwithstanding the fact that I’m unaffected either way, I, more than just about anyone, welcome and encourage an Apple mobile phone — let’s hope they realize what’s at stake here and produce accordingly.

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