Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Friday, July 13, 2007

iPhone: Meet the grandparents

I love this photoset of an iPhone alongside a Newton.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

I will iPhone

We're just a couple of days away from what the media are frequently reminding us is one of the most anticipated personal electronics launches in history, the release of the Apple iPhone. From the very product announcement, I was certain that I would own one, someday. But I've relaxed my tendency to live on the bleeding edge. I will wait, I thought, until my current cell phone contract runs out, about a year hence. By then, there will probably be a new version with more features and even more whiz-bang.

Then I watched this video and decided I needed one sooner. Much sooner. With any luck, I'll own an iPhone by summer's end and will tithe the penalty to be released from my current contract with pleasure.

Here's the thing: I'm not unhappy with my current phone. In fact, the Treo 650 I've been toting is probably the best I've ever owned. It permitted me to give away my Palm organizer, stop fretting about toting a camera everywhere I went, gives me a great sounding phone experience on a broad Sprint network and serves as a perfectly acceptable—considering its limitations—web and e-mail device.

And it looks antique next to the iPhone. Which will, oh yes, be mine.

That's because it's that last bit of feature I've come to rely on the most: access to e-mail and, especially, the web. And that's what all of the reviews to date (1, 2, 3) say the iPhone does best.

I can't get away from the phone; I'm in the professional communications business after all. But even sitting at my desk, even spending a few hours a day on the phone, I spend much more time in the web browser and pushing e-mail around. It has changed the way my business works and drastically reduced the number of people I actually have to speak with daily. If you took the phone off my desk tomorrow, I'd adjust and hardly miss a beat. I can't do my job these days without Eudora or Firefox.

So what I need most when I'm out and about (and not schlepping a lightweight laptop) is a great e-mail machine, a web browser, my calendar and contacts and a phone—in that order. That's what the iPhone appears to be. If I can use it to update the websites I administer, dash off e-mail replies to media queries, do modest research while I'm stuck at an airport gate (and, more than occasionally, consult the IMDb to settle a bar bet), manage my schedule and even from time to time call my mom, then it's exactly what I need.

The web is my backup brain (with apologies to Tom and Dori) and I can't wait for the iPhone to help me make a synaptic connection.

Can't. Wait.

Wednesday, August 9, 2006

So long, old friend

Almost six years ago (September 26, 2000, according to my still offline jurassic weblog archives), I won a free 30-hour TiVo in an online promotion. Actually, I was supposed to have won a 14-hour model but, either by glitch or design, they gave all of those away and sent me the next better thing. Three years ago, I pimped it out with an upgrade from Weaknees.

Last night it threw in the towel, as you can see from the Green Screen of Death above.

I won't be calling the toll-free number. Six years and countless hundreds of hours of programming enjoyed without channel surfing is a pretty good run for an appliance I didn't pay for in the first place. Before the fall premiere season begins, I'll give it a proper burial recycling and bring home a brand-new (bought and paid for) dual-tuner model to take its place. With the rebate, it'll cost me about $100, plus a little more for another Weaknees upgrade.

I love TiVo. It has truly changed the way I watch television, and completely for the better. I can barely stand to watch live television without it. (And I don't have to: There are actually two other units in our home, thank dog!)

Weep not for TiVo, friends. The best is yet to come.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Pleased am I

I've been in the market for a new cell phone to replace my nearly three-year-old handset, so last week I followed the herd of my friends who'd recommended it and bought my very own Treo 650. I can't believe I waited this long.

There are a lot of pluses. Foremost, I get to replace both my phone and my PDA with one device, in a form factor that's not too much larger than my old headset. It's also got a decent-for-snapshots camera (that plays nice with Flickr), so there's another device I don't have to pack everywhere. Secondly, Sprint offers a very reasonable service plan that gives me the voice minutes I need along with all-you-can-eat internet access, meaning I can use the Treo for e-mail and light web work when I'm away from the office but don't want to lug a laptop. (The inexpensive combination of voice and data service surprised me. It's only $3 more per month than my old plan.)

On those trips where I do haul along the iBook, though, the phone is really going to come in handy, since its Bluetooth capability allows me to use it as a high-speed wireless modem. That means no more shelling out outrageous fees for hotel or airport wireless and no more struggling to check my e-mail or update websites on a fluky, long-distance dial-up connection when I come home to visit my mom. Which is where I am now, posting this at blazing speed.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love living in the future?

Friday, February 10, 2006

Things I Am Loving: Mac Edition

A few utilities new and old I can't don't want to live without:

• SafariStand adds all sorts of nifty useful features to Safari.
• PDFlab joins or separates PDF files without the need to open Acrobat.
• Renamer4Mac makes it easy to batch rename files. Just drag and drop.
• BetterHTMLexport makes automagically generating web galleries from iPhoto a snap, and provides significantly better control than iPhoto's built-in. (Compatible with iPhoto6.)
• Jumpcut, a simple, elegant clipboard extender built by my pal Steve.

These things make it easier to do my job every day, and carry the BradLands Seal of Approval.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Of course, size doesn’t really matter…

Five years ago, I won a free TiVo during a promotion. Two years ago, I upgraded the original 30-hour unit to 203 hours. Earlier this year, I acquired a cheap 40-hour box on eBay and a couple of weeks ago ordered another upgrade kit, bringing its capacity to 230 hours. We now have three units in the house, with a total capacity of 573 hours of digital recording goodness.

There'll be probably be a fourth unit acquired before the end of the year, bringing the total household recording capacity to over 900 hours. (Before you dismiss this as some sort of compulsion or sickness, know that two of these machines are being used as part of an ongoing research project. I don't watch that much TV.)

Once again, I am pleased to recommend the products and service of the folks at Weaknees if you are seeking to upgrade the capacity of your TiVo DVR. Their do-it-yourself kits and easy-to-follow instructions make it a snap; the hardest part for me was finding a Philips screwdriver on my messy tool bench.

Friday, June 10, 2005

Yeah, but why only four peanuts in a bag?

I'm a pretty seasoned traveler, so I like to believe/pretend that climbing aboard a plane holds no particular mystery nor fazes me in the least. But the truth is, after all this time, there are some things I don't know or understand.

After reading the archives of the USA Today feature Ask the Captain, however, there are far fewer. It's a great read, and writer (and 777 pilot) Meryl Getline has a real knack for making the magic of jet flight less mysterious.

Thursday, April 7, 2005

Maps made for walking

Earlier this week, Google Maps added the capability to toggle between their high-readable, easy-to-use map format—a manifold improvement over the likes of Mapquest—and a new "satellite" view that features actual high-altitude photographic representations of the area being displayed.

And the crowd went wild!

Justifiably so, I think, because the feature and the whole implementation of Google Maps is just deeply cool.

So this isn't really so much a request for the lazy web as it is a request for the good people of Google Labs.

I want a mapping and directions service that lets me choose between driving directions and walking directions. I most often make use of sites like Google Maps when I'm in a strange city or headed for an unfamiliar destination, but won't be taking a private car.

If I plug in a start point and destination, most map sites will give me directions that are perfectly logical for a driver but don't allow for the fact that someone on foot can go places a car can't—both ways on the sidewalks along a one-way street, for example. I was trying to put together directions for a friend to reach a hotel I'd recommended to them in Chicago, but both Mapquest and Google Maps would have me send them on a six-block roundabout route along Lake Shore Drive, when they could simply schlep their suitcase two blocks by turning onto a one-way street.

I'd really like it if I could tell Google or whoever that I'll be on foot and have it adjust the directions accordingly. Perhaps I could also put in the most I'm willing to walk (say, no more than two miles) and it could warn me if a planned jaunt exceeds my hiking capacity.

Even better would be if directions could, optionally, incorporate both walking and mass transit options. This would be a particular boon for tourists, and especially in cities that offer both convenient and enjoyable strolls and excellent mass transit such as Chicago, London, New York or Washington, DC. (The Chicago CTA Trip Planner is a mini-example of this. It will recommend bus or train routes and then directions for walking the remainder to the desired destination.)

In chatting with friends about this, another feature that would be useful for both drivers and pedestrians would be the ability to tell the mapping application to "use this street" or "omit this street". That way you could conveniently route around ad hoc road blocks such as construction or traffic congestion (which isn't reliably accounted for on the existing sites), or use them to plot your own, personal "scenic route". The application might even, over time, recognize on its own that several users plotted similar routes and offer the shortcuts or scenic routes as alternative directions. Bicyclists and roller skaters would benefit from being able to eliminate certain roadways (interstates, high-traffic thoroughfares) from their directions.

Finally, if these sorts of toggles and options were implemented, it would be very cool if the application could collect, aggregate and then use information about what other users considered the "best route" ("Click here to recommend this route") when offering directions to future users.

How about it, Google? Beyond the whimsy of "I can see my house!" provided by Keyhole satellite pictures, I can't see myself relying on them very often. But maps made for walking? That'd be a step in the right direction.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

iPhoton

Photon: Manage your Movable Type, TypePad, Bloxsom and WordPress photo-blogs in the familiar surrounds of Apple iPhoto.

Friday, January 14, 2005

Honey, I shrunk the PVR

Travel, they say, broadens the mind, but sometimes while traveling, you're simply bivouacked in a hotel room watching TV. These are the times I miss my TiVo most. By this point, it's almost trite to say that having TiVo has spoiled me for watching television the "normal" way. Having spent the past few weeks in homes and hotels without its benefits, I've treasured the flexibility and convenience it offers at home all the more.

Which got me thinking: I'd love to have a portable personal video recorder, just something basic with RCA video and audio inputs and a small infrared remote control that I could plug into, say, a hotel TV and use to get basic TiVo functions while on the road. I wouldn't need fancy geegaws like the program guide or Season Passes, but having something that would let me pause TV by buffering 15 or 30 minutes, or to record short programs would be fantastic.

Last night, for example, as I was getting ready to go out and meet some friends for dinner, I was in the bathroom shaving and overheard something that interested me in a news report on the TV in the sitting room. WIth a half-shaven face, I rushed out to catch the end of the report but I'd missed the critical bit. What I would have given to be able to rewind three or four minutes and see it all. Then, just as I was leaving, an obscure cable channel—one I don't receive at home—began a documentary I'd have loved to watch. How cool would it have been to hit a button and have it waiting for me when I returned. Instead, my insomnia was sated with a diet of infomercials.

Let's just say I've been even more twitchy to be TiVo-less when visiting the ancestral Graham homestead, where even the DVD player is a fairly recent acquisition.

How hard would this be for someone like Griffin or Belkin to make as an iPod add-on? The iPod already has a capacious hard drive and a fast Firewire interface. Make something that snaps on the bottom with composite video plugs and maybe a remote and voila! It's a portaPVR. I'd shell out a couple hundred bucks for that and, if it went both ways, such that you could stream recorded shows from home (transferred to your iPod with Tivo-To-Go) to the hotel TV while you're on the road, I bet a lot of folks would pony up for one.

For that matter, memory and hard drive space are so relatively cheap these days, how long do you suppose it'll be—if it hasn't happened already and I admit to not having researched this—before television manufacturers begin including some basic PVR-type functions in the TVs themselves? A 1 gigabyte Compact Flash card in a TV and the necessary electronics wouldn't add that much to the base cost of a unit and would make live TV buffering, pausing and rewinding, at least, a standard TV function.

Any geeks out there wanna build a portable PVR and make millions? I've got the first few hundred in my wallet right here.

Monday, October 18, 2004

TiVo at 6s and 7s…

A weblog saved my life tonight: Well, a bit of my sanity, actually. A while ago, my TiVo began exhibiting an odd quirk. It wouldn't switch to channels containing the number 6. Now, my particular A/V set-up is held together with figurative spit and baling wire anyway, relying as it does on the "IR-blaster" connected to the DVR to communicate ham-handedly with the Motorola cable box I have to use for digital cable. But this was just bizarre: the IR signals for other channels were getting through just fine, but my TiVo seemed to have developed a fear of the number 6. (Is there a fancy word for that?)

Fortunately, I happened across this solution (if not explanation) in Matt Haughey's consistently excellent PVR Blog. A few moments futzing with the TiVo configuration and voila! ShowTime and Turner Classic Movies, among others, were back within my reach.

Now, truth be told, I hadn't really missed the 6-laden channels in the weeks since my TiVo first fell victim to the mystery bug. Only one program I followed regularly — a guilty-pleasure soaper whose absence gave an extra hour weekly — but it's awfully nice to have the options again.

Friday, August 20, 2004

Dick Van Dyke is a geek

Dick Van Dyke is a big geek. And I mean that in the very best possible way. Step in time! [hat tip to Kitty]

Tuesday, November 4, 2003

Sprint Phone Resources

OS X free and clear: Commenting on my new phone, the redoubtable Dan Budiac pointed out a resource for hooking the Sanyo 8100 (and other phones) to a Macintosh via USB called, appropriately enough, MacSprintUsers.

Which led me to the more general SprintUsers site, which has even more cool tools. Suh-weet!

Monday, November 3, 2003

It pays to eavesdrop

It pays to eavesdrop: I bought a new cell phone Friday night; I've been needing one for a few months since my old handset would, randomly, make all of the contacts in my phone directory disappear and sometimes lock up until I did a hard reset and then everything was back to normal.

I don't need much in the way of features -- no cameras, fancy ringers and such -- but I do need my phone book to stick around. I've a lousy head for numbers.

I've been putting off getting the new phone because cash flow is a bit constricted. Also, I rather resented the fact that new customers got their phones practically for free, with generous rebates, while Sprint PCS loyalists like me -- nearly six years now, and I'm pleased as punch with the service -- had to pony up full price. When the new number portability regulations come into play, I wonder if a lot of these companies are going to wish they'd paid more attention to their longtime customers.

But it had to be done and Friday, I headed off to Best Buy to bite the bullet. I'd compared a lot of models online and picked out a very simple handset, to the tune of $150.

Which Best Buy no longer had in stock. Of course.

So I drove over to a newer, shinier Best Buy, only to discover that they, too, were sold out of the model I'd wanted. Apparently, it's been discontinued and they're in demand. The clerk checked his computer and informed me they had 37 in stock in Ellisville but, really, who feels like driving out to Ellisville except in a life or death scenario? And even then...

At this point, I figure as long as I'm biting the bullet, I might as well take a good munch. I take a look at the Sanyo 8100. It has tons of stuff I don't need -- just a phone book for me and I'm happy, remember -- but it's only $50 more and I'm late for happy hour. And that's when I overhear one of the other clerks telling another customer that yes, even existing customers can get the advertised rebate on any handset, as long as they've owned their current phone for 18 months or more.

What?! I mean, I never expected Brian Baker to come over and tap me on the shoulder and share the good news but, hey, that's the first I'd heard of such a thing. Apparently, it's true, because I bought the phone and got a rebate receipt for $130 back (allow 8-10 weeks for processing, natch), but it's not as though Sprint goes out of its way to actually tell anyone about it or anything.

After an exhaustive search, the only mention of such an animal I could find was this language buried in a FAQ on Sprint's rebate site:

In order for Sprint to offer such large discounts, we must require the activation of a new line of service. If you do not have a need for an additional line of service at this time, we have a Handset Upgrade Program that is offered to existing qualified customers. Please visit your nearest Sprint Store and they will be able to help you with determining if you qualify for this Upgrade Program, assist in choosing your new handset, and applying the discount to your new purchase.

Emphasis mine. The lesson here? If you're a Sprint PCS customer and in the market for a new phone, ask about the rebate or "Handset Upgrade Program". I'm glad I did or, rather, I'm glad I overheard someone else do it. I walked into the store prepared to spend $150, actually spent $200 and saved over $70 in the process. I've a lousy head for numbers, true, but I know that math works out good for me.

Friday, September 26, 2003

Big boy en route

This weekend's project: According to FedEx, the TiVo upgrade I ordered earlier this week is on the truck and headed my way. It appears I'll have a weekend project after all. W00t!

Update: And the upgrade is complete, with TiVo reporting even better results than anticipated: a new capacity of just over 203 hours at the Basic Quality compression setting. (Of course, that varies according to a number of factors but, still, wow!) The process was a breeze; it took me about 15 minutes and the hardest part was getting cover off the unit and back on again. Yay!

Thursday, September 25, 2003

G5 in da hizzouse!

G5 in da hizzouse: And that concludes my entire performance in Snoop. Yes, after a longer than anticipated wait, on Tuesday I picked up my new Macintosh G5 for the office. It's resting comfortably in a secure area until I have time to set it up and configure it, but it's here and it's mine.

While at The Apple Store waiting for the additional RAM I requested to be installed, I was chatting with the Geniuses about the elegance and beauty of the new machine. As they pulled the sleek new box out of its plastic wrap, I remarked, "You know, as much attention as Steve Jobs lavishes on these computers, I'm surprised they come wrapped like that and not wearing little black turtlenecks."

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Big TiVo in the offing

195 Hours, Just 48 Hours From Now: With suggestions and courage drawn from the excellent PVR Blog, yesterday I ordered an upgrade kit for my Tivo from Weaknees. If it arrives in time, one of my weekend projects will be upgrading the 30-hour unit I won almost three years ago to a staggering 195-hour capacity. Just in time for the fall TV season!

Update: FedEx is estimating an arrival date of Monday, September 29. Looks like I may have to make other plans for Rosh Hashanna.

N.B. -- If you're not yet a convert to the cult of TiVo, you may wish to take advantage of the sale on new units, starting at $199, through the end of the year. If you watch TV, it will change your life.

Thursday, August 21, 2003

Macintosh G5

The world's first 64-bit personal computer: Coming soon, to my desk. That, my friends, is what you get for coming in way under budget in the preceeding fiscal year. Next week, maybe...post-Labor Day at the latest.

On the homefront, I'm waiting to see the new 12" G4 PowerBooks, rumored to be announced within day with a thinner form factor, PC card slot, faster DVD-R, glow-in-the-dark keyboard and so much more. Also, there's the small matter of paying down a little plastic debt.

Thursday, July 17, 2003

Latest gadget lust

Gadget lust: I had a couple of chances in the past two weeks to get in some serious play with the Palm Tungsten C, which just might be my next PDA. I've been very happy with my Sony Clie but, frankly, the lack of Mac support (except through third-party apps) and the limitations of my low-end model are beginning to frustrate me. The combination of the high-res screen, built in WiFi and pretty decent bundled applications -- including web browser and e-mail -- make the Tungsten C an attractive option. It's a bit spendy at a list price of $500, but Amazon lists them right now for $429.

Before I can splurge on that new toy, however, I've got to replace my cell phone, which has developed two rather nasty bugs: a tendency to lock-up and require a hard reboot (i.e., remove the battery) and occasionally making all but three of the numbers in the phone directory disappear until the phone is switched off and then on again.

I'll probably wind up getting the Sanyo 8100 but, man, I wish Sprint offered discounts to loyal customers of six years instead of just to new customers. Spending an extra $100 for a phone I shouldn't have to replace this soon anyway hardly makes me feel appreciated.

Friday, July 23, 1999

Sort of an ice cream theme

Peter sez the tangerine iBook reminds him of a creamsicle. So, is it just me or does the color schemes remind anyone else of the old Howard Johnson design concept? (Either way, I have a serious case of iBook lust. Consider that puppy pre-ordered!)