moebius recursive

When it comes to music downloads, the iTunes music store just doesn’t add up when compared to Amazon’s offering. In fact, I regret the small number of purchases I made from iTunes prior to Amazon launching their service in May of 2007. The two big issues with iTunes are DRM and cost.

DRM: Aside from my iPod, I have one other device that is able to play Apple’s DRM crippled files and that is an Airport Express. And by and large, it sucks. I have it connected to a Bose CD player in the kitchen which is about 15-20 feet from the Airport base station with a dry-wall wall between the two. Airport Express will play between 1 and 5 songs before it just stops playing music — no error on the iMac side, no indication that there is a problem on the AE side. It usually gets confused at the end of a song. The rest of the music needs of the house are served by Roku Soundbridge network music players. The Roku devices more or less just work with one problem — they can’t play any of the DRM crippled music from the iTunes store. Amazon’s downloads don’t have this issue and are of the same or higher quality as the iTunes files.

Cost: If a CD that I am looking to buy is available on Amazon download; I’m going to download it. That way I don’t have to deal with shipping and storage of the physical CD. The downloads can be significantly less expensive than the CD, especially for imports. And in every case, the download is $1-4USD cheaper from Amazon than from Apple. And did I mention, no DRM on the Amazon files. The Amazon downloader puts the files right into iTunes and even includes the CD cover art at the click of a button so there is no challenge or inconvenience in using Amazon’s downloads versus Apple’s.

So tell me again why I should buy music from Apple? Surely not just because it’s Apple and it’s ‘cool’.

Technorati Tags:
amazon, apple, itunes, music

After talking about it for over a year, I finally bought a scooter to commute to work and run errands around town whilst leaving the car at home. I have never ridden before, so I am in the process of practicing and studying to get my motorcycle endorsement. I am absolutely focused on safety first; hell, I bought my helmet before I bought the scooter. Now that I am studying up on safe driving, it is hard not to cringe watching people on full size motorcycles driving too fast, with no helmet or protective gear weaving in and out of traffic.

With gas prices hovering around $4USD a gallon I am noticing motorcycle ridership going up and have seen probably a dozen or more stories in the national and local press about scooter dealers selling out of their inventory. I think this is going to mean two things: 1) there are unfortunately going to be more accidents with inexperienced riders getting into trouble with less than attentive car drivers and 2) a buyers market for scooters in the autumn when those scooter purchasers realize that they can’t drive down the road with their radio blasting, texting/talking on a cellphone on a scooter (not and live).

If you are considering making the jump to scootering, make sure you read up on the safety and proper handling aspects of motor cycling first. This will help you understand the requirements (maybe even the ‘dedication’) it takes to become a successful rider. If you are the reading sort, I highly recommend David Hough’s book Proficient Motorcycling and the resources at msf-org.

Technorati Tags:
scootering, safety, peakoil

Now here is an old school way to control you Tivo: via telnet. The interface seems a bit rudimentary at this point but it does open the opportunity to control your Tivo from the internet without having to have it hooked up to something like a SlingBox[warning: gratuitous, horrific, loud flash interface].

Technorati Tags:
gadgets, hacks, ingenuity, internet, tivo

So what does 192 AA batteries get you? An 83.7 pound car with a top speed of 75.8 MPH and an average speed of 65.8 MPH.

Technorati Tags:
battery, car, electriccar, gadgets

Last summer I purchased a copy of Handy Weather from Epocware to have a weather app on my Nokia smartphone. I chose Handy Weather because it was relatively cheap and didn’t carry a ’subscription plan’ like Mobimate did. However, I was recently informed by Epocware that I essentially needed to re-purchase the software because it was now under a ’subscription service’. First off this kind of bait-and-switch stuff is just annoying; made even further annoying by the fact that Epocware has decent software. Second off, the ’subscription’ is the entire price of the software. I could see paying $5USD or so but not being forced to re-buy the $15USD software.

I was left thinking, ’surely there must be some mistake’. I contacted Epocware support and was flatly told to pay the re-purchase gouge or stop using the app (the latter option being sort of amusing because they disabled the app sometime in early July before they even sent me an email about the subscription).

The irony of this is that Mobimate is now offering a version of their software for free that includes weather, world map, world clocks and currency conversion. You can upgrade Mobimate to the ‘pro’ version which gives you access to live flight schedules and arrival/departure info (which I suppose if you traveled a lot would be quiet handy and worth the annual fee). I also note that Psiloc is now offering a completely free weather app as well. On top of this, there is always the mobile version of the Accuweather site which provides access to current conditions, multi-day forecast and even animated radar images.

My suggestion to those looking for mobile apps, beware of Epocware because apparently there is no telling when an app that you purchased free and clear will suddenly become a ’subscription service’. I myself would not buy another app from Epocware and recommend that others don’t as well to keep from being burned by these dubious sales tactics.

Technorati Tags:
epocware, ripoff, handyweather, fraud, baitandswitch, mobimate, psiloc

It comes as no surprise that Duke’s network issues were ultimately found to lie with Cisco and not with the Apple iPhone. After all, if this was a general issue with the iPhone, every open wifi connection in San Francisco (and other me-too gadget locales) would have been crashing just like Duke’s.

Other than applying a patch from Cisco, the root-cause remains a bit murky:

“Cisco has provided a fix that has been applied to Duke’s network and the problem has not occurred since,” the statement read. Cisco did not describe what the source of the problem was. Late on June 20, Duke released a statement elaborating on the problem and how it was resolved. “The reality is that a particular set of conditions made the Duke wireless network experience some minor and temporary disruptions in service,” said Tracy Futhey, the university’s chief information officer, in a statement. “Those conditions involve our deployment of a very large Cisco-based wireless network that supports multiple network protocols. Cisco worked closely with Duke and Apple to identify the source of this problem, which was caused by a Cisco-based network issue,” the statement said.

Sounds like one of those political non-apologies where ‘mistakes have been made’ but no admission of guilt or responsibility is offered.

Technorati Tags:
apple, iphone, ddos, cisco, chaos, iDDOS

Nokia Media Transfer was quietly released earlier in June but it is good that Mac owners are finally getting some Nokia love with regard to supporting software. From the NMT site:

The Nokia Media Transfer application enables you to transfer pictures, videos, podcasts, music, and files between your Nokia mobile device and your Mac.

Looks like it is limited to N-series devices for now and requires iTunes 7 and iPhoto 6 or higher. Works fine with my N75.

Of course, this will do nothing to stem the feeding frenzy of people buying iPhones on Friday, but it is nice to have the additional synch features available for the N75 and other N-series phones from Nokia.

It’s worth pointing out that you can get the N75 on Amazon for less than $25USD (with an activation plan) versus the $600USD that the iPhone will set you back.

Technorati Tags:
nokia, mac, apple, software, free

While much attention has been paid to whether or not Apple will open the iPhone to development I think that a more fundamental question has been missed in the process — why are Steve Jobs and Apple afraid of opening the iPhone to third-party developers? Is it because they have a sense that the underlying OS is not terribly stable? How many times have you heard Jobs use the example ‘…well, when you install other apps the phone might crash’. Is it because there is not really a robust developer framework that includes exception handling underneath? What is the reason for their reticence?

I contrast to Nokia (and other phone manufacturers) approach of allowing, neigh, encouraging third-party development on their Symbian-based smartphones. Granted, Symbian is not perfect but it does provide a rich and relatively stable environment for the development of everything from games to productivity apps on mobile phones. An those are just the ‘native’ apps, there are a large number of Java-based apps available for those devices as well. No word on Java on the iPhone as of yet.

With the Apple WWDC revelation cum stopgap announcement that third-party development will be allowed on the iPhone, albeit thin applications that have their UI on the phone and heavy lifting is done off-phone via (presumably) web service calls of some sort. If truly limited to ‘Web 2.0 standards’ [sic] for iPhone app development, the applications will likely have very limited access to the device itself for integrating with the address book, camera and other built-in functions. To some, Apple’s stance on iPhone development will be taken as validation of thin-client/rich-client/services-based development. To others, it will just seem a cop out.

It will be interesting to see how this evolves and whether it will ultimately provide a satisfactory development and deployment environment for non-Apple applications and services. Of course, the resolution of that question won’t keep Apple from selling truckloads of iPhones on 29 June.

Technorati Tags:
apple, iphone, symbian, nokia, mobile, development

A double-blind test conducted in Norway reveals no evidence that mobile phones cause headaches and other complaints. It fact, it seems to indicate that people complained more about the devices that did not emit RF than the ones that did. Withdrawal perhaps?

Technorati Tags:
mobile, rf, danger, test

Great, so now people are watching and dissecting iPhone commercials as if they were the freakin Zapruder Film…

It’s going to be tough to sustain this level of froth around the iPhone without some people being disappointed.

Technorati Tags:
apple, iphone, commercials, wasteoftime

If you buy this unit, you had better hope that you never need support for it from Magellan. Their phone support direct-dial number merely dumps you with a ‘call cannot be completed’ message every time you call. If you actually do get to a human, they really don’t care much about customer support.

My unit shipped with a defective mounting bracket. After numerous calls to support I finally talked to someone in support who promised to send replacement parts. Several calls later I find that the parts are suddenly on back order and won’t arrive on the promised date. The support supervisor told me ‘I am under no obligation to do anything further about it’. When I asked the ’supervisor’ his name, he made up some Anglicized name through his heavy accent.

Hello, Magellan, be careful who you outsource your support to — how hard is it to find people who actually understand support? Or does it count against them to actually provide support versus doing the classing dump and run. Immediately after this phone conversation, I returned this defective unit and will buy a Garmin. I have owned several Garmin products in the past and I have never had support issues with. Ever.

I took a chance on Magellan because of price and learned once again that you get what you pay for. And, yes, Magellan, I have related my poor experience to others who also bought Garmin. Not that I expect any positive response from Magellan. Buyer Beware — Magellan support sucks.

Technorati Tags:
magellan, gps, suckage, defective, crapsupport, buygarmin

With my aging Nokia 6620 beginning to give signs of giving up the ghost, I began looking for a replacement mobile phone. I was hoping that Cingular would finally get around to releasing the N73 but that was not to be. Cingular briefly teased the market with the on again off again release of the N75. A week later, they put the N75 back on their site, so I dove in and purchased one.

I didn’t spring for express service because deliveries usually show up within 2-3 days anyway. I didn’t realize that they were going to use a FedEx shipping method that would wind up sending the phone to within 40 miles of my home address, then 100 miles away so that it could then be put on a truck an delivered. Enough about shipping logistics, you probably want to hear about the phone.

First blush: the N75 is a very impressive phone, probably the best mobile I have owned. I typically don’t care for clamshell phones, but this one is very solid with a very usable display on the outer cover in addition to a gorgeous bright, clear main display inside the phone. The keypad layout is a bit different from the 6620, the biggest differences being in the tight layout of the utility keys and the addition of a music key to the right of the four-way keypad. The close proximity of the utility keys has caused me to accidentally press the Music key more than a few times. I also find it a bit awkward to highlight text for copy and paste due to the proximity of the ‘pencil’ key and the directional arrows.

Before talking about applications on the N75 it is worth noting that the phone ships with no external memory, only the built in RAM, of which around 40MB is available to the user. While Cingular and Nokia are more than happy to sell you a 2GB microSD card for nearly $200USD, you can get a SanDisk 2GB microSD for around $25USD from Amazon. I have the SanDisk 2GB and it works just fine with the N75.

There have been a few challenges in migrating some of my Symbian-based apps to the N75. My SlovoEd Spanish-English dictionary would not install until I upgraded to the S60 v3 version of the application. The problem is that the dictionary apparently takes a differently formatted license key than the one I have. As of yet, the vendor has not provided a resolution to the license issue. Profimail is the app that I depend on to keep up with my various POP and IMAP accounts while on the go. Profimail was a simple upgrade, but I ran into a hitch with the license key as well. A posting on their support forum yielded a response that an email to customer support should have an updated license key on the way. I use Papyrus as a more functional tool for keeping track of appointments on my mobile. The Papyrus install was straightforward after I worked out that the correct version to install was the ‘9.1′ version of the software and not the ‘6.1′ version — no license key issues with Papyrus. Apparently Nokia refers to the 9.1 version of the Symbian OS as ‘S60 v3′. Handy Weather upgraded and registered with no issues. Handy Weather lives up to its name, especially when I am traveling abroad and need to get an idea of the weather. I huge proponent of Java, I am happy to mention that the three Java-based apps that I use most frequently Google Maps, Google Mail and Opera Mini downloaded and installed with no issues at all. Sadly, my daughter’s favorite game Frozen Bubble, will not install on the N75. It was such a fun and simple game. I have yet to find another free (or otherwise) replacement for it.

Update 19 May 2007: Both Profimail and Papyrus have resolved their license key issues via email. Epocware, however, wants me to re-purchase the software minus a ‘loyalty discount’ — not very enlightened customer service.

Phone reception on the N75 I would rate as better than the 6620 as I tend to get more bars and better sounding audio with the N75 in the same places that the 6620 would struggle. The ringer is quite loud, owing to the two external ’stereo’ speakers on the phone. I have not had an opportunity to tryout the speakerphone quality.

The N75’s camera has been something of a mixed bag. I was looking forward to having a decent (2 MegaPixel) camera on the phone, but it seems a bit quirky. One annoying behavior is that when you click the button to take a photo it presents you with a still frame of the image you think you are capturing. However, the actual image isn’t taken until a second or two later. For me, this has resulted in several pictures of blurs because the actual photo takes as I am bringing the camera back to have a look at the image. I guess it just takes a bit of patience and getting used to.

The Nokia N-Series site advertises that the phone can upload photos directly to Flickr [can't link because of annoying flash-only site]. Great, I thought, I have been a Flickr participant for a few years now. However, it appears that Cingular has chosen to disable this feature out of the box on the N75 (shock!). A quick troll through the NSeries forum on Flickr reveals that you can download the configuration file to your N75 via Bluetooth that will re-enable this feature.

Another initial frustration that was soon alleviated was that neither Apple nor Nokia provides an iSync profile for the N75 to work with OS X. It only took a few days for one to surface — the only unfortunate thing is that it is hosted on the hateful file sharing site rapidshare [no link]. I have considered hosting it on my site, but have not had time to work out the logistics.

This is as far as I have gotten with the N75 with very little time to explore it’s options. Hopefully, I will have more time to explore (photos, video, mp3 player, included apps, and more) and report in the coming days and weeks.

Technorati Tags:
nokia, cingular, n75, mobile, review

Not sure I completely buy the premise of this post: ‘Is iPhone Anticipation slowing Cingular Smartphone Sales?‘. Sounds like the Osborne Effect, applied to mobile phones. While I am confident that there is a lot of interest in the coming iPhone — I, for one, would have bought a Nokia N75 last Friday (though I prefer the N73) if Cingular was able to keep it up on their site for more than a few hours before pulling it for some undisclosed reason.

The iPhone is slick looking, but how well does it work as a phone? And when will the closed nature of the iPhone be addressed? Nokia has always delivered a solid product that never loses site of the fact that it is a phone first.

I look forward to moving my existing apps on my aging but still functional Nokia 6620 over to an N-series phone once they become available. The extensibility of the Symbian platform used by Nokia is a big plus for me and one that Apple is going to need to match if they want my business.

Technorati Tags:
nokia, nseries, apple, iphone, cingular, n75

The ASUS Aura concept mobile phone is a stylish competitor to the iPhone. It addresses a few key issues that the iPhone lacks (like expandability via memory card and an option for a keyboard). Problem is, it is just a concept and probably won’t see the light of day anytime soon.

Technorati Tags:
gadgets, asus, aura, iphone

Casio has recently celebrated the sale of its one billionth calculator. It is amazing to think about the progression of calculator functionality and form factor over that period of time as well as how they went from being an expensive novelty to an everyday item that is practically given away.

Technorati Tags:
gadgets, technology, history

Check out this video from TED where Jeff Han demonstrates an intuitive interface-free touch screen device and several applications that make use of it. The photography lightbox and the NASA mapping application are absolutely stunning. Now this is some real innovation in computing.

technorati tags: ted, interface, ui, ideas, innovation

I am sure you’ve had this same thought while looking for the ever-misplaced remote control — “I wish I had a homing device for the #$@! thing”. Well now you can. Using Loc8tor you can tag and locate items up to 600 feet (183 meters) away.

technorati tags: homing, loc8tor, gadgets

You might remember the old optical illusion that could be seen as either the profile of a face or the silhouette of a vase or urn. Now there is a company called Turn Your Head that is offering you the real word equivalent of this illusion:

At Turn Your Head, we fill the space between two opposing profiles of your face. By spinning that space into a three dimensional “visage” that follows the outlined silhouettes of your two profiles, we create the “Pirolette”.

Place the “Pirolette” to your face and it will match your profile. Locate it near a wall and the shadow of the “Pirolette” will be your silhouette.

All you need to do is provide an appropriately composed photo of the subject and fork over some cash and your own personal pirolette can be yours.

technorati tags: sculpture, pirolette, fun, turnyourhead

Considering my previous rants posts regarding the Newton, this article on cnet UK is all the more vindicating. The gist of the article is that a new ‘innovative’ MS-based Samsung portable computer can’t compare to the capabilities of a ten year old Newton. In fact, the article goes on to point out numerous times how the Samsung appears to be a very close copy of the Newton on several features.

I can only imagine the hotness that was the Newton tuned up with a high res color screen, built in Wi-Fi, and all the other modern conveniences in my hand today.

technorati tags: apple, newton, pda, umpc, gadgets

Here is a random thought that I had driving into work the other day: what if Apple were to combine the sudden motion sensor technology that they have in the MacBook with the iPod? Then, on the iPod, if you wanted to ’shuffle’ songs you could simply shake your iPod in a certain way, an viola!, tunes are shuffled. This could even be used to advance or replay a song.

Obviously this would need to have some sort of a button or some other ‘release’ that would allow this to work. Otherwise, the simple act of walking around or jogging would be forever activating this feature.

technorati tags: apple, ipod, suddenmotion, ideas, gadgets