Feb/090
Windows Mobile 6.5
Have you heard any of the news about WinMo 6.5? You can be pardoned if, at the very mention of Windows Mobile, you immediately started to dismiss this post - normally, I would have done the same. Click the picture on the left, though, and I think you’ll change your mind. Microsoft seems like they’ve finally woken up from their hibernation, and put out something worth checking out.
Now, I know that there are a lot of people who will immediately claim that Microsoft copied someone else when they did this, but really, every programmer out there copies someone else, so I won’t really entertain that argument. Face it, when some enterprising programmer builds a program that tweaks a product, and people buy it, what they REALLY wish is that the company that made that product would do that in the first place. The danger to that company comes when someone else comes up with a totally different product – like in the case of Firefox. I’ve talked about how I used Maxthon, and there were about a hundred other “browsers” out there that used the Trident engine, but added on extras. But when Firefox came out, that was (and remains) the real competition. Competition can be good though – IE7 is the best browser MS has released, and IE8 seems to be even better. In fact, going back to the copying argument, MS actually fostered the first development community for a browser with IE add-ons. Firefox just took it one better (and MS STILL hasn’t gotten that part right).
But the WinMo video illustrates exactly why I continue to root for MS. Microsoft is a massive company, and yet it can still move with lightening speed when it’s threatened. Think Zune is a joke? Think of this: In two years Microsoft became the second most sold HD MP3 player. Yes, I know that Apple out-sells them every year, but think about how many other MP3 players are out there that have been selling for years, and MS passed them all in only a few years. That’s really incredible, if you think about it. Are they going to beat Apple? Ha, I don’t think they will any time soon. But, if they were to focus a bit harder, who knows…Remember the XBox?
Until then, I’m looking forward to seeing what some real competition is going to provide consumers in the next few years. It’s an exciting time for a buyer’s market!
Oct/080
Welcome to the future: Samsung shows off super-thin display.
This is just stunning. Samsung unveiled a .05mm thick display, which, mostly for effect, they hung in the air, and allowed to flutter in the air. For comparison, the average hair on the human head is between .04 – .25mm thick. In fact, they could have made it even thinner, but the circuits got in the way.
It was for another article, but this comment really sums up my thoughts of this. Except for the part about being a toddler in the ‘60s. :
…I’m not sure when I realized we lived in the future. Might have been when the mobile phone went from being a yuppy toy to being… I dunno… whatever wearing a watch is? Broadband intertoob certainly helped. I was looking at some photos of me as a toddler in the 60s and by golly it looks a long time ago. Sometime in the 70s we quietly became “modern”. Up until that point nothing much had changed for the average Joe over the previous 60 years. But in the 70s societal changes became obvious and that prepared us for where we are now. The “future”.
Oct/080
LHC Internet2 network to be managed by real brain cells
Is this the beginning of Skynet or what?
Researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology plan to use living neural networks composed of thousands of brain cells from laboratory rats to control simulated power grids in the lab.
From those studies, they hope to create a “biologically inspired” computer program to manage and control complex power grids in Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria and elsewhere, and possibly other complex systems, such as traffic-control systems or global financial networks.
The Missouri S&T team will work with researchers at Georgia Tech’s Laboratory for Neuroengineering, where the living neural networks have been developed and are housed and studied. A high-bandwidth Internet2 connection will connect those brain cells over 600 miles to Venayagamoorthy’s Real-Time Power and Intelligent Systems Laboratory. Missouri S&T researchers will transmit signals from that lab in Rolla, Mo., to the brain cells in the Atlanta lab, and will train those brain cells to recognize voltage signals and other information from Missouri S&T’s real-time simulator.
Jan/080
Who knew?
Who knew a tetanus shot would make you run a fever? Well, apparently I didn’t. Last night I began feeling just horrible, and today I’m running a 100° fever. Which is just enough to make you feel cold and hot all at the same time. Here’s to hoping tomorrow brings better.
On a related note, Dvorak has a post about how sewing machines manage to get two pieces of thread to combine. Something else I never knew.
Jun/070
Missing Lunch…
This afternoon my boss and I attempted to eat lunch at Mothership BBQ. Alas, we neglected to check their blog first! According to “their” post, Mothership is getting some new investors, and a new location.
Does it sound weird to you that a restaurant has a blog? Well, for Mothership, blogs have been the primary method of advertisement. One of those successes of grassroots media, a trip to Mothership usually ends with meeting several local bloggers, as well as some who have traveled to eat the much talked about BBQ. I’ll be looking forward to visiting the new location.
By the way, their food – friggin’ amazing!
May/071
ZuneIt, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, and iPod Amnesty
Found some amazing videos on YouTube of Radiohead live at le reservoir), and some Pumpkins as well. Used the handy little ZuneIt plugin for IE (found through LifeHacker – great site!) to download those vids, convert to wmv format, and then I can synch them to my Zune. This will be quite nice for our roadtrip today.
Seems that one of our n00b’s at the office is a Mac guy. I give all the Mac peeps a hard time here, and found a great picture for them. Absolutely priceless.
May/071
I got a Zune
Sometimes I can be very bad at keeping something to myself. Especially when it’s technology, and it’s something I consider very exciting. I’m not sure how long ago it was, but when Microsoft first started their viral campaign for the Zune (something like comingzune.com?), I found out about it, and was about 30 times more excited than I was about the Origami project. I’ve just never been a fan of the iPod, probably more because of the fact that I just don’t like Steve Jobs, but I’m sure I could post a few credible reasons as well (their songs are low-quality, they segment thousands of bands out of the US market, etc, etc, etc). Anyway, I’m getting off track. I was also able to work on their email campaign introducing the Zune (which I tried and failed to get a free Zune out of – bummer). I’ve read every review of the Zune that I’ve been able to find, and know just about every hack there is for it…and that was before I even had one. Then, for my birthday, my wife’s present was a Zune! As you can imagine, I was elated. I’ve had it a few days now, so here’s a slightly biased review of it, and a wishlist for the future Zune.
I’ve been really impressed with the Zune overall. I dropped it the other day in the parking lot, and really thought broke it, but it didn’t even have a scratch, so that was nice. Also, all of my music fit on it, and some videos, and I still have about 9 GB of space left – awesome! The FM tuner is something I love…although I wish I could record FM radio. Navigating the menus is awesome…and I love the way that you can use the left right buttons to navigate among whatever category you’re in (for instance, if I’m browsing an artist, the left/right buttons will go to the previous/next artist, respectively). Battery time is great – I can load my playlist, and play all day at the office without needing a charge. I also love the resolution – All of my pics and videos show up great, although there is some slight choppiness in color gradients sometimes (not sure of the color term for that).
I’m really into customizing whatever I’m working with, so I love the full-color screen that I can set the wallpaper for – very nice feature! So far I’ve been using iTunes to listen to some podcasts, and, thanks to some cool guys at work, I’ve added some video podcasts as well, and I can check those out on my Zune later on.
My wish list:
- I wish you could edit any playlist (not just the quick one). It’d be nice to have a add to… and the have the quick list the default choice, with the other playlists sorted maybe on usage?
- I wish you could delete items from the Zune
- I wish you could make a video playlist (If you can, I haven’t figured it out yet). I actually made a playlist in the Zune software, and synched that, and all I have are videos, not a playlist.
- Why can’t you flag videos?
- The pre-loaded videos have nice descriptions, but I haven’t found out how to make those for the videos I’ve gotten. And can I add types of videos (like music videos, movies, etc), or flag my new videos as one of those types?
- It’d be nice if you could have the option to put an image as your background in vertical or horizontal layout. I have an image that’d go great horizontally, but there’s no option to do that.
- WHY, o WHY doesn’t WMP or the Zune software support podcasts?!!?!?!?
- WHY, o WHY is WMP and Zune software separate?!?!!??
- I can’t play songs on my Zune from the software. Again, I’m at work, and I’m looking at my Zune on my computer…why can’t I just play those songs…
- ..and on a related note, I can’t edit playlists on the Zune – from my computer or on the Zune.
Apr/070
A Penny Saved is twopence dear
copyblogger has a list of great tips for marketing your business online.
Sep/060
Live Documents
Anyone who’s worked in a virtual group or across time zones knows the frustration of keeping documents synchronized. Email really can make that bad – with multiple emails on the same document it can be confusing to know which is the latest one. At least one company seems to have a great solution: Live Documents. I found out about them from Techcrunch, and the review there is pretty good. I’ll post more on it later as I use it.
