Author: Kent

Reader, writer, arithmeticer. Proprietor of Newsome.Org, a tech, music and life blog.

RanchoCast Goes Beta

I trashed my first stab at a podcast and replaced it with the beta version of the now renamed RanchoCast.

Update: Here’s the list of the episodes that survived.

This one only has 3 songs, including one of mine- Haunted House, which I co-wrote with Ronnie Jeffrey. It’s still in early beta, so we’ll see if and how things progress.

I am beginning to formulate a plan for how this podcast might work. Cassidy recorded some on the microphone tonight and seemed to enjoy it. My plan is to implement a family podcast, with everybody selecting a song each week- sort of like Fred Wilson does.

It’s going to have to be fast and easy for me to do it regularly. I’m not there yet, but the fact that I’m considering a regular podcast shows that I’ve come a long way.

Interesting Halloween Site

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Old Haunts is a neat web site that includes old photographs of Halloweens long past. Lots of cool stuff.

I wish someone would do a wiki or other collaborative site to compile this sort of thing. I really enjoy looking at vintage stuff about Halloween, Christmas, etc. A few years ago I even bought a couple of 60s era Sears Christmas catalogs off of eBay just to look at all the stuff I used to long for as a kid.

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Podcast at Last

After I crapped all over podcasting, I went and tried to make one.

Here is the very alpha version of my first KentCast. This is just 5 songs that happened to be in my Playing Now window when I hit the button.

I’ll post more later, but I believe the combination of the soon to be released version of Media Center, which I have used for years as my primary music player and highly recommend, and King Sparta’s Podcast Creator Plug-In may just be the tools needed to make podcasting easy enough to be useful.

We still have the elephant in the room, and I’ll take this podcast down after I test it in favor of some other stuff that I might actually have the right to podcast. But at least I can now create a podcast with a push of a button. Now if I can just find something I can legally podcast that anyone would want to listen to.

UPDATE: I tested and deleted that podcast and replaced it with the beta version of the now renamed RanchoCast.

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10 Must Have Gadgets

And I own nary a one.

top10I think of myself as a gadget hound, but maybe old age is catching up with me. C|Net has a list of the Top 10 Must Have Gadgets, and I don’t own any of them. Recall that I own or used to own 7 out of their 10 Best Products of the Past 10 Years.

Here are C|Net’s current top 10 gadgets and why I don’t own them:

1) Sony Play Station Portable: I’m over computer games (with the lurking exception of Civilization IV). Plus I have 2 kids who don’t know video games exist and I want to keep it that way.

2) Apple iPod: I don’t have many occasions to use a portable MP3 player. If I did, I’d certainly consider an iPod.

3) Sling Box: If I knew it would work flawlessly with my soon to be obsolete TIVO and whatever subsequent box DirecTV forces on me, I’d think about it. But I just don’t have many occasions to want to watch my TV from somewhere else.

4) Sony Ericsson W800i: If I don’t want a portable MP3 player, I certainly don’t want an MP3 phone.

5) Toshiba Qosmio G25-AV513: I’m very happy with my Thinkpad Tablet.

6) Archos Gmini 402: A fancier MP3 player that also does photos. Looks neat, but I’d never use it.

7) Nokia N9: I’m not even sure what this is, but I’m certain I’d never use all of its fancy features.

8) PalmOne Treo 650: I wish my firm would switch to these, but they gave me a Blackberry and a Blackberry I shall use.

9) Motorola Razr V3: Another fancy cell phone. Again, I use a Blackberry and if I could change it would be to a Treo.

10) Logitech Harmony 880: I may own one of these one day. I have been a long and loyal user of the MX-800, but the more I read about the Harmony, the more interested I become.

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A Ridiculous Offer

One of the most ridiculous things I have ever read came in the mail today.

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Some outfit called National Deed Services, Inc., which surprisingly claims to be based in Washington, DC as opposed to Nigeria, wrote me this official looking letter telling me that the U.S. Government Federal Citizen Information Center “recommends that property owners should have a certified copy of their deed.” These kind folks offer to get me one for only $69.50.

Where to start…

First of all, a Google search for the “U.S. Government Federal Citizen Information Center” leads to a lot of pages citing that esteemed web site, but no web site with that exact name. I suspect the reference is intended to be or appear to be a reference to FirstGov.Gov, the “U.S Government’s official web portal.” I searched for all the likely terms on that page and couldn’t find anything advising me to get a certified copy of my deed. So while it may be a good idea, I don’t think the U.S. government is screaming for me to pay these folks $69.50 to get me a certified copy of my deed…

Especially when I can easily get it myself for $62.50 less than these folks want to charge me. That’s right, you can get a certified copy of your deed from the local clerk’s office. In Harris County, the charge is $5.00 for the certification plus $1.00 per page. I have a 2 page deed so it would be $5.00 + $2.00 = $7.00.

I’m not the only person who has a problem with this so called service.

As noted in the article above, it’s not illegal to charge someone a high price to do something that can otherwise be done cheaply, so there’s nothing illegal about this offer. Plus, there is the language at the bottom that as much as tells you that you are being wildly overcharged (I suspect that some attorney general somewhere required them to add that language). Nevertheless, it’s wrong to scare people into thinking this is something they should do to protect themselves and then charge them almost 10 times the cost to do it.

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Black Squirrels

blacksquirrelThe BBC has an article about a rare black squirrel that regularly visits a garden in England.

I saw a black squirrel when I was a kid. One afternoon, after school, my mom and I were driving from my hometown to my mom’s hometown a couple of hours away. The route leads through a lot of pine forests. Somehow my mom noticed the squirrel foraging around near the edge of the woods beside the road. She stopped the car and backed up along the shoulder. We slipped out of the car and watched the squirrel for a few minutes.

I hadn’t thought about that squirrel in a long time until the other day when Cassidy asked me if there were red or black squirrels. I told her there were and that I had seen a black one one time. Then a few days later I see a link to this story on Robert Gale’s web site.

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Order Prints @ Flickr

I have written many times about Flickr, the photo storage and sharing web site and community. I think it is the single best addition to the internet in many years. In fact, I did a little experiment and tried to drag my friends and family into the 21st century by getting them to appreciate and use Flickr (the experiment was a total failure, but that had zero to do with Flickr and is a topic for another day).

Today’s news is that Flickr has added the one feature that it needed to add to become the undisputed king of photo sites- the ability to order prints. Like everything else at Flickr, this feature was added seamlessly and with many options.

With this addition, you can easily order posters and glossy photo books, prints and even postage stamps, right from the Flickr page. You can select who can order prints of your photos (friends and family or anyone) just like you can select who can see your photos.

Flickr is simply brilliant. If you are a digital photographer and would like to share them with the people you select, Flickr is simply the only choice.

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TIVO Deathwatch: DirecTV Stumbles Around Needlessly

There’s an interesting post on Thomas Hawk’s page about DirecTV’s difficulty in putting together its TIVO replacement boxes.

DirecTV has selected LG Electronics to make the DirecTV branded PVRs and has hired another company to help support MPEG-4. We have no reliable idea when we’ll see the HD PVR replacement. A lot of work just to be rid of TIVO. Plus, DirecTV risks losing some loyal TIVO customers who don’t want to switch to the new box.

All in all, I’m not sure who is really benefitting from this mess. Obviously DirecTV thinks it can put the money it was paying TIVO into its own pocket- maybe so, but there’s just not all that much money to be saved. And everyone other than DirecTV is certainly going to suffer.

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Mossberg on DRM

Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal has spoken out on DRM and its effect on the listener’s ability to use and enjoy the music he or she has supposedly purchased. Almost everything in The Wall Street Journal bores me to tears, but Walt’s technology columns are always well written and interesting.

He takes on objective, even-handed view of the issue, recognizing that both sides have legitimate issues. He concludes with this excellent suggestion:

I believe Congress should rewrite the copyright laws to carve out a broad exemption for personal, noncommercial use by consumers, including sharing small numbers of copies among families.

Because of Walt’s reputation and reach, perhaps the priority challenged RIAA will actually listen and reward its customers with some logical and fair proposals. If not, perhaps Congress will.

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