Category: Tech

100 Blogs in 100 Days

Duncan Riley has a feature at The Blog Herald, an excellent blog that has been on my daily reading list forever, called 100 Blogs in 100 Days.

Newsome.Org was selected for today, day number 54 (which, perhaps appropriately, is also Halloween). I am truly honored to be selected. I have blogged quite a bit about how hard it is for a relatively new blog to get noticed, and this is, without a doubt, the best “notice” we have received. I have found a lot of interesting blogs via this feature, so hopefully a few folks will find me.

Many thanks Duncan!

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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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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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Roadrunner Blues

jkOnTheRun, another Houston guy, has an interesting post about his recent troubles with Roadrunner.

His descriptions of his calls with various tech support technicians are as humorous as they are frustrating. I know well the feeling you get when you identify the script they are reading from and know exactly where they are trying to lead you (almost always to the door that says “not our problem- call someone else”). The problem is that there are only a few alternatives for broadband internet access. DSL is too slow and unreliable. No one uses that DirecTV satellite internet stuff. For me, it’s either Roadrunner or Roadrunner. Fortunately, after a very rocky start, my Roadrunner connection has worked very well.

I have been a Roadrunner customer since the service became available several years ago. JK’s experience brings back memories of those early, frustrating days. I called more times than I can remember trying to get the cable light on my cable modem to stay on. After I wrote may scathing posts to the Roadrunner newsgroup to no avail, I finally called the President of Time Warner Houston, who had been a client of mine, and begged for help. Finally some guys showed up and got me up and running.

Since then, and for most of the past 4-5 years, Roadrunner has been very reliable for me. Only once or twice in the past couple of years has my service been down- and then only for an hour or so. In fact, I didn’t lost my internet connection during Hurricane Rita.

So while I still have bad memories of my prior wars with Roadrunner, my service at the present is stable and reliable. Knock on wood.

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Thinkpad Tablet: Arrival and First Thoughts

This is the fifth part of my Thinkpad Tablet PC adventure. Part 1 is here, part 2 is here, part 3 is here and part 4 is here.

After a ball of confusion courtesy of Lonovo’s wildly unreliable order status page, my Thinkpad tablet PC arrived on Tuesday. The second battery arrived the next day.

Here are my initial impressions.

It is very light- which will be a good thing when travelling. It is even lighter than the Fujitsu I was using- and it has a lot more features, most importantly a keyboard.

Set up was simple. I added the security key to my wireless network and the computer connected right away. I updated Windows and Norton Antivirus, installed Office 2003, updated it, and imported my RSS feeds and bookmarks. In less than 2 hours (most of which was download and install time), I was up, completely updated and running.

A very nice touch is that the battery comes charged, so you can get started right away.

The screen is bright and clear, the trackpoint is firm and easy to use (I like it a lot better than a touchpad) and the keyboard is excellent as you would expect from a Thinkpad.

The conversion to and from laptop to tablet is easy and the connection between the computer and the monitor is very firm and sturdy.

It is easy to hold in your lap and use, whether in laptop or tablet mode.

This computer is going to be fun and easy to use when I travel. So far I am completely pleased.

I’ll post at least one more review after I take it on the road, but so far I give it high marks.

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TIVO Deathwatch: No Netflix Deal

nailcoffinEngadget reports that Netflix has abandoned its efforts to reach a deal with TIVO to facilitate movie downloads.

The problem: the Hollywood cartel won’t grant the necessary licenses to allow movies to be distributed via download to a TIVO. As Engadget points out, everyone and their dog knew this would happen when the Netflix/Tivo deal was first discussed.

As I have said before, I have loved my TIVOs- even though my primary soon to be obsolete HD TIVO is sputtering to a premature and not uncommon death as we speak. TIVO’s efforts at grabbing for a rope while the waves crash around it was noble at first. Now it’s just sad.

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Friday's Link: Make a Police Sketch

Ultimate Flash Face lets you create a sketch of a face by selecting various facial features- sort of like a police sketch artist would. I tried to create a sketch of someone I know, but I couldn’t get it just right.

It’s still a neat diversion worth a few minutes of web time.

Bonus link for Friday night surfers: NPR is going to webcast a Son Volt concert at around 10:00 p.m. central time tonight. The show hasn’t started yet, but I’m tuned in and waiting.

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Friday's Link: Netvibes

I have used My Yahoo as my primary news and information page for many years, and overall I am still very happy with it. With the increasing presence of blogs and other RSS content on the web, however, I have found that many of the pages I read regularly have RSS feeds that can be read via feed readers or other RSS aggregators. In fact, My Yahoo now allows you to add RSS content, and I have done so. But My Yahoo stuffs the RSS content into the existing My Yahoo layout and configuration. That’s not a bad thing, but sometimes I think it would be nice to have more control over the layout and the way content is displayed.

Now comes Netvibes. This free web service lets you create a personalized page, similar to My Yahoo, with any RSS content you like. It’s still in beta, so it’s a little rough around the edges and the true potential lies in what the developers may add in the coming weeks and months. So far, so good, however. It has a very flexible and configurable interface. If you sign up and get login information (which is not required to begin using the service), you can access your page anytime and from any computer (again, much like My Yahoo).

You can easily add content and move it around the page until you get the perfect display. Better yet you can import OPML files as well. You can even import, download and listen to podcasts without any additional software (though I have not tried this yet).

If you use Gmail for email, you can integrate your email account into your page and access your email instantly.

The developers have a blog where you can read about the current and planned features. It’s a work in progress for sure, but keep your eye on Netvibes.

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Thinkpad Tablet: On Closer Review

This is the fourth part of my Thinkpad Tablet PC adventure. Part 1 is here, part 2 is here and part 3 is here.

The good news is that I received a package from Lenovo. The bad news is that is wasn’t my Tablet PC. The worse news is that I have no idea when the PC will ship. Very frustrating.

The package contained only the copy of OneNote that is supposed to come with the PC. Of course since the PC doesn’t have a CD player, it will be a challenge to install it when the PC finally arrives. That’s not a big deal, though. What is a big deal is not knowing what year, much less what week or month the PC will be shipped.

Upon further (and much closer) review of the shipping email from Lenovo (see Part 3), it says that “part of my order” shipped and the part is this lonely copy of OneNote.

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To make matters even more frustrating, the Lenovo order status page helpfully reports that my order is in “Packing” and has been for days. Packing must take a long time since the same chart indicates an estimated shipping date of 11/8/05. I conclude from all of this that none of these dates or status designations mean anything. The PC will show up at some unknown future date. Unless I want to call Lenovo again and try to get someone on the phone with whom I can successfully converse, that’s all the information I can count on.

The verdict: My once great desire for this computer continues to diminish. If I had a shipping date I could count on, that would help- even if it was a month or two away. The uncertainty is highly frustrating. The new Gateway tablet continues to call my name.

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