tech ronin

iPods, widescreen iBooks and Should you buy a Mac without Intel Inside?

A couple days ago I wrote this piece for my company's front page which tends to be about Mac and Apple. It could have been put here instead. Mac and/or iPod fans might want to check it out.

Unfortunately, since my Company site isn't a blog, the URL isn't a permalink. Either I'm not up on things, or TypePad needs to make it easier for me to integrate my blogs with my other websites. They are moving this way, it's just not their top priority. I probably need a TypePad web consultant to help me out.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iBook, Intel, iPod, Macintosh

New York Times 10-Pack, Part 2

It took me about 2 hours to pick out 10 articles I wanted. Once I got past about 5, I figured I might as well use it up the whole quota. I wasn't confident that I would get back here and use up the last 5 within my 30 day limit. I'm not an NYT regular yet.

All my articles were about China. I think I pretty well cleaned out the articles of interest since January of 2003. SARs was taking up a lot of ink in 2003, so that limited the output of other more interesting articles on China.

Here are the other 9 articles I bought today:

• Shanghai Journal; Splendid Skyline. Do You Feel Something Sinking?
• Shanghai Journal; All Aboard! But Don't Relax. Your Trip Is Already Over.
• North of Beijing, California Dreams Come True
• Beijing Journal; Chinese Take Recklessly to Cars (Just Count the Wrecks)
• Beijing Journal; A Factory Is Transformed by the Art of Real Estate
• Beijing Journal; Why Is That Woman Reading Aloud in Heavy Traffic?
• Beijing Journal; Sadly, There Goes the Neighborhood. There's No Stopping 'Urban Renewal.'
• Beijing Leaders' Populist Touch Is Not Felt by Most Rural Poor
• Chinese Official Fights Corruption, and Loses, for Now

So I spent $15.95 on this nice little mix of short articles. Was it worth it? Maybe. I have to say that Ted C. Fishman's book, China, Inc. beats the heck out of them for sheer quantity and depth of information and I spent about a dollar more on it. The writing is possibly better in the short articles, but Fishman is a good writer too - he's written for NYT, Harper's, Time and Esquire. The Amazon price on the new hardback is $17 bucks. In this case the book won. Other times, especially with time critical information, the articles might win.

But, Amazon wins by a mile in user experience. I found that it was pretty slow going searching through the NYT archives to find the best stuff. I couldn't force it to give me two separate words like China + lifestyles unless I put them together as a phrase which was too limiting. Using the two words without quotes gave me all sorts of lifestyles information about other places besides China.

I felt a little like I was slogging through sand. It wasn't the snappy experience that might have had me going back right away. This is one of those cases where an improved shopping and buying experience would lead to lots more sales.

Another thing I wanted to mention is that I really like the New York Times, but I don't want the huge amounts of paper I would get if I subscribed to the paper version. And I'm not big on ink either.

About halfway through, I decided to Google to see what kind of information I could get. The results weren't very satisfying. I got little teaser articles or short blurbs.

Then I tried the Newsweek website to see what they had on China, thinking a weekly magazine could go into more depth. They did. I found only one article of interest, but it was almost 4000 words. They charge $2.95 for a single article - a better price than NYT. The article I bought individually was called Does the Future Belong to China? It was worth the $2.95 I would say. This was a big overview kind of piece. Not as many interesting little stories, but well done and recommended if you haven't seen it and want to better understand China. Part 1.

Technorati Tags: Books, China, newspapers, NewYorkTimes, NYT, reading

Bought my first New York Times Article 10-Pack today

I've resisted paid sites on the internet so far, but today I decided to pay by the article for access to the New York Times archive. I usually try unsuccessfully to monitor the NYT and make sure I read or capture anything really good before it goes into their paid archives.

NYT lets you have free access to the last 7 days or so. Today, I tried out searching their archives for China, one of my current passionate interests. First, the search is very well done. There's advanced search and you can narrow your search to particular sections of the paper, that sort of thing.

I quickly found an article that was interesting that I hadn't read. It's called Shanghai Journal: A City's Traffic Plans Are Snarled by China's Car Culture. A great little 1,000 word read.

In order to read it, I could pay $3.95 for the article or buy a 4-pack for $7.95 which halved the per article price. That hooked me, so kept reading. The 10-pack is $15.95, not much less but $1.60 per article started seeming pretty cheap. I decided to go for 10. There has to be at least 10 articles in the archive that I would pay good money for (probably more like 1000 - hmmm that's $1,595. Yikes!).

I found out as I was nearing the check out that I would only have 30 days to select those 10 articles after which the unused articles would expire.

So, now they've got me looking in the NYT to find good articles to make sure I'll find 10 before my 30 days are up. That gets me more familiar with NYT. I've never been a subscriber, so don't know my way around all that well.

It seems like this approach will be a great way for NYT to make some money. In their case, I'm not worried about them. Their paper readership is still expanding and I think it's because people have gotten hooked by reading current articles free online. NYT has some of the best reporters and writers on the planet, so they are set.

Other papers probably won't fair so well unless they can distinguish themselves for excellence or local coverage.

OK. That's all for now, I gotta get back to my China search. Knowing me, I'll find 10 articles in the next hour and be popping another $15.95 soon. I can't say that 10 articles are worth more than something like the new Cold Play CD, but it's not bad. Part 2.

Technorati Tags: China, newspapers, NewYorkTimes, NYT

I have officially joined Treo Addicts

Today I made my first post for Treo Addicts! I was invited to write for their group blog and said yes. I'm really excited about this new undertaking. As you probably know, I've been a Treo enthusiast since buying my Treo 650 in early June. From now on, most of my Treo posts will be on the Treo Addicts site. I'll write a small post here to let you know when I've written new posts there. If you are interested, check out my post about Treo 650 Memory Woes and Wins.

Technorati Tags: cellphone, handhelds, mobilephone, mobility, Palm, smartphone, treo, treo650

Apple is Leaving Money on the Table

My gadget buddy Bob went over the top today and bought a 12" Powerbook to compliment his perfectly good 15" Powerbook. His plan is to take his 12" when traveling internationally which he does a few weeks a year.

Bob saves a 1 pound and 3 ounces. I know every pound helps, but really? It's true that the 12" is a good bit smaller than the 15". It's about 2-1/2" less wide and a little over an inch less high. But the main thing is that I've never even in my most grandiose moments considered getting an extra 12" Powerbook.

And Bob is not rich. He has a fair bit of what he regards as disposable income. I'm thinking there are a lot of Bobs out there. People who love Mac and already have a cool Powerbook and still would spend more for the right stuff.

Apple could make an uber Powerbook and go further into the luxury realm. And there would be lots of buyers.

Maybe that's not the right interpretation for Bob's behavior, though. Instead, perhaps it is that there hasn't been enough upgrading going on in the Powerbook space. The speed isn't going up fast enough to justify a new replacement Powerbook. I've had my Powerbook 15" 1.5 ghz for a year. What am I gonna do? Buy a PB15 1.67?

Perhaps the explanation for Apple's lack of upgrading is the power consumption issue that will soon (next year) be solved by going Intel inside. Whatever it is, I hope Apple gets going soon.

And, of course, there would be 10x more people in line to buy a second Powerbook if it were 2.5 lbs. or less like the mini notebooks that Dell is selling for around $1500. We are ready. Tiger does a great job of synching data on multiple Macs. Oh Steeeve, are you listening?

By the way, the rumor mill is hot with the imminent release of new iBooks. Maybe widescreen. I think we are overdue for widescreen all the way across the line. It would fit the HD theme for the year. Just make them as small as you can. Dump the CD/DVD drive for starters to save some weight. Now that we have 1 gig USB drives and wi-fi, we don't really need a built-in removable drive.

Technorati Tags: Apple, luxury, Macintosh, Powerbook, Ultraportable

Tiger OS X 10.4.2 Up and Running

Those of you Mac early adopters probably want to check your Software Update and pickup the upgrade that came out last night. I downloaded this upgrade along with iSync 2.1. It seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to reboot. During that time, I pondered what would happen if this was a freeze. How good were my backups?

Perhaps needless to say, I could have been better backed up. Luckily, it was just about that time that the blue screen came up and we were almost there.

I think we may be getting some speed improvement here with graphic adapter updates included in this upgrade. Opening windows goes faster than I recall. There was word that Tiger was going to be faster but that 10.4.0 didn't have the update. I have just upgraded, so all I can say so far is: No crash. No fuss. Apple has excellent summary information describing what they changed. Thanks, Apple. This is an extensive upgrade to many pieces of Tiger.

Technorati Tags: Apple, OSX

Mr. & Mrs. Smith - Loved it

The ultimate in gorgeous and glamour is also a great Hollywood movie! I'm already a big fan of Angelina Jolie, so that was good going in. This is a smart romantic comedy first and an entertaining actioner second. Happily, Ang and Brad bring out the best in each other - chemistry and connection is almost perfect. Brad, muscles and all, is funny, flirtatious and vulnerable while still being the boy with his toys cowboy assassin. Angelina is the smart, gorgeous, controlled, professional. Dialog and delivery are equally good.

Fighting is top-quality action. It's rare to see male and female opponents or team operating all out like this as different but equal Plus you get some Hong Kong style flare - lots of bullets and two-fisted shooting.

The action is entertaining and humorous. And I like the combination of action and romantic comedy in this instance. There's a War of the Roses subtext that goes on throughout that is really funny. One of my favorites was the look John gave Jane after she accidentally threw a knife into his thigh. Oops! His look and her response were priceless.

I was pleasantly surprised that there was a grain of plausibility to the story that they had been assigned to kill each other.

Brad and Angelina were outfitted with all the best furnishings, clothes and technology which I have to admit to enjoying thoroughly.

This movie is not elevating, it won't make you a better person. But, it will entertain at a very high level and the humor is smart. If you haven't seen this already, check it out.

Technorati Tags: movies

Treo 650 running AeroPlayer iTunes Skin

Here you go. This is a rather low quality photo of my Treo 650 screen. I am playing Om Malik's first pod cast. Cool, huh? I bought AeroPlayer yesterday with AAC and MP3 capability.

You can download a lot of free skins, one of which was this one! One major advantage to listening to podcasts or audio books on a Treo is that you have a built-in speaker. I can set the Treo down and listen to it or play it for myself and anyone else in my vicinity. This is a major convenience.

Besides not being able to do an iTunes-driven sync, you can't playback iTunes store AAC music. This is exactly the music I most want to play. There is a way to remove the iTunes DRM using a 3rd-party app which I haven't yet tried but probably will -- knowing me. AeroPlayer has more info if you want it.

In the mean time, yesterday I burned 17 of my favorite iTunes-DRM songs to a CD. Then I imported them back into iTunes as AAC 256. Then I dragged those songs to my Treo SD card and they played fine. Since I don't have a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter, I can't listen to these songs with a high-quality headset but, I have one on order so I can check that out.

Truth is, I'll be listening with my phone/music headset that's on order, so the signal degradation of going from DRM-AAC to CD and then AAC probably won't matter for my purposes.

I knew this, so I didn't spend a lot of time looking for a way to rid my songs of their DRM. I have mixed feelings about doing that and this method still works for my purposes.

Couldn't resist showing you how close one can get to running iTunes on a Treo 650.

Technorati Tags: iTunes, cellphone, AeroPlayer, handhelds, mobilephone, mobility, Palm, PalmOne, podcasting, smartphone, treo, treo650

Treo 650: 3 Podcasts for starters

Probably the most knowledgeable Palm user who is podcasting is Jeff Kirvin, who is doing the 1src.com podcast. He's all over the Palm forums and runs some too. Anyway, he's got a podcast and has done a whole bunch of them. I've only heard one so far, but plan to back fill them in over the next few weeks because I'm sure there's lots of good information in there that I want to know. They are listed in the podcast directory on iTunes if you have iTunes 4.9. Find out about Apple and podcasting on their dedicated podcasting page. (Although a little rough around the edges, I think iTunes is the easiest way to capture and manage your podcasts at the moment.)

Another main source podcast which is only going to tangentially inform on Treo 650, is the Engadget podcast. Peter Rojas is a Treo 650 owner. I just listened to the June 21 cast and it has a nice little chunk on the Treo 650. These guys are in a position to talk about things I want to know. So, put them on your list to try out. They are listed in iTunes.

Then, there's the reason I wrote this post. Something you probably have not found on your own: The Palmloyal podcast. So far, Carl Brooks has only done 2 of them since he started in mid-June. I'm hoping there will be many more. These are not fancy or even very entertaining. What makes them great for me, at least, is that they cover key pieces of information that I wanted to know. Very information/experience-rich.

I especially liked the second podcast which is 27 minutes long - not too much of a time sink. The best parts are (1) Using your own custom ROM. By rolling your own, you can delete out some of the standard Palm stuff that you've replaced with better third party versions. That's what Carl does and he tells you what he's got on there. This means you don't have to (a) use up RAM with your replacements or (b) put your replacements on your SD card which slows them down. Shadowmite's Treo Tricks, Hacks and Patches is a site not to be missed if you want or need to maximize your Treo and you are willing to venture into more geeky stuff. (2) What's on my Palm?. Which tells you 5 pieces of third-party software that Carl Brook's has on his Treo 650 and what he likes about them.

There's lots more to tell, so I'll be pumping out more Treo posts in the near future.

Technorati Tags: cellphone, handhelds, mobilephone, mobility, Palm, PalmOne, podcasts, smartphone, treo, treo650, wireless

Treo 650 User Report: favorite game, favorite blogger

Just a couple more things as I continue to research the Treo 650. One, I found a fun little simulation called Village Sim. It runs 24/7 whether or not your machine is on. Make sure to run the tutorial - it's one of those that gets you started in a real game with advice as you go along. This is very well done.

I haven't played a game like this even though I have played Sim City, Civilization and Warcraft and they have some slight resemblance. I found it via my other rediscovery of Pocket Goddess. She reviewed Village Sim and on that basis alone, I bought the game. My only Treo game at the moment. I'm usually too busy blogging and surfing and what not - which I enjoy a lot - to play games, but Pocket Goddess lured me.

Then somehow, I found myself over at Pocket Goddess and noticed that she does quite a few features, interviews and reviews. I'm very impressed. This is encouraging. I'm back to ferreting out and reading good stuff about Palms and Treos at the moment.

And, after an hour or so playing Village Sim (sometimes letting it play and sometimes intervening), my progress is so-so. I lost my best guy when he saw a face at the edge of the forest and I had the choice for him to investigate or back away. Investigation proved fatal! Other than that, I've managed to get one couple to have a baby. That was fun.

One last little warning about Village Sim. If your eyesight isn't too good, you may have trouble. There's a lot of little stuff on the screen. I pulled out a magnifying glass to help me out and that actually worked well. Thick reading glasses might work too.

Anyway, that's how the evening of Saturday, July 2nd is going. I just moved my big green leather recliner and ottoman into my home office along with a couple of bookcases. I decided that now that I'm mainly using my Powerbook, I don't need two desks in my office. So the desk is gone and I've kind of created a home library -- something I've always wanted.

That's it for now. I'll be reporting further on the Treo soon.

Technorati Tags: cellphone, games, mobilephone, mobility, Palm, treo, treo650