tech ronin

iPod mobile due Sep 7

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are both saying Apple will be unveiling the new iPod cell phone next Wednesday. It will be a Motorola phone. The carrier will be my very own Cingular. I have a Treo 650. I don't need an iPod mobile. I think I can resist - where's the nearest support group?

Apple has scheduled the event in San Francisco. Where can I get a press credential I wonder? Oh, that's right - Apple says bloggers aren't journalists. Darn!

Looks like you'll be able sync iTunes with your iPod mobile just as you can with any other iPod. I'm actually wondering if it will be called the iPod mobile. That has a certain ring to it.

In iTunes 4.9, there's even a way to get the new mobile phone icon to appear in Preferences where the iPod icon usually is. I've done it and seen the teeny-tiny cell phone icon with my own eyes.

Peter Rojas, editor-in-chief of Engadget, said recently on one of the Engadget podcasts that there will be 512 megs of storage on the device. I, of course, would hope that storage is delivered as a card. The best guess would be a miniSD card. If we got a card slot, then we would have a huge improvement because you can have multiple cards - one for podcasts, one for music for the gym - whatever. I can always get an SDcard adapter and put that miniSD card into an SD adapter and read the card in my SD card reader.

OK. Back to the FileMaker Devcon.

Technorati Tags: Apple, coloriPod, handhelds, iPod, mobility, podcasts

Whoa Baby! FileMaker 8 Rocks the House

Wow! I'm sitting here at lunch at the FileMaker Developer's Conference in Phoenix. The vast lunch room is buzzing. At noon today, FileMaker 8 and FileMaker 8 Advanced were released and are shipping. Every conference attendee has been gifted a copy of FileMaker 8. See my more extended post over at FileMaker Fever if you are interested in FileMaker.

I had no idea how big the Filemaker 8 upgrade was going to be. What 7 started, 8 has polished and extended greatly. If you are running 7, you'll want 8. If you are running 6 or earlier and wish your FileMaker database was even better or wonder if it can be, you must at least investigate what FileMaker 8 can do for you.

As a FileMaker developer, it is fantastic to see what FileMaker Inc. has done with this product. First, the simplicity and elegance is still there and even better for both the developer and the database end user. Second, more power is at your fingertips.

The release is rock solid FileMaker Inc. tells me and they don't use that phrase lightly. There would be hell to pay if they got that one wrong. Because FileMaker 7 has been out for a year and a half now, they knew clearly what needed refinement and fixed it or added it. And tested extensively with the biggest beta testing program they've ever done.

More to follow especially on my FileMaker Fever page.

Technorati Tags: devcon, filemaker, filemaker8, fmdevcon05

Plethora of Photos Will Change the Way News is Delivered

Color photos are extremely attractive to me as I am reading all but the most conceptual articles. Now that digital cameras are everywhere including phones, there has been an explosive increase in cheap color photos available to illustrate news stories.

But newspapers and web pages haven't changed much in response to this big change. Lots of stories have no photos at all. And if you are going to provide the added value of color photos in your stories, how do you make room for them?

I love what Flickr is doing off in the corner with their foto notes, sets, tags, chronological timelines and such. These kinds of technologies need to move into our every day news reading experience. When I read a story, why can't those kinds of tools be available to me online? How can all this bandwidth enhance my experience?

Offline or hard copy is a whole other matter. We now have cheap color photos available but printing color photos is still going to cost a lot in ink if nothing else. The ability to provide more color photo illustration with extra power like what you see in Flickr would increase the advantage of reading your news online. We already have linking which is a huge advantage to online story reading. I'm guessing that your average citizen may start reading more online than off like I do (except for novels and such).

It may be that the wealth, ubiquity and timeliness of digital color photos could speed the adoption of connected mobile devices like cell phones to read the news. The only problem with the cell phone is that the screen is too small to take full advantage of all these screen-hogging photos.

With color photos on the rise as a component of our news reading experience, the tiny cell phone screen seems lacking. There could be room here for a larger wirelessly connected PDA device with a bigger horizontally-oriented screen (say 4-6" in size). I'm thinking of a sideways color Newton or the 1/2-sized tablet that Microsoft has been talking about. It would need enough CPU and GPU horsepower to give us a desktop experience while lying on the couch. Right now, Palm's Lifedrive fits this profile as well as anything I've seen.

I suppose a new media player like the Creative Zen Vision or the rumored video iPod would work, but I sure think the linking and live access features of a wireless device would be preferable. I want to be able to spontaneously cruise over to other sources than the ones I've subscribed to and downloaded in advance.

Now that I think of it, I should be practicing what I preach here on Tech Ronin. I need the blogging tools to let me do what Flickr does and present photo-rich pieces for your reading pleasure right here. Looks like there's room for improvement. Which is a great thing to look forward to.

[photo by Simon Jacquier]

Technorati Tags: digitalphotography, ebooks, handhelds, iPod, mobility, PDA, reading, smartphone, videoipod

Yet Another Guess at the Video iPod

I can't help myself. I enjoy seeing renderings of the rumored video iPod. This one is only an inch longer than the current model. Which, unfortunately, makes it perhaps too close to but not quite small enough to fit in a jeans pocket. No jokes please.

This Photoshopped version is compliments of Smash World. He says he's got a contact at Apple who knows the inside scoop and was willing to share what he knew in general.

He's talking about January which is what I'm guessing as a possible ship date for this baby. Even though I'm not sure this is an ideal set-up due to the excessive length, it's close similarity to the existing iPod makes it especially irresistible.

Apple is already selling music videos at the iTunes store. It seems only a matter of time before they sell you a device that can play those videos. I'm hoping they'll open up this whole space so that we can easily get affordable TV episodes and shorter free videos.

Technorati Tags: Apple, handheld, iPod, videoipod

Ups and Downs with my Color iPod

Since I got my iPod, I've been loading it up with music and photos. I've filled up 26 of it's 56 gigs so far. I'm guessing that if I look around a little bit, I'll get that number up to about 35 gigs.

So, I've got some extra room to take advantage of. I could use it to backup my Powerbook, for example. I'm looking around for more information. What are the best websites, books, forums, resellers? All that stuff.

One resource I really appreciate is iLounge. I've been listening to the iLounge Week in Review podcast since it started up a few weeks ago. It's very good. One of my favorite podcasts. Very informative and easy to listen to.

From there, I saw they've just released their Free iPod Book and Back to School Guide. It's more like an emagazine in some ways with lots of ads but it also has lots of good, aesthetically pleasing and current information. So I recommend it if you've got an iPod and want to become a little more masterful with it.

On Saturday, I picked up iPod and iTunes: The Missing Manual, 3rd edition, March 2005. It's a good read but I'm guessing that about 2/3rds of the information in it is available free in the iLounge ebook.

While reading the iLounge ebook, I stumbled upon Old Time Radio shows. I'm curious to try a listen to some of these old time radio shows like The Shadow and Buck Rogers. You can get a whole slew of them free over at this great old time radio site. Check out Douglas Johnston's moving piece about old time radio over at a Million Monkeys Typing and see if you don't get curious.

Next stop was the iPod version of ebooks. The iLounge ebook turned me on to Manybooks.net with its 11,000 plus catalog of free ebooks. This site is friendly and helpful. I downloaded about 30 ebooks and was all excited thinking I could really put a lot of books on my iPod with all that hard drive space.

After downloading my stash of ebooks, I dragged them into the Notes folder of my iPod. Updated my iPod and was all set to see what my 2" color iPod screen could do. Boy, was I disappointed. First, it took several minutes to open up notes with my 30 books in there. Way too long. Even though I have all this space for books, it won't work to have more than 5 or so. Adding insult to injury, the type is about 5-6 pts without bolding. No styling, of course. No option to increase the size of the type. If you have a black and white iPod, the type is a more acceptable size.

It's going to take me a little bit to get over the disappointment on the ebooks, but I know with a big enough SD card, I can do even better with my always-with-me Treo 650's 2-1/2" screen, performance and amenities. Those old time radio shows still sound like a lot of fun to check out.

One more thing to look forward to. Last night I ordered a Vaja case for my iPod with lemon yellow front and red back! Here's a shot. They have a great selection of color choices and a wonderful interactive site that lets you experiment with color combinations. It was a difficult choice but I finally decided on the case you see here. I've looked at the Vaja cases for the Treo but never was moved to make the purchase. These iPod cases look perfect, though.

Meanwhile, I'll be trying to keep my iPod pristine. I've already dropped it about 18" onto concrete and got a little dent and scratch in the chrome. But the most important thing is the screen which I've got safely covered with a strong, clear screen protector.

Technorati Tags: cases, coloriPod, ebooks, iPod, OldTimeRadio, Vaja

Sociology of the Newton Phenomenon

I bought the first Newton when it came out. It was dog slow and handwriting recognition wasn't great so I stopped using it within a month. Burned once, I never bought another. But, I still can't help but think a modern day Newton with the excellent handwriting recognition later models had, would be cool. If you have any lingering affection for the Newton, you might be interested in this interesting research article available as a free pdf: Religiosity in the Abandoned Apple Newton Brand Community. [via BargainPDA]

Technorati Tags: Apple, handheld, Newton, Sociology, PDA

A9 Maps with Ground-level Photos

This is getting better and better. Today Amazon's A9.com introduced Mapquest maps with ground level photos. They've already got over 20 US cities including my very own San Francisco. The yellow lines in the photo show streets with the most photos. It works interactively. Now you can explore a city remotely. And see the buildings and landmarks around where you are going which should help you find places when directions aren't quite enough. Check it out! [Yahoo!]

UPDATE: a more in-depth, 2 page piece at Wired talks about what A9 is trying to achieve, how they did the mapping and other interesting tidbits.

Technorati Tags: A9, Amazon, mapquest, maps

Got a Canon SD500 Camera

Confession. I've been holding out on you. In May my ideal camera came onto the market and I bought it. This is essentially what I already had in my Minolta X50 except better in two key respects. It has 7.1 megapixels instead of 5 and it is one of the new Canon ultraportables. For a while now, Canon has been dominating the digital camera space - and for good reason.

I was able to sell my X50 for $200 or so to a friend so it is in good hands. I took a loss there and turned around and paid the full $499 for the just released SD500. But hey. I was happy to get the extra 2 megapixels and a better sensor.

The SD500 is very limited compared to bigger cameras and almost certainly a clear notch inferior to Merlin Mann's (of 43 Folders fame) favorite the bulkier Canon A95 which only does 5 mpx.

What I've come to know is that the size of the sensor is the major determinant of how much light variability a camera can handle gracefully. Bigger, more expensive cameras have bigger, better sensors that can handle contrast and bright or dim light much better. This explains why tiny cameras have all sorts of *fun* features but still can't take a decent picture.

OK, they can take decent pictures in a narrow range of situations. The problem is that there is a huge variance in brightness in the real world. And you just can't get around that. Never say never, but lots of people are trying their best and there's a long, long ways to go.

One reason I didn't write about my new camera is because it still, even being the best ultraportable out there (probably), is limited in it's ability to take good photos. You can get great photos and they are worlds better than the typical phone cam, but there are issues.

The main problem you have to deal with is blurry pictures due to the fact that you need a long exposure to take a decent photo in all but the brightest conditions and during that time you are very likely to move the camera just a tiny bit. And you are hosed. If it is really bright out or you use a flash at optimal distance, the exposure is short and you are OK. But, the best photos tend to be in lower light (overcast skies) and that's when you are most likely to take blurry images.

However, part of being a skillful amateur photographer is to learn the limitations of your camera. To know it really well. And that's what happens if you are paying attention (and you don't keep replacing your camera all the time - doh!). You get excellent feedback -- even though you often can't see how bad a photo is when you look at a 2 inch screen. It's only when you blow it up on your personal computer screen that you see how bad it is. Even though I've gotten better and I take few really blurry photos, a lot of my photos aren't perfectly sharp. They are off a little bit.

Still. I'm happy with the 25% or so improvement I got with my new Canon. I'm loving it. I take my camera with me most of the time even though it is a major pocket filler leaving me with less room for my other two pocket filling devices -- my color ipod and my Treo 650. Cargo pants rule! Oh well, brains before beauty!

I'm still telling myself that eventually I'll get a bigger camera that can take good low light shots. But, I'm not a serious amateur photographer. I don't really want a camera that is hard to use and complicated. But I sure could enjoy an 8-12 x optical zoom, for instance. Meanwhile, I'll just admire those fancy big cameras that serious amateurs and professionals use.

Technorati Tags: camera, canon, sd500, photography, digitalphotography

Digg Tech News: delicious meets slashdot

I ran into Digg for the first time today. I'm already an Engadget junkie but I don't track delicious or slashdot all the time like a lot of folks (which is probably what took me so long to find out about it).

Digg 2.0 launched July 10th. It started in December of 2004. It seems to be functional and useable. Registered users submit stories like slashdot but the stories go into a big pot. Users can comment and vote for these stories and after 15 or so votes in a certain amount of time, the story get promoted to the top of the Digg home page. At some point when additional votes slow down enough, the story drops off the page. Something like that.

You can subscribe to your friends' votes and comments.

I like the friends stuff, the democratic flavor and the simplicity. I'm guessing it will either improve a lot if there's improving to do (which there always is) or similar sites will pop up and do it - this thing - better.

I'm not real crazy about their categories. You can submit stories only under these categories: apple, deals, design, gaming, hardware, links, linux/unix, mods, movies, music, programming, robots, science, security, software, technology.

No handheld, no smartphones. Tell me why robots would be a category? No tagging here. That stops me a bit in terms of submitting my own stories. But I'll probably do it soon anyway to see if this is a way I can get wider readership. Tech bloggers are likely to do the same.

Right now I'm listening to the first of the 8 podcasts they've got under the name diggnation. It's on iTunes. They've got video and audio versions of most episodes. I tried to download it unsuccessfully. But the audio version is pretty entertaining and funny. I'm not 100% sold based on episode 1 but I'm subscribed and am hoping the content will get better. Engadget seems far superior because Ryan Block and Peter Rojas are in the know big time. Diggnation feels a little like having entertainers presenting the news.

Get a little more information on Wikipedia.

Technorati Tags: digg.com, RSS, socialsoftware

I Took an iTrip and bought a Color iPod

I've been eyeing the color iPod ever since it was called the iPod photo last October. But the $495 and $595 price tags were too rich for my blood. Now that the price has dropped $200, the color is hard to resist. The high rez color screen is so much better than the mono screen in my 3G iPod, it's ridiculous.

My downfall came while I was in Portland last week staying with my friend Kathy from my college days at Portland State. She had an underutilized 30 gig iPod photo, a brand new Dell PC with 17" flat panel display and a big shelf full of CDs. While I was there in my spare time, I helped her get the better part of her CD collection into iTunes. We also went out one day and picked up a Bose SoundDock. That became the house and patio stereo for the week. We shared music and rocked out.

Once we had the SoundDock, we needed to fill the iPod with some cool playlists. Every so often I would need to handle (fondle) Kathy's iPod. I was surprised how good it looked and felt. Until then, I didn't really know what I had been missing.

Finally, yeserday, I did it. I bought the 60 gig. It would have been so much easier to pop for the 20 gig for $299, but I really wanted more room so I could add photos and do some serious Mac backup in a pinch (remember that's tax deductible). I took a deep breath and pulled out my Amazon Visa.

Regular readers know I am easily excited but I really have something to be excited about with this new color iPod. It is a joy to use. I would say that the color screen is 5x more readable than my 3G iPod. The type looks so close to laser print. The crisp, bright color makes using my iPod so much more enjoyable. Apple has a point when they say "everything sounds better in color." By the way, I bought a high-quality screen protector at the store - this screen isn't going to get scratched!

As Delicious Library allows me to enjoy, appreciate and more fully use my book and DVD library, so does the Color iPod enhance my use and enjoyment of my music (and photo) libraries.

Podcast listening is so clean, so simple. I can read whatever show notes a podcaster manages to post on my iPod. That means I can see what they are going to talk about and decide whether to listen at all or to skip ahead to stuff I want. Operation is smooth as silk with the click wheel.

And, of course, there are the new color subway maps for the color iPod too. If you need one, maybe that's just the excuse you need to get a new iPod.

One reason I hadn't already picked up a color iPod was that the rumors about the video iPod were so persistent. I was waiting to see what that would be like. But, enough rumors said we won't see a video iPod this year, that I decided to make my move.

The rumors of a color iPod mini this Fall sound pretty credible, so you might want to wait for one of those if the mini is more your style. I like the mini, but it's not out yet and I sure like having 60 gigs to play with. I use PodWorks, by the way, so that I can copy from my iPod as desired.

A drawback of putting a big collection of music on a big iPod is that you need to have that music on a computer hard drive somewhere. What's 60 gigs among friends? Not really a problem, but if you don't have the iTunes you use most often on a device with lots of room, you are out of luck. I mainly use my 80 gig Powerbook. I can't just gather music and podcasts on my Powerbook iTunes because I don't have room for a full sync to my huge new iPod.

It would be nice right about now to be able to see the music and photos on my iPod and be able to simply drag stuff onto the drive. Apple? But, back to my trip.

Kathy was so happy with how things went that she loaned me her iTrip for my long drive home. It worked great. Especially when set right underneath my car stereo receiver. Excellent! But, I still had my old iPod then and had to really strain to read the screen to change playlists and select podcasts. Next trip I won't have that problem.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPod, mobility, music, podcasting