tech ronin

iPod Therefore I Am is a Great Read

iPod, Therefore I am: A personal Journey Through Music is a great read. But, I'm not average when it comes to music. I've been a long-time music fan. I've read a ton about the roots of rock. How one group influenced another. I bought the Rio 500 mp3 player and a Rio MP3 CD player before I bought the first iPod and then the 10gb, the 20gb, the 15gb, the shuffle, the 60gb and now the nano. That's a lot, but I would sell or give the one's I abandoned as gifts. It all worked out.

I had my music collection burned to mp3 way ahead of the vast majority of people. I like Dylan Jones' book because he takes this whole music-loving, obsession seriously and with self-deprecating humor. And makes some great observations about it all. Jones is a very good pop writer. I was reading the book last night and, to me, it was a page-turner. I didn't want to stop reading because he had me hooked.

If you are really into music and feel that the iPod and iTunes have been a significant aid to your hobby, you'll love this book. If you are more casual about music, the hardback or paperback versions would make great inexpensive gifts for your iPod-loving friends.

Technorati Tags: Books, iPod

Yahoo! Wants to Replace TV

C|Net has an intriguing in-depth article from The New York Times about some exciting developments at Yahoo! A few months ago, Y! hired Lloyd Braun, formerly chairman of ABC's entertainment group, to head up it's Media Operation. Braun is a big thinker and way creative. He helped create the Sopranos and was behind Lost. Since joining Yahoo!, Braun hasn't had much visibility but apparently he's been getting up to speed on this Web thing and working behind the scenes in preparation for doing some major innovating at Y!.

the long-promised convergence of television and computers is happening not by way of elaborate systems created by cable companies, but from the bottom up as video clips on the Internet become easier to use and more interesting.
- Saul Hansell, The New York Times

Long ago, surfing the Net replaced TV as my number 1 source of entertainment/information. I watch a few TV shows, but often with Powerbook in my lap at the same time. What I like about what Yahoo! seems to be doing is that they are taking this transition from TV to web seriously and looking for ways to flesh out the web to make it more engaging and immersive. Without trying to make it into TV's image.

On thing this means is more paid original content and a lot more video at Y!. Braun says these will be short clips and user content will be a major element too. Yahoo!'s chief executive, Terry Semel, used to be the co-head of Warner Brothers. He wants Yahoo! to be seen as more like Time Warner. The four cornerstones of Yahoo!s media strategy are (1) search, (2) community (read user-generated content), (3) professionally created content and (4) personalization. This is going to be fun to watch.

What's Going On? Win Mobile Treo and new Palm PDAs

Last week PalmSource was purchased by Access, the Japanese maker of Palm's Blazer browser, in a bidding war that Palm lost. This week there's undeniable evidence of a Win Mobile Treo, the Treo 700w, all over the web. Palm has a big press event in San Francisco on Monday which will include Verizon and Bill Gates. Details on other new Palm devices show them still running on Palm OS 5.4. What the heck is going on? See my post at Treo Addicts for the details. [photo via Engadget]

Technorati Tags: handheld, handhelds, Palm, PalmOS, PalmTX, PDA, treo700w, z22

Consumers are Rising Up Out of their Barcaloungers, Part 1

As you may have forgotten due to a large outpouring of blogging about personal technology lately, my blog is called Tech Ronin. And it's not meant to be just about gadgets. Gadgets and personal technology including computers and software are the tools of modern times that make it possible for individuals to create their own careers and successful businesses.

The other half of the equation in Tech Ronin is the individual -- knowledge-, tool- and network-enhanced. Modern times have largely taken away the security, predictability and practically guaranteed comfortable lifestyles many of our parents and grandparents *enjoyed* in the 20th century. The corporate job. The staying with a single employer like Ma Bell, PG&E or the government through to retirement.

My own father worked for the federal highway department as a bridge engineer through to retirement and got a very nice pension. And he's retired. What a concept! To be sure, there's still the government with some jobs there and big companies that seem likely to be around a long time but there's also a lot more turbulence and uncertainty about that longevity. Add in 9/11 and Katrina lately and things seem pretty darned unpredictable.

As I've mentioned before (such as Social Networking Made Easy, Part 4, 5, 6, 7, Jobless Recovery), our whole idea of the phrase good job has slipped out of our grasp. Good jobs used to seem like they had a fairly long duration. Tom Peters, corporate guru par excellence, strongly suggests that you regard yourself as *Me, Inc.*. This is a strong hint from someone who knows. Inside or outside the corporate walls, this strategy applies.

But, let's say, like me, you are outside the corporate walls (or would like to be if you could make it work). Let's say you have a company of one or more that's providing probably professional services of some sort. That's a lot like being a *gun for hire*. Might look like subcontracting. It's not a real business like where you mortgage your house to start creating widgets you hope will sell. You can start your business with a credit card (or modest savings if you are one of the seemingly rare Americans who has some savings).

It starts simply by going out and getting or creating your own business cards and putting up your first website, which I highly recommend be a blog with some flexibility to put up auxiliary *static* pages for background information. I think TypePad is quite useable for this at this point albeit with nowhere near enough documentation (hint, hint).

The world that we knew with workers and employers seems to be breaking down fast in the face of modern technology. It's crumbling into a finer granularity -- individuals. First we got our own computers. Wow! Now we have a global Web full of web sites and services, eBay (global marketplace), Craigslist (Net-enhanced local marketplaces), TypePad (your own printing press), Skype for free or near-free long distance calling. And those are just a few bigger names you already know.

I just got my latest issue of Trendwatching.com's newsletter this morning (it's an ezine but newsletters nowadays are almost always ezines aren't they?). It's called Minipreneurs:

a vast army of consumers turning entrepreneurs; including small and micro businesses, freelancers, side-businesses, weekend entrepreneurs, web-driven entrepreneurs, part-timers, free agents, cottage businesses, seniorpreneurs, co-creators, mompreneurs, pro-ams, solopreneurs, eBay traders, advertising-sponsored bloggers and so on.

I love it. Looks like there's a much bigger wave of self-employment and entrepreneurism in the works. Instead of being fired or quitting your job, you dabble in some way in the global market for goods and services (not the stock market). It might be by having a blog (Typepad helps you put text ads into your blog now to make a little extra money). But it could be trading a couple things on eBay. Just sticking your toe in. A way to make a few extra bucks on the side maybe. An offshoot of your hobby that someone is willing to pay for. These mini extensions into the world of commerce are accessible to everyone! Not only professionals, whatever they are.

Trendwatching.com talks mostly about consumer trends, but luckily they don't think of consumers as just consumers anymore. They are very much watching and analyzing from the point of view that the days of the passive consumer are over. So-called consumers are rising up out of their barcaloungers and creating -- and selling what they create or just selling stuff they already have or know. Cool stuff. Read it. More on this.

Technorati Tags: careers, meinc, minipreneurs, personalbranding, quittingyourjob, ronin, selfemployed, solopreneurs, yourownbusiness

DIY nano case #1

OK. I said I could just make my own pouch case if I had a sewing machine. Well, someone over at MacVroom Forums did it. They use a chamois as the material, cut and stitch and turn inside out. Just like in Junior High sewing class! Check out their photo-laden step-by-step instructions and tips.

Technorati Tags: cases, iPod, ipodnano

Google blog search could extend the reach of blogs

Wow! This google blogsearch is instantaneous. Yay! That totally works for me. It makes my information searching life a lot easier because most of the time I want to search blogs rather than the whole web. The quality of the hits is vastly superior and up to date.

Now I really want to make the google search window in Safari do the Google blogsearch. Let's see... I know there's a way to do that. Some plug-in...

Meanwhile, I'll just put this as b in my bookmarks bar. Backpack will have to take a backseat.

So, how will this help us bloggers and blog-readers? It could work something like iTunes worked for podcasters. When iTunes came in with its podcast directory and podcast section, podcasters saw a tripling or more in their listenership. Now, google blog search isn't as huge as the iTunes thing except it's google so could be a lot more widespread than iTunes.

If google blog search can make it easier to find good bloggers or find good information written by bloggers, it will increase blog readership. Simple.

Of course, this will possibly hurt technorati. Maybe a lot. Technorati will have to adapt. Google is the 100 lb gorilla on the Net. When google tramples all over your turf, you jump.

What if normal people start doing blog searches? Even if they just do 1/10th of their searches as blog searches, that could be a huge win for bloggers.

I'll let you know. OK. I put Tokerud in and was greeted with a list of my posts. I put Janet in and found my first blog post at 15. Ego surfing can be fun. If you are a blogger, you gotta play.

Technorati Tags: blogging, blogs, google, search

Compare the nano to the shuffle for a minute

I just read Russell Beattie's pan of the iPod nano. He says he'll stick with his shuffle. But, to me you get so much more for your $249 than you got for the $149 that most of us paid for the 1 gig shuffle. This new iPod gives you the big iPod experience in a tiny form factor that will work great on the go when your pockets are full. There's a big difference between 1 gig and 4 gigs (300% more songs and podcasts).

There's a wide gap between the shuffle's no screen and the nano's high rez color screen. And the addition of a clickwheel is priceless. Without a case, the nano is delicate, but that's a small price to pay for a such an exquisite machine. It's elevating like good architecture. I love that Apple gets crazy and takes us there.

I found a little soft pouch in my junk drawer to temporarily protect my nano. So, I'm back in business! One idea I have for a case is to get one of those colored cases that Apple is going to sell in 5 packs. But I'm hoping to make a deal with someone to split a pack. Who needs 5 of these cases? Teenage girls probably but one would be fine for me since eventually I'll get something a little more interesting like the Vaja case I got for my big iPod. That case is awesome.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPod, ipodnano, nano, shuffle

Using my iPod nano - update 1

Before I give you an update on my nano experience, I couldn't resist using this image over at Colorware. Colorware is going to be selling color nanos and will paint your nano if you send it to them. The prices are high, but we will have a few colored nanos out there, I'm sure. I hear Colorware does really good work and I like that red one!

But now, back to my nano. I've actually stopped using it for the time being. I've already had two accidents with it in three days. First, while I was driving home from the store and had it sitting on the seat, things shifted on the seat due to a turn or stop and something nicked the screen. About 1/4" long on the edge, so not a big deal but it was brand new so it hurt a little.

Then, yesterday, I was carrying several things in my hands as I was going from my car to the local Starbucks and the feather-light nano slipped out of my hand and fell 3 feet onto the concrete. It got a 5/8" gash on it's chrome back but was fine otherwise.

I'm not exceptionally clumsy, so I'm guessing you may have this same problem. So think of this as a cautionary tale.

This morning, I carried my 60 gig iPod on my morning walk downtown. It's a fine little machine and feels really good in my hand with my new Vaja red and yellow leather case. But it is probably at least 5x bigger than my nano with a similar case would be. It's fine as long as you don't want to bring lots of other devices like a digital camera, PDA and cell phone with you. I settled on bringing my Treo and my color iPod. Excellent.

But, of course, I don't want to leave my nano on the shelf. It's time is now. I do want to mention that the being a two iPod person is a very reasonable, though expensive, proposition for many of us.

I like having my 60 gig iPod for my full photo collection with high rez images and my full music collection. I'm syncing it to my G5 whose 160 gig internal drive has room for master iTunes and iPhoto libraries. And, I think the 4 gig nano is going to be a perfect satellite to my Powerbook.

Hard drive space is at a premium on my 80 gig Powerbook. I want to make some strategic decisions about my Powerbook's iTunes so that it will stay underneath the 4 gig capacity of my nano leaving me with the rest of my hard drive space for all the other stuff I need on my Powerbook. A fairly large collection of podcasts is good. New music works. And, I've added some choice older music too. But I'm already near the limit. Remember, you actually only have 3.7 gigs to work with on the nano.

But I need to protect the pristine beauty of this little marvel. I'm waiting to find a case of some sort to protect it. For starters, I just want a little pouch for starters. If I had a sewing machine, I could make one in a hurry. I was thinking that if I sort through my stuff, I may find a business card carrier that will work. I can imagine the nano fitting into a slot in a wallet too.

All the local Apple store has is the armband which isn't how I want to carry my nano so that won't help (but the red armband is sharp). I'm wondering what Vaja can do with an iPod nano. They made a case for the shuffle, so a nano case can't be far behind.

By the way, my local Apple store has a whole table with about 20 nanos heavily wired for people to play with. You should see the scratching on the screens of those things. They're as bad as my 3G iPod got. I wonder how they've managed to get that scratched just being looked at even by a lot of people?

The good news, though, is the bright color screen makes it easy to read the screen even with a lot of scratching. That wasn't true on my 3G. It was almost unreadable. Still, I don't want that beautiful little color screen all scratched up.

I am guessing we will see all sorts of cases homemade and otherwise showing up on the web in the next week.

Technorati Tags: cases, coloriPod, iPod, music, nano, Vaja

iPod nano in play

I already got a tiny scratch on the screen, so be careful. One nice thing is that you can afford to put a case around this and it will still be small enough for your pocket! But who would want to put a case on this thing of beauty? Maybe just a screen protector on the screen will do me. This is a shirt pocket player for sure. That's nice because my pants pockets are already full with devices as it is.

I had about 9 megs of music and podcasts on my Powerbook iTunes, so I couldn't just sync to my 4 gig nano. So I just picked two of my smart playlists: purchased and podcasts. That actually only gives me 304 *songs* so I've got room for some older favorites too. Too bad this little guy wasn't out when I was iPod crazy about a month ago. Oh well...

I was a little torn at the store between the white nano and the black. Life is hard you know? But, this was the most novel. More interesting it seemed. By the way, the black 4 gig nanos were selling more than any other model by a fairly large margin.

I was wondering whether we might get black headphones. But no, the phones in the box were white. It comes with a tiny little insert that apparently lets the nano fit into a regular 4G iPod dock plus a USB cable.

One addition to iTunes 5 is a tab where you can paste in lyrics -- or perhaps lyrics will start coming in when you download iTunes music? I can hope, can't I? The text is very small but you can indeed toggle the nano screen and see the lyrics. Gotta go get some exercise and use this thing.

nano blogs:
Tom's Hardware: Apple's iPod nano gamble
iLounge: Super First Look - iPod nano
Tom Bridge: Baaaaaa! Or Addiction Aint So Bad...
TUAW: First nano thoughts
Hands on with the iPod nano
The iPod nano: So perfectly tiny

Technorati Tags: coloriPod, iPod, music, nano

Got the Black 4 gig nano

Well, surprise, surprise. My local Apple Store got their iPod nanos today. I called the San Francisco store first and they said the nanos are flying out of the store but they had a lot of them and they didn't think they would run out if I came over later in the day. Then I checked with Corte Madera and they had some too, so I drove over.

After viewing a recording of the special event on the Apple site last night, I was jazzed. Watching Steve pull the white nano out of his tiny change pocket was so cool. I highly recommend the show. One thing that was obvious, though, is that the press corp is a much more skeptical audience than the audience at the MacWorld Expo where I've seen Steve at keynotes. They didn't applaud much.

First impressions: thin! So very thin, light - even delicate. It is thinner than the shuffle! About 3/4ths the thickness. It's amazing that they can fit a color screen in there and the click-wheel. Good thing it's got the chrome back to strengthen it some. More in a bit.

Technorati Tags: coloriPod, handhelds, iPod, mobility, nano