Geekfishing Blog

GamingGroove 2.0 reviews the PSP. First, thanks to Jon Lazarus for getting me a PSP. What a cool device. Costs $250 and I've never been much of a console gamer. Interesting to see what folks think about it. The game console guys just love the think, but I had great hopes for it as a general purpose machine for videos and music.

PROS

Here's the net is that it is agreat gaming system...

Graphics and Speed. It is an incredibly cool gaming device. With dual 300MHz MIPS processors and an incredibly fast graphics processor, it is the gaming system to beat. Heck, it is as fast as most PCs of just a few years ago.

The screen, the screen, the screen. And did I mention how incredibly good the screen and the audio is. And, they use white headphones on a black device (thank you Steve Jobs for the inspiration I'm sure). The thing is huge and this makes the device really big.

Video quality. It does come with Spiderman 2 and I've changed my opinion on a screen like this it is big enough that I would watch movies all day. The Sony Watchman lives!

The Lucite buttons. Finally, the lucite buttons at the top are very cool as a feature and it is shiny black (so shiny you get fingerprints everywhere), but it looks pretty cool. Although not iPod minimalist, more on that below.

CONS.

But, as usual Sony has given the thing a bunch of proprietary technology that leave me kind of sad. It has great potential IMHO for being more than, but unfortunatey in (now) typical Sony style, its got a ton of proprietary out-of-the-mainstream features. It doesn't have the fit and finish of an Apple iPod when you open it, but it is pretty close in coolness. And it finally does play back MP3s and not just the locked proprietary ATRAC format.

Here are the depressing things that mainly revolve around how proprietary and how many buttons there are:

MemoryStick. I don't get it. It comes with a 32MB MemoryStick. How sad that they don't just use SD cards or something that is available everywhere. 99% of all machine (e.g., everyone but Sony) doesn't have a MemoryStick reader and it means you are investing in a proprietary format. The only way to read it off the bad is that you have to find a USB cable (hope you have a Blackberry) to get it to connect to a PC. Put another way, it isn't more convenient than a 1GB Apple Shuffle.

UMD. They use a proprietary disk format based on MiniDisc (another thing Sony just won't give up on). It does store 1.8GB in dual layer, but so would a mini dual-layer DVD. Most sad is that means you can't put PC content on it. Now the console market is all about proprietary so that doesn't hurt vs. a Nintendo DS, but it does mean (drool, Sony execs), you get to rebuy your entire video collection if you want to watch movies with it.

Wifi. Really this is just a proprietary connection. It actually talks about adhoc and infrastructure mode (yikes!), but it only finds other PSPs and uses infrastructure mode just to find the Sony update site. What a sad thing that it has Wifi, but no software to really use it that I can find.

The Charger. Why doesn't everyone just use USB charging? It is so simple and the thing has a brick the size of the device. How nice to be able to just find a USB port just about anywhere. Blackberry got this right first and then Apple.

The Buttons. There are just way too many buttons on the thing and they are truly micro-sized. There are buttons for volume up and down, select, etc. I counted no less than 20 buttons on the darn thing. Now for gaming, you have to have at least 10 (two hat things, plus two selects at the top and then there is a joystick), but the rest of them, I have to wonder.

The User Interface. They have this problem in that half the user interface are random buttons that are tiny and the rest are on a kind of funky 2-D interface that is really just two levels of menus. The overall user interface has an interesting two D style of icons that just remind me how simple command tree interfaces like 1-2-3, Blackberry, iPod and MS Works really do work better in the long run for things like this.

Hard Drive. If Apple can charge $500 for its iPod Photo, you wonder a little bit how cool this guy would have been with a 20GB hard disk.

CONCLUSION

This thing I'm sure is going to take the gamine console world by storm, but it had so much potential as a more general purpose iPod replacement (this really what I would expect the iPod Video to look like). It is too bad that there are all those proprietary limitations. Still, it leave the field IMHO wide open for Apple if they want it to create the $1,000 iPod Video that does everything here, but does it right which would include all the hardware listed above, but bag the proprietary things and make it live in a PC world, so the dream machine is:

Hard Disk. Slam a hard disk into the thing for long term storage

USB and Wifi. Make this work with PCs so that you can see the device as one big drive. Allow synchronization with an iTunes equivalent and iMovies equivalent.

Mini-DVD. Bag the UMD and use mini-DVD if you have to have optical storage. Personally, with a 40GB hard drive, I'm not sure why you can't just use conventional PC to dock and get the stuff. I'm sure piracy is the big concern here and the game console guys have this model where they use proprietary formats and get a revenue share on games and then buy down the game machine price, so that's why Sony can't do it, but Apple.

Movies. Support xvid and divx movies that are generic rather than the proprietary format. This is analogous to playing MP3 and then a protected version. Imagine watching Alias on this thing and having a bunch stored there.

Posted by Rich at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I never thought there could be so many choices. I think we need a stereo microphone set. Since who knows, we'd want to record interviews or music someday. Also means a decent frequency response is needed. Here are some choices:

SOUND PROFESSIONALS MINI STANDARD CARDIOID STEREO MICROPHONES. SP-CMC-19. General purpose and only $70 with clips. Only drawback is it cuts of bass so frequency response is 80-18Khz.

ISI-SGNM-1. These are goosenecks so not as invisible as lapel microphones, but versatile in that since they have goosenecks, they don't need a stand. Also, you can put a variety of microphones in them, so you can start cheap and move up as you need to. The Deluxe Cardiod is most versatile and has 50-20KHz range is probably the best buy. Total is about $110.

SP-CMC-22. These are non-gooseneck variants, so easier to hide. Also $110 with clips for the Deluxe Cardiod versions. 40-20Khz frequency response.

If you don't need directional microphones as explained in the FAQ then this means that you are recording something like a concert or a sermon. So, here are some good choices:

SP-SPSM-1. If you just need something to record a lecture and don't need to worry about ambiant noise, these $50 microphones are perfect. 20-20KHz frequency response adn they are just a tiny little T.

SP-BMC-12. These are 20-20Khz omnidirectional. If you mount near your ears and then playback on say an iPod, you are making what is called a binaural resproduction, it is going to sound very close to what you hear there. If you mount these microphones 12-24 inches apart, it is standard stereo and sounds good through speakers. since we are using for ipods, the idea of doing real binaural for podcasts is pretty cool since most listening is via headphones. $99.

SP-HMC-1. These microphones are mounted in what look like headphones, so it is very accurate and very stealthy. $70. 20-20Khz.

SP-TFB-2. These are in-ear binaural so very accurate reproductions of what a person would actually hear.

Posted by Rich at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Bob's Planet New Blog Tech! - Bobsplanet Did some research on alternates, and Serendipity is it!

Could be I'll have to give Serendipity a try, the thing I think we missed on blogs was the power of the platform. MovableType is going to be very hard to displace because of all the plugins. I have about 2,000 comments across all blogs and about 3,000 entries plus we use 10 plug ins here and the numbers are rising, so it is hard to imagine switching.

Still, Serendipity could be a good choice for new blog experiments.

Posted by Rich at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Interesting bits in residential VoIP and cellular - Bobsplanet. Great factoids on VOIP from Bob.

Posted by Rich at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

!<http://www.bobsplanet.com/albums/New-Photos/sand_santa1_CRW_2562.thumb.jpg!Hey welcome to our latest poster, Bob. He's been thinking quite a bit about voip, new applications and things like that in general. Smart dude, worked on softswitches in the olden days of 10 years ago on softswitches and has been geeking away ever since.

Oh and Heather would be depressed if I didn't mention her as well.

Posted by Rich at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

BI. These folks do CRM and other applications for business marketing. Since the early days, when I was just editing data sheets is someone to do all these marketing programs anyway.

Posted by Rich at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

FlyteComm Real-Time Flight Intelligence Solutions. An amazing site, this is where all that tracking and location is. Alaska has it and it is on the Mac. Amazing what the web has.

Posted by Rich at 3:31 PM | Permalink

mfoundry | Mobile applications made easy

To actually download a message, so if you get a Sprint SMS message rather than a WAP push...

1. Open the message. you will see this gigantic url
2. Click on options, scroll down to find click on select
3. You will see a memo with email, web address and the url will now be highlighted
4. Then you can click on it

This lets you load arbitrary web addresses in email and web for 6620s.

Posted by Rich at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Digital Cable Ready Arrives You can see why the cable companies just hate the idea of cable without a setop box that they control. That's what DCR is all about. Get a CableCard from say Comcast and then you have your own equipment.

A "plug-and-play" DTV is a television that you can plug directly into your cable system and receive analog and most digital cable services without the need for a set-top box. The cable and consumer electronics industries have dubbed these types of televisions "digital cable ready" or DCR. More and more cable services are being provided in digital format, and broadcast stations are in the midst of the transition from analog to an all-digital service. These new sets make the DTV transition easy for the consumer.

Posted by Rich at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

:: Netsize.com ::. Not sure what this is, but some sort of free guide and data on wireless carriers around the world.

Please complete the form below to download the Netsize Guide 2005 to
get an in-depth view of the global mobile phone market. The report
gives an comprehensive and up to date snapshot of the state of the
Global mobile phone market covering 29 countries and 103 mobile
operators with detailed analysis of mobile penetration, operator market
shares, ARPU, turnover, data usage, average user prices and 3rd party
services.

Posted by Rich at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've done some basic podcasting, but it is pretty clear that a great set of microphones is pretty important. The first recofing we did with an elcheapo headset, so now its time for a little more investment. We want a set that is very portable vs. big and stationary. Some great facts on Sound Professionals. First decision is cardiod vs. omnidirectional. See the tradeoffs in this FAQ but the net is a set of cardiod microphones that fit on lapel is great. We could just do mono, but pricing wise might as well get a stereo set.

The Sound Professionals FAQ

1- What are the differences between Binaural and Cardioid mics?
Binaural microphones are miniature Omni-directional microphones, used in pairs, placed on either side of a human (or artificial) head and placed in, or as near as possible to, the ears. Omnidirectional mics pick up sound in all directional fairly equally, so when they are used in this manner, they pick up sound very much like the human ear does. Note: These same microphones are also capable of making stereo recordings.

Cardioid microphones are Uni-directional microphones and pick up sound mostly in the direction you point them. They cannot be used to make binaural recordings, but can, of course, be used to make stereo recordings. Because of this directionality, they have certain advantages over Omni-directional mics in some situations.

2- How can a Binaural mic be used to make a stereo recording?
Basically, by moving omnidirectional microphones away from one's head and separating them by at least 6-8" or so, you will get a stereo recording instead of a binaural one.

3- I like to listen to my recordings with speakers, not headphones. Which mics are right for me?
If you mostly listen to your recordings with speakers (at home, in the car, with a boom box, etc.), you would get better results if you made stereo recordings instead of binaural recordings. Binaural recordings sound best when listened to through headphones. You can use Binaural or Cardioid mics to make stereo recordings. However, one exception to this is the SP-TFB-2 In-Ear Binaurals, which sound excellent with headphones or speakers.

4- When is it advantageous to use Omni-directional mics?
When you are recording in a venue that has good acoustics, the audience is fairly quiet and you are fairly close to the sound source, Omni-directional mics are capable of make excellent recordings and would be the mic of choice. Omni mics also are more forgiving of handling noise and wind noise, so are a good choice if you can't secure your mics firmly or have to record in windy situations and don't want to use large windscreens.

In addition, when you need a good sounding mic and have a limited budget, Omni mics would be a better choice as cardioid mics of the same quality cost 2 to 3 times as much as omnis.

5- When is it advantageous to use Cardioid mics?
When you are recording in a venue that does not have great acoustics, the audience is noisy and/or you can't get close to the sound source, Cardioids are the better mics to use.

Since Cardiods are directional mics, they will greatly reduce excess reflected sound coming at the mics from all over the venue. They do a good job of reducing unwanted audience noise from the sides are rear. While they can be used up close with excellent results, they excel over Omni mics when recording from a distance. In fact, there are different levels of directionality available, including Sub-cardioid, (regular) Cardioid, Hyper-cardioid and Super-Cardioid (sometimes called shotgun) mics. In general, the further you are from the sound source, the more directional the mic should be.

Cardioids are also the preferred mic to use on stage for sound reinforcement applications, since they are less likely to feedback through a PA system. On the downside, cardioids are more susceptable to handling and wind noise, so if you can't secure your mics firmly or have to record in windy situations and don't want to use large windscreens, omni's would be a better choice.

6- I need one set of mics to handle all of my recording situations. What kind of mic should I use?
Overall, Cardioid microphones offer more flexibility that Binaurals in that they can be used in a wider choice of applications. If you have many different recording situations and need one mic type to do them all, use Cardioids.

Posted by Rich at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I got the Tivo-to-go up and running at the weekend and thought I'd share a few thoughts. Overall it's a super idea - you can offload hours of programs off your measly 80GB Tivo box and burn dvd's, watch the shows on a laptop on an airplane and generally archive all the good stuff.

Well, that's the good news, now for the gotcha's :
-Make sure you have s/w 7.1 or higher on your tivo box - this can take over a week for tivo to get around to sending to you after you request it.
-There is a bewildering array of 802.11 USB dongles that you can use for networking to your home network and an even bigger array that are "Not Compatible" for reasons best known to the folks at Tivo. I mean, the darn thing is USB so why on earth over 50% of the wifi USB dongles out there can't be used is a mystery to me. I had to buy three of them and plug and pray. The website isn't up to date with the latest versions of the wifi USB devices and there are even incompatibilities within the same product families so be real careful - sheesh !
-It only supports USB 1.1 so it takes over an hour to transfer a 30 min show - so don't bother getting 802.11g since the max you can squirt out the back is 12Mbps. Still need to test a hard ethernet cable.
-Performance on the tivo box has got rather jumpy since I networked the box - especially while downloading 8 episodes of the New Yankee Workshop.

So that's it - a few pitfalls but a good improvement in the service.

Posted by at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Business 2.0 :: Online Article :: Wireless Report :: Who's Turning Your Phone Into an iPod?. While music labels, handset vendors, and wireless carriers are experimenting in their quest to figure out if and how consumers will use their phones as music devices, they've left the door open for aggregators like Melodeo and Musiwave to develop services that make it more enjoyable to find and download music on your cell phone.

Posted by Rich at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not Even Wrong: David Weise. It's all ancient history, but I have literally a thousand thoughts about what people thought was up with 386s and 286s and the comparisons with OS/2 :-)

The real issue is the "mode switch", which was nearly impossible on the 286. IBM had no 386 to shoot at when the idea for OS/2 was hatched, but they had ample time to change direction later, as "Windows 386" did. Once IBM got their plans right, they produced OS/2 2.0 and shortly after OS/2 2.11, which were fully preemptive OSes with a nearly perfect "DOS box", that is, a way of executing DOS programs in "virtual 386" mode. Windows NT was a solution to the very same problem, and a much inferior one until just recently. Windows 95 in contrast, and 98, 98SE, and ME, were still hybrids - cooperative tasking without full preemption. So Microsoft screwed the same pooch three times, and still won the game.

The "DOS box" on early versions of Windows NT was, in contrast to that of OS/2, a total disaster. However, it didn't bite many people because by then, Microsoft had also captured the market for applications.

Posted by Rich at 8:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Farewell to one of the great ones. I must be getting old, I remember ralph, aaron, david and all those Windows folks. I wasn't in the Windows group at the time, but met them later post the Windows 3.0 shipment when Jonro got me into the Windows group. Thank you JOn!

Yesterday was the last day at Microsoft for David Weise...

...He (along with Murray Sargent, creator of the SST debugger) also figured out how to get normal Windows applications running in protected mode.

Which totally and utterly and irrevocably blew apart the 640K memory barrier.

I remember wandering over to the Windows group over in Building 3 to talk to Aaron Reynolds about something to do with the MS-DOS redirector (I was working on DOS Lan Manager at the time). I ran into David, and he called me into his office "Hey, look at what I've got working!".

He showed me existing windows apps running in protected mode on the 286. UNMODIFIED Windows 1.0 applications running in protected mode.

He then ran me around the rest of the group, and they showed me the other stuff they were working on. Ralph had written a new driver architecture called VxD. Aaron had done something astonishing (I'm not sure what). They had display drivers that could display 256 color bitmaps on the screen (the best OS/2 could do at the time was 16 colors).

Posted by Rich at 8:50 PM | Permalink

mFoundry writeup. Quick note, one of our companies, they are just in the "launch" mode. Just doing the initial launch of their technology to make it easy to take your online site and get a mobile implementation.

Posted by Rich at 6:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

www.makezine.com is perfect for us - Gadgets, odd projects, hardware hacks and DIY inspiration. Hurrah - there are more people out there like me !

Posted by at 1:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Starting to get really interested in this whole podcast thing. But it's one thing to do a monologue or to record your kids with a mike. What if you want to do an interview? Seems like it would be great to simply record the phone call. I am not alone in this desire.

Here are a number of entries that outline the various (more or less complex ways) that folks have figured out how to use Skype to record a call and then post as a podcast:

• Unboundspiral was the first entry I found that called this "Skypecasting"
• Ragged Castle has a outline using Audio HiJack pro and a Mac
• Jason Calacanis asked the same question as me and got a ton of interesting, and often conflicting comments.
• Glenn Fleishman of Macdevcenter has a nice step by step walk through that used much the same equipment - with all the gotchas as well.
• And Moodle Exchange has gone one step further - Skypecasting parties

Hopefully you'll hear us give some form of this a try soon (after I - and hopefully Rich/John - wades through this).

Also, for the luddites out there some of the traditional conference calling services will send you an MP3 recording of your call for a bit more of course.

Posted by at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Some very impressive products that google is doing. It is not stupid to have developers spend 20% of their time just creating in a category like this. You have to try:

• Google Maps. It is a great example of just using Javascript on the client and having it send XML up and down. The new term of art is AJAX (asynchronous Javascript with XML). The basic idea is that instead of lots of screen refreshes, the Javascript on a web page is silently getting information so to the user it just looks like a client application. The Google Maps beta is keystroke fast yet has all the information on the Internet. That is cool.
• Google Desktop. There is an amazing host of desktop applications. There is desktop search, there is picassa picture searching, etc.

Posted by Rich at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

OK all of our sites now can accept podcasts. You just have to create the MP3, upload the file in the movabletype user interface then it is automatically updated and you have a podcast!

Posted by Rich at 5:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Welcome to our first Podcast, we are going to talk about all kinds of things. After about a thousand interruptions, here it is.
Introduction.

Liner notes: Just a quick five minute introduction to the team and who we are. Recorded with the iRiver.

Posted by Rich at 4:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Once you have a podcast, how do you get it on your site and publish it out to the world. Here are the steps:

1. Brandon Fuller | MT-Enclosures: A Movable Type Plugin. If you've got Movable Type, then use MT-Enclosures.
2. You then upload the file and put a URL reference to the MP3 in your post
3. Edit the RSS 2.0 feed with the example from Brandon Fuller. The MT-Enclosures will then automagically search your entries and update the RSS 2.0 feed with this.
4. This enclosure pings the world via a special Ping location called audiorpc.weblogs.com that picks up all the updates.

Now the only thing left to do is to tell the world that you have a podcast. Like websites, there are a couple of directories. You need to publish to them so that podcast clients can find you. Here are the top four according to google:"podcast directory":

1. ipodder. This is the biggest Windows client as far as I can tell. Adam Curry is the What's New editor. Reminds me of the early days at Netscape where one person really could index the whole world. Over 4,000 podcasts right now. Last time I looked there were 1,000, so thing are growing very fast. The nice thing is that this is very tied into the client as opposed to a separate search engine.
2. Podcast.net. I don't know who runs this site, but will find out. They are a Yahoo like directory
3. iPodderX. This is the client for the Mac. Has the most share. Like iPodder, it has its own directory.
4. Podcast Directory. I've actually never heard of this one, but has a good page rank.

Posted by Rich at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

iriver Global Home. OK, I'm using this device to create a Podcast. It has an incredibly complicated user interface that took me a day to figure out how to make a recording. Here's the step by step

Before you begin

You need two pieces of equipment. You need a recorder and you need a microphone/headset. Here is what we use:

• iRiver iFP-799. Recommended by Adam Curry, it is a 1GB recorder that does direct encoding of MP3s from a microphone, so it basically produces the MP3 for you. Kind of cool. Note that you can't use your iPod for recording because for some strange reason, they only record in low resolution dictaphone quality sound, so that's why you need the iRiver.
• Headset/microphone. There are many choices here. Sound Professionals has a dizzing array of microphones that I read for two hours I'm such a geek. A very cool iPod choice is the Griffin Lapel Mic. This is $15 and is available late March. Is white and pins on you jacket. You can then use your nice white I-pod headset to listen and put the iRiver in your pocket :-)

Setting up the iRiver

OK, this has got to be the single most difficult piece of software I've used in a long time. Such a stark contrast with the iPod interface. Anyway, here are the instructions on how to set this player up to be a podcast creator. Hang on to your hats:

1. Install the iRiver software per the instructions and quick setup.
2. Now you have to configure the actual device. First turn the device on. Its actually not very clear how to do that (unlike the ipod, there is only one magic button and it is not label). You hit the top left most button that is label (incredibly) Play/Stop/Stereo (I'm not kidding, it is so overloaded that is what it does). The MP3 player should boot up. BTW, to turn it off, you push and hold that Play/Stop/Stereo button for 5 seconds. In this interface there are lots of places where you have to know single, double and long hold.
3. Now you need to configure the thing to handle a microphone etc. So, push down on the joystick for 5 seconds. You should now see the word GENERAL (why does this think keep changing UI layout by the way!). Do a right joystick until it says Control. Push on the joystick and you'll see the submenus. Go down about five entries with the joystick until you get to LINE-IN RECORDING MODE and press on the joystick.
4. Get your glasses out because the fonts are incredibly small (the UI appears to not allow any scrolling in dialog boxes, the fonts are literally unreadably). Right joystick to select STEREO and then press to select it. Then down joystock to bit rate. You want to set to 44.1KHz. This is the CD standard and will make it easy to copy things to a CD if you ever need to. By the way if you wait to long on your entries (about 10 seconds), then the thing actually blows you out of the control user interface and you have to hold the Joystick down and navigate back all over again, so click FAST!
5. Now joystick down to the bit rate setting and make it 128Kpbs. Should be fine for this kind of recording. Bandwidth isn't that much of a big deal anymore. When you are done with dialog, hit the PLAY/STOP button (is that unintuitive or what!)
6. Now joystick down to the LINE-IN/EXT MIC entry. Press the joystick and then right joystick to select the External Microphone option. This will make the recording loud enough to hear. Push PLAY/Stop to get out of the interface.
7. Now you need to go into record mode. To do this, you have to hold the RECORD button (its not labeled, but is the button with the big red dot on it). It is the right most button. Hold this button for 5 seconds.
8. Now you'll see four undecipherable icons that in essence say are you doing MP3, FM, Voice recording (e.g., from a tiny built in microphone) or LINE. You want to select LINE by joysticking to the right and then pressing the joystick

Eureka. You are now in the right mode. Don't change anything, now the thing is a dedicated recorder which believe me you want, unless you like doing all those instructions at the top. Here is how to record a podcast:

1. To start the recording, press the big red record button. YOu should see the time start to go. The iRiver creates a series of magic files called EXTMIC001, EXTMIC002, etc.
2. To pause the recording, push the PLAY/STOP/STEREO button (I know, I know, how strange).
3. Don't press on the red record button again, butw that closes the file and move onto another file, press the Red record button. So the instinct is to hit record to stop, but don't give in to what is intuitive and natural!
4. When the recording is finished, plug the iRiver into its USB cable (btw, the Blackberry cable is identical for those of you who don't like to carry around lots of cables).
5. Crank up the iRiver Music Manager (why do they require a separate application, I don't understand), on the iRiver, you'll see a bunch of files call EXTMIC001.REC, EXTMIC002.REC, etc. Drag and drop these over on to your computer. A dialog will pop up saying it needs to transcode the files. Say yes, (in reality, it just renames it from .REC to .MP3 since it is encoded in MP3 already). Now you are ready to pump that file up to the web for the podcast.

Good luck. Despite the (comments), the iRiver sound quality is great and it works as long as you remember not to hit random buttons but print out this guide.

Posted by Rich at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (2)

Ludwig has trouble getting his iPod to reset. It is actually quite complicated because resetting varies by type of iPod. Here's the official Apple document (which interestingly has a load google page rank

Resetting iPod if it appears frozen or doesn't respond. If your iPod is frozen or won't turn on, the steps to reset it vary by model. You can easily tell which iPod model you have if you're not sure.

To reset iPod video, iPod nano, iPod mini, iPod mini (Second Generation), iPod photo, and iPod (Click Wheel)

1. Toggle the Hold switch on and off. (Slide it to Hold, then turn it off again.)
2. Press and hold the Menu and Select buttons until the Apple logo appears, about 6 to 10 seconds. You may need to repeat this step.
3. If the above steps did not work, try connecting iPod to a power adapter and plug the power adapter into an electrical outlet, or connect iPod to your computer. Make sure the computer is turned on and isn't set to go to sleep.
4. If this doesn't work, then you need to leave the ipod on until its battery is completey drained. Plug it in and when it charges enough go to #1. Repeat as needed.

To reset older iPods including iPod (Scroll Wheel), and iPod (Touch Wheel)

1. Toggle the Hold switch on and off. (Slide it to Hold, then turn it off again.)
2. Press and hold the Play/Pause and Menu buttons until the Apple/iPod logo appears, about 6 to 10 seconds. You may need to repeat this step.

If the above steps did not work, try connecting iPod to a power adapter and plug the power adapter into an electrical outlet, or connect iPod to your computer. Make sure the computer is turned on and isn't set to go to sleep.

Tip: If you are having difficulty resetting your iPod, set it on a flat surface. Make sure the finger pressing the Select button is not touching any part of the click wheel. Also make sure that you are pressing the Menu button toward the outside of the click wheel, and not near the center.

If you are still unable to reset your iPod, use only one finger from one hand to press the Select button, and one finger from the other hand to press the Menu button.

Posted by Rich at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (262)

JBL - Home Audio. I think I'm one of the unlucky ones. If you have an Onstage speaker system from JBL, then the thing either breaks or volume gets stuck. For me, it just doesn't work.

What happens is that there is a chip gets zapped. The conditions are:

a) you have both the on stage and the iPod on at the same time. So its the hot dock scenario.
b) There is a static charge that hits the volume control
c) You are unlucky enough to have the bad chip.

The bad news is that the only way to tell if you have this before it breaks is to go to a special onstagesupport.com and check the serial number.

JBL will fix the thing and you pay shipping.

You've been warned!

Posted by Rich at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So we are going to become a radio station! Or more to the point, we are thinking about doing podcasts straight from VC central. Stay tuned, but that is why we are buying all this superexpensive gear (iRiver), we are looking for wireless mikes and probably an elcheapo mixer (preferably PC based).

Hints welcome. Dropped a line to Adam Curry for advice.

Waiting for good podcasting publishing software a la Movable Type. There should be a way to archive etc. maybe some specialized MT templates if anyone knows.

Posted by Rich at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Harvard Crimson Online :: News

Tipped off by an online hacker, applicants to several of the nation’s top business schools, including Harvard Business School (HBS), could access internal files on the schools’ websites and ascertain their admissions status a month early.

Posted by Rich at 12:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

TheTechLounge - Industry Insider: Sony Sinking

Sony is in deep trouble. If it hadn’t been obvious to you over the last year it sure is obvious now with their elevating a foreigner to CEO, Howard Stringer. Now having worked for and with Japanese companies, hiring a non-Japanese to do anything with a lot of responsibility is rare, but to run the whole company?

They are right about this, it is amazing that the combined might of Sony, Microsoft, Dell, etc., could let Apple run away with the iPod for four years now.

Posted by Rich at 12:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

X-bit labs - Hardware news - Enthusiast Computer Users Welcome IP Telephony, but Slowly.

A recent X-bit poll shown that the greater part of enthusiasts among readers of X-bit labs either already use or are planning to use Internet telephony services like Vonage or Skype. A huge part of people, however, feel reluctant about the technology.

Recently released results of an X-bit poll demonstrate about 25% of surveyed already using services like Skype and Vonage, while 28% feeling positive about using them. But another 60% of respondents still would prefer means of communications different from Internet telephony – landline, cellular phones, email or instant messaging.

Posted by Rich at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

CoolTechZone::OpenOffice.org Beta 2.0: Trouble for Microsoft. The 1.0 wasn't really competitive, but this new one sounds pretty good. Worth a download

OpenOffice is a fully featured office suite. For most small businesses and homes, OpenOffice is more than enough. You can do everything that you do in Word, plus some things that you can't, like export your documents as an Acrobat PDF.

Posted by Rich at 11:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

iriver iFP 999

This is what Adam Curry uses to record his podcasts. He has a wireless mike as well. Not as sexy as the iPod shuffle, it is pretty amazing technology. Does USB charging, weighs 2 ounces.

It does direct mp3 encoding at high quality which is why it is so amazing. $140 for the iFP 995 (512MB flash) from pricegrabber

The iFP-900 series feature color display, internal flash-memory for skip-free, extended battery life up to 40 hours with internal Li-ion rechargeable battery, a built-in FM tuner and voice recorder. It
also records music from any audio source.

I don't know what wireless mike he uses, but I'll drop him a line.

Posted by Rich at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

They are a really great bunch. Andy and Chris are working hard to make the world a better place for parents. They've got a cool new site.

They are doing a survey of schools something really needed as folks try to figure out where to go preschool, elementary school, etc. Take the survey now.

And some interesting notes on what's happening online:

• Seattle Peps. A great organization for kids.
• Kijiji. eBay just launched Craig's List overseas in essence
• Lila Guide An book of kids recommendations.

Posted by Rich at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

See previous post for fun URLs. I did forget a few importants one:

DivX Digest - XviD Codec. You need this in order to actually see most movies under Windows. It is a viewer for xvid, divx and other mpeg4 movies.

So the sequence is download xvid, then download bit comet, finally go to isohunt.com and look.

Also, the speed of download varies greatly depending on what is popular, the important column is the "S" column. This is the number of seeds (full copies around). Things are very fast if you hit popular items where there are literally thousands of seeds, but specialty content (e.g., for old folks like me) are actually quite rare, so you have to wait for someone to show up with it.

But first run network TV is up there as are popular movies. It will take overnight to download the big ones.

Posted by Rich at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is anyone else getting mountains of trackback spam. With comment moderation and Typekey authentication for comments, those aren't a problem. (Of course with IE, most folks can't even make a comment because of cookie problems, you have to delete all cookies to make typekey.com work).

But, the trackback stuff is completely unmoderated except for keyword searching. Right now I'm getting probably 20 trackback spam per day across all sites and the number is increasing exponentially.

So...trackbacks are going to get turned off for all new entries by default. Sorry all. Most folks aren't using trackbacks anyway, they are kind of a power feature.

Posted by Rich at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Creative Zen Micro 6GB : Multimedia Devices : MobileMag. Apple has first dibs on 6GB microdrives, but Zen did announce this week they will match the 6gb Mac mini at $249 and rebate their 4gb to $179.

Not much price incentive to move away from the industry standard.

Posted by Rich at 11:27 PM | Permalink

Next-Generation iPod Details Unveiled : Multimedia Devices : MobileMag. All the iPod innovations are centered around single chip audio controllers made by PortalPlayer.

It is amazing what it can do. It has a USB 2.0 controller, so you can now plug things into an iPod like a camera where you can offload photos into the iPods big hard disk.

The base chip called the PP5022 also supports Firewire, IDE hard drives, SD/MMC flash cards, infared, 8-bit ADC, 4 channel FM.

The thing even has dual 32-bit ARM7 processors and 128KB of memory

Posted by Rich at 11:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tivo To-Go !

Wow – now I don’t have to linux-hack my tivo to offload programs to my PC. Undertaking such an endeavor before would have involved some warranty-voiding operations on my Tivo, not to mention the possibility of losing all my wife's favorite programs ! Make sure you have DVR s/w 7.1-X and you should be good to go.

Posted by at 1:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AnandTech: IDF Spring 2005 Day 1 - Gelsinger Speaks, nForce4 Intel Edition and more

One of the biggest advances Intel is trying to push now is virtualization (with Intel Virtualization Technology: VT). Other than simply adding another way to utilize the parallelism the dual core push will offer, hardware virtualization will allow quite a few new usage models for personal computers.

Intel is right about this, if everything is a virtual machine then systems are going to be both more reliable, since you can blow away an infected VM and also more compatible since you could run everything from Windows 95 to Linux in the same machine. This is one sane reason why someone might want a Smithfield dual core processor.

Posted by Rich at 12:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cappuccino : Mocha P4 PC E5042B. This has got to be the current small PC leader. It is out of stock right now, but it is 6"×6"x2" It uses a slim CD drive, 2.5" hard drives and SODIMM memory. These are all very small notebook components.

The processor is a standard 478-pin desktop processor though. I just bought from them a 6"×10"×3" system so this is even smaller. Rats, I'm depressed I just saw this one and although not available on the Cappucino site, I did find it on another site.

You can also get at:

• Mocha 5043 from mini-system.net. $389
• Pentium 2.4 ($135)
• 512MB SODIMM memory ($70)
• 40GB 4200 Rpm hard disk ($72)
• NEC 6500A DVD writer ($120)

All from newegg. Since I have another spare Pentium 2.4GHz lying around, it wouldn't be bad to have a spare mini-PC. We'll see how the installation goes with the 620 I bought then give this one a try. Its a $786 PC that fits in the palm of your hand :-)

Alternatively, if you really want to spend some money but get very small, there are mini-ITX boards around that you can build a system from:

• iBase MB870. This is a Mini ITX board that uses the desktop Pentium 4. $250 for the board or $290 from logicsupply.com
• Casetronic C158. This is the case that will fit. Slightly bigger at 12×2"x11"

Posted by Rich at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Just had a great meeting with a terrific bunch of Limited Partners that have entrusted us with their assets. Here's a list of websites and other gadgets and things we talked about:

• Bit Comet. In order to download a Bit Torrent file, you need a special client. Opinions vary, but I think Bit Comet is probably the best of these right now. For the PC only. Leave a comment if you want me to research Mac versions.
• isoHunt - IRC and Bit Torrent Search Engine. This is one of the best sites for searching for bit torrents. Give a search for "csi" a try and get the latest episode.
• Discount Headphone. You saw that very cool headset called the Etymotic 6, get it for a good price here. If you absolutely have to have it in white, get the 6i and pay $20 extra. Absolutely great.
• iPodder.org. Download iPodder from this site to start listening to Podcasts. It is really the future of radio IMHO. To try some podcasts, give Curryville a try as an example. Great stuff.
• Mobisodes. These are one minute short videos that are really popular for next generation handsets. "24" was the first which was great since it is a real time drama. Two more dramas are coming for Verizon for Love and Hate as well as The Sunset Hotel. So eat it up if you've got Verizon.
  *

Posted by Rich at 9:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)