Posted on

But how much will I have to pay for the pleasure…

In the next year, not one, but two shopping magazines will begin publishing what they hope will function as catalogs. [New York Times: Business]

In my mind this is ridiculous. I think these magazines and Lucky for women would be better off as consumer controlled circulation issues. Why do I want to pay for this?? It’s like buying the sharper image catalog at the newsstand. Well Sony does sell their SonyStyle magalog… though I would never choose to buy it. They should be giving it away – or paying us to have it with incentives, like discounts for direct purchase.

This is almost as ridiculous as adding actual commercials to movie pre-screen advertainment. This coming year, we’ll be fortunate enough to pay 10.25 for this opportunity in NYC.

As I’ve ranted previously, if you add commercials to premium content, the price should be reduced. HBO does not run commercials for anything other than what you might also enjoy on the network. We should expect the same at the movie theater where it costs as much for one sitting as it does to have 2 premium cable channels added to your bill each month.

Posted on

What’s Next…

It’s hard to believe that the end of the year is here already…. so much has happened and there is so much to look forward to. One significant piece of unknown for me, is what’s next career-wise. Since I can’t earn a living as a stay-at-home dad, I need to get this squared away soon. The trick of course is figuring out what to do next.

I’ve worked in a start-up which was exciting and cool, though it was clear (in that case) that the money was not going to be earned by me in the end. I’ve worked for a mid-sized company which was then acquired by a mega-corp, which after many changes eventually led to my current situation. I like the small and mid-size thing… Once you get to the mega-corp, it’s very hard to see your impact, even if you have senior level visibility and responsibility, just given the size of the company and the way things tend not to change.

More to think about certainly…

Posted on

Net-based RSS Aggregators

This is an area where there seems to be plenty of action of late. Bloglines, myFeedster, FastBuzz, MyWireService and Kinja coming up. I still use our Info Aggregator, with all the feeds delivered to an IMAP mailbox and which I then read in my mail client. [E M E R G I C . o r g]

No idea why this is such a hot topic to blog on, or why there are so many services coming out. I’ve tried them all and keep coming back to NetNewsWire. I guess I like the read to post in my blog feature too much. I also like the way my feeds are managed into groups.

Ideally, I’d like to see a desktop-webbased-palm system so I could read the same feeds in multiple places, keeping track of course of what was read and unread.

Posted on

Hush’s silent AVX Music Server

A new whisper-quiet (or so they claim) digital audio server from Hush Technologies. The AVX Music Server connects to both your stereo and your home… [Gizmodo]

Looks good… love the PDA remote skin! Would love to see that kind of development for the SliMP3 on either PPC or Palm platform. The handheld skin is nice but no were as sophisticated as what has been developed here.

Posted on

AT&T and Atlantic Records to test MMC album delivery

Take a cell phone/ multimedia device – the Nokia 3300 which can be expanded through MMC cards and add a pre-packaged MMC card to the mix, but charge $28.95 for the privilege. Don’t forget that unlike a Palm, Pocket PC or Gameboy, this phone uses the same convenient system for changing cards which requires the user to remove the back panel, remove the battery and then wrestle with the chip holder to remove and replace what might already be inside.

Who thought that was a good price?!!?!? Oh that’s right the record label, lords of convenience and early adopters that they are. This is way more than the cost of a CD forgetting of course that you can download your own tracks, either illegally or by purchase and transfer ONCE to a larger card through which you can leave in the unit. Don’t forget you look like you have a Taco on your head when talking directly into the phone without a headset…

You can read more about this in Advertising Age

This is an interesting experiment in stupidity in my humble opinion and based on pricing and lack of convenience is sure to fail. I am prepared to eat some crow on this if someone can prove this is a fantastic success months from now…

We’ll see soon enough. I bet nothing more than a few press releases will happen here. Have to see what happens when AT&T launches their download service in 2004. Should be interesting to see if there are more than just enhanced ring tones after this test.

Posted on

For the deaf, new options on the phone

This is an amazing development which should serve as quite the equalizer…

The Sorenson videophone is a breakthrough, said Genie Gertz, an assistant professor of deaf studies at California State University at Northridge, because it enables the deaf to use what many consider to be their native language – American Sign Language – with unprecedented simplicity and clarity. “This is a gigantic step for the deaf community,” Gertz, who is deaf, said through an interpreter.

The Sorenson VP-100 is a stand-alone videophone that works with a television and broadband Internet connection. It has a remote control and a flashing light that can be used instead of a ringer to signal incoming calls. Users can sign directly with another deaf person or with a Sorenson interpreter. Because of the high quality of the video, the interpreter can read the deaf user’s signing while simultaneously translating and speaking to the telephone user, and vice versa. [

Posted on

Sony Ericsson testing mobile online gaming

Sony Ericsson announced today that its testing online gaming between mobiles. It looks to be open to all consumers, but certain carrier restrictions apply…. [MobileTracker]

Very cool!!

Posted on

Lost? Hiding? Your sell phone is keeping tabs

Families and employers are adopting surveillance technology once used mostly to track soldiers and prisoners. [CNET News.com]

I have mixed feelings about this technology… While I think location services are cool for personal use (driving directions, friend finding, store locations, etc…) and tracking of children for parental piece of mind is great, the potential for abuse is certainly there. Let’s hope that the appropriate personal security is added or enhanced as the services become more available.

Posted on

nice hack for Mail

I tried to search this one out as I read it yesterday, but was unable
to actually track down the source…

With my setup, I POP multiple accounts through Spam Intercepter, which pulls mail from 2 different accounts. I have the second (my .Mac) account disabled in Mail since the messages come through when I POP into SI. Because the account is disabled it is not that simple to initiate a new message from it without manually activating it each time… until now.

By simply adding the email addresses you want to use separated by a comma in the account config, (in the email address field) you can bring back the pull-down in Mail which lets you pick which address to use. Pretty cool and very simple.

BTW — I DO NOT HACK MAIL ACCOUNTS. I cannot offer you any password assistance.