more on Dowser

At first, Dowser seems like a simple search engine, but then you realize that with the power of Google, wikipedia and sourceforge (pretty sure you can add others) you get an enhanced search exerience running saved results on your computer.

Not only are your searches saved, but related topics get recommended in the flow and you can easily browse back through search terms as well as related topics — kind of similar to A9 actually, but in more simple terms. Pages referenced in results are also cached which is very slick. You might miss some pages as you initially search or decide to go back and try to dig deeper on things and you’ve got a very handy reference of everything sitting and waiting for you right on your own computer. Cached pages let you know when they were saved so you can easily see if you need to check for more recent updates.

Dowser is definitely a keeper in my book.

VOIP Price Watch

AT&T Callvantage dropped their price today by $5 (to 30) which was quickly countered by Vonage bringing their price to $25/mo. This is an unlimited local and LD package with enhanced features – a great deal at either price.

Vonage has too be pissed though… They are the small guy here and it’s clear the deep pockets at AT&T could push them down until they no longer make any money on current customers…assuming of course this has been profitable to begin with. As the review goes on for the marketing of their business, we may learn a bit more about their current customer acquisition costs, which I figure are higher than desired given the (perceived) wasted reach they run to try and keep pace ATT. To me that’s a losing battle and they should instead focus on reaching the right kinds of people with the right less techie message. AT&T is doing a great job educating people through mass media and now Verizon Voicewing is getting in the game as well. Vonage needs to be smarter.

Om covers this bit as does Andy and thevoipweblog. By all counts this hurts. The SIPphone lawsuit against their current in-store marketing can’t feel too good either. Michael Disruption Robertson stirring it up again…

Dowser

Just starting to play with this… Seems very cool. I noticed I could add Dowser as my search engine within Firefox, so I did. I’ll use it as my default for a while and try to report back…

Dowser is a Web research and archiving tool that clusters results from search engines, associates words that appear in previous searches, and keeps a local cache of all the results you click on in a searchable database along with summaries and links to related information. It helps you to keep track of what you find, with no advertising. [Dowser]

HD DVR in the House!

SA Explorer 8000

I traded 2 set-top boxes today for one that matches them both in features, the Scientific Atlanta 8000HD. Previously I was using both the 8000DVR and the 3100HD box. I now have 1 box that is a highly capable HD DVR.

Immediately the return to full-time HD watching is huge. Our preference was for the DVR features and with a baby, we’ve had to limit the amount of HD watching to allow for unexpected breaks. This box lets us eliminate the sacrifice, and just focus – literally – on the quality.

Picture quality is superb, but could be even better with a different television. I am using a Toshiba HD set purchased 4 years ago – so no DVI for me, though the SA box fully supports that. (I actually called Time Warner and inquired about this… it’s scheduled to be turned on in the near future – whatever that means. Instead I am using the Colorstream cables which are a series of 3 RCA cables for each piece of the color spectrum. S_Video is another option. There are 2 options for digital audio – coax and optical. I only have a single coax in on my integrated amp, and my optical cable is not working (argh!) so I am currently using the RCA out. Sound is still quite good and as I recall from my previous set-up HD has better sound as well as video.

For non-HD channels you can choose in the settings, whether you’d like to leave things in 4:3, stretch or zoom to fill the 16:9 screen you have. I chose zoom, since I hate the bars and find that stretch is way too distorted. There are a few widescreen options on my set with which I can further tweak the picture.

Otherwise, there’s a USB port on the front, but no FireWire, so we can’t even complain to get it turned on. There’s no schedule for the USB and even if there was a FW active port you would not be able to easily copy content to DV for DVD archival. There are clearly marked in/out options in the back. I am not sure what exactly you might drive in, but the out seems optimal for VHS archival, as if anyone uses that with an HD box.

That’s about it. The little I’ve watched to check things out, seems good. The DVR features are seemingly identical to the non-HD 8000.

Zensys Z-Wave home automation

I’m all about the magic and have thought about home automation quite a bit for home theater applications as well as many other conveniences and cool factors… This will have to go in to the ring for consideration.

Bachelors of the world hear this: this new 908.4-Mhz, UPnP-compliant home automation system from Z-Wave will make your X10 system look so 20th century. Because this system is completely wireless, you won%u2019t need to rewire your house (unlike X-10 systems). Each module acts as a repeater, so it re-broadcasts the signal to other hubs. The Deluxe Starter Kit includes two dimmable light switches and a remote. The kit will run you about $150, and additional modules are about $40. So invite the girls over, hit that switch, and let the magic begin. [ Engadget ]

NewsGator Gains Partners to Extend RSS Reach

Just caught this story at eWeek via Bloglines on how NewGator is cutting a similar API deal with FeedDemon which should make windows users reading via Outlook locally quite happy – now there’s a choice (when released) for how you sync your feeds.

NewsGator also did a deal with SixApart to comarket each others products… seems like a good deal since they offer the other side of each other’s equations – that being publish and subscribe.

Pretty amazing week for RSS syndication and synchronization via web services…

Skype Cold Calls?

I’ve received a few calls from strangers in the past few days and it’s quite odd. Usually I start Skype with an IM before calling even with the people I regularly chat with. I mean who knows if you are there let alone all connected with your headset. I don’t recognize any of the names that have called me and they all seem to be overseas – actually I can only get info on 2 of the 3 and one was from Germany and the other was from China. I am pretty sure I don’t know anyone living in either place and don’t have any friends traveling under an alias in either place…

Anyone else getting these? I’ve I had voicemail I’d be able to see if this is really a telemarketer / voice spammer. For now I’ve got the call log…

Circuit City picks up AT&T CallVantage

I’ll have to stop by and see how this gets positioned with Vonage on the shelf. When I picked up my Vonage box at Circuit City, it was totally self-service with no marketing. Now that there’s a choice, one would think there’s going to be some end capping or shelf-talking going on…

Beginning Friday, consumer electronics retailer Circuit City will sell AT&T CallVantage Net phone services in many of its outlets and through its Web site, the two companies said on Wednesday. [News.com]

ProfiMail for Series 60

Russ discovers a great new email app for Series 60 phones… It’s great to see this function get seriously enhanced since many people looking to use smart devices want better connectivity.

ProfiMail from Lonely Cat Games finally meets the need. It has everything you’d expect from a real email client – scheduled check for new mail, synching, attachments (including zips), image viewer, ability to view HTML mail, multiple email accounts, etc. [Russell Beattie]

New Bloglines Web Services

Yesterday I posted I was looking for an RSS sync capability to enable desktop readers and web based services to link … well it looks like that day will come very soon. This is very cool news… (Thanks JP!)

Three leading desktop news feed and blog aggregators announced today that they have implemented new open application programming interfaces (API) and Web Services from Bloglines (www.bloglines.com) that connect their applications to Bloglines’ free online service for searching, subscribing, publishing and sharing news feeds, blogs and rich web content. FeedDemon (www.bradsoft.com), NetNewsWire (www.ranchero.com), and Blogbot (www.blogbot.com) are the first desktop software applications to use the open Bloglines Web Services.

Bloglines Web Services address a key issue facing the growing RSS market by reducing the bandwidth demands on sites serving syndicated news feeds. Now, instead of thousands of individual desktop PCs independently scanning news sources, blogs and web sites for updated feeds, Bloglines will make low-bandwidth requests to each site on behalf of the universe of subscribers and cache any updates to its master web database. Bloglines will then redistribute the latest content to all the individuals subscribed to those feeds via the linked desktop applications — FeedDemon, NetNewsWire or Blogbot — or via Bloglines’ free web service. [Bloglines]

PalmSource Builds New Browser 3.0 for Cobalt

The screenshot on this at PalmInfocenter says it all… nicely done PalmSource! Of course until we actually run it, it’s just specs…

Built on the ACCESS NetFront core technology, PalmSource Web Browser 3.0 offers enhanced graphics rendering and navigation capability for the wireless delivery of information and streaming media. PalmSource Web Browser 3.0 uses technologies such as page zooming, scalable fonts and ‘squeeze’ rendering, allowing users to eliminate horizontal scrolling for easier navigation. It also includes support for one handed operation, and multiple windows or Tabs and supports both web and WAP browsing.

PalmSource Web Browser 3.0 is designed to support the latest W3C standard specifications including WAP 2.0, HTML and XHTML, enabling mobile device users to browse operator portals or traditional Web content. Smartphone and smart mobile device users with wireless connectivity can browse Web and WAP pages to shop, download games and music, watch and listen to news, connect to corporate intranets and access email. Enterprises and wireless shoppers will benefit from increased security with support for SSL (Secure Socket Layer) or TLS (Transport Layer Security) for secure communications and e-commerce transactions. PalmSource Web Browser 3.0 is also designed to support optional proxy settings for use in environments that require a proxy server. [PalmInfocenter.com]

RSS Synced up and Served Fresh

If you read or try to track a great deal of feeds, you’ll want to have access to this information in as many places as you can. I’ve found it pretty hard to manage personally though I’ve been using quite a few tricks to keep tabs on things. First, I use Bloglines as my primary aggregator these days which I’ve blogged about previously and think is really an excellent choice. It allows a logged session to track what you’ve read, saved and subscribed to seemlessless carry across any platform — multiple machines or even wireless.

NetNewsWire 2.0 now supports sync which is a great thing if you use more than one mac or and now FeedDemon is getting into the mix as well according to this post I just read from Steve Rubel…

FeedDemon is working on a new feature that will enable users to synchronize posts they read somewhere online with the ones they read in the application, according to a forum post by Nick Bradbury. Looking forward to seeing it. [Micro Persuasion]

This sounds like a cool addition for local and and more local usage. After reading the forum post, it seems like the model will be similar to the way in which NNW does it which is between 2 copies of the app on 2 machines.

In my ideal world, you’d be able to read locally or off the net and seemlessly manage subscriptions and read status like an IMAP email account. I’d like to be able to use NNW on my mac and either Bloglines or FeedDemon on the PC I use for some work. I’ve actually thought about this stuff before… just did a quick search here and found this post mirroring this basic thought from December 2003.

O’Brien to Replace Leno In 2009

Patience pays …

Jay Leno will retire from NBC’s “The Tonight Show” in 2009, when “Late Night” host Conan O’Brien will take over as host on television’s most-watched nighttime talk show. [WSJ]

Older Palm Devices To Get BlackBerry

Great news for older Palms… or Treos. While applications like Chatter and Snapper can do email even with the added security of SSL, many companies are supporting blackberry only for remote access. This will certainly change that and give users and IT departments a nice choice.

Research In Motion (RIM) said Monday that it will offer a version of its BlackBerry Connect software that will enable older Palm OS devices to access always-on e-mail.

Specifically, the company said it was working with Palm OS vendor PalmSource to make the software available in the aftermarket for existing Palm devices. The companies previously announced that BlackBerry support was being built into the latest version of the Palm OS. [Mobile Pipeline]

Just Scratching the Surface

I’ve started reading Getting Things Done and feeling quite good about this approach to organization… I’ve also been playing with a copy of Life Balance on both Mac and Palm and this method seems to be very compelling for a total information view. I’ll have to write a more formal review of my system once I’ve got everything tweaked, but so far I like where it’s going.

VOOM’s Network Enabled HD DVR

PVRBlog points to an amazing VOOM Demo Video for what’s coming in 2005.

Voom has partnered with Ucentric to create a multi-room DVR / Media sharing network. On Voom it works with a main DVR rig, or rigs which network together to share content to other rooms with either TVs or simply stereos since the platform can also share music and pictures in addition to TV content. The other rooms require the use of a thin client box which once activated gets its own stream on the network.

This is a very exciting prospect for the near future and from what I gathered from the video really means this stuff is not only close but actually looks easy to use. Feature highlights include being able to watch the same recorded show in different rooms at different paces and switching rooms to continue watching something.

The target box has a 160GB drive at the moment which they say holds about 30 hours of HD content. That seems pretty good to me… Unfortunately, it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll even have the option to switch to Voom or any satellite provider while living in my apartment. Ucentric lists partners on their site (not Voom for some reason) and include Comcast and Motorola, so perhaps these types of features will find themselves beyond mere test markets on the cable side as well. For now I’m hopeful that the HD DVR from Time Warner will hold me over. According to the Explorer 8000 mailing list it’s now trickling out…

Last row

my middle seat got cleared to an isle on the way out… hopefully the last ros action I’ve got now will move as well. It’s looking pretty full right now though…