a multi-tasked stream of consciousness or perhaps just emails to myself
Fatal Error or Fatal Alert: these terms both sound worse than they really are. A more friendly interpretation is: “Your device has encountered an error running the current program and needs to be reset to get it back to normal.” Learn how to spot Fatal Errors, and the best ways to deal with them. [palmOne]
Why not simply call them something less um… Fatal??
Treonauts gave an exciting review to the open source The Core Pocket Media Player (tcmp) for Palm OS today and I just gave it a quick whirl. It’s VERY cool. The UI is a touch rough and does not support the 5-way for browsing but it does work just fine during playback for volume and stop / play. That’s minor though… the video playback quality is excellent!!
The best part as noted by Andrew is that you don’t have to convert anything to MP4 or use Kinoma to convert for use on your device. You can use pretty much whatever file you happen to have ready to watch which is enormously helpful considering conversion time is a killer on ease of use. The screen shot above is a 131.4MB DIVX AVI file encoded at 512 x384 with MP3 sound. I noticed a few skips, but sound is in sync which can be the trickiest bit to nail down.
tmcp is up to v. 0.63, but it’s very solid. If you have 1MB to spare on your Palm OS device and want to be able to watch video while on the go, this is a great option and it seems to just be the beginning…
I totally love AcidSearch, which is a very handy search extension for Safari allowing me to use A9, or switch quickly to Froogle among many other searches all within the main search bar. Seems though that 10.3.9, which was released tonight is not supported and neither will Tiger when it arrives shortly. Have to say I hate when that happens.
I was unable to even launch Safari after the update which was starting to freak me out since webkit was working in NetNewsWire. I thought of anything I had installed recently and disabled or deleted, but no dice. A quick trip to the console (always forget that handy tool) led me right to AcidSearch. Find… delete… Safari is back.
Gotta love Skype!
Today they are more public with both the SkypeIn and Voicemail services I’ve been using for a while now. I honestly have not had much use for SkypeIn other than the coolness factor that I can have a 415 and now a 646 number so I am covered on both coasts with local numbers through the same telephony service – at a ridiculously low cost.
The SkypeIn call I tested today with my new NYC number sounded good on my end and other than the occasional flicker (common actually on all VOIP I’ve used). You simply cannot beat the cost. For about $10 for 3 mo you get a number anyone can call you on (to your computer) from any phone. Voicemail is still being tested. I can’t figure out how to personalize my message with my voice. For now it’s simply a generic message which is not horrible, but is certainly not ideal.
I think Skype has much greater potential out of the US where inter-country is bigger and carries greater cost. Here, the flat rate pricing structures have killed long distance anyway and on cellular we are used to simply buying minutes rather than paying for incoming or even outgoing calls based on where you call. Regardless, the Skype pricing even on outbound (which I have yet to use) is amazingly cheap.
An interesting development considering Amazon will not actually be looking to deal with it first-hand, instead resorting to work through the existing rental infrastructure of either NetFlix or Blockbuster. Whoever gets this business will certainly be the winner in an already heated battle. The loser will have some serious issues surviving (in my book) against what will certainly be a very dominant player. Amazon has yet to waste much time in the categories they’ve committed the resources against.
I’d love to see it be Netflix personally… followed by their acquisition.
Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O: Quote, Profile, Research) has approached online DVD rental service companies, including Blockbuster Inc (BBI.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Netflix Inc. (NFLX.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , to explore a partnership rather than launching its own U.S. DVD rental service, an industry source said on Thursday.
The negotiations, which began in recent months, come as Blockbuster and Netflix are battling for dominance in the young industry, depressing profit margins and pushing up marketing expenses.
Amazon, Netflix, Blockbuster and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Walmart.com, which also runs an online DVD rental service, declined to comment. [Reuters.com]
According to BizJournals, Amazon has just acquired Mobipocket:
Franklin Electronic Publishers Inc. sold its shares in a French software company to Amazon.com Inc. and retired 29 percent of its outstanding preferred stock.
The Burlington City, N.J., publisher of electronic books sold its 16,765 ordinary shares in MobiPocket.com SA to Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) in connection with Amazon’s purchase of all MobiPocket’s outstanding shares.
I’ve read much more through eReader on my Palms, but I suppose those days are numbered with Amazon in the game.
The BBC has produced a mobile Hitchhiker’s Guide… H2G2. Works great on my Treo and I would imagine it works great on pretty much any connected device.
I, Cringely’s latest column, A Cup of Bandwidth is very cool. He describes how he created an wireless array borrowing 3 wi-fi connections from neighbors (who knew) and the use of Sveasoft’s firmware for the linksys WRT54G routers he owns. If nothing else it’s pretty cool.
I decided to conduct an experiment, seeing how I could create an inherently reliable wireless Internet service through the use of multiple unreliable wireless Internet connections. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME (unless you want to). Remember, I am a professional.
If I was going to be serious about this borrowing a cup of Internet, then I’d need multiple connections — something that is harder to do than you might guess. Most computers, for example, are connected to only one network at a time. It isn’t so much the fact that there can’t be multiple active connections, but that some of the housekeeping issues like DNS and SMTP servers get complex.
My home office is on the third floor under a mansard tin roof. I’m amazed that my neighbors’ wireless signals can even get through to me but they do, though weakly. If I was going to reach out and touch a bunch of strangers, I’d need an external high-gain antenna — probably several of them.
So I climbed out the window and found a place to attach a vertical length of pipe, atop of which I mounted three 8 dB patch antennas I had sitting around from my earlier experiment in aerial WiFi. The patches were clamped to the pipe, one atop another. I chose to use three because that would give me one each for channels 1, 6, and 11, giving maximal legal coverage.
It would be great if you could just plug three WiFi adapter cards into your PC, remove the pigtail antennas and attach a length of LMR400 cable, but I don’t think it would work. Instead, I used three Linksys WRT54G 802.11g routers, re-flashed with Sveasoft firmware. My plan was to use each router as an Ethernet-to-Ethernet bridge, but actually acting as a client. An easier technique would be to use any of a number of WiFi gaming adapters, but I already had the WRT54Gs and figured that having the ability to increase their power might come in handy.
My inner DJ lusts for this baby…
via Gizmodo
So we were up extra early today with a sick child and flipped on Sesame Street in time to see the pre-show lesson. Some fruits and vegetables were signing about happy and healthy foods followed by Buzz Aldrin and Telly Monster discussing eating happily and healthy so you have energy to play. Seems like a good idea… but then the sponsor placements kick in prior to the actual show starting and the first sponsor as usual is McDonald’s, which runs completely counter…sigh.
Once again, reflecting on yesterday’s Cookie Monster – Cookies are a sometimes food – politically correct lesson… If the powers that be at Sesame Street were so concerned about childhood obesity, you’d think they might consider not accepting money from McDonald’s.
Flickr Automator Action
Originally uploaded by fspeirs.
Fraser Speirs has already developed the best Flickr uploader in my book with FlickrExport for iPhoto, but he’s far from resting with Tiger just around the corner.
I’ve been itching to try Automator as I really think the not so script-worthy people like myself will get a huge productivity push when it arrives. Only 16 more days to go!
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Apple Computer (AAPL) on Wednesday reported a second-quarter net profit of $290 million, or 34 cents a share, on $3.24 billion in revenue. Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call had forecast Apple to earn 24 cents a share on $3.21 billion in revenue. During the same period a year ago, Apple earned $46 million, or 6 cents a share on $1.9 billion in revenue. [Marketwatch]
This sounds awesome and basically what I was talking about earlier today except it will be done by the consumer… not the broadcast networks. That said, if Downhill Battle is successful at getting this software distributed on release, it would make a great platform for an existing content creator (networks and cable) to begin narrowcasting right to the end watcher. Sounds highly disruptive, and easy to use. I can’t wait. Hat Tip Boing Boing
Announcing a new platform for internet television and video. Anyone can broadcast full-screen video to thousands of people at virtually no cost, using BitTorrent technology. Viewers get intuitive, elegant software to subscribe to channels, watch video, and organize their video library. The project is non-profit, open source, and built on open standards. Today we’re announcing the project and releasing our current sourcecode. The software is launching in June. [Participatory Culture Foundation]
We caught the new Cookie Monster lesson on Sesame Street today and it was honestly not as awful as I was expecting. Cookie Monster still attacked a cookie at the end of the song stating this was a “sometime.”
Child obesity is an issue, I can’t argue that, but changing a classic Sesame Street bit to be politically correct is just silly. Perhaps McDonalds should stop sponsoring kids programming. That might actually have an impact. Oh yeah and perhaps some parental control over children’s eating habits.
I think it’s time for broadcasters to consider VOD through VidCasting (aka podcasting). I know that recently Cringely described his vision for how his employer PBS would be able to offer an on demand selection of 10,0000 titles. I agree though don’t know it needs to be built entirely through affiliate stations though that might help defray some distribution / bandwidth costs.
While PBS certainly has a nice selection of content, much of it would not be watched yet… as much as I believe in the Long Tail. Yes that’s a key point of the Long Tail notion, but I think initially we’ll need to see some popular downloads and availability in addition to simply providing deep catalog access.
There are a few key audiences for this… Business Travelers, Technology Early Adopters, and Parents with young kids. I think the last group (of which I am a part) is actually the most important for mass adoption. You’ll always have the first two groups buy in at some level for new technologies, either “because they can” or because it makes travel easier and more fun. Parents though have different needs and making content available and portable would be a fantastic opportunity.
In many way ways children programming is ideal for on-demand options as well as portable players. If you’ve watched any program recently, you’ve probably noticed that there are few if any commercials (perhaps a sponsor spot at the beginning and end and then just pure 20+ minutes of programming. Noggin does a great job packaging their shows in this way and even includes a few “extras” to fill the half-hour slot with a song or activity (not a commercial) making it pretty likely that even in the age of the DVR you don’t really fast forward that much as their is not much to skip.
We’ve noticed already how Hannah (our just about 17 month old daughter) understands that things can be queued on demand from the DVR or from our DVD archive. She totally gets that we can rewind or fast forward to a favorite song with Barney and Blue or skip over a part on Sesame Street. Hannah actually asks that we skip or rewind… Growing up, we did not have a VCR when I was Hannah’s age, let alone cable TV. All that came later… kids today have very different expectations for how their edutainment is delivered…
In my perfect world, the content would be available to either come directly to a DVR or a computer in my choice of format so that it could be taken on the road for family car trips (always an adventure). I see DRM-Free MPEG-2 coming through my cable box (much more than is currently available through the on-demand selection of Time Warner) and an option of formats (MPEG-2 or MPEG-4) for my computer so that shows could easily be taken on the road by portable DVD player or portable media player.
I think this could go through a podcasting (RSS with Enclosures) system, utilizing Bit Torrent to properly credit speed back to those households sharing back to make it easy and accessible for more people. You’d simply subscribe to a show and let RSS deliver the goods to your torrent system.
This does not have to be laden with DRM as there is currently not much of an illegal supply of kids programming online… There’s a reason for this. Parents don’t want to rip off the providers of good stuff for their kids. Make it available, make it easy. There’s no need for us to edit the commercials (as there are none), just deliver it in the current form.
Sony Ericsson said it is committing about 75% of its North American media budget to ads in movie theaters. [textually.org]
I have no idea why a brand like Sony Ericsson would want to commit such a large quantity of their media budget to a place that does not allow the use of their technology. Sure movie audiences are captive (no way to fast forward through an ad) but commercials in theaters are the ultimate insult in my book.
A movie costs over $10 AND you get the honor of watching a commercial (not just the annoying slide show of local business ads with some movie trivia thrown in for good measure)?? Imagine if Sony was able to use some of their pseudo corporate synergy and help defray the cost of your ticket for movies their studios release… that would certainly make the pre-movie commercial more palatable. I’d be willing to bet it would make the brand more favorable to consumers as well.
I am not sure why suddenly Meetup decided that they would charge a fee for people to use their service, but it seems to be very successfully driving people away … and to Yahoo Groups which offers very similar features (minus RSVP options for events) at no charge.
As soon as the administrators of the groups I am in received notice of the change, they announced matters to the group, who all support the migration.
If I was Meetup, I’d start to reconsider things. The discussions have taken place within the Meetup discussion boards… we’ll see if they are paying attention.
Om Malik notes the deal between XM and AOL, which sounds good, but you have to wonder why they are making you pay more for the option of high quality internet streaming. Sirius (I am a customer) gives it to you for free… With the XM deal, you are paying for XM AND paying for AOL and now you have to add yet another fee on top. Just give it away… loyalty marketing people! I can’t imagine every subscriber is going to use it or even close (at least not today) so the cost of handling this can’t possibly be that brutal. Perks and features are good on top of quality content programming.
Looks like there is more music coming our way on the web. AOL and XM Satellite Radio just announced a deal where AOL will stream 200CD-quality XM radio channels over the web, for a monthly fee of $5 a month. 150 Lower bit-rate channels will be available to web users for free.
Update – Should have read that more carefully last night… AOL customers get the service, but XM’s have to pay.
I had no idea… but thanks to Palm Addicts I know now…
Spotted on a Brighthand forum “if you go to the calculator function and then press the center button to the right, you will find several more calculators that are able to do conversions etc”