a multi-tasked stream of consciousness or perhaps just emails to myself
I had a nice discussion (mp3) with Ricky and Dameon last night on Nokia and the mobile market. We talked about possible future directions for Nokia, the Internet Tablet and the N95 among other topics … probably something we’ll be doing again soon!
I also created an enhanced version (itunes .m4a) with links and images if you want to download for iTunes.
Bandwagon which launches this week is going to enable simple point and click backup of your iTunes library to Amazon’s S3 storage cloud!! This is awesome! While I’ve got my library sitting on a local RAID, having an offsite location for over 200GB of data is a great feeling of security.
Seriously looking forward to trying this… If you have a blog and post about this page, you can get the first year free. Pricing looks like it will be about $99/year which is very reasonable in my opinion for this type of service.
This sounds like a great read… and is formated beautifully for small ebook readers like the Nokia N800. I’m sure it looks great at full screen and printed out as well.
Investigative reporter Kim Zetter spent a year probing the life of David Thomas, a high-tech grifter who became an FBI asset.
In interviews with Thomas, his girlfriend, his associates in the underground and federal agents on the cybercrime beat, Zetter pieced together the strange world of the “boards,” online bazaars where crooks and swindlers work together to scam everyone else.
Now Wired News is pleased to present Zetter’s probative three-part series as a readable, printable 25-page PDF file. Download it (.pdf). Print it. Read it. The text is justified, but the crimes aren’t. [Wired News]
I had read about but was struggling to recall an app that could easily sync content from iTunes to a mass storage device (mounted memory card for example) and finally re-discovered SyncTunes today!
Through the magic of this application I can now VERY easily sync content to either memory card in the Nokia N800 which is very cool. You can certainly drag and drop things as you like, but through SmartPlaylists in iTunes, things are so much more interesting.
As you can see, the main interface of SyncTunes is pretty straightforward. You can choose a playlist (or smartplaylist), Podcasts and which volume and folder within you’d like to have things reside. I currently subscribe to far too many podcasts to be able to sync everything so instead I created a smartplaylist so the latest unread content could be waiting for me on the Tablet.
With this configuration, I am selecting only podcasts from the last month that iTunes (and also my iPod) have not played. SyncTunes will automatically replace the material on my N800 with each sync and the smartplaylist in iTunes is set to update on the fly. The whole process took about 5 minutes to set-up. While I am using this with a Nokia N800 tablet it will certainly work with any device that can be mounted on your desktop either through USB or even a card reader.
Technorati Tags: iTunes, Internet Tablet, N800, Podcast, SyncTunes, iPod, Mass Storage
Fred notes a problem and recommends a solution for sharing music regardless of how you choose to listen…
Some people use Napster. Some use Rhapsody. Some use Yahoo Music. I think these services should get together and let their users “roam” onto other networks. Let’s say my brother uses Napster and he wants to send me a link to a song by Gomez. He sends me a Napster link and I can’t listen. But I should be able to do that. Either translate that link to a Rhapsody link or let me log into Napster using my Rhapsody account. [A VC:]
I think it would be easiest to match this up with the Plays For Sure stores initially, but if I was Real, I’d want to get Rhapsody connected in this way as well. I thought one of the services actually offered a streaming option via the browser which would certainly work for emailed links… I have no experience here as none of the subscription music services support Mac or iPod in any way thanks to Windows only DRM.
Technorati Tags: Music, DRM, Rhapsody, Subscriptions, Yahoo, Napster, Marketing
John Hodgman (Get a Mac, Daily Show) has released an audiobook for free on iTunes … check it out!
Technorati Tags: Audiobook, John Hodgman, iTunes
I’ve been a longtime NetNewsWire user and lover, but since I really started reading feeds on my mobile device, I’ve been searching for a way to keep my reading locations in sync easily. NetNewsWire can sync through Newsgator (which I use) but Newsgator mobile sucks compared to Bloglines and … Google Reader.
I was actually happily reading through Bloglines but in the last week or so, I’ve been actively using Google Reader because the new release is really pretty great! Bloglines has a few annoying features which have yet to be addressed and with a few minimal tweaks has actually been the exact same product since before the Ask acquisition.
Google Reader enables full reading, saving, tagging and navigating with the keyboard which I really dig. You can even call up a specific feed with a keyboard shortcut.
The main thing I really like over Bloglines is that I can click on a full folder without worrying that my full list of feeds will get marked as read before I’ve had a chance to actually read them. Bloglines has yet to address this and for me is actually a critical difference.
The obvious advantage to a web based reader is that you can access things from anywhere you have a connection and from any web enabled device. There is no sync – state is just maintained. Of course, the key disadvantage is that you can’t do any reading while on a plane, which I’ve certainly done in the past, but in my current gig, I am traveling more by car and use a Sprint EVDO card when on the go, so I’ve got access pretty much anywhere I need from my laptop … not too mention my E61.
The mobile reader can definitely use a few tweaks but is amazingly efficient for reading. You have less control than you do from Bloglines, but I can live with the differences for now. There’s a small list being compiled by the Google Reader Group for what changes would be appreciated.
Lifehacker and TUAW have made similar moves and are worth reading for perspective as well.
Technorati Tags: Google Reader, Bloglines, NetNewsWire, Newsgator, Sync, E61, Mobile
Two new mobile bookmarks for business readers… WSJ and BusinessWeek. Interestingly, both are sponsored by Microsoft Windows Mobile. BusinessWeek even sprung for a new .mobi domain.
http://mobile2.wsj.com/
http://businessweek.mobi/
Technorati Tags: BusinessWeek, E61, Marketing, Microsoft, Mobile, Travel, WSJ
Orbitcast reports on the launchh of Sirius Internet Radio, which I really like in theory. What I don’t like is the Windows Media Player requirement which makes the interface on the Mac a total kludge.
You have to use Safari (no firefox) and you have to run the browser and an external media player… You also get ZERO track information about the currently playing station which is one of the nicer bits about Sirius.
I wonder what it would take for some sort of iTunes authentication. I know they are allegedly working with Yahoo on the Stilleto so I suppose Yahoo authentication is more likely which would be cool too actually if it just worked.
FrozenSilicon Labs:: PandoraBoy is basically the same as PandoraMan in look and feel, but with added (and most excellent) support for Growl Notifications, the Apple remote (MacBook Pro!) and Global Keyboard shortcuts. I can now stream in the background (over my EVDO connection!) while rating advancing tracks as I go without having to leave my front app….
Technorati Tags: Pandora
BMW has launched a site promoting 4 new audiobooks, which I’ve just downloaded. This is a joint promotion from Random House, though BMW retains the branding on things… I’ve yet to listen, but am syncing to my iPod for the train home. This seems like a nice brand extention idea – mobile content to enjoy while driving or just on the go.
technorati tags:BMW, Audiobooks, Branding, content, marketing, mobile
I’ve added a few new tools of note to my gadget bag and thought I’d share…
First, Ashley was kind enough to get me a new 60GB 5G iPod and it’s a wonderful change from my previous 3G 40GB model. I love the color, size and resolution of the screen. The overall size is remarkable – expecially compared to my previous full size iPod. The only negative thing I can consider is that in video mode the battery life is MUCH shorter than I might like. It’s probably around 3 hours total if you do video, so plan accordingly. I was watching Battlestar Gallactica on my flight west last week and had to end before I was really ready when the battery gave out.
On my return I decided I finally deserved some real headphones and picked up a pair of Shure E4c E4c Sound Isolating Earphones. the sound improvement is simply remarkable compared to my older Sony Fontopia headphones which I liked and in fact had used through a second pair. The Shure headphones blow the doors off previous headphones I’ve tried. I used the foam ear pieces on my flight back but have since tried all the parts and find that the smallest rubber (black) fit my ears best. I love them and will be using these on my (1 hour) commute and through all my travels.
For iTunes, I added an audio plugin called Volume Logic which I would also recommend. It’s a significant sound enhancer and makes on computer listening that much better.
Google Print is live and I just gave it a quick shot. Note the highlight in the link through on my search for Steve Jobs. That’s pretty slick if you ask me. I’d like to see Print added to the list of options when you do a regular search, which I imagine is inevitable, unless a law suit stops things.
You can’t get the text, the results are an image which should make copyright holders a bit less concerned. You can however sit and read the book though if you like… though image text is nothing close to the clarity of real text on screen.
Congrats to Kevin Rose and team! I really like the Diggnation pod / vid cast and enjoy using the site as well. I’d describe it as Slashdot 2.0 (ala Web 2.0), and you’ll find a good mix of stories – though mainly tech.
Digg, a new San Francisco Internet start-up, seeks to rank news items by letting people choose which stories they like anywhere on the Web.And it just received $2.8 million in venture capital from some big-name investors, including Omidyar Network, the outfit led by eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, and Greylock partners.
MercuryNews.com | 10/28/2005 | Tagging the news you want to use
Technorati Tags: Digg, Venture Finance, Marketing, Social Bookmarking, Kevin Rose
I’ve been using NewsGator Online recently rather than Bloglines and I missed the added feature of keyboard shortcuts for navigation until tonight — whoa! I really like this a lot and immediately moved back… well sort of as NewsGator does not seem to have an export function — not cool.
NG is a bit more up to date than BL, but I am mainly back after some effort. I was just reorganizing things from a massive (well over 600) list of feeds in folders to a few key folders which I want to be sure and track daily.
I discovered my Nano had a broken screen while commuting home last night. I was just sitting on the train listening to a podcast and went to choose something else when it ended and found this.
I can assure you that no extreme activities had been taking place. This is just crap. Now I will have to deal with Apple to see if I can get anything going for a replacement. aigh…
Service Request Submitted…
This is cool stuff…. Nice to know it can be added for my commuting listening pleasure.
CBS WILL DISTRIBUTE ITS FREE podcasts, from “60 Minutes” to the long-running soap “Guiding Light,” on Apple’s iTunes Music Store, CBS Digital President Larry Kramer said Monday. The extensive suite of CBS podcasts includes news, entertainment, and sports programming on television, radio, and CBS Digital media sites including CBS.com, CBSNews.com, UPN.com and CBS SportsLine.com. The content can now be accessed from the iTunes Podcast Directory, as well as CBS Digital media sites, and will be highlighted in customized iTunes pages promoting the full offering of CBS podcasts for each respective CBS Digital Media property.
Other audio offerings include CBS’s public affairs show, “Face The Nation;” “Survivor Live,” which focuses on “Survivor: Guatemala;” the soap opera roundup “CBS Soapbox;” “NFL Hot Topic;” and “Fantasy Football: Roster Trends.” [MediaPost]
Technorati Tags: Podcasting, CBS
Yahoo has published a paper on RSS usage… Definitely worth a read.