Adjusting to being a technophile...or not

5 pieces of technology that defined my adolescence

2012-01-18T14:41:00.001-05:00

The Verge posted this and asked what was my five. I posted in the comments, but I'm reposting here for posterity.

1. My first cell phone. GSM, it was on Sprint's now defunct GSM system. Such a great little phone. 30 minutes of call time a month for 30 bucks and the first incoming minute was free!

2. My first touchscreen. I remember it being terribly expensive and then it died cuz it got submerged in water. Didn't know until I was researching that there's a shrine for this watch http://cdecas.free.fr/computers/pocket/vdb1000/

3. NES, what else is there to say?

4. Worked a whole summer to buy this thing. I dreamt about it constantly. The possibility to have console quality games in my hand was too much. 400 bucks for this thing was too damn steep though.

5. Waterproof and played all my tapes. It was *the* walkman to have during my highschool days.

Switching from the (first gen) iPhone to the G1 Android

2008-10-02T09:07:00.004-05:00

A friend of mine asked why I was preordering the T-mobile G1 rather than jumping ship from T-mobile (which I am using with a hacked iPhone) to AT&T for the 3G iPhone. He was considering the iPhone and was curious why I didn't want to upgrade. I wrote him an email but I figured it was good enough to post as well:

Personally, I think you will enjoy the iPhone. I mean, I've had it for over a year now and its been pretty good to use. The lack of a persistent apps, like a google talk client is kinda weak, seeing how the blackberry can do it (which seems pretty underpowered in comparison). Also, I'm kinda curious how expandable and far the apps will go for the G1. I mean, T-mobile says no tethering, but I can bet that's gonna be blown away within the first few months from a dev. Also, seeing how the first gen iPhone doesn't have GPS and the G1 has a nicer camera on it, and the fact that I didn't wanna really switch to AT&T (wiretapping is legal!), I figured I'd go with the G1. The hardware is intriguing even if there is no 3.5mm jack. I always liked the trackball from the blackberries and I kinda like hardware keys. Even though I can type pretty fast on the iPhone now, there still is some cognitive dissonance since there is no feedback from the keyboard, especially since I've turned off the keyboard clicks. I think coupled with my curiosity and my growing annoyance with some of the small niggles of my first gen iPhone made me take the leap to preorder the G1. That and I didn't wanna pay 35 bucks a month for data and 200 SMS text messages which would push my monthly bill close to 80 bucks a month after taxes are included.

If you want your phone to work well, and you don't mind the limitations of the SDK (which means stuff like not being able to download a podcast without iTunes or customization of the themes, which for the latter technically you can do if you jailbreak the phone) and you don't miss a hardware keyboard, I think you'll like it. There is one caveat as of now. Apple released 2.1 for the iPhone and while its less buggy, its still kinda buggy. I mean before, if I opened an app on the 1.1.x version, it was instantaneous. Now when I open an app, even a core app like SMS, Safari, or Contacts, there is a 1 or 2 second freeze before it starts operating which is a lot better than the 2.0.x versions which would freeze for 4 or 6 seconds before anything would happen. I think v2.x is a deviation from the iPhone's supposed roadmap because they felt they had to open up the platform with a SDK before they were ready to do so since they knew there was a demand. Feels like a bit of mismanagement from the mighty Jobs but who knows. Maybe v2.2 will fix a lot of the issues I'm bringing up here. They say that since there isn't persistence in the apps, they'll handle notifications (like new IMs) via a notifications server. It was supposed to be released in 2.1 but I guess they had a huge mess to clean up with the 2.0.x debacle, since calls were dropping, crap was buggy, and a lot apps were just crashing. The other annoying thing about non-persistence is that if I had a webpage open in safari, and I close it, and I don't have a signal, there won't be a cached page of what you were looking at if you start safari back up. Its like its wiped clean and will try to retrieve the URL again, since the URL is the only thing that is cached. You should read this esquire article, it seems to make a little sense, even if the writing style is kinda douchey and a bit pretentious.

Nokia's New tablet...revisited

2007-10-22T11:37:00.000-05:00

So the cat is finally out of the box and Nokia has come clean on its new Tablet. This was just a scant 10 months after they had introduced their second generation tablet, the n800. Although pundits seem to be saying this is not technically a third generation but a 2.5. Why? Because the guts of the machine are almost the same (except they over-clocked the processor, or underclocked the n800's depending on perspective) and they slapped on a nice slide-out keyboard (finally!) and a GPS chip. So does it address some the issues I outlined in my previous post, let's take a look.

Out of the box web browsing experience: Looks like Nokia has been listening, they've replaced the close sourced Opera browser with Mozilla/Firefox variant which is able to handle sites like Google Docs with ease, judging from ThoughtFix's videos over at tabletblog, youtube seems to work fine. Nokia has also finally added more video codecs so let's hope that videos on certain webpages will play just fine. Page rendering seems to have been alleviated with a snappier processor. Again, I'm going to reserve judgement on this though until I actually have one in my hand to test.
Media Player: It still looks like something that's been thrown together. Nokia really needs to put some more time/money/man power into developing this thing into something usable.
Email: Still the same crappy email client. This is not good, especially with the introduction of the keyboard. People will want to use email more and more with such a device. Of course there's always be webmail, but really, if that's the case, why even give us such a crappy client to begin with?
Non-symbiotic relationship: we're still tethered to the desktop to do OS/firmware updates. bleh.
GUI: Same ol' same old. Obviously, no one in Nokia's maemo division has picked up an ipod touch/iphone and see what consumers are readily getting used to with finger gestures and the ability to forgo the use of a stylus.
Transflective screen (viewable in the sun): YES! Finally, someone in the design team decided not to go cheap on us.

They've also thrown in GPS and maps which is a nice touch, except to unlock all of its potential, you have to pony up more cash to subscribe to the features.

Now here's the kicker, the n800 has started to become a lot cheaper on various online stores. You can find it as little as 230 bucks at buy.com. How much does Nokia want for the n810? 480 bucks. That's more than double for essentially a keyboard, GPS chip, and a transflective screen. Not to mention that you lose dual-full size SD card slots (from the n800) to one mini-SD card slot and non-removable 2GB flash memory onboard. Which to some might seem like an ok trade-off, but to most users that were looking to upgrade from the n800, looks like a downgrade.

Had Nokia released this tablet as its first iteration rather than the third, it might be a revolutionary product, but as it stand now, I'm not that super-excited about purchasing such a device for such an expensive price.

Nokia's third Internet Tablet

2007-09-28T07:58:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, Nokia unofficially announced their third iteration of their internet tablet. Ok, they didn't announce it, but it showed up on the FCC testing radar. I truly hope Nokia makes a better product to the point that it hits critical mass. I do know they tried with their n800 model, but it became a niche player. Why? Because it was still targeted at the power-user set but they tried to market it to the everyday person. Here are the reasons why I held off on purchasing one, even though I do own its predecessor (the Nokia 770)

If you're going to call it an internet tablet, it has to handle whatever the internet throws at it. This includes but isn't limited to the following:
1. Be able to play youtube and the like smoothly. This should work out of the box without any types of tweaks.
2. Speaking of video, any other types of embeded multimedia should also play flawlessly. That means quicktime videos, windows media videos, and the like. I know that's a minefield that a big corporation like Nokia could probably maneuver if they realized that the mass market isn't going to want some half-baked internet browser.
3. Web Applications like Google Documents should be usable as much as it is on any plain old web browser
4. Page rendering should be snappy. I shouldn't feel like I'm sitting on my old 486DX computer trying to browse the web. If I'm connected via broadband speeds, I should have a broadband web browsing experience. (This was not the case with the Nokia 770, trying to load something like washingtonpost.com slowed to a crawl)
If Nokia is going to tout its tablet as also a powerful multimedia machine, it shouldn't release it with such a poorly designed, unintuitive and ugly media player.
People still use Email, and good god, the email app on the maemo platform (the operating system that the these tablets run on) is horrendous.
Non-symbiotic relationship with a desktop. If Nokia wants to set up an ecosystem with my desktop like Apple does with its iPhones and iPods, then great. There would be a reason for my to hook up my tablet to my desktop to sync stuff or whatever, but if its to be its own entity, why do I need to connect to my desktop to update its firmware?
Easier user interface. The Maemo graphical user interface (GUI) is horrible. Its not very snappy, nor is it very intuitive. I hate to say it, but Apple did something Nokia didn't consider. If you're going to move to a touchscreen environment, then shouldn't be borrowing GUI elements that require a keyboard or a mouse. On top of which, get rid of the stylus. No one wants to peck at screen with a tiny stylus, especially if its on the go.
Nokia marketed the internet tablet as something "on the go." If that's the case, why can I not read the screen when I'm outdoors? Get with it Nokia. Even your cell phones have better displays in the sunlight than the current tablets.

I'm sure there a ton more, but the "open-ness" of the platform that everyone loves, since its built on Linux, might also be its achilles' heel as well. A lot of the applications out there are ported over to be "good enough." But there isn't any killer app, besides, maybe Canola (a flashy multimedia player) that really shows off the strength of the tablet. Unless Nokia uses its corporate thinking to spruce up the platform a bit to the point that it will appeal to the masses and not the geeks. Here's hoping they figure that out sooner rather than later.

Facebook gets it right...so far

2007-09-18T09:17:00.001-05:00

I'm enjoying using Facebook a lot more immensely than MySpace in the past few weeks. While I bitch about closed (technical) systems sometimes, I like the fact that Facebook only gives people that I know access to my content. Meaning, I can share photos and videos of events going on in my life with the people I know. A closed social system that tries its best to protect my privacy is great. Of course this could be accomplished on Flickr or YouTube too I guess, but Facebook is more broad than the niche areas that Flickr & YouTube serve up. After all, the latter options are focused on only sharing video, or only sharing photos, but with Facebook, its a one stop shop. It also helps that its where everyone is flocking to these days.

I think it also says a lot that people are fickle. Give them something better and they'll immediately drop what they're used to as long as they see some extra value. Which is why there seems to be this jump from from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook with the majority of people I know. I guess people aren't married to technological habits as much as they are to real life ones.

More Apple woes

2007-09-18T08:57:00.001-05:00

Do you hear that sound? That's the sound of a corporation that bought into their own hype and got greedy. This is the year that Apple's stock might be soaring, but its also the year of many mis-steps. First, screwing early adopters out of 100 bucks only months after they released their iPhones. Which really isn't that big of a deal until you look at all the other factors that come into play.

OS X Leopard gets delayed. Everyone was expecting this beast to drop in June. I mean it has been touted as the next best thing for the last 2 years and now? We're not getting it til October.
iPods rushed to market. Sure the new iPod line-up is nice, but now there is all these bugs that are popping up because Apple got greedy. iPod Touch screens are having quality issues with dark screens. Coverflow and the UI for the iPod Classic and iPod Nano are buggy and not performing up to what most people expect from Apple.
More closed standards rather than open standards as time marches on. They tried to lock the iPod out of any other interface besides iTunes. Most people use iTunes which is fine, but what about the small set of people that want to use Linux? Before, no problem, but now the new iPods have a hash (that's already been cracked thankfully) to make sure who and what is connecting to it to upload music. I'm sure Apple is claiming that they're doing it for our own good. To "protect" us, but really, they're doing it for themselves. iTunes is now locking out any home-made ringtones. There was a way to circumvent this in the last few versions but Apple keeps patching them. What if I want to put ringtones on there of my dog barking? Does the RIAA have a say on that? What about a recording of anything that wasn't produced by some commercial entity? And of course why is the RIAA getting to say what Fair Use is on music that I own? Where is the little guy telling Steve Jobs that the RIAA is screwing us?

I take it that Steve Jobs is now thinking that the more closed of a system he can create, the better he can control who and what uses his products will offer rather than letting consumers do what they want with it. Its like telling a child that he should only use a spoon to eat with and not use it to dig up dirt in the backyard.

And today? To call a press conference to offer the same phone to the UK? I mean seriously, I don't know how many Europeans are really gonna buy into the iPhone. Sure, its a great iPod, but from my understanding, Europe is rocking 3G. That means most people that are data enabled and tech savvy are already hopping along at broadband speeds over their cellular network. Are they really going to want to downgrade to EDGE speeds just so they can lock themselves into the iTunes+iPod walled garden?

Sure, Apple makes things that usually "just work" that doesn't require you to be an elite hacker to get things done, but the larger they grow, they more greedy they get. If they move on this path much longer, I definitely will begin to lose faith in them, and they sure will be getting less and less of my money.

I'm starting to dislike Apple

2007-09-17T19:34:00.000-05:00

I remember a time when I was pissed that Microsoft was flexing its monopolistic muscle so much. They had the power and they knew it. They started locking people down with their stupid "Genuine Advantage" activation crap and dictating what people should and shouldn't be doing with their machines. And now Apple is doing the same crap with their iPhones and iPods. Seriously, since they've gotten the power of the mp3 market, they've done their best to muscle out any freedoms their consumers can do with their devices. Why am I paying a buck to make a ringtone out of my own music? And why am I only allowed to do it with what the mafIAA has said could or could not be a ringtone.

I'm kinda annoyed that Apple is doing the same thing with a lot of their practices now. They stood on the shoulders of open source projects because they were the underdog but now they're in a position to do something with that power, they're locking stuff down. I remember Steve Jobs's speech at Stanford about to "stay hungry" and "stay foolish."

Hey Steve, how about Apple stay hungry and stay foolish and be on the side of your users, especially the ones that were with you thick and thin, and not the corporate lawyers and your shareholders.

No Ubuntu for me

2007-09-13T14:57:00.001-05:00

After a week trying to use Ubuntu on my ultra tiny VAIO and wanting to really like it, I couldn't. I switched back to the evil M$ with much chagrin but Ubuntu just isn't ready for everyday use. And its sad that Windows "just works" better than Ubuntu. Because we all know Windows does not "just work." I really wish there was a polished version of OSX86 out there for my machine.

After reading today's column from Walt Mossberg about how Ubuntu isn't ready for primetime, I feel somewhat vindicated about my decision. First 2 annoyances out of the box with Ubuntu were simple things that should've been thought about from the get-go. Why is there no trackpad support to adjust my trackpad? Why did I have to go into a text editor to configure it?

Second, no GUI for bluetooth networking?! I had to go to a terminal screen, even after I had did a bunch of terminal hacks, to tether to my phone to get online? This was a deal-breaker since I rely on bluetooth quite often and realized this after I had no easy way to access it.

Third, out of the box, none of my videos played properly. Not on VLC, not on mplayer, and not on a couple other players I "apt-getted."

I really wish there was something polished as OSX but in an open-source form, but it just ain't happening. So here I wait, adjusting to landscape that is fraught with frustration.

iphonesimfree warped time space

2007-08-31T15:34:00.000-05:00

What the hell is wrong with that site. They claim they've unlocked the cellphone with proof on Engadget...but its been a week since that and they claimed it would be for sale this week. Guess what? Week's almost over! Plus, if they sell the unlock for more than 40 bucks, I don't think they're gonna have a lot of takers.

Then again, I don't even have an iPhone nor plan on buying one anytime soon!

I don't usually youtube

2007-08-20T20:31:00.000-05:00

I guess this makes me an old fogey, but most of the time, I don't use youtube, or any other type of video flash-based stuff. Maybe its because usually, I'm either on my internet tablet nokia 770 and it doesn't do video. I have to get an n800 for that, and the other time, I'm on my little hacked notebook that doesn't seem to have proper sound drivers. The only time I'm in front of a proper computer is when I'm on my work computer which unfortunately is sitting in a wide open space where there are no cubicle walls, so I can not just slack off without someone noticing. Thus, I don't use youtube that much.

Was there a point to this post? I guess even how pervasive youtube is nowadays, I've gotten over the gee whiz value of online videos...that or I'm becoming a crotchety old man.

Nokia Internet Tablets + Windows Mobile 6 != online

2007-06-15T14:56:00.001-05:00

So I filed a "bug" on Nokia's maemo site a few months ago. This site is for the developers to be kept apprised of things they need to fix on their Internet Tablets (770 & n800). So my bug was to request them to add the ability for me to get online by connecting with a Windows Mobile 5 AKU3 or Windows Mobile 6 phone. This was due to the fact that Microsoft in their non-infinite wisdom completely dropped the "Dial-Up Networking (DUN)" bluetooth profile off their phones and replaced it with "Personal Area Networking (PAN)." Which is fine and dandy if you're running Windows XP or Vista. Which is also why I was bitching so much about OS X Tiger not supporting PAN for the longest time. Eventually Apple got of their lazy asses and fixed it in their 10.4.9 release.

But Nokia? No...they refuse to even acknowledge that they needed to have add this enhancement YESTERDAY. In fact, Daniel over at tabletblog.com started stirring the soup and ended up having the whole bug squashed...and not in a good way. Now Nokia's henchmen refuse to fix it citing the fact that there are hacks around it and that they don't want to do the paperwork to push it through. Why are they getting paid then? To attend conference after conference about Linux and push all this crap about openness when their whole operating system itself is closed-source? What a pain in the ass, and yet, they're the only kid in town right now. It won't be long before Palm releases their linux-based Foleo (much to the tech community's chagrin) and also Intel's MIDs are somewhere in the pipleine so hopefully that will stimulate someone getting off their ass to do something.

Of course Nokia is also migrating parts of their Maemo platform into a framework for open-source goodness, so hopefully someone else might take up the reigns and do something. From a user standpoint though, all I can do is wait.

iPhone...will it tether?

2007-06-15T14:50:00.000-05:00

All the hoopla about the iPhone and yet there hasn't been a peep about the data plans and if I can hook my macbook or xp computers up to it or not.

If I was Steve Jobs, I'd say, "why would you need to tether? you've got the GREATEST web browsing experience right on the iPhone! In fact, we're doing users a favor by not letting them tether, because that's just one more thing that could crash the phone!" Which is the same lame excuse he used for not providing an SDK to developers at the WWDC.

Let's face it, the reason Apple did amazingly well with the iPod was because there is a walled garden. No one had access to the iPod's internal OS except for a few "trusted" developers, and the only official way to load songs onto your iPod was through iTunes. Its a great concept but it leaves very little wiggle room for those that don't want to play by Apple's rules. SO...my guess? A lot of people are going to be bitching a lot more about things they expected to be in the iPhone and are not there...

Jobsnote = underwhelming

2007-06-13T14:11:00.001-05:00

Talk about underwhelming. Here's the problem, the iPhone...2 weeks before the big launch of something so huge that Apple can't take any risks to steal its own limelight, they had to give us one of the most mediocre keynote events ever... I mean seriously, how can you follow up something as huge of an announcement as the iPhone back in January. You can't. You can't try to top it, you have to give all the fans a snoozer to re-align their expectations. So there was no Macbook Nano, nor was there any new iMacs. There was just a website redesign, some demos of Leopard, and adding Safari to the mix.

My assumption is Apple wants to eventually use Safari to be the trojan horse of whatever the next big web services thing is. Probably once Safari hits version 5 or 6 will it suddenly be interesting. Until then....Zzzzzzzzz...

Finally! Opera on Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone Edition/Windows Mobile 6 Standard

2007-04-02T22:34:00.000-05:00

I've been waiting for this day for over half a year now. Opera in their infinite wisdom has released a beta for the windows smartphones. This has just transformed my T-mobile Dash into a much more useful tool! Check out all the details here and get yourself a free copy while its still in beta (expires June 1st). Your phone will love you for it.

WMATA and Verizon/ GSM and CDMA

2007-03-30T13:50:00.000-05:00

Living in the DC area and close to a metro stop for both work and home has made me the default spouse to take the metro while my wife takes the car. Whilst riding the metro isn't usually a bad thing (except for the fact they blast the A/C so hard that my eyes dry out to the point of popping out of my sockets), I do get taunted by the fact that I don't have cellphone coverage down in the depths of the DC Metro tunnels. This is because I'm not "IN" the Verizon network.

This is due to my hatred for CDMA networks. I realized this years ago when Sprint had just started getting their feet wet in the wireless game and had rolled out a GSM system that they initially called "Sprint Spectrum." I loved it, even though it was something like 30 bucks for 15 minutes of airtime. However, the first incoming minute was free so I would constantly tell people to all me back after 50 seconds. And if my phone ever broke, or a nicer one came out, I didn't have to call up Sprint to get their permission to switch phones. All I had to do was pop out the SIM card from my old phone and pop it into the new one.

Then suddenly they dropped the whole GSM deal and decided to relaunch as "Sprint PCS" using a CDMA network. Which sucked. My calls were constantly being dropped, the phones were of shoddy quality, and to top it off, I had LESS control over the functions of my phone and I couldn't switch phones easily. I could see the writing on the wall, Sprint was slowly moving towards limiting what I could and could not do with my phone. I couldn't even load my own shrill ringtones onto their phones, I had to live with the default ones they gave me.

This was around the time I realized that the GSM system that I had originally come to love was still being operated! In fact, it turns out that Sprint was just leasing airtime off of Omnipoint's GSM system that was subsquently purchased by Voicestream (which was rebranded to T-mobile). With the GSM phones, I could swap out my SIM card and use a different phone each day of the week, rather being locked into one phone for the life of my contract. I also could sync my contacts, load my own ringtones, and eventually have access to the internet without having my bluetooth crippled.

Sprint and Verizon had jumped on the CDMA bandwagon by this time, and selling crippled phones that wouldn't let you transfer ringtones, sync your contacts, and if they caught you trying to tether your laptop or PDA to your phone, they'd charge you insane fees.

But now I'm riding the metro, and guess what? The only system that's underground is CDMA. So Verizon users can talk freely on the metro, and so can Sprint PCS users roaming on Verizon's network. Around 2002, there were rumblings that either AT&T or Cingular, or even T-mobile would be able to hook up a similar GSM system by 2006. Meanwhile, what was blazingly fast GPRS/EDGE speeds on my GSM system of 56k were being eclipsed by Verizon and Sprint's "broadband quality" EVDO connections.

Its now 2007 and getting online anywhere I have a cell signal at 100kbs isn't as impressive anymore and when I can't have access to it when I'm riding the metro, I'm wondering if I should switch. But then I look at the data access prices. Verizon wants 60(!) bucks to have "unlimited" data. I hear its not unlimited because if you go over 5 gigs of bandwidth in a month, they'll cut you off at their discretion. This is also before any voice minutes get added. I'm paying 63 bucks right now for 600 minutes, unlimited nights and weekends, unlimited data from my phone OR tethering via a laptop, internet tablet, PDA, etc. and I got 300 text messages coupled with 100 picture messages.

Your phone might be only as good as the network, but its not worth twice to have fast cell coverage on my commute in and out of work everyday. And having dial-up speeds seems a little more tolerable knowing I'm not paying out the nose for it. I guess I'll take that time popping my eyes back into my sockets dodging the A/C vents.

Apple TV

2007-03-23T09:11:00.000-05:00

So Apple TV is finally shipping. And there are a flurry of posts about it. All the Apple-haters are accusing all the tech sites of being fanboys. The reality is, its a SLOW tech news week.

I however could care less about the Apple TV. Apple gets a lot of things right but the only thing they don't get right is leaving a little back door open on stuff like the iPod or the AppleTV to let advanced users take advantage of the technology. I mean, seriously, is it that difficult to incorporate other codec into the player so we could stream non-iTunes video to our Apple TV instead of having to convert everything so it'll play nice with it? Come on Apple, throw the early adopters a bone here. Lock it down once you reached the tipping point of mass appeal. Oh yeah, same goes for the iPhone. We don't want a completely impenetrable wall garden!

10.4.9! Hallelujah!

2007-03-13T17:49:00.000-05:00

So, now that Apple has released their .9 revision of Tiger. A lot of people are stoked that OSX Leopard is ready to pounce. You know what I'm excited about? Well, for one, someone at Apple was listening to my pleas! They have inclueded Personal Area Networking in the bluetooth profile! This is such a blessing, because now I can just get online with my Powerbook or Macbook Pro via my T-mobile Dash. Before, I'd have to swap my SIM card outta the Dash and into my Sony Ericsson W600i.

Another thing that I'm reading, but haven't tested is Apple has built in VPN compatibility with Cisco VPN servers. I haven't really tested it yet, but if this is true, it would be so sweet for the job I'm doing right now since we have the option to work from home. Right now, I have to use Parallels for the Mac and run XP and use the windows version of Cisco's VPN since the VPN solution for the Mac kills my internet connection.

Now if Apple releases their MacBook Nano in the next month, I'd be set...at least for the moment.

Sporadic Tech

2007-03-07T09:30:00.000-05:00

Having started a new job at the beginning of the year, I just haven't had the time to keep tabs on the tech news the past few months. If I had the time and the money, I'd probably be bitching up the storm about Windows Vista right now. But sadly, I've used it twice, for about a minute...at a closing Compusa and at CostCo. And really, there hasn't been anything truly groundbreaking or exciting since the announcement of the iPhone. I mean, the big news this week is Vulcan PC finally released their "palmtop computer." Of course its four years too late, and a year after the big UMPC release, it just looks dated and boring. 3GSM came and went...Zzzzz. CeBIT is next week in Germany. I'm not having any high hopes.

I keep hoping that Apple will come out with a MacBook Nano already. I've been eyeing the Sony VAIO TX computers. They're so tiny and still functional! Especially after lugging around the MacBook Pro the last 2 months, my shoulder's getting a little sore, and so is my back. There's a reason why there's a large ultraportable market Apple, get your ass in there! Otherwise, I might be forced to go back to the dark side and buy a Vista machine.

Sony Ericsson diverges

2007-02-06T22:10:00.000-05:00

So Sony Ericsson dropped a lot of phones today. Well, figuratively, seeing how these press releases mean we the buying public won't be able to get our grubby mitts on them for another month to 6 months depending on distribution and manufacturing issues.

First off, the thing that strikes me is SE giving N. America the big F U seeing how most of their high-end (and most desirable) phones seem to be missing 2 important things. The 850mhz band which is the more prevalent band in the U.S. And lack of EDGE data connection, which again, is only used here, seeing how the rest of the world has already hopped on the 3G bandwagon, while most of the U.S. at the GSM camp, with a few market exceptions, are stuck on this "2.5" thing. Also a telling sign that SE's phones only operate on the European standard of 3G data (UTMS).

I'm also noticing something. SE has decided to make devices that are more specialized. Some are better for taking your music on the go, while others shine as cameras, while some are just dirt cheap that anyone can own a Sony Ericsson phone. Nowhere in their lineup is there a divergent phone that can really compete with something like, say, the iPhone. Most of their Symbian phones lack cameras, while the one that is supposed to be all in one (the P990) is getting kinda old. Hopefully all this will change next week at the 3GSM conference. Maybe they've got something up their sleeves they haven't shown us yet.

MacBook Pro/MacBook complaint

2007-01-20T17:12:00.000-05:00

So after using a shiny new MacBook Pro for a week, I've found something I don't like about it. This also applies to the MacBook, since I've tried my wife's MacBook out and it has the same design flaw. The screen does not tilt back far enough. I know this because my old school twelve inch Powerbook G4 tilts back a little further. Which is something is nice to have when you're stretched out on the couch half slouched, half laying down and you wanna prop your laptop on your half propped up leg and type, not so easy. Why did Apple shorten the throw/tilt of the new macbooks? Give me back more tilt!

Update: Apparently I'm not the only one bitching about this problem. -> Link

iPhone isn't the second coming

2007-01-16T20:28:00.000-05:00

Now that a week has passed, people have gotten over their initial high of Apple finally announcing an iPhone (I mean, come on, engadget and gizmodo are flying banners at the top of their sites for their coverage), I have somethings that might be reasons NOT to get the iPhone. Of course, there are the usual reasons that a lot of people have been whining about:

no 3G
only GSM
Cingular Only (until 2009)
No Third-Party Apps
High Price

First thing that gets me is 2 fold. One, I'll reserve my judgement on.

Touchscreens, ok, I'm reserving my judgement on the multi-touch system, but people, myself included want to have tactile feeling when we're pushing buttons. You can't include that in a touch screen unless Apple figures out how to create some elecatrostatic-polymorphic plastic that can morph into buttons based on what's onscreen. Which brings me to my second point. Watching Steve Jobs give all his demos on the keynote, everything needs to be done with two hands. This goes against two principles of the iPods itself, and how most people use phones. They like to use it by using one hand. No one wants to walk around face buried in their iPhone and walk right into something because they had to concentrate using their phone. Also the same reason why Apple had originally had their iPods be completely touch sensitive in their third generation iPod only to "back pedal" and throw the click back into the click-wheels of the fourth gen iPod and on...til now.

Also, screens. Screens are prone to smudge and scratching. Ask anybody that bought a PSP, or even an iPod. Unless Apple was smart enough to acquire this, I smell another class-action lawsuit about people bitching how their iPhone isn't working up to their unattainable expectations.

As for them touting internet browsing. It seems like a nice idea but do I really want to treat a web page like a map where i need to crawl around the page to read snippets about it? I like Opera's approach of screen optimization. After all, mobile browsing should be simple. And the way Apple has approached it seems more of a pain than simplicity.

So, seeing how I'm not willing to switch and pay the price of breaking my T-mobile contract and probably pay twice more for the same type of phone/data service on Cingular, I'll just have to wait for an unlocked version in 2008.

Screens Screens Screens

2007-01-06T13:16:00.000-05:00

The new Nokia N800 Internet Tablet is on the verge of getting introduced. I more or less love my Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, so I'm wondering what bump in speed or memory is under the hood. The only thing I wish my tablet could do better was to be able to view flash video a la youtube/google video and also be able to handle embedded video in Windows Media and Quicktime format.

Which got me thinking, the upcoming week is gonna be big in the tech world, seeing how both the Consumer Electronic Show is busting open their doors in Vegas while Apple is gonna have another Steve Jobs keynote at Macworld. Everyone is clamouring the next big gagdet, of which 90% or so will have to do with something about looking at a screen. Be it a smartphone, a video display that outputs 1080p clarity, a fancy tablet, etc.

And it got me thinking, is our world so dull that we need to distract ourselves with windows into virtual/fantasy worlds? Is technology and capitalism just creating a new paradigm of Plato's Cave? Is reality that harsh that we have to cling onto our techno security blankets? Maybe. After all, I have a love/hate relationship with this stuff. It excites and frustrates me at the same time. Will I be still shelling my money over for the toys that are introduced next week? Probably. Will I resent myself a bit because I could've spent the money a bit better by either traveling or paying of my debts? Maybe. I guess only time will tell. Although, most of the time, I know sinking my money into technology is sort of like drugs. They get me high for a bit, but ultimately, I'm looking for a stronger high, a bigger fix. And ultimately, I might just be a bit poorer for running in this vicious cycle.

Holiday Hiatus

2006-12-16T17:43:00.000-05:00

With the impending holidays, me leaving my job, and just other chaotic things, postings will be sporadic for the time being.

Justin Long still a Mac

2006-12-04T13:56:00.000-05:00

So all those rumors were unfounded, and now we see 3 new Apple ads with Justin Long still as a Mac. At least he's not that smug in the latest batch.

I do not, however, get the PC vs Mac Japanese ads they're running. Maybe its me, but I don't think they get translated very well.

Flickr layout

2006-11-28T08:42:00.000-05:00

I laid out a bunch of gadgets I had and took a swanky photo of them at the beginning of the year. Sal over at JustSetups.com pinged me and asked me if he could post it up on his site and I said "sure." What's funny/sad is that I don't even own the PSP anymore (evil Sony hype) and my Sony Ericsson phone has been superseded by my T-mobile Dash.

In anycase, the photo gave Sal the impression I lead such an on the go life, but really, I don't. I guess I just like portability.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz....zune

2006-11-17T14:11:00.000-05:00

Stopped by the Best Buy this afternoon with a friend to pick up an antenna for his newly bought HDTV, and while there, I picked up the Zune while walking around the store. Man, it has zero tech-sex appeal. Maybe if I hadn't been exposed to Pocket PCs, or anything with the words "Windows Mobile" on it, I'd be impressed. But holding it in my hand, and playing with it, it did not emit the same techno-lust as when I held an iPod in my hand for the first time. In fact, the Zune felt bulky and I wondered why it was so thick. Microsoft should've held off and released a better product rather than slapping their name on a Toshiba Gigabeat.

PS3 Pandemonium

2006-11-17T09:41:00.000-05:00

My contribution to the PS3 pandemonium? I decided to stop by the local Target this morning on my drive to work. I casually sauntered in around 8:30am to a relatively empty store, walked over to admire the newly set up PS3 booth, then asked a girl in a red shirt if they had any PS3s. She smirked and said no, there was a line this morning and they only had 6 units. And that was it. I think I'll wait until next year when there's a 100 price drop to get mine.

postscript: who are these insane people paying upwards of three to nine thousand dollars for a game system on ebay anyway? Are they the rich that can't be bothered or people going into massive debt to feed an addiction?

Apple needs to get their bluetooth act together

2006-11-15T11:59:00.000-05:00

For the past few weeks, I've been trying to figure out how to get my powerbook to hop online via my T-mobile Dash. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. One of the reasons I bought a Mac is it "just works." However, this is not one of those cases. Apparently Microsoft's newest version of Windows Mobile: AKU3, has done away with the Dial-Up Networking (DUN) bluetooth profile and replaced it with a much more (subjectively) versatile profile called Personal Area Network (PAN).
From bluetooth.com

Personal Area Networking Profile (PAN)
PAN describes how two or more Bluetooth enabled devices can form an ad-hoc network and how the same mechanism can be used to access a remote network through a network access point. The profile roles include the network access point, group ad-hoc network, and PAN user. Network access points can be a traditional LAN data access point while group ad-hoc networks represent a set of devices that are only attached to one another. PAN is intended to allow the use of BNEP on Layer 3 protocols for transport over a Bluetooth wireless technology link.

The main problem? Apple OSX Tiger doesn't support the "Personal Access Network" bluetooth profile. What's funny is that Apple loves touting the fact that they love bluetooth, yet why are they dragging their feet on keeping current with bluetooth technologies? Why hasn't this been implemented in one of their 10.4.x patches? I've spent more than a few hours trying to track down a solution from editing the /etc/ppp/options file, to poking around the command line on Terminal, to setting up different serial connections via bluetooth. Then it hit me, why am I doing so much legwork? I used to do this with Windows. Getting something to work on Microsoft was like pulling teeth half the time, and yet, the irony is all I have to do is right click on the bluetooth icon in the system tray in XP and select "Join Personal Area Network." It just works!

Oh Apple, why have you forsaken me? You used to be an innovator and now you can't even keep current. You used to be the guy that paid attention to the little details and now, in this instance, Microsoft has beat you to the punch.

Google Maps & GPS

2006-11-10T10:03:00.000-05:00

Dear Google,
Now that you've figured out how to integrate GPS into GPS enabled phones, how's about throwing some geek love towards those of us with java-enabled smartphones that can tether to a bluetooth GPS Receiver? How many more lines of code would that need? I do have to say that Google Maps on my phone is pretty sweet, and that it really helped me out yesterday when the wife wasn't completely sure where the DSW Shoe Warehouse was while we were driving through the endless suburbs or Maryland. So it would be double sweet if my phone could just start barking orders to me and I wouldn't have to pay an arm and a leg for it. Thanks.

In other Apple news

2006-11-08T15:52:00.000-05:00

They're dropping Justin Long from those Mac commercials. Thank god, he was too damn smug for his own good. Hopefully they do something that keeps John Hodgman just as likable as he should be. I saw the above photo and thought it was hilarious. I leave you with my own video of Hodgman and Coulton from a few weeks ago and his theme song.

Slow day

2006-11-08T15:06:00.000-05:00

Slowest Tech News day evar. Ok, sure, MacBooks got shiny new Core 2 Duo processors but that's about it. The tech blogs are rehashing crap or posting stuff they would never dream of posting on a "normal" day. Sure, there is massive news elsewhere. Election results news, the ousting of Rumsfeld, and the all important break-up of Britney & K-Fed. So maybe its a good day to just enjoy whatcha got and have some peace with that.

TV Set-top box

2006-11-07T15:55:00.000-05:00

Speaking of walled gardens, driving into work this morning, I heard on NPR that Microsoft has gotten some deals to start delivering content (that's TV shows & Movies) straight to your Xbox via its Xbox Live service. This is all the while that Apple has been taking the last year trying to sweet talk studios to let Apple sell their content on iTunes. I'm guessing that with Microsoft's approach is 1) One more step towards fulfilling Bill Gates's dream of creating the magical box that sits on your TV and handles EVERYTHING. And 2)It lets the studio deliver their stuff without being super paranoid. After all, no one can hack an Xbox360, right?!

I'm sure that's a hurdle to Apple convincing the studios to sell their stuff on iTunes. Since files are being downloaded onto a computer where a user supposedly has a lot of freedom to do with the files what they want, that they're scared its gonna end up on the black market somehow.

Only time will tell who wins the hearts and minds of the capitalistic society of America.

KRZR worthy of phone lust

2006-11-07T12:06:00.000-05:00

Disclosure: I hate Motorola phones. I don't hate them because they're Motorola, nor do I hate their phone design. In fact, they're paying the right guys to design those shells. What I do hate is their phone software. Its clunky and inelegant and completely incongruent to their sexy exteriors. I also hate Verizon. I don't agree with their gated sandbox phone software and CDMA technology that doesn't let you switch from phone to phone on the fly with a SIM card like the GSM system.

Which is why last night before heading to a hockey game, hanging out at a bar, one of the guys we met up with had a Moto KRZR from Verizon. And although only taking a brief moment to hold it in my hand and have him show me some of the features, I want one. I want one in the metaphysical sense though, because no way in hell do I want to sign a 2 year contract to Verizon (see above) and hand over 200 bucks for a tiny phone that I'll end up hating. Especially since the T-mobile Dash I just acquired last week is so much more feature packed and equally techno-lustworthy. I guess its like seeing a really nice luxury car without having to deal with the thousand dollar maintenance fees associated with it. Nice to have, but a pain in the ass to own.

3 Reasons NOT to buy a DSLR

2006-11-06T09:17:00.000-05:00

So there's an article on Digg about 10 reasons you should buy a Digital SLR camera. A friend of mine keeps telling me its a great idea, especially if I like photography. Usually I can think of lots of reasons not to do it. So here's my rebuttal list.

Creative Control can be a curse. While you get to tweak to your hearts content, you'll end up just becoming more OCD about how your photos aren't turning out just the way you want them even though you have the power of God in your hands.
Size & Grabbing the shot. With all the greatness of larger sensors and fancy electronics so your photos have zero noise, it all ends up being stuffed into a package about 10 times the "normal" size of a point and shoot camera now. Also, this package is now more durable because its usually wrapped in a nice weighty metallic body. Which would be great if you're on a studio or doing pro job, but who the hell wants to lug all that equipment (weighty body and 2 or 3 different lenses) around on a day out with your friends or family? Its just one more thing to weigh you down and probably actually take away from enjoying the day. Of course you'll get great shots of the day which is great if that was your main goal, but that's usually not mine.

This probably isn't the best photo I've taken, but its just a good example of having something I can whip out and unobtrusively take a photo to document what's going on while people are having fun. Could I have taken this photo with a DSLR? Sure. Would I have gotten the same spontaneity? Maybe if I was 20 feet away with a telephoto lense and the room wasn't crowded full of people. Also I'd have to deal with people giving me weird looks on why a guy at a bar is taking paparazzi-style pictures.
Price & Accessories. Sure, the camera bodies are cheap now and there are a million accessories out there to customize your DSLR. But with those accessories comes more cash to throw out the window. Two thousand dollars for a great wide angle lense? Another thousand for a telephoto one with anti-shake technology? Again, if someone is paying me thousands of dollars for my great photos to support this habit, great. However, the return on investment is not worth it for your average photographer.

Again, I say this as someone that on occasion likes to go out and take photos for the sake of pretty pictures, but not as a passion that I'd like to pour tens of thousands of dollars into.

engadget politely tells me to eff off.

2006-11-03T15:48:00.000-05:00

I read engadget when it first came on the scene. That's back when Peter Rojas had left Gizmodo and was working his ass off running the site . It was before he was a millionaire, it was before it was stocked by a team of writers, before he brought his buddy Ryan on to help him, it was even before there were even comments on the page.

Then the comments page came, and they gave you the option to link in your website/blog/what-have-you. So if if you put in an URL, if anyone clicked on your name, they could visit whatever URL you had provided in the text entry field. It wasn't the best comment system, but it gave the everyday user (like me) to have a voice and to also show some link love to their supporters.

The new comment system has ripped out linking your back to your site and you're just a voice among millions that should contribute your 2 cents and no more. I didn't like that, so I started posting my URL after I made a comment. I'm guessing that given the choice, users would rather click on a related link that wasn't an ad. Which is why I just got sent a "nice/polite" curt one line email from Ryan telling me to stop leaving my links on my comments.

I know the engadget team has gotta eat, and I hate it when I see spam, but was I really linking to my lame myspace band's page? Or something to do with penis enlargement or stock tips? No, I was linking back to something that is related to today's tech news. Great work man, alienate the very guys that have supported you all this time.

Alright Ryan, I'll play by your rules, I don't have to like them though. Sometimes I do believe engadget has jumped the shark though. 80% of the things they post aren't "wow!" but more just filler.

Netflix tells me nicely its not their problem

2006-11-03T14:07:00.000-05:00

So I signed up for Netflix 2 weeks ago. I was game for some DVD rental action again, and Netflix seemed like a good choice after hearing positive reviews from others I know. To this date, I've received ZERO DVDs. I've reported 6 missing DVDs however, 3 of which made it back to Netflix without me ever receiving them in the first place. They would send me emails telling me I should expect new DVDs in my mailbox only to wait 7 days and see nothing. After numerous back and forth emails between Netflix and I, they finally suggested I call them to resolve the issue.

In the meantime, I had also contacted the post office to report the issue. A nice woman called me back and told me that unless I find out from Netflix why the DVDs are getting returned, she couldn't really do much for me. I asked her if there was any further investigation she could do, and she told me, "Not really. You need to ask Netflix what's being stamped on the envelopes when they're returned to sender."

So I get Netflix on the phone, and they apologize profusely, offer me an extension on my free trial, and that's it. The Netflix agent says they can't really know where the break in the system is since everything they do is automated. They couldn't physically pull the returned envelope to see why it was returned. So I asked them what I should do, and the agent told me maybe I should call the post office. I told him that I was told to call Netflix. Catch-22 mofos! So after having this circular argument go back and forth for a good 5 minutes, the agent asks me, "what do you want me to do sir?!" I replied I'd like to have my issue escalated to someone that could investigate why this was happening, to which I was told, "Sorry, we can't do that. We can only investigate if there's a delay, not if there's a lost issue or a 'looping' issue." Both which I was subjected to. Their solution? Have it sent somewhere else. Great, so basically no solution at all. Thanks a lot Netflix, you might be losing a customer you could've had and probably never will.

Gizmodo needs to get their shit together.

2006-11-03T14:02:00.000-05:00

So over at Gizmodo, they're quite elitist on who can comment, and who can't. Problem is, their coding for their comment system is BUGGY. Yesterday, I was allowed to post comments, and today, no? Dude, make up your mind. On top of which, updating my profile on their "edit your profile" page sent me to a blank page after I submitted updates. Then again, why do I crave to even comment on their blog when some of the comments are completely lame?

Google and mobility

2006-11-03T11:06:00.000-05:00

Google has a lot of faith in us consumers. They hope we know what the hell to do with text messaging which just caught on in the last year or 2 here in the states. They hope that your phone isn't from the 90s and you're not sporting a Zack Morris phone. They hope that you know the consequences of not having a data plan, or being smart enough to sign up for a data plan to use their applications.

So far this is what has been rolled out that I use occasionally to frequently from google on my ever rotating inventory of phones.

Google Mail on my phone browser (http://m.gmail.com/) - I had set it as my home page when ever I hit my little internet button on my Sony Ericsson w600i.
Google SMS - Great for when the wife says, "where's this? Or what's the phone number to that?"
Google Maps via a small java midlet/application (eats up data) I don't use this as much as I should. I should've made more use of it when we were completely lost in Boston, but I digress.

And now google has come out with a Java midlet that lets me run Gmail as a full blown client on most GSM phones. Which is nice but I have to ask myself, is it really necessary? Maybe its due to the fact that I'm not your usual email user. I use email on the go to really just keep tabs on what's getting emailed to me, so its more of a one-way communication. In any case, I opened up the Gmail midlet, thought it looked nice, and then promptly closed it. After all, it would've probably been a lot more useful on a "dumb" phone but with my new Dash, its redundant.

Sidenote: I hated how Sprint and Verizon created little wall gardens on their phones and would only let you do things on your phone the way THEY wanted to, which is why I switched to T-mobile.

What I do like is the fact that Google has taken the initiative to make my life easier. And although I know their corporate mantra is "do no evil," it is a bit unsettling to know how much I rely on Google for my services, and they in turn know my every move (Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Spreadsheets & Documents, Google searching). They're also making sure I'm completely addicted to their services. Because I know that these mobile apps are nothing more but enticers to keep me glued to coming back to their site time and time again. I really do hope they stay the course of doing no evil.

Game consoles revving up for the Season

2006-11-02T08:43:00.000-05:00

So for the last year, its all been built up anticipation for this month. This is the month we get to see the next generation video game consoles get rolled out into the market. We, the collective consumer base, can't wait to get our grubby paws on them. But for what purpose? Before the advent of the internet, I could take a good stab at saying most people buying were gamers, but now? I'm going to guess if there is a supply shortage of these things, which is a very likely chance, that more than half of the PS3s and Wiis will be dumped onto eBay and craigslist and will be summarily bought by gamers that are willing to pay 3 or 4 times the amount. Mind you, I'm probably an old school gamer, so I won't be first in line. After all, I enjoy games that are innovative or were for the time. They were fun, and there was some novelty. After playing the 6000th edition of Street Fighter 2 or a knock-off variation of it, I got a little jaded. So what are the breakout games that are going to be released with for each respective system? I haven't been keeping my finger on the gaming pulse these days. In fact after my subscription ran out on Electronic Gaming Monthly years ago, I've kinda lost track of things. Maybe this is a good thing because by the time I get interested in a game, its in the bargain bin or been re-released as a "Greatest Hits" title. There are benefits of not being on the bleeding edge I suppose. I get to sit back, see which games are worth getting, which ones didn't live up to the hype, and which are worth buying the system in the first place. This is what happened when Final Fantasy 7 came out for the PS2 and the sole reason mine was purchased at all. Which is why I'll probably won't be dropping some change on one of these systems until the library has been built out and the prices have been dropped.

Palm and their Treo(s)...Zzzzzzzzz

2006-11-01T09:18:00.000-05:00

There was a time when Palm was the innovator in the PDA field. I lusted after the Palm V when it was first introduced. It was so tiny (for the time) and felt like it was on the cutting edge back in 1999. Then they got bought out, and then got bought out again. People had gotten used to them being the de facto standard for PDAs and Palm just started resting on its laurels. They stopped innovating and just started evolving. They gave the people what they wanted but then didn't know where to go from there. Today, I see the tech blogs touting the next cool Treo when really, the technology on most of these phones are 2 years old. (ok, bad reference since this one has HSPDA but its supposedly very unstable) Yes, Palm was innovative enough to buy out Handspring and develop the first widely used phone with a QWERTY keyboard, but with most phones coming with megapixel cameras (albeit crappy ones), they're stuck using a VGA one? They couldn't innovate their antiquated operating system so now they're just co-opting Microsoft's operating system? Maybe Palm has changed their business plan from tech innovator to lowest common denominator mass produced business tools and there shouldn't be any expectations from them anymore. What makes me shudder is to see Apple (once a supposed innovator) taking the same steps toward the path that Palm has walked.

Sony doesn't get it.

2006-11-01T09:07:00.000-05:00

Sony is introducing new color PSP just in time for the "Holiday" season. What I don't get is which marketing R&D suit is smoking crack in thinking this will boost sales? Nintendo made this work because their game systems were usually redesigned mid-cycle and colors just added to the design. The PSP has been on the market for over a year and a half and this is the best thing they could come up with? I'm sorry Sony but until you figure out how to make a killer/sleeper game that would draw in hoards of crowds, you'll continually sell one fifth the amount of DS Lites every month. I really really tried to love my PSP when I had it, but in the end, the only thing fun about it was loading Nintendo emulators to play old school games on them. With all the 3D polygonal multidimensional gaming the PSP had to offer, the only exciting thing was playing games developed 10 years before it was even a glimmer in Sony's R&D Team's eyes? Sorry, not worth it to keep around.

Apple's needed featherbook

2006-11-01T08:48:00.000-05:00

With all the rumors of impending new iPods and whatnot, what got my attention last month was the whisperings of Apple maybe releasing a ultralight laptop in the near future. They need to take a page from Sony and their newly released VAIO or even from the TX-series or the UX series. Well, maybe not the UX since it looks like a pain in the ass to use for actual normal activity. Even if Sony has sometimes taken a page from Apple, and release something so light that I can throw it into my gadget man bag and not feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. With so many things to tote around these days from digital camera, PDA, power adapters, portable game consoles, portable harddrives, etc. A guy needs to have all his subjectively essential items be as light and durable as possible. Here's hoping Apple doesn't disappoint me. Sony wouldn't be disappointing me so much if they didn't load their notebooks with so much proprietary (buggy) software to handle all the fancy bells and whistles they throw onto their svelte notebooks.

myspace phishing

2006-10-31T10:25:00.000-05:00

I saw this on SlashDot yesterday about there's a hack out there that

"The hackers have engineered a fake login form on MySpace's own web site. Netcraft has notified MySpace of the issue, although it currently remains live. Because the fraudulent login page is hosted on MySpace's own servers and does not exhibit any signs of external content, such as cross-site scripting or open redirects, it is convincing and even security-conscious users are at risk of becoming victims. The attack is launched from a profile page, where the username is login_home_index_html, and uses specially-crafted HTML in order to hide the genuine MySpace content from the page and instead display its own login form."

What's scary is most users on myspace are just that, Users. They are not tech-savvy and they are certainly assumed to only know enough to pretty up their profile pages by surfing google to scrape some CSS code off of another website. So what if a hacker can get into a user's myspace account? Well from there, they can use the obtained email address and passwords to start shopping it around to other sites since most users don't keep multiple passwords and email addresses. Its a big gaping hole and well, myspace is just a poorly written piece of software.

T-mobile Dash is a blessing and a curse

2006-10-31T09:53:00.000-05:00

Having just received the newly T-mobile Dash, I was ecstatic until I found out some of its quirks.

If you're not smart enough to fiddle around with it, you won't realize that the phone is shipped with the data settings defaulting to the WAP profile rather than the full blown internet2 profile if you're on the unlimited data plan
It doesn't have Dial-Up Networking enabled as a bluetooth profile, which is fine if you're using Windows XP but a big pain in the ass on Mac OSX Tiger (since its not supported), as well as my Nokia Internet Tablet which runs Linux (not supported but apparently if I jump through a bunch of hoops and scripts, I can get it up and running).
The Windows Mobile browser, Internet Explorer, is pretty weak when rendering webpages. Which would be fine if there were some alternatives, like Opera's awesome mobile browser, but Opera doesn't support Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone Edition yet.
If you're like me and use Mac OSX Tiger rather than WindowsXP as your primary computer, you need something to replace ActiveSync. Most recommend Markspace's Missing Sync but its a piece of junk. Not because it doesn't operate properly, in fact, its pretty piece of software, but it wreaks havoc on my Powerbook's ability to sleep or wake from sleep which require reboots, disk checks, and holding the power button down to shut it down. Its also frozen the powerbook once. I'm not sure I'm going to keep it after the 14 day trial.
The JOGGR function which has been disabled on T-mobile's version can be hacked to be used again, and even has a utility out if you're scared to hack the registry. After using it for a bit, I wish HTC (the manufacturer) would've just put in a jog wheel instead.
The camera is still crappy as my old phone (Sony Ericsson w600i)
There is no 3.5mm headphone jack. You have to use the proprietary earphones that the phone came with, so I can't hook the thing up to my AUX jack in the car.
Customizing the home screen can be somewhat a pain in the ass.
EDGE Data signal will drop sometimes and will requiring reboots to coax it to reconnect

Even with these quirks, I love the phone. Its slim and pocketable, the QWERTY keyboard is a great feature, the rubbery body is great for gripping, and Windows Mobile is pretty stabled compared to my first Pocket PC device back in 2001. My technolust has been satiated. At least for the time being.

Yousendit will go the way of the do-do

2006-10-31T09:28:00.000-05:00

I used to love using yousendit.com. It was the easiest way to send large files from one person to the next, without the hassle of killing off your email server. But now? They suck. They've scaled back their once 1 gigabyte cap to 100 megabytes, and they're requiring everyone to register if you want in on their service. I don't have a problem with registering, but I do have a problem when they start making you pay for things they were giving away free from the get-go. Its like a bait-and-switch tactic that most consumers hate being taken for. So after getting this email from yousendit:

Your new YouSendIt Lite account is great to send large files but it has its limitations. How would you like a full 30 days of our most powerful service, YouSendIt Business Plus, for free to try the many features that it provides? This is a $29.99 value and you get it absolutely free - no strings attached, no need to enter a credit card number.

Compared to your current Lite account some key advantages of our Business Plus service are:

* Send multiple files at once
* Send files as large as 2 GB
* Track downloads
* Files you send are available for 14 days
* No ads on your pages
* The ability to customize your file deliveries with your brand

WHY?! I recently signed up on xdrive.com for more or less the same service and I get to store 5 gigs on their server. And you know what? Its free. Sure, I have to register with them too and put up with some annoying ads, but its free, and I don't have to pay 30 bucks for the privilege. So, so long yousendit. It was nice knowing while it lasted.