I don't usually youtube

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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.