Flickr layout

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 What's funny/sad is that I don't even own the PSP anymore (evil Sony hype) and my Sony Ericsson phone has been superseded by my T-mobile Dash.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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

1. 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.
   
   
2. 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.
   
   
3. 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.