Category: Technology

Apple's Big Splash – But How Much Water Displaced?

Lorin Olsen

Apple made their big announcement today. Here are the short highlights:

  • The iTunes phone was released. It is a Moto ROKR. It has a fixed memory size. And a sizable price tag. And it is only available from Cingular. Drats! I wonder if it will be a big seller. Somehow, I don’t think so. The price tag is too high and the memory is too limited. Most folks will see this price point and lust for the Nano instead. Strangely enough, it’s not called the iPhone or even the iTunes Phone. It is iTunes on a mobile device. They are leaving the branding to Cingular and Moto. So we will all call it the ROKR.
  • The iPod Nano was released. It will hold 1,000 songs (4GB of storage). It is ultra-sleek. And its price starts at $199. This will force the Shuffle price down even further. Boy, the iPod product line is getting rather crowded. BTW, I used the Nano photo because I think the Nano is such a sleek, sweet design – and the phone is just what everyone predicted anyway.
  • There is a new version of iTunes (v5.0). Most of the changes are to support the new iPod models (phone and Nano). But there are some nice visual touches and eye candy for existing users. I wonder if they’ve revamped the DRM scheme again. I’ll research and let you know.

There will be a whole lot more to write tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ve got to run off and finish some chores…
-CyclingRoo-

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Apple’s Big Splash – But How Much Water Displaced?

Lorin Olsen

Apple made their big announcement today. Here are the short highlights:

  • The iTunes phone was released. It is a Moto ROKR. It has a fixed memory size. And a sizable price tag. And it is only available from Cingular. Drats! I wonder if it will be a big seller. Somehow, I don’t think so. The price tag is too high and the memory is too limited. Most folks will see this price point and lust for the Nano instead. Strangely enough, it’s not called the iPhone or even the iTunes Phone. It is iTunes on a mobile device. They are leaving the branding to Cingular and Moto. So we will all call it the ROKR.
  • The iPod Nano was released. It will hold 1,000 songs (4GB of storage). It is ultra-sleek. And its price starts at $199. This will force the Shuffle price down even further. Boy, the iPod product line is getting rather crowded. BTW, I used the Nano photo because I think the Nano is such a sleek, sweet design – and the phone is just what everyone predicted anyway.
  • There is a new version of iTunes (v5.0). Most of the changes are to support the new iPod models (phone and Nano). But there are some nice visual touches and eye candy for existing users. I wonder if they’ve revamped the DRM scheme again. I’ll research and let you know.

There will be a whole lot more to write tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ve got to run off and finish some chores…

-CyclingRoo-

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WinFS: Is Cairo Finally Arriving?

Lorin Olsen

Sorry about the Cairo joke. But there sure is a lot of stuff starting to appear regarding WinFS. And for those not following WinFS, it is the “object-oriented” filesystem that Microsoft has dropped from the upcoming Windows Vista release – yet it is seeing the light of day already. This filesystem has been a design point for Windows for almost a decade. But despite the redefinition and repeated delays, it is great to begin to see WinFS. So here is the current scoop…

I am debating whether or not to attempt WinFS on any existing systems. I think I’ll wait until I get some early feedback from the field. Nevertheless, I am excited that such a long-standing vision is finally finding its way into the hands of the customer community.
-CyclingRoo-

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If the NYT Prints Something, It Must be True

Lorin Olsen


“All the news that’s fit to print.” That’s the motto. And while some folks want to trash the grand maiden of journalism, I hope that she is right – at least, this time. Yesterday, the NYT published a report stating that Apple will be releasing its “iPod phone” sometime next week. The Chicago-Tribune repeated the story in today’s paper. Roger Entner, an analyst with Ovum, has indicated that the phone will be be sold through Cingular and its network.
BTW, current rumors still consider the Motorola E790 (aka, the ROKR E1 pictured above) as the most likely candidate for the handset.
-CyclingRoo-

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[Note: I work for a US wireless carrier. However, any comments on this subject reflect my opinion and not the opinion of my employer.]

Morning Grind #11

Lorin Olsen

Short takes for Friday, August 26, 2005

  • Lance Armstrong had a very good interviewon Larry King Live. Unfortunately, we will never know the truth about Lance Armstrong. Only Lance Armstrong knows the truth. And he is saying that he is innocent of any blood doping allegations. Everyone else (including the French journalists) is seeing through a lens of speculation. The journalists believe Lance is guilty. So everything they see “proves” their assertions of guilt. Every LA supporter (myself included) assumes that Lance is being framed by an over-zealous and highly jealous brood of “journalists.” So everything we see “proves” that folks are out to smear a good man.But all of us must come to the point where we have to accept the unkwown. No matter what happens from this point forward, Lance will always have a question mark on his career. He can never “prove” his innocence – no matter how hard he tries. As Americans, we must learn to live with the fact that all people are innocent until proven guilty. So let’s start acting that way. Lance is innocent. No one has proven that he has done anything wrong. Until proof is available, Lance is innocent.
  • I added an external USB hard disk to the main computer in our house. It’s nice to have an additional 160GB to exploit! But, it’s not enough. Actually, it is enough – but it won’t solve my nagging problems. Every year, we get copies of Dana’s basketball games. And we convert these video tapes into DVD disks (for ourselves and Dana’s coaches). But it is really hard to work with these files. An average game results in ~10GB of video footage. And our internal hard disk can’t handle more than a handful of such files at any given point in time. That’s generally not a porblem. I can keep a few active and “archive” the rest to the external disk, right?Uh, no. Not really. Apparently, it’s not so easy to move +10GB files from one disk to another. I’m not certain whether the problem is the number of extents or what. But I can’t move them to the external USB drive. So it’s time to select what’s behind Door #2. And the tool of choice is DivX. I’ve used DivX for quite some time. But I have always used a DivX player – not the encoder itself. But I downloaded the trial version of the encoder from DivX.com. Wow. My +13GB file is now a +475MB DivX file. The quality is pretty darned good. I am sure that I will lose something when projecting it on a typical TV. But it is more than enough for long-term storage. I can store every game this season with room to spare. And I can then import any part of the saved files into the end-of-year video I build. Man, technology sure is grand.
  • I finally finished caulking the shower stall in my daughter’s room. So once everything cures, we’ll be a three and 1/2 bath house!
  • Google Talk on GAIM is working well. It’s good to have a client that supports file transfer. Now I just have to fix the trouble with Gaim through our corporate firewall. Oh well. That’s for another time

-CyclingRoo-

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GAIM and Google Talk

Lorin Olsen


Earlier today, I noted the success I had at getting the Google Talk client to work in the office. Now that I’m at home, there is more good news to report. GT works great with GAIM – assuming that you configure it properly. The steps for configuration are simple:
– Install GAIM (available at Sourceforge)
– Using Tools -> Accounts -> Add, add an account
– Use the following account options:

  • Protocol: Set to Jabber
  • Screen Name: Set to your GMail account name (everything preceding @gmail.com)
  • Server: Set to gmail.com
  • Password: Set to your password (let’s hope it’s a good one)
  • Select “Show more options”
  • Select “Use TLS if available
  • De-select “Force old SSL
  • De-select “Allow plain text…”
  • Port: Set to 5222
  • Connect server: Set to talk.google.com

That should be it. Once configured GAIM should make IM a whole lot simpler. First, you aren’t tied exclusively to Windows platforms. GAIM runs anywhere and everywhere. Clients exist for Linux as well as Mac OS X. Personally, I love GAIM. While it doesn’t give me complete interoperability between conversations on different platforms, I can still be logged onto all IM platforms simultaneously. And when Google gets the interoperability agreements going, then the fun should really start.
-CyclingRoo-

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Google Talk Fuels the Rumor Mill

Lorin Olsen

Well, the wait is over. Google Talk is live. You can get the Google Talk client at http://www.google.com/talk. Actually, it went live last night. It was fun watching Technorati go nuts with all the posts! As we speak, I am sure that it is a top ten item.
So how does it work? Well, it installs easily. It configured simply. It automatically worked through the firewall at work. That’s a nice trick. It means the client is using the proxy settings from the system settings. You can change these settings. But it is a nice trick for it to work “out of the box.”
The IM experience is nothing to write home about. It is clean and simple. But so is Gaim (or any other IM client these days). The default client doesn’t appear to support IM to other networks (AOL/ICQ, Yahoo!, or MSN). But you can connect to Google using other clients – like Gaim. That means that I can use the client of my own choice. That is intensely sweet! W00t!
I haven’t tried the VOIP interface yet. I don’t have a good mic/headset. But I guess I now need to get one. We use VOIP for our home phone service (through Time Warner). But if rumors are right, this may be an interesting new venture for Google. Rumor has it that Google may be eyeing our friends at Skpe. Now that would be something indeed.
-CyclingRoo-

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Google Rumors In the Air

Lorin Olsen


Yesterday, Google brought us the new Google sidebar. Tomorrow, Google may unleash it’s IM solution – at least, according to the LA Times.
But for today, Google brings us the rumors of things yet to be. Mike Stanclift (of Newwin) is speculating that the Google IM tool will utilize the open-source Jabber protocol. Of course, all of this is speculation. In reality, we don’t know if an IM solution is waiting in the wings. But let’s assume that one is. Wouldn’t it be great if Google did deploy a Jabber-based IM service?
First, users could select from any number of client systems (e.g., Trillian, Gabber, Exodus or even the Jabber Messenger clients for J2ME, Symbian, Pocket PC and RIM). And this flexibility could ensure an extremely rapid deployment in the marketplace – especially for mobile platforms. But I doubt that Google would dillute their brand message by inviting wholesale abandonment of a branded client tool. Nevertheless, if they did allow other clients, they would gain immediate access to the OS X and Linux clients that the other IM providers are intentionally ignoring.
Second, Jabber platforms have been built with gateways to support direct connections to other IM networks/providers (incl. AIM, MSN and Yahoo!). If Google released a tool that would bridge all of these networks together, they could snap up a lot of customers (and their correlated click counts). Of course, folks like AOL might fight this by denying access to their network. But it would take time before walls could be errected. And such an action might send a bad message. Think of this. Google would be seen as the “enabler” of communication while AOL would be seen as blocking the free exchange of ideas on the net. It would be quite a PR coup, indeed.
This should be fun! Stay tuned for more.
-CyclingRoo-

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New Google Desktop

Lorin Olsen

Well, it’s finally arrived. Google has released v2 of its Google Desktop. This version searches and indexes even more than the previous version. Not only will it index your desktop docs and email, it will also index your Gmail account. Maybe the next version will index your Blogger account as well!
In the meantime, the new version has a very interesting sidebar. This sidebar provides RSS feed reading capabilities. Right now, I’m using it to browse headline news. I intend to configure it to provide instant access to my favorite blogs.
While this does not constititute a formal review, my informal review is one word: SWEET.
-CyclingRoo-

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