April 2004 Archives

As you are aware, I'm a college professor, and toward the end of April and the beginning of May, I suffer from a burnout. As students face the end-of-the-semester burnout from preparing for exams and writing their major projects, we the teachers also suffer from another kind of burnout. I call it a grading burnout. I got so many individual and group papers I have to read and grade by the end of the semester, I feel like I need to take a long break after the semester in order to recover from the burnout. For instance, last semester, I had to read almost 2000 pages during the last two weeks of the semester. Given my firm belief in the helpfulness of feedback to students' development, I need to take time to provide meaningful feedback to students. That means I have to read every single page slowly and make comments.

Unfortunately, technology hasn't helped me here at all. Sure I can have my students submit papers via e-mail, but that doesn't save me any time at all. In fact, it takes me more time since I have to locate the e-mail and print out the attachment. There have been some technological innovations as Blackboard (web-based teaching tool), McGraw Hills Einstruction tools. and others, but those only help faculty who uses tests as their main measurement tool for students' learning.

Since I also believe in testing for competence rather than knowledge (it's a long debate in the educational field), I don't have any tests in my classes (where the focus is on leadership and teamwork). So, any of these new technology hasn't helped me or my students.

Surely, technology has helped my students write better papers--at least we hope. MS Word helps students use outlines for organizing ideas, use grammar check and spell check for correcting certain spelling and grammatical mistakes, but it seems the quality of the paper hasn't really improved and thus it takes me more time to provide feedback. That's right poorly written papers require more time for me to read and provide feedback. This is one area I think where technology hasn't really helped my productivity at all. So, is there any relief in sight?

iRiver has announced a new combination digicam music player, the iRiver Prism Eye. Coming in two models, the iFP-1090 and iFP-1095 devices combine digital audio with FM tuner capability with a digital camera.

While similar in size and specs, the iFP-1090 and iFP-1095 have storage capacities of 256-MB and 512-MB. The devices do not as yet support any expansion memory, and connect to PCs by USB1.1. Form factor is 3.5x 1.5 inches.

Prism Eye devices use a 0.3-MP CMOS sensor to capture images at 640x480 resolution, with an available 3x digital zoom. The 256-MB device can hold approximately 300 shots.

Audio formats supported include MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis and ASF. FM tuning is within the 87.5-108 MHz band. A Li-ion battery can handle about 35 hours of playback.

The Prism Eye is expected to ship this summer.

This was in 97X's latest newsletter update (see Mitch's previous GearBits post for background):

INTERNET BROADCAST STATUS UPDATE

We had anticipated that the last day of our terrestrial broadcast at 97.7 FM would be around May 1st, but things sometimes take longer than expected, so it now looks like it will be closer to, but no later than, May 13th.

That’s the good news … the bad news is that it might also be our last day broadcasting on the Internet.

Over the past three months we’ve been looking for sponsors or investors who could help us fund this very expensive venture into the future. We’ve talked with many, many potential partners, but as of now, it’s not looking good. There are still some active conversations, but every day that goes by makes it less and less likely that we will find a funder.

Believe it or not, it would cost more to run this Internet radio station (with half the staff) than it ever did to run our terrestrial radio station. The main reason is the costs of music performance royalties and bandwidth for our audio streaming. Unlike traditional AM and FM radio where the cost of operating the transmitter is fixed no matter how many people listen, on the Internet our costs go up for each additional person that tunes in. With our online audience approaching 50,000 unique listeners and growing every month, the already substantial costs continue to rise with no significant revenue stream to pay for them.

We've researched alternative scenarios including moving to a listener-supported subscription service, but even in best case scenarios, reasonably priced subscriptions would not create enough revenue to cover the costs of creating and delivering 97X. As a commercial business, it would be improper for us to accept listener donations, and even if we did, it would not provide a viable, long term solution.

However, it’s not over ‘til it’s over, and there’s always a chance that someone with a vision of the future will see a way to say yes. We’ll keep you posted.

Damn you RIAA, ClearChannel, and all the other corporate media tyrants and your damnable lobbyists for getting the Congress to adopt prohibitively expensive webcasting royalty rates and damn you legislators for allowing yourselves to be influenced manipulated by these soulless, culture-destroying organizations.

I leave for a 4-day academic conference tomorrow afternoon. The conference is in Mexico. While there, I'll have the privilege of paying $1.49 per minute to T-Mobile for international roaming with my mobile phone.

According to GSM World, "GSM is a standard that embraces all areas of technology, resulting in global, seamless wireless services for all its customers."

Um, yeah...whatever. Not only is the per-minute voice rate prohibitively expensive for international roaming, I can't even use GPRS/Internet on my Treo 600 while in Mexico (at least not through T-Mobile). Looks like we still have a looong way to go.

In 1987, Cincinnati was ground-zero for an enormous eruption of 17-year cicadas (pictured). Well, it's now 17 years later and we're preparing for another onslaught of millions of these large, chirping, whirring, flying insects.

One thing that 1987's event produced was an awesome radio jingle from Snappy Tomato Pizza, a regional pizza chain. Instead, the spot advertised "Snap...Snap...Snappy Cicada Pizza..." It was a scream, despite the fact that they didn't really offer cicadas as a topping. Thankfully, our local newspaper website provides a copy of the original jingle in its (ahem) cicada feature section.

If you just want to hear the jingle, click here (MP3). And yes, 17 years later, I still hear people sing or hum this every once in a while.

I just saw this blog entry describing the unchecked growth of cellular towers in our national parks:

"Under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, federal lands were opened to the placement of cell towers. However, Congress instructed the National Park Service (NPS) to develop appropriate regulations for implementing the law, noting that that 'the Washington Monument, Yellowstone National Park or a pristine wildlife sanctuary, while perhaps prime sites for an antenna and other facilities, are not appropriate and the use of them would be contrary to environmental, conservation, and public safety laws.'

Last month PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) protested the placement of a cell tower that actually overlooks Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. The group stated that the NPS increased the height of the tower after submitting the plan for review to the state of Wyoming. PEER said the NPS also failed to file a notice with the Federal Register that it was considering or approving the tower -- as required by law -- and in addition it failed to allow for public comment on the plan."

The article goes on to describe how cellular towers "...in the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Everglades National Parks, Big Cypress and Mojave National Preserves, as well as Yellowstone, have gone up with no public notification or review."

I love a strong cellular signal as much as the next guy, but I have to believe that there are many, many natural places where the location of a tower simply isn't justifiable. There's a reason why these are called "natural" wonders and "natural" preserves, and a 100' cellular tower shouldn't be part of that environment. If some people prize mobile coverage and technological access more than the natural state of these national parks, why visit there in the first place?

Combine a pretty Ukrainian girl named Elena, a big ZX-11 Kawasaki, a Geiger counter and what's left of Chernobyl and you have a winning website in my book. Elena's probably ill-advised forays into the Chernobyl nuclear dead zone reap some really poignant photos and being the daughter of a nuclear physicist, her insight and commentary on the disaster is excellent. I had no idea the scope of the tragedy. Thanks to Elena, now I do.

This past weekend was spent at my Mother-in-Law's. She's a great lady, but about half a decade behind on her technology. Her only connection to the Internet is a Pentium III machine running Windows ME [ack!] and AOL [blech!].

I'm not kidding when I say that my Treo 600 makes a better, faster Internet tool than this machine of hers. Moreover, there's no Wi-Fi to be found in her entire condo complex (I checked), so the entire weekend suffered along at dial-up speeds.

Also, I introduced her to the concept of Windows Update. This 4-year-old machine had never once been updated. 6 hours, ~30 MB, and 7 reboots later, it was completely up to spec. I fully expect to perform a smaller version of this ritual each time I visit her.

I'm currently suffering major Internet withdrawal. Hopefully the shakes will end soon.

Amidst the questionable sales of souls and Stinger missiles, sometimes someone on eBay, comes up with a straightforward classic, like this sale of a Ryobi Router Table that is a triumph of modern marketing.

And since we all know that eBay listings are ephemeral, I've reproduced the listing here for posterity.

RYOBI ROUTER TABLE - WORTHLESS JUNK NR!

Item number: 2389286139
Winning bid: US $26.22
Ended: Mar-28-04 10:45:22 PST
Start time: Mar-21-04 10:45:22 PST
Winning bidder: burglarproof(110)
Seller information: davesan455(48)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description (revised)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For any prospective bidders - I have 100% positive feedback so you know my descriptions are good. I'm trying to describe this item the best I can.

This Ryobi router table is the worst thing I've ever spent money on. Period. I've wasted money on a lot of things in my life: women, cars, other things I didn't need, you name it, but I've never felt like I totally 100% wasted my money on something until I bought this router table. I've wasted money, but I normally got some sort of satisfaction out of it, no matter how small, I got something out of it This is the most worthless piece of crap item I have ever had the displeasure of working with in my life. I have much more colorful ways of describing this but I realize that there may be some kids that will read this so I will try to keep it PG.

As Microsoft includes more and more things in its Windows operating systems -- the most recent addition is a whole new set of security functions, like firewalls and pop-up blockers -- my mind keeps returning to the same question that I'm not sure has ever been resolved: what exactly should be included in an operating system?

Before I begin, let me make it perfectly clear that I am not, nor likely ever will be, a computer or software engineer. I don't have the slightest idea about the underlying architecture that governs modern operating systems. So, I am basing these comments on a "common sense" perspective, which may be very technically flawed (I'm sure someone out there will be more than happy to correct me);

It seems that there is a lot of junk in contemporary OS's that just doesn't need to be there, and Microsoft isn't the only culprit. Why should a web browser or a multimedia player or an email client or a word processor be necessary for a computer operating system to function? Just try to remove Internet Explorer or Outlook Express from your Windows machine (I know it can be done, but it's anything but trivial). Can I choose to buy Windows without these components for less money? No, at least not that I'm aware of.

Why are addressbook and calendar programs part of the Palm operating system? Can I buy/license Palm OS without these apps for less money than a normal license? I don't believe it's possible.

Heck, was it ever even possible to buy DOS without the "Edit" program? While a text editor certainly isn't required to function as an operating system, I doubt that you could get a discounted copy of DOS that didn't have this feature.

Now, I realize that an OS is a product, much like a car or a couch or a bicycle. In that sense, the manufacturer wants it to have the most appealing mix of features and price that will compel its customers to buy it. But what the software company wants to sell you is a different issue than what the operating system must include for it to function.

I have a hard time accepting the premise that I am required to pay for an unrelated feature that is bundled with an "operating system" that lies outside the core functionality of operating the system (i.e., managing hardware interfaces and what-not). I don't prefer Windows Media Player -- why do I have to pay for it? I don't prefer Internet Explorer -- why does the price of the OS include some portion allocated to Microsoft recouping the cost of developing it?

An operating system is like a car in some ways. Certain parts of it are highly integrated while others are very modular. In cars, and in many other tangible goods, the modular parts are easily replaced and/or optioned so as to not require being purchased in the first place. For example, if I want custom wheels or a custom stereo on my new car, the dealer will usually credit me for the factory wheels or factory head unit that would have come on the car by default. Microsoft, however, does not credit me for Windows Media Player or Outlook Express if I want something else (or nothing) instead -- I have to buy it as a bundle with no options...take it or leave it.

If that were the extent of the impact, I'd have no problems with it. However, when you combine the unwillingness to give customers options for purchasing non-core components with the monopoly power of the Windows operating system, you create a very unfair and damaging situation.

Imagine we were back in the days of a Ma Bell telephone monopoly. Imagine that if you wanted phone service at your house, you had one choice available to you: "phone service 9000." PS9000 is Ma Bell's only service product, and it includes every conceivable option available, such as voicemail, 3-way calling, caller ID, call forwarding, "wirecare," and a whole bunch of other services that you don't really need. But, you're stuck paying $94 a month for this mega-package even if what you want/need is just basic local phone service.

Society has said this is inappropriate on several occasions. For example, US law mandates that cable companies must offer a bare-bones "basic" cable service at a very low price. These local monopolies are not allowed to have just a single gargantuan cable package that costs $100 a month saying "if you want any part of cable service, you have to buy everything we offer." That's not allowed.

So why is Microsoft, a company already established as a similar type of monopoly, allowed to offer only one or two high-priced "mega-package" products? Both Windows XP Home and Pro are stuffed with nearly every possible add-on feature you can imagine. It'd be like the cable company only offering a $94 "Home" package (without HBO) and a $110 "Professional" package that includes HBO. Why is this OK for Microsoft, but not for the phone company or a cable provider?

As you have been aware that I have recently upgraded our in-home wireless to 802.11g from 802.11b. Of course, I naturally wanted to upgrade the internal mini-PCI card (Intel Pro 802.11b) in my Thinkpad 41p rather than to add a CardBus wireless card (which I have done with my wife's Thinkpad T30). IBM now sells several variations of the PCI cards for 802.11g, but I got the 802.11a/b/g combination card. I figured I can't go wrong with the dual band, tri-mode card. Those of you who are a bit more budget conscious, IBM now offers 802.11 b/g card for about $40 cheaper.

Anyway, I got the card and installed in my Thinkpad. Unlike the older T series, where the card can be installed from the bottom of the case, the new Thinkpad now requires the removal of the keyboard and the palm rest in order to access the card slot. Anyway, after removing about ten screws and both keyboard and palm rest, I was in business. The whole installation took me about 10 minutes, but I was extremely careful not to make any mistakes. If you have done this before, the whole process should take less than 5 minutes.

Anyway, the problem happened when I was only able to connect to my Belkin g-router at 24Mbps. No matter what I did, I couldn't get anything higher. Even when I was right next to the router, Access Connection (IBM software) was showing 24Mbps or 18Mbps. So, I thought this might be the internal limitation of the card. However, to make sure, I called the IBM tech support to confirm. Well, the adventure began right afterward.

I filed an on-line service call at the IBM support site (this is something new), and the updates showed that they had called me twice, but my caller ID had no record of their calls. So, I called the tech support to speak to a real-live person.

The first person I talked to said he couldn't tell for sure because there are so many variables that come into play. I said, with the different adapter (Belkin CardBus card), I was getting 54Mbps in my Thinkpad, but not with this card. He said he couldn't help me at all since the card seems to be working. So, after a few hours, I called in again and talked to the second person. This person wasn't much help either. She didn't really know much of the wireless configuration (In fact, I had to explain a few things to her), and she said that the wireless expert was not in that day, and she would call me back when she had a chance to talk with that person. Well, that was a week ago, and I am still waiting for the phone call from her.

Anyway, when I didn't hear back from her in two days, I called again. This time the person couldn't understand why it was happening. At least he offered to send me a replacement card after talking to me for an 1/2 hour. Another funny thing is that IBM seems to have two different part number for the identical item (one is used by sales/marketing for new parts, and the other by service for replacement parts). So, it took us more than 10 minutes to track down the right part as well.

To make a long story short, the replacement part arrived the next day (I have to commend IBM for expeditious service--this is the second replacement parts I have received in the past few years, and both came the next day). I debated whether to go through the hassle and install the new card, but I decided I had nothing to lose. Well, lo and behold, after spending 5 minutes installing the card, I turned back on the system (crossing my fingers). The connection speed was 54Mbps. Hooray! Looks like the earlier card was defective after all.

It has been a few days since I replaced the part, and I have been consistently getting 48 to 54Mbps connection. So, I'm a happy camper, but I wish and I hope I never have to deal with the tech support again with any company in the future. So, thumb up or down? It's neither. The problem was solved, but the experience wasn't all too stellar in my book.

I've spent some time reviewing the wireless media hub options available, and they all come up short. What I want is simple, really: I want something I can plug into my stereo and, without using the TV, enable me to stream both MP3's (from a computer on our network) and Internet radio (from our broadband connection) to our home stereo using an 802.11g wireless connection.

There are several requirements in that description (i.e., integrated screen, MP3 and Internet radio streaming, and 802.11g), yet every wireless media hub out there (at least that I've seen) fails on one or more accounts. Here's a review of how they stack up (or fail to, actually):

• Netgear MP101
-- OK: Integrated 4-line LCD and streaming MP3
-- Failures: No streaming Internet radio (other than a subscription-based service...ugh!) and no 802.11g (low-speed 802.11b only). However, this discussion gives me hope that the MP101 might someday at least accommodate streaming Internet radio.

• Creative Sound Blaster Wireless Music
-- OK: Integrated LCD (on RF remote!) and streaming MP3
-- Failures: No streaming Internet radio and no 802.11g (again, 'b' only)

• Roku Soundbridge M1000 & M2000
-- OK: Integrated LCD and streaming MP3
-- Failures: No streaming Internet radio and no 802.11g (the Soundbridge relies on an optional CompactFlash Wi-Fi adapter, and those only exist right now in the 802.11b flavor)

• Turtle Beach AudioTron-100
-- OK: 2-line integrated LCD and streams both MP3 and Internet radio
-- Failures: No wireless of any sort (Ethernet only)

• Slim Devices' Squeezebox
-- OK: 2-line LCD and streams both MP3 and Internet radio
-- Failures: No 802.11g (802.11b only)

• SMC SMCWAA-B EZ-Stream
-- OK: Large LCD and streams both MP3 and Internet radio
-- Failures: No 802.11g (802.11b only)

There are quite a few other wireless media hubs that require you to use your TV as the interface, including the HP ew5000, the Play@TV NMP-4000, and the Linksys WMA11B. However, since I don't want to have to hook the unit up to the TV to use it (our television takes 24 seconds to warm up when you turn it on before an image appears, which is seriously annoying when all you want to do is listen to music), I'm not even considering these.

So, I'm still waiting for something that will let me listen to MP3s and my favorite Internet MP3 streams over our 802.11g network that won't require me using the TV. A couple of nice-to-haves would include (a) not requiring me to use clunky proprietary music management software and (b) a bitchin' RF remote. Any suggestions?

Update: I've added the Squeezebox to the list at the suggestion of the folks at eHomeUpgrade. The rationale for wanting 802.11g rather than 'b' is that I'd rather have a homogeneous wireless network to ensure the fastest possible connections for all attached devices. Utopian? Possibly, but IMO there's no compelling reason why we should be forced to use old technology when there's something better available now.

Update #2: I've added the SMC offering as well (thanks, KC).

Just a quick post: I've now been using the Treo 600 for well over a month. So far, I'm damned impressed at its battery life.

For example, I can easily go an entire weekend of fairly heavy use (mostly PDA+GPRS plus some talk time) without even coming close to running the battery down.

Another example is from last night. I spent almost 3 straight hours using it for ebook reading (Lessig's Free Culture is excellent, by the way) with the phone on standby and GPRS enabled the entire time. When I finally turned in, my battery was still at 87%. No PDA-phone I've ever used had even close to this much stamina. Well done, guys!

Olympus Japan today announced the CAMEDIA AZ-1, a 3.2-megapixel ultra-compact camera measuring just 3.7 x 2.6 in x 0.8 in.

The AZ-1 uses a 'folded optics' lens design similar to the Minolta DiMAGE X series and the Sony DSC-T1, T11, to achieve its compact size. It features a 3x optical zoom.

A cradle is also provided for charging the camera, and provide for USB and video out connectivity.

The CAMEDIA AZ-1 also boasts a large 2.5-inch, 210,000-pixel view display - with high contrast and a wide viewing angle - and album and slideshow functions that makes it suitable for use as a photo viewer and portable photo album.

Travel news reports are noting that in some jurisdictions, mobile phones may now be operated in calendar, photo viewer or similar mode.

The British Civil Aviation Authority has begun allowing this in planes under its jurisdiction, because they've decided that - in this so-called "flight mode" with the radio disabled - phones do not interfere with pilot systems.

Furthermore, the BCAA suggests that all airlines should let travelers perform all other non-phone functions - read and write documents, play games - on smartphones, in the same vein as laptops, handheld games, or MP3 players.

Flight crews are saying it is not their responsibility to check for "flight mode", but the BCAA says it is. The BCAA does require that phones make it clear when their transmitter is off - for example, Sony Ericsson's P900 smartphone displays "FLIGHT MODE" on its display.

It is not clear whether the US Federal Aviation Administration will follow the BCAA's lead.

Have you ever heard a song on the radio and thought - "That's great! Now who is that artist?" - and the DJ forgets to let you know? With a new music recognition service from AT&T Wireless, you can easily name that tune.

Customers dial #ID for the identification service, then hold their phone up to the speaker. In 15 seconds, the NowPlaying service sends out a text message with the current song title and artist, as well as information on the last five songs just played (in case you missed one of those).

The service is the first in the US, and is provided by Musicphone in cooperation with Shazam Entertainment, which has provided a similar service in the UK based on proprietary recognition technology and a database of over a million recorded songs.

The UK service includes an additional option to purchase the artist's CD containing the song, once it has been identified.

Because of new technologies like Broadband over Power Lines, WiMAX, and other innovations on the horizon, high-speed access to the Internet will soon be almost completely ubiquitous in developed countries.

By "soon," I mean possibly by the end of the decade. By "almost completely ubiquitous," I mean that there will still be gaps; the Badlands of South Dakota, Death Valley, some summits in the Alps, perhaps all of Alabama (I kid, I kid) may not be covered.

What are the ramifications of this? If access to the Internet is truly as omnipresent as, say, electricity, if not moreso, what does this do to the price of access? Obviously, it should drive it down...way down. At that point, using the Internet won't ever require an "is it worth it" evaluation, much like electricty is today (assuming you don't live off the grid) and much like how home broadband users slurp up bandwidth without a second thought today.

Another ramification of truly ubiquitous, fast Internet connections is that nearly everything involving electronics -- cars, refrigerators, traffic lights, HVAC units, car stereos -- will somehow use, access, or rely on the Internet for some part of its functionality. In addition, many things that don't today involve much (if any) electronics, such as running shoes, bicycles, a gallon of milk, street signs, shopping carts, etc., will start to in order to enhance their functionality.

Based on this, my prediction for the next two buzzwords that marketers will start to over-use and abuse when describing or naming their products will be "connected" and "smart." We've already seen the rise of "the connected organizer" from Palm, and we've been so far subjected to smartcards and smartmobs, but these are just the tip of the marketing iceberg.

So, what would you do with truly omnipresent broadband Internet access?

I just got my T-Mobile bill -- the first one since getting my Treo 600 and switching over from Verizon. One thing that I noticed that I found quite interesting was a daily tally of my GPRS data usage.

It seems that my total for the month was 27.03 megabytes, with a single-day high of 3.12 MB and a low of 0.03 MB (what?! was I asleep all day again?!). Had someone asked me my predictions of these numbers, I don't even know what I would have guessed.

So how much wireless data do you chew through each month?

Nokia has just announced the latest addition to their N-Gage series, the N-Gage QD.

The N-Gage QD improves on the original with a number of new features, including a brighter screen, a better user interface and game controls, a hot-swappable multimedia (MMC) slot, better battery life, and new smartphone features.

The new smartphone features include personal information management, email, and an XHTML browser.

In addition, the microphone and speaker in the QD have been reoriented from the original, making for easier handling as a phone.

A new launcher application simplifies connecting the Nokia's mobile network community via the N-Gage Arena, downloading and playing all available titles, as well as taking part in multiplayer gaming via Bluetooth wireless.

Nokia expects pricing to be in the range of $199 at retail, or $99 with a mobile contract. The N-Gage QD game deck is expected to be available in May-June 2004 worldwide.

Yes, beautiful women representing everything that is unholy to the contemporary feminist abound at the Miss USA website. However, their website is slow as molasses and painful to navigate, so I scripted up a set of links to the swimsuit photos from each contestant, er, delegate (sorry) with a link to her profile page.

The profile pages are where you can watch videos of them strutting the catwalk and answering really interesting questions such as "what's your favorite movie?" Or, if you're really hard up with some cash to burn, you can actually purchase photos of the contestants delegates.

Click the "Continue reading..." link below to see the photo page I crafted up (warning: lots of women in bikinis, in case that offends). If it's slow, blame their server...I'm not hosting any of the photos for obvious (c) reasons. Hint: best enjoyed without sound.

Samsung has demonstrated a 2-inch LCD panel with an equivalent resolution of 400ppi, yielding a VGA-equivalent-quality screen for use in cellphones.

Samsung's screen is based on Si-TFT technology. While the number of pixels in the panel is 240 x 640, the high-resolution display is theoretically equivalent to VGA (400-ppi, 480 x 640 pixels) was achieved by a special Four Color Rendering (4CR) technique, proprietary to the company.

The 4CR realizes high resolution equivalence with fewer pixels by utilizing RGB sub-pixels on adjoining scan lines in color and gradient renderings.

A similar technique called field sequential (FS) rendering divides pixels sequentially, displaying colors in the order of RGB.

Samsung has already demonstrated several LCD panels featuring FS rendering, technique, but this is one of the few using 4CR, and the first with this level of resolution, 10x earlier models.

Samsung claims a luminance of 200cd/m2, a contrast ratio of 200:1, and 262,000 colors, with color reproduction area against NTSC at 70%.

On the way to work this morning a big white pickup truck pulled out in front of me without even looking. I'm so used to trucks and SUVs driving like wankers that I wasn't even creative with my expletives. My blood pressure did not spike one bit.

Sitting behind this leviathan pickup, drowning in road spray and unable to see anything ahead of me but his bumper, I noticed he had an odd license plate. At first I thought it was some sort of official plate which would explain the boneheaded driving, but all it had was red numbers on a yellow background under the word "OHIO".

"Hmmmmm...I wonder if this is one of those new DUI plates", said I.

And sure enough, it was! Turns out I was behind an infamous Ohio driver; he has been convicted of a DUI offense and is now required by law to sport a scarlet brand telling others what a moron he is. And this guy is very unique. Out of roughly eight million licensed drivers, he is one of around 400 who have been issued this plate since January 2004. I had a 1 in 20,000 shot to have an official drunkard pull in front of me and I hit the jackpot. Today's my lucky day.

Every time I run, I listen to something on my MPIO FL100. More often than not, it's something informative -- NPR, Marketplace, etc. However, recently, I've been trying to use a spare pair of earbud headphones that came with my Tapwave Zodiac. They sound pretty decent for freebies, but they don't stay put very well when running.

So, does anyone have any recommendations for good jogging headphones? I think the behind-the-neck "street style" headphones would bug the heck out of me, but I haven't tried them. We have a pair of Sony clip-on earphones (shown), but they fall off after about 4 steps -- definitely meant for stationary activities.

Any suggestions, peeps?

I've started listening to the radio on my phone. How? All through the magic of Pocket Tunes from NormSoft.

Pocket Tunes is first an MP3 and Ogg Vorbis player application for your Palm OS device. It's fully skinnable with decent playlist handling and has lots of other nifty features that make it very capable stand-alone music player.

However, the real magic starts when you realize that Pocket Tunes Deluxe supports streaming MP3 over wireless connections. You can now listen to that favorite streaming radio station or your own Shoutcast source wherever your wireless Palm OS handheld or smartphone has Internet access.

For example, my phone is the Treo 600 from palmOne (nee Handspring). Using GPRS, I can stream in 97X at 24 Kbps without a hiccup (higher quality streams surpass GPRS's sustained throughput, so you end up buffering every so often, which gets annoying). Or, I could listen to my own stream if I were to switch it over to 24 Kbps (its default is 64 Kbps). Some other Treo-friendly streams can be found at Treobits.

Now, if my endorsement isn't enough to convince you, Pocket Tunes also won PalmSource's "Best Multimedia Solution" at the 2004 Developer's Conference. Nice job, NormSoft!

I've discussed the wonder that is VNC (Virtual Network Computing) before, but I thought I'd post a follow-up. While I've traditionally used TightVNC, Greg, a friend of mine, mentioned that he really likes Ultr@VNC for a few reasons.

Not only does Ultr@VNC support bi-directional file transfer (a very handy feature), but the scaling implementation on the server app works really well with the PalmVNC client. Scaling is a god-send when your handheld client is a 320x320 or 320x480 screen and your server is running 1600x1200. Otherwise, it's scroll, scroll, scroll...that gets old pretty fast.

So, check out Ultr@VNC -- it may be just what you've been looking for.

After reading some friends' blogs about working in public, I decided to try to get some grading done at my local Panera (chain bread bakery and sandwich/soup shop). After all, they now have free Wi-Fi (for real), fountain refills are free, and the seats are pretty cushy.

While there, I tended to be a little less efficient than I'd hoped. One of my great passions is watching people -- the things they do, wear, use, and say fascinate me -- so I tended to get distracted a fair bit. One thing I noticed was that Panera is starting to attract a really tech-savvy, sophisticated bunch. Here are some examples:

Guy A -- Sitting in his calf-skin jacket and appropriately faded baseball cap, this late-30's guy was totally decked out with fine gear. He had a Dell Latitude D800 notebook and a Samsung SPH-i500 smartphone. When he left, he got into his Mercedes SL600 (pictured), lowered the top, and sped off. While he certainly could be a child molestor or baby seal hunter, you have to admit the guy has good taste.

Guy 2 -- Tucked away in a corner of an otherwise unoccupied room of the store was this late 20's Asian dude dressed very slacker-hip. On the table in front of him was his 17" Apple Powerbook. Next to that was an Apple iPod (no, I didn't ask him what size) and he was using what looked like some Shure headphones. When he left, he hopped into his Audi TT Roadster (yeah, it was a really nice day here today).

Given that it was 4pm on a Saturday, the place wasn't very busy. However, based on just these few observations, I'd guess that free Wi-Fi tends to attract clientele with both good tech taste and decent salaries.

Streaming video is a bandwidth hog, right? So why hasn't anyone come out with a wireless webcam that uses 802.11g instead of Wi-Fi (802.11b)? One would think that the extra throughput could be put to good use on a webcam.

A few folks emailed me and asked if I could post some additional photos of the SK43G that I recently set up and wrote about. Well, here you go, my friends.

The photo below is of the system in mid-setup. It's shown without the drive cage installed (which houses the optical drive, floppy drive, and hard drive) and no cover (obviously). Actually, it looks like I took this before I installed the RAM, too. Notice the nice IDE cable routing for the optical drive (upper rail in foreground). I think this photo makes it look bigger than it actually is.

The second photo (below) shows the completed system sitting next to a 17" monitor, keyboard and mouse (for size comparison). Yep, it's actually pretty teeny.

About the only thing I can think of wanting to someday do that I can't on this dude because of the form-factor is direct CD/DVD copying (no room for two 5-1/4" drives). Other than that, it looks like it should offer plenty of upgrade potential, meaning I should be able to use this mini for several years to come.

I'm looking for an LCD screen suitable for using as a low-res PC display in the 5" to 8" range. Something like this 7" Quixun panel would be ideal, but it doesn't have to be new or dedicated for this purpose. Maybe even a screen from a portable DVD player might work. It'd be great if it was also a touch-screen, but that's not a hard requirement.

Anybody have any leads for this or ideas where to search? Thanks in advance!

Dan Gillmor, long time journalist and Linux doubter, feels that Linux may have a shot at being significant on the desktop. Why? One major plus is the fact that Wal-Mart is starting to sell Linux-powered PCs in its stores.

Will Microsoft react the same way that every other consumer good producer has in the face of Wal-Mart's massive pressure, by buckling under and dramatically cutting its price? Or, will Microsoft try to ignore this new development, insisting that Wal-Mart just won't have a significant impact on the situation? Or, will something happen to provoke a feud between the two monolithic corporations?

This is a fight I'm waiting to see materialize, for it has the makings of a very interesting situation. Much like Rodan vs. Mothra or Dracula vs. The Mummy, we don't really have an obvious "good guy" to root for. In one corner, you have a company that enjoys a near monopoly in its industry and which has abused that power through various actions which have drawn many, repeated lawsuits. In the other corner, you have...well...exactly the same. Should be interesting...

Ever wished you could grade your high school teacher, or do an evaluation of your college professor? At RateMyTeachers and its sister site RateMyProfessors, students (and former students) can register their comments on an instructor, and find out what others think of them.

There are three rating categories: Easiness (Is it possible to get an A without too much work?); Helpfulness (Are they approachable, willing to assist after class?); Clarity (How well do they convey the class topics?).

The site then calculates an Overall Quality based on the average of the instructor's Helpfulness and Clarity ratings.

I was actually amazed at the number of instructors I had who were on the list. Try it out and see!

Well, I took the plunge. After the (admittedly cheap) motherboard in my (admittedly cheap) downstairs PC failed last month, I've been wanting a receptacle for all the working bits inside it (hard drive, optical drive, etc.). I'd also been wanting an excuse to upgrade its CPU and memory to something much faster. So, after looking around a bit, I took the plunge and purchased the Shuttle XPC SK43G small-form-factor system (pictured).

I won't bore you with the specs (those can be found at the link above), but it's an AMD-based system in a box roughly the size of a toaster (and not one of those industrial toasters, just your normal 2-slice model). With Athlon systems, heat management is always an issue. Shuttle's "ICE Heat-Pipe" solution is both interesting and effective -- the hard drive is the loudest part of the system.

Assembly was pretty easy. I was most impressed with the quality of the physical components and the thoughtfulness of the layout and design. Cables and cable routing were high quality and placed very carefully. Total time required to install everything (not including the OS) was about an hour. Of course, doing it a again now would take me much less time (as learning curve theory attests).

All in all, I'm really happy. The system looks good, is really small and reasonably quiet, and runs quite well. Even the on-board graphics are pretty good (when was the last time you even considered using on-board video?). If you're needing a new system (motherboard and case) for either Intel or AMD, go check out Shuttle's XPC line.

The US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) runs a really useful, interesting, and fairly nicely laid out website at fueleconomy.gov. There, you can look up nearly any car model sold in the US in the past 20 years and compare its environmental impact side-by-side with, say, what you're driving now or something you're considering buying. Or, it could be handy if you just want to shame that SUV-driving friend of yours. There's some good info on fuel cells and hybrid technology at the site as well.

There's an excellent article over at Sudhian.com (lots of tables and data) providing the results of running a Mobile Athlon XP at such low voltages, bus speeds, and multipliers that it can operate at even 600 MHz with only passive cooling. However, the same chip can be overclocked significantly as well (but you pay the piper in terms of much more active cooling).

Now, you're going to ask "Why would anyone underclock their CPU?" Noise, my friend -- the less heat you develop, the less fans you need and the less noise you generate. Sometimes, the quietest PC is the best PC. Sitting here next to an Athlon machine with no less than 4 fans running inside is a constant reminder of that fact.

Well, we finally moved into our new house. Well, sort of. There are still a lot of unpacked boxes sitting on the basement, but at least my office is clean. One of the things I did when we moved was to get rid of the phone company's DSL service and moved over to Earthlink cable service (via Time Warner Cincinnati), and I'm happy to say that the change was well worth it. The cable service is much faster than the phone DSL service, and it's a lot more reliable (no more interrupted service when phone rings and no more occasional resetting of the modem box--power down/up).

Well, it also turns out that my study does not have a cable outlet, and in order to install another cable outlet, it would have been extremely costly (we would have to call an electrician to do this). So, we are now completely wireless, and as a result, we have switched over to 802.11g from 11b. After reading Craig's recent entry on the switch, I couldn't resist, and I'm really glad about the change. I got a great deal on the Belkin router from Staples ($49.94) and the notebook card ($39.94). I can't believe the speed improvement here. Even though we are not really getting the full 54Mbps, it's still darn fast.

Anyway, that's all for now. My weekly PalmCorner will not be back for another week or so (I'm testing the new Sena Palm T3 case--it's great btw), and I'm off to assembling my new ping pong table in the basement. I can't believe the table weighs 270lbs (it almost didn't make it down to the basement).

Given that it's April 1st, before you believe anything on any blog or "news" site today, check it out at one of the urban legends sites. My favorite is Snopes.com, but UrbanLegends.About.com has some decent info as well.

I heard this morning that Google will be offering free email accounts with 1 gig of storage in the near future. If you don't want to be Bob54789 you better be ready to jump.

As you can tell from my posts here at GearBits, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about mobile devices. Well, I've also been thinking about the other end of the spectrum.

Most of my day, and much of a lot of people's day, is spent sitting at a desk doing work that is very appropriate to be doing at a desk. Composing longish documents, reviewing and synthesizing multiple sources of information concurrently, etc. Granted, I could do these things with a laptop or even a wireless PDA, but I see their lack of screen real estate as a major hindrance. So, what I've been dreaming about is what I'm calling SynthetiDesk (not because I think that's a particularly jazzy name, but for the simple fact that nobody has yet used this term on the web before).

Pictured is an incredibly crude mock-up of what I'm thinking (please ignore the sad joke that is my Photoshopping). What you see is basically an interactive, touch-sensitive LCD panel with massively high resolution. Roughly 250 dpi would be needed to approximate the legibility of paper. So, a 5 foot by 2.5 foot SynthetiDesk would require a touch-screen LCD with a resolution of [gulp] 15,000 x 7,500 pixels. Sorta makes that 1920x1080 monitor you've been dreaming of seem like dogmeat, eh?

None of the five documents shown in the mock-up are hardcopies -- they are all interactive images, such as you'd see on a PC desktop today. One big difference between this model and, say, a Windows model is that a document doesn't need to be in a program. The documents are viewable just like photographs or print-outs or other hardcopies are. We don't need a viewer program to look at the daily hardcopy newspaper, so SynthetiDesk would ideally not require one either for most everything.

However, if I want to alter a document, then some form of application may be required, but not necessarily. Editing the contents of a text document should be as simple as highlighting (with a finger or stylus or something) and then touching up with the keyboard or voice dictation (assuming that ever actually works).

Documents can be easily manipulated by touching them, such as dragging some papers together to create a pile. With a gesture or voice command, the pile would become iconized or transformed in some other way into something more manageable. The icons in the upper left could be piles of documents, individual documents, shortcuts to web pages (as shown in the browser/web documents).

Another feature of the SynthetiDesk is the ease with which hardcopy documents and objects can be transformed into images. The user would simply place the document (or photo or receipt, etc.) face down, utter a command (or somehow execute an action) to scan the document. The document is then represented in high resolution on the desktop, and the hardcopy can now be recycled (or folded into a paper airplane or whatever). Stacks of documents would still require a sheet-feeder, but that's a trivial extension of the concept.

Of course, using dynamic information (streaming A/V, constantly updated tickers, etc.) on the SynthetiDesk is really easy to do given the active nature of the medium. This would bring new realms to "dragging and dropping" simply because you could now have more documents and objects "open" at any one time than ever before. Instead of squinting to read even just two side-by-side pages on your current monitor, imagine being able to simultaneously compare a few document pages, a handful of photographs, a movie clip, some information tickers, and a couple of webpages. I think a lot of peoples' jobs would be greatly enhanced by something like this -- I know mine would.

One of the advantages of the SynthetiDesk is to let someone work with representations of materials they're familiar with, yet eliminate as much paper as possible. Paper is analog...when it comes to information, analog is much more difficult to deal with. Also, paper is physical...when it comes to storing information, I'd much rather store bits than pages any day of the week.

So, I realize this is unlikely to happen sometime soon, but I do think something like it will happen at some point. One of the goals of a lot of visionaries is to make the PC "disappear" into other things we use and interact with. As one researcher said, "We want people to use computers without even realising they're using them." I think the SynthetiDesk is one such example of how the very furniture we use becomes imbued with computer-like capabilities to create an entirely new, and much more useful, concept.

In case you missed the memo, Mozilla 1.7 is available as a public beta. Now go on and grab a copy!

Those wacky Japanese are at it again. According to hayuki, some guys have devised an adapter that converts a Socket 478 for Pentium 4 processors (below left) to a Socket 754 for Athlon 64 (below right, adapter installed). While it adds some thickness to the seating of the CPU, it doesn't look like it adds enough to be problematic for heatsink clearance (unless the inside of your case is really tight).

Although I don't think "Socket II" is a very catchy name for the adapter, my hunch is they'll sell quite a few -- it's good knowing you can upgrade to a 64-bit processor without having to abandon the rest of your system. The big question now becomes, when will Athlon 64 prices come down out of the stratosphere?