It hasn't mattered up to now, but you can follow Operation Gadget on Twitter at:

http://twitter.com/OperationGadget

Following both OperationGadget and daveaiello will be somewhat duplicative. Some readers of this site probably care more about the blog posts here than they do about my personal life. If that's the case, you really have a choice now.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The only story I can tell to bring Operation Gadget back from the dead is one about my wife and what she's been through.

On November 7, Kathleen was in a car accident that scared the heck out of us. She fainted while behind the wheel on Interstate 95 about four miles from our house. Kathleen was seven months pregnant at the time.

Although the car was stopped on the roadside, it wasn't in park, so the car travelled across the southbound lanes of traffic and struck a median barrier. The car was miraculously not struck by another vehicle, otherwise Kathleen and the baby could have been killed.

Kathleen was transported to a nearby hospital and spent 10 hours in the Labor and Delivery Unit being tested for cardiac and neurological problems as well as for signs of premature labor. She was given a clean bill of health then, although she was encouraged not to drive until after she delivered because of what was thought to be a benign fainting spell at a really inopportune time.

The driving restriction had a big impact on family life and logistics, and was initially the number one reason I stopped blogging here. Since she was still allowed to work and wanted to do so, I became the chauffeur for the next 9 weeks. This ate up a lot of discretionary time.

What we didn't realize at the time was that Kathleen might have been experiencing signs of a condition that would fully manifest itself on the day of her scheduled c-section on January 21. She experienced shortness of breath, persistent tiredness, and a number of other symptoms that her obstetrician and cardiologist attributed to the late stages of pregnancy.

However during the c-section Kathleen went into heart failure. Although she came out of the procedure with a beautiful new son named Peter and in stabile condition herself, her heart was extremely weak. So much so that she had to be transferred from the community hospital where Peter was born to the Cardiac Care Unit of a major Philadelphia hospital.

She was later diagnosed with peripartum cardiomyopathy, a rare but potentially fatal condition that afflicts a small percentage of women in the time around giving birth. This was a big shock, but Kathleen made a fantastic recovery. After spending five days there, she was able to walk out of the CCU and go home to continue her recovery.

Kathleen left the hospital wearing an external defibrillator vest. Her cardiologists wanted to rule out the possibility that she had an arrhythmia condition that might have caused her to faint before her November car accident. That sort of condition might also have been the cause of a six-second run of ventricular tachycardia that occurred to her while she was on the table during a cardiac catheterization procedure.

Over the next three weeks, she didn't have any further arrhythmia episodes, so the cardiologists cleared her to stop wearing the defibrillator. Then the cardiologists put her on a telemetric heart monitor to monitor her electrocardiogram (EKG) in higher resolution than the defibrillator monitor could, just to ensure there were no further signs of an arrhythmia.

She spent another three weeks with that contraption before being cleared to remove it. Including her time in the hospital, she was monitored for a total of about seven weeks.

Operation Gadget has often featured reviews and discussion of heart rate monitors used for athletic training purposes. We aren't reviewing these devices that Kathleen has used. They aren't about fun and games. They're nearly as serious as the cardiac events that they try to prevent.

None of Kathleen's cardiologists felt comfortable with her returning to driving a car before she had extensive telemetric heart monitoring and a tilt table test. She had to wait weeks after the c-section for all of these tests to run their course or take place.

In the past eight weeks, we've had a lot of fun times and a lot of hard times, but the focus has been on getting Peter off to a good start and getting Kathleen back on the road, literally and figuratively. When you have two kids under the age of three and you live in a small house, you need to be able to drive if only to give the kids or yourself a change of pace.

Kathleen started driving last week. Her first trip was out with Jimmy and Peter to Target, a place where Kathleen and Jimmy used to shop together quite often before Peter was born. It seems like trivia, but making a trip like that is a big step toward Kathleen getting her personal autonomy back.

I want to salute Kathleen who has shown great personal courage in getting through a scary time. I can't think of anybody who's had a more positive outlook in the face of the frightening possibilities of a medical diagnosis.

Life has been getting back to normal for some time, and now is the time to bring this blog back to life. I hope Operation Gadget is as interesting as it used to be. Welcome back to reading it.

{Updated / corrected information in this post is shown in italics.}

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Operation Gadget went quiet at the end of August. This is by far the longest break in posts in the five year history of the site. If you are wondering why, consider:

• I lost my job in September.

  This happened a couple of weeks after my family came back from vacation at Stone Harbor. I was only at that job for seven weeks, so it's hard for me to see the job loss as anything but a function of the deteriorating economy.

• I started a new audio podcast.

  Losing my job was helpful in one way: I was able to get off the ground HockeyRefCast, my podcast about hockey officiating. Episode 1, including an interview with Ian Walsh of the National Hockey League, turned out really well.

• I found a new job in October.

  Freelance writing and blogging took a backseat to finding another job. I was surprised to find that there was as much demand for my services as there was. I actually received two job offers.

  A well-known web publishing software company called Six Apart hired me to work for their professional services division in mid-October. I started working with them on November 3. This was a God-send because....

• My wife was in a car accident a week ago this past Friday.

  Kathleen was in a car accident on Interstate 95 just south of Newtown on November 7. [ Photos of the car after the accident ] This was a harrowing experience for our family, because Kathleen is seven months pregnant.

  We spent 10 hours at the hospital while tests Kathleen underwent tests to make sure that neither she nor the baby were hurt and that she was not in premature labor.

  That was a scary time, and I felt that Twitter was somehow inappropriate.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I know what you're thinking. Dave was about as absent from the 2008 Tour de France as Team Astana. More in fact, because Johan Bruyneel appeared on Versus during the last week of The Tour as a color analyst.

So what happened?

I accepted a new job in New York working for a travel-related Internet company. The job started last Monday. Getting into commuting from Newtown, PA has been a huge effort for me, as well as for Kathleen and Jimmy. It has changed our lives and our schedules quite dramatically.

I'm doing the best I can to keep up. It's going to be tough again this week, because I've got a lot of hockey-related work to do in addition to the work at my job.

I did get a post published on Inside iPhone last Thursday. If you have time and are interested, check out Obvious Winners and Losers in the iTunes App Store Rollout. There I talk about an app that I think is a game changer because it makes the iPhone usable by people in a new industry, an app that surprised and delighted me, and a couple of apps that disappointed me somewhat.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm pleased to report that I am contributing to Inside iPhone, a new part of the O'Reilly Digital Media Website. I will be posting over there once a week.

My first post is Dave Aiello's Attempt at Introducing Himself. It explains who I am to people who have never seen Operation Gadget before, and also hints at what I'm planning to talk about in my first real post next week.

There are several other good writers contributing to Inside iPhone, including Derrick Story and Erica Sadun.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We experienced a primary hard disk failure on the Operation Gadget server this weekend. I recovered the site from a backup a couple of hours ago.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Happy Birthday Jimmy!: My son
Jimmy Aiello turns the big "2" today.
Here's a photo of the two of us
when we were riding the new
carousel at Sesame Place a couple
of weeks ago. [ Photo: Kathleen Aiello
via Flickr ]

I've been insanely busy this week, but I wanted to take a moment to wish my son Jimmy Aiello, the happiest two-year-old in Newtown, a happy birthday.

Jimmy has come a long way in a year. He looks a lot more like a little boy to me than a baby, and he has developed a real appreciation for trucks and trains. We play with them every day.

I've been fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time with him over the past few weeks, and I see the delighted reaction of complete strangers when he tries to engage them in conversation. I know that most little children get extra attention from nice people at stores and around most towns. But I feel like he's got some combination of personality and cuteness that brings out the best in the people he meets.

Kathleen and I are taking Jimmy to the Philadelphia Zoo in a few hours. I haven't been there in at least 25 years. I'm sure we'll have a blast.

Jimmy's party is on Saturday in the backyard. Lots of friends and family will be there.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've noticed that the first stage of attracting followers on Twitter (beyond your actual friends) is that accounts that act like bots start to follow you. Not to name any names, but one of my followers is just reporting random things from Google News, another one is just throwing out facts and observations about dog behavior.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Since I switched back to Mac on February 28, I've started using much more of my photo library. One of the products of this process is a new Operation Gadget header graphic which shows a series of Serotta road bikes mounted on a roof rack.

I've been using the original photo that from which this header graphic was taken as the desktop background for my MacBook Pro since I set it up. I've got quite a few photos that I like enough to make my desktop background. I think a few of them will eventually become Operation Gagdet header graphics.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I uploaded a favicon for Operation Gadget a little while ago. I used a program called Pixen to make it on my MacBook Pro. Pixen is donationware.

The "Operation Gadget" title on the Alltop Gadgets Page looked naked without a favicon on its left. I felt like I had to step up and get something reasonable in there quickly.

It's hard to create something original and memorable in a 16x16 bitmap. So many of the most obvious gadget designs are taken already.

I have a really good one on CTDATA.com, but that's because CTDATA's logo is professionally designed, and we just scaled it down to fit the favicon image size.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I got an email from Guy Kawasaki last night telling me that Operation Gadget has been added to the Alltop Gadgets page. What a great terrific break for us!

Alltop is the new weblog aggregation site that its owners call "the digital magazine rack" of the Internet. Operation Gadget headlines now appear on the same page with headlines from Engadget, Boing Boing Gadgets, Personal Technology by Walt Mossberg, and a bunch of other a-list gadget blogs.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm trying out MarsEdit, a MacOS X blogging client, for a few posts to see if it improves my productivity. It's been recommended by higher beings in the blogosphere like Andy Abramson and John Gruber-- two people whose blogs I read every day.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Fellow Movable Type publishing system consultant Chad Everett pointed out that the Operation Gadget comment mechanism wasn't functioning properly. It took a while to determine what the problem was, but I corrected it.

You are free to leave comments on Operation Gadget again.

Thanks for pointing out the problem Chad.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Operation Gadget has moved to a bigger and faster webserver to serve you better. Sorry for the lack of articles over the past few days. We now return you to your regularly scheduled gadget talk.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Happy Holidays from Dave, Kathleen, and Jimmy
Aiello: We spent lots of time this Christmas with
family and friends. We also bought a new car.
[  Photo: Scott Aiello ]

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year from your friends at Operation Gadget.

I didn't expect to be away from my keyboard for as long as I was, but Kathleen and I got really busy with the holidays and with car shopping. This is the first real opportunity I've had to wish our readers happy holidays.

This was Jimmy's first Christmas, and he got to see most of his close relatives. We spent Christmas Eve at home with a group of friends and relatives including my father, my brother and sister and their spouses / fiancees and children. My nephew Wes Howson born in early December, so this was his first Christmas as well. Kathleen's parents, her sister, brother John, and her Aunt Jane as well as our friend Jen Colangelo were also here.

On Christmas Day, we opened gifts to each other at home in the morning and then went to Kathleen's parents' house in South Jersey for the afternoon. We met Kathleen's brother Scott and his family there. That was probably the most enjoyable Christmas Day get-together we've had in years.

Over the past week, Kathleen and I spent a lot of time shopping for and buying a new car to replace our trusty old Jeep Grand Cherokee that we put out to pasture in early December. It's amazing how complicated a purchase decision like that is. We are really excited now that it's over.

Hopefully I'll have time to talk more about our car purchase over the next few days.

Over the next few weeks I hope to be able to talk more about the gadgets that friends and relatives got during the holidays, and to talk more about the Nokia N-Series mobile phones that I've been testing during the Fall. I recently got a Nokia N80 Internet Edition phone, and I hope to be able to use it to make VoIP calls using my WiFi network in the next few days.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Wes Howson was born on Tuesday at a hospital in
New Jersey. Everyone's very happy. [ Photo:
Kathleen Aiello ]

Wesley Howson was born on Tuesday evening in a nearby hospital. Wes was 7 pounds, 14 ounces, and 21 inches long. My sister Julie and Wes are doing fine. A number of friends and relatives visited over the two days they were in the hospital.

This is Julie and her husband Robert's second baby. Wes has a big sister Emma who was born in March 2005. Kathleen and I took a lot more photos of Emma than we did of Wes, but the main reason was that we had our own son Jimmy to keep entertained while taking the pictures. That's life in a growing family I guess.

This was the first time we used our new Canon PowerShot A540 to take newborn baby pictures. I still have to compare the images of Wes and his family to the ones we took when Emma was born. The Emma photos were taken with a Canon PowerShot A95 and I thought the pictures taken with the flash supressed came out darker than they looked on the LCD display.

This time we stayed away from the flash-suppressed shots, and it didn't matter as much because Wes slept a lot while we were there. So far the shots from the A540 look great. This is a great use for a point-and-shoot camera like this one.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Attention Operation Gadget Readers: due to a data center migration at our hosting provider, OperationGadget.com will be offline from 11:45pm Central Time on Friday, September 1 to 4:00am on Saturday, September 2.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On Sunday, I took out my in-line skates and skated around the industrial complex near our house in Newtown, PA. This was the first time I had been on skates since January 24 when I broke my left fibula while officiating a hockey game. My left ankle was noticeably more swollen than usual that night, but I felt like I could skate again on Monday if I wanted.

Monday was mostly sunny and 55 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius), so I decided to get my Trek 1500 road bike out for a short ride late in the afternoon. I rode 6.9 miles in 31 minutes and 7 seconds. It was great to get out there and see that I haven't entirely lost the ability to ride, although I've lost a lot of stamina over the past nine weeks.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For those of you who have been following my recovery from a broken left fibula, I saw my orthopedist today and I was cleared to resume physical activity. Surprisingly, this includes the opportunity to try skating again as soon as I want.

My wife Kathleen suggested that I find my in-line skates and start by trying to skate on them. I have to find them and see if the ball bearings and wheels are in good condition. If not, I can try going to a "public session" at a local rink or sneak on the ice after some hockey team finishes practicing. We'll see.

Thank you for your continued support and encouragement.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I hope that I can get back to doing a bit more writing on Operation Gadget now.

For the past two and a half weeks, I've been working on consulting projects for USA Hockey (at least the part called the Atlantic Amateur Hockey Association Officiating Program) and Spot On. This work is done through my consulting business called Weblog Improvement and doesn't have much to do with this website, except that it probably made it harder for regular readers to find something interesting here.

I got a lot out of the project I did to enhance Spot On. This was the first major php programming project I've done that incorporates content from a Movable Type publishing system. The big effort was the Spot On splash page, which weaves the content of 9 or 10 different blogs into a single web page. The focus of Spot On is quite different from what you read here, but I think the way the page works is pretty neat.

I'm hoping that some of the experience I got working on Chris' splash page makes it over to Operation Gadget one of these days. I can't promise anything at this point because finding the time to do development work on my sites has become more difficult as my consulting business has become busier. We'll see.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday Kathleen and I met with my orthopedist for the first time since my leg was put in a cast. The orthopedist had my cast removed and had my left leg x-rayed again. The x-rays showed that my fibula is healing, but hasn't yet healed 100 percent. The orthopedist decided not to put me in another cast, so I can start physical therapy.

We were all surprised at how swollen my lower leg was after the cast was removed. I knew that my leg was swelling intermittently while I had the cast on it. It's clear that the swelling I was feeling was when my calf was swelling near the top of the cast, and that my ankle and foot may have been swollen much more frequently than I thought.

I need to do two to three sessions of physical therapy per week for the next four weeks, in order to strengthen my leg and regain flexibility. After that, we will meet with the orthopedist again to see the fibula has fully healed and if I can start skating and cycling again.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathleen and I had a terrific time at Walt Disney World for the past few days. We stayed at Disney's Wilderness Lodge and spent a day each at Disney-MGM Studios, the Magic Kingdom, and Epcot.

The weather was just about as perfect as you can get in January: mostly sunny and 75 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit (24 to 27 degrees Celsius) each day.

This trip was about relaxation. I needed a break from writing Operation Gadget, consulting on the design of other websites, and managing servers. Kathleen needed to get away from the office and relax. We achieved our goals.

I'm not sorry that I missed most of CES, Macworld, or the Alito hearings. I didn't turn on the TV after the NFL games ended on Sunday. This was the right way for me to relax this time, and I'm going to try to remember this approach for our next vacation.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My wife and I are on a trip to Florida for some rest and relaxation. I probably won't have much to say here on Operation Gadget until Thursday or Friday.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What a week this has been around the Home Office! I thought that having Christmas and the first day of Hanukkah fall on a Sunday (and on the same day) would have made things easier for everyone, but if my experience is typical, the schedule was a bit harder than it has been in other years.

I guess I brought some of this on myself. Christmas Eve was sunny and an unusually warm 55 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celcius). How could I pass up the opportunity for a half hour ride on my new Trek 1500? I haven't had time to write a review, but Kathleen's verdict is in. After a ride down the driveway she said, "Oh it's so smooth!"

Fourteen people spent the evening in our living room in Newtown, PA last night. The Christmas Eve get-together for our families has become a tradition since Kathleen and I got married. This year there were two regular digital cameras and a Nokia N90 in use, so we almost ought to start our own Flickr Photo Pool. Maybe I'll have time to post a few photos of the festivities tomorrow, but we're at another family party today-- there won't be time now.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all Operation Gadget readers and to my friends and family. Now that we've done most of our gving to others, I hope you all get something you really want from someone special.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Since Operation Gadget has a strong relationship with Amazon.com, I think it's important to point out that today is the last day for Free Super Saver Shipping for Amazon.com. According to Amazon.com's Holiday Order Deadlines for U.S. Shipments, if you place your order by today for items from Amazon.com that are marked Usually ships in 24 hours, delivery before Christmas and the First Day of Hanukkah is guaranteed.

If you place an order with Amazon.com today, read the shipment options page carefully. An order that I placed last night said that I would receive all of the items that I ordered by December 23.

There are other shipping options for products ordered after today, so fear not.

Technorati Tags: Amazon.com, Super Saver Shipping, Hanukkah gifts, Christmas gifts

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is an advisory message to readers of Operation Gadget who maintain their own headline feed readers. As part of our site upgrade that began yesterday, we are automatically redirecting requests for our old RSS feed to our new Atom feed. If you experience any problems, you can edit your Operation Gadget headline feed subscription to choose one of the following feeds:

• Atom 1.0: http://www.operationgadget.com/atom.xml
• RSS 2.0: http://www.operationgadget.com/index.xml

If you still have questions, please email me at daiello [at] operationgadget.com.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today is Operation Gadget's second birthday, and we're celebrating with a bit of a site design and infrastructure update. Over the next few weeks we hope to roll out services that will make Operation Gadget an even better resource for fans of electronic gadgets and the technology used in sports.

Thank you to the thousands of readers who've made a habit of visiting Operation Gadget. Please let me know if you have any comments or suggestions by posting them here, or by emailing me at daiello [at] operationgadget.com.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Kathleen and I have been in New Jersey for most of the day, and I didn't bring a laptop with me. I'm posting this article from my Treo 650.

I'll be back in the office on Tuesday, so look for more on Operation Gadget then.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Operation Gadget will turn two years old in a couple of weeks. Overall, it's done really well, and we've established an audience in several different niches:

• electronic gadgets,
• technology used in sports,
• Lance Armstrong Foundation-related and Bristol-Myers Squibb Tour of Hope fundraising,
• professional cycling

All of these are worthwhile topics for a weblog, but Operation Gadget's coverage has been a bit inconsistent because I've tended to focus on a specific topic at different times of the year. For instance during July, coverage on Operation Gadget focused on The Tour de France. I was hesitant to go off topic at that time to talk about an electronic gadget even if the story would have been very topical.

I'm not announcing any new weblogs right now, but I want to say that I expect that Operation Gadget will become two or more weblogs by the Spring 2006.

If you have any thoughts on this, feel free to post them or email me at daiello [at] operationgadget.com.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the third week of September 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

September 15

• Runner's World Publishes Guide to Picking an MP3 Player
  
• Fios Favorably Reviewed by Walter Mossberg
  
• Getting My Motorola HS850 Bluetooth Headset Working With a Treo 650
  

September 14

• Alternatives to Staying in Washington, DC for 50-mile DC Fundraising Riders
  

September 13

• Map of 2005 Tour of Hope 50-Mile DC Fundraising Ride
  
• Deadline for Raising $500 Minimum for Tour of Hope DC Fundraising Ride is Monday, September 19 at Midnight
  

September 12

• Steripen Water Purifier Makes Sense for Travelers to Developing Countries, Campers
  
• 2nd Week of September 2005 Workouts
  
• Ebay Completes Deal to Buy Skype for $2.6 Billion in Cash and Stock
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the second week of September 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

September 9

• DC Fundraising Ride Start Locations
  
• M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Newsletter Highlights Relationship Between Tour of Hope and Clinical Trials
  
• PalmSource to Be Acquired by the Developer of the NetFront Browser
  

September 8

• Apple Announces iPod nano to Replace iPod mini
  
• Skype May Be Acquired by EBay According to WSJ
  

September 7

• Choosing the Motorola HS850 as My First Bluetooth Headset
  

September 6

• Getting the Word Out to Friends and Family About the Tour of Hope
  

September 5

• 1st Week of September 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the first week of September 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

September 2

• Stop Blaming Each Other Over the Response to Hurricane Katrina
  
• How Out of Market VoIP Numbers Can Save Your Family Money
  

September 1

• "Treo Essentials" Debuts at Amazon.com, Offers Treo 650-Specific Tips
  
• Giant Provided Amateur Cyclists Opportunities to Ride the Courses of the Tour of Germany
  
• Donated to the American Red Cross Hurricane Relief Fund for Hurricane Katrina
  

August 31

• Thanks, Judge Bissell
  

August 30

• Mapping Race Courses with a GPS and Google Maps
  

August 29

• I'm Tired of Getting Ripped Off by Splogs
  
• LSU Professor Maintaining Hurricane Katrina Blog
  
• 4th Week of August 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In the last two days, it's become clear that the damage done by Hurricane Katrina to the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama Gulf Coast region is one of the most serious disasters in American history. I told Kathleen yesterday that I think the destruction in New Orleans will have a more lasting impact on the United States than the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. There are many reasons for this, but the key reasons are:

1. The transportation infrastructure of the lower Mississippi River is critical to delivery of food and energy throughout the United States.
2. The damage due to the direct impact of the hurricane and the flooding that occurred afterward is widespread and affects both commercial and residential areas.
3. The people displaced by the hurricane are likely to become refugees for weeks or months before they are able to return to their home areas.

All Americans will be economically affected by this disaster, but people in coastal areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama have been displaced and lost many of their belongings. These people need our help and we should all step up and make some sort of donation.

I just made a small donation on behalf of OperationGadget.com and CTDATA to the American Red Cross Hurricane Relief Fund. The Red Cross has proven over the years to be effective at directing financial contributions to where they're most needed.

If you are interested in making a contribution in this time of need, you can visit the Red Cross' Donate Now! page at: http://www.redcross.org/donate/donate.html.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fourth week of August 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

August 27

• Where I'm Looking for Bluetooth Headset Reviews
  
• Treonauts Backs Off on Strong Cardo Scala 500 Rating
  
• No Need for Bluetooth 1.2 Compatibility When Connecting an Accessory to the Treo 650
  

August 26

• WSJ Article on VoIP Focuses on Embedded Voice in Applications
  
• Busy Working on a Client's New Blog
  

August 25

• Armstrong to Appear on Larry King Live to Address Doping Allegations
  
• Dine with the Pros and Support the Phinney Foundation in San Francisco on September 2
  
• TVPredictions Discusses the Features of the New DirecTV Plus DVR
  

August 24

• PhoneGnome Straddles Regular Phone Line and Broadband Connection to Provide a Hybrid Phone Experience
  
• VeloACE Is Ideal for Palm Zealots Who Want a Bike Computer
  
• Lyon, France's Rent-a-Bike System Loaded with Technology
  

August 23

• Study Says Handheld Communicators Help Doctors Respond Faster than Pagers
  
• R-Driver II USB 2.0 to IDE Cable Is Ideal for Copying Data from Hard Drives Being Replaced
  
• No Good Will Come from Retroactive Drug Testing in Pro Cycling
  
• Developing a Workout Plan to Simulate the Effort of Other Athletic Performances
  

August 22

• Replacing the APC Uninterruptible Power Supply Battery Protecting Our VoIP Lines
  
• Mavic Crossland Mountain Wheels Take a Year of Riding with No Problems
  
• Installed Performance Topo FasTracs on My Mountain Bike
  
• 3rd Week of August 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the third week of August 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

August 21

• Finally Got Back on the Ice
  

August 19

• NHL Signs U.S. Media Deal with OLN
  

August 18

• Mini Version of Opera Browser Reportedly Working on Treo 650
  
• Fossil Reportedly Exiting Smart Watch Market
  

August 16

• Mobile Phone Users Want to Receive Email from Family on Handsets
  
• Treonauts Discusses Mobile RSS Readers for the Treo 650
  

August 15

• How Not to Discolor Your Baseball Caps in the Dishwasher
  
• 2nd Week of August 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the second week of August 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

August 13

• How to Find Your Tour of Hope Rider's Donation ID Number
  

August 12

• Help Me Ride the 2005 Tour of Hope Fundraising Ride in Washington DC
  
• Replacing My Mountain Bike Tires with Performance Topo FasTracs
  
• Official Tour de France Replica Yellow Jersey Offered by Discovery Channel Store
  

August 11

• Trying Del.icio.us and Del.icio.us Direc.tor to Get Control of My Web Bookmarks
  

August 10

• Polar and Adidas Planning a Line of Apparel and Shoes with Built-in Fitness Measurement
  

August 8

• 1st Week of August 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the first week of August 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

August 5

• Unpacking My CanoScan LiDE 500F
  
• No Getting Around the DMV
  

August 3

• Sales at Performance Bike on Electronics, Clothing, and Wheel-Related Products
  
• A Worthy List of Treo 650 Add-on Software for the Productivity Minded User
  
• Trying SplashID on My Treo to Keep Track of Passwords
  
• Measuring the Steepness of Hills on Cycling Routes
  
• First Sign of Campagnolo Bike Technology for 2006
  
• Leaving a Browser Window Open to an Interesting Web Page Can Be a Productivity Killer
  

August 2

• Fitness-Related Applications Popping Up for Google Maps
  
• Deal on Cardo Scala 500 Bluetooth Headset at Amazon.com
  
• Ftech Solar 7 Bluetooth GPS Receiver Reviewed by Ubergizmo
  

August 1

• Important Update for Cingular Version of Treo 650 Released Recently
  
• 4th Week of July 2005 Workouts
  
• Polar Precision Performance Software Update Provides New Features and Calendar Themes
  
• Bush Called "Most Fit" President in History
  
• I Need to Stop Sweating the Small Stuff
  
• Freshness Interviews Mark Smith on Lance Armstrong Iconography
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the problems I had during the month when Operation Gadget focused on the 2005 Tour de France is that writing became a really intense process for me. This was an outgrowth of an email exchange I had with Frank Steele of TDFblog.com at the beginning of July in which we agreed that so many more people were blogging the Tour de France this year than had previously that we both felt we had to focus on what differentitated our sites from others.

I tried to put an emphasis on quality over quantity and stay away from reporting stage results. This was successful in several ways, such as the three articles I got out of my opportunity to interview Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen:

• Liggett and Sherwen Think that Lance Will Not Have a Second Act as a Triathlete
• Leblanc Made the Tour de France a Top International Television Event
• Liggett on the Saint-Etienne Time Trial Course

I looked back on my productivity in the week following the Tour, however, and saw that I was still in that mode in spite of the fact that I should be moving on.

I started thinking about this because I found myself abandoning stories that may have been interesting to you because I was having difficulty expressing my thoughts on the matter. When this happens to me it's generally an indication that my blogging process has become overwrought.

I'm going to try to correct this by publishing shorter, less reflective articles. I hope that I'll be able to produce more interesting content in less time.

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, you can post them here or email me at daiello [at] operationgadget.com. Thanks for reading.

Technorati Tags: Tour de France, Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fourth week of July 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

July 30

• Replacing a Fax Line and Fax Machine with a Fax Service and a Scanner
  
• Replacing POTS with VoIP for the Home Office
  

July 28

• Jeff Tredup Profiled in Local New Jersey Newspaper
  

July 27

• Comcast Considers Building Up OLN to Compete with ESPN
  
• 1.7 Million Watch Lance on the Champs-Elysees
  

July 25

• The Tour de France is Over, But the Race Goes On
  
• 3rd Week of July 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the third week of July 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

July 24

• Vinokourov Wins on the Champs-Elysees
  

July 23

• Lance Wins Stage 20 Assuring a Seventh Yellow Jersey, Others Have Equipment Problems
  
• Liggett on the Saint-Etienne Time Trial Course
  

July 22

• Discovery Channel Sponsorship Strategy Hinges on Growing International Interest in Cycling
  

July 21

• Leblanc Made the Tour de France a Top International Television Event
  
• Comparing Tour de France Coverage on OLN to European Television
  

July 20

• Salvodelli Wins Another Stage for Discovery
  
• Bike-Powered VoIP System Created for Use in Developing Countries
  
• Jersey Shore Pro Cycling Grand Prix to Debut in May 2006
  
• Japanese Beetle Traps Stop Unwanted Guests from Eating Your Plants and Trees
  
• Behind the Scenes at the Tour de France Podium
  

July 19

• Kashechkin Struck by Fan Waving Promotional Items from Publicity Caravan
  
• Armstrong Making Major Effort to Win Over French Fans
  

July 18

• Liggett and Sherwen Think that Lance Will Not Have a Second Act as a Triathlete
  
• 2nd Week of July 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the second week of July 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

July 17

• Hincapie Wins the Queen Stage of the 2005 Tour
  

July 15

• Anger Can Focus or Distract Riders from Their Larger Goals
  

July 14

• Stage 14 in HD at Theaters on Saturday to Benefit the Tyler Hamilton and Davis Phinney Foundations
  
• Crashes Taking Their Toll on the Tour de France
  

July 13

• Did Armstrong Want to Punish Riis with His Stage 10 Performance?
  
• SRM and Polar Using Auxiliary Transmitters to Boost Signals from Bike Computers
  

July 12

• Inside the OLN Production Truck at the Tour de France
  
• Getting a Better Picture of What's Happening at the Tour by Reading On-site and Off-site Weblogs
  
• Randall Butler Was Right About Stage 10 Blowing the Race Apart
  

July 11

• Mowing The Big Lawn
  
• T-Mobile Offering Live Tour de France Coverage
  
• 1st Week of July 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the first week of July 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

July 10

• CS Monitor Writer Took on Two of Stage 9's Cols
  
• TiVo Cuts Price of 40-Hour Series 2 DVR in Time for Most of the 2005 Tour de France
  

July 9

• Endurance Sports for Charity Participation Discussed in the New York Times
  
• Velogal on What It's Like to Have to Follow a Certain Vehicle in the Caravane
  
• Heart Rate Monitor Data Integrated into OLN Broadcasts
  
• Back from the Shore and Finished Fixing Bugs
  

July 4

• On the Road for a Couple of Days
  
• 5th Week of June 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathleen and I returned from the Jersey Shore on Thursday, but I wasn't able to post anything due to a server problem. Apparently there was a bug in the MySQL database for Perl (that's called DBD::mysql) that Movable Type didn't like at all.

I spent the time that I normally would have used for blogging yesterday doing research into the problem and asking questions about it on support forums. However, all appears to be well now.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I realize that we are leaving just as the Tour de France is beginning to get interesting, but Kathleen and I are heading to the Jersey Shore for a couple of days to visit some members of our family that we don't get to see too often.

I hope to have time to watch the Team Time Trial tomorrow, and I also hope to be able to post an update or two while I'm there....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fifth week of June 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

July 3

• Al Trautwig Using LiveStrong Special Edition Notebook During Tour de France Pre-race Show on OLN
  

July 2

• Ullrich was Helmetless When He Crashed into His Team Car
  
• Using Google Earth to Follow Stages of the Tour de France
  
• The Effect of Periodization on Tour de France Results
  

July 1

• 2005 DC Fundraising Ride to Include 10 and 50-mile Options
  

June 30

• LiveStrong Notebook PC Now Available at Retailers
  
• Pogue Reviews the Treo 650, But Leaves Out Key Details about Mobile Email Capabilities
  
• Sirius to Offer a Free "Lance in France" Podcast Daily During the Tour de France
  
• Lance Should be Glad that Time Trial Helmets Must Protect Riders' Heads
  

June 27

• 4th Week of June 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fourth week of June 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

June 25

• The Tyranny of the Boxes
  

June 22

• Making the Move
  

June 21

• How the Outdoor Life Network Brings the Tour de France to Viewers in North America
  
• Start Reading "Lance Armstrong's War"
  

June 20

• "Race to the Tour" Offers Contestants an Opportunity to Ride and Blog Along the Route of the Tour de France
  
• 3rd Week of June 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Greetings from the new Home Office in Newtown, PA.

I was telling a story of the move last night at a dinner with my wife's co-workers and we were laughing about how I had said, "there will probably not be much new content on Operation Gadget until late Thursday or early Friday." There was pretty much no chance I was getting on-line yesterday unless I wanted to post a story from my Treo 650, and that was not really a priority.

I had planned ahead and had DSL pre-installed in the new house, but finding the firewall and the WiFi access point and having time to install and re-configure them was a different issue.

OK, the set 'em and forget 'em stuff is done. Now we can move on to the truly important stuff: re-assembling the desk, putting in a few Category 5e drops, and finding the clean underwear in the boxes my wife packed. Maybe we can even put the living room furniture in approximately the right places sometime today too.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathleen and I are moving to Newtown, Pennsylvania tomorrow, so there will probably not be much new content on Operation Gadget until late Thursday or early Friday. Wish us luck. I'll still be reachable via email if you want to contact me: daiello [at] operationgadget.com.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the third week of June 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

June 17

• palmOne Activates Dial-Up Networking for Treo 650s on Sprint PCS
  

June 16

• Velogal Tells a Story That Explains What LiveStrong is All About
  
• It's Definitely Worth Reading "Tour de France for Dummies"
  

June 15

• Moving Activities are Taking Most of My Time
  

June 13

• 2nd Week of June 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathleen and I are moving to Newtown, Pennsylvania one week from tomorrow. I am struggling to accomplish the tasks on my ever-lengthening To Do list. I hope that I'll have the opportunity to post an article or two on each weekday between now and June 23, but I didn't get it done yesterday.

If you see anything really interesting, email it to me at daiello [at] operationgadget.com and I'll try to take a look at it.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the second week of June 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

June 11

• A Morning Devoted to Good Causes
  

June 10

• Find One of Alex's Lemonade Stands This Weekend
  
• InfoSync World Provides One of the First Looks at the H-P iPAQ hw6500 Series
  
• Lance Armstrong's War: A New Book About to Hit the Radar Screen
  

June 9

• Mobile Phone Carrier Strangle Hold on Innovation Discussed in Wall Street Journal
  
• 2005 Tour of Hope Team to Appear on June 11 at Bike Trail Dedication in Central New Jersey
  

June 8

• Which Email Client Should I Use on the Treo 650?
  
• Daubert's Column on Trek Website Provides Details of TTx, Goes Weekly
  
• Ambrogio Robot Mower from Italy Makes Mowing Automatic
  

June 7

• How Can I Use My Pocket PC with a GPS to Get Driving Directions?
  
• Forbes Explains How Madden NFL 06 and Other EA Sports Games are Licensed
  
• VeloNews Explains VO2max in Layman's Terms
  

June 6

• Pro Cycling Community Embracing Mobile Internet Devices
  
• Arrived at Lancaster for the Race
  
• New Time Trial Bike Technology from Trek Appears at Dauphine Libere
  
• 1st Week of June 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the first week of June 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

June 5

• Chris Wherry Wins the 2005 USPRO Championship
  

June 4

• How Officials Determine the Winner at the Wachovia Cycling Series Races
  
• Closeup Photos of Fred Rodriguez's Bike
  
• 1,000 Articles Posted on Operation Gadget
  
• I Wasn't Chosen for the 2005 Tour of Hope National Team
  

June 3

• Party Benefiting the Davis Phinney Foundation in Philadelphia on June 5 at 8:00pm
  

June 2

• Fraser Gives HealthNet Presented by Maxxis a Second Win in the Series at Trenton
  
• Photos Posted of Wachovia Cycling Series- Lancaster Race
  

May 31

• Henderson Wins Wachovia Cycling Series- Lancaster
  
• Arrived at Lancaster for the Race
  
• Operation Gadget Covering the 2005 Wachovia Cycling Series
  
• 4th Week of May 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today we published article number 1,000 on Operation Gadget. Thank you, readers, for your continued support. Please let me know if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions by emailing daiello [at] operationgadget.com.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

VeloNews and VeloSwap.com are sponsoring a party benefiting the Davis Phinney Foundation at Tir na Nog, Irish Bar and Grill from 8:00pm until closing on Sunday, June 5, 2005, after the Wachovia USPRO Championship. Tir na Nog is located at 1600 Arch Street in Philadelphia, near the corner of 16th Street, Arch Street, and the Benjamin Frankin Parkway.

The party will feature live music, drink specials (like 20-ounce Stella Artois and Hoegaarden for $4.00) and a live auction of unique cycling items including team jerseys from the Wachovia Cycling Series and elsewhere as well as some Graham Watson prints and other suprises.

I had the good fortune to sit down with Davis Phinney himself at a media event for the Wachovia USPRO Championship earlier today, and ask him about his organization and how it's doing. He said that he founded his organization with the hope that he can bring additional resources to the search for a cure for Parkinson's Disease. He was diagnosed with an early-onset form of this disease in 2000.

When he saw I had my LiveStrong wristband on, he pointed his out to me. I asked him how involved he was in supporting the Lance Armstrong Foundation and he said that he had ridden the Ride for the Roses several times, and had raised quite a bit of money for the LAF himself.

I asked him if he felt that there was any commonality between his organization and the Lance Armstrong Founation. He said there were two big similarities. Both organizations draw major support from the cycling community. Both also look to help people who are living with their diseases to carry on with their lives as normally as possible.

I think that in many respects this is more difficult for the average person affected by Parkinson's Disease than by cancer at this time, because there is no cure and less is known about how to treat Parkinson's than most cancers.

We all have to decide how to allocate the resources that we pledge to charity, but if you get the opportunity to meet Davis I'm sure you will be inspired by the experience. I know that I will find a way to support the Davis Phinney Foundation in the near future, and I hope you will too.

Davis Phinney is here watching the Wachovia Cycling Series. I saw him at the Wachovia Cycing Series- Trenton Race (there's a good photo of Davis at the race on CyclingNews.com). He was very willing to talk to fans who approached him. I'm sure he will do the same at the Wachovia USPRO Championship. Look for him on Sunday, try to shake his hand and wish him well.

Technorati Tags: Wachovia Cycling Series

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm pleased to announce that Operation Gadget will cover the 2005 Wachovia Cycling Series in person. I was granted a media credential for the event and I expect to be in Lancaster today for the first race in the four race series.

The events in the Wachovia Cycling Series are:

• Wachovia Cycling Series - Lancaster in Lancaster, PA on Tuesday, May 31 beginning at 4:30pm,
• Wachovia Cycling Series - Trenton in Trenton, NJ on Thursday, June 2 beginning at 4:30pm,
• Wachovia USPro Championship in Philadelphia on Sunday, June 5 beginning at 9:00am, and
• Wachovia Liberty Classic in Philadelphia on Sunday, June 5 beginning at 9:10am.

The Wachovia USPRO Championship is the biggest and best known of these races. It's a 156-mile race to determine the 2005 U.S. Professional Road Champion who traditionally wears the stars-and-stripes jersey in UCI events for the next year. Over 500,000 spectators turn out for this race and the Wachovia Liberty Classic, which is known as the world's richest single-day women's cycling event.

I found out on Saturday that I was granted a press credential for these races, so I haven't had the opportunity to announce Operation Gadget's coverage until now. I hope to provide good overall coverage with an emphasis on the technology behind the races-- similar to what you read in my coverage of the 2005 Dodge Tour de Georgia.

The only race in this series that I've attended in the past was the Wachovia Cycling Series - Trenton that I attended as a spectator in 2003. I rode my bike down to Trenton to watch the race, a distance of about 13.5 miles from the current Home Office in East Windsor, NJ.

Technorati Tags: Wachovia Cycling Series

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fourth week of May 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

May 29

• Salvodelli Wins the 2005 Giro d'Italia by Dosing His Effort
  

May 27

• Back in New Jersey for a Few Weeks
  

May 25

• On the Road in Vermont
  

May 23

• 3rd Week of May 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathleen and I got back to New Jersey last night after a few days of fun and relaxation in Vermont. I haven't had much time to write today because we are preparing to move to Newtown, Pennsylvania on June 23. We learned that we got the new house while we were in Vermont and spent time today nailing down the date when the move will take place.

Our place in Newtown will be about 25 miles west of here by road. This will reduce Kathleen's commute to her new job by about half in both time and distance.

I'm hoping to continue our telecommunications modernization when we move by replacing several telephone lines that we have installed in our current home and office with Voice over IP services that run over our new broadband connection. There are a number of choices to be made, both in terms of carriers used and services employed. I hope to be able to discuss the options, explain the decisions as I make them, and discuss the installation and startup processes.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathleen and I left on Monday morning for a few days in Vermont. We each have friends who live up here full time, and wanted to visit some places where we hadn't been together before.

I also downloaded QuickNews, a PalmOS-based RSS aggregator and mo:Blog, a PalmOS blog editing tool. I wanted to see whether I could go away for three or four days and not bring a laptop with me at all.

This is my first post on mo:Blog, so we'll see how it works. I'm not trying to put a lot of links or formatting into the article, but I'm also doing a bit more than the typical test post.

On the Mobile Internet front, Cingular has good coverage in cities like Burlington and Rutland as well as towns like Middlebury. Service seems to be available on most of U.S. Highway 7 between Rutland and Burlington, as well as on Interstate 89 in the White River Junction area.

We have also spent some time beyond the limits of Cingular's network, which I feel is understandable given this state's population and topography. Overall, I've been impressed with Cingular's coverage.

I'll be back at the Home Office on Thursday night. Look for an article or two then, or on Friday morning, depending on when we get back.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the third week of May 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

May 20

• AMD-Powered H-P L2000 Special Edition Notebook PC to Benefit LiveStrong Program
  
• Altitrainer Seized by Italian National Police in Investigation After Stage 10
  

May 18

• SV-iP4G Waterproof Listening Solution for Fourth Generation iPods
  
• SwiMP3 Underwater MP3 Player Looks Great for Distance Swimmers
  
• LifeDrive Formally Announced by palmOne
  

May 17

• Scott Daubert Speaks to The Paceline About Recent Trek Innovations
  
• Celebrating the First Anniversary of the LiveStrong Yellow Wristband Program
  
• The Practical Impact of BlackBerry Middleware
  

May 16

• Petacchi Sprints to Victory in Stage 9
  
• Josh Gray's Great Photos of the Collegiate Cycling Nationals
  
• Salvodelli Apparently Didn't Work on TT Positioning in the Wind Tunnel This Year
  
• What Was RAI Thinking By Not Following Zabriskie in the Time Trial?
  
• Koldo Gil is the Deserving Winner of Giro Stage 7
  
• Fassa Bortolo's Problems in the Giro Put Discovery's TdF Successes in Perspective
  
• 2nd Week of May 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the second week of May 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

May 13

• In Order to Understand Wireless Email, First Understand the Purposes of the Protocols
  

May 11

• Another Spectacular Crash at the End of Stage 4
  
• Treo 650 Saves the Day During the Tour de Georgia
  
• Didn't Have Much Time to Watch Stage 3 Yesterday
  

May 10

• Radica 20 Questions Handheld Game Looks Like Fun
  

May 9

• Lopez de Munain Injured in Serious Stage 2 Crash
  
• 1st Week of May 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the first week of April 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

May 8

• Giro d'Italia Graphics Show Heart Rate Monitor Statistics for Some Riders
  

May 7

• Cipollini Farewell Ride is the Highlight of the 2005 Giro d'Italia Prologue
  
• Google Disappeared for a While on Saturday Due to DNS Issue
  

May 6

• Jason Koop Provides Training Tips Useful to Tour of Hope Applicants
  
• 26:43.3 in First 5k Running Race of the Year
  
• Appeals Court Throws Out the Broadcast Flag
  

May 4

• Canon EOS 20D: A Digital SLR Would Have Helped Me Get Tour de Georgia Finish-line Shots
  
• 12-Inch Powerbook G4 Would Have Made Writing Tour de Georgia Stories Easier
  
• Gadgets I Wish I Had at the Dodge Tour de Georgia
  

May 3

• How Engadget Could Have Covered the Nokia 5140i Announcement
  
• Engadget Repeatedly Disses Athletes
  

May 2

• What T-Mobile is Missing by Not Quickly Upgrading to EDGE
  
• How I Used My Polar S625x at the Chicago Showcase
  
• Fourth Week of April 2005 Workouts
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fourth week of April 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

May 1

• The "I Can Get to the Next Level" Moment
  
• Don't Miss the Tour de Georgia on OLN's Cyclysm Sunday on May 1
  

April 29

• They Called Me "The Blogger" at the Dodge Tour de Georgia
  
• How Hard Did the Riders Work in the Tour de Georgia?
  

April 28

• The Paceline Links to Operation Gadget
  
• More Tour de Georgia Photos Added
  

April 27

• How Bad Was the Weather on Woody's Gap?
  

April 26

• Back from Two Weeks on the Road
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have no idea what happened but I couldn't get on-line at my hotel in the Chicago suburbs until this morning. The D-Link AirPlus DWL-G650 WiFi card that I have has been flaking out ever since I took it out of my laptop to put the laptop in the bag, with the card losing power occasionally while I sit and type. That, however, was not the core issue with getting on the hotel's WiFi network.

I couldn't get the operating system on my laptop to recognize the network although my signal strength meter on the screen was showing about 70 percent of maximum strength. The instructions I had from the hotel was to set a specific SSID and turn off WEP, and I had done that. No idea why it didn't work at one point and now it's fine. Go figure.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm at Newark Airport waiting for my flight to Chicago in time for the beginning of the Chicago Showcase Hockey Tournament. I probably won't be blogging any more today, and may not until later tomorrow depending on the game schedule that I will receive when I arrive.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the first week of April 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

April 8

• VersaMail Doesn't Seem to Do a Great Job with IMAP
  
• Daylight Savings Riding
  
• Finding Hotels for the Tour de Georgia
  

April 7

• 16 Teams to Compete in the Dodge Tour de Georgia
  

April 6

• Armstrong to Ring the NYSE Opening Bell on April 7 at 9:30am
  

April 5

• In Memory of Pope John Paul II
  

April 4

• Operation Gadget Covering the 2005 Dodge Tour de Georgia
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fifth week of March 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

April 2

• Why AT&T Wireless Had to Die
  

April 1

• Cingular Doesn't Include SMS in Its PDA Data Plan
  

March 31

• Got Our Treo 650s Last Night
  

March 29

• Cingular Tops the Charts in Customer Complaints in 2004
  
• Secret Service Using Distributed Desktop Computing to Read Suspects' Encrypted Data
  
• Which Cases Should We Buy for Our Treo 650s?
  

March 28

• Officiating at the 12 & Under Tier II Nationals in Voorhees
  
• Fourth Week of March 2005 Workouts
  
• First Week with the Treo 650 According to Jonathan Greene
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fourth week of March 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

March 26

• Introducing Dave's Training Log
  
• Custom Sublimation Offers Custom Cycling Jerseys in Quantities as Small as Six
  

March 24

• palmOne's Update is Out for Sprint's Version of Treo 650
  

March 23

• Economic Reasons Behind Our Use of Cingular
  

March 22

• Twin Treo 650 Purchase Moves Ahead
  

March 21

• Applications Now Being Accepted for the Tour of Hope Rider Team
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the third week of March 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

March 18

• His and Hers Treo 650s?
  
• Did You Know There is a Gadget Price Index?
  

March 17

• Getting Back on the Road
  

March 16

• Looking for Make Magazine on the Newsstand
  
• AOL Modifies its Terms of Service
  
• Wish I Were at O'Reilly Etech
  

March 15

• Rumors of TiVo's Death are Greatly Exaggerated
  
• Bose SoundDock Reviewed by The Gadgeteer
  
• Counterfeit LiveStrong Wristband Investigations Underway in New Jersey and New York
  

March 14

• AOL: Your AIM Chat Sessions Belong to Us
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the second week of March 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

March 13

• Happy Birthday, Emma!
  

March 11

• Away for a Bit
  
• Excellent Google Maps Hacking Tutorial on Engadget
  

March 10

• Siemens Demonstrates Runster, Prototype Mobile Music Application for Exercise
  
• Driver Dies in Alabama While Composing a Text Message on His Mobile Phone
  
• Users Hack Together a Questionable ROM Patch for the H-P iPAQ h6315
  
• Sprint May Issue Update for Treo 650 Next Week
  
• Armstrong Abandons Paris-Nice Due to Sore Throat and Fever
  

March 9

• More Danger / Sidekick II Outage Information
  
• Some Sidekick II Users Lose Connection with the Back End at Danger, Inc.
  
• Headsets are Another Reason Bluetooth is Coming into Its Own
  
• End User Awareness of Bluetooth on the Rise According to Survey
  

March 8

• Sony DVDirect External DVD Recorder is a Good Option for People with Lots of VHS Tapes to Convert
  
• You Can't Count on East Coast Weather in March
  

March 7

• Nice Deal on Think Outside Stowaway Keyboards at Amazon.com
  
• Treo 650 User Experience on Verizon Discussed on Gadgeteer
  
• PowerBar Renews with Lance Armstrong, Adds Team Discovery Channel
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Emma Howson was born on Friday at a hospital in
New Jersey. Everyone's very happy. [ Photo:
Kathleen Aiello ]

Emma Howson was born on Friday afternoon in a nearby hospital. Emma was 7 pounds, six ounces, and 21 3/4 inches long. My sister Julie and Emma are doing fine. Many friends and relatives visited over the last two days.

Kathleen and I took over 50 photos and uploaded them to Flickr as soon as we got back home. A lot of the services that Flickr provides, such as a built-in invitation management service, are really useful when you want to give friends and family fast access to a set of photos, but don't want the world to see them. There are many other ways to get a job like this done, but Flickr makes it easy.

Our Canon PowerShot A95 digital camera that I bought just before Christmas produced very nice pictures, but one thing I tried to do didn't work quite the way I expected. I turned off the flash for many of the pictures that I took of Emma because I didn't want to startle her. When I viewed the resulting photos on the LCD screen, they appeared to be fairly well lit. When I uploaded them to my computer, however, they all appeared dark, so I had to use a photo editing tool to brighten them.

I don't think this is a problem with the PowerShot A95 at all. The display was warning me as I took the flashless photos that they were underexposed. The next day we returned for another visit and I used the flash more often.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

I just received a call from my brother in law. He said that my sister has gone into labor with her first baby. I expect blogging to be infrequent for a few days.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the first week of March 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

March 4

• Chip that May Power the Fifth Generation iPod Announced by Portal Player
  

March 3

• Roaming Messenger to Support IM with GPS Functions
  
• T-Mobile Sale at Amazon.com Means Sidekick II is Available at the "Lowest Price Ever"
  

March 2

• Inside Ride Super Trainer Lets You Ride Gradients Like in the Pro Tour
  
• Have the Security Issues with Sidekick II Helped T-Mobile?
  

March 1

• More Cool Info about Google Maps
  

February 28

• WorkoutGPS Turns Your GPS-Enabled Mobile Phone into a Fitness Computer
  
• Tour of Hope to Ride Again in 2005
  
• T-Mobile Patches Vulnerabilities in My.T-Mobile.Com
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fourth week of February 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

February 27

• T-Mobile Offers Security Tips to Customers, But Doesn't Remove Automatic Login from Voice Mail
  

February 25

• What's at Stake as a Result of Recent Mobile Phone Network Security Issues
  
• Treo 650 Launched in Europe on Orange and TIM Networks
  
• More Snow in Central New Jersey
  

February 24

• Phishing Coming to the Public Hotspot Market?
  
• T-Mobile Voice Mail Compromise Demonstrated for Gizmodo
  
• Bluetake BT400 G5 Headset Pairs with Multiple Bluetooth Phones Simultaneously
  

February 23

• Uncovering Some Cool Technology in Google Maps
  
• TextAloud 2.0 Converts Text to MP3 Files for Exercise or Commute-Time Productivity
  
• Apple's New iPods Reduce the Number of Included Accessories and Pass the Savings on to You
  
• PalmSource Chooses SyncML for Future Handheld Synchronisation
  

February 22

• Motorola HS810 Review at TreoCentral Calls Treo 650 Bluetooth Implementation into Question Again
  
• Larry Magid Thinks the Paris Hilton Data Theft Will Compel Mobile Carriers to Improve Security
  
• Movida Communications to Serve Spanish-Speaking Mobile Phone Users in the USA
  

February 21

• Top 100 Gadgets of All Time Listed by Mobile PC Magazine
  
• My.T-Mobile.com Website Still Has Some Potentially Dangerous Vulnerabilities
  
• Release of Paris Hilton's Personal Info Illustrates Worrisome Security Situation with T-Mobile Sidekick II
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We got hit with another snow storm last night, so I'll be outside for a while this morning clearing the driveway and the sidewalks.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the third week of February 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

February 18

• 1up.com Brings Us the 50 Most Important Computer Games of All Time
  
• Motorola and Skype Establish Alliance for "Seamless Mobility"
  
• Motorola SLVR V8 Photos Posted on MobileBurn
  

February 17

• EA Sports Platinum Series is Worth Buying for NHL '95 Alone
  
• CDMA and GSM Versions of Treo 650 Compared by Treocentral
  
• SplashBlog Has Treo Photobloggers Buzzing
  
• 10 Wierdest PalmOS Programs List Compiled by CanalPDA
  

February 16

• Oprah Viewers Buy 1.2 Million LiveStrong Yellow Wristbands in 48 Hours
  
• Armstrong to Race for Seventh Consecutive Tour de France Victory
  
• Student Mobile Phone Create New Campus Management Issues
  

February 15

• Doctors to Receive Cancer Info Tools from American Cancer Society
  
• Unlocked Treo 650 Impresses Josh Rubin
  
• iSMARTtrain 2.0 Brings Polar Heart Rate Monitor Data Analysis to Macintosh
  

February 14

• Article Compares the Wireless Data Plans from the Major U.S Mobile Carriers
  
• KeyCaps600 and KBLightsOff Recommended Add-ons for Treo 650
  
• Thunderbird IMAP Support Touted in Washington Post
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the second week of February 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

February 11

• Extended My Flickr Pro Account Subscription for a Year
  
• Abacus Wrist Net Reviewed by Watch Report
  

February 10

• Glofun RayGun is an Interesting Game that Can Help You Stay in Shape
  

February 9

• LiveStrong Yellow Wristbands Available Quickly from Discovery Channel On-Line Store
  
• Oprah to the Discuss Importance of the LiveStrong Yellow Wristband Campaign on February 11
  

February 8

• Google Maps Spices Up the Driving Directions and Local Information Market
  
• Newsweek Taps into the Japanese Gadget Import Craze
  
• FujiFilm Z1 and Other Members of their New Line of Digital Cameras Leave Off the Optical View Finder
  

February 7

• Napster Ad Brings "Funny Math" to the Superbowl
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the first week of February 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

February 4

• Many Microsoft Employees Choose iPods for Their Own Use
  

February 3

• Data Plan Inconsistency Plagues Initial Cingular Treo 650 Purchasers
  

February 2

• Cingular Formally Announces Treo 650 Availability
  

February 1

• H-P iPAQ h6315 is Here for Review
  
• Cory Doctorow on Why You Should Buy a Smartphone
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fourth week of January 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

January 28

• Server Enhancements Underway
  

January 27

• Are You Sure That Cingular Really Wants to Deactivate the Treo 650 DUN Profile?
  
• Lance Armstrong's Sirius Radio Show to Debut on Sunday, January 30
  
• Calibrating the Foot Pod that Comes with the Polar S625X
  

January 26

• Polar S625X Put Through Its Paces
  
• Sirius and XM Said to Be in Merger Talks
  

January 25

• PC Magazine Gives Mac mini a "Very Good" Rating
  
• Oakley Thump MP3 Eyewear Reviewed by Engadget
  

January 24

• Flickr Gives Customers Ability to Add Notes to Photos as Metadata
  
• Provided Emergency Road Service Today
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My company is in the process of upgrading several servers that we operate, so I may not have time to write much for Operation Gadget for the next day or two.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of my relatives had car trouble in Trenton, NJ (about 10 miles from The Home Office) today. As a result, I was gone for about four hours. Of course that was the part of the day I was planning to do my blogging....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the third week of January 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

January 21

• Television Producers Try New Techniques to Market Products to DVR Users
  
• Canon Powershot A510 Announced as Successor to A75
  
• Salon Calls Flickr "The Friendster of Photo Sites"
  
• UneasySilence.com Provides Box Unpacking Photos of the Mac mini
  

January 20

• "Apple Tipping Point" Visualizes the Sweet Spot in Recent Product Pricing Developments
  

January 19

• "Verizon One" Intended to Be a Home Telecom Hub
  

January 18

• Treonauts Obtains First-Known GSM Version of Treo 650 for Review
  
• "The Long Tail" Has Some Really Interesting Pieces on the Future of Television
  

January 17

• LiveStrong Supporter from the UK Tells of His Yellow Wristband Purchase Experience
  
• TiVo Said to Have Rejected Deal with Comcast to Become Preferred PVR Technology Supplier
  
• palmOne Website Reflects Impending Release of Treo 650 for GSM/GPRS
  
• MacHTPC.com Debuts to Explore Mac mini's Possible Future in Home Theater
  
• Phase 2.0 of the Blogging Workstation Upgrade: Dead Pixel Society
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the second week of January 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

January 16

• Casio Solar Pathfinder and ProTrek Watches Considered Risky by the FBI
  

January 14

• Accessing Dave Aiello's Public Photos on Flickr
  
• Mac mini Photo Gallery on MacNews.de
  
• DCR-PC1000 to Be Sony's First Compact 16:9 Consumer Camcorder
  

January 13

• Customers Sue Verizon Wireless Over Motorola V710 Bluetooth Feature Removal
  
• Young Customers Screwed by Mobile Phone Carriers' Text Messaging Billing Policies
  
• Team Discovery Unveils New Website
  
• Apple Shoots the Lights Out in the Fiscal First Quarter
  
• HDTV Terminology Explained
  

January 12

• Good iPod Shuffle Box Unpacking Photos at Engadget
  
• iPod Shuffle Will Be a Hit with Athletes
  
• Mac mini Would be a Great Addition to a Home Theater
  

January 11

• Motorola V710 Features Intentionally Removed by U.S. Mobile Carrier
  
• Trying out a Flickr Pro Account
  
• Phase 2.0 of the Blogging Workstation Upgrade: Dead Pixel Society
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the first week of January 2005. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

January 8

• How We Installed a Home Theater with DirecTV and Over-the-Air HDTV
  

January 7

• Phase 1 of the Blogging Workstation Upgrade: Inside the Case
  
• Cingular to Release Treo 650 Soon
  

January 6

• Building a Home Theater
  

January 5

• Boot and Shoe Dryer from Peet Works as Advertised
  
• Replacing a Lost Polar T-31 Heart Rate Transmitter with a Polar WearLink
  
• Dynastream Provides Running Technology to Polar Electro and Nike
  
• Kodak Steals CES Spotlight with Wireless Digital Camera
  
• Photo Gallery Renovated
  

January 4

• Suggestions for Restocking Your Amazon.com Wishlist
  
• Good Tips Provided for Troubleshooting Digital Camera Images
  
• Peet Shoe Dryer Used to Dry Hockey Skates
  

January 3

• Upgrading the Blogging Workstation to Dual Flat Panel Displays
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I will be building a home theater today in Central New Jersey. We can't blog it, because there is no broadband connection there, but we intend to post an article about the experience later on tonight or tomorrow morning.

Update: Here are links to the how-we-did-it article and a photo album that document the key parts of the process.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I spent most of this morning tweaking the theme of the Operation Gadget Photo Gallery. It's not perfect, but a vast improvement none the less. It's hard to integrate two content management systems (Movable Type and Coppermine) with different philosophies about the use of style sheets.

Please check out the new look and feel and let me know what you think. Send mail to daiello [at] operationgadget.com. Thanks.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the last week of December 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

January 2, 2005

• Plummeting Costs of Desktop and Server Disk Storage Creating Opportunities
  
• First Photos from My Canon PowerShot A95
  

December 31, 2004

• Scientists Love $89 QX5 Computer Microscope
  
• Unpacking My Canon PowerShot A95
  

December 30

• Mac Rumors' Buyers Guide Useful to Those Considering an Apple Product Purchase
  
• Nikon Coolpix 8800 Discussed by Chris Pirillo
  
• BBC Provides an Introduction to Podcasting
  
• 2005 Tour de Georgia Scheduled for April 19-24
  

December 29

• Donated to the American Red Cross International Relief Fund to Help Tsunami Victims
  

December 28

• Polar AXN Series Heart Rate Monitors Reviewed by Joel McNamara
  
• What I Did with My $15 iTunes Music Store Card
  
• Kodak Digital Photo Strategy Discussed in New York Times
  
• How Do I Replace a GSM Phone Inexpensively?
  

December 27

• AP Names Armstrong Male Athlete of the Year for Third Consecutive Time
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Within the last 36 hours, I received an email from my friend Seshadri Rengaswamy who works for Tata Consultancy Service in Chennai, India. He wrote:

Hi Dave,

Sorry that I could not reply to you yesterday. I was on leave most of last week, in fact I felt the earthquake on Sunday morning twice for 5-10 seconds between 6:30 and 6:45am. I was wondering what was happening. There were no problems near our area.

Tsunami was very severe in Chennai and Tamil Nadu (state where Chennai is located). In fact the death has crossed 5000 in India mostly in my state. There are huge fishing communities who live along the coastline and they were all hit.

Sesh and I met when we worked on a consulting project together at a financial services company in New Jersey just after 9/11. He made a donation to my 2004 Tour of Hope Fund-raising Drive in memory of my friend Peter Frank which I greatly appreciated.

I just made a small donation on behalf of OperationGadget.com and CTDATA to the American Red Cross International Relief Fund. The Red Cross has proven over the years to be effective at directing financial contributions to disasters like the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunamis.

I made the donation in honor of my friend Sesh, so that he and his friends in India would know that their friends in the United States want to help the disaster victims in their country and in neighboring countries.

If you are interested in making a contribution in this time of need, you can visit the Red Cross' Donate Now! page at: http://www.redcross.org/donate/donate.html.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fourth week of December 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

December 22

• Reviewing MSN Direct Service on a Fossil Abacus Wrist Net
  
• Good Comparison of Wireless Data Solutions from BargainPDA
  
• Exec Hints at Apple - Motorola Mobile Phone with iTunes Support in First Half of 2005
  
• Challengers to the iPod mini Discussed in New York Times
  

December 21

• SantaCross in Southern California Won by Lance Armstrong
  
• Seattle Times Discusses Amazon.com's Holiday Shipment Effort
  
• TiVo Distributed Almost 2,000 Free PVRs to Bay Area Comcast Customers
  
• Glofun Raygun Game Coming Soon For Nextel i710 and i730
  
• FBI Uses IP Addresses to Apprehend Alleged Murderer
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the third week of December 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

December 17

• President Bush Orders Plan for Temporary Shutdown of the GPS System During National Crisis
  
• Tour de France Will Feature New Millau Viaduct in 2006
  

December 16

• Nokia 6600 Called "Cheap and Reliable" by Paul Boutin in Slate
  
• TiVo Offering Free PVRs to Comcast Customers in the Bay Area on December 17, 2004
  
• Game Boy Helps Reduce Anxiety in Children Before Surgery, Study Says
  

December 15

• "Hacker's Favorite DVD Player" in Stock at Amazon.com
  
• 64M Memory Card Offered with Purchase of Digital Camera by Amazon.com
  
• 3-Megapixel Mobile Phone Camera Module Coming Soon from Panasonic
  

December 14

• Peet Shoe Dryer Improves Performance of Boots and Skates
  
• Motorola A630 "Guaranteed to Amaze Your Friends," Says Mike Langberg
  
• Electronics Outselling Books According to Amazon.com
  
• Burton Headphone Beanie Reviewed by The Gadgeteer
  
• S'mores Nativity Set May Be Taking the Theme a Bit Too Far
  

December 13

• British Gadget Users Said to Be Becoming "Digitally Obese"
  
• Asians Generally Have More and Better Gadgets to Choose from than Americans
  
• Glen Fleishman is Writing a New Digital Radio Blog for Weblogs, Inc.
  
• Most U.S. Mobile Phone Users Do Not Take Advantage of Mobile Data Services
  
• Toshiba SD-H400 is the Cheapest "TiVo Basic" Device Available
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the second week of December 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

December 12

• Playing with Konfabulator for Windows
  
• Panasonic Lumix FX7 Reviewed by Digital Photography Review
  

December 11

• Amazon.com Offering a Good Selection of Unlocked Mobile Phones
  
• Survey: One in Five British Internet Users Buy Software Advertised in Spam
  
• RIM's Efforts to Grow Through Software and Services Highlighted by BusinessWeek
  

December 10

• T-Mobile Will Hold Off Deploying 3G Data Services for Two Years
  
• Dan Washburn Reports on Electronic Gadgets He Used While Traveling Through China
  
• Armstrong Will Decide Whether to Participate in the Tour de France in May 2005
  
• Telling the Difference Between Real and Fake LiveStrong Yellow Wristbands
  

December 9

• Comparing the Canon Powershot A85, Powershot A95, and Powershot S1 IS
  
• Spent Yesterday Afternoon in New York City
  

December 8

• Recent Reviews of Treo 650 Reflect Memory Allocation Issue
  

December 7

• Bloglines is Changing My Life
  
• iPod Year in Review Published by iPodLounge
  
• Treonauts Explains How to Stream Audio on Your Treo with Pocket Tunes 3.0
  
• Good Hands-on Review of the Motorola RAZR V3 at Engadget
  
• Kodak EasyShare CX7330 Competes Mainly on Price
  

December 6

• Answers to Common Questions about LiveStrong Yellow Wristband Orders and Shipments
  
• Photoxels Reviews Canon Powershot S1 IS
  
• How Glenn Fleishman Consolidated His Telecom Bills and Saved Money
  
• Eddie Merckx Raises His Profile by Riding in Public Events
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the first week of December 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

December 5

• Photos of East Windsor - Millstone Cycling Training Route Posted
  

December 4

• Putting a Second Computer on My Desk
  
• Clarion VRX755VD to Put Virtual iPod Controls on a Dash-Mounted 7-inch LCD Display
  

December 2

• Nikon D70 Named Popular Photography's 2004 Camera of the Year
  

December 1- Dave's Birthday

• VCRs Pronounced Dead by Reuters
  

November 30

• Tyler Hamilton Fired by Phonak Cycling Team
  
• Don't Miss Overhaulin' Tonight on TLC
  

November 29

• Glad I Received "The Flintstones - The Complete First Season" as a Gift
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dave's new workstation includes a
Samsung SyncMaster 770 TFT hooked up to
an AMD Athlon XP 2500+-based Windows 2000
PC via an ATI Radeon 7200. To the left
is the Dell Inspiron 7500 now primarily used
for email. Click on the photo for a bigger
image.

Over the past few months, I've been feeling squeezed. I'm running a late model Dell laptop as my primary workstation. It's a Dell Inspiron 7500 with a 650-megaHertz Pentium III, 15.4-inch display, 512-Megabytes of RAM, and a 40-Gigabyte Hard Disk running Fedora Core 2. This machine is coming to the end of its useful life (at least from my perspective), but it's still quite usable as long as I don't overload it.

I have a nearly new AMD Athlon XP 2500+-based tower system in my office that's been gathering dust until recently. It's a machine I built back in May as a temporary host for hard disks that were installed in a server that I coloed a couple of months ago. I bought an extra 150-Gigabyte SATA hard disk, installed a licensed copy of Windows 2000 and now its my second workstation.

The key benefits of the AMD Athlon system are:

• CPU Speed: 1.83 GHz is a heck of a lot faster than 650 mHz, and ends up being ideal for applications like iTunes.

• Display Resolution: The ATI Radeon 7200 that Martin O'Donnell gave me has 1280x1024 display capabilities. I send the output to a Samsung SyncMaster 770 TFT which I bought a few years ago and still looks great-- that gives me almost 32 percent more screen real estate.

  This is a good way to run the Movable Type backend for Operation Gadget and an RSS aggregator like Bloglines on the same screen. It doesn't quite allow me to have the windows side-by-side, but this configuration cost me nothing to setup.

If I need more screen space, I can open a Mozilla window on the Fedora laptop. Otherwise, I just run applications like Novell Evolution which manages my email and my calendar. I can still use Fedora for server-side development as well.

Once I get the desk layout tweaked perfectly, I'll publish a photo so you can see what my new work environment looks like.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fourth week of November 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

November 26

• Received a Tour of Hope Dri-Fit Shirt
  
• Motorola A630 Now Available for Use on T-Mobile
  
• Roku Soundbridge M1000 is a Great Partner for iTunes, Except for Purchased Music
  

November 24

• Offbeat Nintendo DS Review from BargainPDA.com
  

November 23

• PocketFactory Laments "The Sad State Of The Palm Economy"
  
• Black Friday Sale Coming to Apple Online and Retail Stores
  

November 22

• Major Cyclocross Event in New Jersey on November 21, and I Missed It
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the third week of November 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

November 19

• Shipments Begin for Treo 650 on Sprint PCS at palmOne Treo Store
  
• Columnist from USA Today Urges Readers to "Trade in Your Dumb Phone for a... Treo 650"
  
• Superslim CRTs Expected to Compete Against Flat Panels in TV Market in Mid-2005
  
• U2's Participation in iPod + iTunes Ads Debated
  

November 11

• The Best Action Photo of Dave Aiello in a Long Time
  
• Trek Madone 5.9 Reviewed by CyclingNews
  

November 17

• Happy First Birthday, Operation Gadget
  
• Backend of Operation Gadget Upgraded
  

November 16

• Serotta Ottrott ST Tested by PezCyclingNews
  

November 15

• Case Against Tyler Hamilton Examined by The New York Times
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On November 17, 2003, Operation Gadget was launched. In its first year, a number of really nice things have happened:

• Nearly 650 articles posted.
• Several article categories have substantial regular readership, including:
  • Gadget-related:
    • Fitness Gadgets,
    • Mobile Phones,
    • Gaming Gadgets,
    • Home Theater, and
    • Portable Audio.
  • Event-related:
    • 2004 Tour de France, and
    • 2004 Tour of Hope.
  • Fund-raising:
    • LiveStrong Program,
    • Breast Cancer Fund-raising through the Target Pink Breast Cancer Awareness and the Living in Pink programs, and
    • 2004 Tour of Hope.
• Photo archive begun for events in which Operation Gadget participates. Look for more interesting photos to be posted before Thanksgiving.

Thanks to everyone who reads and comments on Operation Gadget stories. You are a major reason that this blog continues to grow and prosper. Special thanks to:

• my wife, Kathleen Aiello, for not giving up when times were tough,
• the Aiello and Kuykendall extended families,
• my sponsors in the 2004 Tour of Hope who helped me raise over $2,100 for cancer research,
• Phil Lurie for providing network facilities and connectivity for Operation Gadget when it was starting out,
• Martin O'Donnell for acting as the West Coast Editor,
• John Cloninger for loaning his digital camera for the masthead photo,
• Ramona Morel for her moral support in times of mutual personal difficulty,
• Ed Anuff for tremendous advice, help with networking, and moral support,
• Chris Nolan and Chris McCarthy for being excellent customers and advisors and becoming my friends,
• Doc Searls for plugging Operation Gadget on Day 1,
• Cecil Ledesma for being an excellent riding partner in the 2004 Tour of Hope,
• Dr. Steven Sharpe and Greg Millett for fixing the broken pedal on my bike during the 2004 Tour of Hope,
• Art Iger for his advice on self-employment and successful micropublishing,
• Sesh Rengaswamy for regularly emailing me from India,
• Henry Scheuer for helping me manage my financial affairs and offering advice on a lot of subjects,
• Michelle Milford of the Lance Armstrong Foundation,
• Jackson Jeyanayagam of Waggener Edstrom for building a relationship between Operation Gadget and T-Mobile USA, and
• the folks at Movable Type / Six Apart, MySQL, the Apache Software Foundation, Red Hat, and the Fedora Project for providing the tools that helped build the Operation Gadget infrastructure.

So many people have generously offered advice and support during Operation Gadget's first year, it's hard to remember them all in one sitting. I'll probably add more people to this list as I think of them.

I think regular readers of Operation Gadget will agree that the site has been relentlessly upgraded and its content has been fine-tuned in a number of ways. Look for more of improvements coming up soon.

Operation Gadget depends on feedback from its readers for many article and site enhancement ideas. I'd love to hear from you if you have an idea for a story or a new service that Operation Gadget can provide. Send your story ideas to tips [at] operationgadget.com or email me directly at daiello [at] operationgadget.com.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In case you're wondering why Operation Gadget has been so quiet for the past few days, I've been working on upgrading to the current version of Movable Type, installing a number of support programs and utilities, and making design tweaks. So far everything has gone well, and I hope to be finished soon.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the second week of November 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

November 12

• Lance Armstrong's GTO to Be Overhauled on November 30
  
• Treo 650 Orders Are Being Taken at Amazon.com
  
• T-Mobile Increased Its U.S. Marketshare by 24 Percent YTD in 2004
  
• Harvey Levine Shot Cycling Photos with Nikon D2H Pro Digital SLR Camera
  

November 11

• The Best Action Photo of Dave Aiello in a Long Time
  
• Trek Madone 5.9 Reviewed by CyclingNews
  

November 10

• George H.W. Bush, BlackBerry User
  
• Halo 2 Ships, First Day Sales Estimated at $100 Million
  

November 9

• Leapster Multimedia Learning System Will Entertain 4 to 8 Year Olds
  
• "Amazon Theater" Debuts as an Entertaining Vehicle for Holiday Product Promotion
  

November 8

• LAF Ships Delayed LiveStrong Wristband Order
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the first week of November 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

November 6

• Armstrong Tells L'Equipe He May Not Ride the Tour de France in 2005
  

November 5

• HS810 Bluetooth Headset from Motorola Featured in Forbes "Gadgets We Love" Article
  
• LiveStrong Counterfeiters Exposed on CBS' Local News in New York City
  

November 4

• Holiday Wishlist Ideas
  
• Perfect Timing for Today's Training Ride, Courtesy of the National Weather Service
  
• iPod Photo Makes a Good Impression on Reviewers at WSJ
  

November 2

• Sidekick II Reaches Number 1 on Amazon.com Cell Phone Early Adopter List
  
• LAF Store Reports Slight Delay in LiveStrong Wristband Shipments
  
• "Living in Pink" Also Running a Wristband Program
  
• Go Vote, Then Go Workout
  
• Sprint PCS and AT&T Wireless Readying Release of Treo 650
  

November 1

• Reebok Acquisition of Major Hockey Equipment Manufacturer Pits it Against Nike Again
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fourth week of October 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

October 29

• 2005 L'Etape du Tour Offers Opportunities to North Americans
  
• Bella Dancerella DVD-based Toys More Popular with Our Readers than VHS Alternatives
  
• Hearing Aids as High-End Digital Electronics
  
• 2005 Tour de France Route Announced in Paris
  

October 28

• Tour of Hope DC Fund-Raising Ride and Finale Raise $800,000 for Clinical Trials
  
• Photos Added to the Tour of Hope Broken Pedal Story
  

October 27

• Congratulations Red Sox
  
• Vending Machines at Hong Kong Transit Stations Sell Rechargeable SIM Cards
  
• Cyclingnews Publishes Interview with Lance Armstrong
  
• Blackberry 7230 Excels as a Mobile Email Platform
  

October 26

• LiveStrong Program Discussed in The Washington Post
  

October 25

• Treo 650 Finally Announced by palmOne
  
• "The Great Catch-Up" Begins
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathleen and I have been on vacation for the last two weeks. Unlike other recent vacations, we decided to do three short trips during each of the weekends, rather than a single, longer trip. The trips were:

• Washington, DC for the Tour of Hope Finale,
• Buffalo, NY for the Buffalo Bills - Miami Dolphins Game, and
• San Francisco, CA for Ed Anuff and Mary Jane Mona's wedding.

Each of the trips was coordinated with visits with family or close friends. We had a wonderful time everywhere we went, but article writing, bike riding, hockey officiating, and lawn mowing suffered.

We're back now, reluctantly. I'm trying to catch up. There's a ton going on, including the long-awaited Treo 650 announcement. I finally have enough experience with the Blackberry 7230 to write a meaningful review. Look for that later this week. I'm planning to post photos of a couple of my cycling training routes. Maybe I'll get around to re-theming the new Operation Gadget Photo Gallery.

Seems like I've outlined more than a week's worth of work already....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the third week of October 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

October 20

• Tungsten T5 is Not What "Palm OS Enthusiasts" Expected
  
• Over $2,000 Donated to the Tour of Hope
  

October 19

• Many More Tour of Hope Finale Photos Posted
  
• Fox TV Season One DVD Sets on Sale at Amazon.com in Time for the Holidays
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the second week of October 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

October 17

• Google SMS Provides Mobile Access to Some Useful Information
  

October 16

• First Set of Tour of Hope Pictures Posted
  

October 15

• Migration to the New Server is Complete
  

October 14

• Operation Gadget Is Relocating to a New Server
  

October 13

• Good Samaritans Helped Me Finish the Tour of Hope After Mechanical Breakdown
  
• How I Generated a Tour of Hope DC Fund-raising Ride Map
  

October 11

• "Victory at 12 Miles Per Hour" Captures the Attitude of the Tour of Hope Riders
  
• Pink Breast Cancer Wristbands Available from Target.com and Amazon.com
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This article is being posted on the new Operation Gadget server. I moved all of the files from the old server to the new server between 5:00 and 8:00pm Eastern Time on Thursday night. It took me a little while after that to resolve problems with the Movable Type configuration because the location of many files on the new server is different from that of the old server.

The unresolved issues that I see right now are primarily administative. I am still testing programs being run with cron (scheduled tasks under the Linux operating system). I just added the Apache redirect for the Help Me Ride the Final Stage of the 2004 Tour of Hope article. The short URL for that page got passed along to hundreds of people, so it shouldn't be allowed to break.

I'd appreciate hearing from you if you notice a problem with the site that you think may be related to the configuration of the new server. Please email problem reports to tips@operationgadget.com. Thanks.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm in the process of moving the Operation Gadget website from one server to another. As a result, you may see some glitches over the next couple of days. I appreciate your understanding.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the first week of October 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

October 10

• Back from the 2004 Tour of Hope Finale
  

October 8

• Google News to Add Operation Gadget as a Source
  
• Polar Updates Precision Performance Software, Again
  
• Coast-to-Coast Ride Round Up
  

October 7

• Portable Speaker Systems for the iPod Compared
  
• Podcasting Howto Published by Engadget
  

October 6

• Sirius Satellite Radio Signs Howard Stern, Show Will Debut in January 2006
  
• Electronics Featured in Toy Wishes "Hot Dozen" Holiday Gift List
  

October 5

• PalmOne Expected to Announce Treo 650 on October 25
  
• There's Still Time to Give to the Tour of Hope
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I received an email today from the team that runs Google News confirming that Operation Gadget will be added to their news sources in the near future. I think that for a news-oriented weblog, this is the equivalent of being added to a Standard and Poors index.

If we only had that kind of cash flow....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fifth week of September 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

October 1

• Saying Thanks to Tour of Hope Supporters
  
• Netflix and TiVo Join Forces to Develop an On-Demand Movie Service
  
• Bob Roll to Meet Tour of Hope Riders on Sunday in Durango, CO
  

September 30

• Registration Packet for the Tour of Hope DC Fund-raising Ride Arrived Today
  
• USPS Cycling Team Members to Participate in the Tour of Hope Fund-raising Ride
  

September 29

• National Tour of Hope Team and Lance Armstrong to Appear on Ellen DeGeneres Show
  

September 28

• Over $1,500 Donated to the Tour of Hope
  
• College Students Stock Up on Steel Footlockers and Safes to Protect Their Gadgets
  

September 27

• Comparing Effort Expended in Cycling Training to Officiating an Ice Hockey Game
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fourth week of September 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

September 25

• Looks Like Other Organizations Want in On The Wristband Trend
  

September 24

• Received a 10-Pack of LiveStrong Yellow Wristbands Four Weeks After Order Placement
  
• 7 of Top 10 Digital Cameras at Amazon.com Manufactured by Canon
  
• Info on Nike Timing Products Available via New Yahoo! Group
  

September 23

• iMac G5 Called "a real pleasure, not a hassle, to use"
  
• Quiet of the Living Room Interrupted by the Words "You're Fired!"
  

September 22

• Slight Change in the Description of Operation Gadget
  
• Nike CEO Calls Lance Armstrong "The Story of the Year"
  
• Tour of Hope Riders Reaching Out to Each Other
  
• Tyler Hamilton Deserves Swifter, Surer Anti-Doping Testing Than He Received
  

September 21

• Bauer 4000 Hockey Helmet Provides Good Protection and Fits Well
  
• John Fee, Only Member of the 2004 Tour of Hope National Team from New Jersey
  
• Souvenir That Some European Tourists are Bringing Home from New York City This Year
  

September 20

• Map of the Tour of Hope DC Fund-raising Route Published
  
• Kristen Adelman, Endurance Athlete and Cancer Survivor, on the 2004 Tour of Hope National Team
  
• TiVo Releases Updated Desktop Media Server Software
  
• Coolpix 8800 from Nikon Delivers Big Images and Optical Zoom
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Every weblog based on the Movable Type publishing system has a description which appears in the title of the home page. When I started Operation Gadget, I described it with the phrase "Electronic gadget news and reviews". Over the past few months I've added a lot of content about technology used in sports, so the description of the site no longer seemed to fit.

I decided to change the description of the site to "Electronic gadgets and sports technology" in order to make the description better reflect the site's focus. I hope you agree that this is an improvement. Please let me know if you think this change makes sense.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the third week of September 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

September 18

• 26.1-Mile Training Route, The East Windsor - Millstone Loop
  
• On-line Store Relaunched by Lance Armstrong Foundation, LiveStrong Wristbands Available Again
  
• Dave's Cycling Dashboard
  

September 16

• iPods Everywhere on the "E" Train
  
• DC Fund-raising Ride Route Officially Announced
  

September 15

• Best Source of LiveStrong Wristbands Closed for the Week of September 13
  
• Donations to the Tour of Hope Surpass $1,000
  
• Tour of Hope DC Fund-raising Ride Route Details Begin to Appear
  

September 13

• Reader Points Out Website with Historical Info about Atari Video Game Systems
  
• Taiwanese Manufacturer of Treo 650 Reportedly Begins Shipments
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the second week of September 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

September 11

• Riders and Volunteers Still Needed for the Tour of Hope
  

September 10

• New Category Begun for Stories about the 2004 Tour of Hope
  

September 9

• Help Me Ride the Final Stage of the 2004 Tour of Hope
  
• Atari Bringing Back the 7800 Console for the Holidays with Atari Flashback
  
• Atari Anthology Bringing 85 Classic Games to XBox and PlayStation 2
  

September 8

• Canon PowerShot S1 IS Emphasizes Optical Zoom Over Image Size
  
• PVRblog Provides a Different Perspective on the XM PCR-TimeTrax Controversy
  
• Danger, Inc. CEO Interviewed by J.D. Lasica
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday, I announced that I would ride the final stage of the 2004 Tour of Hope in Washington, DC on Saturday, October 9, and I asked Operation Gadget readers to consider making a small donation to support cancer research. I've decided to add a category to create a category for the 2004 Tour of Hope because I expect to post a number of articles about my preparation for the ride and the experience of participating in it.

You can find the "2004 Tour of Hope" category archive at:

http://www.operationgadget.com/2004_tour_of_hope/index.html

I've already received a number of donations and verbal commitments from friends and family, so I'm very confident that I will reach the fund-raising minimum required of all participating riders. Now, the questions are:

• How many people will join me in making a small pledge to support cancer research?
• Will any Operation Gadget readers that I don't know personally participate?
• How much training can I do in the four weeks remaining until the ride?
• Who will I meet during my training and while I am in Washington?
• What kind of technology and gear is being used by the Tour of Hope riders, and how does it differ from that which pro cyclists use?
• How big will the party be at the end?

Look for answers to these questions in the next few weeks on here Operation Gadget.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the first week of September 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

September 3

• Keep Usable Bike Tires and Wheels in Case of Early Failure
  

September 2

• New Category Begun for Stories about the LiveStrong Program
  
• XM Radio Takes PC-based Access Device Off the Market
  

September 1

• Money from the LiveStrong Campaign Funds Adult Cancer Survivorship Center in Boston
  
• Philadelphia: City of Brotherly WiFi?
  

August 31

• Apple's Next iMac Builds Entire Computer into Flat Panel Screen
  

August 30

• Cornelius Horan Should Have Received Jail Time for Disrupting Olympic Marathon
  
• Cadence Performance Cycling in Philadelphia Profiled by Pez Cycling News
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Operation Gadget has been a helpful source of information to people throughout the world about the LiveStrong program of the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Since the publication of our first article on LiveStrong yellow wristbands, over 60,000 people have visited this website in their search for information about how to participate. As a result of this great success, and because there are likely to be quite a few articles posted that talk about the grants that the Lance Armstrong Foundation makes through the LiveStrong Program, I've decided to create a category that will hold all of these articles.

You can find the "LiveStrong Program" category archive at:

http://www.operationgadget.com/livestrong_program/index.html

I went back through the articles posted since June and cross posted the ones related to LiveStrong into the new category.

Many of you have told me that you have lost loved ones to cancer, and want to show your support. Others have said that family members are engaged in winning a difficult battle against a merciless foe. I'm sure you will agree that there can never be enough information posted on the Internet about the LiveStrong program. This is why Operation Gadget will continue to talk about the LiveStrong program, encourage its readers to contribute generously, and encourage survivors to take advantage of survivorship services that it funds. Thanks for your continued interest.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the fourth week of August 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

August 28

• H-P Releases Co-Branded Apple iPod
  

August 27

• PC Tech Support Generally Found Lacking by USA Today
  

August 26

• Readers Successfully Buying 10-Packs of LiveStrong Yellow Wristbands Directly from the Lance Armstrong Foundation
  

August 25

• "The Apprentice - The Complete First Season": What I Expect to Be Watching After the Olympics
  

August 24

• Some Applications Can Choke on Corrupted Flat File Databases
  

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the third week of August 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

August 20

• Fixed My Email Problem
  

August 19

• Really Messed Up My Email
  

August 17

• Toolkit for Turning Garmin Forerunner 201 Data into Overlay Maps
  
• Why the Lack of Vuelta a Espana Coverage on OLN May Be Good for U.S. Cycling
  

August 16

• Pole Position Steals the Show on Namco II: Ms Pac-Man with 5 TV Games
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the second week of August 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

August 15

• NBC Shows its Respect for Olympic Cycling By Using Liggett and Sherwin as Commentators
  

August 13

• Mobile Carriers Ready "Cells-On-Wheels" in Case of Outages or Network Overloads
  
• Verizon Offers Storm Preparedness Tips for Mobile Phone Users
  
• Met Doc and Joyce Searls, and a Number of Other Interesting People
  

August 12

• DVD Slideshows are an Excellent Way to Use Digital Photos
  
• "Doping to Win" Discusses Recent Doping Cases and USADA
  
• Samsung SGH-E316 Released in Time for 2004 Summer Olympics
  
• AT&T Wireless Reportedly Offering Flat Rate Annual Plans to Federal Government
  

August 11

• RIM BlackBerry Sales Growing Faster than H-P's and palmOne's
  
• inMotion iMmini Speaker System to Be Available from Altec Lansing in Late Summer
  

August 10

• eBayers Hoarding LiveStrong Yellow Wristbands
  
• Sam's Club to Begin Selling Humax TiVo DVRs
  

August 9

• Hexlet Releases HBlogger 2.0
  
• Tried a Recipe from "Chris Carmichael's Food for Fitness"
  

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the first week of August 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

August 6

• Picked Up a "Jaune, Tete de Course" T-Shirt at Niketown in New York
  

August 4

• "The Lance Chronicles" Finale: Good Summary, But Disappointing to Regular Viewers
  
• DirecTV to Offer PVR Alternative to TiVo in Early 2005
  

August 3

• Carrier Application Locks Are Unacceptable for Smartphones
  
• Siemens SK65 to Include Full Alphanumeric Keyboard and Blackberry Functionality
  
• What Kind of Training is Required to Succeed in L'Etape de Tour?
  

August 2

• Bush, Kerry, and Their Respective Bicycles
  

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the last week of July 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

July 31

• Met Chris Carmichael at "Food for Fitness" Book Signing
  

July 30

• Clean and Lubricate Your Bike's Chain In Order to Keep Performance High
  
• Why is it So Difficult to Buy a Treo 600 That Runs on T-Mobile?
  

July 29

• Panasonic Lumix DMC-F1S is Hard to Tell Apart from Leica D-Lux
  

July 28

• Sixth Tour de France Victory by Lance Armstrong Speaks for Itself
  

July 27

• Chris Carmichael Signing "Food for Fitness" in Freehold, NJ on July 31
  
• Alex Trautwig, Son of OLN Commentator, Captures Key Tour Moments
  

July 26

• Suggestions for Finding a LiveStrong Yellow Wristband Outside the United States
  

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Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the third week of July 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

July 24

• NFL and Motion Picture Industry Trying to Block TiVo-to-Go
  

July 22

• WSJ View of AirPort Express is Slightly Negative
  
• Armstrong is Right: Time Trial to Alpe d'Huez Was Too Dangerous
  

July 21

• Wall Street Journal Personal Technology Column Available via RSS
  
• Watching the Tour de France at Alpe d'Huez
  

July 20

• Surprised that Ullrich Tried to Breakaway on an Intermediate Mountain Again
  
• Got a RIM Blackberry 7230 for Long-Term Review Purposes
  

July 19

• Race Timing System for Tour de France Explained by Engadget
  
• Statistics Quoted in Wall Street Journal Article on Mobile Phone Safety Don't Ring True to Me
  
• Aperto Networks Gear Providing Broadband Wireless Access for France Telecom at Tour de France
  
• Johan Bruyneel Profiled in the Washington Post, Saiz Takes Issue
  
• Several Lance Armstrong Rivals Are Now "a la Maison"
  

Does a weekly summary work for you? Is it a waste of time? Let me know by posting a comment. Thanks....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the second week of July 2004. I'm experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism for readers to sign up for this service when I work out the details.

The headlines:

July 16

• Armstrong Puts Major Time Between Himself and the Other Favorites at La Mongie
  
• What Do You Expect When They Put All the Hard Stages at the End?
  

July 15

• Alteraxion Publishes Useful Summaries of Software Categories for the Treo 600
  
• Have Pitchfork, Will Travel
  
• Nike and LAF Sell LiveStrong Wrist Bands at End of Each Tour de France Stage, Some European Media is Still Critical
  
• Translating Tour de France News in Major Non-English Publications
  

July 14

• Apple's Quarterly Profits Triple, iPod Sales Nearly Double
  
• Apple Ships AirPort Express with AirTunes
  
• Sony Ericsson Akono HBH-600 Reviewed by MobileBurn
  
• Another Day, Another Rear Puncture
  

July 13

• John Kerry, PowerBook User