On Wednesday, I visited the Panera in Levittown, PA to sip a diet soda and use their WiFi. This is supposed to be an amenity for customers. I had never taken advantage of it before.

I saw a Twitter post (aka "tweet") from someone I am following in my Twitterific window, and I wanted to know what they were talking about. I clicked on the URL that was embedded in the tweet and saw this {see the first screenshot}:

SonicWall CFS Blocking TinyURL.com:
This makes Twitter almost unusable, in my
opinion. [ Screenshot: Dave Aiello on Flickr ]

For the record, the URL depicted resolves to a YouTube copy of a Cheetos commericial. I didn't find that out until I got home and had time to look, probably 12 hours after the situation I'm describing.

At the time I thought, "There's pretty much no way I am going to remember this later today. I'll have to reread all the tweets on my 'with friends' timeline and hope that I remember this specific one." I was sure I wouldn't remember because I had a meeting with a potential client in Center City Philadelphia scheduled for around lunchtime, and those types of meetings have a tendency to clear my head of previous ancillary thoughts.

Twitter is basically unusable in this environment from a followers perspective if SonicWall decides it's not going to allow requests for any URL issued by TinyURL.com.

I considered my options and none of them looked good. I guess I could have written the tweet down and some information about the context if that was important, but I didn't think of that.

Submitting a URL Rating Request:
"... It's unfair to assume that tinyurl used in this
context is a means of obfuscation." [ Screenshot:
Dave Aiello on Flickr ]

I decided to take SonicWall's advice and submit a URL Rating Review request. In the HTML form shown in the second screenshot, I made the case that access to TinyURL should be allowed. My complete statement is as follows:

"URLs in the tinyurl.com domain are utilized by services such as twitter.com in order to minimize the total length of messages transmitted on their service. There is no way to determine what the content or nature of the ultimate destination site is. It's unfair to assume that tinyurl.com used in this context is a means of obfuscation."

I went about my business of researching my potential client and forgot about the situation until I got home. Now that a few more hours have passed, I have a couple of questions:

1. How many other actively-managed content filtering systems ban TinyURL just because it can be used to mask nasty things?
2. How does this affect penetration of Twitter into Corporate America and institutions such as schools?
3. What happens in more restrictive countries such as China? Do they ban services like TinyURL because of its potential to undermine the authority of official sources of information?

I guess it takes an experience like this for me to realize how fragile freedom of access to services on the Internet is. What I'm illustrating here is clearly a side-effect of an overly restrictive policy, but you can see the potential for this access hurdle to exist in its present form indefinitely.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathleen and Jimmy looking at the iPhoto
book that we ordered for her mom. The
second copy arrived today. [ Photo: Dave
Aiello on Flickr. ]

Kathleen and I took advantage of an iPhoto Custom Photo Book promotion that Apple ran for Mother's Day. We ordered Kathleen's mother a hard cover photo book. We made sure we ordered before the April 30 cut off date for standard shipping.

Something happened to the order while it was in production and it didn't ship in time for delivery last Friday. When we realized this, Kathleen called Apple Customer Service.

Kathleen told the Apple customer service agent that we ordered before the deadline and that FedEx was reporting that the shipment was not going to arrive in time for us to give it as a gift on Mother's Day.

Here's what the person at Apple Photo Services Support wrote back after receiving a message from the main customer service group:

Dear Kathleen,

Thank you for your recent Apple photo order.

I understand that you submitted your order to us in time to be received by May 11th. You may have noticed that the tracking information for your order indicates the estimated delivery date is after May 11th.

To ensure that your order is received by May 11th, your order is being reprocessed free of charge and will be sent via expedited shipping. When it ships, you will receive a separate email with the tracking number for your duplicate order. Please accept both orders as a goodwill gesture.

I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. I hope you continue to enjoy using Apple Photo Services for your creative projects. If you have any questions or concerns, please reply to this email and we will assist you further.

Thank you for being a loyal Apple customer and have a wonderful day.

Sincerely,

Sofia
Apple Photo Services Support

http://www.apple.com/support/photoservices/ww

The replacement package arrived on Friday, overnighted from Elk Grove, CA. Kathleen's mom got the gift on time and she was thrilled.

The original iPhoto book arrived via FedEx Ground on Monday. Kathleen and I get to keep a beautiful book of photos of Jimmy and us, courtesy of Apple.

The photos books we ordered are truly first rate. The service we got is unbeatable. Kathleen never mentioned that I write a blog about computer technology, or that we know anybody who works for Apple. I think we got the service that Apple would give to any customer who had the same problem.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Ode To A Burrito -- Chipotle Mexican Grill on Fast Company: "Good food wrapped in a socially responsible message has created legions of Chipotle fans -- and a superhot business. Acquired by McDonald's in 1998 when there were only 14 Chipotles, the company went public in 2006 with 500 stores and watched its stock rise from $22 to $110 in 18 months. The now-independent outfit is enjoying an 80% revenue run-up over three years....

  "Chipotle has achieved these impressive stats by spurning fast-food orthodoxy. Workers make each burrito by hand, which leads to long lines of customers waiting far beyond the four-minute industry standard. Turns out, that's not a problem for many customers." There aren't many Chipotles in Pennsylvania, but one just opened in Warrington, in the same complex with one of our two closest Wegman's. Why can't we eat there more often? [ via 37signals SVN ]
• Forwarding voicemails? on 37signals SVN: "Visual Voicemail on the iPhone is a huge step forward for voicemail, but it still feels a bit last generation. It’s still about the static message that sits in your box. You can’t forward it along, you can’t email it to yourself, you can’t even play it to someone else who’s on the phone with you." Great points.
• 15 Features of the Perfect Work Space on LifeDev: "8. No clutter - Clutter is an aesthetic problem as well as a mental problem. Cluttered work spaces give create cluttered thinking. Your mind will never be as clear as it could be with a messy, unorganized environment. This also includes your desktop clutter as well." My only question about the article is: why is "no clutter" feature number 8 and not higher on the list?
• Household: De-Clutter with a Six-Month "Maybe Box" on Lifehacker: "I can vouch for the power of hidden non-necessities. My garage has served as a de facto "Maybe" space for most of this winter, leading my house toward a serious garage sale this spring."
• The Cost of Working In a Digital World on LifeDev: "A very important article has been written by The New York Times showing the hazards of being a web worker. Without boundaries and carefult attention to our Internet usage, we can quickly find our health declining. Prolific blogger Om Malik, who suffered some life-threatening health problems late last year, shares some insights his doctor gave as to why web workers have health problems."
• #1 Song on This Date in History from Josh Hosler: "What was the #1 song on ... the day you were born? the day you graduated from high school? the day you were married? the day your child was born? the approximate date you were conceived?" Awesome site. [ via Pogue's Posts and Alltop Gadgets ]

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

• Top 7 Web Applications for Sending Large Files on Geekpreneur: "If you’ve ever had to send a large file to someone, you know the hardships that arise. Email services keep strict limits on attachment sizes. What’s more is that it’s often hard to send more than one attachment at a time. This kind of disservice has made email quite unpopular for sharing files- and thus, we have entered the age of hybrid email. The premise is simple: cut out the bulk, and just give us an easy way to send files over the internet!"

• Torvalds: Leopard file system "utter crap" on MacNN: "Linux creator Linus Torvalds recently blasted Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard for having a file system that is 'complete and utter crap' at a Linux conference in Melbourne."

  The Leopard file system, technically known as HFS+, has been around in some form since the last time I was a Mac developer-- 1992. Of course Apple would like to move to something more robust. They've been building up to switch to ZFS, or some other sophisticated file system, for some time now.



• Turn Your Nokia Phone into a Wi-Fi Hotspot with JoikuSpot on Lifehacker: Who needs tethering when you can make your Series 60 phone into an ad hoc WiFi base station for your laptop? Wow.


• How to record a kickass podcast between two macs — and cheap! on A Whole Lotta Nothing: "A lot of people ask me how I do the MetaFilter Podcast.... I know they ... mean... 'what software and hardware does it take to make a decent sounding podcast?' After almost a year of regular podcasts and trying out different software and equipment, I’ve gotten the workflow down cold and I wanted to share the my way of making a good sounding podcast on the cheap. This works perfectly well for me being in Oregon and talking to my friend Jessamyn in Vermont over Skype, recording at both ends, then tossing it all into Garageband to complete the podcast." [ via 43Folders ]


• Nike SPARQ Parachute Makes You Run Faster, Eventually on Gizmodo: "The Nike SPARQ Parachute is designed to create drag 'to force athletes to push themselves harder to achieve speed' and look like a moron in Central Park." Can I use this thing on the ice sometime?

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

• The Complete Guide to iPhone Car Integration on iLounge.com: A great article that covers nearly every accessory for using your iPhone in the car without violating the laws requiring hands-free use of mobile phones in many parts of the USA. [ via TUAW ]
• MacBook Air review round-up on TUAW: "Ah, it is that magical time after an Apple announcement: the big media reviews are starting to roll in. As you might be aware Apple loans out new hardware to technology journalists to put through their paces.... The first few reviews are up, and they all pretty much say the same thing: the MacBook Air is really thin, and a great machine so long as you don't need the ports it doesn't have." Read the reviews anyway, if you haven't already.
• Junction Networks Well Positioned In Philly Burbs from VoIP Watch: Andy Abramson pointed out this cool little VoIP company called Junction Networks right up the road from me that I had never heard of. They provide SIP Hosting, Hosted PBX, and PSTN Gateway services. The Hosted PBX stuff is the easiest thing for me to get my head around. But who knew that these guys were out here (other than Andy)?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MacRumors reports that Garmin released a new beta version of their Bobcat GPS management tool for MacOS X. This beta of version 2.0 of the software includes the following features:

• transfer waypoints, tracks, and routes between a Mac and Garmin GPS device,
• manage maps and DRM keys for transfer to a Garmin GPS, and
• search for points of interest on the Mac and transfer the locations to your Garmin GPS.

It wasn't too long ago that Mac users would have to keep a PC around the house or spin up a PC emulator or virtual machine to take advantage of Garmin software. Bobcat looks like a serious product that can help you get the most out of your GPS or heart-rate monitor.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Gmail IMAP Change in 1.13 - Apple Phone Show on Apple Phone Show Blog: "The 1.13 upgrade to the iPhone automatically changes POP configured Gmail to IMAP...." I saw the change in folder arrangement on my iPhone after I updated the firmware, but I didn't realize the implications of it until I read about the switch to IMAP online.
• The new Favicons: Making Webclip icons for iPhone on SixApart ProNet: The professional developer website for Movable Type and TypePad posted the first explanation of how to make a custom icon for a website that will appear on the home screen of an iPhone or an iPod Touch. I already made a Webclip icon for RinkAtlas, a site whose logo lends itself to doing so.

• Forty years since Masterton's death on the Globe on Hockey Blog: "Masterton, 29 at the time, was checked by Larry Cahan and Ron Harris of the Oakland Seals, and hit his head on the ice after falling backwards. The game took place Jan. 13, 1968, in Bloomington, Minnesota, and Masterton died in hospital two days later due to a brain injury."

  "His death led to the lobbying of more widespread use of helmets, and a mandatory helmet rule was passed in the summer of 1979." Anyone playing ice hockey should pause for a moment and remember Bill Masterton. His unfortunate death began a series of rule changes and other protective measures that have made our sport much safer.



• Mini-Review: Amazon Kindle vs. Sony Reader on 37signals Signal vs Noise: "There are plenty of comprehensive reviews of the Kindle floating around so I don’t think we need another one. Instead, I’ll focus on comparing it with the Sony Reader."

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I expected to be wowed by Steve Jobs' 2008 MacWorld Expo Keynote a lot more than I actually was. However, I was doing other things while the event was going on (real work), and the products that I was most interested in (mainstream Mac laptops) didn't get addressed in this keynote at all.

Bummer for me. I could have bought my MacBook Pro two weeks ago if I had known that the Penryn upgrade wasn't immediately forthcoming.

Here are my comments on the other aspects of the keynote:

• iTunes Movie Rentals / AppleTV Take 2: Clearly the announcement with the most business disruption potential. I agree with one of the commentators on MacBreak Weekly who suggested that Apple is making a play to be the digital media hub in the house, usurping services like Netflix, as well as Television services providers such as Comcast and Verizon FiOS.
• MacBook Air: This is a machine aimed at people who travel a lot or who want a portable machine that is a shadow of their desktop Mac. I could see some very well off Mac users owning the big iMac and a MacBook Air. The MacBook Air is incredibly thin. It's hard to believe a machine with a laptop-like display and keyboard could be any thinner than this and still be usable.

• Time Capsule: This is an interesting extension to the AirPort wireless base station line. Time Capsule is an AirPort Extreme with a 500G or 1T hard disk in it, functioning as Network Attached Storage (NAS).

  My first reaction was, "Bummer. Kathleen just bought me the AirPort Extreme." But then I realized that I would prefer NAS that used RAID 1 or RAID 5 storage anyway. It also costs more than we want to spend on network appliances at this point.



• iPhone 1.1.3 Update: There's some good stuff here. I loaded it on my iPhone already. The cell tower triangulation in the Maps application works pretty well. That feature makes the iPhone version of RinkAtlas viable. Expect an announcement from me on that front soon.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

At The Home Office, the week of gadget craziness continued. On Sunday night my son Jimmy wanted to watch Teletubbies on FiOS Video On Demand before he went to bed. (Kathleen suggested it and Jimmy got excited about the idea, so that was the plan.) Anyway, we brought up the FiOS VOD subsystem on the television in the living room, and a message says that On Demand isn't available at this time. Try back in a few minutes.

Kathleen said that this happened a couple of days ago, and I should put a call in this time. I called Verizon and was walked completely through a testing process and a set top box reboot by an automated voice response system. It said that my set top box would reacquire the program guide and all would be well again in a few minutes. But, if for any reason the problem wasn't resolved, my call and the details of what was done would be noted in my account to expedite the process of speaking with a live support person.

"This is progress," I said to Kathleen.

Thirty minutes later, the program guide and our DVR functions hadn't reappeared. Jimmy was watching a DVD instead. Kathleen wanted me to call Verizon back and get the problem straightened out.

When I made the call, the computer estimated that I would be on hold for 41 minutes. The alternative offered was for the system to call me back in 41 minutes when a support person became available. That would have been too late for me, so I hung up.

The set top box didn't reacquire the guide all day on Monday, so I called support at about 9:00pm. The wait was much more reasonable. It turned out to be under five minutes, although the computer's initial estimate was longer.

I went through a guided reboot of my router and my set top box. Eventually the set top box reacquired the guide, so I ended up being happy that the problem was solved.

A new problem developed with our Local Area Network. Apparently the process Verizon used to reset my router and set top box blew away my router's configuration, including its password. I had to troubleshoot my LAN to determine that the LAN's IP address range changed, then I realized that the password on my router changed. Eventually I realized that the router had just been reset to the default settings. So I reconfigured it to the way the network was before the problems occurred, and now I hope that everything is working once again. (I know that the Internet is working, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this article right now.)

The lessons I learned from this process are:

• Don't use FiOS' automated voice response system to troubleshoot your TV while someone is watching it. You will probably temporarily lose additional services for at least as long as an automated system test takes.
• Document your LAN configuration in case Verizon decides to reset your router to its initial state.
• Keep that LAN configuration at your fingertips when calling Verizon FiOS support even if the call is about TV or telephone.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday I received another sign that it's time to buy a new computer.

The Blogging Workstation that just experienced a power supply failure wouldn't start again. When I pushed the power button, nothing happened.

I pulled the front bezel off of the tower and immediately found that the positive lead on the Front Panel Power Switch had broken off.

This kind of failure drives me nuts. I probably have to keep this machine running for another week to 10 days. By then I should be able to receive my new MacBook Pro, or whatever Mac notebook computer I end up deciding to buy after Steve Jobs' keynote on Tuesday. All I have to do at that point is migrate my iTunes library off of that the Blogging Workstation and on to my new computer, and this machine can be put out to pasture.

The question I had to deal with was: What do I need to do in order to get the machine working again while spending little or no money?

The Blogging Workstation is a PC I built myself from off-the-shelf components. I knew that it's an ATX-style machine because of the research I did before temporarily replacing the power supply. I Googled "atx power switch problem" and found a really useful Flowchart for ATX Power Supply Repair that indicated that the Front Panel Power and Reset switches are the same type of switch. I decided to attempt to substitute the Front Panel Power Switch.

Performing this replacement turned out to be easy because I had kept the ASUS A7N8X-E motherboard documentation. (This is proof that being a pack rat pays off at least one day per year.) I pried the Reset Switch out of its plastic holder in the front bezel, pried the old Power Switch out of its holder, and swapped them. The motherboard diagram showed me which connectors needed to be switched. I closed up the case, hit the new Power Switch, and the machine started right up.

I am really looking forward to knowing what new Apple laptop options are and being able to order my new machine. The experience of the last few days strengthens my resolve to buy a support contract for my next machine (in this case, AppleCare).

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

PVRblog pointed out that Steve Garfield is blogging about the Comcast deployment of TiVo software on their existing Motorola DVR set-top boxes. I found an article on Steve's site that includes a Ustream video tour of the Comcast / TiVo user interface. Overall, the experience looks similar to the TiVo Series I and Series II experiences that I've had in the past, although Steve is complaining in the video about speed and navigation issues.

I'm sure that there are more good articles on Steve's blog (offonatangent.blogspot.com) that talk about other aspects of the Comcast / TiVo experience. I haven't had time to read them yet.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The Washington Post reported that The RIAA is arguing that ripping CDs for personal use on your iPod or other digital music player is illegal. The argument has reportedly been made in a case against Jeffrey Howell from Scottsdale, AZ. According to the article:

The {RIAA's} lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings....

The Howell case was not the first time the industry has argued that making a personal copy from a legally purchased CD is illegal. At the Thomas trial in Minnesota, Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that "when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,' " she said.

The recording industry can't be serious about this. In order to find in favor of the industry in this claim, a court would have to conclude that millions of owners of portable media player and personal computers are going beyond the principles of Fair Use of the digital entertainment that they legally purchased (or as some would insist, "licensed"). [ via The Drudge Report ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Bills return to Buffalo by bus after loss in Cleveland, The Associated Press on ESPN.com: "Mother Nature sure had it in for the Buffalo Bills this weekend."

  "Bad enough that a blizzard contributed to Buffalo's loss at Cleveland on Sunday, ending the team's playoff chances. Then, following an unscheduled overnight stay because of bad weather, the Bills were forced to bus home Monday after their charter plane got stuck in mud off a runway in Cleveland...." [ Thanks Julie Howson ]



• Who's #1? on ESPN.com: ESPN Classic's "Who's Number One" show will be running down the most important technological advances in sports on ESPN Classic, 10:00pm ET, Dec. 19, 2007. This is definitely something I'll have to TiVo if I can't watch it live.


• Why Wireless Isn't Wide Open on BusinessWeek.com: "Even as the wireless industry chants a new gospel about opening mobile-phone networks to outside devices and applications, some of the biggest U.S. carriers are quietly blocking new services that would compete with their own...." [ via Andy Abramson on VoIP Watch ]


• Canadian surprised by $85,000 cell bill on SeattleTimes.NWsource.com: "Piotr Staniaszek normally pays $147 a month for his cell phone. So he was more than a little surprised to learn his November bill had ballooned to $59,000. And then it got worse. When he called to inquire about the high figure, he was told that his bill this month was $83,000." [ Thanks Martin O'Donnell ]



• Verizon FiOS with only a Apple Airport Extreme {sic} on Elecktronkind.org: Excellent article on the things you need to do to replace the ActionTec router that Verizon provides to most FiOS users with an Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station. Something we hope to do in The Home Office in Newtown sometime after Christmas.

  One key fact to note from this article: You do need to keep the ActionTec router on the network if you have Verizon's digital cable service that's delivered over FiOS. Hopefully we can turn off the wireless capability of the ActionTec and put the AirPort Extreme Base Station behind it.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A couple of friends of mine asked me to what I thought of the Amazon Kindle at lunch before Thanksgiving. I said that I was aware of it, that reviews and comments from blogs that I read had been more negative than positive, but I would keep my eye out for interesting articles and blog postings. Here are a few of the things I've found:

• Kindle can light up your life by Andy Ihnatko in The Chicago Sun Times: Andy points out that the secret sauce of the Kindle is that EVDO access via Sprint is free and the Kindle has a serviceable web browser. As such he thinks it's worth the $400 cost without regard for its usability as an e-book reader.
• Amazon Kindle: the Web makes Amazon go bad crazy by Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing: Cory Doctorow hates Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. Keep that in mind when you read his comments: "Mark Pilgrim has a great, incisive post about the Amazon Kindle e-reader that sums up almost all of the reasons I won't be buying it -- it spies on you, it has DRM (which means that it has to be designed to prevent you from modding it, lest you mod it to remove the DRM), it prevents you from selling or lending your books, and the terms of service are nearly as abusive as the Amazon Unbox terms (and worse than the thoroughly dumb-ass Amazon MP3 terms)...."

These comments are pretty much polar opposites of each other, with every other review falling somewhere in between.

My friends also suggested that I discuss another e-book reader called the Iliad from iRex Technologies. More on that product later.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathleen and I are both Treo 650 users, and we often need access to each other's calendars so we can see whether we can plan another event for a day in the near future. As good as the Palm Calendar is, it has never been able to show another person's appointments as well as your own.

I realized a long time ago that the solution to this problem might be something like Google Calendar, but the problem was that I couldn't figure out how to keep a Palm Calendar in sync with a Google Calendar.

This week I solved the problem with GooSync from a British firm called Toffa. Toffa makes a whole line of application synchronization products such as SyncWise Entrerprise for mobile devices that need to sync to a Novell GroupWise environement, so they aren't novices in building synchronization tools.

The key features of GooSync are that it works with so many handheld devices, and it provides over-the-air synchronization. It works natively with many mobile phones from Nokia, Motorola, LG, Samsung, SonyEricsson, and about six other manufacturers. You can use GooSync with Palm OS and Windows Mobile handhelds as well, but they require small SyncML client applications that are downloadable from the GooSync website.

Engadget Mobile first mentioned GooSync back in November and at that time there were several bugs and issues in the synchronization process that were show-stoppers for some people. Many of these issues have been tracked on the GooSync page on Squidoo and they've been addressed by the GooSync folks.

Alternatives to GooSync are CompanionLink for Google Calendar which costs $29.95 and doesn't appear to sync over-the-air, and GcalSync which is Open Source but requires Java on the handheld at the MIDP 2.0 and JSR 75 level. Lots of phones support that, but GcalSync would probably be slow on the Treo 650 if it worked at all.

GooSync is available for free if you are OK with syncing to a single Google Calendar and only syncing the events that are scheduled within a seven-day window in the past and a 30-day window in the future. If you want multiple calendar support and a 365-day sync window, you need to buy an annual subscription at £19.95. Refer to the GooSync Account Options page for more information.

I think the free GooSync service will be fine for me right now. It will also enable me to use some of my Nokia N-Series handsets more easily, since I will be able to bring my calendar with me as long as I connect to GooSync whenever I switch devices.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Verne Gay of Newsday.com wrote a column called How iTunes saved 'The Office' that I've been meaning to point out. Kathleen has fallen in love with The Office in the past few months, but if there's truth to what Verne Gay is saying, the program wouldn't have lasted on NBC's schedule without strong sell-through on iTunes.

The column quotes Angela Bromstead, President of NBC Universal Television Studio as saying:

I'm not sure that we'd still have the show on the air. The network had only ordered so many episodes, but when it went on iTunes and really started taking off, that gave us another way to see the true potential other than just Nielsen. It just kind of happened at a great time.

The article goes on to point out that expected iTunes success is probably going to save 30 Rock for oblivion.

I guess this indicates that the most effective way to support a niche show that you love is to get an iPod and buy episodes, not to write letters to network management.

Technorati Tags: The Office, 30 Rock, NBC, iTunes

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Martin O'Donnell pointed out that Brier Dudley of The Seattle Times didn't like The Sony PlayStation 3 as much as he would have if it had been less expensive. Dudley wrote:

Don't get me wrong. The PS3 is an amazing machine. I'd love to have one sitting beneath my TV. But not for $500 or $600. That's just too expensive for a game console, even one that incorporates a bleeding-edge Blu-ray disc player.

He goes on to point out that he doesn't think that the PS3 will necessarily make a better downloaded movie player than either the XBox or Apple iTV, the forthcoming set-top box from Apple. Is he going out on a limb by making such a prediction about a product that's only been seen in a Steve Jobs demo?

Technorati Tags: PS3, Xbox, Apple iTV

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier today, Jason Fried of the web application service provider 37 Signals reported that he had noticed an improvement in the responsiveness of the Comcast DVR thanks to the most recent software update pushed by Comcast. According to Fried:

I have a Comcast DVR. It recorded on time, the menus and interface were decent (I prefer TiVo’s UI, but Comcast’s is fine), and it was reliable.

But it was slow. Click fast forward and it felt like there was a 1-2 second delay. Hit stop and wait another 1-2 seconds. Sometimes more. The waiting killed the convenience....

... I just noticed that Comcast updated the software..... Now menus selections are sharp, button clicking is crisp, and things happen when you ask them to happen. The experience is finally satisfying.

I agree with Jason when he says that it's rare that products with significant software components get faster as they mature, even as more features are added. Apparently this is one case where a set-top box has actually improved rather than degraded. And, believe it or not, Comcast is the company responsible for this improvement. Will miracles ever cease?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The New York Times had an interesting article a few days ago on the degree to which the incumbent cable and telephone companies are battling each other for residential customers who are willing to subscribe to "triple-play" service plans. The article talks about the battle between Verizon and Cablevision in the New York Metropolitan Area, and also highlights some of the efforts of Time Warner Cable.

After nearly five years of allowing Verizon and Comcast to split the business in my house, I fired both of them. I use Speakeasy for naked DSL and VoIP and DirecTV for television service. This arrangement is a bit unusual, but it persists because broadband is an office expense and TV is a household expense.

The tipping point for us could come if we decide to upgrade to High Definition TV service. This may happen sometime in the Fall or around the holidays. However, thinking about giving Comcast or Verizon all of my communications services business almost gives me palpitations. I've never seen a billing plan from either company that treated home office warriors with the kind of respect we deserve.

This article implies that the cable companies in America are on a charm offensive driven from the call center part of customer service and backed up by discount introductory pricing. My question is: are the cable companies really improving customer service or are they just making people feel loved when they call to discuss their accounts? [ via VoIP Watch ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the past couple of months I've noticed that my Treo 650 has more and more trouble opening the IMAP Inbox for my main email account. The reason for this is obvious: I'm an email pack rat.

At the height of my madness, I had over 25,000 messages in my main email account's Inbox. I was about as anti-Inbox Zero as you could get.

For the last year, I've read article after article touting the benefits of managing your Inbox and not letting it become a repository of last resort. Sites like 43 Folders and Lifehacker seem to do an article a week (or more) on the subject. But it wasn't until I hit the practical limit of my Treo's ability to manage my Inbox wirelessly that I gave in and started filing and purging.

Before you email me and ask, "What do you mean when you say your Treo had trouble opening your Inbox?", I'll describe the situation. I use Chatter Email, an alternative email client for the PalmOS that excels at managing IMAP accounts. As an IMAP mailbox grows, the mail server takes more time to respond to the initial connection request after you login. Whether you are using wireless access or not, you can tell that the mail client has to sync itself with the mailbox.

As my Inbox approached and surpassed 20,000 messages, the Treo began taking longer and longer to display the most recent messages after Chatter Email was launched. Sometimes it would take 45 minutes or more, which meant that I would leave the office to run some errands and my Treo would still not be in sync with my primary email account when I got back. That's unacceptable-- particularly when most of your friends and family know that you carry a wireless email device.

Little by little I'm reducing the size of my Inbox when I'm at a PC-based email client. I began by creating folders in my IMAP account for messages of lasting value. Folders seem to have a positive effect on Chatter Mail's responsiveness, since its sync time is impacted by the size of the Inbox folder. After that, I started at the oldest messages and started filing or deleting.

My goal is to whittle my Inbox down by about 1,000 messages a week. This is pretty achieveable, since a lot of email I receive is related to the status of things I manage that are connected to the Internet. This includes Linux servers in colocation which often kick out messages to me with the output of cron jobs, but also extends to things like Google Alerts.

Having said that, I've gotten rid of a lot of my Google Alerts for the moment. In the past I've used Google Alerts to monitor news sites for ideas for Operation Gadget articles. As you know, my posting frequency has fallen a lot since my son Jimmy was born in May. If I'm not posting much, I don't need the alerts cluttering my Inbox.

Some people in the Inbox Zero crowd (a philosophy that stresses empty inboxes the way some personal organization consultants stress a clean desk) apply a much more aggressive standard when they make file-versus-delete decisions on old email. I try to keep enough old emails around so I can remember the context of conversations that are important. In other words, I keep most emails I exchange with my family for continuity purposes, even if it means that some of the filed messages are no more than "Hi, how are you?" messages going back and forth. I've got so many other messages that I can delete because they are no longer relevant, the savings will still be huge.

If you administer Linux servers on the Internet as I do, Time Management for System Administrators by Tom Limoncelli has some great recommendations in terms of improving personal productivity. There are a lot of tips about how to manage an email account that I thought was interesting when I first read the book. Now I'm going back and implementing a lot of those ideas.

Hopefully I'll be down to less than 1,000 emails in my Inbox before too long. Then the performance of my Treo should be really snappy again. I hope that I can maintain Inbox management discipline when I get to that point.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You've probably heard by now that Google has announced Google Checkout. Lots of articles have been published about how it is expected to work.

Rumors initially indicated that Google Checkout would be a direct competitor to Paypal. It's clearly not that, at least not yet. Instead it appears to be another implementation of an ecommerce wallet, similar to initiatives attempted by Microsoft, Yahoo! and others over recent years.

There was one analysis of the Google Checkout announcement that stood out for me as a bizarre conclusion on the part of the writer. That was Rafe Needleman's article on the CNET Web 2.0 Blog. Rafe said that Google Checkout is "Amazon's worst nightmare", as if the convenience of saving your credit card billing information and using Amazon 1-Click was a big factor in many of the sales that Amazon.com makes on a daily basis.

If you're still following this logic, Rafe thinks that Google Checkout will cut into Amazon's sales because people who start using Google Checkout will be able to have a 1-Click-like experience with many other ecommerce vendors that Google signs up to participate in their service.

Kathleen and I buy a lot from Amazon.com, and so do many of our friends and family. I don't know anyone who does it solely because of 1-Click. Most people I know think Amazon.com has a big selection, offers reasonable prices, and reliably predicts when you'll "get your stuff".

Am I wrong to think that Rafe is out in left field on this one?

Technorati Tags: Google Checkout, Amazon 1-Click.

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

Nike and Apple team up to create
a running computer that consists of
a pair of shoes, a motion sensor, and
an iPod nano.
[ Photo: Apple Computer, Inc. ]

On my son's birthday, Nike and Apple announced a collaboration that will initially allow a pair of Nike running shoes to talk wirelessly to an iPod nano. Over the long run they hope to expand the product line to include more products that bring fitness and entertainment together.

I would have loved to be there for this announcement because it was held in New York and because Lance Armstrong and elite marathoner Paula Radcliffe participated. I wondered how long it would take for Lance Armstrong's involvement in the New York Marathon to result in a marketing opportunity for one of his long-time sponsors. I guess this is the first.

What's cool about the Nike+iPod Sport Kit is that it will only cost $29. Nike and Apple both have other high margin products to sell you if you like the idea of using your iPod as a running computer.

Converting the nano into a running computer is a radical departure from the approach that Polar and Adidas are taking to equipment integration, and a lot of pretty serious runners could be swayed by it.

Technorati Tags: iPod nano, Nike iPod, running computer, fitness gadgets, Lance Armstrong.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Todd Fryburger reports that he will be at Woody's Gap again this year to watch Stage 4 of the 2006 Ford Tour de Georgia. Stage 4 of the 2006 Tour de Georgia will take place on Friday, April 21, 2006.

Last year Todd provided some great on-the-spot information from Woody's Gap, including the MPEG movie clip that we published in How Bad Was the Weather on Woody's Gap? which shows an intense hail storm.

Todd wrote:

{Many of us} in the Atlanta cycling community plan on sitting atop Woody Gap on Friday to watch / listen as TdG Stage 4 unfolds.

We will be using Cingular EDGE / GPRS service via my cellphone attached to my laptop to receive the web-based updates from http://www.velonews.com/ and http://www.cyclingnews.com/. In addition, we will be monitoring Nexrad weather radar via http://www.wunderground.com/radar/map.asp as well as a few
other sites - do not want to repeat the hailstorm experience of last year. We are using Cingular service as we understand the Verizon does not have broadband coverage that far North. We will use a Wilson omnidirectional
external "trucker" antenna to ensure we have the best bandwidth performance via Cingular - it won't be broadband, but should be sufficient for the text-based race updates provided by these websites.

Read on for additional resources that Todd and his friends will have to follow Stage 4, radio frequencies that Todd thinks will be useful, information about how to get to Woody's Gap, and when to arrive....

Technorati Tags: Tour de Georgia, pro cycling, race radio.

Continue reading "How Pro Cycling Fans Will Watch the 2006 Tour de Georgia at Woody's Gap on April 21" »

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

Yesterday Macworld reported that Coinstar has added iTunes Music Store gift certificates to its Coin-to-Card Program. Under this program, Coinstar counts your loose change and issues you a "eCertificate" which can be redeemed for full credit from their retail partners. If you request cash instead of an eCertificate, Coinstar charges you 8.9 cents on the dollar, which is the fee they charge for providing coin counting services.

My bank offers free coin counting, so I don't need to use Coinstar machines in most cases. However, now that I know Coinstar offers iTunes Music Store and Amazon.com gift certificates at full cash value, I might seek out a Coinstar coin counting machine once in a while.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For years I've been a big Polar heart rate monitor fan. My Polar S-725x rides on the handlebars of my Trek 1500 everyday. But, recently, I've been looking at the Garmin Edge 305HR+ and I really think that it has a lot of potential as an alternative to pure cycling computers like the Polar CS200cad.

The Garmin Edge 305 is a feature-packed device with a large display. It includes a high sensitivity GPS receiver that's supposed to be a huge improvement over the early Garmin Forerunner fitness gadgets, a chest strap-based heart rate monitor, and speed and cadence sensors that you mount on your bike frame.

Garmin Training Center Software, which is their training journal product continues to improve. It's looking more and more like Polar Precision Performance Software plus basic GPS routing. My Garmin fitness gadget is a Forerunner 201, so I didn't get this version of Garmin Training Center with it, but I think I'm going to upgrade so I can do a head-to-head comparison of it with PPP.

I prefer wrist-mountable fitness gadgets because I participate in duathlons and officiate a lot of hockey, but if I were a bike-only athlete, I'd absolutely compare the Garmin Edge products to the Polar CS cycling computers.

Product Options: The Edge 305 is also available in an HRM-only model, the Garmin Edge 305HR, and a speed and cadence-only model, the Garmin Edge 305CAD.

Technorati Tags: Garmin Edge 305, Polar CS200, Garmin Training Center, Polar Precision Performance, fitness gadgets, cycling computers

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)