Here's a follow up to last week's article about Smart cars on the road in the Philadelphia area. The Boston Globe published an article on Tuesday that indicates that many owners of SUVs and pickup trucks in New England are trying to sell their vehicles because of fuel costs.

Near the end of the article the reporter relates the following information, attributed to Herb Chambers, a prominent auto dealer in that part of the country:

At his Mini dealership, Chambers said people have been turning in Chevrolet Suburbans for the tiny British car in recent weeks. He currently has a one-year waiting list for the coveted Smart Car, an 8-foot-8-inch vehicle that gets more than 40 miles per gallon.

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

Yesterday on my way to the Philadelphia Airport to drop off Kathleen, Jimmy, and a couple of other relatives for a weekend trip to Atlanta, I saw two Smart ForTwos on the road in less than an hour.

Smart ForTwos like this one that was seen by
fleur-design in Louisville, KY are
appearing more frequently in the Philadelphia area
too. [ via Flickr ]

I saw one in Newtown coming on to the Newtown Bypass. I saw another headed south on 95 toward Center City before the Franklin Mills Mall area. Neither of these cars were Philly CarShare vehicles.

I'm really surprised at how quickly I'm starting to see these cars popping up around here. We live in a fairly affluent community here in Bucks County, but I don't really consider this area as trend setting as places like Manayunk or Conshohocken, or some other place where more city-oriented people with money live in this area.

I guess the fact that I saw these Smarts is an indication that people with disposable income are reacting to gasoline prices, concluding that the price trend is a long-term phenomenon, and adjusting their capital spending accordingly.

These cars cost as little as $11,600 if you want a completely stripped down model. I would never buy one that's low on features because you don't even get a radio, but you can get something reasonably equipped for under $15,000.

My friend Ramona Morel used to own a Smart. I rode in it in Zürich a few times. I didn't feel unsafe in it on the highway there. I wonder what it would be like to drive one in the USA?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The BlueLounge SpaceStation is a desk organizer for laptop users that acts as a USB hub for all peripheral devices.

BlueLounge SpaceStation [ Photo courtesy of the manufacturer. ]

The photo I've chosen shows the bottom of the SpaceStation. The rubber feet set the SpaceStation 5mm above the surface of the desk. This allows the USB cables to pass underneath the organizer where they can be coiled and connected to the USB hub.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When I bought my MacBook Pro at the end of February, it was one of the first Macs shipped that didn't include the Apple Remote. This meant that I would have to buy one for $30 at the Apple Store or less if I shopped around.

Remote Buddy iPhone Interface: one of the unique features
that sets Remote Buddy apart from other Mac remote
control software.

I decided that I would start using the MacBook Pro and see if I missed the Apple Remote.

Over the past few weeks, I've thought about buying an Apple Remote but not pulled the trigger. I haven't needed to make any Keynote presentations, and I don't use iTunes locally on my Mac enough to make it worthwhile because I use my iPhone so much.

One thing I hadn't counted on was finding a Mac application that made my iPhone into a remote control for my Mac. Remote Buddy provides a framework in which remote control actions for many Mac applications can live. It supports a number of remote control devices including:

• Apple Remote
• iPhone and iPod Touch
• Griffin Airclick
• Nintendo Wii Remote

This makes Remote Buddy quite similar to Salling Clicker, a program that has existed for a long time and has many of the same features.

What makes Remote Buddy different is the mini Ajax-based web application that ships with it. You can install this app on your Mac and use it to present a remote control user interface on a non-jailbroken iPhone. This is a really cool idea if you ask me.

I'm sure that lots of people who use a MacOS X-based computer and an iPhone won't need something like Remote Buddy. However, if you are using your Mac as an automation hub, you may find Remote Buddy very useful.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• How to link Twitter to Facebook - A Twitter Tutorial on AJVayerchuck.com: A concise explanation of how to install the Twitter app within Facebook and allow it to update your Facebook status.
• Clutter War II: Attack of the Giant Baby on 43Folders: "...you might be able to guess where my head is right now. Yep. It’s on clutter, and on what I need to do to get my face back into Peter Walsh’s excellent de-cluttering book as a means for regaining domestic sanity and striding toward the possibility of a life without tripping, piling, or losing what’s left of my sleep-deprived mind."
• Hi-Res YouTube Hacks on O'Reilly Digital Media: A great little article that covers why YouTube rocks for casual video sharing and how to force YouTube playback to the highest resolution possible.
• LCD Scrub cleans those stubborn stains from your screen on TUAW: "While LCD screens aren't nearly as likely to run into image persistence issues as older CRTs, they aren't immune to damage, as developer Daniel Sandler... learned to his dismay a year ago. After his flat-panel got munged by green static overnight, he whipped up a pattern-shifting screensaver to repair the burned-in pixels (based on Apple's recommendation of leaving an all-white image over the affected areas). Whaddaya know, it worked.... "
• Mac 101: Zoom and pan images in Quick Look on TUAW: "Is your laptop not among those that can do Multi-touch? Don't feel badly, you can replicate those great features!" I didn't know you could do zooming and panning in Quick Look.
• Media Center: Roll a Mac Mini Media Center with Leopard on Lifehacker: "We've talked about building a Mac mini media center and other ways to pimp your mini in the past, but blogger Jon Hicks revisits the Mac mini media center with a focus on using it with Leopard and EyeTV (a Mac DVR solution). While Apple TV is doing its best to justify a place in your living room, it still doesn't time-shift television, and many Mac enthusiasts still find that the Mac mini still outdoes Apple's latest media center offering."

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• For the Phinney Family, a Dream and a Challenge on NYTimes.com: This story came out last week, right before Taylor Phinney raced in the Individual Pursuits at the Track Cycling World Championships. Taylor finished eighth. His father, Davis, is a legendary U.S. cycling champ who has struggled with Parkinson's Disease in recent years. This article summarizes their recent struggles and successes.
• ScreenFlow: The Killer Screencasting App on MacTips: "ScreenFlow is the application I've been waiting for on the Mac. I've been using it recently for the MacTips Videos and I love it! It's saves me so much time because I'm able to focus on creating valuable content rather than editing videos."
• Dash’s Car Navigator Gives Smart Directions, if Others Participate, Walt Mossberg on AllThingsD: "As smart as in-car navigation devices are, they could be smarter. They could talk to each other via the Internet and share information on how fast traffic is moving on the roads they have just traveled.... Starting this week, just such a smarter navigation box is hitting the market. Called the Dash Express, this $400 product looks a lot like units from better-known firms... But, unlike any other in-car navigation device I’ve seen, each Dash Express... becomes part of a network, connected to the company via the Internet. "
• Windows XP: Going, going ... gone? on Computerworld: "The approaching death of Windows XP may upset you, but it shouldn't come as a surprise. Microsoft Corp.'s product life-cycle guidelines have foretold the fate of XP since 2001. In fact, Microsoft has been killing off one version of a product as it is replaced with another for years now. But this time around, the approaching demise of XP is getting more attention than, say, the final passing of Windows 2000."
• Coming Soon to a Phone Near You on WSJ.com: This article summarizes forthcoming developments in mobile phone voice control, improved web browsers, enhanced storage, and video sharing. [ Subscription may be required to read this article. ]
• How To Use Nokia’s Sports Tracker as a Photo Tracker on The Gadgets Page: "Ms. Jen was part of Nokia’s Urbanista Diaries Relay, which means they sent her to India to promote the Nokia N82 in all its glory. While on the trip, she realized how well the Sports Tracker (a typically exercise related feature) could be used to track the geo-locations of your photos"
• Note to readers: Today would be my grandfather James M. Lynch, Jr.'s 95th birthday. He died in 1982. He is one of the inspirations for this site, since he bought and tried every important electronic gadget that existed in the 1970s. He owned the first digital watch, desktop calculator, and personal computers I ever saw.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Stuff We Like: The Dave Laptop Stand on Lifehacker: "The Dave (oh Ikea, you and your names!) features adjustable height and angle, and can double as a TV tray or simple end table when you're not computing. If you've been looking for a better way to surf the internet from the comfort of your couch, the $25 Dave might be just the ticket."
• Optimizing File Sharing on Your Home Wi-Fi Network on Web Worker Daily: "A lot of people who have successfully put in a Wi-Fi network neglect to optimize the way files are shared between computers in a home or workgroup. You can choose ways to organize shared files, and ensure that files are shared securely or not visible to other users on your Wi-Fi network very easily...." Good instructions on how to do this whether you have Windows or Macs
• StrechCordz Short Resistance Training Belt on Cool Tools: "The StrechCordz resistance training belt makes expensive, complex, "endless" pools obsolete. At one end of a 4-foot, black rubber tube is a nylon belt with a simple plastic snap-clip that slips around my waist. On the other end is a loop I attach to the deep-end ladder of our modest home pool. That's it... just tether up and start swimming. Swim as hard and fast as you like yet stay in place."
• Cycling Photography Tips: Shooting Head On on Spare Cycles: "Shooting head on is both difficult and easy: difficult in that the rider is moving at you very fast so your margin for error is very little, but easy in that you don't have to move your camera very much at all."
• Easter's early this year. Deal with it. on God Plays Dice: "...the cycle of Easter dates repeat themselves every 5,700,000 years. The cycle of epacts (which encode the date of the full moon) in the Julian calendar repeat every nineteen years. There are two corrections made to the epact, each of which depend only on the century; one repeats (modulo 30, which is what matters) every 120 centuries, the other every 375 centuries, so the air of them repeat every 300,000 years. The days of the week are on a 400-year cycle, which doesn't matter because that's a factor of 300,000. So the Easter cycle has length the least common multiple of 19 and 300,000, which is 5,700,000." [ via Slashdot ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Holy Saturday on Wikipedia: Lots of names exist for the day before Easter. I had no idea that so much thought had been put into this day over the years. Sorry if you consider this a sacrilege.
• Sk*rt: "Digg for Chicks" on How to Change the World (blog.GuyKawasaki.com): "I love Sk*rt. You can think of it as "Digg for chicks" (in the words of QueenofSpain), and it features the user-selected stories in topic such as Arts & Entertainment, Design & Crafts, Family & Parenting, and Food & Home."
• View higher quality videos on YouTube on MacOSXhints: "Many people are using a trick to view any YouTube video in high-quality -- simply append &fmt=18 to the end of the URL. This is a job for AppleScript! Here are two simple versions; the first, for for OmniWeb... and the second, for Safari...."
• Lemnis Pharox LED Bulb on CoolTools: "I have been dutifully buying the various LED bulbs being marketed as home incandescent replacements for a year or two. Up until now, all have had that weird, blue flickery LED light, and all have been expensive. The Lemnis Pharox is the first one that actually delivers as a home bulb replacement. It sips electricity pulling down a mere 4 watts, will last for 35 years, and replaces the light of a 40 watt incandescent."
• Adventures in Rechargeable Batteries on CodingHorror: "I've been a rechargeable battery user for years. It seems the frugal thing to do in the long run, and it's also healthier for the planet when we aren't discarding mountains of single-use batteries into landfills." Author Jeff Atwood provides a lot of tips on getting the most out of modern rechargeable batteries. [ via LifeHacker ]
• PimpMySafari.com, recommended by Merlin Mann on MacBreak Weekly. This is the reference site for all plugins and bookmarklets for the Safari web browser.
• First Look: Safari 3.1 adds speed and HTML 5 features on Computerworld: "With the 3.1 release, Safari has become the fastest browser you can use. If that isn't enough reason to make a switch, its strong adherence to Web standards and rapid adoption of new technologies might make you think again."

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I made reference to an article called Reliance Digital to Open 60 iStores Across India yesterday in a Gadget Links post. One thing I noticed, but didn't have time to mention was the cost of a MacBook Air in India:

Among the products offered at iStore is MacBook Air, the world's thinnest notebook computer priced at {99,000 Rupees}.

What I normally do when I see a currency that I can't translate to U.S. Dollars off the top of my head is to submit a Google query. So I Googled "99000 rupees in USD", thinking I would get a fairly accurate conversion. I didn't, so I had to visit a foreign exchange trading website for the approximate value in dollars, which was given as $2483.69.

For some reason I also put "99000 rupees" into Google News and by chance got an article reporting that a four-door electric car called the Tara Tiny has just gone on sale in India for the same price. This is pretty amazing. According to the article:

This car was developed by Tara International, some of the features on the car are pretty basic but come on what do you want for the price a Rolls Royce, the Tara Tiny can seat 2 people and can be recharged daily at 220 volts through 15 amp sockets, a 8 hour charge enables the cars to travel 80 - 100 kilo meters. {sic}

The Tara Tiny looks as incredibly cheap as its price to me, from the photos I've seen. However, I think we should judge the car the same way most of us judged the MacBook Air when it first came out: don't criticize it until you see one up close.

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

Guy Kawaski, Will Mayall, and the rest of the folks at Nononina have built a new topic-based RSS aggregator called Alltop. There idea is to display the latest five stories from thirty or more blogs in each topic area. You can drill down to the topic areas that you are most interested in by using the appropriate subdomain URL. My favorites are:

• Sports
• Gadgets
• Mac

I'm also pretty interested in the Linux topic. I think there could be a market for a Web Development or PHP topic. There's already a Politics topic that probably would be a quick way to catch up on what's going on in the latest news cycle.

I think Alltop is an excellent idea and could be a mobile competitor to Google Reader if they create an iPhone version.

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

• Topeak Mini 6 on CoolTools: "This incredibly compact, bike-oriented multi-tool has five different sizes of Allen wrench plus a Phillips screwdriver head, all of which folds up into a little pod about the size of a walnut. Sometimes I'll carry it in my pocket or toss it in shoulder bag; mostly I keep it in the under-seat pouch of my bike. It really comes in handy for quick adjustments...."
• Tapping Your TiVo's Hidden Talents on The Mossberg Solution in the WSJ: "... like any old friend -- or spouse -- who has been around for a while, TiVo has a few tricks up its sleeve that might surprise longtime users and new owners alike. This column includes just a handful of those tricks and highlights some features that may make TiVo more useful. These tips are for everyday users, not serious hackers, and many others exist."
• 1Password. It’s All I Need…And This Remote. on Apple Phone Show: "If there is anything I love more than software that works, it’s software that helps me save time and having to type on my iPhone’s keyboard. This is especially significant when having to type my uber-strong passwords into a login password field. I’ve been using 1Password since Macworld, and I really find it helpful...."

• iPhone SDK, Apple's Touch Platform, and The Next Two Decades on 37signals Signal versus Noise: "What we saw today {at the iPhone Software Roadmap Event} was the spark. The explosion will continue for twenty years. We will all feel the warmth."

  "What we saw today was the beginning of two-decades of mobile domination by Apple. What Microsoft and Windows was to the desktop, Apple and Touch will be to mobile...."



• Behind the scenes of the old school HBO intro, a video on YouTube noted on 37signals Signal versus Noise: If you have time to watch any of this 11-minute video produced by HBO about the filming of an introductory film clip that HBO used as a lead in to a feature film presentation, you will be amazed at the amount of time put into building scale models of a city, town, and countryside. Yes this was state-of-the art technology in 1982. But think of how differently it would be done today.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The first book I bought to try to get new ideas on how I could better leverage my iPhone as a multimedia Swiss Army Knife was iPhone Fully Loaded by Andy Ihnatko. I have been really impressed by this book because it has some really excellent tips and techniques that go beyond many of the ideas I've seen discussed on iPhone-related blogs and websites.

Andy Ihnatko is a freelance journalist who writes a technology column in The Chicago Sun Times and appears regularly on The Early Show on CBS. He hit my radar screen through his regular gigs on The Apple Phone Show and MacBreak Weekly podcasts. Some of the concepts he discussed on those programs, such as using Smart Playlists to fill your iPhone with a constant amount of music that you like but haven't listened to recently (mentioned previously on Operation Gadget), and using Handbrake to convert chapters of DVDs that you own to clips that are playable on your iPhone, are prominently featured in this book. However, there are a lot more ideas that go far deeper into Mac and PC technology to pull together content that you have access to, package it in a form that's storable on your iPhone or iPod touch, and get it transferred on to your device.

There are also ideas that didn't appeal to me personally, but were interesting to read about from a general knowledge perspective. Andy is a big fan of comic books, so he includes an entire chapter on finding comics on the Internet and transmogrifying for your iPhone. He also talks about extensively about electronics and software that can be used to record radio programs for later playback on your iPhone. I used to listen to a great deal of radio myself, so this is interesting to me, but podcasts have largely replaced my radio listening habit since I got my iPhone, and I can barely keep up with the podcasts that I'm subscribed to now.

There are a number of other good iPhone-related books, such as The iPhone Pocket Guide by Chris Breen of MacWorld Magazine, but few are as jam-packed with ideas for filling your iPhone with content as iPhone Fully Loaded. This book always seems to be sitting near my MacBook Pro, and I think it will stay there for some time.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• RPI Plays Princeton tonight in the 31st Annual Big Red Freakout. RPI needs the win. In other news, the White beat the Red in the Alumni Game 9-8.
• Kipkay's Video Tips & Tricks on Instructables: "Here are 5 easy and cheap tricks for anyone who uses a camcorder. Total cost for all 5 is under $10!" [ via Lifehacker ]
• New Devices and Applications on the Wi-Fi Front on Web Worker Daily: "While many Mac-based users already have next-generation, draft 802.11n Wi-Fi technology in their homes (because they use Apple’s Airport Extreme routers) lots of other folks still use slower 802.11g Wi-Fi. This year is when official certification of 802.11n Wi-Fi is supposed to arrive, and the month of January brought some product announcements that point to what the widespread arrival of 802.11n technology might mean...."
• Review of the Nike Amp+ iPod Control Watch: "... the Amp+ isn't designed to be an all-around running or fitness watch. It's specifically designed for runners who already have the Nike + iPod kit. Similar to the Timex iControl we recently reviewed, the Nike Amp+ is a remote control for your iPod Nano, however unlike the Timex, the Nike Amp+ uses the existing Nike + iPod gadget that plugs into your iPod, so you're actually adding the iPod remote control to the Nike iPod system." [ via TUAW ]
• Crazy Apple Rumors on Hiatus on TUAW: CrazyAppleRumors.com is a site I just found out about recently. It's articles are what you might read in The Onion if they covered Apple more aggressively. Sorry to see it go dark.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier this week MacRumors reported that Apple had released the "Pole Position Remix" game for the iPhone. This is a remake of the classic Namco video game Pole Position that I played more than anyone else as a kid.

The last time I talked about Pole Position on Operation Gadget was three years ago when I picked up a copy of an inexpensive TV game called Namco II: Ms. PacMan and 5 TV Games. I loved that game. I hope that Apple releases "Pole Position Remix" for the iPhone after the iPhone Software Development Kit comes out next month.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:23 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)

The Nike Amp+ Sport Remote Control has finally made it to the market, and iLounge has done a comprehensive review of it. Jeremy Horowitz writes:

It would be an understatement to call Nike’s Amp+ iPod nano Remote ($79) the coolest and most misunderstood iPod accessory introduced in the past year. The bracelet, which is sold in four colors—blue, green with orange, black with red, or black with graphite—is a watch, an iPod remote control, and a fashion statement. Give it a quick glance from a distance and you’d think it’s just an extra-wide Lance Armstrong LiveStrong wristband, but get up close and you begin to realize that Nike has crafted an understated and underpromoted work of design genius....

I think the Amp+ looks incredible. It's the kind of watch that I could see wearing once or twice a week, the same way I tend to wear my Polar S625x to work on days when I'm officiating hockey. I'd like to see the reaction from people in my office when they saw this watch on my wrist.

I wish that Apple and Nike would expand the availability of the Nike+ product stack to iPods other than the nano. How hard could it be to make that happen?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

An article called What This Gadget Can Do Is Up to You really caught my eye today when it appeared on The New York Times website. This article describes the Neuros OSD Media Center, a sleek looking video recorder that looks like it could have quite a few immediate applications. What makes it most unique is the fact that its software is built on a number Open Source applications and the MPEG4 video standard. The article begins as follows:

“HACKERS, welcome! Here are detailed circuit diagrams of our products — modify them as you wish.”

That’s not an announcement you’ll find on the Web sites of most consumer electronics manufacturers, who tend to keep information on the innards of their machines as private as possible.

The Neuros OSD reminds me in some respects of the Nokia N800 and N810 Internet Tablets. These are all devices built on Open Source foundations that take a defiantly different approach to meeting customer needs in their space.

I've started talking about hacking the N800 here on Operation Gadget, and honestly hacking is the big attraction of these devices. I'd probably prefer Apple devices for day-to-day use, but I'd learn more from owning and trying to use a Nokia Internet Tablet and the Neuros video recorder.

Just like my friend Lionel is considering using a Nokia N800 as an alternative e-book reader to an Amazon Kindle, I think some people will be looking hard at a Neuros OSD Media Center as an alternative to an AppleTV.

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

Kathleen gave me an Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station for Christmas. I installed and configured it tonight while we were watching ER on our DVR.

I was impressed with the improvement in the performance of our wireless network that immediately occurred when the AirPort Extreme started working. Configuration of the AirPort Extreme was by far the easiest of any wireless network base station I've ever installed.

I got the impression from articles I read on the Internet that it would be complicated to bridge the FiOS router (an Actiontec MI424WR) with the AirPort Extreme, but it was as simple as:

1. plugging the AirPort Extreme into the FiOS router using a Category 5 cable,
2. letting the FiOS router assign the AirPort Extreme an IP address using DHCP,
3. logging into the FiOS router and shutting off the integrated wireless base station on it.

(Note that I had earlier determined that the Actiontec MI424WR had to stay on the network because it serves as a bridge between coaxial cable and Category 5 cabling in our FiOS installation, and it also acts as a receiver for FiOS TV guide information and FiOS Video On Demand. Therefore, I never attempted to attempt to fully replace the router Verizon gave us, just to beef up the wireless network we're running here in The Home Office.)

I didn't spend much time using Kathleen's MacBook with the new router, but I'm sure they will perform better together than the MacBook did with the wireless network provided by the Actiontec router itself.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I got a Nokia N800 through the Nokia Blogger Relations Program several months ago. I found this device quite interesting, but I never had the opportunity to dig into it as deeply as I had wanted to. I started to think about it again about a week ago, when I was thinking about creating a webcam for our Christmas Tree at my house.

I started Googling around, and I found a three-part series of articles on IBM developerWorks that provide a detailed explanation of how to write your own webcam client for the N800.

Part one is called Developing for the N800 and talks about the environment you need to use to develop a maemo package. Maemo is a Linux-based development platform for Internet tablets such as the N770 and the N800. The article talks extensively about Scratchbox, a cross-compilation toolkit that most people use to make maemo package development easier.

Part two of the tutorial is Accessing the Nokia N800 camera which discusses the maemo Camera API and a multimedia application framework called GStreamer.

By the time I finished reading part two of the tutorial, I began to wonder how the editor of this site could consider this project to be "introductory level". If that's the case, then some of the stuff on this site must be ridiculously complex and/or technical in nature.

The third part of the tutorial is Auto-uploading Nokia N800 photos. This explains in detail how to best extend the on board software and services of the N800 with your own code in order to develop an automated uploading tool. When you combine this with previous code to access the camera and convert images that it outputs into an uploadable format, you end up with a webcam client.

I was really impressed with these articles, and I got a much better understanding of the N800's potential by reading it.

The thing that stopped me from building the webcam application according to the instructions is the prerequisites. I didn't have a machine that had enough free space to build up a Linux virtual machine that would be an appropriate build environment for a maemo package. It would have taken me time to free that space. I may end up waiting to do this until I get my MacBook Pro sometime in January.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Popular Science published an article called What Web Celebs Want where they asked 15 people with popular websites what holiday gift they most wanted this year. They also asked what gift they wanted in the future. Most of the answers regarding future gifts were about products that didn't exist yet.

Here's a summary of the gifts they wanted this year:

• Amazon Kindle: an e-book reader that we've discussed elsewhere on Operation Gadget. This was picked by two of 15 people surveyed.
• Apple iPhone: You mean one of these celebs doesn't already have one?
• Audible.com subscription: Still the best source of downloadable audiobooks.
• Garmin nüvi 350: a cool in-car GPS with a 3.5-inch display. Another person chose a "Top of the line" GPS for use in the car, which is more or less asking for the same thing.
• "High end music server", better than a Squeezebox, but not identified.
• Hypoxico Deluxe Bed Tent: a tent that fits over a bed for physical fitness training or general acclimation to high altitude.
• Lemur Multitouch Control Surface: a flat panel with a GUI to control sequencers, modular synthesizers, virtual instruments, VJ software, 3D animation tools, and light control.
• Marantz PMD-620: a professional handheld recorder for use by reporters and interviewers.
• Mini Cooper Hybrid: A hybrid electric vehicle that's only been built as a proof-of-concept. See the Mini QED article on PMLFlightLink.com.
• Nokia N82, a super Nokia N-series imaging phone that's not available in North America yet.
• Rock Band: a video game similar to Guitar Hero.
• Spectrum Z510: a 3D printer for making models and prototypes of engineered products.
• Tenori-on: a digital musical instrument from Yamaha with a flat-panel display.

The ideas that these celebrities came up with for future holiday gifts are pretty interesting too. I hope to talk about them in the future.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:48 PM | 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)

My wife Kathleen and I got a Jeep Liberty Limited Urban Terrain Stroller at Kathleen's baby shower a few weeks before our son Jimmy was born. Now that Jimmy is over two months old, he can support himself well enough to ride in a stroller built for a large baby or a small child. That's why I assembled the stroller the other night and gave it try on a walk around Newtown.

There are a lot of "nice-to-have" features that some people may feel are overkill, but one the feature I want to call to your attention today is the Music On the Move Parent Tray. This is a set of battery-powered speakers that sits on the frame of the stroller near the handle. It has a headphone connector attached that you can use with your iPod. This is a much better idea for using your iPod while strolling than simply plugging the ear buds into your ears.

Thanks to the Music on the Move System, we're able to listen to music and still hear Jimmy without any difficulty. He likes music, so the speakers are even more handy. Finally, we're more likely to hear vehicles approaching us if we use the Music on the Move System than if we use a set of headphones.

We put the Jeep Liberty Limited Urban Terrain Stroller on our baby registry mainly because it was Jeep branded. Our friends thought this was cute because I drive a Jeep and now Jimmy has a Jeep stroller as well. But the thing that sets this mid-sized stroller apart from its many competitors is the built-in speaker system.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've got a five year old Linux server in the basement at the Home Office. It was state-of-the-art before 9/11:

• Built by one of the biggest Linux-hardware companies of the early days: VALinux (now called VA Software).
• Big disk capacity: 72 Gigabytes of SCSI-based hardware RAID. That was great five years ago.
• 2U case

A copy of every disk file that Kathleen, Jimmy, and I can't afford to lose is stored there. This machine is probably way past its MTBF on a number of components, so I need to consider my options and figure out my budget.

The thought occurred to me to rebuild the server to 2006 standards by buying individual components and integrating them on the basement workbench. This would mean I would build another 2U server, probably with SATA RAID this time. That's an option I'm willing to consider for certain applications, but it's probably not a good idea for the file vault.

A better option is a 1-Terabyte Network Attached Storage appliance like the Infrant ReadyNAS RN600-1000. You can have about 630 Gigabytes of RAID 5 storage up and running with one of these servers in practically no time. The price is also reasonable, considering you are getting four 250 GB Seagate SATA drives in a well-designed enclosure with gigabit Ethernet with large data frame support, and some pretty intelligent NAS software.

Some of the comments on the ReadyNAS RN600-1000 at Amazon.com are worth reading also:

• From Philip Greenspun of Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing: "... It took about fifteen minutes to plug in and set up the Infrant. My Windows XP desktop machine automatically recognized the newly available shared folders served by the Infrant. The Infrant is very quiet (Net wisdom is that this is quieter than the competitive Buffalo NAS), producing about 10 percent as much noise as the desktop PC, which was custom-assembled supposedly as a 'silent PC'.

  "I use the Infrant as the core of a whole-house music system. When the Windows machine needs to be rebooted or is suffering a 100 percent CPU load doing photo processing the Sonos music boxes just pull the MP3 files directly from the Infrant...."

• Another person commented: "Unlike a lot of the low-end NAS boxes, this one is designed and supported in the USA and it shows. The designed-in-Asia NAS boxes have much more cryptic interfaces, less elegant firmware, fewer features and marginal documentation."

A 600 GB file vault ought to do fine for our house for at least five more years. I think we could do a lot worse than to buy either the Infrant ReadyNAS RN600-1000 or the Buffalo HD-H1.OTGL/R5 TeraStation. Hopefully I'll find the money to make this purchase in the next month or so.

Technorati Tags: ReadyNAS RN600-1000, Buffalo TeraStation.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day, my brother Scott Aiello tipped me off to a device that can be used as a convenient one-stop place to charge all of your handheld devices. It's called the Personal Electronics Power Station and it's available from several vendors on Amazon.com.

The Personal Electronics Power Station is an outlet strip with a special housing that allows you to clamp your handheld devices to its body using adjustible dividers. The body has an internal space where the plug ends of your handhelds' charging cables go. When not in use, the Personal Electronics Powerstation sits on top of a table or a bookshelf with your charging cables neatly organized.

Some of the comments I've read about this unit say that the internal plugs for the charging cables are two-pronged only and that adapters won't fit inside. That's a fair point, so watch out for that. Another common complaint is that the Personal Electronics Power Station doesn't support USB. How many of your handhelds charge only through USB connections? I can't think of any of my devices that have this problem.

Technorati Tags: Personal Electronics Power Station, electronic gadgets.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Brad Feld's Treadputer: Venture capitalist
Brad Feld added a 3.2-GHz IBM ThinkCentre
to his Vision Fitness T9450HRT Treadmill.
This lets him get his runs in while he's on
conference calls. [ Photo: Brad Feld ].

Brad Feld is a managing director at Mobius Venture Capital based in Boulder, Colorado. He challenges himself by running marathons, and has set a goal of running a marathon in every state in the nation within the next 10 years.

Around the beginning of the year he and his coworkers built a "treadputer", a fitness club-quality treadmill with a big, fast