Technology Archives (47 posts)

More Relief On The Go

Who is writing the copy for the new Samsung GALAXY Tab website?

I thought the headlines were a little awkward to read. After a run through the site I discovered that most of the copy is unintentionally funny. Somebody did a very poor job in the translation department.

I can’t believe that a corporate giant like Samsung would release with headlines like:

• HAVE YOU EVER HEARD THAT FLASH IS PLAYED ON THE FULL WEB BROWSING PAGE?
• DO YOU HAVE TO CONTACT WITH THE COLLEAGUE FOR THE URGENT WORK DURING A COSY TIME?
• DO YOU WANT TO GET VARIOUS CONTENTS FROM BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES AT A TIME?

I half expected to see ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US buried in the copy as a joke. Sadly, this is the real deal. i wonder how long it will take them to figure out how embarrassingly bad their site is? If Apple’s agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day ever released something like this they would be fired in a second.

Don’t forget. GALAXY Tab give you “More smiles on the go.” Visit Samsung GALAXY Tab for more smiles.

Posted in Technology at 5:43 PM | Comments (0)

Radio Canada

Science + Sons is working on a new product called Radio Canada. For listeners of CBC Radio 1 and CBC Radio 2, this is the ultimate radio in a beautifully designed enclosure of maple and aluminum.

I saw a prototype of this radio at the Interior Design Show in Toronto and would love to have one of these radios sitting on my desk. You won’t be able to purchase one until October 2010. Check the Science + Sons website for more details.

Posted in Technology at 4:39 PM | Comments (0)

Boycott Rogers!

Anyone that is a regular reader of this site knows that I’ve written a few posts about Rogers Internet service. I just came across Boycott Rogers!, a website where unhappy Rogers customers can commiserate and share horror stories. You’ll find information on customer service nightmares, public cancellations and help with canceling your Rogers contracts.

Posted in Technology and Web at 7:51 PM | Comments (1)

Windows 7 Is Great

I’ve been reading a lot of the press around Windows 7 and every article seems to say the same thing - Windows 7 is great because it works better and faster than Vista.

Yesterday Steve Ballmer was in Toronto and said that “Vista was not a mistake. Vista was controversial”. Steve, Vista was an abysmal failure! Softchoice did a sampling of 450,000 corporate PCs and found that only 3 per cent of them were running Vista. That doesn’t sound like success.

I’m sure that Windows 7 is a huge improvement over Vista and a good wake up call for Microsoft. Windows 7 has undergone massive beta-testing involving 8 million testers, something Microsoft should have done with Vista. You can’t expect people to purchase beta software that is slow and plagued with problems.

I’m still running XP on my Dell and have no intention of changing that. My machine may meet the minimum system requirements for Windows 7 but I know and you know that it will run like an old man in a pit of quicksand.

Posted in Technology at 12:21 PM | Comments (0)

10/GUI Doesn’t Reinvent Desktop Human-computer Interaction

There has been some buzz around R. Clayton Miller’s 10/GUI - a proposal to reinvent desktop human-computer interaction. The 10/GUI concept video is very slick and a lot of the ideas make sense.

About halfway through the video I realized why Miller’s concept isn’t revolutionary or very inventive. Most of the “revolutionary” user interface ideas in 10/GUI are really Apple interface ideas or technologies.

Pinching and zooming? That isn’t new. We’ve had this on the iPhone for a couple of years now!

Using your hand to touch a screen or a pad instead of using a mouse? Apple’s laptops have been using Multi-Touch trackpads for quite some time. It’s not a stretch to think that Apple will come out with a larger version that can accommodate two handed gestures as Miller suggests.

Did I mention that 10/GUI looks like a larger version of the iPhone OS with a few embellishments? The process of switching programs in 10/GUI is almost identical to sliding from one app screen to another on your iPhone. Hardly innovative.

R. Clayton Miller made a really slick 10/GUI video but I don’t find it to be very inventive or revolutionary. Apple has been slowly integrating touch technologies into its products and software for several years. Rumours about an Apple Touch Pad computer abound.

If any one company is going to reinvent the desktop it would be Apple.

Posted in Technology at 4:19 PM | Comments (0)

Great Overview of Smartphone Industry at BBC

The BBC explains why smartphones are not suffering in the recession and how they are becoming the new computing platform for many of us.

Smartphones are really the personal computers of the not too distant future. I’ve talked to a few people that don’t bother taking their laptops on business trips any more. They take their iPhone’s instead.

Depending on the type of business that you do you can get away with this. I don’t do any designing or coding on my iPhone, yet. If you want, the iPhone is a great way to stay connected with clients and remain online when you’re out of the office. It has been years since anyone got excited about computing platforms and smartphones are the beginning of a huge shift in computing and communication.

Think of all the things that an iPhone or a BlackBerry can do right now. Imagine the crazy apps that these phones, or should I say computers will be able to do in a few years.

Posted in Technology and iPhone at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)

Interesting TED Talks

If you’ve never heard of TED then you’re missing out on some of the best entertainment and learning that isn’t on TV. TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.

All around the globe there are TED conferences where some of the world’s most fascinating people are given 18 minutes to share what’s on their minds. Below is a sampling of some TED talks that I’ve recently watched and bookmarked.

Taryn Simon photographs secret sites

Taryn Simon’s large format photographs reveal parts of America that most people will never see such as the JFK Airport quarantine area, artwork at CIA headquarters and a research facility with 75 cadavers on a 6 acre plot of land. The second part of Simon’s talk is a series of portraits. Each photo features a wrongly accused death-row inmate that was mistakenly identified in a line-up photo.

Kevin Kelly on the next 5,000 days of the web

Once the exec editor at WIRED magazine, Kevin Kelly likes to talk about “cool tools”. His discussion about the web as The Cloud and a single machine is insightful and fascinating. Find out more by watching his talk at TED. (Thanks to Karen for this link).

John Lloyd inventories the invisible

This is one of the funnier TED talks that you will see. John Lloyd entertains with a series of questions and clever observations about things unseen. (Link via Daring Fireball)

Nicholas Negroponte, in 1984, makes 5 predictions

One of the more interesting predictions that Negroponte makes is “that fingers are a very, very high-resolution input medium.” for a computing interface. Can you say iPhone?

Chris Jordan pictures some shocking stats

Chris Jordan uses his large-format photography to help us visualize some of the shocking statistics that we live with each day.

Posted in Observations and Photography and Technology at 9:47 PM | Comments (0)

Why Did Bell Double The Modem Lease On Their High Speed Service?

My monthly bills from Bell Canada have been increasing steadily yet I haven’t added any new services. The biggest change was with my Internet services. Back in March I was paying $45.95/month for unlimited DSL service and $2.00/month for a modem lease.

This month my modem lease has almost doubled to $3.95/month. I still have the same modem. The speed of my service hasn’t increased. So how does Bell get away with doubling the rental of a modem?

I called Bell and they gave me a lame explanation about upgrades to infrastructure to maintain the same quality of service and yadda, yadda, yadda. That has nothing to do with rental of a cheap little modem so I asked the customer care specialist why the Bell High Speed service part of my bill didn’t increase instead. How can I be charged more for a modem that has sat in my house for two years and not been replaced?

No answer.

I told the customer care specialist that I was going to buy a modem and return the one I was leasing. Why would I want go from paying $24/year to $47.40/year for a modem lease? I’m sure I can find a modem at Tiger Direct or a computer store on College Street for less than $50.

To my surprise, the customer could care less specialist said that Bell would still have to charge me $3.95/month for a modem lease with my Internet service! If Bell had buried this service increase in the Bell High Speed portion of my bill I would probably let it go.

I’m going to file a complaint with the CRTC and find out if anyone else has dumped their modem lease successfully.

Posted in Technology at 9:42 AM | Comments (1)

Free HDTV in Toronto

The antenna is making a comeback in Toronto. People are buying a antenna’s to pick up free HDTV signals from Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo. In some cases you may need to buy some coaxial cable and an HDTV tuner but that’s nothing compared to what it costs to watch HDTV on cable and satellite these days. To

I use Bell ExpressVu to get my HDTV programming. Last month my bill jumped from $85 to $90 per month. No explanation given. I guess Bell’s profits are down.

The satellite bill is a business write-off for me but I can’t believe that I pay that much to watch television. When I was a kid we watched TV for free. We had an antenna on our roof that was hooked up to a dial on the top of the TV set. The dial was hooked up to a small motor that could rotate the antenna and improve your reception.

I download the shows that I miss (don’t have a PVR) and hardly watch any of the movie channels I pay for. I bet that I could buy all of the TV shows I actually watch, from iTunes, and I would be paying far less thatn $90 a month. Television is going to change a lot in the next couple of years. No wonder the cable and satellite companies are looking for handouts from the CRTC.

The only thing keeping me tied to satellite TV are some of the specialty channels that my wife likes to watch. It’s the only way she can watch the shows that she directs and produces. The consolation is that we can use the satellite bill as a business expense. Still, I hate paying ridiculous amounts of money to an oligopoly like Bell Canada.

See How to get free HDTV at thestar.com for more information.

Posted in Home Theatre and Technology and Television at 12:03 PM | Comments (6)

Is Rogers’ Monthly Usage Allowance Enough Bandwidth?

Three years ago I wrote about Rogers’ bandwidth limit of 60 GB per month and people are still angry and commenting about it.

Rogers refers to bandwidth limits as the nicer sounding usage allowance. But is 60 GB per month enough? It’s 2009 and people are using more bandwidth than ever before.

Usage Allowance is Good

Usage allowance is good for Rogers. Their website makes it sound like imposing bandwidth limits is a good thing for their customers:

To continue to meet your needs for speed, reliability and continuous improvements to the network, each of our service options now includes a usage allowance.

Imposing monthly usage allowances on Internet services lets Rogers charge their customers more money in the form of expensive plans (95 GB per month for $54.95) or usage penalties — if you use more bandwidth than your service plan allows you are billed for the additional bandwidth.

You Don’t Really Need More Than 60 GB Do You?

According to Rogers’ website, with a 60 GB allowance you can:

• download 15 movies
• play online games for 2,000 hours (83 days)
• download 15,400 songs

If 60 GB of bandwidth isn’t enough you can upgrade to a 95 GB allowance plan that allows you to:

• download 24 movies
• play online games for 3,000 hours (133 days)
• download 24,300 songs

It seems like 60 GB would be enough for most people according to Rogers’ research but a quick glance at the comments from my earlier entry indicates that 60 GB isn’t enough bandwidth for a lot of people.

I’ve never gone over my 60 GB limit and I would describe myself as a moderate to heavy web user. I use my home Internet service for my business and I’m online all day long. There are 3 other people in my house that are online at various times and I still haven’t hit the 60 GB limit. Maybe my situation is unique. For all I know I fit the profile of the average Internet user.

If you were to put a limit on your bandwidth, what would it be? Do you use more than 60 GB per month on a regular basis?

Posted in Technology and Web at 4:34 PM | Comments (13)

Online Backup from Backblaze

I am paranoid when it comes to keeping a backup of my computer files.

I backup my files every hour using Apple’s Time Machine software. The backups happen automatically and on a few occasions these backups have saved me a lot of grief.

I use SuperDuper! to make a backup of my Time Machine backups to 1 TB LaCie hard disk (USB 2.0). Sometimes I backup my photos and Client files to DVD and put them on a bookshelf in my office.

I also use SuperDuper! to make a bootable backup of my main hard drive to an external LaCie FireWire drive. This saved my bacon a few months ago when my Mac refused to start.

Backing up my files has saved me days of work and frustration on a number of occasions. If you run a business and you don’t do daily backups then you are a complete fool. It’s only a matter of time until you learn your lesson.

Off-site Backups

I have plenty of backups but most of these are sitting on my desk in front of me. This is a problem that has always bothered me.

What happens if somebody steals my computer? What happens if my house burns down? My backups will be gone and so will my business.

Off-site backups are the answer but they are usually infrequent and a hassle to perform. I know that I need to get another external hard disk and make a backup of my backups and take them to a friend’s house, but I don’t.

Online Backups from Backblaze

Backblaze provides online backups for $5 per month. It works with Mac and PC and you have unlimited storage. One of the best things about Backblaze is that he backups are automatic. Your files get backed up when your computer is idle.

The only problem I have now is that Backblaze only supports Macs with Intel processors. I have an older Power Mac G5. Yet another reason to upgrade my computer this year.

Posted in OS X Software and Technology at 7:00 PM | Comments (0)

Mode Premium Home Recycling Center

Williams-Sonoma has a nifty gadget called the Mode™ Premium Home Recycling Center that compacts your recycling to save space.

We recycle a lot in our household and our recycling bin never seems to have enough room. I could upgrade to a larger size recycling bin at no cost but I live in the city of Toronto where red tape rules. I’ve been trying for 3 months to get a larger bin without any success.

Posted in Technology at 4:47 PM | Comments (0)

Palm Pre

The new Palm Pre looks like a worthy competitor to the iPhone. The hardware stands out from most of the phones I’ve seen. It also has a nicely designed interface, something that Microsoft and Blackberry are sorely lacking. Can’t wait to see a review and a price for this.

Posted in Technology at 12:12 AM | Comments (0)

Benjamin Button and Final Cut Studio

Director David Fincher made The Curious Case of Benjamin Button using a tapeless HD workflow and Final Cut Studio. I love these articles about the filmmaking process.

Posted in Movies and OS X Software and Technology at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)

Clueless HDTV Owners

How is this for scary? Almost 1 in 5 HDTV owners can’t tell the difference between HD and standard definition TV!

According to a recent study by Leichtman Research Group, 18% of HDTV owners were watching standard definition programming when they thought they were watching HD programming. In June of this year, only 45 per cent of HDTV owners knew what Blu-ray was according to a survey by the NPD Group.

I see a lot of people watching stretched standard definition programming on their widescreen HD sets all of the time. To make matters worse I’m guessing that a lot of people aren’t setting up their Blu-ray players properly, myself included.

I was so excited and in such a rush to use my new Blu-ray player this past weekend that I watched half of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull before I realized that I was watching everything in 480i instead of 1080p.

At 480 lines interlaced, things look better than my old DVD player. At 1080 lines progressive, the video looks outstanding!

The default settings on my Sony BDP-S350 Blu-ray player set all video content to widescreen. I was watching Hitchcock’s Sabotage (1936) last night had to muck about the settings to display the movie in its proper aspect ratio of 1.33 : 1. The default settings on the player don’t detect the aspect ratios of video content and will try to display everything in a 16 : 9 ratio that stretches everything.

Posted in Technology at 10:13 PM | Comments (0)

PC Magazine discontinues print edition

Ziff Davis is going to discontinue the print edition of PC Magazine. It will continue to publish online at PCMAG.com. Times are tough for the magazine industry.

I never read PC Magazine but occasionally (once a year) I may pick up MacWorld. Computer magazines are out of date as soon as they hit the stands. You can get more up to date information from their websites which is why we no longer have MacUser, MacWEEK (my favourite), MacAddict, BYTE and Compute!

Posted in Technology at 7:25 PM | Comments (0)

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 is super fast

The spec for USB 3.0 indicates that it will be 10 times faster than USB 2.0 which is currently used in your tortoise-like external hard drive.

At Microsoft/WinHEC 2008 a test was conducted where a 25 GB HD movie file was transferred. Check out this performance comparison:

• USB 1.1: 9.3 hours
• USB 2.0: 13.9 minutes
• USB 3.0: 70 seconds

Now that Apple appears to be dumping FireWire in their laptops, there has been speculation that USB 3.0 might be taking its place. Unfortunately the final spec for USB 3.0 won’t complete until next year. From there it could take another year before we see USB 3.0 in new Macs if at all.

For more information see 25GB in 70 seconds with USB 3.0.

Posted in Technology at 10:23 PM | Comments (0)

Blu-ray Godfather

I wouldn’t rank the Godfather movies as my favourites but I know a few people that absolutely love them. All three movies have been completely restored for a Blu-ray DVD release and they might be worth another look.

Slate magazine has a great piece on Rediscovering Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy on Blu-ray that goes into some detail about the restoration process and why this version of the films will be the best anyone has seen in 30 years.

If you were too young to see the original theatrical release of The Godfather in 1972 then you might be in luck. If you live in New York, LA or Toronto you’ll be able to see the newly restored version this month.

Posted in Technology at 9:43 PM | Comments (1)

HD DVD has lost

HD DVD has lost the format war. There have been reports all over the web that Toshiba is pulling the plug on HD DVD. It will no longer manufacture HD DVD players.

The format war is over according to Ain’t It Cool News, now go buy a Blu-ray DVD player. Thanks to Ryan for the link.

The final nail in the coffin came on Friday when Wal-Mart Stores Inc announced they were dropping support for HD DVD.

Update: Reuters published a confirming that Toshiba will halt production of future HD DVD players. They’re expected to lose hundreds of millions of dollars from their HD DVD efforts.

Sony lost the Betamax/VHS format war in the 80s so winning the Blu-ray/HD DVD format war is a really big deal (not to mention that high-definition DVD will be billion dollar industry). Wired magazine thinks that downloads will kill Blu-ray but that’s just nonsense. Bandwidth isn’t exactly increasing exponentially or getting a lot cheaper. Until that happens, then Blu-ray has nothing to worry about.

Posted in Technology at 2:15 PM | Comments (0)

The Batphone

The Batman Phone inspired by the television series is so, so tempting. It’s a no-dial red desk phone with flashing light.

At $112 USD it seems a little extravagant but think of how cool that would be to have on your desk.

Posted in Technology at 2:42 PM | Comments (0)

5 reasons why I love my Timex Ironman watch

When I was 18 I bought a Timex Ironman watch that worked for over 6 years. Since then I’ve had a number of wristwatches that never seemed to last for more than 2 years — Alfred Sung, Seiko, Fossil, Swatch and others. All of these watches were in the $100 - $200.

Last month, my Rolex (a fake from China) stopped working. It lasted for just over a year. All I wanted for Christmas was a watch that actually works and doesn’t cost $100/year. In my books, a Timex Ironman watch is one of the best watches you can buy.

It may not be the most glamorous watch in the world but I love my Ironman for 5 reasons:

1. it’s proven to actually work for more that 2 years
2. water resistant to 100 metres
3. Indiglo
4. costs less than $100
5. includes a stopwatch, alarm, timer and has dual timezones

I found a review that has a good tip for the dual time zone feature. Keep the time the same for the second time zone but switch to a 24-hour clock view. When you press the START button to view the second time zone you’ll get the 24-hour clock.

If you’re tired of designer wrist watches that only seem to last for two years then I suggest you try an Ironman for a change.

Posted in Observations and Technology at 6:29 PM | Comments (0)

Firewire speed to quadruple

Yesterday the 1394 Trade Association announced that the speed of Firewire will quadruple to 3.2 gigabits per second or (400 MB/second). I like the fact that you won’t need new connectors or cables to take advantage of the faster Firewire drives.

Firewire 800 drives currently transfer data at speeds of 800 megabits (100 MB/second). According to a 1394 Trade Association press release, the new format will also be “fast enough to move even uncompressed HD signals over long distances at much lower cost than solutions such as HDMI.”

Posted in Technology at 1:56 PM | Comments (0)

Is phantom load really a wall wart?

How much electricity is your fridge consuming each month? How much phantom load (idle current, vampire power, wall wart) does your cell phone charger suck out of your wallet each year?

If you leave a cell phone or iPod charger plugged in all the time, it can draw a minute amount of power known as phantom load. Over the course of a year, this wasted power can amount to a lot of wasted money. Or can it? Are sites like TreeHugger wasting our time with these alarmist claims or is there some truth to them?

Here are some facts:

• Home Power magazine found the average American household supports 1.45 kilowatt hours of phantom loads per day
• The US department of Energy states that “75% of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off. This can be avoided by unplugging the appliance or using a power strip.”
• The National Energy Board of Canada notes that there is an “increasing phantom load or standby losses per household. This is the energy used by appliances and electronics when they are turned ‘off’. This demand is usually unknown or not thought of by homeowners, hence ‘phantom’.”

Okay, so our microwaves and DVD players use power when they aren’t actually turned on but how much does this really add up to over the course of a year? Is it really worth getting down on your hands and knees and turning a power bar on and off each time you want to watch Heroes?

According to Ideal Bite, in the average home, “40% of all electricity is used to power home appliances while they’re turned off.” Now, if that is true then the notion of phantom load has my full attention.

Another website, says that, “phantom loads make up approx. 2%-8% of your electric costs.” So who should I believe? I think that there has to be some savings to reducing the amount of phantom power in your home.

I think the only way to really find out how much vampire power exists in your home is to measure it yourself. ThinkGeek sells a device called Kill-A-Watt that can tell you how much power a device is consuming in your home.

For $29.95 USD you can find out how much that 50-inch LCD HDTV costs by the hour, day, week, month, or an entire year. Then you can figure out how long it will take to save $29.95 in electricity to pay for this device. I’m considering getting one to see how much hydro I can save in my home.

As a bonus, all of you home theatre enthusiasts with ‘clean’ Monster Power can find out how clean your power really is. The Kill-A-Watt can monitor the quality of your electric power by displaying voltage, line frequency, and power factor.

Posted in Technology at 7:21 PM | Comments (3)

A Wii shortage of game consoles this Christmas

Nintendo announced that there will be a world-wide shortage of their popular Wii game console this Christmas. Nintendo simply can’t keep up with the demand for its popular console. I feel really lucky to have purchased mine when I did last week.

Posted in Technology at 10:21 PM | Comments (1)

Wii, this is fun

I went to Future Shop to purchase a copy of Ratatouille (2007) on DVD — Pixar’s latest 3D film which is absolutely brilliant. I asked one of the sales people if they had any Nintendo Wii game consoles in stock. I wasn’t looking to purchase a Wii or even expecting the store to have any copies. The Wii is sold out everywhere. They had two systems in stock.

I started to get excited. I looked at my wife like an 8-year-old, half-expecting her head to turn disapprovingly from side to side. She didn’t say anything. Then I told her how difficult it is to get a Wii in North America. It’s outselling the Playstation 3 by a rate of 2-to-1.

The two Wii consoles this store had weren’t even on the shelf yet. They were hidden away in a brown cardboard box, hot off the truck. Another customer heard me inquiring about the Wii and wanted one immediately.

I turned around and quickly grabbed a Wii console out of the cardboard box. I’ve heard stories where people purchase multiple consoles and flip them for a profit. I didn’t want to take a chance. With the Wii console safely in my hands, my 8-year-old son was starting to freak out and so was I.

Before I knew it I was standing at the counter with my little Wii box and a couple of extra game controllers. My son kept making weird noises trying to contain himself but it was hopeless. My wife reminded him that this was an early Christmas present (like he’ll ever remember that on the morning of December 25th).

Once we had the Wii console set up and running I was having a blast. I used to spend days on my Apple II playing Lode Runner, days mapping out games on my brother’s TurboGrafx-16. I worried that I’m going to want to spend days playing on the Wii. I forgot that video games could be this much fun and I was only playing Tennis!

The Wii rocks! The graphics aren’t incredible and it doesn’t have a Blu-Ray disc but the game play is amazing. If you’re lucky enough to get your hands on one then you’ll see what I mean.

I’m afraid my productivity will be taking a dip in the next few weeks.

Posted in Movies and Technology at 10:39 PM | Comments (2)

iPhone available in Canada

Did you know that you can get an iPhone in Canada? For just $129 CDN you can get an iPhone from comwave.

Some of the fantastic features on this iPhone are:

• Phonebook
• Call Logs
• Ring tones
• Vibe
• Calculator
• Alarm
• Calendar

I think the name comwave iPhone is pure genius. I’d love to meet the person that came up with the clever name. I also have a funny feeling that Steve Jobs would love to meet the insanely great marketing department at comwave.

Posted in Technology at 12:03 AM | Comments (2)

Power Strip Management

If you’re office workstation is anything like mine you have a large power strip (power bar) under your desk. From time to time you might find yourself on all fours unplugging a printer so that you can plug in a scanner or an external Firewire drive or a MiniDV camera and so on.

How many times have you looked at the mess of cables below your desk and wondered where each of them go? You probably need ID Pilot Wire Identification Labels to organize the clutter. They’re only available at The Spoon Sisters. I think they’re a great idea.

Posted in Technology at 9:54 AM | Comments (0)

Zune not so Zimple

Everything that I’ve read about Microsoft’s new Zune MP3 player has been less than stellar. The Washing Post has a story complaining that Microsoft’s Zune Only Looks Simple.

Aside from the brown Zune, the player looks nice enough but apparently it isn’t very easy to purchase music for the player. Music subscriptions, Microsoft Points, incompatibilities with other Windows XP music services (Rhapsody, Napster or MSN Music songs) spell trouble for Zune.

Simple sells.

Why create Microsoft Points when we have real dollars and cents? Microsoft is just too big a beast to ‘get it’. Give them some time and I’m sure they’ll figure out ways to take market share from Apple but for the time being, Apple has nothing to worry about.

Posted in Technology at 12:18 AM | Comments (4)

Why you don’t need an extended warranty

Consumer Reports published a story on why you don’t need an extended warranty which is worth looking at. I don’t know how many times I’ve been to Future Shop or Best Buy and the clueless salesperson tried to sell me an extended warranty. If they were allowed, they would try to sell an extended warranty on blank DVDs.

The Consumer Reports story suggests that you consider an extended warranty if you’re purchasing an Apple computer (because they only have a 90 day warranty). Fair enough.

I’ve purchased 9 Apple computers over the years and have had to repair only one — a laptop.

Recently, the hard disk failed in an 3-year-old iBook that my father owns. It seems to be a hard disk failure and shouldn’t be too expensive to repair. Should he have purchased an extended warranty? No. I don’t think it would have been worth it.

Make sure that every electronics purchase you make is put on a credit card that has an extended warranty plan! A friend of mine told me to do this years ago and it paid off.

I purchased a Sony DVD player that stopped working right after the 1 year warranty was up. Because I purchased the DVD player with a VISA card (that doubled the warranty) I was able to make a claim. VISA paid to have my DVD player fixed.

Check to see if your VISA or MasterCard has an extended warranty program. If it doesn’t then get a card that does.

Posted in News and Technology at 11:30 PM | Comments (1)

10 Reasons Why High Definition DVD Formats Have Already Failed

Clint DeBoer at Audioholics.com has a good article outlining 10 Reasons Why High Definition DVD Formats Have Already Failed.

At $30 plus, the new HD DVD titles are way too expensive. The video quality is great but that alone isn’t worth the huge investment in a new hardware that might be obsolete in a few years.

Posted in Technology at 12:30 PM | Comments (1)

iCarta

What is iCarta? Atech Flash Technology describes it as a stereo dock for iPod with bath tissue holder. Basically, it’s a toilet paper holder with a built-in iPod dock and 4 speakers.

If you like to spend a lot of time on the potty (I don’t) then this might make a great gift or a gag for a friend. Then again, maybe you like to take long baths and listen to Kenny G or Michael Bolton. Whatever works for you.

Posted in Technology at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)

Specktone Retro

If you’re looking for a great Father’s Day gift then the Specktone Retro might make someone happy. I love the retro styling.

For the guys out there that think I’m losing my edge, head over to Uncrate—the buyer’s guide for men.

Posted in Technology at 2:33 PM | Comments (0)

More monitor, more productivity

I just came across a NYT article that discusses The Virtues of a Second Screen. My 23“ widescreen display is almost the same as having two monitors but takes up less space. The Times article indicates that the extra screen space will increase your productivity by 20 to 30 percent.

I find that I spend less time moving windows and palettes around in various applications. My display is 1,200 pixels high which means I spend less time scrolling through large documents or the layers palette in Photoshop.

If you’re a graphic designer/webdeveloper/photographer/video editor then do yourself a favour and ‘go wide’ with a widescreen display.

Posted in Technology at 9:41 PM | Comments (1)

1,750 inch HD display

Dolphin Stadium has the world’s largest HD display — 137 feet wide, 50 feet high, 1,750 inches diagonal viewing, 720 lines progressive scanning. Now that is going to look cool. Too bad half the fans will be too drunk to notice (at least that has been my experience in Miami).

I just picked up a 23-inch Apple Cinema HD Display and gorgeous doesn’t begin to describe how it looks. 1920 x 1200 pixels of viewing area.

I don’t know how I did any work in Photoshop before with a 17“ Studio Display. Being able to see your documents at 100% saves a lot of time — no more shuffling windows and palettes around. No more resizing documents. Improved workflow.

Posted in Apple and Technology at 10:21 AM | Comments (2)

50 million lines of code

Today The New York Times asked the question, Windows Is So Slow, but Why? My copy of Windows XP is appallingly slow on my Dell. I’m using a clean install of Windows XP but it still takes forever to launch Internet Explorer or do anything on the system. Yes, I keep it up to date with all of the latest security patches and upgrades. No, i don’t have viruses, adware and spyware bogging things down.

Considering that Vista has “50 million lines of code” and is “more than 40 percent larger than Windows XP”, I’ll have to purchase another Dell just to run it. Whenever it gets released.

It’s been 5 years since Microsoft upgraded its operating system and the next version, Vista keeps getting delayed. How is this possible with all of the brilliant engineers that Microsoft has at their disposal? The Times article says,

In those five years, Apple Computer has turned out four new versions of its Macintosh operating system, beating Microsoft to market with features that will be in Vista, like desktop search, advanced 3-D graphics and “widgets,” an array of small, single-purpose programs like news tickers, traffic reports and weather maps.

It turns out that Windows is just too big. Mac OS X, Linux and Google really do pose a threat to Microsoft, the longer it takes them to release Vista. As Microsoft continues to patch its code and add on to the beast called Windows, Apple is on their third Macintosh operating system (all of them backward compatible). Each new version continues to innovate (and inspire future versions of Windows).

Remember Longhorn? It was a previous version of Windows that Microsoft scrapped in favour of Vista. They should scrap Vista and start from scratch. Why? 50 million lines of code would be my first reason. That must be a nightmare for bug fixes and security vulnerabilities. Stay tuned.

Posted in Technology at 9:18 PM | Comments (3)

32GB Flash drives coming soon

Good bye hard-disk drives. Samsung launched a 32GB Flash-based drive.

This is big deal because Flash drives consume a fraction of the power of regular hard-disks. They’re also a lot faster than regular hard-disks. Because they don’t have any moving parts you can bang them around with worry — great for portable devices.

I can remember paying $1,000 for a 1 GB external hard disk 10 years ago. Amazing.

Posted in Technology at 3:53 PM | Comments (0)

Video review of iPod Hi-Fi Speaker

PC Magazine has a nice video review of the new iPod Hi-Fi Speaker. Using Flash, the video streams quite nicely and played back flawlessly on my clunky old Macintosh G4 at home.

At 480x360 pixels you get a fairly detailed view of how the various iPods plug into the speaker. Nicely done Jim Louderback. I’m looking forward to more video reviews like this.

Posted in Technology at 8:34 PM | Comments (0)

HD DVD Rentals?

NetFlix is now letting members change their account preferences to accept HD DVD rentals for when Blu-ray discs become available, later this year. As far as I know, Zip.ca doesn’t let you do this. yet.

Any early adopters out there that are planning to invest in a Blu-ray DVD player (besides my father) when they come out? I think it will be several years before I bother with a new format (or when the price drops to $200 per player).

Posted in Technology at 10:05 PM | Comments (0)

TuneCenter

Just when you thought you had everything that you could possibly need for you iPod, along comes TuneCenter from Griffin Technology. This “home media center for iPod” comes with a 14 button remote.

TuneCenter looks like an iPod version of Apple’s Front Row software for it’s Macintosh computers. The living room is becoming the next battleground for Apple, Microsoft and Sony.

Posted in Apple and Technology at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)

Pop Wuping

Pop Wuping is a blog about “modern stuff for a mobile lifestyle”.

You’ll absolutely love this site and drool if

• you are a creative professional
• collect really cool gadgets
• own a laptop or an iPod

Posted in Technology and Web at 9:34 PM | Comments (0)

iBelieve

Hmm. If you have an iPod Shuffle around your neck but would prefer a crucifix, then help is on the way. For $12.98 you can convert your Shuffle into a white plastic crucifix. Visit iBelieve for more info.

Posted in Technology at 11:41 AM | Comments (0)

Kill Zone 2 on PS3

Take a look at this trailer for Kill Zone 2 on PS3 and your jaw will drop. This is a camcorder copy of the trailer and it looks unbeliavable.

I might have to find the time to get back into playing video game. It looks like the new PS3 and the XBox 2 are going to make today’s crop of video games look like 1979 all over again. Can’t wait!

Posted in Technology at 2:23 PM | Comments (95)

A Quick Peek at Longhorn

PCMAG.com has some screenshots of Microsoft’s new operating system (due out sometime in the distant future). Is it just me or is Longhorn looking more Mac OS X-like?

Take a look at Internet Explorer screenshot and tell me that it doesn’t look a lot like Safari. The interface is gray, has rounded edges (no drop shadow yet) and notice the search area in the top right.

From a graphic design perspective, the “new look” is pretty unimpressive. I guess Redmond has been spending more time on developing better security at th OS level? What is going to compel existing XP users to shell out for Longhorn anyway?

Posted in Technology at 12:12 AM | Comments (2)

Epson Perfection 1260

The Epson Perfection 1260 scanner is anything but perfection. It is the biggest friggin’ piece of crap that I’ve purchased in a long time.

I picked this scanner up a few months ago to replace an old Umax model. I paid a little extra for the 35 mm slide adapter. The feeder was designed by somebody on crack and produces the worst scans I’ve ever seen. Yes. I’ve ready the bloody manual a dozen times.

The drivers for OS X are the flakiest I’ve ever used. After Previewing a photo I click on Scan and hold my breath. Half the time it scans the image (which takes forever) and the rest of the time it flashes a couple of screens and returns to PhotoShop.

I found that unplugging the power and USB cables sometimes work. I’m just about ready to throw this junk in front of a streetcar on Kingston Road.

Waiting to see those Paris pictures? You may never see them at this rate. This weekend, JAK MEDIA is so buying me a Canon Rebel XT.

Posted in Technology at 4:04 PM | Comments (3)

Rogers Cable To Limit Bandwidth

Rogers Cable is imposing a “combined upload and download bandwidth limit of 60 GB per month.” This goes into effect on March 17, 2005.

One person that I spoke to, was told by Rogers that 60 GB of bandwidth is what the average person might use in a year. Another person I spoke to had his service cut off for a day last fall. He was told that he was in the 1% of users that was abusing the service by downloading excessively.

So what does this mean if you’re a bandwidth hog? It means that you’ll only be able to steal download about 60 Hollywood films each month or 15,000 songs.

Can you really watch 60 films or listen to 15,000 songs in a month? I think Rogers and the other ISPs are probably doing some people a favour by limiting their downloading addiction.

Downloading that much data becomes a full-time job of burning CDs, DVDs, printing cover art, archiving files and making room on your crippled hard drive for the next 60 GB of files. Where do people find the time to actually watch all of those movies and listen to all of that music? What kind of life can you possibly have if you spend all of your spare time in front of the computer or the television?

Related Entries:

Is Rogers’ Monthly Usage Allowance Enough Bandwidth?
Rogers Is Throttling Bittorrent Traffic

Posted in Technology at 10:47 AM | Comments (45)

DVDs are outselling videocasettes for the first time

A story from The Hollywood Reporter in Yahoo News says that DVDs have outsold videocassettes for the first time. A lot of these sales came from studio library titles and not from new sales—good news for anyone looking for their favourite movies to be released on DVD one day.

Sales of DVDs helped push overall revenue for the home video industry up from $13.9 billion in 2000 to $16.8 billion in 2001, topping last year’s theatrical receipts of about $8.1 billion, according to the group.

I had no idea that video sales were such a cash cow for the studios. No wonder we have 3 different DVDs for American Pie and 4 separate versions for Army Of Darkness!

Posted in Technology at 8:51 PM | Comments (0)

CRT vs. LCD displays

I had a friend tell me that flat-screen computer monitors (CRT) were better and had a sharper display than the new crop of LCD displays. I disagreed with him. After reading an article at Wired News, I’d have to say that I still disagree with him.

Perhaps what’s most surprising about the trend is that it’s taken so long to arrive. CRT monitors are bulky, heavy and rely on vacuum tube technology invented in the 19th century. In contrast, LCD’s are light, sleek, energy-efficient and have a sharp picture.

With Apple bundling a 15-inch LCD display in their low-end machines (iMac), I think you’ll see the Dell, HP and others following suit in the next year.

Posted in Technology at 8:48 PM | Comments (2)