ChaCha

Whenever I'm out with friends, we inevitably run into a situation where our conversation is stuck because we can't collectively remember something (or there is an unsolvable debate). For instance:

"You're insane. Val Kilmer has never been in a good movie."
"Wait, he was in that one movie with that guy..."
"That helps."
"No, that guy who can't act."
"That narrows it down. George Clooney? Leonardo DiCaprio? Matthew McConaughey?"
"No, uh... crap... Robert De Niro!"
"Ooookay. So, the only good movie that Val Kilmer has ever been in was with a guy who can't act?"
"Yeah. Crap. What was that movie? Oh, it was Heat. You know, the one with Natalie Portman."
"Natalie Portman was not in Heat!"

Anyway, one of my friends recently pointed me out to a service called ChaCha [chacha.com], which allows you to text a question in, and get an informed answer in return (via texting). They have a page listing a bunch of recent questions [chacha.com] that have been asked.

I don't really understand their business model (i.e. how they intend to generate revenue). It's a free service. I have seen answers that have come back, and they don't include an ad. There are no ads on their website.

I can't wait until the next time my friends and I have one of our debates, and I ask them to hold on for 10 minutes while I laboriously type out a question on my phone to ChaCha. And how long will it take for this service to be widely used by students taking tests?

DriveAssistT

CNN: Software can hold drivers' cell-phone calls

Yet another solution to the problem where every single driver on the road seems to be talking on a cell phone these days, instead of actually paying attention to where they are going... From the article:

"Aegis Mobility, a Canadian software company, announced Monday that it has developed software called DriveAssistT that will detect whether a cell phone is moving at car speeds. When that happens, the software will alert the cellular network, telling it to hold calls and text messages until the drive is over..."

"A study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2006 found that dialing or talking on the phone was the cause in 7 percent of crashes and near-crashes."

Of course, there are all kinds of positive and negative things about this. As currently proposed, DriveAssistT would be an opt-in service -- meaning that the people most often causing the problems probably aren't going to opt in. On the plus side, parents can impose this service on their children.

Lately, it has seemed like a constant problem that people trying to merge onto the highway from on-ramps are completely scewing up all traffic, because a large percentage of them are talking on their phone. So, I am becoming in favor of forcing all cell phone carriers to implement this service, or something similar. If the problem of drivers talking on phones weren't so prevalent, I probably wouldn't be in favor of these kinds of restrictions. The problem is how often it is abused.

And I know that there are all kinds of problems these restrictions would cause (people on trains, buses, or riding as passengers in a car would also be affected). To a large degree, cell phone towers should be able to determine if a person is moving along a rail corridor, so I think that the problem would be restricted to passengers in buses and in cars. It's probably all moot anyway, since legislation forcing these restrictions on the populace would cause an uproar.

Guitar Hero

In yet another example of how I have the best wife ever, Heimlich found a deal on a used Playstation 2 and bought me Guitar Hero as a surprise (yes, I know, we're way behind the times).

Do you remember back when we were kids, and you would try to show a grandparent how to play a video game, and they would look at the game controller like it had the complexity of some alien technology that's been transported back from 100 years in the future? And they would be reluctant to even touch the buttons, because they were so unsure of what was going to happen, that for all they know, hitting the wrong button could launch a nuclear weapon, or kill the dog, or some other unspeakable horror?

I've become that guy.

You should have seen me try to figure out how to get this console game system and miniature guitar to work. There's nothing that can make you feel old like having to ask a 6-year-old neighbor kid to teach you how to hook up something to your TV. Now that I have it working, I spend every night playing the thing, and pretending that I'm Eddie Van Halen in my living room.

...you know, if Eddie Van Halen were a short, metrosexual Asian man with a pink guitar.

Creative Zen Review, Part 7

Previously, I had described some of the experiences I have had with my new Creative Zen [creative.com] portable media player (PMP). This is the 7th and final part of the review.

Here is a list of the previous review portions:

• part 1 - Size and layout
• part 2 - Resume function doesn't work properly
• part 3 - Bookmark function doesn't work properly
• part 4 - Converting video formats for the Zen
• part 5 - Transferring files to the Zen
• part 6 - Volume, music sorting, screen brightness, and battery life

In summary, the device has several great features, and several features that could be improved greatly.

The Good:

• Small size, good layout, attractive
• Buttons are clicky (good feel)
• Device is easy to use, and there is a configurable shortcut button
• USB cable uses standard connections (finding a replacement is easy)
• Great battery life

The Bad:

• Resume function doesn't work properly (see Part 2)
• The way bookmarks are handled could be improved greatly (see Part 3)
• The bundled video converter software is rubbish (see Part 4)
• Comically short bundled USB cable (see Part 5)
• Can't charge device from a computer and listen to audio at the same time (see Part 5)
• Slow rate of transfer between computer and device (see Part 5)
• Screen is unreadable in direct sunlight (see Part 6)
• Music can't be sorted by folder (in my opinion, this problem makes this PMP almost useless for listening to music)
• Documentation is terrible/non-existent

The good news is that most of the drawbacks of the device could be fixed in firmware. So, it is possible that these shortcomings could be addressed, making the device a complete standout in a sea of mediocre media players.

A lot of other reviews I have read have complained about a slow or sluggish interface on the device. I have not seen any evidence of this on my PMP, so I can only assume that sluggishness was a problem with older firmware versions.

So far, the device has been pretty stable. My average usage is probably around 12 hours/day. In the 2 months that I have been using it, I have only had to perform a hardware reset 4 times (almost all occuring during data transfer). The number of required resets is far fewer than with any previous device I have owned.

Creative Zen Review, Part 6

Previously, I had described some of the experiences I have had with my new Creative Zen [creative.com] portable media player (PMP). This is part 6. [Go to part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 7.]

As a device for listening to talk radio or audio books, the Creative Zen does an admirable job. However, as a tool for listening to music, this PMP fails in many areas.

First off, even at the lowest volume setting, the audio is too loud. Fortunately, there is a customizable equalizer that you can use to make it quieter.


The steps between volume levels are also too large.

The next problem is that you can't sort your music by folder. The player only lets you sort by genre, artist, album, etc. This is pretty irritating, and it forces you to have very clean tags on all of your files.

The screen on the player is very good. It's just large enough, and it is fairly bright. Unfortunately, the screen is almost impossible to read in sunlight outdoors, but I haven't had too much difficulty seeing it in the car.

In normal playing mode, the backlight on the screen never turns off. NEVER. The backlight does dim after a configurable delay, but the only way that you can get it to turn completely off is to engage the keypad lock.

I regularly use the PMP for 11 hours between recharging, which is plenty for me. However, when I am worried about battery life, I do engage the keypad lock whenever possible (which turns off the backlight and thus saves power). Your mileage will vary of course, but running with the keypad lock engaged as much as possible seems to at least double the battery life (in my unscientific tests) -- meaning that you should be able to run at least 20 hours between recharging.

As a final note, the fast-forward/rewind does have acceleration (which is a detail left out of most reviews). The acceleration is relatively fast, so it isn't irritating to use. When you are fast-forwarding and rewinding, you do not hear any audio. I wish that you would hear little blips of audio that you are scanning over, which would help to determine when you have fast-forwarded or rewound enough (I have had older MP3 players that did this).

[Go to part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 7.]

Creative Zen Review, Part 5

Previously, I had described some of the experiences I have had with my new Creative Zen [creative.com] portable media player (PMP). This is part 5. [Go to part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 6, part 7.]

With the Creative Zen comes a comically short USB cable:


Is this a joke? Forget about using it with any USB ports on the back of your computer (laptop or otherwise). The good news is that both ends are standard USB connectors, so I already had at least one spare cable lying around that I could use. Both a previous digital camera and a previous MP3 player use those exact same connectors, so I was all set. This cable is both used to transfer data to and from the PMP, and also to recharge it.

When you connect the Creative Zen to a computer, it goes into "Docked Mode" and prepares itself to receive files. In "Docked Mode", it disables the UI on the device itself -- thus preventing you from recharging it and listening to music on it at the same time. If you want to recharge it while listening to it, you will have to plug it into a USB power adapter [amazon.com].

When you plug it into a computer, it will show up as an "other device" in Windows Explorer (see below screenshot), but doesn't get assigned a drive letter. That is annoying to me, because I use custom scripts to transfer data to my MP3 players (which require drive letters) instead of using a UI like Windows Explorer.


Transfers of files to the device are rather slow. I typically copy groups of 50MB files to the PMP. In my unscientific tests, it takes about 100 seconds to transfer just under 500MB to the Creative Zen, averaging about 4.8MB/sec (well under the theoretical max transfer rate of USB, and significantly slower than many of my other devices and older MP3 players).

One last note about data transfers... I have two WinXP SP2 computers. On one computer, I was able to transfer files to and from the Zen without installing any drivers. On the other computer, I did have to install the software suite that comes with the PMP to be able to transfer anything to it. Unlike many other devices, you can't count on being able to plug it into your friend's computer and assume that it will work.

[Go to part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 6, part 7.]

Creative Zen Review, Part 4

Previously, I had described some of the experiences I have had with my new Creative Zen [creative.com] portable media player (PMP). This is part 4. [Go to part 1, part 2, part 3, part 5, part 6, part 7.]

I've had a few chances to watch some videos on the Zen. The screen is just large enough to be able to watch a movie and read the captioning, holding it at about the same distance you would normally hold a book. Unfortunately, the process converting videos could be better. Bundled with the Creative Zen is a program that can be used to convert videos from one format to one that can be played on the Zen. It is pretty self-explanatory -- the program asks you to select a bunch of files, and after you do, you will see the following screen while all of the files are converted:


Click for larger version.
The unfortunate thing about this program is that (in my experience) it takes forever to convert a group of files, and it frequently fails to convert them properly (reporting errors).

So, I have switched to using eRightSoft's SUPER [erightsoft.com] to convert videos for my Zen (scroll to the bottom of the link for the download section). Use the following settings in the screenshot below to correctly convert videos for the Zen:


Click for larger version.
When you drag and drop movie files onto it, they will be added to the queue. Once you hit the "Encode (Active Files)" button, you will be prompted for optimizer settings, in which you should choose the DIVX option (like in the below screenshot).


SUPER converts videos much faster (although I haven't actually measured times), and I have yet to have it report an error.

[Go to part 1, part 2, part 3, part 5, part 6, part 7.]

Creative Zen Review, Part 3

Previously, I had described some of the experiences I have had with my new Creative Zen [creative.com] portable media player (PMP). This is part 3. [Go to part 1, part 2, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7.]

Previously, I had alluded to the bookmarking leaving a lot to be desired. Allow me to explain in more detail. First off, you can set a total of 10 bookmarks at any one time. I really only use one bookmark (overwriting it every time I need to set a new one). The bookmark screen shows the title of the song that each bookmark is set in, along with how far into the song the bookmark was set:


Anyway, let's say that you have told the player to play all of the MP3s in a particular genre or by a certain artist, etc. It will then create a playlist on the fly (as expected):


Then, in the middle of playing a file, you decide that you are going to set a bookmark, intending on coming back later. It turns out that when you use the main menu to select a bookmark to resume from, it will create another playlist on the fly with only the file that contains the bookmark:


What I really would like is the ability to tell the player to load all of the files of a particular genre or from a particular artist, and then tell it to start playing that list from the bookmark that I have set. But I haven't been able to figure out how to do that (and the documentation is TERRIBLE). As a result, whenever I want to resume from a bookmark, I do the following:

1. Load up the list of files that I want to play,
2. Look at the bookmarks screen (which tells me which file and how far into the file the bookmark is set),
3. Make a mental note of where I was,
4. and then manually fast-forward through the file to get to where the bookmark was set.

It really shouldn't be that difficult or user-unfriendly.

[Go to part 1, part 2, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7.]

Creative Zen, Part 2

Previously, I had described some of the experiences I have had with my new Creative Zen [creative.com] portable media player (PMP). This is part 2. [Go to part 1, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7.]

I use my PMP mostly to listen to talk radio. I have my computer record hour long chunks and covert them to MP3s. New ones are constantly being uploaded to my PMP, while the ones I have already listed to are being deleted. So, there is a constant churn of files on the device. I know that a lot of people use theirs to listen to e-books (which I consider to be a very similar usage pattern), but there wasn't a lot of information out there for people who use PMPs like this (most focused on playing music).

Because the files that I listen to are so big, it is important that the resume function on the PMP work properly; that is, when I turn the player on, I want it to start playing at the exact point in the file where I was when I turned it off. Unfortunately, the Creative Zen fails in this regard.

There appear to be two different shutdowns for the Zen. If you turn it off (or allow it to turn itself off after a configurable period of inactivity), and then turn it back on after a few minutes, it will almost instantly come back on (takes about 1 second). It will start up at the "Now Playing" screen, displaying the file information, and it will be exactly at the point in the file where you last left off:


However, if the player stays off for an extended period of time (say, a few hours), then the Zen will really shutdown. When you turn it back on, instead of almost instantly turning on, it will take about 10 seconds to boot up. The duration required for boot up really doesn't bother me. The thing that DOES bother me is that when it starts up and goes to the "Now Playing" screen, it will start at the beginning of the file (see below image). So, if you don't remember where you were (and hadn't remembered to set a bookmark), you're going to have to manually seek through a big file to find your place again.


And unfortunately, the bookmarks and fast-forward/rewind functions leave a lot to be desired (more on this in another segment of the review).

Similarly, if you connect the PMP to your computer to upload files to it, the player will forget where it was and start you off at the beginning of the file again. THIS IS INCREDIBLY ANNOYING. There have been resume functions built into MP3 players for nearly a decade now. There is absolutely no excuse for having not implemented it correctly in this unit. And yes, I am running the latest firmware (version 1.21.01).

[Go to part 1, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7.]

Creative Zen Review, Part 1

Previously, I had mentioned that I was buying a new Portable Media Player (PMP), and that I had basically narrowed it down to the Creative Zen [creative.com]. Well, it has arrived and I have a lot of comments about it. This is part 1 of my review. [Go to part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7.]

There are a plethora of reviews of this device out there. So, I will try to skip the basic stats, which are repeated everywhere. The things that are hard to find reviews are on specifics on the usability of this device. That's why my multi-part review is going to focus on the usability with respect to my specific usage patterns.

First off, I was going from possibly the largest PMP to one of the smallest. Below is the Creative Zen (left) and my old Archos 504 (right):


The Archos unit was really a portable video player that I was using mostly as an MP3 player, whereas the Creative Zen is really an MP3 player that happens to play videos. That works for me, because my highest priority right now is durability. I really only watch videos on my PMP when I travel (which isn't all that often these days). Anyway, the Creative Zen is really about the size of a credit card (but thicker):


It has physical buttons (instead of touchpads or touchscreens that are not great for usability while driving, IMHO). The buttons are also pretty "clicky" -- you definitely know when you have registered a click, both from the tactile feedback and an audible clicking noise -- which many users have complained about, but I actually like.

It does fall flat in many areas. For instance, why doesn't the resume function work properly? More on this later...

[Go to part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7.]

Creative Zen

On Monday, I mentioned that I was looking for a new Portable Media Player (PMP), because my old one had died.

At this point, I am only looking at players that use flash memory, instead of a hard disk (thinking that a unit of this type will last longer under my usage conditions). In this category is the Creative Zen [creative.com]. Also in the category are the iPod Touch, iPod Nano, Zune, SanDisk Sansa Fuze [amazon.com], Sony Walkman [amazon.com], and then a bunch of other offerings that are hardly worth mentioning.

I think that it goes without saying that anything under 8GB is almost useless. The files that I listen to most of the time are an hour in length, and there are a stack of them. And then there is my music collection, which is in the tens of gigs.

I'm not going to buy any sort of iPod. While they may be great for other users, I don't consider the interface good at all. You can't navigate it especially fast, and it is impossible to use without looking at the screen (which means that you can't use it while driving). And then there is the shitty software that you have to use to transfer media to your device (and the shitty file formats that are imposed by the software). I already have my files in a shitty file format; I don't need to give money to a bunch of assholes who are going to force me to convert all of my files to a completely different shitty file format...

Anyway, these factors pretty much narrow it down to only the Creative Zen. Here's a video review of the device:



On the positive side is MTP mode transfers (in other words, it looks like just another USB mass storage device, and no special software is required to transfer music or video files to it). On the negative side, the USB cable is comically short (3"?) and there does not appear to be a way to browse files by folder (ID3 tags only). Ugh.

R.I.P. Archos 504

About 18 months ago, I bought an Archos 504 Portable Media Player (PMP). And I think that it just died.

To be fair, I think that I am an atypical user. It was on about 12 hours a day, every day (on average). And a lot of that time was spent in the car, where it was being subjected to a lot of vibration. I suspected that the built in hard drive wouldn't survive long under all of that abuse. There weren't many PMPs out at the time that were based on solid state disks (flash memory) -- almost every single one that had a reasonable memory capacity was based on a hard disk.

In general, this hasn't been a great year for electronics in our house, with two of our computers (and a bunch of other stuff) biting the dust this year already. But with consumer electronics having such short design cycles and the quality of the electronics out there generally being very poor across the board, we're probably going to have plenty of years like this...

Unfortunately, that means that the long and arduous process of searching for a new PMP is going to start up again. I know that I bored the hell out of a bunch of you guys last time, with all of my whining and complaining how each device on the market didn't satisfy my specifications.


Currently in the lead is the Creative Zen [creative.com]. More later.

Picture of Creative Zen via giik's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Mogo Presenter Mouse

I recently got to use someone's Mogo Presenter Mouse [newtonperipherals.com]:


Now I want one. It's a wireless mouse that stores (and recharges) in a laptop's PC card slot. It has a small kickstand that allows it to sit surprisingly comfortably in the hand when used as a mouse.

They have a two-button version and a scroll-mouse version. The scroll-mouse version (the X54) is designed to be used as a presentation tool (allows you to navigate through a presentation), and it even features an integrated laser pointer.

The Web as your Servant

Recently, I saw a story on USA Today called Next Big Thing: The Web as your Servant [usatoday.com]. The article speculates on a coming wave of gadgets, websites and interconnectivity that will change the way we do things and find entertainment.

"One example... might be a service we'll call Travel Butler, or TB for short... Let's say it's 4 p.m. TB knows you have a flight scheduled for 6 p.m... [and] that you're at a meeting downtown... TB might see that accidents have backed up traffic for miles. It sends you a message, which finds you on your BlackBerry e-mail, saying that to make your flight, you'd have to leave now. TB also shows you an Orbitz listing of later flights."

"You decide to go on a later flight, so you click on the one you want. TB rebooks you, sends an e-mail to your spouse and contacts the car service in your destination city to change the time to pick you up."

This is all well and good, except that I wonder whether I'll ever see this kind of convenience (that actually works properly) in my lifetime.

I mean, right now, we're in a world where it takes longer to connect a Wifi device to a wireless access point (with WEP or WPA security enabled) than it does for the average hacker to figure out what the security key is. We have a bunch of Wifi devices around our house, and every time we get a new one (like our new Vista laptop), it is a huge ordeal to figure out what hoops we have to jump through to actually get it to work.

I'm totally pessimistic on any kind of interconnectivity, when every electronics company has managed to botch the implementation of the most basic type.

Toyota's i-real

Have you guys seen articles [jidpo.or.jp] about Toyota's new concept vehicle, the i-REAL?


How can anyone look at that and NOT think of those fat people in the movie WALL-E [imdb.com]?

For those of you who haven't seen the movie (this isn't really a spoiler), everyone in the future is fat and lazy, and spend all day being transported around on hover chairs so that they never have to actually get up and move around. It looks like all you would have to do is add a TV screen to the i-REAL, and you'd be there.

Oh, by the way, Toyota... Congratulations on taking the "worst car name EVAR" award away from the Subaru B9 Tribeca [edmunds.com], which has been the reigning champion for 4 years now.

Anyway, here is a short description about the i-REAL:

"It is the attainable vision of a seamless movement from room, to pavement, to road. In pedestrian areas, shortening its wheelbase allows it to maneuver naturally among people at eyelevel. And on the road, the wheelbase lengthens to provide a lower center of gravity and more agile driving performance."

Electronic Climate Control

I would like to expose the stupidity of the electronic climate control in cars. This has been a standard feature in luxury cars for some time, and is quickly becoming a standard feature in every other segment.

Ideally, the way that electronic climate control would work is you would set it to 75^o or so, and then leave it there. But that's not how it works. At best, you have to constantly fiddle around with it to maintain a comfortable temperature in the interior of your car. At worse, it takes far longer to fiddle around with it, because it takes several button presses every time you want to adjust the temperature.

How could the car manufacturers think that you will just want to maintain one temperature in the car at all times? The temperature that you will want it at is going to depend on how much sun is coming through the windows, the humidity, how much clothing you are wearing, etc.

Remember the old style A/C controls?


There used to be a knob for the fan control and a knob for temperature control. Adjusting the temperature was quick and easy, because you just had to turn a knob -- something you could easily do while driving without even having to look down from the road.

Here are the A/C controls from my car:


This is actually the best case scenario, because the settings are similar to the older style controls. In the morning, when it's cold, I can easily flip the temperature control to one end of the dial... and in the afternoon, when it's hot, I can flip it to the other end of the dial.

In many cars nowadays, instead of the temperature control being a knob, it is a set of buttons. So, if you want to go from 78^o to 68^o when you get in your car in the afternoon, it takes 10 button presses. And let's not forget that those buttons are harder to find when driving...

And don't forget about the automatic fan control. We have three different cars, all of different makes, and the first thing that I do whenever I turn on the A/C in any of them is turn off the automatic fan control. Why do the car makers think that they will know how to control the fan better than I could? The desired fan speed is going to depend on whether you have passengers in the back, or whether you're wearing sunglasses (higher fan speeds bother my eyes if I'm not wearing sunglasses), etc.

Just give me the old style A/C controls, please...

Picture of older style A/C controls from phoenixdailyphoto's Flickr photostream [flickr.com].

Amazon Kindle

I honestly don't understand why I keep seeing reviews [justinblanton.com] and articles [cnn.com] about the Amazon Kindle, which is a wireless electronic reader (think e-books).

I just don't get it. With the current generation of screens, you just can't stare at them for hours and hours on end (comfortably) like you can with a physical book. You just can't (believe me, I try every day at work). With a physical book, you never have a problem with glare or having a problem with contrast in bright sunlight. With a physical book, you can always flip through a chunk of pages and quickly scan as the pages fly by to re-find a section you want to find -- even with searchable text, an e-book just isn't going to be as convenient (every time I search a big PDF, I want to shoot myself with all of the results that get returned). I could go on and on, but I just don't think that anything today can rival physical books for pleasure reading (although I do think that they will, someday).

There are plenty of other reasons why these types of devices don't appeal to me, though. When I go on trips, I don't mind throwing a book or two in my carryon (or checked luggage). For one thing, I never have to worry about them being shaken or tossed around. I don't have to worry about forgetting the charger. I don't have to worry about it crashing, and leaving me with 5lbs of dead weight to carry around until I get back. And I don't have to worry about anyone trying to steal a physical book from me.

To me, the Amazon Kindle is the digital picture frame [amazon.com] of this year -- despite the hype, I have yet to see anyone buy one, and probably won't for a long time.

Are We Being Watched by Flying Robot Insects?

I keep seeing links to articles written by alarmists. Many speculate about the latest robotics projects DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is currently working on, or whether we're already being watched by flying robot insects [typepad.com].

I suspect that most of us would be horrified if we really knew what was state of the art.

There have been a lot of articles in the press about the latest crop of robotic insects that are being developed (such as the one at the Harvard Microrobotics Lab [harvard.edu], or the one being developed at Berkeley [berkeley.edu]). Here's one of the articles [economist.com] that I was speaking of. Many articles cite the difficulty of generating sufficient lift from flapping wings, or getting the right motion to utilize phenomenons such as wake capture or delayed stall (you can't just flap wing-like things up and down and expect to generate lift).

But most people probably don't know that the problem has already been mostly solved. The CIA's Office of Research and Development created an autonomous flying insect robot that was literally the same size as a dragonfly. It carried its own fuel, and could be directed by a human operator. It was called the "insectothopter", and it was developed in the 1970s. It is now sitting in a display case at CIA headquarters (which I have actually seen). Here is an article [boston.com] that mentions its existence. I wonder what has been done in the 30 years since...

MP3 Player Preset Buttons

One feature I would like to have on my MP3 player are preset buttons.

When you are listening to the radio, you have all of these preset buttons
that you can use to change the channel. That is convenient to have in the
car, because if you get sick of one genre, you can always instantly switch
to another one.

You can't really do that with an MP3 player now, though. Let's say that
I'm driving down the road, and I'm listening to my 80gigs of 80's hair band
music. But for whatever reason, I want to switch over to my collection of
hard-core gangsta rap (queue image of Michael Bolton in Office Space). I
can't really do that without taking my eyes off the road. Some players
have shortcuts that you can customize, but they still are still not in the
same league of usability as the preset buttons on a radio.

Ideally, what I would like to see are dedicated buttons that are totally
customizable. Then I could set it so that when I hit soft button #1, a
particular playlist starts playing in shuffle mode. And no matter what
mode the player is in, when I hit button #2, it starts playing a particular
genre on shuffle. And when I hit button #3, it should start playing a
particular folder in a non-shuffle mode. Having presets would make an MP3
player far easier to use in the car, because you could switch what you are
listening to quickly and easily, with minimal distraction.

Near Space Ballooning

On boingboing [boingboing.net], I saw a link to a near space balloon project, in which a helium balloon was sent up to a 30km altitude with GPS, a camera, etc.


The pictures are quite amazing.

A parachute system was devised in order to recover the equipment. The flight time was a little over two hours, and some simple tools were used to determine the flight trajectory (and to make sure the equipment was not going to land in a body of water).

I love seeing technical challenges like this, and how people choose to solve them.

Keurig Coffee Machine

Ugh. Having problems posting...

--

I recently added a new ridiculous item to my Amazon wishlist. It's a Keurig single-cup coffee machine [amazon.com].


I fell in love with those coffee machines after I had to take my car into a dealer to fix a weird problem years ago. And they had one of those machines in their waiting room. I remember thinking that I would actually drink coffee if I could get cups that tasted that good whenever I wanted.

We have a "normal" coffee machine right now, but it is impractical for many reasons. First off, we each usually only drink one cup at a time (as in, per month). I almost never drink coffee, and when I want a cup, it never coincides when Heimlich also wants one. So, making an entire pot is pointless.

I also think that it is far easier to get a good tasting cup of coffee with our machine when you make an entire pot. So, the only time we use it is when we have guests over, and then we embarrass ourselves by looking like we don't know how to use our own coffee machine.

GE Packaging

I have a bone to pick with the people who designed the packaging for these GE compact florescent light bulbs.


I was looking for a bulb for an exterior light fixture, in which the bulb is partially exposed. So, I picked up some bulbs at the store, and started to read the packaging.

Some of them specifically said that they were for indoor use only, but the one above (which I bought) did not. After I opened the packaging, I read the fine print on the base of the bulb itself, where I found that this one shouldn't be used outside, either.

The thing is that the stupid packaging covers up the fine print on the bulb itself (this is the portion outlined in the red square in the picture). So, even though I probably should have known better, there would have been no way for me to determine from the outside, whether this bulb was appropriate or not.

Laptop Dilemma

Way back in 2003, I bought a Sony PCG-V505AX laptop [pcworld.com]. It's been great -- it's small, light, and is fast enough when booted into Linux.

On the other hand, it's ridiculously slow in comparison to anything on the market now. When I try to run a simulation, I almost can't tell whether it is running reeeeally, really slowly, or whether it has locked up. The video card is so slow that I can't run any games, basically. I used to play Neverwinter Nights [wikipedia.org] on it, and it was a little choppy... as long as there weren't too many other people in the game at the time (at which point the machine was just wholly inadequate).

The battery has aged to the point where I can only run for 10 minutes without having it plugged in. And my wireless card just died (at least, I hope that is what happened, and that it is not a larger problem). Not surprisingly, the lack of wireless isn't a huge deal, since I can't run off of batteries anyway.

So, I'm faced with a dilemma now. I could buy a new one, or I could buy a new battery and wireless adapter for my current machine, and limp it along for another year or two.

The decision is made even more difficult by current laptop prices. If they were any cheaper, I would definitely buy a new one. If they were any more expensive, I would definitely wait. Maybe I'll wait to see if I can score a deal right after Christmas...

Berlin

Heimlich and I are in the beginning stages of planning a European vacation for next year. The primary destination will be Berlin (which we have both been to, but neither of us have been there long enough to see everything that we wanted to see). We are also thinking about hitting other cities on the trip as well, such as Prague. We've already picked up a copy of Let's Go Western Europe [amazon.com].

What we just realized is that there are also podtours that we can download (like these of Berlin [letsgo.com]). They are audio tours that you can download to your MP3 player, and listen as you are wandering around historic sites. Many museums make audio tour headsets available, but those usually aren't available for outdoor sites.

We're definitely going to download those, since we were going to be bringing at least one MP3 player anyway.

Tagging MP3s

One of the things that I love about Flickr is tagging. Let's say that someone happens to take a picture just as I moon them. After they upload that picture to Flickr so that they can scar the eyes of their friends and family, they can attach a bunch of tags which helps to categorize the picture. That way, if someone is looking for a picture of a hairy ass, they can search through all of the pictures that have been tagged as such. Or, if you have gigs and gigs of pictures, the tags make it easier to find the ones you are looking for.

One of the unique things about tagging is that you can attach multiple tags to any picture. So, if you have a picture of my naked ass at an Indians game, you might attach: hairy ass, Cleveland Indians, Jacobs Field, etc.

I wish that I could tag MP3s like that. Right now, I use the genre metadata to organize my gigs and gigs of MP3s. But what if a song or an artist really is in between two genres?


For instance, above are the MP3's that I have from the Cars Soundtrack. Ideally, I would like to have a bunch of those listed under "soundtrack" and "rock". Or "soundtrack" and "country". That way, all of the appropriate tracks would be loaded when I tell my MP3 player to play all of the Country songs that I have stored. And when I switch to playing just Soundtrack songs, it'll play the ones that are appropriate for that list. Instead, I have to choose one or another pigeonhole to put each and every MP3 into.

Binary Watches

Two years ago, Heimlich bought me a binary clock [thinkgeek.com] as a gift (I have the silver one). And I love it, because it is so sleek and modern-looking. (and, let's face it, because it is geeky.)

I actually have a small collection of weird clocks. And I don't know why I like them so much, but I do.

Ever since I got that binary clock, I have wanted a binary watch. Recently, I did a search to see if there were any more on the market, and I was shocked to find that Altivo Timepieces actually make an entire line of binary watches [altivo.com].


However, there are several things that I don't like about these watches. The first is that there are numbers printed next to each LED. The second is that the lights are LEDs that are not always on. Each time you want to check the time, you have to hit a button, and the LEDs will come on. This system is necessary, because having the LEDs on all of the time will drain the batteries too quickly. I suppose that it is too expensive to create a custom display in this size category without using LEDs.

Other than those two details, I think that in general, those are attractive watches.

Archos 504: Long Term Review

A few months ago, I wrote about how I bought an Archos 504 to replace my aging MP3 player. Since then, my experience with it has generally been good. I am still happy with my purchase, and I still use the device a ton.

But as most of you know, I can find a way to complain about anything -- even when I am 99% happy with something (as I probably am in this case). So, here are the nit-picky details:

• The buttons are difficult to distinguish without looking at the player. I need to be able to operate the player while driving, which means that I can't look down at it. Early on, I started putting tape over some of the buttons, so that I could more easily distinguish between them when feeling around (see below picture).
  
  
  The buttons are all on the right edge of the face, and two rocker buttons (so, really 4 buttons total) are covered in tape right now.


• You can't hear anything while fast-forwarding or rewinding (using the regular fast-forward, or the ultra-speedy fast-forward). My old player used to play little blips while you were fast-forwarding, which gave you an indication how much farther you had to go. With this player, you have to fast-forward for a bit, then take your finger off the fast-forward button so that you can hear where you are, then fast-forward more, etc.


• The button presses don't always register. If you hit a button to skip to the next track, for instance, there will be a split second where the player is devoting all of its resources to loading the new track. If, during that split second, you hit a button, that button press won't actually get registered. It would be nice if they could fix that, because skipping several tracks in a row takes too long now.


• The player occasionally locks up. I would say that on average, this occurs about once every 100 hours that I use the player (so, not very often). But it is annoying, and I can't figure out what triggers it.

Again, though, I'm really nit-picking. Generally, I am very happy with the player. And on my trip to Europe in March, I watched tons of movies on it while I was riding on trains and buses and planes, etc.

Canon S2 IS

A little over a year and a half ago, I bought a Canon S2 IS digital camera [imaging-resource.com].

Generally, I have been very happy with the camera. It has a 12x optical zoom, along with image stabilization, which is necessary with that kind of zoom. And I use both all of the time.

One of the problems that crops up every once in a while (like it did when I was taking pictures of my fish for Monday's post), is that it is very difficult to use the camera to shoot close up. In autofocus mode, the camera just won't focus properly (the lens is capable of focusing, but the camera doesn't adjust it properly). And it is very difficult to manually focus the lens on a screen that small (at least, not quickly).

Actually, when I shot the pictures for my review of the Archos 504, I set up the target at one end of the room, and put the camera on a tripod on the other end of the room. And then I used the ridiculous zoom capability of the camera to get those close-up views. It's not really practical, unless you know the subject will be stationary for a long time.

Now, I am debating about buying a macro lens [amazon.com] (along with the lens adapter [amazon.com] that I'll need to mount it). Not easily being able to shoot close up has prevented me from participating in a few photography projects over the past year. It has also stopped me from setting up my own home macro stage, which is something that I've always wanted to do.

I'm still thinking about it, because it would be a relatively expensive purchase. But I think that I'll have this camera for a few more years, so I think I'd get my money's worth out of it.

Archos 504 Review, Part 3

Previously (Part 1 and Part 2), I had posted parts of a review of my new Archos 504 [archos.com] personal media player (PMP). This is the third and final portion of the review.


Transferring mp3s, video, or pictures to the device couldn't be easier. Just hook up the included data cable to the port on the bottom of the unit (see above), and plug the other end into a USB port on your computer.


You will then be prompted by a menu, asking you what mode you want to transfer data to it (or if you just want to charge the device). You can change the default option on this menu, but you will still have to confirm every time you connect it (which is kind of annoying, but I understand why). If you choose "PC Hard Drive mode" or "Windows Media Device mode", you will not be able to use the controls on the player itself until you disconnect the unit.


If you choose "PC Hard Drive mode" (which is what I always do), it'll show up as a drive in Windows Explorer, just like a USB stick would (see above image). There are separate directories for music, pictures, and movies, and you can create subdirectories in any of those. To transfer, you can just copy files to it, with whatever technique you usually use to copy files. When you disconnect the player from the computer, it will scan for new files and add them to the appropriate playlist. That's it! No special software needed. No drivers to install in WinXP. And it should work on anyone else's computer, and in any OS that supports Mass Storage Class devices (WinXP, OS X, Linux, etc).

Playing a video is almost identical to playing music, so I won't overload this review with specifics.


The photo browser is pretty nice. Thumbnails are displayed, and as you navigate through them, the one selected will be displayed larger than the others (see above image). You can choose to display them in a slideshow mode, or show them individually.


Once you are displaying a particular picture, you can hit the Menu button which will give you several options. You can zoom in, rotate, set the picture as your wallpaper, start a slideshow, etc. The screen is very bright, so in general, it is very easy for people to see detail in pictures.

Navigation through the photo browser (or any other menu, for that matter) is very quick, and there are seldom any slowdowns in navigation.

Overall, it is a very good unit. About the only things you could really complain about are the accessories, which are either not included or are not available. I've been happy with it so far, and are not bothered by its size.

Archos 504 Review, Part 2

On Monday, I posted Part 1 of my review of the Archos 504 [archos.com] personal media player (PMP). This is Part 2. [Go to Part 3.]

I primarily wanted a device to replace my MP3 player, with additional function as a video player, etc. So, the most important features to me were the ones related to music.


In the above image, you can see the default screen that is displayed when playing music. It tells you the previous track that was playing, the song title, artist and genre of the current track, how many tracks are in the current playlist, and the next track that will be played. Along the bottom, meters tell you progress through the current track, and volume level.


Each button on the front of the player is actually two buttons. If you push the left part of the button, it performs one function, and if you push the right part of the button, it performs a different function. From top to bottom, in the music mode, the functions are:

1. (left) 30 second forward skip, (right) increase volume
2. (left) skip to previous track/rewind, (right) skip to next track/fast-forward
3. (left) 30 second backwards skip, (right) decrease volume
4. (left) stop, (right) play/pause
5. (left) switch to alternate screen, (right) display menu

Each button has a great tactile feel when you push it -- you definitely know if it was pushed or not (lack of tactile feedback with the click-wheel is one thing I really don't like about iPod). The buttons do feel a little different, but it is very difficult to easily figure out what button you have your finger on without looking at the player.

Immediately below button 5 is an external speaker. The speaker is weak, as a lot of reviewers have complained about. But it's better than nothing.

The different fast-forward/rewind buttons are what really sold me on this line of PMPs. The 30-second-forward-skip button reminds me of a Tivo. It allows an almost instant skip 30 seconds forward into the file (which is convenient for skipping over commercials). If you hold down the 30-second-forward-skip button, you can really fly through a long mp3. There is also a "normal" fast-forward button, which advances slower, with more precision. One thing I liked about my Rio Karma is that when you fast-forwarded, you would hear little blips from the file you were playing, which allowed you to know when you had fast-forwarded enough. With the Archos 504, you don't get any audio output when fast-forwarding or rewinding. That forces you to look at the display (not practical when driving), or to just hit the 30-second-skip button a bunch of times, instead of holding it down. I wish they would fix that.


The browser (see above image) is adequate. You can sort by genre, etc. If you tell it to play a bunch of files that are stored in a directory, and then you upload more files into that directory, the new files will automatically be added to the playlist (this is one feature that I wish my Rio Karma had). Unlike many players on the market right now, you can play music while you are browsing through a list of videos, displaying pictures, or browsing through a list of mp3s.


When you are playing music, if you hit the menu button, a menu appears on the right (see above image). You can set bookmarks (this works in video mode, too), rate your music (which you can later use to sort music and make playlists), etc.


The Settings option (see above image) in the menu allows you to toggle shuffle and repeat modes.


The Sound option (see above image) in the menu allows you to adjust the bass boost, graphic equalizer (either manually, or by choosing presets), and adjust the balance.

The layout and navigation are pretty good. After the first two days, I no longer had to search around to remember how to get to a particular option.

The little icons around the border of the screen are pretty much always visible, no matter where you navigate to. They tell you whether there are other screens available, options that you can select by hitting the Menu button, the volume, the battery level, etc.

Go to Part 3.

Archos 504 Review, Part 1

Last week, I mentioned just receiving an Archos 504 [archos.com] personal media player (PMP). This is Part 1 of the review of the device. [Go to Part 2 or Part 3.]

When you receive the device, you get the player, a data cable (which doubles as the charger), a set of headphones, and a half-decent case.


A lot of people have written reviews complaining about the lack of accesories that come with the device. For instance, you don't get an A/C adapter. To charge it, you have to use the included data cable, and charge the player via your computer's USB port. It's true that it would have been nice if they would have included an A/C adapter (since where I want to charge it isn't near a computer, and I don't have USB ports in my car), but the iPod doesn't come with an A/C adapter either (and that hasn't stopped iPod from crushing all of its competition).


You also can't buy an A/C adapter that connects directly to the player. You can buy an A/C adapter, but it plugs into a dock (which is yet another accessory that you will need to buy). You can't buy another data cable directly from Archos either. I will probably buy a 3rd part data cable, and then buy a USB Power Adapter [amazon.com] to turn that data cable into an A/C adapter. It's annoying enough that you have to buy extra accessories, but the fact that you can't buy the ones you want (such as an A/C adapter or another data cable) directly from Archos is even more annoying.

It is marketed as a DVR, but you can't record video (or display video on an external source) without an optional accessory (a special cable). This is fine with me, because I am not intending to use it as a DVR. The list goes on and on. I wanted a device that would primarily be used to play MP3s, and occasionally play video that I have ripped from a DVD. Everything that I need for these jobs is included.


There seems to be a feature on the device that detects shock, and parks the hard drive to protect it from damage. If you shake the device too much, the screen will fade out (telling you that it has parked the hard drive), and then after a few seconds, it will restart automatically. Unfortunately, this is a feature that is undocumented. And not a lot of people were too specific about it in their reviews (although enough alluded to it to give me confidence that it is not a defect). I can tell you that the feature was overly sensitive when I first received the unit. When I had it in my car, every time I hit a large bump, the hard drive would get parked. It was pretty annoying. However, after I upgraded the firmware, the sensitivity shifted to more reasonable levels. I carry it around hooked to my belt all of the time (where it is constantly shaken), and it almost never detects too much shock anymore.


The device is large, as you can see from the pictures. It is quite a bit larger than the iPod both in facial area, and in thickness (obviously, the protective case on the iPod is going to make it look a lot thicker than it actually is). Although I do carry it around in my pants pockets when I'm around the house, it is not really comfortable to do so, and I can't imagine anyone doing it on a regular basis. The tradeoff for the large size is, of course, the huge screen. The screen is not only large and bright, but it can be viewed from any angle (see above and below). The beautiful screen makes it easy to show movies or pictures to friends. It also is nice, because if you put the player down, you can still easily read anything on the screen, even when it is sitting at an odd angle.


Go to Part 2 or Part 3.