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I'm annoyed with iPod shuffle

I'm sure the iPod shuffle will be just dandy for lots of folks, but I'm increasingly annoyed with my loaner unit from Apple.

The lack of a screen and support for multiple playlists cripple me because I like to be able to zero in on particular podcasts or favorite tunes. I'm all about control, not serendipity. I don't really want a "personal radio station," thank you.

I do crave the kind of serendipity I get from listening to public radio. That's why listening to podcasts has its perils. If you focus on audio content you choose in advance, you risk closing yourself off from enlightening content you didn't expect.

I was tuning in to Marketplace on the bus the other day, for instance, and I happened to stumble on an expert who proved useful for one of my own stories.

No wonder I'm annoyed with Apple for not building FM tuning into its iPods. Podcasting and public radio in one device is my promised land, so I may yet decide to buy a music player other than an iPod. Scads of competing devices include FM tuning (some with FM recording too).

Update: A reader responds with solid suggestions (that don't really work for me for a variety of reasons, but they're worth passing on verbatim):

New G4 PowerBooks, not G5s

The G5 PowerBook remains a mirage, but at least portable-Mac fans get this.

Update: More on G5 PowerBooks.

My exquisite sense of timing

My sense of timing is exquisite, as always. Precisely when I've decided to cut back on my beloved Diet Pepsi, which can't be good for me in the prodigious amounts I'm now ingesting, Apple and Pepsi launch this promotion today. Gee, thanks a lot.

More podcast coverage today

Lots of podcasting goodness in the San Jose Mercury News today. For your convenience, it's packaged with my newspaper's recent podcasting coverage (including a follow-up piece in today's paper). Enjoy.

512-meg Mac Mini is coming

If you're contemplating a Mac mini purchase, stay tuned for at least one out-of-the-box config with 512 megabyes of RAM instead of the now-standard, woefully inadequate 256 megs. That may be coming to Apple retail stores as soon as next week, I've been told.

The advantage here: All memory fits into one internal slot and not two, giving you the flexibility to go for a full gigabyte of RAM in the future without having to awkwardly dispose of memory previously purchased.

Update: Hmm, alert blog readers tell me I'm off the mark on the mini having two memory slots. I'm verifying, but I appear to have egg on my face with this one...

My work PC gets Windows XP

My main work PC has just been upgraded to Windows XP. That's cool, though stability and reliability was never an issue. Windows 2000 was a rock in that regard.

But it's nice to get caught up with the latest version after lagging by one or two versions since the hair-raising Windows 95 days. And with programs such as Firefox and Microsoft's new antispyware software, security is better.

iPod: A note on this and that

A few iPod notes:

-- If you put your name on a Apple retail-store please-call list shortly after the iPod shuffle was unveiled, your phone may ring right about now. Mine just did.

-- When my brother's iPod mini suffered a catastrophic malfunction, I wasn't sure what to expect when I took it to the Mall of America's Apple store. No sweat! Upon diagnosing a grave hardware problem instead of a less serious software problem, an Apple Genius simply replaced the mini -- not with a new one, mind you, but a refurbished one. Still, cool.

-- The days of Mac-only iPods seem so far away now that Apple has released a model, the shuffle, that is FAT32-formatted by default so it works out of the box with Windows as well as Macs. This creates a few minor complications.

Target stops selling Mac mini

Target apparently has stopped selling the Mac mini, only days after debuting the product on its Web site. Read more here.

Wobegon podcasting shindig

Regional podcasters now have their own podcasting conference, announced on a fledgling PODcasting World site. I'll be there, and not just because I want to meet Dawn and Drew.

Here's another podcasting conference.

Flash players: shuffle vs. Zen

In the market for a flash-based music player? The iPod shuffle is an appealing option, but not the only one.

An official Minnesota podroll

Behold: Twin Cities podcasters now have a semiofficial “podroll” (look for it on the right). Or just grab the OPML file.

Still more podcastware finds

I continue to hopscotch from one piece of podcastware to another. My latest Mac finds: PoddumFeeder and PlayPod. They're packed with features but don't appear to be stable and reliable enough yet.

This looks like the best spot to keep track of the latest podcast apps for various platforms.

NetNewsWire remains an appealing option, as podcasting progenitor Adam Curry has discovered. It's definitely better than iPodder, even in its newest beta incarnation.

It just occurred to me, though, that Apple is surely figuring out how to handle enclosures as part of the RSS newsreader built into Tiger Safari. If so, will that quickly thin out the podcastware herd?

Crossing a podcast threshold

I crossed a radio-related threshold of sorts this weekend I held off on listening Weekend America over the airwaves since I knew the show would shortly become available, with far better audio quality, as a podcast. So I switched off my FM radio and kept listening to Dawn and Drew on my loaner iPod shuffle.

An aside on the latter device, if you're in the market: It won't charge in just any USB port but only a powered port. I discovered that the hard way when I tried to use a port built into my iMac keyboard.

Mac mini available via Target

In case you haven't heard, you can now order the Mac mini on Target.com.

Apple keyboards gone south

Hmm, something may be terribly wrong with Apple's standard-issue wired keyboards.

Two of them, one that came with an iMac G5 review unit and another that arrived with a Power Mac G5 loaner, have gone south -- as in one or more keys that suddenly stop working.

This is food for thought if you're buying a Mac mini, which requires you to add your own keyboard.

My iMac G4's keyboard -- this one has a different design -- is a bit dirty after years of use but still works like a champ.

Firefox browser still gaining

Firefox, which I've covered here and here, is still gaining.

More Minnesota podcasting

For more Minnesota-flavored podcasting, try:

-- David Newberger, a Twin Cities man (from Woodbury, to be specific) and one of the techies on In the Trenches' Tech Chats.

-- Nick Ciske, who now has a personal podcast in addition to the one he created on behalf of the Twin Cities' Bluer church.

Nick, by the way, deconstructs our interview here.

On an unrelated note, Nick, I agree that Flash Gordon is a guilty pleasure. It's one of my favorites -- campy movie, superb Queen soundtrack. I celebrated when it finally became available on the iTunes Music Store.

Podcasting not just for iPods

If you think podcasting is just for iPods, think again.

To automate delivery of audio programs to your Windows Media-compatible device, use Doppler on your Windows PC. Set the podcast-reception software to work with Windows Media Player instead of Apple's iTunes (though that's an option if you own an iPod).

I'm using Doppler to download my favorite podcasts to Creative's Zen Micro, and I'm impressed with the program given its relatively recent vintage.

Podcasting in Lake Wobegon

That whole podcasting business has hit home.

Now that I've exposed Future Tense techie Jon Gordon's iPod-less state to the world, it's only fair, in the interest of full disclosure, to add here that I don't have an iPod, either (not counting Apple review units that rotate through here periodically), a pathetic state of affairs I intend to remedy before long.

iPod shuffle now selling here

If you're in the market for an iPod shuffle, FYI, Twin Cities-area Apple retail stores are starting to get them. You may be in for a bit of wait, though, if others are ahead of you.

Cable wants to pump you up

I use Comcast cable-based broadband Internet both at home and at work, so this is good news.

That's assuming the connections work. My work hook-up went out today, and Comcast technicians have spent the last couple of hours crawling around this building and a nearby one to pinpoint the glitch. Not fun.

Newsgator offers RSS search

My fave RSS provider has added a search engine to its free Web aggregator. Very nice. It apparently searches all RSS-land, apparently, and can't search solely the feeds to which I'm subscribed. Oh, well, the Outlook version works well enough for that.

Tech mags stage a comeback

San Jose Mercury News: Tech magazines are back, but can they survive?

Beating tech sites on stories such as the PowerBook G5 will certainly help.

'Battlestar Galactica' debuts!

Here's my take in the Pioneer Press on the new "Battlestar Galactica" TV series.

Hey, I just spotted this sci-fi-geek goodie. Cool.

RSS: NewsGator, Yahoo et al

NewsGator calls it the "button race." The RSS-aggregator firm is in a competition with Yahoo and others to get distinctive add-a-feed buttons on top Web sites.

NewsGator boasts a few wins, including WebMD, BusinessWeek Online and CBS-2 Chicago, but the RSS market remains pretty fragmented and competitive.

For more on the button race and the underlying RSS issues, click here and here and here.

One way to use a Mac mini

A Mac-hip guy I know says he plans to use a Mac mini as a "laptop replacement," meaning he'll tote the miniature Macintosh from point A to point B and back again. He'll keep a keyboard and mouse along with a power adapter at each location, so he'd only be slipping the mini (he has one on order) into his bag.

Maybe he'll use this bag.

He isn't the only one to think of using a mini in this way:

San Francisco production manager Paul Hocker is thinking about getting a Mac Mini for his parents. They spend half the year in Virginia and the other half in Maine and currently have a PC in each place so they don't have to lug a large computer back and forth.

"Since they have a monitor and keyboard already in both locations, they could easily take just the Mini with them," Hocker said. "By only using one computer, they will have all their files, e-mail, games, etc. on the one computer that they have with them."

Reminds me of an early all-in-one Macintosh and an Apple  TV spot I dimly remember about people carrying the computer between home and work in a padded case. That idea didn't work because the Mac was just too big, but the mini appears to be mini enough for this.

Sign up for RSS feed, get ad

Ack! I signed up for eWeek's Macintosh-analysis RSS feed and I got an ad:

ADV: Sign up for Dell e-mail updates today!
Dell Small Business invites you to receive our exclusive e-mail updates. Start saving right away with your new member exclusive deal - 10% off your next purchase. This amazing discount gives you a glimpse of the savings to come as a Dell subscriber.

ugh.

High-tech becomes ordinary

Signs that once-exotic technologies are becoming commonplace:

-- Your neighbor posts one of those for-sale flyers with little pull-off paper tabs to unload his...big-screen plasma TV.

-- The latest freebie in your shrink-wrapped magazine is a DVD-R while DVD burners appear on the cheapest PCs.

Girl Scouts gripe about eBay

Girl Scouts aren't overly fond of eBay these days.

Podcastware is a bit rough

Podcast-reception software is in its infancy, with lots of rough edges. I'm not entirely happy with my Macintosh choices.

But, after trial runs with iPodder, iPodderX and Pod2go (with iPodder features), I am gravitating towards the new version of NetNewsWire. Though it is still in beta and a bit buggy, it has Ranchero's famed fit and finish.

I like that it's a full-featured RSS aggregator (now with a podcast-download layer). In fact, I had used it as my default newsreader until I decided to go cross-platform with NewsGator. Now, I may readopt NNW as my podcastware.

One warning: You have to go for the full version, NNW Lite lacks podcasting features.

Consumer Electronics Show

Get an overview of the recent Consumer Electronics Show here (be sure to click the related links on the right).

Pages versus Mariner Write

Remember Konfabulator and Watson? Add Mariner Write to the list of third-party Macintosh software seemingly being trampled by a hot new Apple application. I guess you can add Nisus Writer Express to the list, too.

A wasted trip to Apple store

So I wandered into one of my local Apple retail stores (where I'm posting this) under the mistaken impression that I could get my mitts on some of the new stuff.

Wrongo, folks, you'll have to wait -- officially until the 22nd, though I suspect the iPod shuffle and maybe the software will show up a bit earlier.

A few Macworld infonuggets

A few infonuggets gleaned from phone conversations with top Apple executives last night:

Mac mini: The Mac firm makes no apologies about not including a keyboard and mouse with the Mac mini. Many who buy the diminutive Mac already have such peripherals, or "those items are easy to acquire," an exec said.

iPod shuffle: In explaining why it didn't put a screen on its new flash-based player, the exec said the screens and controls on competing flash players leave much to be desired. But, um, isn't a mediocre screen better than none at all?

"We decided to change the rules," the exec said, by relying heavily on a shuffle feature so users have the equivalent of a "personal radio station that plays what is yours. Instead of you finding the music, the music finds you."

iWork '05: Mac observers have noted (here and here) that the Pages program built into the iWork suite looks more like a page-layout program than word-processing software.

Well, Apple says, it does both. "It's born into this world with a big step forward" by integrating the advanced graphics technologies found in the Keynote presentation program along with top-notch text-processing tools, an exec said.

iLife '05: Many digital photographers are elated about support for the RAW file format in the new version of iPhoto, part of the iLife suite. This move was a no-brainer, Apple said, because more and more digital shutterbugs are opting for advanced SLR-style cameras while the RAW format has been filtering downward in the digital-camera food chain.   

The new version of iDVD supports more recordable and rewritable DVD formats, including DVD+R and DVD+RW, which makes sense since "all currently shipping (Macintosh machines) with (DVD-burning SuperDrives) support burning to DVD±RW media, including iMac G5s, eMac, PowerMac, iBook, PowerBook and now Mac mini," an Apple spokesman said in an e-mail.

The Stevenote now streaming

Steve Jobs' Macworld Expo keynote address is now now streaming (ahead of schedule, apparently).

Couple of things on Stevenote

A few things I noticed on the Stevenote:

-- Apple says the iMac G5 is it's bestselling computer. So much for the "year of the laptop?" Are desktop Macs making a comeback in what has been billed as a laptop world?

-- Apple appears to be pushing the Blue-Ray next-generation-DVD technology, not the other one. Is its public support a fresh development, and will that help settle this VHS-vs-Beta brouhaha? (I may be missing something here, so I'll update as needed).

-- The iWork software with a Pages word processor is a go! Woo-hoo!

-- Am I the only one who thinks the headless Mac mini looks like an iPod dock? Apple calls it "the most Mac for the least dinero." Heh, I like that. But looks like this computer will get a bit pricier than buyers might expect once they add stuff that isn't in the box (including, apparently, a mouse, keyboard, an AirPort card, a Bluetooth module and iWork along with the required display).

-- I'm in the market for an iPod, but I don't think the shuffle is it. I looks cool, but too limited. I think I'll hold out for an iPod mini refresh (with five or more gigs, hopefully).

-- The new iLife looks good. I'd make heavy use of the automated OneStep DVD feature (I have neither the time nor the patience for painstaking video editing and DVD design), and I'll sure like burning to DVD-RWs (which can be reused) and other formats.

Lame way to catch Stevenote

Man, this is lame. Instead of watching a Stevenote on the big screen at the Mall of America's Apple retail store (or, at minimum, via streaming QuickTime on a Mac or PC), I'm reduced to continually reloading MacCentral and Engadget Web-text pages (which keep timing out due to heavy traffic).

This has media repercussions, of course. In the past, tech writers who haven't traveled to Macworld Expo were able to cover a Stevenote in real time. That's not possible now. Lousy PR move, Apple.

Getcher hot RSS trends here

Some interesting trends from the world of Really Simple Syndication:

Web-based aggregators appear to be on the rise.

Bloglines, at least, is proving popular, as SiliconBeat points out. The blog raises a good point:

"The idea of 'your computer' is going away and being replaced by 'your data.' You should be able to get at your data from any computer. Or rather any client, and a client doesn't have to be your computer.'' As a Web-based application, Bloglines offers that convenience.

I couldn't agree more, though I prefer NewsGator's Web-based RSS interface for accessing my feeds on my PC at work, my Mac at home or on any other computer. I find NewsGator easier to use.

I also like that it syncs up with the NewsGator aggregator built into my Outlook software at work (which is what I'm using to post this to my TypePad-based blog courtesy of  NewsGator's TypePad plug-in), along with other versions of NewsGator. This is essential so I won't read posts more than once as I move from machine to machine throughout my day.

What's with all those My Yahoo RSS buttons?

Dave Winer points out here and here that such sites as CNN and ABC are prominently displaying Yahoo buttons for adding RSS feeds to Yahoo subscribers' My Yahoo page (along with displaying the standard XML buttons).

What is up with that? I'd rather see NewsGator buttons, naturally, but others would want to know what's up with that. Best to be agnostic and just use the orange XML thingie for now, I suppose. I don't have a problem with that.

News.com on Macworld Expo

News.com: High hopes for Macworld

Mercury News' MW preview

San Jose Mercury News: What to expect in Apple's lineup

See Stevenote, 9 hours late

Apple Computer: Jobs' keynote webcast to be delayed 9 hours

Browser-tabbing like a fiend

Another tech subject I had approached with cool journalistic detachment until my recent vacation is tabbed browsing.

Wow, I didn't know what I was missing.

Using mom's computer on a pokey dial-up connection, I opted to check e-mail via FastMail.FM's Web-based interface instead of downloading it to Apple Mail. Enter those nifty tabs: I just clicked, clicked, clicked, clicked to open individual messages in their own tabs.

Same deal with my RSS newsreading using NewsGator's pared-down Mobile Edition interface on the slow connection. Each blog is its own link on the Web page, so I clicked, clicked, clicked, clicked to open each in its own tab. Worked great.

God, I craved tabs a few days later on a hotel Web terminal that, of course, incorporated the tab-less Internet Explorer. Get a clue, Bill.

Now I'm back, using Firefox on my Windows work PC and Safari on my home iMac, and tabbing like a madman.

Heck, if Homer Simpson does it, why shouldn't I?

BW take on Macworld rumors

BusinessWeek: Macworld '05: A New Direction?

Still more on MIA Stevenote

The Unofficial Apple Weblog: The Webcast that never was.

Gmail: I am all but filled up

What happens when the 1 gigabyte alloted to a Google Gmail user gets used up? I have no idea, but I'm about to find out: My Gmail account is at 92 percent of total capacity.

Wow, that was fast. One-terabyte Web-mail accounts, anyone?

The true value of podcasting

The value of podcasting.

More on Apple Store keynotes

Sure enough, I'm not the only Mac lover scratching his or her head over Apple's odd decision not to display Steve Jobs' Macworld Expo keynote address on the big screens at its Apple retail stores (or by satellite, apparently). A reader writes:

I've been planning on going to the MOA to watch before LAST year's was even over. What great camaraderie with fellow Mac users...This is a huge disappointment.

I've asked Apple about it's decision, by the way. It hasn't responded.

Update: Come on, Steve, we need our feed.

I get addicted to podcasting

I recently wrote about podcasting but kept a journalistic detachment, moving on to other things once my reporting was completed. But, over my vacation, I began dabbling in podcast downloads using a loaner iPod mini.

Long story short: I'm hooked.

I had been vacillating between an iPod purchase and a Palm-PDA upgrade, and podcasting tipped it. I fully intend to take the iPod plunge as soon as I'm up to speed on the most current and affordable options.

There are lots of podcasts, but listening-time constraints force me to narrow my options: Engadget, Future Tense, the Laporte Report and, just to mix things up, a sex-advice show.

Great late-breaking news for this ink-stained media wretch: On the Media is now being podcast.

Update: An interesting new article on podcasting.

I hope iWork rumors are true

I'm not a big fan of Microsoft Office for Mac OS X even though I can get it at virtually no cost through my employer (a welcome change to a once-Windows-exclusive deal). It's bloated and sluggish, especially on underpowered computers such as my first-generation flat-panel iMac G4.

So, as someone who writes for a living and would dearly love to see high-performance Mac-based word processing with Apple's legendary fit and finish, I'm hoping rumors of an iWork suite are true.

No Stevenote at Apple stores

I've returned from a long vacation to this head scratcher: Steve Jobs' much-anticipated keynote address at Macworld Expo on Tuesday will not, repeat, not be shown on the big theater screens in Apple Computer's retail stores (such as the Mall of America outlet in Bloomington, Minn.), per standard practice.

That's a puzzler, all right. What with all the juicy rumors about headless Macs, flash-based iPods and iWork software, this Stevenote had looked to be a big one. And nothing builds up excitement among Mac faithful like a come one, come all Apple Store gala event.

I don't know what this means, but I do hope Apple isn't cancelling huge product announcements right and left for reasons unknown.

Update: more on this.