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Holy cow, I wrote a book! It's about Twitter and how firms are embracing this service. Click the cover for more info.
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See the latest "Joy of Tech!" panel by the famed Nitrozac. She's on Twitter at @nitrozac with her partner @snaggy.« August 2005 | Main | October 2005 »
I know you've agonized over the question of the ages. No, not, "What
does God look like?" nor, "Where in heck is Jimmy Hoffa?"
I mean this question: "In an epic struggle between a big, bad bear and TV personality Conan O'Brien, who'd win?"
Well, wonder no more: Two wacky Woodury, Minn., Web-site authors take on this burning issue.
Apple speaks: Displays with defects on iPod nano players are a real if rare problem, the firm claims, but it says scratches on the device are a nonissue.
Still, the nano is turning into quite the punching bag. Has Apple hurt itself?
I'll soften my earlier advice not to buy a nano, though. I wouldn't get one of these for myself given how scratch-prone it clearly is, just as I'd avoid other iPods except the mini for this reason. But if you don't mind a scuffed-up player (I know several scratched-iPod owners who seemingly couldn't care less), be my guest.
Better yet, buy the best protective case you can find, start using it right away, and never, ever stop.
Update: "Restore your iPod nano to new condition with a $4 can of Brasso."
Here are a couple of my Pioneer Press pieces, in case you missed:
-- A few adventurous souls are selling their homes on their own, without Realtors. Gutsy!
-- Local public broadcasters are slicing and dicing to create cool all-new digital channels.
The iPod mini is looking better and better to me.
The recently discontinued Apple Computer digital-music player is notable for being quite resistent to scratching, unlike all other iPods that scratch much too easily. The mini boasts a durable metallic body and a recessed display to keep it from being scuffed up when placed face down.
So it shocks me that the mini's successor, the iPod nano, has reverted to a fatally flawed design (glossy front, mirror-metal rear) that makes it just as scratch-prone as its siblings, if not more so.
I warned about this in my recent nano review. The nano loaner I used for that review looks awful today after only two weeks of use, and it's been in a protective Apple Tube for most of that time.
Now Apple is getting hell. I'm surprised it took this long. This should have been an issue years ago.
Based on this, I'd buy a mini. It was still available in the Twin Cities' Apple Computer retail stores the last time I checked. You won't get a color screen or extra-durable flash storage, and you will get a bit more bulk. But you'll also get more battery life and more storage capacity for the money -- along with FireWire compatibility, which the nano lacks.
The nano is an amazing device in many ways, but I'd steer clear of it in its present physical form. It's just too cosmetically damage-prone.
Update: "Bring back the mini."
No sooner do I diss .Mac, and threaten to ditch it for FastMail.FM, than Apple upgrades the online-service suite.
Entry-level iDisk storage has been bumped to 1 gigabyte (way more than FastMail offers). A new service called Groups allows, well, groups of people to maintain communal Web sites with pictures, calendars, messages and such.
The latter is sorta kinda along the lines of something I suggested earlier.
I seem to have discovered on bug, though: On a Windows XP PC (Yep, .Mac has been PC- as well as Mac-compatible for a while), I can't seem to get past the security log-in windows that pop up periodically.
Update: I was remiss in not mentioning a nicely improved version of Apple's Backup program. The thing is actually useful now, I rely on it to back up my iTunes data files daily (for reasons discussed elsewhere :-)
Here's an unexpected twist in the Web-browser wars: Opera, until recently available in free-with-ads or paid-without-ads versions, is now totally free and ad-free.
I've become a rabid Firefox user since switching over from Internet Explorer, so I'm not likely to switch again. But I'll certainly download Opera and give it a look.
Update: Literally minutes after I posted this, I heard from a Minnesota expatriate working for Opera public relations in Norway. Here's Berit Hanson's story, in her own words:
Glad to hear you've got all the Opera info. I studied at the University of Minnesota, where I met a Norwegian guy...and you can guess the rest. I'm living here now, engaged and working for Opera. Over 50 percent of Opera's employees are non-Norwegian, so the working language is English. It's a great place to be as a foreigner, since you never actually feel foreign. I'm actually not the only Minnesotan here. There were three of us at one point, but one girl returned to her home in Apple Valley.
Man, iTunes 5.0 is a turkey.
It has wiped out my podcast-subscription list twice so far, forcing me to laboriously reconstruct it from memory. (I've wised up now, backing up my iTunes folder and even using Grab to take a snapshot of my podcast window for future reference.)
Looks like I'm not the only one with iTunes problems.
On the bright side (I'm pretty sure this is new), I'm now able to view video blogs or "vlogs" in iTunes. They are treated as video podcasts, essentially, but clicking a downloaded episode in the podcast list pulls up a video-viewing window.
Cool. No need for FireANT any longer, apparently. I've just iTunes-subscribed to Rocketboom and Minnesota Stories. Now, let's see how long iTunes holds onto them. Sheesh.
Update: Apple has released iTunes 5.0.1 with supposed stability and reliability improvements. I've just upgraded.
In writing about the iPod nano in today's Pioneer Press, I note that buying from the first batch of anything tech-related entails risk because of potential bugs.
Can this be one reason to wait for nano version 1.1?
I have no idea whether these complaints have validity or are rubbish, but they are certainly familiar-sounding ones in Apple land (look near the bottom of this well-known Web page).
Update: News.com weighs in on this.
I subscribe to both Apple Computer's .Mac online-service suite and to FastMail.FM's e-mail service, but the latter may have moved me one step closer to ditching .Mac.
FastMail.FM, which also offers online file storage, has just debuted WebDAV-based file access. This is a geeky way of saying that my FastMail.FM online file folders can be accessed just like desktop folders on the hard drive.
This is essentially what .Mac offers with its iDisk online file storage, so it makes me wonder why I need two WebDAV file services. I don't use the e-mail part of .Mac, which pales alongside FastMail.FM e-mail.
So why keep .Mac around? Definitely food for thought.
FastMail.FM will soon offer FTP access to my online files, too. The .Mac service has never offered that.
Update: Oh, one point in .Mac's favor -- automated syncing across two or more Macs, which is nice convenience. (PCs can access iDisks, but don't sync.) FastMail.FM doesn't provide such file syncing.
Reminder: SiliconValley.com's "Apple: The Next Generation" online roundtable is now live.
I became so obsessed with the Katrina disaster and all the TV coverage thereof that I began to collect reporter vidclips -- The angrier and more outraged and/or tearful the television journalist, the better. Turns out I didn't need to go to all that effort because Salon has compiled a highlight reel. This is must-see TV.
Hey, iTunes-using podcast fanatics on Macs, beware: This happened to me, too:
Podcasts lost, fix Yesterday we reported on an issue where users are losing all of their currently subscribed-to Podcasts after updating to iTunes 5.0.
In most cases this issue can be resolved by creating a smart
playlist that contains all Podcasts (even though they may not be visible). Subsequently, drag this newly created smart playlist to the Podcasts icon on the left-hand iTunes navigation bar. Doing so will result in all of your Podcasts again re-appearing, though you will have to re-subscribe to each of them afterward.
If your brand-spanking-new Windows system presents you with a black screen and a can't-boot error message, chances are good that a cable is loose inside your PC.
HP tells me that the cable connecting the hard drive to the motherboard has caused endless grief in PC Land because of a faulty design that often causes it to dislodge. This happened with not one but two Media Center PCs HP sent me to test.
So, if you have this problem, pop the hood and look for a flattened cable that is unplugged. Make sure the PC's power is off, then stick your hand in there to put the cable's head back in its socket (there may be two of those; apparently either one will work).
PCs yet to be released will have an updated cable design, according to HP.
A test version of Firefox 1.5 has been released. It has a bunch of new features.
On the bright side for me, the Mac OS X version seems to work a bit better. It appears to launch and run faster, and doesn't require two tries on shutdown every time.
On the not-so-bright side, it breaks my top-three extensions -- Tabbrowser Preferences, Bookmarks Synchronizer and Resize Search Box -- but only the first is available in an updated, compatible form.
Bottom line: An encouraging update, but wait until all the kinks are worked out before making this your default browser.
Update: More on this.
Here's more detail from SV.com:
If there's any area in which Apple Computer has maintained
unrivaled dominance over the years, it's in public market for speculation and rumor. Thanks to its history of innovation and influence, its faithful fan base and its rock star CEO, no other tech company has a more closely watched product pipeline or a more vigorously debated set of strategies.
Continue reading "Apple's Intel-based future: A roundtable" »
With podcasting becoming so popular, largely courtesy of Apple and its iTunes software, it's a shame the new iTunes-equipped ROKR E1 isn't more podcast-friendly.
Podcast consumption is certainly a breeze via the Mac and PC versions of iTunes 5.0, which has a dedicated area for users' subscription downloads. These are also accessible via a podcast menu on their iPod players.
What a pity, then, that iTunes on the ROKR has no such menu item, which means loading and accessing podcasts on the phone is a bit more of a chore. You can create a podcast playlist, for instance, and add your fave shows to it. But that's nowhere near as slick and convenient.
Apple's basic iPod Shuffle isn't too podcast-friendly either, and the ROKR has been described as a Shuffle phone. So the podcast issue I describe above is understandable -- but ROKR-using podcast fans don't have to like it.
Almost lost amid all the hullabaloo about iTunes phones and superthin flash iPods was this bit of good news for Windows-based iPod users: The new iTunes 5.0 lets them sync up with Microsoft Outlook for the first time.
This is potentially huge for those who depend on the ubiquitous scheduling and contacts application because they are now able to take their calendars and address books everywhere -- right on their trusty iPods. They no longer have to carry a separate Palm organizer or Pocket PC for this purpose.
This is old news for Mac iPod users who have been able to sync over their Address Book and iCal contents for years, of course.
But the Outlook development introduces cross-platform possibilities for those who use both Macs and PCs. They could sync their Outlook calendars at work, for instance, and their Address Books on their home Macs. They can designate a PC for music and a Mac for podcasts, or vice-versa.
This assumes, of course, that the iPod is PC-formatted (meaning its readable by both PCs and Macs) and not Mac-formatted (rendering it terra incognita for a PC).
We cover the new iTunes phone from Motorola/Cingular/Apple in today's Pioneer Press. Our TwinCities.com headquarters has additional coverage of the ROKR handset and Apple's new iPod nano.
If you want all the Apple news right from His Steveness, online streaming of Wednesday's presentation is now available.
Cingular Wireless just came in to show off the Motorola's new iTunes-compatible phone, and I have the pictures to prove it.
I also shot video. In this clip, the phone reacts to an incoming call. In this clip, the phone reacts with light and sound to music coming from another of the handsets.
Update: Some quick impressions from my brief time with the ROKR E1:
-- Cingular kept calling it "iPod-like," but I just don't see it. White coloration alone doesn't an iPod sibling maketh.
-- This is one serious party animal. It lights up all over when calls come in, its built-in speakers for ringtones or music playback are surprisingly good, and it has a cool sound-recognition 
feature that allows its lights to keep time with music or voices in its surroundings. None if this is useful in the least, but a heckuva lotta fun.
-- Hey, where's the "Podcasts" menu item in iTunes? MIA, apparently.
-- Bluetooth, yum. Since this is an Apple-friendly phone, it should be great for syncing over your Mac Address Book contacts. I'll try this soon.
