Archive for October, 2005

random websurfing

Posted October 28, 2005 * Comments(0)

I have started to feel very old lately.

I came across this guy’s blog entry about New Order’s Blue Monday. Not my favorite NO song, but one of the most recognizable by those of us who went to high school in the 80s and grew up on John Hughes movies.

I’m still pondering my iPod w/ video along with some other things, but for now, I think I’m going to get back to trying to finish the transition of all the websites.

I hate some people

Posted October 17, 2005 * Comments(0)

There are some people in this world that I don’t care too much for.

This man is one of them. I’ve actually written to politically active people who have attacked the video game industry and have never received any feedback.

The brief summary of this guy:

  • He attacks the game industry and offers a $10k bounty for those who create a game with the likeness of certain game developers.
  • Gamers then create games
  • He then says he was kidding
  • Then a gamers give $10k to charity

    • There are some people defending him. While I agree with this writer, that video game ratings are a joke and not much else, I think responsible adults like Mr. Thompson should draw back on the sensationalism and work on their own mature approach to such things.

    Just think, 20 years from now, we will look back on this and say… what was the big deal?

    Video iPod and content

    Posted October 13, 2005 * Comments(0)

    I am not a Mac user, but I think that the direction Apple has taken under Steve Jobs with the iPod is tremendous. A new iPod has been announced.

    It plays video.

    A new iTunes is out.

    It serves up the video and lets you gift content to people you know.

    The boys over at Engadget have a great take on all of this. Basically, Apple is doing for video what they did for music. They do not want full length movies. People want their big screens, etc. to reproduce the “movie experience”. TV and its episodic formats make for great mobile video. Television also has the greatest amount of possibilities for revenue tie ins. TV makes its living being subsidized by advertisements. Basically, Apple is taking the podcasting paradigm and moved it to video. Just wait for the next wave of amateur videos to be published.

    BTW, Quicktime videos can also be played on the PSP.

    Here is how the market is shaping up.
    iPod vs. PSP / Apple vs. Sony
    iPod vs. TiVo (record your own content or just download it)

    It’s a great time to be a gadget geek..

    Random thoughts

    Posted October 9, 2005 * Comments(0)

    Things I have to get out of my head before they consume me:

  • The Nintendo Revolution controller: One of the things it’s described working with the following “Two small sensors placed near the TV and a chip inside the controller track its position and orientation, allowing the player to manipulate the action on screen by physically moving the controller itself.” Umm… Nintendo actually already did this. It was called the Power Glove. At least someone already Wiki’d this.
  • My wonderful new PC has the world’s crappiest audio chip.
  • This is very very funny.

    • Death of the PC?

    Posted October 2, 2005 * Comments(0)

    I love this topic. It always has me thinking. Both of my parents, while being very intelligent people, often struggle mightily with the PC. My wife, who is fairly tech savvy, uses her laptop to check email and surf the web buying things.

    My recent experience with updating tokubo.com has come with doing very little in terms of installing SW, and most of the features are now done on the server side. The biggest thing I think that is killing people is actually the Install Wizard. Even now as I am very used to the idea of a window with neverending “NEXT –>” buttons show up, I think that some of it is counter intuitive. The problem is most people are not network administrators and do not know how to maintain a computer. Just like most people are not mechanics and should not even be attempting to maintain their car.

    With a solid network connection (enter Google and Mayor Gavin Newsome), there could be a new market forming where your PC is managed by others. Just like good IT people, they would keep you out of trouble.

    The basic concept is that more applications are moving to web-type applications. While many people distrust security this way, it’s still a fact that stupid is as stupid does. If you install a questionable program onto your PC or have no idea how to use it, you may very well screw up your PC.

    Anyway, welcome to a word where PCs will use your iPod as storage and the web has all your applications. Hey, it works for my wife.