Guess what this is?
Category: Geek service
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device convergence
I’ve long been suspicious of modern cell phones. Crammed with bells and whistles as they are, they usually serve as nothing more than hooks to get you to subscribe to various expensive media and internet services via the cellular provider. My experience until now has been that it’s virtually impossible to copy a photo or video off a phone and onto a PC unless you’re ready to jump through various hoops (logistical and financial). As a result I’ve long been a proponent of the “just a phone” mindset – my Nokia 6016i has served me well for two years in that regard, as did the various “bricks” I’ve owned prior.
However, with generous Sprint rebates as bait, I’ve taken the plunge and am now using a Samsung M500for the past four days.
What’s cool is that it supports the new MicroSD card
format – these miniscule cards are smaller than my fingernail but can hold up to 2 GB. Since the phone comes with an mp3 player app built in, I can actually store a serious amount of music on this device. Not to mention podcasts, my beloved H2G2 radio scripts, Qur’an recitations… I’m impressed. Video, photos, and audio taken with the phone camera all can be saved to the card, as well.
Technically I could even use the phone for USB file storage, but that requires carrying the special cable around, so I’ll stick to my jumpdrive. Still, if I get some bluetooth headphones I’m pretty much set for convenience.
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Digital SLR Buyer’s Guide
In the market for a digital SLR camera? Anandtech has the ultimate guide, no matter what your budget. What is especially interesting is that Samsung will be selling rebadged Pentax models, which typically come out on top of the reviews.
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faith-based operating systems
Stevn has a lengthy essay on the analogy between operating systems’ battle for the desktop and the schism between Christian Orthodox and Proestant sects. In a nutshell, Linux is Protestanism, and it’s very non-centralized nature is what keeps it from ataing critical mass on the desktop. It’s a fascinating analogy and one that might I might well apply in reverse to Islam at some later date (elsewhere).
One thing I note, is that Protestanism is dominant in Christianity, at least in Europe and the United States. It’s mostly in the third world that Catholicism is ascendant, especially Southern America. What does that mean for Linux? One thought is that even tough there is no common unifying distro, enough “turnkey” distros may arise that the majority of computer users one day are using Linux in some fashion.
Ultimately, I think the real barier to entry is not the OS but the applications. The primary obstacle facing Linux is really the lack of a serious contender to Micosoft Office, though now that MS has adopted an XML standard that may well change. Hardware periperals are another factor – once anyone can plug any mouse or USB thumbdrive bought off NewEgg or Amazon into Linux and It Just Works, Linux’ fortune will markedly improve.
It’s not about installing an OS – it’s about using it. To that end I don’t think that there’s really a two-year window as ESR suggests. If the various linux factions can unite, not on a distro but rather on a API or plug and play infrastructure, then Linux doesn’t need unity. It can win by sheer dint of numbers alone.
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Behold the power of PMR
Fujitsu has a 300 GB hard drive.. for notebooks (2.5″ form factor). Should be shipping in early 2007. However, rotation speeds on this monster is only 4200 rpm, just like Toshiba’s earlier 200 GB offering. In contrast, Hitachi and Seagate both offer 160 GB notebook drives, again using PMR, that run at 5400 rpm. That’s really what I’d consider the bare minimum speed for acceptable performance. The trends are promising here – I expect that by next Christmas 200 GB at 7200 rpm should make an appearance.
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where geek service meets fan service
Tom’s Hardware has a holiday gift guide for geeks. It comes with nice illustrations. ahem.
I could make a joke about “wood elves” here, but I won’t.
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stability and security
Shamus discusses why Linux sucks as a personal computing environment. I agree with everything he says, though in the course of his post he does mention that Linux is more stable and more secure than Windows. Now, the fact that Linux is stable and secure is obviously not a matter of contention. However, the implication that windows is neither is one I take issue with.
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the neoMac Ethos?
Since when did the Mac platform become the platform of conformity?
The unboxing experience is often enough of a plus to put someone in a positive frame of mind for the setup procedure, which itself is often smooth enough to get things off on the right foot. But there will be people like Bodine who insist on straying from the beaten path, clicking on the wrong things, applying their preconceived notions of how a computer should work, and establishing what other people would consider unreasonable criteria for how Apple should receive a passing or failing grade.
[…]
It’s times like this that I feel an unaccountable sort of sympathy for countries like North Korea, that have to assign “handlers” to the tourists who come to see them, to steer them around and show them all the good stuff, and prevent them from clicking on the wrong building or torture camp.The sole thing that attracts me to the Mac as a potential future purchase is the image of the Mac as a means to open the doors to your creativity and let your productivity run wild without being arbitrarily constrained by the limitations of the software and whims of the programmers and marketdroids and whatnot. That image, carefully cultivated, seems to be a dinosaur now. I mean, god forbid a user clicks on the wrong thing. Instead the user is expected to follow the paradigm, stop questioning why things are the way they are. Instead, they should just be satisfied by… the unboxing experience?
I just can’t accept this.
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Many Dothans died to bring us this information
NotebookReview has a guide to pin-modding your old Dothan Pentium-M based notebook. In geekspeak, this amounts to
grounding the BSEL[0] pin, thus “tricking” the CPU Front Side Bus to run at 133MHz instead of 100MHz, since its multiplier stays the same it will overclock by 33% turning a 1.6Ghz CPU (16 X 100Mhz) into a 2.13Ghz CPU (16 X 133Mhz).
Not for the faint of heart!
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all your base are belong to YouTube. And Google.
woah.
The company today announced a flurry of deals with music labels to offer music videos and other content free of charge, including one with onetime nemesis Universal, which recently claimed that YouTube owed it millions of dollars for copyright infringement. In addition to the Warner deal announced two weeks ago, YouTube has now signed on Sony BMG, Universal, and CBS.
As if that wasn’t enough, both Reuters and the Wall Street Journal are reporting that Google will buy the company for more than $1.5 billion in a move that could be announced this evening.
If – and when – Google figures out how to make a standalone box that lets you watch YT videos on your home TV, traditional TV dies.
