Category Archives: General Tech Stuff

Richard Seaman has some astonishingly good pictures of SpaceShipOne on his photoblog.

This week is Apple’s World-Wide Developer Conference, and they’re pulling out all the stops to introduce Mac OS X “Tiger”. Here’s a snapshot that arrived in my mailbox earlier today.

I have Vonage and generally like it pretty well. Call quality is generally good, and their web-based dashboard is a slick way to keep track of missed calls, voicemails, and so on. However, a question from a former co-worker got me to thinking– he asked how Vonage handles 911 calls. The answer is a little scary– they route 911 calls to the local public safety answering point (PSAP) if you tell Vonage where their phone box is (so they have the physical address) and if you activate that line for 911. Fair enough, I suppose. The scary part is that your 911 call goes to the standard number at the PSAP, not the dedicated 911 lines that are answered 24/7. In Perrysburg’s case, that means that the call would go to the police non-emergency number. Since we’re a small city, that’s probably OK because the call volume is fairly low, but for a larger city that might not be so great. Vonage explains all this in their terms of service, but not as prominently as I might like. For us, it’s OK because we’ve also got two wired lines and two cellphones in the house, but this would definitely be a showstopper for using Vonage as a single-phone solution.

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W00t. Thanks to my friends over at BackupBrain, I now have a gmail account. It’s too early to tell if the search features are useful, since I don’t have a corpus of mail there.

Alex Salkever of BusinessWeek covered the AirPort Express in his column, but there were a few things in it that I found puzzling.
First, and biggest, he wrote:

A new piece of software, AirTunes, promises seamless synching between a computer — PC or Mac — and any Wi-Fi-ready speakers within range via the Express router… Alternatively, you can buy a wireless connection kit and plug a stereo directly into an Express to connect it to a desktop with a Wi-Fi card.

Actually, the AirPort Express (or the “AirPortable”, as I’ve taken to calling it) has two audio outputs built in: a digital output for S/PDIF and a mini-jack. If you have conventional powered speakers, you just plug ‘em in. You can use the S/PDIF output to plug the unit in to your stereo or A/V receiver, too. Apple does sell a connection kit, but it’s nothing more than some (overpriced) Monster audio cables. While there may be vendors selling “Wi-Fi-ready speakers” (I couldn’t find any but admittedly I didn’t look very hard) I’m not sure that’s the target device Apple has in mind.
Another nit: AirTunes doesn’t synch anything to anywhere. It merely encrypts and streams the currently playing iTunes selection and sends it, using Rendezvous, to the selected AirPort Express. Saying “seamless synching” implies that your music library is synced to the Express device.
Next, the article doesn’t mention one of the really cool features of the Express device: it can extend the range of an existing AirPort Extreme base station by acting as a wireless bridge (similar to the trusty Linksys WET-11). This is a killer feature, since a) it’s trivial to grow your network range by plugging one in and b) it only works with AirPort Extreme base stations– thus helping to justify their inflated price.

Apple’s new AirPort Express gadget is very cool (hey, maybe I’ll get one for Fathers’ Day.. hmm..) However, I can’t tell if it works with generic 802.11g base stations or only with AirPort Extreme units. I have a Linksys 802.11g station now and would prefer not to replace it just so I can use one of these.

Yesterday’s paper had a big ad for a Toshiba “S810” tablet, along with a prominent splash that said to visit bestbuy.com/ToshibaS810. That’s a dead link, of course; a little Googling reveals that they probably meant the M205-S810, which is identical to my M200 except that it comes with an external DVD-R/CD-RW drive (well, and it’s $250 less than what I paid, but who’s counting?) This is kind of an embarrassing mistake to make, though– I wonder if the “S810” labeling was national or just in our region?

I just got a press release from the fine folks at Scaled Composites. Their SpaceShipOne vehicle is scheduled for its attempt at the X Prize on June 21! I’ll be at Camp Bloch, or else I’d be on a plane to the desert (with, of course, press credentials). An excerpt from the FAQ:

Q: Are cameras permitted?
A: Yes.
Q: Who is invited?
A: Everyone, especially children. They will want to tell their children that they were there to see the event that triggered the industry of private space tourism.
Q: Are pets allowed?
A: Only in accordance with strict leash laws.

Update: I’m a moron. This isn’t an X Prize attempt because it’s not carrying enough mass. I suspect that it’s preparation for a prize attempt, though: if they can launch on 6/21 and then show a quick enough turnaround that should indicate that they’re ready for a full-up attempt.

Omar Shahine (who just moved to Hotmail, woo hoo!) posted a great tip for the Toshiba M200: tell Windows that you’re using a 120 dot-per-inch screen. It works great, although the ugly resampled icons in the QuickLaunch bar take a little getting used to.

This is a very cool little applet: it shows you which of your Xbox Live friends are online at any given time, and it can optionally alert you when someone’s playing a particular game. Now I can find out the best times to, er, take a break. Yeah, that’s the ticket. (Additionally, it uses the .NET Framework, so maybe that’ll be enough to get the author some Scoble-style link-lovin’). Note that it still has a few minor bugs, but it’s still quite cool.

Woo hoo! Burt Rutan does it again: ‘SpaceShipOne’ becomes first privately funded vehicle to break through earth’s atmosphere. It’s about time. My money’s on him to win the X Prize. Private spaceflight can’t possibly come soon enough to suit me.

Today I’m headed for the world’s largest geek fest: the Dayton Hamvention. Hopefully radio lust won’t get the better of me…

I’m speaking today at Enterprise Messaging Decisions 2004. This is actually my first day trip in a while. When I lived in Huntsville, it was possible to fly out at 0530 or 0630, change planes in Atlanta, and make it to pretty much anywhere by noon– enough time for a meeting or presentation– and then get home again around 11pm. In Toledo, that’s just not happening because of Delta’s flight schedule ex Cincinnati. So, since EMD is in Chicago, I’m going to drive– should be fun. Here’s the slide deck.

Wow, this is really cool: a new version of iTunes! Besides an RSS feed of the top 10 songs in the iTunes Music Store, there are a ton of new features:

• You can authorize your songs for playback on five machines, not just three
• You can rip CDs using a new lossless codec
• You can see playlists from radio stations, in your area or elsewhere. (Note to Apple and XM: this would be a killer feature for XM Radio, too!)
• a spiffy new “Party Shuffle” mode that improves over the standard shuffle mode by letting you see what songs will be played in what order

Oh yes, one other thing: a converter that can change Windows Media .wma files into Apple’s AAC format. Very, very cool. More details here (and while you’re at it, check out Jim Heid’s newest edition of The Macintosh iLife).