Some friends of ours are making a quick holiday trip to see family in Florida and will be travelling at the peak. It gave me a wonderful idea. Take a photo every hour, on the hour, for the duration of the trip. Start with a shot of the alarm clock on day-one. Then, at the top of each hour, look around and take one picture. Nothing posed. Just shoot the first thing that catches your eye. And then go one with your holiday. If you’re awake 15 hours each day, for a fast 3-day trip… you have 45 images without having to think much about what you’re doing. If anybody tries this, let me know how it works. And I’d love to see the photos. If you don’t have a Fotki account, here’s a good reason to set one up.
Category Archives: Gadgets & Apps
SanDisk Digital Music Player
I gave some serious thought to purchasing an iPod or similar digital audio device. But the buggers cost $300-400 and I didn’t want to pay that much. And I don’t have 10,000 mp3 files, anyway. But I have started downloading and listening to interviews from IT Conversations.
Listening to these on my laptop was somewhat limiting so I sprung for a SanDisk Digital Music Player. This little gem has 512 meg of (flash) storage and will play for 15 hours on a single AAA battery. It was on sale at Best Buy for about $120 and I can take it back if I don’t like it.
So when would you use a device like this? Today I went to see National Treasure and got there about 15 minutes before the movie began. Popped in my ear-buds and listened to the first part of a talk by Richard Florida (The Rise of the Creative Class).
It got me thinking again about this whole podcasting thing. The stuff I’m interested in will never be broadcast on a traditional radio station. Or, if it is, I’m unlikely to know about it or pick up that station. But the IT Conversations website has hundreds of hours of content that I’m very interested in. And I can go and get it whenever I want. And listen to it whenever and where ever I want.
Radio programmers have always been about trying to find the right combination of music, news, talk, whatever… that would appeal to the greatest number of people within their coverage area. Lowest common denominator. That doesn’t work for me anymore. I want to listen to what I’m interested in. When I want to listen to it. Where ever I might be. The web makes this possible.
Microsoft’s new search engine
I took Microsoft’s new search engine for a spin tonight and can’t say I was impressed. Looked a lot like Google but it’s hard to knock them for that. And it probably does some things that Google doesn’t but I didn’t take the time to try find out what they might be. I did an image search for “Steve Mays” and came up with two photos that truly capture the real me. But I’m a Google Boy to the very end.
Radio-Guy
Steve Erenberg collects stuff.
“Oddball & scary scientific stuff, globes, industrial masks and helmets, motors, contraptions, electrostatic devices, salesmen’s samples, anatomical models, x-ray tubes and early radio equipment.”
I’d love to see where he lives. Erenberg is a creative director at a NY advertising agency but was trained as an architect. He designed the five-story globe in front of Trump Tower.
A9 is A-1.
I haven’t needed to save browser “Favorites” or “Bookmarks” much since Google came along. But I have a few. And a few more on my Thinkpad. And a few more on my home PC. And it’s too much trouble to try to keep them all sync’d up. But a new service from Amazon has made the problem go away. It’s called A9 (I have no idea) and it’s pretty slick.
“A9.com is a search engine, using web search and image search results enhanced by Google, movies results from IMDb, and more. A9.com remembers your information so you dont have to. You can keep your own notes about any web page and search them; it is a new way to store and organize your bookmarks.” [More]
Any links I save in the future will be on my A9 page. My thumb is up on A9.
stevemays@gmail.com
What’s an invitation for a Gmail account worth? If you have an invitation to open an account on Google’s new e-mail service, you could sell it on eBay for as much as $60. But if cash is a little too prosaic for you, your Gmail invitation could net you 4 pounds of fresh fudge, some Jewish mystical knowledge, a photo of a wife and a girlfriend kissing, a tarantula, Paris Hilton’s phone number or any one of more than 1,000 other options. Full article at Wired.com
[Update: Google launched on April 1, 2004. Created my account on April 21, 2004]
Invite to beta test Gmail
As a long-time Blogger subscriber (going on three years), I got an invite to beta test Google’s new email service, Gmail. And they allowed me to invite two friends to try the service. One of whom pointed out that these accounts are selling for as much as $50 on eBay. Might be just because not everyone can get them yet… or the gig of storage. I’m not ready to drop Hotmail as my back-up (to work) email.
Gmail
I’m trying out the new, free email service from Google, Gmail. The big draw –in addition to “free”– is storage. A gigabyte. Which is a shit-load of email. The idea is you save ALL your email and use Googles great search tools to find stuff later. I’m not one of those that likes to save everything but I’ll reserve judgement.
Thinkpads Forever
I bought my first IBM Thinkpad in 1996. That was the year IBM introduced the 560 model, the first “ultraportable.” The little bugger is still working. In December of 2000 I replaced the 560 with an A21p. I told the IBM rep on the phone to give me “the biggest, baddest box you have.” The warranty on the A21p expired in later February and the mother board expired last weekend. A brand new Thinkpad R40 left Hong Kong overnight and is heading my way.
Thought about buying a Mac (for about 30 seconds) and decided to stick with what I know. Thinkpads are a little pricey but looking at the 10-year-old 560 over there on the couch reminds me why I keep coming back.
SoundCover phone app
“Did you wake up late for work and you want your boss to think you’re caught in traffic? Select the Traffic Jam background and give him a call from your bedroom. He will hear your voice on top of (traffic sfx). Is one of your mates a chronic talker that just doesn’t know when to stop? Use the Phone Ring background and your friend will hear a phone ring 6 times, 15 seconds into the call. Tell him that your other phone is ringing and that you have to go. Pretend you’re at the dentist, in the park, on the street, caught in a thunderstorm, near heavy machinery or at a circus parade.”