Cool, self-contained solution

I like when people create easy, self-contained solutions to problems that I hear people ask about all the time. In this case, the problem is getting old record albums converted to digital.

The solution in this case, is a turntable with built-in USB recording capability, and some included software. Yeah, the quality probably isn't all that great, but neither are most people's 30 year old albums that have been sitting stacked, in a dark basement for 20 years.

$130 or so from Amazon, and the problem is solved.

Google - So Hot Right Now?

I absolutely love Google Calendar. I can't state that enough. They truly scored as cool of an app as Gmail. I will follow-up later tonight with a Google Integration post.

However, just as I think they are completely back in the cool department, they release Google Sketch. Go to http://sketchup.google.com [Link Fixed] if you don't believe me.

I downloaded it, but I haven't run it yet. Looks like any other of the free 3D software I have tried. It might be just fine.

However, why is Google releasing 3D software? Yes, I know Google Earth is basically 3D software, but that still fit in as a service, plus they got it by buying some other company. Where did this come from, and where does the breadth of Google begin and end?

30 Boxes, we hardly knew ye

RIP 30boxes. I was really digging using this, and I have gotten a lot of good use out of having an online calendar; however, things have changed.

No, I'm not ditching the online calendar, it has just been done much, much better. Google calendar is now officially in beta (which is the same as saying release for the rest of the world). I've been a bit down on Google lately, because I even though I can't live without gmail anymore, their more recent releases have not impressed me a bit. Calendar is every bit as good as gmail though.

Everything I liked about 30boxes is still there. The interface is as good as I think it could be, everything is easy to find and navigate. I love that you can select either the quick event add, or a more detailed one. Coolest of all, they implemented the feature that we said they absolutely needed. Gmail will now prompt you if a message appears to have an event in it, and you can add it to your calendar. Integration at its finest.

Calendar sharing and delegating is retained, and RSS feeds are available, something I found very useful with 30boxes. Popup reminders are included, which 30boxes did not offer.

The last thing to find out is what type of iCalendar support is included. Overall though, I see Google having the killer calendar/email integration for me.


Some quick updates:
It looks like for now iCal importing is limited to a standard browse and upload form. This could be done a little smoother. Not sure if there is anyway currently to use a website's iCalendar file without first saving it offline.

Not really a calendar issue, but there needs to be a Calendar link from Gmail. I smell a Greasemonkey script in the making...

About Time

I love Firefox. I really love Firefox extensions, that is where the true value of the browser shows up to me. What I don't like, is that extensions aren't easy to keep up-to-date. Since there are a steady stream of bugfixes, new features, and workarounds being developed, that is very unfortunate.

It seems to me that the 1.0x branch of Firefox did a reasonable job of keeping most extensions updated, at least those from either mozdev or addons.mozilla.org anyway.

Then, when the 1.5x (deer park) branch was being developed, there were promises of a much better updater for Firefox. It was going to more granular, allowing for only necessary pieces to be downloaded and updated, and it was going to be much more reliable. However, the only real change I have seen to this point is that my extensions now never updated on their own, despite screenshots such as this leading to believe to the contrary:


This wasn't going to last long though, so here is an extension which takes care of automatically notifying/updating when extensions are updated. Very nice.

I found this tip through Lifehacker once again.

Dump Complete

There's something else interesting I wanted to post about today, but it has slipped my mind.

In its place, I need to throw out a recommendation for some kickass new music. Best Buy has some fantastic pricing this week, so I ended up buying several CD's and a movie. I had planned on a buying a few of them anyway, but the prices made me just keep picking up more. Especially since I knew that Amazon was much higher on several of them.

My favorite of the group is my purchase of the new Shooter Jennings CD. As those who read my blog regularly may remember, Shooter's last CD was and is still one of my favorites (even when my wife would prefer to burn the CD, rather than hear some of the songs...).

His new stuff is as good as before, keeping his own musical touches while coming so close to sounding like his dad, that it is spooky. Check out track 3 as an example of a song Waylon would have loved to have done.

Although this is a mix of Southern Rock and Waylon's Luckenbach, TX sound, I wouldn't recommend this to those without an appreciation of some solid, country music. This is the soul of country, the way it should be.

Dump #2 - Boot Camp

The whole tech world yesterday (at least the parts I care to keep track of) where talking about "boot camp". No, not some military institution, the announcement by Apple of a boot loader that permits running either Windows or the Mac OS on Apple hardware.

This floored me. I never expected to see this announcement from them. I was barely shocked at all to hear that they were switching from PowerPC to Intel, and I fully expected that some people at that point would find a way to run Windows on the thing, but I never thought Apple themselves would endorse it.

At that point the questions really started.
1. How did they do it? Did they just steal the work done by the hackers going after the $13,000 bounty? Did they make Intel give them a reference BIOS? Did they create their own BIOS internally?

At this point, I would lean toward the latter. There is no way they would go use some hackers piecemeal code, and I'm not sure they would have even ran this by Intel. Bootloaders are not really that difficult, especially if you know the hardware and specification, and Apple would definitely have guys that fit both of those criteria. I'm sure the day the developers got an x86 board on their desk (about 5 years ago depending on what you read -- different topic) they threw together a BIOS and booted XP on the thing, just to prove it could be done. I would have.

2. Why? Apple has been notorious about protecting their overall system solution by keeping their hardware and software tightly coupled and under wraps. Are they now simply wanting to be a hardware company?

I think this answer may be the trickiest and the most interesting. It is possible they simply want to pick up hardware sales from the "switcher" market. Those people who are interested in Apple, but still have reasons to continue using Windows, and don't really want to have different machines for each. It turns out I fall squarely into this market. I really want an Apple machine at home, and I think I would wear out the iLife suite I would use it so much. However, I still need Windows for some tasks at this point, and I refuse to have multiple machines. This is truly sly, because over time I'm sure I would find replacement apps on the Apple, and grow tired of rebooting, slowing fazing Windows out entirely.

This is where the discussion gets really interesting. There has been much discussion that even if Windows XP were possible on the Apple, Vista will not be. Do a google search if you want to learn why or how, I'm not up to doing the research right now. However, if that is true, there is basically planned obsolescence for the Windows solution. If they get the people right now, when Vista comes out they won't be able to transition to it on the current hardware. However, the latest shiny new OS (leopard or greater) from Apple will absolutely run on it. Thus promoting users to simply abandon Windows at that point.

Overall, I really like how polished this solution looks from Apple. It's already very nice in beta, and will just get better when it is embedded into Leopard. Simple resizing of partitions should have been in Windows from day 1, but never was natively. Everything in typical Apple style just works and looks very polished.

I did see today an announcement of someone with some virtualization software to run Windows inside Mac OS. That is the only way to make this better. Let me quick jump over to run a Windows task without rebooting. I'll be watching this to see how it pans out.

Update: Check out Thaddeus's blog for another perspective on all of this.

Brain Dump

Lots of small random thoughts, so I'm going to throw out a bunch of posts.

I show up today at work, and Google Talk is staring at me, with lots of doodads, and a message saying that there are new features available. I really like having pictures back, that is something I missed from MSN Messenger. I also like that you can now theme your chat windows, the original now really looks like crap.

2 things I find interesting. It seems as if pictures may be stored on Google's site, as I can see pictures for people who are offline (or at least unavailable, maybe that is the key). Also, partychat has a default picture, but it is slightly different than the default pictures for people using alternate IM clients (and currently down, big surprise there). Google, give us group chats, please.

Get Me Out of This Stale Air

Time to break out of the funk...

Ryan recently posted/ranted about Chevy's new product tie-in with "The Apprentice". Having seen a new Tahoe in person, I can say they are really cool, even if I wouldn't personally buy one.
I have already commented on Ryan's post about my agreement with his points. I don't understand the blind hatred for SUV's and their owners, I still feel that all people can make their own, hopefully educated, decision about what vehicle they wish to purchase.

I also happen to subscribe to the GM Fastlane blog. It is mostly comprised of posts from Robert Lutz, which makes it of great interest to me (BTW: pick up his book sometime for an interesting read). Today's post is directly concerning the Tahoe promotion, and the media interest it has generated.

Take a look.