Author Archives: Mike

About Mike

If you're reading this, you probably know me. If not, poke around and maybe you'll learn something.

Twitter Updates for 2008-01-16

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  • Skullcandy, what a unique name for a company. They sell "urban" headphones. Kinda cool #
  • Hangin’ at the Acura booth suckin’ up the bits before going back to the hotel. #
  • Wrapping up and going to foraging for food. #
  • Back in the room. Had some sushi, surfing, and watching Matrix Reloaded. #
  • All caught up on work, did a blog post, and heading to the South hall for day 2. #
  • I like the dual use laptop desk (futura) by LapWorks http://www.laptopdesk.net #
  • It’s interesting what people are willing to do for freebies. #
  • O.k. the Eye-Fi card is slicker than slick http://www.eye.fi #
  • There are vendors selling iPod cases everywhere. Kinda like Starbucks. #
  • An urban setting is tough for a fast walker like me. #

Perhaps the classiest 404 page I’ve seen

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While finding the EyeTV link for my last post, I discovered that El Gato has, in my opinion, the best take on a 404 page (the one that comes up when you request an invalid URL). Sure, generally everyone has a "we’re sorry we couldn’t find the page you’re looking for."  They go a step further and give you a 10% off coupon in their store "to make things right".

That’s pretty cool.

Macworld Expo, Day 2

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Today was all about the South hall. Obviously, Apple’s booth was the largest and in the middle of the floor. Most people were interested in fondling the MacBook Air but the other products got plenty of interest as well. They were smart to have empty MBA shells at the sides of the booth so people could marvel at the new design. Time will tell how durable it is as the form certainly makes you want to slip it in a backpack or bag. The recessed USB ports look cool, but I’m sure owners are going to have to carry a USB extension for those things that won’t fit.

The coolest product I saw was Eye-Fi which is a 2G SD memory card that also has WiFi circuitry that is independent of the camera. In practice, it allows you to take a picture and have it automatically upload it to your computer (in local mode) or to Flick via their servers. If there isn’t a known network available, it stays on the card just like normal. I asked if they were thinking about a MemoryStick version and he said they are talking to Sony but it’s too early to know. I hope they do.

I also talked with the Omni Group booth about their new OmniFocus which I’ve been using for a bit. I wanted to make sure I was using it properly as I started while it was in public beta and developed habits before some features were implemented.

The funniest thing was the fact there were iPod/iPhone case vendors everywhere including two that were across the isle from each other (awkward). Becky‘s in the market for one so I’ll have to try and find out what she wants and see who has a good show special.

I’m very happy that El Gato released a new version of EyeTV. They addressed several complaints I had since switching from my MythTV last year. They add a smart listing (e.g., smart playlist) based on multiple categories and can optionally record any matching episode. They also improved the on-screen menu which will make it easier to use on our TV.

Macworld Expo, Day 1

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Yesterday was the opening day of Macworld Expo in San Francisco. The keynote ran from 9:00 to around 10:45 but I did not have a pass for it and considering the extreme interest and attendance, I wasn’t bothered by that. Since registration wasn’t open until after the keynote, I went across the street to the Metreon and followed Engadget‘s live blogging of the presentation.

My take on the announcements? "meh" I like the iPhone upgrade (GPS-like locater, web clips, multi-person SMS, song lyrics, and movie chapters) but am still quite put-out that they still don’t support tasks. I was hoping they were going to discuss the development kit for the iPhone and perhaps bring some vendor out to show a upcoming app, but I suppose that isn’t quite the venue for it.

I am also so-so on the iTunes movie rentals. I really like the concept and while we subscribe to NetFlix, I think we’ll use iTunes occasionally for those movies we don’t want to wait for. Since I am a bit frugal by nature, I would have liked it to be $1.99 and $2.99 (back catalog vs. new releqses) instead of $2.99 and $3.99 and am also disapointed by what has been called the "guy tax" of $1 extra for HD versions (if available). What’s worse, it appears that the HD versions can only be viewed on the Apple TV which leaves my Mac Mini in the SD cold. I’d bet big money that the studios required that restriction so that you can’t easily get to the file to strip the DRM and pirate like everyone strives to do.

Lastly, Apple announced the MacBook Air which is an ultra-light 13" laptop that is quite sexy in person. I have to admit, if I was in the market, I’d strongly consider one but I’m not coveting it. Many have criticized the non-user replaceable battery but having seen the unit in person, I don’t see how they could have made it removable and still keep the laptop thin. The replacement cost for the battery is reasonable, but it’s not clear if it can be replaced at an Apple Store or if it has to be sent in for servicing. Granted, you don’t really need to replace the battery often, but I’d rather not be without a laptop for days to do so.

Other than that, I spent the afternoon in the West hall which is made up of mostly smaller vendors. Some of the highlights include Skullcandy (a vendor of urban tech accessories), Budclicks (clip-on accents for earphones), Fluid Mask 3 by Vertus (alpha mask creation with a unique UI), Blurb (individual softcover and hardcover printing service), and of course Drobo by Data Robotics (a personal RAID device with very impressive features that I’ve been drooling over for a while).

Today, I’ll be hitting the South hall which is the big one. I’ll twitter what I can and do a day 2 wrap up tonight.

How can you tell your router is having issues?

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Becky and I have both been noticing that our Internet connection slows down whenever a significant amount of output data is moving through the pipe. Officially, our DSL is supposed to be 3000/768 kbps but any time I run a speed test, I get around 2500 kbps down which is acceptable but only get around 165 kbps up. Normally this isn’t a big deal as there isn’t normally much upstream data going on, but when Becky’s mother comes online, my systems start backing up to her system via CrashPlan. Even running "full out" I only get 165 kbps up which is far short from the expected 768 that I should be getting.

In trying to isolate this, I disconnected my entire home setup (eight devices connected via three routers) and hooked a laptop up directly to the modem. A repeat of the test gave me spec’d performance and restoring my setup (after resetting the router) gave me a good test as well, but any subsequent one was poor. I am nearly 100% certain it isn’t due to another device filling the pipe (I monitor all my systems via Cacti). Even if one was, it still is capped out at 165 kbps. I’ll need to repeat a few tests to try and isolate and identify the cause.

Everything else works as expected. I get frustrated with strange problems like this.

Update: Based on Matthew’s comment, I made sure that each of the three inside instances of CrashPlan are throttled (only one was connecting to an outside server). That made no difference. Tonight, I tried swapping out my main router with another Linksys and got the same results. I then connected my laptop directly to the modem which also had the same results. I reset the modem and am having good performance, but as I did that in the past, I’m expecting the outgoing to become poor again based on past tests.

Heading up to Macworld

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This upcoming Monday afternoon, I’ll be flying up to San Francisco to spend a few days at Macworld 2008. Back "in the day" when I worked for a small software company (Gryphon Software, makers of Morph) we exhibited at Macworld all the time, but I haven’t been there for years so I’m really looking forward to it.

The reason I’m attending this year is my company’s increasing use and support for Macs as well as me becoming more involved in supporting our cinematics group’s Shake renderfarm.

I’ll probably post one or two blog posts of my experiences and will try to also twitter what I can just for fun. You can follow me on Twitter by going to my page there.

I’m guessing the war is over

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I’m not a videophile but I do have a HDTV and since I work for SCEA, it’s not surprising that I have a Playstation 3. Since Sony is one of the members of the Blu-ray Disc Association it was no shock that they wanted to use Blu-ray for the disc format of the Playstation 3 which was released in late 2006. The other format, HD-DVD had its supporters, including Microsoft which released an add-on drive for their Xbox 360 gaming console which is normally DVD based.

The competition between the two formats also affected the movie studios who had to decide which format to get behind. Paramount supports HD-DVD exclusively and Disney is exclusively Blu-ray. Most other studios, took a wait-and-see attitude while the consumers were forced to take a gamble on one or the other or abstain until a victor was decided. Each format had its advantages and certainly had their own share of supporters and detractors. They kept their eyes on each other with player cost and movie prices remaining in-line with one another. It wasn’t looking good and many were predicting a protracted battle.

That battle may well and be over as yesterday, Warner Brothers which was remaining neutral and supporting both formats decided that starting June 1, will be releasing their new and back-catalog titles in the Blu-ray format exclusively. It’s not set in stone, but I can’t think of how Blu-ray won’t end up being the only hi-def format by the end of 2008.

I’m happy since not only does my employer have a vested interest, I have largely committed to the format with my decision to purchase all three Pirates of the Carribean movies and the Harry Potter box set in Blu-ray. Granted, they wouldn’t stop playing if Blu-ray ended up losing, but I didn’t want to have to think about getting a new disc player and have become quite accustomed to seeing movies all purdy-like.

Ahhh, vacation begins

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My work traditionally gives us the week between Christmas and New Years off and this year is no different. Not only do I get 11 days off (12/22-1/1) but the real advantage is the fact the entire office (with the exception of one of the game studios who is behind on their schedule of a springtime game) is also off which means I don’t have to worry about work piling up.

Aside from getting together with friends and family for Christmas, one thing that we are all planning is a Harry Potter marathon on Thursday as we just got the Harry Potter 1-5 box set for Blu-Ray. That should be fun.