We got the message, thank you very much. HD-DVD is dead. There is no need to trumpet it over and over again, every single day from every hill-top. We’re clear on the concept, Sony won, there are lots of parties in Tokyo and the Big Machines of Industry are ramping up production. Everyone is calling for the impending price-drops around Blu-ray players and media. Yay. Not quite yet.

In all of the bloodshed we forgot why the formats were different and how Blu-ray is not exactly “friendly”. Blu-ray is about content control. I don’t need to spend too much time on this but it’s a matter of months before it’s cracked and Blu-ray rips are all over the torrents making the Interwebs even more crowded. It’s just a fact, lets not pretend it’s not going to happen.

That’s not what I’m interested in, I dont have any need for downloading 25GB movies, it’s just not worth it, VOD and Netflix are far simpler. What I do care about is the fact that none of the Blu-ray players support xvid / divx / dvd-mp3 etc. Since we all know that a $50 Philips DVD player from Walmart will play just about anything you throw at it, I could wonder why a $500 player doesn’t. But I don’t wonder. I know the reason, it’s control. It’s the same control that’s in play with Apple TV not playing other formats like Divx & WMV, they want to control how you consume media and that’s not good for the consumer. You see, I edit video and like to encode it into XviD for online and DVD distribution. So, I’m going to have to own 3 DVD players now? (XBOX, Philips & Blu-ray)? Thats just stupid.

So, here’s what needs to change:
1. Apple TV, allow more codecs (the ones people use)
2. MS, same deal, you opened it up half way but now you need to do it for the Extenders too
3. Blu-ray player makers, don’t alienate the consumer when there is a real legitimate need here

How legitimate is it? With all of the video recorders moving to MPEG4, many of which encode directly to divx, that’s how people edit and record their home movies. Video editing is making its way into the home at a rapid pace and people are sharing a lot of video. The players that work with the most formats will win over the ones that have the best Faroudja processors.

So, when I see a player that plays nice with my formats, I’ll upgrade my Netflix account, get that Mitsubishi Diamond 64″ 1080p DLP rear-projection screen and figure out which receiver I’ll be getting (probably the new Pioneer Elite).

Until then, my money stays in my pocket.

I’ve been hearing about Dell losing marketshare to HP for a while but I’ve always been a Dell guy. But when I started to play with the new HP dv6000 series laptops, I had a change of heart. It also coincided with a new Dell laptop that was too hot to use on my lap and had serious performance issues for a Core 2 Duo.

I was changing sides. I went on-line just before the holidays and started to look at the DV6000 HPs and was able to build a serious system for about 1400. Alas, the wait would be 3 weeks and I wanted something sooner, like that day. I went over to Fry’s and experienced their abysmal customer service which sent me back to Best Buy where they had a fresh-off-the-boat Special Edition, the DV6780se. The case is a cool bronze metallic which makes this much more interesting looking than your everyday thick black shingle.

The se comes with 3GB of RAM, a good video card, Altec Lansing speakers, 12 cell battery for about 4 hours of solid use, webcam, 220GB HD, gold tone keyboard, HDMI out, firewire, B/G/N networking, lightscribe and a 1.67 Socket P Intel Dual Core CPU.

First, it’s fast in spite of what seems like a small CPU. I’ve had no issues and I demand a lot from these systems. The 3GB of ram and 220GB hard drive are a nice departure from the standard 1GB and 80GB you see in so many systems. The touch sensitive bar below the speakers is great if I only use it for volume control. Before I continue to gush, I have a few small issues:

- The gold tone keyboard is impossible to use in low light. I use this in bed witha small night stand light. The keyboard made it very hard to type.
- No Bluetooth. This is a silly thing not to include but this in NOT HP’s fault, Best Buy does not like to sell laptops with Bluetooth when they can sell you Bluetooth as a nice $40 extra. Adding factory bluetooth after the fact is very complex.
- The touchpad management allows you to do everything except change acceleration. Very weird. I have to move my finger across the pad 3 times to get across the screen.

Other than the gold keyboard, this is a DV6000 / Best Buy complaint in general.

Since I don’t use Bluetooth very much it’s not a deal breaker but I would have paid more for one with that included, just in case I ever wanted to use it. The keyboard is another thing. I bought a factory black keyboard for $20 on ebay and replaced the gold one. I use this in low-light all the time, the black one is a HUGE difference.

If I could change one thing, backlit keyboards. We take these things everywhere, it’s time this was standard on most systems or at least an option that’s easy to replace.

All things considered, I think I paid about $1100 for it and that’s a screaming deal. It’s pretty, fast, reliable and an all-around all-star. It’s the best laptop I’ve ever owned.

Update: Someone else reviewed it too

The Internets were a twitter today with Jobs going to the top of the mountain and coming back to the herds with news of shiny new goodies. You head the swooning, here’s some reality.

Apple TV. While Apple has the best UI around in all their offerings, it’s locked down tighter than a frogs ass. And for some reason, people are happy with that. I have a serious issue with no support for xvid and divx. You see, these new video cameras that don’t use tape, they often encode to Divx or Xvid. Why must I convert my video yet again when you could very simply use a codec that I already installed? Why, pray tell?

Sure my xobx has a bad UI and it’s not great at the internets, but I can watch movies from other computers in the house in most formats. At least all the formats I use. And I use a lot of them.

This is where Apple went the wrong way and they could have fixed it with 3 simple things. If they did these 3 simple things, they would own the living room.
1. The form factor just intimidates people. People want to see something that looks like a DVD player. Humor them.
2. Include a DVD player. In fact, include a BluRay / HD-DVD writer / reader. Even better, offer a standardized slot so you can put in a selection of players / recorders to suit the buyer. Someone just wants to play DVDs? Great, it’s cheap and ads little cost to the device. They want to upgrade? Pull out the old one, put in a new one.
3. Include codecs people use like DivX and XviD. It’s not just for pirates anymore.

This device would rule the world and it’s so simple to make that jump…

Ok, now the Air. Oh, it’s so wafer thin. I like the sveltness of it. I was a bit cross about it being completely sealed like an ipod but I’ll admit, I get that they did have to do a lot to get all that to fit in there. Still, once again, it’s a case of Apple wanting you to buy a whole new device if you want to upgrade anything. So, when the battery dies, you dont buy a battery, it goes in the shop, you pay for service and I guarantee that the battery is not cheap. You want more RAM? Buy a new computer. New hard drive? Buy a new computer. See how that might get kind of expensive?

Time capsule is nifty (again not user serviceable) and I think it’s a good way to get people to back up their data. I’m fanatical about backups but most people, not so much. But lets be frank here, it’s a NAS with a backup / restore client. No new technology here. Just a common product with awesome ID and UI. This is why they can charge you 2 to 3 times PC prices for machines with the same specs. Pretty things are expensive. That said, my DV6780se is one sexy laptop and cheap to boot.

The iPhone update was hysterical to witness. It’s like people were waiting for Santa to deliver them goodies through their phones. The mapping tool is nifty and would be useful. I’ll also applaud the access to web apps but there was no way the platform would be viable without letting people add programs to it.

After using an iPhone I felt like an ass whipping out my stylus to input text.

(Warning, nerdy content. If you don’t care about hawt Cisco action, move along)
I give up. I’ve gone through 4 wireless routers in 4 years all for the same reason. I have to reboot them constantly. I don’t get it, how can a few laptops jumping on and off the WLAN cause a router to lock up so quick? It’s not the computers, I’ve changed laptops a number of times and even bought a 10/100/1000 Netgear blue metal “prosumer” model to run the LAN traffic. Still, I get on, do work, put the computer to sleep and when it wakes up, poof, no WLAN. It’s not just my network, I see this everywhere. People are used to having to reboot their wireless access points. How is this acceptable? We’ve had WLAN for years and we’re still kicking out routers once a day?

Since my home network is a critical part of my work and play, I have to nip this in the bud. Since consumer grade hardware seems to be garbage at any price, it’s time to go pro. Cisco so the rescue.

I’m looking at the Cisco 851W and 871W SOHO wifi routers. They are kind of a one-stop-shop for remote offices when you actually care if the office stays on-line and don’t want to rouse the noght security guy to reboot your router…grrr…

These are not rebranded Linksys units, these are full-on IOS executing routers with stateful firewalls. Hot geek manna. I have a call in to my fav Cisco dealer, Mandy, to see if she can hook me up with a unit. I hear that Cisco will even remote-configure it for you. I can’t ask for much more. Well, a quick refresher on IOS might help…

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I spent the last few days at CES talking to people about our product but made a fair amount of time to see some great stuff. There was so much to see it truly blew my mind and I cant remember 90% of it but I had a few highlights.

First, Windows Home Server looks very cool and might make Vista tolerable for me. Or at least give it company. The features are great and I like the idea of backups for all the systems.

Sony seems to have given up on fighting with Apple over players and now makes a ton of iPod playing equipment. I guess that’s the way of the world. Since Sony managed to win the HD DVD wars with BluRay, they must be feeling like they can let go of their ATRAC players.

The 150″ plasma was very disconcerting. Great, but so huge it freaked me out.

Pioneer’s new receivers are pretty and do even more neat stuff. Might have to look at it for replacing the Rotel I’m not loving. The not dealing with HDMI in spite of having the ports is a big no-no for me.

I think Dice Electronics came up with a great fix for integrating ipods by using an FM intercept that also sends the titles to the radio over RDS. It’s completely slick and going in the A3.

I was blow away by the number of GPS players. I think Garmin is sweating.

Cobra has some new radar detectors that are making me regret buying the Escort X50 that seems to be grumpy in the morning and false Ka band for no reason… Then it settles down. Annoying. The Cobra people were very cool, I like their use of LCD displays, it’s also very slick.

I spotted some amazing GPS tracking gadgets that let you track anything you put it in, even without line-of-sight. Could be used for evil, thats the only downside. It works nationwide wherever there’s cell signal. The demo the guy gave me was stunning. It’s CHEAP too. $250 for the unit and $10 a month. How about never losing your bag again. How about knowing where your car is, always. It’s the future, people.

But, a real highlight was the BMW Pit Lane Park exhibit.

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My video is not as good as some that other people took but I do my part to add to the video universe. The setup there is great. Not cheesy at all. The F1 was there on site and the sound it made starting up sent me into ecstasy. The smoking of tires was kind of ok, the sound was the sexy bit. And there was a lot of sound.

CES is sensory overload. I was so blown away the whole time I had no concept of anything outside of the event. I went in to the CES zone. I’m just now getting a clear head.

I will not that I had no desire to smoke at all. I was that tuned in. Or out.

I’ve liven in a few communities with and without homeowners associations. I think people don’t take the “severity” of their prospective HOA into account when buying a home and they should. If you’re a whiny old person who likes to call the police if you hear the neighbors talking outside at 10:01PM, then you might like where I used to live in Shady Hollow. If you left your trash can out more than a few hours after the pickup, a woman in a minivan will be patrolling the neighborhood, taking photos of “offenders” which then get sent to you. It happened to me a few times. I used language that made them stop. It was not nice language.

I’ve also lived in places where you can do just about anything and no one can say a word unless it’s a federal crime. That has downsides too. A neighbor across the street never mowed her lawn and piled up logs, bikes, bricks and other detritus in her yard. It was terrible to look at. Some neighbors got together and waited for her to go out of town and completely leveled her yard so it looked somewhat presentable. She got home and completely lost her mind in the street, sheriking at the top of her lungh acusing the neighborhood of being against her. The cops came. It was a scene.

So, there is a balance if you want one. You have to figure out where you want to live based on what the HOA will restrict and if that meets your needs. If you want to live like a slob and never mow, then live where that’s normal. Or, Arizona where there is no grass.

This guy, well, I assume the cops nor the HOA must care much because although I live in a pretty permissive ‘hood, this would NOT fly. Yes, I’d love to own one buy I’d truly feel bad for the neighbors if I fired this thing up at dinner time. I mean, it’s not a fly-in community…

But, it does look like he’s moving on to another (probably louder) project.

I like the note in there saying that you should be well familiar with turbine engines. I’m pretty handy but… Turbines? That’s a little over my head.

I think I’ve beat this drum more than a few times but someone else articulated it quite well. The fact is, we have too many things that do their own thing and thats not good.

The wish list?
(From Gizmodo – Jason Chen)
• HD DVR Functinality. For example, a TiVo or a Windows Media Center box’s video recording capabilities.
• DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray playback. All in one.
• Gaming. Throw an Xbox 360/PS3/Wii in there and we’ve got ourselves a date. Oh, and we’ll want PC gaming as well.
• Slingbox-style broadcasting. Have this box stream to every device you own, be it PSP, iPhone, Windows Mobile or a laptop.
• On Demand. Make it friendly with your cable provider’s content.
• Format Agnostic. Want Apple’s movies? Done. Want Amazon’s movies? Done. Want Netflix’s movies? Done. Make it play back content from every digital online store.
• Friendly interface. Everyone loves the TiVo interface, but let’s take that an expand it to encompass every sort of media you could want to play back on this miracle box.
• Plug and Play with other devices. Got a Zune that you want to play back music from? Just dock it into the box. Got a camera you shot an hour of footage with and want to watch? Plug it in.

–

I dont have a lot to add to that other than the ability to stream between rooms with similar devices or even better, a single aggregation box that acts as a home head-end for media and smaller “client” boxes (could be built into the tv too…) that can push that to a monitor.

I can dream too, right?

I watched a documentary once where they talked about how much cheaper it is for manufacturers to use blisterpacking over other types of packaging. While I understand that, the lack of a secret key to get into them (like a perforation or zip-wire) is just dumb. I am sure (without any actual data) that Dec 25 is the #1 day of the year for hand lacerations due in total to cheap and infuriating blister packs.

I have a good selection of tools so I don’t have much of a problem, the tin-snips laugh at blisterpacks but are a little unweildy and smell of motor oil. Still, between those and my sheet metal shears, I’m good.

For the rest of the world, a simple can opener might just be the trick.

It’s as simple as that. I can’t believe that it took so long for this to come out as a good tool.

I’m not one for trendy tees but… This is outstanding. Yeah, it’s Peter Griffin from Family Guy.

Bad UI is a huge pet peeve for me. For example, the Scientific Atlanta box I have from Time Warner has a shockingly primitive interface from the standpoint of basic search functionality (which is pretty much non-functional) inability to hide channels I dont watch (about 400 of them) a hit-or-miss abiliity to record shows in the future where you either get it, dont get it or get every single airing of it even if it’s recorded the same episode 2 hours before. oh, i could go on…

I lost my Tivo when I moved and gave up DirecTV. I only ended that relationship because Tivo, which I loved, seemed to be in a weird place where there was little innovation, new features were stillborn due to the pressure of media companies and their new box didnt work with DTV and cost $800.

So I camped out for a few years thinking that something had to give. Tivo would get out of the bog, SI would, under direction of Cisco, join us in the era of decent UI (stop letting engineers design interfaces!) and DTV would release a DVR with or without Tivo.

Most issues did get solved. Tivo has 2 boxes now and while both are cool looking, no one can tell what the difference is between them. DTV launched “Vegas” which is a good UI and they continue to innovate. Tivo launched new services which were looking like victims of RIAA / Hollywood Greed monkeys and SA, well they still have crappy boxes.

As it stands now, I have to hold out a little longer to see if the new cable cards make it to TW and how they work with Tivo. As it is, the old cable cards dont offer VOD and their functionality is very limited. If predictions hold true, we’ll see a new cable card before spring and it will allow the tivos to have all the functionality of regular SA boxes but without the silly and useless UI.

Tivo also did something that should have happened 5 years ago. Actually, it’s not Tivo’s issue, it’s the cable operators, Comcast is now releasing set top boxes that are tivo powered. SA, wake up, the bell tolls for you right now.

Welcome back to the land of the living Tivo. May we be reunited very soon. (When i figure out what the difference is between your new boxes…)

It used to be so simple, pick an AM/FM Cassette Deck that fits your budget, and jam that new Police album in the HS parking lot. A lot has changed since High School. With XM, MP3, CDR, USB, Bluetooth, in-car video & TV, 5.1 surround and everything else, picking out a head unit requires as much thought as a home theater setup. Possibly more.

I recently posted about a head unit that is diskless from the innovative people at Balu that accepts an SD card. Could I completely give up the CD? Not quite yet. I’d more likely buy a DVD enabled head unit so I could burn music to a DVD-R and get 4.2GB of MP3 wonderfulness. Or even try out some surround sound. Why not (ok it’s gimmicky). This new unit, the MP 57 is USB friendly which I have to say should now be considered the standard bar for head units. iPods being cool and all, I still have perfectly good 2GB USB sticks from trade shows that would be VERY useful in the car and in fact, the iPod is just a storage device in the car so all things being equal, I’d rather plug a USB memory stick or portable drive into my car and not cry when the heat / humidity / my dumb hands wreck it.

What I also like about this new unit is that it comes with a complete Bluetooth hands-free rig & mic! I was just pricing out having my wife’s FX35 kitted out with a Parrot BT setup. $400 clams… This unit is listed at $319 msro which makes me think the street price will be closed to $250 and that’s a huge deal since this does more than most stock units can right out of the box.

I’ve been an Alpine fan for a while but the new stuff from Balupunkt are making me change my mind.

I’ve had a Blackberry attached to me for almost 10 years. And I hated it. Or I thought I did. It ends up that I hated the content of the emails, not the phone. As personal phones go, I’ve gone back and forth between utility simple phones and wacky smart phones. While I always loved the idea of Windows Mobile, the execution ended up being a little awkward for real use. Until WM6. HTC has been quietly making phones for carriers and getting almost no credit except for phone nerds like me who know who they are.

When T-Mobile released the MDA I waited on line the morning it was released. And sold it a week later. It was SLLLOOOOWWWW and the version of windows mobile didnt actually close any programs, so the memory would just fill up until the phone had a stroke and locked up. Not ideal. But I knew they were on their way to something cool and I’d just wait.

T-Mobile launched their Wing which looked pretty cool and I waited to hear the fallout if there would be any. And people LIKE it. Could it be? Could the right features be in a phone that is peppy and doesn’t die from overloaded RAM? Did I mention that the MDA had such low ear piece volume you couldn’t have a conversation if there was ANY ambient noise?

I hit up Craigs List and found a Wing for $225 which is about $100 less than a good deal on eBay. Nice lady, she just didn’t need all the features and frankly it scared her. Works for me, new phone, no contract. I spent 2 days waiting for the phone to annoy me. It didn’t. I waited for it to do something terrible, it didn’t. In fact, the phone is damn cool. There are a few minor issues:
1. 64MB RAM? It should have 2GB minimum. Charge the extra $40 for it, I’ll pay.
2. The processor is just a tiny bit slow. Not a lot but enough that I wait for something to load or change screens 2 seconds too long
3. The slider is a little bit loose. Could be a bit sturdier.

See, nothing fatal here. It takes micro SD so I can download 50MB or newsfeeds through the RSS reader as well as keep a full length divx movie or two.

So, is this better than an iPhone? in a word, yes*
The iPhone UI is superior BUT unless you’re happy to have AT&T and Apple tell you what apps you can have on it, it’s not cool at all. Not one app, nothing, you take it as is or not at all. Unless you hack it and like DirecTV, when it updates you have a brick. Joy. So while the fanboys will continue to whiff the vapors of iAnything, I prefer to have a say in why my device does and doesn’t do. Sudoku? Yep, installed it. xvid codec? check. Edit my file system and remove embedded extras? IM client for all flavors of IM? check, check.

I have a problem with closed systems in the same way I dislike amusement parks. Too many rules. The WM6 interface is not as slick as the iPhone and I think WM7 should be a UI upgrade more than anything but as it is, if I want to install something and control the behavior of my device, I’m happy. Thats why I bought it.

But not to sit on their laurels, HTC came up with a new device with a 400mhz proc, 128MB RAM (still too small but better) and a built in GPS. Do they get amazing press saying it the most feature rich portable communications device ever sold to the public? No. And that’s silly because the new phone, Tilt for AT&T is the best thing in phones out there by a mile.

I fool and his money are soon parted. I love nice AV gear and have a decent Rotel receiver (no, it’s not separates) and B&W speakers. Most people just don’t care enough about the fidelity to spend $2500 on speakers which in the AV wirld is actually pretty cheap. This is not a judgment on peoples taste in AV gear, most people don’t care. Those that do fall into a few categories but the main two are, people who understand the reality of tech specs and those that think they can tell the difference between $200 speaker cables and $7500 cables. Those people need to save that extra $7300 and read up on the limitations of adult hearing.

James Randi of the James Randi Educational Foundation is also fed up with audiophile silliness and hype and puts his money where is mouth is. Prove that and he’ll write you a check. While the money is there I doubt anyone will step up and take that challenge or else the whole premise of fancy cables falls apart.

I spent $200 on my cables. Nice ones from Belden. Same ones used at pro mixing studios like Skywalker Ranch. If it’s good enough to master Star Wars it’s fine for my little rig.

The same goes for video cables. I use Canare from Blue Jeans Cable which is the SAME EXACT CABLE used by the majority of broadcast facilities (TV Production). Again, it’s used to master HD video at the source, so it’s good for the rest of us. Don’t waste your money on “fancy” cables, you will NOT notice the difference.

My laptop is a tool I cannot do without. Not that I use it at home other than bedtime browsing but on the road, it’s #3 after air and food. My new laptop replaced a rock-solid Dell 700M that has been with me for 3 good years and never let me down. The n00b is not doing so well. An issue with the touchpad driver being digested and turned into liquid poo renders the laptop useless at random times where I suddenly have no pointer access and the keyboard suddenly goes nuts and takes every 5th keypress.

I rarely throw objects in anger but I have done. Since I’m at DEMO and responsible for some company stuff that can’t not get done, having the laptop get fussy with me stops me from working during this 72 hour marathon. Add to that the connectivity at our rental vacation house (op center!) is flaky as are the 2 wifi access points we brought. It’s a mutiny!

So, for now the laptop is working (only after 30 minutes of uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, hard rebooting and wall hitting). If it can manage to behave for the next 2 days I might not set it on fire. As things are going, I have a feeling I’ll be going home about 3lbs lighter and the Pacific might have one new bit of fake reef for fish to nest in.

I’m a watch nerd. Some people are happy to just know what time it is and since we all carry cell phones, some would argue that a watch is superfluous. I get that. Most of those same people are late for everything too.

My love of watches is more about design. The detail that goes into the face, bezel, hands, crown, movement and even the band amazes me. The chronographs don’t do a whole lot for me, I have no use for stop watches and a lot of the chronos have a second hand that stays still. I like the movement.

Back in Jr. High I had one of those Casio claculator watches. It was cool, it did stuff. When I was bored in class I’d fiddle with it and change the alarm tones or play their version of space invaders. Other than that most gadgety watches turned me off unless it did something cool. I’ve seen USB watches and some “data” enabled watches but the UI size just doesn’t lend itself to doing a whole lot so I wrote that stuff off and stuck to classig designs like Cartier, Omega and Breitling.

Recently a couple of watches have come out that have gadget potential.

First is the Jager that is an accompaniment to a $250K Aston martin which serves as it’s “key”. So not only is it a very nice watch to begin with, it locks, unlocks and starts the car. Very Bond.

Does a potential owner care if they sell the car the watch (which is only $30K) becomes useless unless it goes part and parcel? When you’re throwing around a quarter mil on a car, $30K might be a small blip on the radar.

Second, and I know it’s an old post but still relevant since it’s almost 60 years since the idea was hatched, is the watch phone. This is something a little closer to my heart on the tech side. I’m torn between my simple busted Razr (the screen is wonky) and an HTC T-Mobile Wing. I like the simplicity and size of the Razr but it’s pretty useless for anything else than phone use. The wing is nice but its freakin huge.

The quad band watch phone looks pretty straight forward. Does the contacts, hase regular phone features but it’s a goofy looking watch which will earn you l33t n3rd points or you’ll get your ass kicked for being a dork. After people ogle it.

Blaupunkt is known for making good head units. Not overly flashy (fast and furious) like other popular brands where if you just want functionality you have to deal with silly graphics. Blau, they’re more staid. I like that but they also didn’t make anything very progressive. Until now.

I’ve seen a few head units with USB support which is cool but the SD card is the de-facto standard for more mobile file use. I end up making CDs from MP3s (kind of backwards…) so i can play them in my car. I don’t have anywhere I can put my ipod in the car so it ends up sitting there docked on my desk for eternity. If only I could make use of those SD cards…

Their Melbourne model is a departure from their more classical designs and while it’s more stylish it’s still apropriate for a car that doesn’t have yellow seatbelts and a 10″ tach on the dash. And if you did have that… It should be fine as well.

It also includes an iPod & USB port. Pure genius. What more could I ask for? Eh, not sure on that. Since I could use my 160GB USB drive with this, it’s effectively able to hold my whole MP3 collection.

What blows me away is it’s $150. I’d want to see how it handles scrolling through names and titles but for as cheap as it is, you cant be all too dissapointed even if the UI is lacking. Not that I’m saying it is.

So, let me get this straight… This is tough because getting the facts out of some of these Mac fan-boy sites is harder than getting un-spun facts from Sean Hannity.

It’s an iPod with 8GB, a browser, WiFi, Cal, Contacts, and all the movie and media playing stuff. And it’s $300. Hold on a second, I know what this is! I’ve had a few of these. Crap, what’s it called. Oh, I know, it’s a PDA! Not a WAN PDA that uses a carrier’s EDGE or GPRS signal like a Smartphone (see smartphone). No, it’s not a phone either. Oh, right the $500 iPhone… So, I don’t get it. This is a unich iPhone?

This is so odd. I’m having a hard time figuring this out. I can get a 160GB iPod video for $350, or for $50 less, i get a slightly bigger screen, a nice UI but lose 152GB of storage space.

Ok people. For 5 bills I want a phone, the whole 160GB of space, WiFi, bluetooth, java, flash and ajax support (why not a REAL browser like they advertise in their ad?) the ability to add video codecs for divx / xvid, WMV WMA support (why the hell not?) and whatever else is on the sad-fanboy list that all the maniacs put together after they waited LOTR style overnight for and ended up being disappointed when the phone actually didn’t have the stuff it didn’t list as features. Shocker.

I’d actually buy it if the Touch was just 160GB instead of the weenie 16GB. That’s silly. 16GB? My HD eats that much when i format it.

Parents are always looking for something to give their kids the edge they need to survive in the urban infant environment. With crime and violence creeping into lower and lower grades the prepared child is the safe child. Thankfully for a number of forward thinking companies, our youth will be prepared for life in the chalkboard jungle of today.

While some may think this is going overboard, who can put a price on safety? I am very happy to know that not only can you get the helmet but they provide a full line of body-armor that can stop most of the common grade-school variety rounds.

I do think that the baby gas mask is a little much… Guns are easy to find for kids but the threat of VX-Gas in the classroom is still a few years off. IMHO.

I like to cook, and I don’t mean throw some pizza-pockets in the microwave cooking. When I go off on a tear in the kitchen, goggles and ear protection are required. Sometimes, if I’m not focused, a gas mask is in order.

Thanks to the combo of my beloved kitchen aid mixer (thanks hon!) and a Williams Sonoma book on baking, I whip out some seriously diabolical blondies. When it comes to appliances, I’m more about the performance specs than the look of the item.

For example, our cooktop is nice if you’re a casual cooker but our kitchen needs have driven me to do a full-bore matrix comparison of cooktops that put out serious fire so stir fry leaps out of the wok and not sitting there steaming in its own tepid juices. After comparing 20 cooktops and doing the research the Dacor whipped everyones butt with an 18,000 BTU fire-breathing head and other cool but important specs I’ll go into later this week when I post the massive comparison.

Does it look pimp? Yeah, as much as a cooktop can without being a $5K Wolf which gets you style and little more than some stellar ones 1/4 the price. And I do like the style but I wont pay that much of a premium for it.

On the other hand, my mixer which is iconic in design and a serious workhorse could do with a little, say, BAM. Alton Brown has flames on his mixer and while Alton is great in all ways, the flames are not well done. (I think he needs a new art department). What he could use is a paint job like this WWII P51 Mustang styled dough-destroyer [Apartment Therapy]. It’s so tough, yeast may rise faster in fear of being decimated by it.

Sure, you could do flames and there are even some kits which are a quick and easy way to say “I like to cook and I also like appliances that appear to have psychedelic fire emanating from them”. I don’t see a downside. In fact, why not? Chrome and brushed steel are nice but the modern kitchen needs a little more flava. LAT has a cool article on the mixer-pimping subculture which gives precious little info on resources but does fuel the fire if you’re going to go out and get your cream-whipper painted.

While I like the bomber one I think that one done up like an old NYC subway car covered in graffiti would be a strong statement. If I can find someone to do it, I’ll post the pic once it’s done.

Q: What is your purpose in life?
A: To blend, of course

If you’ve not experienced “will it blend“, you’re missing out on some serious blending action. If Bender made appliances, this would be it. And that would be enough. Enough to drive a ski boat…

The people at Will It Blend completely understand the Internet. It wants what it wants and it demanded a sacrifice. What better than to decimate the current techie sacred cow, the iPhone.

Now I have no love for the iPhone, I think it’s another way for people to plain irritate eachother with technology. Particularly those people that have to show those iPhone users how to use their new toy. People, its a phone. So, in that light, I present to you, blended phone.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/qg1ckCkm8YI" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

I love the gadgets, I do. Particularly the ones that do just one thing well and save you a ton of time or effort. The DaysAgo counter hits me in a weird spot on the gadget map. It’s not “improving” the counting of time, in fact, it’s quite vague. In an age of hyper-accurate timing devices, this technology is more like those kitchy retirement “clocks” that just tell you what day it is.

I guess the intent is to put it on something and when you come back to it, you know how long it’s been. It sounded ok to me for things in the fridge that spoil but at $10 a pop, why not use a damn sharpie and put a DATE on that block of brie rather than wait for it to grow a little fuzz patch.

Rather than using it as an “I’m putting this here to remind myself” device, I can see it’s use more suited to the acusitory “You have not done the laundry in 5 days and there is a timer on the pile to prove just how much of a lazy sot you are”. Then, its $10 well spent.