It’s hard to believe that I would be tempted by the potential goodness of new, unreleased and untested products (really!) but two have caught my eye recently, and I don’t know how I can live without them.
Motorola V600 GSM camera flip phone
Apple Airport Express WiFi G + audio extender
Now, go find and discuss. I’ll just wait here until someone gives me one of them.
I’ve spent enough time in my new place to realize that I need a way to get at music from any floor, at any time, without dragging a laptop around. So this morning I started out on a fruitless search for the “perfect” WiFi based media adapter. Needless to say, I failed.
All of these devices use 802.11b (there is one g model), support MP3, maybe support WMA or AAC (non-secure). A few support streaming. Most of them required MusicMatch, making them non-starters for me (who needs yet another crappy music player on the PC?) Since I’m a paying Napster subscriber I want my secure WMAs, and possibly secure AACs from iTunes, to play anywhere. These devices just can’t do it.
So I’m left with a decision: cough up +$600 for a laptop to haul around upstairs (since the laptop I have belongs to work, and they hate personal files on it!) or come up with some crummy 900mhz wireless point-to-point system that breaks up every time my neighbors talk on the phone.
Seems like a business opportunity to me, for someone.
I’ve been prodded into posting pictures of the new place, so now I have. You can find them over there, in photos.
Don’t blame me if you get lost. It was hard for me to navigate around at first too.
If you read my previous post, you know I’m bent about picture taking. That’s nothing compared to installing PHP scripts on a server with old PHP and MySQL. The scripts just don’t work and working around the problem is rather difficult.
I think I’ll go lay down and walk away from the PC for a while. Grrr.
I spent the better part of today out shooting pictures of aircraft at a local air show. Problem is I get home and review the pictuers and more than half of them are blurry. Just unusable, blurred pictures. What’s worse, the camera was at its highest speed settings.
So, it comes down to this: is the lens crud or is my auto mode shooting crappy? I’ll post the pictures soon so you can be the judge.
I would love to say that I am enjoying the new place (more on that subject later) but these days it always seems to be about work when I get home. In fact, just taking the time to do this update is tough. It makes me wonder how homeowners and people with families do it every day. Maybe they are less busy or more willing to space out all the “to do’s” than I am.
In any case I am ramping up for another few months of travel. The kickoff will be Taiwan again, followed by a whole lot of state hopping. Hopefully I can spend some time at home now and then, but it certainly looks to be a busy summer. Anyone need a place to stay for a few months?
I now have the gallery working again. Don’t ask me how, because it was a major pain. In any case you can now find it here. I hope that it will stay working now 
Don’t forget that browser back button! Until I get more cleanup time there is no navigation to get you back here.
After a lot of suffering it looks like this web site is nearly functional again, albeit on a very different server than where it started. But more about that later. I’m just happy to have this all working again. More details coming shortly.
If you’ve ever watched Apocalypse Now or Full Metal Jacket and said “I wish I could do that” you ship just came in. Battlefield Vietnam is the successful follow-on to EA’s much played and modified Battlefield 1942, developed by DICE. It is first person, multiplayer (up to 64) mayhem with tons of vehicles to drive or fly and lots of weapons to master.
It’s for the PC only, but the online game play and 70′s music track make it worth playing. This level of interactive gaming was only dreamed about just two years ago. Now you can go up against 63 other soldiers in a knock down, drag out, inch by inch war to take back the flag for your team, rescue hostages, or any of a dozen other scenarios. Highly recommended.
Jack Black. Joan Cusack. A bunch of kids. Rock and roll. Battle of the bands. What more is there to say? The movie is School of Rock and you need to see it. That’s all there is to it. Do it, or Jack will come to your house and eat everything in your fridge.
