08.12.07
New Mobile Tech Blog
I’m using yet another blog now at Rodfather Mobile.
This will be mainly focused towards mobile technology. I will still try to post on this blog. Just that all the nerdy stuff will end up there now.
07.11.07
Found pics of old Commodore gear
I mentioned in the last post about having a 300 bps modem and a tablet for my Commodore 128.
I was able to find pics of them online. I hope I still have that stuff. I’m pretty sure it’s buried in boxes somewhere.. or sold in a garage sale.
I remember the tablet was actually very functional. It came with a simple paint program to draw pictures.
300 bps modem:
Koala tablet:
06.15.07
My response to: ‘Opinion: My UMPC is more than my Companion PC’
My response to CTitanic’s thread where he laid down some bait and got a few folks riled up.
Opinion: My UMPC is more than my Companion PC.
I could easily see my UMPC as my desktop replacement… 15 years ago.
Sadly, it’s the present and desktops will always be faster no matter what.There has never been a desktop that could keep up with my needs. There’s always a need for more speed.
Hell, I remember in the late 80′s I upgraded my Amiga’s 7MHz processor for a 20 MHz 68030 chip so I can render a 640×480 3D image in a half day rather than wait all night into the morning. Today’s standards, it would take a split second to render the same image.These days, it’s about getting good frames per second in shooters, running Media Center smoothly, and encoding high definition h264 video as fast as possible.
Would I like a UMPC to do all that? Sure, but by the time that happens our needs and demands will grow even higher, and as always, only the desktop will be able to handle it.
Everyone’s needs are different. If I never played PC games, got into video, or never realized how cool Media Center is, would I need a desktop? Probably not.
So for me, the UMPC is my portable/mobile/lightweight PC (I refuse to use the term ‘Companion Device’ since that just sounds lame to me).
Do I try to do all the things I can and push it to its limits? You bet. Whatever I can get away with… but I’ll still have a desktop as my ‘other’ (see how I didn’t say ‘main’) computer.
05.09.07
Test of Geotagging and Google Maps Mashup
Here’s a test I did using the Samsung Q1, Wintec WBT-200 Bluetooth GPS data logger, Panasonic digital camera, and RoboGeo software.
Getting there took a lot more time than it should. If I just remembered that RoboGeo was spitting out random GPS coordinates, it would have been done a lot quicker.
I was writing down commentary on Twitter while trying to figure this all out.. (It’s in reverse order)
04.11.07
Sansa Connect Mini Review
I just got it and I love it.
I’ve been playing with it for a few days now and it’s a wonderful device. Like I said in a previous post, this is the player I’ve been looking for. I’ve been a fan of subscription services for a while now. I’ve tried Yahoo, Rhapsody, Napster, and Urge and they all have their pluses and minuses but all are awesome in the fact that you have access to all the songs you want for a monthly fee.
It’s surprisingly addictiing playing with this device because it is connected to the internet. Viewing the day’s cool photos from Flickr or streaming LaunchCast stations and being able to download the song (if available) all from the device is just plain awesome.
Awesome:
+Speaker on the back. Great feature. Sometimes, I don’t want to have headphones or earbuds on. Although the quality on this little speaker isn’t all that, just being able to hear the tunes without headphones is nice. Works great when you’re taking a shower.
+Access to your Yahoo Music Engine playlist. Your playlists are stored online on your account. You can access your playlists and queue them to download all from the Connect. No direct streaming though.
+Flickr photos. You get a menu item of the coolest photos of the day along with access to your own flickr photos. Nice feature. I was confused a bit on how to get out of the slideshow. You gotta press the left menu button to return to the photo list.
+Simple interface. It’s very intuitive to navigate around.
+LaunchCast. It works just like using the Yahoo Music Engine or from the web browser. You can select among the many stations they have available and select stations to be included in your ‘Favorite Stations’. I mostly use this device to access ‘My Station’. The songs that come up are determined by my ratings of songs/artist/album. Interesting note.. just like from the web, if you don’t have a subscription, you can’t skip songs. But of course since you should have a Yahoo To Go subscription, you can skip streaming radio songs.
+Library Syncronizing. I love that whatever I download from the Connect, it shows up in my YME library on my PC. I have YME set to just link the songs (streaming the song) that were added to my library. Otherwise, it would start automatically downloading the songs you previously added to the Connect.
+Ability to download the song (if available) when using LaunchCast. You can also queue up the album to download. This is a great way to fill up your Connect. If you like the song that’s streaming, you can simply grab it.
+Ratings. You can rate a song and it’ll sync up to your account dynamically. This is awesome. Rating songs/artists/albums is very addicting and helps determine your ‘My Stations’ in LaunchCast and ‘Yahoo! Music Recommendations’ in the Get More Music section.
+ WEP/WPA support. I was able to connect to my router no problem.
+In the download queue, you can bump a song up to the top of the queue to download immediately. It’s the little things that are great. Downloads are also run in the background. It just shows up in your library when completed.
+You can stream music, download songs, and view your online Flickr photos all at the same time. Yay for multitasking.
Sucks:.
-No streaming of songs from your local network. Only can stream songs from Launchcast. Would be nice if you can use this device to access your YME library that’s sitting on your PC.
-No streaming of songs in the Yahoo ‘Get More Songs’ section. Download only option.
-No streaming of songs when you choose ‘Make a Mix like this Song’ on a song. The songs are queued to download instead.
-No search function when in the Yahoo ‘Get More Music’ section. This would put the icing on the cake if this option were available.. I would love to be able to search and download the 2 million+ song library all from this device.
-No line in recording.
-No FM tuner.
-No Mic In. This would be nice to have if Skype were somehow added.
-No ability to queue up additional songs. Or basically go into your library and add songs to the Now Playing list.
-No ability to create playlists from the device.
-When using the Yahoo Messenger, you can only send song recommendations to friends. Can’t chat.
- No customization of the menu or a programmable key. One nice feature of the Creative Zen:M is that there’s a button you can program to select any of the menu items. You can also select what goes on the main menu. Would be nice here to go straight to, for instance, my playlists. There’s a lot of navigating going on with this device. You will catch yourself accidentally moving the sensitive scroll wheel and end up going through all the steps of the menu to get back to where you were.
-Headphone jack is on the bottom of the device.
Neutral:
+ Zing hasn’t been hacked yet. The fact that this thing has WiFi opens up so many things you can do. It can access the internet..
+ The scroll wheel. It’s a bit sensitive and takes getting used to. I’d prefer a directional pad with the center enter button like the Zune. I’m getting used to the wheel though. Scrolling fast is great with this as you can spin the wheel very fast. It also feels like you’re scratching a record which is cool. Makes you want to master the sensitivity of the wheel. When entering password information, the quickness of the wheel helps.
+ It feels like a cell phone. It seems the interface is made to be run from a cell phone. There’s left & right menu buttons. Speaker on the back. An extra microSD slot.
04.10.07
Possible New MP3 Player
I’m going to check out Circuit City today and see if they have a Sansa Connect.
This is the kind of MP3 player I’ve been looking for. It has WiFi and can download subscription music straight from Yahoo Music subscription service.
I’m currently subscribed to Urge and it works great. I’m definitely willing to switch back to Yahoo again though. I miss the online playlists and the ratings system.
But having a player that can access subscription music directly, along with access to your Flickr photos all without connecting to a computer, is a wonderful thing. It can also stream Yahoo’s LaunchCast radio directly as well.
I just hope it can access WPA or WEP networks. The description reads it needs an open wifi connection but read it can use a secure wifi connection.
Here’s a nice overview of the device I found on YouTube:
03.28.07
New battery pack… stream the Warriors game?
I just got in the mail the Tekkeon MP3400 MyPower ALL Battery. It’s a battery pack that can power or even charge just about any device out there.. well anything up to around 19v.
This battery is rated at 56Wh which should give me about 3-4 additional hours on my tablet.
It came with 8 tips but unfortunately, none of them fit in the Samsung Q1.
I took a look on the Tekkeon website and ordered the correct tip. I also got a tip for my Blackjack phone as well.
Now that I have crazy battery life on my phone (if I carry the pack around), maybe I’ll try to pull a justin.tv and stream the Warriors vs Suns game tomorrow using ComVu.
I tried out ComVu before and it works nice. The GPS tracking even worked when I paired the bluetooth gps receiver to the Blackjack.
Anyway, if everything works right, it should show up at:
http://www.comvu.com/live?Rodfather
If you’re on a mobile phone, you can try:
http://www.comvu.com/mobile/live?Rodfather
02.18.07
RAM Mount cradle for the Samsung Q1 Video
Here it is. I received the RAM Mount cradle from GPS City yesterday. I put together a video to show it off.
02.12.07
More GPS fun
I found earlier the site GPS Visualizer. You can send a Google Earth .kmz file and it’ll show your tracks on Google Maps. You can even link to the map or embed it into a webpage.
So I turned on my new GPS receiver before heading to the bowling alley on my birthday.. just wanted to try out the data logging feature more. Here’s what my tracks looked like going the long way to the bowling alley.
02.08.07
New GPS Receiver
I just got the Wintec WBT-200 GPS receiver in the mail today. It’s really small. About the size of a normal car alarm remote.
I did a test of the data logging. It comes with this G Tool software to configure the receiver. You can set how it logs the data. I set it for Auto Log based on speed. I guess the rate at which it logs a point is based on how fast you’re going. You can load or erase the logged data and export it to many different file formats including Google Earth’s .kmz format.
I drove around the block and dumped the data to a google earth file. From the picture, you can see it records the date/time, speed, and altitude along with the gps coordinates.
It’s suppose to be able to record up to 12680 points.
