Aftermath

Could be worse...

Apps That Don't Suck: Pandora

     Hey kids, now that iMeem.com has been swallowed whole by the unwashed ass of social networking (MySpace), I have been in search of a streaming music service that doesn't suck and that has an Android app.  I finally checked out Pandora.com and the associated Pandora app from the Android Market.  I should get the bad out of the way first.  Pandora has a license structure that does not allow their users to immediately play a song that they have searched for.  Basically you cannot search for "Detroit Rock City" by Kiss and immediately listen to it.  After listening to a song you cannot replay that song and there is an hourly limit to the number times an hour that any single artist can be played.  All those limitation are based on the licensing that Pandora obtained in order to legally play all this music.  In my opinion another way that the RIAA's draconian business model detracts from people who want to consume their product.

     Last.fm has some similar issues with their ability to play music and the frequency at which some of us wish to listen to it.  The difference between Last.fm and Pandora is that when the former plays music that they think I will like based on previous choices, they are pretty much always wrong.  When Pandora plays music based on songs and artists that I have previously chosen, it picks a winner every time (so to speak).  If you want a service that varies wildly from your chosen music in order to fuel your lust for musical discovery, maybe Last.fm is for you.  If you want a service that will weave more closely in and out of the genres of music that you are looking for, Pandora is the better choice, IMHO.

     The best part of Pandora for me is the Android app that is available.  Free in the Android Market of course and it actually works without getting in the way of itself.  The app works simply, launch it and run whichever station you want to listen to music from.  It will run in the background  and doesn't render the phone unusable while running.  It will also quite easily stream music on Edge/2G, at least it does for me in Pittsburgh.   Last.fm died pretty regularly if not on 3G.  Most of the web controls are also in the App.  You can skip, like and dislike songs.  After a week of using the app I have not had a single Force Close.  Note that my experience may differ slightly from others since I am using a customized ROM on my phone instead of the stock T-Mobile ROM.

     All in all some good stuff from the folks at Pandora.  There website does not have a nauseating layout, the registration process is quick and the music quality is decent.  My only complaint is that I can't listen to a song 50 times in a row if I want to but I guess that may not be an issue for most folks.

Microsoft - Giving Up The Beta

     I came across this today and I'm still a bit surprised.  Microsoft is actually letting anyone download Office 2010 Beta (yes free AND legal).  Microsoft is apparently continuing to offer its software to the public in a no hassle beta program a la the Windows 7 Beta.  You can find the download page here.  The best part?  The install is supposed to be valid until next fall.

Will The Economy Follow Big Tech?

     Both Google and Apple are making acquisitions this week. Google gets hold of AppJet, the maker of EtherPad, a realtime web based collaborative word processor. There is a post on the EtherPad site that says they will be joining the Google Wave Team.Kinda makes sense to stick those guys together.  Both are pushing the real time collaborative thing but my question is, why not shove some of that real time web goodness into Google Docs?  Maybe I'm missing the point on the big picture here but I wonder, if Google is really serious about moving Docs into the enterprise, why not start by integrating real time collaboration and target the groupware that is so entrenched and expensive (ie. office and lotus notes).  Oh yea, in case you were curious the price is rumored to be in the low 8 figures.

     Apple is trying to acquire Lala.com and apparently integrate this into iTunes.  Maybe is thinking about transforming iTunes into a streaming type service rather than stay with downloads.  I don't really get this one to be honest.  Apple already has a stream model for movie rentals and most people are still obsessed with carrying around storage devices for every song and movie they own.  Personally, I'd rather just stream it all and not have to worry about managing all that data storage, but then I guess I'm odd.

     The real question that I was thinking about at the start was is the economy going to follow Big Tech now that money is getting spent again?  Not that I'm a cynic or anything but hearing over the passed couple months from politicians that the economy is recovering, has not inspired me in the least.  Apple and Google however seem to be a couple of the most successful companies going right now and the fact that they are buying again tells me one thing.  The economy really might be getting ready to grow again and now is the best time to start acquisitions before other companies profits and net worth start going up again.  I guess it's all a matter of time either way.

12 Days of Geekmas

Sorry, I am not going to create a geek version of the Bob and Doug Mckenzie 12 days of Christmas. See it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2oPio60mK4 My point here is that it is tough being a geek. It is time consuming. It is expensive. It alienates so many people that come to understand how woefully small their intellect is when compared to that of the average geek (imagine what it's like for me, being an ubergeek and all).

Please don't ask so much from the geek in your life in the weeks following Christmas. A geek needs time to fully engage and absorb every minute aspect of the software/hardware/game/gadget that they received. You did get them something didn't you? You really should go the extra mile on this one because you know damn well that you missed SysAdmin Day altogether. Do some research, spend some time listening to that geek when he/she starts rambling on and on about (insert name of said geek stuff here) and don't just let your eyes glaze over as is normally the case. Check out the geeks Amazon.com wish list. Any geek worth their salt has a list on the internet somewhere and its a pretty safe bet that there is one on Amazon. If you are at the moment not understanding "wishlist" and/or "amazon.com" then please just nod as if you really do know and then search for it on Google.

The days following Xmas are critical. If the geek was able to get a few days off there is a guarantee that they will be called about something or other and will be forced to cut the "vacation" short. Let them have time for themselves. Don't try and make them spend time with you or other loved ones. Don't break their concentration by asking silly things like "Do you want another soda?", just bring them one. Geeks only tend to get time off if the entire office is completely closed down anyway. This might only happen once or twice a year, give them some breathing room. Show your love by buying gift cards that they can use at Newegg.com or Amazon.com. Don't try and make them adhere to your antiquated ideas of tradition or communication. Free them from the bonds of the analog world!

That is all.

Broken Resolve

Earlier this year I had resolved to blog more often and more consistently. That has clearly not been the reality. I tend to spend much time reading other peoples stuff. CS Penn's Awaken Your Superhero and Merlin Mann over at 43folders.com. Yes, I am breaking etiquette by not including the links. I could take a momment to whine about how the best thing the worlds largest software company (Microsoft) does is make mice but then who doesn't already know that.

Bottom line, there is good stuff on the 'net although burried by mountains of crap (RIP Geocities). Maybe I should resolve to contribute to the semi intelligent content on the internet rather than sew the seeds of mindless crap. Hmmm, or maybe I should just drive up my site traffic by posting nothing but doctored Megan Fox pictures. Hmmmmmm....

It wasn't my fault

My wife's Dell Inspiron 1720 died 2 weeks ago. As the post title will tell you, it was not my fault. We have had the thing for about a year and a half. My wife tries to turn the laptop on one day and nothing. No hard drive spin, no error beep/light codes, just blank screen and a sinking feeling. I have had a number of computers in my time and it really strikes me odd that this thing would just up and die.

I called Dell Support and got an English speaking person first time (miracles never cease) and after a few steps, one of which was "power off the laptop" to which I said "you do understand that is all it does now, right?", we finally agreed that it was not functioning properly and we were told we would get a box to ship it in for service. This was almost two weeks ago. With profit margins so small on computers these days wouldn't it be less expensive for Dell to just replace rather than maintain the infrastructure needed to make a major repair like this (motherboard replacement)?

Relatively immaterial at this point I supposed but two weeks? That seems a bit much but I'm not going to complain too much yet since the work is covered under warranty. So for now, we wait and my wife has to use my computer if she needs something online. Not that I have an issue with sharing or anything but, COME ON DELL, I want my... uh, wife's computer back. plzkthanxbai

Xbox 360 sucks ass but we all bought it anyway!

I really need to figure out a way to get people to buy any old piece of shit from me and brainwash them all into thinking they love it and want to buy another one. Oh, wait Microsoft already did that and I think my own sense of pride and general scruples would keep me from being able to do that. What's that? You Microsoft wouldn't do that or worse yet you live under a rock and haven't seen umpteen reports on the astronomical failure rate of the 360.

Come on kids, let's get real. We were all suckered and yet we stand in line asking "Please Sir, can I have some more?" Any other product with a 54% failure rate, yes a 54% fail rate, would see the manufacturer in bankruptcy before you could say "Steve Ballmer is a hyperactive, power mad, dancing monkey!". What this really showcases is the complete breakdown of the way free markets and/or capitalism is supposed to work. Consumers have so fallen for the marketing BS! that we believe we need something whether it works or not.

Do I sound pissed? Damn right! I knew all this and still bought a effin' 360. Every time I turn it on I know there is a 50/50 shot that the RRoD will bite me in the ass. Oh yea, we have all that cool XBLive stuff thrown in and we get to do all kinds of cool gaming with friends and stuff. No! Not only do we pay $400 for a POS console, it has about as much online capability as a Commodore 64 until you pay an extra fee and then if you want to watch a video that is otherwise freely available on the Internet you have to pay AGAIN!?! As Penn Jillette would say, "Fuck!".

AndroBlogger Test Post

this seems to work fairly well. there is no auto capitalization or punctuation. not really a big deal. i don't see any way to add tags or categories, though. that is a pain. if i have to login to the website to tag the post i might as well just write it.
that is all.

"Fired"man Fail!

Saw this over at the fail blog and had to post it here. It is a Fireman post but this guy should be "fired".

Tech Notes for day 67 and counting for DTV

Yea, only 67 days left. If they don't delay the cut over date again. We are quickly getting ready with new equipment. There will be more about that on my other blog. Right now I'm looking at the beta version of the Friend Feed site. Real time stuff is the way to go but lots of sites will go through some major pains to get it working well.

On another note...
Anyone else find the "click" noise that Guitar Hero guitars make really annoying? It drives me crazy. Glad I bought Rock Band instead. Can't wait until the Beatles stuff comes out in September. There are actually some tunes in there that I have never heard of that I like. For an old guy that tends to take 10+ years before I give a band a chance, that's saying something.

It's been a whole week since I broke, err, found flaws in anything. Must be a storm brewing...

... and not the good kind of PITA either.

In this case the PITA involved here is not the tasty grain based item you would find in your favorite Mediterranean restaurant. It is an acronym for Pain In The Ass. This is where I get to inform folks about stuff that may work for most people but for some reason is not really worth using to me because of the PITA factor.

So, with that being said...

Social Median is a site that is sort of a community based news aggregation portal. You can join in on news streams based on different topics that are posted by other members. You can setup your own feeds to be posted on the site and there is a follow system similar to that of Friend Feed and Twitter.

I used the site for awhile to get news on certain topics and to identify people that tended to post on topics that I like to follow. This feature set works well and I had no issue here. I wanted to use the site to pull in my blog entries and push them out to other sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc. My issue was that if I happened to title one of my posts the same as some other site, my post would not get pulled into Social Median it would just link to the other post where ever that may have been. The most recent was a link that was supposed to go to my blog on wordpress.com but instead went to a page at the Nashville Post website. That is a deal breaker for a lot of bloggers that are trying to generate some exposure.

I also like the idea of being able to have one place where I could have all my blog posts pulled into and then be able to push them out to other social networks that I am involved in. The problem here is that whenever one of my posts had apostrophes or periods in them, the social median site would push the link out with a bunch of junk characters in the title. This made the links very hard to read and pretty amateurish which is not what you want if you are trying to attract positive attention.

To their credit when I posted tweets about these issues, Jason Goldberg (the founder) DM'd me asking what was going on. I explained the issues I was having and it escalated into their support side. I then received and acknowledgement about how my issues could be significant to members but no follow up on a timeline to fix the issues. The suggestion I got was to rename my posts so that they weren't the same as any others.

All in all, I'm sure the site is useful to many people but these few issues are more than I am willing to put up with. There are just too many options for news aggregation and social networking/media.

pappi loves the google

Hold on a sec. Let me finish drinkin' my Google branded Kool-Aid. ahhhhhhh. That's good stuff. Okay, now granted, I am a Google nut (plz no fan boy comments) and I suck up their apps like a whale sucking down a metric ton of plankton, but I do have that tiny little voice in the back of my head saying "what if Googles motto is do no evil... right now". That was the case until I heard that they are rolling out Grand Central to the masses as Google Voice. Hang on, one more swig of Kool-Aid. I have been trying to get in on Grand Central for months and was afraid that it might go on the chopping block like a few other apps (notebook, jaiku).

me: Please Google can I have a voice service so that I can replace (fill in the name of the hated, over priced, antiquated phone service provider)

google: Sure thing and we will do it for free aslongasyoudontmindifwekeepallyourtranscribedtextsandvoicemailsandusethatinformationtomakebillionssowecantakeovertheworld.

me: Wait... did you say free? woohoo!

I'm all giddy inside. But seriously this is a really interesting exercise for analyzing the behavioral psychology of this situation. Microsoft would have killed for the kind of data that Google is collecting now. People were paranoid as hell about Microsoft and how and what information they were gathering and what would they do with it. Now, we are freely giving that same information and more to Google without a second thought. Why? Because Google says "Do no Evil"? Because they don't charge for their apps?

I'm not really sure what the mechanism behind this is. If I knew I would try and replicate it myself. What I am sure of is that we have become increasingly paranoid about our personal information. In small town America there was no privacy, everyone knew what everyone else was doing. The more people we are surrounded by, the more insecure we become about our private lives, except when it comes to Google.

I suppose a number of conclusions could be reached from this phenomenon. For me, I like what Google has to offer and I LOVE that it is free of charge and all they want is some data about my usage habits. I hold that idea of small town America as the measuring stick. If all they want to know if who I talk to and where I go, what's the big deal? If they want to delve into my real private life, finances, bedroom activity, etc. then they need to mind their own business.

AIG Bonuses Are Not Stimulating

Everyone seems to be up in arms about AIG paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bonus to execs when they are now taking so much bailout money. Are they using bailout money to pay these bonuses? How could they be spending money on bonuses when they should be getting the business straight?

I think the core of the problem is being missed a little bit. How does someone get a job with guaranteed bonus money even if the job they are doing is ruining the company? AIG (and others, I am sure they are not the only one doing this) is REWARDING bad job performance. Performance that would come along with walking papers in any other industry and the finance industry is encouraging it! How the "F" does that happen and everyone pretends it doesn't happen and then the entire industry falls apart and everyone looks around and says "How did that happen?".

The top people in AIG's Financial Products division received not only bonus money but consulting fees up to $1 million a month and now we (the taxpayers) are being forced to subsidize these flawed and failed business practices by pouring trillions of dollars into this industry. I am not forgetting the auto industry, different industry same failed business model, but that is another (albeit related) rant.

BTW, I read something that was eye opening. If Jesus (he is used solely for the purpose of a time frame) spent $1 million a day from the time he was born until today, the amount would be reaching $1 trillion dollars. Then I got curious and broke out my calculator. If we divided up a trillion dollars evenly every person (not family) in the US would get a check for over $3,000! Now for my family of 5 that would mean $15,000. You want stimulus? THAT is stimulating!

first!!!

this is my first post using blogger and this really was intended just to be a test post...

However,

After I titled the post it came to me how many places people use forums or comment areas to just be a dork and stick "first!" in as soon as they can after its creation. 

Don't these people have anything else to do?!?

In real life situations when someone asks a question or makes a statement, does some jerk run up and yell "first!" and then run away?  No!  It is annoying, irritating, aggrivating and a waste of the 3 seconds it takes to create and that 100's of people spend looking at it and getting annoyed.

Can google come up with a web crawler that does a seek and destroy of those posts and wipe them? Maybe, then again google doesn't delete anything...   ever...

hmm, what should I rant about next?