Thankfully, what I assumed was just a natural state of affairs, I had no control over, turns out to be a completely manageable process, thanks to Network Location. I would have never known this app existed, if not for twitter. Someone (I don’t recall who) pointed out the One Finger Discount site, and after looking over the offerings, I was clicking purchase.

It was especially good timing. I was leaving for a trip to San Jose, so I’d get to test the app out. Set up is really straight forward. You define your locations (Home, Office, Travel, Starbucks, etc)

The things that get me, are printers, Time Machine, etc. When I’m traveling for work, I almost always have my portable HP printer, so I’d like to not have to remember to change printers.

I hate having Time Machine try to run when I’m not home, sitting there spinning wasting cycles, and bandwidth looking for the drobo that isn’t there.

Defining my locations, solves those.

The nice thing is, while yeah it will pop up a nice little widget asking me where I am, it can also auto sense, and take action, based on geolocation, and Access Point name. So now, whenever I’m at home and connect to my home AP, it’ll mount the drives I want mounted all the time.

This past weekend it’s been so nice, knowing my Default printer was what it needed to be.

If you’re a road warrior, that has to constantly fuss with settings between location, this app is for you!!

I loved V as a kid, it was a great show, good message. Sure it was campy and Jane Badler was a psycho bitch of a bad guy, but it was a great show and set of Miniseries/TV Movies.

I watched the new V the other night and while I think it’s got promise, and I admit, it’s a “re-imagining” it’s got some work to do to measure up to the original.

Sure networks today, are run by retards, who give a show 1 episode to hit #1 and if it doesn’t they cancel so they can air more Dancing|singing|boxing|dieting with the stars, so I hope V get’s a chance to work out the kinks.

I’ll work thru the hour with my issues.

The Arrival. So big ass ships arrive over head. They look mean, not nearly as peaceful and goofy as the old series’ saucers. These new ships are bad ass looking. What do New Yorkers do? They clap. Uh, ok. Let’s assume this world hasn’t seen “Independence Day” oh wait, they make a reference to it, so big ass ships appear over head, and we clap? yeah.

The “Vs”. What. The. Fuck?! Is there no word we won’t just use as it is? We have to shorten to rediculousness? I mean, WTF STFU srsly? ;) Calling the Visitors “Vs” is just lame, they’re the Visitors.  Sure they dress snappy in modern human outfits, but they’re still Visitors.

Dress code. Sure the old red jumpsuits were a bit corny, but uh hello. The Visitors are a military/scientific mission. What military travels around in Armani suits? The uniform identified them as 1. visitors and 2. an army. Now they’re neither. Hell in this series “Vs” could all jump out of their ships, run thru the city and immediately blend in. No crazy shades needed, no off kilter voices.

The Red “V” as a propaganda tool FOR the visitors? Uh, I seem to recall pretty clearly that in the original the red “V” was a sign of defiance. It was V for victory over the Visitors, not V for Visitors. Again, What. The. Fuck

Pacing. Sure, like I said, networks today aren’t willing to wait an entire season or even half a season to spin out a compelling story, it needs to be out there fast, and each episode needs to stand on it’s own for the retarded masses with the memory of a goldfish. but really? 1 hour covered a good 3/4 of the series.

We saw, the Visitors revealed as lizards, we saw the existence of the 5th column, we saw the creation, and full fledged existence of the resistance, we didn’t and I suspect we won’t see the vilification of scientists. All we didn’t see was the guinea pig get eaten. I guess they had to keep something for episode 2. Oh and of course the teenage sex leading to an alien baby, looks like that’s lined up for early in the season too.

Lastly I’m bummed we didn’t get more of the original cast re-imagined. Unless they’ve been so re-imagined I didn’t even recognize them that is.

I hate to break it to them, they’ve been here a long time, no invasion needed, better phones and OS’s yes, invasion plans, no.

I’ve talked about this before, Nokia makes great stuff. My N95 was a nice device, great camera (Albeit a little slow), the 5800 Music Xpress had great potential (Stylus aside), but the OS was crap.

Simbian needs to make OS’s that are consumer friendly. The N95 had so much power in it’s OS, even I was a bit bamboozled. There was way too much going on for your normal consumer, smartphone shopper to want to deal with.

It doesn’t have to be iPhone simple, but it needs to not require a Computer Science degree to figure out how to update facebook on the facebook app, or even worse, browse the OVI store. That was a nightmare!

Oh and Nokia, ditch T9. That was lame when I was in high school and it was the only option. You’ve got touch screen phones now, why default to a T9 keyboard on screen?

The ‘Invasion’ (much like that of the Visitors) will fail.

But for lists there’s a bigger reason, and Chris Brogan hits the nail on the head, They’re exclusionary. They’re the new “hottest kid in school” list posted in the locker bay. Those on it feel more self important, and those not on it, feel like less than people, and in the end, they’re completely meaningless and 100% arbitrary.

There’s few things I hate more than internet popularity contests.

Lists aren’t opt in or opt out, they’re not merit based, or anything like that. They’re lists of people that some one else thinks are worth listing. You must ask to be on the list, you must be “approved”, and if the list maker decides you’re not worthy, that’s that.

Lists are are for clique making. “Hey I’m on 30 lists” as if that somehow indicates importance. I see the number of lists a person is on, being the new “follower count”, a metric few care about, and most deride as a sign of being some sort of twitter spammer, or twitter whore.

Will it become the same bad juju if you’re on 50 lists, and have made none?

Of all the things twitter could of released, it’s sad they chose lists. They’ve already got their “most influential user” list or whatever. I’d rather see twitter add more useful features than popularity contests. To name a few. Polls, photo/video/audio (sorry third parties), maybe a suggestion system like Netflix? “You should look at these guys, because they’re similar to this guy that you follow.” That’d be WAY more valuable than “Here’s my bestest friends, who are cooler than you, but you should follow” list, by someone whom I’m not sure I care about their opinion on such things.

Sorry list makers, and list whores. I won’t be making lists, nor will I care if I’m on yours. There’s more important things out there.

I figured, why have perfectly good Mac Mini’s sitting around, when, like the PS3 I can use them around the home/office until event time.

To that end, we now have a nice little Boxee entertainment center. I’ve actually been an admirer from afar of the whole Mini as home theatre set up, since about the day the Mini was released. It just seems like the perfect box for that.

However, while I had fun in my youth as a hacker and building things, tearing them down, etc, I just don’t get into it now, I didn’t want an Open Source DVR that required Linux, and a keyboard, etc.

Boxee is a nice, pretty darn consumer friendly package, that works with the Apple remote, but even better, there’s an iPhone app. I wish the app was a bit more secure, if my neighbors get a boxee set up, or even get the free app, I can see problems arising.

HOWEVER

in the meantime, it’s been nice to catch up on shows on Hulu (when it doesn’t freeze mid show), and stream some Netflix movies. I looked at Plex, but the Boxee interface was more friendly. To that end, Nicole has already used Boxee, liked it, and managed to navigate to watch things, without me in the room, that’s a huge win for Boxee.

I hope the Hulu issue ends up being resolved, and Hulu doesn’t screw things up. I’d pay for hulu, but only if I don’t need a separate app. Boxee is nice, it’s all in one.

I mean, I can stream Netflix in Boxee (post on that later), sounds like Windoze media center can stream Netflix. Roku boxes can stream it. Hell I can stream it on my Macbook!

So why is it that the only solution Sony and Netflix could come up with was a Blue Ray disc, that launched BD Live to access Netflix and stream the content? Really?

Why not a separate device that plugs into the PS3? Maybe a special modem? maybe a USB dongle that acts as hardware key on some software solution?

I don’t care if the disc is free or not, I don’t really see it as being worth the headache of 1. not losing the disc, 2. keeping it unscratched, and 3. putting it in every time I want to use it just to watch a movie.

I think I’ll stick with the other better solutions for now.

Sony/Netflix, please try again.

As always we started talking about technology, and in particular eBooks, and eReaders, and how the library of tomorrow won’t look like the one we were walking through.

Here’s the idea we came up with, looking at the crowd of people in the library.

Offer a Kindle (or a Nook, or whatever) to each library member. Of course they’d need to be subsidized somehow, and you could probably get away with charging something super small, $20 maybe? Just to put a value on it to holders. It’s Library property, so you could also enforce some “Lose it, buy it” deal, and give the $20 back if it’s returned in working order. Otherwise it’s a lifetime deal like a library card.

Of course it’s not a Kindle like you’d get on Amazon. It’s a library device. It’s useful to read content you’ve checked out of the library. Sort of like the way the Nook knows when you’re in a B&N, the Library Kindle would know you’re in the library. You’d browse the available titles, check out whatever the limit is, etc. following whatever rules exist. You wouldn’t be buying anything, nothing permanent would reside on the device.

The book would transfer to your device, with the appropriate DRM to enforce the check out period (as already exists and is in use at libraries), the patron would go home, and have a book to read on an eReader.

There wouldn’t be 3G, and you couldn’t connect to other Wifi hot spots. The connection is only for the Library. Outside the Library it’s an unconnected eBook reader, which all a library patron would need it to be.

Sidenote (You could get really jiggy, and allow patrons to have an account on the library server, to collect annotations, etc. That way you could make notes on the book you’ve checked out, and they wouldn’t go away when you checked the book back in, but you might have to check the book back out to read them? I dunno, it just popped into my head.)

As far as funding goes, well it doesn’t cost Amazon $259 to build the Kindle, so they could easily give libraries a massive price break on bulk orders. Additionally, what company wouldn’t want, say a screen saver image as advertising on each device? Sell a few (there’s no limit really) ads (600×800 images) that are displayed when the device is sleeping, to offset the cost of the device. That’s a lot of eyeballs on each ad, if you think of how many patrons your typical metro library has.

Once the devices are in the library (assuming someone like Amazon, etc builds the custom OS) the ownership is easy. Charge the devices in a closet somewhere. When someone signs up, give them the device, the charger, and an instruction manual. Heck charging could even be something only offered at the library, since without a wireless connection Kindles last about 2 weeks. But either way, there’s not much overhead in managing the Devices. Repair/replacement would obviously be thru the vendor, just like with library workstations.

The OS is simple (The existing Kindle OS ain’t exactly MacOS) so there’s little to no learning curve, you wouldn’t need to have full time support staff, etc either. Whatever existing staff, would easily handle issues, since worst case, it’s swap out the device, and RMA the bad one.

I think as libraries become more aware of the sun set approaching them, the smart ones, will get on board with this idea. The smart company (Amazon, Sony, B&N) will jump on the idea too and secure the market before anyone else sees the market forming.

This idea free to whomever can make it work, I want to see our libraries thrive in the future, and I want to see reading supported!

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/link-enhancer?tag=redomega-20&o=1″> </script> <noscript> <img src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/noscript?tag=redomega-20″ alt=”" /> </noscript>

The quick turn around was largely due to new facts coming out, like this. Turns out, the lending feature is pretty much destined to be vaporware.

1. You can only lend 1 book, one time, ever. That’s it, lend it to a friend, and you can lend it no longer. And of course, while it’s lent out, you can’t read it. Sure a real book works like that, but this AREN’T REAL BOOKS. It’s an eBook, the “e” allows for things that the dead tree model can’t afford.
2. The lending feature, much like the Kindle’s now never turned on, Text-to-speach feature is at the mercy of publishers. Which to me, from experience, means, it’ll be turned off on 95% of all eBooks. Cuz of course, why would the publishers want us to use things we purchase, in ways we like?

Then while reading my KindleFeeder morning paper, I saw this on e-bookvine. If you’re curious about the Nook, read the whole thing. One of my absolutely biggest complaints about the Kindle is organization. I can’t organize books by … well anything. Out of the box I can sort by Title, Author and Date. Not Type, etc.

Apparently, while B&N was building the Nook, they chose to follow Palms footsteps, and not learn from the competition. It’s kinda straight forward, that if you’re coming late to the party, you should offer everything (or as much as possible) that the leader doesn’t offer, and of course, offer more too. The Nook doesn’t offer any better eBook organization than the Kindle. There’s no desktop library app (like iTunes), and no support for folders or tags. FAIL.

Why support your fans? I used to be a B&N Member. I love books, and love being in bookstores, so it made sense to save a little money. When i started buying books on Amazon, I let my membership lapse. Will the Nook offer B&N members, anything? Nope. No discount on the device (OK I can kinda get with that, kinda), and no discount on eBooks. FAIL. Why not offer your loyal members an extra incentive to buy eBooks. Especially when your eBooks, are more expensive than Amazon’s it entices members to buy your eBooks, it helps Nook adoption (I’d assume at least), and it might make you slightly price competitive.

The Nook is looking less and less like a device I’ll be buying. Which says a lot to me, I think B&N coulda stolen a lot of Kindle owners away from Amazon had they executed correctly. It looks like they’re hoping to entice a whole new group of people to buy the Nook, and let Amazon have the rest of us. I don’t see that working, not in the short or long term.

Simply offering something won’t create a market for it, and not enticing the early adopters, enthusiastic eBook supporters from Amazon means you have to hope you’ll find another million + eBook people, who don’t already own a Kindle. Good luck.

I’ll be a Kindle owner for a bit longer it looks like.

I’m not a big Role player, so probly not the best person for this game. I did enjoy it a bit, but as a ‘casual gamer’ it wouldn’t be for me.

The game play is fun, but a bit confusing, there’s cross hairs, icons, double tapping, etc.

Story: Very interesting. The british accents are hilarious, the dialogue, just about worth the game on it’s own. It truly is hilarious!

Game play: Tricky. I’ve played the game several times, for varying lengths of time, and (I’ll admit I didn’t read the directions) have no idea what half the icons mean. A box? Simon pushing a box? a hammer?

I’ve tried each icon and Simon mocks me for trying to do anything. I’ve had a blast interacting with characters, but as far as interacting with the environment I’ve drawn a complete blank.

The only tough part of interacting with people in the game, is the dialogue selection. It’s as if the game was ported from something that that a d-pad or number pad or something. the font is so small you kinda have to slide your finger to see the faint highlighting take place so you can select. It took me a long time to figure this out, because simply tapping, the hit space doesn’t seem to be exactly where your finger is.

The graphics are great. Not photo realistic or anything, but great to look at. The entire environment is pretty interactive; things are  happening, moving, etc.

So, overall, Simon the Sorcerer 2 is a entertaining game, but the game place isn’t really iPhone friendly in it’s current state. It’s fun, but not quite there.

And now I’m torn.

The Nook (Gizmodo Review), looks incredible. Up until now, the other eReaders, looked F-ugly, performed poorly, cost too much, etc. But B&N seems to have hit a home run. I’ll admit, I haven’t seen one in person, yet. If half the write ups are accurate though, this device has true Kindle killer potential.

I’ve also made no bones about the things I think Amazon is doing wrong; DRM, proprietary format, pricing, etc. Can the Nook, counter enough of them to win me over?

The nook, certainly looks like a great alternative to the Kindle. So much so, I’m really debating my allegiance to Jeff and Co.

Battery Life:

When measuring time in days, does 10 or 14 matter? Not to me. I charge my Kindle about every 4-5 days when I go to sleep. When I travel sometimes I don’t even charge it. 10 days or 14 makes no difference to me. SO long as I have Days, NOT hours, i’m good.

Network:

You know, i don’t care. So long as there’s broadband, I don’t care if it’s Whispernet or AT&T. Though given that I’m an iPhone owner, and know first hand how shitty AT&T’s network is, I’ll be really mad if I have to wait an hour for a book to be delivered. Wifi will be nice, when I travel overseas, but really, not that nice. I mean, I’d likely buy as many books as I planned to read, before leaving.

Sharing AKA Collaboration?

The big thing for me, that the Nook comes closer with its sharing feature than the Kindle… well the Kindle doesn’t even try. Fuck piracy yo! But it’s a book, it’s meant to be shared. Hell yeah I want it back! But if I think it’s worthwhile enough to share, I want to be able to do that! If I want to show someone how great it is, so they buy their own, awesome! Just the other day, Tom suggested I pick up Gary V’s book. I was torn, Gary goes between being inspirational for me, and my wanting to punch him. I told him, “You better be right, I don’t have money to buy books I won’t want” Tom lucked out, and Gary V rocked it. “Crush It!” is worth the buy. Had Tom bee able to loan it to me for two weeks, I’d have read it for a day or two and bought it.

What I’m not sure about, and don’t see mentioned, can the person I lend the book to, make annotations? Will those come back with the book? It’s not exactly what I want, which is two people, two copies of the book, sharing notes. But it might be closer, and with Android, certainly more likely.

Add to that the free in store reading, that’s kinda awesome. Gimmicky for sure, I haven’t been in a B&N in months, but I might visit one more often with a Nook in hand.

Keyboard:

The second screen, while kinda weird to think about, sounds awesome. I hate the keyboard on my Kindle. it’s small, hard to use, and mostly in the way. I’m a note making fool and barely use it.

If I could have a keyboard when I needed it, and say media controls (I’ve never used them on the Kindle, but still) always on the bottom, NOT interfering with reading, all I gotta say is w00t!

UN-Proprietary:

I hate closed systems. Sure I don’t want crazy hacked instability roll your solution shit, but I always like to be able to mod my stuff. I jailbroke my iPhone to have themes, I hacked my Kindle so I’d stop looking at old Bookplates and authors. Andriod, while I’m not a fan of the phones, opens some seriously awesome doors for the Nook. Hell that second screen could be streaming internet radio, or playing MP3s while I read, without me having to leave the book to control that function. It could show me a running tally on the notes I’ve written so far, or a live dictionary. hell it could be showing me twitter! All while I read my book.

Downside: Amazon.

The one thing that gives me pause is two parts really. It’s Amazon. I’ve had my Kindle for maybe 6 months, bought dozens of books. I like being able to fire up amazon, find a book, and assuming there’s a kindle version, begin reading in under 5 minutes. Sure I can go to the Barnes & Noble site, but it’s not the same, sorry guys.

PLUS, what happens to the dozens of books I’ve bought for my Kindle? Some of which I haven’t read yet. Sure I can probably hack something together to strip the DRM, turn into a usable format, etc, but that’s a PITA. Kinda sad, what makes me not like the Kindle, also locks me into it unless I’m willing to lose my purchases. Way to go Amazon.

What do you think?