The Tao of Mac

Movies

Rui Carmo — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:40:29 GMT

This is an update to an item originally published on Sunday, 16 July 2006.

Movies I intend to see, without any particular order or bias:

Movie	Notes
Avatar	I’m not sure if I’ll go to the trouble to visit the (inexplicably suburban and unwisely located) IMAX theaters here, but the trailer has caught my eye – hope it doesn’t devolve into “Elves meet Halo Wars” in terms of plot.
Land of Plenty	Wim Wenders does the US.
Hard Candy	Seems a different twist on an otherwise predictable plot.

Last Seen

Most recent at the top, not all deemed noteworthy here.

Date	Movie	Notes
Nov 15	Up	Lovely. Simply lovely, with a great mix of character development and a compelling argument.
Nov 14	Monsters vs. Aliens	Loads of in-jokes. Worth watching a couple of times to pick up on the amazing detail and subtle hints.
Nov 8	Coraline (2009)	brilliant. Not a perfect match with the graphic novel, but an improvement upon it, and thoroughly enjoyable.
Nov 2	Star Trek (2009)	Too predictable. Nice SFX, sure to have a bunch of sequels now that they can do whatever they want with the plot lines and have fresh faces for the characters.
Previously	Ratatouille	Pixar keep surpassing themselves. The expressiveness and realism of the characters is amazing – rats never looked this good.
	Over The Hedge	Kids will love the talking animals (and it has some funny sequences), but it isn’t quite as amazing as Cars.
	Cars	Utterly, utterly brilliant. Besides pushing the tech even further (the particle simulations for dust are amazingly believable), the sheer amount of detail is astounding. The car stickers, the audience doing the “wave” with their headlights, the landscapes, the little car-shaped insects (loved the Beetle), even the cameos at the end make you want to grab the DVD as soon as it’s out and watch it again and again.
	V for Vendetta	Hugo Weaving proves he can out-act anyone without even showing his face. Engrossing, oddly fascinating in some bits.
	Ultraviolet	The character and plot depth of a saucer. Interesting aesthetics, though – loads of eye candy in some segments, even if there were some pretty weak attempts at emulating some sequences from the Matrix.
	X-Men: The Last Stand	Woverine cries “NOOOOOO!” again. I know I nearly did, halfway through. Nice eye-candy, but no character depth to speak of and a rushed ending.
	Aeon Flux	The overall aesthetics of the thing deserve another viewing. The plot is a bit dull but has some nice twists, and I have no idea how true it is to the comics (my guess is not much, considering the ending).
	Ice Age: The Meltdown	a competent sequel, wherein we find that Pixar isn’t the only one able to deliver believable and expressive characters. Good fun, quite a few good jokes, and lots of subtle homages to previous movies.
	The Chronicles of Narnia	kids have all the fun. Glorious, even if you’ve read the books.
	Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire	a much darker, entertaining Potter with some interesting visuals.
	Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit	Lots of fun. The Madagascar psychotic penguins’ short that precedes it is hilarious, and deserves mention.
	Serenity	Although the “cowboys in space” approach seemed utterly stupid at first, it is an excellent way to bring closure to Firefly (which I watched beforehand), and a genuinely inspiring film on its own. Recommended.
	HH2G	Mostly harmless to my vision of the book.
	Charlie and The Chocolate Factory	Brilliant imagery, lots of fun.
	Fantastic Four	So-So, I guess. Okay, anything is better than Spiderman 2.
	Millions	inspiring and fun, only spoiled by a rather tacky ending.
	Mr. and Mrs. Smith	Marital counseling and ordnance. Utter crap with a couple of moderately fun gags thrown in.
	Sin City	Not that hot. I guess you need to be a fan of the comic.
	War Of The Worlds	The story of a perfectly ordinary man that traipses around the U.S. hiding in basements and narrowly avoiding being blown up, crushed or turned into fertilizer. Aliens are somehow involved, and guess what – E.T. ain’t that friendly anymore.
	Madagascar	cute but plasticky and lacking in character depth (even for a cartoon)
	Batman Begins	the first Batman that felt solid.
	Revenge of the Sith	28 years of cult Sci-Fi let down by some of the stiffest acting ever (even without a mask). Nice GFX, though.
	Million Dollar Baby	Clint churns out another stirring story about ordinary people.
	Ray	Good acting, great soundtrack, very inspiring.
	The Aviator	Grandiose, full of glamour, but oddly lacking in depth.
	The Recruit	Fun, but not memorable.
	The Terminal	Tom Hanks lost in the middle of somewhere without palm trees.
	Blueberry	Strange, but oddly riveting.
	Collateral	Well-paced, with a couple of nice twists.
	The Incredibles	Wow. The first computer animated movie that made me forget I was looking at RenderMan output.
	Bridget Jones – The Edge Of Reason	the book was a far better sequel, but there’s something about seeing Colin Firth portray the perenially embarassed Englishman that carries the story forward. Jolly good fun despite rather conspicuous product placement and a little repetition.
	Shark Tale	It’s a cartoon. So what if one of the sharks behaves a little fishy? Welcome to the 21st century.
	Sky Captain and The World Of Tomorrow	Faux futures, a luxury we don’t really have anymore. A glorious visual voyage through a world some of us grew up missing. And quite a few references to the genre (like door number 1138 , the female android a la Metropolis , etc.). Blue screens never looked better.
	The Chronicles of Riddick	I can’t even remember Pitch Black , but it left a better impression. Thin plot and saucer-like character depth spoiled exotic vistas and interesting scenic approaches (although some of it was in rather bad taste).
	New York Minute	I had to see for myself how bad it was.
	Stepford Wives	Plastic. I’m told the original was much better.
	Alien vs Predator	Clichés galore. Expect a sequel soon.
	Immortel	Bilal. Need I say more?
	Kill Bill 2	never keep a snake in a trailer.
	Spiderman 2	Why the hell not, even if it was a cliché?
	Catwoman	Crap. I don’t care how hot she looked in that leather harness.
	Starsky&Hutch	Yes, I know movies can also make you think. This is not the case.
	Hellboy	Tongue-in-cheek dialogue, fun. Not earth-shattering, but probably better than Spiderman 2.
	Shrek 2	As long as Eddie Murphy keeps being an ass, I’m sold. Full of hilarious movie puns (like the Indiana Jones last-second hat-grab). Five stars.

Here’s an automatically generated listing of any movies referenced throughout the site:

Item	References
Monsters vs. Aliens	Movies
Firefly	Movies
Up	Movies
Avatar	Movies
Coraline	Movies
Sin City	Movies
Hard Candy	Movies
The Chronicles of Riddick	Movies
Alien vs Predator	Movies
Catwoman	Movies
original	Movies
Wallace&Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit	Movies
Kill Bill 2	Movies
Sky Captain and The World Of Tomorrow	Movies
Over The Hedge	Movies 40C
Fantastic Four	Movies
War Of The Worlds	Movies
Hellboy	Movies
X-Men: The Last Stand	Movies
Serenity	Movies Five Things I Liked About 2005 Random Bits of News
The Aviator	Movies
E.T.	Movies
Spiderman 2	Movies
The Incredibles	Movies Entertainment, In Whatever Form
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire	Movies
Aeon Flux	Movies
Batman Begins	Movies
Ratatouille	Movies
Immortel	Movies
Stepford Wives	Movies
The Recruit	Movies
Revenge of the Sith	Movies Slugs And Other Vermin
Pitch Black	Movies
Madagascar	Movies
Ultraviolet	Movies
Ice Age: The Meltdown	Movies
Collateral	Movies
Millions	Movies
HH2G	Movies
The Terminal	Movies
Mr. and Mrs. Smith	Movies
Starsky&Hutch	Movies
Land of Plenty	Movies
The Chronicles of Narnia	Movies Five Things I Liked About 2005
Shark Tale	Movies
Cars	Movies 40C Relaxing
V for Vendetta	Movies
Charlie and The Chocolate Factory	Movies
Million Dollar Baby	Movies
Ray	Movies
Metropolis	Movies
New York Minute	Movies
1138	Movies
Star Trek	Movies
Blueberry	Movies
Bridget Jones – The Edge Of Reason	Movies
Shrek 2	Movies
Space: 1999	It's just a (3G) phone
Rain Man	The nPhone
High Fidelity	Os Meus Quinze Pageviews de Fama
Moonraker	Nearly Halfway There
The World is Not Enough	Nearly Halfway There
Ice Age	Snow in Lisbon
The Incredibles	2004 in Review
Bee Movie	Foxes on fire, and other entertainment
MacGyver	Foxes on fire, and other entertainment
Iron Man	I, for one, welcome our new diapered overlords
Beverly Hills: 90210	Foxes on fire, and other entertainment I, for one, welcome our new diapered overlords Amazon's New Music Store - MP3 Bestsellers
Eureka	The Fun's Nearly Over
MIB	The Last Phone You'll Ever Wear
Final Fantasy	Musings On Consoles Inbox Lint
Nim’s Island	Chicken Broth, The Meal of Champions
Minority Report	Things I Can't Get Around To Do, Part One Wii-ing on PowerPoint Stripe Three
Nemo	Mighty Mousing
Minority Report	Random Thoughts On Nomadic Life
Alien	Geek Toast
original War of the Worlds movie	WowWee introduces Mr. Personality, Rovio, and Flytech Bladestar
Babylon 5	On Priorities
WALL-E	Checking in
Kung Fu Panda	Checking in
Blade Runner	Interlude
Corpse Bride	Five Things I Liked About 2005
Desperate Housewives	Five Things I Liked About 2005
le Big Mac	Feed Raid
Lost	Heat, TV and Data Retention
Mission: Impossible	Kafka Lives On
Sherlock Holmes	Dr. House
series	Dr. House
ER	Dr. House
reimagined series	Battlestar Galactica

☯

Demotivators

Rui Carmo — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:04:15 GMT

I’ve always found Despair Inc.‘s motivational posters nothing short of brilliant, and ever since they put up a DIY page I’ve been having a go at it myself – the gallery below contains some of the latest ones:

Except for a few who are part of miscellaneous promotional materials and others courtesy of Pedro Pinheiro, the vast majority of the images used were fished willy-nilly off the net completely at random, and I’ll give due credit (or remove them) according to their rights’ owners wishes.

☯

"Demotivators" was written by Rui Carmo for The Tao of Mac and was originally posted on Sunday, 15 November 2009. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Rui Carmo and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.

Merlin Mann

Rui Carmo — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:45:31 GMT

This is an update to an item originally published on Friday, 11 August 2006.

The guy behind 43 folders, the Mecca of all things GTD, and who now tumbles over and over at Kung Fu Grippe.

☯

Technowhat?

Rui Carmo — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 09:51:45 GMT

I’ve had a long, strange (and mostly troublesome) relationship with Technorati for a good while now, so much so that I’ve had an item on my ToDo page here for years now to figure out why.

Today, I’m taking that off and giving up on it altogether. Here’s five reasons why:

When I was still running PhpWiki, they couldn’t figure out my site layout or feeds, no matter how much metadata I added (back then the requirement was, IIRC, that you added RDF in the appropriate locations so that they could figure out post boundaries and suchlike).
When they started handling RSS instead, moving to FeedBurner made my entry disappear for a couple of weeks. I’m not talking about rankings (which I find utterly meaningless), I’m talking about my blog not being listed at all.
A couple of years back, this is what my Technorati cosmos looked like. It’s well worth clicking through to see what the entire page looked like.
Soon after that, and after moving to Yaki, I stopped adding Technorati tags to my RSS feeds, since they were obviously not getting processed no matter what I tried. As an example, one of the most popular pages ever on this site is my HOWTO on writing iSync Plugins (which is always at the top of my own referrer listing), and I couldn’t find one mention of it on Technorati.
Now, thanks to their improvements, not only have I been unable to edit or delete my previous site listing there, the new claim I registered a few weeks back is still being processed:

It’s not that I particularly care about (or, for that matter, have time to follow) my site’s ranking¹. I know this is a niche site. I am perfectly aware that what I do or write about here is of interest to a minute percentage of the folk out there (if only because of my refusal to give credit to hype and non-news).

It’s just that it never seemed to work right, its stats bear no relationship whatsoever with what Google Analytics and my own referrer tracking show me, and that I see no point in trying to use stuff that is broken.

I’d like to end this on a positive note, but I can’t really add one of my own, so if you want an example of stuff that isn’t broken and actually makes the web better, pop over to Merlin Mann’s and read his piece on Marco Arment and Instapaper, which is the best thing I’ve read today.

Seriously.

—

¹ I’ve just had a look at the Alexa listing, and it’s equally fun (and another example of how bad site statistics are overall), since I have to wonder why I’m ranked in Malasyia. It’s stats also don’t match the Google ones in most points. ↩

☯ (comments allowed)

RAOP

Rui Carmo — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:25:41 GMT

This is an update to an item originally published on Wednesday, 7 October 2009.

See RAOP on Wikipedia.

Resources:

Date	Link	Notes
Nov 14	JustePort	A Mono – .NET streaming client
Oct 6	raop-client on RubyForge	A Ruby client to stream audio to an AirPort Express (seemingly orphaned from 2006, but a very small codebase, mirrored here)

☯

Infirmware

Rui Carmo — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:21:01 GMT

In days of yore, when men were real men, women were real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were, well, a twinkling in Douglas Adams’ eye as he lay drunk in a field in Innsbruck, there was no such thing as firmware upgrades over the Internet.

Once you got your hands on a piece of software (or, more to the point here, to a piece of hardware), it worked as you got it from that moment onwards until you consigned it to the junk heap, and if you had any trouble with it, well, you argued with the manufacturer until you got another, which was slow, expensive and fiddly, especially when gadgetry started having more programmable logic than actual moving parts.

But it was by around that time that manufacturers started splitting into two quite clear camps: those who seized the opportunity to better support their customers by actually fixing issues customers found in the field that they could not reproduce in internal testing, and those who realized they could simply start skimping on internal testing and ship a fix later¹.

That second camp tainted firmware upgrades as the mark of the lazy, of the rushed, of the technically unfit, but, worse still, they created a whole (and, to my eyes, largely worse) new occupation – product obsolescence management, i.e., the folk who decide what will be fixed with firmware upgrades until the next product hardware revision ships.

I have, over the years, been exposed to entirely too many negative examples of these – for instance, every phone I’ve ever tested in the past few years has gone through at least four firmware versions: the one it is sent out with for initial testing, the one we get “all” our critical bugs fixed, the one where they’re really fixed, and, quite often, another, public one six months down the line where I can actually trust the things to work (any geek out there who’s bought a top-tier Nokia device in the past year or so can relate to this, and it’s not hard to find examples).

A few of those devices² reached users in little better shape than they were in beta, but what really ticks me off is when firmware upgrades break perfectly good stuff (and yes, I’m finally getting to the point of this post, bear with me).

As you may well know, Sony has recently made an epic foul-up with their 3.0/3.01 firmware upgrade for the PS3, which has, from what I’ve been able to read, rendered hundreds (thousands?) of older, pre-Slim devices unable to read discs.

A Great Customer Experience

Guess what, my PS3 broke with the 3.01 firmware upgrade as well – but, as always, that’s not the whole story.

At the time that happened, I had just sold it to a friend, who wanted it specifically due to its backward compatibility with the PS2, but also due to the fact that I used it so little it was practically new. Thanks to Sony, he upgraded a perfectly good piece of hardware to 3.01 and lost the ability to read any sort of disks – the drive just died, and a thorough exploration of the reset and service options failed to revive it.

Fortunately enough the console still had had two weeks left on its warranty period, so I undid the deal, called the local support line for an RMA number, and sent it in. A week later, the Sony support line called back and told me they not only had run out of 60GB replacement hardware, but that they had no expectations of ever getting others again – so they offered me a brand new 120GB Slim instead.

As a customer service experience, it was great – it was blindingly fast by Portuguese standards (and well above the kind of hardware support I’d get from most other companies these days). The only problem is that my friend’s chance of getting a console able to play both PS2 and PS3 games is utterly gone³.

Oh, and it nearly compensated for Sony’s lack of QA when releasing that firmware. But I won’t flog a dead horse, even if it’s trivial to do so digitally.

The Potential For Worse Ones

The thing is, even the device whose firmware I upgrade most often – i.e., the iPhone – isn’t immune to this. Not by a long shot, for although I haven’t yet had any problems myself, with every OS revision comes a new set of niggles and complaints – where I personally include the failure to fix latent issues, like the infamous “snapback slider” when trying to answer some calls that I’ve experienced since 1.x.

Such things are why I was leery of (after over a decade) buying something as simple as a new TV – all I really need is an LCD panel with the requisite amount of HDMI and SCART inputs (I don’t even need it to have a tuner, since what little TV I watch comes from an IPTV box or a media/disc player of some sort).

And yet, the likes of Samsung, Philips and LG (all of whose TV portfolios I got to know at length over the past few months) are stuffing a bazillion features into their panels that are, for the most case. upgradeable by sticking a USB stick into the requisite port.

I’m not sure why I would want a TV that runs Linux (for that is what most of them are running to some extent), but one of the reasons I made sure I didn’t get one with an Ethernet port was that I wanted to make sure there was no way for it to break in the same way my PS3 did.

Still, it could be worse. At least my kettle doesn’t take firmware upgrades…

—

¹ My personal belief here is that that bunch spent a stint in the software industry around the time Windows Update got started, but that’s besides the point right now. ↩

² Which shall, for my part, remain nameless at least for a few decades longer, until I can tell their tale by the fireside to fledgling young engineers, bright-eyed with enthusiasm at hearing first-hand tales of their equivalent of the Tin Lizzie… ↩

³ Plus, of course, my having to decide what to do about the PS3 all over again. It’s hard to get rid of a brand new piece of hardware, even considering I’m just as likely to (not) use it for gaming as the previous model – the only arguments for keeping it around are my not having another Blu-Ray player and the dodgy status of its warranty, for I can’t really go and re-sell it as one would a regularly purchased used console… ↩

☯ (comments allowed)

"Infirmware" was written by Rui Carmo for The Tao of Mac and was originally posted on Saturday, 14 November 2009. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Rui Carmo and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.

Magic Mouse

Rui Carmo — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:44:53 GMT

This is an update to an item originally published on Tuesday, 3 October 2006.

Never again will Apple be mocked for its single-button mice. I was waiting for the Bluetooth version, but in the end I settled for an old, reliable, twisted copper tail.

Previously called the “Mighty Mouse” until trademark rights were lost, it is now the “standard” device, with a newer, touch-surface enabled version taking over:

Resources:

Date	Link	Notes
Nov 13	The new Magic Mouse, left, replacing my huge, awesome, but flaky…	Seems like it grows on you.
Nov 07	You win some, you lose some: a review of Apple’s Magic Mouse	I’ll eventually be getting one for occasional use at home, so some of the insights are interesting.
Oct 22	Magic Mouse: Oh my God—it’s full of capacitive sensors!	And me thinking it was pixie dust.
Oct 22	Magic Mouse post-teardown loses some of its dark arts charm	Even the internals ate slick.
Older	Cleaning the trackball	For the older (now “standard” mouse)
	Apple Mighty Mouse Scroll Ball cleaning
	TV Theme Song
	ArsTechnica Review and dissection

☯

Palm Pre

Rui Carmo — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:44:21 GMT

This is an update to an item originally published on Monday, 16 February 2009.

Palm’s surprise entry for the newfangled “web-based smartphone” category.

Date	Link	Notes
Nov 12	Palm Pixi review	I can’t really get excited about this one for some reason – maybe it’s the hardware keyboard.
Nov 09	I’m Putting My Palm Pre on Notice	Not a keeper, then.
Nov 09	Sprint Palm Pixi unboxed on video	It’s a phone, comes in a box.
Nov 05	Time For Palm To Drop WebOS And Embrace Android	I was wondering when folk would start asking these kind of questions, but Palm already tried using someone else’s OS and got no good out of it…
Oct 27	Palm Pixi on sale November 15 exclusively at Sprint for $100 on contract	Cheap, interesting – let’s see how good it really is.
Oct 19	Dear Palm, it’s just not working out.	The ripples are still spreading, and will for weeks after this was written.
Oct 13	First GSM Palm Pre now on sale in Germany, with new Euro-specific apps in tow	Not much detail on the apps.
Oct 7	Palm Pre coming to Spain on Telefonica on October 14	Makes sense.
Sep 23	USB group none too happy with Palm’s iTunes hack, either	Bloody predictable
Jul 16	Announcing webOSdev	Finally, a developer portal and SDK.
Jul 15	iTunes 8.2.1 brings Pre’s music syncing capability to a halt	How very… predictable.
Jul 9	Palm Pre Review	Praise for the software, but not the hardware.
Jul 7	Official: Palm Pre launching in O2 and Movistar by end of year	Kind of makes sense.
Jul 1	O2 Wins Exclusive on Pre in UK, Announcement in one week?	Ah well…
Jun 26	Palm Has Half of the Business Plan Puzzle in Place	I’d actually say they have a quarter of their business plan in place, given Palm’s current presence (or lack thereof) in Europe.
Jun 23	Ars reviews the Palm Pre, part 2: the webOS experience	The second installment, still wandering here and there but more interesting.
Jun 22	iDesign * Pre	Great selection of wallpapers.
Jun 18	In-depth review of the Palm Pre and the webOS	Late to the game, but chock full of videos.
Jun 10	Ars Reviews the Palm Pre, part 1: the BlackBerry killer	The piece wanders here and there, makes a few cogent points, but does not convince me in the least. To beat the Blackberry, Palm needs to address corporate needs, not the personal ones the article waltzes through.
Jun 10	Palm Pre	A cogent and reasoned breakdown of the Pre’s Linux underpinnings
Jun 4	Designing the Palm Pre: An interview with Michelle Koh	This is the stuff that really matters – the tech is useless if there aren’t guiding design principles.
Jun 4	How Palm Designed the Pre
Jun 3	Palm Pre review	Possibly the most detailed of them all.
	Palm Pre, Elegant Contender	Pogue drains the battery in less than a day
	Multitasking Palm Pre Brims With Power, Potential	Steven Levy also mentions heavy battery drain, also thinks the keyboard is small.
	Palm’s New Pre Takes On iPhone	Mossberg emphasizes the app store’s current weak selection
May 28	Palm Pre First Hands On!	Some complaints regarding the keyboard.
Apr 29	Palm Pre: $138 to build according to iSuppli	Considering they can’t possibly have gotten one yet, this raises questions about iSupply’s reputability…
Apr 2	Palm Pre Classic emulator demoed on video	Doesn’t look half bad, although realistically there aren’t that many legacy apps that make sense using on a Pre, and the lack of personal data integration can be a downer.
Mar 3	Is Vodafone in Negotiations with Palm for Pre Release?	Another link that falls under my Disclaimer
Feb 24	The Pre’s Combined Messaging: Patent Pending	Some notes on Palm’s patents for the Pre
Feb 18	Google demos HTML5-based Maps on the Palm Pre	This is why I think HTML5 is a big deal on mobile.
Feb 16	Palm to add Flash support to webOS and Pre, joins Open Screen Project	It’s almost as if they’re ticking off a ‘beat the iPhone’ checklist. Multitasking, tethering, cut&paste, Flash… (more)
	Palm joins Adobe’s Open Screen Project, Pre to support Flash – Engadget
	Palm Pre Eyes-On, Plus Plenty of Pre Questions Answered	Rather nicely rounded article, even if the writer didn’t know that Gmail does have `IMAP IDLE` support.
Feb 10	GSM Palm Pre spotted with Vodafone SIM card – Engadget	Here’s something that falls squarely under my Disclaimer in more ways than one.
Jan 30	Another Pre hands-on video with Palm’s VP of design	Not much to say other than there are glimpses of some interesting portions of the UI.
Jan 23	Palm Pre: The Definitive FAQ
Jan 13	Palm Pre WebOS: hardware hands-on	The Reg fondles it, after having licked the UI
Jan 9	The pre’s got Mojo: a developer speaks about Palm’s new SDK	Not much detail, though.
	Palm Pre interface tour	Around 30 screenshots.
	Ars talks to Palm at CES, gets under the hood with the pre	Some info on the hardware (a TI OMAP 3430 CPU) and the “App Catalog”
Jan 8	Palm Pre in-depth impressions, video, and huge hands-on gallery	Title says it all, really.
Jan 8	Palm Unveils Its iPhone Rival: The Pre. Don’t Expect to Buy One Cheap	Missed the bit about Exchange support. A few other factual errors.

☯

Kindle

Rui Carmo — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:44:02 GMT

This is an update to an item originally published on Wednesday, 21 November 2007.

The Kindle is Amazon’s e-book reader, gifted with an e-ink display and (initially) EV-DO connectivity:

Resources

Date	Link	Notes
2009
Nov 12	Will Amazon’s Kindle Software Kill the Kindle Hardware?	No. I sometimes wonder if jkOnTheRun was added to the GigaOm network just to ask obvious questions and grab page-views by replying to them at length, but that may be just my cynicism creeping up on me.
Nov 11	Amazon Kindle for PC: Now delivering books to your desktop	US-only. How quaint.
Nov 11	Kindle for PC adds flexibility, but not a whole lot more	Summary: not worth the trouble.
Oct 24	Kindle software coming to Mac OS X	I’m frankly curious, but use too many computers for comfort and, given the issues about international pricing, won’t spend a dime over what a regular Amazon purchase would cost me.
Oct 23	Amazon Kindle for PC available ‘soonish’	Not that I expect this to be as useful as the mobile versions, but it’s an interesting twist.
Oct 23	Amazon Hobbles Features For International Kindle	The bit about their delivering content without any photos just has to be a bug – otherwise, they’re just killing their own product.
Oct 22	Amazon’s international Kindle surprises owners with $20 refund, limited web browsing	So they’re coming to their senses – to some extent. Let’s see if the international edition of the DX will have proper browsing, otherwise I’ll certainly go for the burgeoning competition…
Oct 21	Who Named the Kindle (and Why)?(and-Why)	Interesting.
Oct 14	International Kindle won’t let you use terrible web browser overseas	I wonder if they will change this if they do a decent Euro version
Oct 9	Amazon confirms international Kindle DX is on the way too	A lot more interesting. Now they only have to make the pricing more sensible.
Oct 7	Kindle now $259, available worldwide with wireless delivery	I’ll wait for the DX and full integration with the UK store…
Oct 7	Amazon Cuts Kindle Price, Offers Internation Edition
Oct 1	Kindle coming to the UK in October? Amazon might just tell us next week	Of course they will. It’s been brewing for months.
Jul 24	Jeff Bezos issues humble apology over pulled Kindle title	Might not be enough to save face, though.
Jun 19	Amazon Kindle DX Review	Bigger. Faster. Stronger. Worse keyboard.
May 25	Kindle formatting for web geeks	Some interesting notes on how it handles HTML markup.
May 7	Dallas Morning News To Senate: Amazon Kindle Is Not A Business Model For Newspapers	Me, I like their business model.
May 6	The Kindle Lets Amazon Make a Lot From the Few”	The ARPU from Kindle users must be amazing.
	Amazon Kindle DX announced: $489, ships this summer	Includes a gallery.
	Amazon Kindle DX first hands-on	Not that exciting.
	Amazon supersizes Kindle for textbooks, newspapers	No Wi-Fi, no expansion, and I wonder why it doesn’t have a 2-up mode when rotated, but the PDF support is a nice add-on.
May 1	Informal poll suggests nearly 70% of Kindle owners are over 40	Strange. Here’s a copy of the graph:
Apr 22	iSuppli: $359 Kindle 2 costs $185 to build, Whispernet says shhh	The overall value seems about right, although the Novatel module price is for a fairly high-volume tier
Mar 9	Kindle 2 Usability Review	Jakob Nielsen weighs in.
Feb 28	Amazon Gives In To Ridiculous Authors Guild Claim: Allows Authors To Block Text-To-Speech	Just sad. But the enlightened ones won’t be stupid and stingy.
	Amazon sorta capitulates, will let publishers decide text-to-speech availability
	Amazon Caves On Kindle 2 Text-To-Speech
Feb 26	Evolution yields revolution: the Kindle 2	Pretty thorough review.
	Why Kindle 2’s Screen Took 12 Years and $150 Million	Interesting discussion regarding this interview on E-ink.
	Amazon Kindle 2 review	Nice gallery and close-up shots.
Feb 25	Kindle‚Äôs Text to Speech Under Fire	And it just goes on and on…
		And it just goes on and on…
	Further signs point to an international Kindle	Now this is a lot more interesting…
Feb 24	Kindle 2 dissected, found to contain space for a SIM card	Of course, it’s not that simple – you need a lot more electronics than just a card reader…
Feb 24	Kindle 2 First Look	Complete disassembly, with loads of pictures.
Feb 11	Know Your Rights: Does the Kindle 2’s text-to-speech infringe authors’ copyrights?	This has got to be the stupidest legal issue regarding ebooks, ever. What about visually challenged folk?
Feb 9	Hands on with Kindle 2: what a difference a screen makes	Apparently, the screen is improved. However, there are mixed opinions on that.
	Kindle 2: Slimmer, Smarter	In which we read that 10% of Amazon sales seem to be Kindle books
	Amazon Announces Kindle 2 Ebook Reader	Good (if biased) overview
	Amazon revamps Kindle, hints at bigger things to come	Not much to come, really, but comprehensive article nonetheless
	Kindle 2 first hands-on!	Nothing much to see, really, although the response time seems good.
2008
May 18	Amazon Kindle Review	Very detailed review
2007
Nov 23	Bookishness	On the device’s lack of ergonomics and style
Nov 22	Amazon Kindle sells out on debut	Sold out, sure, but how many?
Nov 19	Amazon Kindle first hands-on	A small gallery
Nov 19	The Future of Reading – A Play in Six Acts	Mark Pilgrim, in his inimitable style, rips through the TOS.
Nov 18	The Future of Reading	The Newsweek piece that started it all.

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Android

Rui Carmo — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:43:44 GMT

This is an update to an item originally published on Saturday, 17 November 2007.

The mobile platform sponsored by Google as part of the Open Mobile Alliance, evolved from their 2005 acquisition of the company with the same name.

Resources:

Date	Link	Notes
2009
Nov 11	Motorola Droid torn down despite desperate cries of ‘no disassemble’	Worth looking at.
	Droid Does… only have 256MB of storage for apps	Now that’s gotta be… Useful.
	Analyst estimates 100,000 DROID smartphones sold in first weekend	It isn’t the RAZR, but it’s a decent figure.
Nov 05	“Andy Ihnatko on Verizon Droid “iDon’t ads: baloney	Yep.
Nov 05	Personal Droid Data Plan Will Cost $30 Per Month, Even With Exchange	I honestly don’t get why they are trying to charge it this way.
Nov 03	Exchange Access for Droid: $15 Extra Per Month	Wow.
Oct 30	Android Phones Get Free Turn-By-Turn Directions	Best overview yet
	Google adds free turn-by-turn navigation, car dock UI to Android 2.0	The quip about an Apple version is not to be missed.
	Google Navigation video hands-on: you want this	Looks nice indeed, but let’s wait to see how well map caching works.
Oct 29	The Droid Has Landed…Unboxed! Plus a Few Facts	Nothing to worry about except that it’s the start of a trend.
Oct 28	Droid Launches Nov. 6 Priced To Match iPhone	The price matching approach is interesting, but then again in the US handset prices don’t work quite the same way as in Europe…
	Motorola DROID first hands-on!	I can’t figure out why these people keep wasting space in hardware keyboards.
	Verizon Droid Phone: Nov 6th, $199	A pretty decent feature set overview.
	Google Releases Android 2.0 SDK	But the UI guidelines are still a bit on the loose side.
Oct 27	Android 2.0 Highlights	The e-mail client looks nice, but I’m curious as to usability.
	Android 2.0 is Official — Quick Contacts Look Nice	This is just what I think is needed in oh, so many other places.
	Droid to be Verizon’s Android Product Line — Not a Single Phone	Now this is a clever move.
Oct 24	Verizon’s Droid is a series, not just a phone; Droid Eris coming from HTC	Let’s see how this pans out. I’m quite curious, actually, to see if Verizon can pull this off in the sense of generating genuine buzz around an operator-specific set of Android devices.
Oct 20	Android thoughts two years later	Well worth reading through, and mirrors my own views. One to re-visit a few years from now indeed.
Oct 7	Android, not iPhone, is Bigger Symbian Challenger Says Gartner	Not rocket science, but a bit exaggerated, since nobody can really look that far into the future in this industry. Still, here’s the chart:
Sep 23	Cyanogen	Modified firmware for some devices. Just had to happen.
Sep 15	Android 1.6 SDK is here	Well, at least compatibility is assured.
Sep 10	A nice summary table of devices
Sep 3	Some News from Android Market	It took them this long to add screenshots to apps.
Aug 17	The Android Opportunity (addenda)	Mostly agree, although this is too US-centric for it to be considered the whole truth.
Jun 24	HTC Hero running Android and Sense UI leaks from HTC‘s own website	Flash turns out to not be that exciting. Or useful. Plus the phone is plain ugly, and a lot thicker than what the first shot makes it look.
	HTC Hero hands-on: Flash, keyboard and ruminations
	Adobe demos Flash on the HTC Hero
Apr 29	Vodafone suggests future Android phones could have less Google	People keep confusing the platform with the services.
Apr 27
Loads of fun for various reasons.
Apr 20	Introducing home screen widgets and the AppWidget framework	An interesting technote on how Android handles home screen widgets.
Apr 2	Some Fun Facts About The Google Phone	Interesting stats about usage patterns.
Mar 5	HTC black Magic (Sapphire) hands-on: a Vodafone exclusive	Very few decent shots
Feb 25	Google blocks paid apps for unlocked G1 users	Interesting hint of fragmentation.
Feb 17	HTC Magic is official, bringing Android to Vodafone sans keyboard	And after adding these links, this page now merits a direct, obvious, reference to my Disclaimer
	HTC Magic in-depth hands-on, with video!
	HTC Magic first eyes-on!
	Photos: Hands-on with the HTC Magic Android phone
	HTC Magic – The new Google Android mobile phone from Vodafone
Feb 13	Android Market update: support for priced applications	Using Google Checkout, of course.
Feb 13	Android Market: Open for Business	A very nice (if shallow) analysis that bunches together some interesting tidbits of info.
Feb 12	TeleNav Does Turn-By-Turn on Android	Apparently US-only, which is a pity.
Jan 1	Android netbooks on their way, likely by 2010	Dubious in both title and subject matter (we’ve known that Android could be made to run on PCs for a good while now.
2008
Dec 28	AD IV: Programming Newbie	Tim Bray lists a few interesting resources for new developers
Dec 17	Huawei powers up its Android plans	For Q3’09. Let’s see what they come up with.
Dec 9	Open Handset Alliance announces 14 new members	including Sony Ericsson and Vodafone. Most people missed this last bit, which is fun.
Dec 8	Unlocked Android: $399	Development samples, available for purchase.
Nov 7	Worst. Bug. Ever.	Although this was fixed fairly quickly, it is the perfect example of why mobile phones aren’t exactly trivial to “improve upon” using today’s technology.
Oct 31	iPhone vs T-Mobile G1	A short comparison.
Oct 24	Android Phone Teardown	How weird is it that this is in Japan?
Oct 22	HTC Dream T-Mobile G1 (black) Smartphone review
Oct 21	Android is now Open Source	Let’s see if someone will port this to Intel and get it running on a netbook…
Oct 16	Almost Human: a review of Google’s Android G1 phone	Good reading – a thorough appraisal.
	State of the Art – A Look at Google’s First Phone	Pogue weighs in.
	T-Mobile G1 review
	T-Mobile G1 Google Android Phone Review
Oct 15	Review: Over 260 images and 5 videos of the T-Mobile G1 Google Android device	A tad overkill, but interesting nonetheless.
	What Android Can Learn From the iPhone: It’s the Software, Stupid.	Brilliant title.
	The Google Phone Review: What I Love & Hate About T-Mobile G-1	Om weighs in.
	Google answers the iPhone	Walt Mossberg’s take.
	T-Mobile G1 review	Engadget’s lenghty two-part article, covering hardware and software (loads of imagery).
	T-Mobile G1, a hands-on introduction to the first Android phone	Some interesting videos
	Review of the T-Mobile G1 Google phone	Pretty comprehensive gallery.
Oct 9	First T-Mobile G1 user review	Not particularly gushing.
Sep 23	Video: Android walkthrough on T-Mobile G1	A few demos
Sep 16	Google shows off masked Android handset	About a year later, one of the first sightings of actual hardware (but running over Wi-Fi). I don’t get the “masked” bit, though – the hardware’s pretty obvious.
2007
Nov 11	Wikipedia	Background info
Nov 12	Android SDK	Includes plenty of links to videos and reference information

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YouTube begins streaming 1080p video next week

Rui Carmo — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:23:33 GMT

I can hear the doomsayers and lobbyists frantically typing away already, claiming that this will bring down the Internet or something. User-generated content is now a petabyte industry, it seems, although I keep wondering how it manages to stay afloat – can you imagine the bandwidth bills?

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Google Buys VoIP Company

Rui Carmo — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:17:35 GMT

Let the rampant speculation begin. Oh, wait, that’s being going on since they got Grand Central…

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SPDY: Google wants to speed up the web by ditching HTTP

Rui Carmo — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:31:07 GMT

Another example of reinventing the wheel: We’ve been using binary packed multipart/mixed transfers to download entire WAP pages (i.e., a page and all the media contained in it) in a single server response for years, and desktop browsers never cared. Now Google comes up with something needlessly more complex than that, and it’s all peachy and “new” – but to me it actually looks they’re trying to get the old Google Accelerator transport standardized. Oh well, whatever makes banner ads load faster…

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Dell's Zino HD is a Candy-Colored Mac Mini Killer

Rui Carmo — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:13:16 GMT

I’m dying with laughter already at the time it took them to come up with this, but they do one thing right – they include an HDMI port, placing it squarely as a media center.

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Nokia N97

Rui Carmo — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:39:39 GMT

This is an update to an item originally published on Thursday, 4 December 2008.

The flagship device to kick off Nokia’s 2009, announced way too early.

Date	Link	Notes
Nov 11	Nokia N97/N97 mini: part 2 – The OS, The Interface, The Apps	Interesting, but there is so little to differentiate.
Nov 08	Review: Nokia N97 and N97 mini – part 1	I’m personally still not impressed with S60v5 as a whole, but the mini is somewhat usable.
Sep 7	Nokia N97 firmware 2.0 looks to squash major pain points	It had better be some fancy acupuncture.
Sep 2	The Nokia N97 mini now official	Maybe this means they’ve finally ironed out the bugs, starting with number 1 – the thing was the size of a shoe.
Jun 22	Nokia N97 review: a tale of two bloggers	The photos are a lot more interesting than the review itself.
Jun 2	Nokia N97 hitting 75 countries in June	On schedule, but still bad timing.
Mar 25	Nokia’s vision for the N97 and a new UI tour	Not that impressive, really.
Mar 5	Nokia N97 at MWC – Widgets and Kinetic scrolling
Dec 6	Video Interview With N97 Product Manager	Cheesy soundtrack, but interesting interview.
Dec 4	Nokia N97 hands-on part II: the reckoning	Even prototypes get the blues: “Nokia has refused to revamp the OS wholesale to make way for touch devices, choosing instead to jumbo-size some button and icons, make a few tweaks here and there, and leave a few things completely – and often annoyingly – alone. While we expect ourselves to be clumsy with the OS, watching Nokia’s own best and brightest befuddled or merely hindered in execution by the interface peculiarities doesn’t bring us much hope for this generation of touchscreen phones, no matter how great the hardware may be.”
Dec 2	Nokia Announces N97 Superphone, Won’t Sell It for Months	Om sees it in mostly the same way I do.
	Hands on with Nokia’s iPhone killer	fab quote: ”[...]each widget doesn’t really present very much useful information. It’s the CNN approach to information overload – just overload the user with even more.”
	Nokia N97 – Nseries with touch and QWERTY	Short overview.
	Live Pictures & Video Of The Nokia N97	Looks bulky and not very speedy.
	Nokia N97 hands-on	A small gallery, soon followed by a video
	N97 Press Release & Pictures Leaked	A copy of the original press release

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Google Latitude, now with Location History & Alerts

Rui Carmo — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:25:44 GMT

Googling for your keys and figuring out you left them at your date’s apartment last night is now one step closer. Of course, your keys have to opt in to this, but it is all becoming a bit too much for my liking – privacy and location are two concepts that are undergoing a powerful shift these days, and you need to know how to ensure your users are in control.

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Google to Buy AdMob

Rui Carmo — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:17:32 GMT

This is an update to an item originally published on Monday, 9 November 2009.

The benefit of hindsight is that you have to wonder why it didn’t happen any sooner (here’s a bit more)

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The Berlin Wall, 20 years gone

Rui Carmo — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:07:00 GMT

Amazing photography, as always, but, especially the before/after fading shots. I remember standing near this very spot some fifteen years ago – and even though the wall was gone by then, one could see how the Western side was brightly lit and the Eastern side, though accessible, still had old, decayed street-lamps fading off into the distance. I would love to walk through Berlin again some day, had I the time to do so while taking in all the little details of what was and what remained.

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Apple offers free licensing for Mini DisplayPort spec

Rui Carmo — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:21:01 GMT

This is an update to an item originally published on Monday, 1 December 2008.

This is clever, and most welcome – one of the things that’s been irking me about the new MacBook lineup and the companion 24” display is the Mini DisplayPort connector, which makes it a pretty bad investment to buy both. Now, what if some enterprising PC manufacturer adopted this for their laptops as well? Hmm?

Update: A little more than a year later, the draft spec was approved by VESA.

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Dropbox Gets a New Home, iPhone App

Rui Carmo — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:37:39 GMT

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Dropbox is what iDisk ought to have been like for a good whole now, and Apple ought to dump a large part of MobileMe and buy them to replace it.

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