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Apr
07
Gadgets I love.
Posted by dlovell | 04/07/08
Lately I've found that I can't live without two gadgets: My iPod and my Garmin Nuvi.
I never really wanted an iPod. I've always wondered how a person can spend life with earbuds in, missing the sounds of the world. And, frankly, I find that a person looks both ignorant and pretentious when they walk around in public like that.
That changed at Christmas, when my parents gave me an iPod Nano. It's smaller than pocket-sized, so I can carry it with me all the time. And it plays video. Basically it's like a tiny television that I can always bring along. Now I'm subscribed to an obscene number of audio and video podcasts, which help keep me on top of the tech world. Many of them are both smart and entertaining...
Here at the office, we've just upgraded to Verizon's FiOS service, and it's definitely faster than the old T1 we had a couple of months ago. I'm happy, especially with upload speeds. Seriously, try uploading large data files on copper.
Well, shortly all these broadband connections we're scrambling over may be entirely obsolete. This summer, scientists at Cern, those folks responsible for creating the Internet (sorry Al Gore), will enable "the grid." These scientists say it's not just the next generation of Internet; it's big enough, powerful enough and fast enough that "the grid" is capable of sending the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds...
The Yankees take on the Red Sox at Fenway this weekend. Considering how the series against the Royals has gone, I can't say I'm overly optimistic. It's early, baseball fans. Very early.
If you aren't a tech head, you are more than welcome to discontinue reading this entry immediately. Unfortunately, I fear it's about to become a rant about some fairly tech-y things that are bugging me lately.
1. iTunes/Safari. Apple's Safari web browser was released some months back for the PC. I downloaded it the first day it was available, along with a million others. I like Safari. It's a pretty slick browser, despite some critical security flaws in the PC version that have recently come to light. I also have iTunes at home. One day I noticed that Safari was on my home computer. I hadn't downloaded it, so...
Turns out that Safari was one of the iTunes updates Apple pushed onto my computer...
According to news reports, Barack Obama is on the defensive. He's deflecting attention from himself and from comments he made recently about working-class voters, who are tired of politics as usual:
"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
The Clinton campaign especially saw these comments as the weak point in the Obama armor. It was the opening Hillary and her attack dogs needed. And they have thus far battered this one spot with everything they have. Clinton has called the remarks "elitist," "condescending," "out of touch."
I must say I'm much more than a little disappointed at the developments in the PsyStar story.
For those of you who don't know, PsyStar raised a bit of a ruckus in the tech world last week when it announced it was selling the Open Computer -- an other-than-Apple computer that comes with the Mac OS X Leopard operating system pre-installed -- and willfully violating Apple's end user license agreement.
This was pretty exciting news, because it showed that someone finally had the guts to challenge the legality of Apple's EULA, which PsyStar claimed was akin to Honda dictating that their cars be driven only on Honda-friendly roads...
I promise this will be my last Apple rant for awhile. Sometimes I just get stuck on things, and need to get them off my chest. If I don't, odds are I'll try to start a movement or boycott or something. So better to vent and move on, I suppose.
Here's the "bah" generator for the past couple of days:
Apple's newest commercials for the Mac are appalling. Most of the "I'm a Mac" commercials are cute and funny, even if they are misleading and insult PC users. I still laugh at them. And the Mac kid reminds me that I used to like watching the TV show "Ed." Anyway.....
My grandfather was a sports nut. He didn't leave his room often, and that's likely because he had a television in his room, tuned to ESPN.
For me, a trip to visit my grandfather was an opportunity to hear a story. He wasn't a particularly good storyteller, but he would tell, very matter-of-factly, snippets of fact, as if there were no room to question him.
He told me he saw Harry Houdini escape from the Auburn Prison, which I've since discovered wasn't possible, because Houdini didn't ever escape from there. He also told me he saw Jack Dempsey fight once.
In the back of my mind, I questioned that. But I never really QUESTIONED it...
Daniel Lovell, New Media Director for Eagle Newspapers, has won more than two dozen awards for his columns, editorials and investigative journalism. He is actively addicted to the Internet, soda and New York Yankees baseball.
