I’m a storyteller. I find cool new things, use them to make my life better, and teach others to do the same.
Slashdot | PalmOne Releases 4GB Linux PDA
I chuckled a bit at this headline. The Slashdot crowd is so fixated on getting everything to run Linux, they state that the newly-announced palmOne LifeDrive 4GB PDA runs Linux (hint: it doesn’t).
Guess timothy just blurted out “Linux” as a reflex when he was typing the headline. 
Aximsite - Minimo .005 released
The project to create a Mozilla-based browser for Windows Mobile devices, called Minimo (”mini-mozilla”, minimal, get it? ;-), has been floating around for a while, but this is the first downloadable release that I’ve seen.
I’ve downloaded it, and I’ll definitely give it spin. Look for impressions here after I’ve used it. In the mean time, go grab a copy for yourself, and let me know what you think.
But it won’t be until Thursday. I’m still recovering from the week-long meeting I had last week, and Brian and I are jonesing to geek out, but schedule-wise, it won’t work out until Thursday.
Sorry to make you wait so long - there’s tons of great gadget news this week, though. So much that I don’t know if we’ll even be able to fit it into one show!
Most of you that read this blog know that I have and love a Dell Inspiron 700m laptop (here’s my review of the unit).
Being a podcaster, one aspect of the laptop that I tried out pretty thoroughly was the audio input, both mic and line in. It wasn’t able to provide enough amplification to an unpowered microphone to be usable, which is why I most often use my T40 to record the show. There was also an awful lot of noise whenever I recorded anything from the mic/line input.
Up until now, I just figured the sound hardware wasn’t the greatest, but apparently, this is a common (universal?) problem with the Dell Inspiron 700m. I was contacted by the person who has launched Recall700m.com, in an effort to raise awareness of the problem, and hopefully get Dell to do something to fix the problem.
So, I’m linking to him, to boost his Google juice, and the likelyhood of potential buyers stumbling across the issue while doing pre-purchase research. To be fair, Dell has escalated the issue to their level 3 support, and seem to be willing to look at the problem. Hopefully they’re on the Cluetrain, and will do the right thing to keep us, their customers, happy. If anyone at Dell is reading this, and is wondering why it matters, realize that if we (networked customers) wanted to, we could make this issue the #1 hit when someone googles for “inspiron 700m”.
Anyone else with a 700m have this problem?
Ever notice how on blogs that cover (mainly or partially) RIM’s BlackBerry, like Blackberry Cool and BBHub, about every fifth post talks about what RIM’s stock price did that day?
Is it because so many Wall Street types are Crackberry junkies?
I’m not complaining, it’s just something I noticed. You don’t see other mobile device blogs giving you a daily update on MSFT or PLMO stock movement and news. Am I missing something?
My favorite productivity tool, the one that changed the way I file (or don’t) emails and documents, and has made my massive collection of old Outlook PST files actually useful, MSN Desktop Search, has left beta, and has “officially” launched with a new version.
I’ve downloaded it, and I’ll install it soon. Expect impressions as they develop.
Go check it out!
This weekend I had a total geek withdrawal and I had to go down to my local CompUSA just to restore basic life functions. While walking through the store regaining my breath and letting my racing heartbeat slow down, I saw the Toshiba R15 Tablet PC that I have been drooling over for months. I had to go and check it out, but I saw something that really concerned me.
As I typed on the unit in “notebook” mode, I noticed that the screen wobbled all over the place. I was typing as I always do (which could be more gentle, but I’ve never knocked any keys of a keyboard or anything), and was quite surprised that the screen was shaking back and forth on the swivel. The movement was so much that it would have totally dissuaded me from purchasing one. To be fair, I don’t know what was causing the problem.
You know how they have systems locked down at these types of stores. The anti-theft systems make it so that you can barely get a feel for what the computer is really like. It seemed like maybe the base wasn’t flat and that the system rocked back and forth some anyway, but I couldn’t tell. It was 2 minutes before the store closed and I had no intention of buying one that night, so I didn’t ask the employee there anything about it. I thought I would post a message here though and see if anyone can confirm or refute my observation. I’m hoping someone can tell me that theirs is fine so I can continue to obsess about this Tablet PC…anyone?
Tom’s Hardware has posted their observations from a hands on session they got last week with the new Xbox 360. It’s the most detailed and specific account of the new system that I’ve found so far. Much more detail than what was revealed in the MTV infomercial, and even in the OurColony video.
Juicy tidbits included a look at the “ring of light”, and what it will be used for, the “connect” button for pairing to controllers, mention of wireless Xbox Live headsets, and the ability to hook up media devices, like an MP3 player or digital camera, and access the media directly from the device. They even went so far as to plug a Sony PSP into the USB port, and play saved movies and music directly off of the PSP’s Memory Stick. Stick that in your proprietary pipe and smoke it, Sony! 
They also talk about the monster custom IBM CPU - three 3.2 GHz cores, each capable of running two threads, for 6 threads in all. That means it can process 6 things at ones - AI, sound, collision detection, etc. Such a beast of a CPU will obviously generate a lot of heat, so the Xbox 360 will have a vacuum-sealed water cooled heatsink. This thing is starting to sound more and more like a server-class piece of hardware, and it outclasses any of the computers I currently own. Can’t wait to see how long it takes someone to “repurpose” one of these into a beefy little home server. Oh, wait. It will act like that out of the box (much more media-friendly than the previous Xbox).
Go check out the Tom’s Hardware article. It’s quite informative.
TiddlyWiki - a reusable non-linear personal web notebook
Most geeks know what a wiki is - a web page that can be edited in place. Most wiki’s require some type of server backend software to run/manage the wiki. Until now.
TiddlyWiki is a single HTML file that uses javascript and CSS to edit itself. No software, other than a web browser is needed. Put one on your USB flash drive. Or on your computer. Or on a file share, for collaboration. To quote Evan Williams, it’s blowing my mind.
I’m going to play with getting it working on my web host, if I can. Go check it out!
There won’t be a TinyPodcast this week… I’m in a week-long face to face meeting for one of the global teams I’m on at work, so Brian and I won’t be able to get together to record a show. Many apologies…
I still have the TinyPodcast Video Edition from last week that I need to pull off of the camcorder and post. I’ll try to get that done some evening this week, but no guarantees, since we’re having team dinners in the evenings, too.
I’ll try to post a bit here and there. Lots of exciting stuff coming out of MEDC. Windows Mobile 5 was announced. Dell will offer an upgrade for the x50 series (woo hoo!). HP will upgrade “some” iPAQ models. The mobile device blogosphere will be abuzz this week…
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