Down here in the front row again for Day 2 - first row, right hand side. Party at the Seattle Public Library last night was awesome - Microsoft throws a great bash, and the Red Room was very cool, once you could find it. I spent a large part of the evening hanging out with Phillip Torrone and his toys - an OQO, Sony Librie ebook, his old-school cell phone, etc. Lots of people were coming up and asking questions about the devices while pt had wandered away, so I stepped up and started answering questions, since I knew about most of them. I felt like “mini pt” or “pt’s Apprentice”. It was awesome! 
I’ve put up a ton of photos on Flickr, so check them out. I’ll be working on labeling and adding descriptions so you know what’s going on.
And of course I’ll blog any big news that comes out of the presentations today. We’re about to get started!
The next big thing: hivecasting.
You heard it here first.
Just some quick notes from Dean’s ongoing RSS presentation.
First public demo of IE7! Woo hoo! It has RSS feed auto-detection, like Firefox. There’s an RSS button up on the toolbar, right next to Home, Back, Favorites, etc. It lights up when an RSS feed is detected. Clicking it renders a preview of the feed in IE7. Word-wheel searching in the rendered feed. Clicking the plus icon subscribes to the feed in the Longhorn system feed store.
The central feed list is not part of IE, but of the user store in Longhorn. Other system apps can access the central feed list. Demoed using RSS Bandit to sync with the system feed store.
Pretty advanced support for enclosures. Can subsribe to event calendars, like the Gnomedex schedule, if they are provided as .ICS iCalendar files in enclosures. Demoed Outlook 2003 showing that imported calendar feed as a side-by-side calendar. Demoed an app to subscribe to a photoblog feed, where the enclosed photos are shown on the screen, and the caption/description comes from the post text. Nifty.
Showed a list viewer application, demoing with Amazon.com wishlists. Has the ability to filter and sort by whatever metadata the feed defines (in this case, filter on DVDs, or sort by price).
Microsoft is developing extenstions to RSS 2.0, and are making the specifications available under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License! Showed a video of Larry Lessig welcoming Microsoft to the Creative Commons world, and commenting on the significance of it. Specs for Windows RSS will be made availble at noon today on the IE blog
Cool Longhorn RSS jackets for us, too. Sweet! I’m posting this right as they’re ending, so this is news hot off the presses!
I’m posting all of my photos from Gnomedex on Flickr as I go. You can check them out by looking at my photos tagged with “gnomedex”.
And that page (and all other pages, tags, users, and groups) on Flickr have RSS 2.0 and Atom feeds. So, if you’re RSS-savvy, just subscribe, and get new photos as they come!
I’m here at Gnomedex 5.0 day 1. Dave Winer just finished his keynote, and demoed his OPML editor (when he could get net access). I’ve started testing it, and it’s very promising. OPML will make you change the way you think about “static” data the same way RSS makes you think differently about news/blog-type content.
The network access is spotty - there are several network access points, but apparently we depleted the IP address pool. Interesting things happen when the Local Geek Density Index goes so high.
All the Microsoft guys are wearing “Longhorn <3 RSS" t-shirts, and Dean's presentation (with Microsoft's big RSS announcement) is up next!
I’ve been up in Seattle since yesterday, doing some work for my brother’s moving and storage company, and waiting for Gnomedex 5.0 to kick off. Only a few more hours until the opening reception tonight!
Lots of cool announcements in the RSS/podcasting world are expected. Microsoft has a big RSS annoucement planned, and there are rumors that BillG himself might make an appearance. I’ll be sure to snag some video if that happens.
Dave Winer leads off with his keynote tomorrow morning, and Adam Curry wraps up Saturday evening with his keynote. In between, Gnomedex is going to be THE place for a geek to be. I can’t wait to catch up with friends and acquaintances, and start building new relationships. If you’re going to be there, give me a call on my cell (503-810-5365) or email me if you’d like to get together.
I’ll be blogging the interesting stuff, including lots of photos, some audio/interviews and video. Keep an eye on this blog for updates, and let me know if you have any special requests.
Let the geeking begin!
Cartman was a gift from a friend when I was in school, and he stands guard over my cubicle entrance. And the Lockergnome RSS button indicates that I’m syndication-friendly.
I’ve put up a few other shots of my office under the Flickr tag cubicle if you want to check them out. Or, just subscribe to the RSS feed for my photos.
Kevin got a new toy, and brought it by my office this morning to share - a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-M1 digital still/video camera. We talked about it during today’s TinyPodcast.
Kevin is quite pleased with it. It takes 5 megapixel stills and up to 640×480 video at 30 fps with stereo sound (same specs as the Canon S2 IS that I’ve got my eye on, and Chris Pirillo is in love with). Price is $499, also identical to the Canon S2 IS.
Video is recorded in MPEG4 at about 2.5MBps. Kevin gets about 44 minutes of video on a 1GB Memory Stick Duo Pro. It’s also got a cool mode where it’s contstantly storing the last 5 seconds of video, and when you snap a picture, it saves the preceding 5 seconds and following 3 seconds of video, effectively bracketing the shot with video. Pretty cool idea.
Kevin took some shots of me (still and video) while we were talking about it, and I’ll post those up when I get them from him. You can see the other snapshots I took of the camera under the DSCM1 tag in my Flickr photostream. I’ve also added them to the TinyScreenfuls Flickr Group.
Verizon EVDO Phase 4 Rollout June 22, 2005 Announcement :: EVDOforums.com
Finally. I’ve been waiting for this. DSL-like speed on your mobile device, or PCMCIA card in your laptop? You bet.
Now, if only they’d release a decent Windows Mobile device with EVDO support (like the Samsung i730). Oh, yeah, and make it cheaper than $80/month for unlimited access.
If you build it, they will come.
Here’s this week’s show. You can download the MP3 file directly (right-click, save as), or subscribe to the TinyPodcast RSS feed in your favorite podcast aggregator to get the show delivered automatically to your computer and MP3 player. This week’s show is about 20 MB, 40 minutes, as usual.
There is some horrible static-sounding interference at several points in the recording today. I have no idea where it came from or what it is - it sounds like we’re in a wind tunnel when it happens, but we were in a quiet conference room. I tried to edit them out, or at least dampen them a little bit. Sorry about that.
Here are the show notes, such as they are in my medicated condition:
- I am under the influence of cold medicine. Should be entertaining.
- Kevin got a new toy - a Sony Cybershot DCR-M1 digital camera/video recorder - the one with the funky flip out side LCD screen. Kevin likes it quite a bit, but I think you still can’t beat the bang for the buck you get from a MiniDV tape (60 or so GB worth of digital video data on a $3 tape you can buy at the grocery store, compared to 44 minutes per 1GB Memory Stick). I snapped some photos, I’ll post them to the TinyScreenfuls Flickr pool soon.
- I’m going to Gnomedex 5.0 later this week in Seattle. If you read TinyScreenfuls.com or listen to TinyPodcast, I’d love to meet you there. Call my cell (503-810-5365) or email me on my Smartphone, or just come find me - look for the guy with all the gadgets. Lots of annoucements expected there - I’ll be posting live updates, so stay subscribed to hear the latest.
- Cory Doctorow’s new book is available, for free, from his site. Great geeky Sci-Fi.
- I’ll be testing Dave Winer’s OPML outliner. Watch this space for updates.
- I’m going to Microsoft’s PDC05 in September. Click around on the DeveloperPowered.com site in the Convince the Boss section for a cool Channel 9 easter egg.
- Whatever happened to “users and developers partying together”? The spirit lives on in my heart.
- It’s such a small geeky world - turns out I live quite close to Scott Hanselman, MSDN developer geek. Check out his list of useful applications.
- Dave’s iPAQ has hands-on impressions of the upcoming HP iPAQ 6500. Verdict: gunning for the BlackBerry in every way. Make sure to check out all of his posts on the topic. Can HP get it to market before it’s too obsolete, and avoid the fate of the Motorola MPx?
- Sony’s Walkman Phone came out. Verdict: meh. I maintain that Sony is a company perpetually on the verge of suing itself.
- The Broadcast Flag is back! Hollywood is trying to sneak this in under the radar, attached to another piece of legislation. Read the BoingBoing.net post to see how you can help, but act fast, before it’s too late! No time for letters, you need to call your congressional representative.
- I got a set of System Shock 2 sounds for my Smartphone and Pocket PC. Very creepy, and liable to cause domestic problems in my household. I’ll zip them up and post them soon. Great for office pranks.
- The Radio Shack IC-3 2000MAh rechargeable NiMH batteries that charge in 15 minutes that I put in my new Nikon Coolpix 5600 when I first got it are still going after 250+ pictures, several minutes of video, and untold fiddling with the camera. Outstanding performance, and highly recommended. They are also branded as Rayovac, and I saw that Energizer has a 15-minute set, but not sure if they’re the same capacity/design. These actually have a chip in the battery to allow them to charge so fast.
As always, we love to get feedback! You can email us at tinyscreenfuls@gmail.com or call our voice feedback line and leave us a message - 206-339-TINY. And come join/subscribe to the TinyScrenfuls Flickr group to post and see gadgety photos from fellow geeks around the world.
Thanks for listening, and we’ll talk to you next week!
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