May 2007 Archives

I'm a podcast slut. I listen to almost anything, and I've tried a heck of a lot of shows. Sadly, 70 % of what's out there is not worth listening to for many colorful reasons, some technical, but mostly related to content and talent deficiencies. I can listen to a horribly recorded show if their hosts were good and the material was outs tanding, but there are a lot that are as bad-sounding as their material is usel ess and horribly delivered (including a few locally produced ones that will rem ain unnamed); they're really just vanity projects and long-running ego trips fo r those concerned. 20% of it is ok but just plain boring. The remaining 10% however are borderline fantastic. Some are useful, some are hilarious, some informative and all enter taining. It's just a matter of separating the wheat from the chaff; given the v ariety out there, this is a tall order. The only way to find them to dive right in and start trying them out, and being quick not to waste time with the crapo la. If it doesn't hook you in the first five minutes, or you've patiently liste ned to a couple of episodes if one and still feel iffy about it, delete the thi ng and try something else. There's plenty more where those came from. I'm curious to know what people are listening to, so if you have some suggestio ns as to what to download and what to avoid, most of us would appreciate a head s-up. Drop a comment so we can try out what you like and skip what you don't, a nd if you have time, explain why that is. To start things off, here's a quick rundown of what's currently on my iPod (aud io only), in alphabetical order with pasted descriptions of what they are from the feeds themselves. All of them are available on iTunes. Some are staples on my player, like TWIT, MacBreak Weekly, Cranky Geeks, BOL and < strong>Filmspotting, and some of the others are just trial subscriptio ns, but this list gives you a real-time snapshot of what's taking up space on m y shuffle these days:

Answer Bitch E! Online's ASK THE ANSWER B!TCH fields questions from readers around the globe, begging to know what really happens in Hollywood. She gets to the bottom of what the glossies, well, gloss over: Do stars get their $30 million paychec ks all at once? Do they scoop up after their own dogs? Who's in your typical ra p-star posse? How can you get into a movie premiere? She knows--and she's not s hy about sharing. Buzz Out Loud Molly Wood, Tom Merritt, and Veronica Belmont give you their take on what's hap pening in tech news this week. Email us at buzz@cnet.com or call 1-800-616-CNET to leave a message. Cranky Geeks Cranky Geeks, hosted by PC Magazine contributing editor John C. Dvorak. Each w eek a group of expert panelists discuss the most controversial topics in tech. Cranky Geeks airs on Thursdays at 2pm eastern, and can be downloaded at www.Cra nkyGeeks.com Diggnation Diggnation is a weekly tech/web culture show based on the top digg.com social b ookmarking news stories. DS:Life Podcast The DS:Life podcast is your source for everything Nintendo DS. We will bring yo u all the latest news, views and even game reviews. So subscribe and check us o ut. I think you'll see that we are different then the normal Nintendo themed po dcast. Engadget Gadget discussion with Peter Roxas and Ryan Block from THE definitive gadget bl og. Filmspotting A weekly podcast from Chicago featuring new movie reviews, top 5 lists, intervi ews and insightful film talk with Adam Kempenaar and Sam Van Hallgren. Can be h eard monthly on Chicago Public Radio. GQ Audio Podcast A weekly infusion of men's style and culture, the GQ Audio Podcast gives you th e story behind the story. Listen in on conversations between GQ editors and wri ters about the best in movies, fashion, music, and other areas of pop culture. Each episode averages about 20 minutes and is posted every Tuesday Grammar Girl's Quick & Dirty Tips Grammar Girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing. Whether Eng lish is your first language or your second language, these grammar, punctuation , style, and business tips will make you a better and more successful writer. G rammar Girl is a QDnow.com podcast. Hollywood Party Girl Podcast E! Online's Hollywood Party Girl jumps the velvet rope to rub spray-tanned shou lders with stars like Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton. She's go t the skinny on the hottest A-list hangs, bashes and happenings. You know, the important stuff, like: Who's making out in the bathroom? Which stars are dancin g on tables? What's the coolest drink to down? She's got the inside dish, 'caus e she's (almost) always on the list. iLifeZone You have crossed over into the iLifeZone. It is a special place where you can learn how to get the most out of your investment in your Mac hardware and s oftware. Infected by Martin Sargent Martin Sargent knows more about technology than any living American, and e ach episode of Infected is a deeply probing meditation on how all those 1s and 0s are shaping our world. There's also a fair amount of poo talk. If you want t he funniest, most original take on the world of technology and the Internet, ge t Infected by Martin Sargent today. MacBreak Weekly Get the latest Mac news and views from the top journalists covering Apple today . This roundtable discussion is audio only, and complements the video only MacB reak. Another great show from the Pixel Corps and the TWiT.tv network. MP3 Insider from CNET Changes are swift in the new age of digital audio. Stay in the loop each week a s Veronica and Jasmine discuss the latest digital music (and video) news, hardw are, software, and media services, and address reader calls and e-mail. PC Gamer Podcast PCGP is the official podcast of PC Gamer Magazine. Every week, our editors brin g you expert commentary from behind the scenes of the week's biggest gaming sto ries -- including exclusive conversations with the most important developers in the business. PopSci Podcasts PopSci.com brings you interviews with the movers and shakers of sci-tech, live event coverage, and answers to your most pressing geeky questions. SModcast SModcast is the meandering palaver of a pair of dudes whose voices are so dull, they don't deserve to be on the radio (and, hence, arenât). Kevin Smith and S cott Mosier are SModcast.The best thing about SModcast? It don't cost nothing. This Week in Tech Your first podcast of the week is the last word in tech. Join Leo Laporte, Patr ick Norton, Kevin Rose, John C. Dvorak, and other tech luminaries in a roundtab le discussion of the latest trends in high tech. Winner of People's Choice Podc ast and Best Technology Podcast in the 2005 People's Choice Podcast Awards. Rel eased every Sunday at midnight Pacific.

We'd love to know what you guys like, so drop us a line sometime.

Let's get this out of the way f irst: I don't hate the iTunes Store; in fact I love it. For in stance, I love that you can buy tinge style, song by song, a Filipino quirk that even foreigners love. Which makes it all the more irritating that th e niggles are even there - in comparison to the rest of entire service, the mis takes are glaring and magnified. I'm just glad I can even purchase from it, although "purchase" is a big stretch . I do buy occasionally, but like most folk hereabouts, I'm mostly after the we ekly freebies: songs, TV episodes, audiobooks, a game demo now and then, and of course the wealth of podcasts available on the site. This isn't to say they haven't been working hard to make the site a good one. S ome time ago they modified the downloading rules to allow you to get discounted rates if you purchase a complete album where you've previously bought individu al tracks from. That's one less on my list now. What am I talking about?

1. I don't like it that the Store doesn't make any obvious and up-f ront distinction between audio and video content. I use a 2G iPod shuf fle exclusively for audio podcasts, and I sometimes go fishing for new and interesting content when I get tired of my staples Buzz Out Loud, Filmspotting, TWIT, Cranky Geeks and so forth. It's damned irritating to find something interesting, drill down the pages to get to it and discover a t the end of it all that it's a big fat vidcast, which makes it useless for my 1gb screenless shuffle. Can't they just say so right off so I don't waste my ti me? 2. The Top Songs and the other"Top" lists on the first page of the store don't seem to really reflect the top anything, as in most popular or most purchased - it's more like the newest additions and recommendations for t he week. Eh? 3. The 30-sec previews seem to be selected automatically, without any intellect ual intervention as to which 30-sec portion should be made available so you can make an informed choice whether to buy a song or not. Thus you sometimes end u p with a 30-sec tuneless instrumental intro which cuts out just as the vocals s tart. Or maybe some boring random, out-of-context stanza rather than the catchy hook of the refrain. It's just plain marketing common sense. 4. They don't update or warn people that certain podcasts have died a natural d eath, i.e., the creators have disappeared from the face of the earth and there hasn't been a new episode for months and months, yet they're touted as subscrib able still. I'd rather they'd just be archived and us told that it's a dead end . 5. They nag you to death on iTunes if they see you haven't listened to a podcas t for a while, and automatically withhold downloading new episodes. Sometimes I just can't get to the episodes because of work, and then when I do update, the re are a half-dozen shows undownloaded and marked with an exclamation point. I have to deliberately activate the subscription again, and after I do it just st arts to download the latest one, forcing me to click on each episode I'd missed one by one to get them. Argh. 6. The free tracks are only available for a week. Sometimes I forget, and they' re gone forever - at least as free tracks, making me feel bad. Hey, I'm OC that way. 7. There is officially no iTunes Store for my country. Still. 8. The search feature isn't thorough and a bit wonky. There have been times I c an't find a track with the most basic and logical search argument, and I have t o figure out alternate ways of looking for it. 9. I wis h the games can be played in iTunes on your computer. Sometimes the small iPod screen gets to me. 10. I wish there was a way that when you delete the songs from a playlist, ther e is an option to delete it from the library for good at the same time. You hav e to muck around the lib to clean up stuff you don't want anymore, and going th rough that massive pile is tough. While we're on the topic, it would be great i f the software was intelligent enough to root out duplicates right off at rippi ng time and keep you from wasting space with multiple copies of the same exact song. Wishful thinking, I know.

For all I know there are existing solutions to these niggles already, I just ha ven't discovered them , or I'm too lamebrained or lazy to figure it out. If so, chime in and enlighten me, or add your own complaints to the list. Maybe Apple might take notice somehow and correct them, if not in Leopard , in the next iTunes update. It doesn't cost anything to hope, right?

Heads-up! Apple just upgraded the MacBook line with faster processors, 1 gb RAM and larger drives today. Everything else remains the same. Specs:

2.0GHz White MacBook, 80GB, 1GB RAM: $1099 2.16GHz White MacBook, 120GB, 1GB RAM: $1299 2.16GHz Black MacBook, 160GB, 1GB RAM: $1499

More on the Apple website. Time to upgrade? Again?

Newly released data from NPD Group, a major global m arket research company, shows that Apple notebooks accounted for nearly 10% of notebook retail sales for the month of March in the United Sta tes, with MacBooks and MacBook Pros combined. The list omits direct sellers (like Dell, which doesn't do ret ail). Apple Insider reports tha t the NPD Group list puts Apple's retail sales topped at 9.9%, while Co mpaq hit 8.5% and Gateway 13%. Top of the chart is Toshiba at 26.2%, then HP at 23.9% This is actu ally a bit down from earlier in the year, when Apple did 10.1%. In desktop retail sales, Apple broke into the top five for the first time this year, hitting 7.7%. Top dog here was HP with 35%, followed by a tight trio composed of Compaq, Gateway and eMachines, at 16. 7%, 16.6% and 16.4% respectively, then Apple.

Not Likes: 1. I am having trouble getting used to the fact that the red X button on the to p right of a window shuts the app down - and not merely close the wind ow. Dang. I unlearned it before, now I have to relearn it again. 2. Is the constant rebooting really necessary? 3. Closing the lid and letting the T43 hibernate or sleep instead of turning it off is like Russian Roulette - you never know if it's going to screw up. Must I resort to physically turning it on and off every time? I miss just shutting t he lid when I'm taking a break and then just opening it and jumping right back in without waiting and worrying. 4. The biometric finger scanning is cool, but sometimes it simply refuses to read my digits when at other times a casual swi pe is all it takes. Sometimes it accepts the scan and seems to proceed, but som etimes stops and asks me to swipe a second time, as if it got suspicious and ch anged its mind. Duh? 5. The video output is ...chunky. I'm used to the beauty, grace and clarity of OS X's Quartz Extreme. ClearType? Pwe! 6. What's with the constant updating? Every. Single. Day. There. Is. Something. Critical. 7. I miss the Apple Key. (Incidentally, the T43 is the one Windows laptop that does NOT have a Windows key.) 8. Sometimes I notice that the hard drive activity light flashes endlessly, eve n if I'm not doing anything, and the little network activity indicator flashes just as often. (No, I don't have any background processes set up and running. I 'm not a newbie; I'd know the difference.) So WTF is it constantly doing? Virus es hard at work? Nope, I'm clear, according to Windows Defender, AVG and Norton AntiVirus. Are the Microsoft gnomes playing with my data when I'm not looking, changing it around and sending it home so th at the other gnomes in Redmond can have a good laugh? It's making me paranoid. Creepy, man. 9. The trackpad of the T43 is crowned by a set of large buttons with colors (this is apart from the two large ones belo w it), and there is this red pencil eraser smack dab in the middle of the keybo ard. Crowd me, why don't you? I feel like I'm going to accidentally trigger WWI II with a wayward button press. 10. Sometimes doing simple things, like just dragging a file to a folder, drive s the OS into a deep coma, and I face the choice of either being patient and se e if it eventually slips from its funk, or just reboot the damn thing. 11. That little viper nest of a billion useless icons (I think it's called the Taskbar?) on the lower right corner is maddeningly distracting, with all its bl inking and dialog bubbles popping up constantly. 12. I miss my Dock. 13. I miss Dashboard and my beloved widgets. 14. I miss jamming the cursor into a corner and seeing my desktop clear instant ly. 15. Why does it have to be "My" ever ything? My Network Places. My Bluetooth Places. My Computer. My Documents. My Programs... I mean, I know they're mine, am I that insecure that I need to remind myself I own them every time I look at the screen? 16. While we're on the topic of naming things, why is the trash can called Recycle Bin anyway? What are we recycling? 17. Just the act of installing a little piece of shareware can freeze the whole thing and turn it into an expensive paperweight. Why can't this billion-trilli on-gazillion industry fix such a small thing? 18. Microsoft will only let you update the system via web if you're using Inter net Explorer. Is that childish or what? 19. It takes forever to just unplug a USB flash drive. 20. Control Panel is a crowded, confusing, complicated jumble of potentially dangerous choices. Give me System Preferences a ny day. Likes: 1. I like the games.

One of the sticking points about the iP hone with a lot of industry pundits is the fact that, in true Apple fa shion, it's a closed architecture. Most critics predict that despite the hype a nd hullabaloo surrounding the product, this refusal to play ball will be the iP hone's ultimate undoing, when Apple, and only Apple, can create and develop app s and other software and related products for it. Well it seems Jobs is thawing out a bit. A crack has appeared in the ice. At the WorldWide Developers Conferen ce 2007 scheduled for June 11-15 at Moscone West in San Fr ancisco, one of the presentations is getting a lot of attention: Sessio n 614 on the Content and Media track -- Developing Websites for iPhone. The presenta tion notes state:

iPhone completely redefines browser-based web access on a mobil e phone. Learn iPhone best practices for ensuring optimal web development of yo ur existing website, or hosted web application. Join the iPhone Safari and WebK it browser development teams as they share the latest techniques on mobile brow ser-based user experience design and development.

Wowza. All is not lost yet. There is hope.

You guys remember that issue about that PC World editor who qu it because his boss was trying to kill that Apple story that I wrote about in an earlier post? If you were ever curious about the article itself, PC World put the controversi al story (actually, stories - there were two sides to the coin) up on their web site. They were written by Alan Stafford and Narasu Rebbapragada. You can rea d them here: Love. Hate.

Windows Media Player for the Mac is no more, Microsoft has announced. The folks at Redmond have officially stopped development of the application for Mac users and have no plans of creating future versions of the player,citing b usiness considerations, according to a CNET report, The last version released for OS X was WMP 9, back in November 2003. Since then, only that and a version for Mac OS 9 have been available for Apple users. Microsoft will continue to make these versions available for down load, and announced plans to make Flip4Mac WMV available for free so that Mac users will be able to play Windows Media video files directly from Quicktime. Mi crosoft says it will instead just focus on developing core apps for the Apple p latform, and continue developing major applications like Office:Mac for at least five more years. In effect, Microsoft is waving the white flag, ceding the throne to Apple's Qui cktime, which has dominated even Windows' own turf, particularly in the digital music aspect. Windows Media Player takes its place beside Internet Exp lorer and MSN in the list of Mac-abandoned apps. (At least WMP will still be available; the latter two will be dropped from their do wnloadable list by the end of May, along with some other Mac tools.) No great loss.