New Music !

I just finished "Black Peter" and a few weeks ago ManSmart.

See http://docs.calldei.com/MusicMyStuff2009

I've also reorganized my music wiki pages becomes *gasp* I was getting too many songs !

The universe is magical

I know everyone has had feelings of magic and wonderment ... but this last week I had yet another installment of the inexplicable.

I got into bed and looked up at my dresser on which the TV we rarely watch sits. I noticed something which I swear was the first time I saw it. It was a small ornament made up of hummingbirds. A small porcelin thing I swear I had never seen before. I'm so sure because the day before I remember moving my watch from next to the TV to on top of my wooden watch box and there simply wouldn't have been room. So I figure Janet had gotten a new gizmo and mentioned it to her. She swears its been there for years, was inherited from her grandma. Oh well, I'm just going brain-dead, I must have simply forgotten about it ... though ... I still feel a bit unnerved because I *KNOW* it wasnt there before ... Not the first time I've totally lost memory of something thats been in front of me for years.

So I open up my Amazon Kindle. The kindle is interesting in that it has a cool "screen saver". It takes no power to keep an image on the display so when it goes to sleep it pops up a random image from its ROM. Usually pictures of famous authors or book related themes. I've had it a month and seen it cycle through dozens of images. So there I go , open up the kindle and what is its screen saver ? its BIRDS !!! Yes a full screen of hummingbirds. If I wasn't laying down I'd have fallen over. I had NEVER seen this image before on the kindle. And I know it wasn't just a subconscious thing because it has a cover, there's no way I could have seen the kindle image before noticing the birds by the TV. Its just flipping weired.

What a long strange trip its been ...

My First Kindle - My First Day

Yesterday my kindle arrived. I read quite a bit by some standards, about 1 hour a night in bed. I dont read fast, but if you add the hours up it ads up, so I go through maybe 25-30 books a year.

I have read about e-readers for years but always thought they werent for me, even though I'm an admited tech-addict. But the kindle started to catch my eye. I still wasnt sure until a friend of mine told me he has the Kindle 1 and loves it. The kindle 2 came out last month and decided to take the plunge. The "excuse" is you'd actually save money. In a years time I may buy 30 books avaraging $20 each. If I bought them as ebooks they would be $10 each. That savings would pay for a kindle in a year.

But of course you dont buy a new tech toy to save money. In my case its a combination of convenience, and tech nerdism. I'm simply tired of ordering books and having to wait for them to get here, paying huge amounts of shipping (often more then the cost of the book) then stacking them on my desk or bookcase to read them once. I dont reread books ever. So then I have a pile of "read" books I have to find a home for. I end up sending them to my sister but I Have to put them in a box and mail them. The whole book buying and getting rid of is really a pain. Then there's the form factor. I read in bed typically and I dont like to have to use both hands. But with a paper book I have to to keep it open or it slams shut, or I have to use that squeeze in the spine trick to hold it open then hope my reading lamp on my chest doesnt slide down then I lose my place.

Finally I'm getting old and my eyes are suffering. I need mild (1x) reading glasses or I cant read a typical paperback for long.
So eyeing the kindle seems like it might solve all those problems!
I wont go into the list of features, just google for "Kindle". But the main ones that I thought would be great are

1) instant delivery, with no shipping costs no books piling up to get rid of, no packing, boxes etc.
2) Adjustable fonts! maybe I could read without glasses
3) Hold in one hand.

So I finally went ahead and ordered the kindle 2 ... Here's my first experiences.

The text/screen/font quality is awsome. Its hard to explain without reading it, but if you've never seen "e ink" you cant imagine it. Its not like a computer monitor or a PDA. The text is sharp, clear and stands out. Its by far easier to read then ink on paper (especially tiny print on cheap paperback paper). With the font set to second-to-largest I can read easily without strain without glasses. Its a joy to read

The downloading and book buying experience is great. You can buy books from the kindle itself (it comes with a web browser) but its a bit sluggish. I just went to amazon.com from my dekstop and bought a few books (free and otherwise). They appeared on the kindle within a minute. I didnt belive they would because I'm in an "Edge" area not "3G" but sure enough there they were. I love the "try" option where you can download the first chapter for free before you commit. I love the integration with the iphone kindle reader. I can read the same book on both iphone and kindle and it knows where I left off on either.

The form factor is nice. DO get a case (I got the leather case), because the screen is known to be easily scratched. It feels good in my hands. A little heavier then a paperback but lighter then a hardcover. The text-to-speach is fun but I doubt I'll use it.

Now for the negatives. There's a tad of an annoying black flash when you change pages. I am getting used to it but for the first bit I had to blink to avoid getting annoyed.
Performance on anything except reading is sluggish. If your used to a desktop or even a good PDA you'l be thinking "what is taking so long" ... But for me this isnt a big deal. This isnt a general purpose computer. Its a BOOK. And for a book its awsome.

The PDF to ebook translation is dismal. Some of my PDF's didnt translate at all readable and some were just "OK". But then its not claimed to be able to handle them well. Word documents transfered very well. The web browser is very sluggish but then I'm on an edge network (not 3G), and the fact it can do web at ALL is amazing.

The screen is smaller then it should be, considering the formfactor of the full kindle. Its obvious they started with a e-ink display and built the box around it to make up for its small size. But its bigger then an iphone and reads much better. Its not bad. I'd like the screen bigger and would give up on the keyboard for a bigger screen. The only real disadvantage of the screen size is at the font size I like I have to change pages quickly but not overly annoyingly so.

Overall, my first experience is that this works well for me and is worth it. I havent read a full book yet so I will see how it goes and post back after a month.

Last straw for Tivo

I consider myself one of Tivo's greatest fans. for 6 years I've really enjoyed my Tivo and prostelitize it at every opportunity. Even got one for my parent-in laws for Christmas. I am sad to say that I'm about ready to throw mine off the roof.

Last Nov my trusty Series 2 tivo died ... after about 5 years. Not bad, I think the HD crashed and I didnt want to muck with replacing it. At that same time my Cable company, Insight, came out with HD on Cable. Tivo now has a HD capable Tivo so I figured OK I'll upgrade to it. The Tivo HD (Series 3) is really a nice box ... "on paper". It uses Cable Cards to decode the HD cable signal so you dont have to use a Cable box. It has HDMI and Dolby digital outputs and can record and play HD quality signals. I was so excited I had to get my brown pants out.

My new tivo arrived in Dec and I was soooo happy. I even had to upgrade my Home Audio system to handle DVI. I should have seen the writing then though ... it took the cable guy 8 hours over 2 trips to finally get it working. First my cables were all old and had signal problems, my splitter/amp was degrading the signal and I couldnt get HD. Eventually the cable guy got it all working and everything was great ...

THen 1 month later my tivo started having "hicups" then crashes. Within a week it would reboot contstantly. 2 hours on the phone with several techs and the results were in ... a HD crash ... Great.

So ok a new tivo on its way. A week later a different cable guy came (have to call Insight every time to "pair" the new cable cards, you cant read the numbers on the phone to them). He knew nothing about Tivos and was very frustrated. I printed out all the directions but he didnt want to follow them instead he just got madder and madder and was about to give up when eventually magically the cards "paired" and it started working ... YEA !!!!

Ok now fast forward 1 month and THIS (2nd) Tivo starts having the same symptoms, glitches and crashes ... so I called up tivo ... and this time I knew exactly what to say to get them to agree it was bad. So ... a NEW tivo in the mail ....

The Third tivo arrived 2 weeks ago. After a 2 day process of getting it fully reloaded and synced I had the cable guy come out *again* to pair the cards. Should only take 10 minutes. 6 hours later they still wouldnt pair. He even ran a new cable across my lawn directly into the living room, and also plugged in a Insight DVR to prove I could get the channels. But on the Tivo I couldnt get all the channels. The diagnostics said the cards wouldnt "pair" with the cable company.
He even came back the next day for 2 hours and tried 3 new pairs of cards. No go.
Finally another call to Tivo and an hour later while they have me read off diagnostics and try the same things I've tried over and over and they admiteed its "probably a bad box". Great.

So my FORTH tivo in 3 months. Due to arrive today.
I noticed on the "return" paperwork they listed the replacement Tivo's as "Refurbished". I asked the tivo guy, "Can you send me a NEW one this time?"
He told me "No, we dont make that model anymore, they are all refurbished".
That is very strange as I see them for sale on tivo.com as new, and its the latest high end Series 3 HD Tivo ...

I'm holding my breath one more time. If this tivo doesnt work perfectly within 1 hour I'm gonna toss it and get a Cable Company DVR ...
I really hope I dont have to because for some insane reason I LOVE MY TIVO !!!
I love the new video streaming, Netflix integration, web integration, Picture and Audio streaming. Its really a great system ... if only the damn thing worked !!!

Why Innovation Sucks

Yesterday on Bloomberg I heard a speech by a member of the Senate about how to improve the financial system. One of the comments was a strategy to "encourage more financial innovation" ... !! ?? What ?? Financial Innovation is what got us into the economic trouble. We don't need more "financial innovation" we need simpler financial structures. Basic borrowing and lending, not derivatives and complex "instruments" only financial wizards with 10 phd's understand (or claim to ... ).

This got me thinking. In my Day Job were being pushed to abandon "legacy" mobile devices and the programming styles and languages which supported these and adopt to "new" devices. Many of which actually don't even exist yet. It took 7 years to get our software running really good on the existing devices and now we have to abandon them and in a rush to please the market write all new software in an entirely different way for a plethora of new devices in new languages. Due to market forces, were not being 'allowed' to actually get good at anything. By the time a technology finally starts getting good, companies are forced to drop it and get on with the "Latest Thing" ... and start over. Innovation. It sucks.

Look around your house or office. How many things actually work well ?
How many business actually work well ?
It takes time, years, decades, to refine technology or business practices. Every time a new Innovation comes along and the market ("sparkly eyed consumers who want the newest hottest thing") we have to start over. We never get time to make things work well.

What works really well ? Cars, land-line Telephones, electric utilities.
Those have all taken up to 100 years to get right. TV is finally decent and now in Feb we have to throw it out and replace it with the new HDTV which almost nobody has and those who do complain of compatibility problems.

In the computer world, whats great ? Mainframes and Unix.
They are not "exciting" but they have been allowed to improve for 30-50 years by slow incremental progress until they are now the backbone of our economy.

What sucks ? Cell phones, Windows, "Innovative" financial markets.
Cell phones last about 1 year max, and while they last they rarely work.
Windows almost starts to get good when it is forced to rewrite itself from scratch every 5 years or so for "new features". Financial markets ... cant say enough about them.

I hate to think I'm a Luddite ... but I really think we should slow down a bit and forgo the "World 2.0" craze and just let us focus on making what we have work better, slowly, the hard way. Be a lot more cautious about tossing out the old and replacing it with today's shiny new toy. But with each new innovation, each fancy new feature, quality goes down, not up.

Unfortunately society is addicted to new toys, and as I say this my eyes are gleaming at my new iPhone ... damn it all !!!

J1 - New jazz by the master

I spent 2 weeks listening to nothing but jazz to try to get out of the "same old thing" and find a new groove. Layed down a Jazzy tune thats more "space" then jazz but I really like it.
This is the second recording using my new "rack". Interesting twist is the first track I layed is a Bass but played more as a lead. Drums are both robot and manual.Subtle background is a Keyboard effect.

Direct link (doesnt always work) J1
Or jump to http://docs.calldei.com/MusicMyStuff and scroll down to the J1.mp3 attachment.

Phones like watches - Why have just one ?

For years the phone companies have been trying to "lock" people into their cell network by every trick in the book. Subsidies, carrier specific plans, phones "locked" to carriers, proprietary hardware, proprietary software and services. Everything they can think of to make you that once you buy their phone you cant use it on another carrier.

In the process of locking phones to carriers they phone companies are also locking you to only one phone. The entire business practice is aimed at "one phone per user" like that's a good thing. They are thinking "So 1999" ...

The carriers want everyone to have a phone so they built up this complex business and technical infrastructure that makes it inconvenient to share phones either to other people or carriers.


You know,so they can make more money. Sure. make money.

But today I just realized that has backfired ! I have multiple phones from work (because I have to write software on different models). Its gotten to the point where I sometimes have to choose which phone to take with me and its annoying because even though I have multiple plans,

the phones have are all distinct identifying services (based on the business model that I shouldn't be sharing phones !). All this time I thought I was unique ...I mean who has 6 cell phones but a nerd working for a PDA software company ?

Until I saw this ...
( http://www.redherring.com///blogs/25608 )

I Want one of those !!!!!

I like my iPhone and I love my ATT Tilt, and even the treo is nice to have around sometimes.

But this ICE phone is COOL. But maybe not for every event. Maybe just when I'm out horseback riding (or stalking evil laser equipped sharks). But its really impractical to switch phones ! Thanks to telco's. Their antiquated oh-so-10-year-old business model is aimed at getting everyone a phone and neglected encouraging people to have MULTIPLE phones !

My thought for today is ... Phones are like watches. Like jewelry, like cars or shoes. People want different ones for different occasions. No way I'm taking my iPhone with me skiing or to the beach, even horseback riding I'm concerned I'd fall off and break it. Same with my watches. I have a Swiss Army watch for "sports" trips, and pretty one for dress.

Attention Telcos worldwide. Get your head out of the sand and start selling us on multiple phones not one ! Triple your revenue per customer. You've already saturated the market so quit with the zero-sum game of trying to get people to switch carriers ... you wont win that way. Instead encourage people to share phones, switch carriers, use multiple carriers and mostly use more phones! Dont lock your accounts to single SIM cards, let accounts access multiple SIM cards (maybe with a push of a button switch the "active" phone") Encourage us to buy as many phones as possible!. Don't fall for the trap of the "One Phone That Does It All", sure there' s a niche for that but instead sell a "Dress Model", a "Sports Model", "Basics" , "Business" model and encourage us to get them all, instead of having to choose only one that fits our square peg.

Software Companies get on the wagon ! Cross port your apps and let the licenses work across all a persons phone. Write smarter sync software that syncs across phones, not just Desktop to Phone.

Turn your phone collection into the analogy of your watch collection (or for the women, their Jewelry box). Going out for the night on a hot date ? Bike riding ? The Beach ? or the Office ?

Pick the right phone for the occasion.

Sell to us oh phone companies we have money to burn !