I try to get outside for a 2-3 mile walk every day. This gives me a chance to clear my mind, get a little exercise, and enjoy being offline and out in the wilds for a little while.
One of the best things about these walks is getting to watch as the seasons pass from one to the next. Plants sprout, grow, flower, and fade.
Squirrels are born and grow up to put away nuts for winter as the first leaves wither and begin to fall.
Through it all I think about how everything, even storms and misfortune, fits together. It helps me keep ahold of what’s really important versus all of life’s distractions. Get out and soak up Fall to see what I mean.
Everybody’s been blogging about the Palm+Microsoft lovefest so I thought I’d cover two other new devices that might be important and more widely used in the long run.
Both Motorola and Nokia announced 2 megapixel cellcams yesterday. They both support memory cards and various digital audio formats, promising to be good cellpods as well as phones and cameras.
Motorola Razr V3x has fixed a lot of the Razr V3 shortcomings I blogged about previously. No mention of whether V3x will support at least EDGE if not WCDMA, but I’m guessing both since the lower resolution of its two cameras, an inside-the-flip VGA cam, is meant for video conferencing. It supports a 2MPix external camera with LED flash, hopefully of good enough quality so that I can finally check off “quality cellcam” from my must-have list. It doesn’t appear to support WiFi, and I think I’m dreaming if I really hope to see FRS in a handset, but the TransFlash memory slot allows you to expand storage up to 512MB. This should allow for more digital music and photos by far than Papa V3.
Nokia 3250 launches Nokia’s new XpressMusic line of digital audio player oriented cellpods. According to the press release, XpressMusic guarantees a phone will provide:
- Great audio quality
- Dedicated key(s) for fast and easy access to your music collection
- Play, talk, and play - music pauses when a call comes in, resumes when the call has ended
- Use any headphones for listening with standard 3.5mm jack
- Extended battery time (minimum of 10 hours for music)
- Substantial storage capacity for a large number of songs
- Create and edit playlists on the go
- USB 2.0 support for fast and easy transfer of your music
- Wide support of audio formats - including MP3, M4A, WMA, AAC and eAAC+
- Easy access to over-the-air music downloads
Dedicated music keys, use of a standard 3.5mm jack, and USB 2 support are all spot on. I’m not sure I like the rotating bottom which swaps keypad for music controls, but I’m willing to wait til I hold one in my own two hands to pass final judgement. Other 3250 features include Series 60, the previously mentioned 2MPix digicam, stereo FM radio, GPRS and EDGE, the very cool ability to share playlists using SMS or Bluetooth, and support for microSD cards up to 1GB in size. (Note: I believe this makes 3250 the first announced Nokia handset to use microSD instead of RS-MMC.) Details can be had from the Nokia 3250 presentation, 3250 data sheet, and the XpressMusic backgrounder.
It appears that both Nokia and Motorola are finally getting their acts together with higher resolution cellcams and standard, expandable memory. It will be interesting to see if those trends continue across other new as-yet-unannounced handsets from the dualing duo. And if the audio quality of 3250 is as good as promised, Apple+Moto may need to innovate new ROKR’s in double time.
Below are a few more of my photos of Rita that didn’t make it into last night’s post.
Today Rita’s cloud cover has moved east and we have sunny skies here in Oklahoma. People in Texas and Louisiana are assessing the damage and talking about the Texodus and what needs to be done better next time. Further north and east Rita’s squally remnants are dumping rain and causing severe weather as she continues to weaken.
Let’s hope the experts are wrong and Stan’s not headed our way anytime soon.
Hurricane Rita hurled clouds across much of the central US today as it weakened into a tropical storm, then a depression. Where I was in northeastern Oklahoma (marked on the Google Earth image at right with a pin placemark) the cloud cover provided a spectacular, fiery sunset (see bottom picture). Click on either picture to enlarge or leave comments in my Flickr photostream (subscribe via RSS or Atom).
Additional pictures and video of Rita continued pouring in from around the Web:
This has started me thinking about better ways to represent geolocation where a photo is taken or video is recorded both in the metadata of the picture or movie file and also on the Web and in 3D applications such as Google Earth. I’m going to delve into the possibilities of geoblogging future photos via Flickr.
And that reminds me, somebody really needs to start selling a high end consumer camera with integrated GPS so that pictures can be automatically “location stamped” just as they are already date stamped. Another blog entry for another time, I suppose.
Last night as I was writing about “Tracking Rita“, a lot of other people had her on their mind, too.
And they blogged it, pushing the latest update from CNN to the top of the News heap:
My first Topnorati. Snap!
With Hurricane Rita making landfall in Texas and Louisiana tonight, I’ve been scouring the Web for everything and anything to shed more light on what’s going on this instant. Thought I’d share some top picks for tracking the storm and its effects in case others in Net land were in the same proverbial boat.
The National Hurricane Center and Accuweather provide some of the greatest detail and most up to date information available. Go there first. If you’re looking for a reliable site year in and year out for hurricane updates but find NHC and Accuweather a bit difficult to parse (both are very data dense), try CNN’s Hurricane site. It provides fairly up to date news and tracking information. Just about everything you find on air on CNN, you can find on their site. A bonus feature: A “storm names” section at the bottom of the main page which shows all Atlantic and Eastern North Pacific (i.e. possible US) named storms.
Next up, WeatherServer.net’s Hurricane Center is providing live video from TV stations and audio from fire scanners in the landfall areas (Houston, New Orleans, etc.).
Examples: Click here to watch three Louisiana stations simultaneously or here for Houston ABC affiliate KTRK channel 13. If you want the latest, on-the-ground developments, this is your one stop shop.
Prefer to track things in your aggregator or feed reader? Ask and ye shall receive:
Finally, in the “truly amazing even if you understand how it works” category, I’d highly recommend checking out the latest imagery, predictions, sea temperatures, and more compiled and overlaid on a 3D Earth from the hard working members of the Google Earth Community. Visit the Community’s Current Events board especially the Hurricane Rita data compilation post. Power user Frank Taylor has collected some of the best Google Earth Rita links in a recent blog post. Get Google Earth if you don’t already have it, then click here to load Taylor’s compilation. Be sure to experiment with turning the various Rita tracking info, satellite photos, and other layers on/off, clicking on the many embedded links for additional information, etc. Truly an incredible tool!
Wherever you are and however much attention you’re paying to Rita coming ashore tonight, say a prayer for the people in southeast TX and southwest LA. And then visit Redcross.org in the coming days to find out what help, if any, is needed after the storm.
For anyone wanting to cut to the chase rather than read the Reuters/Yahoo blurb on busy signals as Hurricane Rita approaches: Cell voice connections are usually harder to get in emergency situations than a connection to send an SMS.
The next time you’re getting out of Dodge, text somebody. Gives a new meaning to “Let your fingers do the walking”…
WAP support for BillDay.com is up and running again via GaMerZ’s “WP WAP” hack.
Click here to access BillDay.com via WAP. Same functionality as before, nothing fancy.
I’ve also installed the Search Docs plugin recommended by WordPress installation docs. It give you quick access to all the WP Codex docs from every page in the admin interface. Nice!
There are a bunch of other plugins I’m considering. Let me know if you have a favorite I should be sure to check out.
It’s been a long time coming but I’m finally getting around to upgrading my WordPress installation to 1.5.2.
Right now I have things running similarly to my pre-cutover site. I have made some minor tweaks here and there (new “bubble” style blockquotes, some color change experiments, rerrangement of edit link and permalink to end of each post, etc.), and I’ve also broken a few things (such as WAP access) which I’ll be fixing in short order. I’m looking forward to exploring the various WP plug-ins and all the new features they enable, too.
Watch for additional changes and features in coming days.
Googler’s have been blogging for a while now, so it’s about time they have a Google Blog Search. Besides the basic search form, you can also click to conduct an advanced blog search or read the FAQ here.
Of course Technorati and others have been slaving away at this for a long time, but better late than never, right?
Leave me a comment to let me know what you favorite blog search tool(s) is.
Nokia has joined the Eclipse Foundation as a Strategic Developer and Board Member.
This should come as no surprise given Nokia-Eclipse news over the last year or so. Nonetheless, important stuff for wireless developers to note concerning future tool trends, methinks.
Nokia has announced a Music Pack to further sweeten the MP3 player capabilities of compatible Pop-port enabled handsets. Visit the Music Pack homepage or read the specs and FAQ.
What you get in the pack:
- Nokia Audio Adapter AD-15 (lets you plug in standard 3.5mm headphones)
- Nokia 256MB MMCmobile card MU-9 (you can up this yourself to 1GB RS-MMC if you need more space for tunes)
- Nokia Stereo Audio Cable CA-72U (converts the Audio Adapter output into RCA connectors to plug into a stereo system)
- Nokia USB MMC/SD reader DD-10 (an MMC and SD card reader, for loading tunes onto the RS-MMC card)
Music Pack has apparently only been announced for EMEA availability so far, but marry the pack with a 1GB RS-MMC and a 6630 or 6682, though, and you’re getting awfully close to what I believe a successful cellpod needs.
Is this a carefully timed response to ROKR E1 destined to be available in other geos too sometime soon? You be the judge.
Following up on my ongoing love affair with cellpods:
Apple and Moto recently launched the ROKR line of cellpods with ROKR E1, the world’s first iTunes enabled cellpod.
This much anticipated gadget promises basic iPod playback functionality built into an entry level but functional GSM-based, Bluetooth-enabled cellcam. On the surface this seems to be a great opportunity to converge two of the devices you might be lugging around (cell phone and MP3 player) into one smaller, svelter luggable (cellpod). Before I jumped in to buy one, however, I revisited the criteria I’m looking for from a cellpod. From my earlier “What cellpods need” post:
- simple external music controls
- reasonable music fidelity
- at least 1-2GB storage available for songs
Although ROKR E1 does provide an iTunes button making music access fairly straightforward and has reasonable sound quality both with the built-in speakers and provided earbuds, it fails on available storage. No matter how much flash memory one might have available in the phone, E1 is currently limited to 100 songs maximum. 100 songs maximum…I have more than 100 songs just from U2!
This seems crazy to me. Why limit the number of songs so severely? I suppose Apple and Moto are testing the ROKR waters with this first model, but with tiny dedicated music players such as the simultaneously launched iPod Nano able to store up to 4GB of music (my entire MP3 collection is under 3GB), why would I bother with ROKR E1?
My recommendation: Wait for a future ROKR model with Nano-like storage before jumping on the iTunes cellpod bandwagon. (If you just can’t wait, however, Amazon has a pretty good deal on E1 with new Cingular activation.)
Here ye, here ye, wireless developers: RIM and Handango are holding a game development contest for BlackBerry.
Prizes include money, Handango promotion of winning apps, and BlackBerry devices along with plaque, other promotion, etc.
Heck, it might be worth winning just to get something with that witty BlackBerry pith helmet logo on it. 
(Thanks to Eric Giguere for calling this to my attention)
It’s been a long strange road these last five months, but I’m finally back online blogging on BillDay.com.
During that time I’ve been sick at Breckenridge, camped through a downpour at Buffalo National River, hiked in southeastern Oklahoma, flown out to California to interview for a remote work position that was a dead-end, been to zoos and aquariums and wildlife expos and powwows, and celebrated a number of birthdays and family firsts.
All of that, of course, pales in comparison to Katrina. Many needs are still acute. Please help however you can.
