Mike Salsbury’s Blog

A couple of months back, Woot.com offered the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet for around $135. I was looking for a portable device that would allow me to browse the Internet via WiFi networks, check my email, etc. It seemed to be a perfect fit. This device was definitely pocket-sized, ran a “real” OS (Linux), offered a true web browser, and a decent-sized display.
I received the tablet a few days later and was quite impressed. It took me maybe 5 minutes to get used to the user interface, and another 15 or so to have it visiting my favorite web sites, checking my email, etc., over my WPA-based connection at home. Because it’s a Linux-based device, there are plenty of third parties willing to create software for it and port existing tools over to it, so I found several useful software gadgets within a few hours and had them all installed and running.

My only real complaints with the device were that the on-screen keyboard was a pain to work with using the stylus, and that it seemed a bit slow if several things were running. Battery life was pretty good, the display was bright and clear, and it generally did everything I needed it to otherwise.

Unfortunately, after handing it to my brother to use for a while back in July, something went haywire with the display and it became unreadable. I need to send it back to Nokia for repair but I’ve not done it yet.

In the meantime, I’ve learned about the Nokia Internet Tablet N800 which is the next-generation version of the device I already had. The N800 seems to have resolved every problem I had with the 770 and improved on the features I liked.

Like the 770, the N800 is Linux-based. It connects to WiFi networks, or cell phone data networks via BlueTooth. It has an integrated webcam, a 4.1″ touchscreen display, a full-screen keyboard (instead of the little mini-keyboard), and two memory card slots for expansion via SD/MMC/miniSD/microSD. The display resolution is 800×480x65k colors.

I placed my order for the N800 today from Amazon.com, and should have it within 48 hours. I hope to write a full review after it arrives and I’ve had some time to fiddle around with it.

admin Cool Electronic Gear

You’ve probably heard of the Care Bears, the sickeningly sweet, pastel-colored little bears who spouted lovely sweet things to children.  They became something of the symbol for things which are just “too sweet”.  Well, this little fellow is most definitely NOT a Care Bear.  In fact, he’s quite the opposite.

Instead of saying sweet little things like “Let’s share!” or “I love you!”, the Swear Bear says things like:

• “Eat sh*t and die, mother f*cker”
• “Nobody loves you, everybody hates you, go f*ck yourself”
• “Hey D*ckhead, what’re you, some kind of pervert, gotta touch teddy bears?”

He’s about 6 1/2 inches tall and says all the above as well as several more.

If you feel like you need one of these for your home or office, you can find them at Entertainment Earth ($17.99).

admin Cool Electronic Gear

Australian plasma television owners currently have a major beef against two sports channels there.  It appears that those small logos the sports channels place in the lower-right-hand corner of the screen are being burned into the plasma screens.

 Owners of the damaged TV sets are threatening legal action against the broadcasters, saying that their use of the constant, bright on-screen logos is burning the images permantently into their plasma screen TVs.  The channels in question are refusing to acknowledge any responsibility for the damage.

The broadcasters claim that the damage can be reduced (not eliminated) by turning down the contrast on their televisions.  This, in my opinion, is a poor solution.  The use of watermarked logos that change color to match the on-screen images behind the logos can prevent this from happening entirely.

Personally, I hope the TV owners sue the networks and win, not because I really care about the damage to their sets.  What I would rather see happen is all networks getting a wake-up call that their constant use of these annoying little logos in the corner of the screen is inappropriate.  I don’t object to a television station identifying itself by TEMPORARILY putting a small logo in the corner of the screen.  What really ticks me off is seeing a logo their during the entire broadcast, which amazingly disappears when the commercials come on.  Why is it acceptable to interfere with the “content” by displaying watermarked (and even animated) logos on the screen but unacceptable to interfere with the advertising?  Simple.  Money.  You and I don’t “pay” for the programs we watch, and the advertisers do pay to put their messages up.  As a result, the networks are afraid to anger the advertisers by slapping a logo over their ads, but perfectly willing to tick off the viewers by putting a logo over the programs the viewers want to watch.

For that matter, broadcasters are trying their best to get a “broadcast flag” measure through Congress.  The Broadcast Flag would prevent television audiences from recording, copying, fast-forwarding, rewinding, re-playing, or otherwise using the broadcast content as they see fit.  No more time-shifting if the network doesn’t want you to.  No more fast-forwarding through commercials.  No more watching a recorded program a second time because you happened to miss something when you went to the bathroom without pausing. 

TiVo already did an experiment with this over the Christmas holiday.  I was given the option to have my TiVo download certain content from CNet and play it.  I couldn’t transfer that content to my PC to watch there, move it to my other TiVo where I had a bigger television, or transfer it to the PSP to watch later.  I could do that with the programs the TiVo had recorded for me, just not these particular ones.  (Realistically I could have copied them using some analog approach, but why bother?)

Mark my words… there will come a time when the freedom we enjoyed with VCRs and DVDs is taken from us by the greedy jerks in Hollywood.  They’ll charge us to rewind, fast-forward, play a show multiple times, etc.

Pushing back on little issues like this one will send a message to the content creators that the audience isn’t willing to just sit there and take what they want to throw at us.  And for that reason, I hope these Australian TV owners win their suit.

admin Cool Electronic Gear

 
I purchased a Creative Nomad Zen
Xtra 60GB MP3 player approximately this time last year.  I’ve
really been pleased with it.  It delivered 60GB of capacity (enough
for a good chunk of my music collection, at least all the stuff I cared
about), great sound, excellent battery life (I’ve never run it out),
decent ease of use, and great value ($255 for a 60GB player beats
anything Apple’s offering in the iPod line).

Since I
subscribe to Real’s Rhapsody music service, and it offers the option to
download tracks to “PlaysForSure” music players, I was pleased
when Creative offered a firmware upgrade to the player that enabled the
PlaysForSure capability on my Zen Xtra.  I downloaded the update
and tried to install it.  I got an error, so I rebooted the player
and the computer and tried again.  This time the update seemed to
be installing fine, until it got to a point where it said it needed to
reboot the player.  The player’s screen went dead, and that was
it.  It never came to life ever again.

I searched the
Creative knowledgebase online but none of the solutions there quite fit
my situation.  I emailed them to open a problem ticket.  I got
some suggestions to try, none of which worked.  The technician sent
me an RMA request form.  I filled it in and sent it back. 
They gave me an RMA.  Took about a week to get it boxed up and
shipped back to them, which was the week of Christmas so shipping was a
pain and slow.  Creative’s repair facility, according to the US
Postal Service, got the player on December 27.  Their online RMA
status page didn’t show receipt of the player for a few days after
that.  Late last week, it showed that they had tested the player
and couldn’t power it up.

Today, they updated the information
with an indication that they shipped a replacement player (different
serial number) to me by UPS.  Given typical UPS shipping times, I
don’t expect to see it before Monday or Tuesday.

Overall, I was impressed with how
this whole thing went.  They didn’t make me call anyone and sit on
hold for hours.  They worked with me by email and offered usable,
intelligent suggestions.  The RMA request was processed very
quickly (though it asked the same information I had pretty much already
provided in the problem report, which was a tiny bit annoying). 
The player arrived in their hands on December 27 and they shipped it
back on January 18.  They quote 10-15 business days for turnaround
on their web site.  Assuming their holidays compare to my
employer’s, Dec. 27 wasn’t a business day, Dec. 28 also wasn’t, 
but the 29th through the 13th were, plus today.  That works out to
13 days.  Even if you count the two days in December and MLK Jr.
Day, that’s still 16 days, which is quite reasonable.

The
cost?  The player was still under its 1 year hardware warranty but
not labor warranty.  I had to pay them $24.95 to diagnose and test
the player, plus around $5.00 to ship it.  Compare this to Apple’s
$59 or $99 repair fees for their (already overpriced) iPod player. 
Even the third parties doing iPod repair aren’t as cheap as
creative.  iPodResQ charges $29 for the initial estimate and return
shipping.

admin Cool Electronic Gear creative labs, mp3 player, zen xtra

As you may be aware from elsewhere on this site, I’ve recently acquired a “free” Sony PSP from internetopiniongroup.com. During my holiday shopping, I had the opportunity to pick up a USB link cable and Datel Max Media PSP software for $12.88 at Target.

The cable worked perfectly, and the software was FAR better than I would have expected for the price. It allows you to transfer just about any digital movie format you like to your PSP memory card (AVI, MPG, ripped DVD “VOB” files), as well as most digital audio formats (e.g., MP3, WAV, etc.) and digital pictures (JPG, etc.). You can also backup and work with game save files.

So far, I’ve only worked with the digital video transfer. Using it, I was able to take an episode of Alton Brown’s “Good Eats” show in a few minutes from MPG format to the PSP’s MP4 format. I also transferred the entire movie “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” from a ripped DVD to the PSP memory card over a longer period of time. The video transfer supports both 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios, so wide-screen source material looks wide-screen and normal material looks normal (albeit with some black borders on the PSP display). At “high quality” mode, each 1GB VOB file became approximately a 56MB MP4 file for the PSP. That means you should be able to fit a typical 100-minute movie into about 256MB of PSP video data. With mono audio and a lower bitrate, you might get quite a bit more on there. Quite impressive.

I plan to do a more thorough review after I’ve spent some more time with it.

admin Cool Electronic Gear analysis, Datel Max Media software, examination, review, Sony PSP

I won’t say where, but let’s just say that I’ve had a fair amount of
experience using the Targus DEFCON line of laptop locks.  When they
are used, the number of laptop thefts seems to decrease pretty
rapidly.  When I recently read an article on how a security expert
(from security.org) defeated several of the more popular brands,
including Targus.  It just so happened that on the same day I read
that article, I had to disconnect a laptop that I had locked with a
Targus DEFCON Ultra 1 lock (Model PA400 v3.0).  I couldn’t remember
what 4-digit code I’d used to secure the lock. 

I tried the
“use every code I’ve ever used before” trick first.  I
tried my voicemail code, my telephone extension, my office room number,
my house number, the last four digits of my phone number, my cell phone
number, my birth year, my birthdate in 4-digit format, my wife’s
extension number at work, etc.  It just wouldn’t open.  I then
moved into brute force mode (you know “0001″,
“0002″, etc.).  I gave up around 150.  Then I
remembered reading that article.

A few more Google searches turned
up nothing other than references to a method using a thin piece of
plastic, a ballpoint pen, or something they called the “tactile
method”.  I read another one where a post-it was used in place
of a piece of plastic, so I tried that. No good. The ballpoint pen trick
was for those with a cylinder keylock, not a combo lock.  That left
the vague “tactile method” to try.  I knew
“tactile” meant that it related to the sense of touch, so they
must be saying that you’d be able to “feel” the right
combination somehow.  Having nothing to lose, I tried figuring out
some way to “feel” the right numbers.  After a few
minutes, I decided it wasn’t working.

Then I remembered being in
college and being able to open dormitory mailboxes easily.  The
method for doing that was relatively simple.  The box consisted of
a combination dial and a lever that opened the door.  Press on the
“open” lever with just the right amount of pressure and turn
the dial in the direction you were supposed to turn to select the first
digit of the combination.  When you felt the open lever
“give” slightly, you’d just hit the first digit.  Turn in
the other direction, maintaining pressure on the open lever, and you’d
feel a “give” on the second digit.  Ditto for the third,
at which time the door would open.

By pulling on the
“fastener end” of the wire in the device and pressing the red
“unlock” button while turning the right-most digit (looking
from the top of the unit down), I felt a “give” around a
particular digit, so I left it there, and started with the one next to
it, and so on.  It wasn’t long before I had discovered all 4 digits
of the combination that I’d forgotten.  In fact, from the moment I
started the “tactile method” described here until I found the
combination wasn’t more than about 2 minutes.  Scary.

admin Cool Electronic Gear

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admin Cool Electronic Gear Creative, fast, forward, Labs, MP3, music, Nomad, player, rewind, Xtra, Zen

A very nifty piece of gear… Click “Read more” to
see my review…

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admin Cool Electronic Gear 60GB, buy, capacity, Creative, idv3, ipod, Labs, MP3, music, Nomad, player, review, Xtra, Zen