Although I haven't tried GoogleTalk, l I have used MSN Messenger's similar feature, and Skype's proprietary VoIP. That said and as cool as it is, other than just talking between ourselves, no "computer based" voice solution passed the "wife test."

Vonage, on the otherhand, provides a "magic box" that you plug into a broadband internet connection (like my Comcast Cable Internet), the other end then plugs into a phonejack in your house. Provided that you've unplugged the Qwest POTS (plain old telephony system) line from their box on the outside of your house, now ANY phone in the house can access your new VoIP line through the Vonage service.

The service can operate (theoretically) on as little as 32Kbps, but I wouldn't try it on anything less than 128Kbps, and 384Kbps is even better. It's no so much that you HAVE to have the extra bandwidth for the telephony, rather, if you have a computer or two hooked up, one getting updates to the TV listings and streaming your Orb content, and the other one snagging email and hosting "Nick Jr." for the kids, your bandwidth gets gobbled fast. This can causes pops and garbles in your telephone call.

Skype and GoogleTalk (AFAIK) both use proprietary (read: super-special, non-standard) codecs to accomplish their VoIP over non-broadband, aka dialup. This is a double-edged sword. Yes, it's cool in that you can have better-than-telephone conversations over the internet, but it's not an open-standard so intercommunication with other services and devices is limited.

That's always struck me as odd: Why doesn't Vonage use "more advanced" codecs? They're using the old ones from years back. Sure, that's fine and dandy, but (presently) if you make a call from your Vonage line to another Vonage line, you're going directly over the internet, no standard phone lines needed (similar to Skype/GoogleTalk). If you call from your Vonage line to a "land line" (non-VoIP) then you're calling from your Vonage box to a Vonage box close to the call's destination, which then hands the call off to the local telco for the "last mile" and enables your high-tech phone to talk to the gazillions of Plain Old Telephone subscribers out there. So, in both cases you're going Vonage to Vonage, and cound, theoretically, use some of the newer (and even the proprietary) codecs out there to compress the call even more and free up bandwidth (not just their subscriber's bandwidth, but their own across the backbone as well).

In any event, I look forward to the day when I can "ink" an instant message to my friend via ANY IM client, and he/she can respond with typed or spoken words. Someday, perhaps, the technology will improve such that I won't have to know what medium they are using, if I'm calling from my cell phone and they have a web-connected PDA and can't talk back right away, my voice could be converted to IM text, and their IM text reply converted into spoken works on my end.

Someday...

Postback: http://www.dnsgardner.com/mindofdarbus/?p=254

¶ Email this tip to a friend!  

I've been debating how to take my music with me for some time now. I thought abhout getting an .MP3 player, but then I'd be carrying around 3 electronic devices on my body all the time — a cell phone, a Pocket PC, and an .MP3 player. Two is just too much already! Ack!

Then I stepped back and thought: why get a portable music player when I already have a Pocket PC? In the tests that I've done, playing music (with the screen turned off) for several hours, only drops the battery by 15% or so. That's not bad at all. But storage then becomes the issue.

I could get a 4GB SD card (yes, they make them), but the cost for the card alone is greater than the cost of a similarly sized .MP3 player, and my Pocket PC probably won't read a 4GB card.

So I purchased a 2GB mini-SD card (with SD adaptor), my Pocket PC is so old that it can't read 2GB either, so now I've got a mini-SD card that I plug into an SD adaptor that I plug into a thumb-sized USB SD card reader, and I have an ackward big thumb drive — but that's another entry.

That's okay, my 512MB card works just fine, but it holds a relatively few number of songs. I encode all my music with (un-DRM'd) Windows Media Audio Lossless at about 600Kbps, that's a substantially larger file than a 128Kbps .MP3, and I can't tell the difference in most cases, but I'm a big fan of down-sampling. I know that with a larger file (with greater detail) that I can always make that smaller — but you can't go the other way. So since my media collection is effectively the Fair Use archive of my CD collection I want the archive to be as representative of the original as possible. Sorry, that's fodder for another post.

Back to "music in my pocket"...

So, to put music on my Pocket PC I've typically followed these steps.

1. Pulled the SD card from my Pocket PC,
2. Popped it into my USB 2.0 card reader,
3. Launched Windows Media Player 10,
4. Loaded up (or hurridly created a playlist),
5. Then syncronized that playlist with the SD card (which auto-magically re-encoded at a lower bit-rate then copied the smaller file to the card).

Needless to say, it's not a speedy process, and I can't fit more than 40 or 50 songs on the card (it holds other programs and documents as well). What to do, what to do?

So let's try and combine all three devices into one, shall we?

• Let's get a Pocket PC phone edition (that way we get rid of the cell phone),
• It's (by definition) a Pocket PC, okay, there's two devices in one
• The new Pocket PCs can read the larger cards, so now I'll be able to use my 2GB mini-SD card

That will give me quite a few more songs, but still, I've got over 50GB of music at home (I know, I know, some of you are laughing at the pitiful inadequacy of my scanty collection, the other three of my readers are saying "Gigabytes? Isn't that from the Flux Capacitor? 1.21 Gigabytes?"). Granted, with compression I could fit all this on a 40GB iPod or other device with a similar capacity. But that's another device
to carry and babysit (charge up, protect, yadda yadda).

I've got a Media Center Extender for our XBOX at home, so I can play all my music through our home network via our XBOX on the "big speakers." And there are other devices that accomplish the same thing, some through 802.11a/b/g wireless. Why not extend the reach of my music OUTSIDE my home network and allow me access anywhere that I have access to the internet?

Why not be able to dectect the connection speed of a device connected wirelessly to the internet, say via a cell-phone through GPRS/EDGE/EV-DO, etc. and then stream the downsampled music to that device?

That's exactly what orb does. Orb is a (presently free) service that contains a "media server" that you (very easily) install on the computer that you've got your music on, then you simply log in to your Orb.com account via any internet connected, web enabled device that can play .asx files (Windows Media Player, Pocket PCs, Pocket PC Phone Edition, and even Windows Mobile SmartPhones). With this servic I could play any song or playlist in my collection!

Although I do not have a Pocket PC Phone Edition (I'm saving my pennies) or an unlimited data plan for my cellphone (which will run about $20/month), I'm enjoying listening to my home music while I'm at work. Very cool!

Oh, and you can also stream all your videos and recorded TV shows, too. ;)

¶ Email this tip to a friend!  

Many of you know that I used to build and sell computers while working for a former employer. The question "How do I Buy a Computer" was often asked of me (I even re-wrote much of my former employers "Computer Buying Guide").

And although this Video isn't the way you should buy a computer, it's commentary on computers in general is hilarious.

[ Video ]

¶ Email this tip to a friend!  

ZDnet has put together a short video talking about the differences in CRT monitors and LCD monitors, specifically weighing the costs of each against their usable life.

One mistake that they make is comparing CRT's of one size (say 19" diagonal) to LCD's of "the same size" (say 19" viewable). Herein lies the problem.

CRT's are just like old-style tube-based telvision sets, they have a tube (a cathode ray tube to be exact) which is measured diagonally starting from one edge of the tube to the diagonally opposite edge of the tube. That'd be fine and dandy if the picture filled the entire tube — which it doesn't. To combat this apparent problem, CRT makers will put the "viewable" diagonal measurement somewhere on the outside of the box in itty-bitty font. That 19" CRT actually is actually going to be around 17" viewable (give or take depending on the make and model of the monitor).

The same goes for 15", 17", 21", and larger CRTs. Now, that's not saying that there's something WRONG with CRT technology. It has its own set of pros and cons as compared to LCDs. Just keep in mind that LCD technology is based around a grid of liquid crystals arranded in a (usually) rectangular pattern. The size of the LCD panel is the diagonal measurement of that panel — and the entire LCD panel is viewable; in other words, a 17" LCD panel has a viewable measurement of 17" — which means you should compare it to a 19" CRT (remember, that's ~17" viewable).

Once you take that into consideration, the cost differential between CRTs and LCDs of comparable viewable size is significantly reduced. LCDs are typically a little more money than CRTs of the equivalent viewable size, but factor in the ease of moving them, reduced electrical consumption, reduced heat output (therefore reduced air conditioning costs), reduced eye fatigue (caused by CRT's refresh rate), and the overall "cool factor," and I think you'll agree, your next monitor should be an LCD.

[ Video | Transcript ]

¶ Email this tip to a friend!  

ZDNet published a video pointing out the shortcomings of Digital Rights Management (DRM). Instead of accepting the total control demanded by the MPAA and RIAA, ZDNet chief editor David Berlind proposes a new acronym: CRAP. Standing for Content, Restriction, Annulment and Protection. Berlind details the problems with different content providers using different CRAP mechanisms.

"And guess what? If you try to connect these three universes, they don't connect. Doesn't happen. Sorry. Nada. This music won't play here. This music won't play here. And this music won't play here. That to me is a problem. That's why I say that all these devices, for example, the iPods that you buy out in the stores today, are a load of CRAP. I'm not going to buy any of this CRAP. Stop buying this CRAP. Don't buy any technology that has CRAP in it, because all it's going to do is make it impossible for you to take the content that you're paying good money for and play it anywhere you want."

[ Video | Transcript ]

¶ Email this tip to a friend!  

So you've got a digital camera which came with its own software, which, honestly, isn't all that great. What's out there that doesn't cost a fortune but has a rich set of features, and is still easy to use?

1. PhotoShop Elements: Drop a hundred bucks or so and you have this slimmed down version of PhotoShop. It's still pretty user-unfriendly, but hey, it's "PhotoShop."
2. Microsoft Digital Image Suite 10: Much easier to use than PhotoShop without sacrificing tools. At around $150 it's priced like a Microsoft product, but the book (not "booklet") that comes with it is well worth the difference.
3. Picasa from Google: Virtually anything from Google is simply fantastic. Picasa 2.0 is more about a picture organization and location tool than anything else (sounds about right being from the world's best search engine folks, right?). Even with the emphasis on organization, Picasa was by far the easiest of the three to adjust for contrast and brightness, and the easiest to remove red-eye. Best of all? It's free! If you haven't given it a shot, Google-search "Picasa" and give it a try!
   

¶ Email this tip to a friend!  

If you can get broadband at your house (and most of us can), throw away your dialup and make the switch!

When you consider that broadband is usually at least ten times (10x) faster than dialup yet costs much less than ten times as much, the choice is obvious. Most people who balk at the higher price of broadband internet access overlook the fact that broadband includes both an access line and internet service. Your dialup ISP only charges you for the internet service, you have a phone bill (line charge) that must also be factored into the price of dialup; when factoring this in, braodband and dialup cost about the same.

Broadband is typically always on, ready to go, and much faster than dialup. Dialup is available typically only when you specifically tell it you want to use it, and painfully slow. Once you have broadband the true power of the internet really begins to open up.

• Instant messaging becomes a legitimate replacement for quick communication (versus phone calls), just listen for the incoming IM sound and you're talking.
• Quickly order pizza (or other delivery) online. Pizza Hut and Papa Johns will even save your credit card and your "last order" so you can just click a couple times and 30 minutes later hot pizza is delivered to your door.
• Voice over IP: using the internet for actual, real phone conversations. No, this isn't the old "use your computer as a phone" deal from years-gone-by, this is an actual "pick up any phone in the house and use it like a normal, real phone." The difference? Since you're using the internet (IP) instead of circuit switched (POTS) technology, the prices are MUCH lower!! ($25/month for unlimited calling in the US and Canada, plus features out the wazoo!)

The time to make the switch is now! But what kind of broadband should you choose? Here's your picking order:

1. Cable Internet
2. DSL
3. Fixed Wireless

If you can't get any of those, MOVE! Your non-broadband options after that are:

1. Cellular
2. Satellite
3. Dialup

If you can do broadband, do it. If you're planning on moving, make sure your new digs have a couple broadband options before you sign papers.

¶ Email this tip to a friend!  

How can you keep your family safe from the inappropriate material (pornography, gambling, violence, racisim, hate groups, criminal activites, etc.) that can be accessed from your computer?

The best way is often the most overlooked: a good parent. No software (whether on your computer or on your Internet Service Provider's computer) can take the place of good parenting; any type of filter can be worked around by a determined person.

That said, sometimes inappropriate material can worm its way into your computer without a specific request for it, in that case a web filter may be an acceptable stop-gap. NetNanny and CyberSitter are fairly decent filters, but as with anything, do your homework first. InternetFilterReview.com has a list and reviews of possible web filtering solutions.

¶ Email this tip to a friend!  

Inevitably, the time will come when you'll be required to buy a new computer. But what do you look for? The answer to that question might be surprising.

1. Look for name brands: No, not the one on the outside of the box, the name brands of the parts on the inside. If your sales associate can't tell you who makes the motherboard, the video card, or the hard drive, it's time to look elsewhere.
2. Look for performance: No, this isn't the speed of the processor. Comparing the speed of the processor to overall system performance is like comparing the type of engine in your car to its quarter-mile benchmark; sure, it's an important part, but without good linkage, a transmission to match, the right size tires, and all the other parts working in harmony, you'll have a big engine driving a little, underperforming car. Just as you'd do with a car, look at the benchmarks. Car benchmarks include 0-60 speed, quarter-mile speed, top-speed, etc. Computer benchmarks are program suites that test all the components together; these programs include 3Dmark05, 3Dmark03, SiSoft Sandra, PC Mark, and others. These results of these tests is comparable to the results of benchmarking a car: you'll get numbers that don't mean much until you compare them to another computer's/car's benchmark numbers. Your sales associate should be able to tell you the 3Dmark03 benchmark score (the most common benchmark used today) off the top of their head, if they can't or don't know, ask them to run the test for you (it will only take about ten minutes). If they can't or won't run the test while you wait, ... well, would you buy a car from a dealer that didn't know how fast it is, and wouldn't let you take it on a test drive to find out? Why is it any different for a computer? A computer that's 5 times as fast should cost 5 times as much, right? Nope, usually a MUCH faster computer will only cost $150 more than a very slow computer.
   
3. What's the Hardware Warranty: How long does the reseller warrant the computer's parts against defects? The higher quality the parts, the longer they should last before breaking (low quality, "cheap" components have 90 day to 1 year warranties; quality components usually have 3 year to lifetime warranties). To get a computer that should last you 3 times as long should cost you 3 times a much, right? No, most of the time getting 3 times the usable life out of your computer will only cost around $150 more.
   
4. What's the Software Warranty: This covers everything that you (or anyone else that uses your computer) do to your computer (additional software, malware infections, viral infections, etc.). Most major manufacturers don't support any of this, so you'll end up paying a local computer shop or an onsite technician for help.

The bottom line? You can save about $200 (maybe even more) by buying the cheapest computer possible, then again, you can save about the same by buying the cheapest car possible. Do you want cheap (or disposible), or do you want quality (or long-lasting)? Make that consious decision BEFORE you go into your purchase and you'll be more satisfied with the outcome of your purchase.

Put another way, a $700 computer that you have to replace every 18 months will cost you (at least) $1400 in a 3-year period. Whereas a $1300 computer with a 36 month warranty will cost you $1300 in a 3 year period. Which one is the better buy? (And that doesn't take into consideration the fact that the $1300 computer will be MUCH faster than either of the $700 computers.)

¶ Email this tip to a friend!