Bad Dog! No Biscuit!

I posted this to the CNN discussion board about yesterday's implementation of the new merged Sirius/XM Radio lineup:
I think the sound quality is awful, now. There is way too much digital compression, and too little dynamic range. I can't make out drum/cymbal parts in the songs I listen to, because the overuse of digital compression makes those details too muddy, or worse, nonexistent. I gained an NPR channel, but when I got in the car for the drive home yesterday, there was no "All things considered" feed. I used to like XM82 for my workout soundtrack, but it's gone now. Also, I'm sorry, but I also think that asking for another $4 a month for "the best of Sirius" is ridiculous. I realize that neither company was turning a profit, and that I could've been faced with the extinction of either or both services. I'm paid up with a year's service, so we'll see how things look when my renewal comes due next year.

My new stereo system

In my last post, I mentioned how I was the proud owner of the first car CD player in 1985. Back then, *nobody* my age settled for a factory stereo system in a car.

The sound system in my new car sounds better than some high-end home sound systems I've heard. Bose managed to design a sound system in my Infiniti G35 that has all the sound coming at you from the front of the car, instead of coming from behind you, as is the case with most mobile sound systems.

I'm also testing the blogger.com email-to-blog-posting feature from my iPhone. While I was at it, I attached a photo of my car. I made this photo the morning after I bought the car, and really liked the setting. It was early morning, and the car was sitting in my Mother-in-law's driveway. This was my last visit to her old house last May.

Milestones

I went to my 25th High School class reunion yesterday evening. I've not seen much of my best friend from High School, since I've been busy raising two children, and he's been working on his PhD. We ended up spending the whole evening catching up. He had taken a tour of our school campus and remarked about how much had changed. When we were there, physical security amounted to a laminated ID card with our photograph on it. Now, students at our old school carry swipe cards they use to gain admittance to classrooms. Our school was pretty forward-thinking for it's time. In the early 1980's, a local family endowed the school with a couple of dozen TRS-80 Model I computers, and the school made a 1/2 credit computer science course mandatory for graduation. When I graduated, typing classes were optional, and of course, they were taught on typewriters. Now, I suspect students are turning in a good part of their homework electronically on laptop computers. It'll be a few years before my children attend High School, and I'm trying to imagine what their educational experience will be like.

I had a few other rememberances from those years:

• The heavy metal band, Pantera, was a local group, and they played at some of our school dances. I don't think Darrell Abbott had his 'Dime Bag' nickname back then.
• I worked two summers to get enough money together to buy my first computer, an Apple II. The computer solidified my "geek cred" for years to come, and was the first of many computers I bought over the years. The summer job wasn't bad, either. I worked at an appliance sales and repair shop, and that skill has come in handy many times over, now that I'm a homeowner.
• I heard my first demonstration of a Compact Disk player the summer before my senior year. I've written before about what a music and stereo nut I was (and still am.) I still remember hearing Boston's "Don't Look Back," and Carlos Santana's guitar on "Nowhere to Run," during that CD player demonstration, and I remember clearly how breathtaking that level of sound quality was. It made me wonder what people thought in prior generations when they heard an Edison Phonograph for the first time. I went to work straight out of High School, and bought a CD player as fast as I could (in the summer of '84,) and bought the first in-car CD player (summer of '85.)

In other milestone news, this blog will be a year old very soon.

Whither Blu-Ray

I'm not surprised by the news that Blu-Ray has thus far failed to gain customer acceptance. I speculated toward the beginning of this year that Sony may have won the HD-DVD battle, but that they've possibly lost the High-Def disc war. I've upgraded to HD Cable with on-demand programming. I can rent the same HD movie content from my cable box that I would be renting in the video store. There goes my need for another expensive disc player.

8K627BTDTXL is stolen!

Question: Apart from obvious reasons, why is an iPhone better than an iPod?

Answer: When you report your iPhone as stolen to your wireless carrier, the carrier immediately puts the electronic serial number of your iPhone on a stolen list, and nobody can activate it. You just *might* get it back, or you *might* deter thieves from stealing it, if they know nobody will buy a cell phone they can't activate.

As for the iPod, Apple will in no way assist you with any attempt to recover your stolen iPod. You can register with Apple as the owner of a new iPod by providing Apple your new iPod's serial number, and your iTunes content is associated with the serial number of your iPod. But even with that kind of information in-hand, and with your express consent, Apple won't stop somebody from taking your stolen iPod and attaching it to iTunes on their computer.

So, my 60 GB 5th Generation iPod has been stolen, and it's serial number is listed in the title of this post. Apple won't help me recover it, and stolen911.com seems to be out of commission. stolenipod.com echoes my sentiments about Apple not maintaining a stolen registry.

(Luckily, I found a couple on craigslist who were selling their well cared-for 60GB iPod, along with product packaging, and other verification that I wasn't buying somebody else's stolen iPod.)

blingmenot, not!

Earlier, I alluded to the type of excess that runs counter to my blingmenot ethos. Here is a prime example. This is, no kidding, a $1,800 power cable. Before you rush out and spend that kind of money, consider giving it instead to somebody who needs it. Here's my elevator statement for anybody remotely considering high-end cabling: "We put men on the moon using spacecraft constructed with nickel-plated copper wire. What makes you think your sound system is so important?"

(For my technical friends: Notice how they don't even bother to give you a 30-Amp Twist-lock plug on this cable: the one thing that might have made any difference by increasing the current-carrying capacity of the power cord.)

I could pardon somebody for wanting this as some sort of objet d'art. I've never seen such a beautiful power cord before. But, please, just encapsulate it in a plexiglas cube and put it on display.

Oh, and one last thing.. If you just have to buy this power cord, always remember that you'll be plugging it into a thirty-nine cent electrical outlet. That outlet's being fed by solid copper romex wiring that costs less than fifty cents a foot..

A View from Both Sides

I was issued a BlackBerry as part of my new job assignment. Prior to now, I'd not paid much attention to them. I wouldn't call myself an iPhone bigot, but I figured the iPhone had more features I wanted than the BlackBerry. I elected to keep my iPhone for personal phone/net usage, so my BlackBerry usage would all be billable by my employer.

I must say that Research In Motion understands the needs of the enterprise customer far better than Apple does. Then again, I don't recall seeing folks lined up around the block waiting to hand over hundreds of dollars for the soon-to-be-released new BlackBerry model. It's not like Apple needs to heavily discount their product to make it attractive to corporate customers, when they have a ready, willing, and able consumer market to saturate. Furthermore, I've heard stories of IT managers getting off an Apple call to discuss iPhone in the enterprise who say "they are so arrogant." Apple can afford to be with such a heavy consumer market.

Apple will have trouble competing with the price, the battery life, the extensibility, and versatility of the Blackberry in the corporate environment. Arguably, since Blackberry places no restrictions on who can and can't publish software for their device, Apple faces a challenge in the consumer space as well. I downloaded and tested the free trial of Garmin's navigation software for the BlackBerry the other day (which has Google search integrated into it.) It is much better than the iPhone map application.

Apple needs to fix the approaching black eye situation they have with the iPhone 3G model, with dropped calls and terrible battery life. I sure am glad I bought my "original formula iPhone" when I did. I don't want the new model. Until they do that, BlackBerry can clean up in the enterprise space, and make inroads in the consumer space with a less expensive device.

For the time being, I like carrying both devices, though the geek factor on such an arrangement is a little high. At least, I keep one of the two phones in my pocket, out of sight.