It's not every day a large company releases a brand new operating system. From a geeks points of view, it's darn pretty cool to watch it happen. So here are today's questions.

1. What did you think of the new Google OS?

2. Were you impressed, neutral, or disappointed with what you saw?

3. What do you think of the whole cloud computing thing, now on the verge of supporting an OS?

4. Do you think MS has anything to worry about with this new OS? Does Apple? Does Linux (Yes I know it's running the linux kernel)?

Enjoy

Category: Technology | Permalink | 3 comments

Aside from the whole anti-Catholic anti-Christian stance from all the cool people at /. I found this story via their rss feed. Vatican Debates Possibility of Alien Life. Beyond the typical posters who haven't clue about church doctrine I found few that could truly articulate what the church has taught up to this point.

Simply put, it's God world and we're just living in it. Last time I checked we fail to exist if not for his love. So if God wanted to create us AND something else he can do whatever he likes. Which brings me to all the wasted energy regarding creation. Think about it, if man can create movies that do a darn good job of making them look like another time period, don't you think GOD, who created all that we know and see, could have created the world in 6 days yet made it look like 6 bazillion old. Or visa versa? No one knows and as far as I'm concern, no one knows. That's why they're all call theories. Aliens could land tomorrow and my faith in God wouldn't be in question at all. I would be in fact yelling, "don't trust them, ther're lizards who want to eat us. "

------------

Next up Robbery Suspect Cleared By Facebook Alibi.

We obviously don't know the details but come on, didn't anyone associated with this case know about VNC?

--------------

Our last story deals with Public School Teachers Selling Lesson Plans Online.

My initial reaction of confusion turned to disgust pretty darn fast. As a former teacher I find this act disturbing and clearly someone needs to step in. Why? Because who writes a lesson plan in a vacuum? No one that I know. When I wrote mine I consulted with other teachers, books, web sites, etc etc. Heck my education helped me to write them. Should my former EE teachers get a cut? That's why I gave mine away. I posted them to my school web site for everyone to see, review, comment on and consult with me. How does any teacher state with a clear conscience that they created their lesson plan with no outside influence, information or idea? My father taught for nearly 30 years and my sister-in-law is somewhere around her 7-10th year. She is constantly refining her plans due to what the students say, act and do with her plans. Do the kids get credit for helping to weed out the rough edges?

Plus at the most basic fundamental of TEACHING how can you in good faith charge a co-worker? Shouldn't you be helping the new teachers and in return obtaining new ideas from them? Teachers are suppose to work together to benefit the STUDENTS. You don't get into to teaching to get rich. You do it to help the next generation make our world better.

I'm sorry but I don't agree.

Category: Family | Permalink | 1 comments

Note and disclaimer: I did not request, pay for samples, nor am I associated with the makers of the following product. Simply put, someone offered, (as you'll read) I tried it and what follows is the review/opinion of that product.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Before I begin, let me lay my cards on the table with regards to weight loss products. They're junk, garbage, crapola, or more specifically an utter waste of money. This comes from 28 years of running, close to 20 years in triathlons and 3 years working for both Nature Foods and GNC (college job). For me nothing beats good healthy food, exercise, plenty of sleep and managing your stress levels. Throw any of those off and you'll struggle to lose. Eat to much, eat garbage, etc etc and you're doomed. Have tons of stress in your life with no way of dealing with it and the body will react. Just ask me about that last one. You first year teaching is nothing but stress and it showed. I was watching what I ate and trying to workout, but the weight went up alittle. The stress was affecting my sleep which started the downward spiral. Second year I dealt with the stress much better and voila, the weight started to come off. So it may come as a shock to you that I am currently trying the BodyTrim On-The-Go Weight Management system. Here's the how and why.

As you know I'm on the training log site Daily Mile. One of the people I talk with, read my 2010 goals which stated, I want to lose more weight. Let me be clear, if I hadn't written something about losing more weight, and he would have offered the products he sells I would have told him to pound sand. But he offered in a very no pressure way to send me something in response to my post. I accepted and have in my possession a box of 30 pouches to sample. Given all the packaging I have seen over the years both as a employee of health stores and as a consumer my initial reaction was not good. On the side of their green box is a chart discussing Body Mass Index. The chart in itself is not the problem. The problem lies with the lack of body types. As you know there are three main body types: ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph. None of that is mentioned. So when I look at the chart I find that I am slightly overweight. I currently have 13+% body fat so I don't agree. Looking back to when I was lifting heavy I weighed 232 and was around 15%. According to their chart I was obese. So I'd advise them to either dump the chart or add more detail.

To clarify I am not only losing fat but also muscle. When I was lifting heavy my muscles grew to support the heavy loads like they are suppose to do. But I no longer want my muscles to perform that way. I want them to act more in the endurance arena then strength. This means I don't need the extra mass. That is why I now lift with lite weights but high reps in a circuit workout. I have also lowered my protein intake since I don't have the same muscle mass that I use too.

(time lapse to trying actual product)

Each packet contains their own special (guessing proprietary) blend to help you with your weight loss. Upon reading the ingredients you'll see the same stuff you always see. Something for fiber, something for energy, something to make it taste good and some form of anti-oxidants. So lets start with how it mixes. Unfortunately it doesn't. As you can see from the picture, after mixing for about 1-2 mins with a spoon the water had turned color but most of the product remained on the surface just floating there.I also have a protein powder mixing container which I got some years ago as a free add on to an order I once placed. It has a mesh like screen on the inside of the container that helps mix powder in fluid. It did not work either. If it requires anything more then just a spoon/special container to fully disperse the powder in liquid then it shouldn't be called “On-the-Go.

To properly test how this product I changed nothing in my current diet and drank it with one of my typical mid morning snacks. 1 oz of Almonds, 1 oz of Raisins. I found the drink to be rather sweat and clearly not something I would enjoy drinking all the time. Plus the chalky powder left on the top made the first few drinks rather intense with the rest just mildly flavored. After about 10-15 minutes I could feel the caffeine kick in. As you know I enjoy a good Red Bull before a workout/race just as much as the next guy but I don't walk around every day strung up on caffeine. For me having this much caffeine in your system every day is a turn off. I understand that caffeine is a thermo-genic (raises the body's temp in an effort to burn more calories over the course of the day and helps control hunger) but my wife already calls me a spaz. I don't think she'd appreciate me being even more of one. Not to mention that if I did ingest this product on a daily basis the body would acclimate/adjust and I would need to increase my intake to maintain the desire effect. Clearly not something I am prepared to do.

To be fair I don't plan on throwing this stuff out nor will I give it away because I think it would make an excellent pre-workout meal aid or a nice supplement to my pre-ride shakes after work. Meaning I can use a blender to help disperse the powder and/or be able to split the serving in two to help limit the caffeine all the time hiding the overly sweet taste.

Summary

Good:

Plenty of Caffeine to get you through the day/workout

Easy to carry pouches

Low Carbs and Calories

Bad:

Overly sweat taste – Not something you want every day

Price a bit high for what you're getting. Multi Vit + Caffeine pill would be cheaper and give almost same result.

Ugly:

Does not mix at all

No way to adjust for body weight.

Final Say

Thanks for the chance to try your product but, no sale.

If you would like to contact the DailyMile person here is his profile:

trinrgy

Category: Sports | Permalink | 2 comments

There is a scene in the movies Spaceballs where the Hero, LoneStar, tells the princess to bring only what you need. Given the serious *snicker nature of the movie she takes her industrial strength hair dryer which looks to be the size of a small tricycle. That's what triggered today's questions.

1. You've just found out that you won a weekend get away. Besides the typical clothing, what would you bring for fun? Books, hand held games, Kindle, etc etc?

2. You decide to down size house wise. What are you willing to part with?

3. What item will you absolutely not give up and it will go with you to your new place?

4. Out of all the pcs/ laptops etc you've owned, what is the one system you could never part with?

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 4 comments

Download if you dare. ;-)

Download: mp3
Show Notes via Del.icio.us
Topics: Featured artists: Halloween Edition. So Good its Scary! - BlackAlexxx, Of The I, Myven, JT Bruce, and Dan Hyer. Please send all feedback to atrfeedback@gmail.com.
Enjoy

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 0 comments

I'd advise you to keep the lights on while answering these questions.

1. Since the beginning who has played the best Dracula?

2. What is your favorite monster be it in literature or movies?

3. When you were a child what scared you the most? Dark room, being alone, etc etc???

4. What was your last Halloween costume you remember wearing?

5. Do you stay home and hand out candy or do you go out trick-r-treating?

6. What is your favorite Halloween Candy?

BoO!

Enjoy.

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 1 locked comments

To start, I haven't paid for either phone nor do I own either phone that I'm reviewing. But after about two weeks with my blackberry Curve I can now see the huge difference between the well known brands.

To be clear I've played with two different versions of the iphone with my brother in law's being the most played with. I've surfed the web, wrote emails, txt msg-ed, "calendared", "tasked" and made phone calls with both phones.

For those of you who hate long reviews, the iphone is a media device that happens to be a phone, while the blackberry is a phone that happens to be a media device.

Call clarity - I didn't think I would be able to tell but wow, call quality is not even close. Is it a verizon vs att thing or is it the HW? Who knows. But this round goes easily to blackberry.

Web Surfing - Even with Opera installed this one clearly goes to the iphone. The I can scroll in landscape mode and every picture looks perfect. The defauly browser on the blackberry is just painful while Opera does some nice tricks to get around the small screen. Showing the page for example, in micro size is neat but adds a worthless step that the iphone doesn't need. The I takes this one.

Calling - This just might be me but it must have taken me a half a dozen tries to dial my own home number from my brother-in-laws phone. I'm sorry but I just can't do touch screen especially that small. From the home screen on the blackberry you don't need to do anything but dial. It automatically makes the letters numbers and you're done; phone ringing. Now I can already hear the screams of "No one dials numbers any more you pull up the address book and go from there." Wrong! I'm providing technology support to an entire school district. So I'm dialling numbers all the time. As for the address book, menu, address icon click, select person hit call. Drop dead easy and fast.

Handling - Again this may be my dumb fingers but I can't use the I with one hand. While the blackberry is so easy to use with one hand. Their track ball pointer thing (once you adjust the sensitivity to your liking) is so easy to use; and all with one hand. Strangely it really reminds me of my Super Talent player where my thumb is doing all the work. Does the I look better while "swishing" thru menus and such? Absolutely. But it's like coverflow or a flash based website. Geewizzy the first few times then a major pain in the a## because you just want to get by it. Both are easy to use but when I'm working on a pc, taking notes, and talking on the phone, I'll take the Berry each and every time.

Multitasking - Now that I have it, I could never buy a smart phone without it. I get an email, C&P a part of the text into a calendar for a meetintg, another part into my todo list for tomorrow, and txt the remaining part to a co-worker. While the email is being replied to, the calendar is updating and the todo list is still up and running, and growing. Multitasking is a must have. I would even go as far to say that not having it would be reason to question any device that doesn't do it. what blows me away is how the I didn't have C&P for such a long time. Un-Excusable.

Interface/Interface - No one can deny the shine and polish of the I. It looks 1000X better then the Berry ever will. The sliding of the screen, the touch screen expansion of pictures, etc etc are all way beyond what the Berry has to offer. But here's the thing, the Berry just works. It's like the command line in linux. Fast, powerful, efficient and gets out of the way while doing exactly what you want it to do. No score for this one because it comes down to personal preference and I refuse to speak for others.

Apps - On pure volume of Fart apps and games, The I rules the world with it's bazillion app store. But I just loaded a number of things today that Blackberry doesn't even know about nor do they care. It's my device and they only provide the means. I very much like being able to control my own device like I use to with my Handspring/Palm. It's a tie. Do you want tons of apps and not care about how they are controlled? The I will be just fine. Have a FOSS mentality and want to control your own device? Berry be good. ;-)

Data Entry - I touched on this before but out of everything that I just mentioned, nothing separates these phones more (for me) then the keyboard. I love my Chumby but the touch-screen sometimes drives me crazy. I thought I would have problems with the small keys but today I noticed I am getting faster. I hardly make any mistakes and when I do I don't need to look at the screen to fix them. I hit the wrong button, I del it, hit the correct one and move on. I am completely blown away by those out there that can data entry on a I; you deserve a medal.

So to wrap up, if I was going to buy a phone, I still wouldn't buy either one of them. It's cool having the net with you, and your calendar, etc etc but I'm just too cheap to pay for one not to mention I would never foot the monthly bill. So while I now understand the love affair some have with their CrackBerries it still hasn't so taken over my life that I have to have one. If nothing else it proves I don't need a smart phone and my cheapo prepay is more then enough to meet my daily personal needs.

But like I said at the start, if you want to combine your mp3 player, video player and surfing device into your phone, the I is the way to go.

But if you want a more multitasking business (highly encrypted I'm told) phone then the BlackBerry is for you.

Category: Technology | Permalink | 2 locked comments

Category: Family | Permalink | 0 locked comments

Back in Jan we celebrated Poe's 100th B-day and HP's following continues to grow.

1. Who are your favorite horror writer(s)?

2. Which stories from these favorites are your most loved?

3. Which writer of this genre have you never got into?

4. What is your favorite B - Movie horror flick?

5. Which book to movie adaptation do you think came the closest?

6. In your IMHO, what movie was the worst adaptation?

Remember to whistle as you stroll past the cemetery.

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 2 locked comments

Every now and again Zack asks us to eat out. For what ever reason he must be bored with the family food rotation and some days I don't blame him. During Dad's race season I do tend to fall into a set pattern of eating. Add to that all the food from the garden and to a 5year old it must be all to much.

So after Sat mass we headed out to one of the local chain restaurants as a way to break the monotony. The result was reason enough to never venture out again; to a chain at least. To begin, my Clam Chowder was luke warm at best and so was Zack's. Funny thing it was delayed because supposedly they had to make a new batch. What, the microwave on the fritz? I should also point out that never in a million years would I ever eat on such a small table with Josh not having a proper high chair with a food tray. Instead this place gives us one of those wooden chairs that forces you to pull him up close to the table. Do they understand the reach of a 1yr old child? Simply put everything had to be moved out of his reach. Think for his own safety. That meant he spent half the night kicking both Mommy and Daddy's knees.

I guess we should talk about the music because in some bizarro universe someone decided crappy top 40 dance music was THE thing to listen to while eating. I understand that there are many styles of music out there but when it comes to eating very few are good for a nice relaxing family night out. Moving on.

Most people don't have gardens so I understand I'm a bit spoiled when it comes to flavor, but I couldn't help but think I could have done a better job at home. By the way it wasn't just me who was craving flavor, Zack tried and turned down his dessert which was some apple cinnamon thing. How flavorless does something have to be when a 5 year old doesn't want it. So I tried it to see how bad it was. No apple flavor what so ever, just a sugary cinnamon.

So I asked Lucy why I was spending 30 plus dollars for this type of experience? Her reply was perfect, "You paid to have someone cook and clean."

So let's review, at home I know what's going in the food and where it comes from. I can cook it to my liking, and modify it to meet my families needs. I can have any form of music I want playing or if I choose can have nothing playing. The table it big enough to keep everyone's knee's injury free while at the same time allow safe placement of utensils and such. Plus how fun is it to cook with your family?

So tonight I did the dishes without complaining because no chain is getting my money any time soon.

Category: Family | Permalink | 1 locked comments

Can you image my surprise to see no TQ posted on my blog this morning when in fact I had posted some rather class="strike">elloqeunte Eeloqent large pachyderm eloquent questions on Thursday. After I got over the shock, I sat down and did some serious research in order to figure out this mystery. So here are the results.

It appears that MS and T-Mobile lost part of the data. It originally appeared that all my questions were lost but now it appears some of my questions may have been saved. Also T-Mobile has sent me 100 replacement questions as a way to say sorry. Then I found out that Snow Leopard deleted the remaining part of my user entered data for every TQ. After it was done deleting my questions it reset my blog account. I received a msg from the fruit company telling me that they knew about this small issue since Sept but are diligently working on a fix.

Thankfully I backed up all my questions to my Sideki........................gulp..................

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

Category: Technology | Permalink | 4 locked comments

Where oh where do I begin? Let's start at the beginning and move quickly to where I am now.

In Aug of 08, I received my next challenge and this one was a bit tougher then the first. The school department which I worked laid off 129 teachers. Making things even worse, the powers in charge decided to cut out all Technology Education at the middle school level. When Tech Ed was added as a requirement for graduation for high School testing via MCAS I thought for sure we would be safe. For what ever reason we were not and I was out of a job with less then two weeks before the start of school. Making things even more fun Joshua was born the following week which meant Lucy was out on maternity. Oh and Zack was starting pre-K as well. But fear not Lucy and I had been planning for this for some time so our bank account was ready. We grabbed health insurance from unemployment to cover the times till Lucy's return and I went and subbed for a year to supplement the income.

During my time of subbing at the local vocational high school I got to see alot of my students. God made darn sure I got to hear what my students thought of my class, my teaching style and my background. For the most part it was all positive except for the few who were not interested in technology to the level I was pulling them. (think future K teachers, doctors and nurses who were into science but didn't really want to know about bridge designs and such) One of the biggest things being pushed today in schools is for women to get into technology. My wife has a masters in CS, the top in my Engineering class was a women, and one of my former co-workers's wife was an engineer. So for me I never really saw the problem but if you look at the numbers men do make up the majority so I guess I can see their point. Back on point, one of my former 8th grade girls, who I drove nuts by forcing her to think and solve problems, picked Engineering as her top choice for the school. So all in all I was feeling pretty darn good about what I had accomplished while teaching at the middle school level.

Months went by and my wife returned to work and I turned into Joe Landscaper. Then the time to flood the teaching market came with resumes and cover letters but unfortunately it went without very much interest being shown. So I decided to start a business. As with any small business they start slow but at least it was something that I could control by my time and effort. Then out of the clear blue sky a local school department called me for a totally unrelated position. I had applied for one position but it got cut by the budget before I was even able to interview. They were very interested in me because of my Engineering background AND my teaching background. So to make a long story shorter, I started today. My title is Instructional Technology Facilitator for the entire school district. The perks, I still get to drop Zack off at school in the morning, I'm working school hours and the location where I will be mostly is less then 5miles from my house.

God has once again taken care of us in a big way. So to all of you who knew what was going on I thank you for your prayers, thoughts, help, and support. Now if you don't mind I need to go to work.

;-)

p.s. I'm getting a blackberry as a requirement of my job. :-P~ No winners.

Category: Family | Permalink | 2 locked comments

1. what is your favorite Apple?

2. what apple does nothing for you?

3. Have you ever made/cooked/baked an apple pie? If yes which apples did you use?

4. Have you ever gone apple picking?

5. Do you like apple cider?

enjoy.

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 5 locked comments

Hi I'm you're host Jay Bigmouth and this is "Gueeeeeessss the smart phone."

Clapping

On today's show we have Mark, an engineer, triathlete, organic gardener and linux user. But we've learned that Mark is finally entering the world of smart phones so we've asked him to join us today.

So Mark you are finally taking the plunge?

Yup

So when are you getting your new phone?

Sometime next week I think. It's already been ordered.

Are you excited about finally owning a smart phone?

Yeah it should be cool. I hope it lives up to all the hype.

I guess the big question on everyone's mind is... why now?

Easy. Someone finally gave me a legitimate reason for getting one.

Well folks that's all we are going to give you in the way of hints. So now it's your turn to click on that comment link and tell us which phone you think Mark will be getting.

One guess per person. The winner(s) will be announced when a picture of the actual phone is posted to this blog.

Good luck everyone.

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 3 locked comments

If you're not that interested in reading about my training and racing you might want to sit this one out. If you find us athlete types strangely fascinating read on. Just remember you have been warned.

Well I finally ran my last In Season race for this 09 year. It's the Discover Assonet 5K and it helps to benefit St. Bernards church. It was my slowest result of the year at that distance but it turns out I entered the race slightly injured. Earlier in the week I did a speed workout and felt my left Achilles tighten up. I gave it an extra day off but during the race I could feel it. It was the start of Achilles Tendinitis(AT). If you recall I battled that last year and it wasn't until I went to the Acupuncturist that I got over it. This time I caught it very early and have already started treatment so I expect to be back at it by Nov.

RUN

Since we're on the subject of running let's start there. I'm a minute and change faster then last year and my new 5K pr is 20:32. This comes with very little off season training due to the above mentioned AT in the right heel. I want to get back in the 19s for the 5K and to be perfectly honest I know I can do it if I do a number of things.

1. Keeping working on my core.

2. Lose more weight - I"m shooting for 190 by June. I'm at 196-198 right now.

3. Get a better base in where running 5 miles is easy.

4. Get speed work in much earlier.

BIKE

It's very hard to complain about the bike given I didn't really train during June given all the rain we had. Yes I "snuck" a few rides in here and there but nothing of value. I honestly believe it was my early season riding that got me through the month of June. When July arrived I rode but because I didn't have a solid base I really couldn't do much speed work. Even so I matched (in wet conditions) or beat last year's Tri bike split times. As for the century, I had one of the best rides in recent history. Looking back it was a near perfect ride. Pushing when the body let me and recovering when I was getting gassed. I finished in 5:25 which was way below my predicted 5:40. So, do I think I can do better next year? Yes.

1. Lose more weight - Notice a pattern developing here? ;-)

2. Get more core and leg workouts in the off season.

3. Go for as long as possible on the road in the winter, and start as early as possible in the spring.

4. Get some quality speed workouts in with the Tri Bike.

SWIM

Ah yes the swim. I'll admit it I have a love/hate relationship with the pool. This year saw me greatly increase my early season weekly distance but cutting back from 3 to 2 days. The pool I use is at my old college which is 25 minutes away. That means to get a 1hr workout in I was spending 2 hours. Under horrendous conditions I matched '08s time in the swim and was only 15 seconds behind in my other Tri. I know it was my fault for that time because I followed the person who went off course. That means I don't really need to swim three days a week to maintain what I have. I also know for a fact I burnt myself out by mid July. Looking back at my logs I was just going through the motions and I need to avoid that next year.

Swimming is not like running or biking where volume will automatically improve your times. Swimming, at my level is all about technique and unless I pay someone (not likely) to coach me, I won't get any faster.

1. Start swimming about a month later.

2. Don't up the distance so fast.

3. Try swimming for time rather then laps. I notice when I

try to keep track of lap count I let my stroke go.

4. Optional - Get someone to watch me swim. This should help me identify

my problems.

5. To Try - Doing speed workouts with my zoomers on. I've read that if you wear them you'll go faster then if you didn't. This in turn exposes any issues you have with your stroke. Can't hurt so I'll give it a try.

GOALS for 2010

If Lucy ever reads this she'll get annoyed because at this moment in my life I'm the fastest I've ever been as a triathlete. Yup I seem to have finally balanced (somewhat) out the run and bike. But I want to get even faster. I don't know how many years I have left that the body will allow improvement so I gotta take it while I can. Eventually Age will become a limiting factor. So here goes.

1. In 2010 beat all of 2009 times for 5Ks and Triathlons.

2. Get down to 190lbs or close.

3. Break the 20 minute barrier and run a 5K in the 19s.

4. Avg 22 or better in at least 1 triathlon.

5. STAY INJURY FREE.

Well if you've made it this far, bravo to you. Yes as you can see us Athletes are never satisfied and always want to get better. As evidence of that, a parting story. The night before the Dartmouth Tri my wife asked me what the ultimate result would be. I told her that I have always wanted to place (1-2-3) in my age group. I have placed in my age group as a Clydesdale (200lbs and over) a number of times and even won it once but I had never placed in my pure-with-no-help age group. Well at Dartmouth I took third and even got a medal. Supposedly I passed the guy who had 3rd place with less then 1/2mi to go in the run. Pretty cool stuff given I had never beaten this guy ever before. But by the time I got home I was already wondering how I could improve next year in an attempt to maybe, just maybe have a chance at 2nd in my age group. Needless to say Lucy is right, I'll never be satisfied.

Thanks for reading and God Bless.

Category: Sports | Permalink | 1 locked comments

The worse thing I could have done today is show my son Stellarium on my Ubuntu machine. All he wants to see is Jupiter and it's moons. So let's see where you land in the whole planet love thing.

1. What is your favorite planet besides Earth in our solar system?

2. Did you ever want to be an astronaut? If so what replaced it? If no, why do you think it didn't appeal to you?

3. Do you think we spend enough on Space exploration?

4. Now that some form of water has been found on Mars what is your opinion regarding life on the red planet?

Enjoy and Live Long and prosper.

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 3 locked comments

Just to preface this entry, I have never said and never will say The Fruit company doesn't know how to market their ultra slick and rather geewizz products. At present time, they are the master and unlike MS they have *cough earned their market share. With that out of the way I would like to focus more on HOW their new product is being handled then the actual product itself. But first a few words about me.

No matter how many times I play a formula1 game I will never be as good if I instead actually drove the car. Why? Tactile and bodily (proper use of word? Bah who cares ;-)) feedback. That is why I loathe indoor training so much. I would rather, and have, gone out in 14 degree weather bundled up, then head off to some gym and ride some lifecycle machine while watching TV or listening to music/podcasts/etc while sweat drips to the floor. With a bike there is balance, and a certain feel that only comes with being out there. You have the wind in your face, the brakes have a certain feel that changes as they heat up. Nature adds it's own sound track and the air is better then anything any purification system will ever provide. The same can be said of reading and music. I love plopping a cd into the tray, sitting back in my living room, and reading the liner notes or lyrics as the music fills the room. I love to read a book in my comfy LayZBoy with a nice Green Tea. Turning the pages, and getting close to the end are all part of the experience. Then seeing the finished book in my den on the shelf brings back memories and may even warrant a re-read some day. In the world of digital all of that is stripped away.

Now I do agree there is a certain cool factor about being able to carry a 100 books with you in the space of magazine. I actually have a few books of the bible on my PDA (Handspring Edge FTW) and read them when I'm in line at the supermarket. But I much prefer to use my Bible at home.

So with all of that said lets look at how this new product is being presented with the RDF turned up to 11.

source: Gizmodo

Title: Uses the word Redefine instead of change. Why? Because Redefine carries more cache.

They redefined print media elevating it to a new paradigm.

vs

They helped print media move to digital.

The title is equivalent to saying that the FruitPhone redefined how we make calls. Ummm, no it didn't. You dial or use memory dialling, you connect, you talk, you hang up. The last time I checked the Kindle already allows you to read books, get newspapers, etc etc on a slim device. Oh and before them there was the Sony Reader. And before them was...you get the point. In fact most of today's cell phones have in fact gotten people to not use the phone as a phone but rather a txt messaging device. Did anyone say that Nokia redefined the phone market?

Next up

"The logic here is that textbooks are sold new at a few hundred dollars, and resold by local stores without any kickbacks to publishers. A DRM'd one-time-use book would not only be attractive because publishers would earn more money, but electronic text books would be able to be sold for a fraction of the cost, cutting out book stores and creating a landslide marketshare shift by means of that huge price differential. (If that device were a tablet, the savings on books could pay for the device, and save students a lot of back pain.)"

There are so many problems with this statement it's not funny.

When you buy a brand new Honda from a dealer they earn a profit. You then turn around and reseal the car. You get some of your money back on the original purchase but Honda doesn't get a second cut. Why on God's Green earth should anyone? Only people associated with big media, music, print, movies want this sort of ongoing charging scam. The rest of the world gets the whole concept of "When you buy something it's yours to do what you want with it."

Electronic books will not be sold at a discount just as electronic music is not either. All the reasons quoted on why music prices will drop are the same ones being trotted out for digital books. In fact the book industry would be wise to drop the prices by a very small token amount and keep the savings as additional profit. So in the end we'll end up like we did with music where we have hardware lock in (Early days of itunes) and tons of DRM. So the price won't change much and you'll have more restrictions. Talk about a real defining moment.

Next up channel control. As it is now, getting an independent book on the shelf at a large book chain store is next to impossible. Just ask Cory Doctorow. But at least if you have little mom and pop stores there is a chance. We've seen what happened in the music industry when Tower Records and such went away. They took all the mom and pop stores with them.(They were their way out before that but that put the final nail in) But now the choices of where to get your music have been greatly limited. Less choice equals less competition and that can only lead to one thing, higher prices. (Thankfully sites like Jamendo.com are out there but they have an uphill battle) The same thing will occur with books and it will be just like radio where the large media companies will control all the channels.

"creating a landslide marketshare shift by means of that huge price differential. (If that device were a tablet, the savings on books could pay for the device, and save students a lot of back pain.)"

I touched on the fallacy of lower prices (RedBox is another fine example of finding the perfect price point only to be told by large media that the prices are too low) but adding the no resale "feature" in will in fact not help students. Resale is one of the biggest ways almost every college student I know gets their money back. I remember selling my music, english, chemistry books, etc etc. There was an entire market set up which was aided by notes. When I sold my music book I gave all my notes and past tests to the girl. I got all of my money back minus 5 bucks and in return the buyer got an already highlighted text, plenty of study material and some insight into the teacher. It helped when I showed my transcript and she saw the A as my grade. We both benefited. If given the choice most students will take what I was selling that day because it's almost priceless.

"Some magazine company is also considering Adobe Air as a competing option for digital magazines, but without a revenue/distribution system that jTunes has, it seems unlikely."

As you can see the slant continues throughout the entire article. If people can get my podcast delivered to their mp3 player of choice why can't people just subscribe to VeloNews, or Shape, or Organic Gardening in the same way? If Adobe Air can send me updates across three OSs why can't they handle subscriptions? Heck the producers could just email it to you.

Simply put we are once again being told that barriers exist that don't, that ease of use is not there and that you can't do certain things at the present time when it fact it's all lies. Think about it, your laptop/netbook can do all of this right now. Instead of convergence we are seeing the creation of a product for no other reason then DRM. Don't believe me, head over to DailyLit.com. Stories right to your inbox. So if your laptop can already handle this, why buy another product?

I'll end with this. I'm sure you've heard of the old expression that if you were ever going to start over with a new nation/govt the first thing you'd do is shoot all the lawyers. Not a nice thing to say but there you go. I personally think they got it wrong, For me, the first to go would be the ....hold on a second my phone is ringing...Hello? What? ......No I don't want to buy any personal hygiene cream! ........No I said I don't want to buy anything from you... I don't care if this is a limited time offer ......BLOODY marketing people.

Category: Technology | Permalink | 2 locked comments

Download: mp3
Show Notes via Del.icio.us
Topics: Featured artists: Steve ALLEN (Robert Pieculewicz) - Sounds like teen a teen spirit; Leaving Richmond - Open Your Eyes; Luke Rake - Gordian Knot; Prophecy Within - Through Time. Please send all feedback to atrfeedback@gmail.com.
Enjoy

Category: Entertainment | Permalink | 0 locked comments

I've come to the conclusion that unless I write in some form of cryptic code, any mention of a certain fruit company will bring all the fanboy/zealots out of the wood work. See I made the mistake in my last entry to ask for information before I settled on a final opinion. Tim was nice enough to provide some additional input Fruit related and Ed once again had to waste precise time and effort typing in the obvious. Don't get me wrong Ed is a good friend of Falconportal but what he said shouldn't need to be said. I.e. stuff should be built better.

Unfortunately I got other forms of feedback by way of email. In it I was once again treated to the reality distortion field by people who can't bear to look outside the Fruit World.

So here is the deal. I was emailed by a person who I guess was following me on twitter, then checked my site and have now taken it upon himself/herself to have me get a fruitphone. Their premise goes something like this. When you buy the fruitphone you are not just getting a phone but a replacement for so many other things. Their example goes something like this. You like to ride a bike and run. The Runkeeper App can help you do that and they went on to list all these neat feature the app has. They continued by showing how if I only had a fruitphone I wouldn't need a bike computer because I could just use my phone with a soon to be released holder for your bike. So being the good little engineer I headed off to the video they sent me and watched. The idea is a sound one but ( apologize for putting it this way but I can't think of a way to say it) if you actually ride that mountain bike the way it was meant, that stand will get snapped off in the first 30minutes of your ride. Between branches, falls, jumps, and bail outs (where you let the bike go thus allowing you to get off the bike before something bad happens to your body) it just won't last.

But I decided to play the numbers game and see how the whole thing would play out.

Since they mentioned RunKeeper I'll go with it. It should be noted up front that if you run this app on the original iphone your data will not be accurate so the 3G/3Gs is a must.

So let's start keeping track of pricing.

$100 for G and $200 GS.

RunKeeper was going for $10 but now has a free version and a pro paid. $10

The bike Mount for phone goes for %60. Monthly fee for the iphone: I've seen 50 a month all the way up to 150. Two year contracts are required so I'll use $50 month.

50 * 24 = $1200

Phone = 100

SW = 10

Stand = 60

Total = $1370.

Now lets go into my world. The world that includes 20 plus years of cycling experience.

My phone cost alittle over $35 with tax and S&H

I don't have a contract but I do pay 100 a year for prepay. So $200 for 2yrs.

If I were to purchase Garmin's top of the line unit I would pay about $550.

That makes my total

total = $785

A savings of $585 over the fruit phone option.

fruitphone version – No cadence, No Heart Rate, No auto snyc, No virtual training partner, No Multisport, No Altimeter, and No power meter.

Weight of Garmin set up = 3.7 oz. I won't beat a dead horse, the phone case/stand along weighs more then that. Sorry but more weight equals slower speeds. Oh and did I mention, I still have $585 to spend on say a top of the line netbook?

"But Mark you can't run with the Edge!

Fair enough. To solve that problem I'll buy the Forerunner® 310XT instead.

This device is water resistant to something like 50 feet which means I don't have to worry about a little water. It Needs no stand, and comes in the size of a watch. All for $170 less then the Edge. That brings my savings from $585 to $757.

Here's the real kicker, Cnet proved that driving while talking/texting on the phone is worse then being partially inebriated. Do you really want that lack of focus transferred to riding a bike?

Yup, you really convinced me to get an fruitphone. (rolls eyes and laughs) Look if you like your phone, I'm happy for you. Just stop trying to convince me I need one. If for no other reason, I would smash the screen on my first mountain bike ride.

Category: Technology | Permalink | 4 locked comments

I found this article about Apple putting multiple sensors in their phones. Since I'm on the outside looking in, I will put forth what my opinion and those of you who own the devices can reply. This should help me better understand so I can form a more educated opinion.

Can you use Nike+ with it? If not you can always use Run Keeper which means the phone will be exposed to the elements, high humidity and sweat. This app is listed in their top sales charts via the app store. (I know this how? Follow the guy who wrote it via twitter) So if it's an accepted app then apple would know people are running with their phones. That leads me to believe the phone was built to a higher standard. Sorta like watches. Some watches have no water resistance versus (for example) Timex Ironmans that are made to be used in training and racing conditions normally found in a triathlon. I know tons of people who run with their ipods so by adding the audio functionality in the phone and marketing it as an all in one, wouldn't the end user assume ( I know I know, bad words) the same level of weather resistance as their audio player?

Still 50-50 on this one so if you have some insight, let me have it. thx.

Category: Technology | Permalink | 3 locked comments