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Why isn’t anyone calling it what it is (New Apple TV = Set-top box)

100901-atv-press-g03On a scale from 1to10, the new Apple TV is a set-top box.

Apple announced today the new version of Apple TV, a tiny little device for streaming HD movies to your home television.  This is very cool – the form factor looks awesome and beautiful, as we might expect of an Apple product.  It’s eschewed the HDD in favor a small amount of flash memory for programs and buffering, and otherwise is streaming only.  A bunch of cool streaming services (like Netflix, Flickr, etc.) are also embedded.  All of this is great.

What’s funny to me is that no one seems willing to call this thing what it actually is: a set-top box. (Abeit a tiny one that’s cool looking.)  Engadget, Crunchgear, Boy Genius Report, and about a zillion other blogs have all posted about Apple’s announcement.  But all of them are consistently leaving out the set-top nomenclature which has, at this point, accumulated a lot of negative mojo.  It’s also conspicuously absent from Apple’s press release.

100901-atv-press-g01I think this is because no one likes set-top boxes. They’re clunky, take up space on the media console, take up an HDMI input on your receiver or TV, add a remote control to your coffee table, and cost extra $$$.  Lots of companies are focusing instead on embedded devices, including Google TV and VUDU.  (Disclaimer – I’ve worked with VUDU in the past.)  Basically these folks embed their streaming services into televisions and Blu-ray players, so that instead of needing an extra device on the console, you stream content directly into the device you already own.  This is more efficient for the consumer, and adds value to the manufacturers of devices people are already planning to buy (like TV’s and BDP’s).  It sort of leaves hanging the folks who make set-top boxes, like ROKU and Apple.

It’s just strange to me that no one is willing to call this thing what it is.  One blogger refers to the new Apple TV as “streaming-focused device…” which is true by the way.  But it’s also a friggin’ set-top box.

100901-atv-press-g06I don’t know why this bothers me.  I’m an admitted Apple fanboi.  I’ve had three generations of iPhone, own several iPods, am on my second Macbook, and want to get an iMac. I might even get an Apple TV – it looks sexy. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s a set-top box, and I think it should be labeled (pigeonholed) as such.

If I were going to rate the new Apple TV set-top box (sight unseen) on a numeric scale from 1to10, I’d call it a 9 (until they prove me wrong.)  But if I were going to numerically rate their fishy attempt to avoid an ugly label that is nevertheless true, I’d call it a 2.  The sauce is weak.

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Please be a Smart Alec

smartalec088On a scale of 1 to 10, the Smart Alec from Tom Bihn is smarter than I am.

Tom Bihn is a boutique bag maker.  Our senior correspondent, Sol, remembers Tom Bihn from his college days in Santa Cruz in 1995, though now the company is based out of Seattle, WA.  As (both) of our steady readers are aware, I have long been on a search for the *perfect* laptop bag.  This might be a messenger bag, it might be a shoulder bag (as distinct from a “messenger bag”), or it might be a backpack with a laptop sleeve. I haven’t found the perfect bag yet, and that does include the Smart Alec (the backpack which is the subject of this review.)  But I will say that this bag that the folks at Tom Bihn sent me comes closer than anything else I’ve used so far.

That’s no faint praise.  I’ve used some good packs (back and otherwise) and I’ve used some terrible ones.  I look at size, comfort, versatility, aesthetics, materials, and a number of other categories.  On almost every level the Tom Bihn Smart Alec kicks ass.  I’ll dive into some details.

The bag is a good size.  You can fit a remarkable amount of crap inside, especially considering the clean, svelte look of the bag.  It has a narrow profile and a sparse exterior (which I like), and that appearance belies a capacious interior with just the right amount of organizational versatility (i.e., pockets.)  :)

smartalec087Comfort is the (only) area where the Smart Alec falls a little short for me.  I’ve been looking for a bag that suits all purposes, which is admittedly a patently unfair criteria.  I use it for walking around conferences, for car commuting, and for commuting on my bicycle.  The bicycle commuting was the only issue for me – the backpack straps were a little thin and hurt my shoulders a bit.  This is when I’m loading the bag fairly heavily (macbook pro, charger, clothes, shoes, notebook and a cup of coffee), and riding a relatively long time (45-55 minutes.) With that load and over that length of time, I found that the bag hurt my shoulders a bit.  Not unduly, but not cushy either.

In terms of versatility, I’ve never seen a better designed townie pack.  (That’s as opposed to a mountaineering pack.)  The laptop sleeve, called a brain cell, clips into the pack with the hands down absolute best clip system I’ve ever used; one that’s easy to open and close, and that fits intuitively and easily.  The sleeve is easy to install and remove, and makes the bag useable for a variety of purposes from commuting to grocery shopping to day hikes. It appears to be pretty darn safe too, as this video demonstrates. (Wonder how many takes it took.)  It also has great pockets, intermal and external both.  The top loader style has a wide, oval-shaped main opening that’s easy to open and to use, and the two side pockets are elliptically shaped and proved an enormous amount of space without any sense of being bulbous or oversized.  (Easy to fit a Nalgene bottle in there.)

Aside from long distance, heavily weighted (dis)comfort, the other main issue is price.  $130 for a daypack isn’t the *most* exorbitant price I’ve ever heard of, but it’s far from the most reasonable.  If your budget is flexible (i.e. you have disposable income) this is a great buy.  Also, an argument could certainly be made that this bag will last a lifetime, and pay for itself over a period of blissful, pack-filled years.  Certainly in the course of 6 months of daily, all-weather use, I’ve seen no signs of wear or fallibility, and that’s pretty impressive considering how much I abuse my gear. This pack ain’t cheap, but in my estimation it’s giving damn good value for your money.

I’m not the first person to review this pack, and likely I won’t be the last.  They’ve been making this design for a number of years, and it doesn’t seem to have changed much.  That’s for good reason – they made it the right way.  Both MacNN and our friends at LIVEdigitally reviewed this pack in the past, as have others.  But my review is better.  Smarter.  Bigger. Longer.  Uncut.  If I were forced to give this pack a numeric rating between 1 and 10, it would get a 9.  They did it right, and aside from a minor quibble or three, I’m pretty impressed.  You can buy one here, right now, and you probably should.

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Irony, peace offering, happenstance, or the all mighty dollar?

Screen shot 2010-05-14 at 11.08.36 AMOn a scale from 1to10, I just can’t decide what this means.

In my email today (picture below) I got an email from Apple, pushing the new Adobe Creative Suites software.  In the midst of the brouhaha over Apple trying to kill Adobe’s Flash software, they’re still pushing other Adobe products.  Is this:

  • Apple being fair-minded?
  • Apple making an explicit peace offering ?
  • Just a random occurrence based on product availability and consumer email marketing schedules?
  • Is Apple just trying to make more money on a lucrative software suite ? (likely)
  • Is Apple being ironical? (That would be awesome, but not super likely methinks.)

In any case, it caught my eye, so I’m sharing it with you, satisfied reader.  You know who you are.

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How to fold the perfect t-shirt… with an iPad

On a scale from 1to10, it’s hard to justify a $600 purchase of a device for which I don’t have a clear purpose.  That didn’t stop me from buying it anyway, but since making my purchase I’ve struggled to find new ways to make use of the iPad.

It’s awesome for playing music, reading eBooks, and watching movies – the Netflix app rocks if you already have an account.  But still, is all that worth the six hundo? Probably.

But, just in case you needed one more reason to own an iPad, see the video below.

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Some fun quotes for a Saturday

All of these are, on a scale from 1to10, quotes that make me smile for one reason or another.

“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend.  Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”

- Grouch Marx

“I don’t want the world.  I just want your half.”

- Ana Ng, TMBG

“Sweet buttery Jesus, please STOP comparing these to AK’s!”

- Random shopper on Deals.Woot.com, talking about the AK-47 vs. the AR 15 assault rifle.  :)


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Too Much “Concept,” not enough “Album”

blackribbonscoverShooter Jennings has a new album out.  On a scale from 1 to 10, it’s fair to middling.

For the uninitatied, Shooter Jennings is a musician, and the son of former outlaw country star Waylon Jennings.  I say “former” because Waylon sadly passed on about 8 years ago.  Nevertheless, his music continues to rock and roll me today.

But this post is really about Shooter, and his new concept album “Black Ribbons.”  SavingCountryMusic.com has a thorough and interesting review on the album, as well as some interpretations as to what Shooter was, well, shooting for in this opus. The author sort of vacillates between not really loving it and trying to acknowledge that Shooter was trying to do something big,maybe even something epic, with this effort.

ShooterJennings-796080I can’t do as good a job as they did in interpreting what Shooter was aiming for, why it’s important politically, socially, or to the annals of Country (and other) music.  What’s more, I don’t really care to analyze it that way.  I like Shooter’s music, particularly his 2007 album, The Wolf.  I like his voice, I like his arrangements, I like his melodies, and I like the fact that he cheerfully injects a bit of cheesiness into his rock.  He doesn’t didn’t take himself too seriously – that’s shone through his music like a ray of molten sunshine peering into the south end of a north-bound donkey.

Black Ribbons doesn’t feel like that.  According to SCM.com Shooter is intentionally leaving “Country” behind.  That’s cool – I like good music, of whatever stripe, flavor or variety.  And Black Ribbons isn’t bad music.  It just feels a little confused, a little angry, and sometimes a little boring.  I’m not trying to bash on Shooter (though I guess I kind of am bashing) or his music. Hell, I can’t make a rock album, angry or otherwise.  But I’m just not that into this one.  I’ll keep listening to it, but it’s probably not going on my iPhone. I only have 8 gigs after all.

In the end, this album (which is clearly a concept album) is a little too heavy on the concept, and  a little too lite on the album.

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Facebook? MySpace? Friendster? Pssshaw. How about Tagworld?

Picture yourself in 2006.  Social networking was… nascent?  Maybe.  At the very least the whole space was still figuring itself out.  Lots of different networks were available.  MySpace was the biggest kid on the block.  Facebook was for students only – and only students at certain schools.  Bebo, Hi5, even Friendster were all big deals.  You know who else was in the mix?  Tagworld. And they were kind of a big deal.

Screen shot 2010-03-18 at 3.08.43 PMToday, all most of these networks have a place.  Obviously Facebook is kicking ass. MySpace still has tens of millions of users, many some of them active. Even Friendster, for instance, is insanely popular in the Philippines.  Orkut, Google’s social network is very big in Brazil (though Facebook’s presence is growing there.) But what has become of Tagworld?  Nothing good.

Tagworld was a big deal at one point – big enough to secure $7.5 million in VC funding form Draper Fisher Jurvetson.  They differentiated via their widget platform (among other features).  Tagworld morphed into “Social Project” in 2007, and was later purchased by Viacom who also had a stake in the company.  Today, Social Project primarily focuses on a product called Flux, which “lets content creators build unique, customized, connected communities to grow their audience.”  Whatever.

tagworldWhat’s interesting is that some people do seem to still visit Tagworld – to me though, the site seems effectively dead.  If you visit the home page, you’re greeted with a stunning bit of verbiage (look to the right.) To me, between the lines this says: “we’re over it – if you want to keep using it, run it yourself.”  Some members do seem to visit and update their profiles – many of the public profiles on the homepage have updates newer than the last 24 hours.  One of these has a post that’s only 20 hours old.  Interestingly though, her most recent comment says: “I will never understand tag world :[ soooo confusing"  Ha!

Tagworld turned itself into Social Project, and got bought by Viacom to make a product called Flux.  Ok, cool.  Got it.  But the fact is, Tagworld is done.  Users don't know how it works. They've turned over operations to the user community.  There isn't any link to "About Us." And if you look at Compete scores, they're below 15K uniques. (Forget about Social Project [thought it wasn't intended to be a destination site seemingly.])  It’s bigger than 1to10, but not real good for a social network.  If anyone at Viacom is listening (unlikely) just close it down.  It’s done.  Stick a fork in it .

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Google Fiber-Optic Service Should Come To Foster City

I read in Techcrunch today about Google’s plans to offer broadband Fiber-Optic service to select communities.  Google has requested that people offer submissions advocating for their communities (they suggest pictures, YouTube links, etc.)  I thought, what better way to advocate for Foster City (where I live) than a blog post.  :)

“Hey Google!  Foster City gets a 10 out of 10.  Give us Fiber-Optic Broadband.”

Here’s a satellite view of Foster City (from Google Maps):

View Larger Map

And here’s the statement I wrote about our community, explaining why Foster City should become a test-bed community:

Foster City is a vibrant, multicultural community in the heart of Silicon Valley.  Adjacent to San Mateo, and located squarely between San Francisco and San Jose, Foster City is a family-oriented neighborhood filled with Latino, Indian, Asian and Caucasian nationalities who mingle together seamlessly and provide color and culture to the entire community.
A strong fiber optic network would in no way enhance the safety, multiculturalism or flavor of the community.  :)  However, because the population is both diverse and largely employed in the technology sector, Google would have a fantastic test-bed of users who represent different ethnic backgrounds and simultaneously understand and work in the technology sector, and are therefore equipped to provide useful feedback on the deployment and effectiveness of the service.

Foster City is a vibrant, multicultural community in the heart of Silicon Valley.  Adjacent to San Mateo, and located squarely between San Francisco and San Jose, Foster City is a family-oriented neighborhood filled with Latino, Indian, Asian and Caucasian nationalities who mingle together seamlessly and provide color and culture to the entire community.

A strong fiber optic network would in no way enhance the safety, multiculturalism or flavor of the community.  :)  However, because the population is both diverse and largely employed in the technology sector, Google would have a fantastic test-bed of users who represent different ethnic backgrounds and simultaneously understand and work in the technology sector, and are therefore equipped to provide useful feedback on the deployment and effectiveness of the service.

Come on Google.  Let’s make it happen. If you want to contact me, feel free to email me at david [at] 1to10reviews [dot] com (via Gmail on Google Apps for small businesses.)  Foster City would be a perfect test bed, and you know it.  Bring it on home.


Foster City on the 4th of July

Foster City on the 4th of July

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011110 – Palindromes are sweet

On a scale of 1to10, palindromes are neat and a little trippy. Since we’ve been talking about dates anyway, and my buddy Jim just brought this to my attention, I thought I’d share it with you. Today is January 11th, 2010. 01/11/10

011110

Sweet. I’ve always liked palindromes. For the uninitiated, they’re words that spell out the same way in either direction. Simple ones are words like mom, or dad. A favorite one of mine that I learned in the 10th grade goes as follows:
“Satan oscillate my metallic sonatas”

Do you have a favorite palindrome or word game? If so, please share it in the comments so we can all enjoy. In the meantime, enjoy this great example of Nerd Rock by They Might Be Giants: “I Palindrome I” (notably not a palindrome, which is part of the fun.)

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The entirely non-exclusive and barely official unboxing of the Google Nexus One Android Phone

On a scale of 1to10, the Google Nexus One is a sexy bitch.  Sol decided to pick one up on the way to Vegas (he lost his iPhone in Kettleman City) and had a Nexus One overnighted to our hotel in Las Vegas where we’re staying for the Consumer Electronic Show (CES.)

This is our 5th CES in a row, and it’s our annual tradition to drive.  We stopped for some lunch and Sol lost his phone, which is normally a panic-inducing nightmare of an experience.  But Sol stayed pretty zen about it (he’s in a good place right now.)  As it turned it out, it wasn’t really lost, and because I’m a genius we found it in about 20 minutes. But by then the Nexus One was ordered, and it only seems right to have one. After all, we’re at CES and we love shiny new phones the way little kids love puppies, or the way gravediggers like a good exhumation.

Below is the video of our unboxing. Ours is non-exclusive, non-exhaustive, and only mildly interesting. You can find much more professional (and informative) unboxings on Into Mobile, on Engadget, and on Ubergizmo (among others.) But Sol is better looking that anyone at those other pubs, so we’ll add ours to the mix anyway.

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