April 2007 Archives

Playlist is reporting that a Bill has been introduced in Congress that my save Internet radio. The Copyright Royalty Board changed regulations for Internet broadcasters which forced commercial Internet radio stations to pay a higher flat royalty fee. The change was going to eat up to 60% of revenues for some smaller broadcasters which would put them out of business.

Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Don Manzullo (R-Ill.) filled the legislation that would override the CRB and keep things virtually status quo. This is a story to keep a close eye on.

Like a drug addict my usage started small. An IM here, an IM there. I thought IMing was a fun novelty that I could stop using any time I wanted. Friends asked me, "What's your IM? I've got something to show you." In return for my IM username I'd receive a link to a funny video of a cat on a treadmill, a kid trying to launch a bottle rocket from his butt crack, or a dancing banana singing about peanut butter jelly time.

Before I knew what had happened I had over 50 people on my buddy list. Coworkers were IMing me on a regular basis to ask important questions like, "Can you update this PDF," "What's the PMS color of the company logo," or "Have you seen this great video of a cat on a treadmill?"

IM had become an important communication tool in my personal and professional life, which is why this morning was so traumatic.

After launching iChat I was greeted with the message, "Could not connect to AIM. Try Again. The server message was Auth: Db SendError." I've never seen this message before so tried logging in a few more times. None of my coworkers were having similar problems, and I was able to log into an old unused IM account. Even the AOL website gave me a login error message, "The service you are trying to reach is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later."

"Temporarily unavailable"? What does that even mean? Only my account is unavailable? Was it something I did? Something I said?

Visting the Customer Service section of the AOL website I discovered that I couldn't telephone, email or use Live Chat because I'm not a paying member. Clicking on Live Chat was a fun experience. A new small window popped open with a message that read, "Click to Launch Live Chat." Clicking that button popped open another browser window with the original Customer Service homepage. Nice little loop they have set up.

I was getting frustrated.

After some panicked clicking around the AOL website, I stumbled upon a separate help section for AOL IM, which consisted of about 10 questions and answers. None of which addressed my issue. My last ditch effort was to click the "Forgot my password" link, even though I hadn't forgotten, to see if that would do anything. I never received the promised password email, but I could now log into my account.

All was right with the world.

But this got me thinking about how dependent we can become on not just technology, but proprietary technology. AOL is the IM de-facto standard in the good old US of A. What if AOL goes out of business? What if AOL decides to close the AOL IM system to programs like iChat? What if AOL decides that anyone who lives in Massachusetts doesn't deserve to use the AOL service?

Does it seem fair that AOL offer no option for customer service to free AOL IM users? Why not offer a paid customer service option. I'd gladly have paid $2 to have a live chat session. Anything to restore my dependancy on instant messaging.

Speaking of which, I have to go watch a video about some skate boarding kid landing crotch first on a handrail.

Panic has released Coda, an all-encompassing web development tool. This tiny little application includes a text editor, ftp, css editor, preview window, terminal, and reference materials all in one application.

From Panic's website:
"So, we code web sites by hand. And one day, it hit us: our web workflow was wonky. We’d have our text editor open, with Transmit open to save files to the server. We’d be previewing in Safari, running queries in Terminal, using a CSS editor, and reading references on the web. “This could be easier,” we realized. “And much cooler."

And boy are they right. I've only spent about an hour with Coda, but so far it's living up to the "easier" and "cooler" part of Panic's description.

Just last night I spent a couple of hours doing some web development on my iMac. I had BBEdit, CSSEdit, Camino, Safari, Terminal, Transmit all opened and spread around my screen. If it weren't for Mac OS X's Expose, it would have been an unbearable mess of windows. With Coda, I could have been working with one window.

There is something to be said for the Mac aesthetic of mono-tasking applications, but Coda takes that philosophy in a different directly. Web development is "the task," so using one application for this task makes perfect sense.

After I play around with the application some more I'm sure I'll find some downsides, but for right now it's definitely worth checking out.

Standford University is researching protein folding and needs your help. Protein folding? Yes, that's right, protein folding. I'm not too clear on the specifics myself, but protein folding is linked to disease. From the Standford website:

"Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery.

Moreover, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes."

Bottom line: Folding @ Home might lead to cures for diseases such as Alzheimer's & Parkinson's.

I've installed the software on four computers and haven't noticed any real performance hit while the calculations run in the background. In any case, I feel pretty good knowing that my computers are being used for a noble cause. I urge everyone to download the software and start folding those proteins!

By the way, my Donator username is Toyman and I've been donating my time under the team number 57391.

Saturday was the big day. A very nice Comcast technician installed two cablecards and removed the Comcast DVR from my home. While the TiVo cablecard installation went smoothly, there were a few "oh my God" moments. Our conversation went back and forth several times before he understood that the TIVO required two, yes two, cablecards. He also told me, "I've never even seen one of these [TiVo]. Usually it's just installing one card in a TV." Overall, not too bad for thirty minutes and no major snags.

So far the TiVo has been working flawlessly, which is more than I can say for the owners. My wife and I loaded up the little guy with a couple dozen season pass requests, as well as a couple Wish List recordings. A day goes by and we're wondering why the TiVo isn't recording any TiVo Suggestions for us. It turned out that the Wish Lists were going nuts recording things at all hours of the day, so the TiVo couldn't record anything else. Our bad.

If anyone has any TiVo tips, please comment on this post.

For the past year I've been relying on wireless G to power my home network. At first I started with the famously popular Linksys WRTG54 router. The early versions of this router are known for reliability and hackability. Sadly, I didn't get one of the early versions. My love affair with this router lasted for about a day because that's as long as the little guy would run without dropping the network. That's when I moved to the Netgear WPN824 Rangemax wireless router. Not only does the Netgear have a beautiful Apple aesthetic, but it's been fairly reliable at keeping the home network up and running.

Wireless offered me something I hadn't experienced before: freedom. I was no longer tethered to a specific location in a specific room, I was free to roam where I wanted with my laptop. I was free to place my computers and electronics anywhere I wanted. A truly liberating experience. I was in geek bliss ...

Until reality set in.

I've always been leery of using wireless because of security concerns. "But what about WEP encryption," you ask. The methodology behind WEP is fundamentally flawed. WEP's encryption key is essentially transmitted between the two networked computers in the clear. This means that anyone listening in on your wireless traffic can pick up your encryption key and use it to decrypt all of your network traffic. All it takes is a google search for "wireless packet sniffer" and you'll find hundreds of informative links.

"What about MAC address filtering," you ask. Well, much like WEP, your MAC address is transmitted in the clear with all of your network traffic. Once again, a little packet sniffing and someone can fake your MAC address and get onto your network. And don't even bring up the idea of limiting by IP address. It has the same problem as WEP and MAC address filtering.

All of these "security" features are only good enough to keep your neighbor from accidentally connecting to your network. But if your neighbor's 16 year old son is bored and wants to see what you're up to, there's nothing to stop him.

That's where WPA encryption comes into the picture. WPA is completely secure by today's standards. However, to have the most secure network possible, you need to use a completely random 64 character pass-phrase. Do you know how much fun it is to enter a 64 character pass-phrase into the Xbox 360 interface with a gamepad? Good times. Add to that the somewhat flaky nature of wireless networks. Transmission speeds fluctuate dramatically depending on interference from cordless phones, microwaves, and neighbors wireless networks. And let's not forget that at top wireless G speeds, it still isn't as fast as a wired connection.

Which leads me to gigabit ethernet. Why gigabit ethernet? Well, in my case I want to sling media around my house (not literally). As readers of Toyman.tv know, I have an AppleTV hooked up in my living room. Transferring movies to the AppleTV over my wireless G network is painfully slow. I've also been unable to use my network attached storage to house all my media files. Trying to sync iTunes to a NAS device over wireless causes the program to hang. I want a network that can provide for my current and future needs. That's gigabit.

This week I had an electrician start stringing category 6 cable around my house to setup a gigabit network. To say that I'm anxious to get this thing up and running would be an understatement.

WeaKnees.com is now offering a pre-formatted 160GB HDD upgrade for the AppleTV. While the tech savvy can do this with some elbow grease, the plug-and-play compatibility is very attractive to me. I'd much rather spend a few extra bucks than spend several hours copying and formatting hard drives. Call me crazy.

As soon as I received my shipping confirmation on the Tivo Series 3, I called up Comcast to schedule a service appointment for cablecard installation. The conversation that followed amused and frustrated me.

Comcast: "Hello, how may I help you today?"
Toyman: "Hi, yes, I'd like to schedule a service appointment to get some cablecards."
Comcast: "Okay, great. Just give me a second. Okay, are you installing these in your TV or a Tivo?"
Toyman: "A Series 3 Tivo. It uses two cards."
Comcast: "Okay, the HD Tivo. The first card is free and the second card will cost $2.75."
Toyman: "Okay."
Comcast: "It will also cost $23 for installation of the first card and $13 for the second."
Toyman: "Really? Even though both are in the same device?"
Comcast: "Yes. Oh, I see you currently have a Comcast DVR. Are you going to be keeping that?"
Toyman: "No."
Comcast: "Really? Why don't you want it? Are you not satisfied with the DVR?"
Toyman: "Absolutely not. It's far too buggy and unreliable."
Comcast: "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. So do you want the technician to remove the box at the time of the cablecard install?"
Toyman: "Yes, that would be great."
Comcast: "So, I'm assuming you want your package changed."
Toyman: "No, why?"
Comcast: "Well, because you don't have the cable box."
Toyman: "But I'm going to have the cable cards."
Comcast: "Well, do you want a cablecard in your TV?"
Toyman: "No, just the Tivo."
Comcast: "Well, how are you going to watch the digital programing on your TV? You won't need your current package."
Toyman: "Um, no. That's not how this all works. My TV relies on the Comcast DVR right now, and it will rely on the TIVO with cablecards in the future. There's no difference."
Comcast: "Um ... well, no ... um, you should make sure to ask the technician if your current package will be affected by your setup when he's there. Just to be sure."
Toyman: "I'll be sure to do that."

Two weeks earlier I called Comcast to cancel HBO and had quite the argument with the customer service representative. She tried to convince me that I needed a higher service plan than I wanted or lose all of my digital channels. This was not the case. It took some arguing and quoting features from their website, but I won that battle.

Either Comcast has inadequately trained customer service, or they are trained to obfuscate the truth and confuse the customer into signing up for services they don't need. I hope it's the first case, but the paranoid conspiracy theorist in me believes it's all intentional.

Anyone else had a similar experience?

To quote John Gruber, "I’m starting to warm up to the idea that Apple is going to sell a gazillion of these things, too." John, I never had any doubt.

Watch the ad

John Gruber of Daring Fireball addresses many of the misconceptions surrounding the AAC format. This issue has become a favorite among the "I hate Apple" crowd.

"There are some people who have long insisted that Apple's grand scheme for the iPod and iTunes hinges on proprietary file format lock-in, and I think what they're doing now is grasping for some way to continue making this argument."

That's right, the Toyman got the Thinking Blogger Award from Sean Ferrell (absolutely no relation ... cough). Sean's a very talented writer and his blog is always a good read. Now, I'm not exactly sure I live up to the title of "Thinking Blogger," but I do appreciate the thought.

Let me sum up the rules of the award process:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

So with that, I bestow the Thinking Blogger Award to:

• Daring Fireball
  Not only is John Gruber a talented writer, but he's got a great wit and insightful commentary.
• 43 Folders
  Merlin Mann is the god of GTD (getting things done), or as he likes to call it, "Life Hacks." He's also got a fun video podcast called The Merlin Show that's worth a watch.
• The Macalope
  A man after Toyman's heart and defender of Mac lovers everywhere!
• Wil Wheaton
  I know that Sean Ferrell already called him out on his list, but Wil has become my hero. Star Trek, video games, technology, poker ... it doesn't get any better than this.
• Sean Ferrell
  Okay, I'm lame to give the award back to the guy who gave it to me, but it's well deserved.

Over the weekend I found a really good price on an HD Tivo. Now, when I say "really good price," I actually mean, "on a level that I can rationalize." Anyway, my wife and I talked it over on Sunday and decided to pull the trigger on the HD Tivo. We both did a little dance of joy that we'll finally be able to walk away from the nightmare that is the Comcast DVR. Over the past three years we've gone through 6 DVR boxes, as well as innumerable crashes, lost program guides, frozen playback, and lost audio.

As if our current DVR heard our plans to take it out behind the barn and put it out of our misery, this morning my wife turned it on to discover nothing. And by "nothing," I mean, "nothing." All of our recorded programs were gone. All of our scheduled programs were gone. Our series priority list for recordings were gone. It was as if the unit were born anew.

To quote my wife, "As if we needed any more reinforcement that buying the Tivo was the right choice."

Things I won't miss about my Comcast DVR:

• The unit freezing when reordering the series priority list
• No audio on whatever HD channel was left on all night
• "Only record new programs" recording every possible repeat under the sun
• The unit freezing when deleting a viewed program
• Spontaneous reboots
• Finding the word "mute" on the screen if the unit was turned off before a scheduled recording. Best part, no "unmute" button on the remote
• Lagging behind on remote commands. There's nothing more fun than watching the DVR catch up to your repeated remote commands: "Skip, skip, skip, rewind, skip, skip, menu, delete!"
• Having a recorded program marked as "Delete priority: I delete" get deleted without my approval