Two for the bad guys

The guy who runs Planet Replay (see the 1/14 entry) was subpoenaed in the BS lawsuit the movie studios are running against the ReplayTV folks, and in the deposition, the lawyers for the studios apparently convinced the guy that they were ready to sue him and demand info on all the site's users. So he shut the site down. With the loss on Eldred, that's two victories for the bad guys this week. Crap.

On Working for Free

James Duncan Davidson, in On Working for Free, says a lot of the same things that Tom and I have been saying to each other. If you want us to speak, pay us. If you want us to write, pay us. If you want to read great articles or hear great speakers, you're more likely to get them where the author/speaker was paid. Or to say it another way: the author/speaker is getting paid by someone, and you should be able to find out who's actually paying the bill. If it ain't the conference/magazine, then someone else is paying the bill, and there's almost definitely going to be an attached agenda.

So, that's why we, like Duncan, pick and choose where we speak and write. Anything else we do is just our opinions, posted here, for our own pleasure.

There's one type of conference that Duncan didn't cover, though: the ones that get great speakers by agreeing to pay, hold the conference, and then "forget" to ever write the check. That's happened to me three times in the last five years, and you can bet that I haven't forgotten a single one of those organizers.

Howard Dean, outsider

It's January 2003, and that means that the '04 presidential race is starting to get into full swing. Salon has this piece, Dean seeks White House as outsider, on Howard Dean, our preferred candidate.

Thank you, Jeffrey

Yesterday, Mark Pilgrim wrote about Semantic Obsolescence and XHTML 2. I had a long opinion I wanted to respond back with, but I hadn't gotten around to it. Thankfully, Jeffrey Zeldman has. And that is, btw, why this site is XHTML 1.0 Transitional (and even validates from time to time!).

I've talked (in person and via email) to a number of people who work in W3C groups about XHTML 2 since it was announced, and I haven't yet found anyone who's happy with either the process or the result. Rename it? Revise it? In my opinion, it's best to just kill it... at least until I come across someone who can explain to me why it's both useful and necessary.

ReplayTV is cool!

Sometimes technology is so cool that I just want to sing. While we were at Macworld Expo last week, we had the ReplayTV set to record our favorite TV shows. When Wednesday came around, and the unit tried to record The West Wing, somebody (either our son or the person we had staying with him) cancelled the recording, probably so they could watch something else that was on at the same time. We were bummed, but then I remembered Planet Replay, a site frequented by ReplayTV owners that facilitates the Replay's Internet sharing features. I jumped there, and sure enough, several people had the episode available for sharing. I requested the show from one person, and he sent it. Now, video files are big, and broadband upload speeds are slow, so it took something like 17 hours to receive the hour-long show (which was recorded at the lowest quality, too; it would have been twice as long at the quality I usually record at). But it's sitting happily on our box now, waiting for us to watch it tonight. By the way, the speed of the transfer underscored how silly it is that the Hollywood studios are suing ReplayTV over this feature; if the show had been available at the video store, it would have been far quicker to just go rent it. I can't see any real difference between the way I got the show and if I'd borrowed a tape from a friend who had recorded the show.

And another...

And another product I missed was the iTrip: FM Transmitter for iPod. This is the first I've seen of a type of product that I've been predicting for about a year now: things that plug into the top of an iPod. This one's pretty darn cool.

20-20 Hindsight

One of the most frustrating post-Macworld Expo times is coming across cool things that were at the show, but I completely missed them. Case in point: the SmartDisk PowerPlay ($70), a presentation remote control and laser pointer. They also announced the PowerPlay Pro ($120), which is the same as the PowerPlay but with the addition of 32 Mb of flash memory. I saw the Keyspan Presentation Remote ($80), but missed the ones from SmartDisk. Drat!

Battery life solution

I've mentioned the problems with the battery life on my TiBook (here and here, at least) a couple of times before, so I should probably blog the resolution: I called up Apple a couple of weeks ago, complained about the situation, told them that I'd already tried everything that they wanted me to try, and got them to send me a new one. I'm on it now, and it appears to be lasting considerably longer than the old one. I just wish they could have gotten it to me in time for the keynote.

Girls and CS

Lynn at Medley referred to the NY Times article Where the Girls Aren't as "utterly vapid and nearly content-free." I'd have to disagree, as I don't think that it's content-free, just 180 degrees mistaken (imo) in its statements. Why do they think that it's a good idea for girls to become professional computer programmers besides the stereotypical idea that gender equality is A Good Thing? Personally, I don't recommend computer programming as a career for girls; the system, as it's currently run, is just too biased against women (particularly as we age). And I hate seeing quotes such as

We are importing computer scientists from other countries because we can't get enough. Is that a good thing in the long run? If this is a field we would prefer to dominate as a nation, we should be developing more women in the field.

being just assumed to be true, as there never was any shortage of people in the field, just a shortage of people who were willing to work too many hours for too few dollars.

CUPS administration

Via Chris Pirillo, this useful link to CUPS administration (sorry, Jaguar users only). He's right; I had no idea that was under there.

SliMP3

Speaking of playing MP3's in the home, I bought a new toy at Macworld Expo. It's the SLIMP3 (pronounced "slim pee three"), and it streams MP3 music over Ethernet to your audio system. The device itself is small, so it should fit into the stack of audio gear with no problem. It has a server software component (written in Perl, with a Web interface) that runs on Mac OS X, and which reads the iTunes music library and playlists. it also plays Internet radio stations, like Live365, Shoutcast, and Icecast.

Before this, I had a TurtleBeach AudioTron, which was a real pain in the butt because it is so Windows-centric. It uses Windows File Sharing to find music over the network, and it was really cranky. It wouldn't work correctly with our AppleShare IP server, even though the server can be seen just fine by the other Windows boxes on the network. Jaguar helped a little, but not enough. The AudioTron requires a certain version of ID3 tags, or it won't see the music files. And because the music needed to be on a real Windows box for the AudioTron to see it, I had to mirror my music from my G4, where I rip CDs, to Dori's PC. I'm glad I'll be able to get rid of the AudioTron; it's going on eBay as soon as I get the SLIMP3 up and working.

New Replay Features

Guess we don't have to buy that ReplayTV 5040 for the bedroom; SonicBlue has announced some things they're planning for later this year: SonicBlue Says Development of New Devices on Track. There's an improved UI on the way, the ability to store and play MP3's on the Replay, and the expected fixes that will allow wireless networking for the 5000 series. But I'm most interested in this one:

[In Q3 2003] SonicBlue will introduce receivers for under $100 that will allow programs recorded on a ReplayTV unit to be played back on other TVs in the home that are not connected to a digital video recorder.