SMT5600 Ringtones inaudible?

My Audiovox SMT 5600 I have for Cingular is a great phone.  Bluetooth, voice dialing, PIM functionality, will sync with Outlook.

But the ringtones on the phone, even in LOUD mode are inaudible unless you are literally holding the phone up to your ear when the phone rings.

If I have my bluetooth headset on, I can get an audible tone in my ear, but nothing from the phone when the Bluetooth is turned off.

Is this normal?  If not, what am I doing wrong, and how can I fix it?

Please leave me a comment if you have an idea.  Thanks!

Technorati tags: Audiovox, SMT5600, Scoble Phone, Ringtones, Scoble

Why digital is better than film

We had Santa pictures taken this year.  It's from the same company who has done it for us for quite a few years.  They shipped the photo to us and we received it this afternoon in the mail:

 

See anything wrong?  It's washed out, one child isn't even looking at the camera, and one child has  her eyes closed.  If they'd have been shooting digital, this would have been seen and they could have reshot (at not extra cost). 

As it was, the company that did it shoots film.  They didn't notice this (apparently didn't notice it during the QC process either which I find to be disturbing). 

If you are thinking to yourself, well, this is an extreme case.  People don't really close their eyes when you take their picture, do they?

 

Technorati tags: Santa Photo, Everett Mall, Digital versus Film, Arthur and Associates

House for sale (Mukilteo,WA)

My wife and I have some friends who have a house for sale in Mukilteo, Washington.  They are moving to Boise Idaho for work reasons and really would like to sell their house.

I'm posting this on my blog for my three readers, maybe they know someone who is looking for a four bedroom, two and a half bath house in picturesque Mukilteo. 

Here's the listing.

They are good people, and I'm sad to see them move.  But I totally understand, you move where the jobs are.  For the husband, the jobs are in Boise.

Technorati tags: Real Estate, Mukilteo, House For Sale

DVD Jukebox for mere mortals?

Along the lines of my last post, I'm interested in possibly finding a secondary solution that would work as a DVD jukebox.

I don't have a huge 60" flatscreen TV, or a projection TV, or even an HD TV.

I've got a garden variety TV.  A garden variety DVD/VCR combo and garden variety home theatre system.

Single DVD, and a TIVO.

What I'd like is a system that I could load all my DVDs into and then via an onscreen menu, be able to chose which DVD to play.  Without having to actually touch the DVD. 

Kaleidascape makes a system that would work incredibly well for my needs.  It is a system that you put DVDs into, it stores them on these incredibly large internal hard drives and then you use menus to select which DVD you want to play.

But the Kaleidascape system is prohibitively expensive.

I'm not talking about a system for the dot COM millionaires of the world.  I'm talking about a system that a mere mortal could afford.  Someone with kids and a wife and a bunch of DVDs. 

Something that would meet the SAF (spousal approval factor) and the pocketbook.  Something that wouldn't require an advanced degree in remote-control-ology to control.

Again, if you know of something that might fit the bill, leave a comment.

Technorati tags: Kaleidascape, DVD Jukebox, Spousal Approval Factor

Whole house sound system for mere mortals?

I've got the interest in having a whole house (or partial whole house) sound system.

I'd like to have a server in my basement, full of MP3 files and have a small wired or wireless piece that I can put into two rooms upstairs and play music that is pulled from the server in the basement.

Each of the rooms should be able to play different (or the same) playlist.

Each room doesn't necessarily need to be able to build a playlist, I could build that playlist elsewhere.

I've looked at the Sonos system, which would work great for situation.  But it is $1,000.  Way, way, way out of my price range.

I've looked at Russound , which is again out my price range by a multiple of many times.

Is there something in the open source or Linux arena that would do what I am trying to do? I don't currently have ethernet in either room that I want to put the wired piece in, but wireless is a distinct possibility in room two, with wired a distinct possibility in room one.

I would prefer something that could play either WMA or MP3 files.  But I'm willing to re-rip everything I have in WMA format to MP3.

If you know of something that might work for my purposes, please leave me a comment.

Thanks!

Technorati tags: Russound, Sonos, Whole House Audio

Of Electric Cars, Sports cars and pipe dreams

Recently, I became aware of a new(ish) online publication called The Winding Road an online Car & Driver, so to speak.

Now, I'm not a car guy.  Far from it.  I have my likes when it comes to cars (the Smart Car, The NMG car from Myers Motors, the Mini Cooper from BMW Mini), but this is a great free online magazine.

I was long a fan of the Corbin Sparrow, which has been reborn as the NMG (No More Gas) car, which is an electric plug-in car that I think would be great for commuting less than 30 miles a day.

Now, comes to light via The Winding Road publication (at least known to me) of a new car that is electric, and will be making it's debut in 2007.  The company will be making a limited edition run of 100 cars, of which 100 are already presold.  It's called the Tesla Roadster .

 

It's a two seat sport convertible.  Powered completely by batteries.  It has a range of ~200 miles.  It has a VERY HIGH top speed (+-200 mph).  It also has a high price tag.  But that's to be expected of a limited edition car. 

This car is gorgeous.  It's fast, it's beautiful, and it's environmentally friendly.  I'm not a highly environmental guy, but the idea of having a convertible that is fast and beautiful that I could plug in at night and be able to drive for a week or so between fillups and not have to actually pay the outrageous price for gasoline would be well worth the price of admission, in my opinion.

Check it out.  It's a beautiful piece of machinery.

 

 

Technorati tags: Tesla Motors, NMG, Corbin Sparrow, Mini Cooper, Smart Car

Why local apps trump network applications

I'm sitting here with the power out.  Able to read email, because it is local to my machine via Outlook.

Able to read my RSS feeds because, again, they are local thanks to Attensa.

We are having a major windstorm.  Power it out, has been out for about an hour.  Laptop has a bit more juice left.

I have a UPS sitting in the garage that I had planned to set up to keep my cable modem and wireless access point running in case of a power outage, but never got to it.  Guess what I'm doing this weekend? :)

If I used GMail, and Feedster , I'd be dead in the water.....

Y'all can keep your online only tools for now....

 

Addenda: Power finally came back on at 6:30 this morning.....

 

Technorati tags: Feedster, GMail, Power Outage, Online versus Offline, Outlook

iRecord looks really useful

The iRecord box from iRecord Company looks to be a really useful device.

It allows you to plug in an analog device (TV, VCR,DVD player) and record directly onto an iPod. 

No intermediary, no buying 12.99 movies from iTunes.

 

Looks to be very useful.

Possibly pricey at $199. But, if you have a lot of analog content that you'd like to get onto your iPod easily (home movies, etc), this might be the best and easiest way to go.  Just plug it in and it works.

iRecord, if you happen to read this, I'd love to review the unit.  Send me an email.

 

 

Technorati tags: iRecord, iTunes, iPod, iTV

Read your voicemail

I was reading some reviews on a website this morning and happened to notice a link for SimulScribe .  This is a service that will get your voicemail from your mobile phone and transcribe it for 25 cents a voicemail and send it to you as a text message.

What an interesting service.  I don't get many voicemails, so this isn't as exciting a service to me, but I'm sure there are people out there who get LOTS of voicemail on their mobile phone where this might be a very useful service.

Someone who uses their mobile phone for both work and personal might find this to be a very useful service, especially if they run into situations where they get a lot of voicemail.

They also have a free month of service to try it out, if you are interested.

 

Technorati tags: SimulScribe, transcription, mobile phone voicemail, entrepreneurship

Well that was fun....not...

Had a phone interview on Friday. Had really no idea what the job was, or who it was for, but it sounded like something I could do pretty easily. Had a nice catch-up session with the recruiter (I used to work with him back in 91-93 at a company in Bellevue, he's a recruiter now).

 

Anyway, you know it's going to be a bad interview when the first two questions they ask you you can't even begin to answer.  I stopped at that point and said something to the effect of 'I really don't think this is the right fit for me.  I'm obviously not of the knowledge-base that you need for even this network admin position'.

 

So we chatted a bit more about my potential photography company and he said something to the effect of "It's good you have something you can go into next, that photography business."  What he didn't say was "because you really are clueless and are probably not technically smart enough to do the job you are doing now."

Oh well.  Every day you learn something new.  This day, I learned that working as a tech for a firewall company is not something I'm suited to do, at least at this point in my life...

 

 

Technorati tags: Job Search, Interviews, Employment

Clearwire versus Cable versus DSL versus FTTH?

In my neck of the woods, Clearwire has just started a big push to get consumers interested in their new wireless service.  It's a (supposedly) high bandwidth service that will compete with Comcast cable and Verizon on DSL for both pricing and features.

I currently have Comcast cable.  Works great, I have no issues with it whatsoever.  Except price.  It's expensive.  But it works.  Well.

I liked having the high bandwidth that the cable provides when we have a VoIP solution for a phone line (Vonage).  But now that we have eliminated Vonage from our lives, after four years almost exactly, we don't necessarily need the high-level bandwidth that Comcast cable provides.

So I've been looking at this Clearwire service.  It's $30/month for the router box which is a wireless router and apparently can be plugged into an existing home network to provide connectivity to the home network should you have one (I do, don't you?)

It's $15 a month cheaper than my cable.  It looks like it would be easier to set up than cable (where I have a cable coming into my house I have a long cable stretched to my basement office where the cable modem, router, etc reside).  With the Clearwire solution, all I need is an electrical outlet.  Very nice.  I could plug it in upstairs and plug my TIVO box directly into it and then have wireless connectivity for my wife's desktop and for my laptop.

Alas, at least at this point, unless someone at Clearwire is willing to send me a loaner, I'm still on the fence.  But rest assured Clearwire, if you will send me a demo unit for a month or two, I'd be more than happy to review it.

What I really would like is for Verizon to get their act together in my area and implement Fiber To The Home (FTTH).  I don't necessarily need the bandwidth that it provides....but, I'm sure I could find something to do with it.

Technorati tags: Fiber, FTTH, Clearwire, Comcast, DSL

The NMG Car

Myers Motors has introduced a new (old) car called the NoMoreGas electric car.

It looks like a Corbin Sparrow, and I believe it is based off the old Corbin Sparrow design (much enhanced, however) that died a horrible death when the company went bankrupt a few years ago.

 

Built in Ohio, they are all electric single seat cars that will go thirty miles on a charge.  They will hold a shopping cart full of stuff, plus a passenger.

They'll go up to 70 miles an hour and are safe to drive on the freeway.

Because they are fully loaded with one passenger, they can drive (legally) in the carpool lane on the freeway.

I'm very excited about this.  I read somewhere that 90% of people commute less than 30 miles a day to work, and do it alone.  Think if we had a plethora of Myers NMG cars zipping around. 

Myers Motors, if you are listening, I'd love to get a test vehicle to run for a month or so and I can do a full review.  Contact me here .

 

Technorati tags: Myers Motors, Corbin Sparrow, Electric Vehicles

Rojas Music Player, part 2

Technorati tags: Rojas, Winer, Calacanis, Jason Nation

Guys, if you are listening, an ethernet port connection on the machine would be sweet as well.

 

Thanks!

Technorati Profile

The Rojas Music Player from Jason Nation

Peter Rojas, Dave Winer and Jason Calacanis have been kicking around the idea of releasing a music player (probably just joking around) without DRM restrictions of the current crop of players.

 

Additionally, it  would have:

 

• WiFi
• Open Source software to add/remove tracks
• Would use removeable media (Compactflash)

I love the idea and would love to see it come out.  I have an Ipod that I  use, but it's large, clunky in some ways, and is restrictive with the content that you purchase. 

 

I'd love to see player like this, one that could play videos as well (MOV, AVI or WMV or a combination of all three).

 

(Jason Nation is a proposed name for Jason's podcast.  I think it's a good name that could be used for the company that put this product out too).

 

Here's Jason's post on the subject

 

Technorati tags: Calacanis, Jason Nation, Peter Rojas, Dave Winer, IPod Killer