Ars misses vital point: flash on the iPad

Everyone is talking about Macromedia Adobe Flash missing from the iPad. It's been missing from the iPhone for years. Today Ars Technica takes a poll, asking people if they care.

Ars says "Flash is necessary for a larger percentage of the Web to work properly". Those Flash-based sites, however, were built at a time when web users primarily used devices that either had Flash or could quickly install Flash for free. Apple is creating a new segment - a portion of web users that neither have Flash, nor can install Flash if they want to.

If that market existed over the last 10 years, we may not have a web where Flash is necessary for a large percentage of the web to work properly - and I would be OK with that.

If Apple holds steady on avoiding Flash on their gadgets, and Apple sells a lot of iPhones and iPads, the Flash-based web is going to change. That's a good thing.

Nexus Envy

Jon Hannibal Stokes twitters today about his Nexus One:

I accidentally pressed the voice input on my Nexus One right before a huge sneeze, and it Googled "sneeze." I am not making this up.

http://twitter.com/hannibalrex/statuses/7923029604

I want one.

Nexus One versus iphone: technical specs chart

I know, everybody is doing it: but here's a side-by-side comparison of new Nexus One tech specs versus the iphone. Green bold text highlights a superior feature. The summary is that Nexus if cheaper, smaller, lighter (if only marginally on all three), with better camera, bigger display, faster CPU, bigger battery, and more RAM.

We have to hand it to Apple for re-defining the worlds expectations for cell phones. Good job Apple, you blazed the trail again, just like you did with mp3 players, USB support, and the GUI. Apple is a leading innovator.

Google's advantage is that the iPhone's specs are public so Google knows exactly what they need to beat, and they do so in every category but base storage.

Also the wishlists for iphone are well-published, so Google can one-up Apple in categories that users actively complain about: removable storage, camera flash, battery life. Smart.

The iphone sucks

I'm still waiting for the world to release a cellphone that isn't missing any features. I spent some time using the iphone this month, and it's completely great - but it will continue to frustrate me, as long as it has all of these issues:

∙ Proprietary plug only for data (please can we have standard USB)
∙ Proprietary plug only for power (please can we have standard USB)
∙ Not USB disk (flash drive)
∙ Proprietary software for music interface (just let me drag/drop my mp3s ok?)
∙ One-way-only image transfer

∙ Horrible keyboard. Why not use rotating screen for big wide keyboard?
∙ Missing native apps: googletalk, latitude. The browser hacks don't cut it.

Next I'd like to try out an Android phone. I really like keyboards with actual physical buttons.

Get To Know Your Smartphones

Wired did a great job with this smartphone article. They ignore all the 2nd-rate phones, cut through all the nonsense specs, and give you a quick side-by-side comparison of what's important: appearance, cost, major features. My only gripe is the Blackberry Storm probably didn't deserve to be in this list: as of September 2009, there are only 3 real smartphones: iPhone, G1, Pre.

link: wired.com/.../know-your-smartphones/

Brilliant design: folding power plug

This is just brilliant engineering: not only does the designer make this plug form factor tiny, it produces great auxilliary options with USB slots and power squids:

Faraday bags

This is a great product for the paranoid - these handbags block RFID transmissions.  I should get one for Rachel.

They should make RFID blocking backpacks, toolbags & briefcases, too.

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5260703

Plants twitter you when they need water

If I ever bothered to plant any houseplants, I would absolutely depend on these sensors that twitter you when the plant needs water. Too bad it's almost $100 and requires assembly.

woot.com: great return policy

I've got to give woot.com credit - I told them my Sansa Sandisk Sanmeister was broken, and they asked no questions. I got an email back saying that a new one was in shipment to me, and that a prepaid fedex box was provided for me to ship back my defective unit later. The new unit has a navwheel that's a little sluggish, but I'm not complaining as it's a whole lot better than having only one channel of audio.

MiniDV still alive for some reason

I looked at some digicamcorders recently, and found a lot of them still on the miniDV standard that was popular when I first looked into these cams in 1999.

I don't get it. Magnetic disk drives have reached impressive capacities in tiny footprints, flash memory costs nothing and is fast, even smaller, and very high capacity. Why bother putting a tape in the camcorder anymore ?

I'm still using this old Sony MiniDV DCR-PC101 cam, and my number 1 problem is that it won't record because of some issue with all the moving parts on the tape writing mechanism. I fix it by literally banging it on hard surfaces until it works again, (which is the most accepted method of repair on the internet). I can't imagine buying another video camera that relies on tape at this point.

Disassembling the Sandisk Sansa Sanmeister

I bought a Sandisk Sansa e260 from woot.com recently, even though I agree that the mp3 player is an obsolete technology. I really like the UI. They copied Apple's click wheel design, but used an actual plastic wheel that spins (instead of the stationary touch-sensitive wheel Apple uses.) I actually prefer it because of the physical feedback you get from spinning it.

It has a small, sleek design, very bright display, and does a great job at all it's tasks: video playback, photo slideshows, music, radio, voice recording, 4GiB USB drive.

Also, Sansa let's you use the USB Mass Storage Device Driver to copy music, instead of enforcing MTP like they did on previous players. MTP completely sucks in comparison.

The downsides: custom cable. Why does anything have a custom cable? Everything should use the USB mini-b so we don't need to keep 20 cables on our desk to plug in all our gadgets.

My particular e260 also had a problem: only 1 channel of audio would play. I took it apart to see if I could fix it. Disassembling things is always fun. Here are the pictures:



The electronics in this thing are tiny. Almost all of the weight is in the heavy steel case back and the battery, and almost all of the volume is in the frame & battery. I had fun pushing the battery back onto the power terminals and running it naked:



I eventually decided the problem was in the stereo headphone socket, which has 3 conductors for left audio channel, right audio channel, and a common return (see TRS connector). Looking down into the socket, I can see that a contactor is broken off. I couldn't get a focused image with my digicam though. Here's a shot of the back of the electronics, at least:

I think that the stereo socket needs replacing, and I'm not going to try to remove and solder a new one in place. I hope Sandisk will do it for me. I wonder if there were any hidden warranty-voiding stickers that I broke when taking it apart . . .

Todo: Books, games, gadgets

I just realized today that I can actually buy a copy of Spore now. I've got to get that in my list of games to play.

Then I learned Cory Doctorow likes The Armageddon Rag, by George R.R. Martin. I've liked GRRM's series A Song of Ice & Fire a lot, but I'm not sure about a book whose genre is fantasy/horror/alt history. I guess I have another for my to-read list.

John Hodgeman has gone and released a new book, too, as though I'm just swimming in money and time to buy & read new books. I suppose I have little choice.

Finally, I may have found the answer to my iPhone/Sprint problem. Specifically, that the iPhone I crave will never run on the carrier my company provides. The Sprint Instinct tries to emulate the iPhone. I wonder if it's worth the investment? When it comes to UI, I'm very picky. If they have the iPhone features but not the polish, I could go insane trying to use it.

Ridiculous security: FakeTV

The FakeTV simulates a real TV's light output, so that burglers will think you're home watching TV when you're really away.

I think I already have one of these. It's called a real TV. Why would anyone buy this?

http://www.faketv.com/

Google Subscribed Links

Google Subscribed Links looks interesting. I just can't think of a link category that would be immediately useful to me.

block flash by default - flashblock

There is a firefox plugin called flashblock that "takes a pessimistic approach to dealing with Macromedia Flash content".

Basically it blocks all flash on websites, and gives you a placeholder where you can click to allow the flash manually.

This great plugin won't make myspace.com tolerable (nothing could possibly), but it at least will make navigating the web a little bit safer.