Monday, November 11, 2002

Qualcomm translates USB for phones. [CNET News.com] Convergence, convergence, convergence - it's everywhere. Cell phones become cameras, PCs become radios and stereos, PCs become VCRs, watches become remote controls...It all adds up to pervasive computing. Nice. 4:50:39 PM

From GMSV and [ t e c h n o c u l t u r e ]: "Janesville police responded to a smoke complaint around 1 a.m. Tuesday and found a man barbecuing his computer modem." Another argument for broadband. :) 1:42:43 PM

Going back and forth between the new Mac and the Win2K PC is painful. I have to relearn everything, even simple things. There's a reason corporations don't want to support two compting environments - it's hard. Today I've found the documentation that will allow me to move this website's management from the PC to the Mac, and the tools for posting to Radio via email. If I can get those done, I can start to partition my life appropriately. Some comments and first impressions on the new Mac: Great UI. Beautiful, consistent, intuitive. I can't say enough about the UI embodied in OSX. iCal is elegant, but needs lots of work. Not surprising, as it is v1.0. I had to install Apple's 802.11b card, the Airport card. Should've been easy, but opening the PBG4 requires a #8 Torx driver. It was irritating to have to search around the neighborhood shops at 7pm for one, but Radio Shack came through. Once opened, installing was easy. Once installed, connection to the home WLAN was seamless and automatic. It just worked. I was really looking forward to Myst, but it isn't working. Something's not right - everything else works as advertises, so it's a Myst problem, not a PB problem. So far, MS Office on OSX looks like a winner. Time will tell about document compatibilities. Listening to London FM stations via iTunes and some serious addon speakers is just too cool. It reminds of when I was a kid, and discovered that I could hear the big Chicago FM station at night, so I'd stay up late and imagine what Chicago must be like. More later, but I think I'm really going to like the new machine. 12:47:47 PM

Gadget Overload Relief in Sight. Technology called software defined radio, or SDR, could herald the development of new wireless devices that combine multiple applications into a single appliance. By Paul Boutin. [Wired News] This is a very cool idea. It makes sense - why not take advantage of Moore's Law as long as we can? This will also give Microsoft a new platform to conquer, new competitors to crush. 5:28:47 AM

© Copyright 2002 Jeff Nichols.