Tech Review

I'm here at Blogworld for the second year in a row. Briefly, my reasons for attending:

1. It's in Las Vegas which isn't too far from my house in Los Angeles.

2. I have an excuse to spend some time with my papi. The best father-son moments center on a practical activity like building a shelf or fishing rather than explicit bonding moments like birthdays. Since new media-ers don't normally advertise on America's Funniest Home Videos or Sabado Gigante, my father doesn't know too much about blogging- he probably couldn't tell Twitter from Tweedy, but he can still drive (slowly), and that useful skill alone justifies his participation.

Sabado Gigante, in one of its more cultural moments.

America's Funniest Home Videos Volume 1

3. The food at the blogging party was pretty good last year. Amongst event food, I'd give it a solid nine. The sushi was great and the buffet table had a tasty variety of meats and cheeses.

4. I don't know anybody else who blogs so it's nice to talk to some other bloggers.

5. Free T-shirts!

Notice that I didn't say that the conference would help my blogging, necessarily. Many of the companies sell some kind of social networking-poll-whatever widget or do-dad and, frankly, I'm moving towards less of that stuff on my blog. At this point, the only thing I want to do is write.

Last year, Hugh Hewitt's political blogger round table with some lefty bloggers was interesting. However, I usually hate being in classes of any kind and didn't sign up for any this year. As I don't like speeches either, I skipped the keynote.

Observations:

1. The Blackberry-iPhone ratio was 1:1, as was the one for PC to Mac. I only saw a couple of oddballs with non-smart phones (dumb phones?).

2. The death of blogging and new media is greatly exaggerated. At the last Blog World, some were hinting that blogging had peaked, but Blog World was well-attended this year and its participants enthusiastic if less giddy.

3. That's not to say that some blogging ideas aren't up or down. I didn't notice too much activity around the Mil-blogging booth, reflecting peoples' level of interest in the war.

4. My conclusion is that blogging has lost its Barack Obama-Sarah Palin effect, but will be around for a while and even keep growing. In my own browsing, I'm visiting blogs more than ever for my current interests.

5. The opening night party wasn't in as fancy a location as last year (Hilton ballroom versus Hard Rock Cafe), but the drinks were free and the company pleasant.

6. I liked the Pajamas Media people- Aaron, Ed, Sybilla, and Rick were here. I met two very nice people in Tom Vail of Cart-Away concrete mixing (We have completely different backgrounds, but we agreed on almost all of the issues we discussed. His son's apparently a pretty smart guy who blogs here.) and Anita Cohen-Williams of MySearchGuru, a nice lady who does "organic SEO," a concept I'm unclear on, but I think I'd prefer her service over SEO with pesticides and hormones.

7. Oh! and I got to meet the super-amicable Francois Planque who created the blogging software, B2evolution, that Asymmetric uses. He's French, but I didn't hold that against him. We had a wide-ranging conversation that covered important topics such as politics, the relative merits of the distaff populations of France and the United States, and, of course, blogging.

8. I won a Wii version of Major League Baseball 2K8 from YBN for my son.

Major League Baseball 2K8

9. I also won some cash is this bill-blowing contraption put on by Bluecube.

9. T-shirts were mostly poly-cotton blends. The best one was, and I'm not just saying this, from Pajamas Media. Cotton with that rubbery-type logo application.

10. I didn't miss the comedian PM hired last year, but no booth babes walking around the PM area this year was a tragedy.

11. There were some interesting exhibitors. I'll cover them in another post.

Tags: blog world commentary, blogworld

I'll be at Blog World in Las Vegas this weekend. I'll be going with my dad. It was fun last year. I met Markos from Daily Kos and witnessed, first hand, on of his emotional rants.

I met Hugh Hewitt, again. Ed Driscoll, the Pajamas media crowd, booth babes, and did a bunch of stuff you can read about here. I'll let you know what it's like when I get there.

Tags: blogworld live blog

Sitemeter, the most popular web stat service, used by Truth laid bear, may have jumped the shark.

Sitemeter's attractiveness was/is its simplicity-hits per day, month, year and a handy world map- and its universality.

Following the temptation not to leave well-enough alone, an idea perfected by Microsoft, this weekend Sitemeter unveiled an "upgrade" to its service.

When I first used the new, improved Sitemeter, I was dismayed that I had to log on to see the stats whereas before, it went strait to the stats. Add to this annoyance much slower performance, and you have what happened the next day, a return to the original format loved by millions.

Sitemeter was attempting to be a comprehensive web analysis tool like Google analytics.

Sitemeter should find a way to provide that service while not losing its simplicity and universality.

Still no hits from Cuba.

Alternatives to Sitemeter:

1. Another, less popular hit, counter. Gostats, for example.

2. Blog software, B2evolution, tells me what search terms find Asymmetric and the sites whose links to Asymmetric lead surfers to it, but only a comparison to other B2evolution sites would be valid.

3. Webhost. My host, Bluehost, keeps stats, but again, they're not useful for inter-site comparison.

4. Alexa. It doesn't tell you how many hits a particular web site has or their origination, but does give your site a ranking.

5. The aforementioned Google Analytics.

Tags: new sitemeter, sitemeter sucks, why did sitemeter change

Motorola Q Music 9m Smartphone (Verizon Wireless)

Motorola Q Black Phone (Verizon Wireless)

Motorola Q9c Smartphone (Verizon Wireless)

There's something about Windows Mobile operating systems that leave one cold. Theoretically, a Windows-based phone is great idea: Built-in Office support, sync ability. However, I've owned several Windows portable devices, from PDAs to various smart phones, and I've never felt close to any of them. No "Wow, this is cool!" or "I can't live without this thing" feelings for me.

It's not just that they're underwhelming, either: I had such a violently negative reaction to my last Windows mobile product the Samsung SCH i730 that I went for nearly the simplest phone I could find, the LG VX8600.

Still, I have legitimate reasons for owning a smart phone and, the sting of the Samsung having dissipated, I plunged back into a Windows-based smartphone pond. Verizon was having a sale on its Motorola Moto Q and Q 9m Music.

Would this be the device that broke the Windows Mobile jinx? It had a full QWERTY keyboard, something I've never had before. It was red and, dare I say, racy!

It was returned less than a week later.

The keyboard is fine. The buttons have a nice feel to them. The MOTO Q 9m and 9c have a more laptop-like keypad while the plain Q has Treo/Blackberry-style "chiclet" buttons. The case feels substantial enough to be called "of quality." The Moto Q is a little too wide to hold comfortably in the hand- mine, at least.

The screen is good. The Q has just about every function one would need, and you can purchase a wide variety of software from online vendors like Handmark and Handago. I liked that I could read my ebooks and read and modify Microsoft office documents and PDFs.

Aside from those positives, the Moto Q is just plain annoying. You'd expect non-folding phones to be a problem in a pocket, but buttons and scroll wheels pressing against the case? Locking and unlocking solves that problem, but the Q seems harder to lock than it has to be.

More annoyances:

1. If I want to tether the phone to access the internet on my laptop, I have to go into a menu and change some settings. Why? On my subsequent Motorola, it was automatic.

2. I think running more than one program at a time is a disadvantage. I have to close each program or remember to run the task manager.

3. Email seems harder to set up and is flakier to use.

4. The music program welcome screen is a mess and difficult to navigate. If I want to play music, I prefer opening a separate player.

5. The regular welcome screen isn't much better. Switching between the two is a pain.

6. The new sync in Vista is, like most things about Vista, worse than its XP predecessor, activesync.

7. Despite the Qwerty keyboard, typing isn't as intuitive as in other applications. Text entry into a phone still requires forethought and cleverness from the design team and the Moto Q didn't have them.

8. Hey! Motorola, if you're going to build a phone for music, give it a standard, 3.5mm headphone plug- not the phone-only 2.5mm one. Adapters get in the way.

9. Battery life is the worst on any phone I've used. It lasts about a day.

I can see some Verizon customers preferring this one over the equally frustrating Treo, but, unless you have a special need to Windows Mobile, get a Blackberry Curve or World (The Pearl doesn't have a full keyboard.).

BlackBerry 8830 Smartphone (Verizon Wireless)

Tags: compare q to blackberry, motorola q, motorola q versus blackberry

Garmin nüvi 200 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

Garmin 010-10723-02 Carrying Case For Nuvi

The siren call of technology called and I, its faithful servant, answered. This time, I purchased the Garmin Nuvi 200. I found it to be an excellent device.

My decision process:

All GPS devices allow you to enter addresses and guide you there. Some of the significant differences between them:

1. Bluetooth. On a GPS, Bluetooth allows you to answer phone calls from your cell phone, update traffic via that same phone, and play music.

Bluetooth calling is nice, but that feature will cost you at least another $50.00 in the Garmin line, the Nuvi 360. I already have the $50.00 Motorola T305 which works well. I could give the T305 away to a needy California driver, but if I share the Nuvi with my wife, I'd be out two functions. Plus, I can put the T305 on my visor and I'd have to have the Nuvi 360 on my windshield the whole time (Unless space or money is an issue, it's better to have separate devices for different tasks.).

Motorola T305 Bluetooth Portable Hands-Free Speaker - Black

Garmin nüvi 360 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator with Bluetooth and Text-to-Speech

2. Traffic updates. I don't care about receiving traffic information.

3. Music. Between Sirius and my car stereo that plays mp3s and controls my iPod, I can summon any song in the known universe, making anything on a GPS having to do with music a waste.

4. Points of interest. This one I care about. The Navigon 2100, my previous GPS, disappointed me when I couldn't find some of the points I find most interesting (Gaming/Comic book store, Frogurt, etc.). The Navigon 2100 has 1.3 million points of interests- not enough, apparently.

Navigon 2100 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

5. Widescreen. This seems like a gimmick to me- something meant to appeal to people used to their wide screen laptops. Well, the only reason to have a wide screen is to watch movies, right? On a GPS, you need to see what's ahead more than what's on the sides, si? So, why sacrifice height for width?

6. Text to speech. If it works better than telephone speech recognition (big "if"), and if you drive by yourself, this can be a great feature. You can ask for a nearby gas station or Taco Bell without pulling over. It's an expensive extra, however. You'd have to move up the the $800.00 Nuvi 850 to get it in a Garmin product.

Garmin nüvi 850 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator

So, I go into Staples. The cheapest two GPSs were the Nuvi 200 and the Tom Tom One XL. Both were on sale, but the Nuvi was $50.00 cheaper and had the same features except for the unimportant wide screen.

TomTom ONE 3rd Edition 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Vehicle Navigator

TomTom ONE XL 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator (Map of US and Canada)

I opened it in the parking lot, plugged it in, and instantly got it working. I didn't need to read the manual. Initially, I had it set to just show where I was headed as I drove (I like that I now have a compass.). This is where it gets dangerous: The screen mesmerized me, and I kept taking my eyes off the road.

Unlike the Navigon, I could find the points of interest I was looking for and even gave me the phone number to most stores. The Nuvi has over three million interesting points.

The Nuvi 200 is super easy to program. It anticipates states and cities as I type and guides me there through voice directions. Here's where it gets controversial: In order to pay back campaign debt, Hillary Clinton lends her honey-sweet voice to the Nuvi. I don't mind, but during long stretches, the Nuvi starts talking about health care (just kidding).

You can save destinations including one as "home" so you can find your way back from wherever you are (Advice for married men: Don't make the strip club, "home.") You can stop if you want to take a break from driving or pull into a gas station. You can also program that gas station ahead of time- it allows one per route.

The screen presents useful information like estimated time of arrival (ETA), time spent on road, and a turn list. The POI is very intuitive. The map is in 3-D or overhead. It shows digital pictures- big whoop. You can update it from the internet too.

It passed the non-nerdy wife test; my wife figured it out with just a little help.

Some features I missed from the Navigon are "Lane Assist" and "Reality View" which make freeway choices clearer.

"OK," you're asking, "It works in a large metropolis like Los Angeles, but what about some primitive backwater? Would it be able to find addresses and such?"

To give it a real test, I drove to Phoenix, a wretched hive of scum and villainy next to California.

It passed. I fed it some addresses, found them, and I was on my way.

Conclusion: This is a better basic GPS, and if you don't need to the expensive frills, an excellent choice.

Tags: best gps value, best low cost gps, buy gps, compare gps devices, compare inexpensive gps, gps bang for buck, which gps should i buy

I have a mountain of Cds I never use anymore. I've moved towards, like most stereophile readers in this article, digital music. I can't tell the difference if encoded at a high enough bitrate (You can't either, liar.) and I play them strait from my computer to a stereo receiver through optical. That's when I'm all alone. The 95% of the time kids or somebody else is crawling around my house, I'm forced to use earphones.

I also ran across this bit of romanticism:

I listen primarily to CDs and maybe 20 percent of the time to LPs. I cannot imagine using a music server anytime soon, and sound quality issues have nothing to do with that. I like picking music from my collection. It's a touchy-feely, organic process. One album leads to the next, or I accidentally find something I haven't listened to in years.

This is the same thinking that Madonna uses to justify getting married in a white dress. Just let go, bro.

Blogging and real life friend Son of a Fish from Epistles at Dawn (SOF) posted:

Yes, yes, there's a Funnyordie.com, Adultswim.com, Collegehumor, Break, Ebaumsworld, JibJab, Cleanguys.com (snicker), and good ol' YouTube, but is it just me, or have these sites lost their luster?...

...With sites like YouTube this is especially true, since the content is being created AND promoted by thousands of individuals. An increase in contributors, though, means that a number of people are posting content that is essentially garbage, with very little entertainment value. In addition, in order to produce massive amounts of content, the cost of the content must perforce go down. And with lower costs must come lower production values. From the perspective of these sites, this is an acceptable, even desirable equation. Push the content, maximize impressions, cash in...

...I'd say that we can all help by vetting ourselves. Don't post garbage on your blog. Don't watch pointless kick-in-the-balls videos or man-fall-down fare. In short, the only way we can force content providers to give us the funny is by ignoring the asinine...

And, to assure quality, Hollywood should just release one movie a month. I wouldn't have minded going strait from Iron Man in May to Wall-e in June without the intervening Happening.

I agree that most of the internet is garbage, but I also consider most music, poetry, television (Except for the CSIs which are all great and very dissimilar from each other.), novels, and performance art refuse as well.

Yet, this weekend, my wife brought home 10,000 B.C., a movie I curse once for each year it's setting is removed from our own. Well, she liked it. Add that to my father's enthusiasm for America's Funniest Home Videos and my mother's addiction to court shows and it's fair to conclude that some people, it seems, can't get enough punches to the privates or flushing cats. What can we do: send them to Australia?

The real reason that most content sucks is the same reason Boston and the Knack broke up, James Bond assaulted five secret lairs in six movies, nobody buys the Road Runner box set, and they canceled the Dukes of Hazard: People just run out of ideas. Only a few individuals in history like Mozart and Shakespeare can continuously top themselves.

Finally, I will never limit myself. Garbage or no, it's going on Asymmetric.

Get the Knack

Boston

Shattered

C.S.I. Crime Scene Investigation - The Complete Seventh Season

10,000 B.C.

The Dukes of Hazzard - The Complete First Season

James Bond Ultimate Collector's Set

America's Funniest Home Videos: Battle of the Best

Tags: funniest sites on the internet, future of the internet, garbage on the internet