The retail experience for a PDA is pretty horrible...

 

The market for stand-alone non-phone devices is evaporating at a rapid clip, but even so there used to be dozens of products in this space, heck there used to be other palm-os liscensees. The smell of defeat is in the air.

This is the environment in which you have to make a purchasing decision though? Breakfast cerial box displays are better organized than this. Partially that's the fault of fry's but it's not like office-depot or comp-usa is better, and if anything fry's has more devices. You're better off, buying sight-unseen online. I looks to me like HP who basically invented the PDA business with msdos running palmtops (hp lx) may end up being the last player in the marketplace for a straight-up pda though since they do windows smart phones as well who knows. 

N800 vs the Sony Mylo

I kind of actually want to like the Mylo because it's a Linux box but I just can't... The UI is pretty much like a psp or similar, the keyboard isn't to bad, though it's a domed membrane like the Sony CLIE palm-os pda's had. The device just doesn't seem very flexible though and it's doesn't seem like they are making noises about producing an improved one. Not actively trying to create a developer community around the thing will limit what looks like an already abridged life-span. In some respect it's like sony's be-os based web-browsing appliance, a one-off attempt based on a desire to fill a niche market that may or may not exist.

hipster commuter bike...

 

Says "steal me" a little loudly as far as I'm concerned. 

Dessert - Julia's kitchen NAPA CA

 
  

10 reasons to be grateful...

 

Homeless camp in the abandoned Tower Records parking-lot North Beach San Franciso CA. 

Meta photograph.

 

Me taking a picture of the n800 video confrencing camera looking at me. 

Someone tell the Canadians it's cold outside!

  

Expanding usage with the n800

The Nokia 800 (which just arrived here) opens up some new possibilities. For one, The battery lasts all day now even with the wifi connected. While the 770 never really shut off presence apps didn't quite work because the wireless was off to conserve battery, now like your phone and unlike you laptop the n800 will just be on all the time. It automatically associates with configured ap's when in range.

The elements that make a phone an ubiquitous always-on communications tool are falling into place for the network computer.

Billing address as an authorization token...

So I've noticed now that I have more than one abode, that online merchants frequently use your billing address on your credit card as an authorization token, without herculean effort that is the only address they will ship to.

This presents a problem if you are shuttling between states. Sensible merchants (IE Amazon) can cope with someone shipping to an address you don't reside at (how else does one send gifts) or event sending multiple items in the same order to different locations.

But my biggest issue ultimately is that as indication of authorization to perform an action billing address is a pretty poor token. Digital signatures have basically failed in the consumer space if that's the best we can do frankly.

On the face of it identity theft involving moving mailing addresses doesn't seem that hard, or maybe I'm missing something.

You can of course add additional shipping addresses to credit cards and many retailers will accept those but how many addresses do you have to have (6 or 8 ) before you can't remember which address is associated with which card?

Masons...

Clearly the old secret society thing involves keeping a low profile in Oakland.

  

Looking back part 2.

 

Last day in the office in eugene 01/02/2007 all "my" stuff with stickers on it, sorted into piles. 

Looking back...

 

First day in the new cube 01/08/2007. Already starting to look like a mess. 

Crazy Huge kite...

 
 

Spotted at the shoreline park kite field:

http://local.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=shoreline+park+mountain+view&ie=UTF8&z=19&ll=37.429904,-122.076406&spn=0.000971,0.002511&t=h&om=1 

Kinda looks like Simcity.

 

Something tells me Gavin Newsome doesn't have quite the same tools at his disposal that you do in the game. 

Just one more thing...

Clearly gesture based touch screen interfaces for widescreen media playing devices are so revolutionary that no-one has ever-thought of that before apple...

 

If it one thing that the 770 has taught me about UI design, it's that onscreen keyboards are easy to implement and use. Even so, little chicklet plastic keys are faster to type on. For gross gestures and modal interface controls, the touch screen is great (better than alternatives like the joystick and mousing). The UI can respond accordingly, when control are grabbed or manipulated.

Typing is a different activity than UI navigation. For me, I mostly touch types. I'd rather be focusing on the output while my fingers are busy with the input, so tactile rather than visual feedback is important and the area under my fingers is not the target of visual attention. Maybe there are interfaces that are better (faster requiring less attention) than typing, but for now a competent typist is still faster with a crap chicklet keyboard then someone typing on a screen keyboard that's obscuring half the display, area. 

Not something you see very often.

  

So long old friend...

  

Guess the Nokia 770 is dead...

Unless things change it won't see another official OS release now that the n800 has been released.

http://www.nokiausa.com/N800

http://jaaksi.blogspot.com/2007/01/were-getting-some-feedback-and-weve-got.html

I'm cool with that sort of approach I guess, it's a consumer appliance after all, and the 770 was more of a prototype than an actual product.

Nonetheless the sinking feeling when I got the message that the 770 wouldn't see another software release was sort of like having a pet die. I relate to Linux machines differently than I do to say phones, they're more extensible, they expose more of the inner workings, you negotiate with the operating system rather than being held hostage by it like on a normal embedded communications device.

I have gotten a lot of value out of device since I ordered it in November of 2005 certainly it was $350 well spent. I should order the n800 right now I guess but I haven't quite worked up to it.

There's some question in my mind here about how people relate to objects of varying levels of sophistication and interactivity. I don't really get all that concerned when my toaster gets discontinued by sunbeam, that my 30 year old Beosystem is obsolete or that next year Honda will release a newer slightly restyled version of my car. I didn't get that upset when I bricked my n91 by flashing the firmware (it's just a phone after all), but when something that like many open-source products has a built-in assumption of routine software releases to enhance it's functionality gets discontinued, a little part of it dies. Some pieces of hardware take on a life of their own long after they're technically obsolete and abandoned by their manufacturers (the Newton and the Amiga come to mind) but that's by no means guaranteed, classic electronic devices aren't really that numerous.

People rice the funniest cars (yes that's a camry hybrid)

 

Spotted at the Los Altos whole foods.

No huge muffler tip which is sort of disapointing. ;) 

Spotted in downtown Mountain View sunday morning

  

The new car sitting in the new driveway...

  

brief house tour

 
 
 
  

1800 pair cat-3 cable

 

Cut (planned not accidental) as part of a construction project on the U of O campus. Looks like some kind of psychedelic clown hair. Weighs several pounds per foot... This is the legacy pstn infrastructure, that's a lot of 2 wire analog phones... Really easy to expand that thing when you run out of pairs. 

Coconuts...

 
 

Adapted a means of propagation where the package is sufficiently rugged that it can survive long trips by sea with external propulsion (wind waves). Oddly enough with the advent of humans beings the coconuts have adapted and are now propagating via postal mail. 

first road-trip in the civic hybrid

 

44.3MPG in 243 miles of mized highway secondary and city driving... Still have a quarter of my first tank of gas left. 

interesting blogger

http://www.janchipchase.com/

and even moreso:

http://www.janchipchase.com/mobiletv

Wow this place looks cool for cheap ass cables!

http://www.monoprice.com/home/?CartID=&style=

Ok I want a refund dammit!

http://grandformat.blogspot.com/2006/09/serie-voyage-interplantaire.html

The future I live in sucks...