The 770-orthogonal ersatz blog

[Mike Cane]

Right. I couldn't stand it any longer. I'm putting stuff not directly about the 770 in its own new "blog."

Norway's Opera launches Mini mobile phone browser
http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2005-08-10T172705Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-212225-1.xml
>>>Norway's Opera Software launched a system on Wednesday allowing access to the Internet via mobile phones normally incapable of running a Web browser, giving its shares a boost.
-- details here --
Opera launches Opera Mini J2ME browser for all Java-compatible mobile handsets
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?ContentId=5012

>>>Opera said in a statement the new "Opera Mini" would work for most of the estimated 700 million WAP-enabled phones around the world.

Open source patent library launched
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/print/?TYPE=story&AT=39212676-39020645t-10000022c
>>>Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) revealed plans on Tuesday for a project that will aggregate information on patents that have been pledged to the open source community.

P2P Is Here To Stay… Deal With It
http://gigaom.com/2005/08/10/p2p-is-here-to-stay-deal-with-it/
>>>Hollywood, and its acolytes in the music business are fighting a losing battle when it comes to peer to peer networks. They can try and prosecute kids, and teenagers, but in the end it will all come to a naught. With each prosecution, Hollywood is only steeling the resolve of the coders to come-up with even more powerful technological solutions. Lawyers, unfortunately cannot keep up with the bits-and-byte world of P2P networks.
-- go ahead, just try to take away my eD2k and LimeWire! And the shame of it is, there's just so much legal stuff on P2P. For instance, I got the entire radio broadcast day for one in the late 1930s and one during World War II. Keep your bootlegged movies; I wouldn't pay to see them in a theatre and won't waste my time even when they're "free."

The next Web revolution
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2005/08/10/37signals/print.html
>>>The Web celebrates its 10th anniversary and it's still a pain to use -- clunky, slow and unresponsive. But thanks to creative small companies like Chicago's 37 Signals, the Web is finally becoming as fun and flexible as your favorite software.
--you might have to view an ad first to read this; but worth it. Another glimpse into the Second Coming of the Internet. I hope 770 devs who happen to read this are getting inspired...

Database start-ups bet on open source
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5825663.html
>>>Following the gradual acceptance of Linux, open-source databases are moving into corporate data centers as an increasingly viable option.
-- won't some of these things require client software on something like the 770? Or am I too thick to see that everything of this sort is now handled via a typical web browser?

Send complaints to Reggie. Or money to me.

[Mike Cane]

Net problems, PC problems, and Stuff To Do took me away for a while. During that time, I've thought better.

For one, I've taken my name off the title of this ersatz blog. I'd like to have others chime in here. You lot must do some interesting reading out there. Whatever is Of Interest or Potential Interest to 770 owners should be plopped in here. Let's try for an all-in-one resource.

These things would include:

1) The Second Coming of the Internet (or Web 2.0 as others call it)

2) Open Source developments in general

3) Neat sites that 770 owners might want to know about

4) The wireless world and where it is going

5) Non-770 Nokia stuff

And things like that.

[Mike Cane]

About PenguinTV
http://penguintv.sourceforge.net/
>>>PenguinTV is not just another RSS feed reader. It is designed from the ground up to work seamlessly with podcasts and video blogs, allowing you to easily enjoy the audio, music, and video published around the web in RSS format.
-- now this is something the 770 needs!

RSS Compendium Blog
http://ast.antville.org/

-- edited to add --

Nokia CEO may visit MEA region ahead of departure
http://www.itp.net/news/details.php?id=17197&category=
>>>Outgoing Nokia chief executive Jorma Ollila may pay a visit to the Middle East region before his tenure ends in October 2006, says Eddy Rizk, Nokia’s senior communications manager for the MEA region. “There’s a possibility Ollila may visit the region in the next 6-12 months,” Rizk says. Motorola CEO Ed Zander is also reported to be preparing to visit the region before year-end.
-- what's this? No farewell Jorma World Tour?

Podcasting attracts stupid VC bucks
http://hosting.mansellgroup.net/enablemail/ThomsonNewLetter/HostedWires/NewsLetters/Aug10.htm
>>>There is little that gets Valley girls and boys as hot and bothered as when an Internet company gets funded by both Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. So it’s worth noting that the iconic venture shops have participated in an $8.85 million Series A round for PodShow Inc., according to a regulatory filing. For an added bonus, both John Doerr and Ray Lane have taken board seats, joining both Jerry Newman of Bear Stearns and omnipresent angel investor Ram Shriram (Google, Plaxo, Zazzle, etc.), who is representing shareholder Harris MyCFO Inc.

>>>PodShow is a Miami Beach-based company focused on the development, management and promotion of online audio programming, with an obvious focus on the podcasting phenomenon. It seems to be the renamed version of Boku Communications, which was launched last year by Ron Bloom and “The Podfather” Adam Curry (who was the MTV VJ with whom I grew up).
-- usually I don't make up a headline, but this one deserved it. I hate podcasts!

Too Much Data=Too Little Knowledge
http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,1540,1846760,00.asp
>>>Now for the bad news. Well before we get to 1:1 atoms per bit, we will need more atoms than are likely to be available if we want to store everything we will be creating and keeping. In fact, even if every atom of the earth were available to store a single bit, we still wouldn't have enough atoms to meet the projected storage demand by 2018. That's scary.
-- when I first saw this headline, I thought, "Yeah, right. Tell that to Sherlock Holmes!" But check out the paragraph I've excerpted above.

-- edited again to add --

System for TAgging Messages, Post-Inferential Semantics
http://craftsrv1.epfl.ch/research/stamps/'
-- cutting to the chase, read the following link first:[I]
http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2005/08/10/system_for_tagg.html
[I]-- Web 2.0: Stalker's Playground.

Preregistration of Certain Unpublished Copyright Claims
http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr44878.html
>>>SUMMARY:

>>>The Copyright Office is supplementing its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on preregistration of copyright claims, issued July 22, 2005. That notice proposed procedures to preregister any unpublished work being prepared for commercial distribution that is in a class of works determined by the Register of Copyrights to have had a history of pre-release infringement. Today's notice seeks information as to whether persons filing the electronic-only preregistration form prescribed by the Copyright Office will experience difficulties if it is necessary to use Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser in order to preregister a work.
-- hey, I stopped using MSIE after several people finally wore me down and I tried Firefox. These eejits want me to have to go back in order to e-file a Copyright form?! Are they nuts? What if I want to file from the 770, using Opera or any other browser? Sure, I guess some of these browsers can "fool" a site into thinking it's MSIE, but that's not the point! Online communication is *not* one vast MS standard

-- edited again to add --

Is anyone listening? WiFi and the new ADD
http://www.veen.com/jeff/archives/000764.html
-- and --
Speaking and wifi at events
http://www.stopdesign.com/log/2005/08/10/speaking-with-wifi.html
-- wait til the 770 is in the hands of all these people! You'll be talking to someone one-on-one and they'll be doing WiFi! And guess what? You'll be doing it too!

[Mike Cane]

When laptops are a pain in the neck
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1546144,00.html
>>>Jeremy Clarkson and I seem to have something in common: we've both been laid low partly by our laptops. Physically, if not financially, he's much worse off than me. According to his column in The Sunday Times, he's visiting an osteopath for a slipped disc, whereas I'm just having physiotherapy for a cricked neck. But in a world where Wi-Fi and notebook computers are replacing wired desktops, this is very likely to become an increasingly common problem for computer users over the next few years.
-- it will be interesting to see how many of these people wind up writing stories along the lines of, "I Ditched My Notebook for a Nokia 770!"

Odeo receives funding from Charles River (plus: Kapor, Kraus, O'Reilly, Kopelman, Conway...)
http://odeo.com/blog/2005/08/odeo-receives-funding-from-charles.html
-- a second podcast venture attracts VC funding. I don't care. I hate podcasts. They demand way too much time compared to print. And their information-to-time ratio is far too low. Don't bother defending them to me. You'll only annoy me and frustrate yourself.

The Pulse of Modern Mobile Design
http://www.designinteract.com/features/
>>>When it comes to design for mobile devices, it’s tempting to take an ostrich-like approach: Hide your head in the sand and behave as though nothing is happening. Unfortunately, in the not-too-distant future, more people will be using mobile devices to access the Net; and no interactive designer will be able to ignore them.

I see the Beeb has trotted out Berners-Lee for a Q&A about the WWW. Ignore that. You won't learn a bloody thing. This is the guy you should know about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson
His books are mostly out of print. "Dream Machines" goes for a bloody small fortune, if you can even find it, on ebay. That and "The Home Computer Revolution" are marvelous, timeless books that will take your breath away. That they are not in every public library and easy to buy in affordable editions is truly a cultural crime. His home page is:
http://ted.hyperland.com/
This man is like a god to me. More:
The Structure and Boundaries of Information
http://www.scope.at/live/nelson.html
>>>39 years ago, I had some very simple ideas and unfortunately, they’re still too simple for most people. And, uh, it takes forever, 39 years, to explain them. Someone asked me yesterday, how come I wasn’t rich ? And I was reminded of the inventor of television, or, at least, of one them, I forget his name, who I believed starved to death and was eaten by rats. So, I feel terribly lucky. On the other hand, when it comes to being eaten by rats, there was an article in Wired magazine that came close, which depicted me as a incoherent blithering drooling fool incapable of harboring let alone expressing a coherent thought.
-- and --
The Roads and Crossroads of Internet History
http://www.netvalley.com/intvalliv.html

-- from the sublime to the slime --

News Corp's Murdoch: No Bigger Priority Than Internet
http://money.iwon.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt_top.jsp?cat=TOPBIZ&src=704&feed=dji&section=news&news_id=dji-00091120050810&date=20050810&alias=/alias/money/cm/nw
>>>News Corp. (NWSA) (NWSA, NWS) Chairman Rupert Murdoch said the media conglomerate has no greater priority than to expand its presence on the Internet.
-- this is the guy who bought Delphi and threw it in the trash. Eejit.

[Mike Cane]

Two items carried over from yesterday --

State of the Blogosphere August 2005 Part 4: Spam and Fake Blogs
http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000335.html
>>>Today I will write about some of the darker sides of the blogosphere, including the increase in spam and fake blogs, comment and trackback spam. Along with the growth in the blogosphere (as reported in parts 1, 2 and 3 last week), Technorati has also been tracking an increase in the number of people who are trying to manipulate the blogosphere. First off, some defintions:
-- he doesn't use my prefered term: roboblogs.

Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly In Two Minutes
http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2005/07/make-your-site-mobile-friendly
>>>After checking out B. Adam Howell’s excellent IYHY.com site a couple of weeks ago, I thought it might be a good idea to write a little tutorial about how to make your entire site more mobile-friendly without even touching your pages. You may think that since you write valid code and separate structure from presentation at all times, your site already works great on mobile devices. You may also think bad things don’t happen to good people. In both cases, you’d be wrong.
-- this has some very nice and convincing examples. Would 770 owners prefer to go to a mobile-friendly version of a site even with the 770 having almost the viewing power of a desktop PC?

-- and now today --

Unhappiness drives open source adoption
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news_print.asp?guid=2BF1A6B8-C974-42DD-8903-758193AE36BF
>>>A common reason why more governments and enterprises around the world are moving to open source software is unhappiness, it was revealed during a panel discussion at the LinuxWorld Conference in San Francisco yesterday.
-- in my own case, I have been very unhappy with PalmOS, and PPC just sucks (and yes, I've used PPC; I own a dead GENIO).

ibiblio torrents
http://torrent.ibiblio.org/
>>>Providing BitTorrent access to ibiblio content
-- legal stuff; with Project Gutenberg ebooks too! Now all we need is a 770 BT client...

Take Your Pick of the Debian Litter
http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/3526396
>>>Since Knoppix burst dramatically into the Linux scene there has been an explosion of Debian-based distributions. This is welcome news to us lonely souls who have long been preaching that Red Hat is not Linux. Linux covers a far wider spectrum, as a quick peek at DistroWatch demonstrates. You'll find everything from tiny specialized Linuxes that fit on embedded devices, USB keys, floppy diskettes, or miniature CDs, to full-blown "kitchen sink" distributions that fill a DVD. Red Hat deserves a substantial amount of credit for supporting Linux development, popularizing Linux, and spawning a host of other Linux distributions. Just don't think that Red Hat is all there is to the Linux world.
-- repeating: Maemo is based on Debian.

HTC 'to build' Palm's Windows-based Treo
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/11/htc_palm_treo_670/
-- cue "Taps" for PalmOS.

Open-source allies go on patent offensive
http://news.com.com/2102-7344_3-5827844.html?tag=st.util.print
>>>Two Linux allies are taking a leaf out of their opponents' book as they try to prevent software patents from putting a crimp in open source.

Linux licence revamp in the offing
http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=4197&Page=1&pagePos=3
>>>The basic open-source licence covering software such as the Linux OS will be revamped and ready by 2007, according to an industry official involved with the project.

Slime Update:

Rupert Murdoch the New Barry Diller?
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/index.php?p=2040
>>>Paid Content listened to Rupert Murdoch’s earnings call (bless them) and had this to report about Murdoch’s local musings (which are full of hubris of course): Murdoch sent a wake-up call to local online players, ticking off the lengthy list of local properties in the U.S.—35 o-and-o TV stations, 21 regionl sports nets, print, existing web sites. “We already have the assets to be a dominant player” in online local. “We go deeper with more resources than virtually anyone else … We plan to exploit that advantage.”
-- OK, if Crudmeister Murdoch, who is no slouch to exploiting things (and even wasting them, witness Delphi), says local search will be big, then you can count on it. I expect he has seen the 770 and that got him going.

[Mike Cane]

New Analysis of FCC July 2005 Broadband Report — A Devastating Critique of US Broadband Policy
http://muniwireless.com/community/796
>>>Broadband costs in the United States remain high, despite growth in the total number of connections. Meanwhile, the cost of broadband in other countries has dropped dramatically while speeds have increased. On a per megabit basis, U.S. consumers pay 10 to 25 times more than broadband users in Japan.
-- the Oligarchy at work...

Nokia zeigt Handy-TV
http://tomorrow.msn.de/news?id=182230
-- excerpt via Babelfish --
>>>Vodafone makes it in Germany already forwards: The service at its UMTS customers, most popular with distance, is the video offer. With "Vodafone MobileTV" particularly prepared transmissions - for example summaries of newscasts or the Top Lacher from the last Stefan-Raab-show - are made available as Download or Streaming. But television in the actual sense, thus live-uebertragung, is that not yet. Nokia and its partners - from the portable radio network carrier to the national TV transmitter -, which with approximately 500 test persons for well three months a mobile phone-tv-pilotprojekt in of Finland capital Helsinki accomplished, want however regular television broadcasts live on mobile phone to bring. And they are convinced of success. They feel confirmed by the statement of the participants, who evaluated mobile phone-tv to approximately 60% as good and desirable offer.
-- this is worth a look because there is a picture of this test device.

August Is the Month of Speculation
http://battellemedia.com/archives/001791.php
>>>First, I have very good confirmation that the earlier Meetro-Google rumour is false. Second, Rafat has a rundown on the word that Newscorp/Murdoch is on the prowl for search properties.

Cloud pushes Wi-Fi into the mainstream
http://www.nma.co.uk/Document.aspx?did=222d4cf4-2917-4227-bafb-e141ef30273c
-- this one is for UK & European readers.

Opera finds new answers
http://news.com.com/2102-1038_3-5828673.html?tag=st.util.print
>>>Opera Software and Answers.com announced a partnership Thursday in which the search engine will be integrated into the Opera browser and portal.
-- give us FURL!

-- edited to add --

Nokia 9300 Smartphone Review
http://www.bargainpda.com/default.asp?newsID=2623
>>>The Nokia 9300 is a well-made device, another of many that promise to do it all. I enjoy the 9300 for the most part. The display is great; it works well as a phone and does a pretty good job as a PDA. The software package is a little limiting, but depending on what you need, this may or may not be an issue. The web browser is strong and could be even better if there were a full screen mode. The biggest oversight that keeps me from pushing this device hard though is the lack of integration with middleware email systems like Exchange. For a device that's geared toward mobile business users, this alone might be enough to knock it out of contention, as it does for me, at least as a full time all in one device. It's a well made product though, certainly something that should at least get consideration, in a market dominated by ho-hum devices.
-- well, nice pictures.

Nokia make a white leather fashion statement
http://www.fashion.ie/index.cfm/fuseaction/dailynews.home/id/6653D788-010F-4893-9A8DE8565D3472F4.htm
>>>With fashion and functionality becoming intertwined more and more, Nokia have introduced an exclusive limited edition Nokia 7200 phone, complete with tailored, pure white leather covers. This Limited Edition phone offers state-of-the-art technology - such as camera and radio - in a haute couture, folding design.
-- I don't know. This seems to me like that old Claudia Schiffer Edition Palm V... See
http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=1534

[Mike Cane]

Naysayers put Nokia N90 in doubt
http://www.techdigest.tv/2005/08/naysayers_put_n.html
>>>Everyone wants 2 megapixel cameras with video recording and MPEG4 support on a hard disk drive but unfortunately, being fickle beasts that we are, no one wants a brick in their pocket.

Nokia, Fashion, Lifeblog - Anina.net Invites Us Into the World of Fashion
http://darlamack.blogs.com/darlamack/2005/08/nokia_fashion_l.html
>>>Supermodel, Anina Trepte together with Nokia have put together a mobile Lifeblog about fashion.

Nokia fashion week opens in Cape Town
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-08/12/content_3343208.htm
>>>The Nokia Cape Town Fashion Week kicks off in Cape Town, South Africa August 10, 2005 with 37 shows and more than 60 designers from 12 countries.

The URL says it all...
http://www.itplaysdoom.com/

-- edited to add --

Good Grief! How did this stuff get by me til now?
Nokia Shorts 2005
http://www.nokiashorts.com/flash.htm
-- with related info here:
http://www.techdigest.tv/2005/08/15_second_short.html
-- fifteen seconds? Nanoprograms?!

-- edited again to add --

The Realm Mobile Personal Server (MPS)
http://www.realmsys.com/solutions.htm
>>>The Realm MPS represents the world's first and only secure, platform-independent, USB-powered computing device. Users can easily plug the MPS into any computer USB port (regardless of operating system) to safely and securely access their enterprise applications and services any place there is a network connection. The MPS includes an embedded operating system with up to 64 MB of DRAM, dual PowerPC processors, and up to 1GB of flash (using an SD expansion slot) or up to a 20 GB hard drive.
-- whoa! Powered by Debian. Go look at the pics and info! /.'s take is here:
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/12/004231&from=rss

Making the case for Windows on Palm devices
http://news.com.com/2102-1047_3-5829076.html?tag=st.util.print
>>>A senior Palm executive says his company could benefit from building a mobile computing device that runs on the Windows operating system made by once-bitter rival Microsoft.
-- thank you, Nokia, for offering me an alternative!

-- edited again to add --

Handhelds' appeal obvious, to a point
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002423603&zsection_id=2002119727&slug=ptinbo06&date=20050806
>>>In my case, I became so wrapped up in the wireless phenomenon — how you can pull out your laptop almost anywhere to get your messages — that I forgot about the whole handheld subcategory. Carrying a laptop is a little like dragging around a recliner. You can be comfortable anywhere you go, with all the comforts of home.
-- there have been plenty of articles like this in the past. But now this sort of thing takes on a different aspect with the advent of the 770. Will any of these people try it?

Vista Gives the Linux Desktop a Chance
http://www.eweek.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=157952,00.asp
>>>Opinion: It's late, it's lame and installing it won't be cheap, so now is the perfect time for Linux desktop vendors to make a charge at Microsoft.

Microsoft Needs to Come Clean About Vista
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,2180,1846067,00.asp

-- edited again to add --

French students to get Linux CDs
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/print/?TYPE=story&AT=39212812-39020390t-10000004c
>>>Many secondary schools students in the French region of Auvergne will receive CDs containing free and open source software when they return to school in September.

-- edited again to add --

Some of the best videocasts
http://www.pdalive.com/showarticle.php?threadid=9534
>>>Podacsts are receiving enough attention, where everyone and their grandmother knows what the must-downloads are (see: Twit, iTunes New Music Tuesday, Daily Source Code,) but what about videocasts? This is a fairly new (in comparison with podcasts) concept to the mainstream, so here’s the quick Videocasts 101.
-- let's not forget the 770 can sort of do video (well, here's hoping the release version does it better than the pre-release one I fondled). Of course, devs might come out with other video players too!

[Mike Cane]

Don't forget to check the prior post today for updates.

New Zealanders Take To Small Screen Action
http://www.cdg.org/news/latest_news.asp?hnYY=2005&hnMM=08#080105_ind_a.html
>>>Telecom’s T3G Video Clips service has recently past the one million mark, just three months after its launch in April.

>>>The service, which is currently free, enables customers to stream video highlights up to three minutes long, directly to their mobile phone.

>>>Telecom estimates the one million streamed clips would equal about five and a half years’ worth of small screen viewing.

>>>In the three months since the service’s launch, approximately half of Telecom’s customers with video capable phones have streamed video clips.
-- geez! I'd really like to know the demographics of these users. Grown adults or teens? And I'd also like to see what the popularity of this is when they start tacking on fees! And what those fees are.

Don't Get Cozy With Ajax Just Yet
http://as400blog.blogspot.com/2005/08/dont-get-cozy-with-ajax-just-yet.html
>>>AJAX, the web technology that is spreading like wildfire and powers Google Maps, Flickr, Gmail, and even parts of Digg, is on everyone's mind right now. The problem is, AJAX provides the biggest security hole in years, allowing your keystrokes to be monitored, and other negative things. Devs and users, don't get too cozy with AJAX just yet.
-- sounds like the Second Coming of the Internet will be a wee bit delayed...

OSDL patent commons gets chilly reception from the "ouspoken"
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/index.php?p=1721
>>>In case you missed it, Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) announced this week at LinuxWorld that it would be creating a patent commons as it looks to further bolster the open source community's resilience to the patent related issues that could hold it back. Red Hat piled on by offering financial assistance to open source developers who were seeking patents as long as those patents would be made available to the open source community.

Reincarnating PCs with Portable SoulPads
http://domino.watson.ibm.com/library/cyberdig.nsf/1e4115aea78b6e7c85256b360066f0d4/577bb6b4f4a4bb7185256ff0004e578a?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,Soulpad
>>>The ability to walk up to any computer, personalize it, and use it as one’s own has long been a goal of mobile computing research. We present SoulPad, a new approach based on carrying an auto-configuring operating system nalong with a suspended virtual machine on a small portable device. With this approach, the computer boots from the device and resumes the virtual machine, thus giving the user access to his personal environment, including previously running computations. SoulPad has minimal infrastructure requirements and is therefore applicable to a wide range of conditions, particularly in developing countries. We report our experience implementing SoulPad and using it on a variety of hardware configurations. We address challenges common to systems similar to SoulPad, and show that the SoulPad model has significant potential as a mobility solution.
-- leads to a PDF link with details. WTF? *IBM* using the word "soul"?! Is this the Noo Kewl IBM? Have they replaced their legendary "Think" signs with "Slack"?

-- edited to add --

LinuxWorld Conference and Expo - Day 2
http://business.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/08/11/1551203&from=rss
>>>The second day of LinuxWorld passed without any fistfights breaking out between vendors, although there are rumors of rancor between Sun and IBM over a modification of OpenOffice.org that IBM is passing out on CDs. There are more hardware vendors than last year, with bigger and splashier displays. And in honor of the late, great San Francisco newspaper columnist Herb Caen, I will end this paragraph and some other ones with three dots...

[Mike Cane]

NYC Heat Index is 103. You think I'm gonna be looking for stuff to blog? Ha!

Are Computers without Hard Drives Useless? Doubtful.
http://www.flexbeta.net/main/articles.php?action=show&id=105
>>>Knoppix, a Linux based live CD, will boot a computer from the optical drive and gives a slow but usable graphical user interface. The average Windows user may balk at the idea of learning Linux. On the other hand, anyone willing to fumble around in the GUI for half an hour, and throw out the occasional Google search shouldn't have too many problems using the Knoppix interface. The most recent version, Knoppix 3.9, comes with Firefox and OpenOffice.org 2.0 Beta, so if you're already using the Windows equivalent, Knoppix is that much easier to pick up. This still leaves the question, what can be done on a computer without a hard drive?
-- the 770 is announced and all the PPC Weenies chant, "No HD! No HD! Nyah, nyah! What good is *that*?" Then it turns out none of them went and got a MicroDrive anyway. And then they diss the RS-MMC too -- until Compaq this week reveals their latest will sport a *mini-SD*! Ha! I doubt the PPC Weenies could do the above with *Windows*.

Welcome to BlogDay.org
http://blogday.wikispaces.org/
-- another sign of Armageddon.

Ripple Project
Decentralized Peer-to-Peer Currency and Payment System
http://ripple.sourceforge.net/
>>>Ripple is a monetary system based on trust that already exists between people in real-world social networks. By cutting out the institutional middlemen, Ripple is both more community-oriented and more efficient as a means of exchange.
-- this I will have to go study. Seems very interesting.

-- one entry deleted --
I got screwed by a search engine that popped up something it said was news for *today* -- and it was from 2000! I plead heat prostration! Thanks to Jeff Kirvin for catching that!

My Experience with the Nokia Experience Center
>>>http://darlamack.blogs.com/darlamack/2005/08/my_experience_w.html
>>>Ok first of all, it wasn't a center, it was a kiosk. Secondly, maybe it's just me, but the person working that pop-sickle stand was totally clueless!!! What are the job requirements?
-- someone in Finland better fix this!

[Mike Cane]

Too hot to blog. You're on your own the rest of today.

Coming soon: Soap opera on your Nokia phone
http://www.mb.com.ph/INFO2005081441808.html
>>>Phone maker Nokia is looking at offering television via the mobile phone as one of the value-added services for customers of its new line of cellular phone models which will soon be launched in the Philippines.

>>>However, Parikshit Bhasin country manager of Nokia, said the Finland-based firm has yet to hold negotiations with Philippine-based broadcasting companies for the mobile TV service, which will use DVB or digital video broadcasting, an international standard for beaming TV signals to mobile phones.

-- edited to add --

Eh. I came back. Once.

YouTube -- The Flickr of Video?
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/14/1320217&from=rss

Debian start-up seeks new funding
http://news.com.com/2102-7344_3-5831000.html?tag=st.util.print
>>>Progeny, a start-up seeking to commercialize the Debian version of Linux, is on the prowl for new funding, a company co-founder has confirmed.

Creative Technology chokes after trying to bite into Apple
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050814/tc_afp/singaporecreativetech
>>>One year after launching a direct challenge to Apple Computer's iconic iPod, Creative Technology is finding it tougher than expected to bite market share off the US-based digital music player giant.

>>>Creative went into the red for the first time in three years with a 31.9 million US dollar loss in its fourth quarter to June, compared with profits of 6.63 million dollars a year ago. The drop was worse than market expectations.
-- Nokia, get "cool" tagged onto that 770!

[Mike Cane]

Nokia's Ollila Considered Presidential Bid
http://www.yle.fi/news/id16041.html
>>>Nokia President and CEO Jorma Ollila considered running for president in the last elections, according to current presidential candidate Sauli Niinistö.
-- smart, Jorma. Very smart.

Nokia and Microsoft to join forces in digital music
http://www.the3gportal.com/3gpnews/archives/007482.html
>>>In its audio player, Microsoft will introduce the open AAC format that shrinks audio files, as well as anti-piracy software from the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA).

>>>Nokia and Loudeye agreed they would start selling a music download service directly to mobile phones that will use the same AAC and OMA technologies.

>>>Nokia will add Microsoft’s Windows Media compression and playback technology to the digital music players in its handsets.

>>>At a later stage, Nokia will include Windows Media’s anti-piracy technology, used in many online music stores.
-- another sign of Armageddon...

Nokia N90 3G Phone Success in Doubt ?
http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/August2005/1865.htm
>>>Despite Nokia's recent claims of production shortages of its much-hyped N90 camera phone due to strong initial demand, UK based mobile research, Mako Analysis, firm has speculated that these shortages are more likely to be as a result of small production volumes following poor operator feedback rather than rampant end user market demand.
-- wonderful. Nokia goes to hell just when I become interested in them...

Nokia, AEG Partner on Times Square Theater
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/#081505nokia
>>>Nokia and concert giant AEG are pushing ahead on a plan to build an entertainment theatre in Times Square. The new hotspot will be located in the Viacom/MTV building on Broadway and 44th. The midsize venue, to be called Nokia Theatre Times Square, will feature top music acts and events, all positioned against a mobile media backdrop. Visitors will be encouraged to grab the latest ringtones, games and videos on their stay, and the newest Nokia handsets will also be on hand. The group pointed to over 150 concerts, awards shows, live broadcasts and special events each year at the venue. The Times Square location, which will offer a counterweight to the 7,000-seat Nokia Theatre Los Angeles, is planning to open later this summer. "The Nokia Theatre concept is allowing us to further the goal of bringing the worlds of entertainment and mobility closer together," said Jo Harlow, vice president of marketing for Nokia.

Single Soccer Mom Prepares RIAA Challenge
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/#081505nokia
>>>While most recipients of RIAA lawsuits quickly settle out of court, a big challenge could come from an unlikely source. Patricia Santangelo, a single soccer mom from Wappingers Falls, NY, has decided to go to trial with the RIAA. The mother of four recently received a letter from the trade group, though she claims to have no knowledge of any file-sharing on her family computer. According to a report from the local Journal News, Santangelo had no knowledge that the file-swapping was happening on her PC, and attributed the illegal behavior to a visitor. The lawsuit was originally filed in February by the RIAA in the US District Court in White Plains.
-- I hope she wins! More at --
Taking on record companies
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050814/NEWS02/508140316/1020/NEWS04

Chinese eye $100 wireless laptop
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/15/100_dollar_laptop/print.html
>>>Broadband wireless has traditionally flourished in developing economies, as a relatively low cost way to bring broadband access to countries with limited infrastructure. But this does not mean that it is a technology for spreading access to poor users. In general, operators in new economies target enterprises, expatriates and other high income oases, leaving rural and low income groups pretty much untouched.
-- so there I am flipping through channels this morning and I hit CCTV. This is the Red China Channel, pro-Commie China propaganda for Stupid Americans. And there they are, on this gargantuan stage that makes our stadium for any Super Bowl look like a frikkin *vestibule*, celebrating the defeat of the Japanese, this being the 60th anny of our a-bombing them. And among the songs they are singing is one about tunnel fighting! Don't tell me this country isn't out to dominate the planet. Better start watching Firefly on Sci-Fi Channel: that's our future!

Free Wi-Fi? Get Ready for GoogleNet.
http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/print/0,17925,1093558,00.html
>>>What if Google (GOOG) wanted to give Wi-Fi access to everyone in America? And what if it had technology capable of targeting advertising to a user’s precise location? The gatekeeper of the world’s information could become one of the globe’s biggest Internet providers and one of its most powerful ad sellers, basically supplanting telecoms in one fell swoop. Sounds crazy, but how might Google go about it?
-- my reaction? Ewwwwwww! (To older readers: That's not good!)

[Mike Cane]

MURDOCH WATCH

Murdoch Wants Blinkx
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050815-123116
>>>According to a story in the LA Times, News Corp is in talks to acquire Blinkx. Stories about Mr. Murdoch's rapidly growing continuing interest in acquring Internet properties (not only Blinkx) after a conference call last week and his acquisition of MySpace a few weeks ago.
-- gee, blinkx looks interesting. Never heard of it before now...

Murdoch, WiMAX and The Two Way Web
http://gigaom.com/2005/08/13/murdoch-wimax-and-the-two-way-web/#more-4902
>>>There has been a lot of speculation about Rupert Murdoch’s desire to buy a search engine company. Will it be Technorati, or Ice Rocket? Who knows? Regardless of which search engine he acquires, an even more significant development to watch for is whether he will ride the WiMax wave to become a player in the two-way broadband enabled world. Maybe he and Paul Otellini, Intel’s CEO should meet.
-- ah, these stargazers. I'd like to know WTF kind of broadband *they* have. Come to NYC, get Roadrunner as a *civilian* and you'll encounter gravity -- fast.

TALK OF THE BROADBAND ECONOMY
http://telephonyonline.com/mag/telecom_talk_broadband_economy_78/
>>>People who own personal electronic devices such as a mobile phone or PDA won't have to struggle with tiny, hard-to-see display screens thanks to a team of Scottish researchers from the University of Glasgow who are exploring a new technology that will enable people to interact with mobile computers using 3-D sound and gestures.
-- let me rephrase that for them:
>>>People who own personal electronic devices such as a mobile phone or PDA won't have to struggle with tiny, hard-to-see display screens if they buy a Nokia 770!

What the DMCA Is Good For: Marginalizing Open Source
http://www.corante.com/copyfight/archives/2005/08/15/what_the_dmca_is_good_for_marginalizing_open_sourc e.php
>>>Over at the afore-mentioned Picker MobBlog, Julie Cohen counters Fred von Lohmann's argument that the DMCA is a failure at fighting the "darknet," arguing, among other things, that it's effective for influencing the kinds of technologies engineers create and keeping open source out of the mainstream

Interface Remixers will Pay for Privilege of APIs
http://bokardo.com/archives/interface-remixers-privilege-of-apis/
>>>Jonathan Boutelle brings up an interesting point after attending the BayCHI Web2.0 panel the other day: the Web 2.0 companies heavily promoting their APIs (Technorati, Flickr, Google) are glad to have developers create interesting new interfaces out of them…unless you want to make money from that interface.
-- this is an *excellent* site about Web 2.0 news.

Hitachi lays groundwork for 20-GB Microdrive with century-old technology
http://www.gizmag.com/go/3909/" target="blank" title="Hitachi lays groundwork for 20-GB Microdrive with century-old technology ">Hitachi lays groundwork for 20-GB Microdrive with century-old technology
-- ah, if the 770 had a CF slot...

-- edited to add --

Wanted: an iPod Clone That Does Justice To e-Books Too
http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=3392
>>>And before my Nokia 770-lovingin’ friends speak up here, let it be known I’m talking about a Pod-killer, not a mini-tablet.
-- tch! David has not been reading these "blogs." Else he would have seen the pounding Creative has been taking up against the iPod. It's more than just *hardware*, David. iPod offers a Total User Experience no one has yet matched.

[Mike Cane]

Nokia N90 Voted European Media Phone of the Year
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?Feed=PR&Date=20050816&ID=5043223
>>>Nokia today announced that its flagship imaging device, the Nokia N90, has been awarded the European Media Phone of the Year 2005-2006 by the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA), the largest editorial multimedia organization in Europe. The award is an endorsement of the Nokia N90's industry-leading feature set, which makes it one of the most high performance devices in the marketplace.

RealNetworks et Nokia accroissent leur partenariat
http://www.multimedialaune.net/-Mobilware-Internet,RealNetworks-et-Nokia-accroissent-leur-partenariat_a4853.html
>>>Nokia et RealNetworks viennent d'annoncer l'extension d'une alliance afin d'apporter des fonctions de lecteur audio et vidéo sur plus de modèles Nokia.

>>>Selon les termes d'un nouvel accord sur cinq ans, Nokia utilisera les logiciels audio et vidéo de RealNetworks dans une large gamme de ses téléphones, et non plus seulement dans ses produits haut de gamme fonctionnant avec le système d'exploitation Symbian et les applications Nokia Series 60.
-- via Babelfish --
>>>Nokia and RealNetworks have just announced the extension of an alliance in order to bring functions of audio and video reader on more Nokia models. According to terms' of a new agreement over five years, Nokia will use the audio and video software of RealNetworks in a broad range of its telephones, and either only in its top-of-the-range products functioning with the operating system Symbian and the applications Nokia Series 60.

Free books on Java programming
http://www.stevenchoy.com/wordpress/free-java-books/

Catching up to Web 2.0
http://news.com.com/2061-10798_3-5834836.html?part=rss&tag=5834836&subj=news
>>>The experience of Jeff Barr, Amazon's Web services evangelist, shows how the IT industry usually manages to catch up with the hype it creates, even in the case of the Web.

>>>Like many people, Barr sees the Web becoming a platform, allowing individual developers to take data from multiple sites to create fun new programs. In many ways, it's the promise of Web services finally delivered.

What's in a name?
http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-5834760.html?part=rss&tag=5834760&subj=news
>>>In a shocking turn of events, bloggers are upset with Microsoft.
-- another one to add to the List of the Sins of Microsoft.

LinuxWorld Conference and Expo - Wrapup
http://business.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/08/15/1614201&from=rss
>>> I've said this before, and so have many others: The semi-annual LinuxWorld Conference and Expo has become a business-to-business gathering. Last week's edition, held in the west building of San Francisco's Moscone Center, had more exhibitors than last year -- about 200. It had the same number of attendees -- about 11,000. But most of the exhibitors I asked said the show was better for them than last year because the quality of attendees was better -- at least from their point of view. And there was still the "meeting ground" aspect, centered on the Dot-Org area that was located well away from the main show floor. This still makes LinuxWorld worthwhile for those whose primary interest is learning about new advances in the GUIs and other software that keep GNU/Linux evolution strong and steady.

Burger chain beefs up free Wi-Fi to its 243 stores
http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.aspx?i=24735
>>>Eat a burger, then surf the internet. The Krystal Co. is adding free WiFi access to nearly 250 of its restaraunts around the country:

How DRM Will Kill Mobile Music
http://techdirt.com/articles/20050815/170233_F.shtml

Small Devices, Big Risks
http://www.internetnews.com/security/print.php/3527661
>>>Portable, handheld storage devices, like USB memory sticks and iPods, are posing a greater security risk internally to many businesses that are primarily focused on halting external threats.

Golden's Rules: LinuxWorld's screaming hardware, palm-sized server, faux IT guys and .org ghetto
http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/columnItem/0,294698,sid39_gci1115890,00.html
>>>Whew! LinuxWorld -- three days of raucous music, bright lights, and demos galore -- is over. I attended all three days and want to share the highlights -- and lowlights -- of the conference with you.

-- edited to add --

Nokia to Showcase N-Gage Games at Gen Con Indy 2005
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?Feed=PR&Date=20050816&ID=5045044
>>>Nokia NOK today announced their participation in Gen Con Indy 2005, the largest consumer hobby game convention in North America. With more than 25,000 attendees, Gen Con is slated for August 18-21 at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis. The N-Gage booth will feature games from a variety of genres from simulation to strategy and action adventure. The Gen Con Indy lineup includes: Rifts(R): Promise Of Power(TM), Catan, Civilization, ONE, Asphalt: Urban GT 2, Pathway to Glory Ikusa Islands, and High Seize.

-- edited again to add --

Handsets are the last frontier for Linux
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/08/16/34OPreality_1.html
>>>We’ve all heard the Microsoft (Profile, Products, Articles) pitch a thousand times -- if you’re running Windows on the server and the desktop, it only makes sense to run it on the handheld. But if that argument is valid then perhaps Microsoft is soon to be hoisted on its own petard.
-- die Microsoft die!

Leaked Songs' Success Finally Convinces Sony To Release Fiona Apple Album
http://techdirt.com/articles/20050816/1027251_F.shtml
>>> Earlier this year, we wrote about how Sony's Epic label had refused to release an album of songs by singer Fiona Apple, claiming that they didn't hear a "hit" in it (probably as determined by some computer). However, somehow, the songs were leaked and a DJ started playing them and people started downloading them and the whole thing became quite a hit.
-- God Bless P2P!

-- edited again to add --

One for you billions of weird people who insist on those annoying cellphones --

HOW-TO: Make a Nokia Pop port to female mini jack
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000437054579/
>>>When Nokia announced their music player capable phones they neglected to mention the lack of support for external headphones. Since the release of the 6230 and its related family with mp3/aac playback support, many disgruntled users have made their own home-brew cables to plug in headphones. Today we will show one such mod for the Nokia HDS-3 cable. This cable ships with the 6230 and other Nokia phones capable of stereo playback.

[Mike Cane]

Are 'splogs' ruining the blogs?
http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-5836356.html?part=rss&tag=5836356&subj=news
-- I still prefer my term, "roboblog."

San Francisco mayor launches free WiFi plan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/sv/20050817/tc_siliconvalley/_www12404786&printer=1;_ylt=AlepJPNHOS18wQI5BWmaRW0IRboF;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-
>>>San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom launched an initiative Tuesday to bring free or affordable wireless Internet service to all the city's citizens within a year.
-- where's that strutting billionaire popinjay -- the ersatz Mayor of NY, Bloomberg -- on this? Nowhere!

TV Execs Are Finally Recognizing The Landscape Has Shifted
http://techdirt.com/articles/20050817/0334232_F.shtml
-- I will believe this when I can buy the pilot of "Global Frequency" on a legal DVD. Until then... god bless P2P!

Why Exclusive Mobile Content Deals Don't Make Sense
http://techdirt.com/articles/20050816/1756242_F.shtml
-- yeah, I know I'm pushing the envelope on this "blog" with some of this stuff; but trust me, it's all related.

I Remember Modems
http://www.tomshardware.com/column/20050817/index.html
>>>With the announcement this week that US Robotics is being purchased by a VC company, I began tripping down memory lane thinking about all the times that I have come across USR and used their products over the years. Having been left for the dead after 3Com had consumed them and then split them out, it is nice to see that USR is still hanging in there. USR has been around as long as I have been in this business. They were one of the early vendors at the dawn of the PC era, and helped to get the whole BBS industry moving along with their modem racks and deals with Compuserve (remember them). They began their corporate life making modems, taking their name from a company in Asimov's robot SF stories. By the way, these are the very same stories that generated a flop of a movie starring Will Smith last year. I won't make any further comments other than I was a big Asimov fan in my youth and read most if not all of his first 80 or so books.
-- ah, the days of waking people up in the middle of the night with those screeches and bloops -- all because some BBS changed its phone number. I'm not nostalgic for those bloody 300bps days!

[Mike Cane]

I've developed an RSI and shouldn't have been online *at all* today. I'm not posting anything else for today and I'm taking tomorrow off.

[Mike Cane]

Ow. Just had to note that two items carried on BoingBoing have appeared in this "blog" *first*. Hah! That's what Cory gets for ignoring my submissions.

You lot who have been ignoring this, today's a good day to catch up.

Ow. Back to recovery...

[Mike Cane]

Nokia and iTunes -- no, wait, Nokia vs. iTunes -- no, wait ...

In reverse chrono order...

Nokia denies deal for iTunes
http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=17502
>>>Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia said on Thursday it had no agreement with Apple Computer Inc. for the iTunes music service to be included on its upcoming N91 multimedia phone.

>>>But Nokia said that because of the design of the new N-series phones, software developers could readily produce programs to allow the gadgets to use services like iTunes.

Nokia Phones To Sync With iTunes
http://wiredpod.com/archives/2005/08/18/nokia-phones-to-sync-with-itunes/
>>>Something interesting here… Nokia will bring Apple Computer Inc.’s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) iTunes music service to its upcoming music phone N91. I guess that we could expect future Nokia phones will be able to sync with iTunes, which isn’t a bad idea after all (teaming up with Apple) to sell more phones and more music. Yeah, rock on!

Nokia denies deal with Apple to use iTunes on the N91
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000013054927/
>>>Finnish daily Taloussanomat has been reporting that Nokia is incorporating iTunes into the N91 music phone, but spokespersons for Nokia told Reuters that they have no special deal with Apple to include the iTunes Music Service on the N91. However, they say that due to the design of the new N-series handsets, developers could easily add programs to the device to allow it to use music download services like iTunes. As of now, though, they’re saying they don’t have any exclusive agreements with any commercial music service.
-- picture of the phone in question. Dig that crazy design!

iTunes 'could' work on Nokia mobile
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=12384
>>> Nokia has swiftly denied reports claiming it had reached a deal with Apple to include iTunes support in a future mobile phone.

The Nokia N Series will not feature Apple's iTunes
http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2005/08/the_nokia_n_ser.html
>>>Conflicting reports have surfaced on the web on whether or not Apple and Nokia have reached an agreement to include iTunes in the N series (like the beautiful Nokia N90). I would tend to think that Reuters is right when it says that no agreement has been reached. Nokia says that anyone is free to implement a solution to download music to their phones. I personally suspect that Nokia does not want any wireless carriers to get mad at them for signing an exclusive deal with Apple. After all, the carriers are practically feeding Nokia by subsidizing their phones.
-- larger pics of that phone.

Nokia N91 Sync with iTunes Music Service?
http://www.slashphone.com/70/2413.html
>>>Without any more details given, head of Nokia's multimedia unit told the newspaper that he has already saw the phone with iTunes music service. The long delay Motorola iTunes phone will hit the market by the end of September according to company words last month. Hopefully, the Motorola iTunes phone able to reach the market before the Nokia N91. Nokia N91 provides many rooms for music files with its 4GB micro drive.
-- Real-Life photo of that phone. Geez, it's big!

Nokia announces it has no deal with Apple on Nokia N91 music phone
http://www.mobileafrica.net/news-africa.php?id=616
>>>A Finnish daily on Thursday reported that Nokia was bringing Apples's iTunes music service to its upcoming multimedia phone Nokia N91, without sharing its source of this information.

Nokia Quashes Rumors of Upcoming iTunes Device
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/#081805
>>>Nokia quickly crushed a rumor that it would be releasing an iTunes-enabled device. The denial follows a report by Finnish newspaper Taloussanomat, which pointed to an iTunes integration within the N91 multimedia phone. Soon thereafter, a Nokia spokesperson said that no commercial agreement with Apple was in place, though it did note that software developers could theoretically configure N-series phones to work with iTunes. But that is a far cry from an out-of-the-box "iTunes phone," which analysts and music fans have been expecting for months.

Nokia's music phone to use Apple's iTunes - paper
http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2005-08-18T112209Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-213014-1.xml
>>>Nokia will bring Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes music service to its upcoming music phone N91, Finnish daily Taloussanomat reported on Thursday, without disclosing sources.

Nokia N91 to use iTunes, report
http://www.mobiletracker.net/archives/2005/08/18/nokia-itunes
>>>The Finnish daily Taloussanomat is reporting [link in Finnish, if you can translate please do so in the comments] today that Nokia will use iTunes to power the N91 music phone. Scheduled to ship in the fourth quarter, the N91 includes a 4GB hard drive which would put it head to head with Apple's iPod mini. This is the first hint we've heard that Apple will be making a mobile move outside of Motorola.

Nokia says no deal with Apple on new music phone
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2005-08-18T070255Z_01_DIT821196_RTRIDST_0_TECH-NOKIA-APPLE-DC.XML
>>>Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia (NOK1V.HE: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Thursday it had no agreement with Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) for the iTunes music service to be included on its upcoming N91 multimedia phone.

Nokia Says Won't Include Itunes On N91 Music Phone
http://money.iwon.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt_top.jsp?cat=TOPBIZ&src=704&feed=dji&section=news&news_id=dji-00038420050818&date=20050818&alias=/alias/money/cm/nw
>>>Mobile-telecommunications firm Nokia Corp. (NOK) (NOK) Thursday said it won't include Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL)'s (AAPL) popular iTunes software on its new N91 music phone, countering speculation it would.

Nokia: Deal with Apple has been Somewhat Exaggerated
http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=5174
>>>Cell phone manufacturer Nokia says it has no deal with Apple for an iTunes music service on its forthcoming multimedia phones, The Washington Post reports.

It's this kind of thing that gives me RSI...

And now for something different:

Nokia Theater in NYC
http://www.nokiatheaternyc.com

Network Live Spins First Concert Offering, Joins Nokia
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com
-- I can't get a Permalink, so fullext follows --
>>>Bon Jovi will soon tap the power of the newly-created Network Live, a partnership between AEG, AOL, and XM Satellite Radio. Joining the party will be handset manufacturer Nokia, which will make the band the first performer at its newly-constructed Nokia Theatre Times Square venue. The result will be a multimedia extravaganza, with content spilling into online, satellite radio, and even movie theatres as part of a live simulcast. “Network Live is committed to delivering thrilling new event programming to the masses in the same engaging, heart-pounding fashion that fans would feel when they’re sitting in the front row,” explained Network Live CEO Kevin Wall. The concert happens on September 19th, and will publicize the upcoming Bon Jovi album, Have a Nice Day.

>>>The concert will help to test an ambitious experiment by Network Live. Live 8 clearly demonstrated that there is plenty for live events outside of the venue itself, fueling the recent consortium. But will fans gravitate towards live content on a continuous basis on outlets like XM Satellite Radio, or even AOL? Certainly Bon Jovi is a major performer, upping the chances of a big success. Meanwhile, Network Live will keep the party going far after the event itself, spinning rebroadcasts and post-performance assets like live DVDs. For Nokia, the project helps to create a strong music link, paving the way for big future sales of multimedia-intense devices.

[Mike Cane]

Oy, a ton of stuph...

...some probably leftover from yesterday...

Comics Escape a Paper Box, and Electronic Questions Pop Out
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/17/books/17comi.html?ei=5090&en=08e3777cc4943486&ex=1281931200&partner=geartest&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
-- did you reg? Tch! Do It Now.
-- /.'s take on this --
Comics Escape a Paper Box and Evolve to the Web
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/19/0552250&from=rss
-- why should you care? Oy! There are comics in PDF format. The 770 does PDF. I can't wait to try this!

Linux wireless freedom with OpenWrt
http://hardware.newsforge.com/print.pl?sid=05/08/10/2052228
>>>You can turn your blue Linksys router into a Linux box with OpenWrt, an embedded Linux distribution for Linksys WRT54G and WRT54GS routers. This tiny distribution exceeds the default firmware functionality in many useful ways. Instead of having only a Web-controlled wireless access point, OpenWrt provides you with a fully interactive Linux system. Some notable features are the ability to telnet/SSH to your router, install software such as Snort, Mini-Sendmail, and Asterisk, and create and control VLANs for every Ethernet port on the device.

Best practices for the Linux home office, part 1
http://software.newsforge.com/print.pl?sid=05/08/09/1932202
>>>As millions of users already know, Linux is a great choice for home office use because it's fast, secure, reliable, and cost-effective. If you use a computer for a home-based business, it's important to expand your Linux administration efforts beyond installing the right applications. You'll also want to choose the right hardware and Linux distribution, set up a backup and disaster recovery plan, pay attention to system security, and select the right ISP, so your home office will remain profitable, especially in the event of an unforeseen catastrophe.

Entertainment Industry Redefines Organized Crime To Its Liking
http://techdirt.com/articles/20050819/0349259_F.shtml
>>> Remember last month when the entertainment industry came out with it's big scary warning about how commercial counterfeiting of entertainment products was increasingly being taken over by organized crime in the US? Not many people seemed to question where that data came from. So, now that people are calling them on the claim, they're basically redefining organized crime to mean any crime that involves a couple of people, which (of course) makes it "organized."
-- raise your hand if you'd be regarded as a digital crook by these jerks. Good. Keep them raised -- now lower all but that middle finger...

Open WiFi Is The Least Of The Problems... But Gets All The Attention
http://techdirt.com/articles/20050818/1412240_F.shtml
>>> What is it about a crime that involves an open WiFi access point that makes everyone forget all of the other things involved?

Google going mobile with Android purchase
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050818-5219.html
>>>Google has purchased Android, a secretive startup that develops applications for mobile devices. What Android actually does has been kept closely under wraps, and Google is staying close-mouthed on the subject, releasing a statement confirming the acquisition and saying that they "acquired Android because of the talented engineers and great technology. We're thrilled to have them here."

>>>Rumor has it that Android was working on an operating system for mobile devices, although that is definitely unconfirmed. What is apparent is that Google is interested in extending its reach to mobile phones and other handheld devices. In October 2004, the company started Google SMS, which allows cell phone users to get phone listings and other information sent to them via text messaging.
-- even though I use the search engine, I'm beginning to hate Google The Company. Don't know why, either...

Linus trademarks Linux
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25529
>>>MORE THAN 90 Australian companies have been asked to pay a licence fee for Linux software in a move apparently backed by the software’s eminence grise, Linus Torvalds.

>>>Letters demanding US$5000 for use of the Linux name were originally dismissed as a hoax. But according to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Open Sauce king is dead serious.
-- headline should read: Finn Has Head Up ***.

Wayport Passes 10,000 Hotspots
http://wifinetnews.com/archives/005602.html
>>>Wayport is an infrastructure builder, not a reseller, and they’ve built 10,000 Wi-Fi hotspots: Six thousand of these locations are under Wayport’s direct management at McDonald’s, IHOP, Hertz, and elsewhere; the remaining are built for companies like SBC. They installed 7,000 hotspots in the last year.

Who's Hot This Week? San Francisco; Pasadena (Not); Philadelphia Narrows; Palakkode, India; Kutztown, Penn.
http://wifinetnews.com/archives/005601.html

Windows girl goes Fedora
http://linux-noob.com/review/fedora/fcr3/
>>> As the founder and maintainer of linux-noob.com I asked a member who I knew didnt know much about computers or even less about technicalities, to write a review. I wanted to see how difficult she would find it and also to open our eyes to what level of patience we might need in the forums or on IRC, when someone new comes in, asking for help. Here it is, a review from a total newbie. It describes her thoughts on trying linux for the first time (and sticking with it too).
-- my bad. Should have posted this days ago...

Can Linux Put PalmSource Back On Top?
http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml;jsessionid=TTWW3MFIX1JEWQSNDBGC KHSCJUMEKJVN?articleId=169300070&printableArticle=true
>>> After a long stretch of bad news for a company whose software once turned words such as “PDA” and “Palm Pilot” into household names, PalmSource is finally showing signs that maybe, just maybe, it can field the right product, at the right time, to turn its luck around.
-- yeah, have Nokia pick it up. Good bloody luck!

How Mobile Phones Conquered Japan
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,68537,00.html
>>>Blue-haired Harajuku high schoolers thumb-text distant pals on stickered keitai. Cell phones become cookie brokers, beaming snack requests to vending machines that zap back digital payment demands. Teen girls book illicit "compensation dates" with salarymen, sending snapshots to potential johns via camera-phones.

>>>The popular myth of Japan as a surreal, warp-speed incubator for all things handheld and digital is nothing new.

>>>But rarely do outsiders have an opportunity to venture beyond iconic anecdotes for a matter-of-fact understanding of how mobile technology shapes that country's culture -- and our own.

>>>Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life is touted as the first English-language book to attempt just that, and it succeeds.
-- they can write as many of these books as they like. The American Corporazzi still won't understand them. DoCoMo is so blatantly obvious in its success, yet the Pinstripers over here can't imitate it. Or even begin to understand it.

Both of these are far afield, yet lots of fun! --

Akamai Net Usage Index - News
http://www.akamai.com/en/html/industry/net_usage_index.html
-- more info here--
Akamai's News Junkie Index
http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3528526

Japan Internet CEO to run as de facto LDP candidate
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050819/wr_nm/japan_politics_dc
Some choice excerpts --

>>>Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi tapped a maverick Internet CEO as a de facto candidate on Friday, the latest celebrity to run against party rebels in an election being cast as a referendum on reform.

>>>Takafumi Horie, founder of high-flying Internet portal Livedoor and a magnet for media coverage, said he would run as an independent against former ruling Liberal Democratic Party heavyweight Shizuka Kamei, who has started his own party.

>>>Nicknamed "Horie-mon" due to his resemblance to a roly-poly Japanese cartoon cat called Doraemon, Horie hit the headlines earlier this year when he began a fierce takeover battle for a unit of one of Japan's biggest media groups.

>>>The takeover struggle, which ended in a compromise, was cast as a clash between the stodgy business establishment and a maverick entrepreneur of a "New Japan" IT firm.

>>>Many young Japanese backed Horie, but the T-shirt clad author of "Earning Money is Everything: From Zero to 10 Billion Yen, My Way" offended others, including members of the LDP's old guard.

I will see if an update is necessary this evening. I'm skipping the afternoon. Getting RSI pain again...

NOTE: I will also be taking this weekend OFF. Famous last words...

-- edited to add --

I'm NOT doing an evening update. Saving the recovering arm. OFF for the weekend. Fend for yourselves. Or wait til Monday.

[Mike Cane]

FOCUS: Nokia's N90 Isn't Ticket To High-End Success
http://money.iwon.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt_top.jsp?cat=TOPBIZ&src=704&feed=dji&section=news&news_id=dji-00046120050819&date=20050819&alias=/alias/money/cm/nw
>>> STOCKHOLM -(Dow Jones)- Nokia Corp. N90 is the first in a new range of phones boasting music, video and much more, aimed at attacking the high end of the market. But the picture isn't so good.

Supporting Linux in a Big Way
http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/45476.html
>>>The Linux and open-source movement has changed the very paradigms of software, platform and development methodologies, breeding business models inconceivable in the previous decades.
-- there are times when I think this is all hollow hype. But yesterday I went to the Apple Store in Soho and had my mind blown away. Microsoft Must Die.

Cell Phone Users Annoying Many in Their Midst
http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/45405.html
>>>The complaints are familiar and frequent: People on cell phones Sprint has the infrastructure in place to meet all your business communications needs. From one company. Today. Click here and see how Sprint helps business. Latest News about cell phone talk too loud, they use them at inappropriate times, and they just don't seem to care if they are bothering anyone.
-- death is too good for these people!

[Mike Cane]

Is the Net an Independent Artist's New Radio?
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/21/1637204&from=rss
-- I haven't listened to music radio since the 70s. It's worse than TV!

How label-backed P2P was born
http://news.com.com/2102-1027_3-5840310.html?tag=st.util.print
>>>Andrew Lack wasn't like the other record label honchos, file-swapping maverick Wayne Rosso thought as he left Lack's swank office in a midtown Manhattan skyscraper.

>>>That Lack, the chief executive of Sony BMG Music Entertainment, was even talking to Rosso showed he was more open-minded than most industry executives. That he was talking up the benefits of working together--even schmoozing with the man who used to run controversial peer-to-peer service Grokster--was downright amazing. "'I'm going to make you a millionaire,'" Rosso remembers Lack telling him.
-- how nice for Lack to bestow his Touch of Life on peasants such as us. The hubris of these Mammothmedia execs really *is* that great.

Review: Nokia 8801 - The Luxury Phone
http://www.phonemag.com/index.php/weblog/read_more/07082005review_nokia_8801_the_luxury_phone/
-- hammered in every review, it will be interesting to see if it is still a success. The Great Unwashed do not read net reviews of phones...

Best practices for the Linux home office, part 2
http://software.newsforge.com/print.pl?sid=05/08/09/1936216
>>>Last time we began talking about using Linux in a small office by discussing what to look for in hardware and the operating system. Once you've settled on your base system, it's time to connect it to the Internet, and that brings up concerns about your systems' security.

Best practices for the Linux home office, part 3
http://software.newsforge.com/print.pl?sid=05/08/09/1947248
>>>In the parts one and two of this series on using Linux in a small office, we covered what to look for in hardware and the operating system, security concerns, and choosing an Internet service provider. In this final installment, we'll talk about protecting the data on your hard drive.

Tres-duh press is wrong: No charge for using Linux
http://os.newsforge.com/print.pl?sid=05/08/19/1842249
>>>The trade press is at it again. Australian companies are not being charged $5,000 dollars for running Linux, as The Inquirer and others are currently misreporting. There is no fee for running Linux in your business. There is a charge, however, for using the Linux trademark in your business name. Updated: Linus sounds off on LKML

Remix culture
Issues surrounding re-use in Creative Commons licenses
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/issue_06/focus-music_and_remixing/
>>>The free culture movement is growing, from its inception in the free software movement to the relatively recent establishment of Creative Commons. Across the world, localised teams are adapting CC licenses to their particular legal systems. Record labels, indie film studios and well over 10 million web pages are using CC licenses. Are we on an inexorable ascendency? Well, not quite. In this article I will show that we still have a lot of issues to iron out.

RSS failing to gain audience mindshare
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050819-5224.html
>>>The Blogosphere. Much hyped "alternative" to the mainstream media, this modern form of samizdat ranges from partisan punditry to culinary writing to IT news and what's happening in the world of science. Updated regularly, blogs were one of the first forms of online publishing to make use of RSS—really simple syndication, whereby an XML file allows a news browser, or more recently your web browser, to syndicate a webpage, bringing the user the most recent content. Using RSS feeds means that you can stay up-to-date with tens or hundreds of feeds, without having to check each page every day to see if there's new content.
-- I am not surprised. I don't use RSS. I expect to start with the 770. The 770 will probably be the biggest possible boost to RSS. Hear that, Dave Winer?

WiMAX: the emperor's clothes get another wash...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/22/wimax_delay_again/print.html
-- you guys take your time. Millions of us will in the meantime make do with WiFi with our 770s...

Pimplier Batgirls and Sawdusty Barmen
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/20/google_word_whack/print.html
>>>Earlier this week the NCSA released a study that attempted to compare the respective merits of Google and Yahoo!'s search engines. (See My spam-filled search index is bigger than yours!). Unfortunately, the only thing it proved was which search engine was publishing the most gibberish it had collected - a fact apparently lost on the researchers. The three academics insisted that because Google was returning more gibberish, it must be doing a better job.

>>>Doh!
-- perhaps the most-accessed area of the net with a 770 will be a search engine. To crush all those eejits who dare to dispute our facts!

Some Authors Are Understanding The Power Of Electronic Books
http://techdirt.com/articles/20050822/0249214_F.shtml
-- they'd better. The best ebook reader has arrived: the 770!

Bluespamming About To Get Much More Popular
http://techdirt.com/articles/20050822/0045221_F.shtml
>>>A few weeks ago, we wrote about a test of a system in the UK called "Bluecasting" which was more accurately described as "Bluespamming", where terminals were set up to send commercial messages over Bluetooth to unsuspecting people passing by with Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones.
-- how'd you like *that* on your 770? I think we will thank Nokia for the 770 not advertising its presence.

Announcing: Project Ridley
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2005-August/msg00100.html
>>>The primary goal of Project Ridley is to cut down on the number of
problem libraries that are part of the GNOME platform. We propose to do this by moving functionality into GTK+, wherever it makes sense. These libraries are generally small, undermaintained, and buggy. They have an unclear purpose (such as libgnome and libgnomeui), are copied-and-pasted around (such as libegg) or would benefit by being in GTK+ (libgnomeprint and libgnomeprintui.)

Breathing New Life into Old Computers
http://www.finetuning.com/articles/p0-1459-breathing-new-life-into-old-computers.html
>>>Before you decide to put that old computer into a landfill, take a look at some software called Breadbox Ensemble. Using Ensemble, you can bring that old computer back to life with a number of powerful and useful applications.

>>>What is Breadbox Ensemble?

>>>Based on an operating system called GEOS that was popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Breadbox Ensemble is a small (a full installation weighs in at under 10 MB) and fast suite of incredibly useful programs. While small, Breadbox Ensemble has a graphical user interface that mimics the look and feel of the Windows desktop. Everything you need is a mouse click away.
-- the OS that ran the first PDA: The Zoomer! Was also a life-extender of the Commodore-64.

Intel Enters Municipal Fray Directly
http://wifinetnews.com/archives/005611.html
>>>Intel has moved from quietly lobbying legislators to sending advisers to all-in involvement
-- also see --
Cities join Intel's Wi-Fi program
>>>Intel and several corporate partners launched a program on Thursday aimed at helping cities use wireless networks to better serve their citizens--and perhaps make a little cash on the side.

What If Google Gave Everyone Pi?
http://wifinetnews.com/archives/005608.html
>>>I’m mixing stories here: Om Malik speculates that Google’s efforts to lease dark fiber and buy direct telecom capacity isn’t just about them saving infrastructure money, but also about them reaching their users directly. He asks, what if Google gave Wi-Fi to everyone for free?
-- Google alert here --
Google stealthily monitoring clickthroughs from search-results
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/22/google_stealthily_mo.html

Writer's perspective on Amazon's pay-to-download short stories
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/22/writers_perspective_.html
-- refers to --
Amazon Shorts
http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/003681.html
>>>Online bookseller Amazon has started something called "Amazon Shorts," in which selected authors are selling short stories and essays in electronic format for 49 cents. How is it for readers and authors? I decided to find out.

Nokia N70 Gets FCC Approval
http://darlamack.blogs.com/darlamack/2005/08/nokia_n70_gets_.html
-- looks like a nice phone.

Entering the Corposphere
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/print.php/3528606
-- bloggers meeting the corporazzi. Reminds me of that hilarious Second City TV skit: Meat Loaf meets William F. Buckley, Jr. (Alas, has not shown up on any P2P net. hint, hint...)

[Mike Cane]

Just a quickie. More later today...

Nokia Bets on New $700 Cell Phone
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4811318
>>>Frank Nuovo, chief designer for Nokia phones, discusses the company's new 8800 cell phone. Nokia is betting on the phone to reenergize its sales and compete against Motorola's hit phone, the Razr. Nuovo has been designing phones for Nokia since 1989.
-- audio!

Nokia Grabs Lead In 3G Phone Market
http://www.mobilepipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=169600110
>>>As it has with other types of mobile phones, Nokia has seized the lead in worldwide sales of phones that connect to 3G cellular data networks, according to a study released Tuesday by market research firm Strategy Analytics.

>>>The study notes, however, that the market for 3G phones is small, with only nine million of the devices shipped in the second quarter of 2005. However, Nokia was the leading vendor of the devices, selling 17 percent of those phones.

-- oops! forgot this --

BoingBoing finally catches on to something I posted a while back -- and doubts the report (as did some other people) --

Thieves use Bluetooth phones to target cars with laptops in them
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/23/thieves_use_bluetoot.html

[Mike Cane]

Am involved in a project that is consuming my time. Hence, this blog is of less immediate importance to me eight now. New entries might be sporadic.

[RogerS]

Just the orthogonal? Or the 770 blog too?

The reason I ask is your pointers are really valuable to seeing what's going on with the 770.

-- Roger

[Mike Cane]

It might bleed over to the 770 blog. Don't know yet.

Nokia to sponsor Virgin Radio's online music chart show
http://www.intellagencia.com/news.asp?siteid=4&id=68144

Why some "piracy" can increase overall revenues
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/24/why_some_piracy_can_.html
-- BoingBoing tops me -- but I took some days off!

Google: Damaging Innovation?
http://google.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000053055785/
>>>Gary Rivlin has placed a NY Times piece about Google’s changing reputation in silicon Valley, and its actual influence on the ecosystem of innovation. Many frank and revealing quotes are incuded that reflect questionably on Google. ”Google is doing more damage to innovation in the Valley right now than Microsoft ever did,” said Reid Hoffman, the founder of two Internet ventures, including LinkedIn, a business networking Web site popular among Silicon Valley’s digerati. “It’s largely that they’re hiring up so many talented people, and the fact they’re working on so many different things. It’s harder for start-ups to do interesting stuff right now.” throughout a range of quotes, Google is portrayed as an evil empire, morphing into Microsoft as Microsoft morphs into IBM.
-- refers to --
Relax, Bill Gates; It's Google's Turn as the Villain
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/24/technology/24valley.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1124892099-Lwv2yghy6uGB6hUIooEpxA&pagewanted=print
-- I *did* warn you lot to reg at NYT.

Digital competitors ready to take bite out of Apple
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/22/AR2005082201229.html
>>>Apple points to the 500 million tracks downloaded on iTunes to date as a milestone. But dividing that figure by the more than 20 million iPods sold indicates that each iPod owner has bought an average of fewer than 30 songs from iTunes. Piper Jaffray estimates that only nine tracks are bought per month per iPod user.
-- this article points to Creative, Sony, and Samsung as The Great White Hopes for MP3. They have ignored Nokia. Fools.
-- if you can't get the article, summary here --
Apple’s reign "will collapse in less than a year"
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25646

Yahoo Video: The "Super" Network
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050824-084815
>>>The September issue of Wired is out and it features a very positive article about Yahoo's video search efforts focusing on the development of the Yahoo Media Group in Santa Monica and the work of Bradley Horowitz, senior director of Yahoo's Technology Development Group. Jeremy Zawodny is also mentioned in the article as the person who got MediaRSS going. More in the Wired article: The Super Network.
-- you can read this article online for free if you wait a while.

Securing Handhelds: Familiar Problems, New Challenges
http://nwc.networkingpipeline.com/shared/article/printablePipelineArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=1ZXOEBPA IXO0IQSNDBCCKHSCJUMEKJVN?articleId=170000094
>>>Ever since the first PCs with 5-1/4 inch floppy drives made their way into corporations, IT and security managers have been dealing with the possible corruption and theft of company data.

>>>And the security worry level has only increased in the past year with the introduction of a slew of varied handheld computers and devices such as the iPod, servers on a data stick, Blackberries, Web-access cell phones, and wireless PDAs and pocket PCs. Not only do all these new devices boast large storage capacities, they also can sustain high data transfer rates thanks to USB, Firewire, Bluetooth, or WiFi connectivity.
-- everyone has stuff they couldn't even imagine in the old 1960s James Bond movies!

Debian consortium takes on Novell, Red Hat
http://www.techworld.com/opsys/features/index.cfm?featureid=1694&Page=1&pagePos=2
>>>"A lot of people have been unhappy with the service they've been getting from a certain very large Linux vendor." That was Bruce Perens, speaking at this year's LinuxWorld Conference and Expo, which took place in San Francisco earlier this month. You can fill in Bruce's blank yourself. But if you think he came to the conference to stump for more choice in Linux distributions, you're mistaken. In a sense, he was calling for fewer choices.

Diehards Refuse to Bury OS/2
http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/45633.html
>>>"I look at it as, if it ain't broke, don't fix it," said OS/2 fan John Edwards, adding that he still has OS/2 running on a 64-bit computer as part of a network of three machines. Serenity Systems International, he noted, has indicated it will continue support for eComstation into 2007. "IBM may be dropping the ball, but that doesn't mean everyone is."
-- I mentioned GEOS the other day. Equal time...

New MobiBlu DAH-1800 Color OLED MP3 Player
http://www.i4u.com/article4068.html
-- I mention this because it might the first time most of us see an OLED screen. And future 770s might have OLED...

TV's Red Dwarf beams onto mobiles
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4173466.stm
>>>Full episodes of cult TV sci-fi show Red Dwarf are being made available for fans to buy and watch on their mobile phone handsets.

>>>The Doctor Who special The Five Doctors, originally screened in 1983, is also part of the licensing deal.
-- I wonder what the price will be? Smeggin-A!
-- I found the answer, as well as just how *stupid* this is, here --
Red Dwarf and Dr Who go mobile
http://www.vnunet.com/articles/print/2141472
>>>Four shows will initially be made available, the classic 1983 Doctor Who special ‘The Five Doctors’ and three episodes of Red Dwarf including ‘Marooned’ and ‘Quarantine’ together with ‘Cassandra’, which was voted the best-ever episode by fans. The episodes will be sold for £16.99 on a 64Mb MMC card as a two-hour package, eliminating the need for any downloading.
-- duuhhhhhh. You smegheads.

Gmail’s New “Send As” Feature
http://google.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000020055780/
-- can GMail even work on the Java-less 770?

It's File Sharing Jim, But Not As We Know It
http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/mulligan/archives/010052.html

Automatic Podcasting?
http://toprank.blogspot.com/2005/08/automatic-podcasting.html
>>>I am testing a feature from Talkr that automatically converts blog posts to machine generated audio. Look for the "Listen" link at the bottom of each post on this blog.
-- I don't know about you, but I'm going to start to pray. Another sign of Imminent Armageddon.

UK Initiates First Trials for WiMax
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_title=UK_Initiates_First_Trials_ for_WiMax&story_id=37907
>>>WiMax has been discussed for the last few years in development and user circles, with varying degrees of accuracy in terms of its promise, said Graham Currier, Pipex wireless development director. "Up until now, the hype has been way ahead of the ability to deliver," he noted.

Hear What I'm Saying?

>>>Amazing Scene Two: This past Wednesday, a man was fatally stabbed in front of a New York restaurant. A witness who saw the blood-soaked victim lying on the sidewalk was quoted as saying, "People were just walking by with their iPod headphones on. That was tripping me out, that they kept on walking."

>>>Amazing Scene Three: A colleague recounted watching a bakery clerk struggle with a malfunctioning cash register and ask for help from a co-worker at the same counter -- unsuccessfully, it turned out, because the second woman was chatting away on her cell. "It's $8," the cell-phone user yelled before going back to yakking. Unfortunately, that wasn't the question that had been asked. The first cashier shrugged her shoulders apologetically and said, "She doesn't like it when I interrupt her call."
-- death is too good for such people. Bring back public flogging, says I.
-- if you can't get that article, summary here --
Digital Culture
http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/index.php?p=4109

Time Warner bets on mobile games
http://news.com.com/2102-1036_3-5842394.html?tag=st.util.print
>>>Media conglomerate Time Warner has made a $7.5 million investment in Glu Mobile, the privately held mobile gaming company said Tuesday.
-- great. Now the nitwits above can walk by dying people while playing Doom. Oh wait a minute...

Finally - The Internet Can Do Something Useful
http://www.thehostingnews.com/article1552.html
>>>Mac-Gray Corporation, the largest supplier of card and coin-operated laundry facilities management in North America, has developed an Internet-based system called LaundryView. LaundryView provides a way for college students to communicate with washers and dryers in campus laundry rooms.
-- and they'll use their 770s, too!

[Mike Cane]

WTF? I got this when trying to submit --

The following errors occurred when this message was submitted:

1. The text that you have entered is too long (12702 characters). Please shorten it to 10000 characters long.

So, I had to break it into *two* posts! The first part -- #0.5 -- is above this one.

Verizon lowers cost of high-speed Net
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/24/business/verizon.php
>>>Verizon Communications will start selling high-speed Internet connections for $14.95 a month to attract customers with slower dial-up connections and try to compete with cable companies, the company has said.

>>>The new service allows users to download e-mail, pictures and other information at top speeds of 768 kilobits a second, or about 10 times the speed of a typical dial-up Internet connection. However, its speed is only about one-fourth that of Verizon's other DSL service, which costs $29.99 a month.
-- in other words, DSL for Suckers! Hey, wait a minute -- this is about the same freakin "speed" I get from Roadrunner!

GoogleOS? YahooOS? MozillaOS? WebOS?
http://www.kottke.org/05/08/googleos-webos
-- a long read with lots of links. Worth taking the time.

FOSS word processors compared: OOo Writer, AbiWord, and KWord
http://software.newsforge.com/print.pl?sid=05/08/16/2038242
>>>OpenOffice.org receives most of the attention among free and open source (FOSS) office suites, but users shouldn't forget that free software includes at least two other word processors: AbiWord, part of a projected GNOME Office, and KWord, part of the KOffice suite. From their inception, both have been playing catch-up with OpenOffice.org's Writer. But now, after several years of development, AbiWord and KWord are both reaching early maturity. How do Writer, AbiWord, and KWord compare?

AJAX - beyond the buzzwords
http://www.kuro5hin.org/print/2005/8/22/182159/251
>>>Since Google decided to use SOAP/XMLHTTP for their new map interface the geek web has been flooded with AJAX articles. Here I will discuss the importance of AJAX as well as some of the tradeoffs developers will encounter if they choose to use this technology. More importantly, I have also posted a version of this article with a running demo on my website (recommended). You can also download the article source and try it for yourself.
-- 770 devs, start your engines. Oh wait -- no Java on the 770. Dammit!

Apple Handwriting Engineer?
http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/08/20050824060819.shtml
>>>Apple has posted a job description for a Handwriting Recognition Engineer on August 11th, 2005.
-- 770 vs a Mac Net Tablet? Uh, um, ah....

This one is general --
Toshiba President: Two DVD Formats Staying
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050824/ap_on_hi_te/japan_dvd_formats&printer=1;_ylt=Av7j7askN6gFc6Hess_lHWxk24cA;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-
>>>Toshiba Corp.'s president said Wednesday his company has no plans to revive failed talks with a Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news).-led consortium to find a unified format for next-generation DVDs, indicating that two rival — and incompatible — formats of the discs are here to stay.
-- you rat bastards. I hope everyone BOYCOTTS BOTH FORMATS and makes you sons of bitches work it out. I'm not reliving Betamax vs VHS, dammit!

This one is personal --
Firefly Movie Using Viral Marketing?
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/24/0323234&from=rss
-- best damned SF series ever. Possibly better than Blake's 7, which has held #1 position in my mind for a few decades now... Go see the movie when it's released!

[Mike Cane]

Linux companies set to launch Asianux 2.0
http://news.com.com/2102-7344_3-5842733.html?tag=st.util.print
>>>Software companies in China and South Korea are expected this week to release Asianux 2.0, an Asian Linux distribution.

Intel VIIV mystery apparently solved (updated)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050824-5235.html
>>>Update: We now know how to pronounce it--like it rhymes with "five." Intel officially launched its new Viiv brand today at the Intel Developer Forum. As we noted earlier, it's targeted at the living room PC, and is geared towards making the PC work like any other piece of consumer electronics.
-- I think it sounds, fittingly, like a rapidly-fatal disease...
--more--
Intel announces 'desktrino' home PC platform
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/24/intel_announces_viiv/print.html

ISPs Finally Realize That People Understand The Word Unlimited
http://techdirt.com/articles/20050824/1056245_F.shtml
>>> Over the past few years there have been plenty of stories about ISPs who offered "unlimited" service that was actually quite limited.

This will be my last update to the Ortho blog for an unknown length of time. Roger -- with Mas, I hope -- will be taking over the ersatz 770 blog during my extended absence.

[Mike Cane]

I'm not here.

Sources: Intel looking to develop Linux version of Viiv to reduce costs
http://www.digitimes.com/print/a20050825PR204.html
>>>According to unspecified Taiwan-based PC makers, Intel is currently working with software developers to design middleware application software for the Linux operating system (OS) for its Viiv (rhymes with five) consumer PC platform to reduce the cost and selling price of the PCs.

>>>Viiv-based PCs will initially be based on the Microsoft Window Media Center OS, which should drive up the costs, as a special OS authorization is needed. Currently, quotes for Media Center PCs are more than US$1,200, compared to US$400-500 for average PCs, the makers explained.
-- look at the Mac mini knock-off photo. Bastards. I just spent four hours at the Apple Store yesterday getting introed to video on Macs. This **** doesn't fool me. WMV is *no* Quicktime or H.264. Die Microsoft Die.

[Mike Cane]

I'm still not here.

Don't Mess With The Finns...

Mieskuoro Huutajat

http://www.huutajat.org/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3454567.stm
>>>Take a group of men from the northern Finnish town of Oulu - population 100,000 - dress them in dark suits with black ties made from the inner tubes of car tyres.

http://www.publiscan.fi/cu22e-0.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mieskuoro_Huutajat

Sundance Channel
http://www.sundancechannel.com/schedule/

Screaming Men
directed by Mika Ronkainen

2003 72 MINS Color

Mieskuoro Huutajat is an all-male choir from Finland that is noted for its rather eccentric repertoire of shouted performances of children's songs, national anthems, poems and texts like the Geneva Convention. Overseeing this bellowing ensemble of 20 men is their quirky conductor/arranger Petri Sirviö, a visionary artist with the soul of a prankster. Documentary filmmaker Mika Ronkainen (a veteran Mieskuoro Huutajat performer) presents a fascinating look at an intriguing blend of performance art, politics and music's outer limits. Stereo/Letterbox/Subtitles

Friday 09.09.05
12:00 PM

Wednesday 09.14.05
07:55 AM

Saturday 09.24.05
07:15 AM

[Mike Cane]

Sue me. I couldn't resist this one.

Microsoft's nightmare inches closer to reality
http://news.com.com/2102-1012_3-5877197.html?tag=st.util.print
>>>A decade ago, Microsoft worried that the Internet could become a software platform that threatens Windows. Ten years later, that amorphous nightmare has a name: Google.

-- edited to add:

>> Increasingly, Web surfers are finding alternatives to the PC for their Net access

[Mike Cane]

RED ALERT!

Mammothmedia Phase Two wants to STEAL WHAT YOU OWN!

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/27/financial_times_wipo.html

Go read. NOW!

[Mike Cane]

All Your 3G Bandwidth Are Belong To Us!
http://maemo.org/pipermail/maemo-developers/attachments/20051005/3c3cfe8c/attachment.bin

[Mike Cane]

All Your iTunes Are Belong To Us!
http://www.i4u.com/article4330.html

Turn your Nokia and Sony Music Phones into an iTunes Phone
>>>Tea Vui Huang updated his cool iTunes add-on for Nokia and Sony Walkman phones software and also has now a web site that should not get shut down again, because of data transfer limits.

Trying --

Sorry, this site is temporarily unavailable!
The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer. Visit our help area for more information.

Access to this site will be restored within an hour. Please try again later.

Hee-hee-hee.