Steve Holden's Blog

Not Integrated – Weather & Location Maps

December 28, 2004

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I noticed today that maps.yahoo.com and www.mapquest.com do not link an option to get "weather data" from a location search. On the plus side, maps.msn.com did have an link option but it didn’t seem to know where I was at when I clicked on it.

This seems to be a big missing feature, or I am missing something?!?

On the cool feature side of the house, I did notice that maps.yahoo.com is providing an option to display Wi-Fi locations on a map. This is good in general but what I really need when I travel from let’s say San Diego to Irvine on I-5 is a list of locations of all the Starbucks by how far off the on/off-ramp they are.

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Wired 13.01 – Good stuff Gadgets, BlackBerry, BitTorrent, Bezos

December 28, 2004

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Wired 13.01 came in the snail mail box yesterday … I enjoyed the following articles [URLs are TBD – See dates from Wired]:
- Own Your Own Remote Control Castle Today! [Coming January 3]
- Tech-Xtreme Makeover [Coming January 3]
- The BlackBerry Brain Trust [Coming January 4]
- The BitTorrent Effect [Coming December 29]
- The Zen of Jeff Bezos [Coming January 7]
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Long Term Planning iPod Purchase?

December 28, 2004

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Every three months or so, Costco (which I am a member but not a stockholder) sends out to members a "coupon" book of upcoming deals. If you have a long range goal of getting a HP iPod 20-GBs (currently just under $299) between Mar. 7 – Mar. 13, 2005 they are going to throw in with every purchase a Belkin Accessory Pack (headphones, battery, & carrying case).

I don’t think most geeks or IT pros plan this way on gadgets (I think I had all my Christmas shopping done for myself in Nov?), but I guess the up and coming mainstreamers that are becoming more and more digital do more long term gadget planning.

Speaking of Costco, Doc Searls had an interesting pointer a couple of weeks ago from Forbes on Costco business model … and I noticed in the latest print version of Wired (13.01) that they did some "pricing" of expensive products using Costco as the lower price alternative (no url).

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Best Tech Rag Tear Out Moment?

December 26, 2004

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In general, I don’t think there is much that is "spectacular" about my podcast Tech Rag Tear Outs because it is just the latest technical news that is pretty narrowcast.

But Dave Winer asked recently for podcasters to suggest something.

I think that my interaction with my three year old son Spencer in #002 is a good example of what podcasting is all about: Download GreatMomentInPodcasting_TechRagTearOuts_002.mp3 (696.4K).

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New Battery Technology

December 25, 2004

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Yahoo! News – New Battery Lasts Nearly Twice As Long. [Source: Adam Curry]

P.S. This is a big deal for me personally because my current MP3 player likes AAA batteries since I use it so much, and my kid’s have gotten a ton of battery toys for Christmas.

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Christmas Music – TRTO Music Supplement #002 Posted

December 24, 2004

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Below is the show notes for this edition (HTML output from Frontier) of my music supplement (here is the direct MP3 download link):
- (00:00-00:16): Introduction
- (00:17-03:07): Al Hirt with "Silver Bells" from the album "Have A Merry Little"
- (03:08-05:08): Mannheim Steamroller with "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" from the album "Christmas Sweet"
- (05:09-08:32): Ferrante & Teicher
  with "Hark! The Herald Angels Singe Medley" (with O Little Town of
  Bethlehem, Joy To The World) from the album "We Wish You A Merry"
  Christmas
- (08:33-12:40): Charlie Sneller with "Good King Wenceslas" from his album "Sounds for the Season"
- (12:41-15:34): Perry Como with "I’ll Be Home For Christmas" from the album "Merry Christmas Music"
- (15:35-16:13): Closing Comments (leave messages 206-337-1533)
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F-Secure: MP3 and video versions of the Data Security Summary 2004

December 24, 2004

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"Audio and video versions of F-Secure Corporation’s Data Security Summary for 2004 are now available. Video is available as a Real Media stream here: F-Secure 2004. The MP3 is available here: 2004-wrapup.mp3

"Speaking about MP3’s…we find it be really handy to listen to data security lectures, radio specials and interviews on our iPods or in our cars while doing something else. Places like ITConversations even have separate series for security-related audio. Also lots of the Black Hat Briefings lectures are available as audio (but you do need a Real-to-MP3 converter if you want to take them with you). And Vmyths has great selection of MP3s available (but you do have to dismangle the M3U files to get them)."
[F-Secure Antivirus Research Weblog]

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Tech Rag Tear Out Podcast #14 (Network World, CRN, Communications News)

December 23, 2004

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The straight download can be found here: TechRagTearOuts_014_12-21-04.mp3 (7667.9K).
(00:00-02:06): Introduction to 14th podcast; Official beer of this podcast: Sierra Nevada’s Celebration Ale
(02:06-20:11): Primary Content

Network World
- 11/8/04:
  - Enterprise spyware options
  - New anti-virus and VPN support for SonicWall firewalls
  - Speech Vendor Direct Solutions: Scansoft’s Speech Paks;
    VoiceXML; Microsoft’s Speech Application Language Tags; CallXPress’
    Applied Voice & Speech Technogies (AVST); TuVox (for Activistion)
  - Speech Solution Outsource Options: Tellme Networks, NetByTel, Angel.com
- 11/15/04:
  - Overview of Sun Microsystems Solaris 10 + new storage solutions
  - Overview of AirDefense Enterprise 6.0 (plus minor details on Wibhu & Highwall)
- 11/22/04:
  - Booz Allen Hamilton moving to AT&T MPLS services [IEEE Reference]
  - Update on status of Microsoft’s 10 year Dynamic Systems Initiative (currently in year 2)
Computer Reseller News
- 11/15/04: Product review of Macromedia Flex 1.5
- 11/22/04:
  - Hall Research Digital Video Coach-3 (DVC-3)
  - Product Review of Popkin Software’s System Architect v10
Communications News
- Dec04: Transition Networks power-over-Ethernet (PoE) media converters

(20:12-21:49): Closing Coments; Music samples from DJ Amber; Contact info: sholden@pobox.com, http://sholden.typepad.com, or comments via: 206-337-1533.

Steve Holden's Blog

Not Integrated – Weather & Location Maps

Wired 13.01 – Good stuff Gadgets, BlackBerry, BitTorrent, Bezos

Long Term Planning iPod Purchase?

Best Tech Rag Tear Out Moment?

New Battery Technology

Christmas Music – TRTO Music Supplement #002 Posted

F-Secure: MP3 and video versions of the Data Security Summary 2004

Tech Rag Tear Out Podcast #14 (Network World, CRN, Communications News)

Frontier Kernel Used for Podcast #014 Show Notes in HTML and OPML

CNN Examines Best Of Best Of CDs