It's SUPER Mac mini!
No big surprise at the Apple event today. As expected, they announced the new Mac mini running either a 1.5Ghz Intel Core Solo or 1.66Ghz Core Duo processor. With the new Duo configuration the mini can run up to x4 faster than the old PowerPC model. Not bad! It’s still a tiny 6.5″ x 6.5″ x 2″ box. Apple is definitely pushing the mini as a “media server”, since the new box features the Apple Remote with Front Row, up to 2 GB memory, Intel GMA950 graphics processor, DVI connector w/ VGA out option, Slot loading optical drive, up to 120GB hard drive, built-in gigabit ethernet, analog and digital audio, USB & Firewire ports, iLife ‘06 and Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Yow! You can do “Shared Music, Photos & Video” which lets the mini stream music, photos and video wirelessly on the same subnet using Bonjour (Zero Configuration Networking) technology. If you have iTunes TV shows that you’ve purchased, you can stream ‘em to other Macs on your network!
Here are the specs:
1.5Ghz Intel Core Solo Model: $599
1.5GHz Intel Core Solo processor
2MB L2 Cache
667MHz Frontside Bus
512MB memory (667MHz DDR2 SDRAM)
60GB Serial ATA hard drive
Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0
Apple Remote
1.66Ghz Intel Core Duo Model: $799
1.66GHz Intel Core Duo processor
2MB L2 Cache
667MHz Frontside Bus
512MB memory (667MHz DDR2 SDRAM)
80GB Serial ATA hard drive
Double-layer SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0
Apple Remote
Both models include an integrated Intel GMA950 graphics processor with 64MB of shared DDR2 SDRAM(1), 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet, four external USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400 port, optical digital and analog audio in/out, and built-in mono speaker.
Press Release: VITO AudioNotes for easy recording
Easy way to keep your notes handy on PPC or Smartphone
February 27, 2006 – VITO Technology releases VITO AudioNotes, the first MP3 recorder for Smartphones that also works on PPC. VITO AudioNotes takes the essence of recording and presents it in a most convenient way. It is specially designed to take your notes on the go with minimum keystrokes.
VITO AudioNotes is a Pocket PC and Smartphone recorder that supports major world-wide formats: WAV and MP3. With this recorder you don’t need to go into details and stumble over dozens of recording formats they usually offer. You simply choose MP3 or WAV and quality – low, middle or high. User-friendly interface with built-in control panels offers additional recording features: microphone auto gain and VAS (voice activated system) options. Microphone auto gain can increase your mike sensitivity while VAS makes recording gapless. The same control panels in playback mode allow you to play back or forward your records and change volume.
Infobar offers all the necessary details for every record: the date and time of creation as well as its size. You can also see the size a file growing at infobar while it is being recorded.
VITO AudioNotes is good not only at recording your notes, lectures or private talks. It can also record phone calls on Windows Mobile 5.0 devices. It is recommended to start recording phone calls after you’ve pressed the answer button. Now your friends will never say again: “I didn’t say it!” They can only go with “I didn’t mean it!”
PPC users with Windows Mobile 5.0 powered devices are sure to appreciate stylusfree comfortable operation with joystick and the soft keys.
Useful links:
Company web-site: http://vitotechnology.com/
Program page: http://vitotechnology.com/en/products/audionotes_smartphone.html
Download link: http://vitotechnology.com/en/products/download.php?ID=1614&BID=24
Buy link: http://vitotechnology.com/en/products/list.php?BID=24&ID=1614
Screenshots: http://vitotechnology.com/upload/iblock/1f08b0fabe46655399921292420e56f1.gif
VITO Technology ltd. is known for its high-tech products in the field of Pocket PC and Symbian software, GPS navigation and custom projects. Introduced in the present article VITO AudioNotes is an easy to use MP3 and WAV recorder for PPC and Smartphones.
Press Release: More Windows Mobile 5.0 Titles from Astraware
THE MIDLANDS, UK - February 21st, 2006 - Astraware is pleased to announce that a further selection of our classic games have now been updated to be compatible with Windows Mobile(R) 5.0.
Sixteen games including Bejeweled, Tradewinds and Zuma, were made available for Windows Mobile(R) 5.0 last Autumn, and now a further 9 games have been updated. These classic titles are those most requested for update by Astraware customers:
Alchemy for Windows Mobile for Pocket PC(R) and Smartphone
Atomica for Windows Mobile for Pocket PC(R) and Smartphone
Chroma Games for Windows Mobile(R) for Pocket PC
Bookworm for Windows Mobile(R) for Pocket PC
Mummy Maze for Windows Mobile(R) for Pocket PC and Smartphone
Seven Seas for Windows Mobile(R) for Pocket PC and Smartphone
Tip Top for Windows Mobile(R) for Pocket PC and Smartphone
Fruit Frolic for Windows Mobile(R) for Pocket PC and Smartphone
Mars Needs Cows for Windows Mobile(R) for Pocket PC and Smartphone
As with all Astraware titles, registered owners of these games can get the updated version for free. See the full range of Windows Mobile(R) 5.0 compatible titles at http://www.astraware.com/wm5.
We’re also pleased to announce that Astraware’s version of the popular PopCap PC game, Chuzzle, is now available for Windows Mobile(R) for Smartphone. The game was released for Palm OS(R) and Windows Mobile(R) for Pocket PC in December, but breeding the special tiny Chuzzles required for Windows Mobile(R) for Smartphone has taken a little longer to perfect.
Chuzzle features 4 highly addictive game modes, a bonus unlockable Bechuzzled game and special trophies to mark your Chuzzle achievements. To get your copy visit http://www.astraware.com/all/chuzzle
Who Will Be The Donald Douglas Of Space?
We’re in need of a Donald Douglas. Now.
In case you don’t know (and not many people do), Donald Douglas (above) was the founder and longtime heart of the Douglas Aircraft Company. Douglas developed a lot of airplanes through the 20th Century, most of which were named the DC (Douglas Commercial) series. Although there were DC-1 and DC-2 aircraft, it was the DC-3 that truly changed the face of commercial aviation. The twin-engine, 21-passenger aircraft was widely hailed as the first aircraft that could make money by hauling passengers. While only 300 or so of the DC-3 aircraft were built, over 10,000 of the military version (C-47) were built. Many DC-3s still remain in service today, well over 60 years after being rolled out of the Douglas factory in Long Beach, California.
I’ve been a member of the National Space Society since its inception and I strongly support their space goals. But I am confused by their recent tendency to show pictures of Burt Rutan’s SpaceShip One in many of their publications and mailers. Sure, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is planning on starting up regularly scheduled service “to space” in a few years, but their idea of space travel is a quick ride up to 360,000 feet or so, a measly few minutes of weightlessness, and a quick return back to the ground. Not to downplay the importance of SpaceShip One, but the REAL test is going to be who can start taking people to Earth orbit safely and cheaply. After all, all someone needs to do is get people out of the gravity well that is Earth, and the rest of the universe is open for exploration.
Somebody needs to become the Donald Douglas of space. Take a risk, spend a lot of money with an uncertain chance of return, and develop a spacecraft that can go from Earth to orbit safely time after time after time. And the person who can do that so that someone can make a lot of money sending people off-planet will be famous forever…
Cable Modem Service Now Installed
Wow! Many thanks to Comcast - their tech was on-time, friendly and knowledgeable. We got our High Speed Internet (cable broadband) connection a little while ago so I decided to check the speeds compared to DSL:
TEST 1: 4678 kbps down / 672 kbps up
TEST 2: 5550 kbps down / 690 kbps up
TEST 3: 4224 kbps down / 689 kbps up
TEST 4: 5076 kbps down / 635 kbps up
TEST 5: 5315 kbps down / 686 kbps up
TEST 6: 5867 kbps down / 678 kbps up
TEST 7: 6166 kbps down / 690 kbps up
TEST 8: 4975 kbps down / 688 kbps up
The average download speed was 5231.3 kbps (6000 kbps max advertised), while the average download speed was 678.5 kbps (756 kbps max advertised). Comparing this to the DSL service we had, that’s 11.6 times faster than DSL in downloads, 3 times faster in uploads. And the price is roughly the same….
MacBook Pro Not Even Shipping But Gets A Speed Bump!
Man, the MacBook Pro isn’t even shipping yet as far as I know, and they’ve already speed-bumped the danged thing! The original speeds were 1.67 GHz and 1.83 GHz - now you can order the low end machine with a 1.83 GHz Core Duo or the high end with a 2 GHz CPU AND the option to upgrade to a 2.16 GHz processor. Yow! There’s no word on whether or not Apple’s going to let people who have already ordered their MacBook Pros have the faster machines, but I think it would be suicide NOT to!
Press Release: VITO SoundExplorer v 1.7 released!
February 13, 2006 – VITO Technology releases a new version of VITO SoundExplorer. This update mostly concentrates on increasing performance. VITO SoundExplorer is a great choice to explore the music world on your Pocket PC to the full.
VITO SoundExplorer is 3 programs in one. It is an audio player, audio recorder and file explorer designed specially for browsing music content. VITO SoundExplorer:
- supports Windows Mobile 5.0
- supports high-resolution displays
- supports landscape mode
- converts WAV to MP3
- records CD-quality MP3: 44 100 Hz
- features Today plugin
- is all you need for music playing and sound recording
New in VITO SoundExplorer v 1.7:
- ID3 tags supported
- WMA playback returned
- overall stability increased
- landscape mode fixed
- new easier registration system (see the manual on the product page)
Useful links:
Company web-site: http://www.vitotechnology.com
Program page: http://vitotechnology.com/en/products/soundexplorer.html
Download link: http://vitotechnology.com/en/products/download.php?ID=347&BID=23
Buy link: http://vitotechnology.com/en/products/list.php?BID=23&ID=347
Laws 'n Sausages
You know that old saying that “anyone who likes sausages or laws should not watch either of them being made”? Well, surprisingly enough after 48 years of life I’ve decided to not only watch a law being made, but see if I can influence the process.
Long-time readers will remember that I am a tremendous fan of the Segway Human Transporter, but that I haven’t purchased one because they’re essentially illegal on sidewalks and bike paths in the State of Colorado. This has been frustrating to me since 42 other states, the District of Columbia, and a number of countries around the world have embraced the Segway by making them “sidewalk legal”.
Well, imagine my surprise last night when I received an email from another transportation group that I’m a member of - Bicycle Colorado. It turns out that this group is dead set against allowing Segways on “their” bike paths, and of course they threw out a bunch of tired old arguments about why they’d be a hazard to the general population. Yours truly immediately fired off a nasty email to Bicycle Colorado, and then I went into full gear. I found out that the hearings about Senate Bill 168 are TODAY, and that any citizen may speak for up to three minutes during the hearings. I decided then and there that I’m going to take the morning off and go visit the State Capitol so I can hopefully sway the legislators in the right direction.
I’ll let you know how it goes…
LATER…
Well, I’m back from doing my civic duty. The Senate Transportation Subcommittee meeting went well this morning. There were a lot of pro-EPAMD speakers and only three anti-EPAMD (Electric Personal Assistive Motor Device) types. One, of course, was from Bicycle Colorado…
Senator Hanna (co-sponsor of the bill) came cruising into the conference room on an HT. That’s always a very good sign!
I had an opportunity to put in my 2 cents worth. Matt gave good testimony but was chastised by Senator Hagedorn (who, by the way, is FOR the bill!) for using some rather cheesy statistics (number of people injured on or by Segways = zero; Sen. Hagedorn noted that there are many more bike riders that Segway riders and that a better measure would be incidents divided by number of users…of course, that would still be ZERO for Segs).
One gentleman who commutes every day on his HT gave a short presentation; he brought up some great points, mentioned that he sold his car, etc… It was very heart-felt and I think the subcommittee loved hearing him speak. Another speaker was from a group (don’t remember which one) that is a disabled advocacy group - they have a program where they’re giving Segs to disabled vets. I LOVED hearing his testimony, since the only other time I’ve heard a disabled person talk about the Segway, she was sure that they were going to “run down people in wheelchairs” (she must be from San Francisco!).
The subcommittee doesn’t actually vote on whether to send this to the combined legislature until next Tuesday, but I’m confident that it may at least make it out of committee this year. If it does make it out of committee, yours truly is going to send an email to each and every Colorado state representative and senator. 
Doppler Weather Maps for Mobile Devices
When you’re on the road, wouldn’t you like to be able to pull out your Windows Mobile Pocket PC Phone or Palm Treo and be able to see animated doppler weather maps like those you see on the evening weather reports? These maps show a lot of detail, including the amount and type precipitation at any particular location, severe weather warnings, etc… Well, Bev Howard has created a free portal through which you can access those maps!
Just visit http://bevhoward.com/storm/ppcrad.htm from your pocket device, set it to show “full resolution” images, and then choose the map location. Within seconds you’ll have an animated weather map to look at. Note that if you’re using Windows Mobile, your device will need to be running WM 2003 or newer. Many thanks to Bev for creating his handy and useful service!
Moving Up!
I’ve finally decided I’ve had enough of slow (640 KBPS Max) DSL, so I decided to order Comcast’s 6 MBPS max cable modem service. Frankly, I wanted to do this a while ago but the spouse was not thrilled about having to change her email address. My guess was that if I ordered the service and showed her just how friggin’ fast it is, she’ll dump MSN and the deadly slow Qwest DSL in a big hurry.
Qwest has been awful about DSL. I’ve had it since 1998 (I think….) and we had a lot of problems when we first started. During one trouble call, they actually told me that there was no way for me to get DSL at my house! After cussing the service rep out and mentioning that I did have DSL and I was having problems, he tried to get me to go back to dialup service. They finally let me speak to a second-level support person who walked me through changing the signal strength of the crappy Cisco DSL modem so that it would work properly. In the last year or so, I’ve talked to their sales reps a few times about trying to get to a higher speed service. None of them could tell me why I couldn’t get the service, but they just told me that 640 KBPS was going to be as fast as I was going to get. Nice. I even had a face-to-face talk with two people who were Qwest employees who said that they would have someone contact me to resolve the issues. When I finally got a call a week later (left on voice mail) the person just said “Well, you already have DSL service so I don’t know why these people had me call you…”. Sigh. Hopefully my next move will be to dump Qwest’s phone service so I’m not paying those idiots a penny.
Expect to see some comments in here about my move to Cable Modem service. Here’s what BroadbandReports.com says my current speed is:
TEST 1: 436 kbps down / 224 kbps up
TEST 2: 412 kbps down / 223 kbps up
TEST 3: 503 kbps down / 226 kbps up
TEST 4: 419 kbps down / 222 kbps up
TEST 5: 498 kbps down / 217 kbps up
TEST 6: 476 kbps down / 224 kbps up
TEST 7: 420 kbps down / 222 kbps up
TEST 8: 449 kbps down / 224 kbps up
The average download speed was 451.6 kbps (640 kbps max advertised), while the average download speed was 222.8 kbps (256 kbps max advertised). I’ll be sure to do the same tests to the same locations once the new cable modem is installed and working.
1 MB iPod nano Now Available
In a move that wasn’t entirely unexpected given the huge popularity of the iPod nano, Apple has added a 1 MB nano to the existing 2 MB and 4 MB models. The new device is $149, with the same petite case and screen that we’re all familiar with. Of course, this probably means that the shuffle is on the way out the door - not a big problem as far as I’m concerned. The 512MB shuffle is now available for a measly $69, while the 1GB model can be purchased for $99.
My Unverified Rumor of the Day
OK, maybe it’s this cold that’s been making me think odd thoughts, but when I saw several posts on PalmInfocenter about Palm being the subject of a possible buyout or takeover, I immediately thought of one possible buyer - Apple.
Here’s why I think Apple could be THE company to buy out Palm:
1) Apple has $6 billion in cash on hand.
2) There have been many rumors that Apple would like to enter the phone market. What better phone to have with an Apple brand than the Treo line?
3) Remember, there are a lot of ex-Apple people working at Palm.
4) Keeping the Palm line alive and kicking is one more stick in the eye of Microsoft.
Any thoughts or comments from readers would be greatly appreciated!
Gizmo Ranch Live in Santa Fe, NM on 2/2
If you’re in or near Santa Fe, New Mexico tomorrow night, drop by the Jemez Room of the Santa Fe Community College at 6401 Richards Ave. I’ll be there speaking to the Santa Fe Macintosh User Group about (what else?) podcasting. The general meeting starts at 7 PM and you could be in line to win a free copy of all of the Take Control ebooks. Come on up afterwards and say Hi! - I always like meeting people who visit the site or listen to my podcasts.
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Joy of Tech!
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MacLevelTen
