Trevin Chow: gadgets

Introducing the Denon AVR-4306 receiver

Fri, 03 Mar 2006 22:31:09 GMT

The new Denon AVR-4306 receiver makes my Pioneer Elite VSX-45tx look like a child's toy. This baby has got it all -- 7.1 surround, 102dB SNR, 3 HDMI inputs, analog 720p/1080i upconversion, USB connectivity (think Ipod), ID3 support, internet radio. Best of all, it even has an ethernet jack to stream non-DRM music! Woah, I think I'm in love. Downsides -- it's expensive as hell and the porker is nearly 41 lbs with physical dimensions that may preclude it from the party in some AV racks.

These are the most glowing words I've ever read from a Cnet editor:

"I've been working at CNET for four years, and I've never seen any home-theater product awarded a perfect 10 in Features. Until now. Even four years down the road, the Denon AVR-4306 may escape obsolescence." (review)

Now only if I could pony up the $2k necessary to purchase this thing. But then again, give it 6 months, and I'll be able to buy it on ebay for $999 (albeit with $200 in shipping charges). If anyone if feeling really generous or wants to buy me an early birthday present, I've added it to my Amazon Wishlist :)

Triple head your laptop

Thu, 02 Mar 2006 20:05:30 GMT

I so need this. Matrox just released TripleHead2Go peripheral that tricks your machine into allowing it to support resolutions of up to 3840x1024 (1280x1024 per display) giving you a mammoth 45 inches of horizontal display loving.

But realistically speaking, my team first has to upgrade me to even a single LCD for this to become even a possibility in my future computing life :) Too bad my division ignores the fact that multi-mon setups increase productivity:

"The first study revealed that the users' productivity increased by 9 percent. Further studies showed even greater increases - at times up to 50 percent for tasks such as cutting and pasting. Mary Czerwinski, the VIBE research manager, is excited about her group's discoveries, asking, "If you're able to squeeze 10 percent more productivity out, do you know how much money that will save?"

Creating page up+down keys for PocketIE

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 01:17:48 GMT

My biggest gripe about pocketIE on Windows Mobile is that reading websites that have multiples pages of info require the "thumb of death" to scroll down the page -- you have to continually keep pressing the joystick or down arrow (depending on your phone's input method). Found this great tip over on Modaco for creating keypad shortcuts for page up and page down!

Note: This only works for Windows Mobile 5.0.

Instructions:
1. Open your favorite registry editor then navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer

2. Create a new key 'KeyMaps' (without the quotes)

3. Under KeyMaps, create 2 new DWORD values:

50 with a value data 1
56 with a value data 2

The entire KeyMaps entry should look like this...

The key name is the keycode you want. 50 = Key 2, and 56 = Key 8. Other values available are:

1 - Page Up
2 - Page Down
3 - Top
4 - Bottom

5 - Horizontal Page Up
6 - Horizontal Page Down
7 - Horizontal Top
8 - Horizontal Down

9 - Default Layout
10 - Desktop Layout
11 - One Column Layout

12 - Full Screen Toggle
13 - Show Pictures Toggle

4. Exit registry editor once you have mapped it to your favorite keys

Cheaper Xbox 360 Wireless Controllers

Wed, 07 Dec 2005 05:33:55 GMT

Amazon has Xbox 360 wireless controllers for $10 cheaper than elsewhere ($39 instead of $49). I had to pay $6.49 shipping but it's still saving me just under $7 per controller.. bonus is I don't have to drive my lazy butt to the store :)

All I want in a digital camera

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 05:36:36 GMT

Looks like Canon is releasing a Wi-Fi camera in December, based on the SD-10 platform (called the "Ixy" overseas). This falls on the heels of other manufacturer's Wi-fi camera offerings like the Kodak Easyshare-One, Nikon Coolpix P1 and P2. This will allow you to transfer photos off the camera via a wi-fi network to your PC, or even directly write to a network share instead of a memory card.

My question is -- WHY?!

Why the heck would I want this feature? With the advent of 5MP+ compact point and shoots, we're talking about 2MB photos, even with jpeg compression. Why would I:

1) want to try to write a 2MB file in realtime to a network share

2) want to transfer 512MB-1GB worth of photos over 802.11b/g, or

3) suffer even shorter battery life as it struggles to do either (1) or (2).

Just complete absurdity if you ask me. Seems like the megapixel race is slowing down, so manufacturers are trying to find easier ways to hook consumers. "Wi-Fi" is a great marketing buzz word I guess! Even my mom knows what wifi is... no offense mom :)

The only reason I could see this possibly appeal to consumers is that manufacturers will try to joint sell the camera with your favorite blogging service -- e.g. "This XYZ model allows you to upload your pictures directly to your MSN Spaces or Blogger account". They conveniently leave out the caveats for battery life, slow xfer speeds, complexity, etc. Wouldn't it be far easier to just buy either (1) a cell phone that can email or MMS your pics (albeit lower quality), or (2) a $9 USB media reader?

Instead of investing in useless features, I wish manufacturers would concentrate on more important things. All I want in a compact p&s digital camera is:

1. decrease shutter lag -- the time between pressing shutter release and when the picture is taken should be as quick as a digital SLR.

2. increased battery life -- camera bodies are gettign smaller and smaller, but this decreases the size available for batteries. Seems as though advancements in battery capacities is not keeping up with those of miniaturization. I should be gettign 300+ shots out of a compact P&S with the LCD turned on.

3. Universal USB 2.0 support -- some cameras have it, other don't. Let's get on the speed bandwagon boys.

4. Standardize around mini-USB connections -- I'm stick and tired of some cameras having proprietary connectors

5. increase optical zoom -- 3x optical zoom seems to be the norm, even on the smallest cameras. Would love to see 4x or higher start to appear. And no, digital zoom doesn't count.

6. Antiglare coating on LCD -- does no one at these manufacturers try their camera outdoors in the sunlight?!

7.Unlimited video recordings -- with the decreasing costs of storage media, cameras with a "video" should eliminate hard limits on video lengths. Too many cameras have hard limits of 15 or 30 secs depending on the resolution you are using. Just put a more cache in the sucker and write on the fly to the storage card!

iPod Video is here!

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 23:10:48 GMT

Looks like the rumours were true after all... Apple unveiled the iPod video today!

Official Apple webpage: http://www.apple.com/ipod/ipod.html

It comes in both white and black, and in 30GB and 60GB sizes.

Highlights:

1. Increased battery life by 5 hours (total of 20 hours)

2. 30GB is 31% thinner (thickness=0.44") than my current 30GB photo and the "20GB with color screen"

3. Larger color screen, up to 2.5"

4. Supports playback of H.264 and MPEG4 at 30fps

5. 30GB = $299, 60GB=$399.

Here is a picture of the iPod family to give you an idea of their relative physical size: http://images.apple.com/ipod/gallery/images/ipodgalleryfamily20051011.jpg

Interesting things and comments:

1. USB support only, no firewire? Strange considering the whole Mac and firewire marriage.

2. No co-joined announcement with any content publishers.

3. Even if you don't care about video, new iPod could be worthwhile due to larger screens if you view photos on it.

4. Gotta pray that this sucker doesn't scratch as easily as the iPod nano does

Looks like I'm returning my 30Gb Photo model back to Costco! Thank god for good return policies :)

All I want in an iPod

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 22:03:06 GMT

I love my iPods to death -- I have both a 512MB Shuffle as well as a 30gb Photo. I have nothing to complain about with the shuffle specifically, other than the fact that I had to buy a 3rd party piece of software (Anapod Explorer) just to interact with the thing like a regular USB key. I didn't want to have to use iTunes to manage it. I use it exclusively for the gym and sometimes just want to very easily copy and remove songs from it on both my desktop and laptop.

The 30gb photo is great as well, since it is able to store nearly my entire music collection. The big problem with it is that it's so friggin' big. It's ironic, because I was thinking of getting the 60GB iPod photo before, and that is even larger! The 30GB is just large enough to make it "un-pocketable" (nice word, i know).

After the Nano was released about a month ago, I am so envious of the small size. Problem with the Nano is 2 fold -- case is extremely easy to scratch and storage capacity is too small. 4GB jsut won't cut it for me. If they offered an 8 or 10GB, i'd jump on it in a heartbeat.

Apple has a "big" news conference on 10/12, which is always used to unveil new products. As usual, the press and gadget blogs are going ape-shit over this with speculations of a new 5G Ipod, Video Ipod, or Powerbooks. The speculations are endless.

Me personally, I coudl care less about a video Ipod even though that's apparantly the most desirable one according to most of the comments over on Engadget. If you're not a commuter, i can't really see you needing a video ipod. The one scenario I could see it is, if you travel a lot on trains, planes, etc, you could use it as a good way to entertain youself for those long hauls. But for me, I do that so rarely, i don't see a personal need for it.

I'm hoping they announce a new 5G ipod so i can upgrade. Here's my wishlist for a 5G ipod:

- Smaller and thinner. If they use either large cap flash memory like the new samsung and seagate 8GB flash, or even new smaller HDs using the perpendicular storage, we could get really thin ipods. If I could cut my iPod photo down to half the thickness I'd be having wet dreams for months (okay, maybe days).

- Metallic case like the iPod Mini so it's much more scratch resistant. I had to resort to an idiotic silicone case on my ipod to prevent scratches which made the size problem even worse.

-Longer battery life. Let's get this thing to well over 20 hours. Yes i know, I was skeptical too about needing that much battery life, but fact is that my ipod sometimes sits in my bag and pulled out without being charged for days and weeks. So in fact, I want longer "standby" time. Nothings worse that pulling out your ipod at the crucial time (think about those chatty ppl that sit next to you on the airplane) and finding out that your battery is dead.

-Adjustable EQ -- com'on, even my 3 year old Rio MP3 player had this.

In all honesty, I'm willing to bet money that I'm not getting a new 5G ipod. They just came out with the 4.5G "ipods with color screens" and the nano. Introducing a 5G ipod at this time doesn't really make sense. The most likely case is either a video ipod with a joint announcement of content publishers that are supporting it. Probably big names like ABC and the BBC. Price point will probably be upwards of $500+. This makes the most sense because Apple has always done a reasonable job at price segmentation to differentiate theor product line, and this would be no different:

Shuffle -- sub-$100

Nano -- Flash memory and small size for sub-$250

Ipod with Color screen - $250-$400

Ipod Video -- $500+

We're exactly 7 days away from the Apple announcement, so let's see what we get.

Update (10/6 @ 4:22pm): Maybe my wish is coming true :) ThinkSecret is reporting that they have "sources" at Apple which are saying the 10/12 announcement is not going to be a video ipod, but an update to the standard ipod. They cite that the "new iPod will be available in capacities up to 80GB and will be slightly smaller than current color iPods". <fingers crossed>

How to soft-reset your Ipod Photo

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 21:30:50 GMT

I disconnected my iPod from my PC before it was completely "ejected" from iTunes and it froze up on me at the "Do Not disconnect" screen. I was about to chuck my iPod out the window because I followed all the directions i could find on the web on reseting it.

I'm guessing Apple changed the soft-reset mechanism in newer generations, so the "press and hold Menu and Play for 5 seconds" was the old method.

The new method with iPod photos (and all the new ipod with color screens):

Toggle the Hold switch on and off. (Slide it to Hold, then turn it off again.)
Press and hold the Menu and Select buttons until the Apple logo appears, about 6 to 10 seconds. You may need to repeat this step.

Tip: If you are having difficulty resetting your iPod, set it on a flat surface. Make sure the finger pressing the Select button is not touching any part of the click wheel. Also make sure that you are pressing the Menu button toward the outside of the click wheel, and not near the center.
If the above steps did not work, try connecting iPod to a power adapter and plug the power adapter into an electrical outlet, or connect iPod to your computer. Make sure the computer is turned on and isn't set to go to sleep.

Did the above steps and everything is working as it should. Maybe I need to get the new 4gb Nano instead? Maybe that won't freeze up on me? Or am I just trying to find excuses to buy more gadgets? :)

How to improve in-car electronics

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 18:03:08 GMT

Being a total gadget addict, I'm pretty opinionated on how in-car electronics/gadgetry needs to be improved. It's no secret that car makers are VERY far behind when it comes to the latest connectivity and electronic options that are available in the market. I don't blame them, because they can't immediately adopt the cutting edge due to several reasons:

1. the fad dies out

2. bugs

3. cost of initial implementation

4. support costs

However, there are several pieces of technology that should definitely be embraced by the industry as a whole, in order to create standards are scaling in-car entertainment more easily and cheaply for customers. Admittedly, I would only expect to see these intiatives in the $25k+ price category of cars, but as technology prevails and standards are established, costs will fall making it more realistic for sub-$25k car category to adopt.

My ideas:

1. Add a USB bus to the car to connect various electronics. USB has been around for awhile, prevalent on all modern PCs and well understood by consumers. Required for my other ideas that follow. You can even see that Volkswagen is doing this. I picture USB ports all over the car (in armrest, near cigarette lighter, in trunk, etc) to power and connect devices.

2. Navigation systems: Get rid of DVD and CDROM data drivers -- this should all be driven by removable flash media. Given there are like 10 different card formats (CF, Smartmedia, Transflash, etc), have a multi-format card reader somewhere in the car. Not only are multi-format card readers cheap, but they are also easily replaceable if a new format arises.

3. Power system: While cigarette lighters are in every single car, it's pretty annoying to have a different car charger for cell phone, camera, ipod, etc. By powering from a common set of USB ports (see #1), you have a standard set of plugs in the car that use 2 cables (either Type A or Type B USB cables). Next time you buy a cell phone, you don't need to buy a new power cord. This obviously assumes that phone manufacturers all start to use mini-USB connectors (note: will be signfiicant resistence against this since companies make HUGE dollars from accessories).

4. Music: By having a memory card reader and USB bus (see #1 and #2), you can get rid of the need for expensive music solutions for in-car entertainment. You just plug in a 1GB CF card or USB Key and the car will be able to read the music and begin playing. This requires that the stereo know how to read the fileformat on the media as well as integration into the USB bus. By standardizing around MP3 and shunning DRM (at least for now), they avoid a whole host of support issues from customers. Customers are getting more and more savvy about media cards due to the proliferation of digital cameras and portable music players, so copying music files to a removable media card and plugging it into the car shouldn't be rocket science. However, again, this requires the music system to be agnostic to file organization on the media.

A monetization point for manufacturers might be to enable the aftermarket sale of software extensions that allow users to play DRM protected files. You can imagine the MSN Music store partnering with a car maker to include the ability to play WMA-DRM files along with gift certificates for song purchases.

Okay, enough random thoughts.

iPod Nano is released

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 00:24:59 GMT

Just friggin' great... I had just bought Donna an iPod Mini about 2 weeks ago thinking it was a great deal at Costco... Great price, great return policy, and even the color she wanted (silver). Low and behold, Apple decides to screw me and launch the iPod Nano today. Talk about impossibly small!

Being the gadget freak I am, I'm considering returning the damn thing back to Costco and buying the Nano instead!

My initial review based solely on press coverage and direct info from apple:

Hot:

-size (pencil anyone?)

-color screen (while not a necessity, it's great for readability due to extra contrast. Also speedier refresh when you are cruisin' with the click wheel)

-flash memory

Not:

-price (Ipod mini gave me 2GB more for $50 less)

Overall this is a cool new product to replace the mini, but far from being ground breaking. They basically managed to leverage a new source for hi-capacity flash memory for really cheap and stuff in a color screen. Being so small, i wonder if the click wheel will be harder to use?

If anyone wants a more detailed review, feel free to buy a Nano and let me test drive it :)