REverberations - Mobile Devices

New Job!

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:22:29 -0500

Well, sorta.

A year or so ago when the team I originally started with in 2001 was transferred to Parramatta office, I used the excuse to stay in town with a different team and also move to a Technical Lead role for the experience.
Now things have changed a little - the team in town got moved across the bridge along with everyone else from that office, and also we have moved out to Picton. The combined two hours each-way commute was bearable for the transition period, but something had to give.
Coupled with this the old team at Parramatta had some internal re-organisiation, and the Team Leader role became vacant. I was asked to step up, and as of Monday, that's what I'm doing.
So yes, I'm now a manager and have the Crackberry to prove it. I view it as a challenge, but figure I wouldn't have been asked if people thought I wasn't capable.
I haven't even had time to unpack my boxes, it's been go-go-go since I walked in the door, so there will be precious little rest time it seems.

As I type this I'm cruising along in the train to Parramatta (using the rare-as-hen's-teeth Cumberland line trains), and out the window I can see where I cycled yesterday. There's a "rail trail" from Liverpool to Parramatta which is pretty good, but could do with the signs being replaced so I don't waste 30 minutes next time following the wrong railway line. But I guess that's what GPS is for. Liverpool station is also a poorly-designed bottle neck for an "interchange" with a cycleway.

I'm still balancing the train times to arrive at the appropriate work-life balance - this took me a little while at North Sydney and some experimentation appears to still be required.

Phoebe Tests Flickr Video

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:16:48 -0500

iPhone!

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 11:20:02 -0500

The world has gone iPhone crazy, with a peak of four stories per day iPhone related on the Sydney Morning Herald. Note the Sydney part - you can't even buy an iPhone outside of the US! In fact, as a write this now, there's still four stories linked there!

Being well known as a lover of Apple technology, you might expect me to be salivating over the new shiny toy, and perhaps even flying over the US just to get one like some people have.

No.

Here's Why.

I bought one of those instead. It's here, now, works on Aussie networks, and doesn't require a USD70 per month data plan at a minimum just to use it, locked in for two years.

And, as the link says, it has a whole lot more features.

But it isn't quite as shiny. I'll admit that.

Home-brew Solar Charger

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 09:15:54 -0500

This is just a little something I decided to try and build while shopping for electronic parts the other day.
Basically there's three solar cells, total output 5v, wired in series. They output to a little socket (pictured, left), which has a cord which terminates in a female USB socket (not pictured).
Then, anything which has a USB cable for charging can be connected to that.
So far, I've managed my camera battery (pictured), mobile phone, AA and AAA batteries and Liz's iPod.
My iPod seems to need a little more juice, and also the camera battery here only works in really strong sunlight. I'm going to consider adding either another volt or so or perhaps a few more milliamps.

NSW to roll out free WiFi service

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 08:44:09 -0600

So our state government is attempting to get a clue about wifi then huh?

Go for it I say, but Telstra is a powerful adversary, and underdog Optus looks like it wants to get on your side, so it is undoubtedly going to be a lot more complicated than just plugging in some base stations around the place.

Oh, and how do I ask for my local suburb to be listed as a "major centre" so we can have it out there too?

And where are you going to get your IT staff to implement it all, since there aren't many left in Sydney now?

Laws for the companies, not the people

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 07:43:19 -0600

According to the SMH, Apple had this to say, amongst others, about what the proposed Copyright reform currently going through parliament would mean to ordinary Australians:

"Apple submits that the current provisions of the bill will leave the [Australian Copyright] Act still outdated and overly restrictive given today's technology and the legitimate expectations of consumers," Apple's submission said.

"Many common everyday acts of copying to ... devices, such as an iPod, computers and even to VCRs ... would still constitute an infringement under the bill's current form."

Given the silence of most of the mainstream press, it's good to see SMH finally picking up on this nasty piece of work, and that as I write it's the number two viewed story today.
A law which would punish you and I for copying CDs that we paid for and own onto iPods (or computers, or anything else really) that we paid for and own, so that we could have them in a more convenient form is a very stupid law in today's society. We already have that law, and here is the opportunity to revise it and make it relevant, but instead they are making it even more of an attack on consumers.
Record companies really don't seem to understand that they are battling against free - that's the price of a download off Bittorrent or similar, and if you want to make it worth my effort to buy a CD and own it, drop the prices and let me do what I want with the thing that I bought and I own.

Don't even get me started on paid-for digital downloads - that's not an option. The stupid Digital Restrictions Management that these things come with mean that if you bought (yes, there's that word again) a song off any existing music store, and then decided (why I don't know) that the Zune looks like a good thing to buy for Christmas to listen to music on, then you can't listen to any of your previously purchased songs!
Microsoft want you to "buy" all your music again, and rinse and repeat in few years when the same thing happens. No thanks, give me a CD that means I have the physical media as a real backup, and I can turn into any form I want. All purely for my use, or at the worst to pass a couple of songs onto a friend to recommend a new artist I've heard.

Record companies, and the idiot governments that listen to them when creating laws to govern the people, should actually listen to consumers/voters now and them.

Update 30/11/2006: Wow, that's a quick backdown, even by government standards! Maybe more of them read my blog than I thought ;)

Liz Has a New Mobile Number

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 19:00:25 -0500

Liz is now contactable on a new mobile number.

If you know mine, change the first 1 to a 2 and you can now get her :)

Palm IIIe Special Edition

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 23:28:39 -0500

Palm IIIe Special Edition

Originally uploaded by reverbca.

I've got this no-longer-used piece of technology for sale over on eBay at the moment.

Google Earth + GPS = Bliss

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 18:08:50 -0600

Google Earth really rocks our world. It is the killer app - especially since I stumbled across a non-official Mac version :)
Before Liz and I left for our trip to Europe last time, my over-kind work mates gave me GPS. This was a fun toy to carry around the place, but the true value has only just been made apparent to me.
You see, anywhere we were, we could make a waypoint, kind of a "we were here" mark in space. Now, many years later, I managed to get my brain in gear enough to work out how to get those waypoints over to the ultra-fantastic tool that is Google Earth.
The results are totally engrossing - witness here the original photo of where Liz and I sat on top of Mount Errigal in Ireland, and as we had enough fore-thought to make a waypoint to prove that we actually made it, here's how it looks in Google Earth (kmz).
Homework for the reader - use that kmz link (which should load in Google Earth), and fly around, comparing it to pictures before and after the one of Liz and I linked above (use the arrows above each picture). Remember that the highest-resolution data isn't even available for this particular location - others look far better.
We can do this for so many places we stayed, climbed, visited or just wanted to remember that it is now amazing seeing this information overlayed on the planet.
Edit: Sorry, comments disabled on this post due to spam. I guess that's the price of being noticed...

Camera Phone Lenses

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 10:28:56 -0600

I've said it publicly to a number of people before, but this story reminded me I haven't posted it here.
I would pay good money for a 3+ mega pixel camera phone, where good optics could be optionally screwed on. Kind of like a mini-SLR. Most of the technology needed for a decent consumer digital camera can already fit in a camera, if it isn't already. But there's no substitute for good optics. I have heard of "liquid" lenses which may be substitutes, but right now I'd be prepared to have to attach a small-sized lens to my phone if I wanted to use it as a decent camera, as long as I didn't have to for quick pub shots, etc.
Don't forget, I'm talking about consumer snaps, not professional or even prosumer.

Update 8/7/2006: Looks like someone was listening. Pity it only appears to work with old phones - I'm actually in the market for a new phone in the next month or two.

New iPod mini

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 09:32:56 -0600

Don't you hate it when Apple releases new iPods for $100 cheaper than when you bought one two weeks ago? With 10 hours extra battery life and 2GB extra space!
This was for Liz's birthday, so the timing couldn't really he helped, but originally I was attempting to find a way around it.
No great problem, she loves it and we'll make good use of it anyway, and to be honest there's not that much different that we would have made much use of - she's happy with her blue one. Now we just need to find earphones that fit her ears.

Sick, but life is good

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 10:01:00 -0600

Many thanks to Jenny from work who seems to have bestowed upon me some tonsillitis. I can still talk, but I wonder how much longer that will last.
There's been plenty of things I've wanted to blog about these past few weeks, but it has been rather difficult while without bandwidth.
I can post from work, but I'd rather not do that, plus there's plenty of other things that they are actually paying me to do instead, so they tend to take priority.
Still listening to heaps of podcasts, brewing beer, and working quite a lot.
Wedding still looking like November this year, a short-ish honeymoon afterwards, then a trip to Europe to continue our travels and check out the World Cup in Deutschland for some length of time in 2006.
As for NZ in April, it is possible yet doubtful. We have a lot of expense coming our way in the short-medium term.

Bluepulse

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 25 Oct 2004 11:27:00 -0500

If you feel like you need a bit more nerdy-ness in your life, check out Bluepulse.
It's a shopping experience where you load a little application onto your mobile via bluetooth and wander around a shopping centre. It gives you location information based on what shop you are standing in front of.
They have a pilot setup at Broadway starting today - anyone want to come check it out with me? Or maybe, being a nerdy experience, it's best done alone.

Eastside Radiothon

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:49:00 -0500

If you are in Sydney and even vaguely interested in jazz, you have probably spent some time listening to 89.7 eastside radio.
It's a community radio station where the primary focus is jazz. No commercialism, just people who are interested in the music playing stuff that they want to hear - so very refreshing from the processed garbage which is strewn across most of the rest of the dial.
Being a community organisation, much of their income is from their members. Once a year they have a membership drive - this year is no exception.
My membership has lapsed while I have been overseas, and even though I listen to less radio now than I used to (thanks mostly to podcasting), when I do listen to the radio 90% of the time it is these guys, and as such I will be renewing.
If you are interested in the music, I urge you to help the station out.

iPodder

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Sun, 05 Sep 2004 17:39:00 -0500

After noting yet another great hint over at Mac OS X Hints, I stumbled upon the great little tool called iPodder.
To save you following too far through the links, let me summarise what it is all about. With a view to pushing the boundaries of traditional media, some people around the world, including Adam Curry the author of iPodder and one-time MTV Video Jockey, are posting to their blogs in mp3 format. As a radio DJ by trade, he is interesting to listen to, and as usual I'm keen to listen to anything not pushed out by large media companies, in any new format I can discover.
What his software (and other, improved versions I'm yet to try) does is parse RSS feeds of various websites, find any mp3s contained within, download said mp3s, put them in a playlist in iTunes, which is then automatically copied to my iPod. Very neat. So, all I have to do in the mornings is disconnect my iPod and there is some interesting radio by himself, and some new IT Conversations (I've listened to Tim O'Reilly thus far).
If you aren't sure what blog and blogging is all about, It's probably time you found out. What you are reading right now is a blog. Not a very good or actively maintained one, but a blog none the less. The idea is that the little guys around the world just tap out what is of interest to them, and if someone else happens to be interested also, that's great.
iPodder and friends are taking this to a new level, where the content is automatically available on the output device of your choice, and in a format you can listen to in the background while you are doing something else.
I think I have a hard enough time putting text on here to consider audio at this point in time, but it is interesting to see where stuff like this is going to end up.

Two Weeks with an iPod

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 13:48:00 -0500

I sat by and watch three generations of iPods come past me. As a stereo-typical early adopter of most technologies, this has been a little strange for me. My last portable audio device was an early-model Sharp mini-disc recorder which saw a lot of use during Uni. Perhaps a little too much, as its proprietary battery eventually all but fell of the perch, meaning that the hacked together charger I had for it (was an imported Japanese model) was eventually a life-line. I left it with a friend when I went overseas and upon return it was an expensive paperweight.
Less than two weeks before the iPod came into my life, I decided that some form of portable audio was necessary for my 35 or so minute walk to the station. It's so much more bearable that way. However, since we are saving for a house even the cheapest iPod was out of the question. I still beleive the price must dive before more people get their hands on these little beauties. So, I grabbed a $80 mp3-compatable CD player from Aldi. The interface was clunky, the software buggy, but the cheap cheap cheap factor worked great, and I had 150 or so songs per CD, burnt in about 10 minutes with two clicks from iTunes.
But the iPod is in a different league. I've invested plenty of hours in my mp3 collection, getting ratings, playlists and id3 tags all just right, and all that time payed off as soon as I connected the iPod for the first time. Sure, to find out that my entire collection wouldn't fit on in one go with the first message was a bit dis-heartening, but iTunes made some selections (no idea how), and then, after only a matter of minutes, there was most of my music, sorted by name, artist, genre, or whatever I wanted. Smart Playlists were in place, everything Just Worked, in that great Apple way.
Physically, the thing is gorgeous to hold and play with, so much so that the only fault I can place is that my grubby fingers constantly leave marks all over it, especially on the shiny back bit. I'm not interested in the iPod mini - this is a great size, and 4GB would be even harder to work with for me.
I think my problem is that I have too diverse musical tastes. My collection includes Elton John, 1920s Blues, Justin Timberlake, Megadeth, Pantera, DJ Tisto, Jamiroquai, The Monkees, Vivaldi and 5GB of jazz. The randomiser is life. Whatever comes up, I can click to rate it out of five, either down to 1 to delete later (quite rare, this is mostly done by now), 2 to mark as not-for-iPod, or 3-5 depending on how much I like it.
This "2 means not for iPod" thing is how I've come to deal with the "Size of music library is greater than capacity of iPod" problem. Plenty of my own CDs I've ripped (whoops, that's illegal in Australia...) contain say 3 songs I love, 3 which I don't like for one reason or another, and a few others which lie somewhere in the middle. I don't want to delete the ones I don't like, because, especially in the Jazz genre, I will often listen to an album from end to end the way the artist originally intended. Some times it just works better that way. So these "filler" songs stay on the 80GB Powerbook drive, but don't make it to the iPod.
Oh, by the way, if you own a 4G iPod and have worked out that the way they made the prices cheaper was by taking the accessories away, you can partially get this back by partaking of the current promo where if you buy Applecare for iPod you qualify for a free remote. Can't find a link but I have a PDF of it and have confirmed it direct with Apple.

Technology Upgrade #2, 2004

webmaster@reverb.com.au (reverb) — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 12:00:00 -0500

After seeing this rather unbelievable deal on offer at my old work-place Strathfield Car Radios, I am now the proud owner of:

A 20GB Click-wheek Apple iPod.
A Sony Ericsson T610 mobile pheone.
A 24 month obligation to uncle Optus.

I'm still yet to work out just how Strathfield can give the iPod away for free. As is the store manager at the store where I got my deal from. Basically I am now paying a little more per month than I was before, and I get a new phone with camera and all that sort of good stuff, along with a $500 music player thrown in.
Not that you'll find me complaining. At least until the bills arrive.