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In: Tech
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After two years of use, it’s time to say farewell to my Palm Treo 650 and start looking for a new phone; this is my longterm wrap-up review. I’ve used a Palm OS device for the past 8 years. The OS is ancient and hasn’t received any significant updates in years, but even so, the Palm Treo line could be so much more they just put some effort into what the consider the status quo. Palm has a new executive chairman (Jonathan Rubinstein of iPod fame), and their new Treo 500 is the first significant step forward in years. Hopefully they will continue to makeRead More →

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In: Reviews
With: 80 Comments

I received my new Lenovo Thinkpad T61 and I’ve had a couple of days to play around with it. In summary, it is one awesome piece of hardware; this is the best laptop I’ve used. Unfortunately, it’s not perfect. Windows Vista looks beautiful, but it’s pretty slow and unreliable as compared to XP. Also, battery life is shorter than I expected (due to the power hungry nVidia graphics card and maybe due to Vista power management.) Here are the pros and cons: Pros: Keyboard: This keyboard is incredible; it has a great feel to it and the large, white letters on the black keys makeRead More →

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In: Home Theater
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Last week, Sonos released software revision 2.0. This is the third time they’ve released an update in the ~1.5 years I’ve owned one. What impresses me most is that I’ve made requests in their user suggestion forum and they have implemented many of them. Customers speak and Sonos listens. Too bad more companies are not like this (I’ve been complaining to Philips about their omission of ProntoProNG button backlights for a couple of years now and no change.) One of the coolest new features is integrated Real Rhapsody Service. Previous support was barely functional – it used a networked PC running Rhapsody as an intermediary.Read More →

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In: Automotive
With: 5 Comments

In preparation for an upcoming road trip, I purchased and installed at PhatNoise PhatBox in my 2004 Infiniti G35 Sedan. Initial impressions: holy crap, this thing is awesome! Why did I wait so long?!? Installation was extremely easy, just plug it into the satellite radio harness and it shows up as a CD changer, controlled directly from the factory head unit. To get it hooked-up and working in the car, total time was about 10 minutes (still need to screw it down though). I know iPods are extremely popular; here’s why I think the PhatNoise blows the iPod away. controlled by the factory head unitRead More →

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In: Home Theater
With: 21 Comments

Overview I purchased network home music players from both Roku SoundBridge M2000 and a Sonos Digital Music System Bundle, with the objective being a winner-take-all comparison where one is kept and the other is returned. I’ve completed my evaluation and the results are below. Roku SoundBridge M2000 vs. Sonos Digital Music System Setup The Sonos system was easier to setup than the Roku. However, the Sonos did require a wired network connection. The advantage is that no wireless network configuration is necessary because the Sonos uses its own encrypted wireless network from that device to every other one in your house. The Roku, however, didRead More →

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In: Home Theater
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As I mentioned previously in my blog, I purchased two network home music players: a Roku SoundBridge M2000 and a Sonos Digital Music System Bundle. I used both for a couple of weeks with the objective being a winner-take-all comparison where one is kept and the other is returned. A brief summary of the detailed results is posted below: Setup: Sonos wins by a moderate margin; neither was excessively difficult but the Sonos was less confusing. Music Format Support: Roku wins by a small margin because of WMA DRM support. Search: Roku wins by a large margin. The Roku is that it gives detailed songRead More →

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In: Tech
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Most people seem to forget that there is a free option to the Verizon high-speed data plan that uses your minutes but otherwise is free. It’s called QNC and it operates at 14.4 kbps speeds, which is fine for infrequent use. Here are the details for enabling this feature, based on info from this thread on TreoCentral Forums: From the Palm main screen, select Preferences and then select Network Hit the menu drop-down key, select New Enter the following settings: Service: QNC Connection: Virtual Modem User Name: qnc Password: qnc Phone: #777 Details… –> Advanced… –> Modify –> Script… Send: at$qcmdr=2 Send CR: Send at$qcqnc=1Read More →

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In: Home Theater
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I’ve been using MusicMatch Jukebox as my main media player for at least 5 years now and I purchased a lifetime upgrade long ago. Today, I’ve decided to abandon it for several reasons. First of all, I found a bug that can delete music files when using the supertagging feature. I lost half of two different albums and music management software should never do that. Secondly, I’ve purchased about 100 DRM-protected songs from them. Many of these song are mis-tagged and there is no way for me to edit the tags. For example, some are “Norah Jones” and some are “Jones, Norah” and want themRead More →