Tech Tuesday: Recent Episodes
Bill Butler
Hosted by Bill Butler, Scott, Kozicki and Tim Moses, this show aims to discuss new or interesting technology on a weekly basis. This show is based in Nashville, TN.
Tim brings up the easy topic of the video iPod release. The conversation turns to a discussion of the revenue model behind providing video in this model and then on to cable and phone companie plans for bringing high-speed into houses. What happens to local affiliates? Where does local news head in the future?
Bill covers Goowy, a Flash-based desktop that includes some basic tools, like email and calendaring. Since it is Flash, you can get to your desktop and files from any browser, so long as it is on Windows. That should change at some point.
Rick rounds out the Apple announcement by bringing up the new iMac G5 and the new software, Front Row and Photo Booth, included with it. Front Row is a media center for your Mac with the feel of an iPod made to take advantage of the remote included with the new iMac. Photo Booth takes pictures with the built-in camera and includes a variety of basic effects.
Tim points out the sexiness of iPods and iBooks.
Bill relays his experiences setting up Myth TV on his Linux box.
Rick mentions the New York Times article about podcasting and haltingly (due to a bad connection) speculates on the long term plans of the large media companies jumping into podcasting. Where is the money?
Tim talks about Insteon as a replacement of X-10 for home automation and then follows with Salling Software's Clicker for turning your Bluetooth phone into a flexible 2-way remote for your computer.
Bill brings up Hotmail as an example of use of Ajax and then follows with Google Home.
Bill talks about the idea of building a massively-detailed profile from all the things you do online to be used to find things you like from very like-minded people who match your profile.
Rick says Google estimates that it would take 300 years to index all the information they have not already indexed.
Bill starts with talk of web 2.0. He uses bookmarking in del.icio.us as an example. Some of Bill's bookmarks are boingboing.net, techcrunch.com, waxy.org/links, and www.emilychang.com/go/ehub.
Tim mentions China and games. Lately, China announced its plans to limit online games. Players who play more than three hours are penalized by having their characters crippled in level or buffs. Tim spends a good deal of time describing the uselessness of alternative home power in Tennessee where power is so cheap, much to his chagrin.
Rick talks about things pissing Microsoft off: Google working with Sun to elevate the profile of Open Office and Java, HP putting Netscape on machines instead of IE.
Bill poses the question of who will win, Steve Jobs or music studios when it comes to charging more than $.99 per song. Rick responds with "Steve Jobs will bend but get it right in the end." Tim votes Steve Jobs won't give in.
Tim covers some articles he heard on the PCGamer Podcast, including a bill to fine anyone who sells an M-rated game to a minor. Fines for selling NC-17-rated movies were notably absent. Also, from the Best Stuff website, the ANYCOM Bluetooth Stereo Headset/Microphone.
Bill mentions eventful.com as a new events site, then off to Dubai with their custom islands and full-scale wonders of the world. DTV for the Mac has been released and ties into broadcast machine at participatoryculture.org. Bittorrent raises money.
Rick discusses HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray and then compares it to the failure of SA-CD and Audio DVDs.
Yet again, the show deteriorates at the end, this time, with a discussion of favorite TV shows and then Bill forgets his name.
Bill discusses new Powerbook rumor and the new Roku alarm clock for MP3's.
Tim suspects that the progress of iBooks and the lack of progress in PowerBooks points to the next major announcement from Apple will be upgraded intel-based PowerBooks. Rick and Bill compare the old Apple Knowledge Navigator video to what has come to pass. Tim goes back on his statement about the over-hype of the Apple announcement of the nano iPod, which is really cool.
Gizmo Project gets chat by adding Jabber to its client. Some talk ensues about Time Warner wanting to sell AOL. There is some reminiscing about early AOL, eWorld, AppleLink and other online services related to Apple. There is a quick survey of old online services, including GEnie, CompuServe, Prodigy, AOL, eWorld. Everyone belonged to at least four. Talk of old services brings on a round of reminiscing, including old massively multiplayer games like the Air Warrior flight simulator and the MUD, Island of Kesmai.
The podcast deteriorates into more reminiscing about old computers before Bill finally puts an end to it.
Tim talked about the Reality Distortion Field surrounding Apple's latest announcement last week. The invitation to the announcement claimed, "1,000 songs in your pocket changed everything. Here we go again." The argument centered around whether the iPod Nano, as amazing as it is, constitutes an announcement as big as the original iPod.
Bill talked about the Samsung NAND chip that is used in the new Apple iPod Nano and the announced new NAND chip that will be going into portable devices by late next year. 32GB capability in portable devices is the holy grail for next year.
Scott's topic was the Ebay acquisition of Skype. According to the investor documents, there was a somewhat convincing argument to use Skype to enhance their existing product, although the price is still three times what seems to make sense. Talk of what other companies may do brought up the point that Vinton Cerf was hired by Google. From there the conversation moved to Teledesic, the McCaw/Gates satellite company, and whatever happened to it.
Rick covered the Oracle and Siebel merger and what that will mean. Rick commented that banks prefer homegrown solutions rather than using commercial enterprise software.
Bill mentioned what he likes about iTunes 5.0.
Rick returned to talk about the Motorola ROKR iTunes phone being lame which turned into bashing the US cellphone companies.
This Episode covers Google Talk (Tim Moses), keeping your precious data backed up (Rick Ewing), WildBlue satellite access (Bill Butler).
This episode covers Qualcomm purchase of Flarion (Bill Butler), OSX on Intel hardware (Tim Moses), application support of selected web browsers (Rick Ewing).
Episode 11 covers web-based desktop applications: new ways to view local files (Tim Moses), Sveasoft on Linksys WRT54G (Bill Butler), Current news on the SCO/Novell Litigation (Rick Ewing) and Unit testing to verify software code (Luke Kanies).
Episode 10 covers Yahoo purchase of Konfabulator (Tim Moses), EVDO rollout schedule from Verizon and Sprint with other carrier info as well (Bill Butler) and Rick Ewing rants about his Anime fetish. Once again, Rick has a weird runaway process that was hurting his Gizmo Audio.
Episode 9 covers AJAX and Apple cellphone service (Tim Moses), Skype and Gizmo Project VOIP calls between the US and Bulgaria, and adding consulting revenue to the mix (Bill Butler).
Episode 8 includes a potluck of articles (Tim Moses), Gizmo Project voip and Apple's bluetooth remote patent (Bill Butler) and Apple's hinting at being a wireless carrier (Rick Ewing). By the way, our audio ROCKS this week due to the Gizmo Project VOIP phone and Audio Hijack. This is by far the best combination for podcasting with multiple people in different locations!
Episode 7 covers protecting your sources (Tim Moses), xMax (Bill Butler), outdated Internet protocols (Scott Kozicki) and software patent gripes (Rick Ewing).
Episode 6 covers WiMAX and FCC decisions over spectrum (Bill Butler), AJAX programming and usefulness (Tim Moses), Grokster Case (Scott Kozicki and we revisit the broadcast flag with special guest Rick Ewing.
Episode 5 covers myDoug (Tim Moses), the ultimate personal search engine, Audio HiJack tutorial (Bill Butler) you should severely discount the validity of this advice considering you can hardly hear me because of a microphone issue, and MacOS on Intel (Scott Kozicki). One of these weeks, we're going to have a really kick ass quality podcast...but for now it just sounds like crap. Sorry.
Episode 4 covers iTunes 4.9 announcement regarding built-in podcast capabilities (Tim Moses). We had two other topics including the new Xbox and the new Bittorrent directory on the horizon, but a HotRecorder bug erased the last two topics. We have ditched HotRecorder for future episodes. We did add about 20 minutes of content from the Iroquois Steeple Chase in Nashville.
Episode 3 covers Broadcast Machine (Bill Butler), Apple's new industry standard H.264 MPEG 4 codec (Tim Moses), and general gripes/kudos regarding the coverage of computer security in the mainstream media (Tim Moses).
Episode 2 covers Music DRM rights long-term views (Tim Moses), new low-cost PC manufactured for India (Bill Butler), defeat of the broadcast flag (Scott Kozicki). We had some technical issues with Skype this week so you'll hear some parts where it sounds like we're talking over each other. We're really not that rude.
Episode 1 covers basic introductions, Skype conference setup, World of Warcraft Capitalism Discussion (Tim Moses), Podcast Needs a Tivo-like interface (Bill Butler), Stompbox - EVDO to WIFI converter (Scott Kozicki), Nashville City Paper article on School Bus outside the Adult Book Store.
This is a mic test and a few ramblings between Tim and Bill before episode 1. It's very doubtful that you would want to actually listen to this crap.
This is basically a test for future Tech Tuesday Podcasts. It has some tidbits regarding my WiMAX installation and MUNI wifi musings. Episode 1 is really the official start for Tech Tuesday.