Sony: The bad and good

Sony BMG has finally agreed to sell DRM-free music downloads. However, if you want one of the 37 available albums (no single track downloads), you have to go to your local Best Buy or other retailer and purchase a card for $13. You can then bring the card home, and download that album to your computer.

Why would anyone actually want to do this?!?


Sony BMG trades cards for downloaded tunes - USATODAY.com

On another Sony front, I got a chance to see Sony's new prototype OLED TV yesterday at the Sony Style store at Beachwood Place. It's pretty amazing to see a 3mm thin tv screen that has a picture that blows away any LCD TV on the market.

Sony's 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio 27-inch OLED HDTV - Engadget

Powered by ScribeFire.

I'll take cash, please

I use a credit card that has the "WorldPoints" reward program feature. I have always just waited until I build up enough points for a 1% cash reward and then request a refund check. I decided, however, to see what sort of value WorldPoints is providing for the merchandise in their catalog. I found an item that was just over the 1% cash back point threshold of 25,000 points.

See the image below for the Hamilton Beach Eclectrics mixer which can be yours for only 25,200 points!



Now take a look below and see that, alternatively, you could redeem those 25,000 points for $250 in cash.



So...is buying the blender for those points a better value than the $250 in cash?

Ummmm....no.

According to the Hamilton Beach website, this blender has a MSRP of $200.



And anyone who has shopped online in the past decade knows that you can usually find products cheaper than MSRP on stores like Amazon. Here is the same blender on Amazon.com for $186.



So, if you were to redeem 25,000 WorldPoints for a blender, instead of the $250 in cash, you would effectively be overpaying for that blender by $64!

Cruise Pictures

Click below for pictures from the cruise that Stephanie and I went on over the holiday vacation. We sailed from Port Everglades in Ft Lauderdale, FL to Key West, Cozumel, and Belize City.

Holiday Cruise

Vista Initial thoughts

I got a new laptop for work last week and elected to order it with Vista Ultimate pre-installed. I had been dragging my feet about moving to Vista on any of my computers because I really didn't see any benefit other than aesthetics, but my company wanted a few of us try out the new OS.

So far, I've been using Vista for about a week and figured I'd share my initial thoughts and impressions since the people that read this blog are usually the ones that ask me about computers / technical stuff.

Memory requirements:

I ordered my new computer with only 1 GB of RAM and then bought a 2 GB module from crucial.com. I wanted to get all of the initial system updates applied and the antivirus software installed prior to opening up the case and installing the additional RAM, so I was using Vista Ultimate for about 2 hours with just 1 GB of RAM. I would liken the experience to running Windows XP with only 256 MB of RAM and wouldn't recommend it to anybody. After popping in the additional memory, the system runs MUCH better.

Graphics / Interface:

The new Aero features are pretty slick, and I do enjoy using the 3D task switcher (Win+Tab) much better than the old-style task switcher (Alt+Tab). However, other than that, I don't see a whole lot of benefit over XP.

I do like that the desktop icons seem to now be vector images instead of rasterized, which, you may recall, means that you can make the icons larger without sacrificing quality.

One interesting (Ultimate only) feature of Vista that I've tried out is DreamScene. Apparently people weren't happy with just having an image as their desktop background so Microsoft decided to let users set a MPEG move file as their desktop wallpaper. I'm guessing that Microsoft kept this as a Vista Ultimate-only feature because they assume that if a user ponies up the extra $$ for Ultimate, they'll be using a system with high-end hardware that won't mind giving some resources to DreamScene. In my completely un-scientific testing, I found that DreamScene increased CPU load by around 5% compared to just using a solid-colored image as the desktop wallpaper. I can't imagine very many people using an animated background other than the subtly animated Vista background because it just gets to distracting.

Program Compatibility:

Because this is my work laptop, I haven't put too many non-Microsoft applications on it. However, I did load it up with open-source apps, and so far have found that most of the apps that I use work fine in Vista. Pidgin, Audacity, GIMP, VLC Player, and Firefox all work great. I did have one quirk with Firefox that popped up error messages until I ran Firefox using the "Run as Administrator" option. After doing that once, now Firefox runs without error even without running with the elevated security.

Hardware / Device Compatibility:

I was easily able to connect my Motorola Q and browse it the Explorer. I was also able to install the Motorola drivers that would allow me to charge the Q via USB. However, when I tried to sync the Q with Outlook, I hit a wall. First of all, Microsoft has replaced the old ActiveSync that we're all used to with a new application called Windows Mobile Device Center. This came pre-installed on my machine, so I was surprised when my computer refused to establish a partnership with my Q. I finally got it working by downloading the most recent version of WMDC and now it works great. It baffles me that the version of WMDC that was pre-installed wouldn't work for me, though: my Q is running Windows Mobile 5...an operating system that's been around since 2005.

Security Prompts:

One of the major gripes that people have with Vista is the frequency of the security prompts that are designed to make sure that your computer doesn't get infected by all of the nasties out there on the internet. I agree that these alerts are extremely annoying, however, it does point out how frequently you're modifying Windows files. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to disable the prompts, or just learn to deal with them, but I usually don't find them as intrusive as I'd expected.
What really bugs me so far is that a security dialog will sometimes open but not come to the forefront like normal. So I'll be waiting for a program to install or a setting to change and nothing will happen. Then I'll look at my taskbar to see that there is an alert there waiting for me. When I click on the alert then the screen will go dark like usual and I can approve the action.
For a home user who would not consider themselves a power user, I can definately understand how these alerts are helpful. However, for somone like me who is constantly tinkering with settings and protected files, they really become a hassle.

Misc. Notes:

I have encountered a problem with the "Safely remove device" feature that is used to make sure that all I/O is stopped before ejecting a hard drive/flash drive/camera/etc. In Windows XP, as long as nothing is accessing a device, you could eject it. In Vista, however, I have found that even with no programs running, it will not let me "safely" eject my external hard drive. I have requested a hotfix from Microsoft that purports to fix this issue, but I haven't tried it yet.

This was more of an issue with Microsoft Office, however, I'll list it here because it may have been Vista-related. My laptop came pre-installed with a 30-day trial of Office 2007. One of the first programs that I installed was a licensed version of Office Ultimate 2007. I was a bit annoyed to find that even after installing this licensed version, all of my office applications put the phrase "non-commercial use" in the titlebar. After researching if there was a way to remove this from the titlebar, I finally resigned to completely un-installing both the Office 2007 Trial and the Office Ultimate 2007 installations and then re-installing Office Ultimate 2007 in order to get rid of the "non-commercial use" message. What a pain!

Good riddance to a crappy store

The store that I love to hate is finally going out of business for good. CompUSA - you will not be missed.

While I absolutely despise CompUSA, it has been good to me over the years. Between my dad and I threatening to sue them over deceptive marketing practices (resulting in them practically buying me a laptop) and their last round of store closings (which got me some good eBay-able items), I've gotten some amazing deals from CompUSA.

For just day-to-day shopping, however, CompUSA was a close #2 on my crappiest stores list (after Marc's) and I won't miss it at all.

Happy holidays from wendy's!

Stephanie and i stopped at wendy's for lunch. We were so impressed by their holiday display in the back of the restaurant. Wendy's really knows how to decorate for the holiday season.

Chanukah already?!?

Happy Chanukah!

Vector Magic

Anyone who has dealt with editing images files that contain text or drawings knows that once you save a file as a raster image (.jpg, .bmp, .gif), the text / drawing will look really bad if you try to zoom in on it.

I came across a new site/service called Vector Magic (by a group at Stanford University) that will automatically convert a rasterized image into a vector image. The vector image actually defines the text/drawing as a series of shapes which can be blown up with no loss of quality (it just draws bigger shapes).

For an example, I took the tiny logo from my site at margelefsky.com:




At the normal size, this picture looks just fine. However, since it is a .jpg file, when you zoom in on the file, you can see that it looks extremely pixelated and blurry.





Now, compare that zoomed view to the version of the file that I produced using Stanford's Vector Magic site:


(note: you can click on the image above to see a bit more of the file)

Obviously, the vector graphic produced by Vector Magic is MUCH clearer. Notice, however, that when the text was "traced", some of the letters did get a bit distorted (like the curved sides of the letter Y). However, considering that the old way of ray tracing an image was to do it manually in Photoshop or Illustrator, this is a HUGE improvement.

Android....not impressed

I just looked through Engadget's "Visual tour of Android's UI".

I was shocked at how little innovation Google has done to the mobile platform. I know that this is an open-source effort, and that the OS will evolve as more and more developers start to dedicate development to the project. But come on, Google! Is that seriously your first crack at a mobile platform? Definitely more evolutionary than revolutionary.

I wanted to demonstrate how similar the brand new Android interface is to my outdated Windows Mobile 5 phone. You'll have to excuse the big "DEMO" text over my screen captures, but I didn't feel like actually paying for a screen capture utility for Windows Mobile device.

See my side-by-side comparison here.

Storytelling in Toledo

Stephanie and I drove in to Toledo on Friday night to see my mom perform in the Frogtown Storyteller's event for Tellabration 2007.

I wouldn't want to prevent anyone from being able to share in the joy of listening to 2.5 hours of storytelling, so I present to you the full video of all 150 minutes of storytelling. Enjoy.






Just kidding...it's just a clip of mom's story.

Detroit news...or lack thereof

Val, Steph, and I went up to Detroit on Saturday to visit the newly renovated MGM Grand Detroit. We were making great time until about 6:00pm when we encountered a fresh accident about 11 miles South of Detroit.

A car had, apparently, flipped and turned sideways, blocking all lanes of traffic on I-75 North. Only the left shoulder was getting by...until the police arrived on the scene and used the left shoulder as a police-only parking lot.

While the police, and a handful of Fire and EMS vehicles tended to the accident the motorists on I-75 just sat and waited. Some got of their cars and wandered up to the accident scene - or into the nearby trees for relief.

I looked up Detroit traffic on my phone and saw that they had completely closed down I-75 a couple exits behind where we were sitting. At that point, we knew we were going to be sitting there for a while, so we found some snacks to eat in Stephanie's car and enjoyed making fun of the motorists-turned-pedestrians that were wandering the expressway.

 

After over an hour of waiting, the police finally moved their cars over and re-opened the left shoulder, allowing us to continue on our way to the MGM Grand.

We spent a few hours there at the casino: gambling a little bit and waiting in long lines for crappy food. We left at around 10:00pm, heading back down I-75.

Much to our surprise, I-75 North was STILL closed at the scene of the earlier accident. Police were still on the scene with surveying equipment and the vehicles involved (there was a second vehicle about 100 yards away from the flipped car) hadn't moved since we had last seen them.

When we got home I looked online to see if there was any mention of this accident and road closure, assuming that for them to close down the road for that long there must be some sort of story. However, I found NOTHING. No mention of the accident and/or road closure on the Detroit Free Press website or any of the local Detroit TV station websites.

I just looked again today, figuring that maybe all reporters in Detroit took the weekend off and STILL find nothing. How can you close a major expressway for at least 3 hours and have not a peep in the local news? Were all of Detroit's news crews at the MGM Grand? That may explain why there was a 40 minute wait for crappy chinese take out food at the casino's food court.

(Is it just me, or have I seen an unusal number of accident recently? Maybe I should just lock myself in my condo like my neighbor)

Scary Scene in Twinsburg

This weekend there was a horrific accident on Route 91 outside of my neighborhood. Luckily, we had made a Swenson's run, and were well clear of the area at the time of the accident. However, on arriving home, Rt 91 was closed and I had to take the back way into my development.

Stephanie noticed that there was crime scene tape roping off the area through the trees near Rt 91, so we walked out to see what was going on.

We found a gruesome scene - four cars completely destroyed, 12 police cars from all over the area, and a huge stretch of road roped off with police tape.

We found out from onlookers that an elderly man had been driving northbound on Rt 91 when he suffered a heart attack (or some other health problem) and lost control of his vehicle. He struck 3 other vehicles before careening off the road and into a hill that separates the road from the nearby houses.

We watched the swarm of police investigate the scene (including brining in a firetruck to lift a police photographer high in the air to take aerial shots of the cars) until they were about to remove the body of the elderly man...which we didn't need to see.

More information here

How many tacos does it take to give everyone in America indigestion?

I'm sure most of you were familiar with the Taco Bell publicity stunt during the World Series in which they promised a free taco for "everyone" if any player stole a base during the series.

Well, a player did steal a base, and earlier this week, Taco Bell gave out X tacos.

I was doing a little bit of searching online, trying to figure out just what X was. I'm curious how many millions of people managed to pack themselves into Taco Bell for their free sample of crappy Mexican fast food.

Unfortunately, I was unable to come up with an answer. However, I did find some interesting articles revealing the history of this Taco Bell promotion.

It seems that it started back in 2001 and was related to falling space station debris, and not to baseball. Taco Bell floated a 40x40 ft target in the Pacific ocean before the Mir space station fell to earth. If the Mir landed on this target, everyone in America would get a free taco. Kind of ironic that a Russian spacecraft could feed millions of Americans.

The next year, the promotion shifted to baseball and the 2002 World Series. For that promotion, a player had to hit the ball out of the park and onto an inflatable target in the water outside of the stadium.

Then, for the 2003 World Series, Taco bell decided to make the promotion a bit more realistic. They designated a 16-person section of the crowd as the target. If a player hit a home run ball into that section of the stands, then everyone in the country would get the runs win a taco.

In 2004, they changed the promotion a bit again. This time, they hung a banner at the World Series, and if a player hit a ball into the banner, then everyone would suffer eat for free.

It seems that Taco Bell took a break from this promo for 2005, but returned with another variation in 2006. For the 2006 World Series, the payout would occur if a player hit a home run over the left field wall in game 3 of the series.

After seeing how this promotion has evolved over the past 6 years, it makes the recent "steal a base" promo seem like shooting fish in a barrel. Now the question remains...how many people actually took Taco Bell up on their offer for a free taco in a 3 hour window of time this past Tuesday?

Can any of you find the answer for me?

Mr Marvelous goes to the planetarium

This past Thursday I accompanied Stephanie's 2nd grade class to the planetarium at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. I babysat chaperoned four students around the museum as they attempted to wreak havoc on everything in sight.

In the shot above, my group of kids were hanging out with Stephanie's group. They figured they could cause more mischief in larger numbers.


(one of the students tried to say my name and came up with Mr Marvelous. Who am I to argue?)

World Series tickets? Nope...just wasted paper

Well the Tribe has done it. Wasted a 3-1 lead in the American League Championship Series. After their complete collapse in games 5 & 6, they pretty much rolled over and died after about 6 innings last night in game 7.

It sucks that they lost, but it sucks even more that Stephanie and I had managed to get tickets to the World Series if Cleveland had made it. Stephanie had signed up for the ticket lottery and was selected. I sat at work this past Wednesday frantically trying to get whatever tickets were left by the time Ticketmaster opened up sales to the public (who had gotten a code from the Indians...or who had bought one of these codes on eBay for $175+).

Games 1 & 2 were completely sold out, but I was able to get tickets to a potential game 6 of the series. Nose bleed seats...but World Series tickets nonetheless.

Could we have sold these tickets and made even more profit than the Hannah Montana tickets?

Unfortunately, now that it's going to be a Rockies v. Red Socks World Series, these Indians tickets aren't worth the paper they're printed on. Maybe next year.

Go Tribe.

About time, Verizon

For those of you who have been heeding my advice and avoiding the Moto Q in favor of a better smartphone on Verizon, looks like VZW is finally going to be releasing some of these long-awaited devices.

And for those of you who jumped ship because you couldn't resist the Jesus Phone, just remember to practice safe phoning.

Navigon Who?

I was just reading latest Fast Company and came across an ad for a new (?) consumer GPS company called Navigon. The ad caught my attention because it showed what they refer to as Reality View instead of the typical 2D or 3D depiction of the map that we're used to from Garmin and Tom Tom.

The Reality View attempts to show you the upcoming road right down to lane lines and guard rails (not to mention cheesy background skylines).

This seems like a really cool concept, but the more I thought about it, it seems like it'd be pretty distracting. For example, in the image above, you are supposed to exit the road to the right. Well the arrow where you're supposed to be going is all the way to the edge of the screen and not something that I would be able to notice at a glance. Is that more easily read and interpreted than a standard 2D or 3D map?

Some of the other features of this GPS really do seem useful, like the included Zagat Guide reviews and free traffic information. Seems like pretty nice features for a $400 GPS.

If you're interested in seeing a demo of this product, check it out here. Watch the demo and then someone please tell me what the heck is up with the "Please Insert SD Card!" screen at the very end.

PMB / Josh Kelley @ HOB

Stephanie and I went to see Pat McGee Band and Josh Kelley last night at the House of Blues. The concert was held in the Cambridge room at the HOB, not the main stage. The Cambridge room is a tiny little venue that probably only holds 300 or so. Stephanie and I got a prime spot in front of the stage for the whole show!



Josh Kelley opened the night and turned out to be the better of the two performances. Pat McGee Band, one of my all-time favorites, doesn't seem to have the same energy that they used to (although this may be in large part due to the recent loss of their drummer, Chris). Josh Kelley, on the other hand, is a great performer and really seemed to have fun with the audience. The keyboardist, Dave Yaden, was having even more fun than Josh - he was either high on something...or just insane.



When Josh Kelley's set was over, a lot of the crowd left. I was surprised that more people weren't there to see PMB...or at least stick around to see if PMB was any good. We kept our front row spot in front of the keyboard stand, now occupied by Jonathan Williams, as PMB began their set.



Near the end of the show, the members of Josh Kelley's band came out and did some jamming with PMB. Dave Yaden sat down with Jonathan at the keys and started playing in his psychedelic style...Jonathan didn't seem to know what to make of him.



Josh Kelley seems to enjoy playing other people's instruments. During his set, he switched spots with his drummer during one song. At the end of the PMB set, Josh was standing at the side of the stage and playing on one of Chardy's bongos. (Note Jonathan laying on the floor of the stage watching)

Overall it was a very fun concert and I'll definitely have to check out more of Josh Kelley's music.

Most pointless software ever....after AOL, of course

I was just checking on my Hannah Montana auction and noticed a post about eBay's new "public Beta" of their eBay Desktop software.

First of all, the concept of a Public Beta is somewhat ridiculous anyway...when did a Beta test become a public event? The whole idea of a Beta release of software is to have a small-ish group of testers evaluate the software BEFORE opening the final release to the public.

But the real reason that I wanted to comment on this new eBay Desktop is that eBay is a WEBSITE! A website that now wants users to download special software to view the same information that you can get already...on their website!

While most companies are trying to move desktop applications ONTO websites, eBay is apparently going in the opposite direction. Can anyone give me any reason at all that a desktop version of eBay would provide any value????

Apparently eBay is subscribing to the AOL school of thought...which apparently is something like "Let's give our users a bloated piece of software that allows them access to the exact same information that they can get already using their web browser." (and yes...the software is indeed bloated: a 15 MB download AND it requires the installation of Adobe AIR as part of the installation)

OK...that's enough ranting for now. Go download the eBay Desktop application so that you can bid up my Hannah Montana tickets even higher!

Turkey X-ing

While driving down Chagrin River Road in Gates Mills this weekend, we had an interesting encounter with the local fauna.

Crossing the road was a flock of wild turkeys! Wild turkeys are native to Ohio but not to the Cleveland area.

The turkeys (probably 8 or 9 of them) moved pretty quickly across the road and into the trees on the opposite side. I was just quick enough to snap a picture with my phone before the last of the birds disappeared from view.