iPhone Diary Day 7: Argh! accessories

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1. iPhone Diary Day 7: Argh! accessories - 2007-07-05 11:08:43-04
   Apple's been pretty straight with us from the beginning about iPhone accessories. They said that some accessories will work, but others - especially those that send a signal, like FM transmitters, or that receive a signal, like voice recorders - will not. With those pre-qualifications in mind I was eager to try iPhone with the freshly installed Alpine iDA-X001 head unit in my vehicle. I was optimistic about the iPhone working because I just purchased the Alpine in late May and it's the latest iPod-compatible model. The iDA-X001's has unmatched iPod friendliness. It has controls that act just like your iPod from the front panel of the head unit. Menus are navigable like the iPod, it has search options are...
   
2. Mass. is ready to play ball with Microsoft's Open XML format - 2007-07-05 11:08:59-04
   Looks like Microsoft is going to win the battle of the file formats in Massachusetts. The commonwealth's latest policy draft (RTF) indicates that Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) is an acceptable document format for state government, Ars Technica relates. The document espouses the advantages of XML-based standards and states that all state agencies are expected to migrate from proprietary, binary office document formats to XML-based ones, initially through using ODF document translators with Microsoft Office 2003. Microsoft's OOXML, which has been approved by the standardizing body Ecma, has been added as "another standardized XML-based file format specification suitable for office applications." The document is subject to a short review period which will end on July 20. You may recall that...
   
3. Denmark to test Open XML, ODF in year-long evaluation - 2007-07-05 11:24:53-04
   More on the file format wars: Denmark will run a test of the two competing formats -- Open Document Format and Office Open XML -- over the next year, in which government agencies will be required to use both formats, InfoWorld reports. Denmark is requiring both standards for the test period since neither are "fully mature," said Rachid El Mousti, senior adviser for the IT strategy division of Denmark's National IT and Telecom Agency. Products purchased by agencies in 2008 must support one of the formats. Denmark is studying document interchange as well, including the use of converters. But the test doesn't mean the country will necessarily settle on one of the two contenders; Denmark may opt to use neither....
   
4. Podcast: News to know midday: AMD benchmarks; iPhone accessories; Verizon FiOS - 2007-07-05 11:30:36-04
   On today's podcast: George Ou rips AMD over benchmarks. Jason O'Grady surveys iPhone accessories. Verizon FiOS here I come.
   
5. My Verizon FiOS experience is about to begin - 2007-07-05 11:47:36-04
   On July 3 I had one of my last Comcast outages--I say that knowing I'll have another one soon. This Comcast outage had particularly bad timing since I've been evaluating Verizon FiOS. Amazing how quick I called Verizon after this latest Comcast glitch--the knocked out the TV and Internet access for 4 hours. Verizon FiOS has been available in my area for a few weeks. The fiber optic lines were put into the ground in January and February. These lines were recently lit up. My only reservation for the switch was price. Due to my complaints earlier this year I was getting TV (with HBO) and Internet access for roughly $60 a month since Comcast put me on all...
   
6. Windows Live OneCare 2.0 beta due imminently - 2007-07-05 12:03:05-04
   Microsoft is preparing to field a private beta of a new version of Windows Live OneCare, dubbed Windows Live OneCare 2.0 Windows Live OneCare is Microsoft's all-in-one antivirus, antispyware, firewall, backup, maintenance subscription service that Microsoft launched in 2006. In January 2007, Microsoft released OneCare 1.5. Users have enountered various problems with that release, including e-mail deletion problems. Microsoft issued in March a patch for OneCare 1.5 to remedy some of those issues. The 2.0 release of Windows Live OneCare, according to an e-mail message Microsoft sent to prospective testers (posted by LiveSide.Net), will include a number of new features, such as: Multi PC management - designate a hub PC and then add additional PCs to your OneCare circle using...
   
7. Revenge of the record labels: Is it Apple's turn to knuckle-under? - 2007-07-05 12:05:44-04
   Apple CEO Steve Jobs has had a knack for getting entire industries to knuckle under to his demands. It was just over a year ago that the four major record labels -- all of whom wanted more control over the pricing of downloaded songs from their artists -- knuckled under to Jobs' one price (99 cents) fits all policy. With more decision making control over song pricing, record labels could have charged more than the standard 99 cent fare for songs from their current chart toppers and less (as little as 10 cents) to boost sales of older or less popular music. For music fans like me, I'd be buying a lot more music from the 70's if I could...
   
8. Seriously, what is wrong with Comcast? - 2007-07-05 12:09:13-04
   Back in January I wrote a blog entry discussing my desire to cut back my cable television and rely more on iTunes, Netflix, Joost, etc. I asked Comcast to simply disconnect my cable TV but keep my Internet. That's when they informed me they could do that, but they would then have to cut my bandwidth from 6Mbps to 3Mbps. Apparently they sneak that extra 3Mbps over the 60+ channels I never watch. It is basically a strong arm tactic to get me to keep paying for cable TV. It's shady, but what can you do when you've got the bandwidth blues? So I caved and they cut my cable TV down to basic which dropped my bill from $100...
   
9. Inventor of political microtargeting applies his craft for Romney - 2007-07-05 12:46:26-04
   Alex Gage is the guy who invented microtargeted election campaigning, the trend that sealed Karl Rove's reputation as political wunderkind. Using the wealth of personal data on Americans that's available for a price, the strategy was to use databases to identify Republican voters on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood, even home-by-home basis. In 2004, it allowed the Republicans to reach out to conservative voters in Democratic precincts -- voters who would previously have been ignored by the campaigns. Gage's techniques are credited with unearthing Republican voters in Ohio and motivating them to get to the polls. Now Gage is working for another Republican campaign - that of Mitt Romney. As a Harvard biz school graduate, Romney is well-known for trying to apply business...
   
10. Making the sky searchable - 2007-07-05 13:31:10-04
    Computer scientists at the University of Toronto (U of T) have teamed up with astronomers at New York University on an ambitious project. You can send them a picture of the sky above your head and their special software will identify the stars that are in the image. In other words, their computer program will make night sky searchable. The team is organizing and mixing images coming from astronomical databases with images coming from 'all kinds of cameras, amateur telescopes, large ground-based telescopes, and space telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope.' This specialized search engine is still in beta-version, but is available to both professional and amateur astronomers. Before going further, let's see how the system works. You can...
    
11. Mossberg says Flash coming to the iPhone - 2007-07-05 13:48:54-04
    An interesting tidbit today in Walt Mossberg's new column, Questions about Apple's iPhone. In the article he runs down a series of questions about the iPhone including: Question: If the iPhone's Web browser is so good, why can't it play video on Web sites I visit? At launch, the iPhone version of the Safari browser is missing some plug-ins needed for playing common types of Web videos. The most important of these is the plug-in for Adobe's Flash technology. Apple says it plans to add that plug-in through an early software update, which I am guessing will occur within the next couple of months. However, a separate program included on the iPhone can play a limited selection of videos from...
    
12. On deck: Critical Microsoft Office, Excel, Windows patches - 2007-07-05 14:14:48-04
    Microsoft plans to ship six bulletins with patches for multiple code execution vulnerabilities affecting Office, Excel, Windows and the .NET Framework. Three of the six bulletin will be rated "critical," Microsoft highest severity rating. The Patch Tuesday batch will also include two "important" bulletins with patches for holes in Office, Publisher and Windows XP Pro. The sixth update will include a "moderate" fix for an information disclosure hole affecting Windows Vista.
    
13. Disk drive life depends on . . . luck - 2007-07-05 15:30:30-04
    What is the primary determinant of drive life? I've read the latest research and talked to insiders. There are so many variables that the best answer is just . . . luck. Why is that? Is there anything you can do? Many variables - and some that aren't The recent Carnegie Mellon University and Google research dispelled some popular myths about disk drives: Enterprise drives are no more reliable than consumer drives. The extra money seems to go for margin and warranty costs. These are mass-produced products. There is no secret to making a disk last 3x. SMART drive status reporting is pretty useless. If SMART is telling you there is a problem, there probably is a problem. But if...
    
14. Reuse of code is the key to keeping IBM from being a 500,000-employee company - 2007-07-05 16:25:42-04
    Nice piece in the The New York Times today about how IBM is again re-inventing itself as the "blended IT provider." Those are my words. IBM is seeking the means to blend talents, technologies, locations, approaches, people-process, and -- above all -- applications and services. After attending a few IBM conferences over the past two months, I have a pretty good sense of what the new IBM is all about. I think they have a strong and correct vision, that success nonetheless depends on extremely good global execution across many disciplines, that time is short, and that it will be quite hard for nearly any other IT provider to emulate IBM if it succeeds and develops a sizable lead in...
    
15. Confessions of a social community subscribe-aholic - 2007-07-05 16:50:15-04
    I have subscribed to more social communities than I can keep up with ... and yet I keep clicking subscribe links. Some I bookmark, and some I don't. Most are clutter in my cyber-closet. My name is Maurene, and I'm a social community subscribe-aholic.   In my reality, each one is important -- with bits and bytes of information to be discovered. I've lost count of how many I've subscribed to. I play with each for a while, then get bored and subscribe to a new community. However, there are a few that I use regularly: LinkedIn and del.icio.us (for business) and Flickr (for fun). I have a folder of mainly unread RSS feeds. The blogs that I really want to read are subscribed to through Feedblitz, which delivers an RSS-generated aggregation of new posts contained...
    
16. Busting deceptive benchmark charts (AMD this time) is necessary, but ultimately is not a solution - 2007-07-05 16:50:59-04
    Yesterday, my fellow blogger George Ou (with whom I've sparred over the benchmarking practices of both Intel and AMD) referred to a set of comparative performance charts published by AMD as "criminal". Reminiscent of when I referred to Intel's benchmarking behavior as felonious, George wrote: .....this latest round of deceptive benchmarks is so outrageous that it's criminal. On AMD's "Barcelona" performance page, AMD shows the following fictitious and outdated information. Apparently some of these misleading numbers are even showing up on Wall Street Journal advertisements... His accusations have provoked a thread of comments (114 of them and growing at last count) many of which take George's side, and a whole bunch of others that take George to task over a...
    
17. Microsoft's Xbox hardware failures prove costly - 2007-07-05 16:52:31-04
    Microsoft said Thursday that it will take a charge of $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion for the quarter ending June 30 to cover enhanced warranty coverage on the Xbox. The Xbox, one of Microsoft's faster growing businesses, will now have a three-year warranty from time of purchase in addition to other policies. Xbox customers have been annoyed by a bevy of "three flashing red lights" error messages. In various reports, this error was known as the Red Ring of Death. In a statement, Microsoft said: As a result of what Microsoft views as an unacceptable number of repairs to Xbox 360 consoles, the company conducted extensive investigations into potential sources of general hardware failures. Having identified a number of...
    
18. Microsoft takes a $1 billion hit for Xbox 360 console problems - 2007-07-05 17:54:48-04
    After a rash of recent reports about Xbox 360 hardware problems, Microsoft has opted to extend Xbox 360 warranties to three years. The company announced its plan to extend Xbox warranties on July 5. The upside: Microsoft has done what's right for customers, by reimbursing anyone who has experienced the "three flashing red lights" error and incurred repair expenses. The downside (for Microsoft): It is taking a $1.05 to $1.15 billion charge for its quarter ending June 30 to make good on reported hardware problems. Microsoft officials have said they believe Xbox hardware failure rates to run between three and five percent, which the company considers acceptable. But some retailers claim the Xbox console failure rate to be substantially higher,...
    
19. Google Code Search gets major upgrade - 2007-07-05 18:16:11-04
    Google flipped the switch on some pretty big changes to their code search service. Google Code Search is a tool that is used by programmers who need to find a piece of code to do a specific function -- I have used it several times to find answers to problems that crop up from time to time. The new features for the service include: Greater coverage: Google Code Search now indexes individual files and code snippets from all over the web; previously, only complete archives (.zip, .tar, etc) and repositories (CVS and Subversion) were indexed Improved ranking: Class and method definitions now appear closer to the top of search results for certain queries Improved access: Users can now access Google...
    
20. Podcast: iPhones, batteries, benchmarks, Sicko and more... - 2007-07-05 18:24:25-04
    This week on the Dan & David Show, we offer our iPhone post-launch analysis. Apple succeeds in earning superlatives for moving the mobile device industry forward and AT&T gets grief for its slow network and activation problems. This shall pass. In addition, we talk about the sorry state of benchmarking, the problems with measuring mobile device battery life and the AMD vs. Intel benchmarking battle. I give my take on the Google vs. Sicko blogstorm that erupted over the weekend and SAP's confession that its TomorrowNow business unit downloaded some inappropriate material from Oracle, and we discuss the 'negotiation' that will go on between Vivendi Universal Music and Apple over the price of music downloads. This podcast can be delivered...