General

Open Season – In 3D!

I’ve seen two of the five IMAX 3-D films released this year. The first was Superman. It was an “okay” movie, great on the IMAX screen, but the 3D was often a bit hokey. This could have been from bad CGI or the fact the 3D was added in a remastering process rather than being part of the original production build. Like most 3-D films you only put on glasses for part of the show. Recently I went to Disney and saw the standard 3-D fare, Bug’s Life, PhillarMagic, etc. Those had some great 3-D effects, but the quality and clarity of the films left a lot to be desired. I saw some previews for Open Season when I saw Superman Returns, and it caught my attention.

After I got over the sticker shock ($11/ticket) I was glad I went. You really have to see it to understand how it looks. The best analogy I can give is it was like watching a CGI film on a high definition large screen Viewmaster. The effect was outstanding IMHO, and not limited to a few 3-D segments – the whole movie was 3-D. The background images in the movie are rather flat, which didn’t allow for a completely real image. Some scenes that were more panoramic really showed off the 3-D. It was a great way to watch a film. I felt like I was IN the MOVIE instead of watching it. Worth the $11. I now have a reason to go back to the theater instead of enjoy movies solely on my home setup (projector w/110 inch screen). I read Happy Feet 3-D version was canceled, based on the previews I saw, that’s a shame!

Cingular 8125, A2DP, Stereo Bluetooth headsets

I recently got a really great set of Bluetooth stereo headphones. I have a bluetooth PocketPC Phone (Cingular 8125) loaded with Yahoo Music (The online music rental plan for $9.99/mo). Sounds like I’m heading for a great thing…

I did some research on this setup. I found a few people in newsgroups saying it worked great. The headphones arrived. I had the latest ROM from Cingular, but I couldn’t get the headset to work for music. Back to the forums to figure out what is going on.

Turns out there really isn’t any ROM support for A2Dp, except some custom ROMS (no thanks). The folks at HTC (the manufacturer) provide a A2DP stack for M$ bluetooth – for the Tornado phone. It is a few DLL files and some registry changes. It also “works” for the Wizard (8125). Works, just like “Greatness” is a relative word.

After resolving I was going to have to use a hack I made the updates, and it worked. I tuned into one of my favorite bands, David Chowder Band – sounds great. Then I head over to some instrumental music. Hmm… What’s that instrument in the background? Is that some kind of modulating electronic HISS? Yup. Back to the forums.

The hiss is apparently some sort of byproduct of the Microsoft bluetooth stack as other PocketPC devices with the Widcomm stack can tweak the sound out. Do I keep the $100 headphones or … ebay them!?

Here is the place to get the A2DP hack ->
http://www.htcwizardweb.net/node/304
This is a CAB with all the registry changes and DLL’s. Just register first, otherwise you can’t download the file in the thread.

Here are some tuning tips, YMMV ->
http://www.firstloox.org/forums/showthread.php?p=60192

Last bit of advice? OVERCLOCK! I run mine at 240Mhz and it makes up for the bluetooth stack CPU usage.

Great PDA/Phone

Well I finally gave up on my Treo. 1) It was dying a terrible battery death 2) The hinge broke AGAIN 3) I work for AT&T and people look at me funny with my Sprint Treo. I switched to Cingular and got the new 8125 phone (a.k.a. HTC Wizard). It’s really awesome. I’m creating an article with all my Cingular 8125 notes with my software finds, and migration from Palm.

More on Internet Filters

The story gets better on internet filters. Of course only after I write a 20 page HOW-TO guide on the SurfPass filter from cogilab do they yank it from the free-for-home-use market. Turns out everyone was downloading the free version and they weren’t making money.

The good news is an easier more powerful filtering software has come out called K9. Much better at false hits, easy to install, use, etc. Step on over to http://www.k9webprotection.com and try it out.

Good Internet Filter

If you are looking for a free, effective, internet filter that can do both blacklists (banned site lists) and content filtering (looking for text in packets) I think I’ve found one that works well. You can even whitelist/blacklist your own. For example I whitelist slashdot.org (sometimes the comment pages are raw, but I don’t care). I blacklist images.google.com. Free blacklist updates, free for home use. Unlike ContentProtect (what I was using) it doesn’t hog any machine resources. Works “behind the scenes” quite well.

http://www.cogilab.com/us/homeedition/index.htm

I’ll try to put an install HOW-TO up soon.

A few things I don’t like about it are:

1) It kills the browser process after a violation. There are reasons to do this, you can change this behavior.
2) No override. You can go whitelist a site but there is no way to put in an override password when a violation is found
3) No ability to email the logs, etc. I think you can administer remotely though.
4) I think I had to login as admin and change the unlimited profile to include content filtering (blacklists was default)

Yahoo Music DOUBLES the price

Well everyone in the industry said they couldn’t keep that price of $4.99 with portable support. I just got an email from Yahoo saying (after I just BOUGHT a compatible portable player) that the $4.99 no longer includes portable support for music. That is another $5! What a rip off. I was able to lock in the current price for one year. If someone else has a cheaper price after that I’ll switch.

My New MP3 Player

My new SanDisk Sansa M240… was purchased today at Best Buy, with instant rebate it came to $89.95!! That is for the 1GB version and does MP3, WMA (DRM and subscription). It worked in seconds with Yahoo music like my other two tries. First I tried the IRiver T30, I’m a loyal customer after all. It had issues with Yahoo (I think my fault), no FM, and when I flashed it the USB connection didn’t recognzie it as a MTP compatible player. I gave support a couple of days, after NO response it went back to Best Buy. I’m not a loyal customer anymore. I did some research and really liked the Samsung YP-MT6Z. Too pricey for what it was but I got it. Didn’t read the fine print on this Microsoft “Plays for Sure” logo. That just means it does Microsoft DRM, not subscription based MS DRM. Ugh. After playing with it for 5 minutes packed it up to go back to Target. They refunded even my shipping which was odd. I don’t think the online side and the retail store understand what each other is doing. I go online and find out for flash players that take normal batteries there isn’t a lot of choices. The T10 and T30 IRiver and the Sandisk Sansa. Then I get the paper this morning and it is only $90! Wow. So here is my pro/con list.

Pros

  • Works with Yahoo Music Engine (couldn’t find that documented ANYWHERE)
  • Great menu system, way easier to figure out then the T30. Great controls, looks dumb but is GREAT.
  • 20 hours on a AAA, not bad. The Samsung was 40 hours on a AA 🙁 Still good…
  • FM great, easy to handle programming it.
  • Does playlists managed ON THE PC! Awesome, none of the others did this. You had to move the music around (yuk)
  • Favorites. You can add songs to a Favorites section. I guess if on random it would get played more?
  • Decent LCD. One complaint, the backlight isn’t very nice and flickers a bit.
  • Did I mention the price? $90?

Cons

  • Case is just ugly, look at it.
  • Case seems a bit flimsy, but doesn’t scare me.
  • Headphones are just aweful, I have 2 better ones so no problem for me.
  • The 2GB and 4GB versions are nowhere to be found.
  • Arm band is sub-optimal.

If you want flash, good price, playlists, subscription support go to Best Buy fast!

Free Internet Filter

Well I DID recommend content watch when they cost $20/yr for 3 computers. Now they want $40 per computer per user. Hmmm…. a 600% increase? Time for a new solution maybe. I think my price will remain in force but I can’t sign up new folks with it. I’ll have to give this one a shot at home and try it out Naomi. I wish someone would find an easy way to port at least part of Dan’s Guardian but it remains a linux only solution. I suppose I could create some miniATX boxes running this and sell them to folks that need them, but would have to auto update, etc. I’d need an image of it… Ugh…. Come on Content Protect!!! 600%????

More big $$ coffee

Caribou Coffee is doing an IPO. Great for them. Somebody needs to give *$’s a run for their money – well sort of. Starbucks (*$) opened more stores last year than Caribou has total. I’ve never been to one, but there is one in the town I grew up in, so I’ll have to visit sometime.

The only stores around me are Starbucks. Closest local shop is 15 minutes away. 🙁