The only way that $99 Apple TV is real...

is if it is stripped not only of its hard drive, as everyone says, but also of its HD capabilities. I just can't see the new Apple TV being on the same price level as the newly price-cut Roku. That would be totally out of character for Apple. But a Roku SD level device for $99--a 66% markup--would be absolutely believable.

Roku Drops Prices - Awesome!

Since I got my Roku, I've been firmly of the opinion that it is the perfect companion to every TV. Now it is even more affordable than it was before, with prices ranging from $59 to $99. Now let's see what Apple really comes out with, if it is really as cheap as they say, and if it can do everything the Roku can do and more.

I suspect that it's abilities really will be as stated, but the price. That's something I have trouble with. Apple does not sell cheap merchandise, ever. Their lowest end Mac was never less than $499 (back before the switch to Intel) and is now $699.

Wikipedia people irritated by Wikileaks confusion

I can imagine that this would be a bit hard on them. Beyond being upbraided by family members who a) don't know you have nothing to do with WikiLeaks and b) don't have a positive view of WikiLeaks service to the global public, there's always the possibility of a bunch of yahoos going vandal on Wikipedia thinking they're the same. And of course given government incompetence, there's probably the fear in the back of their mind that some ninja will show up and kill or disappear them by mistake.

Gmail to Get Automatic Inbox Prioritization

This isn't a feature that I really need, but it is nice to see it added.

Nintendo Makes Meager Price Drop on DSi

What they need to do is not to cut the price to $149, but rather to cut it to $129 and replace the DS Lite (actually, that should have been the case when it came out). It just isn't enough of an upgrade to justify a price premium, especially considering that it takes away backwards compatibility. Hmm, I guess a $20 premium might make it a bit more attractive than it was when the premium was $40, though.

Using Thunderbird to Back Up IMAP Email

The main problem with keeping all your email in the cloud is the possibility that it will be lost. Yes, generally Google and others are reliable, but things do happen, and accounts get wrongly deleted, so having a backup is always handy. Unfortunately Gmail doesn't come with easy to use Import/Export features that let you upload and download zip files containing your entire tree, nor do others. The good news is that with IMAP, it isn't too intolerably difficult to use IMAP to backup your mail and restore it using the free Thunderbird Mail client.

First, I recommend that you start a new profile entitled "Backup" (or whatever) using the Thunderbird Profile Manager (thunderbird -ProfileManager). Now that your in your new Backup Profile in Thunderbird 3.x, do this:

1. Set up your IMAP account. Thunderbird makes this as painless as possible (including by prompting you to do it when you start a new profile), unless you're using something like Google Apps, in which case you'll have to do it manually.

 

2. Turn off indexing and smart folders. Not absolutely necessary, but helpful, since we don't need it and it will get in the way. Uncheck Edit->Preferences->Advanced ->General->Enable Global Search and Indexer. As for Smart Folders, hit View->Folders->All.

 

3. Go offline and say yes when it asks you to sync. Standard procedure in Thunderbird 3 is to set new accounts to download everything by default, so it should proceed to download everything. File->Offline->Work Offline.

 

4. Create a folder under Local Folders entitled Backup.

 

5. Select all folders in the account you want to backup (except the [Gmail] folder and its subfolders if you're using Gmail) and drag-n-drop them in the folder you just created. They will be copied.
   
   
   
   1. If you are using Gmail, and you followed my instructions, go ahead and copy [Gmail] over now. If you didn't, you'll probably notice that the copy stopped after [Gmail]. Why? I have no idea. But it does, which is why I told you not to copy it with the rest.
   
    
   
    

 

6. Right click on Local Folders and select Settings. Click Browse (next to the path where Local Folders is stored on your computer). Zip up all files and directories named "Backup".

 

7. Delete the Backup folder in Thunderbird.

 

8. Launch the Thunderbird Profile Manager again, delete the Backup profile if you want to (or save it for next time if you're not worried about disk space), and start your normal profile.

 

Restoration involves simply dropping the saved files into Local Folders again (while Thunderbird isn't running).

You could have just copied the files out of the IMAPMail directory, but I find that that has issues associated with it (some messages don't come through right, read data is lost). This method avoids those. And it also doesn't require the use of any extensions.

Note: If you have a lot of mail on the server, expect this to take a long time. Also it will take a lot of space, especially if you're using Gmail. Each message will have to be downloaded multiple times: once for each label it has and another for All Mail, which means you can expect to have it download and store every message at least twice (unless you archive everything and avoid labels like the plague).

Full-body Scans on the Street Outrageous

What's next? Google Full-body Streetview?

This has got to be against the fourth amendment. Making people submit to a full-body scan to get on an airplane and randomly scanning people on the street are two very, very different things (and I'm not saying the former is right to begin with). In the one case you are voluntarily trying to board an airplane (i.e., if you chose to go by car, train, or boat you could avoid it), in the other you're being virtually strip-searched at random on the public street with no reason to suspect you've done anything wrong at all.

Netflix Streaming Far Cheaper than Mailed DVDs

I recently ran across a very old story, that it costs Netflix about one-tenth as much to stream a movie as to mail one, but it got me thinking. If that's so, it isn't automatically to Netflix's benefit to stream rather than mail, though it seems like it would be. After all, you can watch far more movies streaming than you can via DVD, at least on most plans. If one has the minimal plans, one or two discs, one could easily watch ten times or more streaming than one could get with those one or two discs.

My guess is that most people have more than the minimum, so it is a net profit if people with four or five discs spend more time streaming.

Ever Wonder Why Playstation went with Symbols

PC World has an interview with the guy behind that unique design decision.

TiVo Makes Remote with Slider QWERTY Keyboard

Wired has the story.

I don't have a TiVo, but I know the pain of trying to enter text on my Roku box (particularly when I search for YouTube Videos). I'd love to have a remote like this, if it weren't $90 at least.

Oh, well. At least with my Xbox, I can plug in a usb keyboard if I really need one.

PC World Gives Its Candidates for Apple Retirements

Read about it here. I've heard the rumor about the iPod Classic elsewhere. If Apple comes out with a 128 GB iPod Touch (the current high end one is 64 GB with an MSRP of $399). That way they'll only be sortof screwing the people that want to take their whole music library with them wherever they go (i.e., by making them pay $399 instead of $249).

Whether that will happen is another matter entirely. My gut tells me it won't, based on flash prices and the amount of flash in all their other products (you still can't get 128 GB in an iPad, and the iPhone 4 tops out at 32 GB). Going to $499 would also be a real stretch. So my guess is that the iPod Classic will hold on for another cycle until a flash player gets close to the 160 GB threshold. I just don't expect it to get revved again.

Even Google Sources without RSS...

really have RSS since there's a feed option for Google Alerts. I just stumbled upon it by accident when I was looking for a way to get a feed for Google's Real Time Search.

Migration Assistant in Thunderbird 3

I just found it. I feel silly now for my initial hatred of TB3. The Migration Assistant lets you conveniently turn off all the new features in one place (while explaining what they do).

Technology may be killing characters in China/Japan

Apparently, many youth are so used to using alternatives on computers and phones--Roman pinyin in China, the kana scripts in Japan--that many can't remember how to write in characters. It's a pity that such a beautiful element of culture should be lost, but still, it is probably inevitable.

Are Gmail Phone Calls meant to compete with Facebook?

I thought the idea was crazy when I first came across this Wired story in Google Reader. After reading it, I am not so sure. I do appreciate that adding the ability to make and receive phone calls will make you keep a Gmail tab opened all the time, which will be very useful when Google launches their rumored social networking service. It is important to them that they be the nexus of the users' Internet experience and not Facebook.

Sony Predicts at least another 10 years of discs

Ars Technica has the story. When game discs finally go, assuming the DRM dragon hasn't been slain, it will create a world in which content will easily cease to exist. When a company ceases to support a game or a platform, it would disappear, at least as far as the law is concerned. What would our society be like if the Greeks and Romans had built self-destruct codes into their books?

The ethical hacker could easily be a hero in that new future, saving works of art from DRM-induced oblivion.

Business Insider is apparently VERY bullish

about the new Gmail calling.

OpenOffice.org to be Oracle's next target?

Oracle, which recently acquired Sun, is shaping up to be the SCO of the 2010s (only worse, since they are a real, powerful company, instead of just a sock-puppet for the competitors of open source), declaring an all-out war on Free and Open Source Software. This PC World article suggests that their next step, after killing OpenSolaris and suing Google over Android, may be to kill off OpenOffice.org. Naturally "kill" here means forcing it to fork. Really trying to kill it would entail suing over potential patent issues, and any intelligent fork would be based in Europe or somewhere else with more liberal software patent laws than the US.

Fully VOIP Phone Calls in Gmail

I wonder whether this is a feature that will ever be used. I mean, phone calls and Gmail aren't two things I naturally think of together. Chat, fine. Video and voice chat, yeah, maybe. But POTS calls? We'll see.

Update: PCMag is bullish.

PowerPC Mac users are in trouble

Firefox to stop development (probably) for the PowerPC Mac platform.

My first thought when I saw this was, "There are still people using PowerPC Macs?" Which, of course, is a stupid question, especially since the computer I'm on at the moment is as old as a PowerPC Mac (and running Lucid Lynx just fine).

Changes at Daedaleus.com

As my readers have already no doubt noticed, or would have if they existed yet, my blog has undergone a change. That's because I moved from the free DreamHostApps account I was using to a paid webhosting account at WebFaction. I chose a new theme after running into some trouble tracking down the old one (which wasn't that great anyway). I plan to tweak this one heavily in the coming months, so bear with me.

As always, feel free to leave comments. The blogrolls should be recreated soon also.

Amazing! Google Docs now has tabs!

You have no idea how much it irked me that I couldn't do something as utterly basic as use tabs in Google docs without it being a kludge (i.e., instead of inserting a real tab, it just did four or five spaces). No more! Google Docs now has tabs, just like Notepad.

I don't actually use Google Audio/Video Chat

But it's good to see support come to Linux.

Americans generally assume all advertisement is deceptive

See Engadget today: Sharpie Liquid Pencil, the aftermath: it's 'permanent,' not permanent.

As for the pencil itself, while "liquid graphite" sounds cool, it is essentially just an erasable pen. Those were all the rage in the third grade at my school, but soon fell out of favor because they are poor substitutes for either real pencils or real pens. From the abysmal Amazon.com Reviews, these are no different.

Mac's Favored by College Freshmen

Slashdot reports that Macintosh's share of the Freshmen market, so to speak, at the University of Virginia has steadily risen and is threatening to break 50%. Not surprising. Macs are cool, pretty, have Unix at their core but unlike Linux can run Office and Adobe Creative Suite. And if you're already spending a gazillion dollars on tuition, why the heck not?

Not Everyone Loves Google Apps

They are great tools for consumers, well, except maybe for Google Docs (I want my tabs, dammit, so all web-based word processors suck for me), but are not yet up to the challenge of meeting business needs. At least according to some.

New Google Reader Feature Needed

There needs to be a way to unstar articles en masse. It is a pain in the you-know-what to unstar a whole bunch of articles one-by-one, as I currently do. I use stars to choose candidates for blogging and I prefer to keep my starred folder clean rather than pick an arbitrary date not to look beyond.

Apple getting exclusive deal with Liquidmetal

Well, the Sandisk Titanium is way over anyway, so this won't be a problem. Assuming flash drives even count under the agreement as consumer electronics (as opposed to, say, computer peripherals).

Guide to the Last Gmail Rev

Gmail Revamped: A Hands-On Look

The improvement to the Contacts was much-welcome, though the other UI tweaks took a tiny bit of getting used to.

Thunderbird Annoyance Solved

While we're on the subject of Thunderbird, I'd like to point out this extension to my readers. It allows you to change the order of your email accounts in Thunderbird, something that is otherwise impossible without a) deleting and readding accounts or b) editing a config file by hand. See this MozillaZine article for further reference.

Revisiting Firefox 3

I decided to give Firefox 3 another chance and found that, with a fair amount of tweaking, it can be made to behave well. After I turned off the tabbed interface, turned off Global Search and Indexing, switched from the Smart Folders view to the All Folders view, and (most annoyingly) turned off "Keep messages for this account on this computer" for each IMAP account individually, it worked almost the same as Thunderbird 2. The new superior Gmail integration paired with promise of regular security updates provided me with enough motivation to upgrade. I still abhor their choice of defaults, but at least it's configurable so I can get rid of their annoying interface choices (the KDE folks desperately need to take a page from that playbook; drag n drop popup menu, I'm looking at you).

For further reference see Thunderbird 3 for Users.

The New Yorker on WikiLeaks, Napster, and Overclassification

Chasing WikiLeaks

The part about overclassification seems right on to me, but I'm not sure the Napster comparison rings true. Sure, there'll be copycat sites, but will they be able to attract the same community of leakers that WikiLeaks does? Will they be able to filter out misinformation deliberately leaked by the government to poison the well? Remember that Napster provided a medium to share music that was already mass media. Getting the stuff to begin with was never a problem. With classified material, it is getting the stuff to share that's the hard part.

URL Expanders

URL shorteners, like Bit.ly, have become ubiquitous with the meteoric rise of Twitter. The problem with them is that they cause people to click links without really having any idea where they go. To get around that problem, there are several browser addons that will expand the links for you so that you can see where your going and make some sort of informed decision as to whether you want to go there.

Bit.ly itself makes a Firefox add-on, and one for Chrome too, which serves this purpose not only for its own site but for others as well. On the downside, it has been reported to relay every non-https URL you visit to the servers. At least one commenter claims that it has serious performance issues if there are a lot of shortened URLs on a given page. While the "hang" on such pages wasn't too bad when I tried it, it was noticeable. It also makes you create an account.

Another very popular one is Long URL Please, which is currently the one I use. This one changes the URL in the document itself before displaying, and the link contents and the title depending on what options are selected. It avoids the performance issues by apparently skipping links if they take too long, which means you may have unconverted links here and there that can only be filled in by refreshing.

A little-known expander is Xpnd.it!. Like Bit.ly Preview it does the tooltip thing, but it also has the same performance issues that extension too. I'm also a bit wary of it due to  being such an unknown product (i.e., not enough people hammering on it to see if there's anything seriously wrong there).

Note: Use these at your own risk. I certainly can't guarantee that any of them are safe, nor that the other two don't have the same privacy concerns as Bit.ly Preview.

The Power of RSS and Google Reader

Google's goal in life is to organize the world's information. It is ironic, then, that Google Reader, which is one of their most powerful tools for doing that, receives so little attention. I can hardly imagine a day without spending a great amount of time looking at my Google Reader account. With it, information from all over the world, from the New York Times to the Mainichi Daily News out of Tokyo, from the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph in the UK to Le Monde in France (conveniently translated into English by Google Reader) flow into my account all the time. Not to mention a dozen tech news sites and blogs and a ton of Twitter feeds (the sort that I want to follow, but I don't want clogging up my own Twitter feed).

Unfortunately there are drawbacks. The interface can be a bit clunky. While it does give you the glorious ability to search feeds, it can be inconvenient to actually select the feed you want to search. And yes, you can type into the drop-down box, but that only searches for what you type in the beginning of the name of the feed. What I want is for the search box to default to whatever feed or folder you're looking at, which is exactly what Gmail has done for ages.

New Study Says No Water on Moon

Wired has the story.

The Radical New Interface of Thunderbird 3...

isn't the only thing that sucks about it. Apparently it's a massive resource hog as well.

Okay, okay: It's only fair to mention that I'm only a light user of Thunderbird, doing the lion's share of my email on the web. Maybe if I used it religiously I would grow to love the new interface. Who knows? As it is though, I'm a happy user of Thunderbird 2 and this new story makes me even happier.

Academic Cheating and Internet File Sharing

This New York Times article describes widespread copying off the web without attribution in colleges across the country. It also makes a link between that and rampant piracy, which Matthew Yglesias takes issue with.

I think that the relationship between the two is highly exaggerated. As one of Yglesias' commenters pointed out, "It’s perfectly legal to submit “Paradise Lost” for your MFA thesis, but that wouldn’t get you anywhere with your committee chair." And it's perfectly legal to buy the copyright to a paper from someone else and submit it as your own, but it's still plagiarism in the academic sense.

I do think that nebulous authorship does have a lot to do with it, though. If the college does not adequately drill in to student's heads that they have to attribute everything, even things written collectively and especially even Wikipedia, it is easy to see yourself as a part of the collective and regard it as unnecessary to attribute. Besides, you might reasonably have some trouble figuring out how to attribute something like Wikipedia if your handbook isn't really good about websites.

Finally, I find this quote from the NYT article to be astonishingly stupid:

She contends that undergraduates are less interested in cultivating a unique and authentic identity — as their 1960s counterparts were — than in trying on many different personas, which the Web enables with social networking.

“If you are not so worried about presenting yourself as absolutely unique, then it’s O.K. if you say other people’s words, it’s O.K. if you say things you don’t believe, it’s O.K. if you write papers you couldn’t care less about because they accomplish the task, which is turning something in and getting a grade,” Ms. Blum said, voicing student attitudes. “And it’s O.K. if you put words out there without getting any credit.”

College itself requires you to put on personas and say things you don't believe. Tell me you've gone to college and never gotten a writing assignment that said, "Take a strong position on x and back it up with facts and arguments." where you still had to do it even if you didn't have a strong position on the chosen topic. Heck, we had to do that in my grade school where we were all split up into two teams to debate whether smoking should be illegal or not.

Oh, and social networking and Internet personas have nothing to do with "writ[ing] papers you couldn't care less about because they accomplish the task, which is turning something in and getting a grade". That also is an essential part of college. Not every assignment is going to be one that you care about for anything other than the grade it gives. That was just as true 100 years ago as it is today.

As for anonymity being a consequence of the alleged lack of uniqueness the Internet age engenders, I think the reason for it is actually tied to uniqueness of identity now as much as back in the era of Publius and the Federalist Papers: you write anonymously because you want to protect your unique identity, i.e., your reputation, and still speak in an unfettered manner.