Technology

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20
Dec 09

CDs are no more, they have ceased to be…

The real day was a long time ago, when finally we all realized the physical CD serves no purpose whatsoever. How about the art, the booklet, you may ask? Turns out you leaf through them the first time, rip the CD into iTunes and never look at it again. And then you end up with a huge pile of plastic that takes valuable space in your house. With the convenience of iTunes, Amazon’s MP3 store, and others, there’s no longer any reason to have physical CDs, unless of course, some retrograde music industry executive or group forces your hand. As Rolling Stone pointed out, the Beatles Remastered 2009 CD set is probably the last physical CD you’ll ever buy. It was for me.

CDs in Storage Boxes

CDs prepare for their new life in storage

So, today was the day to run through all those CDs and put them into boxes, by category, sorted within each category. That was fun! The process resulted in a large pile of CDs not even worthy of their new backup-in-the-basement role. Some can probably be given away, most others will end up in the garbage.

Another side effect of this epic development: removing from our 18 year old stereo any component that is not directly involved with playing music from iTunes via AirTunes. That is, the tape deck and the CD player carrousel are Gone, Gone, Gone. Only the amplifier, speakers and connection to AirTunes remain. The cabinet that hosted all those components is now too big and will soon go meet them wherever it is these obsolete but noble devices end up.

It’s all part of the trend shared with eBooks: more and more annoyance at the environmental impact of having to produce these physical items.

Technology — 1 Comment
3
May 09

A modest proposal to Amazon re: the Kindle

The Kindle is a beautiful thing. The e-ink display is gorgeous, the book selection is great, the built in 3G network provides an extremely convenient way to get content, and more… Clearly Amazon got a lot right with this device, and the new model is even better than the original, now fitting more comfortably among current gadget families.

People I know who have a Kindle report that the device quickly dissappears and they’re left with the book they’re reading, exactly as you would ask of an e-book reader.

And much like the iPod in its time, devices like the Kindle seem inevitable for the future. Books are beautiful objects that we rightly cherish in our culture, but it’s hard to argue with the convenience of having your library with you wherever you go.

Now, I’m a typical (pathological?) early adopter. I love new technology and trust my instincts to pick winning trends and ideas. So, how have I been able to resist the Kindle so far?

First of all, there’s the small matter of price point. At $359, the device is a little too expensive to buy on impulse and hence, if you want one, you need to justify it rationally to yourself. If the Kindle was below $200, this would not be an issue at all. But alas, it is rather expensive. And since Amazon is selling them as fast as they can build them, we can’t expect the price to change anytime soon.

Trying to rationalize the purchase I come up with the following objections:

  • I’ll miss a few, key physical properties of books. One is the ability to lend special books to people. Another one is the ability to display carefully selected books in public places, like your living room, a coffee table, a book shelf at work. The books on a person’s shelf say a lot about who they are and I like books I select for display to serve this purpose.
  • Worries about the library disappearing. If the Kindle is all you have and Amazon is the repository of all books you’ve purchased, what happens if Amazon decides they’re no longer interested in this or if (gasp!) Amazon failed to survive as a company? I don’t seriously worry about this at all, for two reasons: Amazon is maniacal about keeping customers happy and discontinuing something like the Kindle would be bad, and if Amazon was to disappear as a company I think we will all have more to worry about than our book libraries. Nevertheless, this objection frequently comes up in articles about the Kindle.
  • The gut feeling that there’s something iffy with purchasing e-books at the price of real books. I know a book is really the content, not the physical item, but this is really a gut level issue. It feels weird to me to pay the same for bits as for the physical item.

Of course, the advantages of the Kindle are obvious, and I really like the device. So I thought a bit about this and came up with a scheme that Amazon could implement to lift my objections. Continue reading →

Internet / Technology — No Comments
10
Oct 08

My dead mouse story

This is the setup: I have an HP Pavillion zd7000 laptop. It’s getting old. Attached to it I have a Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical USB mouse.The OS is Windows XP with SP2 and later SP3.

For the past few months (yes: months!), the mouse has been driving me nuts. How: at seemingly random intervals, the mouse disconnects, then reconnects. Maybe once, maybe multiple times in rapid succesion. If I’m lucky, the “Unrecognized USB Device” bubble pops up.

I have lots of USB ports, some on the laptop and some on the docking station. It does not seem to make any difference where the mouse is connected. The error happens randomly.

My first approach was to reinstall drivers, check the status of the USB bus, tell the device manager to rescan for new hardware devices, etc, etc, etc. Nothing worked. And today, I found this site:

http://www.deadharddrive.com/deadmouse/

Ha! Finally somebody described exactly what I was seeing. It ended up being a hardware issue with the mouse, more specifically with the USB wire itself. The link above shows how to fix the problem by opening the mouse, identifying the failing section of the cable, cutting it out, re-splicing the cable and putting everything back together.

Unfortunately I was at work without a wire cutter nearby. So instead I identified the bad section and laid it down inside the mouse case in a position that does not make it fail, then closed everything up and my mouse has been working fine for at least 8 minutes! Bliss.

Once again the collective wisdom of the Intertubes comes to the rescue.