Technology

For Christmas/Anniversary (of when we started dating 11 years ago) Cheryl got me a Nokia 770. Despite the fact that it is from Nokia, it is NOT a phone. It's a Linux based (Maemo - Debian ARM) internet tablet with built in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (so I can connect to the internet through my cell phone w/o any wires). It weighs in at just 8oz but does 80% of what I use my laptop for.

Currently it comes with a web browser, email, a MP3/Video Player and a newsreader but it is under heavy development and since it's Linux it's trivial to "hack". I've gotten access to the command line (and ssh), and can use it to completely remote manage Linux and Windows machines.

Webbrowser

There are a handful of games for it (Including one of my all-time Favorites "NetHack"), and more being compiled daily (the Joys of open source). Since Nokia is still developing it (They released it early in the product cycle to find out how people are using it) it's still a little rough around the edges. but the last update got rid of the memory issues, as well as some crashing I was seeing.

keyboard - xTerm

The community has already gotten bluetooth GPS working and, hopefully we can convince TOMTOM to support it.

The price has dropped $30 since we bought it, so today’s mission is to test CompUSA's price protection policy. It should be easy since I want to apply that $30 to the cost of a 2 year service plan on it. ($45 for 2 years seems pretty cheap for something this delicate).

My previous post, about the media getting the miners tragedy wrong was done entirely from my 770 and my Cell phone (to take the picture of the newspaper) while at lunch.

-Jason

Right now it only has a single word-set of 1000 words (plus duplicates), but I am actively working on (and seeking volunteers to) creating new themed word-sets, as well as revising the current word-set.

If The Fridge Poet strikes your fancy, I'd love it if you would spread the word. Include screen captures of your favorite poetry, etc.

I'd also like to find a neater (as in "Golly Gee that's neat", or at least cleaner) way of displaying that many words in a confined space. If you have any ideas, conceptualy (I can handle the technical side of it) please don't hesitate to let me know.

I am Stunned and dismayed that 1) I didn't think of this:

-Jason

EDIT: I have Noticed it does Mispellwords almost as often as I do.

feel free to pass it around.

-Jason

Many of you may not know my father lives on a sailboat. Sure he has tivo, laptops, GPS, GPRS Modem, DSL and cable (the later 2 only when not under sail) but a sailboat none the less. If I had been paying attention when he had been going on and on about his boat I could tell you how big it was. I do know it was made by 'Dufor'.

He is setting sail today on his annual vacation (I didn't realize people who lived on boats, needed a vacation) sailing from New Rochelle, NY to Newport, RI (Rhode Island, for those of you who's maps aren't printed in wall sized, is the tiny little state robbing both Connecticut and MA from some valuable shore line.)

Originally he was planning on soloing part of this 4 day journey, and having seen too many episodes of Gillian’s Island, Survivor (Richard Hatch is from RI, and we all know how messy THAT could get, and LOST) I decided it was a good excuse to mess around with Google Maps.

I created an email gateway that allows him to email latitude and longitude (from his GPS) to a certain email address which captures his position, and adds a data point to a scrolling (Thanks to Google) updating (thanks to me) map.

From a technical standpoint this may appeal to some of you, from a 'where is my dad' standpoint, it will appeal to even fewer of you. You can see the fruits of my labor at WheresDad or for people with Internet Explorer WheresDad For IE (I couldn't get some of the graphics working in IE).

Perhaps it's coincidence but I actually did work on Mp3Mystic last night, and am planning on releasing a brand spanking new version soon (with hooks for the Wimpy MP3 player integration. Hopefully I will squash some outstanding bugs at the same time.

It's not the first time mp3mystic has been picked up by the press (I have a print magazine with a review of it from last year), but it's always nice to get some free advertising. I don't know when the article went up (it is the most recent article in their How 2.0 section) but I have noticed the increase traffic.

Cheryl and Aiden met me for lunch today. That always makes my day better!

-Jason

Just the other night I was joking with Cheryl that I was going to have to re-hack the Tivos again. And she laughed in a nervous politeness that indicated I better be kidding.. I was..

Our Tivos have been working flawlessly since the last time I hacked them, the week we got them. I had one of them cracked opened, and torn apart before the FedEx truck got out of the driveway. As marvelous as the Tivos are, I knew we could get more out of them. DirecTivos (Tivos with DirecTV built into them) have great picture (same stream that comes from the Satellite) and Sound (Dolby Digital Encoding) but lack some features that stand alone Tivos brag about.

• There is no way to Schedule recordings remotely (like when I'm at work, and remember something I want to record).
• There is no way to pull programs off the DirecTivo and save them on DVD for friends, family, and archiving.
• There is no way to pull a program from one Tivo and watch it on another Tivo

All these things are useful and the only way to get them on a DirecTivo is to hack it. So Hack it I did. It was a 2 weeks of research (the Tivo hacking forums are Hostile to anyone who doesn't do due diligence before asking a question, and step by step guides are severely frowned upon since the technology changes so quickly), cussing, Green Screens of Death, more cussing, and eventually celebration.

This morning I finally got another feature working, I successfully took a DVD and inserted the program onto one of the Tivos, which means I now need MORE space on the Tivo to store DVDs so I can put the originals out of the way of our 17 Month Old.

I was also reading, just this week, that the new software version will be forced on me sooner or later, and my life will be simpler if I do the upgrade myself rather than re-hacking the units after the upgrade takes effect (and the
upgrade has some nice features including faster browsing).

So now the research begins again, and I can already hear Cheryl asking "Why can't you just leave this stuff alone!?!?!?!?!?".

For a list of good Tivo Hacking resources see this Wiki Entry.

-Jason

Feel free to take a look at Wimpy, and let me know your thoughts.

-Jason

I just updated to the latest verison of serendipity. If you notice anything amis, please let me know.
This entry isn't copied to LJ, why would they care?

-Jason