Double Journey

Many of my friends would consider me a technology expert.  If there is a problem with a computer or some sort of gadget, I’m usually one of the first people my friends call.  So what I’m about to write is pretty embarassing.

Tonight I went jogging.  When I go running, I like to listen to music.  Being too cheap to buy another mp3 player (my fiancee uses the one I have), I use the mp3 playing functionality of my phone.  It runs Windows Mobile on it and thus has a Windows Media Player.  The phone has a micro-sd slot in it, so I can load the card up with music and play it on the phone.  Since my phone is bluetooth capable, it has the added benefit that I can match it up with bluetooth headphones and not have to deal with any wires.

So when I started on my run today, much to my dismay, there was no sound.  I struggled for several minutes trying to figure it out.  I adjusted the volume on the headset itself.  No good.  I turned up the volume on Windows Media Player.  No luck.  I searched in all the options and menus to see if there was some mute setting.  No go.  Then my mom called.  And the phone had sound.  The phone rang and I could hear my mom’s voice through the phone.  WTF?  I tried running the music without the headphones, it normally will play through my phone’s built in speaker.  Still nothing.  Now I was confused.  I tried one more thing.  My fiancee’s ringtone is a song.  I knew the song wouldn’t play on Windows Media, but what if she called me?  Would it play the ringtone like it was all the standard rings?  Sure enough it did!

So seriously, what the hell was going on.  It seemed that my Windows Mobile device had all the sounds working except for Windows Media Player.  I could take calls and hear the phone ring but that was it.

It turns out there is one more volume control (making a total of three) that I had to adjust.  The headset itself has a volume control and it was turned way down.  This is the main volume control for the entire phone.  It is so important, it has its own stupid control on the side of the phone.  I can not explain how absolutely stupid I felt when I figured this out.

I was listening to talk radio on my way home today (yes I know I am an old man) and the hosts were lamenting the rapid decline of local news due to the internet.  You know the story.  People want news, the internet provides it when they want it, this kills off local news as viewership has moved online.

I find the death of an industry to be a fascniating topic.  I do not actually think we will see the death of local news.  I think it will decline and change form. But there is no doubt that more and more people are giong to go online for their news and that means less and less people will turn to traditional news sources like newspapers and the nightly local news.  The hosts argue that this would cause a decline in the quality of new available to people.

I find arguments like this to be hilarious.  Yes, news delivery will change but I do not expect it to be “worse”.  In fact, I would argue it will probably get a lot better.  News will be both more focused and more dispersed.  I think it will be more focused in the large national news stories.  I do not think resources more thinly dispersed across more reporters equate to better coverage.  If you take the same amount of resources, and foucs them on fewer reporters, you could argue it will raise the bar required to report the news and thus only good reporters will actually survive.

On the other end of the spectrum it will be easy for someone small to reach a large audience. So if someone truly stands out and is an excellent source of news, it will be much easier for those people to reach more vast audiences.  We see this time and again as more and more small bloggers become vital sources of news for some people.

Things always change and wishing that technology would not change the “good old days” is just silly.  I am sure people were initially concerned for the horse and buggy maker and the blacksmith with the advent of the car but I think few would argue that all our lives are a lot better off because of this.  The same for mail delivery and e-mail.  I never send snail mail if I can avoid it.  Bad for the postman, pretty good for me.

I do wonder if I will ever get to the point that I am lamenting how technology is improving our lives.  What do you think?  Can you think of any technology change that you wish never happened?

What is Apple thinking?  I am going to take a slight detour from my new blogging pattern to talk about Apple’s announcement after hours.  It was announced that Steve Jobs is going to take a leave of absence to take care of health issues.  These issues surfaced months ago, and Apple dismissed it.  As recently as a week ago Apple said there was nothing seriously wrong with Jobs and today they come out and say, “Oops we were wrong”.  What could have materially changed in one week?

If there is one thing I know, is that you really need to set expectations correctly, especially with things as important as this.   A week ago, Apple should have either said they had nothing to say or that they did not know the full extent of the problems.  Many people who have seen Steve Jobs recently have said that he is looking pretty bad.  Reports are that several people who have talked with him say he is actually somewhat delusional about the current state of his own health.  That is not good to hear if you are an Apple investor.

Whatever the case may be, this is pretty bad news for Apple.  While I do not think any one person is the key reason for the success of a company as big as Apple, Steve Jobs comes pretty close.  I could argue that he is more important to Apple than Buffet is to Berkshire, and that is saying something.  I don’t think I know the name of even one other employee at Apple, and that is pretty rare for me.  Especially at a technology company as important as Apple.  Do you think this is a big blow to Apple, or am I just overreacting?

I was talking to a coworker today about having a land-line.  Coincidentally, there is an article today on MSN wondering what is killing the land-line.

The article is right, the lines seem to be drawn on age boundaries.  Most of my coworkers who are younger don’t ever bother with a land-line.  All they need is their cellphone.  Most of the older people in the office have one, but admit that they hardly if ever use it becasue of their cell phone.  Unfortunatley, I fall into the latter category, although not by choice.  I do have a land-line but I have it because my girlfriend uses it for work (she works from home and needs to be on a lot of conference calls).  But, like most people my age, I really don’t have any need for one.

If this isn’t a reason to short stocks of telecom companies which only have land-line based businesses (Qwest comes to mind) I don’t know what is.  Even those companies like AT&T and Verizon probably face pretty uncertain futures given the commodity business cell phone carriers provide.  I myself have, in the past eight years, used all the major providers at one time or another.  I did it because it was easy to switch (even easier now that there is number portability) and I had no reason to pick one over the other.

What will change even more in the future will be that most won’t even need a phone.  Most people are just going to need something that can send a text message.  While people my age may or may not use the feature very much, just go younger by about five years and it is pretty much the only form of communication used.  The voice functionality of cell phones will be like the camera today.  It will be on every phone, but few people will actually use that functionality.

Do you have a land-line?  If so why?

I decided to pull the trigger on the Panasonic 50PZ800u and have discovered one of the better under-publicized features of Amazon, their 30 day price guarantee. One of the anxieties of buying any big ticket electronic is that prices are always dropping and you just know it is going to drop the minute after you make your purchase. There wasn’t a more perfect example of this than this. More on that in a minute.

On Friday, Amazon showed that it had my TV in stock. Funny enough, they delayed the “In Stock” date yet again the day after my original post about Amazon teasing me. So I had to wait another day before I felt comfortable ordering it. I got in on Friday morning to see that they were showing the item in stock, so I decided to go through with the purchase and just order it. I wanted to get the TV as soon as possible since the NBA finals will be starting on Thursday, and the Lakers are in it. It is going to be a classic match up between Los Angeles and Boston so I wanted to catch as much of it as I could on the new TV.

I ordered the TV at about 10:00 a.m. PST. The price of the TV when I ordered it was $2368.86. I felt fairly comfortable with the price and truth be told I would have been happy to pay that amount. But wouldn’t you know it. I obsessively checked the status of my order at noon and noticed that the price had dropped more than $50 to $2313.96. I could only laugh as I found the whole thing pretty amusing. You expect the price to drop sometime after you buy it, and that’s just life. There is no point in always holding out for a lower price because you will never get what you want. But dropping by $50 just two hours after you have bought it? Now that’s just irony.

Now I have read that Amazon has some pretty sophisticated albeit strange pricing algorithms. It could very well be that my purchasing of the TV actually caused the price of the item to go down. As the margins on these TVs are pretty good, and I’m sure they don’t sell them in as much quantity as say a DVD, it is very likely that my actions had an affect on the price, and therefore the price dropped. Of course this would fly in the face of traditional supply-and-demand principles, but who am I to tell them not to give consumers a better deal?

However, Amazon has a 30 day price guarantee that is good until 30 days after the item is shipped (my item hasn’t even shipped yet so I think I’m getting an even longer window). All you have to do is go to the customer service screen which should list all your recent orders. You should be able to click on a button to e-mail customer service. If you e-mail them with the price that you saw listed on Amazon, they will refund you the difference with a credit to your credit card.

But it gets better. You can do this as often as you like in your 30 day window. Quite literally, another 3 hours later, the price dropped yet again to $2286.86, a total of $82 less than my original purchase price. I e-mailed them again to get the new price difference and yet again they credited me the money.

Wait, it still gets better. There is absolutely no hassle about it. It really couldn’t be any easier or faster. Each time I got a pretty standard response saying they looked at it, and they agreed they had it at a lower price, and they would credit my credit card the amount. And they did this all within a few hours after my inquiry (even though today is a Saturday).

So far, so good. Now all I need is for the TV to show up …

I’ve debated a long time over what type of TV to get. As I said in an earlier post about my which HDTV I want to get, I’ve gone back and forth. For a long time, I was sold on a Sony SXRD television. It has great picture quality and is more affordable than the flat panels at the very large screen sizes. As I never plan on hanging my TV, it was a logical choice.

But because Sony decided to move away from that technology I looked elsewhere. The obvious choice was LCD. LCDs are much more popular than Plasma TVs. I’ll be the first to say the probably look better in the store because they are much brighter than your general plasmas and thus a person’s eye is drawn to them. They also tend to be lighter (and thus easier to hang) and use less energy. But I tend to think those are secondary considerations for most people. For a long time, they were the only choice under 42″. Most people would buy those as most people are not in the market for a TV bigger than that.

For me, it came down to a few things. The most important thing by far was how good the picture looked to me. Like most, I was drawn to those big bright screens at my local Best Buy. But after watching a few LCDs in dark rooms, I realized there is such a thing as too bright. So I went back to try and understand what makes a good picture. I like deep saturated colors and great detail. In my opinion, LCDs win in the sharpness department, but Plasmas win in the color and detail department. In the end it came down to two things for me.

• Black Levels - By the very nature of LCD technology, they can’t get as deep a black as Plasmas. This is by far the most important thing when it comes to picture quality. Think of it as the canvas by which all other colors must be painted. You want to have as clean of a canvas as you possibly can get. Most LCDs are a dark gray when the screen is completely black and it really bothers me. New LCDs are getting very close, and it is one reason I have seriously considered getting one, but they still don’t beat the best of the plasmas.
• Motion - This one too is getting close, but its not quite close enough. The main thing I watch is sports and I can see the motion blur that is inherent in LCD technology. Not everyone is sensitive to it, but I am, and it distracts me when I’m trying to watch the Lakers.

There were some other things that favored one over the other. Price was somewhat of a consideration, but only a small one. LCDs are slightly more expensive at this size. But I’m considering two TVs, the Panasonic 50PZ800U I discussed before and the Samsung LN52A650. The price is a wash between the two TVs so it doesn’t really factor.

I still haven’t bought the TV yet, so it isn’t certain that I will go with the plasma. However, I did finally see the Panasonic 50PZ800U first hand in the store today. More on that later …

I am obsessed with my imminent HDTV purchase. I find myself constantly looking for information on the TV I think I will buy, the new Panasonic 50PZ800U. It’s been a long road. I’ve been thinking about getting an HDTV for over five years, and it has never happened.

But now I’m pretty certain. The big problem is that there were just too many choices. Normally, choice is a good thing. But most people only want the illusion of choice. They really want three or four choices, anything more than that and people face decision paralysis.

So how did I come to the decision on the TV I want to buy? Here was my thought process

DLP, LCD, or Plasma? - I originally was going to buy the 60″ Sony SXRD but Sony decided to stop making them, so I started looking around for another solution. So the choice came down to an LCD or Plasma. I could go on, and I think I will in another post, about why I chose Plasma. But in the end I thought it was the best choice for me given the type of watching I do which is mainly sports.

Which brand to Buy? - There are so many to choose from. Vizio, Samsung, Panasonic, and Pioneer to name a few. Pioneer supposedly has amazing TVs in their Kuro line, but they are just too expensive for too small of a difference. Vizio is too low on the other side of the scale. So it comes down to Samsung or Panasonic. Panasonic is a little bit better reputation wise, but the Samsung Plasmas, PN50A550 and PN50A650, look to be strong competition. I may eventually swing over to the Samsung side before I buy.

How Much to Spend? - I’ll be honest, this wasn’t that important. I just wanted the best TV for the best value. I wanted something I would be happy with for ten years. Whatever price point that was was going to be how much I spent.

Which Model to Buy ? - A couple of problems here. Panasonic was coming out with new 2008 models as I was making my decision. Did I wait or buy the older models which were going on sale. In the end, I decided to wait. Might as well get the latest and greatest technology considering my criteria for keeping it for ten years. Next, I had to choose between the 85 model and the 800. I’m still out on this one. The 800 supposedly is a better picture, better sound, but I’m not so sure it is worth the extra $500. I’ve been waiting to see, but haven’t been able to find one yet.

So I find myself constantly looking for information about this set and trying to find places which have a good deal. In the end, I’m sure it won’t make that much of a difference, but just given my personality, I just want to make sure I’m very happy with my choice.

How about you? Do you have an HDTV? If so what type and you happy with it? Any advice for a first time buyer?

I got a Samsung Blackjack 2 a few weeks ago, and I have to say I like it so far.  Now I have to say one thing up front, I’ve never really had a “smart phone”.  I’ve always used my phone to make phone calls.  A novel idea I know.  But I decided to get a phone that would allow me to check my work e-mail where I was, so I got this phone.

I had heard bad things about the Blackjack 1.  But to be honest, I just didn’t care what I got.  I figured it was all the same so long as I could check my mail.  Despite being a technology geek, and working at a telecom company, I’ve just never really been into phones.  So I just ordered whatever was convenient and this is what I got.

I have to say, I like it a lot.  The screen is bright, it’s slim, and it does what I need it to do which is make calls, check mail, and occasionally look something up on the internet.  It is 3G capable, which means internet browsing is fast, and I like the display and keypad just fine.  Of course like anything it does have its drawbacks.  First off, navigating through this thing was not intuitive.  Now that I got it down, I can get through, but for a first time user, Windows Mobile 6 is not the most user friendly thing around.  I know for a fact that Microsoft is starting to divert a lot of resources over in that division, so hopefully this will improve over time.

Also, the battery life is not so great.  The 3G really sucks the life out of the battery, so if you plan on doing more than just the occasional  search, be ready to find a plug fast.  That’s the other thing I don’t like about it.  It has a proprietary plug  for out output and input.  So despite the fact that it can play music, you are going to have to buy Samsung’s own headphones.

Overall a thumbs up.  But then again, I have nothing to compare it to.

So today, Toshiba announced that it was cutting the price of its players even further. The players will start for $149.99 and work its way up to $300. Throw in the fact that you can get 10 free movies with a purchase, and you are looking at a fairly good deal.

That being said, the HD-DVD camp is a little late to the game. With the defection of Warner Brothers from the HD-DVD fold, there isn’t much that the HD-DVD camp can do to actually save their format. You see, content is king. People won’t buy a player because it is cool new technology and it is cheap. They want to be able to play their favorite movies. I always believed that the first player to $100 was going to win, but that was before all the content got taken away from one of the formats.

In the end, I still think this race is a big yawn. I write about it only because I’m oddly curious about the battle going on from a geek’s perspective.

By the way, what type of lame ass reporting do they have over at Crave? In one of their articles, they suggested that Microsoft might want to look into buying a movie studio. For what possible reason would Microsoft do this? Seriously, it may be the lamest idea I have ever heard and quite frankly it is a little bit of irresponsible journalism. First, Microsoft is not in the movie making business. It is in a lot of businesses, but none of them are even close to actually producing a movie. Second, HD-DVD is a very very small part of what Microsoft does. There is no way that Microsoft, no matter how much cash it has, would make such a ludicrous transaction. As a shareholder, I would instantly sell my remaining shares if it ever happened.

I guess any old person can post whatever they want, no credentials required. Then again, I guess I do the same thing

Figured I would follow up on my original post about trying to pick a winner between HD DVD and BluRay now that the industry is starting to pick sides. Warner Brothers announced that they would only distribute their movies on BluRay. Warner Brothers is the largest distributors of movies there is and this puts the momentum squarely behind the BluRay camp. This means that Sony, Disney, MGM, Fox, and LionsGate all release on only BluRay. These are the heavy hitters when it comes to movies, and

Many believe that when there finally is one format chosen, that this will move consumers away from the sidelines. However, I don’t think this “confusion” on the consumers part is really what is causing the delayed adoption of the next generation DVD format. However, I think this is bogus. I think adoption has been delayed because people are indifferent. While no doubt movies look better, most Americans aren’t going to waste buying a player that cost 5x more than a similar DVD player and disc that carry a 25% premium.

Most people I know think DVDs look just fine on their TVs, even their HDTVs.

So that means the winner is officially … downloaded movies. Seriously, I wonder if anybody really cares about the next generation DVD format. I certainly don’t despite Rick’s urging for me to get a BluRay player and HDTV. While DVDs were a leap ahead from VHS in terms of quality and form factor, I don’t see the same thing here. For god sake, the disc look exactly the same! The next leap is a form factor of nothing. I don’t have to carry it around or get it, it comes to me.

So there you have it. I don’t really care that BluRay seems to have brought the hammer to the HD DVD camp, because in the end, both formats are going to be irrelevant.