No, not that tagging, the kind of tagging you do on websites. Tagging is, simply put, indexing a blog post by identifying and listing keywords. NewMexiKen experimented with it last week but found it to be pretty much a pain with so many topics (for example, the birthday posts I do). So I stopped.
But it occurs to me, why tag anyway? If you have full text search, as this site does and as the internet does, why do we need to tag?
What am I missing here?
NewMexiKen has 11,999 songs (tracks) in my iTunes library. And while I have more CDs to import, I thought I should celebrate by getting something special from the iTunes store for number 12,000. Any ideas?
I spilled a lot of bird feed yesterday and this morning the film crew for the remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds is sizing up my backyard — a dozen mourning doves, sparrows, finches, a partridge or two, scrub jays.
Apple stock rose more than 8 percent in the first hour this morning on yesterday’s earnings report of $1.01 a share. I keep thinking it’s peaked and “now” would be a bad time to buy — and it’s up nearly 30% in a month. As Jimmy Jones sang:
Oh you need timin’
A tick a tick a tick of good timin’
Timin’ timin’ timin’ timin’
Timin’ is the thing it’s true
Good timin’ brought me to you
Big fuss because J.K. Rowling told an audience Dumbledore was gay. That’s a surprise? Didn’t people read the books?
The Cleveland Indians logo, Chief Wahoo, has got to go. Can you imagine them getting away with that type of a caricature with African or Asian-Americans or Hispanics (think of the fuss over Sambo or the Frito Bandito)?
Overnight Annie and SnoLepard added some interesting pairs in the comments to the Whom would you rather be? list.
Comcast Corp. actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally.
The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.
—AP via Talking Points Memo
David Pogue has a long list of good questions. Here’s just three of them:
• Why is Wi-Fi free at cheap hotels, but $14 a night at expensive ones?
• What’s the real reason you have to turn off your laptop for takeoff?
• Why don’t all hotels have check-in kiosks like airlines do?
The answer to the second of these I believe is so laptops won’t go flying around if the plane stops abruptly in an aborted takeoff and to keep passengers from being distracted and encumbered during an emergency evacuation.
Speaking of Apple, Amazon is selling Apple Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard
Leopard becomes available October 26th.
Federal employees and teachers can get a discount directly from Apple. The federal employee price for Leopard is $107.10.
I should also add that Apple gave me 10% off my new iPod touch last week for recycling my original iPod (which no longer worked). I was required to complete a very brief form.
Apple stock is at $172 (at the moment). It was $144 on September 21 when I last mentioned it. A share would have cost you $32.28 when I first mentioned it in January 2005 (allowing for the 2:1 split in April 2005).
At Slate Magazine, Laura Moser reviews the best Bluetooth cell phone headsets. To begin she offers this interesting trivia:
The name Bluetooth is a tribute to 10th-century Danish Viking King Harald Blatand (Bluetooth in English), renowned for unifying the battling tribes of Denmark and Norway. Bluetooth similarly unites different electronics devices, transferring small files of sound and data over short distances (up to about 30 feet) without the mess of cords and cables. For example, it can wirelessly connect your laptop to your printer, your speaker to your stereo, and your cell phone headset to your cell phone.
A Safari plug-in that adds the following:
– Open tabs with a double click on the tab bar.
– Open new tabs with the URL in the clipboard.
– Close tabs by middle-clicking.
A neat, free piece of software that helps you build fantastic playlists from the music stored on your Mac. It’s like a musical assistant who knows exactly which songs will fit together and which songs won’t.
That Apple stock you bought on May 1 (not even five months ago) for $10,000. It’s worth about $14,400 today. (The ten-grand would be worth $44,600 if you bought Apple stock with it when NewMexiKen first mentioned it in January 2005, when the iPod Shuffle and the Mac Mini were introduced.)
Oh, and the Google IPO shares you got for $10,000 three years ago August. Those 117.65 shares are valued at $65,882 at the moment.
Walt Mossberg likes the iPod Touch but feels it falls short of what it could or should be.
For all its beauty and functionality, the Touch has some quirks and downsides. It’s the first iPod model I’ve ever tested that fell significantly short, in my tests, of Apple’s battery-life claims. It’s also the first iPod that lacks any physical buttons for controlling music playback.
Comcast has revealed some details about its mysterious bandwidth limitations. Previously the company had only said that it would shut down customers who went over what the company considered average use. But given that the company doesn’t seem to have a definition of average use, it’s difficult to know whether you’re in danger of being shutdown.
It appears to be about 90GB a month.
The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight Tuesday night, reflecting a growing view in the industry that subscription fees cannot outweigh the potential ad revenue from increased traffic on a free site.
…In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain.
Hey, Albuquerque Journal, get with the program.
“One million iPhones in 74 days—it took almost two years to achieve this milestone with iPod,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We can’t wait to get this revolutionary product into the hands of even more customers this holiday season.”
I’ll bet they can’t. Think what Apple could have done if they were partnered with a better cell network (AT&T is usually rated the worst of the big 5 national carriers, though Sprint sometimes claims that distinction).
NewMexiKen would like to get an iPhone, AT&T notwithstanding. My Verizon contract runs until January 8, 2008, but VzW does pro-rate the cancellation fee. Guess how much they pro-rate it?
A whopping $5 a month.
[And the reason the contract was renewed last January was because I upped my monthly minutes.]
From a fascinating column on Apple’s Steve Jobs by Robert X. Cringley (worth reading in its full version) but here’s an excerpt on the iPhone pricing:
This week’s iPhone pricing story, in which Apple punished its most loyal users by dropping the price of an 8-gig iPhone from $599 to $399 less than three months after the product’s introduction, is classic Steve Jobs. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a thoughtless mistake. It was a calculated and tightly scripted exercise in marketing and ego gratification. In the mind of Steve Jobs the entire incident had no downside, none at all, which is yet another reason why he is not like you or me.
Let’s deconstruct the incident. Apple announced a variety of new and kinda-new iPods dominated by the iPod Touch (iPhone minus the phone) and an iPod Nano with video (great for watching miniseries). At the very end of the presentation, Jobs announced the iPhone price cut. Why did he wait until the very end? Because he knew the news would be disruptive and might have obscured his presentation of the new products. He KNEW there was going to be controversy. So much for the “Steve is simply out of touch with the world” theory.
So why did he do it? Why did he cut the price? I have no inside information here, but it seems pretty obvious to me: Apple introduced the iPhone at $599 to milk the early adopters and somewhat limit demand then dropped the price to $399 (the REAL price) to stimulate demand now that the product is a critical success and relatively bug-free. At least 500,000 iPhones went out at the old price, which means Apple made $100 million in extra profit.
Had nobody complained, Apple would have left it at that. But Jobs expected complaints and had an answer waiting — the $100 Apple store credit. This was no knee-jerk reaction, either. It was already there just waiting if needed. Apple keeps an undeserved $50 million and customers get $50 million back. Or do they? Some customers will never use their store credit. Those who do use it will nearly all buy something that costs more than $100. And, most importantly, those who bought their iPhones at an AT&T store will have to make what might be their first of many visits to an Apple Store. That is alone worth the $50 per customer this escapade will eventually cost Apple, taking into account unused credits and Apple Store wholesale costs.
So Apple still comes out $75 million ahead, which is important to Steve Jobs.
Things gleaned from Steve Jobs’s presentation for Apple today. I thought live blogging this would be dreamy for me, and there must be at least a few iPod/iTunes users who read NewMexiKen.
iTunes has sold over 3 billion songs and over 95 million videos.
32% of all music released in the U.S. is only released digitally (no CDs, etc.). Nearly a third!
Tonight there’ll be another new version of iTunes for you to download.
500,000 iTunes songs will be available as iPhone ringtones for just an additional 99¢ each.
They’ve sold 110 million iPods and every item in the line is being refreshed or replaced (in time for the holidays).
A new iPod nano. With video. Metal, not plastic. More storage. With Cover Flow (to scroll through album covers). 2-inch screen (same as iPod). Great resolution, 204 ppi. Still uses wheel for scrolling (no touch screen, like the iPhone). Even smaller than existing nano. Games. 24-hour battery life for audio (5 for video).
Jobs endorses The Daily Show.
4GB Nano $149. 8GB Nano $199. In stores this weekend.
The iPod is now to be called the iPod classic. A new 160GB version. 40,000 songs in your pocket. (Does anyone have 40,000 songs?) 40-hour battery life for audio. Smaller than original iPod with 8X the capacity. $349. 80GB model now $249. Shipping today. In stores this weekend.
And introducing the iPod touch. 3.5-inch widescreen. It’s the iPhone without the phone! It’s a third of an inch thinner than the iPhone. With WiFi and Safari. YouTube. 22-hour battery life for audio, 5 for video. 8GB ($299) and 16GB ($399). Shipping in September!
And there’s a wireless iTunes Store on the iPod touch (and iPhone). Search, preview, buy and download from anywhere (anywhere there’s WiFi).
I want one!
Jobs says the customer satisfaction numbers on the iPhone are the highest for any Apple product ever. So they’re dropping the price from $599 to $399! 33%!
And then Jobs introduced KT Tunstall to perform live.
“Apparently, the latest version of Google Earth has an easter egg: a flight simulator. It’s not quite like Microsoft Flight Simulator, but it’s a promising start.”
Here’s how: Flight Simulator
Speculation is that new iPods will be introduced next Wednesday so don’t go out and buy one this weekend. People are guessing they’ll have full-size screens like the iPhone.
Though we are less certain of the specifications for the new sixth generation iPod, it may closely resemble the iPhone (without calling features). Specifically, we expect the sixth gen iPod to be a widescreen device with multitouch technology. It may also have Wi-Fi capability and the capacity could be as high as 160GB.
Test Your Internet Speed. The test said my download speed was 6.03 Mbps and my upload speed 2.08 Mbps.
All-Time Great College Football Quotes. Example: “Football is not a contact sport-it is a collision sport. Dancing is a contact sport.” — Duffy Daugherty, Michigan State.
The HubbleSite has a nice feature about Tonight’s sky. It’s a short film each month on what to look for among the constellations, deep sky objects, planets, and events. And I learned about the Teapot.
NewMexiKen must have been 51st.
“Our 2007 picks are the best examples of what’s new and exciting about the Web right now. Here we honor sites with exceptional style and smarts, sites that offer new and improved ways to access and share content, generate our own and otherwise enrich the online (and off-line) experience.”
Try to unscramble a rack of letters from GRE Vocabulary Word Scramble. Hit play again (after checking the answer) or refresh your browser to get a new word.
Here’s a short item on a Pregnant Woman On The Way To Hospital Charged With Reckless Driving And Subject To Virginia’s Abusive Driver Fee of $1050. 57 mph in a 35 zone. (She wasn’t in labor, but thought she was.) What d’ya think?
It still surprises me a little when I click on a page and it knows where I am.
Some of these are LOL. Annoying things to do on an elevator.
The Fifteen Most Dynamic Duos in Pop Culture History.
Somebody’s idea of The 20 Most Beautiful Colleges in the USA.
Confusing headline of the day: Men’s Undiagnosed Diabetes Down. How could they know?
Thank the Bible it’s Friday. I mean, years, seasons, lunar months, the day are all the result of creation, but the seven day week is a biblical invention, no? 1
You might get a laugh or two from the History Of The Internet.
Interesting. god v. satan (one image).
“So you think you know the McDonald’s menu like the back of your hand? Think again. From McDonald’s international, here are some menu items you have probably never tried before.” McDonald’s Strange Menu Around the World.
The kid looks to be about 8. Kleiner Kerl spiel Gitarre (Led Zeppelin).
And last (yeah!), a silly little quiz from Car Talk.
1 No one seems to know where, when or why the 7-day week originated. Most theorize it represents the seven visible (to the human eye) objects in the sky that aren’t stars (the sun, the moon and five classical planets — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn). The seven-day week seems to have originated in more than one culture.
You may remember NewMexiKen mentioning last week that I tossed my Windows laptop several feet — and then surprisingly it did what I wanted it to do.
Alas, the machine retained some residual resentment and crashed hard Saturday. Indeed, now it won’t even boot in Safe Mode. At first it seemed the video card was loose; now it seems like a lot more than that.
No great loss. All the files are backed up (of course, aren’t yours?) and I was about to get a new MacBook Pro anyway, but I am a little ashamed of myself.
This from Threat Level:
Neal Krawetz, a researcher and computer security consultant, gave an interesting presentation today at the BlackHat security conference in Las Vegas about analyzing digital photographs and video images for alterations and enhancements.
Using a program he wrote (and provided on the conference CD-ROM) Krawetz could print out the quantization tables in a JPEG file (that indicate how the image was compressed) and determine the last tool that created the image — that is, the make and model of the camera if the image is original or the version of Photoshop that was used to alter and re-save the image.
Comparing that data to the metadata embedded in the image he could determine if the photo was original or had been re-saved or altered. Then, using error level analysis of an image he could determine what were the last parts of an image that were added or modified.
Follow the link. There are examples and more information — and the source code.
In frustration I just threw my Windows laptop several feet.
Thought you’d want to know.
Update: That seems to have done the trick. (It made as much sense as anything else I tried, and the laptop is now doing what I was trying to get it to do.)
The name of this video (which is at least 10 years old) is “Bad Day.”
David Pogue finds A Car Inverter Almost Worth Blogging About. Seemingly $50 well spent.
A good point, instead of all those cigarette lighter receptacles, why don’t auto manufacturers just build-in an inverter?
And while they’re at it, how about a radio-controlled automatic clock (just set the time zone)?
I know that I am pretty much inclined to being a grouchy old crank to begin with, but I find that the computer-generated “music” one often gets while waiting on hold does the opposite of real music. Rather than soothing, it’s just plain annoying. If the hold is long enough (and they all are), I find I just get more and more aggravated.
Does anyone like this stuff?