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Olympus' E-3 SLR, with its flip-out screen, will accompany me on my travels.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

I’ll be on vacation for all of March, so except for a couple posts timed to pop up later, the activity on this blog is going to be awfully light.

I’ll be trying out an Olympus E-3, to see if a weatherproof Four Thirds camera really is better for traveling. And for those of you who helped steer my thinking on my plea for help on how best to store photos while traveling, here’s what I settled on.

I know I said I wasn’t going to lug a PC, but I am after all. I can burn backup disks (and mail them home), winnow out the duds, and surf the Web from cybercafes for our urban moments. And the unglamorous 3-year-old laptop is a sunk cost, unlike lots of CompactFlash cards I don’t already own. Thanks to all of you who provided advice.

So who knows–with the camera and the computer, maybe I’ll post a gallery of Torres del Paine photos.

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The uses for the Flickr API never cease to amaze me. One of them that I’ve been playing with for the past week is Phrasr, a service that takes several words you throw at it and spits them back out as photos from Flickr.

You can individually change each photo to better suite the word. I found it to be pretty off the mark on most words, but spot on for others. Half the fun is exploring additional photos to get a better match.

When you’re done selecting your photos you can then publish the phrase to everyone else. It goes in a public pool, and actually viewing the shot plays like a photo slide show, and clicking any of the shots takes you right to the photo page on Flickr.

Is it useful? Not really, but it’s certainly fun, and would be great to mash up with Twitter.

Turn words into Flickr photos with Phrasr.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

It wouldn’t have made much sense for Apple to introduce a new
iPod, given that its latest line up just came out in September, and DRM-free music on iTunes is reportedly being held up in negotiations with the record labels. So, with plenty of other news to announce, music took a back seat this year.

Apple announced a significant update to iTunes–movie rentals–but not much new with music.

iTunes got a major update, but it wasn’t related to music–rather, Apple introduced movie rentals starting at $2.99. The biggest limitation seems to be the requirement to finish the movie within 24 hours of starting it–contrast this with Netflix, which gives you physical DVD rentals and 6,000 on-demand movies over the Internet without any time limit, starting at $4.99 per month. Apple TV is also becoming a much more interesting product, with no personal computer required to rent movies direct from iTunes. (Netflix and LG announced a similar product on Jan. 2, but it looks like the revamped Apple TV will get to market first.) And the MacBook Air is sure to inspire gadget lust in all but the most resistant tech consumers.

Also: 4 million iPhones sold. That’s a great start for Apple, but it’ll be interesting to hear whether
iPhone+iPod sales in the December quarter grew as fast as iPod sales did from ‘05 to ‘06, or whether the law of large numbers is starting to kick in.

(Credit: Apple)

Music was hardly mentioned in today’s Macworld keynote by Steve Jobs.

Q: Which recording format (MP3, WAV, Windows Media Pro, AAC) do you recommend that folks rip music for the best quality and use across the most diverse of players? In addition, which application do you recommend?–Eric, via e-mail

For the very best quality file that works across the largest variety of players, I would go with WAV. Pretty much any jukebox/music management application will let you rip CDs to that format (I generally use Windows Media Player). However, they are going to be very large files–about 41MB for one, four minute song–so you’d only get about two albums per gigabyte of memory on the MP3 player. The next best option for compatibility is MP3, though it’s a lossy format. Rip at the highest available bit rate (320kbps) to get the best quality. That same four minute song will be under 10MB, meaning you’d get closer to 10 albums per gigabyte.

Mini Radio YourWay

Q: I found your address on CNET and was hoping you can help me with a question that seems to be hard to get answered. I have the LG VX8350 phone from Verizon. I also have the headset that comes with the music essentials kit. I like the headset that I have as it works with the phone in phone and music player modes; however, it is a 2.5mm plug that was made for the phone. My problem is that I would like an adapter that would allow me to use this headset with other equipment as well that has a 3.5mm jack (such as the equipment at the gym). I have found a few such adapters online, but have heard reviews that they will not work correctly and I would only get 1/2 of the sound coming through them. (I think it has to do with the mic feature on my headset.) Do you have any information that might help me with this?–Gayle, via e-mail

(Credit:
CNET Networks/Corinne Schulze)

Interoperability between stereo headphones and music cell phones is a popular concern, but how about using your cell phone headset with other, standard audio sources? At least one person wonders how to make this happen with no sound issues. Also on deck today: a sports fan wants an MP3 player with AM radio built in, and a discerning listener is curious about file quality and compatibility.

(Credit:
PoGo Products)

LG VX8530

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

A: Well, the main reason that is given is that they use a large antenna, so it adds undesired bulk to the device. There is at least one MP3 player that I know of that has one, though: the PoGo Products Radio YourWay. I’m not sure if they still sell that one, but they do sell a “Mini”.

A: You know, this is actually a pretty rare request, as most users are looking for the opposite adapter. That is, one that allows them to use standard 3.5mm headphones with their 2.5mm jack-sporting cell phones. There are a lot of adapters for that. What you need, though, is a 2.5mm female to 3.5mm male adapter. These are somewhat hard to come by, especially taking into account the extra mic band on your headset, which can cause the problem you describe. However, I came across this one online. It notes: “With this adapter, you can listen to music from any audio source with a 3.5mm headphone jack via your cell phone’s 2.5mm headset.” This should work for you, but I have to stress that I’ve never tested this product, so I can’t guarantee it.

MP3 Mailbox Monday is a recurring feature where I answer a selection of questions about MP3 players and accessories, such as headphones, speakers, and music services and software. Check back often to see if the advice presented here might be of some use to you, or send your questions directly to me. (Note: We never include last names, but if you prefer to remain completely anonymous, please state as much in your e-mail.)

Q: Is there a reason that MP3 players don’t have an AM tuner? I live in Salt Lake City and all of the sports radio is on the AM dial. I’d like to be able to listen to a ball game without having to use my 15-year-old Walkman.–Mike, via e-mail

Thursday saw the first softcore porn app arrive for the iPhone, only to disappear hours later. Many, including myself, thought Apple had approved and then banned the app, but a note on the developer’s Web site indicated that he asked for the app to be removed.

That left a lot of people backpedaling after yelling at Apple for pulling the app. As it turns out Apple did pull the app–the company confirmed the move in a statement provided to CNET on Friday.

Yesterday was a little confusing.

(Credit:
Apple, Inc.)

“The Hottest Girls app is temporarily sold out. The server usage is extremely high because of the popularity of this app. Thus, by not distributing the app, we can prevent our servers from crashing. Customer satisfaction is more important to us than profits. Those who already have the app will still be able to use our app. To answer the question on everyone’s mind: Yes, the topless images will still be there when it is sold again.”

Many observers thought that the App Store flip-flops might end when iPhone OS 3.0 was released because Apple could utilize the new operating system’s built-in parental controls.

Using parental controls you can block inappropriate content, including apps, movies and music from children.

The developer’s note read:

“Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content,” Apple’s statement reads. “The developer of this application added inappropriate content directly from their server after the application had been approved and distributed, and after the developer had subsequently been asked to remove some offensive content. This was a direct violation of the terms of the
iPhone Developer Program. The application is no longer available on the App Store.”

Hat tip: Adam B at DailyKos for first pointing out Foster’s tech credentials.

Congressman Bill Foster

Given Foster’s background, his experience in software development, and the research environment in which he worked, it’s almost certain that he worked on Unix systems at some point, too.

What this actually means to tech policy remains unclear. Computer programming skills do not automatically lead to sound logic or wise positions on important issues. A quick read through Slashdot user comments easily demonstrates this. However, it’s likely that someone who has actually used a computer for scientific research will better understand the complex issues at play. At the very least, we’re not likely to see a Ted Stevens style “Series of Tubes” moment from Congressman Foster.

“He helped us crack the code and figure out where we needed to go and how to do it really efficiently,” Binns said. “It was brilliant. We were able to knock on 140,000 doors on Election Day, which was a big part of why we won (by just 1,518 votes).”

Foster’s unofficial title was “campaign physicist.”

More surprising than the fact that Foster won in a heavily Republican district, more than his public position against telecom immunity, is the fact that Bill Foster is a computer geek.

Foster, a physicist with a Ph.D. from Harvard, surprised many when he won the district. After all, it had been a Republican stronghold for more than twenty years. After being sworn in on Tuesday, Foster has already made his mark, by providing the single vote needed to pass a significant ethics reform bill.

In what appears to be a first, the US House of Representatives now has a Congressman who can code…in assembly. That’s right, a Congressman with geek skills.

We at Surveillance State predict Foster can expect massive love from the Digg/Slashdot crowd. Furthermore, while many politicians get invited to talk at Google, it’s likely that Foster could actually correctly answer a few of the company’s notoriously difficult interview questions.

Foster worked as a researcher at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) for 22 years. One of his main projects involved the design of equipment and data analysis software for the lab’s high energy particle collision detector.

With any luck, Foster will be assigned to tech and science relevant committees. Top picks would include the the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, as well as the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet which is chaired by Net Neutrality cheerleader Edward Markey.

Democratic Representative Bill Foster won a special election this past Saturday in the 14th Congressional District of Illinois. This was the district that former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert held from 1986-2007. Hastert stepped down in November of 2007.

According to a February article in the Chicago Tribune, Bill Foster has got coding skills:

I spoke with Tom Bowen, Congressman Foster’s campaign manager, who confirmed that the Representative does indeed have programming skills. He told me that Congressman Foster has written code in assembly, Fortran, and Visual Basic. Mr. Bowen also added that during one project, Foster designed integrated circuits that were later used in Fermilab’s particle accelerator.

As for the Congressman’s laptop? He owns a Dell that runs Windows. Oh, well. He can’t be perfect.

The Democrat, Bill Foster of Geneva, is a get-out-the-vote geek. He’s a knock-on-doors nerd who wrote the software program credited with propelling Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy to a narrow victory in 2006 … “It was pretty remarkable,” said Nat Binns, a spokesman for Murphy’s campaign. “He dropped in from nowhere and approached the get-out-the-vote effort as a scientific puzzle.

“Sales of the Tour are key in our opinion, as our checks indicated RIM may need strong July and August sales to meet its guidance,” Walkley said in his research note.

While the device will certainly be an important cornerstone of Verizon’s smartphone line up, it’s not an exclusive deal. So it’s unlikely that the device will attract many new customers to Verizon. But Mock said that doesn’t matter.

The new phone, which sports Bluetooth, GPS, a 3.2-megapixel camera, a full QWERTY keypad, and a high-resolution screen offers everything that BlackBerry lovers have come to expect. And it also comes equipped with a Quad-band radio that allows the phone to be used internationally on both CDMA and GSM networks. The addition of the 800MHz and 1900MHz radio for CDMA is particularly important for users traveling to Latin America and parts of Asia where CDMA is available on these frequencies.

“If you take the keyboard and international reach of the BlackBerry 8830 and the screen quality of the Storm and combine them, you have the Tour,” said Dan Mock, director of marketing for Verizon Wireless.

(Credit:
CNET)

Targeting BlackBerry base
Going after the business or enterprise customer is a smart move for Sprint. Business customers account for about half the subscribers on the Sprint network. But Sprint has also been pushing the Palm Pre as a business-friendly device. Donahue explained that there is room for multiple products to address the same market.

“There is no silver bullet when it comes to devices in this industry,” he said. “It’s more of a cadence and it’s about building a portfolio.”

“Clearly there is already a strong base of BlackBerry customers, and many of them are business users,” said Tim Donahue, vice president of business marketing for Sprint. “And we want to make sure they have access to the latest and greatest BlackBerry device out there.”

BlackBerry Tour

“We expect the Tour will sell very well to Verizon’s installed BlackBerry subscriber base, as this is Verizon’s first product that is competitive with the Bold at AT&T,” he said in his note.

The summer of the smartphone is heating up as Research In Motion is set to introduce on Sunday its latest BlackBerry device, called the Tour. But will it be enough to keep RIM king of the smartphone market?

The BlackBerry Tour is hitting store shelves at an important time for RIM, which has been reportedly taking a sales hit as carriers promote exclusive phones, such as the
Palm Pre on Sprint Nextel’s network and the
Apple iPhone 3GS on AT&T’s network, according to Michael Walkley of Piper Jaffray.

Walkley believes that the pent up demand for a BlackBerry Bold-like experience on Verizon’s network will help make this a popular device for existing Verizon customers.

The BlackBerry Tour's design is a nice combination of the BlackBerry Curve 8900 (pictured here) and the BlackBerry Bold.

The BlackBerry Curve and the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition phones have been big sellers for Verizon. But the BlackBerry Bold, which is only available on AT&T’s network in the U.S., is considered by many BlackBerry aficionados to be RIM’s most desirable BlackBerry. The Bold, which gets its name from its screen, has a high-resolution screen that has been described as eye-popping by CNET reviewer Bonnie Cha.

(Credit:
CNET )

For Verizon Wireless, the Tour is its major smartphone launch of the summer. The company hasn’t made much noise about the Windows Mobile smartphones it has recently launched. And its last big smarpthone campaign was the exclusive deal for the BlackBerry Storm, RIM’s only touch-screen phone.

The device is likely to appeal mostly to business customers, particularly those who travel, and existing BlackBerry users. While Sprint Nextel also plans to market the phone to consumers, the carrier plans to target these customers first.

But now it looks like RIM has a new device to excite its base of business users and consumers, especially those looking for a smartphone they can take overseas.

And the pressure could continue to intensify as T-Mobile USA still launches its next
Google Android phone, the MyTouch, in early August. T-Mobile has made the MyTouch its flagship smartphone, and the company is throwing a lot of money and marketing muscle behind the device. And even though carriers, such as AT&T, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile all claim that their sales reps are just as happy to sell a BlackBerry as they are any of these exclusive devices, it’s hard to argue that these big marketing campaigns do not have an effect on sales of other devices, such as RIM’s BlackBerrys.

Unlike its smartphone competitors, the BlackBerry Tour is not offered exclusively on a single carrier network. Instead it will be available on two carrier networks: Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless. Each carrier is set to launch the device on Sunday. Making its phone available on multiple carrier networks is not unusual for RIM, which sells its products on all four major carrier networks. But typically carriers don’t make the devices available on the same day. In some ways, the non-exclusive arrangement could help RIM sell more devices because it greatly increases the potential sales base. But it might also hurt, if carriers focus more marketing attention and budget on promoting their exclusive phones.

“It’s never been our stance to go out and base our business on one iconic device,” he said. “It’s always been about the network for us. Still, I’d say we also have a strong portfolio of smartphones and mobile devices on our network.”

For RIM the real question is whether the Tour can get enough momentum in the market to boost sales in July and August to reach its sales targets. The launch of so many other hot smartphones at one time presents a challenge for the company as it tries to push the Tour to the forefront of customers’ minds.

The BlackBerry Storm uses similar screen technology. But now with the BlackBerry Tour, Verizon is able to offer a device with a high resolution screen and a QWERTY keypad.

Walkley said in a research note published this week that BlackBerry sales declined in June at AT&T and Sprint as these carriers focused marketing dollars and sales attention on iPhone and Pre over older BlackBerry handsets. Sales of BlackBerry devices remained solid at T-Mobile USA, but they were slightly down at Verizon Wireless, after the carrier ended its “buy one, get one” promotion, Walkley also reported.

It’s yet to be seen how popular the new BlackBerry Tour will be. But at this point any new device from BlackBerry is likely better than none.

I wrote yesterday about MySQL’s continued dominance and the dire consequences of coming in second place, but this same principle makes me worry about JBoss. With Tomcat at 70 percent of application server usage in the survey and JBoss Application Server at 18 percent, Red Hat may have an uphill battle on its hands.

I’ve written before about the data collected from Alfresco’s Open Source Barometer survey. While originally a survey of 10,000 members of Alfresco’s “content community” (i.e., those who register with Alfresco to download white papers, documentation, etc.), the survey now includes a swelling population of the community, with 35,000+ members.

Not that Microsoft doesn’t have troubles of its own. The data shows users keeping the Windows XP (63 percent) faith on their desktops and Windows 2003 (28 percent) on their servers, with only 2 percent using Vista. Like attracts like - open source is a magnet for other open source. Vista is a magnet for…not much of anything.

The data becomes even more significant when you consider Alfresco’s customer base: a high percentage include the world’s leading financial services, media, publishing, government, and educational institutions.

Ubuntu is the fastest-growing Linux distribution

When I see Red Hat and Ubuntu pulling away from the rest of the Linux pack (Debian, SUSE, etc.), it gives me pause. It makes me think that maybe, just maybe, customers actually care about freedom. Maybe they don’t think about it in Richard Stallman terms, but they think about it.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux started out as equals in Alfresco’s user base. No more. Ubuntu has clearly won over our customer base at SUSE’s expense. My money is on Novell’s deal with Microsoft as the culprit. Indeed, you can watch the deployments taper off in the data from the month that deal was announced. To its credit, Novell has managed to sell more Linux server subscriptions since that deal. To its discredit, those deployments aren’t being used with open-source applications (at least, not with Alfresco).

That said, it’s likely that the ones who really need to worry are BEA and IBM, but probably more BEA, as JBoss usage continues to grow. IBM, on the other hand, is a strange beast. While Alfresco actively sells into IBM, Oracle, etc. accounts, we don’t actually often come across IBM technology. We’re asked to support SQL Server or Oracle databases much more often than IBM’s DB2. We rarely see Websphere, too. I still don’t understand how we can bump into every major software company except IBM in accounts….

Enterprises are more likely to use open-source infrastructure with open-source applications, including in mission-critical environments (and yes, managing the websites that churn out billions of dollars each year for Alfresco’s customers counts as mission critical);
Enterprises use Windows for evaluation but Linux for deployment. Windows provides the training wheels; Linux provides the robust, scalable, trusted server operating environment;
Ubuntu is quickly proving itself to be a serious contender in the enterprise;
Open source is on the rise, across the board.

It’s a great time to be in open source. I’d like to have similar data from SugarCRM, Mulesource, JasperSoft, etc. I’m willing to bet their data would be similar.

Application Server Adoption

Alfresco Content Community Growth in 2007

Regardless, with a pool of 25,000 more people to enrich the Open Source Barometer survey findings, some things haven’t changed:

So when I see Ubuntu at 23 percent of Alfresco’s Linux user base (second only to Red Hat at 35 percent), with 51.3 percent of Alfresco’s users choosing to deploy on Linux (with a scant 26.5 percent opting to deploy on Windows), I take notice.

commentary

The real question is where the vast majority of the company will settle on the question of open source. The jury is still out on this one but as the old guard at Microsoft is replaced with new blood I believe we’ll see a gradual opening up within Microsoft. Just don’t expect it to happen tomorrow.

There are many answers to that question, as many employees as there are employed at Microsoft.

Sam, Bill Hilf, and others within Microsoft are clearly sincere in their embrace of open source. They don’t, however, make any pretense that open source is the Absolute Answer for Microsoft. But they clearly see much that the company can learn from open source.

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Steve Ballmer? I don’t think he sees much opportunity in open source. He’s killing his numbers and has been doing this for several decades. You can’t teach an old (and successful) dog new tricks.

The answer to this is an emphatic “yes,” as Sam Ramji relates in a recent interview. It’s not a question of “can” but rather one of “will.” Does Microsoft have the will to embrace open source?

Now we get to argue over more substantial things. Like whether Arsenal has a chance of winning the Premiership this season.

commentary (Credit:
Matt Asay)

The Asays, back together again. At last.

The result? Pure bliss. No more, “But you didn’t tell me you’d be out of town on that day!” Gone are the days of (blame-free) accusations like, “Why did you schedule soccer practice right in the middle of Greta’s parent/teacher conference?”

After years of trying to figure out how to keep track of an ever-growing array of events and to-dos, my wife and I finally settled on iCal, Apple’s calendaring program. iCal syncs seamlessly with my Zimbra (work) calendar, and easily syncs with my wife’s
iPhone, where she inputs most of her appointment data.

If you’ve never used iCal, it’s fantastic. I just had to publish my wife’s calendar on her computer and then subscribe to it on mine. I used Zimbra’s CalDav sync functionality to let her subscribe to mine. Seconds after I change my calendar, she knows. She’s orange; I’m blue. Easy.