Also posted at www.technomadia.com:

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For those who haven't known me for a while, you may not know that before going nomadic I used to be the Director of Competitive Analysis for Palm (the maker of the Pilot, Tungsten, and Treo) and PalmSource (the Palm OS operating system spinoff).

It used to be my job to literally dissect every worthwhile mobile gadget in existence, and I typically carried multiple smartphones in my pockets with cell phone plans from every major carriers.


Imagine the looks I used to get going through airport X-Rays... (vintage 2004 tech)

I sometimes miss getting paid to play with so many cool toys, but I don't miss the endless juggling and constant shifting from one device to the next.

Now I get to pick just one.

For the past two years, my choice has been the original iPhone.

The great leap forward in user interface that the iPhone represented left every other mobile device looking like a dinosaur, even my beloved Treo. Once the iPhone was opened up to third party developers, there was no looking back.

The iPhone 3G last year wasn't enough to lure me into upgrading, though Cherie did happily leave behind Windows Mobile (another dinosaur platform) for one. Most of the new features in the iPhone 3G were added to the original iPhone via a free software upgrade, and the 3G speeds would have only been a compelling enough reason to upgrade if Apple and AT&T had allowed tethering.

Ever since the iPhone launched, everyone else in the mobile industry has been playing catch up - typically with extremely disappointing results. RIM continues to do one thing extremely well (mobile email), but Nokia, Samsung, and Motorola have all been left struggling desperately for a hit.

The only non-Apple phone that is in the same next-generation league as the iPhone is the newly released Palm Pre - a stunning achievement by the Palm team.

The Pre has real multitasking (sorely lacking from the iPhone), "Synergy" data syncing with multiple online services such as FaceBook and Google, and a fabulous UI that in some ways raises the bar even on the iPhone. With a bit more refinement and some third party developer momentum, the Pre will soon be even more compelling.

But not (yet) compelling enough.

Though I was sorely tempted by the Pre's amazing multitasking abilities and super sweet Synergy, the brand new iPhone 3G S has won me over. We stopped at the downtown Chicago Apple store yesterday to get one:


I was surprised that there were still lines out into the street three days after the iPhone 3G S started shipping. Fortunately we only had to wait 30 minutes before I got mine.

So why did I choose the iPhone 3G S?

• Applications - There are over 50k iPhone applications out now, while the Pre is just getting started and the SDK isn't even widely available yet. I am an application junky, and I have many daily-use iPhone apps that I can't imagine being without.


• Compass + Accelerometer + GPS = Augmented Reality - Over the course of the coming year, I expect to see some amazing innovation in this area.


• Tethering - Though AT&T won't say when they will support it, it is built into OS 3.0, and at least AT&T promises that it is coming. As technomads, the ability to use our phones to get our laptops online is crucial.


• 32 Gigabytes - I used to have a 60GB iPod, and I have felt hampered the past two years trying to cram my media collection into the 8GB capacity of my original iPhone. I am thrilled to once again be able to carry around a decent quantity of music and videos in my pocket. The Pre on the other hand can only hold 8GB.


• Pocket Video Capture - The iPhone 3G S has a very usable 3 megapixel camera, and it at last supports video! I am very much looking forward to having a reasonably decent still / video capture device that I can trust to be always with me.


Canon G9 (left) vs iPhone 3G S (right). Though the Canon is a much more powerful camera, for typical web snapshots the iPhone is at last reasonably good enough to allow leaving larger cameras behind...

• 3D Graphics - Before Palm, I used to work in the 3D graphics industry, and I have a fine appreciation for accelerated 3D graphics. Early benchmarks show that the iPhone 3G S is 4x faster than the iPhone 3G when it comes to 3D rendering. Assuming the next iPod Touch (due in Sept) has the same 3D hardware, it will be a killer gaming device indeed. Sony and Nintendo better watch out!


• Future Upgradability - Apple has provided the iPhone 3.0 OS as a free upgrade to iPhone 3G and even original iPhone owners, bringing even the oldest iPhones many of the new non-hardware-dependent features. I expect Apple will continue this trend, and even two years from now the iPhone 3G S will be getting major functionality upgrades. No other phone manufacturer has ever done such a good job continuing to support old hardware. Kudos to Apple!

In all of these areas, the iPhone 3G S is way ahead of the Pre, and light years ahead of anything else out there.

So far, I am loving the 3G S. It is a beautifully refined and polished product, with all sorts of little details and delights that show the intense attention to quality and detail that Apple is known for.

I have found my new ultimate mobile phone.

What is yours?

One of the things that I have always loved about blogging on LiveJournal is that it lets you know via email when someone has replied to any comments or blog posts that you make. This email notification encourages blog postings to turn into actual two-way (or three-way, or more-way) conversations in a way that other blogging platforms have never equalled.

In an attempt to bring some of this sort of interactivity to Tales from Technomadia, I have just installed and configured the Subscribe to Comments WordPress plugin.

Now - you will notice a little check box whenever you leave a reply to a post there. If you opt in, you will be notified via email about any future replies to that blog post.

I hope this will help make our travel blog feel a little bit more like LiveJournal.

Let me know what you think - feel free to test it out by replying to this post!

Cherie and I have been spending a lot of time working on www.technomadia.com - and there is a lot of great stuff to explore over there now.

One of the thing in particular that we've been most wanting to incorporate into our blog posting has been maps.

After a lot of late night experimentation with a lot of WordPress plugins of (ahem) varying quality, I think I am at last happy with the results I am getting from the Wordpress Geo Mashup plugin.

Click over to the main Technomadia blog page and check out how the maps now incorporate directly into some of the posts.

Even better, I have created a new page on the Technomadia site that tracks all of our geocoded posts, whether they have a map displayed within the post or not. This will allow folks to browse posts to "Tales from Technomadia" by geography as well as by timeline or category.

I think it is pretty cool. What do you think? Any thoughts or suggestions?

Let me know what you think - feel free to leave comments here or there. :-)

Attention world - we've just relaunched www.technomadia.com, and the new site looks gorgeous.

We worked with our friend Geoffeg on customizing the look and feel of Technomadia so that it wouldn't look like "just another Wordpress blog". I think he did a fabulous job, and we will be adding on all sorts of cool content and features in the coming weeks.

Going forward I will probably be doing more travel-related blogging over at Technomadia rather than here, but I will be cross-posting to LiveJournal for the time being.

Speaking of the weeks ahead, serolynne just posted our tentative travel plans for the next few weeks as we depart the SF bay area and start working our way south and east. You can read about our plans here.

It has been a great few months in the SF area, but I am looking forward to the view out the window starting the change a bit more frequently again. *grin*

I remember when Yahoo was the center of the Internet.

It was the first place you would go, no matter what you were looking for. For years and years, it was actually my homepage. It was where I tracked my stocks, read my news, and so much more.

No longer.

Now I can't even remember the last time I checked out Yahoo. The only Yahoo site that matters to me is Flickr, and occasionally I have to muddle through the awful interface to subscribe or unsubscribe to a mailing list hosted by Yahoo groups.

Does Yahoo matter to anyone anymore?

The increasing irrelevance of Yahoo was driven home to me this evening when I overheard serolynne on the phone asking a friend of ours who works at Yahoo for directions to his office.

She asked him: "If I google Yahoo, will I find the address?"

Wow.

Times sure have changed...

Last night serolynne and I met up with some friends at the New Wave City 80's dance party at DNA Lounge.

Lacking much in the way of appropriate 80's attire, I wore the T-Qualizer T-Shirt that Cherie had gotten me for Christmas.

The shirt is cool, but I could never have imagined what a hit it would be.

Throughout the evening, random strangers kept coming up to tell me how amazingly cool my shirt was, pulsing along to the music. One girl asked me where I got it, and when I told her it was a present from Cherie she actually gave Cherie hugs of gratitude!!

All night long, men and women alike were checking out my chest! And literally dozens of people came up and asked me about it.

Outside the DNA Lounge when we were leaving, a large group actually told me that they had been dancing all night to the beat of my shirt.

Egads!

As cool as the T-Qualizer is, I never would have imagined what sort of impact it would make. I have seen similar shirts on sale for a few years now, even at mall kiosks and Spencer Gifts. I would not have expected it to be such a surprise hit in such a hub of geek culture like San Francisco.

And besides, the T-Qualizer isn't even a real graphic equalizer - it only pulses to overall loudness, the frequency bands are not independent. I would have expected real audio geeks to have noticed this... ;-)

But... The T-Qualizer certainly has proven to be a fun and effective shirt. Cherie scores big points for giving it to me. The best sort of presents are the ones you never expected, and which exceed all your expectations! Yay!

serolynne and I have been playing around with the mobile application Loopt lately, and it is pretty cool with a lot of potential for the future.

Loopt lets you share your location with your friends, so you can see who is nearby. It also lets you take pictures that are linked to a map, and share these photo/map posts via linkages to Twitter and Facebook.

The official Loopt blog actually profiles Cherie and I today as an example of how you can use the Loopt / Twitter integration to share travel updates broadly. You can read their blog post about us here.

Loopt is pretty cool, and it works with a huge range of phones and carriers (not just the iPhone). You can see the list of supported phones here.

If you would like to play around with Loopt too, I would love to have more "friends" to track to make it interesting.
You can add me to your friends list using my cell phone number: 408-667-9022.

Apple actually featured Loopt in one of its iPhone TV commercials:

See you on Loopt!

I've always understood the appeal, but I've never really personally cared much for Twitter.

The short 160 character posts just seemed annoying, particularly when compared to the in depth nature of LiveJournal.

It feels impossible to keep meaningful tabs on someone's life 160 characters at a time.

But here at Macword, I've at last gotten to experience how GREAT Twitter is to keep up on activity at trade shows. It was also one of the best ways to get breaking news last night on the riots in Oakland.

We have been using Twitter to promote the HearPlanet bus, and it has been working wonderfully for us as a marketing outreach tool as well.

Anyway, here is where you can find me posting on Twitter:

My personal tweets: http://twitter.com/radven/
Technomadia tweets (jointly with Cherie): http://twitter.com/Technomadia/
HearPlanet tweets: http://twitter.com/hearplanet/

BTW: Part of why I never cared for Twitter was that I didn't really like any of the Twitter clients I have tried. But Tweetie on the iPhone is BRILLIANT. The user interface makes Twitter a joy, and it is indeed one of the best designed mobile applications I have ever used. (And that is saying a lot coming from me!) I couldn't recommend it any higher - well worth $1.99.

I have seen a LOT of innovative iPhone applications, but it is rare in the software world to run across something that I had not even imagined as possible.

Seeing the demo videos of the breath-sensitive iPhone Ocarina from Smule has however (pun slightly intended) blown me away. I never would have imagined using multi-touch combined with the microphone to simulate a breath-controlled wind instrument. Wow!

Both experts and beginners will be amazed by this innovative player. Ocarina is sensitive to your breath, touch and movements, making it even more versatile than the original. Unlike other musical applications, there are no pre-compiled riffs so musicians will find unlimited opportunities for self-expression. Advanced options allow you to choose between diatonic, minor and harmonic scales.

Check out these sample videos:


I think I will be spending $0.99 on this soon, just for the coolness factor alone!

Tonight serolynne and I met up with our friend Peter (architect of the Conexus Cathedral) for dinner - and we got to talking about cool technology, companies, and projects we have been involved with over the years.

It turns out Peter had a role in the birth of my first love - my dear sweet Amiga.

When the Amiga 1000 was first shown to the world in July 1985, the Macintosh was a single-tasking monochromatic simpleton, and the PC could do little more than beep and display four colors.

Meanwhile - the Amiga could multitask, display 4096 colors, play four channel stereo audio, and do things with video that it took over a decade for other computers to even begin to catch up with. As soon as I heard about it, I fell in complete tech lust.

Looking back, Byte magazine called the Amiga 1000 "the first multimedia computer... so far ahead of its time that almost nobody--including Commodore's marketing department--could fully articulate what it was all about."

The Amiga launch featured artist Andy Warhol creating a digital portrait of singer Deborah Harry (Blondie) live on stage, starting with an image of her captured by a video camera.

Peter it turns out built that very first Amiga video capture board!

Here is a video of that demonstration:

A year later I had an Amiga 1000 of my own, and I treasured it more than anything else. This was were my love of computers blossomed into a passion for elegant and beautifully designed technology.

I spent countless hours with my Amiga - running a BBS, playing games, socializing online, hacking and tweaking it in every possible fashion. I would pour over every page of Amiga World magazine and especially .info Magazine (the world's first widely distributed magazine entirely desktop published - on an Amiga of course!) -- always lusting after the latest Amiga applications and tools.

The thing I lusted after the most was a Video Toaster. It packed the capability of an entire TV studio into a $1,500 add-on card, completely revolutionizing the television world by allowing "amateurs" to produce content that looked nearly as professional as the networks.

In addition to spawning countless wedding videographers and thousands of public access cable channels, the Video Toaster and a bank of Amiga's was even used to create the first season of Babylon 5!

And now I discover that my friend Peter had been one of the senior engineers at NewTek, the company behind the object of my high-school tech lust!

I used to watch this demo video (on VHS!) over and over:

Consider -- this was what was possible on a HOME computer, in 1990!

Here is a music video that Todd Rundgren created (by himself!) with his Video Toaster in 1991:

The demo video for the Video Toaster 4000 in 1994 features prominent Toaster aficionados Wil Wheaton, Penn Jillette, and Tony Hawk:

Despite my lust, I never did manage to convince myself to spend to money to buy a Video Toaster (and the associated cameras and frame-accurate VCR's for editing) - though I did get some experience using one in the video production lab in college.

I did however remain an avid Amiga fan right up to the bitter end.

By the time the Toaster 4000 shipped, Commodore was floundering and the future of the Amiga looked dim. I actually was able to sell my two-year-old Amiga 4000 in 1995 for more than I had paid for it because so many TV studios had become dependent on the Video Toaster and were stockpiling hardware once the Amiga had been discontinued.

I haven't touched an Amiga in years, but I still have my Amiga 1000 in storage. It is a classic piece of hardware that I know I will someday like to revisit. The conversations with Peter earlier tonight have now set me off reminiscing.

She really was my first love. :-)

While waiting with Cherie to get her iPhone 3G, I struck up conversation with the people around us in line.

The person in front of us was trading up from a five year old Palm OS powered Samsung i500.

"I love Palm OS, I've just gotten tired of waiting for something better than this..."

The i500 was a PalmOS 4.1 powered small and stylish clamshell. There has not been a smartphone like it on the market since.

Samsung had an amazing followup device that ran Palm OS 5.0 in a similar clamshell form factor, but they never shipped it. And for the customers who were drawn to this style of device, the the Treo line have been a poor and clunky substitute.

"When is Palm ever going to do anything new?"

The person in front of us waiting for an iPhone 3G was also a long time Palm OS user. He had upgraded to a Treo 680, but he was not happy with it.

"I'm a pharmacist and I need my Palm OS medical applications. I guess for now I will have to buy a Palm PDA, and I will carry around two devices until there are versions of those apps for the iPhone. I've given up hope of Palm coming out with anything new..."

It boggles my mind how much momentum and mindshare Palm has squandered over the past several years. While Palm's been polishing up the same ancient operating system and device form factors, the installed base of fans have been giving up and moving on in droves.

I wonder how many tens or even hundreds of thousands of Palm OS devices around the world are being replaced this week, stuffed into drawers to be forgotten?

*sigh*

serolynne has been drinking the Apple koolaid from a fire hose lately.

First, her new MacBook Pro arrived on Thursday...



It looks like she is in love... I don't think I've ever seen her hug her old Dell....


And today, we lined up before opening at the St. Louis Galleria Apple store to get her an iPhone 3G...


Even though the iPhone 3G has been on sale for over a week, masses of people were still lined up at the St. Louis Apple Store when it opened this morning.

We got there at 9:20 AM, and there were close to 70 people in front of us in line. Despite Apple's web site indicating that only black 16GB iPhone's would be in stock, the store actually only had 8GB models. After waiting over two hours, we got our ticket guaranteeing us one. Those just a few further back in line were told to try again another day.

Apple's servers are melting down due to the overwhelming demand for activating the 3G iPhone and installing the OS 2.0 upgrade.

Apparently Apple failed to anticipate this demand, or load test the infrastructure.

New iPhones are failing to activate, and the unfortunate customers who have attempted to upgrade their existing phones are having them left in an unusable limbo state when the final stage of the upgrade fails to complete.

Apple has managed to brick (make completely unusable) thousands of phones, including mine.

My phone completed the upgrade to OS 2.0, but before it will restore my data or even make a non-emergency call, it needs to be re-activated by Apple's iTunes server.

Which is down. And which has been down for hours now.

So for the time being, my phone is dead. I can not even receive incoming calls.

Thanks Apple.

The Apple discussion thread on the issue is here, and the mainstream media is starting to pick up the story too.

Why is there such a frenzy over a phone?

The Mercury News article linked above interviewed one customer, asking why he had spent the night outside an Apple store waiting to buy an iPhone.

His answer: "Chicks dig the iPhone."

Yeah, but only when it works!

*grrrr*

UPDATE: As of 3:30pm, my iPhone is live and full of OS 2.0 goodness. The App Store so totally rocks - this is what the on device application experience is meant to be. I've downloaded the iTunes Remote app, and I am loving having remote control of my music via WiFi. And the weather radar feature in Weather Bug is also impressing me.

Yay!

We were not ambitious enough to head out before dawn, but serolynne and I did head to the Melbourne, FL AT&T store around 10am this morning to look into getting Cherie an iPhone 3G.

We were hoping to get in and out with maybe an hour's wait.

Hah!

The line looked as if Rolling Stones or U2 tickets were about to go on sale!



The unmoving line stretched around the front of the building, and down the side. The folks in front looked like they had been there already for ages, and some of them even had lawn furniture.

It looked like it might take all day waiting in the hot FL sun to get an iPhone. Assuming that the store did not run out of stock first, which I am guessing is exceedingly likely.

I guess we will have to try again once the mad initial rush has passed. We have way too much to do in our final days in FL to spend too much time waiting in line for a phone.

Meanwhile, my iPhone 2G is in the process of downloading and installing the 2.0 OS update. And that to me is much more exciting than the faster radio and built in GPS that the iPhone 3G hardware adds.

But while I get the new toys, Cherie is stuck with her Razr for at least a bit longer.

Poor girl...

In just a few hours, the 3G iPhone will be going on sale. serolynne and I will probably be heading to the local AT&T store early to try and get her one - she is dying to get off of her Razr and onto something smarter, and her iPhone envy has gotten so bad lately that I don't think she can last another day without one.

Much more exciting to me than the 3G iPhone is the iPhone OS 2.0 software (and accompanying App Store), which will be released tomorrow as a free upgrade for all current iPhones.

The App Store is the key - and watching Apple deliver this has had me reminiscing around "what might have been" had I only been able to push my visions through at Palm and PalmSource.


What might have been...
From 2000 thru summer 2005 I was the Director of Competitive Analysis for Palm and then PalmSource (the OS spinoff company). And throughout my tenure, I had two consistent recommendations on what to focus on to maximize the success and competitive differentiation of Palm hardware and the Palm platform.

1) Build a great touchscreen phone with a 320x480 screen.
2) More importantly - build a great on-device application purchase experience, and provide the infrastructure to make it as easy as possible for both large and small developers to get rich.


Hardware: I lobbied endlessly for a phone built into the formfactor of Palm's ultimate PDA - the Tungsten X. A Tungsten X phone would have had a 320x480 touch screen, a slim case with minimal buttons, bluetooth, WiFi, great multimedia, and more.

In other words, it would have looked a LOT like an iPhone. Only years sooner.

But... Every Palm licensee was convinced that no one would want a phone without a number pad or a keyboard.

Now, everyone in the universe if falling all over themselves to make touch screen phones that rip off the iPhone's form. No one else besides Apple had the courage to try and do something different first.

*sigh*


The App Store: Even more important to me than the hardware, I knew that the most compelling and sustainable competitive advantage that the Palm OS possessed was the vast wealth of amazing applications that existed for the platform. But the process of getting at these applications was vastly too complicated for most users, particularly as typical usage switched from pairing and syncing with a desktop PC towards cellular network connected devices. For all of these applications to matter, users would need a trivially easy "zen of Palm" way to find, download, install, and ultimately purchase them - all without ever leaving their mobile device.

And developers would need a fair and affordable way to publish their applications to the full potential audience of users, without needing to jump through different hoops for each device maker and cellular network operator.

I launched a project within PalmSource to try and solve these problems, and I managed to get my roadmap approved and the first stages funded. The PalmSource Installer was a great first step, but we only managed to get to stop 1.5 on a roadmap that had at least seven major technology and business iterations planned out.

If PalmSource hadn't changed strategic direction (veering off towards oblivion it seems), by now every PalmOS device would be capable of easy one click download, installation, and purchase of thousands of apps.

The experience would have been very similar to the iPhone App Store, which is launching around the world today. But it would have been live years ago, and it would have actually done a lot more. For example, the roadmap that I was crafting would have not created a single monopoly store like Apple has launched, but rather it would have provided an enabling technology to allow a vast array of stores to operate.

And there would have been support for trial application, paid upgrades, and much more that Apple has not even contemplated for the iPhone. We even had plans to support a "tip jar" option to enable donationware.

All of this infrastructure and technology would have been baked into the OS (Palm OS 6.1 - which never shipped), and provided as a free upgrade supporting almost every Palm OS device that had at least Palm OS 3.5. No desktop computer would be required, but desktop support for Windows, Mac, and even Linux was planned as well.

You would even be able to download an app directly to your device wirelessly, and have the desktop components and conduits automatically install the next time you return to your desk. (This was actually possible with the Installer 1.5 that we did release...)

If this vision had panned out, there would have been a target market for developers of millions of devices, and users would have had access to thousands or even tens of thousands of applications, all just a click or two away from purchase. The market potential was huge!


This is what I was working on five years ago. In a few hours, Apple will finally show the mobile industry a taste of where things should have been years ago.

And now all the analysts and journalists around the world are writing gushing articles about how "the future of phones will be touchscreens and apps"...

I guess I am just a bit ahead of my time. Ah, but what might have been!

I wrote the following in 2004, when I announced internally at PalmSource that I was leaving behind Competitive Analysis and Strategy to focus on the application installer / store roadmap full time:

One bright star on the horizon has always captivated me more than any other – and that has been the potential for the Palm Economy to really blossom into an amazing ecosystem where it is easy for users to find the perfect applications to make their devices truly their own; and for developers to be able to easily profit from the joy they bring into the lives of users.

This is truly the place where Palm OS has the potential to rise above all of our competitors. We still have more developers and better apps than any other mobile platform. But what we need to do now is make it vastly easier to get applications into the hands of users, and potentially even more important – we need to make it easier to get money into the pockets of developers.

If we do this right, I see the potential for a supernova in the Palm Economy that will leave Symbian and Microsoft and all the proprietary “smart” platforms in the dust.

The supernove looks set to explode in just a few hours, but instead of the Palm ecosystem blossoming it will be Apple's iPhone.

It is bittersweet to think about what might have been had Palm(Source) managed to do it right years ago, but at least someone has ended up doing it. The doldrums that have paralyzed the mobile application universe are now about to be over.

At last!

Mobile connectivity is essential to our life as technomads.

And over the past year and half, Sprint's EVDO service has worked wonderfully for us. We have gotten broadband speed all over the country, and it has worked so well that we have even been able to cut the cable modem line while living here at Cherie's house in Florida.

To connect we use a Novatel Merlin EX720 card, and to share the connection we use a small Cradlepoint CTR-350 WiFi router. This combination is small, portable, simple, power efficient, and it works amazingly well.

The reason that we chose Sprint last year was that it was the only nationwide carrier offering "unlimited" wireless data. At the time Verizon was also advertising "unlimited data", but was attaching fine print defining unlimited as "5GB a month".

(The New York Attorney General actually had to get involved to get Verizon to stop marketing 5GB as "unlimited"!!!)

Over the past year, Sprint won a lot of customers thanks to this "unlimited" policy, despite having inferior coverage. But the limits of "unlimited" have apparently now been reached.

Taking Verizon's lead - Sprint is dropping the easy to understand and consumer friendly "unlimited" and is now implementing a 5GB cap.


The new deal from Spint:
Here are Sprint's new terms, that we must either agree to or use as an excuse to cancel our two year contract:

Sprint reserves the right to limit throughput speeds or amount of data transferred and to deny, terminate, modify, or suspend service if usage exceeds 5gb per month in total or 300mb/month while off-network roaming.

*grrrrr*

How are we supposed to depend on our wireless connection for getting work done when it can be throttled down or canceled at any time without warning? The 300mb off-network roaming is particularly troubling, because there is not even a way to tell when you ARE roaming, and such roaming has always been free.

Sprint's cap is a "soft cap" - there is no charge if you go over, but there is also no certainty that your connection will not be cut off either. Install a major OS update and you could find yourself cut off. Get a lot of work in to do, and you could find yourself unable to do it. Etc...

There is no longer ANY option for a real unlimited usage connection from Sprint, even if you would gladly pay more for it.


Verizon's WORSE Deal:
Meanwhile, Verizon's "soft cap" is growing painfully and outrageously hard. Rather than having a rarely enforced threat of service cancelation if you exceed 5GB of usage, Verizon is now rolling out "overage charges" of $250 per GB.

Let me repeat: TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS PER GIGABYTE!!!

In other words - the first 5GB you use are around $14 each, but the 6th you consume is suddenly 18x more expensive. This is the sort of gouging that you typically see con-men trying to pull after a natural disaster.

For an example of how easily it is to consume this much data - we have been watching the TV series Torchwood (purchased via iTunes). One episode is around 600MB - which via Verizon's new pricing would cost us $2.00 to Apple, and $150 to Verizon to view.

Based on this math, to download the entire season will cost you nearly $2000!!! ($25 to Apple and $1810 to Verizon). This is one VERY expensive single click of the mouse!

Here are the details of Verizon's new terms:

Effective June 22, 2008, Verizon has now changed how overage charges will affect those who exceed their allotted (5GB) usage per month. The new implementation provides for:

• All plans are now subject to standardized $0.25/MB overage charge.


• There is now a temporary "usage limit" cap of $250 for monthly overage fees.


• All customers will only have three monthly bills subjected to a usage limit of $250. After the third bill to have the usage limit applied, there will no longer be a usage limit on the monthly bill, and the customer will be responsible to pay for all actual usage charges incurred on their monthly bill.


• In addition to the changes in overage charges to existing 50MB and 5GB plans, a new plan is being made available to customers who have used up all their 'usage limits'. This new "save plan" provides 10GB of data usage for $199.99/mo and the same $0.25/mb overage charge after the alloted data usage.

Insane.


AT&T's Capped Plans:
In the past year, AT&T's 3G HSDPA network has become a viable mobile data alternative to EVDO on Sprint and Verizon. But AT&T has a 5GB soft cap just like Sprint (and like Verizon used to):

The parties agree that AT&T has the right to impose additional charges if you use more than 5 gigabytes in a month. Prior to the imposition of any additional charges, AT&T shall provide you with notice and you shall have the right to terminate your service.

At the moment, AT&T is not charging for data over 5GB, and they are not enforcing their cap. But how long before they join Verizon in the gouging? I am guessing it is only a matter of time.


Alltel - The Last Bastion of Unlimited Data:
Alltel is the only nationwide wireless network that is still offering unlimited EVDO usage, for only $59/ month. But seeing as Alltel is in the process of being acquired by Verizon, my guess is that this offer will probably not be around for very much longer.

Even though the deal is likely not to last, Alltel is the only carrier with reasonable data plans. Because of this, we will probably soon cancel our contract with Sprint and switch to Alltel. At least we will have a few months before we have to cancel again and look for another alternative...


*sigh*

It looks as if the unlimited usage plans that have allowed wireless data in the US to thrive are soon to be a thing of the past. This is a shame. The wired Internet only took off once ISP's stopped billing per hour and offered unlimited use. With usage caps and outrageous overage charges in place, users will grow very wary of actually making use of all these wonderful fast networks that are being deployed.

Why have fast 3G wireless data if you can't actually make use of it?

Unlimited data. RIP.

The Oliver Elite comes with an "Entertainment Center" package installed by default, consisting of a Jensen JE1508 15" HDTV, a Jensen AWM960 wallmounted stereo with AM/FM/CD and DVD playback, and four interior speakers.


The Oliver's AV system revolves around the Jensen JE1508 15" HDTV and AWM960 wallmount AM/FM/CD/DVD player. Next to the front door on the Oliver is an overhang that protects an exterior 12V power jack, external speaker jacks, and an external AV output from the AWM960. This setup should allow you to relocate the TV outside, or use external speakers while camped.

The Oliver's Entertainment Center package is certainly nice by RV standards, but it actually does leave a lot to be desired.

For one thing, the Jensen monitor is not wide screen, it is physically no bigger than most laptop screens, and it runs at a much lower resolution (1024x768) than we are used to. The ability to run off of 12V power and decode broadcast HDTV signals is nice - but for our needs DVD playback and usage as a secondary computer monitor is what is really important. (The Jensen JE1907DC 19" widescreen is a worthwhile upgrade to ask for, but still lacking for what we want...)

The DVD player however is the biggest disappointment. The AWM960 can only output lowres interlaced composite video to the TV, not high-resolution component or HDMI signals. So even though the JE1508 screen can handle HDTV resolution input, the quality of your DVD signal will be closer to VHS quality than what you would get from a modern upconverting DVD player. Not acceptable at all.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any other "mobile" AV system that can do any better. Even the upcoming Jensen AWM970 (which adds iPod support) will still only output composite video.

What I've come to realize is that with "mobile" AV electronics, you end up paying much more and getting much less.


What we are doing instead...
Instead of the factory-default setup, we've decide that a 22" computer monitor will make for the ideal display screen inside the Oliver.

Our top choice right now is the highly-rated Dell SP2208WFP, a 1680x1050 resolution 22" monitor with integrated webcam, HDMI inputs, and a super bright display - all for only $299. Other promising alternative 22" screens include the low-power ViewSonic VLED221wm or the HDTV-tuner equipped ViewSonic N2230w.

I also find myself craving the 1920x1200 resolution that I would get from a 24" Dell Ultrasharp 2408WFP - an absolutely stunning monitor.

To provide the DVD playback, speakers, and audio amplification - I've been researching small "home theater in a box" systems. Expect a post documenting this research soon.

The more urgent challenge is finding the ideal mount to attach the monitor to the Oliver. There are literally hundreds of LCD monitor mounts to choose from. We need a mount that will hold the monitor securely in the corner of the Oliver, but which can ideally swing out over the table for better position while being used as a second monitor.

It would also be very cool if the monitor can swing in front of the window, allowing movie viewing from the patio. The Jensen MAF50 looks particularly promising - it can tilt, swivel, pan, and extend out over 16" from the wall.

The Oliver factory reports that they can install either a hanging mount (like used with the current TV), or a wall attached mount. Using a wall attached mount gives many more options - but it must be installed in the factory BEFORE the inner and outer shells of the Oliver are mated.

I will report back here with details of which mount we choose. In the meantime - monitor, mini home theater, and monitor mount recommendations are appreciated.


UPDATE: I've discovered that wall-mounted monitor swing arms rarely support height adjustment. This is actually rather important for us - we want to be able to position the screen up in the corner, and then down low over the table.

The most promising option I have found is the Chief FWG110B double swing arm with 13.25" of heigh adjustment and 18.43" of extension. You can also add a third arm extension (the FWB110) to increase the max extension to 26.38". This mount typically costs nearly as much as the monitors we are considering buying, but I found it on sale here for only $131, or the triple arm version here for $166.

I also found a height adjustable Ergotron LX Wall Mount LCD Arm that looks promising, but which seems to almost entirely lack the ability to tilt downward - making it great for desk use but not so great for movie watching in bed.

If the Chief monitor arm proves unworkable - the only other option I can think of is using a fixed location corner mount, and a VESA quick-connect bracket on the monitor to be able to easily remove and relocate it to another stand.

I first came to California in 1996 to be a part of the launch of a new type of computer magazine.

'boot Magazine' was focused on the hardcore PC enthusiast who is concerned with maximum performance, having the latest technology, and pushing the limits of what their machine can do via overclocking the hardware and tweaking the OS.

In addition to being the magazine's technical editor and 3D graphics expert, I was the in house "alternative OS" advocate. But while Linux and even BeOS was deemed worthy of respect by the editors - you would never hear much nice said about any Macintosh in the pages of 'boot'.

We often used to even actively poke fun at our sister magazine Mac Addict (now known as Mac Life) and their unworthy hardware and limited operating system.

The boot audience was just about as anti-Mac as you could possibly get.

boot was renamed after I left, and lives on and continues to thrive on newsstands everywhere as Maximum PC. I've kept tabs on it over the years, and the anti-Mac attitude has hardly ever wavered.

But I think hell may be freezing over.

On the cover of this month's Maximum PC is a photo of a MacBook Air and the following feature story: "Can Any PC Notebook Beat the MacBook?"

The featured article pits the MacBook Air, MacBook, and MacBook Pro against representative best-of-class PC laptops in the ultraportable, mainstream, and professional laptop niches.

And in the professional category - according to the editors of Maximum PC, the ultimate laptop in the world right now is the MacBook Pro!

"Don't rub your eyes, the MacBook is the winner (!) ... While that’s likely to piss off many PC diehards, perhaps it’s time those folks finally admit the MacBook Pro to the power-PC family."

I must say - they are a little behind the curve. I ditched the PC world and switched to Mac OS and a MacBook Pro over two years ago!

I was just emailed this picture, along with this description:

"Thought you might like to see one guy's solution to limited roof space. It is from a poorly scanned photo ... but you'll get the gist of it. Those are the old Siemens 55 watt panels times about 34 = 1870 watts plus two 300 (or 400) watt wind machines. Makes you wonder just what he is doing inside???"


Now THAT is an impressive mobile solar setup!!!

This weekend Fritz is moving into a rented room up in Titusville. The money he will be saving on commute costs and vehicle wear (not to mention hours of his life gained) certainly justify this switch. He'll still be our housemate on weekends, until the house sells that is. But this arrangement should work out great for everyone involved.

With Fritz gone during the week, it no longer makes sense for us all to be splitting the costs for premium cable TV / and high speed Internet. So rather than dropping back to basic service, serolynne and I are contemplating cutting the cable entirely.

I just switched our half of the house network to use our Sprint Novatel Merlin EX720 and CradlePoint CTR-350 Router as our upstream connection, instead of the cable modem.

And we really can't notice any performance difference whatsoever.

Music and videos stream just fine, and the net feels just as fast as it ever has on BrightHouse Cable.

Since last year, it looks as if Sprint has upgraded the local wireless to a full EVDO revA signal. And that rocks.

According to the DSL Reports Speed Test, this is the performance we are currently getting via wireless:

Download Speed: 1199 Kb/s
Upload Speed: 240 Kb/s
Latency: 94ms

The cable modem tests out much faster (6033 Kb/s, 464 Kb/s, 62ms) - but in day to day use, it hardly seems noticeable. We'll be keeping our eye out for any hiccups - but very likely by this time next week we will be cutting off cable entirely.

This setup works amazing well. And the best part? We can take it with us (almost) anywhere!! *grin*