Apple:

We recently discovered that a small number - less than 1% - of the Video iPods available for purchase after September 12, 2006, left our contract manufacturer carrying the Windows RavMonE.exe virus. This known virus affects only Windows computers, and up to date anti-virus software which is included with most Windows computers should detect and remove it. So far we have seen less than 25 reports concerning this problem. The iPod nano, iPod shuffle and Mac OS X are not affected, and all Video iPods now shipping are virus free.

I’m somewhat curious — but in no hurry to check — if the new iPod my wife just bought arrived with this RavMonE.exe Windows virus. We are using the iPod only with our Mac so this doesn’t really apply even if the virus came packed with the iPod. We have a shared MP3 folder where we store all the MP3 we’ve burned and imported those from the Mac. The iPod has not been plugged into any of our Windows machines yet.

A number of people have pointed out the sentence from Apple after the one quoted above that reads:

As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it.

Cheap shot. They would have been far less arrogant and wiser to simply say: “As you might imagine, we are upset with ourselves for not catching it.” Not Apple’s way, I guess.

Nathan sees this as a classless move too:

You used to let your products speak for themselves. Show some class, or at least stand behind your products, not your bitter and arrogant attitude. I get the feeling that when the tide turns (and it always does), you won’t have a lot of friends bemoaning your demise.

This is weak, but it won’t hurt Apple’s momentum. Their ardent fans will raise their fists and say: “yeah, down with Microsoft.” The platform agnostic like me will just shake their heads. The people who already hate Apple will only despise them more.

At the end of the day I don’t think Apple is going anywhere any time soon. The Zune is going to be about as successful dethroning the iPod as Tablet PCs replacing laptops en masse.

One of the hottest portable music device outside of the iPod right now is the Sirius Stiletto 100 and Sunday we scoured the Circuit City locations to land at none other than Silverdale, Washington. We bought the last one of these black and white beauties for $329 USD + tax and couldn’t wait after the hour plus drive home to get the package open and start the ceremonial first charge.

This is a gift for our oldest teen who wanted to be able to listen to Sirius (yes, he’s hooked on satellite radio too) and also have a portable music device. He has been a long time Napster subscriber and loves music. More on that shortly, let’s see what the Stiletto packaging looks like.

Sirius has somewhat ripped a page from the Apple playbook on the compact, although not quite as meticulous packaging.

As labeled above:

1 - the antenna headphones of death. These are the worst designed headphones I’ve ever seen or listened to; totally uncomfortable and unlistenable. They have these ultrahard plastic ends that poke into your ears. You feel like if you listen long enough they will converge on your skull. It’s an interesting idea putting the antenna in the headphones but the design is just abysmal.
2 - the Stiletto comes with two batteries, one of which is a slim 2 hour battery and a fatter 4 hour battery. They should have offered a version without the fat batter and shaved $150 off the price tag as the price being too high seems to be a common complaint.
3 - USB cord to connect Stiletto to you computer but not enough power to charge the battery. The software comes packed with Yahoo Music Messenger of all things. You can transfer MP3 or Y! Music purchased files. Not sure if the free Yahoo files being rented can be transferred to the Stiletto.
4 - earbuds that don’t stay in your ears. I’ve never been a big earbuds fan, even with the iPod, mainly because anything that sticks down in the ear cavity seems like a recipe for going deaf early. Fortunately, the Stiletto uses a normal headphone jack, so you can plugin your favorite headphones.
5 - AC adapter included to charge the Stiletto.

Not pictured: software, instruction manual and Sirius channel lineup.

Our son took the Stiletto to school and his friends thought it was a cell phone. It sort of looks like one, especially with the fatter battery.

Lighter than it appears. 4.6 ounces with slim battery, 5.6 ounces with the standard battery.

No carrying case comes with the stiletto, not even some cheap cloth or plastic case, but it fits perfectly in a eyeglass case.

There are two ways to connect and listen: through the satellite, which only works in our area outside and through the internet via WiFi. Connecting to the WiFi was as easy as choosing the SSID and entering in the password. The recording function — one of the coolest parts of the Stiletto — doesn’t work with internet. The homekit is coming later this month which should offer an option to use an outside antenna. In its current state, good luck getting the satellite inside unless you are close to a terrestrial repeater.

The menu screen is colorful and easy to read and operate. Parental controls are available. Since this was our second Sirius receiver we paid an extra $6.99/month for three months (quarterly payment appears to be the minimum option) plus another $15 one time connection fee. The one time connection fee seems like another missed opportunity by Sirius to have been waived for the Stiletto.

The Stiletto has an internal antenna, but using only that even outside in the open air we couldn’t get a reliable satellite signal. We don’t have any terrestrial repeaters nearby here which doesn’t help.

The settings screen allows additional configuration: screen brightness, voice which will announce the channel (”buzzsaw!”) and more.

It’s really too bad that Sirius has no Major League Baseball contract. Noticeably absent from their game tracking features are MLB, but you can put in your favorite football, basketball and hockey teams so you can get notifications of when the game is starting or the score changes.

Connectivity, cost and features
The two major complaints I’ve read about the Stiletto are the satellite connectivity and cost. We have the Starmate Replay which we paid like $80 for and the reception with the home antenna is awesome. The ability to listen via WiFi is a decent response but without the ability to record anything is disappointing.

When connected via satellite the recording function is useful and has gotten Sirius into some hot water legally. You can record a song, even if you are in the middle. It will go back and record from the beginning. You can also record the talk shows.

The 2GB storage space compared to other portable music devices is anemic. For $350, the Stiletto should come with at least ten times the storage. Those with larger MP3 collectiosn who want to transfer their MP3 collection to the Stilettto will need to pick a smaller playlist.

Since this was a gift for our son, I asked him what he thought and he gave it a B+. I’ve noticed he has been listening to it constantly since we got it which reinforces his grade.

Me? For those who want a portable Sirius satellite receiver that tries perhaps too hard to be like an iPod, the Stiletto doesn’t have much competition and thus makes it harder to compare to other portable music devices. You can’t get Sirius on an iPod or UMPC or Zune, thus it probably should be compared primarily against the other Sirius players. From a design perspective, the godawful antenna headphones aside (really, the worst ever), it’s better than the other home Sirius players I’ve seen and used. Some are saying to wait for the second or third generation Stiletto, but for those who want an additional Sirius player that they can take anywhere quickly and easily, the Stiletto is ok. At half the price and with more memory (or at least an expandable slot) and better antenna headphones, I’d give it higher marks.

Grade: C-

Beta is over for Microsoft’s Live search and Live Mobile services:

Extensive feedback and ongoing testing of each beta service has led to marked improvements in the user interface and the overall customer experience. These Windows Live milestones represent the first of several more to come this fall that will demonstrate Microsoft’s commitment to building and delivering services that bring new levels of control and personalization to the Web experience.

Good to see Microsoft dropping the beta label on a couple Live products. I’ve been trying out some different Live.com searches and so far they are ok. Wish it didn’t ask me to login before I could use it but I understand that’s the personalization thing in play. Yahoo asks me to login to their services too much too. I have good security on my machine and don’t need babysitting by third parties.

Better use of vertical browser space than MSN Search:

They are treating some of our newer websites better than Google, but are nowhere on the map as far as traffic for our busier, more established sites. Also noticed they dropped the neverending scrollbars to eliminate pagination which annoyed at least one beta tester. Would be nice to see that feature at least being an option. Wendy over at Lifehacker is running a poll asking: do you or will you use Live search?

Live services still in public beta (have I missed any?):
Live Academic Search - academic research
Live Gallery - download free add-ons and extensions to personalize your Windows Live and PC experiences
Live Local - get local direction
Live Desktop Mail - Mail
Live Mail - web-based mail, not sure this one is public, as at least I can’t signup for it.
Live Messenger - IM, chat
Live Products Search - product search and comparison
Office Live - Small business hosting and Office document collaboration
Live Writer - Desktop blogging client

Questions about mature topics, anyone?
Live QnA - I’ve tested this one extensively and it’s similar to the popular Yahoo Answers. Here’s breaking news for Microsoft, they allow mature content questions and answers! Nothing obscene or vulgar, the details are here:

For the purposes of this Code of Conduct, “mature content” means content that is sexually explicit or content that discusses violent acts in explicit detail. Postings tagged as mature content are filtered from your view by default. If you wish to view mature content, go to the Settings page and select the option “Do not filter postings tagged as ‘mature content’ on QnA.”

You can see the 46 posts currently tagged as “mature content” with this search (Warning: Not Safe For Work query) after altering your settings.

Is this a first for Microsoft allowing some sort of sexual content on their Live sites? Very interesting development. ‘Sex’ was on my list of 8 things Microsoft could do to better compete with Google in 2006.

Worth repeating what I wrote over the weekend: generally speaking, I like Microsoft’s momentum and push behind getting more sites Live branded sites in the public consciousness.

Their strategy of intentionally moving faster with building, beta testing and deploying Live sites could pay huge dividends competing against Google. Now when will we get to see Live OneNote?

Nick Wilson rants a bit on most widgets not being useful.

As of yet, all i see are gimmicks and whirly flashy things, where’s the use? … Im not saying widgets can’t be useful, just that the majority of them are useless fluff, and there’s no clear path to $$$’s in the production of widgets.

Currently, I use zero widgets on my production machine, two widgets on my Tablet PC (Yahoo! Widgets), and four Dashboard Widgets on my Mac. There are widgets available for Wordpress and Typepad but I haven’t spent much time checking to see what’s useful there.

I have roughly a half dozen widgets on my Google personalized homepage. As I look over the ones on the tablet, I really like the MLB widget which keeps me in tune with the scores without having to visit the busy mlb.com homepage or another third party site. Also, I use the weather widget for the five day forecast. Useful for knowing what the weather will be like for the coming days so we can plan weekend activities (even though sometimes the forecasts are off).

On the Mac, I use SysStat to keep an eye on any processes that might be hogging CPU. I also have an FTP widget where I can drag items to it and have them automatically FTP’d to a directory on one of our servers. Lastly, I have a UNIX time clock ticking the seconds off since Jan 1, 1970. In Leopard, the next version of Mac OS X due out in spring 2007, they will make it even easier for non-programmers to create widgets with something called Dashcode. Expect to see many more Dashboard Widgets by this time next year, fellow Macheads.

On my Google personalized homepage, I’m trying out the new Interesting Items for You module which tries to point me to searches, pages and gadgets it thinks I might like or be interested in. Of course I have my own created TD Keno game, you don’t, too? Shame on ya ;). Also some other widgets I could live without like a good looking analog clock, movie times (almost always visit Fandango when looking for movie times) and some other mostly useless widgets.

Nick’s point questioning the money in widget production is also well reasoned and there are a few exceptions out there too. Companies like Monkey Labs who make some of the best looking widgets on the Mac have built-in nag reminders for some of their widgets asking for donations. I like Nick’s thinking with the profit sharing APIs which, after all, if you are making a widget for a third party site or using one to promote your site, maybe you should cut those who actually use them in on some of the dollars. The same is true for any site where you are building content for them to wrap ads around like most of the tagging and list sites.

I think the big thing for widgets from a site owner perspective is they are an additional marketing tool. There is value to the website owner if the widget doesn’t use too many system resources without giving something back. They are pretty good for games and shortcut programs but they also keep people from actually visiting the website. That’s not the end of the world, as a site can still make money without people visiting the site directly (embedded ads in widgets). Short messages and news headlines can be piped in but the small space really restricts anything significant from happening inside a widget. From a developer standpoint, it’s challenging thinking about how to make widgets that would be useful to both users and the website. I’ve thought about a couple different possible widgets for this site but haven’t worked on anything yet much beyond a rough idea stage.

What widgets/gadgets/modules are you using regularly that you consider useful (and why)? What type of widget/gadgets/modules would you like to see developed? If you have an idea for a widget for this website, feel free to share that too and who knows, maybe it will get developed. You’re welcome to link to widgets below, even your own created ones fellow developers, as long as they are truly useful.

One of the things I dislike about HDMI is the overpriced cables. You’ve seen them right? Some are selling for more than $150 USD. What kind of consumer grade cable can or even should be worth $150? Yeah, yeah, it’s made of diamond or gold or diamond and gold. I don’t care if it’s made by NASA, a consumer grade cable that hooks your TV to another device shouldn’t cost more than $50.

Fortunately, good news might be on the horizon as Tzero Technologies and Analog Devices has created a prototype for wireless HDMI.

The backbone for the technology is ultrawideband, also used as a future replacement for wired USB.

To be fair I have seen a few HDMI cables selling around $50. Is there any significant difference in these cables or is it a case of paying for the brand name? Whatever the case, bring on the wireless and HDMI cable gouging can come to an end someday.

In preparing to leave home for an extended period something of a ritual has begun with unplugging all the electronic devices. I decided to count up the devices plugged in just to see how much drain on power was occuring (I already know our electric bill averages over $200/month). In two rooms alone there were 40 devices plugged in including: multiple computers, monitors, TVs (3), laptop, Tablet PC, digital cameras, speakers, chargers, base stations, router, modem and more.

Geeks clearly worship AC outlets.

This got me wondering if others do the unplug ritual when they leave home for extended periods? It’s well known that some devices continue to draw power even when they aren’t being used. I look forward to reading your answers via the comments below or trackback when I plug back in.

How much power is being absorbed with devices plugged in that aren’t being used? Do you unplug when you go away for extended periods? If so, how many devices? Anything you leave plugged in that doesn’t need to be left plugged in?

Anybody remember the Sega CD? Or how about the Sega 32X? The Dreamcast held much more promise but it tanked too. Eventually Sega gave up on gaming hardware and decided to focus strictly on games.

Sony is starting to run out of the number of flop hardware projects they can release and maintain customer confidence. Reports are that they are having trouble defining the PSP which is sad because the PSP is a beautifully designed device. For a portable gaming machine I think it’s the best design I’ve seen to date, but it has an identity crisis and is hopelessly lost fighting the DRM game. If Sony had only embraced the homebrew crowd as I wrote here well over a year ago, they’d have much less of an identity problem with this device:

I would offer that it’s better to have people interested in what you are doing than not at all. And if they are interested enough to build hacks and mods and to post on the internet about it, you should find a way as a company to connect and embrace the fans instead of shun them.

Then you have hardware like the LocationFree competing against the Slingbox. The idea is great, placeshifting TV and DVD content to the PSP and I seriously considered buying one. The problem? Too expensive. Pricing remains Sony’s major weakness. Almost everything they do these days is too expensive. And this sentiment is coming from somebody who spends over $500 a month on gadgets, games and movies at Best Buy alone. Sad. The PS3 drew long sighs and boos at E3 for its pricing. Worse yet, instead of acknowledging this, they seem to be taking an arrogant path. Stupid.

RealTechNews lists five reasons they think the new Sony Mylo device will fail and #1 is “too expensive.” Gotta love one of the comments from Eric N there: “Say hi to the Gizmodo.”

And then there’s Blu-Ray. Still much too early to call this a failure but nearly everything I’ve read about Blu-Ray has been negative from the format itself to, again, the pricing. Best Buy has a Blu-Ray player selling for $999. I’m not interested. I’m barely interested in HD-DVD which is half the price. Most likely I’ll finally be dipping the toe in water when the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive is released. By then there should be a decent number of HD-DVD titles out too. As of this writing, it’s less than 100. Blu-Ray has even less, I believe (someone in the know feel free to correct me below).

We bought a laptop for our son last week. We went with Gateway. I saw a really nice looking laptop beside it and then stopped when I saw the brand. I hesitate whenever the word Sony is on anything these days. It’s a bad taste from their rootkit debacle and the fact that they don’t seem to be the best value or hold good longevity any more.

Technology gadgets already have a short life span and Sony seems — although it might not be a fact — to have less longevity.

Sony isn’t Sega yet but they had better turn things around in a hurry. One way to start would be to emerge as the first big media company who abandons using any DRM. They need some dramatic move like this to turn heads and start restoring customer confidence. I’m not sure the PS3, which might be the last Sony device I’ll buy for a long time, will be enough.

Yahoo Finance badges Terms of Service (condensed):

c. YOU WILL NOT:

(i) use the Yahoo! Finance Modules in connection with or to promote any products, services, or materials that constitute, promote or are used primarily for the purpose of dealing in: spyware, adware, or other malicious programs or code, counterfeit goods, items subject to US embargo, hate materials (e.g. Nazi memorabilia), goods made from protected animal/plant species, recalled goods, hacking/surveillance/interception/descrambling equipment, cigarettes, illegal drugs and paraphernalia, unlicensed sale of prescription drugs and medical devices, pornography, prostitution, body parts and bodily fluids, stolen products and items used for theft, fireworks, explosives, and hazardous materials, government IDs, police items, unlicensed trade or dealing in stocks and securities, gambling items, professional services regulated by state licensing regimes, non-transferable items such as airline tickets or event tickets, non-packaged food items, weapons and accessories;

(ii) use the Yahoo! Finance Modules in any manner or for any purpose that violates any law or regulation, any right of any person, including but not limited to intellectual property rights, rights of privacy, or rights of personality, or in any manner inconsistent with the Yahoo! TOS or these Terms of Use;

No gambling, porn, goods made from protected animals, cigarettes, fireworks, explosives, hazardous materials, prescription drugs, non-packaged food, non-transferable items or using on sites promoting illegal activity or material (like cable descramblers), nor anything in the other equally long Yahoo Terms of Service.

(iii) sell, lease, or sublicense the Yahoo! Finance Modules or access thereto or derive income from the use or provision of the Yahoo! Finance Modules, whether for direct commercial or monetary gain or otherwise, without Yahoo!’s prior, express, written permission; or

No charging others for access to use the Yahoo Finance badges.

(iv) use the Yahoo! Finance Modules in a manner that exceeds reasonable request volume, constitutes excessive or abusive usage, or otherwise fails to comply or is inconsistent with the Yahoo! Finance Module documentation, as determined by Yahoo! in its sole discretion.

No high traffic websites. Unfortunately in all those words they don’t actually define how much traffic “exceeds reasonable request.”

(v) sell, rent, assign, lease, transfer, reproduce, perform, modify, translate, allow third party access to, unbundle, make derivative works of, make improvements of, or distribute any code included as part of the Yahoo! Finance Modules or any of its components or any content contained therein, including, without limitation advertisements or search links that may be included in the Yahoo! Finance Modules. In addition, You will not change, alter, revise, decompile, disassemble, reverse-assemble or otherwise reverse engineer the Yahoo! Finance Modules or any portion of the Yahoo! Finance Modules for any purpose.

No hacking/modding the Yahoo Finance code. Hope me placing the “align” tag in the IFRAME code isn’t breaking this rule.

Other notes/restrictions
- maximum of 3 stocks for multiple view (GYM shown above), 10 stocks for single view
- multiple size options for badges: small (160 pixel width, white background only), medium (200 px), large (250 px) and extra large (300 px)
- multiple time ranges for stock chart: 1 day, 5 days, 3 months, 6 months (shown), 1 year, 2 years, 5 years or max years

Note that the last six months doesn’t make Google stock look as stellar as the previous six month period. Microsoft and Yahoo both took dips.

Disclaimer: As of this writing I own GOOG and YHOO stock.

A couple weeks ago Sterling asked me what I was using for counting words. At the time I’d been using some code I threw together shortly after switching to Wordpress. It worked well for me because it had all the pertinent post information from the blog on a single page.

I decided it was time to convert this code into a Wordpress plugin and make available for others to download and use. The conversion process went so smoothly that I added some additional features and converted a couple other external scripts into separate plugins. My goal now is to work on converting as much of the customizations and mods I’ve written and am using around our various WP-powered blogs into plugins, widgets and/or code that can more easily be shared with other Wordpress users.

Screencast using Windows Media Encoder
Last night I’d been wanting to demo Windows Media Encoder (free) as a screencast tool so instead of writing README.txt documentation for my first Wordpress plugin, I took ten minutes and recorded the screencast above displaying how to use my very first created Wordpress plugin.

I will come back and update this post with a link to where this plugin can actually be downloaded. Really, I’m not trying to tease, I just have a few more minor things to do first. In the meantime have a look at the screencast above and let me know if you are interested in using this plugin.

Update 7/26/2006 5:00am PST: Download the TD Word Count plugin here and leave specific comments/feedback on the plugin here.

One of my favorite apps is Screen Calipers, but I noticed recently when downloading the new trial that the price went up over 30% (now $29.90) and they crippled the trial app further so you couldn’t make vertical pixel measurements. I guess this means there weren’t enough paid registrations? Here’s an alternative to measure pixel space using a Firefox extension for those who would like to have similar functionality for free: measure it.

Once the extension is installed it sits in the lower left of your Firefox status bar and can be invoked by clicking on the graph. Then draw with the sights a box around what you want to measure on screen. A box with the height and width in pixels will appear (shown in green above).