Photo Migration to Flickr

I've decided to abandon Hello as my photo sharing / publishing platform in favor of Flickr. While Hello had a cool paradigm (a peer 2 peer network that could also post to Blogger), the need for a proprietary Windows client just wasn't working for me. On the other hand, Flickr has a traditional upload and view architecture but is client agnostic and supports all the cool new technologies. Some of Flickr's cool features are:

• Upload / Blog via email (so I can photo blog from my Treo)
• RSS / Atom feeds for my photos
• Photo badges (to display on your website)
• Flickr API for development
• It's free

You can browse my photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wander/.

Sony PSP Price !

Shiny Plastic has a blurb from CNet about the Sony PSP Playstation Portable Price and Release Date (CNet article here).



To make a long story short, these bad boys may be released in March 2005 for only $150. Most analysts were expecting it to ship next Christmas for $350. At the $150 price, this really starts to make sense and will probably push Tapwave's Zodiac out of business.

I am already rethinking my resistance to this gadget.

Sun, the Phantom Gamer

This is quite an interesting article:

The co-creator of Microsoft's Xbox is ramping up to launch a new online subscription gaming platform with the help of Sun Microsystems, the companies said.

Java gaming really looks to be catching momentum.

XM vs iPod Photo

So Kelly just bought a Serius Satellite Radio receiver and he got me thinking. Is it better to outsource my music selection to some on demand service or keep on managing my catalog with iTune / iPod myself.

This was doubly triggered by the dual announcements of the new Delphi XM MyFi and iPod Photo. The MyFi is a portable XM satellite radio receiver that allows you to record up to five hours of broadcast to listen to at your leisure. The new iPod adds a color screen and photo sharing abilities (by connecting it to a TV).

I haven't come to any conclusion here, it just got me thinking. I am pretty sure I am not going to junk my third generation iPod until I see something that provides video on demand.

Piedmont Back

Brian's Defensive Belligerence blog is back online.

Treo 650 is Official!

My favorite toy (camera, mobile, blogging device, etc) has a new verison out: Treo 650 is official!. Thanks to the folks at Engadget for the cool pics and words.

Dog day @ Atlanta office

This reminded me of how my company used to be: dog days on Thursday. This older dog was quite happy to hang outside her keepers office. Friday used to be dog day in Silicon Valley.

Porch Finished

This is the final version of the porch. This was taken at the begining of the month, just after the concrete had set. 

BBQ & The South

So after a short sleep (see yesterday's entry), I trudged through my work day (evaluating a new company's technology). Finishing up around 7 pm, two of my colleagues and myself decided to get some BBQ (being in the South and all). Acquiring the prerequesite local knowledge (Dreamland was the place), we headed out.

Good lord, I ate a lot of BBQ at Dreamland. I have never seen such a large slab of ribs. I could only eat 3/4 of the slab. I had enough left over for two normal people's meals.

Overall, the BBQ was quite good (I liked the Brunswick soup). Certainly different from Kansas City style (more vinegar, less heat) and Memphis dry rub, but still better than anything we would get here in Cali.

The best part of the night was as we were leaving. We basically closed the place (watching BoSox game), but a woman came in just as the staff was letting us out. She had rushed over after work to grab some BBQ before heading home. "Sorry, were closed" was the wait staff response. So, my colleague offers her his doggie bag / half slab. Without batting an eye, she accepts and drives away. No questioning who we are, no asking what was in the bag, nothing just "Y'all so kind. Thanks for the BBQ".

I believe stories like this only happen in the South.

Bad Start

My southern trip didn't get off to an impressive start yesterday. America West, the airline with by far the worst on-time arrivals in the business, ended up screwing me by delaying my Sacramento departure which caused me to miss my Phoenix connection. Luckily, Arizona-native Spencer was "free" and sprung me from the PHX airport for a few hours. We went and hung out in Tempe at The Library until my flight left. The bad news on this was that I didn't get to Atlanta until 12:45 AM, so I didn't get to my hotel in Alpharetta (40 miles away) until around 3 AM. 

Porch

I forgot to post something about my backyard progress from earlier this month. I finally got a "concrete guy" to come by and pour us a porch. This is a picture from the early stages when they were just forming the foundation. I'll post something soon with the final pictures. It's amazing how much concrete costs. 

Deep South

It appears that my extended respite from air travel is over. I'm off to Atlanta, Georgia tomorrow morning to check out a company that I may be doing some work with. Strange as it might sound, I've never actually done any business travel in the South. I had a brief two day trip to Tampa once, but other than that it's really midwest and west coast. It should be interesting.

PSP Movie

Here is a little movie of someone inserting and removing the cool UML data disks that will be standard on the Playstation Portable (PSP).

Actually, the PSP isn't looking that big :>

New Bike Woes

If it's not one thing (pinch flats), it's another (broken chain). I broke my chain climbing a hill last week. A bicycle chain breaking makes a terrifying sound, but not as terrifying as my screaming as I endo, my bike lands on top of me (as I was still clipped in) and we both fall down the hill again. The one bright spot out of this was I got a new set of cranks -- Shimano Deore -- that are a lot better than my old ones.

Pinch Flats Revisited

So my bike got another bad case of the pinch flats this weekend and I decided to bring out the big guns. On the my trip to the Bay Area this week, I wandered down to the new SuperGo superstore in Mountain View and picked up some new "self-healing" tubes (basically stronger inner tubes that have been slimed). I'm going out riding my thorniest trails today to see how they fare.