First off I want to say that the Palm Pre is a huge leap in smartphone tech.  The interface is clean and crisp and the synergy functions of WebOS make it a great phone to organize and update contacts, calendars, notes and tasks across a range of services and social networking sites.  The integration with google is only shadowed by Android obviously.  The services that Sprint offer in their plans arent to shabby either.  The price plans are by far the best bang for your buck in term of what you get.  The fact that you can have navigation, unlimited sms, mms, im and data is awesome.  Even the unlimited everything plan is only 99 bucks compared to Verizon or ATT which would run well over that.  The app store is starting to grow which is another welcomed addition.  Overall the Palm Pre WebOS is what i would classify as a good starting point for Palm to regain some ground but there is more work to do.

I went and purchased a Palm Pre exactly 42 days ago expecting to upgrade my wireless capabilities to a new level and now I am chewing on blood pressure medication like they are tic tacs.  I grabbed the Palm Pre with the expectations of being able to replace a few of my daily gadgets with an all in one device.  My TomTom, iPod, Phone and PDA could all be in one handy little device.  For the most part I acheived my goal except there is that “for the most part” issue.  The Palm Pre is an expensive smartphone at the price of 200 bucks with a 2 year contract on Sprint  and now there are issues with the Pre.

First off, I had no problems for 30 days except the OS lacked some basic functionality that PALM really dropped the ball on.  Things like selecting text for cut, copy and paste is a pain and in calendar event view i can’t scroll to see the entire entry for an event location.  The Blue-tooth capabilities are seriously flawed and don’t work with most blue-tooth car kits or aftermarket devices. Now I am running into hardware issues.  The contact in the 3.5mm headphone jack sticks and disables the audio to the phone’s earpiece making the phone app unusable.  To fix this you have to exercise the headphone jack a few times to unstick the contact.  This is unacceptable for a piece of hardware i spent 200 bucks on. There are other issues that I have read about in other posts such as the slider breaking (mine is getting kinda loose) , screen pixel issues ( 1 is stuck and I’m sure more to follow) and wifi problems that I am sure i will have the privilege of experiencing in the near future.  Those issues are not the worst part though.

Sprint is the 3rd biggest cell provider in the country and their policies and customer service reflect that.  My experience with Sprint customer service is once you bought it and got past the 30 day period YOUR SCREWED!  I am 12 days over my 30 day return period and they are completely unwilling to work with me to resolve the issues.  The Sprint repair center I visited today said they could replace the phone under warranty ONLY if they were to receive a non functioning phone.  Well of course when i got to the store the contact in the 3.5 mm jack became unstuck and the phone worked again so they wouldn’t do anything.  But lets say it didn’t work for them either, they still would only replace it with another Palm Pre that would have had the same known hardware issue.  What am I paying the insurance for if they are gonna give me another phone that has a 99.9% chance of breaking too!  That’s like a Ford recall for exploding gas tanks only to replace it with a gas tank that could EXPLODE!  I can understand not taking a return on a phone that is 2 or 3 months past the return time but 12 days, Really?

Sprint is really on the ball with their plan options and included services but their customer service as the 3rd in the market needs some attention.  My love affair with the Palm Pre was was fiery at the start but is quickly over much like the ability to use the headphone jack for fear it might break my phone.  It was a nice try and a good start to rebuild the Palm name but the bar has been set pretty high by things like the iPhone and the Android OS.  Palm needs to hit those marks before i will buy a Palm device again.  Maybe the HTC Hero can save me?

BOLT  is a web browser developed for mobile users with even the simplest phones.  BOLT provides mobile users with the ability to view PC style web-pages via their mobile device.  Features include streaming content, RSS feed support and 25 to 50 percent faster load times than most mobile browsers.  From Bitstreams website “Built on Bitstream’s ThunderHawk browsing technology, BOLT is the result of 5+ years experience developing mobile browsers that optimize usability, speed and performance on resource-constrained systems with limited memory, processing power and screen space.”  The Beta 2 version is available as a free download.  I have been using this on my Blackberry Curve 8330 for a few weeks now and am very pleased with its performance.

BOLT Browser Website

Last night the folks at Boxee announced the release of a new Boxee alpha.  The top additions to this new alpha are the support for Pandora music streaming, PBS streams, RadioTime, a new API and the video playback is built on the XUL framework.  The XUL framework is the same that Firefox is built on.  Yes, HULU does work.  Good Luck blocking it now.  I just downloaded the alpha release from Boxee.tv and must say it delivers.  Go get it.

http://boxee.tv

Here is a short how to in order to use the new plugins:

Start Boxee and in the left navigation pane scroll down to “Apps Box”.  Along the top of your screen there are four selections, choose the repositories tab and add a new repository.  Type the following in the text field minus the quotes ” dir.boxeehq.com” and select done.  You will now be able to back out and select “New Applications”.  This is where you can add all sorts of new feeds to your Media Player.  Have Fun!

The remote application accesses your Boxee media center PC via Wifi and requires no server side application (other than Boxee obviously).  The iPhone/iPod  has two user interfaces for control.  The first is a gesture method that displays a Boxee logo in the middle of your device screen.  Place your finger on the icon and slide up down or side to side to simulate using the arrow keys on your keyboard.  Tap on the logo after you’ve highlighted your selection to accept, much like a mouse click.  The second user interface is called “Buttons” and its just what you think.  Select the buttons mode and a set of direction arrows, OK button and a back button appear on your device.  A volume slider bar across the bottom of the iPhone/iPod screen will adjust the audio of the computer being controlled.

The iPod/iPhone will also display thumbnails of the current video playing on Boxee and a Now Playing button will display Artist and Title of any music playing.

Boxee Remote Control will work with Boxee Media Center running on PC, MAC and Linux.  Go get it today!

Apple Itunes Store – Boxee Remote

Boxee Media Center

On December 24th 1906, the world heard its first extended voice radio broadcast.  It was from Massachusetts and the broadcast was received by “sparks”, otherwise known as the communications officers on merchant ships in the Atlantic.  Since then it seems that radio has made a few technology advances in how we receive their product but since the onset of FM has been stuck in a technology black hole and refuses to accept that the world around them is changing.  Technology is changing and the method to deliver their broadcasts is going to change.  I will admit that the radio industry has made a few attempts to leap forward with the times but have been run over with a truck much like Frogger.  These are my views on some of the mistakes that have been made and where radio needs to advance too.

I have been a Broadcast Engineer for 12 years.  I started when i was 20 years old and just recently have left the industry to pursue bigger and better things in the IT sector.  In my career I have worked for 2 different radio companies that shall remain nameless but are quite large .  In the time that I slaved over 50,000 watt transmitters and rodent infested transmitter sites in the middle of no where, I got to play with some pretty cool stuff.  Systems to digitize the music library, automation systems, RDS (Radio Data Systems), transmitter remote controls, instant news services, broadcast consoles that were fully routeable and HD Radio.  I watched all of these systems evolve quite a bit in the last 12 years to the point where they function reliably and efficiently with the exception of HD Radio.  I will get to that in a min.  All of the companies that produce these systems have embraced the new technologies, the Internet and the idea that everything is going to computers.  Radio has tried to go another route with the deployment of HD Radio.

HD Radio is the industries answer to improved quality and delivery to you the listener.  CD quality music with the option to hear more stations with the inclusion of HD2  over-the-air to your radio ( If you spend 200 bucks to buy an HD radio).  Has anyone heard HD Radio.  Does anyone even own an HD Radio.  More importantly, is anyone planning on going to buy one.  I think the answer is an overwhelming NO.  If you think about it for a second, you would realize that the average commuter has a 20 min drive to work each day.  In that time they are on the phone or drinking their coffee and  thinking about the work they have to do that day.  With that said lets knock the listening time down to 15 min each way.  There are plenty of radio stations and other devices such as CD’s and MP3 players that will deliver exactly what you want to hear with out spending the money on a new radio. The overwhelming majority doesn’t  listen to the radio at home. They have the TV on or are on the computer.  Does that really justify spending 200+ dollars on a new radio.  The improvement in audio quality isn’t to bad but definitely not enough to prompt me to buy a new radio.  They do sell an add on device to receive HD on your existing radio but who wants to deal with the extra display unit sticking out from your dash tethered to a cable.  I have one of those by the way and it sucks.  The only reason I have it is because I got it for free. So HD Radio was a move towards doing something new (sort of) but in my mind is going to fail horribly.  Good job guys on investing hordes of money into it.   If your still reading, the key sentence in all of this was “They are on the computer”.

So, where do I think radio needs to go now.  It is pretty obvious in my mind.  THE INTERNET!!!!!!!!!  Everything is going to the Internet and why should radio be any different.  The advances that programmers and developers have made in just the last few years on Web 2.0 have basically started the ball hurdling down the hill aimed at broadcast services along with many other things.  Now i know what a lot of people are going to say at this point, ” I listen to my local stations on the web while I am at work”.  This is true, many radio stations do have online web streams.  The stream you hear on your computer is the same as the one you hear on the radio.  Its just a rebroadcast. They need to start developing original content for the web-streams and start promoting them the same as their over the air channels.  Create web-streams with different music formats, talk content and data services.  Start pushing the technology to their advertisers in order to get them to spend money advertising on the web-streams.  Basically abandon the HD Radio medium and focus the same efforts and ideas on the Web.  The need to drive your listeners to the computer is now.  This is where the business is going to end up in less than 10 years. How and why you ask?

Radio companies are not the most efficient operations to run.  The costs involved to pay for and maintain facilities, transmitters, towers and staff are quite high.  Just think about the electric bill that it takes to run a 50,000 watt transmitter site when your transmitter is running at 60% efficiency.  Add this to repair and maintenance costs of buildings and equipment and it gets pretty high.  Now think about what you could do with the Web.   Centrally locate your facility in a large market and be able to broadcast via the internet to the entire world.  This means fewer facilities and less cost.  The inefficient transmitters would be no more. The possibility of an unlimited amount of programming and the only constraint would be available bandwidth.  Use geotagging in your commercials to sell and play local content to specific markets.  The most important reason would be the ability to have your content heard through devices such as cell phones, computers, Internet Tablets and anything else that can access the Internet today and future devices such as in car computers and Internet enabled car stereos.  Most of these devices people already have in their pockets and they already have the capabilities.  This eliminates the requirement of the listener  to spend anymore money in order to recieve your content.  You get better Radio and the broadcast companies get their listeners to drive their sales.  Sounds good!

This is where radio is going.  Most of the technology to make it possible is already provided to you through your computer or cellphone.  The missing pieces such as city-wide or nationwide Internet access is being worked on as I type.  Computers are already being installed in cars to bring you advanced data services such as the Microsoft SYNC system in Fords.  The SYNC system is an early idea that will be expanded in the very near future to include added functionality such as Internet access while you drive.  You will also start seeing competitors to the SYNC system being installed or offered by the major automobile makers.  Combine this with the technology already available to us and its not hard to see where the future of radio is.  The first broadcasting company to partner with a technology provider such as Verizon, Nokia, Apple, RIM, Sprint, ATT or Google to be a part of further developing this new delivery method is going to be the winner. Radio that costs less to produce, reaches more listeners, and provides better service.  Its not hard to see that this is where radio is going.

Just 2 days after the announcement by Seesmic of a standalone Facebook application that is built on Adobe Air just like TweetDeck,  Facebook now is integrated into TweetDeck.  You can post updates to Twitter and Facebook at the same time and retweet information in both directions.  The app is limited to posting updates only so you cant comment or reply to friends and have them show up on the other service, but is that really needed or wanted.  Other functions include the ability to see which friends are currently online and even includes the IM function in Facebook.

Installation is the standard 3 clicks and go, so no issues there.

This is now available for download but is still in Beta so there may be more functionality to come.  Really nice addition to Tweetdeck and makes my online social agenda so much easier.

Add the following code to the .htaccess file at the root of your site.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?YourDomain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|png|jpg)$ - [F]

Boxee runs on Linux, OSX, and Windows. The Linux and OSX beta clients are open to download but the Windows beta is still an invite only deal.

I have been using boxee for a couple of weeks now and I can say I am in love. No more visting each individual web site to look for content. I just launch boxee and surf the content on most of the major media sites just like I am changing channels on my T.V.

Boxee comes with the ability to play content directly from Hulu, Comedy Central, CBS, Last.fm, Netflix, MySpaceTV and a number of other sources. Seeing it is open source and based on the XBOX Media Center project there are a number of additional plugins for other sites available with new ones showing up in their forums every day. I found this Adult Swim plugin on their forum. No more missed episodes of Robot Chicken. I couldn’t be happier.

I can’t explain it as well as the video below so check it out.

The Debian package was a quick one click install with no hassle. Set-up of the software was the same.  Simply enter the name of your HAVA box, enter your password, and click on the connect button and away it goes. Be careful as the IT wants to make the first character a capital by default. Video on the LAN is superb. It’s leaps and bounds better than the equivalent slingbox mobile and desktop players.  The best part of this is that it’s portable. You can take your IT (Internet Tablet) wherever you want to go, you can even watch an episode of House in the bathroom if you want.

The video and audio on the LAN is very good and remote viewing over the Internet isn’t to shabby either. This will obviously depend on the quality of your Internet connection. I have a pretty poor connection at home (Stay away from housing developments that use Hcontrol) and I can still view a show with decent quality. The video does have a tendency to get out of sync with the audio from time to time but, this is a slight offset and should be improved before the final release to the general public. The HAVA unit is also capable of streaming HD content from an external HD Tuner. I played with this a little yesterday and it does work but, there’s nothing to exciting about it. The quality was the same as standard definition content but, I guess if you want to see your local broadcasters HD2 weather channel, then it’s a plus.

The user interface is simple to navigate and provides quite a bit of control. The software includes four generic remote control surfaces that include a standard number pad with channel up/down, a favorites pad with 12 programmable favorite buttons, an STS remote with standard sat receiver controls, and a generic PVR control for playing recorded shows. The last function is not implemented yet. The only way to view recorded shows at this time is to record and then transfer them to your Nokia N800/810.

Overall, I have to take my hat off to the folks at Monsoon, good work.  This is an application that a lot of people have been wanting for a long time and the people at Sling refused to provide. Thank You.

I received the Hava Platinum HD in the mail a couple weeks ago and quickly ripped it out of the package (Christmas Morning Style).  The contents included the Hava Platinum HD, Ethernet cable, 2 Component HD cables, 2 AV cables, powers supply and CD.  The Component and AV cables are standard RCA connectors on one end and 1/8th inch 4 contact phono connectors to interface with the Hava box.  The Hava Box is capable of streaming HD channels across your network and has HD pass through so you can place your Hava Box in-between your cable box and TV, hence the two HD cables.  Audio is only standard stereo unfortunately and is handled by the AV cables minus the video plug.  Hell, if you wanted 5.1 surround, go sit in front of your 72 inch plasma with your 3000 dollar surround system with your 18 speakers.  That’s what you bought it for.

Heres the rundown:

Hava Platinum HD- HD and Standard Definition, IR blasters for cable or Sat box control,wired Ethernet only, recording or time shift capabilty to a PC and NO built in tuner.

Hava Wireless HD – HD and standard Definition, Standard Definition tuner built in, IR blasters for cable or Sat box control, wireless bridge built in, recording or time shift capability to a PC.

Hava Titanium HD – HD and  standard definition, IR blasters for cable or sat box control, wireless USB dongle with future support for N networks, recording or time shift capability to a PC.  This unit also has an internal hard drive or 2 USB ports to plug in an external drive for recording.  This function is in beta now. No built in tuner.

As of today, Hava only supports Windows based software for the player.  The software has a nice interface and is easy to set-up and use but the real advantage these units have over the Slingbox is that they are developing the client for the N800 and Linux support.  Thanks for showing the penguin a little respect.  More on this later when I get my copy of the Internet Tablet software.