ReWinD Blog

After my groundbreaking investigative reporting on the upcoming 2.0 release of Delicious Library, I’ve been inundated by more rumors than a ValleyWag tip line. I’ve been seeing a lot of chatter about a secret project at Google codenamed “Google LP” that frankly didn’t make sense until just this morning.
Most of you are likely familiar by now with Gmail Paper, an amazing new offering from the wizards of Mountain View. You can get hardcopies of all your email sent to you at no charge, albeit with large red ads on the back of each page. All visual attachments are also sent to you, whether those be documents or image files (no word on whether or not the glossy photo paper also has red ads on the back or not). In the notes, you’ll see that the only attachments that are not supported are audio files like MP3 and WAV files. Here’s where the secret project comes in.

Apparently, while investigating alternative methods of high-density data storage and reliable backup medium, Google has patented a new process for permanently recording audio information onto a new type of disc made from a copolymerized version of vinyl chloride and vinyl acetate with small amounts of carbon black added. These improvements apparently build on the legendary work (patent # 4472295) of Fox and DiMarco, now rumored to be Google Fellows. These discs are somewhat resistant to dust (they can be wiped clean with distilled water when combined with other surfactants as additives to act as grease solvents, particularly for fingerprints) and can therefore be reliably used as removable media with a special “player” that can read the information imprinted on the surface of the vinyl disc.

This system is platform agnostic and will apparently work independently of any operating system on your computer. There is absolutely no need to be concerned about compatibility with your digital media player device. In fact, the audio output is said to be compatible with any equipment that has stereo phono input jacks.

This is where it gets exciting! Even though this project wasn’t ready for simultaneous release with Gmail Paper, this new system will allow Google to inscribe your MP3, AAC, WAV, etc. audio file attachments to these new PVC discs which Google will then mail to you for playback on the required player device. The player devices are available from a variety of manufacturers although they will be hard to find in most mainstream electronics stores for some time, although there are reports of the players being seen in high-end audio shops and, surprisingly enough, in pawn shops and thrift stores.

Here’s the final evidence. You’ll notice that in the images announcing Gmail Paper that the woman in the first picture (You click) is listening to audio content on her computer. She obviously wants to archive this material to physical media as well. BUT PICTURE #2 (We stack) WAS SUBSTITUTED AT THE LAST MINUTE when it was clear that the secret audio project wasn’t ready. Here is the original image that will go out again when the audio file support is ready.

Google Vinyl is coming, and it’s going to rock your world!

BREAKING UPDATE! - I’m trying to confirm if targeted audio ads are going to be placed on the disc between tracks or if red text ads are going to be printed on the surface of the disc. The latest rumors point to the possibility of both methods being used. There are also unsubstantiated rumors about less expensive ad placement for advertisers that don’t mind having their content show up when the discs are played backwards. The craziest rumors are that the highest priced placement will be audio ads *embedded* in your audio files at levels that are imperceptible to the conscious mind and therefore don’t affect the audio quality of your files. These are called subvinyl or perhaps sublaminate ads. Something like that - the audio was a little scratchy on the message I received.

Technology gmail, gmailpaper, google, googlevinyl, mp3, music, Technology

If you launch Google Notifier for Mac, you’ll be prompted to “upgrade” to the latest version. I’m thrilled to report that this latest version 1.9.97 works perfectly with Google Apps for Your Domain. All the links in the pull-downs will take you to the appropriate page in the hosted versions of Google Apps Mail or Calendar.

I tried to find release notes to find what else has changed in this release but have been unsuccessful in the last 2-1/2 minutes. In fact, when you get to the “What is Notifier?” page in Google Help Center, the link for information on the Mac version of Notifier goes nowhere (404 error).

I reset Safari to check for the bug where Mail notification would only work when you had logged in from Safari first. So far, no signs of that bug either.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the invaluable Gmail+Growl for Google Notifier which allows you to run all the Notifier notifications through the Growl notification notifier.
Have I mentioned that I love Google Apps?

Apple, Technology Apple, gafyd, gmail, google, Technology

Chris Lanier wrote the other day that he thinks that digital media players are missing an opportunity because they only support a limited set of file formats or codecs. I love Chris’ blog and read his posts regularly to keep up with what’s happening in the HTPC world. I’m a little surprised that I disagree with him, but in this case my opinion is very different.

The point that I think Mr. Lanier missed is that supporting a wider variety of codecs would push the price point of these media devices far past what most would be willing to pay for a consumer electronics box. Hardware decoding is relatively inexpensive because you can buy an IC from Broadcom (or someone else) that handles most of the video processing and decodes H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2, etc. You can hit a $300 price point with a device like this.

However, if you want the horsepower to decode other codecs (especially at HD resolutions) *IN SOFTWARE*, you are going to be looking at high-end PC specs. Can you imagine if the TiVo Series 3 was based on the Core 2 Duo and had a nVidia 7950GT in it? It would definitely have the horsepower to decode just about anything you could throw at it, but no one would buy it when they could buy a fully functional PC for *LESS* that didn’t have a monthly subscription fee.

Transcoding is definitely where it’s at. I want the ability to manage my content from my computer and then make that content available to all the devices I own. Here is where the “support all codecs” on the media player argument is backwards in my mind. I want the devices to be functional and cheap. I want my computer to be the workhorse that can figure out how to make my content available to those other devices and be aware of all their limitations. I want to manage my content centrally too and have all this transcoding and compression happen in the background so I don’t have to deal with it.

I want to buy a HD movie once and then automagically have that content transcoded and resized to play on my iPod, Xbox, AppleTV, laptop, etc. I also want to download flash movies from the internet, divx home movies, and on and on. My media manager should be intelligent enough to know the MPEG block constraints of the iPod’s decoder, that my Xbox Elite is set to use 1080p over HDMI, that my AppleTV can only do 720p at 24fps or 540p at 30fps and so on. I definitely do *NOT* want my iPod to be capable of playing back 20Mbps H.264 content at 1080p because I don’t want to spend $2000 for a video iPod. I am willing to spend big bucks on my main computer though.

I have high hopes that someone will figure this out and create a seamless PC, TV w/extender, mobile solution that will let me enjoy my (legally obtained) content anywhere, anytime, anyhow I want to.

HomeTheater, Technology AppleTV, h.264, hdtv, HomeTheater, htpc, iPod, Technology, transcoding

I’ve been itching to write more about Solaris 10 and ZFS now that I’ve got it working on my budget server. Unfortunately, I’ve been out of town this last week and haven’t had a chance to write much. Before I write up the full install and setup process, I thought I’d give you a little teaser.

You can get started at the Solaris home page. Incidentally, www.solaris.com will redirect you to the page on sun.com, in case you forget the URL. The first thing you’ll want to do is start downloading the x86 install disc image, because this will take a while. From the Get Solaris page you need to select the download option or sign up to have a software kit sent to you in the mail. If you have a DVD drive, I would recommend the compressed DVD image download if you’re running Windows. It comes in four parts, which are heavily compressed. Once you download all four parts, the decompression and disc creation routine will take quite a while. It took about an hour (if I remember right) just to make the image on my 2.4GHz P4 machine. Add burning time on top of that.

Once you have the install disc ready to go, the rest of the process is pretty easy. You can get an overview at “How to Quickly Install the Solaris 10 1/06 OS” and there’s a pretty good Solaris x86 FAQ available from sun.drydog.com as well.

Project, Technology Project, solaris, Technology, zfs

Wil Shipley reveals in the midst of a stream of consciousness blog post that attendees at TED only received a coupon for the next version of Delicious Library. The actual app is still not finished (yet).

C’mon, Wil. We’re rooting for you!

Apple, Technology Apple, deliciouslibrary, deliciouslibrary2, deliciousmonster, dl2, Technology, wilshipley

I’m proud to announce that I’ve got Solaris 10 up and running pretty smoothly on my new AMD-based system. I had some annoying compatibility issues with the first system I tried, so I switched to the ASUS M2NPV-VM motherboard with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ CPU. This board has much better support in Solaris 10 out of the box. The onboard GPU (nVidia GeForce 6150) is recognized immediately as is the onboard ethernet. So much nicer to work with…

There are some other things that I really like about this board. It’s got four USB ports and Firewire on the back. There are also headers for two more USB and one more firewire port on the motherboard. DVI out it also nice.  Check out the expansion options below…

Another thing that works really well for my project is that there are 2 IDE connectors and 4 SATA connectors. I plugged the boot drive and the DVD-ROM drive into the IDE port (as master/slave on one cable). Four SATA ports is the bare minimum for what I want to accomplish, but it will suffice for the next year or so. If I run out of room quicker than that, I’ll add a PCI board or something.

A couple other cool extras that come with this Asus board…

• Firewire bracket (for the rear openings in a standard case)
• HDTV video out bracket with component outputs (the 6150 is capable of 1080i)
• extra IDE cables and a SATA cable

So next up is the physical build process and then Solaris installation. ZFS setup is so easy, it almost doesn’t deserve a post. I’ll see if I can do some rough benchmarks for fun though.

Project, Technology amd, asus, Project, solaris, Technology, zfs

A couple weeks ago I noticed that Google Notifier was no longer giving me notifications of new email. All this started right around the time that Google launched their Premier Edition service. I was going to write about this back then, but the post sat in my drafts while I was trying to figure out what was happening. I think I finally have the full (if somewhat disappointing) answer.

I sign in with my Google Apps account (not a regular Gmail account). Unfortunately, Google Notifier hasn’t been updated to work properly with Google Apps for Your Domain. The links to open your calendar, inbox, compose a new message, and so on try to take you to the regular Gmail or Calendar pages. The login fails because Notifier is presenting credentials for Google Apps. What was more puzzling was that the new items list still worked in Calendar, but not in Mail. The notifications and the count of new mail items in the menu bar used to work and now I’ve figured out how to make them work again.

The key (for some unknown reason) is to login to Google Apps in Safari first. Yep, that’s it. I have Firefox set as my default browser and rarely use Safari so I hadn’t noticed until I logged in with that browser. Once you do that, Google Notifier will start working again for email notifications. I still can’t open my Mail from Notifier, but the notifications and unread message count work.

This a good spot to put a little plug in for Growl as well. All you need is Gmail+Growl, which will feed the notifications to Growl so you can integrate them into your other system notifications.

I did a little digging around in the package for Notifier and there are several hardcoded references to the gmail page. Along with the dependency on having a valid cookie with Safari, this makes Google Notifier less than perfect. Hopefully, someone will get around to updating this utility to work properly with mail.google.com/a/<domain> as well as mail.google.com/accounts.

Apple, Technology Apple, email, firefox, gafyd, gmail, google, mac, notifier, osx, safari, Technology

Apparently Joost is just around the corner. I received an email this morning (along with lots of other people, I’m sure) that says that they are very close to opening up the service to more testers and they will shortly add everyone who has signed up to try Joost.

Being able to watch Viacom properties online will definitely keep me interested in actually watching something on Joost. I’ll be sure to post impressions as soon as I get my account setup. I’d like to hear your impressions too.

If you haven’t already, you can sign up for the beta test from their home page.

Entertainment, HomeTheater, Technology Entertainment, HomeTheater, iptv, joost, Technology, viacom

Don’t run off and check the Delicious Monster site or the unofficial forums just yet. Still, I think I’ve got the goods on Delicious Library 2. In Wil Shipley’s latest personal blog post, he talks a lot about his visit to TED this past week and how he’s completely infatuated with Meg Ryan. After obsessing about whether Matt Groening really thinks he’s funny or Meg Ryan digs his buns of steel, Shipley dropped a innocuous comment that Delicious Library 2 is included in the TED swag bag.

He also mentioned that Peter Gabriel is going to save $60 in upgrade fees (and yes, I’m sure that is pretty important to someone in his position). I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that means the upgrade fee is $20 (or half the cost of a full license) and Gabriel owns three licenses (which is three more than anything I’ve ever sold to an A-list celebrity). Still, I’m not sure why receiving one copy of DL2 would remove the need to upgrade other licenses. If Gabriel doesn’t need separate upgrade licenses, why did he need separate full licenses in the first place?

So why do I care? Well, I like collecting stuff. I’m a bit of a bibliophile (I’m working on a Master’s in History, so this should be no surprise) and Delicious Library is a fun app. The need for it isn’t so great since I’ve discovered LibraryThing last year, but I still enjoy it. I also have a modest CD and DVD collection. DVDProfiler, which I love, hasn’t been updated in a while and Listal seems to cover most of my needs, but I still like the offline access in DL.

I still think that the next generation of collecting software needs to be online, or at least an online/desktop hybrid. Collecting is in the sweet spot for social software concepts. I’d like to manage my collection, but also share it with others, see what my friends like, get recommendations based on the collective wisdom of the crowd, leverage a shared database of detailed information collated by OCD collectors (the great success of DVDProfiler), write reviews to share, rate items, etc. All those things work better online.

There’s still room for desktop software and offline tools, but I’d love to see something like bi-directional sync with DL2. Here’s to hoping!

In any case, we should find out what DL2 can do as soon as the upgrades are made available to the unwashed masses who didn’t make it to TED this year.

Apple, Technology Apple, collecting, deliciouslibrary, dvdprofiler, librarything, listal, Technology, TED

I ran across this podcast/article at HTGuys today. It gives a pretty good high-level description of a working home theater system that uses the Mac mini as the hub for video and audio. The system is primarily used for movie viewing (ripped from DVD’s) and the bulk of the conversation is about this, but it does mention recording TV as well.

This article highlights some of the advantages that the mini provides over the AppleTV. In particular, the mini allows for AC3 audio passthrough to your receiver for surround sound. There doesn’t appear to be a way to encode surround sound into AppleTV-compatible files. The mini also allows for the possibility of TV recording and central storage that can be shared out to the rest of the house (the AppleTV has a 40GB hard drive for caching content shared from another computer’s iTunes library). With a wired network, the system here is able to stream HD content to three computers at the same time.

As much as I’d like to dump my cable DVR and roll my own, I still can’t make up my mind which approach to take. More and more, I see disadvantages to the AppleTV approach.

Apple, HomeTheater, Technology Apple, AppleTV, HomeTheater, htpc, iTunes, mac, Technology