Sunday, May 29, 2005
Gabba Gabba Hey Day
The Sunday of Memorial Day weekend proved to be the perfect moment to finally go and pay respects to Joey Ramone, misfit vocalist of one of the all time definitive rock bands. A beautiful warm sunny spring day in New Jersey. The Hillsdale Cemetery is just 15 minutes away from Cedar Grove, and the instructions on how to find the plot offered up by Google were clear and accurate. Joey certainly picked a fine place to lie down. Manhattan's skyline glistened across the water. And there was hardly anyone else around. A quiet hour or so letting old memories run around.
The photos are blogged on Joypix.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
What am I missing here?
Today brings a Yahoo report about the new Nokia internet tablet which will go on sale this northern summer. At US$350 it has wifi and is intended to provide fast and easy internet and email capacities for around the house. The announcement says that there is a plan to introduce software next year to enable voice over IP telephony for the tablet.
I am wondering what I am missing here, since similarly priced palmtops already do all this and more. Turning my humble HP Ipaq 4200 into a 'cordless phone' running on wifi was as simple as downloading Skype's free Pocket PC software. No doubt there is a lot more to the tablet than is conveyed in the press release. Running on Linux, as it does, is doubtless a plus for the Nokia, but if there are further advantages over similarly priced palms I'd be interested to know what they are.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
It's lovely to see one of our favourite internet people, Steven Johnson, enjoying a lot of success with his latest book, "Everything Bad is Good for You" -- about how popular culture is making us smarter. Amazon is currently running a great deal on "Everything Bad" and Johnson's previous best selling book on brains. While "Everything Bad" -- like most everything that Johnson writes -- contains plenty to disagree with, a great read is assured.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Bypassing compulsory website registration
Here's a handy lil' web service that lets you skirt around annoying "free registration required" website gates: bugmenot.com
Interestingly enough, it's recommended by the New York Times (which is one of those very "registration required" websites that bugmenot.com circumnavigates). :)
