5G iPod (vPod) is really a very impressive audio iPod

Top Ten Things Techies Wanted to Know About the 5G iPod is a great summary, just the kind of things I'm interested in. Bottom line is, video aside, the 5G iPod is a very impressive audio device. They may have dumped firewire to free up some interal real estate.

Part of the article was a discussion of 'dots per inch' on a range of displays. I thought that was a fascinating reference all by itself. I have a vague memory that the original Mac SE was 80 dpi (I think printer was roughly the same resolution!). We really haven't come very far in terms of screen resolution.

Apple Cinema Display 20”: 99.05dpi (20” screen)
Apple Cinema Display 30”: 101.6dpi (29.7” screen)
Original Black and White iPods (1G-4G): 102.4 dpi (2” screen)
Apple iPod mini: 105.7 (1.67” screen)
Sony PlayStation Portable: 128dpi (4.3” screen)
iPod photo/color/4G: 141 dpi (2” screen)
iPod nano: 147 dpi (1.5” screen)
iPod 5G: 160 dpi (2.5” screen)
Creative Zen Vision: 216dpi (3.7” screen)

If this is right then you can actually get more on a Nano screen than a Mini screen or the original iPods (1.5*147 vs. 2.0*102). Seems unlikely ...

eHow.com - Clear Instructions on How To Do (just about) Everything

I was researching speaker connections when Google took me to this site: eHow.com - Clear Instructions on How To Do (just about) Everything.

There's an RSS feed for the 'how to' of the day. I liked 'how to buy an island'.

AvantGo RSS Feeds for Palm and PocketPC

I used to be a big AvantGo fan -- back when my Palm had a future. I'd almost forgotten about them. I'm surprised it's taken them this long to add RSS support:

PalmInfocenter.com: AvantGo Adds Support for RSS Feeds

AvantGo Adds Support for RSS Feeds
Posted By: Ryan on Tuesday, October 18, 2005 11:19:59 AM

iAnywhere today announced the beta release of new RSS (Really Simple Syndication) features for its AvantGo mobile Internet service...AvantGo users can now add any RSS feed to their account, without installing additional software, and then synchronize using a wireless or desktop Internet connection to receive the feed items in a format optimized for their device.

* Easily view new RSS items/articles: AvantGo RSS channels include all active items in a feed. Any new items since a user's last synchronization are noted next to the channel name on the AvantGo homepage and appear in bold text within the RSS channel.

* Save RSS items: To save an item, the user simply selects the disk icon next to the item title, with the ability to save up to five items per RSS channel.

* Easily share photos: If an RSS feed channel includes photos, a "Slideshow" link will appear at the top of the channel homepage. Users can select the Slideshow link to easily flip through the photos in the feed. Since photos are already delivered to the device during AvantGo syncs, users can share pictures from their mobile device without waiting for each image to be retrieved over the wireless network. Users of photo sharing sites that offer photo feeds can make AvantGo their mobile photo album.

* Channel personalization: Users can adjust channel settings to optimize feed subscriptions, setting the maximum allowable size for the channel and whether or not to include images. Users can also modify the link depth setting, which tells AvantGo how many page levels it should crawl when synchronizing the channel.

* Easily subscribe to RSS channels with AvantGo's AutoChannel for RSS: Users can take advantage of the AvantGo AutoChannel for RSS bookmarklet which enables easy on-the-fly subscriptions to a site's RSS channel. When a users is on a page that includes an RSS feed, a browser bookmark can quickly add that page into AvantGo for RSS.

* Publishers can create a button that enables users to quickly add their site to AvantGo: Content publishers such as bloggers, online media and magazines can use an AvantGo button creation tool to generate code for a button to place on their Website, making it easy for readers to take the site's feed mobile.

The beta version of iAnywhere's new AvantGo for RSS service is immediately available for AvantGo 5.7 users. AvantGo for RSS supports RSS versions 0.91, 1.0 and 2.0 and Atom syndication formats. Supported devices include Palm OS 5, Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Symbian OS UIQ and Symbian OS v6.1 Series 60.

Automator.us?

A web site dedicated to OS X Automator with the domain name automator.us? What?

Automator - Downloads

Apple Aperture: iPhoto replacement?

I've been wating for Apple's new Aperture photo software for a few years now. At $250 (educational, I teach) I'll likely buy it -- unless it's unbearably slow. (Hardware requirements are immense, either Aperture is a fundamentally stupid piece of software or the requirements are for working with tens of thousands of 30MB raw images.) DPReview has a good summary.

The key specs are here:

Photo Management

* Work with thousands of projects
* High-performance database
* Organize photos into projects and albums
* Include up to 10,000 “master” images per Project with as many “versions” as needed
* Create albums from any combination of images
* Combing photos from multiple projects into albums
* Search using Smart Albums based on metadata queries
* One-click archival and backup
* Backup to multiple drives concurrently
* Aperture tracks backup status and location of all images

So albums can span projects. If there are thousands of projects, with up to 10,000 master images per project, that's at least 10 million images per database. Now we're talking.

If it does the above, and it can capture most of my iPhoto metadata, and the performance demands are really about RAW workflow, then it's bye-bye iPhoto for me.

PS. What the heck does this mean? "Create alternate versions without using extra disk space". Somehow it stores a 'diff' for derivative images?! Now that would be seriously impressive.

Update: Ok, I just saw this. I am going to own this software.

Works Flawlessly with iPhoto
Aperture works seamlessly with iPhoto. You can browse your iPhoto library without leaving Aperture, and you can choose to import:

• Individual photos
• Albums
• Folders
• Film rolls
• Your entire iPhoto library (complete with keywords, titles and other metadata)

PS. Odd note today. I was scanning the O'Reilly Mac blogs and I read this reprinted there ars a part of an Aperture "blog roundup".

Update 12/2/05: Now that Aperture is out, the manual is available. Aperture doesn't import iPhoto smart albums. The manual doesn't say how iPhoto handles the original vs. changed image in iPhoto.

Importing Your iPhoto Library

When you open Aperture,a dialog appears that enables you to import photos from
your iPhoto Library. The organization of your iPhoto images and albums is maintained, as well as each image’s name, EXIF information, keywords,ratings, and any adjustments applied to images.

You cannot import slideshows, books, and Smart Albums from your iPhoto Library.

Note:You must upgrade to iPhoto version 5 or later before you can import photos
from your iPhoto Library into Aperture.

If you choose not to import photos from your iPhoto Library right away,you can import them later.

iPhoto 5: the secret Apple documentation

Apple has knowledge base where they hide some of their advanced iPhoto documentation. Here's a link to a relevant page, unfortunately their data sort goes from oldest to newest.

iPhoto kb technical articles, sorted by date

Rave review of G5 iPod -- and a very handy audio tip

I love the earbuds in a cup trick ...

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

...Speaking of the screen, lets get back to it for a second. I watched an entire episode of Lost, holding the iPod in my lap while on the train and I could see everything clearly with no squinting necessary. There's no need to hold the screen right up to your eyes, as some people have claimed would be the case. Then, after I arrived home, I propped up the iPod in the kitchen as I cooked dinner. I simply turned the audio up all the way and dropped the earphones in a little cup (nice acoustics trick there for a lo-fi amplifier) and could hear everything nicely as I cooked up my steak for dinner.