The new blogger: One HUGE fix

It's been a long time since I had anything kind to say about Google's blogger. It's been a long painful slog since Pyra sold out. One of the first things Google did was make the blog title a part of a post URL, so editing a title typo broke links. It was downhill from there.

Into this dark morass shines a wee bit of light. The new blogger editor search works. What? You thought it worked before? Wrong. The old search was "phrase search" only, so "paradox fermi" would not find "fermi paradox". The new search is, at a minimum, implied-boolean word search -- it may be even smarter than that. Hallelujah.

I love the tags of course, and I'll be making extensive use of them to tie posts together. I'll also be gradually migrating to the new template editor.

Gosh, it's good to have something nice to say about blogger. Maybe Google will even fix the URLs one day.

The secret and tortuous path to submitting a blogger bug report

Google makes it almost impossible to submit a bug report. This page tries to help:

The Real Blogger Status: It's Called Blogger Support - Not Blogger Mindreaders

In my case they lost one of my 15 blogs when I migrated from Blogger old to Blogger new. I did something wrong, there was a bug in the old blogger, and the conversion makes it impossible to correct either bug. Getting help from Google/Blogger is a matter of tricking the bot into moving the request up the ladder. It's not easy ...

Bose QuietComfort 2 Noise Cancelling Headphones - product defect is causing sidearms to crack

I was a wee bit surprised tonight to see that a chunk of plastic had fallen off one arm of my Bose QuietComfort 2 Noise Cancelling Headphones - Headphones and Headsets. On closer inspection there are cracks along both sides of the headphone arms.

Turns out this is a manufacturing defect. Bose will send me a new set (though I’ll be paying shipping one way). Annoying, since I’ll miss ‘em.

If you know someone with a pair, suggest they look for significant cracks.

Update 2/22/07: Bose sent me a new kit, it took about 2-3 weeks for the exchange. I'm glad to have them back, and pleased with Bose service. I wonder if Minnesota weather might have played a role in their demise; I'll avoid freeze-thaw cycles in the future. Since Bose did well with this one, I'm going to look at buying their new earbud headset ...

My iPod shuffle impressions: the cradle from heck

Last year I modified a first generation iPod Shuffle for my mother. I've been pleased by how it worked. This year, a $50 Apple settlement check burned through my pocket and I bought myself a 2nd generation shuffle. Alas, I missed the new ones by a day, so I got the crummy old ear buds.

As usual, I'll update this review as I work with it. Comments:

• lovely packaging
• I hate the cradle. It's another stupid proprietary connector to clutter my desktop. The device is too small for a full iPod connector, but Apple could have put a mini-B USB connector in it. That would have been a compassionate act of great good karma, but instead Apple stuck us. It's enough to make me think fondly of Vista.
• Did I mention I despise the cradle? There's no audio out. The only thing worse than sticking me with YAC (yet another cradle/connector) is omitting the audio out. So you can't charge and play.
• nice decals
• I failed the IQ test. I assume that's what the cryptic directions are. "Red dot: on while any button is pressed when hold is off".
• It plays music.
• It mounts on my desktop so I can, in theory, use it as a thumb drive. If I carried the stupid cradle.
• Miserable cradle.
  

Using Amazon S3 and Jungle Disk to backup an Aperture vault

Backing Up Aperture With Amazon’s S3 - O'Reilly Digital Media Blog. 10Gb one time upload and store would be about $20/year, so use as an image library backup would realistically cost $20-$50 a year. Competitive!

Airport Extreme 802.11n: integrating with 802.11b

Tidbits has an excellent summary of the Airport Extreme. The best part is the discussion of integration with an older WLAN and the Bluetooth issues (emphases mine):

TidBITS - Apple Ships 802.11n Base Station, Software Upgrade

... All Macs with Intel Core 2 Duo processors (except the 17-inch 1.83 GHz iMac) or Xeon processors can be updated to 802.11n, including Mac Pro desktops that had the AirPort Extreme option added. Apple isn't offering 802.11n options for any older Macs; third-party adapters will be required...

...AirPort Extreme with N can work in either the 2.4 gigahertz (GHz) band, in which 802.11b (AirPort) and 802.11g (AirPort Extreme) operate, as well as in the 5 GHz band, which is less occupied and has greater available frequencies... Moody said that the greater range of 802.11n should obviate the need for WDS connections in the home.

In 2.4 GHz, Apple won't allow 40 MHz "wide" channels that, in the absence of other Wi-Fi network signals, could double throughput.... Allowing 40 MHz wide channels in 2.4 GHz would have severely constrained Bluetooth. Starting with version 1.2 of Bluetooth, that short-range networking standard actively avoids frequencies that are in use by Wi-Fi.

Jai Chulani, senior product manager at Apple, suggested that many users would be better served by preserving a legacy 2.4 GHz network for 802.11b/g devices with an existing base station, and plugging that older base station into an Ethernet port on the new AirPort Extreme, which would then operate to its best advantage in 5 GHz.

... an advanced settings option would allow 5 GHz channel selection. This could be important, because four of the nine channels in 5 GHz that Apple is offering are restricted to a low-power mode...

I have an existing Airport Extreme and I have an Airport Express. Since my primary laptop will run 802.11n, and my creaky still-living G3 iBook is 802.11b, I might well end up buying the AExtN, putting the old AExt in legacy mode, and putting the AExp in my luggage as a travel router/WLAN...

Two concerns. Our phones are 5.8 GHz, and I wonder what the relative power and cpu price is for running 802.11n ...

Shuffle: how to spot the good ones

I just used my iPod battery settlement check to buy a shuffle from the online Apple store. So then Apple releases the new line with better ear buds ...

Five Key Facts on Apple’s Colored iPod shuffles | iLounge: "

.... (2) How do I tell old and new metal shuffles apart? If you’re buying a green, pink, blue, or orange iPod shuffle, you’re guaranteed to find the new earphones inside. But if you’re buying a silver iPod shuffle, look for a package with gray print alongside the shuffle, rather than green print. The gray print indicates that new earphones are inside; the green print indicates that you’re getting the older ones...

If I get the old box I might try exchanging it at the local Apple store ...

Update 2/1/07: Drat! I got the old earphones, now suitable only for decorating fish. I also fell for the 'free engraving' scam (my reasoning made sense at the time), so I can't return them and get the better buds.