My Life in the Tech World

 I'm selling some stock photos online.

Bought an ADATA S511 120GB SSD drive recently and I was going to return it because it was crashing my system about once every day. It required a full power cycle to get the drive back after the crash too. The good news is that the latest firmware from ADATA has fixed the problems. Since I had some trouble updating the firmware thought I'd post about what worked for me. First, you'll need to download the updates: http://adatausa.com/index.php? action=product_download&cid=3& piid=130 Get the ADATA firmware upgrade tool and the firmware for your drive. They've compressed using RAR (not sure why they didn't use ZIP) so you'll also need a program such as  7-zip  to extract the files. Plan on the firmware update as the first thing you do with the drive.  There is a possibility of data corruption using the old firmware. For peace of mind, you're better off installing the latest firmware right after you physically install the drive. When installing t...

My new Galaxy Tab 10.1 arrived yesterday and I've used it for several hours now. Since most of the reviews I've read focus on processors, pixels, and applications I'll just write about my subjective thoughts about how Galaxy Tab 10.1 feels to use versus iPad 1. The Galaxy Tab feels as well built as the iPad.  Both have the same solid rigidness of glass and metal. There are no creaks or other  warping sounds from either device when holding normally. In short, they both have the expensive electronic device feel. My wife who is the primary user of the iPad commented that the Galaxy Tab looks and feels much smaller, thinner, and lighter than iPad 1. Though she also noted that you wouldn't want to fall asleep while reading something and have the Galaxy Tab bonk your nose. We can't compare to the iPad 2 since we don't have one. After holding and using the Galaxy Tab while laying down I noticed that it was harder to hold than the iPad. At first I thought the ba...

Got my invite to Google Music the other day and loaded it up on my Mac Book Pro. Google Music is essentially a music locker service that gives you access to your music on the web and Android mobile devices with an internet connection. The sign up process is really simple. You login with your Google ID and walk through a few steps. In one of the steps  Google Music asks you about your music preferences. These selections are used to populate your account with free songs. This last part is important because otherwise you'd start out with an empty locker and you'd have nothing to listen to. So I started playing the free music and downloaded the music manager application. By the way, the free music selection was good and I was happy to listen while I installed the application. Web UI for Google Music Beta The installation of the Google Music Manager took just a few seconds. It installs and runs with very little configuration. In my case, I told it all my music was in iTune...

It seems that Toyota will be partnering with Microsoft for their future  telematics  systems. I guess Apple and Google don't care about this market! I wish they would care. Toyota finally understands that people want more than what they're getting with today's Toyota and Lexus cars. Thank heaven! However, the lingering question remains: Will these new systems be like todays and only be usable while parked? Check the Wired article for more details.

iPad 2 line Palo Alto, CA iPad 2 line goes around the block in Palo Alto.

A friend who was one of the early employees at Google told me there was a point when they had too many users, too much growth, and no money coming in. There was talk of shutting down the service. That seems odd now but in the immediate post internet bubble years investors were wary of companies without a clear path to money. Fast forward to today and there are companies such as Facebook with too many users, too much growth, and plenty of investment money coming in. Essentially, today's high fliers don't need to worry about cash and it  shows. Facebook in particular is a rather fat company compared with the pre-Adwords Google. Long term this is going to have an impact on these companies. It's not in their DNA to make money. Their users aren't deriving benefit from the company's money making activity. Early on Google learned to provide a valuable service that generates money so that the company could stay alive. Today, if you're looking for a product or serv...

A few friends of mine are in start up mode. They have ideas and are looking for money and or people to help them get things going. One of these friends asked me to pick him up for lunch from Sequoia Capital. He was visiting there looking for investors for his latest startup. SC is a venture capital firm with an office in a small wooded business complex in Menlo Park. It was raining heavily so I decided to wait in the lobby for him to complete his meetings. As I walked up I saw people through some windows in the complex. In one window there was a guy with metal disks waving them around demonstrating something to another man who sat silently watching. In another window, there was a guy running through what looked like a demonstration of a website. In the last window I saw a group of people reviewing a powerpoint. It occurred to me that in most cases there was one or more people asking for money and one or more people evaluating. I made my way into the lobby and tal...

My friends at Foodista Friends  are posting some great recipes. Check out their site.

Air Video allows you to stream your videos to iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad devices. I like it and recommend that you give the free version a try. Here's how to set it up in a few minutes. Air Video Air Video has two parts. The first part is a server that runs on your desktop machine at home or whenever your videos are stored. The server essentially reads the local videos (that you've configured to be viewable) and publishes them for your mobile devices. In some cases, that requires that the videos be converted to a format for your mobile device. This conversion can happen in real time (Air Video "Live Conversion") if you have at least a Core 2 Duo processor on your desktop. Live conversion allows you to watch the video instantly. The videos may also be converted in batch mode. You basically say you want to convert a video and it will be available to watch as soon as the conversion finishes. Step 1) Install the Air Video Server  on a fast machine with access...

My two year old Lexus LS is in the shop getting valve springs replaced as part of a recall. Apparently, a small percentage of these springs have impurities in the metals which may cause them to break apart. The job is going to take several days so I have a loaner ES 350. I've taken this opportunity to check out the new electronics in the ES 350. Lexus made several improvements to bluetooth support versus my system. First, they added a "phone" label to the "Info" button so that users can actually find the phone setup. This change alone probably saves new Lexus drivers thousands of minutes everyday. The on-screen menus are also improved so I was able to setup handsfree in just a few seconds. The phone power and signal meters are also accurate which isn't true with the LS screens. The LS often indicates incorrectly that the phone battery is near death or that I have signal when I don't. The biggest improvement is bluetooth audio support. Music can be stre...

The latest piece of equipment for home theater puzzle is an  Acer AspireRevo AR3700 . It's a very small nettop PC that can easily be hooked up to a TV using HDMI. My plan was to load the amazing XBMC application  onto the device, point XBMC at my library of ripped movies, and then enjoy watching. I also wanted to keep Windows 7 installed in case I needed other Windows applications. By the way, for those who already know Google TV and Apple TV you can think of XBMC as a much better application for playing back content on your home network. Maybe someone will port it to Google TV one day. After cabling up the Revo 3700 I spent some time removing all the extra software Acer had loaded onto the system. Then I ran windows update and loaded XBMC. I configured XBMC to use files on an SMB server and started playing some video. It worked but the video stuttered quite a bit. I worried that the Revo did not have enough horsepower to play 1080p video so I put some video on a USB dri...

Tried to sign up for Google IO today at about 11AM but by the time I loaded the registration page the conference was sold out. 5000 seats sold out in less than an hour! I understand the excitement. Talks detailing Google's latest APIs, a few free gadgets, and access to Google engineers. Personally, I really wanted to hear about GWT. Access Denied! Poor me.

The family was at the mall over the weekend and decided to buy an Apple TV so that we'd be one step closer to having a complete set of internet TV devices. The current Apple TV device is a small black box about the size of a stack of a few fancy drink coasters. You know the kind with cork on the bottom. It comes with an aluminum Apple remote and a power cord. The packaging is amazingly spare and elegant. You need to supply the HDMI cable. Apple conveniently sells a matching black HDMI cable in the store. I was disappointed that the cable wasn't included in the box because you'll absolutely need one to connect to your TV. You might say cable length matters but honestly the Apple TV is so small that you won't have any trouble placing it near your TV or even velcro'd to the back. Getting the device out of the box and physically connected to the TV took no more than five minutes. I powered the Apple TV on using the remote. There is no physical power button. Then I...

A friend of mine just built a web store for her favorite kids clothes store. She tells me that little girls love Banana Cabana Bathing Suits . Check out Kids Only Los Altos if you have time.

Google TV got an update. The most important thing for me is the improved Netflix interface. It's now essentially the same as Netflix on Wii, Xbox, and PS3. I haven't noticed any other GTV changes that are significant to me. That said, the new Netflix interface is a great improvement. Sony Google TV Remote. It's got a wooz button! For the last few weeks I've been watching more Google TV. Since we're a Tivo/Comcast household we have all our broadcast shows stored on the Tivo. I tried to play some HD video pulled from my Tivo. I downloaded the video using a web browser, ran tivodecode ,  and copied it to a server. The video plays with VLC and Windows Media Player. It did not play on Google TV's media player. In fact, sadly, playing the Tivo video actually locked up the Google TV so that it wouldn't respond to the remote control or power button on the TV itself. Wow. Eventually the Google TV asked if I wanted to force quit the media player. This got me th...

I've been making the switch from Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 to Sony Vegas Pro 10. Up until buying an AVCHD camcorder two years ago I had been using Premiere exclusively. However, the lack of AVCHD in CS3 and the initial buggy AVCHD support in CS4 prompted me to look for alternatives. I tried out the trial version of Vegas Pro and found that it was rock solid editing AVCHD, had great export options, and seemed more modern than CS3 or CS4 because of its 64bit architecture support. More recently Vegas has improved their GPU acceleration and the UI has become more polished. Anyway, since I don't have all night to write this. I wanted to focus on the cool image stabilization feature that isn't included in CS4. I had some old very shaky handheld footage I shot at a friends wedding using a Hi-8 camcorder. I searched the internet to see if there was anything I could do to fix it. Turns out that Vegas Pro has an amazing video stabilization feature. Basically, you just select...

Just wanted to give an update on my last post about the Vais VML MultiMediaLinQ . Over the last several months I've had a lot of different devices connected to it. I'm happy with the VML but I hadn't found a storage device that worked perfectly. All the mechanical USB drives I connected would occasionally go offline requiring me to unplug the USB cable to reset everything. Turns out those mechanical drives don't like speed bumps or cold weather. Who knew? Even thumb drives sometimes needed a reset (probably not due to speed bumps). The most stable device has been the iPod which never needs a reset but the sound quality is degraded for some music. I'm not clear on technical reasons why that would happen but I suspect there is some issue in the conversion from digital to analog. I should mention that this is only true for my older 60GB iPod. Music from my iPhone sounds perfect. I would use my iPhone but I don't want to use up all the space on the device for mu...

Television used to be a bug free zone. Now it's a computer science problem complete with bugs. I was reading David Pogue's review of Google TV . Having recently purchased one I can say that he is spot on with many of his points. In general, the usability of the device needs a lot of work. It's not just surface stuff either, it's deep and pervasive from the controller to the GUI. The pain starts with the initial setup. Why? Because it is exactly like doing a Windows OS install. Several updates and reboots with a full set of wizards to run through. The updates took an hour on my relatively fast Comcast cable connection. I understand the need for updates but why can't the device start up and play while doing the updates in the background? This is a TV right? By adding new unneeded buttons and interface conventions somehow Google managed to make the controller (which is essentially a full keyword and mouse) more complicated than a keyboard and mouse. It's got ...