Thursday, June 05, 2003

Listening while hungry Arg.... leave it to NPR's All Things Considered to get my stomach growling. I was almost drooling over my keyboard as I listened to Melissa Block's chat with Amanda Hesser about Hesser's mother's Chocolate Dump-It Cake and her new book, Cooking for Mr. Latte: A Food Lover's Courtship. "My mother did all of her baking late at night, after we were in bed. Around one in the morning, the aroma of this cake would begin wafting up to our bedrooms. Then we'd watch her frost it while we ate breakfast."     6:30:59 PM    comment []  trackback []

What's the RSS Soundbite? Tim's got some interesting thoughts here that I've run into myself. "...when I was trying to convince people that they could use the Web, I could just show them a few interesting sites and most people got it pretty quick. RSS is so personalized, though, that your set of feeds, or mine, are not apt to impress the person you’re talking to unless they’re a lot like you." [ via ongoing ] 1:05:00 AM    comment []  trackback []

Harmony Remote Control I ran into the Harmony Remote Control while browsing ZDnet.  They've got a video interview with Bryan McLeod who briefly talks about it amid microsoft commercials.  The Harmony is an activity based remote control that is programmed with Web-Browser.  The biggest selling point is that it is activity based, that is it commands multiple devices with one click - programmed macros. So play a DVD, it will switch the TV to the DVD input, change the Stereo to the DVD surround setting, and then Play the DVD.  Normally this would take me and my wife three remotes and a bunch of clicking.  I know lots of people who need something simpler.  Usability sells here folks! The unfortunate thing is that it is priced like a high end audio / video equipment $199 and $299.  Just out of reach of the people who really nead it. 12:58:17 AM    comment []  trackback []

Toshiba Media Center laptop "Though there are more than a few PCs on the market now running Windows XP Media Center (that variant of the Windows OS designed for recording television like a TiVo, organizing and playing your MP3 collection, looking at your digital photo album, etc.), it hasn't really taken off yet, mainly because of complaints about its stability. That said, Toshiba is coming out with (what we believe) is the first Media Center laptop. The Satellite 5205-S705 comes with a built-in TV tuner, a remote control, a DVD burner, a 15-inch screen, a 2.4GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 64MB NVIDIA graphics card, and a 60GB hard drive." [via Gizmodo] I'm still a little perplexed by Toshiba's choice.  Here's my reasoning: Laptop = Mobile Media Center that needs cable or satelite for a decent picture = Tethered Laptop = Small Hard Drive (60GB is small these days... whoa... did I say that?) Media Center compressed video? = Big Ass Hard Drive Must be a niche audience that I don't see.  What's next? Media Center Tablet PC edition of Windows XP? 12:27:55 AM    comment []  trackback []