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Ultrasone Pro2500 Headphone Short Review

Ok, I said I would write a review of this superlative headphone before I left for vacation, but never got around to doing it.  One reason is because I have not gotten around to actually buying a "proper" source system for it - that will have to wait until December.  Another is because I have not had much chance of seriously listening to it yet.

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Man Arrested For Not Using Twitter

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I Hate the Smugness of Apple

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Research!

I landed a pretty sweet gig on campus. My program has an office called the Global Information Industry Center, which does research on IT stuff for a lot of companies including corporate sponsors like IBM and Cisco. 

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WORDS HEARD on the Path to (Digital Media) Enlightenment

Six months ago I dove in. 

Had my toe in previously, on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, but the time had come to dive in to digital media.

I’ve been going to so many media, social media, digital media seminars and panels that I’m seeing more of Rachel Sklar than I am of my wife…Personal Democracy Forum, Mediabistro Circus, social media week, Internet week, television week, Sobel Media seminars, PR week, Web 2.0 Expo, Web TV Toolbox, NY Biz Expo, NYTV Meet-up, PR Camp, and many more on and off the NYC media grid.

Webinars, too.

I dove into a sea of words--buzzwords, jargon, words of art, acronyms, tech terms, elegantly descriptive coinages, and just wee bit of bafflegab.

I’ve been tweeting them along the way, but here are a few, mixed-in with a few other #WordsHeard along the way:

disintermediated, auto-generated metadata, commoditive, bafflegab, paid content, monetize, micro-celebrity, omathon, ideation, paranoid groupuscule, traghetti, media ping, Harry & Louise, wingnuttery, widgitize, pre-chewed, fronton,,Doofensmirtz,, evil zinc ray-inator, bed of Procrustes, architected, nomenclator, scale, scaled, scale up, scalable, scalable, scalable, catastrophic success, lumpy practitioners, downmodding, pharyngula, autopoietic, anarcho-syndicalism, Baratunde, meh, nonk, opacity agenda, pre-decisional, so...(the new opening word when a panelist responds to a question) purple issue, bleeding edge, hydroplanning, viderate, adhocracy, ground truth, smencilized, BIG LAUNDRY, digital immigrants, digital natives, mobiling, social diagnostic, digital embassy, crowd generated taxonomy, busking, black art, curation, buzz metrics, blogslurper, tweetslurp, art jumping, affordance, frontpaged, earlyvangelist, distribution arbitrage, webkinz, web-native, distribution arbitrage, platform agnostic, nascent, squidoo, pastrami salmon, contextually relevant, shiny object syndrome, oy vey, slacktivism, groupon, gravatar, distress strategies, power asymmetries, contagious yawning, kefuffle, long tail, fat tail, robust frameworks, black swan, baked-in, static benchmarking, risk engineering, robustify (yes, I said robustify)  praegustator, collaborative technology, transformative, economic jiu-jitsu, full-throated atmospherics, wiki-government, dumpster-diving, alignment,sector space, branding, advocacy, trustmark, Matsumura Fishworks and Tamaribuchi Heavy Manufacturing Concern, whuffie factor, veracity, deconstructed, global,community, truicear cosmach, right brain homophily, anocracies, panopticaon, sunrise provision, secret sauce, qiking, servant leadership, excellence reflex, acid reflux, phatic, parasocial, tummling, flow, out-groups, mutual media, wysiwyg, Perry the Platypus.

And did I say scalable?

Then let me leave you with “conversation around the brand.”

See you after the Q & A!

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Must Have iPhone Apps

A friend that has an iPhone on the way recently asked me what my “must have” applications were. I thought about it for a minute and he mentioned blogging it. Thinking that was a good idea, I made a list of my must haves, and then a few that I’m watching with anticipation. Note: The following are in no particular order.

• YouVersion Bible — Right now, this is the best iPhone Bible application. It’s fairly straight forward and easy to use and allows for bookmarks (and emailing and tweeting verses). And the killer feature: downloadable translations so that I don’t have to have a network connection to access the Bible. It comes in handy in church, on the bus, or really anywhere I might be and puts about every translation at your fingertips.

• Flixster Movies — You got to have a movies app if you love going to the theater. My wife and I do, and if we are out and about, this app will quickly tell us the near by theaters, what’s playing at them (and when), and even give links to buy online on the phone. It’s quite convenient — you won’t have to worry about missing a movie again (or ending up at a theater only to find that your movie isn’t playing or is sold out).

• Amazon Kindle/Stanza — An ebook reader is another good thing to have for those times when you are stuck on an elevator or in a meeting that doesn’t relate to what you do. There are a plethora of free ebooks out their and software like Calibre will let you convert any document (or ebook) into a format readable by either of these apps. Both allow for bookmarking and notes (a must for a reader like myself). Stanza is more feature rich but the Kindle app is easier to use. Also, if you have a real life kindle, you can sync your libraries wirelessly, which is a bonus (this includes notes and highlights).

• Shazam — This is one of those “fun” apps that you don’t use all the time (but more than you might have thought). It’s a music discovery service that listens to ~30 seconds of whatever might be playing on the radio or stereo of where ever you are, cross references it on the ‘net and comes back with the artist, album and title. It gets it right more often than not (and I’ve even seen it successfully work in loud bar environments). As an added bonus you can “tweet it” if you so desire.

• Facebook — This one only makes sense if you use facebook. It’s a customized mobile interface with much of the features of the webapp. It’s “killer” feature though that makes it a must is the ability to call friends from your friends list if they list their phone number. This has come in handy numerous times as MobileMe had a tendency of randomly deleting phone numbers from my actual address book.

• NPR News — News tends to depress me as the dark, dreary and depressing stuff is generally all that’s reported as its more sensationalistic. But there are events and happenings that are nice to know about, occasionally. I’ve found the NPR app to be the slickest and easiest to use. As a bonus it gives access to some of the cooler shows, like All Songs Considered.

• PicPosterous — This one is really only useful if you use Posterous. This blog runs on it and this app gives me a way to post mobile pics on the move. If you are a Wordpress user, they have an app (as does Tumblr).

• Cartoon Wars — As the name would imply, this is a game. It’s got a pinch of tower defense and a lot of strategy and stick figures. They have a lite version available for free (but the full is totally worth it). It’s one of those games that you start and can spend days on (it autosaves so you can play a level here and a level there) which is a must have feature for someone busy with life and always on the move.

• Tweetie — This is probably my most used app. It’s a standalone twitter client, has lots of features (pic, video, location tweeting, to name a few) and looks nice and works great. It’s fast, is persistent and is the best twitter experience on the iPhone (that I’ve found). It does cost money though.

• TowerMadness Zero — Another game. This one is tower defense and, because its free, is one of the better ones. It’s 3d, has numerous tower and map options (including downloadable maps).

• Dropbox — I use Dropbox to backup my documents and share other such things between computers. This app gives me access to those items directly from my phone, thereby making it quite useful.

• Tripit — TripIt is another webapp I use to keep track of and cleanly organize travel plans. It really works well and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It does a better job than most of the other apps I’ve seen and used — I keep going back to it after seeing and trying others. Anyways, this gives me direct access to my trip information directly on the phone, making it very convenient and incredibly useful while traveling (having access to trip information on my phone saved my and 10 friends butts the first time I went to Cape Town).

There are a few other apps that I’m actively watching development on. They aren’t yet useful enough to me to be “must haves” but they do have future potential. They are:

• Logos — This is a newcomer to the iPhone Bible apps. Currently the only modern translation available is the ESV (which is a great translation but not my preferred). It doesn’t do highlighting/bookmarking yet (that I can tell) and is pretty clunky to use. If you own Logos 4 though it does allow you access to your full library which makes it infinitely more useful; that’s a several hundred dollar investment though and not a viable option to the majority of users.

• Evernote — This app ties you into your Evernote library and allows you to add new notes, as well as view and modify existing. I occasionally use it but find it clunky; I find myself using email or the built in notes app more often than not.

So there you have it — A list to get you started on an iPhone perhaps. All of the above apps are free or cheap so there isn’t any reason not to try them out!

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Smoking kills... your Mac

via tuaw.com

It should be pretty obvious by now that smoking cigarettes is bad for your health. What's not as obvious is that it might be bad for your Mac, too. According to The Consumerist, two different people got turned down for AppleCare maintenance because their Macs were used in a house with a smoker. Both people appealed their cases all the way up to Steve Jobs, and both of them lost.

I've opened up a few computers that spent time in a house full of heavy smokers, and the insides weren't pretty. There was this disgusting brown resin built up all over everything, and it pretty much smelled like an ashtray stuffed full of 5-year-old cigarette butts. Though it's probably a stretch to call this "a biohazard" like in one of the cases The Consumerist cites, AppleCare agreements are worded loosely enough in their limitations of coverage that Apple seems perfectly within its rights to deny coverage in these two cases:
The Plan does not cover:

Damage to the Covered Equipment caused by accident, abuse, neglect, misuse (including faulty installation, repair, or maintenance by anyone other than Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider), unauthorized modification, extreme environment (including extreme temperature or humidity), extreme physical or electrical stress or interference, fluctuation or surges of electrical power, lightning, static electricity, fire, acts of God or other external causes.

It's that "other external causes" clause that's the catch-all, although you could probably argue that an atmosphere filled with smoke counts as an "extreme environment" as well.

Bottom line: if you have to smoke, you might want to step away from the computer first. With the investment that your Mac represents sitting there on the desk, why take the risk of messing it up in an easily preventable way?

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SixthSense revisited - exploring the interaction of the physical world with the digital world (TED)

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Comment Twitter devient un "réseau d'information"

Pas vraiment réseau social, mais plus du tout "microblog", Twitter devient petit à petit ce que son fondateur appelle un "réseau d'information".

Au cours d'un incroyable mois de novembre, qui a vu l'apparition de pas moins de cinq nouvelles fonctions, Twitter a renforcé sa spécificité parmi les innombrables services du Web 2.0 : sur Facebook, "l'objet social", c'est l'utilisateur ; sur Flickr, c'est la photo ; sur Twitter, on peut à présent l'affirmer avec certitude, c'est l'information.

- 30 octobre : les listes ; 5 novembre : les retweets

À une semaine d'intervalle, Twitter a annoncé ces deux fonctions, qui rappellent certains des points forts de Friendfeed.

Avec les listes, il devient possible de regrouper ses amis en autant de groupes que nécessaire pour continuer à y voir clair (en créant des listes privées), mais aussi de créer des listes thématiques permettant à ses amis de découvrir rapidement de nouveaux utilisateurs (avec les listes publiques). Voir par exemple la liste des journalistes du New York Times ; celle des "intellos" de Twitter ; ou encore les 150 bonnes sources de Narvic.

Comme les "replies", le "retweeting" (republier, en le citant, un message envoyé par un de vos followers) est une fonction née de l'usage, c'est-à-dire littéralement inventée par les utilisateurs de Twitter. En l'intégrant au fonctionnement du service, Twitter résout d'un coup tous les problèmes liés au retweeting : attribution du tweet à son premier auteur, citations tronquées, citations en chaîne devraient disparaître progressivement, au fur et à mesure que les retweets "natifs" remplacent les citations "manuelles".

- 10 novembre : l'intégration avec LinkedIn

Difficile de dire si cette annonce vise surtout à relancer un réseau en perte de vitesse par rapport à Facebook, LinkedIn, ou à étendre la sphère d'influence de Twitter dans le monde professionnel face à... Facebook.

Peut-être un peu des deux. En tout cas, LinkedIn prend un coup de jeune assez bienvenu, et Twitter met un pied dans le monde professionnel. Mon petit doigt me dit que ce n'est qu'un début : si de nombreuses entreprises voient encore les réseaux sociaux comme un obstacle à la productivité (probablement à tort), aucune ne peut décemment en dire autant d'un réseau d'information.

- 19 novembre : la géolocalisation et Twitter en français

Depuis avant-hier, Twitter permet aux applications mobiles (comme Twitterrific, Tweetie ou encore TweetDeck) d'inclure dans chaque tweet des données de géolocalisation acquises par GPS. En retour, il devient possible, avec ces applications, suivre vos amis sur une carte ou de retrouver ceux qui sont proches de vous. Cette fonctionnalité est l'élément distinctif d'un service de plus en plus populaire parmi les "early adopters" : Foursquare. En l'offrant nativement à ses utilisateurs, Twitter fait d'une pierre deux coups : il surfe sur la vague du "local web" et, en même temps, fait apparaître Foursquare comme un service simplement accessoire (d'ailleurs, le billet placé en lien ci-dessus décrit Foursquare comme une simple "application pour Twitter").

L'autre aspect du local web, c'est évidemment l'ouverture aux langues étrangères. Certes, à peu près tout le monde parle l'anglais très rudimentaire nécessaire à l'utilisation de Twitter. Mais pour réellement exister à l'international, ainsi que pour évacuer certaines questions d'ordre déontologique, il est évidemment indispensable de parler la langue maternelle de ses utilisateurs.

Pour ses besoins de traduction, Twitter a fait appel aux compétences de ses propres utilisateurs, à l'instar de Facebook. Le résultat, très satisfaisant, était déjà disponible pour les hispanophones. Depuis jeudi soir, c'est également le cas pour les francophones. Si le site n'est pas encore traduit dans son intégralité, les éléments les plus importants sont présents : inscription, navigation, paramètres, et... liste d'utilisateurs suggérés, dont votre serviteur, qui a également pris part au travail de traduction, a la chance de faire partie.

À en juger par la fréquence à laquelle je reçois les e-mails de notification de nouveaux followers, la décision de traduire Twitter en français est pleinement justifiée : entre jeudi soir et l'heure où j'écris ces lignes (samedi, 14h), mon nombre "d'abonnés" (puisque telle est la traduction de "followers") a littéralement doublé.

- 20 novembre : bientôt, la pub sur Twitter

La dernière annonce en date est probablement la plus importante : hier, lors de la conférence "RealTime CrunchUp" à San Francisco, le directeur général (COO) de Twitter, Dick Costolo, a révélé l'apparition prochaine d'un modèle de publicité pour Twitter "prêt dans dans le futur proche, et disponible pour nos partenaires".

On ne connaît pas encore la forme ni les modalités de ce modèle (même si certains se risquent déjà à des pronostiques), mais d'après Costolo : "Ce sera fascinant. Non-traditionnel. Et les gens vont adorer... Ça va être très cool."

Wait and see, donc. Quoi qu'il en soit, Twitter semble avoir autant grandi en une vingtaine de jours qu'au cours de ses trois ans et demi d'existence. Pas forcément en terme d'audience : la fréquentation du site a même un peu chuté en octobre. Mais en termes de maturité, cela ne fait aucun doute : en s'affirmant comme un réseau d'information, et en confirmant cette affirmation dans les faits, ce qui n'était à ses débuts qu'un simple "side project" a confirmé sa place centrale dans l'économie du lien.

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Google Chrome's Stats For Nerds Tab

I love Google Chrome, its fast lightweight and user control over tabbed browsing is superior to any other browser I've used in the past.  Open up 20 tabs rearrange them quickly (much easier than FF) and even pop them out of their dock and onto your other screen (for dual monitors) 

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