One Device to Rule them All

In a previous post, I mused on letting me move video and watch it on any device I might own.

In this post, I want to conjecture on having one device that I carry with me at all times.  Ideally this device would have:

• A phone
• Access to mail and calendar (if I so choose) from AOL, GMail/Google, and Outlook (yes, I use all three, don’t ask, you don’t have time for the story).
• Music/mp3 capabilities.
• Audible.com support (for my DRM audiobook collection from them – grr).
• A game or two.
• Various and sundry other applications that will emerge and tickle my fancy.

Right now to get all this done well, I have to carry both my phone (Blackberry Storm) and an iPod Classic 80.

The Blackberry was getting close to this capability with the Blackberry Audible application, but alas it seems this has gone bonkers with the release of OS 5.  I was trying to use it today and frustration was the key feature.  The audio kept dropping off no matter if I stored the book locally or streamed it from Audible.  It was maddening because there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it.  To restart the audio, I had to stop the playback then start it again.  If I did it right away, it would pick up where it dropped off, but if I was doing something nonessential, like driving, and had to wait for the work-around, then I missed the portion that was read during the worthless driving activity.

You might say that the iPhone does all this.  Yes, it appears to, but I haven’t seen the mail & calendar integration that I would need, and I just hate being trapped in the Apple-only ecosystem.  Today it all works with Audible, but if Apple decides that its best interests are to kill the Audible cooperation, it won’t hesitate to do so (as would any self-respecting capitalist institution).  I applaud this approach, for I believe in our system, but I just don’t want to get trapped by it.  I could continue to do what I do right now by buying only DRM free music, but I like the Verizon network I have and have been hearing bad stories about AT&T.

Windows Mobile might be the answer, but I got burned pretty badly by their upgrades not supporting whatever recent purchase I had made, and the fact that Windows CE-then PocketPC-then Mobile seems to have a hard time deciding what it wants to be, so for now I stay away.

I’m hoping that maybe the Verizon (my current phone carrier) and its new embrace of Google’s Android might be the answer.  The Navigation application looks like a real winner no matter what.  I’ve seen the demos of the mail/calendar integration, but the kicker is whether or not Audible is going to support the OS with player.  It took them a while with Zune, so I’m hoping for Android.  Of course by the time I wait, and am rewarded, some new version or new application will be out there that I want to have, and it won’t be supported by whatever current device I carry.

I don’t mind upgrading the hardware every few years or so, but balk at being locked in to a DRM situation that won’t be supported in a future release or new devices.  (Yes, I know I’m locked into Audible, but I was young, and needed to save the money, etc.)

Hacking your way through life's jungle

Hackers - despite the negative media connotation, they are simply folks who like to see how far they can take products in a new direction or beyond the listed limitations. There are also social hackers, who "bend" social conventions to their own purposes. Not necessarily always evil purposes.

But my favorite hacking site is Lifehacker at www.lifehacker.com. At the site they have everything from making your own detergent and saving money, to evaluating and setting up, or building up, your own home server.

It is just a great site to browse through, and a great site to get daily updates from their RSS feed.

Can I switch to 7 yet?

I've been using the beta and RTM versions of Windows 7 for a while now (thanks to my Technet subscription.) But I haven't switched over my main computers (yes more than one - I'm a geek!) to 7 yet because I'm waiting for the free upgrade software from the manufacturer. The computers are new, but were heavily discounted to make room for the preloaded 7 machines - so I took advantage of a sale.

But now I'm chomping at the bit to get 7 loaded on them. One of the cool new features I found is right clicking on the folder that contains the music I want, and choosing to add all the songs in that folder to the Windows Media Player - rather than opening the folder, selecting all the songs, and adding them by right click.

The new feature saves me clicks - and I like it. So I'm thinking of putting on a temporary version of 7 on the machines until the upgrade software comes - just so I can use that, and some other great new features.

Blackberry OS 5 - Where have you been all my life?

On Monday of this week, I got the notification from Blackberry that my Storm's OS has been updated, and that I might want to do the update.

So I did. At first I regretted the effort. I grew to dislike the Storm more and more over the year that I've had it, and the process of upgrading was horrendous. It didn't work at first - or second - or fourth or fifth. It just kept stopping in the middle telling me a fatal error occurred, and left me between the old OS 4.7 and the new OS 5, and a non-functioning phone. I was not pleased.

Patience and time, and really nothing to lose, had me try the upgrade over and over again until finally late in the afternoon it worked. I restored my personal data from a backup that I had, and then took the upgraded phone out for a spin.

WOW. If this thing had acted like this over the past year, I would not have been so strident in expressing my hatred to family and friends. Quick and responsive - the two things I wanted most have arrived. This phone now actually does what I want, when I want! No more push the thing and wait, wait, wait, until it finally figures out what to do. The hated lock/unlock feature now works immediately!

Not only do things work quickly, but there is a bit of eye candy with screen opens and closes, and fast scrolling that "bounces" when you reach the end of a list.

I actually like this phone much, much more. I might even be able to wait for my "new every two" time before switching to an Android phone.

Update:

This morning when checking a voice message I noticed that the number pad remains on the screen when you make a call so that you don't have to call it back up to tap in your access code. Gosh what a novel concept - at least for the Storm. That was one of my pet peeves all along - the minute you send your call, the number pad disappeared. Thank you again!

But I am looking around for access to the App store that I had under 4.7.

What I just read and liked

A great book for someone who wants to know what it takes to move peacefully through life. You probably won’t become a multi-millionaire by using it (or maybe you will), but you will make life more pleasant for everyone around you. The book is "The Go-Giver" and the link below will take you to the Amazon description.

Lords of Content & Delivery, have Mercy on me, a viewer

Or

St. Amazon, hear my prayer

I want to watch what I want, when I want, on the device(s) I want.  For a resident of the U.S., this seems like something that goes right along with individual freedoms, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I can now listen to what I want, when I want, on the device(s) I want - thanks to DRM free music that can be legally purchased through Amazon and other sites (which is why I call them St. Amazon).  I can even pay a slightly higher fee on iTunes for the same opportunity on some music.  The recording industry is not happy about this, even though studies have shown that it actually increases music sales.

But you can’t do that with television.

I can’t purchase just a few cable channels that I want.  I have to purchase “packages” that contain 80% of what I don’t want in order to get what I do want.  What is free over the air does not contain the content from the cable channels that I want.

I can record to a VCR (remember those?), a DVR, or to my home PC (via Microsoft’s Media Center).  But I’m kind of stuck viewing on those devices only - unless I want to go through some rather arcane and time consuming steps to move that content to other devices, or just to other TV’s.  By the way, this recording and viewing later was fought against by the content producers until they were handed a final and stunning defeat.  Much like the recording industry, they aren’t happy about our choices.

I can only watch the great new high definition shows on approved devices (my cable company DVR, and a limited number on my PC) and sometimes those even have time limits before they self-destruct and lots of anti-copying restrictions.  If I want to watch on other devices, I have to purchase copies of them for those devices only, or go through some arcane and time-consuming steps again to try to move them around to other devices, and probably do some illegal circumventing of the Digital Rights Management (DRM) that comes along with the content.

So what do I want?  What is the content of my prayer?

I want to purchase (legally purchase!) a single show (or season of shows), or movies that are digitally delivered to me that I can watch on any device that supports the format.  I also want these shows to be free of DRM so that if a new whiz-bang-must-have-device comes out, I can move the shows over to it with a minimum of problems.  I want to keep the shows as long as I want, to watch whenever I want, as often as I want.

Right now I can lock myself into the Apple DRM world and purchase most of the content I want from Apple and watch it on an iPod and even dock that iPod with my TVs to move the content around.  This is most of the way there.  The only problem is being locked into the iPod ecosystem.

Yes, lots of questions arise, and maybe in the future I’ll add my own two cents in to the issues.  But for now, I just offer my prayer and hope the Lords of Content and Delivery hear and consider it.

Nerd-vana?

I'm sitting on a flight, 35,000 feet over Oklahoma, using a netbook running Windows 7 Ultimate, connected to free Wi-Fi (to get us interested in the service) while accessing my Windows Home Server and posting to a blog.

Does it get any better than this?