Recently in Gadgets Category

I like to listen to audiobooks on my commute. Since the Nokia 770 has an MP3 player, I copied an audio book that's about 12 hours long onto the memory card. The book is split into 275 MP3s to make it easier to manage them.

I got on the train, fired up the audio player and started the first track. Nice.

Then I wanted to add the other 274 files to the playlist. Not so nice. You've got to do them one at a time. There's no multi-select. The other problem, which for most users would probably be a feature, is that the filename isn't shown in the filelist, instead the ID3 information is shown. Each of my 275 files were labeled exactly the same so I could not distinguish them at all. I managed, through counting, to add the first 20 or so, which was a long enough list to get me to work.

Once I got to work, I plugged the Nokia into my computer and took a look at the playlist. Thankfully it's in the M3U format, which is a nice simple text format.

So, I created a playlist of all my tracks. The format of M3U is simple. All you really need is this

[code]
#EXTM3U
file:///media/mmc1/audio/foo1.mp3
file:///media/mmc1/audio/foo2.mp3
file:///media/mmc1/audio/foo3.mp3
...
[/code]

Where media/mmc1 is the path to the memory card, audio is a directory on the memory card, and ... isn't literal, it means "more lines like the above".

Create the list of files however you want to (on windows, you can do dir /b *.mp3 > playlist.m3u, on linux, ls -1 *.mp3 > playlist.m3u). Then edit the file in a text editor. Add the first line, as shown above. Then change the paths from, for example, d:\audio\foo1.mp3, to the correct path, as shown above.

Untested, but potentially even easier, save the M3U file in the same directory as your MP3 files, and you shouldn't need the path information.

Today was my first day with Nokia 770 "in the wild". They are rated for 3 hours battery life, but I wanted to see how it would perform in my world.

Today wasn't a typical day (no WiFi or Bluetooth access), but I did watch 3 Battlestar Galactica episodes, full screen, full volume. The battery power is still around 75%.

One thing I did notice was it was a little quiet. Need to look into that.

The Nokia 770 (called by Nokia an "internet tablet") is my newest gadget, given to me by my sweet wife as a Christmas present. Gorgeous screen, WiFi, runs linux. What more could you ask for?

So far I've mostly just been fooling around with it. Browsing web sites with the included Opera browser, playing some games that I installed from Maemo.org, and watching Battlestar Galactica. The long term plan is to get back into Linux, though, by helping to port or create apps for the Maemo platform.

Details coming as I explore this thing some more.

Today I picked up a piece of software called Tunebite . Tunebite is a very simple program, but comes close to solving my problem with NetLibrary's DRM'd audio books (see my previous post for more information). Tunebite acts just like an old-fashioned dual-deck cassette deck with high speed dubbing. It plays the audio in iTunes or Windows Media player, but it plays them at 4x speed. At the same time, it records the track to disk, either in OGG, MP3, or WMA.

It's a brilliant, and legal, way to listen to DRM'd audio on equipment that doesn't support that DRM version.

One big drawback - the high speed recording has to start at the beginning of the track. That's a problem for long tracks, like the 16 hour audio book I'm working on now. Even at high speed, that's 4 hours of computer time, not to mention one huge mp3 file.

This morning I got into the office before anyone, even the mysterious ghost that makes the morning coffee. I sat down at my computer, fired up Launchcast, and the first song was "Run Like Hell" by Pink Floyd. The intro has a lot of crowd noise that really sets the atmosphere for the song. It's been so long since I've heard it, I had completely forgotten about. The only reason I heard it today was because of my new headphones.

I picked up a pair of KOSS UR40 headphones, and I have to tell you, they are really, really good.

Not only do they sound great, but they keep out the random office noise, which helps me to concentrate.

Two negatives - not wireless (come on, when are bluetooth headphones going to be easier to find!), and they are a bit bigger than I prefer for taking back and forth between the office and home.

Here's what I want from my next set of headphone - good sound quality, wireless with bluetooth, and designed for people on the go.

I love bluetooth. What's not to love? Short range wireless is amazing. But what I want now is a bluetooth headset. I don't want a bluetooth dongle, or a bluetooth MP3 player, or an IPAQ, I just want the headset. The only one's I've been able to find are from
Air2U Inc.. They look great. The only problem is finding a retail source - you see, they are in Taiwan. I sent them an email, and hopefully I'll find out more soon.

While going out for a cup of coffee and a yummy boston cream pie at Crixa, the best dessert place in the East Bay, I saw two eGo electic bikes. I've seen them parked there before, but today they had rain shields on with the URL - http://www.egovehicles.com. Since I'm in the market for a scooter or an electric bike, I thought I'd take a look at the website.

They look great. They get 25 miles between charges, don't have to be registered in California, and, while not cheap, don't cost as much as a Vespa. They don't look like they can seat two people, though, so I guess I have to keep looking.

I'm training for my next triathlon (the ICE Breaker). It's been raining a lot, plus it gets dark early, so my bike training is indoors. I've been looking for an indoor training so I can ride my own bike, rather than riding some exercise machine. Now I've found the perfect indoor trainer Inside Ride Bicycle Treadmill. It's a treadmill for bikes. What can I say? Wow.

A few months ago I was stupid. I left my garage door open overnight. We didn't notice right away, but the next weekend when I went to get some tools to work on the house, I noticed a few things were missing, including a brand new chop saw, two nail guns, and my drill. All told we figure we lost about $1000 worth of stuff.

So, since I know how bad my memory is, I installed a timer for the garage door. You can get them from Garage Door Security. It took a bit of time to install, but now, after 5 minutes our garage door closes automatically.

If you don't have one of these, I suggest you get one. It's worth it.

Back in college I brewed a lot of beer. My roommates and I brewed not just because it was the only way to get really good beer in the early 80's, but also for the enjoyment of it. It's kind of like a cross between chemistry and baking. We had a great time doing it, and only once did we get a batch of vinegar. That same batch was the only time we had a bottle burst.

Anyway, as I get older, I fondly remember that time, and and since my garage is a perfect place to brew beer during the summer. (it's slightly underground, so the temperature remains cool, but warm enough for brewing beer), I decided I was going to start brewing beer again. Unfortunately, summer passed away and I never got around to brewing.

However, this weekend I finally did it. With my supplies provided from Oak Barrel Winecraft in Berkeley, I brewed up a batch of English style porter. It's in the primary fermenter now and should be ready to be bottled on Saturday.

BTW, Oak Barrel Winecraft is a great store, probably the best home brew supply store I have ever seen. Their website doesn't do them justice. Go in. Meet the people that work there. They are passionate about brewing and wine making. They do demonstrations and classes as well.