Out of the Box

A couple of nifty and decidedly analog gadgets showed up in the blogosphere recently. CrunchGear covers DiscEraser, which scars a CD or DVD surface so that it is unreadable by a drive. This should come in handy for the childless who needs to destroy discs. I probaby wouldn’t use it for NSA materials, but it should be good enough for most casual personal information. As CrunchGear notes, it’s small enough to fit in a desk drawer and results in no plastic shards, which is a good thing. It’s $13 and comes in a variety of pretty pastels colors ideal for dishing out is disc-destroying damage.

Over the weekend Gizmodo featured the Grip Bag Holder to help carry multiple plastic grocery bags. I can see its use but for neighborhood grocery shopping I recommend the Hook ‘n’ Go (pictured) offered by Hammacher Schlemmer for carrying up to eight bags without crushing the eggs.

Over at meeblog, the reverse chronological organ of the exceptional Web-based IM app meebo, Seth confesses to a few bloopers during a recent series of meetups in Boston and Toronto that in part demonstrate some limits of technology. In Toronto, he used Google Maps to find a Starbucks for the gathering, only to discover later that it was one of those mini-Starbucks inside an office building that had already closed for the day. However, one of the attendees had a piece of good ol’ fashioned analog paper, that he marked with a writing implement to inform attendees of the new venue. It will be a long time before e-paper becomes so disposable.

On Windows Mobile, Google Maps has the ability to link to venue phone numbers that you can call with a button press. Had Seth taken advantage of it, he could have confirmed the suitability of the locale.

Ryan Block shares that the CompUSA where he had his first job is closing and recounts some of the lowpoints of his time there as he dispenses some consumer advice. My local CompUSA is closing, too, as are all New York stores east of Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. I suppose I’m lucky that my neighborhood has a Circuit City, Target, Best Buy, P.C. Richard and two Radio Shacks all within walking distance so it’s usually pretty easy to find the occasional electronic necessity or washing machine. When I moved here, there was a Nobody Beats the Wiz as well. I do wish we had an office supply store a bit closer, though.

My local CompUSA is actually located in a cool triangular extension of a nearby office building, which contributes to a high-tech look. I don’t think its replacement will do the space as much justice. Those familiar with Manhattan might consider it similar to the Sprint store jutting out of the front (side?) of the Flatiron Building, but this is a much larger space with two floors. I’ll try to get a picture before it closes.

In any case, it turns out Ryan and I have something else in common beyond Engadget. My first job was also at a computer retail store , albeit a long-gone small Apple-only dealer of ill repute, not a chain. There’s now a Houston’s restaurant where it once stood. I can assure you that CompUSA is a paragon of business ethics compared to some of the shenanigans that went on there. The store was “featured” on Arnold Diaz’ Shame on You watchdog segment and for reasons that were not the most egregious of its management’s indiscretions.

I also worked in service (and later the store’s very nice training facility) although I only occasionally took in machines. I mostly did repairs and installations (TOPS anyone?). Two of the senior service guys were an odd couple if ever there was one — a brash and boastful Army reservist and and a quiet sarcastic French sophisticate.

One of my favorite exchanges took place when the former was strutting around the department and crowed, “I’m good at everythng I try!” The other muttered under his breath, “Have you ever tried shutting up?”

In Engadget, Conrad Quilty-Harper covers the promising blueChute Bluetooth-enabled electronic ink prototype by E Ink, which developed the display technology for the Sony Reader. Conrad notes that the device overview says that potential advanced functionality for the display would depend on “software which probably won’t ever get written.” Now there is some fine evangelism! Or perhaps the advanced technologists have enlisted Marvin, the depressed android from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, to write their promotional copy.

In any case, the point is taken, but this technology needs to crawl before it can sprint with wireless widgets. Were it inexpensive enough, a simple printer driver would probably be all that would be needed to transfer hundreds of pages of information to such a device.

When I last blogged about Cozi, I mentioned a hardware-based family organizer that had a short lifespan. Organization products are hard to get right even when you have the flexibility of software at your disposal, and designing them for the nontechnical raises the bar tremendously.

Now a small Midwestern startup is taking its stab with Jenda, a voice-driven standalone electronic calendar that’s the ultimate conceptual evolution of those little four-button IC-based family “message centers” that they used to sell specialty electronics retailers. They seemed like good ideas, but were probably just too much tech applied for too much money for too simple a problem — a scaled-down version of the PDA dilemma.

Jenda is a third of the price of the last hardware-based home organizer. In fact, at $50 online it’s probably only about 20 or 30 dollars more than those simple message recorders used to cost. The product is small and slim and can be attached to a refrigerator or used with an integrated stand.

Jenda appears to have a pretty well-thought out feature set and user interface and may be enough for casual event reminders such as birthdays, but ultimately the lack of visual preview makes it nearly impossible to prepare for upcoming events. Voice notes are a breeze to enter, but difficult to edit or manipulate. Some Web-based service will likely ultimately prevail as the best family organizational tool, preferably one that remains automatically synchronized to other calendars such as the nearly unavoidable Outlook. In the meantime, consider Jenda for grandma.

I never quite understood why “you’re not supposed to” use standard markers on a CD or DVD (perhaps the tip can scratch the surface?), but I remember I had at one time bought a “special” marker for such a purpose. Yet, today I went to two Staples looking for such an approved writing device. You can find them online but, according to the helpful sales clerk, they no longer brand markers for such a task and he recommended a fine-tip Sharpie. I wonder why. Was this just marketing hype to begin with?

Well, what did catch my eye was the $80 Casio disc printer situated by the shelves of optical media. Yeah, who needs a Sharpie?

Those were the words that followed “I get knocked down,” part of the chorus to the song Tubthumping by one-hit wonders Chumbawumba, which may have inspired the name for Chumby. Via Engadget, DYI World reports that Chumby is an Internet appliance that seeks to finally bring the clock radio into the age of the Internet and digital music for “less than 150.” Chumby has a lot of potential as a platform, but looks like overkill. All we need is the time, some MP3s, and maybe the weather. In any case, you can’t buy it yet.

From U3, –the company supported by SanDisk and msystems hoping to replace hard drives with tiny flash-based key fobs that we move effortlessly from computer to computer — comes news that it is expanding support in Japan. I've been somewhat surprised that Microsoft hasn't done more to embrace this initiative as it's an interesting new usage model and way to add value to Windows applications. While the phenomenon is in its infancy, there's no similar architecture around Mac OS or Linux. I'm sure Microsoft would rather that all of its applications already be purchased on whatever PC you use, but this is one of those cases where the company has to put on its platform developer hat.

Microsoft is better served by having people move their applications around this way than having them get their word processors from Google or Michael Robertson.

Of Apple's three main transitions (the other two being PowerPC and Mac OS X), the switch to Intel has been going the smoothest. Just this week, we've seen Aperture 1.1, a new Firefox release, and an update to the WMV plug-in for QuickTime all arrive with Intel-native code. And via Boot Camp, Apple has opened its Intel-based computers to a few Windows programs that can take advantage of Intel processors as well. It's ironic, if not embarrassing, that the fastest version of Photoshop you can run on a MacBook Pro is available by booting into Windows, However, the path to a "Universal binary" when using Apple's development tools doesn't seem too rocky.

Prediction: Leopard may be a feline, but it will run like a dog on PowerPC.

Yesterday, Apple announced and released the public beta of Boot Camp, a boot manager and set of drivers that enable Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP (Vista s not yet supported). I'll discuss the trade-off between dual-booting and virtualization another time, but one advantage of enabling XP to run natively on Apple hardware is that Windows games will be able to utilize accelerated graphics hardware. In other words, Mac owners will be able to play most PC games at native Windows speeds.

Apple's stance is that what is good for the Mac is good for Mac developers, and the company has an interesting theory that this capability will show game developers just how many Mac gamers are out there. But I still don't think that that will help the fundamental economics of the Mac game market. The translators and publishers of titles that appear first on Windows like Aspyr Media and MacPlay and are going to feel some at least some short-term pain, pain that could be prolonged if Microsoft continues stepping up efforts to evangelize Windows gaming.