October 2004

WIll MP3 players go away?

October 6, 2004

Russell Beattie comments on Dan Gillmor's statement in the recent Gillmore Gang. Asked if he had an iPod Gillmore responded "Yes, but I don't use it any more because I have a large memory card in my Treo."

Beattie says bingo. I say not a chance. First there is an inherent problem with the Treo platform. It is too small. Yes there is such a thing. When size makes for a crappy user interface it won't succeed. Although Apple doesn't appear to realize it the time has come to re-release the Newton. Of course it needs updating and needs to have the capacity to play audio, video and store more than a desktop computer.

The storage on Treo won't begin to compete with the likes of the iPod for years. I've had a string of palms devices, cell phones, and two-way pagers for years. I've tried at least every few months to try and move my simplest tasks to them - keep track of "to do's", addresses, calendars, and take notes at meetings. Once I find this I can do away with my paper calendar/planner. None come close. The note taking si by far the worst part. Even when using a keyboard (an extra device to port around anyway) then when I get back to the office I have to think about "syncing" to get the notes to where I can use them... and then again to get them to the device to take somewhere else, of course by then the device is full and I have to decide to delete some thing or another.

Another Quicken 2004 Bug

October 6, 2004

So I've spent the last few nights with a very annoying Quicken 2004 bug. If you name accounts with symbols at the beginning of the name it impacts sort order. But it does it differently in different lists. That would be annoying. What is a huge bug is that in lists like the "Selected Accounts..." list in reporting a list is displayed but a different list is changed. So you think you're clicking to include or exclude your cash account and really it's your retirement account or some other account. So I had to rename 20+ accounts to get reporting to work. At least I won't have to buy Quicken 2005.

A broken record?

October 5, 2004

A month after serving as standard-bearer for the Republican's "contract with Nevada" assemblyman Chad Christensen is once again being asked to answer why he again has violated Nevada's campaign finance laws. The 7-item contract with Nevada suggests a new and different direction. The actions of it's supporters suggest they're up to the same old tricks.

Bringing home the bus

October 5, 2004

We went by a couple of weekends ago to pick up "the bus." With a dead battery it didn't want to start and as we worked in the back end it seemed to be leaking gas in the engine. We stopped and had it towed to the shop. They checked it out and gave it a clean bill of health. I'm still not sure what the problem was... Anyway the '79 sage green VW Westfalia is living at our house until it finds a new and happy home. It brought back all kinds of memories to drive it home last night. Windows down, iPod playing and cruising down the road. We stayed off the interstate and made it home just fine. It will make a great base for somebody who wants to fix up a classic bus.

Carts a hazard on campus

October 4, 2004

Kristine Johnson comments about the pesky cart drivers on the UNLV campus. The only thing I'll add is that it is ironic that the worst offenders all seem to say parking management on them. Aren't they a part of the "public safety" office?

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