I’ve been waiting for the release of the new Tivo Desktop software that was supposed to do automatic encoding for the PSP. Well, no reason to wait. TVHarmony does everything I could want. I had a bit of trouble setting it up, but all I needed to do was update TiVo Desktop to v2.2 and all works perfectly now.

Just got my refurbished PSP back from Sony (my UMD reader had stopped working properly) and put an episode of The Office on the PSP. Flawless process and the video looks great.

Yet another nail in the coffin of my Moxi.

Nike and iPod present shoe that gives feedback - Technology - International Herald Tribune

You figure it was only a matter of time before someone got the brilliant idea to take two Monopolies, both of which dominate over their competitors and see how they can further push the cool factor. I like the idea, makes me wish I was a runner. But I will give it to them for integrating the ability to upload the data to the community-based website where you can share your geek-ish running stats with your friends.

The iTunes plug for sports icons was only a matter of time, and come to think of it, was probably the reason they introduced this anyhow. Seriously, do they really need a reason to entice you to buy more $0.99 tunes from celeb playlists?

Nike has announced that it will make running shoes that will tell the wearer how far and how fast he or she has run and how many calories they have burned. The instant information will come from a miniature iPod, made by Apple Computer, and a new wireless system called Nike iPod.

Nike shares rose more than 2 percent after the announcement Tuesday that it planned to capitalize on the popularity of iPod portable digital music players with runners, 75 percent of whom already listen to music while they exercise.

The Nike iPod Sports Kit, which is expected to sell for about $29, will use miniature versions of the iPod to provide audio data on time, distance, pace and calories burned through an attachable receiver that will get the data from a sensor embedded in the insole of special Nike shoes.

The new Air Zoom Moire line of running shoes - priced at $100 - are the first to have space for the sensor, but others will follow, Nike said. The removable sensor, about the size of a piece of chewing gum, can be used with any compatible shoe.

…

Apple, which has shipped more than 50 million iPods, controls 77 percent of the U.S. market for portable digital music players, according to the market research firm NPD Group.

…

Apple will also include a Nike Sport Music section on its iTunes music store, which will feature playlists by well- known athletes like Armstrong, the companies said.

The Nike iPod system will let runners call up a favorite song instantly as well as upload their workout information to a Web site, www.nikeplus.com, where they can share the information with their friends.

Tim recently posted about the lack of good sources for finding a simple list of state codes on the web, and I agree. It’s one of those things that everyone needs at some point, but when you do, they’re no where to be found. I had these two CSV files sitting on my drive for a while with States and Countries that I found in a desperate search one time. Hopefully they’ll help the weary searcher in need of a list.

• States
• Countries

Happy for-looping.

What the #$*%!????? So I’ve been a big sucker for this stupid Vonage IPO for the past two weeks. I bought into Vonage a few years ago and I have mostly felt that its a pretty impressive service (even though their customer service kills me, and my office phones don’t always work, and if I didn’t know how to reset a router my wife wouldn’t be able to make phone calls, and if my dog bumps the damn thing it resets, and sometimes it doesn’t understand numerical key presses correctly, and you have to talk to someone in India for far too long before you can prove that you know how a router works, and - oh darn - did I say all that? nevermind)

In any case… they offered stock to us early adopters at the IPO price as a good faith gesture and I fell for it. I can’t afford much so I ponied up for the smallest number of shares they would let me request.

All day today they’ve been sending me emails about how the IPO was imminent and really got me hyped up. Each email gave me the option of bowing out at the last minute if I got cold feet, but I stayed the course, hoping for the best. The potential for a quick cashout was there.

So finally the email came - just a few minutes ago.

Today, the initial public offering (IPO) price for Vonage’s common stock was set. Please go to the Vonage Customer Directed Share Program website for details and login to learn whether your conditional offer has been accepted and the number of shares, if any, you have been allocated.

I logged in right away and was forced to click through 3 different screens with very serious language all making my blood rush. It felt like a drum roll was playing in my headphones…. the IPO is launched… the shares have been distributed… here’s that prospectus one more time… lucky you… you get stock at an IPO PRICE!… on the next screen you get to find out how rich you are going to be… you will see… on the next screen… how many shares you got… are you ready?…. when we tell you to… click the button…. not yet…. ok…. NOW (oh and by the way, you may not get all the shares you wanted, if any) IF ANY??? SURELY I GOT SOME!!!

Screw off Vonage. You are going down by the Skype anyway.

Update Wednesday morning: Vonage shares fell 14% at the debut. Well hah. I guess someone was looking out for me.

Broadway and Maine

A 55-story residential tower in downtown Long Beach. That’s right. We’re very proud to be working with Doma Properties on the launch of this new iconic property. We launched this site last week, just in time for the Downtown Home Show. Kudos to Greg & Tim for some great work with limited time and assets. The property is a few years away, but the roll-out begins now. We’re looking forward to seeing the project develop and being a part of it from the get-go.

Ok, this is driving me nuts and I had to post this.

I am creating a simple form for one of our newest releases. It includes a drop down box for choosing your “State”. Now, you would think that if you searched for “State abbreviations” on google you would find a long list of abbreviations you could copy and paste and viola, have your drop down. HOWEVER, this is not the case. Everything I find is a table based site that has the state name in one column and the abbreviation in the other. Well, this doesn’t work because it’s sorted alphabetically by the state NAME, which is not alphabetical by state abbreviation!! ARGH!
So, my complaint I guess is, why, OH WHY!?! isn’t there a list of JUST alphabatized abbreviations where a developer like ME can go and copy and paste to populate my combo box…well, now there is, no thanks to YOU (internet community)!!!

(How nice, already in array format)

var stateList:Array = new Array(”",”AK”,”AL”,”AR”,”AS”,”AZ”,”CA”,”CO”,”CT”,”DC”,”DE”,”FL”,”GA”,”GU”,”HI”,”IA”,”ID”,

“IL”,”IN”,”KS”,”KY”,”LA”,”MA”,”MD”,”ME”,”MH”,”MI”,”MN”,”MO”,”MS”,”MT”,”NC”,”ND”,”NE”,”NH”,”NJ”,”NM”,”NV”,”NY”,

“OH”,”OK”,”OR”,”PA”,”PR”,”PW”,”RI”,”SC”,”SD”,”TN”,”TX”,”UT”,”VA”,”VI”,”VT”,”WA”,”WI”,”WV”,”WY”);

Mad props to Jay for putting together the JLOOP Spamfilter. After months of some serious research, the JLOOP spamfilter has arrived and it is an excellent balance of all effective anti-spam measures .

Check out this document which explains the service in more detail.

JLOOP Mailfilter

Word on the street is that Outburst has become “sporty”, so apparently we have a reputation to uphold. With Travis off to New York and Jen off to New Borns, the floors at the JLOOP mega plex are starting to accumulate some peanuts.

Check out the nice little Java app that tracks the day to day record of baseball teams vs their salary. The slider on the top is the fun part. Watch my Dodgers head into a free fall from there great start last year to the bad team they were.

http://benfry.com/salaryper/2005/

It seems that Adobe was on the case, updating dreamweaver to include revisions to the OBJECT/EMBED tags (Which makes the recently remodeled Internet Explorer happy). The update is included in the latest revision to dreamweaver 8.
Dreamweaver 8.02 Update

Those of us who appreciate the WYSIWYG will be able to view their flash files again.

It is a bit hard to take Opie too seriously but I think he has a very unique perspective as he has been in Hollywood since birth as an actor and progressed into a very successful director. I found this interview contained some good insight into collaboration and working your way from a child actor to a veteran director.

The Treatment
Here is a direct link to the mp3, which for some reason is not on the KCRW Page.

Ron Howard Interview on the Treatment