TechToyz: The Intersection of Technology and Life

Podcasting

Podcasting is all the rage now. A great place to find information is at ipodder.org. I end up listening to podcasts on my iPod instead of music most of the time. Some of my fav podcasts are:

• Adam Curry's Daily Source Code
• Engadget
• Geek News Central
• Coverville
• Leo Laporte has several, but this one has the most content.
• Dawn and Drew (This is not usually office friendly)
• iPodlounge (I wish this one was more frequent)

Cool Clothes

I recently ordered the sportcoat/blazer from Scottevest. Scottevest is a clothing provider for techie type products. They mostly have coats and vests that have MANY pockets for your gadgets like MP3 players, phones, cameras, etc. The coats and vests even have wiring paths for your MP3 headphones and phone earphone/microphone.

After studying the features of the sportcoat, I took the plunge and ordered one. I normally wear a 44 long sportcoat. The style was listed as European. That usually means there is not a center slit in the rear of the coat and they are slightly more slim in sizing. I ordered the 46 long. I arrived a few days later. The coat fit everywhere except in the sleeves. After a couple of conversations with Laura at Scottevest, I decided that any other size would not fit very well. A quick trip to a local tailor to alter the sleeves by about an inch made the coat a perfect fit.

McDonald's DVD Rentals

Not only did some of the McDonald’s locations in Las Vegas have high-tech wireless Internet access, one store also had DVD rentals. The McDonald’s off Lake Mead Blvd on the north side of Las vegas had a DVD rental kiosk outside their store. It offered rentals 24 hours a day. It appeared to have about 12-15 choices of movies.

So McD’s has wireless Internet, DVD rentals and automated drink dispensers. I wonder how this and other high tech operational enhancements have affected their customer base and profits?

Podcasting with GPS Coordinates

Adam wants wants a podcasting configuration that allows him to automatically add GPS coordinates as he records. He then wants podcast listeners to be able to follow a route and as they reach certain locations, some podcast content is launched via the GPS/MP3 device.  That seems a tall order due to the variety of add-on GPS products, number of different MP3 devices, etc. The challenge is to create a solution that would work and yet sell enough to make business sense.

There seem to be a couple of solutions from Garmin  that might make sense. The iQue3200 and the iQue3600  are PalmOS solutions that have SD card expansion for storage. They have a GPS, can play MP3's and use standard Palm apps.  My Treo 600  is a similar device without the GPS functionality. A couple of products: Personal Audio Recorder  and SoundRec  work on my Treo. The key to a high quality recording seems to be having a fast SD card . So, it seems that a good first step is for a PalmOS developer to with with the SDK for the iQue's. The units are popular and support most of what Adam has suggested on his podcasts.

Once developed on these platforms, maybe it would make sense to expand to the Treo 600 and Treo 650 units with add-on GPS functionality. The Treo's are very popular devices.

I still think Adam needs the Forerunner 301  to track his location and heart rate when BT or EasyNet tells him another lie about when his broadband will work :)

Treo 600 WiFi

One of the more interesting Treo 600 accessories I saw at CES was from Enfora. They announced a Wi-Fi Sled that gives you 802.11b access for the Treo 600 without draining the phone battery. It makes the phone a little bulky, but would be easy to carry in your laptop bag/purse/coat pocket and just put it on the phone when using the 802.11b functionality.

It doesn't look like you can buy until sometime in February for $149.

Yoshi at CES

While looking through the Samsung booth yesterday at CES, I bumped into Yoshi from TechTV fame. Yoshi did all the cool stuff on the show, including all the Mods. His buddies laughed and said something like " oh no, now he'll have a big head from being recognized by a fan". He seemed cool, just like on TV. I doubt that he has an ego at all.

It's a shame most of the good people from TechTV got let go by G4TechTV . I still enjoy seeing Kevin Rose , but the change in staff and direction make it a marginally useful channel for me now.

McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas

On a good note about customer service, the Las Vegas airport  has added free wireless access for travelers. The signal is pretty good and the response time is more than reasonable. It seems like most airports still change for this type service or don't offer it at all. This is a nice touch for travelers, especially due to the normal delays and problems that come with airports.

Bluegrass Airport  in Lexington, KY also offers wireless access as a free service. I usually try to flight out of Lexington because I can work on the Internet while waiting for my flight.

Delta's Friendly Sky's

Finally, I'm sitting in the gate area at the Las Vegas airport  after a fun morning with Delta. The short version of my customer service adventure. Last night, I called Delta  to see if I had any options to return home earlier. The weather has been bad on the west coast and I was concerned that my flight back to Kentucky, then back to San Francisco a few hours later might be problematic. The nice guy at the Delta 800 number said I could fly back for a $25 change on flights that were at 7:15am, 9:20am or 11:30am today.

I got up, headed to the airport and went to the ticket line as instructed. Well, the ticket line rep couldn't help me. She said I had to use the customer service telephone. That didn't make me happy after waiting in line, but I made the call. That's when things got fun. The barely understandable woman on the phone informed me that my change would cost $50, plus the ticket cost difference of another $150. Of course, I wasn't happy. She said I had no recourse except to wait in the airport for 15 hours for my scheduled flight. I asked her to look up the access to my account last night to see who had helped me. She said they don't track account access in the system unless a ticket is changed. I asked to speak to a supervisor.

The supervisor is back at the airport, so I had to wait in line to talk to someone. Laura, the Delta supervisor, said it would cost $50 plus $150, just like the telephone lady. She then said " I don't see where anyone accessed your account last night to give you the info that you could switch flights today".  I then explained that 15 minutes earlier, I asked if the they could look up that info and was told it does not exist. I wasn't happy AT ALL. I was reasonably polite, but conveyed my frustration for the inconvenience ( I had checked out of my hotel early and returned my rental car, thus was sort of stuck) and the changing stories. Eventually, I received a ticket on the 11:30am flight for the NEW $50 change fee.

A couple of other observations:

-I asked if they "outsource their 800 customer service" because it wasn't very helpful. After a long pause, the answer was "yeah, some of it". Maybe the rep didn't care because she was in sunny Florida or another country and didn't want to be helpful or accurate. Or maybe she was poorly trained.

-My flight out to Vegas cost twice what it usually does each year for CES.  When doing the "changing tickets" dance, they wanted a bunch more cash to get me home. Is there some fine print to  the SimpliFares?  Sure seems like it may not really be based on good fares, but maybe an advertising "bait and switch".

Anyway, maybe I'll get home early...

John Waite at CES

I spent time yesterday and today at the Sirius Satellite Radio  booth listening to their live shows. Today was a special treat. I'm a long time fan of The Babys and their lead singer John Waite  who has been a solo act for many years. He was on stage with some of the MTV VJ's of the 80"s : Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood and Alan Hunter. Jane Wietland from the Go Go's was also with them.

John answered questions, talked about his career, etc. They took questions from the audience, so I was first in-line and commented about The Baby's great Derby Eve Jam concert in Louisville, KY during the 80's with Journey. I asked if he ever sees/talks to his old bandmates from the Baby's. He mentioned Tony Brock was with Rod Stewart's band, but essentially said nobody from the old band has much contact.

Once I get back from CES , I'll try to post a couple of pics. I was also first in the autograph line! It was a cool treat for a big fan. Go out and get his new CD The Hard Way  . It's another good CD.

McDonald's Wireless

Dave Winer  made a prediction about wireless access at McDonald's and then found out they have embraced wireless access.  Looks like McDonald's is being serviced by Waypoint.  I'm out west in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show.  I decided to try the service since those that know me, know that the Golden Arches is "my home away from home". I stopped at one of the McDonald's in Vegas but they didn't know anything about wireless Internet. I stopped at another that was also listed. Once again, nobody knew and this one was under renovation and looked like a mess. I fired up the Powerbook and boinngg I got a sign-up screen. It's not free, but the $2.95 for 2 hours seemed very reasonable. The access was plenty fast, but of course I was the only one using the wireless network.

Another interesting note: the McDonald's had highspeed wireless networking, but the restrooms were closed because of the renovation work, so I couldn't stay too long :)