Hardware Beyond the Hype
I’ve been on the look out for a Windows tab-capable browser, since I tend to have a dozen browser windows open at a time — making it very hard to find anything. Tried Mozilla. It crashed. I resumed my search and found this browser list.
After trying several programs, I’m very happy and impressed with CrazyBrowser. Allows keeping groups of links and locking tabs into place. Wrangle those URLs! It’s freeware, with no annoying ad- or spyware.
Ok, so I took an old PC that had formerly been at work and brought it home, but it needed a modem. Throwing caution to the wind, I bought the cheapest modem card Walmart had, the Broadxent v.92. Never mind that it’s a subsidiary of Creative, a company who, by most accounts, makes crappy Winmodems.
The punchline: it works great! I’ve never gotten >2k/sec throughput in my life with something this cheap. I’m all aglow. And it cost $30, less if you shop around.
Pros: Cheap. Works. Comes with fax software.
Cons: I had to unplug and re-insert the card before win2k would properly recognize the card, but that’s just part of the Plug ‘n’ Pray experience.
I know, it’s bad to reward spam, 
but when this arrived in my email, I actually thought “this might be the first time I actually buy a product from unsolicited email.” This is the Homer Simpson talking beer opener, which says “Mmmm. Beer,” and more, whenever you crack open a cold one. You can hear Homie drooling over a Duff by clicking here (.wav file). While I won’t reward the original spammer, I’ve found the opener elsewhere for around $9. Go to BrewOrganic for yours.
Infosync has a review of the very first phone to utilize Microsoft’s Pocket PC SmartPhone operating system, designed to integrate phone, PDA, and multimedia functions all in one unit. The phone, called the SPV from UK wireless carrier Orange, is the first to market with this OS, and it’s likely to hit the shores in the US fairly soon. It has a 132MHz TI processor and 16MB RAM with an SD/MMC slot for expansion. The screen is 176×220-pixel screen with 65k colors. Price is around $300 in the UK. Full-size pic under “read more” and the full review from Infosync.
Cool little tip in the latest Wired. Instead of buying a TeleZapper, that little inline phone cable gizmo that tricks telemarketing robo-dialers into thinking they’ve gotten a disconnected number, you can easily make your own. All you have to do is download this WAV file. You can either play this 3-tone sound file into your outgoing answering machine message as is or trim off the last two tones. These are the tones you hear when you get a disconnected number. Only the first tone is required to trick the robo-dialer into thinking that your number is a dead-end (and they’ll take you off their list).
The Alphasmart Dana is a new release from Alphasmart, a longtime maker of unusual small screen, very basic tablet-laptop-like devices. The Dana is Palm OS based, with full compatibility with the Palm 10,000 program software library, plus comes with special versions of Blue Nomad’s Alphaword, Palm reader and Printboy. The Dana has two SD/MMC slots, an IR port and 8 megs of internal RAM. Most unusual for a Palm device, it’s got a built-in keyboard and 560×160 gray-scale screen. The screen allows full-width spreadsheet viewing and word-processing, while any other programs not designed to take advantage of the extra width are displayed only in the center, while the “soft” grafitti area can be displayed on either side of the main screen. It weighs just 2 lbs, and has rechargable batteries and can also use 3 AA batteries or the AC adapter. Price is $400 from Palm.com, but I imagine the price for educational markets is probably significantly lower.
This Sanyo 5300 is one cool looking gadget; integrated 640×480 pixel digital camera *with flash* and digital zoom, plus dual color LCD displays – one for the outside caller ID/ picture display and a 2.2″ 65,000 color one inside for all the other features. Price is expected to be around $400, available next month from Sprint. Hit “read more” for bigger pic.
If you’re reading this at streettech.com, welcome to Street Tech 4.0! We’ve made the switch from testing to live mode. This is the NEW, IMPROVED Street Tech: same attitude, different engine. There’s going to be a bug or two here and there as we continue to migrate over five years of content, but bear with us, we’ll get it worked out…eventually. Please let us know what you think.
-Tim, Gareth, Nate, and the whole happily mutated Street Tech gang.
Our “MCI Network” (i.e. familiy and friends) have been hard at work crankin’ out the media recently. First up is TechTV’s Catalog of Tomorrow, a sorta Whole Earth-styled survey of up-and-coming science and technology. I contributed a bunch of pieces to this, along with other pals of Street Tech like Cory Doctorow, Mark Frauenfelder, Tiffany Lee Brown and Howard Rheingold.
Speaking of Cory and Mark, they’ve got new books of their own. Cory’s first sci-fi novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, has generated quite a buzz. I can’t wait to read it. Mark’s book, called Mad Professor, is a guide to weird and wacky kitchen experiments for kids. He wrote AND illustrated it. If you’re a fan of Mark’s happy mutant retro-futuristic humor and drawing style, you’ll love this book.
And last, but certainly not least, my wife Pam’s band, Thievery Corporation, has released their third recording, The Richest Man in Babylon. It’s their most ambitious project to date, with a planetful of different sonic moods and textures. Pam plays on two tunes, the delirious Arab/India-inspired “Far East” and the shagadelic “All That We Perceive.” Other stand out tracks include the beautiful Lamb-like “Heaven’s Gonna to Burn Your Eyes,” with Icelandic singer Emiliana Torrini, and “Meu Destino,” a Brazillian number with the highly underrated DC-area jazz great Patrik De Santos.
Toshiba has been been making a pretty big splash in the Pocket PC world by releasing new PDAs almost as fast as Sony does for the Palm platform. The newest from Toshiba is the e330 which shares the same form as the super-slender e310, but replaces the 206 MHz ARM processor with a 300 MHz X-Scale processor and adds an extra 32 megs of RAM for a total of 64. USB-host is possible with the optional cable (printers, hard drives, keyboards and other peripherals, depending on driver availability). Price is just $350 — pretty low for a Pocket PC.
Also available today is a flip cover that should fit it; The Pocket Solution is a flip cover designed for many different PDAs, and is selling now for $20. For those who have wanted a flip cover for their PDA, this might be an inexpensive solution, though the use of Velcro and (apparent) lack of ability to lay flat may turn some off.