The Board

Had a great time last night in San Francisco celebrating Derrick’s birthday, an event that we were all surprised to hear happens every year, since we’re never all together for it! We had a great dinner at Straits Cafe, which involved not only food but a lot of talk/experimentation with digital cameras, then walked around Union Square taking pictures of the lights. We ended up spending what seemed like about 3 hours at Mel’s Diner having milkshakes before heading home.
Kelvin’s put up a bunch of photos on his flickr site, and I started a set, too. As far as I know, there was no HD video taken.

So supposedly 2009 with be the year of the touchscreen Netbook at CES. From the article:

The CES 2009 will officially start on January 8th, which is less than 2 weeks away. Netbooks will be of course a very hot topic at the CES 2009. The new generation of netbooks will add touch and will have twistable screens to use them in tablet or notebook style.

As reported two weeks ago Intel is set to introduce a new Classmate netbook with a twistable screen and touchscreen at the CES 2009. Back in October we already reported that Asus is planning to introduce touchscreen Asus Eee netbooks early 2009. Asus is exhibiting at the CES unveiled pre-show that takes place already on January 6th. Expect the Asus Eee Touch to be already unveiled then.
Gigabyte has outrun all of them with the Intel Atom powered M912V (photo) that has been on the market already for a while. See this M812V review we featured back in September. I hope Asus, Acer, MSI, Samsung and the other netbook vendors bring more innovation to the netbooks than just adding touch to netbooks. I expect an UI that is also made for touch and not just a shell with 6 large icons to push as desktop.

Thoughts? How much would you pay for a touchscreen Netbook, aka the Foleo Killer.

Twas the night before Christmas, and on our website
All had stopped posting, and comments were light
MovableType still running The Board with due care
While knowing that WordPress soon would be there
The children were nestled, all snug in their beds
While visions of gadgets danced in dads’ heads
The Celtics were rolling, the Patriots had life
But the Niners, Raiders & Chiefs were all full of strife
Out on the internet arose such a clatter
I sprang from the couch to see what was the matter
Grabbed the iPod Touch, it was on in a flash
Checked Twitter & email, the App Store sure is a smash
The internet was crazy, I’d never seen such a flurry
But I must be quick, I must be in a hurry
Then I just saw him, almost did not catch it.
It’s Rotiveo– the patron saint of gadgets!
Rotiveo wore Mobile Pants, size extra tall
And his clothes were vibrating, must be a phone call
Brought a load of gadgets, and even a game
And he whistled, and shouted and called sites by name
“Now Whole Foods! Now Apple! Now Best Buy and Target!
To Starbucks! To Costco! To Macy’s and PetSmaht!”
All over the web, he searched high and searched low
To find all the stuff, now it’s ready to go!
All across the internet, Rotiveo he flew
A storm of traffic he did see in his rear view
He found the best deals, on the very best gear
It’s so cutting edge, it will still be good next year.
The net’s overflowing with really good stuff
Getting it to work might be kind of tough
With all sorts of cords and fifty kinds of plugs
(For us early adopters, we’re used to the bugs)
Rotiveo’s got just the right thing for us all
No Foleo, Walkman, nor ‘lectronic pinball
Instead its Wiis, TiVoes and Netbooks galore,
Plus, RockBand, iPhones, NetFlix and more!
Giant TVs, they are perfect for games
Phones from Nokia, RIMM, and a bunch of no-names
With a new SLR, pictures come out quite well.
All of these gadgets are really, really swell
To Mike and Joanie, a full year in their house
Not a creature was present, not even a mouse
To Kelvin, Serena, Montana & Lucas
Their very own house, the first time at Christmas
Jake has Hannukah with friends for eight nights
The dreidel they’ll spin, the Menorah they’ll light
To Derrick, Emily and Brandon too
Enjoy the weather, in whatever you do
Lucas’ second & Brandon’s fourth Christmas Eve
Montana always dreaming, of food I believe
Pyslent will gather, one week from today
Together again, near San Francisco Bay
Rotiveo sprang to Roomba (hacked year before)
And away they went, after cleaning the floor
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

Finished uploading the photos, so far. Check them all out here. The trip was a blast, it was good to see old friends and the old city. Here are some of my favorites.


Or just jump straight to the slideshow. Photos now re-ordered.

Details are scant but an announcement that Palm will finally announce something kinda seems buzz-worthy. Should we hold our shares through this event? What is the probability that Palm announces something that moves the dial in this super-competitive market?

Palm Announces a Press Event for CES

So Netflix, including HD content, has finally arrived on TiVo! I haven’t tested it out since I’m not a Netflix member, but I’ll give it a whirl soon either through the free trial or alternative arrangements. Every day that goes by, it becomes easier & easier to live without cable. In related news, Amazon HD content isn’t here yet, but it can’t be long. It’s all good.

Oh, I would be remiss to end this post without a review of the long history of the TiVo-Netflix alliance. Like the eary rumors. Posts that take it for granted. Netflix begins streaming. The Roku Netflix box. And the XBox 360 entry.

Framed

You can read more about these photos. I was originally planning to have these professionally mounted/ matted, so the crop is a bit off. But, for $25, I decided to go with pre-cut mattes. I’ll probably re-crop the bottom two & print them again.

In yesterday’s WSJ, they pitched an interesting investment idea for people who have lots of money in an S&P 500 Index Fund: dump the fund now, take the losses and tax writeoff, and buy an index fund that tracks a different index (e.g., the Wilshire 5000). They’re both down quite a bit (obviously), so you’re not losing any upside potential, and you’re getting the tax benefits of selling at a loss.
The only hidden thing that they point out is that you have to make sure that the fund you buy is not “fundamentally identical” to the one you sell, which under IRS rules would not allow you to take the losses. But the writer’s opinion is that funds that track different indices really can’t be considered identical.
What do you guys think? Seems too easy, somehow, there must be a catch.

Hard to believe. Pyslent continues to rock, and to keep the geographically diverse team in close contact. So first, through the years. Year 0, year 1, year 2, year 3, year 4 and year 5. All told, 1567 posts and 6448 comments. We’ll have to plot these numbers up at some point.
Now, read on to see a list of our most commented upon threads from the last 6 years. Notice any trends?

(more…)

Nokia N97 sitting next to iPhone

Nokia N97. Blackberry Storm. Samsung Instinct. Palm TBD. T-Mobile G1. HTC Touch. The list goes on. Nearly 2 years after its introduction, the rest of the smartphone world has fully revealed their iPhone envy. What does the Pyslent community feel about all these newcomers– can any stack up to the juggernaut that is the iPhone?