I/O: Tech Introvert - Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut...

My First Computer: Behold the Sharp PC-1500a


In 1985, or was it 1986, a box arrived in the mail from my uncle. My uncle was at the cutting edge of technology through most of the 80's. He had left our small hometown to go work at one of the largest software companies in the world, so when he sent packages they always included something cool. I rememeber one year he sent a small bag of ~ 20 circuit boards, which ended up being copied (pirated) Atari 2600 games. So naturally I was hoping for a fresh batch of illegal video games. Little did I realize that what was inside the box would end up changing my life forever. Inside the package was a brown, plastic case with a note attached. The note read "Found this in my office, it's a few years old but thought you might like it". 

I quickly flipped open the case to find the epic Sharp PC-1500a Pocket Computer, shiny and unused, smelling of fresh electronics.

To me, the PC-1500a was like something out of Star Trek. I had heard about computers but had no idea "pocket computers" even existed. It featured a single-line 26-character LCD display, 8 KB of RAM and ran programs written in BASIC. There was no hard drive and backups were done to cassette tape using an external tape recorder. (By the time I was done with it, I had amassed 10-20 tapes consisting of nothing but the horrific screech of data backup). Also included in the box was the essential CE-150 Printer Module. The main PC-1500a snapped into this sucker, which featured a 4-color pen plotter. That's 4 little ball-point pens of different color that would scratch out characters and graph plots. 


Over the next year or so, I taught myself some simple BASIC and wrote some silly little games. They were mostly text-based adventure games like Pirate Cove, though mine were really nothing more than choose-your-own-adventure stories. I was very proud of a wrestling game I made which allowed you to execute moves and calculated the remaining health of you + your opponent. It was a ton of fun. I'd move on to other PCs; a DOS based monochrome AT&T desktop, then a slick Hyundai PC running Windows 3.1 which I used to first access the internet in the early 90's (go CompuServe), etc. Eventually I'd follow my uncle and also go to work at one of the largest software companies in the world. But I'll never forget that little Sharp pocket computer.

So what was your first computer?

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The Ouch of Google Chrome Extensions


Ouch is right. This is with only 1 tab open and a couple of extensions I like (Feedly, Google Reader Checker) removed. 

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I Hate Streaming Media Because the Cloud Sucks

Today TechCrunch broke a story on the launch of MOG, an online subscription-based streaming music site similar to Pandora/Rhapsody/Napster etc. MOG is a cool service with tons of potential. It boasts a great interface and excellent sound quality, and I highly recommend signing up for a 1 hour trial. I was very excited to try it out, but after using the service for a few minutes I remembered something...I hate streaming media. I refuse to move my music library to the cloud for one reason- the cloud sucks. 


Can you tell me what the problem is with the picture below?

Only 5 of 12 songs are available for Deerhunter's "Cryptograms" album. The title track is unavailable for Pete's sake. I'm not going to post the results of my Fugazi search (hint: zero). And this is why I hate streaming media: the price of instant access is limited selection. 

I don't mean to pick on MOG. I like their service better than Pandora or Last.FM. Go check out the selection of movies on Hulu or NetFlix Instant Queue. Go ahead, I'll wait...Yeah, pretty bad huh? It's like the damn $5 DVD bin at Walmart.

I will gladly pay a subscription fee for online streaming media. I'll let go of my racks of CDs and drives filled with MP3s and move everything to the cloud. But not as long as the cloud is filled with partial albums and crap movies.

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Customer Support via Twitter Actually Works

I've openly bitched about products + services on Twitter at least 4 or 5 times. In every case, someone from that company has contacted me to provide an explanation or offer assistance within 24 hours. In fact with many products/services you can send tweets directly to the support staff, developers, or even the executives + creators. And get responses quickly.

That's an unprecedented level of user accessibility.

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Tech Questions to Baffle Your Under-30 Friends


With a heavy dose of nostalgia, and a light dash of pretentiousness, here's a list of tech questions which are virtually unanswerable by those under the age of 30. 
Feel free to add your own! 
  • What are the notches on a 5 1/4 floppy for? Why are there sometimes two?
  • What is a CD-ROM caddy?
  • What does a cassette tape backup sound like?
  • What was so unusual about CompuServe email addresses?
  • What does GOSUB do?
  • What types of files were commonly uuencoded/uudecoded?
  • What is Archie used for?
  • What did Hayes Microcomputer Products make?
  • What was Progman.exe used for? What was it replaced by?

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The Next Android Phone

Manufacturers are realizing that slapping Android on their devices is a sure fire way to bump up the buzz/interest/geek cred of their devices- no matter how lame and uninteresting the hardware was before Android.

Photo thanks to The Gunslinger: http://tsutpen.blogspot.com/2009/11/future-is-now-10.html

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H1N1 Flu Shots in Boston via Google Maps. We're gonna need more chicken soup...

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Kindle for PC: Almost Useful


Today Amazon announced the release of Kindle for PC, a PC-based version of their eBook reader (Mac version soon to follow). The reader itself is very Acrobat Reader-esque, easy to use, and synced with your Amazon account (no Kindle necessary). It displays an uneditable/unselectable version of the books in your library and allows you to adjust font + page size.

I don't actually use a Kindle. I've read books on my iPhone and actually like it, so I've been considering buying more. One thing has held me back though- some books just don't work on a phone. Programming books, for one, aren't the greatest. It's tough to scroll through lines of code on a tiny iPhone screen. I thought Kindle for PC would help solve this problem, and I could pop open my laptop (or eventually MacBook) if I wanted a richer reading experience. Unfortunately, Kindle for PC is very bare bones at the present time. It works...but that's about it. Which is actually pretty disappointing. 

Three things that cripple the app-

1) While you can view notes/highlights, you can't actually create notes on your PC. This is listed as a known feature request on Amazon, and I hope they get to it quickly. Also, now is the prefect time to address the ability to export notes. This is a must-have for the Kindle platform.

2) Can't adjust background color. On the iPhone I have options other than the standard retina-burning white page w/black text. Not so on Kindle for PC.

3) Cannot select/copy/paste. This is a huge limitation with Kindle's DRM and has no quick fix. How cool would it be to be able to copy/paste a code example directly into you IDE? Since enabling that would also allow you to copy/paste it into a PDF and sell it for $5, this will never happen. Worse, you can't even copy a word or group of words and Google them, or save a neat little quote for personal inspiration.

I love the Kindle, I love the ebook selection & 1-click purchasing on Amazon, and the cloud-based library. But when the DRM rears it's ugly head, it's enough to make you look into other options like Safari books.

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Filed under  //   Amazon Kindle   eBooks   Kindle   Kindle for PC  

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Cadmus Groups Duplicate Tweets, Actually Works

Louis Grey posted about Cadmus earlier today, and the idea of grouping duplicate tweets to remove noise is a great one. 

Better yet, it actually seems to work. For Tweets anyway. Cadmus also supports FriendFeed and RSS, but I haven't had luck with RSS yet. I had some odd results importing my 150-ish subscription Google Reader OPML. It pulled in thousands of old items in no discernible order. But it did group 30% of them...

Here's Cadmus in action, grabbing 8 posts regarding Google's acquisition of Gizmo5 and rolling them into a single nested tweet. By clicking "Related Posts", you expand the grouped duplicates. Now THAT is cool.


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Filed under  //   Cadmus   Twitter  

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How Do You Sleep at Night, Comcast?

Apparently on a huge pile of money...


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Filed under  //   Comcast   Robbery  

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