Laptops have become much cooler in recent years, but heat is still an operational problem.

Cooler notebooks last longer and too much heat can make your system crash.

Here are some simple tips:

1. Make sure the vents are not covered up, this is especially a problem when they are at the bottom of the notebook and you put the machine on cloth (like watching a video in bed).
2. Try to use notebook cooler or under layer made of glass or metal (like a metal mouse pad). If you don’t have neither use some small object like a real book to tilt the computer a bit, so air can circulate better under the machine.
3. Notebooks are like Hoovers they suck in all the dust around them. After a few months the inside of your notebook is clogged up with dust. The ventilator has to work harder and harder to cool it. That is why many notebooks get noisier over time. Open up the notebook (or let some support guy do it) and use your Hoover or some compressed air to clean out all the dirt.
4. Some notebooks with high end graphic cards can overheat nevertheless during demanding gaming sessions. A notebook cooler can only blow from below, so it might help to get an additional USB fan to add some cooling air from above.

I highly recommend doing #3 at least every six month – it really helps a lot.

We no longer simply can travel from A to B – we demand constant entertainment and we connect to our social lives as well .

So the Car of this Generation are more like rolling entertainment and information hubs, plastered with screens and multi media players.

The Car offers Bluetooth, a Cell Phone Charger and an iPod Connection as well. And the Car itself speaks to Satellites for Navigation and it’s Manufacturer about it’s health.

Modern Cars are the first machines we willingly accept instructions from. We blindly trust their commands …

Vint Cerf is a smart guy – he is one of the Fathers of the Internet.  So he know technology and it’s impact.

I think we are slowly understanding the recent impact of “the information at your fingertips”: we have more access to information and better knowledge tools, but more and more people do NOT learn how to dissect, understand and expand that knowledge.

The electronic book is a wet dream for gadget makers and publishers alike. Since the dawn of the CD-ROM they have tried hard to give us the eBook as well as the eNewspaper.

Finally new technology like the Kindle seem to make that possible.

But I think the whole approach is wrong. You simply can’t simulate paper digitally – it’s physical attributes can’t be replicated on a screen.

You can only "advance" the concept and idea of reading and organizing a series of texts into a coherent bigger "story" (book) or collection of articles (newspaper).

We already have that new concept and you are using it right now: it’s called a browser.

People have disliked reading PDFs for years and prefer content in their browsers.

The only reason why they want shove eBooks and eNewspapers down our throats is that they want us to pay for it. We still connect to the concept of "books" and "newspapers" that we have to pay for it. Anything in a browser is supposed to be free.

Amazon wants us all to use a Kindle, so they can track and watch what we read. 

Those eReaders are all about buying content and digital rights management. And we already have seen that the Amazon Kindle as well as the iPhone (another big eBook plattform) have remote killswitches. If they want those companies can simply switch off access to any content you bought and downloaded for on YOUR own machine.

This is very easy to do with electronic gadgets with an internet – try to that with an old fashioned newspaper or book …

To own a digital camera at the end of the 1990’s was pretty unusual and expensive. Ten years later almost every gadget seems to be able to shot photos and videos – even in High-Definition …

Cheap Sensors

The arrival of cheap sensors and storage allowed cell phone and computer manufacturer to stuff a camera into almost every gadget we carry around. There are hardly any cell phones or notebooks without a cam these days.

And the Quality! There was literally an explosion of pixel power – who would today bother with a 1-Mega-Pixel-Camera? Sure pixel resolution is not everything, but the image quality has equally improved with pixel quantity.

Early Nokia prototypes …

Cheap Monitors

But the Revolution of the Pixel includes LCD monitors – which are now huge and cheap (my current 24"-Samsung-Display would have been astronomically expensive in 1999). The analogue monitor is dead – LCDs have overtaken our eyes. Their sharpness and extreme colour range has redefined our viewing habits.

Cheap Storage and Bandwidth

Big sensor create big images – but today we also have the CHEAP big memory cards, sticks and chips to store them – as well as fast broadband to send our crappy holiday shots to all our friends and social media appendices via eMail or Social Media website (like Flickr and Facebook).

The Real Changes: record anything everywhere and at anytime

Because not only Big Brother has CCTV cameras everywhere we mere mortals can and do record anything. Thanks to YouTube and Flickr (and their clones) we can and do share everything we record.

In the last ten years there has been a flood of digital videos and photos. I suspect we all shot more images and hours of footage in these last ten years with our cheap gadgets than all generations before us?!

And the pixelated flood will continue.

On the web you can videos of any occasion and situation: from airplanes crashes, terrorist attacks, amateur sex and children’s birthdays. It alls there.

I wonder how he feels about that (public) video in twenty years?

The new global sharing culture enables us to share our lives with others and see how others live their life’s. It has never been so easy to experience, study and learn the human condition.

Since we love Social Porn (<- see my essay on that subject here) this trend will continue. It’s not Big Brother watching us – we love to show ourselves and watch others. This was first limited to celebrities and personal holiday snapshots. Today we can record and broadcast our own lives 24/7 – and some people already do.

That also means that social acceptance of being watched by the government and others has risen. In a world were everybody can record, share and watch everyone the old idea of privacy is gone …

We all know what you did ten summers ago … and you will never be able to delete that image …

The Real Changes: the Web never forgets and will find you

The global visual sharing culture has just begun, already billions of images and videos are online. And the web never forgets …

In the last century your parents were probably the keepers and guardians of your embarrassing childhood shots – today compromising material will sooner or later land on the web.

Many employers as well as "friends" check on Facebook and other social media your history before they get closer.

Thanks to Geo-Tagging and Facial Recognition it will be much easier to find a specific person in a gazillion images and videos. There is no such thing as anonymity in this brave new pixel world.

Reality – captured from many slightly different perspectives. 

The Real Changes: the global Big Picture and Synthesized Reality

Soon there won’t  be a place that hasn’t been photographed or captured in video. We will have a complete visual memory of our planet.

But there is more: all these images and technology will not only allow us to "find" each other – it will allow us to merge all that huge image and video pool into synthesized memory spaces (<- read my essay here).

Smart software literally stitches photos into a 3D-environment and connect / compute additional information into that "space".

When you think that Google Streetview and Google Earth are pretty amazing than hold on to your socks – the new kind of search will finally feel like stranger than any science fiction movie you have seen …

Is it real or is it … HDR?

The Real Changes: Reality is not as good as High-Definition

The last ten years have also brought a different change: the way we perceive what "reality" should look like.

Cameras, monitors and videos have slowly changed from the old 4:3 format to 16:9. The future is no longer square, but widescreen …

But the sharpness, colour range and contrast of images has changed dramatically, best illustrated by so called HDR-Images.

Before and after the HDR treatment …

Similar to before mentioned synthesized memory spaces already available cameras can combine several shots into one "High dynamic range image" that looks more real than reality.

Before the arrival of digital tools (read Photoshop or Paint Boxes for professional TV and Film productions) it was very hard to manipulate images.

Today almost any cheap camera or cell phone cam offers "image improvement filters" ranging from simple red eye removal to face finders and even body slimmers.

All these technologies have changed our perception of reality: old black & white television was unreal, even analogue colour TV looks unreal to a certain degree – and so do "classic" photos.

But today’s image technology allows us to create images and videos that look and feel more real than reality, but catching and synthesizing more details, sharpness and speed than ever before.

Remember him? 

The Real Changes: The Decade of Photoshop Fakery and empty Movies with too much CGI

The last ten years saw the Perfection of Fakery – thanks to tools like Photoshop, After Effects and many other image manipulation tools.

Movies like Jurassic Park and Matrix paved the way for CGI in movies – and helped the directors to tell amazing tales. But today many movies and TV shows feel boring, because there are too many "amazing effects". Special effects have turned into a big bore …

But Photoshop & Co are now also the #1 toys for Fakery – from Beauty Magazines and Advertising to Viral Videos – Fakes are now everywhere.

Every time people see today an amazing photo or video they distrust what they see: "Is it photoshopped or is it real?!"

Fakery is increasingly hard to spot and image manipulation is now standard for almost anything you see printed or on TV.

Especially advertising was always about fake reality, but now that advertised reality looks absolutely real and can be even more beautiful than ever before. Especially woman still try to "achieve" the beauty standards in advertising – but these fake beauties are unreal and do not exist … their "level of beauty" can never be reached by any real person …

LonelyGirl15 – the first YouTube Superstar? 

The Real Changes: Democratization of Broadcasting

When 8 mm movies came out it was touted as the Hollywood revolution for everyone. But the technology was cumbersome, expensive and difficult to master.

Today a GOOD video camera is affordable even for amateurs and the quality is amazing. Editing and special effects software is also cheap and basically the same the real Pros in Hollywood use.

But most of all there is now a global and cheap way to show and distribute your videos: the web.

New talent and film students can create movies and no longer rely on movie theatres, Hollywood studios or TV broadcasters to bring their work to the masses.

That means there is a wider platform for artists, moviemakers and crap alike – but it is most of all a true democratization of moviemaking and broadcasting like never before.

Low Budget series like LonelyGirl15 became global brands / phenomenon’s. Becoming a superstar on a budget was no possible!

Hello Human! Do you know where are you going to?

The Real Changes: 3D-Environments and Augmented Reality will change how we deal with real life

Today we are quite used to "live" in 3D spaces, either in games or car navigation systems – not too mention Google Earth …

The visuals of Computer Games have made a huge leap forward in the last 10 years. The X-Box, Playstation 2 and Wii can deliver incredible visuals.

Games have been pushing simulated 3D worlds for now over 20 years. New games look incredibly realistic and have left it’s visually primitive forefather Pong far behind.

But 3D engines, geo-tagging, camera sensors and search engines will merge into a new technology called Augmented Reality.

Here you look at the world through a computer display – and the computer will analyze what you and it sees – and add additional information.

The simplest form of this technology have been car navigation systems, but newer versions will go much further.

This is just a simply version of AR …

They could tell you for example which people or businesses are in a building nearby, because a search engine show you all information regarding the location you are currently at – and also know thanks to other peoples computers and cell phones who is currently near that exact spot you are standing.

Like other technologies this will make us even more dependent on our little gizmos. The pocket calculator robbed us of the need to learn math. The cell phone is our external memory for phone numbers, addresses and even our schedule (be honest how many phone numbers can you remember?).

Augmented Play Time …

Most people could hardly read maps anyway, but Augmented Reality will make them totally dependent on where to go. And thanks to "smart software" it will tell them what to shop where and that the person in front of them is their wife …

Conclusion: a new form of Telepresence

We are developing a totally new visual culture. Once the invention of photography radically changed how we captured reality and made it permanent – so will the digital capture, global storage and synthesizing of photos and videos.

Everybody needs a cam like this and everybody will wear some form of camera in the future anyway …

Thanks to a coming 24/7 always-on camera capture we will also develop a new form of Telepresence we have developed in the last century: first there was the telegraph that allowed almost instant reporting of events far away. Then came the telephone and radio, which allowed us to hear live events far away. With television we suddenly had eyes and ears all over the globe. We could watch catastrophes and music concerts unfold live.

A global web connected camera network will allow us to watch anything everywhere. It is not just a network for "watching" – it also will record, store and cross connect everything it sees.

The new telepresence and visual network will let you watch such events even from "unrecorded" angles …

This global camera network is not like Big Brother – it is a decentralized sister network, which consists of millions of independent digital eyes and ears that record and record …

Like a computer game all that data can be used to replay and synthesize the events it captured.

I hope I didn’t miss one?

Like the "compact stereo system" – the new Übermonitors suck. Apart from notebooks – who should include everything for portability – all other gadgets should be "separate". So when one part breaks it doesn’t spoil all other "elements" and usually the built-in components are not top notch, so you want to replace them anyway – but you can’t. The speakers suck and the webcam/microphone are not as good as say a good Logitech one.

It basically turned from a 1970’s brown box to an expensive pebble. And Apple still pretends it’s only a single button mouse – keeping up that old idiotic paradigm of fake simplicity.

Some “instruments” have a certain complexity to them: a computer keyboard needs all keys to work. And the Mac OS has been supporting right-clicks for a long time – but Apple still wants users to perceive the Mac as especially “simple” to use.

But it’s new multitouch mouse isn’t simple at all. It takes some training to get it right.

Click ad for more Apple Newton.

Lang before Smartphones computer vendors tried to sell us Personal Digital Assistants. The vision was there, but the hardware was too big and too slow to make it work.

Apple’s Newton was a brave experiment hardly anyone know anymore. I owned two Newtons, because I though the technology was fantastic. But for daily use it was crap.

Only a black & green display – but already with funky special effects. You could expand the Newton with special cards …

For text input you had to learn to write special characters so Newton could understand what you were trying to say. Apple scrapped that feature completely with the touch screen keyboard in the iPhone. You always needed that special pen to operate all these PDAs, which was pretty stupid. Although I am not a big fan of today’s touch screens, but they are much better than those pens.

The Newton died a quick and miserable dead. Apple didn’t try very hard to make it work.

Graffiti Gestures – bit odd at first, but it really worked after some training.

The Palm Pilot a few years later made the PDA market really fly. This was in a time, when cell phones were too stupid to be used to remember addresses, appointments or be synched with Outlook.

Some of the apps for the Palm (and Newton) were really great! The iPhone still hasn’t the same amount of good office applications and synchronization tools the Newton and the Palm offered. That is why I still consider the iPhone a lifestyle product and not a true mobile business tool.

I owned also a Handspring Edge – a small, but brilliant Palm clone. You could attack a pretty good portable keyboard to it – something the iPhone completely lacks as well.

In the end the Palm died as well. Better cell phones supplanted the address book and time management for which the Palm was mostly used.

And they offered eMail and Internet access the Palm struggled with for a long time. Plus cheap notebooks finally became lighter and affordable, so a bastard device like the PDA no longer made sense: there is no real middle ground between a good cell phone and notebook/netbook.

Thank the Digital Gods for iPods, hard drives and flash memory. Tapes were a great and cheap medium. Remember when we taped Top of Pops from radio or made great mix tapes for our beloved girlfriends?

But tape sucked: finding the right track was hard by winding it all forward and backward. All that winding drained your Walkmans batteries and wasted precious time. Some weaker Walkmans couldn’t "pull" long C120 tapes …

The sound of tapes wasn’t that bad – because radio and records weren’t that great either. But when the CD appeared you could hear the difference, which sucked.

And tapes could simply tear or the cheap plastic parts inside could brake. So you had to know how to repair a precious tapes.

Good bye tape – you won’t be missed … ever!

All our Gadgets currently rely on lithium-ion-batteries. But it’s not only the gadgets industry that relies heavily on Lithium, also the Electro-Cars need this material in HUGE quantities.

The only problem is that Lithium is a very rare element and the worlds reserves are pretty limited. China is emerging as the biggest producer and is seriously considering limiting the export of this precious material.

So either we have to find a substitute or a new way to produce huge amounts of Lithium.

Yes, Nerds can make music … all they needs is some gadgets to get rappin’. Brett Domino and his crew are brilliant. Make sure to visit his website or his YouTube channel.

Uh, all this nerdy excitement and brilliance makes me giggle like a little girl!

Ah, the Wonders of digital consumerism! The figure will react to your voice or simply act randomly. I need one asap – get yours here.

Most youngster wouldn’t believe how complicated and terrible the first answering machines were. It was especially hard to get back your phone once they answered the call first …

When this Mini-TV was introduced everybody thought it’s a stupid idea. Small transistor radios sold well, but nobody believed in the idea of "portable television".

Today the screens on iPods, cell phones with video and other portable video devices are hardly bigger, but people are mad about watching clips, TV episodes and whole movies on such tiny screens.

Madness!

But once again the quality technology is not important, as long as it is convenient and the content is good. People are willing to put up with technological limits if they are captured by good shows and stories.

Bigger screens, THX and all that nonsense is simply an added bonus, but not the most important thing about listening to a good song or watching an excellent video.

When I was a kid and heard about the Sinclair QL I was on fire! Great processor, stylish design and powerful graphics. But Sinclair blew the product launch and sold the machine before it was ready for the market. The rest is history as they say.

I still think this is a great machine.

The Deutsche Telekom or Magenta Giant as it’s called here in Germany has never had a good reputation based on it’s often terrible services and products.

Once again T-Mobile proves that it’s still a crappy company. It has decided to block Skype on it’s German networks – so iPhone Users can’t save money and use the net as freely as it should be.

We need Net Neutrality for cell phone data networks as much as for the normal net.

Technological progress is amazing. In hardly 50 years we have developed very capable video chips to incorporate in almost every gadget.

Most modern cell phones or digi cams can now record video in a higher resolution and more frames per second than the first TV heavy duty cameras. And thanks to innovations like YouTube or Ustream.tv you can broadcast yourself globally at no extra cost …

The Recession hasn’t started this trend – but it certainly will push it ahead. More and more consumer products don’t include more and more features – but less. They go for a new minimalism that is just enough to finish the task at hand.

I think it’s an excellent trend. We need smaller, smarter und simpler products – in addition to over-engineered thingies like the iPhone and the Hummer.

Small is beautiful was always a design mantra, but “This will do” should be another one. Products that will do the job without any bells and whistles – which save cost, material and energy.

So many events are snapped and recorded by hundreds if not thousands of gadgets – and beamed all over the world.

The best example is Obama’s recent Inauguration. The event was recorded from a gazillion angles (or literally points of view). They were saved in our shared digital memory to be be digested by the intranets.

But there is more.

Microsofts Photosynth shows how these collective recording can be merged / synthesized into a fuzzy hyperlinked historical "space".

Click image for more details.

You can experience this new technology on the CNN website – but you need to install a new plug-in for your browser for the magic to work.

Photosynth creates this virtual environment from hundreds of pictures. It’s like a walk able picture space. Amazing, but not very useful yet. But I am sure future versions will be able to synthesize videos, audio and images into one "space".

But once again there is more.

With additional facial recognition you will not only be able to pick people out of the crowd, but each person will be linked to their available data all over the intranets as well.

Just like Google Maps currently records every street view in major cities all over the world – so will we ourselves share moments of our lives online by recording videos, sharing our photos, our travel reports on blogs and locations via Twitter or similar services.  And EVERYTHING will be stitched together by "intelligent" software.

A few years in the future our real lives are more or less publicly recorded by our gadgets and saved on the internet.

Information at your fingertips? Nah, more like "Your life on my screen in every detail."

BBC News: New phone features ‘baffle users’

Apart from the phone designers – is anyone surprised about this?

Most touch screens are only meant for the tiny fingers of 12 year old Asian girls. Most people press at least three functions operating these touch mine fields.

The interfaces are fully Disney-compatible – full of eye candy instead of clear and easy to understand visuals.

To configure mobile internet application or simply the included synching software is often a nightmare. Add Bluetooth networking to make it even more confusing and you have the perfect consumers nightmare.

Those smart phones are hardly smart – most of the intelligence has still to come from the user to make these bloody things work.

It is amazing how much money kids and overgrown gamers spend for just killing each. This headset monstrosity is a mixture between a helmet and stereo system. How much electronics do you need to blow a loud "boooooom" into a 14 year old brain?

And this thing adds to the already huge energy bill of gaming systems as well: the overpowered processor, incredibly power hungry graphic card(s) and cooling systems.

Madness.

Why don’t you try beating each other with sticks? That much more exciting and at least you get some exercise?!

All these new phones are all a disappointment: iPhone 3G, Blackberry Storm and Android – and many others as well. They all are overpriced and have at least one serious no-go flaw.

And the price plans of most (German) carriers are more or less robbery.

So gimme better phones and price plans – and I might buy one of these bloody contraptions to replace my brilliant yet humble Motorola F3.

Since computers have become lifestyle products instead of tools many companies have started to pander to very different types of consumers.

Pink Tech is already causing me eye cancer every time I encounter it in shops (Video 1 and Video 2).

But this pink keyboard from Greybusters with a mirror really takes the cake. And don’t miss all their other great offerings!

Could anyone please stop these people? It hurts.

Each time I test some shiny new phone in a cell phone shop I am appalled by it’s stupidity and lack of ‘usability’.

Most of these ’smartphones’ have mutated in almost unusable cell phones. The menus are too complicated, the battery time is bad, sound quality is often mediocre and call handling was too cumbersome.

But developers and gadget vendors can’t help themselves stuffing ever more function into these gadgets. But for whom?

Most people simply want a phone with a simple address book and texting capabilities.

The number of iPhone or Smartphone user who really use ALL the functions of their gizmos is rather limited, but companies insist of giving as all these additional ‘distractions’ even when we don’t want them.

Most annoying of all: the touch screens and pygmy keyboards are often hard to operate and unusable for some real work. Most of them are overpriced data peep holes, where you can lookup something on the web or have a peek at an important email (because you are addicted to that always-on lifestyle).

Go into any cell phone shop and ask for a simple phone – and you will be amazed how limited the selection is. And most simple phone are build for the elderly with big displays and keyboards.

If I want to take a notebook with me – I’ll take my notebook with me. A mutant cell phone / smartphone is not suitable to replace a notebook.

Today’s elections are fought in real life as well as in cyberspace. Campaign websites and special applications are as important as old school posters and TV ads for the candidates.

But the Obama iPhone Application really takes the cake.

First you have to own an overpriced gadget from a really snobby company called Apple.

Second you have to be computer literate and well educated to handle the bloody thing.

And third you need to willingly seek out and download that application via the Intranets.

Hardly something for your average red neck or these small town value Americans?

In the Age of Mass Exhibitionism via the Intranets everybody deserves to be a star for 15 milliseconds.

So get this great Hollywoods USB-Webcam-Kit and prepare for your few moments of fame and YouTube glory.

Well, I have seen many strange and odd USB devices, but this one really takes the cake.

A finger skateboard? Dude, I just did a 360° just with my fat fingers!

via www.everythingusb.com

Why are modern males so obsessed with their cell phones, notebooks, desktop PCs, iPods and all these other electronic gadgets?

Some time ago I had a short look at the Ladies and their relationship to technology (Girly tech and why pink is for pussy). I think it’s only fair to look at myself and the Technolust of my gender.

Read the rest of this entry »

See it in action and get excited.

Watch this video for more technical details.

It’s dirt cheap and a great toy. Me want badly – even though I can’t play an instrument. But I think it’s a great toy to get into music.

More? Official Site – and some more electro pr0n at ThinkGeek

Unless you are 12 years old, female and own a pair of very rich parents – you shouldn’t own such a piece of crap. A €190 for a 4 Gbyte USB stick is not only overpriced, but will make your "precious data" even more interesting for any thief.

More? Buy this shiny objects here

Anyone remember these sweet little cameras and their huge success? Like today’s digital cameras these old snappers brought easy photography to the masses. Although they were hardly as instant as modern cameras their simple design and cheap manufacturing process made them affordable to almost anyone.

I still love the design of many of these old cams – very classic with the box-like elements, rounded corners and mostly black finish.

More? Kodak Instamatic @ Wikipedia

This is slowly becoming a seasonal thing: a new year a new iPod. Here is my excuse for buying a new one: four gigabyte was too tiny for my favorite tunes. Plus it helped to satisfy my technolust and stopped me from buying anything more expensive.

Overall the new iPod interface sucks. I still would prefer the simple old black and white screen with a super simple menu. I don’t need all that extra smart and shiny coverflow and graphic gimmickry. The inside of my pants have no eyes and I just need to see a list of what’s on the playlist. No more, no less.

Apple is currently diminishing the iPod’s greatest appeal: simplicity. Every new version tries to add some unnecessary bells & whistles.

Crap.

I always applaud companies, when they try to keep the update insanity for device drivers to a minimum. Many companies have switched to so called “all in one” driver packages, which means that all their drivers for all their products are in one huge file.

How huge? The newest SetPoint combined mouse and keyboard driver is a whooping 54 MB big. A monster to download and install.

Excuse me! But a mouse or keyboard is really a simple device – this sucks. Some operating systems are not as big as this driver package. What a waste of resources to download and store that bloody thing …

I actually think this nutty product is a good idea. I haven have cold hands while writing – although my room is heated. The only thing I don’ like are the many cables – I think I am gonna use some old fashioned wireless gloves …

I love fluffy tech and I like monsters. So this Monster Notebook Sleeve is just fucking brilliant. It even has a proper mouth and tongue when you open the monsters “jaws” to insert your precious machine.

Check it out!

In recent years we have seen an explosion of girly tech – gadgets specifically designed to appeal to woman’s sense of cuteness, styling and beauty.

But this new Sony Ericson phone in combination with it’s product website really takes the cake. A gold-pink cell phone is bad enough – but on a neon-green background?

Gimme a break. I’ll sue them for eye cancer!

But there are many golden, pink and other soft coloured gadgets out there – that are equally bad in terms of design and colour harmony.

Are woman really that hungry for pinkness in their mind? You girls know that pink is used to reflect your genitalia.

So in that context the Sony Ericson cell phone above ’says’: pink pussy below – and attracted to gold in the head, press the knobs to make her ring …

So Ladies – and don’t forget to ‘Bling’ your pink gadget to increase the girly ranking in your circle.

Yesterday I spent almost the whole day to sort out my computer box. I used to work as a system administrator for some time, so there are plenty of digital ‘leftovers’: adapters, cables, chargers, batteries, converters, transformers, even more cables and hubs of all sorts.

It is precious high tech trash. Some of these cables and especially adapters once cost a huge amount of money. I found one old Mac PowerBook to SCSI cable that once cost over €100. Now it’s simply high tech trash.

But it’s mostly poisonous trash. Some countries have laws against disposing it all as usual. Most cables and plugs contain precious metals – so it should be recycled.

But most of all: these cables and plugs should be designed to be more universal.

The USB plug and cable system for example was meant to be universal – just as the name says. But already USB is no longer just one plug but four different sizes. Well done computer industry!

And why can we have ONE charger for all those small gadgets like cell phones, cameras and mp3 players?

We are heading for the totally wireless gadget Internet: TV, radio and telephony are slowly making it to the net as well. Skype is already a great tool – I use it on a daily basis. For many business users it has replaced all the other instant messenger like AIM or ICQ.

Many people already got rid of their land line or only own one to have DSL – cell phones are the way to go. But I guess Internet phones will substitute sooner or later, because they offer an open basis and more possibilities for less money.

So cell phone providers will face the same struggle as classic telephone carriers and media companies: new technology will destroy their old and overpriced business model.

The new 3 Skype Phone are only available in a few countries, but the rates are amazingly low.

(Big audio geek rant ahead – just ignore it if you are not a sound nut like me )

To say that I am a audiophile person would be a bit of an understatement. I hardly leave the house without my iPod and even while working I love to listen to music via headphones. My brain simply loves to be close to the sound of music.

There are three things in my life were I am constantly looking for a better gadget: keyboards (because I type a lot), mouse (for smooth clicking) and headphones (I only have that set of ears). Sure I also love to shop for good monitors (because I want to be nice to my eyes as well) and a kickass computer – but usually both items don’t need changing only every two years.

When it comes to my ears I am VERY picky. As a kid I had several serious infection and some operations on my ears – so I am extra sensitive when it comes to my eardrums. Plus I still can hear grass growing although I had these operations and tortured my ears with techno music in the early 90’s. Yes, I will donate my amazing ears to science when I die …

Sound Quality in the Digital Age

In the age of the every shrinking music players buying the right and good headphones is important as well as a joke. Why? Because of sound compression and bad sound chips.

Compression: Many MP3s sound like shit, because they have been ripped with a low compression setting (like 128 or 192 kps) and therefore ‘hiss’ or ‘jitter’. So with good headphones you can hear all these ‘damages’ done to good music. I try to get the highest quality rips for my music collection – it should be at least 256 kps or more.

Sound Chips: This little bugger transforms your digital MP3 files back into proper music. Most PCs have terrible sound chips, their quality makes most sound engineers weep and kill themselves. If you combine a bad sound chip with a low quality MP3 than you get the sound quality of a 1930’s radio transmission.

iPod’s are supposed to have good sound chips, but are still vulnerable to bad MP3s (shit in – shit out). That is one of the reasons why Apple pushed it’s AAC sound format when it introduced the iPod and iTunes – they wanted to make sure people got ‘well ripped’ music onto their new gadgets.

My serious headphones (Sennheiser HD 555): amazing sound quality and size. I feel like an Easter bunny wearing these. But with these good music is a revelation – they really make you LISTEN. Most excellent sensation my friends …

The Sound of my Laptop

My machine actually comes with an acceptable SoundMax HD chip and some software based SRS sound. It is actually amazing how well this machine sounds WITHOUT external speakers. This little machine is enough to keep my small room filled with a decent sound – although not too much bass.

I use the small earplugs and earphones only with my iPod for portability reasons. The big Sennheiser is made for more serious audio – the pricetag of over €100 makes that painfully clear. The Sennheiser also mercilessly kicks the digital setup in the butt: every little hiss or frequency distortion is played back in it’s lousy inadequacy. Thank you so very much you overpriced set of ear muffs!

High Quality MP3s make a big difference here. Never mind the extra space they eat on my hard drive – it’s worth every minute of smooth sound.

With cheaper headphones you will hardly notice the differences, because they blur the sound anyway.

Small is beautiful! A note to Apple – please don’t sell me an overpriced MP3 player with such shitty earplugs. Everyone I know has thrown them away after unpacking …

iPodding

The big Sennheiser sure sound great with the iPod as well, but is unpractical for the road. Plus the plug is made for big hifi equipment and therefore needs a ‘bridge’ for the smaller plug. The whole thing as actually big and clunky – and almost the same size as the iPod. Not something you want in your pocket.

My earplugs (Sony MDR-ED 31) – small, easy to carry around and quickly stuff into my pockets if needed. Good sounds, lacks a bit bass. Feels a bit like someone sticking fingers into your ears.

All iPods have a built in ’sound barrier’ – which especially annoys kiddies, since you can’t crank up the volume. You can ‘improve’ the sound a bit with the different equalizer settings, but once again low quality MP3 will hiss at you like a bunch of mad snakes. So once again it pays off to rip your music at a higher setting.

The Sony earplugs are nice to wear and don’t seal up your ears like so many other similar products. They sound good and very convenient for traveling.

My travel setup (AKG Acoustics K 412 P): for some good sounds and keeping the public noise out of my ears. Excellent sound quality – and they can be folded together, so they use less space in my messenger bag.

The AKG headphones are the best compromise between transportability and sound quality. You can actually fold them together, so they get even smaller. The audio quality is very good and they even have a warm and pleasant bass.

As a good consumer I have bought all the right products for each audiophile situation. Perfect – until we finally get some decent and usable Bluetooth headphones and iPods with built in Bluetooth as well. Then I can FINALLY get rid of all the cables and go wireless … and buy new headphones!