How original. I do like the walls, though. Wanna bet on how long untill someone posts a picture of them blue-screening?

So, I now have a full calendar month under the protection of spamstopshere.com, and I thought I’d take a minute to update on how it’s been working.

1,206,830

One Million, Two Hundred Six Thousand, Eight Hundred and Thirty.

That’s the number of spam emails that did NOT make it thru to my domain. In one month. 31 days. That’s an average of 38,930 a day, or 1,622 an hour. There was one day where spamstopshere.com blocked 82,202 spam emails. In one day.

Unbelievable.

Just for comparison, 2,938, or 0.24% of all email traffic for the month of January, were “good” emails, and did make it thru. It also stopped 12 emails that contained viruses. Doesn’t worry me too much, but my dad runs Windows XP and 2000 on his machines, so he could’ve been affected.

It absolutely bewilders me how bad the spam problem has become, and that we’ve been able to do nothing more than intelligent filtering to stem the tide. Remember from my earlier post on the subject, there were points where I was receiving so much inbound junk mail that it was literally crashing my server. Not any more. My mail logs have grown less over the course of the past 35 some-odd days than they used to hourly. It’s been great.

At least in the snail-mail business, I don’t pay for the amount of inbound mail, the sender pays so there’s a “natural” valve. But because of the proliferation of shoddy operating systems that allow their host computers to become infected with malware email sending bots, the purveyors of this garbage have a virtually unlimited ability to push these bits thru the internet.

So, as I received the email that my trial period was ending, I gladly entered my credit card number into their system to sign me up as a paying customer. It bothers me that I have to pay to block something like this. However, I don’t begrudge a service like spamstopshere.com at all and will gladly pay them for the valuable service they provide.

The only reason the spammers keep at it is there’s money to be made. We need to choke off their air. Don’t ever purchase anything from someone who sent you an email you didn’t first ask them to send. And make sure your O/S is clean and your machine is not inadvertently pushing this spam at the behest of the spammers.

Rant off. I’m happy with spamstopshere.com. If you don’t have a spam solution, give them a try.

So, I’ve written in the past about a convergence of technologies that I’m still amazed hasn’t made it to market. Here it is 2009 and still the leap hasn’t been made. All of the technology is in place, it’s just no one has pulled the trigger.

Here’s the scenario. I almost exclusively use my iPod in my car when on the road. One of the nicest features (on a long list, mind you) of my Q7 is the iPod interface. Plug the iPod into the dock connector under the arm rest and whammo, everything (except video) on the iPod is available thru the interface of the computer screen in the dashboard. Nice. Works great. Except for one thing.

Except for when the family is in the car with me, when they tend to drive the playlist, I listen almost exclusively to podcasts. I subscribe to 30 or so, which it plenty of content to keep up with on a weekly basis. I do this instead of radio. Much fewer commercials, content I’m interested in, and the ability to pause and pick up later when I get a phone call or reach my destination. Perfect.

The problem is in order to roll thru my content and get new content, I have to remove the iPod from the car, bring it in and physically plug it in to sync with the computer. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but #1 it’s a little bit of a hassle to open up the special compartment below the arm rest and plug or unplug the iPod and #2 sometimes I forget (either leaving the iPod at home when I leave, or forgetting to get it out of the car when I come in. Then I have to wait 3 or 4 minutes for it to sync when I’m ready to get on the road. All minor annoyances, I agree, but still, it doesn’t have to be this way.

I’ve had wireless 802.11 (B then G and now N) at the house for 10 years now. Best thing since sliced bread. And the latest round of iPods (the Touch, based on the iPhone form factor) has 802.11 built in. My iPhone can see my wireless network from the driveway and garage. But here’s the rub: the iPod can’t sync with the host computer over the wireless network, even though it can see it. Why?

In the article I referred to above that I wrote just over 5 years ago now, I talked about a number of other pieces of functionality that would be nice. Of course, I was headed down the “Radio TiVo” path then, which is still a good idea and I still don’t see why it’s not built into modern car radios, but that was before podcasting. Now all the pieces are in place for such a combination.

I’d gladly buy an extra iPod Touch (just to leave in the car permanently) if I could do a few simple things with it that you currently CAN’T:

• Sync wirelessly with the host computer. I don’t care about multiple computers or other things that you’re currently limited to with the hard-cable syncing. That’s fine. I just want to be able to sync with my desktop in my office over the wireless network.
• Sync automatically on some sort of event. Either when the host computer notices an update to items synced with that device (like a new podcast download) or when the computer becomes “visible” because I just drove into the garage. It’s important for this to be automatic so that I don’t have to have some interface from within the car to start a sync and so that when I get ready to go, my device is as well.
• Smarter updating of many devices with current playhead location. It’d be nice if the meta-data information about current playhead location in a track would live a little more in the cloud. Especially if I have a MobileMe account.

With the app store and the programability of the new iPod Touch/iPhone platform, there could be some cool apps to help manage this functionality, but the core “sync over the air” functionality is going to have to be provided by Apple.

Come on, Apple, who do I have to bribe to get this done?

It’s done.

Guess it’ll be a while before a decently priced Blu-ray player hits the market now.

Looking forward to the clearance racks for HD-DVD, tho. Probably should pick up a (heavily) discounted second player as a backup.

Well, Netflix went Blu-ray only.

As did Wal-mart.

And Best Buy.

Now, it looks like Toshiba is throwing in the towel.

Cue the fat lady.

UPDATE: You knew it would happen.

well, if this turns out to be true, HD-DVD might soon be done. Apparently, Paramount may have a clause in it’s exclusive agreement with HD-DVD that will allow it to back out and switch teams again should Warner jump ship. And since Warner did, things don’t look good.

This is playing out like a soap opera. What’s next?

Well, I’m very dissapointed, to say the least, to learn today that Warner has announced that they’ll be leaving the HD-DVD format for Blu-ray exclusivity in May. Ouch. Unfortunately, this is an almost certainly fatal blow, long term, to the HD-DVD format.

Which means, unfortunately, that a less capable, more restrictive, more expensive format will win this time around. Remember, Beta(max) was/is Sony’s format. And while Beta was superior to VHS, it was VHS that got home video off the ground. That was achieved by breaking the perceived pricing limits that the consumer will endure. HD-DVD players were on the market this Christmas at sub $100 levels (I saw some as low as $84 at one point). Blu-ray is struggling to break $400 consistently. Their spec isn’t completely fleshed out and implemented, their product line-up is confusing (all players can’t play all content, and some can’t be upgraded to do so in the future). HD-DVD, on the other hand, is a single solid spec and all players have all features of the spec, meaning one HD-DVD disc will play in all HD-DVD players, something consumers will assume (incorrectly) with Blu-ray.

The numbers of titles released have been roughly the same (458 BR to 429 HD as of this writing). While more Blu-ray players have been sold in the form of the PlayStation 3, more computer-based drives for HD-DVD have been sold, and the stand-alone dedicated players are selling 3:1 in favor of HD-DVD, driving almost certainly by price point. Yet, current statistics show a flip from an almost 60%/40% HD-DVD advantage in software units sold to a 60%/40% Blu-ray titles sold between 2006 and 2007. So why are so many more units (titles) selling on the Blu-ray side of the fence? My guess, in a word: Disney.

Here’s the deal. On average (we’re not talking about the strange ones like me), the average consumer will RENT titles that are PG-13 or R-type fare, but they BUY titles for the kids. The concept is pretty simple: the average adult doesn’t watch the same movie over and over. But kids do. The fact that Disney landed exclusively in the Blu-ray camp a while back was what turned the tide. Many of the top 10 titles are the same on either side of the fence, thanks to studios that have produced content in both formats to this point (Warner, being the biggest). However, now that Warner has chosen a side, things are looking pretty grim for the HD-DVD camp. So much so, that in the wake of this announcement from Warner, the HD-DVD Promotional Group has cancelled its press conference scheduled for THIS SUNDAY at CES in Vegas. Ouch indeed.

I have an already significant investment in HD-DVD at this point (40+ titles so far). While the news has a certain degree of initial sting to it, in the long run it doesn’t bother me too much. I knew anyway at some point I’d get a Blu-ray player and hook it up as another device in my system.

It’s a bit disappointing, though, especially from a consumer’s point of view. The Blu-ray feature list has some serious problems. There have been production issues in both the media and the players. The price is too high. I’m sure Blu-ray will get over these problems eventually. But will the player I buy today be able to be upgraded to the format of tomorrow? I say that bet’s 50:50.

So, what’s the other shoe to drop? Look for that at Mac World at the end of the month. I have a sneaking suspicion that Apple’s going to announce not only a shipping Blu-ray burner in their machines, but an upgrade to DVD Studio Pro that will enable Blu-ray authoring. Do you think Disney going Blu-ray was coincidence? Who sits on Disney’s board and is their largest single shareholder? That’s right, Steve Jobs.

Now I just want an Apple TV that fixes all the problems I wrote about a few months ago, and has a Blu-ray drive in it. Is that so much to ask for?

This is hilarious:

Yes, I waited in line.

Only about 45 minutes.

Yes, it’s cool.

Very cool.

Very, very cool.

This is extremely cool…

It helps to understand binary arithmetic, but it’s fun to watch nonetheless.