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coheed and cambria in keeping secrets of silent earth: 3

coheed and cambria aren't the first ensamble to name themselves after the main character in their concept album - well, actually maybe they are - pink floyd created the wall starring pink long after they had the name in place - but that's okay, the emo generation needs a pink floyd, if at least so they can enjoy an arena concert with the company of flying, inflatable pigs.

in keeping secrets of silent earth is the second installment of a sci-fi concept album by this quartet, which picks up in all respects where their debut, second stage turbine blade left off. yes, lead singer claudio sanchez does sound a little like geddy lee, and joshua eppard's drums aren't unlike what we'd expect from neil peart, and yes, the whole concept album is a little 2112 but I don't expect tom sawyer to appear on their next album.

c&c musically is pretty exciting, and in line with the likes of thursday or at the drive in, a layered emo-core aggressive approach that keeps going on this disc for over an hour. if you are into this type of music, you just have to occaisionally say "wow".

are these guys at bottom of the hill anytime soon in san francisco? if so, i'm goin'. i missed them at the house of blues here in chicago two weeks ago.

"...and the meek shall inherit the earth."
[amazon]

finally a video recorder for the P800

in case you missed it, there is now a supported product for what was once the loch ness monster of the mobile device app scene: a video recorder that would run on the Sony Ericsson P800.

the 3GPP Philips Camcoder(sic) for UIQ is available from Handango and it's cobrands such as all about symbian (link to app here).

the app does require firmware CXC162001 R2A14 or later, which my P800 didn't have. it did run flawlessly however on my P900. it does have a cool feature of being able to dub audio over your existing video footage, just in case you aren't quick witted enough to do the play-by-play en vivo, as they say on telemundo.

this should start to open things up a little for video moblogging beyond the nokia 36XX and 66XX series of phones, as well as the pricey P900 that already support video out of the box.

palmOne to support midp2.0

if you dig around on palm one's developer site - http://pluggedin.palm.com/regac/pluggedin/Java.jsp you can find that palm will be supporting MIDP2.0 J2ME on their latest devices including the Tungsten C,W and the Treo 600.

i've already generated a .prc file from my MIDP RSS Client using the palm toolkit and it went smoothly - however it doesn't look like palmOne will have the native ARM version ready until "next spring" so that this can actually run on devices.

specifically: "An updated version of WebSphere Micro Environment is scheduled to be available next spring from palmOne. It will be implemented as a native ARM application, will be CLDC 1.1 and MIDP 2.0 compliant and will be available for both the Treo 600 smartphones and the Tungsten handheld devices. The runtime license for Treo 600 smartphone users is expected to be available from the Software Connection for $5.99."

Q: does that suck that they are making legacy users pay for the runtime?

A: yes, that does suck.

ah well, no one likes to work for free.

blogspam is becoming a problem

although ingenious, blogspam is becoming a problem on this site, and i am sure others. yes, someone has written scripts that post spam as comments to moveable type sites. i end up having to delete at least one per day. i guess there are plenty of ways to combat this such as changing the name of the php script used to post comments or continued filtering. i guess this element has to creep into every real or virtual part of our society. what a drag.

still lovin' the n-gage

a while ago, i published a seemingly dissenting review in that i liked the nokia n-gage. i still think it's a great gaming platform, and also great for things like entertaining your kids when waiting at the doctor's office. mosty i think it's misunderstood. it's not a phone. it's a wireless data device for mobile gaming that has huge potential and will be copied by sony and nintendo in the future. nokia needs to market it differently for sure, but that will come with rev 2.

anyway, if you read some reviews on how it sucked, the reviewer probably tried it once and put it down. perhaps it's a bit of an acquired taste.

as further proof, russell beattie, who i believe first hated it, now covers some of the alternate ways to game with the n-gage and shows there's more there than meets the eye.

great article on planespotting

this is a little off topic, but i wanted to point out matt's great article on planespotting. i'm not a landing-gear-head, but as a frequent business traveller who has spend many an hour on the tarmac at airports with exciting scenery like o'hare and toronto, i find myself wondering often "what type of plane is that?" to pass the time. hopefully soon he will cover the interior configurations and answer the question "which planes offer the best chance for an upgrade?"

mobile development on the mac

ever since we started spyonit.com (sorry, no link to this one) which was run primarily on solaris x86, i have been on a quest to find the perfect unix laptop on which to develop and otherwise enjoy all there is to enjoy in the computing world. at that time, solaris x86 itself had no drivers available for pcmcia, and the linux distrobutions were pretty crappy as well, especially for laptop support. there were a few hacks around that would help get these running on an ibm thinkpad, but nothing stable enough to allow me wear the different hats i had to wear as a development manager, product manager, and executive manager.

finally, a little over a year ago my engineers turned me on to what apple was doing with OS X, and what they had brought onto the powerbook g4 lineup, which at the time only came in the 15" non-yao-ming-non-mini-me version. it seemed to be perfect for everything i needed to do - command line unix support, a supported java IDE in borland jbuilder 7, and supported microsoft office suite in office.x. so i had quickly forsaken the shitty canadian toshiba laptops our IT department provided for people and plopped down my own cash to purchase a powerbook g4, which i used with great success in those management, marketing, and development manager roles that i had to perform.

here at chez burning door, i've had to delve into some more development tasks, specifically in the mobile arena, and unfortunately, i've had to bring my old thinkpad out of mothballs. now i'm a 2 laptop man.

i certainly don't want to go back to XP as my sole machine. there's no way i could live without my powerbook these days for most of the work i have to do, not to mention organizing my life. it's not quite bumper sticker worthy of you can take my mac when you pry it from my cold dead hands but damn close.

to put it bluntly, there's no good way to develop for

* J2ME
* BREW
* Symbian C++
* Microsoft Mobile

on a mac. there is a gcc port of the brew environment sans emulators, but it doesn't compare to the visual c++ version. microsoft mobile i understand, that's fine.

and no, virtual pc is not the answer. don't get me wrong, virtual pc is an amazing piece of software but i've tried running visual studio and codewarrior inside of it, and it all works fine, but too slow to be productive.

on the j2me side, i've even stooped to installing red hat in a virtual pc, and running the supported linux development tools and using X to present it to the powerbook, but that's too slow as well.

on the pc (and linux virtual pc), i've been using sun's studio one 5, preview to do development, which is okay, but being a a Java app, how hard is it really for sun to support this on OS X? actually, it does run on OSX, but the wireless toolkit (WTK) does not. it uses native code for preverification and the emulator uses a native DLL as well.

i've found a few excuses as to why sun doesn't support os x, and to summarize it's because it doesn't help them sell hardware. fair enough, but don't they also make money selling SUN studio one? also fair, if apple wants to keep me on their platform and upgrade, they should support development tools running on their platform. jbuilder 9 for linux does run on os x, but it's not supported by borland - they abondoned support after jbuilder 7.

part of the marketing of os x is that it's part open source, part commercial. well, that's where mobile developers are stuck on this platform: between half-ass open source solutions, and commercial solutions that can't make a business case for supporting os x.

well, the point of this whole rant is for any of those mobile developers out there wanting to switch to the mac, caveat emptor. it's highly encouraged, but don't ebay that pc just yet.

which wireless carrier should i choose?

are you asking that question? in a new world of wireless number portability (WNP) it's now easier for some people to move from carrier to carrier because they can keep their phone number. it hasn't really happened yet, but i would expect there starting to be some promototions to get you to switch, the same way you get competing offers from long distance carriers.

a caveat - the first decision factor will always be the coverage map the carrier provides versus where you use your phone. ALL carriers have dead spots in their coverage map, and ALL carriers are inconsistent as to their customer service and uptime of data services. some are better than others at other things that will drive your decision.

anyway, which carrier should you choose in the US? here's my rundown of the "big 6". i have or have had acess to plans with all these carriers fairly recently, so some of this comes from personal experience, other parts come from hearing others' experiences.

T-Mobile
you should choose t-mobile if:
1. you live in a major U.S. city and you travel to europe or asia. yes, att and cingular also offer GSM phones that roam on some of the frequencies used throughout the world, but in my experience setting up roaming is easier with t-mobile and also have better roaming agreements in the major european countries.
2. you want to use mobile data extensively to retreive email and browse data on your phone. t-mobile's $19.99 all you can eat GPRS data plan is not touched by any other carrier
3. you want to spend a lot of time in starbucks with wi-fi and you want it all billed to the same place as your mobile phone
4. you want to equip quite a few people in your family with mobile phones and use mobile-to-mobile. t-mobile lets you pool minutes, and also have some good m2m minute plans
5. you want to change phones a lot or often. because t-mobile shares their band with europe and asia, the latest phones that work there work here.

you should NOT choose t-mobile if:
1. you live in a somewhat rural area or travel frequently in a car off US interstates 30 miles outside of a major US city
2. you want a really easy time downloading all sorts of games and other add-on services for your phone. this can be done, but t-mobile is very slow to the gate on this one
3. you want a really consistent coverage map. t-mobile has more dead spots than the average carrier - resulting in more dropped calls, especially while in a car or on a train.

AT&T Wireless
you should choose at&t if:
1. you live in a major US city, you might want to travel outside the US with some frequency, AND you want to download a lot of games, videos, and integrated services all billed to your cellphone. AT&T's mMode portal has really gotten a lot better in revision 2 on the latest phones - and their downloadable services are great without having to sync with your PC
2. you want to change phones semi often.

you should NOT choose at&t if:
1. you live in a somewhat rural area or travel frequently in a car off US interstates 30 miles outside of a major US city
2. you really use a LOT of mobile data, such as if you have a sony ericsson p800 and want to constantly update all your email over GPRS

Sprint PCS
you should choose Sprint if:
1. you are tied to the Palm OS as also being your phone OS. sprint seems to get the best Palm phones first, and their PCS Vision network seems much faster than the GPRS versions of these Palm based phones.
2. you do a lot of browsing using a browser using one of these phones

you should NOT choose Sprint if:
1. you want to travel with your phone outside of the US and Canada
2. you want to have a phone compatible with "standards" used throughout the world such as MMS, SMS, bluetooth. Sprint has their own versions of such things but won't be able to integrate easily if the day ever comes when all carriers want to interoperate seamlessly

Nextel
you should choose nextel if:
1. you want to use DirectConnect, the push to talk walkie talkie feature. it's built into their network, and no other carrier will do this right for some time, imo
2. everyone else you communicate with also already has a nextel phone
3. you have a boat that doesn't go that far from shore. i don't know if it is their frequency but i have found the few time's i've been on a body of water nowhere near a cell tower (like lake michigan, or off the cost of florida in the boating lanes) that nextel phones worked when others did not

you should NOT choose nextel if:
1. you want really cheap voice and data plans
2. you care about such things as "migration to 3G", upgrading your phone to the latest and greatest tech every year. nextel wants to stay profitable, so they aren't going to make such investments until the tech is totally proven out
3. you don't like motorola phones. that's pretty much your only choice here

Cingular
you should choose cingular if:
1. you want a cheap family plan with multiple phones per family with pooled minutes
2. you like the idea of "rollover minutes" where if you don't use minutes one month they rollover to the next
3. you want a wide choice of "multi-network" phones, that is, those that work on the GSM network AND on the more rural TDMA network. that is if you occaisionally travel abroad but also travel to rural destinations and big cities in the US, cingular has more phones that support this
4. you really really want to use AOL IM as your method of sending text messages to other friends on AOL. you can do this with T-Mobile too, but it might be cheaper with cingular.

you should NOT choose cingular if:
1. you want a wide choice of PDA/phone combinations. they offer a decent blackberry plan
2. you want a phone that supports email. they are getting some phones that are doing this but with their current data plans i estimate it will be really expensive
3. you want the latest and greatest technology and services

Verizon Wireless
you should choose verizon if:
1. you want voice coverage wherever you go in the US. i acutally think their coverage map is the best.
2. you want to use their high speed 1x PC card service with your laptop
3. you really want simplicity in downloading mobile applications to your phone. NOTE: simplicity is key. it is not cheap. their get it now service is the best at this BUT it is REALLY REALLY expensive. most of the apps now have a MONTHLY subscription fee and it really adds up.

you should NOT choose verizon if:
1. you want a clear picture of what your monthly bill will be. verizon nickels and dimes you for everything such as detailed billing, browsing, text messaging, and mobile data usage beyon what every other carrier does
2. you want an accurate up to date picture of your billing usage. i have seen firsthand verizon come back with billing usage from over 3 months ago. their excuse was "it takes awhile to download billing records from the tower".

should you choose a regional carrier?

if you stay close to home and care about really local features and services, then a carrier such as U.S. Cellular might be perfect for you. typically, the competition has forced these carriers to offer some really competitive plans in the major markets and not having a national footprint is letting them innovate faster as well.

do as i said, the above are just some of the reasons you may or may not choose a new carrier - part of it will be if you want a specific device tht is only offered by that carrier. this is really only an issue with nextel, verizon, and sprint - with the GSM carriers, you can get plenty of phones on the grey market from places such as romeo hifi or gsm phone source that are SIM unlocked and will work across the GSM providers (careful though, att and cingular have an 850 mhz band that won't work with some of these phones depending on where you are).

cameraphone galleries a-plenty

just in time for american thanksgiving a cornocopia of cameraphone upload galleries are springing up, to fill out the card of mobile operators in north america who didn't offer such services before. typically from the web side of these services, you can share and even print your photos, although at this stage i wouldn't recommend printing anything bigger than a wallet size ( to see how some cameraphones fared, see my cameraphone shootout).

today, yahoo and sprint announced PCS Vision subs to upload photos and access stored photo albums and last week att wireless re-launched mMode with these services as well. the going price now seems to be around $2.99 /month for the service, which is a little cheaper than existing $4.99/month offerings from t-mobile and verizon wireless.

Att wireless' mMode actually offers a few different providers with different price points:

Kodak: $24.99/year or $2.99/month

Fuji: $0.49/day or $2.99/month

Snapfish: $0.49/day or $1.99/30 days

of course, if you don't want to use these services, you can always send them to your moblog from the likes of textamerica in which case you'll probably get charged somehow to send your mms.