Jason O’Grady’s Blog

As much as I was trying to resist it, I can wait no more - I’m moving to HDTV.

My trusty 42-inch Mitsubishi (CK-3514R35) cabinet TV finally kicked the bucket and I am posting it on Freecycle.org for parts. One thing I have learned is that buying a TV today is not like buying a TV five years ago. Get ready to drop a few grand if you want to play in the world of HD.

I decided on the Samsung HLP4674W 46-inch High-Def DLP set. The thing is gorgeous but it comes with baggage - HD programming! As much as I was trying to avoid paying Comcast a King’s ransome each month, buying an HDTV kinda forces your hand. You’ve gotta get digital cable and HD is another option on top of that! Before you suggest it - I have a bunch of 100-foot high trees on my property blocking my southern exposure which effectively rules out Satellite TV as an option.

That said, I’m getting the new Comcast HD cable box (a Motorola DCT6400 Series) on Saturday and it has two Firewire ports on the backplane. People have told me that you can capture the digital cable feed from that port and I am chomping at the bit to know more.

Who knows how to hack the FireWire port on the new Comcast HD cable box?

(BTW, if you want to read up on way too much HDTV data, check out the boards at AVSForum.com)

Then why the snappy name? In reality “Podcasting” melds MP3 players, Internet radio and RSS and it’s all the rage. At least according to Stephen Humphries at the The Christian Science Monitor. Maybe I’ll get around to doing a PowerPage Podcast one of these days…

When XM Satellite Radio launched the MyFi (pictured at right) on October 28, 2004 it was hailed as the world’s first portable satellite radio. As soon as MyFi was announced I got to thinking about when the second portable satellite radio was going to arrive.

A source close to the PowerPage informed me last night that Apple has been meeting with Sirius Satellite Radio, the competitor to XM that recently signed Howard Stern, and that the pair is rumored to be developing a portable Sirius Satellite radio that could arrive in Apple’s signature iPod form factor.

Although unconfirmed, it stands to reason that Sirius would develop a portable satellite radio receiver to keep up with XM. What better way to compete than to partner with the company that owns the most successful piece of consumer electronics in the past five years? Timing is unknown, but the PowerPage consensus is that the Sirius iPod would not arrive in January, but instead sometime in the spring or summer of 2005.

Say hello to SatPod.

by Ole Jacobsen, Roaming Reporter

In spite of lots of competition from Sony and other makers of MP3 players, the iPod is big business in Japan. I realized just how big last week when I spotted a couple of trains on the Tokyo JR Yamanote loop line which had been completely decorated with iPod advertising on the outside. I wonder just how much this particular promo cost Apple. Click through for four more pictures.

Like you I have a billion passwords and logins for the various sites that I frequent. I used to keep all of my passwords in an encrypted text file on my PowerBook but the problem with this method is that you risk exposing all of your logins if someone were to find and open it.

With that issue in mind I have begun searching for password storage applications. My criteria are simple: strong encryption and the ability to access the data from multiple Mac OS X user accounts on my PowerBook.

I have done some initial testing with Dataviz’s Passwords Plus (a sponsor of this site) which I like because it automatically locks after a period of inactivity. The problem is that it doesn’t work with multiple Mac OS X users and they don’t reply when you email them with questions.

Other solutions I have heard bandied about include Safe Place (US$10 Shareware) and Pastor (free) but a little research indicates that there are dozens of password applications for Mac OS X.

What application (if any) do you use to store your passwords?

Apple has posted a new Student Blog Page on Apple.com. The trend at most corporations these days is to stifle or ban personal blogs in favor of sanitized corporate blogs instead. Looks like Apple is following the trend.

We’d like to welcome you to a new community site for students to hear from other students about their observations and Mac-related stuff.

We’re starting off with a recent graduate from the University of Colorado, Dave Morin, who is now working at Apple. We will introduce a couple of student bloggers soon. Every few months we will welcome new student blog authors as they share their experiences.

Make your next pitch using your iPod Photo. With iPresent It you can convert your PowerPoint, PDF and Keynote presentations into slideshows that are synced with your iPod photo. Never carry a laptop into a presentation again; it’s all on your iPod! This version adds built-in Keynote processing, improved image quality and support for PowerPoint X in addition to 2004.