Sure it’s been around for a few months, but that doesn’t keep the iTunes Music Store out of the news. With the rise of the recent BuyMusic service, Apple’s music service is once again brought into the limelight (if you’re a Mac user, don’t bother trying to open that site, it doesn’t like non-Windows users). This week, several writers in the media have stepped forward with confessions of their use of the BuyMusic service. Writers from the Washington Post and USA Today have both compared the shabbiness of BuyMusic to the elegance and simplicity of the iTMS. It definitely looks like Apple is becoming the dominant force in this market as well. iTunes for Windows will certainly kick things up even further. The next six months should prove interesting.

I think I’ll go buy some tunes to celebrate.

Tried BuyMusic? What do you think?

I’m having a little bit of fun watching iTunes competitors such as BuyMusic.com wrangle with their masters as they try to bring the same level of service to customers that Apple has already so elegantly accomplished. I loved today’s note about BuyMusic blocking Mac browsers. Good one.

Meanwhile, back at the Music Store, I want to bring up a couple of things that you might have forgotten about amid all the excitement concerning file sharing and online music in general. Now, granted, my library probably doesn’t hold a candle to yours. Right now I have 1215 songs in iTunes. I’ve done my share of purchasing in the Music Store too. But there’s a lot of good music on my iPod that I just don’t seem to get to. And that’s a waste.

Smart Playlists

So I created a new smart playlist titled “Unsung Heros.” In the parameters for the list I set Last Played -> is not in the last -> 30 days, and then I set up a couple more limiters such as Album -> does not contain -> Christmas so Bing Crosby doesn’t constantly appear at the top of my list. One other parameter I set is Limit to 50 songs -> selected by song name.

Now, when I want a change of pace, especially while driving in the car, I go to my Unsung Heros playlist and let it fly. In the same way water is upwelled from the ocean floor, those hidden songs I haven’t listened to in the last month or so are now reeled off one after another, and I never know which one is going to play next. It’s the ultimate radio station without the commercials! And it ensures that I enjoy my entire music library, not just the same old songs.

Purchased Music CD

The Mac I use to manage all my music stays at home, but my laptop is with me at all times. Since I have an older PowerBook with a smaller hard drive, I keep its iTunes library much trimmer (plus I always have the iPod with me anyway).

But sometimes I do want laptop access to my purchased music without actually having to load it all on the drive. Since my laptop is an “authorized” Mac, there are no DRM walls to worry about.

So, I just burn a CD within iTunes of my Purchased Music library and keep with with my other travel CDs. When I insert it into my travel laptop, it shows up as a regular library, and I can enjoy any of the songs.

The only drawback is that music on CD doesn’t show up in my iPhoto music dialog box for slideshows. I have to drag to the song to my iTunes library on my hard disc for that to happen. I hope Apple fixes that in the next round of iLife upgrades. BTW: a backup CD provides an additional level of protection so you don’t lose your purchased music from the Apple Store.

The Other Guys

I guess we’re going to see lots of competition on the Windows side for online music stores. That’s great. The more opportunities artists have to sell their work, the better. It’s going to be fun to see if the competitors can come close to the current Apple experience. I can’t wait to see iTunes on Windows. That’s going to be a riot!

But for now I’m just rocking down the highway. I haven’t enjoyed listening to music this much since I was 16, and my complexion is much better now.

Related link: https://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6989

The editor of LinuxJournal, Doc Searls, has a very interesting article about how regulation in the telecommunications and broadcast industries is leaking its way into the Internet.

“The Net’s end-to-end nature is so severely anathema to cable and telco companies that they have done everything they can to make the Net as controlled and asymmetrical as possible. They want the Net to be more like television, and to a significant degree, they’ve succeeded. Most DSL and cable broadband customers take it for granted that downstream speeds are faster than upstream speeds, that they can’t operate servers out of their houses and that the only e-mail addresses they can use are ones that end with the name of their telephone or cable company.”

Just a side gripe about that last piece. Why are we still using well-known ports for everything? Why can’t we move to DNS SRV records? I know it might require some serious rewrites, but isn’t it better for the overall Internet? It would definitely make it easier to host a server off a cable modem.

Do you fear for the Net’s future? Why?

Related link: https://networking.oreilly.com/sysadmin/

Some of you might not be subscribed to the O’Reilly emailings. If you’re not, you’re probably not aware of a new page created on the O’Reilly Networking site which is an excellent resource for System Administrators. The O’Reilly Focus on System Administration is full of link to articles, columns, and books that are available through O’Reilly. The links are categorized for easy researching and the page is well-laid out. Speed is of the essence, so go ahead and bookmark it.

While you’re at it, bookmark The Lighter Side of System Administration for some humorous links to kill time between killing processes and trying not to kill users ;)

This is probably a good time to talk a little bit about some of the rest of the O’Reilly Network. While the MacDevCenter has lots of great information for Mac users, with the release of Mac OS X, a lot of the information on the ON:LAMP site is useful as well. Tools like Apache, Perl, MySQL, BIND, and others act much the same on Mac OS X/Darwin as they do on Linux or a BSD. Take a glance through! You might find an answer to your question that just needs to be tweaked a little for a Mac.

What other O’Reilly Focuses Foci would you like to see? What links and resources do you have for System Administrators?

I intended to blog about the $800 TDV Vision Tablet PC reported by The Register and wonder outloud how it might be as a cheap Linux slate device. But, then it occured to me. Unless two fell from the sky free of charge, I would keep Windows XP on the box because most of my favorite office/home tools (vs. developer tools) run on the Windows XP side of my world. I just happen to have a preference for JASC PaintShop Pro, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Visio, and the still-in-beta Microsoft OneNote. I have OpenOffice 1.1RC, GIMP, and Dia installed too. But, I just find the commercial products suit me better for those office tasks.

Now, on the other hand, most of my development work takes place on GNU/Linux based boxes. I’ve installed the usual suspects like Apache, PHP, and Zope on box Windows 2000/2003 Servers as well as Linux and just find those kinds of dev tools are easier to install and manage under Linux. But, my desktop and notebook PCs all run some flavor of Microsoft Windows.

At first I thought I shouldn’ admit this :-). But, one of the things that struck me at OSCON 2002 (wasn’t able to attend this year…boo!) was the number of developers sitting in the hallways, speaker room, and meeting rooms running Mac OS X or Windows 2000 or XP with the serious developers seeming to lean toward Mac OS X.
This past May my software development partner (Jon Lim) participated in the Victoria Plone Sprint. He found the heterogenous mix of OSes at this Python/Zope/Plone event interesting too.

Perhaps, then, the most important factor is not which desktop/notebook OS you choose to use. Instead, the most important factor is: How rich is your networked server applications environment? I use OneNote heavily when I’m thinking through a writing project or jotting down development or configuration ideas and tests. However, I also use Zope with ZWiki to throw notes on my server that can be retrieved from anywhere. In my daily dev work, I just Putty or VNC over to my Linux box to get at my tools I need there. But, since I also spend a lot of time trying to communicate what I’m doing, I also spend a lot of the day using PowerPoint, Visio, Word, and OneNote. With enough bandwidth and wired/wireless connectivity, it is easier for me to live in a dual-OS environment than to select just one. I am, after all, just a VNC connection away from GNOME or KDE on a Windows XP desktop.

Are you afraid to admit to your Open Source friends that you prefer Windows on your notebook or desktop PC? :-)

It’s no coincidence that I’ve run into more people I know at this show than any Macworld in recent history. The fact that we’re all swimming around in one corner of the Javits Center might have something to do with this phenomenon. Six degrees of separation has suddenly become none.

At first I was a little taken aback. My all day tutorial yesterday was full, and it felt like a normal Macworld gathering. Then this morning I wandered into the ballroom and saw the familiar Apple stage with one of Steve’s iTunes playlists resonating from the loudspeakers. But when the show started, it was Joz, not Jobs, on stage.

Let me go on record saying that Greg Joswiak, Apple VP of Hardware, did a heck of a good job. He was personable, prepared, and his timing was excellent. I’ll take Joz over Gil any day of the week.

But he had nothing to announce. I mean breaking out Soundtrack from Final Cut Pro and selling it as a standalone application doesn’t really count, does it? And why put one of your best hardware guys on the stage and not let him announce any metal? Even a minor rev would have been nice.

Don’t get me wrong. I very much enjoyed the presentation. And even though I had already seen most of the demos at WWDC, I can appreciate a well-choreographed show. But, I think one teeny-weeny noteworthy announcement would have been a nice way for Joz to introduce himself to the East Coast Mac universe. Apple should have helped him out here and let him bring a little present to the party. I mean… when I go over to friend’s house for dinner, I bring a bottle of wine. You know?

As for the Expo floor. Yes, it’s small, but it’s happening. O’Reilly didn’t pull out when the change to CreativePro was announced, and my guess is that we’re going to be delighted that we didn’t. We have the likes of Canon and Epson around us, and we’re having a ball.

Plus, I’m having great conversations with long lost friends, peers from other cities, and Mac DevCenter readers. Who ever thought that I’d say that Macworld is an intimate show. But this summer it is. And I’m really happy to be here.

Ken Levy’s got VS.NET 2003 up with an add-in (replacement) XML editor, that apparently only people like Ken get to play with, but I guess will come out with Whidbey. You’ll get:

• red and squiggly under invalid XML
• task list that explains what’s wrong with the XML
• comment/uncomment
• an editor that has smarts about DTDs (IntelliSense completion)

He opened up an SVG file, and it rendered it(?!) until he hit view code. That’s pretty wild. Then he split the pane into a view code and render view;
even wilder, it re-renders as he edits the SVG file.

It’s got really nice XSLT debugging–you can step through the XSLT while it’s running.

He says that they can compile XSLT into MSIL., too

It will also generate schemas from an XML document.

Plans for Whidbey:

• Custom designer architecture
• Outlining support in XML editor
• XML editor control for Windows Forms
• Editor for debugging XML datatypes

They might post this for free as a VS.NET add-in in a few months. He says to keep an eye on https://gotdotnet.com/team/xmltools.

Pretty cool–it might even get me to use Visual Studio .NET once in a while :-)

About this time a year ago, I was preparing to attend my first Macworld. I’d decided to bite the bullet and get a nice pass so I could see my first keynote presentation and attend some of the user conferences. I had a blast. The keynote was awesome, including the announcement of Jaguar, the 17″ iMac, and revised iPods. The conferences were excellent, I learned a nice amount about AppleScript Studio and other things. The part I enjoyed most, however, was the crowd. I liked meeting new people that shared my passion for the Mac.

Well, things are a little different this year. There won’t be a big Jobs keynote, but don’t let that fool you. Apple’s still going to be there. The vendors are still going to be there. And, most importantly, that crowd will still be there. I’m looking forward to seeing some of you next week at Macworld. I’ll be coming down on Friday, just in time to catch Derrick Story’s iSight Video Tricks. I’ll most likely be hanging out at the O’Reilly booth and wherever there’s free Internet access. So if you see me, feel free to stop by and say hi. I’ll be that guy with the black “*nix is sexy” shirt :)

P.S. Congratulations to the folks behind Hydra. I love your product. Keep up the good work!

Are you attending Macworld? What vendors are you going to be sure to check out?

William Grosso’s recent weblog (What is a camera, anyway?) about phone-camera use at OSCON 2003 caught my attention.

I recently blogged about the first phone-camera that I’ve used (Nokia Phone Camera, Pocket PC 2003, QuickTime, & RealOne.
His concept of visual aids for real-time social interaction got me thinking more about my new fascination with this hybrid technology.

William also notes some of the more-or-less negative stories about phone-camera behavior in Asia that have various people/groups upset (photographing magazines instead of buying them, etc.).

But can’t those of us who consider ourselves Creative Technologists (for lack of a better term) come up with more interesting uses for phone-cams that falls in the realm of socially responsible or at least socially/legally acceptable?

So, how’s this for an idea (if someone hasn’t already implemented it somewhere I don’t know about):
A Social Photo Mosaic Blog. One recent phenomenon are spontaneous email meetings where people email each other to meet at some designated spot at a certain time. They all arrive, create a crowd, and then disburse as quickly as they arrived. Ok. Interesting, I guess. But, not interesting enough that I’d show up at one. But, what if everyone arrived with phone cams and had everyone take a phone-cam photo of their area and uploaded it (wirelessly of course) to some group photo blog area where the meeting could be collected and displayed in some interesting time-space arrangement?

Or, for those of you at OSCON 2003 (I couldn’t attend this year… rats…)… Group phone-cam photo blog the various events for those of us attending OSCON only in spirit?

Good idea? Bad idea? Whatever. I thought I’d throw it out their to you Creative Technologists to see if someone is interested in it. If you have a better idea for using phone-cams in an interesting way… Great!

Good idea? Bad idea? Got a better idea?

I’ve been covering O’Reilly conferences for a few years, and thanks to Apple, Adobe, and Canon technologies, I really enjoy the process of quickly moving pictures from camera to web. This week I’m working the Open Source Convention in Portland, Oregon. Even though you might not have a week-long event on your photo docket right now, I thought you might be interested in the process we use for these large events so you can take away what applies to your shooting.

My two favorite cameras right now are the Canon 10D and the G2. I use a bracket to move the 550EX flash above the camera, which moves the shadows down out of view and eliminates red eye. A Off-Camera Shoe Cord 2 enables the flash and camera to communicate.

After I’ve gathered a series of shots, I usually find a table in the wireless lounge area and upload the images to iPhoto 2 where I sort and process my selections using an AppleScript that taps Photoshop 7 for resizing and adjustments.

I also title the pictures and write their captions in iPhoto 2. That way I only have to enter this information once, and it persists with the images no matter how I output them. I organize the photos into custom albums.

When it’s time to send everything to the web producer back at the office in Sebastopol, I select the pictures I want to publish and choose the “output to email” feature in iPhoto 2. The application grabs all of my images, titles, and captions and organizes them in an email ready to send.

Since we always have wireless connectivity at O’Reilly conferences, I transfer the pictures right there from the conference floor to the Sebastopol office. The producer grabs the info and dumps them into predesigned templates and hits the “publish” button. If we want, we can have images and captions of a keynote address online before the speaker leaves the stage.

After the conference is over, I output the pictures by category to HTML using the BetterHTMLExport plug-in for iPhoto 2. I basically build a photo web site, then burn it to CD that’s delivered to O’Reilly Marketing and Conferences groups. Anyone with a web browser can view the catalog, read the captions, and even download the hires versions of the photographs. I often include a QuickTime movie with a soundtrack on the CD. That is also generated directly out of iPhoto 2. I then archive the entire project on a separate FireWire hard drive and on to DVD.

Thanks to the evolution of digital photography and wireless connectivity, the costs for end to end delivery is about half of what it would be with film-based photography. If you want to see coverage from a previous conferences, take a look at the People of Technology page on Story Photography.

The local T-Mobile office was kind enough to loan me a Nokia 3650 Bluetooth Camera phone to test with my newly purchased HP iPAQ 2215 Pocket PC 2003 (which also has integrated Bluetooth). I found it simple fast to copy the still photo and video files from the phone to the Pocket PC wirelessly using Bluetooth (neither my desktop nor my notebook PCs have Bluetooth radios).

I was surprised to find the Nokia’s built-in sub-megapixel (640×480) still/video camera was fun and addictive (I’ve never used a phone with a camera until now). The still images are saved to conventional JPEG image files. So, I could deal with those immediately on both my Pocket PC and desktop PC. However, I wasn’t familiar with the 3GP format (and the underconstruction 3GP.com only has a front page right now. So, I couldn’t figure out to see the video on anything except the Nokia 3650 phone itself.

Fortunately, a bit of searching resulted in learning Apple QuickTime 6.3 (with a 3GPP component that can be downloaded from from Apple) and RealOne can both play the 3GP video files on my Windows based PC.

At this point, I recommend using QuickTime with the add-on 3GPP component on the desktop. Both RealOne and QuickTime read the Nokia created files as 320×240 files. But, looking at the playback (and the size of the Nokia’s screen), that can’t be right. The QuickTime/RealOne playback looks too grainy. QuickTime, however, has a Half-Size playback option that lets the video quality approach what you see on the Nokia screen. I didn’t find that option after quickly (perhaps too quickly) checking RealOne. I still haven’t found a way to view the 3GP video files on my Pocket PC.

If you are interested in the Nokia 3650 camera’s still photo quality, I revised my Pocket PC CompactFlash/Sleeve Camera review on my personal website (REVIEW: Casio, HP, and Nexian Pocket PC Add-on Cameras

Any Nokia 3650 phone/camera experience to share?

Related link: https://www.apple.com/isight

Unless you’re a Yahoo! chatter or involved in some of the shadier corners of the web, you’ve probably not had the chance to use a webcam. While plenty of webcams are available on the market as well as plenty of cam software, the technology never seemed to really take off. People have found the technology too difficult for what it’s worth. First there’s choosing the right cam, which can be hard with the large variety. Then, you have to take the cam home and struggle with installing the various drivers, applications, and other goodies that come with the cam.

Then, you have to find someone to talk to. Someone who also has a cam _and_ the same cam software you do. Sure most Windows machines ship with Netmeeting these days, but Netmeeting is hardly an easy application to use for the novice. It’s difficult to get connected to other users with most cam software.

It’s no secret that until recently, there wasn’t much webcam support for the Mac. Sure the cams come in FireWire and USB, both standards present on the Mac, but there’s been a definite lack of drivers. Previously, I was using the macam driver for my Logitech QuickCam. The other two webcams I own (a Creative Webcam2Go and some generic one) wouldn’t work at all. Unfortunate, because their resolutions are higher.

For webcam software, we had Yahoo! Messenger for communication… and that’s really about it. Sure you could use something like EvoCam to take pictures of yourself and post them somewhere, but it’s not the same as having a real one on one conversation. Speaking of conversation, all the “talking” had to occur through IMs. Yahoo! Messenger can’t do voice/video chat. Some of the pieces of the puzzle were there, but you had to cram them together awkwardly and hope it came out properly.

Enter the iSight. I bought an iSight this past Friday night and I can’t stress enough the greatness of this product. The image quality is crystal clear, due to the help of an auto-focusing lense that has a wider viewing angle than most other webcams. The new version of iChat has video and voice conferencing built in, and it’s as easy to use as sending a text message. It’s no wonder Steve Jobs is stressing that this is video conferencing for “the rest of us.” I don’t know who the other people are, but they should join the rest of us too. This is the easiest method of video conferencing I’ve seen yet. Mount the iSight on your Mac, plug it into your FireWire port and start chatting. There are no drivers to install. No hassle of finding a piece of software to communicate. All of your buddies that have a Mac and the new iChat beta can have voice and video chats with you with the click of a button.

However, like most things, there are some drawbacks. Right now, the person you’re trying to talk to needs to have iChat. The AOL AIM clients don’t yet support the same voice/video conferencing standards that iChat does. There’s something for you: standards. iChatAV uses: SIP, RTP, and Quicktime to deliver voice using QCELP and video via the H.263 codec. Now if we could get MSN and Yahoo! and all of the other networks to use these same protocols, we’d all be able to video chat regardless of our software and hardware soon.

I think that’s a hollow hope, however. There is a good chance that AOL will adopt these standards, but I don’t foresee Yahoo! or MSN doing it. These days, IM providers are extremely protective of their protocols. It’s a shame they can’t work together and create a single IM standard that would work with all networks instead of each inventing their own wheel. And realistically, what’s the harm done? SMTP is a standardized protocol for email. There are tons and tons of email clients out there, each with different features and users. If there were a standard IM protocol, I can see the same thing happening. People would gravitate toward the client that they prefer. The fact that a whole crop of apps have been developed for people who use multiple IM services is a true testament to the confusion of the instant messaging landscape.

Can’t we all just get along?

What do you think of the iSight and iChatAV?

Related link: https://www.megatokyo.com/index.php?strip_id=430

That certainly looks like an iSight and a PowerBook that Boo is using in yesterday’s MegaTokyo.

Is this the first pop-culture reference to the iSight, just 9 days after its unveiling? Talk about an instant classic…

Have there been any other iSight-ings?

Microsoft launched Windows Mobile 2003 software for the Pocket PC (Windows CE.Net 4.2-based) on June 23. I received my new HP iPAQ 2215 Pocket PC 2003 today (July 2). I thought I knew what to expect since I had been running Pocket PC 2003 RTM (Release To Manufacturer) bits on a Pocket PC Phone Edition weeks before the official release.

The Pocket PC Phone Edition (a Siemens SX56) uses a 206MHz ARM. I also have a Pocket PC 2002 based Dell Axim X5 that has a 400MHz ARM (PXA250). The iPAQ 2215 has a slightly newer 400MHz ARM PXA255. The combination of the more efficient processor and the tuned up Windows Mobile 2003 software has the iPAQ 2215 blazing past my other two Pocket PCs. I’m now waiting for the 2003 upgrade kit from Dell to see what kind of performance improvement the Axim might see with the new software. [Note: Jason Dunn posted some very interesting benchmarks comparing the iPAQ 2215 with other Pocket PCs on Pocket PC Thoughts: HP iPAQ 2215 - The New Shining Star in the Pocket PC Galaxy?]

I also installed Socket Communications’ recently released 2003 drivers for their 802.11b CompactFlash card. This provided me with my next surprise. Up until now I had only used the redesigned Pocket Internet Explorer (pIE) on a Pocket PC Phone Edition with a GPRS wireless connection that probably has about 40 to 50Kbps (analog modem speed). At 11Mbps, pIE rendered web pages blazing fast… Much faster than the old version of pIE in the Pocket PC 2002.

So far, I’m pretty impressed by what I’ve seen. And, oh yes, the iPAQ 2215 ships with the Nevo consumer infrared controller software. So, I can also control other consumer electronics from it too (the older HP iPAQ 5400 series also has this Consumer IR support and software).

Next up… Firing up Visual Studio Enterprise with the Pocket PC 2003 SDK and looking at the .NET Compact Framework now embedded in ROM.

Got a new Pocket PC 2003 based device recently?

I have my new Apple iSight mounted on my TiBook as I’m working here at the O’Reilly campus. During the last week, it’s become a very popular topic of discussion, both online and in person.

The HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick’s, “2001: A Space Odyssey” and Apple’s Y2K ad.

Here’s the new iSight. Is it HAL’s progeny? Should I be concerned?

Just in jest, I happened to mention that when I’m not conferencing, it would be an excellent tool for grating Parmesan cheese for my salad. I could be mistaken, but I thought I saw it blink after that comment…

Then it dawned on me that my sweet little iSight looks a lot like the HAL 9000 Apple featured in its Y2K Super Bowl ad. Take a look for yourself.

Well, it was probably nothing. But I think I’m going to keep the iSight’s lens shutter closed during future joke-making about Apple hardware. Just in case.

I went into this with my eyes open, and I was a former CDPD user, used to 19.2kbps (kilobits per second) on a good day. But GPRS is starting to feel slow to me. Technically, it can reach speeds much higher than what most users get, but at least on the AT&T network, it won’t happen. From their 3G Technology Center:

The industry accepted standard raw data rate for each timeslot is 11.4 kbps, however the actual data payload will be between 9.6 and 10 kbps per timeslot … For the AT&T Wireless GPRS network, devices will be able to transmit over a maximum of 5 timeslots either 4 and 1 or 3 and 2.

So, depending on your device, the best you can hope for is 40kbps, even though the theoretical maximum is 115kbps. There are channel coding schemes (CS-4) where you can get 21.4kbps per timeslot, so you could get up to 85.6kbps if your cellular provider supports it.

That’s GPRS. Lots of folks call it 2.5G because it’s not quite as fast as the promised 3G speeds (384kbps is what I’m hoping for). It’s OK for some things: I don’t mind using it for email and some web surfing, but it’s still 40kbps, and that’s slower than dialup. CDMA2000 is a 3G network that’s being rolled out in stages. Stage 1 is called 1xRTT; Verizon and Sprint both offer unlimited usage on the network for $80 a month, and it is about twice as fast as GPRS.

I did some tests recently, downloading a 70k http download (a PNG graphic)–keep in mind that there’s network overhead when comparing this to the overall data rates. I performed the download with a 1xRTT modem 17 times in 4 different locations, getting an average speed of 6.3 KB/s (kilobytes per second), about 50kbps. With GPRS, I did 18 different downloads in four locations, and got an average speed of 2.42 KB/s (about 20kbps, in line with what AT&T’s page suggests is likely for average web browser speeds on a loaded network).

As of July 1, things could be getting a little faster. As has been reported in a a few places, Cingular is rolling out limited EDGE service (Indianapolis only for now, with buildout to occur later in the year) They are promising speeds of up to 170kbps, with 75-135kbps more likely (go back to the AT&T 3G Technology Center and look at the speeds they are promising for EDGE). I don’t know what the pricing is like, but it’s certainly worth watching.

I was excited when GPRS became available here in the US, and it’s still better than nothing (although if a hotspot is available, I’ll pay $7 or so a day to use it). But in its current incarnation, it’s a bridge technology; CDPD was too slow to meet most users’ needs except for people who are total freaks about connectivity. 2.5G GPRS is there for early adopters and to keep folks happy while we wait for the faster stuff to roll out. EDGE will be better, but CDMA2000 1xRTT is here now, and I like it. It’s fast enough that I could get serious work done with it. But, I’m in a contract with AT&T, and I really do like being able to use my T68i with my Mac over Bluetooth. SmithMicro has solutions for tethering a Mac to phones from various providers, including Sprint and Verizon. So it is a little tempting to consider what life would be like at twice the speed.

What about you? How are you keeping connected on the road?