I wrote up a more extended review of the iPod nano over at MacMerc. Summary: my iPod mini is dead to me–long live the nano. It’s a really great device. Everyone I have shown it to has been blown away, computer and non-computer folk alike.

Apple has another winner!

I got an invite to join Gmail today, which basically made my day. Yes, it’s just a free email service, but I’m the type that lives for this stuff. Here are my opening thoughts (been playing with it for an hour or so):

• It’s a lot more than just 1GB of storage: it’s a great UI
• The reason Google is picky about browsers is that Gmail uses a lot of JavaScript. It does not work with Safari (even with the user agent changed). I hope that Apple will work with Google on this. But for me, a dedicated FireFox user, this is “no thang”.
• It’s not all that good at detecting spam, but it will likely become better with more people in the system
• Auto-refresh for the inbox is nice
• The interface is super-fast
• Having all messages in a “conversation” together is very nice, especially when you can hide and show bits and pieces.
• It has keyboard shortcuts. It’s a frickin’ web page with keyboard shortcuts. Enough said.
• Along the same lines, it has autocomplete. Amazing.

Here you can see how it bundles conversations. If you click on the collapsed portion, it expands in real time. You can close an expanded view in the same manner. My clicking the grey “quoted text” link, the window expands to show what I was replying to. Very slick for those 3-4 bounce back emails on a lazy afternoon.

Here you can see the [very] slick spell check. I have discovered that Gmail uses frames to accomplish this feat. When you enter spell check mode and there is at least one error, it converts the text in the HTML text area to HTML in a frame. It then converts the mis-spellings into red links with a box of choices in the mouseover state. If none is correct, click edit and you get a text entry box in place of the word. Click done for spell check and it converts this HTML frame back into a text area. It’s seamless.

I’ll be posting more on this most likely. In the mean time, if there is anything you want to know/see–fire away in the comments.

Damn that’s going to be a long time before I can say that again. But just think, we have eight more years of this palindromic date fun before the long dry spell that is 2013-2100.

Thanks to my work on MobileTracker, I have a Motorola V600 to play with for a few weeks. It’s quite fun. I loaded a few choice MP3’s onto it via Bluetooth (worked like a charm) and had a blast.

I might try and post a few pics via the phone to the weblog. If you see any crazy posts, blame the phone.

While I will be posting a review at MobileTracker, if anyone has any specific questions about the phone, let me know.

Won’t be able to say that again for four more years. I never understood why February only had 28 days to begin with… Why couldn’t they chop off a day from 2 months that have 31 days. That way Feb has 30/31 days. I’m sure there is a reason. Anyone know?

Anyone else addicted to Curb Your Enthusiasm? It’s genius. I’ve watched every episode of Seinfeld, so the experience is twice as nice (the co-creator of Seinfeld is the subject of CYU). It’s Seinfeld with no script plus cursing. Beautiful.

The natural feel, sort of raw and uncut, is what has me hooked. I’m all about dry humor, and Larry David is about as good as you can get. It’s the minutiae of life expanded to unrealistic lengths. Pretty much what I try to do on a daily basis.

If you don’t have HBO, and still want to check it out, drop me an email / comment and I’ll hook you up. Thanks to Larry for the tip.

I make no bones about being a TypePad fan. Could I run MovableType on my own server? I already do. TypePad just has a different feel. It’s the best web service I’ve ever used. Well until Basecamp.

It’s project management 37 Signals style. Basically what that means is it’s better than any other project management tool you’ve used in the past. Here’s why:

1) It’s distributed. Bulletin boards don’t work if you don’t work in the same city as your client (or coworker).
2) It’s hot. Beautiful interface.
3) RSS / iCal syndication. RSS is a must, iCal is a plus.
4) Customizable with your colors, logos and doo dads. Makes a great impression on clients.

I’ve been looking for something like this for a while. The open source options all shout “open source” with their ugly UI’s, difficult navigation and slow backends. Any client side options were out (we’re a global marketplace). I’ve only done one local project.

You’ve most surely heard the story about the German cannibal who recently got sentanced. Well a UK publication ran some details on him, and using the Wayback Machine, I was able to come up with some of his original posts (for when he was looking for people to eat). Amazing. Most are in German, but here’s one in English:

“Hi, i am Franky from Germany, i will eat you. Please tell me your high and wight, also send me a Pic from you. Where you are from?”“

If you dare, here is the forum listing. It is now closed thanks to the trial/publicity, so the only way to get to it is the Wayback
Machine. There are a lot more cannibals out there than I thought.

Late tonight we’ll be landing the second half of the latest Mars mission onto the red planet. At about 12:05AM, Opportunity will be landing in an area called Meridiani Planum that we believe was once covered with water. Check NASA TV for updates.

Also, for those following the Spirit software glitch, the rover sent some 73 megabits of data back to Earth yesterday. A good sign.

If you want to follow things like a true geek, check out Mars24. It will give you the time (and daylight!) on Mars.

Update: Wow, that was something. I listened to the play-by-play on NASA TV. They were so excited, I can only imagine what it would feel like being there (mission control, not Mars). The landing was another success.

On impact, the system only recorded 2 G’s, which is nearly a miracle. It is rated for 40 G’s (meaning 40 x the pull of gravity). If the ship was a car, the bumper would have taken the impact without setting off the air bags.

The landing site looks amazing. Much different from other sites, not nearly as rocky. It has dunes and exposed bedrock. In the word’s of Dr. Steve Squyres, “I’m flabbergasted. I’m astonished. I’m blown away.”

I never stop being amazed at what our brightest minds accomplish. It just goes to show what democracy can do for mankind. While other countries suffer mass death from minor Earthquakes, we are exploring space.

Last night I watched in awe as a craft we put up in space (a feat in its own right) 5 years ago played catch with comet dust. The dust was going 6x the speed of a bullet, and was caught in one of the most amazing materials ever, aerogel. It’s 99.8% air, but can take the abuse of space and a trip back to Utah. You can even get it on eBay.

Tonight we landed a very heavy robot on Mars. To get a sense of the mission, watch this. The Egyptians have nothing on us for building the pyramids.

Last week, the EU’s Mars rover crashed and burned. At least they can download the images from nasa.gov like the rest of us.
Update: Here are the raw photos our Mars rover has sent back so far. They will only get better (color, hi-res and stereo) from here.