Vacation time

I love being on vacation. I'm starting my new job on Monday, so I'm spending this week having lunch with friends, going to the gym, and upgrading equipment.

Focus is key in life. Everything you own is something else to take care of. Over this break, I'm cleaning out my technology closet. If I own it, it's got to be something I use every day that is really useful to me. I'm unloading tons of stuff on eBay that I've bought but don't use regularly. The stuff that is left are my "Essentials". Here are my traveling essentials:

1 - 2004 Acura TL (NEW) - My chariot. 270 hp, 6 speed manual transmission, XM radio, DVD-A audio, and Bluetooth integration make my commute a joy. Did I mention it is ULEV, so my footprint on the planet is small! 2 - Sony Ericsson T616 - My Bluetooth phone. Small, stylish, and imminently useful. My carrier is AT&T Wireless. I want this to be my Treo 600, but without Bluetooth, I can't use it all the time. It's totally integrated with my TL. 3 - Canon S50 (NEW) - I take pictures of things all the time. Designs, people, cool ideas, etc. This camera is easy to use, 5MP, and has the Canon features (quick boot and shoot, CF support, etc.) that I require. It replaces my S110 and Minolta Dimage F100. 4 - Levenger Circa book and pencils - My notebook is my life. All my notes, sketches, and designs start here. 5 - iPod 40GB (NEW) - My iPod keeps me balanced by playing my favorite tunes and keeping my key files with me. Replaces my 20GB iPod, which was too small given my 23GB music collection.

What am I listening to? Spirits In The Material World from the album Every Breath You Take: The Singles by The Police

The week in review

Last week was awesome for being a geek. I went to Macworld and CES, and came away with a ton of creative energy based on what I saw. I really should start developing apps again ;-)

Macworld was dissapointing from a "solutions" perspective. I'm glad Apple revised iPhoto, else I would have had to change to Windows to get a working photo management solution. iPhoto didn't used to work with more than ~500 photos, but they evidently have addressed this. I'll be buying iLife 4.0 this week to see if the expectation meets reality.

I didn't see anything "amazing" or "innovative" at the show. iPod Mini was cool, but $50 overpriced. Everything else was revision "twenty something" of an exisiting app. This is an alarming trend I'm seeing in software. Some people say everything in software has been done already, but I don't buy that. Innovative hardware like wireless, proximity detection, etc. should be facilitating another generation of innovative apps. Where are they? Where are apps that communicate with each other when in proximity? Where are the vaunted "web services" seamlessly integrated into mobile applications? Heck, where is a simple presentation program that makes Powerpoint look like the crappy app that it is?

Macworld did bring a great dinner with my old friends Tuncer Deniz (Editor in Chief of Inside Mac Games) and Brian Greenstone (Mac game god). That was fun and has become a Macworld tradition. I'm glad to hear that they are both doing well. It was fun to regale ourselves in stories of the old Mac game evangelism days and of course our Bungie experiences.

A final thought on CES. The trend I saw at CES was the fundamental shift to higher quality digital media (HDTV, Blu-Las DVD, AAC, WMA, XM radio) that is seamlessly shared/connected throughout one's personal spaces (house, car, travel). All the technical pieces are there to achieve this (demonstrated at CES), but I think it will be some time before elegant solutions (ala iTunes + iPod) are created based on all the cool technology demonstrated at CES. Very exciting none the less!

Back in San Jose

I've made it back to the Bay Area. The security line at the Vegas airport stretched for 1/4 mile, and took over a hour to get through. Weee :( While I miss the 65 degree weather of Vegas, it is good to be back.
Grabbed some tasty Thai food and watched the awesome Patriots/Titans playoff game. All is good in the world.
Am testing a program called Frequency, which allows me to enter my blogs in a Mac app rather than logging into the site. Very simple, but seems to work.

Winding down at CES

I'm finishing an awesome four day visit to CES in Las Vegas. Yeah, it was all that. What did I see that blew my mind?

Plasma TVs - freakin awesome. I need one this year. They were everywhere on the floor, and I just can't watch sports again without getting some 16:9 action first!
Connected Everything - Wireless connectivity for everything. Not that anything will be able to talk to each other cross vendors, but hey, it looks super sexy...
Digital Audio content - It was everywhere. Forget the CD, it's all digital now.
Porn stars - Yeah, they were everywhere. Schweet ;-)

Headed home now. All good things must come to an end...