aviflax.com

Ultimate Ears iPhone headphones/headset

Avi — Fri, 23 May 2008 21:58:00 +0000

Elina gave me this excellent set of headphones designed expressly for the iPhone, with a microphone and control button, for my birthday - thanks babe! Although in-ears aren’t my favorite type of headphones, these are light-years ahead of the crappy earbuds that Apple shamelessly includes with the phone.

Pros:

great sound
highly custamizable fit
good passive attenuation of ambient sound
separate microphone and control button makes both more convenient and effective
high quality materials and construction
iPhone-specific plug

Cons:

can hear cord bouncing around as I walk, I think this is called subharmonics, I find it really annoying, but I think it’s a general problem with all “canalphones”, not just these.
The phones seal really well, and don’t feed any of my voice into the audio, so I can’t hear myself speak, so I end up speaking very loudly - good for callers hearing mr, disconcerting for myself and people around me.
callers hear a lot of ambient noise when I’m out on the street. (but I am in new york)

Bottom line: excellent headphones with a few quirks, which shine where it matters. And a great gift. Thanks Elina!

(Posted from my phone while walking through Central Park, listening to music, taking calls, and shooting some snapshots.)

The State of Data Security Freaks Me Out

Avi — Thu, 22 May 2008 17:24:25 +0000

Just read How Would You Prefer to Send Sensitive Data? over at Slashdot. It freaks me out that people are still asking questions like these in 2008, and that the answers aren’t clear, simple, and obvious - instead, there’s a complex, convoluted discussion. It’s amazing that there are still people who ask others to email their Social Security Numbers. I’m aghast that all email isn’t automatically encrypted by default (including my own).

Crazy.

FUD from Technology Review?

Avi — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:06:28 +0000

Just posted a comment in response to Alarming Open-Source Security Holes at MIT’s Technology Review:

Your headline is misleading - I hope it’s an innocent mistake, as opposed to an intentional attempt to spread FUD about Open Source software. The crucial nuance that’s missing, both from the headline and the article, is that bugs such as this are just as likely to occur in closed-source software as in open-source — but with open-source software, they’re far more likely to be discovered, sooner, precisely because the code is available for anyone to peruse!

I expect more from Technology Review. Please consider adding a note or correction to this effect.

~~I’m not actually surprised or anything; TR has always had a corporate feel to it - it’s generally about MITers or ex-MITers making money, as opposed to pure excitement about technology.~~

Edit: Struck out the last paragraph; after Jason Pontin’s comment below, I realized that my impressions of TR are almost certainly out of date. BTW, he also responded to my comment; check out the discussion there.

UPnP with DD-WRT v24 RC7

Avi — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:46:17 +0000

Tip: to get UPnP to work correctly with this router firmware: make sure that the firewall and HTTPS admin access are disabled.

You can test UPnP with The Coding Monkey’s excellent Port Map.

Coming soon: a whole megillah on using a Mac as a wireless network bridge for XBOX Live.

Evernote

Avi — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:31:11 +0000

I just started using Evernote, and it’s amazing. The automatic OCR is a killer feature. It also has so many different interfaces: desktop, web, generic mobile, iPhone, and even IMAP; it’s amazing. The ability to email notes into notebooks, maintain multiple notebooks, save searches, and publicly publish notebooks - all combined, it’s an amazing system that is remarkably easy to use, considering the depth of its powerful features.

Matzo Pizza for Lunch

Avi — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:06:28 +0000

Matzo Pizza for Lunch - Cooked, originally uploaded by avi4now.

It was good.

Happy Purim!

Avi — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:23:58 +0000

It’s Just A Pebble!

Avi — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:01:44 +0000

Merlin Mann really captures how I feel about email:

Email is such a funny thing. People hand you these single little messages that are no heavier than a river pebble. But it doesn’t take long until you have acquired a pile of pebbles that’s taller than you and heavier than you could ever hope to move, even if you wanted to do it over a few dozen trips. But for the person who took the time to hand you their pebble, it seems outrageous that you can’t handle that one tiny thing. “What ‘pile’? It’s just a fucking pebble!”

I’d read this before, but I just came across it again while reading Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky, which is brilliant; I’ll write more about it soon.

Olympus E420: How does it match up?

Avi — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:06:34 +0000

My co-worker Jess recently noted the announcement of the new Olympus Evolt E420 digital SLR.

The E420 looks sweet indeed. However, I’m not sure about it being “the smallest camera with the highest photo quality”.

Let’s compare it with a few other cameras:

	Sensor Size	Megapixels	Dimensions	Weight	Lens	Price
Olympus E420	4/3″ (17.3 x 13mm)	10	5.1″ x 3.6″ x 2.1″ (38.5 cubic inches) (not including protrusions)	550 grams with battery and lens	Olympus 25mm Zuiko fixed (50mm equivalent, interchangeable)	$700
Leica M8	27 x 18 mm	10.3	5.5″ x 3.2″ x 1.5″ (26.4 cubic inches)	761 grams with battery and lens	Leica fixed 50mm f/2.8 ELMAR-M manual focus (66.5mm equivalent, interchangeable)	$6,590
Ricoh GR Digital II	7.38 x 5.54 mm	10	4.2″ x 1″ x 2.3″ (9.66 cubic inches)	200 grams with battery (lens built-in)	5.8mm fixed built-in (28mm equivalent, not interchangeable, conversion adapters available)	$700
Sigma DP1	20.7mm x 13.8mm	14.1	4.3″ x 2.4″ x 1.2″ (12.38 cubic inches)	270 grams with battery and built-in lens	16.6mm fixed built-in (28mm equivalent, not interchangeable)	$800

The M8 has a larger sensor and is smaller than the E420, while the GR Digital II is super-small and super-light, but has a small sensor. If money’s no object, the M8 looks like it might have the best shot at “the highest photo quality” out of this lot. However, it’s quite pricey, and a rangefinder (which is manual-focus only) isn’t for everyone. In that case, the GR Digital II may not achieve quite the absolute quality of the E420, but people have been getting some great results out of it, and it is quite a bit smaller.

BTW, Jess, in case you don’t know, our fellow Arc90-er Alex has the GR Digital II, and I get the impression that he’s pretty happy with it. You might want to ask him if you can play with it, if you’re interested.

Update: Added Sigma DP-1 as suggested by David. Looks like a strong option - although I have to say I don’t know much about Sigma’s cameras; I haven’t read much by people who use them, or even seen many samples.

Update 2: Clarified specs of GR Digital II lens.