Month: February 2006

My Personal Dna Report

Fred Wilson blogs today about PersonalDNA, a new free online Myers-Briggs type personality analysis tool. I’ve seen a bunch of these online in the past and have found most of these types of tests to be a waste of time, but this one is actually pretty good. It uses an ajaxy like interface and allows for custom levels of gradiation to questions and your answers.

My test results came back that I was a genuine inventor personality type which I suppose is good. Fred is an animated leader. I imagine a positive spin is put on most personality types by the software but I thought in general their analysis was pretty spot on… at least in how I see myself.

The software also has a module to let other people assess you as well in order to see how you are seen by others.

Fred wonders, “Imagine if every linked in page had a personalDNA report on it, if every resume had one, if every blog had one? This could be very interesting if it goes viral.” Interesting idea. As self absorbed a bunch as we bloggers can be, it wouldn’t surprise me.

Davis Freeberg Update – It’s a neat little test, but I didn’t really find too many surprises with the results. Turns out I’m an indepedent leader. I did find it interesting to compare my numbers vs everyone else though. If you look at my confidence and fashion numbers, you can tell that I’m way to cocky considering what I’m wearing.

John’s Adventures: John’s Background Switcher: Chris Lanier tips me off on a great little app from John Conners called John’s Background Switcher. Since we all like to occasionally change our desktop wallpaper, John built an application that automatically does this for you.

You can set it to chanage every day or even every hour. In addition to pulling from a folder of images on your hard drive, it has also been integrated with the Flickr API and “you can choose to select pictures by person, tags, sets or just plain random.”

What a fun and cool little App!

Technology News Article | Reuters.com Reuters is reporting this morning that TiVo is “close” to offering a subscription only TiVo offering.

“Chief Executive Tom Rogers said the company, whose name has become synonymous with the ability to pause live television and skip commercials, was close to offering a range of pricing options, including one plan that would include a free set-top box.”

“The company is likely to begin the test to offer free boxes, possibly in exchange for higher priced and longer term plans, fairly soon, said Rogers, who was named chief executive last July.”

We reported here back on February 17th based on an interview Rogers had given to Bloomberg news that this was in the works. In that interview Rogers had said that they would look at a subscription only plan “early this year.”

I would suspect that initially they would limit this to Series 2 TiVo boxes which will be less desirable when the multi tuner HDTV standalone Series 3 TiVos come out later this year. Although no timing is set on when the Series 3 box will be released I would think that with the early adopter high-end crowd that beating Microsoft and their CableCARD equipped Media Center PCs to market would be a goal of the company at the moment. The Series 3 is currently believed to be in outside beta testing at the moment.

One strategy might be that TiVo would launch the subscription only Series 2 boxes at the same time that they released the higher end Series 3 box for purchase.

Although a higher monthly fee free TiVo box might not in fact be the best deal for a consumer when analyzing true total cost of ownership over time, it would nevertheless open the product to a much broader mass market audience and would compete with similar free unit subscription based offerings from TiVo’s satellite and cable competitors.

No word on what they would price a subscription only box at. According to Reuters most consumers pay about $13 a month for their TiVos today.

Offering a subscription only box seems like the right move for the company to make and has been suggested by many in the past as a good direction for the company.

With a subscription only version launch, it would seem important for TiVo to effectively distinguish their product from the cheapo freebie cable and satellite offerings to justify what would surely be a more expensive monthly cost.

I would assume that a subscription only pricing option on a TiVo would be similar to your contract with the cell phone company with a service agreement time period (one year? two years?). One thought for TiVo would be that if they launch this pricing plan with their Series 2 units that they have a provision in their contract to let anyone out of a service agreement if they ugrade to a Series 3 TiVo when they are available later this year.

*Davis Freeberg Update – Dave Zatz found an interesting videotaped interview of Tom Rogers at the Reuters event earlier today. The interview lasts about 5 minutes and is definetely worth checking out.

Microsoft Unveils Windows Vista Product Lineup: Offerings deliver unique value across business and consumer audiences. Well Media Center is not going to be a custom sku in Vista, but rather will be integrated into a version of Vista called Vista Home Premium. Microsoft will also offer a Vista Home Basic version without Media Center.

They also will have a Windows Vista Ultimate version although I’m not sure of what it will have that Vista Home Premium will not.

Consumers can choose between 32-bit or 64-bit editions.

I will probably buy the first CableLabs certified 64 bit Dell Vista Home Premium or Ultimate when it is available later this Fall. No word on pricing of the software or their packages yet.

It is interesting to see Media Center not included in the basic package. This is most likely due to the fact that Microsoft needs more sizzle to sell what will be a more expensive Vista Premium.

The Patry Copyright Blog: On the Road Again Fred von Lohmann over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation tipped me off to a post by William Patry which discusses the photographs I published of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” manuscript.

Bill Patry is a leading copyright law expert and writes, “The above photographs would qualify as news reporting fair use.”

I have not heard anything else from Myra Borshoff Cook, the tour coordinator for the manuscript and the one who told me copyright was the reason for the no photography policy at the exhibit. I also have not heard from the manuscript’s owner Jim Irsay.

I did sell a copy of one of my manuscript photographs to San Francisco Magazine where it can be seen in their March issue.

Well I finally got my hands on an XBox 360. While I’m sure I could have gotten one earlier if I wanted to pay up or go through more effort, I’ve been just checking in periodically with the Emeryville Best Buy and yesterday they had a premium unit and I bought it.

My intention in buying an XBox 360 was largely to use it for the extender technology. My home is currently being rewired with my Cat 6 network and I’ll end up with five TVs in the house. I’ll have TVs in my living room, home theater (in the attic), bedroom, kitchen and guest bedroom (no in room TV for the kids) and XBox 360 will be the thin client technology to pipe my media into each of these 5 TVs from my Media Center PC which resides in my home office up in the attic (once I can get a CableCARD approved Vista PC). My intention in buying an XBox 360 was not to use it for gaming as I’ve never been much of a gamer but instead to try it out for planned deployment in my media scheme as indicated above.

So my thoughts so far after about 12 hours of screwing around with the XBox 360?

1. It’s louder than I thought it would be and this is a bit of a negative. I think I’ll still be able to live with it and will get used to it, but it is louder than my HP873N Media Center PC.

2. I didn’t care for the cabling to connect it to your sound system and monitor. The audio and video cables can’t be separated and for those of us with home theater sound systems away from our plasmas on the wall, the cabling is not optimal. I’m assuming I can buy component extensions to put on the existing cabling to get the reach I need (if anyone can confirm this that would be great).

3. It could not be easier to set up.

4. I thought I was going to have no use for the games and I can see now that I was very very wrong about that. I bought two games with the unit, Project Gotham Racing 3 and Kameo Element of Power and they are simply amazing — breathtaking really. The HDTV graphics, the realism, the design and action. I’m sure I will be buying lots of new games for my XBox given how fantastic of a gaming experience it seems to be. Looks like I may have a little bit of gamer in me after all. The wireless controllers are great as well.

Overall I’m pretty happy with the unit but have not begin to put it through any testing at all as an extender unit. I also haven’t experimented around with the live stuff yet. I haven’t had time as I can’t quite seem to put PGR3 down. Anyone have any other suggestions on what games I should buy next?

Microsoft indeed has a hit on their hands. I hope to write up more substantive observations on the unit in the future.

Update: Also just bought Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland Game. Looks like Call of Duty might be next.

Dave Zatz tips us off to a trademark recently filed by Microsoft for something called Relerank: “computer software for organzing, displaying and managing search results from computer search engine software.”

Is this the rummored new Microsoft more relevant search technology rummored to be coming out in conjunction with the Vista launch later this year. Anyone have any idea what this is? Scoble?

Dave also points to another new trademark for Microsoft on a concept called Moviescout.

A Google search for the term Relerank brings up nothing.