BijanBlog

Digital Audio Optical Switch

I have this brand new, unopened digital audio optical switch. If you want it just let me know and I'll ship it to you free. First one to comment here or you can email me directly.

It's part of my new years resolution to get rid of stuff I don't need :)

Open Sesame

My friend Dean from WebTV was the cofounder of Slim Devices which was recently acquired by Logitech. Besides making great software and hardware, Slim decided early to make their server software open source. As a result lots of developers and even competitors started using theirsoftware. A recent example is the Netvibes+Slimserver mashup. Its awesome and a great idea that would never happen if conventional wisdom prevailed at Slim. Fortunately they tossed out conventional wisdom  day 1.

More CE companies should follow the Slim Devices model.

Open, sesame CE guys.

Sonos. I love my Sonos but I want to write apps for it. I want a search engine on Sonos. I'd really love Last.fm integration. And I want YottaMusic to control my Rhapsody playlists that are accessed by Sonos. To do the latter now I have to set up all Rhapsody playlists for Sonos on Lauren's dell laptop. Sad but true.

Apple iPhone & iPod. Who knows if the iPhone will actually be closed over time but it would be tragic if it was closed. Even Microsoft knows better as anyone can develop 3rd party apps for WindowsMobile. I'd also like to write apps that could integrate gps with the nike ipod so I could mash it up with google maps and track where I've been hiking or biking.

Comcast HDPVR Can you imagine how many sweet apps could be created if Comcast turned on networking or even the firewire port on their HD PVR.

We need open consumer electronics. The CE space needs to be turned inside out. We need to be able to mash up hardware and software. Services and apps will be created that we haven't even thought of yet. Dave Winer has a denon receiver with a web server on board. Cool.

Just a sign of things to come.

New laptop bag

I've been using a tumi bag for years to carry my laptop, journal, ipod and misc items for awhile. The Tumi feels like I'm carrying a clunky dufflebag these days. It's overkill for me.

So I'm looking for something better. It's gotta be cooler looking (shouldn't be hard). And it has to be easier to carry and lighter (more important). And needs to be high quality (I'm tough on these things).

I'm leaning towards the Incase Sling. Any other ideas?

Update: Josh sent me an email today. He sent me a link to great bags on his blog. I'll have to check them out.

Breaking the curse

  googleplex07 
  Originally uploaded by shspaceflight.

Last week when I was in California I had a meeting at Google and saw the Googleplex in Mountain View. It brought back a bunch of memories that I'm just processing now.

For folks that have never lived in Silicon Valley or just moved there recently you might not be familiar with the significance of this building. It used to belong to SGI.

When Microsoft bought WebTV we moved from Palo Alto to Mountain View across the street from SGI's newest building. SGI built this building when they were the darling of Silicon Valley. It was gorgeous. (In fact we sneaked into the building on occasion because the cafeteria was amazing.) By the time we moved across the street the writing was on the wall for SGI and the building became the latest victim of the curse. The curse that haunts companies when they decide to build a huge campus - and once they do their business goes downhill. Sun and Borland probably started this curse. Maybe there were others before.

Google has been renting the SGI building since '03. But last summer they officially purchased the building from SGI. Would they fall victim to the curse? It's only been 8 months since they took ownership but it's pretty cool to see a young company fend off the curse and kick butt.

I'm still cheering for Google.

Vista on a Mac?

  Mac OS X with parallels 
  Originally uploaded by Cyberdeath.

I installed Parallels and Windows on my MacBook several months ago. I thought it would be cool to have Windows available just in case I needed to access something unavailable on a Mac.

This post sums up my experience running Windows on a Mac.

The idea is appealing but in reality I've never had the need to fire up Parallels since I installed it except to show friends that I got it working.

More skiing

  Me and the girls on the lift 
  Originally uploaded by bsabet.

Girls had their 2nd lesson today and by lunch they took their first chair lift ride with the instructor. So I grabbed my skis and we all skied the afternoon at Nashoba Valley Ski. Lots of sunshine, snow and smiles.

It's going to be really fun when James gets a little older so the whole family can enjoy it together.

Irish night out

My irish/italian wife was itching to hear live irish music. So last night we went to The Burren in Davis Square, ordered a few pints ofGuinness   and enjoyed some irish music. Lively crowd, happy music. It was really fun.

Afterwards we had a late dinner at a place next door called Martsa on Elm. The food was just okay (probably wouldn't recommend it) but 20 minutes into our meal Lauren noticed that we were the oldest people in the restaurant. Sobering.

Tastespotting

What do you get when you combine photos + food + blog aggregation. Tastespotting. This is a super idea.

People love great photos of food. On flickr there is actually a food porn group. And aggregating blogs for this category is smart.

I'd like to see flickr integration to make it easier to contribute. Or even better would be a feedburner feedflare link to Tastespotting.

The Cat Empire

These guys have been around for several years and are very big in Australia. I just heard them for the first time in SF this week. They came on the radio as I was cruising up 280 from Los Altos to the city Wed night.

Breath of fresh air. I bet these guys would be a blast to see live. They remind me of a band I saw a few times in the early 90s called Chucklehead.

Rhapsody has their first EP online. You can get the next two from amazon.

Here is Hello from the The Cat Empire EP. Turn it up.

Not so perfect red eye

I took the red eye back from SF last night and arrived in Boston this morning. I did get an upgrade to first class but I didn't have the perfect red eye that my friend Howard experienced recently.  Went to the office and made it thru with a lot of diet dr pepper. I feel yucky.

Maybe I should try the ambien next time. Or maybe I should just avoid these red eyes. I think that's a bettter idea for me :)

Nice to be home. Although its 7 degrees outside.