Author: Andrew Huey

PSN video store

I just got an e-mail announcing the availability of video rental and purchase on the PS3 through the PlayStation Network. I’ve been curious about this since I first heard of it. Here’s an article about it.

I just jumped on my PS3 and took a look at what was available. Honestly, there’s not much there that I’m really excited about. Buying videos that I can only watch on my PS3, and that will forever be taking up hard drive space on it doesn’t seem like a great idea. Renting seems like a good deal — just download the movie, watch it, then delete it.

Interestingly, there’s also a new anime series that will be exclusive to PSN. It looks like it might be good, but I don’t know if I want to get hooked on a series that I’ll have to $2 per episode to watch. There’s plenty of free anime on Cartoon Network and elsewhere on cable.

more iPod Touch and MobileMe stuff

I see that Apple is extending all MobileMe subscriptions by 30 days to make up for the hiccups in the first few days of the service. That’s nice of them. MobileMe is working OK for me now. I’ve input stuff on the web, on my Mac, and on my iPod, and the sync is working fine no matter where I enter stuff. I’d still like to get the birthday issue straightened out though.

When I set up the 2.0 software on my iPod, I initially turned on “push”. That works well, but really drains the battery. I’ve got “pull” turned on now instead, and I’ve got the thing configured to check once an hour. I hope that’ll clear up the battery issues. I wonder if they could make the pull functionality work a bit more intelligently, so it doesn’t kill battery life.

I’ve looked around at a number of productivity apps for the iPhone / iPod Touch. I haven’t found one that looks like it’s all the way there yet, for what I need. There are a few interesting apps that don’t actually sync with their desktop counterparts yet. Things is a good example. Ditto for Dejumble.

I think my preference right now would be to have an iPhone version of DevonThink, Backpack, or maybe Yojimbo. With full sync, of course. I’m not sure any of these apps are going to get iPhone versions soon, though.

PSN / Underground linking

I went through the process of linking my PSN and PlayStation Underground accounts today, which apparently means that I now have a little ID badge that I can display on this web site:

Kind of pointless, huh? I guess maybe at some point it’ll be useful for something…

more comic-con articles

I stumbled across a couple of semi-interesting con articles on the web today. SanDiego.com has a short article on “how to enjoy comic-con.” Mostly common sense stuff there.

The Huffington Post has an article titled “Obama at Comic Con.” The article is basically making the case for an Obama appearance at the con. There was some talk about this elsewhere a couple of months back. It’s not going to happen, but it’s an interesting idea. Heck, Obama was thinking about doing a NASCAR sponsorship; if you’re going to go after the NASCAR crowd, why not the geeks too?

MobileMe

I’ve updated my iPod Touch with the 2.0 software, and done the necessary updates on my Mac to support the new MobileMe syncing stuff. Apple is *almost* where they need to be to allow me to replace my old Palm with the iPod Touch. I now have my calendar and contacts synced automatically to the Touch, accessible on the web, and on my Mac. And I can update either the calendar or contacts on the Touch, Mac, or web, and it should all sync automatically. Pretty cool!

There are couple of little problems. First, while the birthdays from my contacts can show through to my calendar on the Mac and on the web, they don’t show on the iPod Touch. This problem is described here, and there’s a tech note about it here. That’s not a killer problem, but it’s definitely an annoyance.

The other problem is that there’s still no good way to sync text notes in the same way as the contacts and calendar. There are a couple of third-party solutions that may work out for this. Here’s an interesting one that should be available soon. Evernote is available now, and might be what I’m looking for. It would be nice if 37 Signals came up with something to allow you to sync BackPack to the iPhone/Touch for offline access, but I don’t see any indication that they’re working on that.

Friday & Saturday

So the Friday and Saturday schedules for Comic-Con have been posted. Some highlights:

Friday: Stargate Continuum, Cup o’ Joe, Stargate Atlantis, Jim Lee, Joss Whedon, Geoff Johns, Jim Butcher, Venture Brothers, and the MST3K 20th anniversary reunion!

Saturday: Forrest J. Ackerman, Futurama, Ralph Bakshi, The Simpsons, Heroes, Hellboy, the Quick Draw panel, a Will Eisner tribute panel, Bryan Hitch, BSG, Scott Shaw’s Oddball Comics, Pixar, Ray Bradbury, JMS, and quite a bit more.

I guess the big question is how many of the panels that I’m interested in will I actually be able to get into.

NY Times con article

Here’s an article about the San Diego con that ran in the NY Times a few weeks ago. It’s nice to see the con getting mainstream attention, but it’s a bit annoying to see them calling out stuff like this advice from the con magazine: “Please don’t smell bad.” Well, yeah, it does seem like some people at the con need to be told that. But it’s really not a defining characteristic of the average con-goer.

And the Times calls the con “decidedly low-rent.” I think that anyone who can afford a hotel room in San Diego during the con is *not* low-rent. Sure, there are a lot of people who would rather spend their money on comics and related merchandise at the con than spend it in an overpriced hotel restaurant, but regardless, the con has to be pumping a lot of money into San Diego each year. Heck, I’m pretty sure I drop about $200 each con, just at Starbucks!

(Here’s a blog post on this article that I mostly agree with.)