The Adventures of a connected man in a connected age

Bold new e-readers grab attention at CES

Posted via web from David Jacobs’s Connected World

Yahoo Further Bridges the Gap Between Internet and TV

Posted via web from David Jacobs’s Connected World

What Happened To My Little Girl?

Now that we have two kids I feel like an experienced parent, until I get a reminder that our first child is only 10 and we haven’t seen anything yet with regard to her. At 10 we are getting perilously close to the very sensitive years and, God help us, the teen years. You can already see clear changes in Virginia’s psyche and attitude. What she cares about; what she wonders about. She’s just not a little girl anymore.

Most disturbing is she is getting breasts already and hair. Is that normal? Is it really time? Really? I don’t know, I’ve never been through this before. As a father I feel very much at a loss here as these are more female issues. She is entering a time that is best navigated by mom. It is at this time I also feel bad for single parents. Thank God for my wife, I wouldn’t want to do this alone.

It is said that kids grow up fast so enjoy them and it is so very true. It’s nearly impossible to perceive when your in the thick of it but boy do you notice when you look back down the road. I’m soaking every bit of everything I can from Capella in her baby stage now. She is such a great baby and I’m going to miss it. I never would have thought this of myself but I love babies.

Ten year olds are pretty cool too.

Heroes the Most Pirated TV Show

This news, that Heroes is the most pirated television show, is very disappointing to me for many reasons. It violates my personal primary rule for downloading. I will only download content if I cannot legitimately find it online for a fair price. I am happy to pay for content and/or watch ads and I do so all the time via iTunes and Hulu.com. If you do not make your content available to me online I feel like I am forced to get it another way. I guess I held out hope that many people felt this way. But Heroes is available on Hulu as well as NBC.com. In fact, I would argue it’s a hell of a lot easier to watch shows this way than try to download them via BitTorrent.

Those of us that argue for a digital future need to understand and respect that some kind of business model must follow. Likely, it will not be the same model that exists today, but producing television costs money and many people need to be compensated. Either the audience needs to pay for the content outright or watch some kind of advertising. I don’t know nor care at this point what model wins out but what I do know is that if shows are pirated and people are not compensated, the digital future will not happen. When networks make shows available online as NBC, ABC and others have done we need to reward that behavior as much as possible. If we can work with the entertainment industry and stop spitting in their faces, together we can carve out a future where everyone wins.

An Affordable $199 Tablet for Everyone — And It's Not From Apple – PC World

Posted via web from David Jacobs’s Connected World

Google Nexus One Available on AT&T 3G? [Rumormill]

Posted via web from David Jacobs’s Connected World

AT&T Steps In It Again – Seriously

Many things shock me about AT&T and their behavior over the past year, but the one thing that shocks me the most is that the entire PR department has not been fired. It’s been one PR disaster after another. Here comes the latest, a report that the AT&T website has stopped selling the iPhone in New York. They have now given three completely different reasons for this, none of them making much sense. Basically they are simply coming across as completely inept. People have already been unhappy with AT&T this year, mostly for network quality and uneven 3G coverage, now this. How can you stop selling phones in America’s largest city and not have a planned message for the obvious questions that are going to come? This is PR 101.

The entire communications and messaging from AT&T has been so abysmally bad of late it’s hard to imagine this is one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world. The iPhone was an absolute blessing at first, bringing thousands of new customers to AT&T but now the iPhone has become a curse on AT&T. The iPhone is a world class cell phone, the first of it’s kind. I guess AT&T isn’t world class enough to live up to the challenge of supporting it.

Kindle Milestone: Amazon Sold More Kindle Books Than Physical Books On Xmas

Posted via web from David Jacobs’s Connected World

I Have Touched The Hand of God: The Nexus One

Ok, that was a little bombastic, but it was pretty exciting. I was fortunate enough to hold and play with a live Nexus One or The Google Phone last night.

Here is what I can report.

It’s fast, really fast, much faster than my iPhone 3G.

The screen is fantastic. Again, better than my iPhone 3G.

It’s simple and elegant. The most elegant phone, both in hardware and software next to the iPhone. Does it surpass the iPhone? Hard to say and it may just be a personal judgement call for most. But thank goodness, this is the first real, serious competition for the iPhone and it should get Apple scrambling to innovate and improve things on the iPhone. This will be great for customers.

Here’s my bottom line. For more technically savvy users who are getting tired of Apple’s maniacal control over the iPhone, the Nexus One from Google will be great. They will love it and it will sell well to this market. The geek cread on this phone is off the charts. For the mass audience who doesn’t know or care much about the inside baseball aspects of the market, they will likely be perfectly happy with the iPhone. What they will get unhappy about is the continuing problems with the AT&T network. If AT&T exclusivity does run out next year and Apple is able to open up to more carriers, I think AT&T is in real trouble. I do think Apple does need to distance themselves from AT&T as they are like a boat ancor that will bring the iPhone down eventually.

Android phones up to this point haven’t been exciting or interesting at all. The Motorola Droid was the first to change that and this Nexus One will move things along even faster. 2010 is going to be a fun year for mobile. It’s Android vs. iPhone. Game on!

Posted via web from David Jacobs’s Connected World

Lindora Update

Sorry it’s been a long time since the last weight loss update. The news is good, very good in fact. After four weeks on Lindora I have lost a total of 17lbs and an inch and a half off my belly. This is an 8 week program so I have some more to go and I’m on track for my goal of 190.

It’s not been easy and there have been good days and challenging days. We are now on Christmas vacation away from home and thus on a hiatus from Lindora as well. I am trying to keep to the program as best as possible but the folks at Lindora said to not worry about loosing weight, just not to gain any. I haven’t stepped on a scale yet and I’m a little afraid to. We’ve not strayed greatly, but we have strayed. Let’s just say Solvang, CA is not a good place to go if you’re on a diet due to the abundance of Danish pastry treats .

The other big piece of news is that due to my weight loss I was able to stop taking the injectable insulin a few weeks back and I was able to cut another diabetes medicine in half. So far, even on this hiatus, my sugar is staying in line. I have also noticed several of my pants don’t fit right anymore due to my shrinking waist. That’s a very satisfying feeling.

After Christmas it’s back to the grindstone for the final push for 190. My ultimate goal is to stay below 200 for life. I started this adventure at 218lbs. So far, so good.

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