DanLin.net

Remember those mix tapes your buddies use to make you? Ok, maybe if you are under 25 years old you probably haven’t even seen a cassette in real life. But take my word for it, it was cool at one point in time.

Muxtape is bringing back some retro-chic to the online music sharing community. It allows you to make a MP3 online ‘muxtape’ up to 12 songs at 10 MBytes each. The design and execution is dead simple but some how very appealing. It looks like someone made it in their bedroom when they were grounded by their parents. Its design is also clearly Apple inspired with its iphone-esque interface but i suspect it does not work on an iphone since the music is played via a Flash media player embedded on the site.

Take a look for yourself and I’ll be waiting to hear your very own muxtape.

Just over a year ago the Apple TV was announced during Macworld SF 2007. I wrote a quick overview of the product and the accompanying service via iTunes back then.

Today Apple announced, among other things, a second try at the Apple TV. It is just a software upgrade but it has made the product significantly more attractive. Let me give you a quick rundown of this revision based on my initial review last year.

Last year I said:

Likes:
Small (Still the same size)
Relatively Inexpensive (Even cheaper now at $229!)
Has HDMI out (No change here)
Intuitive interface (Possible better with more feature integration)
Syncs to 40 GB local drive (Upgraded to bigger hard drives option at 160GB)
Portable (Still very portable at the same size)

Dislikes:
Needs new Airport or needs hardwire (Same)
No DVD playback (Same)
No DVR (Same, probably by design)
No native media acquisition (Much improved now without the need of a computer)
iTunes software is too bulky but required for use (No longer required)
Minor dislike, no 1080p support (Still likely no 1080p but apparently looks very good)

Overall, I think the Apple TV 2.0 is a great improvement over the first iteration. The price cut makes it even more attractive. But I think it is still too expensive for at the $229 price point. If and when it gets closer to the $99 range, I believe they will have mass adoption. For now, I am saving my money for a MacBook Air…

In today’s television business, networks seems to be looking only for instant hits. Reality television is partially to blame for that as they usually have strong starts but finishes weak. Traditional serial drama seems to take the biggest hits with this mentality. With the writer strike and everything else going on with online downloads, the studios have even less patience with shows that don’t produce big numbers right away.

Journeyman is one of the new shows this last season that is facing that untimely death. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I will really miss not knowing where (when and who) Dan Vasser will be visiting in the non-existent future episodes. There has to be a place where good quality shows like this can live and be profitable. I don’t know if the Internet is the answer but certainly the SciFi network or some cable station should at least pick it up for us fans to continue to enjoy the show.

So please, NBC, give the writers what they want and bring back Journeyman!!!

Driftr.com is a new traveler centric social networking site. I just got my invite last night and gave it a quick spin around the block.

The alpha release has a nice and polished Web 2.0 design with plenty of AJAX. As it is still a alpha release, many of the features are still not enabled. The site lets you log the time, place and details of the trips you have taken and organizes them via a visual map display or chronological drop down list. You can upload photos directly to driftr.com or link your flickr photos to their site via the flickr API.

Driftr allows you to enter places you stayed as well as places you ate at which I guess will eventually allow them to build a database of user reviews to compete with Yelp.com.

The current implementation is very basic but it has promise assuming more useful features are added. A few that come to mind are trip planning and peer recommendations. I’ve got a few more invites so let me know if you want to try it out.

Screen shots

I always have tons of crap in my car and many of my crap need 12 volt power to keep it useful. Even though I have 3 outlets in my truck, I could use more. After looking around for some options I came across this one on Amazon.

Eforcity Universal Car Cigarette Lighter Socket Splitter

Well. I just wanted to tell you that I am NOT going to get this one.