Khoji On Tech (and more)

Rolf is speaking his mind…

Khoji — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 10:09:44 +0000

Rolf from Düsseldorf is haffing a rant, this time about American cellphone providers who charge for incoming calls… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Vi2KRVi00

First few days with Office 2008

Khoji — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:41:09 +0000

I’ve now been using Office 2008 for about five days and I’m already ready to remove it from my Mac. It is painfully, embarrassingly, frustratingly bad. Either the Microsoft Mac team screwed up completely and lost all track of what they were trying to do or Microsoft is consciously trying to force users away from [...]

The iPod Touch as a Bluetooth Phone

Khoji — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 21:12:44 +0000

I just got a nifty little gadget from Gear4 called the BluEye that adds Bluetooth, an FM radio and a wired remote to my iPod Touch and effectively transforms it into a phone with voice dialing. When calls come in anything playing on the Touch is automatically paused and you accept the call by pressing [...]

hlp plz!!! How not to write to support…

Khoji — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 11:16:43 +0000

You often hear about how tough it is to get good information from software support desks. What you don’t so often hear is how tough it is for software support staff to understand the mails that they get from some users. Many users write clear and comprehensible mails to support, but there are others. In addition [...]

WordPress automatic updater

Khoji — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 05:37:24 +0000

One of the few really annoying things about WordPress has always been its stone age updating mechanism. Actually, it doesn’t really have an updating mechanism at all - you have to do everything by hand and so many WordPress bloggers never update. No longer! If you don’t have it already go out and get the WordPress [...]

New multilayer HD video format

Khoji — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 06:20:37 +0000

Adding to the HD format wars confusion comes a new contestant, HD Versatile Multilayer Disc (HD VMD), from the upstart British tech company New Medium Enterprises. What sounds like a new layer of insanity in the video formats farce may actually turn the industry on its head. HD VMD uses regular red laser technology and large [...]

Magnatune’s music podcasts

Khoji — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 19:44:14 +0000

The Magnatune music podcasts on the iTunes store are a terrific deal. There are nearly fifty different podcasts for virtually all kinds of music genres and every podcast is an hour of great music at 128kbps, without advertising and completely free, and it looks like new podcasts are added at regular intervals. It’s a great [...]

Boiled Frogs: The RIAA forced Apple to charge royalties

Khoji — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 16:26:05 +0000

OK, the story was different: Apple actually wanted to allow customers to be able to create their own ringtones for free. The RIAA forced them to charge royalties and pass them on to the RIAA, while ensuring that the artists responsible for actually creating the music would not get any cut of the royalties. Words [...]

Boiled Frogs: Apple gets into nickel and dime crime

Khoji — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 09:40:43 +0000

Apple is the latest major company to get into nickel and dime crime, which is safe, legal and fantastically profitable. Their new iPhone ringtones function gets people to pay 99 cents for something they already own, and money for nothing is always the best best profit margin you can have. It used to be called [...]

DVD Format Wars

Khoji — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 07:24:14 +0000

Maybe it’s time to treat digital media formats in the same way as radio spectrum bandwidth: We don’t have any problem with regulating the radio spectrum because it’s clearly a limited resource that everybody needs to use. Leaving it completely open would obviously make the spectrum useless. The same applies to digital formats, it’s just not [...]