Zune finally adds support for Audible.com

I admit it, I like listening to audiobooks when I drive cross country and usually with my 1000 mile hauls and the cost of CD's, it can been an expense proposition. I did the Twilight series while driving 3000 miles over to Arizona and northern California which was a hundred bucks give or take. Which would have cost me a fraction of that if I could have downloaded it on my Zune which wasn’t compatible with the format at the time.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I downloaded the Zune 3.0 firmware. Wow, neat, games, down load songs directly from any public Wi-Fi through the Zune Marketplace and it labels songs that it plays through the FM receiver that you can download if you like. While all of that is cool, the best thing I found last week was support for Audible.com. Yay, instant gratification at the click of a button, 7.49 the first 3 months and 14.95 for each month after which gives me one downloaded book per month and 30% off all of my other downloads. Yes, it might be a lot spend for a non-reader but for me, it’s days off of my life searching through stores or waiting for something to arrive in the mail through Amazon.

Suddenly, that long drive doesn’t seem so long and lonely anymore.

I cut the cord

No, not that cord, I mean I’ve gone all of the way and switched over to cellular wireless internet.  My days of stealing WiFi signals are now over and I’ve signed up to Sprints mobile broadband service.  After all of these years of complaining about finding internet service while on the road and the crappy quality of unsecured wireless signals, I’ve taken the fatal plunge. 

From my apartment, my download speed is 1175 kb/s through speedtest.net in comparison to the California average of 5288 kb/s which is nothing compared to Japans 16,019 kb/s.  Even Russia is faster than us with 6512.  I’m basically saying that my internet is slow but worlds faster than 56k that almost everyone used a decade ago.  Plus, I can drag this anywhere I want and not feel guilty for mooching off of my neighbors.

KCET Milblogger Podcast

A couple of months ago, KCET’s Juan Devis, left a comment on my blog, he’s the producer of KCET/PBS Television’s New Media division of Southern California. He does a show called Web Stories “KCET’s multimedia webzine exploring the stories , culture, and attitudes of the people who live here”. This months project was on how new media technologies had changed how the war was being covered. The focus was on the local Southern California Milbloggers and the stories we had to tell.

He was requesting an interview for a podcast, so one afternoon, with approval from the PAO, he and I had a talk that lasted for a half hour or so and the fruits of that conversation can be found here.

Juan also got interviews from Lex, Army Girl and Colby Buzzell.

On that page, Holly Willis writes about Milblogs and compares and contrasts the difference between Michael Herr’s “Dispatches” about the Vietnam war and the phenomenon of Milblogging. One of the clearest essay’s I’ve seen on the subject, definitely a smart lady.

Email forwards

In the broader sense, you shouldn’t look at email any differently then you look at blogging. Just stick it in your head that once you email anything out, it’s not your property anymore, it can be forwarded around the world with all of your info added to it. Have you heard the tale of Jonas L Blank (who talked glibly about a financial deal), Claire Swire (who emailed her buddy about a yummy treat), Jacqueline Kim (who sent out an email about a first date with Casey O’Brien that went around the world) or Peter Chung (who told about his pad of conquest in Korea)? How about the guy who originally sent out the Abu Ghraib photos by email, do you think he thought about the storm he was about to unleash? Ask any of these guys, you don't want to become famous though an email forward.

Here is my little lesson in Internet Courtesy, when you forward an email, try not forwarding emails that can get you into trouble, contain personal information or get anyone in trouble who is in the body of the email. If you can’t help yourself and do decide to forward such things, strip it of personal information of the people who sent it to you such as the addresses and signatures.

One thing about a really funny email? After leaving your inbox, that email is like a powerful flu, you send it out and it spreads like wildfire. Everyone you send it too sends it too all of their friends. Even I’ve been caught in that trap and if I forward something, it’s good and probably still floating about with my name at the very bottom. Considering most people don’t have a clue about internet courtesy and just forward emails, imagine thousands if not millions of people getting that email with your name and sometimes signature with phone number at bottom of it.

While some complain that blogging is sending out your personal information out to the world. In reality, most people don’t read blogs but they do check their inbox and don't your emails contain your real name? Do you have that buddy who forwards everything? I know I do. And I personally know at least 15 people that have sent embarrassing emails to a command wide mailing list.

So be careful about what you write and what you forward.