What's New is Old

Mark & Wes, in Walnut Creek, CA at the Tokyo Lobby.

Mark figures out a way to intercept Wes on the bus using a system called Nextbus in order to take BART to the east bay together. We're thinking about changing the name of our show from WNO, to simply "SlurpCast". In this show, we talk a bit about the in-ear headphones that Wes got at the Apple store and Mark ordered via the Apple website. Mark feels that these are not as good as other in-ear headphones, like the Shure model he used before. Wes thinks that the lack of good movies has something to do with the writers strike. The Day the Earth Stood Still was yucky, although Gran Torino was good. Fart applications for the iPhone outnumber the total available applications on the Samsung Instinct. Ever hear about Usenet? Wes talks a bit about this old valuable part of the internet, but both of us get interrupted by the background noise of some darn college students.

Sites of Interest:

The Nextbus system works with a few public transit systems around the US to give you GPS-based predictions for when the next bus will arrive at your stop. Their web server is good at bringing up very simple HTML when it sees you are contacting it with a dumb cellphone browser. The Routesy iPhone application interfaces with Nextbus data for San Francisco only.

The new Apple In-Ear stereo headphones have a microphone for phone use and a remote control.

The Spoofcard website and telephony servers let anyone on any phone in the US make phone calls with fake caller ID and altered voice. Mark inadvertantly kept calling this "spoofstick" because he was mixing this up with another service called VoiceStick. There is an iPhone jailbreak app called SpoofApp available through Cydia which makes it easier to use Spoofcard from an iPhone.

Applications for Franky's phone, the Samsung Instinct.

Opera - A very compact and creative browser for many operating systems, including some cellphones.

The history of computer Spell Checkers. Also an interesting article on why the spell checkers in search engines are very different from the ones in word processors.

Usenet - An underrated resource for valuable information. Wes' favorite usenet application is Agent.

The Internet is for porn.

Doug Engelbart demonstrated personal computing, networking, the first computer mouse, etc. in 1968.

Videos of a Russian doll Theremin orchestra and a cat playing a Theremin. There are Theremin simulatorsfor the iPhone.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

Chopper - a game that reminds Wes of Chop Lifter for the Apple II.

Allrecipes Dinner Spinner - an app that helps you choose a meal that's healthy for you to make at home.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Keep In Touch- a contact manager that reminds you to keep in touch with people on an appropriate schedule.

WifiTrak - a Wi-Fi finder that shows you whether an access point that appears to be open will actually let you connect to the Internet without needing validation.

Mark, Wes, and guest Franky in Lafayette, CA at the Swad Indian restaurant.

We have a guest this week: Franky, Al Bernay's disciple. Franky goes to Hollywood -- literally, that's where he lives; but for this week he was visiting in San Francisco. The audio quality in this show is excellent because we used a PZM microphone, however there is a lot of GSM noise because Mark's iPhone was too close to the recorder and Wes was more agressive than normal in editing this show to eliminate some of the noisiest spots. They talk about Myst Online, the new domain suffix .tel, the dBASE database management system, Radio Shack (ewwwwwww), CompuServe and Tymshare, and of course lots of iPhone stuff. Sites of Interest:

Radio Shack's PZM microphone, which may or may not actually be PZM.

Franky's Facebook page. Franky Goes to Hollywood, the movie. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the music group.

Franky's cell phone is a Samsung Instinct.

Myst Online goes open source.

The new .tel TLD and how it is very different from other domain suffixes.

History of the dBASE database management system.

Read historic Radio Shack catalogs online.

History of the CompuServe system.

There are now over 10,000 iPhone applications in Apple's app store.

A software hack to SIM unlock 3G iPhones -- meaning allowing them to be used on any GSM carrier instead of being locked to AT&T, for example -- will be released on 1/1/2009. If you already upgraded to firmare 2.2 using iTunes, then you won't be able to unlock using this method. If you have not upgraded yet, follow these instructions on how to upgrade only the firmware and not touch the GSM modem chip.

Wes' iPhone Applications of the week:

Joost - play videos from joost.com.

Woman Calendar - Men and women have very different reasons for using this; it's pretty expensive, but Wes thinks it's worth it.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Copy/Paste - This is a little complicated to set up, but pretty easy to use and really does give you limited Copy and Paste functions for the iPhone.

FindInPage - The podcast was edited so that a mention of this is inadvertently mixed in with the Copy/Paste discussion. FindInPage is a jailbreak app which is installed with Cydia, and edits your bookmark file to add a "Find in Page bookmark". WARNING: the current version of this app sometimes destroys your bookmarks instead of adding the new one, so wait for a revised version to show up.

Pull My Finger - Stupid audio app which has a bunch of fingers to pull. Guess what happens.

Mark & Wes, in Rockridge, CA at Pasta Pomodoro

Our intro audio sample comes from the movie WestWorld. Mark reminds us about the Gopher protocol, and how that works. Wes remembers the text web browser Lynx. Why is Symbian supporting Lotus Notes? Why do companies who purchase other software companies, screw up the software products? Mark gets a phone call from a reporter investigating 911 fraud. Ever notice that bus and train riders who use laptops seem not to be aware of the fact that anyone can see their private information? Dell is now offering professional designs on their netbook line for an extra $50. Should employees get paid to wait for their computer systems to boot up? Near the end of the show, Mark and Wes talk a bit about the tools we use here to create the RSS feed and issues around the rich text editors involved.

Sites of Interest:

New Apple In-Ear headphones with microphone and remote control.

Griffin Clarifi iPhone case with macro lens.

Craigs Crime List, a site where people can report crimes that happen to them on CraigsList.

Ted Nelson coins the word "hypertext", predicts the world wide web.

The Gopher protocol preceded html.

Lynx is a text-only web browser that some people still use.

Nokia S60 adds support for Lotus Notes.

A history of computer spreadsheet software.

VU-Calc for the Timex Sinclair ZX/81.

Mark's comments about Steve Jobs and lowercase characters were wrong. He had read this Steve Jobs speech in 2005 and thought he remembered Steve making such a claim.

News story about a modern-day blind phone phreak being arrested.

Example of a privacy filter so people next to you can't see your notebook screen.

Comparison of netbooks. Mark says that Fry's had only one when he visited several weeks ago, but they have a few models now.

Article about companies not wanting to pay for booting and shutting down computers.

Wes' iTouch Applications of the week:

Frotz - text adventure games for the iPhone and iTouch.

iBlogger - a tool for blogging on your iPhone or iTouch.

iHotness - am I hot or not for the iTouch or iPhone.

CraigsMobileList - A better way to view CraigsList content on your iPhone.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Sniff_jazzbox - an example of Mark's love for stupid audio apps.

New version of Google search app has speech.

Mark & Wes, in Orinda, CA at Yu Sushi.

Wes isn't ready for the G1 phone yet, but is thinking about getting one once other carriers start offering their own Android phones. Mark doesn't think that the T-Mobile network is all that good, so holding off on the purchase of a G1 specifically may be wise. Was UNIX originally a public domain operating system from Bell Labs? Mark ponders the question of what device may have been made to emulate another, in the 1800's? Some guy hooks up electrodes to his face to move facial muscles based on the sound of music. Mark invented a device for a psychology lab to analyze thinking patterns. We end the show with an update on Al Bernay and the discoveries found at Al's place.

Sites of Interest:

Ancient Rome layeradded to Google Earth.

Google G1 phone is gaining momentum?

IBM 7090 - first computer to be used for animation.

More on the history of early computer animation.

Tron was pretty early, but not the first computer generated film.

Blade Runner - the last analog sci-fi film.

Dark Star - another famous analog sci-fi film.

Unix history chartand First Unix manual with 60 commands, 11/3/71

CP/M - Operating System by Digital Research.

History of MS/DOS and speculation on why IBM used it instead of CP/M for the PC.

The first timeshare system Mark used was CP/CMS and he evaluated a VM/PC.

How to emulate VM/370, the successor to CP/CMS, on any modern PC!

Apple's DOS Compatibility Boards.

Microsoft's CP/M card for the Apple II.

DOSBox - An x86 emulator with DOS.

Univac computer first to predict elections, Eisenhower/Stevenson

How to turn a human into a remote-controlled robot. Watch the video!

Eye-tracking technology is useful for testing usability of software and websites.

Google uses searches to track the spread of flu.

Frankie helping Mark go through Al Bernay's things:

Picture of Al in "the basement" in late 1960's. Note the homemade circuit cards hanging from the walls:

A couple of these circuit cards that survived:

The homemade switchboard that Al used to control his phone lines:

Cherry-brand slide matrix switch that Al labeled to install into his equipment, but not sure if he ever used it:

Wes' iTouch Applications of the week:

FieldRunners

iDrum

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

SiAX - SIP and IAX2 VOIP app, install from Cydia for jail-broken phones only

iSkream - Stupid, but fun, audio app.

iOscilloscope - Draws oscilloscope display from iPhone microphone sounds.

Mark & Wes, in Walnut Creek, CA at the Plearn Thai Restaurant.

What's that Mark? Did you say Bag o' Crap? You still couldn't get one? Mark describes something called a woot-off, and tells all about what happens near the end of one of them. What does "MUD" stand for? Hmm.. Mark's friend has a hard disk issue that SpinRite fixed. The Android phone was released to a crowd of people in SF, but the experience was less than its competitor's waiting line. Mark and Wes discuss potential software for Android, and the T-Mobile plan for the G1 phone, which doesn't seem that much different than the iPhone AT&T plan.

Sites of Interest:

Woot, and their occasional Bag of Crap.

WNO's Listener Pull for the week: Sparrow, who is a developer of the popular Nirvana MUD internet adventure game.

What does "M.U.D." stand for? Wikipedia claims that Wes and Mark are both right.

ChaCha.com: where any question gets answered, and YOU can make money helping to answer them.

SpinRite is probably the best hard drive data recover software solution available.

The first Android phone was released by T-Mobile. See the rate plans as part of this FAQ.

Android has an app store kind of like the iPhone, but more open.

Android has a "kill switch" so google can remotely remove an app from your phone.

AT&T has a data-only iPhone plan, but only for people who have a hearing or speaking disability.

Scotch Tape can generate X-Rays; watch the detailed video.

Do you remember Word Perfect?

Mark changed his mind and now remembers Wordtech Systems of Orinda California began by making keyboard stickers for WordStar, not Word Perfect.

Call Wes' cell from an unblocked land line, and MetroPCS will show your name as well as your number.

Joost will now run within your web browser, and legally streams TV Shows and Video.

Hulu is another legal service for streaming commercial video.

Mark owns one of these Curta Calculators. It was widely used in car rallies, and here are detailed instructions from 1979.

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

Theriminator - An emulator of one of the first electronic synthesizers, the Theremin.

Mark mentioned that synthesizer pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre designed these speakers for the iPod.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

The Brightkite web service now has an iPhone app.

WinterBoard - Theme your jail-broken iTouch/iPhone.

Crazy Skeleton - the ultimate Halloween costume accessory!

Debugger - Peer into the circuitry of your iPhone and get rid of any bugs.

Mark & Wes, in Lafayette, CA at the Chow Restaurant.

Tonight we find our two nerdy friends eating food at a small hidden away place underneath a heat lamp eating simple Italian meals. Mark doesn't get the joke on Melissa's myspace profile and goes on to describe the official definition of a 'myspace picture', and what it means to not understand camera usage. Mark speaks about perspective, and how the process of catching flying balls is, in reality, an easy algorithm. Microsoft is no longer supporting their old Spot Watch paging in the next version of MSN Messenger. Mark describes what bubble memory is and how time was involved. 4.13% of the HTML passes WC3 Validation? Also, what do Mark and Wes think of this new restaurant?

Sites of Interest:

What causes GSM cellphone noise?

WNO's Listener Pull for the week: Melissa.

Simple algorithm for how people and dogs can catch balls and frisbees.

MSN is phasing out the ability to send pages to Spot watches.

The IBM 5100 Portable Computer (Project Mercury)

What Google searches looked like in 2001.

If you dig a hole straight down, where will you come out? Probably not China.

The Grid Compass 1101 - Bubble Memory Laptop.

Bubble memory never caught on.

Early computer memory devices worked by wasting time.

In Mark's first job, he had one of these amazing Wang calculators on his desk. He can't find any references right now, but remembers it used an acoustic delay line memory.

Opera study on W3C standards compliance.

Internet Explorer 8 will be standards compliant.

Flock 2 Browser adds social networking features.

Mark and Wes use Digsby to handle all their instant messaging needs.

Voipcheap and Poivy let you call landlines and cellphones around the world often for free, or a lot cheaper than Skype.

How to store data so people hundreds of years from now can read it.

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

iDrink - the iTouch application to stir up your drink palette.

Mark's stupid iPhone Applications of the week:

Using these you can even impress the harmonica-playing bus boy at Hometown Buffet! iBeer, iMunchies, Harmonica.

Mark & Wes, in Lafayette, CA at the Swad Restaurant.

Mark and Wes console each other about their stock market losses. In our fantasy, our podcast is better than KenRadio. Use your phone to display membership cards? Of course you can, so long as the bar code is visible and the facility approves. What tools were available in the old days of computer game programming? Take for instance the Atari 2600? Woz used the 6502 processor for the Apple II, and used it because of the manufacturer handing out free processors at some conference he went to. Steve Jobs and Woz created Breakout for Atari. At what point in history were KeyPunch Operators highest in demand? Could YOU live off of unemployment? T-Mobile reports high numbers of pre-orders for the G1 Android Phone. Digsby is really one guy?

BTW, instead of waiting to gain an audience, Mark and I are going to come and get you!

Sites of Interest:

KenRadio is one of the podcasts that inspired us to start our own.

Scan membership cards and keep their images in your phone, instead of filling up your wallet.

The MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor chip was the heart of the Kim-1, Commodore 64, Apple II, etc. Commodore later bought the chip manufacturer.

Punch card computing with wire plugboard programming for tabulating and reporting functions.

Keypunch machines.

Magnetic drum memory, and how real programmers wrote code for early machines with drums as their only memory.

Mark loves the FileTracer shareware program and has used it for years, but there is no Vista version.

The "Everything" free program does basically the same function as FileTracer, but it does support Vista so Mark is happy again.

The GoPhone unlimited data plans are being dropped. GoPhone sim cards will work in cellular modem cards and devices used with notebook computers.

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

WikiMe - Automatically displays GeoLocated Wikipedia articles for landmarks near you. This is perfect for traveling to strange cities and immediately seeing the tourist attractions around you.

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Loopt lets you see where your friends are on a map, and shows pictures and brief descriptions of other Loops users near you who opt in to that service.

WhosHere is similar, but only for the function of showing other users near you.

Mark & Wes, in Walnut Creek, CA at Stanfords Restaurant and Bar.

Wes meets Wes, at Stanfords, where he and Mark discover what a 'butter burger' is. Mark discusses how to train a Cat by using a clicking device combined with treats and warm fuzzies. Apple drops the developer NDA for applications created for the iPhone, but what does this really mean? Wes complains the the Sarah Connor Chronicles will end of life soon, but then nothing good lasts forever. Mark bought the domain name RapKids.com for Wes' recording program in Byron County, and much of the music used on the WNO PodCast comes from his work with 360. If you followed Mark's advice and jailbroke your iPhone or iTouch, he has a slight warning for you, and describes what you must do NOW to protect your iPhone if it gets 'bricked'.

BTW, instead of waiting to gain an audience, Mark and I are going to come and get you!

Sites of Interest:

The good lord willing and the crick don't rise.

The cat training revolution.

Apple drops the iPhone SDK NDA, possibly because of the controversy over the Podcaster app.

Google offers a blog search engine that not only lets you search blogs, but automatically shows what stories are active right now in blogs around the world.

Google has an experimental audio search engine where you type in keywords, and it will show portions of videos that contain those words in the audio track.

Wes likes the Sarah Conner Chronicles.

Myspace Music Recording Deals.

Watch the video about the amazing future Plastic Logic Reader.

Duke Nukem gets released for Xbox 360.

The original Adventure game, and you can play it online or on your computer.

The only other video game Marked ever liked was The Prisoner for Apple II.

Z-machine interpreter for Infocom games.

Nintendo releases DSI in Japan; comes to us next year?

Mark's new external battery for charging an iPhone/iPod on the go.

Warning for people who jailbroke your iPhone/iTouch: read this article and keep it handy because you might need it in case your iPhone becomes "bricked". BUT RIGHT NOW, BEFORE YOU GET BRICKED, you must set up the OpenSSH facility, or you won't be able to do what that article says. For Windows users, install the Putty program on your PC to talk to the OpenSSH connection.

TwiddleBit makes Microsoft Project-like apps for Windows Mobile and Symbian phones.

Leo Laporte is already using "Munchcast" as the name for a podcast, but they don't actually record from a restaurant so it isn't the same as our slurpcast.

But Mark wins because he owns shitcast.com! (This will re-direct to slurpcast.)

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

iBlueSky - Mind Mapping Tool

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

Backgrounder (for jailbreaked devices only; install with Cydia). Mark has been using this since the podcast was recorded and he finds that it only keeps the background apps running for a while. At some point, when the OS needs memory, you will find that the app may stop running in the background. This doesn't cause any harm; it just isn't as great as we expected.

BeejiveIM - Instant Messaging Anywhere. Kind of expensive; Palringo does most of the same functions for free. But Beejive is worth it because it keeps IM sessions open for 24 hours when you exit the app. (Note that the settings for Beejive and many other apps appear in the iPhone's Settings app; you will not find them inside the Beejive program itself.)

Mark & Wes, in Orinda, CA at Baan Thai.

Wes knows nothing about condoms. Mark jail breaks his iPhone 3g, which he then explains in more detail. They talk about how this hacking of the internal iPhone device started, and the discovery of the internal encryption key. Is it true that the jail broken iPhone runs applications better than the standard OS? The idea is that apps have more control over the device, than the standard Apple SDK allows. What is Mark to do with all the Esquire Digital Ink copies he owns? Wes thinks Apple watches the ideas that come out of the Jailbreak community to see what they might want to add to the standard firmware. Mark talks a bit about Android, and both discuss the positives and negatives regarding the HTC and T-Mobile introduction that should be more available next month. Is Municipal WiFi even a possibility? The Elvis Card.

Sites of Interest:

Jailbreak your iPhone from a Windows system with iTunes 8 and this link. This is the method Mark used so we know it works. The same website has a similar jailbreak method for Macs. Note that the first iPhone boot after jailbreaking may take a very long time, so be patient and don't think that the process failed.

The two competing App store programs for jail broken iPhone and iTouch devices: Cydia and Installer, and Cydia seems to be the newer method with the most apps. The above method for jailbreaking offers to install both of them, and you should let it. You will find these as icons just like any other iPhone apps, and the links above explain how to use them.

Jailbroken iPhones can be used like a cellular modem for Internet access from a notebook. The best method for doing that is PDAnet which can be installed from Cydia.

Jailbreak app IntelliScreen for showing info on the home screen.

Google hired Andy Rubin, developer of the Sidekick, to lead the Android project.

Android phones will work very closely with google's web apps such as gmail and Google Docs.

The T-Mobile G1 Android phone.

The way you pronounce linux, is...

Video of Steve Ballmore being the PC guy.

Craig of Craigslist has a boring twitter feed.

Google has products under development for you to check out now.

Very funny video of what it was like to use YouTube in 1985.

This is the 25th anniversary of the cellular phone network. Mobile phone history from the perspectives of Motorola and AT&T.

Ricochet wireless Internet was available in some areas of the country in the late 1990's. They used battery-operated modem boxes that you would Velcro to your notebook. This picture shows a Ricochet modem next to a notebook so you can tell the size.

Wes' iTouch Application of the week:

X-Plane 9

Mark's iPhone Application of the week:

Categories (install from Cydia for jailbroken devices)

Mark & Wes, in Lafayette, CA at Pizza Antica.

The show starts out with a story about the first integrated circuit on Sept 12th in 1958. Al Bernay secured his own circuits by using potting material. NASA MARS image anomalies are probably based on image scale. Mark has a theory about UFO's. Have you ever played the 'integrated circuits around you' game? Wes claims he has an integrated circuit... down there... Mark is now using another blue-tooth headset for his 3G iPhone. Can the 1st gen iTouch use the microphone imbedded in the headset for the 2nd gen iTouch? The heating lamp debacle ends up getting solved by upper management. Analog TV signal going digital, but if you live in the boonies, you may not get the new digital signal anyway... Did you even see the Esquire Digital Ink Cover Magazine?

Sites of Interest:

50th anniversary of the integrated circuit.

NASA photographs of Mars that look like forests and trees, and something that looks like a piece of wood.

People think they are abducted by flying saucers.

The Globe is a good newspaper for articles about flying saucers.

The Blue Ant V1 bluetooth headset with speech recognition and voice response.

Mark impresses Wes and the waiter with the iLightr app for the iPhone.

Mark used to like the Zivio Bluetooth headset, returned it, but might someday buy it again.

Transition of over-the-air TV from analog to digital; one town started early as a test.

Esquire magazine with electronic ink on the cover.

 

Wes' iTouch Applications of the week:

Pocket Money

The Line Rider app is based on an online game. (Mark gave the wrong URL; he thought it was Line Writer.)

Mark's iPhone Applications of the week:

EarthScape

Name In Lights