I had lunch today with Toni Schneider. He used to work at Yahoo, and before that Oddpost. Now he’s part of Matt Mullenwegg’s company, whose products include WordPress.com and Akismet, both of which I use and recommend. It was a good meeting and pretty ordinary (but interesting) until the end, when it got a bit heated. I had noticed that he was listed as a featured speaker on the Web 2.0 conference, and mentioned it as kind of a tease, but then it occurred to me, we’re on different sides on something that I’ve been overlooking, but I guess I don’t want to overlook it anymore. How can we be friends if he’s friends with people who are selfishly trying to monetize our work, without giving anything back. I say “our” work, because Toni represents many thousands of WordPress users. There’s an arrogance around Battelle’s conference, they’re the insiders and we’re the poor schnooks whose work they monetize. I’m one of those people. Anyway, I think this is beginning of a valuable discussion. Perhaps we can help Battelle and O’Reilly straighten this out, if that’s what they want. If they don’t want to, then we shouldn’t be supporting their conference. 
As Lou Josephs points out, at some point, very quietly, Google started providing RSS 2.0 feeds for Blogger sites. They use Atom elements to provide capabilities not provided by core RSS elements. Very rational. 🙂
I’m still amazed that when Google’s search engine finds something in an RSS 2.0 file, it says the format is unrecognized. If it’s taking this long to do something intelligent with RSS, how long before they “recognize” OPML? The other search engines aren’t any better, btw.
My Sprint Ambassador cell phone trial has expired (after less than two months) and I’m hooked, I love the BlueTooth EV-DO capability. They say it’ll cost at least $50 per month to get it reactivated. Is that a reasonable price? Or, could I get it from my current cell phone service provider, Cingular?
Gil Sharon says Sprint is the cheapest.
Meanwhile the SanDisk MP3 player has arrived. Out of the box it needs a charge, which is not a good sign for attention to detail. Every iPod I’ve ever gotten (I think I’m on my fourth by now) has come with a full charge, ready to plug and play. So, I was going to take it with me on BART today for my lunch meeting at Yank Sing, but instead it will stay here in Berkeley and charge up, while the video iPod accompanies me.
When I got back, the unit was all charged and ready to go, but it didn’t show up on my Mac desktop. The answer was in the FAQ, I needed to set the USB mode in the Settings menu on the device, and voila, there it is, ready to copy files onto it. It plays Quicktime video. Voice recorder, FM tuner. Nice.
iJot is an Ajax OPML editor. Lots of strange words. 🙂
Brent Simmons: “Whenever I imagine the anti-Christ, I imagine a super nice guy, universally beloved. Well-dressed, clean-shaven — he won’t look like he’s from Hell.”
Kosso has an OPML of NPR podcasts, presented here, in the Scripting News directory.
Scripting News Annex 
Posted by Gil Sharon on June 6, 2006 at 10:57 am
Every time I’ve done the research, Sprint’s Data plan comes out the cheapest of the lot. If you can get Sprint service reliably when/where you need it, go with it.
Posted by Paul Stamatiou on June 6, 2006 at 11:03 am
Really, your Ambassador already quit? I’ve had mine since the end of March and it’s still working. I was under the assumption the trial was for 6 months.. hrm.
Posted by Jim Zellmer on June 6, 2006 at 11:08 am
Hi Dave:
I have a Verizon card (I’m a former Sprint Treo user). For me, Verizon has much better coverage, particularly when I’m on travel. Unfortunately, these services perpetuate the odd cable-like service where upload speeds are terrible, which makes them not all that useful for video conferencing, much less serious mobile data movements.
Good luck!
Posted by Kr8tr on June 6, 2006 at 11:16 am
Well, here in San Antonio T-Mobile unlimited data is $29.95/Month – compared to Sprint at $39 and Verizon at $49. I guess it just depends on where you are. T-Mobile has great coverage here, so I went with it (for my new T-Mobile MDA, which I really love)!
Posted by Marc Barrot on June 6, 2006 at 11:27 am
> iJot is an Ajax OPML editor. Lots of strange words.
Could it be …
… an outliner ?
🙂
Posted by Niall Kennedy on June 6, 2006 at 11:28 am
Cingular uses a different technology, as its network is GSM based while Sprint and Verizon are CDMA. Cingular’s technology is called HSDPA and is starting to rollout across the Bay Area. Sprint will have new handsets using the faster EVDO rev.A by the end of the year, but your fastest option right now is EVDO.
Sprint offers unlimited data on its phones for $15 a month. You cannot make or receive phone calls while using the data service. Since you use a MacBook, you can’t just slide in a card so you’ll need Bluetooth Dial-up networking support (often crippled on handsets).
Posted by Josh Bancroft on June 6, 2006 at 12:32 pm
If you want speed, that means EVDO, and that means either Sprint or Verizon.
To compare, Sprint’s “Power Vision” EVDO plan is $15/month on top of your voice plan. Verizon’s unlimited EVDO plan is a whopping $45/month on top of your voice plan.
Other carriers, like T-Mobile and Cingular, can only offer EDGE speeds for wireless data, which is much slower than EVDO.
So, yeah, Sprint is the way to go for cheap EVDO data. If I weren’t in a two year contract with Verizon, I’d switch over to Sprint in a heartbeat.
Posted by tom on June 6, 2006 at 1:14 pm
I’m afraid you’re making some incorrect assumptions about how rechargeable batteries work. Lithium ion will keep its charge better than other chemistries, but will generally lose it sitting on the shelf — and for preserving the longevity of the battery, you want it kept around 60% full anyway. So I don’t believe that Apple “tops up” its batteries prior to putting them in iPod boxes.
Newly manufactured Li-ions will have a fair amount of charge, which is likely what you experienced in the iPod. The Sandisk is probably just insisting on a full charge the first time it’s turned on (why, I couldn’t say — probably for ensuring a full first charge for capacity reasons, although Li-ion’s memory effects are minimal). That, or it’s using a cheaper battery chemistry that fully discharges while it’s sitting on the shelf.
Posted by loujosephs on June 6, 2006 at 6:17 pm
They aren’t so evil after all. Quess where the RSS 2.0 feed is from blogger?
http://wvbf.blogspot.com//rss.xml
Posted by Randy Charles Morin on June 6, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Funny! I bought a SanDisk MP3 player today. But I got the cheap one 🙂