Just tried out the new Windows Messenger 5.0 beta and the cool thing is that it supports Ink, i.e. the writing with your pen on a TabletPC and then sending it as an image. He draw back is that the receiving end must have Windows Messenger 5.0 as well. If you want to receive ink messages from the contact me for a copy of the program. I guess they are going to work more on the beta as the ink part is rather limited still. You cannot change pen or color.

I was just about to start reverse engineering the DP-500 PC-LINK protocol when I found this, the OpenDP-500 project. It seems like the protocol is totally http based and open-dp500 has already done the job for me in figuring out which commands are used.
My next project is then to write a real-time Divx3->Divx5 converter.

I have had the KISS DP-500 for a day now and here are some initial thoughts.
The machine looks rather nice but the CD sledge is gray plastic and looks very cheap when opened.

• The Divx3 support comes first in June (they announced yesterday)
  
• You cannot stream any other movies than mpeg4 avi. I.e. MPEG1/2 cannot be streamed.
  
• The webradio feature is rather nice, where you select radio channels at their site and design radio menu. The player “hanged” after playing radio for about 20 minutes though. Not so good.
  
• You cannot fast forward in MPEG4 movies but they claim to have a time search function instead. On some movies this alternative comes up but after doing a seek the video is all choppy, and in other movies it doesn’t come up at all (i.e. nothing happens when you press the button on the remote).
  
• The remote has way more buttons than are used. Rather confusing.
  
• The menu system should be looked over by someone that knows UI design.
  
• You can zoom in the video which is nice.
  
• I added my whole MP3 collection (several thousand of MP3s) to the KISS PC-LINK software and now I have a very good MP3 jukebox.
  
• They state that DVD+R/RW aren’t supported but at least DVD+RW works fine for me.
  
• The photo album part needs more work. It scales the images to way less than PAL resolution and you cannot zoom into the pictures.
  
• Support hasn’t still answered my email I sent them 4 days ago. Big minus!
  

All in all, I think it is a very good machine and if they could release the Divx3 support then it would be perfect.

Got a KISS DP-500 today. I can see the box in my office (I am at home right now). It is a networked MPEG player (audio, video) designed by B&O.

The new Pentax Optio S looks very good. It is the first ultra compact camera to have 3x optical zoom. It is about half the size of an Ixus and weights 115 g (with battery and memory). Links: DPreview, Pentax USA, CyberPhoto.

The network is down and I feel totally isolated. Everything I do relies on resources on the net. E.g. 3 minutes ago (14.00) an online meeting regarding Stefan Elf’s and Jeremiah Scholl’s PhD work should have started. Sigh, why can things just work? I cannot even post this message although the server is in my garage but unfortunately it relieas on a DNS server at the University (which I cannot access right now).
The net came back after about 50 minutes after 4 calls to the support department 🙁

Added Today’s word and quote in the sidebar! These are automagically updated from time to time 🙂

I just realized that my Apple G4 DP (2*1.25MHz) hasn’t been turned on for over 2 weeks now. The reason is two fold, it is too loud and it generates so much heat that it gets overheated in the closet. Come on Apple, make better hardware.
Performance wise, I have made some comparisons between the Apple Tower DP and a Intel 2.8GHz machine and the PC is more than twice as fast on almost all operations including graphics programs, CD to MP3, games (they have identical graphics cards). MacOSX is great but it doesn’t work to well in a mixed Windows and Apple environment. Just to much things that take longer than necessary to accomplish.
I am an Apple Un-Switcher!

Several years ago I wrote a program called mVCR and it was further enhanced by my company Marratech which I with some friends founded in 1998.
The article in LinuxJournal issue 78 describes a system based on the mVCR program!

Digital media is not always the best thing! I have gotten accustomed to listening to Swedish Radio digitally over the Internet. Unfortunately it doesn’t work right now. BuuHuuu, don’t you feel sorry for me?!
Update: and just as i pressed publish it started working again. Now I am all happy and peppy again 🙂