I have no idea if Spore itself will be fun at all, but the Spore Creature Creator was good for a couple hours of goofing around yesterday. Fun stuff. I’ve just loaded the free trial so far (on both my computer and Amy’s) but the paid version is actually somewhat tempting. You get more choices of eyes and legs and mouths and stuff. :-)

My external iSight seems to have died. On Monday at 2:18 UTC my webcam spontaneously flipped from the external iSight to the internal. At 7:40 UTC I switched it back to the external after unplugging it and plugging it back in. At 11:01 UTC it started showing video artifacts. It got worse and worse until at 12:56 UTC the video signal died completely. I found it and switched it to the internal iSight at 15:19 UTC, where it has stayed ever since.

The video above is the timelapse of that fateful day.

I didn’t get a chance to see if I could get the external working again until just now. No luck at all.

This blows, as even though I don’t do it often, I like to keep the internal iSight free for video iChat and such. Plus the external camera is more flexible as to where I can point it, and I like to change it up for the AbulCam.

So I go looking for what a new iSight costs these days. Can’t find any in the online Apple store. None directly from Amazon either, although some third parties have them at way high prices. There are rumors of an iSight HD coming soon, but nothing out yet. I’ve also wanted a 802.11 wireless webcam for awhile, so that I could put the thing further from my computer, but those still cost too much to be worth it really. Plus since my usecase is non-standard, I never feel like I know for sure if it will work for the way I want to use it until I try it.

I suppose I could go buy a cheap $25 external webcam. Dunno.

For now, I guess the AbulCam stays on the internal iSight. But I won’t want that to be a long term solution.

For a long time Firefox has been my browser on Windows. But on Macs I have stuck with Safari. On my Mac I just liked it better, even though Firefox had some things I missed in Safari. Some of that probably just had to do with the skin and it “looking right”. (And yes, I know I could have skinned it or tried Camino or whatnot.) But in any case, with Firefox 3 being released in final form yesterday, I went ahead and tried it again. Within a few minutes I had decided to change default browsers. It is quite good. If you haven’t yet, head on over to Firefox‘s site to download it. Very worth it.

There are still a few things I like better in Safari, like the form button shapes, the find function, and resizable text boxes. Overall though, Firefox just has enough little things to make it worth it. (Better URL autocomplete, selectable search box, extensions, etc.)

I’ll give Safari another shot next time they push a major update to it. Snow Leopard maybe?

Or maybe something will really frustrate me about Firefox in the next few days and I’ll go back early. But right now I’m doubting that.

I am very loyal to Garmin. I think by far they make the best GPS units. The main thing that makes them good is the interface. And I just generally like how it all comes together. And this new Dash is very deficient in many areas… and it looks like the interface sucks a bit. But some of the new features are absolutely killer features. Garmin needs to come out with their version of this ASAP, because this is the future of these things:

Dash Express GPS Full Drive Review: Total Traffic Terminator
(Wilson Rothman, Gizmodo)

• Live real-time traffic – It’s the biggest and most powerful of the four keys, mainly because of how badly GPS traffic reporting has sucked in the past. Dash builds a teamwork system not unlike the original Napster—you got data I want, I got data you want, and that central server will make sure the sharing happens in a fast and orderly manner. As you drive, you not only help others out, but you add useful data to the historical record, so that the plan for your own commute or Friday getaway could grow smarter. As we’ve said before, once each metro area is seeded with a few hundred Dash units, the traffic reporting becomes exponentially better. The funny thing is, what we’ve already seen, with just a handful of units on the road, was already better than anything to date thanks to the historical data which runs in 15 minute increments, and therefore knows the difference between weekends and rush hour. If you’re wondering who is working on the traffic modeling, it’s a couple of eggheaded PhDs in Traffic.

• Live search – Most navis have search features, but they only query a POI database of an average of 5 million or so. Dash only has 1 Million built-in points of interest, but its better 99% of the time. That’s because it uses its GPRS cellular connection to ping Yahoo Local search for stuff, delivering better information in the exact same amount of time. You can save search terms you like as favorites, alongside addresses and, yes, standard POI categories. Oh, Yahoo local searches are returned by relevance, not sorted by proximity, but most things can be resorted and gas can even be resorted by price.

• MyDash web interface including Send2Car, GeoRSS and other features – With a quick browser plug-in, you can highlight any address and right-click, selecting the option “Send To Car.” You can even highlight name and address, but for now you need to leave off the phone number. Within a second or two, the address pops up on the Dash, which could be at your side, or miles away. Blam found that entering addresses on the web interface was actually more effective than typing them on the Express, since the server can do a better job of fuzzy-matching the data you type. There are plug-ins to allow you to send any text to the Dash unit by right clicking text and selecting “Send to Car.”

In MyDash, you can browse “saved searches” for dynamically updating data—a POI-like request (“CVS” or “Sushi”) gives you a Yahoo Local search criteria that you can send to the Express. But you can also copy GeoRSS and KML feed URLs from around the net at sites like Yelp.com and Chowhound, containing more exotic and time-dependent stuff—”Nationwide Airport Delays” and “California Surf Report.” For the most part, everything we tried worked, save a Craigslist RSS of Seattle real estate. (But GeoRSS feeds are kind of tricky to find in the wild.)

• Over-the-air updates – The Express uses any open Wi-Fi network it can to pull chunks of update down as you drive around. You can teach it your SSIDs and passwords for best Wi-Fi, but it’s not necessary. Dash will deliver a few different kinds of update that we’ll cover below; the important thing is to think about the last time you updated your Garmin or TomTom. Your answer is most likely “never.” If you have, you probably paid a lot to do it. Dash of courses charges $10 to $13 per month subscription, but promises a constantly evolving platform in return.
-Traffic data will be updated monthly, using historical data from Dash drivers. That means that the first one will be a good ‘un, as the first crop of users starts putting on the mileage.
-Big map updates will come every six months or so, about the same time Tele Atlas will release to other vendors.
-The first major software updates with bug fixes and new features (see below) will come this summer, and then every three months or so.
-MyDash servers can be updated on a weekly basis, so new web features could be appearing all the time—not that they will.

I want a Garmin version, but this still excites me. And the traffic is NOT just on major highways, but on side roads too once the system starts getting enough users to have data on those roads. Very very cool.

This is of course on every Mac and Tech blog in the world this morning, but:

Apple introduces Penryn-based MacBooks and MacBook Pros
(AppleInsider)

Apple today updated its popular MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook lines with the latest Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn processors, larger hard drives and 2GB of memory standard in most models.

…

In addition, MacBook Pro includes the latest NVIDIA graphics processors, now with up to 512MB of video memory, and Apple’s innovative Multi-Touch trackpad, first introduced in MacBook Air.

The new MacBook Pro features the latest Intel Core 2 Duo technology with up to a 2.6 GHz processor with 6MB of shared L2 cache; up to 4GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM memory and up to a 300GB hard drive, plus NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics with up to 512MB of video memory.

Every MacBook Pro now includes a trackpad with Multi-Touch gesture support for pinch, rotate and swipe, making it more intuitive than ever to zoom and rotate photos in iPhoto or Aperture 2 or browse web pages in Safari; an illuminated keyboard that makes it ideal for dimly lit environments such as airplanes, studios or conference halls and a built-in ambient light sensor, which automatically adjusts the brightness of the keys as well as the brightness of the display for optimal visibility.

…

We have been waiting for this update. 2008 is Brandy’s scheduled year to replace her laptop. Her existing Dell laptop is barely functional. The built in keyboard doesn’t work any more, so she carries around a full sized external keyboard with it. The power cord connector is flaky, so it has to be held JUST RIGHT to work, the battery lasts almost no time, and it is of course slow and has a tiny hard drive. We got it in early 2006 as a “temporary” bottom of the line option which has now way outlived it’s useful life.

We’ve been waiting for the MacBook Pro updates before pulling the trigger though. As soon as I move the cash for this from one account to another (which will take a day or two) we’ll make the order.

Woo!