It's a great time to be shopping for mp3 and portable video players

September looks to be offering a ridiculous amount of impressive new mp3 & portable video players - rumors are all over the place that a new iPod will come out September 5th that has wide screen video, touch screen, and/or wireless. In the mean time, check out the new wide screen Creative Zen that plays divx files,



The new widescreen and touch sensitive Samsung's



the new iRiver with tv reception, or the new Archos players that act as a full media center, including wireless browsing, and more.

Technorati Tags: ipod, archos, creative zen, mp3, pvp, mp3 players, portable video players, ipod rumors, samsung

k b skobac blog relaunched with new format

Hey look - i've relaunched my blog kbskobac.blogspot.com - what do you think? I'm noticing some format issues in IE, and I can't seem to align things within the CSS defined columns the way I want. As always it's a work in progress that will probably never end. All the annoying flash badges to come later.

I've also debuted a Lifestream - a master list of my blog updates, photo updates, twitter updates, facebook status updates, etc...

Technorati Tags: blog, kbskobac, lifestream

Chase Utley is Back

Chase Utley
Originally uploaded by Terry Foote.

The Phillies are so much better now that Chase Utley is back - do they pull it together and make the playoffs, or lose in the last week like they are prone to do?

gMail vs. Yahoo! Mail vs. Windows Live Hotmail Storage

Windows Live Hotmail is now offering 5GB free; Yahoo! Mail just moved to unlimited storage; Google is inching towards 3GB slowly - when gMail came out, 2GB was ten times anything we'd ever seen - again, when will Google impress by offering us something more valuable?

Google Storage Could Be Better

Google announced that you can now purchase more storage for Gmail and PicasaWeb. The rates are better than what we usually see from Box.net and the likes - 6gb for $20 a year, 25gb for $75 a year, and up. Still, you are limited in how you use the storage, as it is only available (at this time) to those two products. I would expect that simple file storage would at least range across ALL of the google products, such as Google Page Creator, where files can be stored for use in a website build. I often host html files via GPC since there are no restrictions on access. Why isn't Google opening up the purchased storage to anything we want to do with it, and access it any way we like? Sharing via DivShare, embedded media folders via Box.net, this offering fall short.

Congrats to Rick Ankiel - years after his collapse under pressure as a big league pitcher, he's finally returned to the major leagues as an outfielder. Starting in 2005 he switched from pitcher to outfielder, and finally he's back, hitting a home run in his debut game last night (see above). This is an impressive example of determination and dedication under long odds and low expectations. Sports Illustrated had an "Ankiel Watch" for years, but it stopped months ago, a little too early.

Technorati Tags: mlb, rick ankiel, baseball

Muse at Madison Square Gardens New York City August 6 2007

IMG_7078
Originally uploaded by kskobac.

I had never seen Muse before, and really only knew one song - Muscle Museum - that I listened to back in 2001. Last night I ended up about 10 feet from the stage in Madison Square Gardens, with 20,000 people behind me. The concert was incredible - the energy was amazing - I'm told that they've won "Best Life Performance" several times, and this proved the point. Whenever you don't need to know the music or even like the band to have a ridiculously good time at a concert, it's something special.

[where: 10001]