Browser Update - 3/21/05 : Beleauguered Microsoft Continues Downward Spiral

Disclaimer upfront: The steady incoming stream of visitors looking up "napster and iPod" on Google has increased flow to the site and may have skewed results a bit this month.

The last month has been ugly for Microsoft. Despite the announcement regarding IE7, the users are speaking with their choices. IE continues to lose share to what I will call "OpenSource United." IE is down to 56% share and Mozilla (Firefox and allies) are up to 29%. Shockingly, Safari continues to make a strong showing at 15%.



And the OS breakdown confirms what others have predicted: iPod sales will lift Mac interest and sales. Mac OS X share has increased to an all time high of 20%.



Of course, the same caveats apply as before (see Jan, Feb updates). I have more Mac content than other sites so the results are expected to be skewed. But to the extent that my site used to get 5-7% Mac/Safari hits and 7-10% Mozilla/Firefox hits, these numbers represent a significant and sustained increase in the shares of the respective platforms. Longhorn and IE7 might just come too late for MS.

Project Lazarus - Restore Battery Life on Your iPod

Um, so we noticed recently that our iPods were losing their battery charges much more rapidly. Well, I actually noticed it on Sepi's iPod (iPod G1/2 to you wannabe hipsters out there) a long time ago but the battery replacement situation had not sorted itself out at that time... so I waited. I did my usual "research" (aka, geeked out on the boards) and finally found what seemed to be the most reliable source (and with the best directions) -> NewerTech. Seems that they kept coming out with higher capacity battery replacements for the iPods.

Here's the basic info you need to know:

1. The iPods (except the Shuffle) are hard-drive based and subject to fragmentation. That means as you add and remove files, they're not stored contiguously and so the drive has to search for the bits of your files. When it happens on your computer, it slows things down. On the iPod, you lose battery life. So, as part of finding out why your iPod has lost life, it might due to severe fragmentation. But this shouldn't be too much of a problem.
2. Batteries die - all of them. So eventually, they say about 1.5 years after usual use, they must be replaced. You can either pay Apple or you can try to do it yourself. I obviously chose to do it myself. OtherWorldComputing has lots of batteries for you to chose from.
3. The iPod G1/2 came with a battery rated at 1300 mAh and you can buy a replacement that has either 1800 or 2100 mAh. That translates to significantly longer battery life than even when your iPod was new. If you want really long battery lie, go with the 2100.
4. Don't look for screws and don't do it yourself if you're not mechanically inclined. It's not hard but it sure isn't eas and you MUST read the directions before starting.
5. Final lesson - don't charge the iPod until it's fully drained. It's something about the recharge cycles that these new fangled batteries have and each time you charge it, even if it's a partial charge, it takes away "one life."

Of Mice and Men

As part of my time in fellowship, we have to do some sort of research
(clinical or bench) ... I was daring and decided to step into the lab.
It's been very interesting as I first learned how to properly sedate
the little animals, then to intubate them (it can be hard intubating
people at times ... now imagine it if they're very small) and in this
time, I'm simply amazed how useful Google and the Internet has been. I
cannot imagine doing work like this before the Internet. Even though
UCLA taught us how to use Index Medicus, I actually
never used it. We had this wonderful Melvyl catalog available to us
using ancient terminals... and my last year in college, I was able to
dial-in and did the bulk of my searches without leaving the comfort of
my dorm room. If you're a student now, you must be laughing at this
because you now take it for granted... well, about 10 years ago, even
at a place like UCLA, most people didn't have e-mail or Internet
access in the dorms... that's right, 1994!