When
· Naughties
· · 2004
· · · April
· · · · 30 (2 entries)
Early 2004 Browser Market · Previously I’ve posted graphs of the market shares among the browsers visiting ongoing, but I’ll skip the graphics this time because there’s no discernible movement. So far in 2004, the averages are 53% IE, 32% Mozilla family, 12.5% Safari, 2% Opera, they move up and down around that but not in any persistent direction. Go figure.
High-End iChat · I should confess that I am the worst kind of obsessive high-end audio weenie. Fortunately, it’s my only really expensive hobby; I distinctly prefer beer to champagne. Anyhow, this creates a problem: when you upgrade your system to get better sound, what do you do with the old stuff? High-end gear tends to last more or less forever, and unlike computers, is usually 80% as good as what you replace it with. So, I’ve used some of that stuff to cobble together a home-office system. I’m taking the audio feed out of my PowerBook via USB to a (now apparently discontinued, sigh) Stereo-Link D/A converter, then through very decent Linn interconnects to an all-tube (and very beautiful) Cary Audio Design “Rocket 88” power amp, driving a pair of the original Totem “Model One” speakers (a dozen years old now). You can bet that I’m happy that iTunes now includes a lossless music encoder; I’m going to have to go back and junk all the existing MP3s I’ve ripped and grab ’em again. Anyhow, I just had my first audio iChat talk since I got this wired up, with Paul Hoffman, on the subject of Atom and the IETF. It was astounding, remarkable, unlike any mere “telephone” experience. Had I shut my eyes and you’d told me that Paul was sitting across the desk, I would have believed you.
