Rugged Elegance, LLC: Rugged Elegant Products

Wed, 04 Jun 2003 20:41:54 GMT

The Rugged Elegance Inspiration Network Is Moving! Due to the tremendous response we've gotten, we've decided to give The Rugged Elegance Inspiration Network site room to grow by moving it to a new, improved location: http://www.ruggedelegantliving.com Please re-set your bookmarks as all new posts will occur on the new site. As part of the move we are also transitioning to a Moveable Type content management system, which will allow us to add more editors while providing better search and categorization capabilities. Thank you your continued support. Growth is good. -Tim

Thu, 29 May 2003 02:43:55 GMT

Apple Finds the Future for Online Music Sales New York Times:

Apple Computer seems to have the future of online music in its hands for the moment. Its new service, iTunes Music Store, has been the first real success story in the long effort to sell music over the Internet. In just its first month of operation the service, by the company's estimate, has sold three million songs online, at 99 cents each. This is an impressive figure considering the limited access that music fans now have to the service.

Wed, 28 May 2003 22:58:18 GMT

Online Music Price War Begins BBC NEWS:

The cost of downloading songs from the internet has been cut in the first round of a price war. Listen.com, which provides internet radio broadcasts for $9.95 a month, is slashing the price for burning music onto CDs from 99 cents to 79 cents. This comes just a month after Apple Computers launched its online iTunes music store, which allowing Mac users to download songs for 99 cents with no monthly subscription fee. The Apple service has been far more popular than expected, with two million songs downloaded in its first 16 days.

This is obviously good for all of us who are consumers. -Tim

Fri, 23 May 2003 05:49:15 GMT

PC Gaining in Entertainment Value Mercury News:

The personal computer is overtaking the television, stereo and other home entertainment devices, now that digital content -- MP3 music tracks, digital photos and digital video -- has become mainstream, according to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive for Microsoft.

Wed, 21 May 2003 19:52:50 GMT

Can Tea Bag Bad Breath? HealthScout News Service:

If you're worried your bad breath will put a damper on a date, you might consider substituting tea for wine with that candlelight dinner. Two new studies suggest that regular tea drinking can stave off unsociable mouth odors. Both were presented May 20 at the American Society for Microbiology's annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

More good news about tea. -Tim

Tue, 13 May 2003 17:38:41 GMT

Is TiVo Next For Apple? Business 2.0 by John Battelle:

Everyone who has TiVo loves TiVo; it is to television what Macintosh was to computing -- a revelation. Which is exactly why Apple should buy TiVo and once again redefine the intersection of culture and technology.

Personally I think it is a perfect fit. TiVo has embraced Apple's Rendezvous networking technology which, together with TiVo's Home Media Option, allows you to stream music from iTunes and view photos from iPhoto. I can even imagine an iPod-like device with a nice flat panel display that would synch up with my TiVo, allowing me to view my favorite programs on cross-country flights. Let me know what you think about Apple buying TiVo. -Tim

Sun, 11 May 2003 17:42:03 GMT

TiVo To Offer Free Basic Service In a bold move, TiVo will offer a free TiVo Basic Service that consumer electronics manufacturers will bundle with DVD players. Consumers purchasing devices with the ability to receive the TiVo Basic service will get limited DVR functionality such as pausing live TV, record from guide, manual repeat recording by time and date, and 3 days of program guide data (versus two weeks of program guide data in the full version). Consumers using TiVo Basic Service can use the full TiVo service on a free trial basis, then choose to pay either $12.95 per month or a $299 one time fee to upgrade to the full version of TiVo. Consumers can also pay an additional $99 to upgrade to the Home Media options, which allows a TiVo device to play MP3s and view digital photos from a networked computer. The success of this move depends on two factors: 1) Price Point of DVD/TiVo Devices: DVD manufacturers will need to bundle a hard disk drive with their players, so the bundled devices will need to be priced higher that a DVD player. In fact, Toshiba will be offering a DVD/TiVo device which includes the TiVo Basic service. The price point for that device, which will ship this fall, is $549. This price point doesn't do much for TiVo as it would be cheaper to buy the full fledged TiVo and DVD separately. Success for this initiative depends on TiVo getting distribution in much cheaper devices. 2) Consumer Reaction: It may well be that consumers will find that their needs are met by the TiVo Basic service and, as such, find no reason to shell out $12.95 per month to access features such as two week program guides, Season Pass, search by title, etc. Time will tell. Stay tuned. -Tim

Thu, 08 May 2003 16:19:27 GMT

Progress Made In Electronic 'Paper' AP via CBS News:

In a step toward electronic newspapers and wearable computer screens, scientists at E Ink Corp. have created an ultra-thin screen that can be bent, twisted and even rolled up and still display crisp text. The material, only as thick as three human hairs, displays black text on a whitish-gray background with a resolution similar to that of a typical laptop computer screen. The screen is so flexible it can be rolled into a cylinder about a half-inch wide without losing its image quality.

Tue, 06 May 2003 15:42:03 GMT

iTunes Music Store: One Million Million Tracks Sold In First Week; 3,000 New Tracks Added Today BBC News:

Apple has sold more than a million songs since the launch of its online music service a week ago. The figure is much higher than record industry executives had predicted, who had expected Apple to reach the million milestone in a month.

It will be interesting to see the trends in track sales once the novelty has worn off. I, for one, have been loading up on my favorite old tracks. Here's the big question: Will users buy new music from iTunes as an alternative to buying traditional CDs? I'm debating that one for myself. Stay (i)Tuned. -Tim

Fri, 02 May 2003 17:27:50 GMT

Apple's Straightforward Approach Pays Off BBC News:

Apple's iTunes Music Store sold 275,000 tracks its first 18 hours, according to the US music magazine Billboard.

I contributed seven tracks to the total, buying tracks from U2, Hall & Oates, Head East, Billy Joel and Jerry Jeff Walker. Can you tell I went to college in the late 70's and early 80's? -Tim

Thu, 01 May 2003 13:33:58 GMT

A Wireless Wonder Converts Squiggles and Browses the Net New York Times:

With the Tungsten C, Palm's line of electronic organizers continues its evolution from its origins as a scrappy little palmtop with a monochrome screen and less than a megabyte of memory into a true hand-held computer. The Palm Tungsten C comes with a beefy 64 megabytes of memory under its tiny hood, a bright color screen with 320-by-320-pixel resolution and built-in wireless networking that allows it to sense and connect to Wi-Fi networks for e-mail and browsing the Web. By J.d. Biersdorfer.

Just in time for Mother's Day! -Tim

Thu, 01 May 2003 03:22:42 GMT

Songs in the Key of Steve Fortune: "Steve Jobs may have just created the first great legal online music service. That's got the record biz singing his praises." by Devin Leonard

Mon, 28 Apr 2003 20:27:38 GMT

Apple's New Music Store: Officially Impressed Updated as of 5:04PM Apple seems to have straightened out the server problems they had earlier today and I am officially impressed! As I write this, I am Jerry Jeff Walker's "L.A. Freeway," which I just downloaded from the Apple Music Store. This song brings back lots of great memories. The Apple Music Store is everything that you would expect from Apple, clean, elegant and inspiring. The interface is intuitive -- if you can use a web browser you can use the Music Store. You can either browse or search, quickly and easily. Purchased music ends up right in iTunes -- no need to import a file. I have found all the music that I have searched for: Eagles, Jimmy Buffet, Sting, Nora Jones, Faith Hill, Springsteen, Neil Young. I love the ability to listen to 30 second snippets of music prior to downloading a song. This feature will enable me to explore lots of new music without leaving home and, I'm sure, spur incremental purchases on my part. The Music Store validates my continued loyalty to Apple and gives me yet another way to impress my PC-challenged friends and family. -Tim P.S. Here what the New York Times has to say. Posted Originally at 1:27PM Cnet: "Apple Computer on Monday unveiled its latest line of digital music products, including a long-awaited Internet music store and ultrathin versions of its popular iPod portable MP3 player." I downloaded iTunes 4.0 from Apple's web site. I found out that AAC support required QuickTime 6.2, so I had to download that as well. I restarted my Mac to check out iTunes. The most interesting new feature is Apple's Music Store, which is implemented like a browser window within iTunes. (See screen shot 362K.) Everybody and his brother must be trying to access the server farm, as I've had a difficult time getting through. I keep getting "504 Error There was an error in the Music Store. Please try again later." I was able to get through for a period of time and listen to a snippet from U2's "It's A Beautiful Day." The snippet sounded great. I attempted to buy the song for 99 cents, which brought me to a registration screen. Despite repeated attempts, I was not able to complete the registration process as the server at the other end was too busy (405 error). We're inspired by what we've seen. Hopefully Apple can get the server problems resolved, because the Music Store looks very promising. More later. -Tim

Sun, 27 Apr 2003 06:27:01 GMT

Details Emerge On Apple's New Music Service According to articles from The New York Times, Forbes and Billboard, here are some details of Apple's new music service which will be formally launched at 10am Pacific Time on Monday, April 28:

Built into iTunes, Apple's music library software
No subscription required, tracks sold at 99 cents per track
Able to burn tracks to a CD, transfer tracks to the iPod
Support for Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format, a successor to MP3
Content available from five major labels
Exclusive content available from high-profile acts whose repertoire has not previously been available for digital distribution
Mac-only to start, Windows version to follow

Stay (i)Tuned for further details. -Tim

Fri, 25 Apr 2003 19:32:48 GMT

Cheap Coffee Is Lousy For Tigers, Elephants, Rhinos, Study Says. Science Daily: "How's this for a bitter aftertaste? Cheap coffee, the kind that comes in industrial-sized cans, may be contributing to the loss of tigers, elephants and rhinos living half a world away, according to a study by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, published in the journal Science." "The study says that increased production of robusta coffee, the inexpensive variety commonly sold in cans and used in instant coffee, is leading to deforestation of lowland forests in Indonesia, home to that country's last remaining populations of wild tigers and other species. Falling coffee prices worldwide has led to the need for more production, which in turn has resulted in more forest being cleared, even in national parks." Yet another reason to stay away from cheap coffee. I'll stick with Peet's. -Tim

Tue, 22 Apr 2003 19:30:48 GMT

Tea Boosts The Body's Defenses In an article found today at the ABCNEWS.com web site: "An ordinary cup of tea may be a powerful infection fighter, a study suggests. Researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they have found in tea a chemical that boosts the body's defense fivefold against disease." "Researchers said the chemical primes immune system cells to attack bacteria, viruses and fungi and could, perhaps, be turned into a disease-fighting drug someday." The study goes on to say that the best types of tea to drink are black tea, green tea and oolong tea. Eat (and Drink) Right. Live Better. -Tim "Story" ABCNEWS.com

Why TiVo Owners Act Like Cult Members

Mon, 21 Apr 2003 07:19:26 GMT

Why TiVo Owners Act Like Cult Members There was a great article today on TiVo in the Style section of The New York Times. The article claimed TiVo owners are like cult members as they a small percentage of the population, but fanatical in their belief. As someone who has owned a TiVo for three years, I can vouch for the fact TiVo has dramatically changed my television viewing habits. For instance, I used to be a slave to the football schedule. I wanted to bolt home from church to see the opening kickoff of my beloved Green Bay Packers. Now I can accompany my family to the bookstore after church, knowing that I can start the game whenever I want to have it start. I can do this because, unlike videotape, TiVo allows me to start watching the beginning of a program while it is still recording the end. The biggest allure of TiVo is power. Programmers want us to watch more commercials, so they manipulate their shows to achieve this objective. TiVo lets you take that power back, plain and simple. Not only can you skip commercials, you can skip parts of the programming that are less interesting. For instance, I skip all the time in between plays in a football game. In total, I can watch a game that normally take 3+ hours in 2 hours and not miss any of the action. TiVo is even better for baseball. I'll record a San Francisco Giants game just to see the four or five Barry Bonds plate appearances. Purists will howl, but, really, who has four hours to watch a baseball game? I think of TiVo as my own personal ESPN Sports Center. TiVo works great for things that have already happened. What I would really like to see is a version of TiVo that would record things that are to happen in the future. After a few days' worth of CNBC, I'd be all set! Can you tell I've drunk the Kool-Aid? -Tim

Could Apple Really Buy Universal Music?

Thu, 17 Apr 2003 16:40:05 GMT

Could Apple Really Buy Universal Music? Here's a fascinating analysis of the rumored deal that has Apple Computer buying Universal Music for $6 billion. My sense is that this deal is unlikely to happen but it is, nonetheless, a most interesting topic. -Tim "story" CNN by Eric Hellweg

In Praise of Nancy's Yogurt

Thu, 17 Apr 2003 02:25:06 GMT

Nancy's Yogurt is by far the best tasting plain low-fat yogurt that I've eaten. I love it with grapes for a mid-afternoon snack or a late evening snack in place of ice cream. One cup of Nancy's Yogurt is great from a Zone perspective as it contains: - 16 grams of carbohydrates or about 2 Zone carb blocks
- 11 grams of protein or just shy of 2 Zone protein blocks
- 3 grams of fat or 1 Zone fat block
(Learn more about Zone blocks.) I also love the culture (pun intended) behind Nancy's Yogurt. Follow this link to find Nancy's Yogurt in a store near you. Eat Right. Live Better. -Tim

Apple's Airport Extreme Takes Off

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 19:36:13 GMT

Apple Computer's AirPort Extreme base stations, which use the company's version of the 802.11g technology, make a strong showing in the first quarter, despite their higher price. AirPort Extreme runs at 54 megabits per second versus 11 megabits per second for the older, 802.11b version. "story" CNET

Mon, 14 Apr 2003 17:44:06 GMT

I've put together a list of valuable books and web sites to further your knowledge of nutrition. I've included both Zone-oriented resources as well as non-Zone resources. Here are some of my favorites:

The Omega Diet by Dr. Artemis Simopoulos

The Omega Diet is based on the diet of the island of Crete (Greece), the home of Dr. Simopoulos -- who was a researcher at the National Institutes of Health. The focus of this book is the Mediterranean diet and its beneficial effects on the Omega-3 / Omega-6 fatty acid balance. We highly recommend this book as it is chock full of great science written in a way that is very approachable for the lay person.

Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy by Walter Willett

Written by Dr. Walter Willett, M.D., the chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and a professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School. As you might expect, this book is heavy on science but written in a hard-hitting, enjoyable style. A great book to read and use frequently as a reference on specific nutrition topics.

Eat Right. Live Better. -Tim

Sat, 12 Apr 2003 16:38:25 GMT

Apple Said to Discuss a Music Deal, but Not Too Seriously According to today's New York Times, Apple Computer has discussed an investment in Universal Music, but a deal is unlikely to be concluded, people close to the discussions said. Maybe we all jumped the gun on the this one. -Tim

See the full story from The New York Times.
by Geraldine Fabrikant with Laura M. Holson.

Fri, 11 Apr 2003 17:36:39 GMT

Apple's iPod, iTunes and iMac have certainly been a source of inspiration for us. Apple seems to be adamant about providing better ways to help us build our digital music library. The LA Times is reporting that Apple is rumored to be in the process of buying Universal Music Group, the world's largest record label, for $6 billion. Apple is also rumored to be testing its own music service, so this would clearly be a nice fit. Wall Street doesn't seem to like the deal as Apple shares are off over 6% in today's trading. It is hard, however, to argue with Steve Job's record as an innovator. Maybe it's time to stop thinking about Apple as a computer company and start thinking about Apple as a digital media company. -Tim