According to Florida business records (PDF), Psystar was registered as a company on July 6, 2007, at 10645 SW 112th Street in Miami, a residential neighborhood in the Olympia Heights (2:05pm - Sorry, wrong neighborhood) area south of the city center. That was the address listed on Psystar’s contact page on Monday, but at some point on Tuesday, Psystar changed its official address to 10481 NW 28th Street, a commercial district near Miami International Airport.

Several Gizmodo readers went to both addresses on Wednesday, and found no trace of any company named Psystar. A CNET News.com reader wrote in Tuesday night pointing out that a screen-printing company called CottonImages.com lists their address as 10481 NW 28th Street.

The Guardian did a little digging Tuesday into some of the basics around Psystar, such as its exact location and ownership. The company’s main business appears to be IT consulting for small and medium-size businesses, such as setting up networks and telecom equipment and providing technical support.

A gentleman who answered the “sales” extension at Psystar’s toll-free number told me there is a 7- to 8-day build time right now for the Open Computer. When I asked him what accounted for the delay, he said the company had received many orders in the past few days. He also said he had only started at the company a few days ago.

A spokesman for Cottonimages.com denied any knowledge of Psystar to Computerworld on Wednesday, and said no company by that name was located at their address. UPDATED 1:30 p.m. PDT–Gizmodo notes that Psystar’s address has changed again, this time to 10471 NW 28th Street. Maybe the 10481 address was just a typo, but it’s not clear. UPDATED 4:25 pm–Believe it or not, they changed it again. Psystar is now located at 10475 NW 28th Street. This is really weird.

For those of you who missed it, the interest of the Mac world this week swung from 3G iPhone rumor-mongering to South Florida, where a company called Psystar has put up a Web site selling a product called an Open Computer. The product is essentially a white-box Mac with Mac OS X Leopard preinstalled, and a violation of Apple’s licensing agreement for Mac OS X.

The Psystar Open Computer, the source of a huge Internet kerfuffle this week.

In other Psystar news, the developer who created the firmware emulator that allows the Open Computer to bypass Apple’s restrictions on Mac OS X is peeved that the company is using his technology without his permission.

(Credit:
Psystar)

Perhaps foolishly, once the Web store came back online I placed an order for an Open Computer with Leopard preinstalled. I got the basic model for $554.99, although they kill you on shipping with a $93.41 shipping and handling fee for UPS Three-Day Select.

Am I the only one who finds it hilarious that the author of software that is designed to violate a company’s licensing agreement is annoyed that another company is using that software in violation of his own licensing agreement?

The more we learn about
Mac clone maker Psystar, the more questions arise.

The psystar.com domain name was registered in 2000, according to a Whois search, but the site does not appear to have been active before this past weekend, when news of its existence flooded the Internet. The domain is registered to Rodolfo Pedraza of Miami, who is probably the Rudy Pedraza who spoke to Ars Technica about his company on Tuesday.

Anyway, that’s the latest with Psystar. I’ll update this post later if I get a response to my e-mailed questions, or if anything else surfaces.

I tried to call Psystar executives Wednesday morning and was directed to submit any questions to an e-mail address at Psystar. The company doesn’t appear to have been prepared for the onslaught of attention following the discovery of the Open Computer on its Web site, as its online store was briefly down Wednesday morning. It’s now back up and taking orders.

“Yahoo will be testing Google’s AdSense for Search service, which will deliver relevant ads alongside Yahoo’s own natural search results. This is only a limited test, and does not necessarily mean that Yahoo will join the AdSense program,” Google spokesman Daniel Rubin said.

The possibility of a Yahoo-Google ad partnership predates the Microsoft acquisition move in February, the Journal said. Citing people familiar with the situation, it reported that Yahoo already had begun talks to outsource its European Web search advertising to Google before the Microsoft move.

Update 12:49 p.m. PDT: I added more details from the Journal story and some further context. Update 2:03 p.m. PDT: I made extensive changes to reflect the fact that Google and Yahoo confirmed the partnership. Update 2:21 p.m. PDT: Added comment from the chairman of the Senate’s Antitrust Subcommittee.

Carrying Google’s search-related ads would be a major departure for Yahoo, which has invested extensively in its own search ad system, called Panama. But there is no doubt that the company is evaluating serious alternatives, now that Microsoft has launched a decreasingly amicable attempt to acquire the company.

Poll: Antitrust attentions
Which is more likely to get scrutiny from antitrust regulators in
Washington, Microsoft acquiring Yahoo or Yahoo using Google’s
advertising system?

The story was first reported Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal.

“As previously announced, Yahoo’s board of directors is exploring strategic alternatives to maximize stockholder value, including exploration of potential commercial business arrangements. The company noted that the testing does not necessarily mean that Yahoo will join the AdSense for Search program or that any further commercial relationship with Google will result,” the company said.

“We will be following closely the results of the short-term test alliance between Yahoo and Google. Should there be moves to make this agreement permanent, we will examine it closely in the Antitrust Subcommittee to ensure that it does not harm competition,” Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl, chairman of the Senate’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, said in a statement. “Following closely on the heels of Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick, this Google-Yahoo alliance would represent even further consolidation in the Internet advertising market.”

Yahoo will test the use of Google advertisements on some of its search pages, the companies said Wednesday, a move that raises the possibility of a significant departure from Yahoo’s present ad strategy.

Microsoft buys Yahoo
Yahoo with Google ads

The test is narrow in scope, Yahoo said: “The test will apply only to traffic from yahoo.com in the U.S. and will not include Yahoo’s extended network of affiliate or premium publisher partners. The test is expected to last up to two weeks and will be limited to no more than 3 percent of Yahoo search queries.”

View results

News.com’s Elinor Mills contributed to this report.

Yahoo lags Google both in search market share and in the ad revenue generated for each search, but it’s a major Web site that delivers millions of advertisements daily. Using Google ads could help increase the revenue generated by each ad, depending on how revenue is shared between Google and Yahoo. The Journal said Yahoo likely would keep a majority of such revenue.

Yahoo definitely needs to send strong signals to those shareholders, if it wants to persuade them that Chief Executive Jerry Yang’s position that Microsoft’s price is too low has merit. In a report Monday, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said that of a “limited sample of 20 institutional Yahoo investors, the majority suggest they prefer the current deal (with Microsoft) to no deal.”

Yahoo indicated the Google test is part of its attempt to evaluate new business options, but offered cautious words about what the test might lead to.

Microsoft was quick to raise antitrust concerns about a Google-Yahoo partnership. “Any definitive agreement between Yahoo and Google would consolidate over 90 percent of the search advertising market in Google’s hands. This would make the market far less competitive, in sharp contrast to our own proposal to acquire Yahoo,” Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said in a statement.

With the prospect of a proxy fight looming after Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer gave Yahoo a three-week ultimatum, Yahoo shareholders are increasingly important to Yahoo’s future. This is especially true of institutional investors such as insurance companies that hold large numbers of shares.

Dear Person Who Constantly Tweets About What He Or She Is Eating For Breakfast,

And when you click the “Sign up now” button? You’re invited to “join the conversation.” Yeah, that’s right. Now think about whether “the conversation” really wants to hear about that pint of Ben & Jerry’s you’re about to dig into.

“We’re eager to see if encouraging a sense of wonder and discovery leads to a better first impression of Twitter,” Stone concluded in his blog post. So let me get this straight: Twitter has evolved into a 140-character magical mystery tour with a pretty cartoon bird to lead the way. Insert your favorite Harold and Kumar joke here!

Twitter is not all about you anymore. Now go drown your sorrows in a bottle of delicious maple syrup that you’re about to pour on that giant stack of blueberry pancakes.

Indeed, the microblogging service unveiled Tuesday its revamped home page, which doesn’t change anything for people who are already using Twitter–it’s just a different look and feel for twitter.com if you haven’t logged in.

“Helping people access Twitter in more relevant and useful ways upon first introduction lowers the barrier to accessing the value Twitter has to offer and presents the service more consistently with how it has evolved,” co-founder Biz Stone wrote on the company blog. “Twitter began as a rudimentary social tool based on the concept of status messages but together with those who use it every day, the service has taught us what it wants to be.”

So what’s new? Well, the interface is cleaned up and is a little more aesthetically pleasing, with Twitter’s bird mascot now fluttering around a Twitter logo vaguely set up to be a sunburst emerging from some fluffy clouds. (They sure do think highly of themselves over there!) There’s a big Twitter Search button to “see what people are saying about” a given topic, putting the service’s utility front and center. Then there is a roster of trending topics by the hour, day, and week.

Twitter’s mantra has changed from “What are you doing?” to “Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.” Chances are, new visitors to Twitter.com are checking it out because they’ve heard about it in the news–or even integrated into news coverage, as the likes of CNN and MSNBC have started doing. The new language reflects that.

I recently visited Kerner Optical–the stealthy special-effects unit that split off from Industrial Light & Magic a couple of years ago.

Some time ago, I wrote a post called “Top 10 technology flops” where I essentially trashed over-hyped technology that was destined to change the world and, well, didn’t. So the last thing I want to do is overhype this.

The new stuff bears about as much resemblance to Creature from the Black Lagoon with the funky glasses as the consumer electronics and entertainment world of today resembles what my folks had back in the early ’60s: a transistor radio, a hi-fi record player, and an 11-inch black-and-white TV with six whole channels of content.

In fact, you can read an entire history of 3D film-making here, and none of that technology is part of our current day-to-day lives. That said, I’m here to tell you that the 3D technology being developed today isn’t your father’s 3D technology.

If you have rugrats running around the house, bumping into and chewing on everything in sight, they will almost certainly raise their children in a computing and entertainment world that isn’t reduced to a flat image. They will interact with objects and people thousands of miles away as if they’re right in front of them.

Remember, we’re not just talking about computer graphics, virtual reality, and displaying 2D content in 3D. We’re talking about actual 3D data acquisition and display, and without the funky glasses. We’re talking about the potential to visually immerse and interact with 3D versions of the Web, computer applications, games, TV, and, of course, movies. And let’s not forget communications. This will take personal and business communications and conferencing to a whole new level. Add sensors and the visual experience can become physical as well, i.e. full immersion and interaction.

Of course, there are hurdles to overcome: hardware, software, display, power, eye fatigue, and communication bandwidth. It won’t all happen overnight. But it will happen. And unless you’re a really old fart, it will all happen in your lifetime.

Based on what I’ve seen, this isn’t hype. It’s the real thing.

A recent James Cameron presentation provided some hints on what might be coming, but as some readers of this story observed, he stopped short of getting into any real specifics. Make no mistake, just like Kerner and others, Cameron has a lot invested in the 3D world. Still, I viewed his talk as more of a “heads-up and be prepared for what’s coming” sort of thing. And something is indeed coming. But before we get into that, a brief caveat.

Moreover, this new generation of 3D technology has the potential to be more disruptive than the introduction of the television set. You see, we currently spend a good portion of our waking lives communicating via two-way voice and viewing and interacting with flat video images. When you bring 3D imaging into the picture (no pun intended), the way we work, learn, play, shop and communicate changes. That covers a lot of ground.

Retro 3D glasses

One of the benefits of being a consultant is that you sometimes get to see really cool stuff before it hits the market.

Among other things, Kerner is now focused on developing disruptive technology for a broad range of 3D applications. Without getting into specifics (because I can’t) or technical gobbledygook–which you can get by checking out the company’s research website–this stuff goes way beyond the current state of 3D movies, video games, virtual reality, and TV.

The hottest new battlefield weapon in Baghdad is also a hot item on the home front.

Another application developed for the iPhone allows soldiers to take a photo of a street sign, upload it, and immediately receive intelligence on the local area, such as water and sympathizers. Because new recruits are already familiar with how the iPod and iPhone work, it’s also easier to train soldiers on loading content, the report notes.

Apple’s iPod Touch is proving to be a valuable tool to members of the U.S. military, according to a report in Newsweek.

Oh yeah, this rugged device, which retails for less than $230, was developed in the private sector without taxpayer money. Considering the military’s history of being charged for $435 hammers, $640 toilet seats, and $7,600 coffeemakers by contractors, this is a great deal.

The U.S. military has found the iPod Touch to be a valuable battlefield tool for soldiers.

The report notes that the iPod performs many functions in this time of “networked warfare,” enabling soldiers to be linked with other soldiers, as well as intelligence resources, such as aerial images from drones and translation software.

(Credit:
Apple)

Updated at 1:25 p.m. PDT to clarify that apps being developed for
iPhone as well.

Merely buying a great subwoofer is no guarantee you’ll wind up with great bass. There are too many ways to squander its performance potential, that’s why putting in the extra effort to achieve proper subwoofer setup is crucial. This two-part guide will tell you everything you need to know about getting the most from your subwoofer.

To use the Sub/LFE input you’ll need a long interconnect cable; most consumer electronics dealers stock these cables or try Radio Shack. How long is long enough? Measure the distance between your A/V receiver and sub and remember to include the distances up and down over doorways and furniture. Buying a cable that’s a foot or two too short is a drag, and after you’ve opened the package you may not be able to return it for a refund or exchange.

Part I: Placement & Positioning

Larger speakers are generally easier to match with subs, and small speakers and/or speakers with 4-inch or smaller woofers, can require more fine-tuning to get right.

That’s it for this how-to guide. Please send your subwoofer questions and queries my way via the comments section below.

Finding the right spot in your room can make a dramatic difference in the way your sub sounds. Corner placement is the de facto strategy for most people, possibly because it’s out of the way and almost always produces the most bass, but corner placement may not yield the most accurate bass (and/or smoothest transition to the satellite speakers).

If you’re lucky enough to have large floorstanding speakers with 8-inch or larger woofers, you may wish to run them as “Large” speakers, without any crossover. But your center and surround speakers will still likely work best run as “Small” speakers, and benefit from the crossover settings referred to in the previous paragraph.

You’ll find the receiver’s crossover setting in the speaker setup menu, and on some receivers you’ll be presented with a wide range of settings from 40 Hertz up to as high as 200 Hz. Your speaker and/or subwoofer’s user manual may offer specific guidance in this area; otherwise use the Audiophiliac’s crossover recommendations–for small speakers with 2 or 3 inch woofers, try between 150 and 200 Hz; for midsize speakers with 4 or 5 inch woofers, use 80 or 100 Hz; and with large bookshelf speakers or skinny floorstanding speakers, try a 60 or 80 Hz crossover.

With small (8-inch tall or less) speakers it’s best to keep the sub within three or four feet of the front left or right speakers. Once the sub is a lot further away it’s just that much harder to maintain the illusion the bass is coming from the speakers and not the sub. And that goes double for small home theater in a box subwoofers, keep them as close as possible to the front speakers. Oh, and don’t be shy about volume when you’re finding the right spot for the sub, turn it up so it’s easier to hear what’s going on down there.

REL's $798 T2 sub

DVDs’ bass tends to be fairly consistent from one disc to the next, but CDs’ bass will vary a lot more. Adjust the volume (on the subwoofer itself or the receiver, whichever is easier) as you play through a stack of discs. I can set the sub’s volume level with DVDs in 10 minutes or less, but with CDs I might be fiddling around days.

When all else fails, try locating the sub as close as possible to your couch or chair, in what I call the “end table” position. That location can work wonders.

Subwoofer Setup Part II:
Connectivity & Fine-tuning

(Credit:
Steve Guttenberg)

In those cases try this method: move your couch or chair out of the way, or into another room, and start with the sub in the listening position. Yes, I know that sounds like a crazy idea, but it’s just for test purposes. Now play music and movies with lots of bass, and take a little stroll around your room, stopping in the spots where you’d like to place the sub. As you move about you’ll notice the bass’ apparent loudness and definition changes from place to place.

Setting subwoofer volume is next. Precisely matching the volume levels of the left, center, right, and surround speakers is important, but bass volume is more subjective. Some folks like to feel the sub working the room all the time–and some prefer to only hear the sub’s contributions with big special effects driven movies or dance music. A Sound Level Meter (such as Radio Shack’s Model 33-4050) can be a big help when setting speaker level, but it’s nearly useless for determining the sub’s correct volume level. The “by ear” method works best.

Next, turn the sub’s frequency/low pass crossover control knob to its maximum, highest numerical setting (you’re going to rely on your A/V receiver’s internal crossover control to route the mid and high frequencies to the speakers and the bass to the sub).

The Hsu Research subwoofer’s rear panel pictured on the right is fairly typical. To non-audiophiles the maze of connectors can be intimidating, but in most instances the single cable “Sub In” hookup is the easiest and best sounding method. You can see the Sub In here on the Hsu’s rear panel; on other subs the input may be labeled “LFE,” “Direct,” or “Bypass” (the red and black speaker level inputs and outputs’ uses may be covered in a future blog).

One of the other subwoofer controls is marked “phase.” It’s provided because the speakers and the subwoofer sound best when they are “in-phase” –meaning their woofers move in and out in synch with each other. To check if your sub’s phase is correct, play music with lots of bass, listen for a minute or so, and have a friend sitting by the sub flip the sub’s 0/180? phase switch slowly back and forth. The “correct” setting is the one that yields more bass. You may have to try a few different recordings before you hear any difference, and it might help to turn up the sub’s volume level a bit for this test. If you don’t hear any difference between the “0″ and “180″ degree settings, just leave the phase control in the “0″ position.

(Credit:
REL)

Subwoofer Setup Part I:
Placement & Positioning
While your subwoofer’s deep bass is non-directional, you can’t just stick the sub pretty much anywhere that’s convenient without possibly forfeiting most of the quality you paid for.

Auto setup A/V receivers can do a fine job with speakers, but most are less adept with subs. Actually most auto setup receivers do a lousy job with subs. Try readjusting the receiver’s crossover setting, check phase, and volume level. If you don’t like the change, rerun the auto setup to return to your original settings.

Some placement experimentation may be useful here, play a CD with lots of deep bass and keep repeating the track as you move the sub to all of the visually acceptable locations in your listening room. You’ll be amazed just how different the bass will sound in different locations–some will be muddy, some will sound louder, and some will reduce the bass volume. The goal is to get the best balance of deep bass and still have mid and upper bass in equal proportions. In some rooms that’s not all that hard to achieve, but I’ve heard my share of “problem” rooms where the bass always sounds boomy/muddy.

Part II: Connectivity & Fine-tuning

Now, Editor & Publisher has figures that are enough to make any newspaper mogul cry.

Total print advertising revenue last year dropped 9.4 percent to $42 billion from the year before, according to the Newspaper Association of America. That’s the biggest decrease since the NAA began measuring ad expenditures in 1950.

Total advertising revenue, including online revenue, decreased 7.9 percent in 2007 from the year before.

The next morning, my wife pulled the pillow off my snoring head and announced, “We have no water.”

And how about intuition that people don’t pay attention to? I’m just shooting blind here, but I wonder if any of HP’s board directors flinched subconsciously at the choice of Carly Fiorina as CEO? I mean, she looked great on paper, but was there something intangible lurking beneath the surface that gave them pause?

Of course, those same scientists think that advanced medical techniques, technology and civilization have all but stopped evolution in its tracks. So give up on those sci-fi books that postulate huge-brained superhumans in the future. If anything, it’s more likely that we’re getting dumber.

When you live in a rural mountainous area, this sort of thing happens from time to time. That means every few years.

According to the dictionary, intuition, as it applies here, means: “the power or faculty of attaining direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference.”

Still, it might explain women’s intuition, if indeed that theory - that woman are more in touch with their emotions than men - is still in vogue.

Was it intuition that got Bill Gates to agree to come up with an operating system for IBM, even though Microsoft wasn’t in the OS business? Not to mention forgoing development fees in exchange for non-exclusivity and per-unit royalties. He couldn’t possibly have known how lucrative that arrangement would turn out to be.

That got me thinking: Is there such a thing as intuition? And if so, what is it and how does it matter to you and me?

“Uh huh,” she said.

So I’m sitting here trying to figure out how my wife knew something was going to happen. She couldn’t possibly have known. Wait, I know. She sabotaged the irrigation system just to appear prescient. Nah, that’s just crazy.

I replied with a blank, bleary-eyed stare.

“The pool guys are all here and we have no water.”

You’d think someone would do a study on number of offspring versus IQ.

Some scientists believe intuition is an evolutionary survival mechanism. If you were a caveman, for example, and you sensed danger, you would hide in a cave and avoid being eaten by some blood-crazed saber-toothed tiger, or something like that. Since you survived, you got to reproduce and pass your “intuition-sensing gene” onto your offspring, and so-forth.

“Okay,” I replied, “I’m getting up.”

As for me, my feelings are so bottled up I wouldn’t recognize intuition if Albert Einstein materialized in my living room and recited the theory of relativity.

If you’ve ever been involved in any sort of home construction, you know it always takes longer than the contractors say it will. For the past 10 weeks, the Tobaks have been doing a swimming pool project. So far, so good.

In my wife’s case, she seems to get these feelings every so often and they usually turn out be right. She says that when she met me 19 years ago her intuition was to run. Hard to be skeptical with hard evidence like that staring you right in the face.

As for me, I buy the survival mechanism thing. I also think intuition is related to feelings, perhaps on a subconscious level, as opposed to conscious reasoning. It might be more pronounced in people who are more empathetic or sympathetic, I’m not sure which. That shows how much I know about this stuff.

“What do you mean?” I exclaimed, “You know the pool company is scheduled to come out tomorrow and fill it up on Tuesday. Two weeks? We’ll be swimming in two days!”

And did a little voice in Jerry Yang’s head say, Don’t do it; you don’t have what it takes when the board offered him the CEO job? Did he ignore it, figuring, What the hell, what’s the worst that can happen?

No water meant the pool guys couldn’t do their thing. An hour later, the whole gang packed up and left.

Could intuition have played a role in Mark Cuban selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.9 billion in stock and immediately hedging that stock against a market crash, all at the peak of the dot-com bubble? How many dozen entrepreneurs rode the market down?

Last night, as the Bay Area cooled down from a three-day heat wave, my wife said, “It would sure be nice to get water in the pool in the next two weeks.”

I don’t suppose we’ll ever know what role intuition plays in our lives. But if you’re one of those people with a little voice in your head, I’d pay attention to it. Who knows, you may become the next Bill Gates … or avoid becoming the next Jerry Yang.

When I asked her about it, she said she’d just had a feeling.

Apparently, a stuck check valve in our irrigation system had been dumping precious water faster than our well pump could pump it. Our holding tanks were dry.

“This is the new frontier for a lot of these phone companies,” said Mike McGuire, a digital music analyst. “Clearly Sony Ericsson can’t be ignored. There should be some interesting potential in terms of linkage to other parts of Sony. Maybe you see it tied to the
PlayStation or Sony Pictures. It’s a pretty interesting ecosystem…but again, these things always look good on paper.”

The Sony Ericsson service is being launched in partnership with British firm Omnifone, which provides unlimited music downloads to mobile service providers, according to the sources, who added that all four major recording companies have signed on.

The sources said Omnifone’s MusicStation is expected to power the service, which may include a music-subscription model. A representative from Omnifone was not immediately available. And a spokesman for Sony Ericsson said the company had nothing to announce at this time and does not comment on rumors.

The way it works in the U.K is, starting in October, consumers there will be able to buy a Nokia 5310 Xpress Music device that will come with a free one-year music subscription to Nokia’s Music Store. With that subscription, Nokia users can download as many songs as they want. And once the subscription ends, they will be able to keep those tracks.

Nokia’s strategy is a clear differentiator from other music stores and services. Apple’s iTunes requires users pay for individual songs or albums. Verizon Wireless and RealNetworks have launched the new Rhapsody music store for mobile phones. It also allows subscribers to download and listen to as much music as they like for $15 a month. But once users stop paying the subscription fee, access to the music disappears.

For the music industry, Comes with Music–which is expected to come to the U.S. sometime soon–is attractive because its really a new subscription model.

Mobile phone company Sony Ericsson is expected to launch a music service within the next week designed to compete with Nokia’s “Comes with Music” offering, according to recording-industry sources.

Nokia has no plans to offer extended subscriptions to Comes With Music users. Instead, the only way to get more unlimited music downloads is to upgrade to a new Nokia Comes With Music device. While the 5310 Xpress Music device is the only one selling at the moment, Nokia plans to announce other Comes With Music phones later. Still, the fundamental strategy for Nokia appears to be using the music to sell more devices.

Currently, users can only access the Nokia Music Store in 11 countries: Finland, the U.K., Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, Australia, France, Sweden, and Spain. The company has said it plans to roll out more markets, but it hasn’t said when. Considering that the North America is one of Nokia’s most underrepresented markets, it’s unlikely the Nokia Music store will be available in the U.S. anytime soon.

Sony Ericsson’s service is obviously a challenge to Nokia’s highly anticipated Comes with Music service.

Nokia has deals with three of the four major record labels–Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner Music. It doesn’t yet have a deal with EMI. But it’s expected that EMI will sign on soon.

Nokia attracted gads of attention when it announced it would offer the bundled music phone package a year ago. The company launched the new bundle earlier this month in conjunction with U.K.-based cell phone retailer Carphone Warehouse.

Select the .csv file you exported from Outlook to import it to your Google Calendar.

Since I started synchronizing my e-mail inboxes a few months ago, I rarely even open my Outlook mail client. I much prefer seeing the messages sent to my ISP’s POP account and those sent to my Gmail account together in my Gmail inbox. But I still have to open Outlook to view my calendar, which I’ve been using for years, even though I now put many of my nonwork appointments in Google Calendar, which I can access from my
iPhone or any Internet-connected PC.

Click ICAL next to Private Address in Google Calendar's Calendar Details dialog to generate the URL you'll use to import the calendar to Outlook.

Now open your Google Calendar, click the small down arrow next to Add in the left pane, and choose Import Calendar. Select the Browse button, navigate to and select the .csv file you just created, and click Open. Choose the calendar you want to import it to (it will likely be selected by default), and click Import.

At least Outlook 2007 lets you import an iCalendar file directly: Copy the long URL in the Google Calendar’s Private Address popup window, open your Outlook calendar, and click File>Import and Export. Choose Import an iCalendar (.ics) or vCalendar file (.vcs), and click Next. Paste the URL you copied from the popup into the File name field at the bottom of the Browse dialog box, and click Open. Click Import, and your Google Calendar entries are added to your Outlook calendar.

Tomorrow: What to do when Windows craps out.

Unfortunately, Outlook 2003 doesn’t support the iCalendar format. I was able to add Google Calendar entries to my Outlook 2003 calendar one at a time by clicking the link in the popup window to download the entry, opening the file in Outlook, and clicking Save and Close. But this approach isn’t any faster than adding the entries manually.

I thought I found a free program that would let me synchronize the two calendars automatically. Synchronization Technologies’ SyncMyCal claims to let you sync multiple Outlook calendars with your Google Calendar. I gave the program a try, but I while it let me transfer the entries on my Google Calendar to my Outlook equivalent, I couldn’t get all my Outlook appointments to register on Google Calendar.

Send your Google Calendar entries to Outlook 2003 and 2007
Start by logging into your Google account and opening your calendar. Click the Manage calendars link at the bottom of the left pane, and then click the name of the calendar to open the Calendar Details dialog box. Scroll to Private Address near the bottom of the window, and click ICAL.

Transfer your Outlook calendar to Google Calendar
To move your Outlook schedule to your Google Calendar, Open Outlook 2003 or 2007 and click File>Import and Export>Export to a file>Next. Choose Comma Separated Values (Windows) and click Next again. Navigate to and select your Calendar folder (it should be highlighted by default), and click Next yet again. In Outlook 2003, verify the location of the saved .csv file (change it if you want to place it elsewhere), and click Next once more. In Outlook 2007, select a location for the file, give it a name, and click OK and then Next. Click Finish, set the date range for the calendar entries to be exported, and click OK.

I’ll keep troubleshooting the problem, though I hope I don’t have to upgrade to the $25 SyncMyCal Pro version, which automates the calendar syncs, and lets you work with appointments in time chunks longer than the free version’s limit of 7 days. Until then I’ll stick with the manual approach to Outlook/Google Calendar integration.