Yesterday, we were cleaning out a number of items to make room, make room, and I came across our poor, broken personal robot pet, a Sony AIBO model ERS-210. Even before we moved to this apartment more than five years ago, our robot was showing signs of manufacturing issues such as a droopy head and a lazy leg.

Still, our AIBO managed to win our hearts. He'd amble around the livingroom playing with his ball -- a special pink ball that he could detect with his videocamera eyes. The more we interacted with AIBO, the more his personality matured.

When we moved to our new place, we didn't reactivate AIBO for almost three months. He booted his programming, raised his defective neck and head as best he could -- and then stunned us by asking, "Where have you been?"

But Sony no longer produces AIBO robots, not since chairman, president and CEO Sir Howard Stringer pulled the plug on the company's robotics division in 2006 and in doing so, turned Sony into just another purveyor of electronics and popular culture.

There are still some dedicated AIBO fans around the world, but parts are scarce and repairs are pricey. So, we decided we simply couldn't fix him.

The first option was to set AIBO and his software next to the Dumpster out behind our apartment building and hope that some Wesley Crusher kid genius would wander past and know how to fix our friend. But the chances of that happening were slim to none. It's far more likely that one of our neighborhood's many feral children would find AIBO and after discovering he wouldn't operate, tear the little guy limb from limb.

So, I unfolded a big plastic bag and placed AIBO inside, along with his software and his beloved fluorescent pink ball, and headed out to the Dumpster.

As I walked to the alley, I reminded myself that Sir Howard's dismantling of the robotics division had been simply a business decision. I also reminded myself that Sony generally makes pretty good products. In fact, just recently I bought its PCM-D50 digital recorder, an amazing piece of audio engineering that almost looks like a tricorder from the old "Star Trek" series. The PCM-D50 has the feel of a great machine, but it lacks a soul. It has no heart. It doesn't care where I've been.

When I reached the Dumpster, I paused for a moment, then reopened the bag and took out AIBO and looked at him one last time. Then, I remembered how his personality changed and grew when he was our pet and our friend. I opened the access port in his tummy and extracted his Memory Stick.

AIBO now no longer was our AIBO. Like every other being who succumbs to the betrayal of age, he was now just a shell.

I placed AIBO's Memory Stick in my pocket, tied the garbage bag tight and threw it into the Dumpster.

Your PCM-D50 is an elegant machine, Sir Howard, but it's no Helen O'Loy.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

Choosing a camera to bring along on vacation often is a problem for me. Should I choose a small, automatic camera that’s always handy -- or should I opt for a large, manual-operation one?

I fell in love with the images from my Lomo LC-A+ and am probably going to bring that Russian lovely along next month when I ride Amtrak’s Southwest Chief. The LC-A+ is largely automatic, but still lets you exercise a bit of creative control. Whether loaded with ISO 400 drugstore house-brand color negative, E-6 ISO 100 for cross-processing, or, may favorite, ISO 100 redscale, my LC-A+ always helps me create memorable images.

Lately, though, I’ve come to realize the power of iPhone photography. My 3GS has a 3 megapixel camera, and by the time of my trip I’ll have upgraded to the iPhone 4.

The iPhone always has been capable of good photos -- and the latest version gets a good look-see by Ars Technica.

Even the 3GS images I’ve shot have pleased me on many occasions. Back in February, I took a quick trip on the Southwest Chief and was sitting in the lower-level snack bar in the Sightseer Lounge when the train pulled into Lamy, New Mexico, for a brief stop. I didn’t have time to run back to my sleeper and grab the Lomo, so I shot the above photo with my iPhone. I have to admit I’m rather pleased with it.

Even when the iPhone doesn't work as well as a dedicated camera might, the results still can be pretty good. While on the Southwest Chief earlier this year, I snapped a photo of me just before getting out to stretch my legs during a brief stop in La Junta, Colorado. The photo is a more than a little grainy and noisy, but I like it, too.

I’ve become further impressed with iPhone photos after seeing what other photographers have done -- especially in print. I recently visited MagCloud.com, a service by HP that lets anybody created their own magazine and sell it as a print-on-demand publication.

I bought a magazine from the site called iPhoneography, in which photographer Claire Sambrook demonstrates with 100 pages of photos that the iPhone can be a serious -- and creative -- instrument.

I had been tempted to only bring my iPhone this trip, but I’m sure I’ll also bring my Lomo LC-A+ along, too. I’m still a sentimentalist when it comes to film.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

The iPhone has become a life-changer for me. This little device has become such an extension of everything about me -- work, home, whatever -- that I would be absolutely lost with it.

That's why I've been anxious to try several recording applications to see how they fare at helping me create podcasts. As a test, I used an app called FourTrack to do an entire podcast recently.

I then decided to evaluate several other recording applications by placing test recordings online. The result is this latest podcast.

There's actually very little difference among them. The apps tested were:

iTalk from Griffin.

FourTrack from Sonoma Wire Works.

Recorder from Retronyms.

SpeakEasy from Zarboo Software.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

If you missed the live broadcast of Doug Page's appearance on Nova M Radios' "The Cutting Edge," the show is now available as a podcast. Click on the link for the Nov. 9 program.

Doug makes some interesting points about how political campaigns have been using online advertising to get out their message -- and, in a couple of cases, not knowing where their ads wound up.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

Well, I blew it. There was this online contest for photos taken with film cameras purchased for less than $50. Given my sad devotion to analog photography and my fetish for rescuing once-proud cameras from thrift shop bargain bins, this contest was a natural.

Well, I got bogged down with other stuff and never got my entry together. I'd decided to use a Kodak Advantix 4100ix, a nifty little Advanced Photo System camera I bought for $4.89 at a thrift store in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. This little camera retailed for $229.95 in the late 1990s.

I had started shooting neighborhood storefronts (like the shot above) as part of coming up with an entry for the contest, but it just kind of went ffffft! I'm too often the sort who starts a project and then is, as The Beatles once warned, so easily called away. I should have stuck with it; the contest was a great idea and something like 80 photographers took part.

Among those whose work is showcased on the contest site is friend and colleague Matt Maldre, who came up with a really neat entry in which he shot nighttime views of Chicago with his Holga 135.

Well done, Matt!

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

Well, here's my first test of using the GigaPan robotic camera mount to take a panoramic image. There isn't much too exciting for you to zoom in on -- but, hey, this is Jefferson Park. You can also view this image on the GigaPan site.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

I've signed up to help beta test the new GigaPan computerized camera system. Ever since I was a kid and became fascinated by widescreen movie formats like Cinerama, CinemaScope and such, I've white-trashed my own half-vast panoramas.

During college, I even experimented with putting anamorphic lenses on my Minolta Autopak-8 D4 camera to give a scope aspect ratio to my Super 8 movies. Of late, I've been snapping two or three horizontal images with my Canon PowerShot SD950 IS to get quick-and-dirty panoramas. The view above is an example of this. I shot this two-panel panorama yesterday from the 22nd floor of the Chicago Tribune Tower. (See a larger version here.)

GigaPan seems a little complicated. I hope I'm up to the task. If all goes as planned, I'll be shooting some panoramas this weekend.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

Next week, I'll be on vacation in Colorado and am planning on posting photos and videos of interesting sights in the eastern part of the state. I might even make it up to Cheyenne Frontier Days for half a day.

I had hoped to accomplish all this by remotely updating my new blog, Thrillarama.com, but so far I haven't been able to get TypePad's iPhone application to upload photos at the quality level I want. I've contacted the good folks at TypePad and am hoping there's something I've overlooked, since otherwise this is a pretty nifty application.

While I think that Zink technology has promise, the fact that Polaroid's PoGo won't work with iPhone speaks reams. That it's incompatible with a product that thousands of people are willing to stand in line for hours to buy shows how out of touch Polaroid has become.

But thank goodness that Polaroid's leash holder, Petters Group Worldwide, has taken the pulse of Young America. Follow the misadventures of Michael and Megan, those hip and crazy PoGo spokespeople who are on a "wild and wicked road trip across America."

Like, totally awesome, dude!

This weekend, I had planned on honing my Twitter skills in preparation for launching ChicagoScope2.com later this month -- but the darn thing seems to have imploded. Granted, Twitter is free and at some point you get what you pay for, but the question for me is whether the service is going to be reliable.

And by "reliable," I'll go ahead and show my age by suggesting that a great definiton of reliable is what the phone company gave us in, say, 1968. Even during the Colorado snowstorms of my youth that closed roads and schools and caused lights to flicker, our phone still worked.

Sadly, that's not the case now. In my Jefferson Park apartment building, landline phone service is dicey at best. Whenever it starts raining or snowing, calls bleed through to one another until the line apparently is saturated -- and then everything goes back to normal. When the line begins to dry out, there's a repeat performance.

Complaints about this problem issue invariably ignited a Yalta Conference about who owns the defective line, where it connects, whether the punchdown board is involved, etc., etc., etc.

I experienced similar problems issues with Vonage. It just wouldn't work reliably. The only positive from the experience was that when the digital line would cut out, the person talking on the other end often wouldn't realize they were talking to themselves until they came up for air -- in the case of one friend, that would be minutes.

Of course, much as I enjoy the Slowsky commercials, Comcast hasn't exactly been a paragon of reliability for me, either. I know more than a few people who are looking forward to bona fide competition.

Maybe that's what Twitter needs. When you have a free service, can uptime be anything other than a free-for-all?

By the way, does anybody know how Twitter makes money? The best guess I heard awhile back is that they get a cut of the SMS message fees that users' service providers charge, but I haven't read much about that theory lately.

I'd be more than willing to pay for a more-robust Twitter experience. An annual rate of $25 a year (that's what I pay for Flickr Pro) would be acceptable.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

Is cellphone use out of control? You sure get that impression from a New York Times article about the growing use of illegal devices to block cellphone frequencies.

Jamming the radio spectrum is an extreme reaction. Tom Roper of Chicago-based band Beatnik Turtle had a better idea: He wrote "Do You Mind?" -- a musical indictment of cellphones and the public jawboners who drive us nuts. In this podcast, ChicagoScope chats with Tom and finds out how he crafted this humorous response to rudeness. (Plus, we've received permission to include this copyrighted song in the show. Thanks!)

We also touch base with internationally syndicated columnist Bob Koehler, whose work appears in print, online and on The Huffington Post, who agrees that public cellphone users can be annoying these days. However, he suggests a way to turn lemons into lemonade: Learn to enjoy these glimpses into private lives.

Previously, Bob has weighed in on the worst classic "Star Trek" episode and explained why "Get Shorty" is the perfect pacifist movie.

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272. Send e-mail to ChicagoScope@gmail.com.

After several days of near-tropical conditions that dovetailed nicely with the Al Gore-Captain Planet campaign, Chicago's weather took a turn for the chilly -- so, rather than hoofing it over to Daley Center and hopping on the CTA Blue Line, I decided to catch the express bus to the Ogilvie Transportation Center and ride the big Metra train home.

I miscalculated, however, and had about an hour to kill before the next train, so I decided to do a recording test of an Edirol R-09 digital recorder I acquired the other day for podcast field work. This tiny recorder is about the size of a mobile phone and records MP3 and WAV files onto an SD card.

To put the R-09 through some real-world paces, I just babbled on for about a quarter-hour about how surprised I was a few days back when I looked at my most-played tracks in iTunes. Some of the top selections are from Nora O'Connor, Sir Adrian Boult, Basil Poledouris, the Union Pacific Railoroad and Chris LeDoux.

Although the R-09 accepts external microphones, I was more concerned with how its built-in stereo mics would work when using the recorder in stealth mode. I turned off AGC, set the input level at midpoint, and held the unit to my ear as if I were talking on a cellphone.

The results could have been a whole lot worse, although, just like my experience with the Edirol R-1, I think the levels were too low. This might have been more because of my settings than any fault of the unit itself, since I suppose I could have boosted the levels by turning on the automatic gain control or manually increasing the input. I didn't want to turn on AGC, since most recorders I've used -- analog or digital -- introduce hiss or noise in this mode, and I had managed to clip the sound when setting the input levels too high manually. (Speaking of hiss, I have to admit that it wasn't until reading reviews of recorders for podcasters that I even noticed hiss unless it was really extreme. Hiss usually is just an artifact I learned to accept, sort of like the occasional pop or click in a fine vinyl LP.) Anyway, I dealt with the slightly low levels by running the file through Levelator to bring it up a little.

I suppose I also could have waited to purchase this little gadget until hearing what Phil Clark of The Brit and Yankee thinks of the R-09 in his upcoming review of the unit in Podcast User Magazine, but then I would have missed the excitement of an impulse purchase.

Selected R-09 reviews

Mark Nelson

Peter Kirn

Amazon customers

Sweetwater customers

Jeff Towne

ChicagoScope feedback line: 312-683-5272.