The most elegant feature of the iPad is that it gets you to the stuff you want more quickly than any other device. Time reduction between a dark screen and destination is the game changing attribute that makes me want one. I want efficiency.

A laptop or netbook may have more features or a faster processor. But you can’t open it, resume from sleep, enter your password, and launch a desired app, browser, or site in under 10 seconds. You can do this with an iPhone. With its new processor and 802.11n the iPad is even faster.

I don’t think people realize what instant-on will do for computing. Immediate access will enable situations where you could whip out an iPad impromptu in an elevator and give a presentation or report, read news, or whatever, before reaching your selected floor. It shaves seconds or minutes off of tasks.

The iPad combines that speed with a non-mobile 1024×768 10-inch screen. You get immediate access to relevant information, with the richness of a laptop/desktop interface in a form factor conducive to mobility. And multi-touch.

Multi-touch adds to the speed. One can more quickly navigate and perform tasks with it than via a mouse or standard touchscreen. One can rotate, zoom, and crop images more quickly. One can edit and move data in a document more quickly.

It’s all about speed. It’s the speed to information and more efficient interface that make the iPad kick ass.

Would you like them with Scott or Phil?

I would not like them with Scott or Phil.
I would not like them without vids or stills.

Would you like them in Jobs’ house?
Would you like them, they have no mouse?

I do not like them in Jobs’ house.
I do not like them with no mouse.
I do not like them with Scott or Phil.
I do not like them, there’s no vids or stills.

I do not like iPads without cams.
I do not like them, Fanboi-I-am.

Would you like them in Apple box?
Would you like them with a fox?

Not in the box.
Not with a fox.

They do not have a video frame, so
I will not like one on a train.
Not in the dark! Not in a tree!
Not in a car! You let me be!
I do not like their Apple box.
I do not like them with a fox.
I will not like one in Jobs’ house.
I do not like them with no mouse.
I do not like them with Scott or Phil.
I do not like them! NO VIDS OR STILLS!
I do not like iPads without cams!
I do not like them, Fanboi-I-am.

You do not like them. So you say.
Try them! Try them! And you may.
Try them and you may, I say.

If you will let me be,
I will try them. You will see.

…

Say! I like this iPad with no cam!
I do! I will buy them, Fanboi-I-am!
And I would like them on a boat.
And I would like them with a goat.

And I will buy without video frame.
And in the dark. And on a train.
And in a car. And on a plane.
They are so good, so good, you see!

So I can’t wait to get an Apple box.
And I will share mine with a fox.
And I will Twitter from Jobs’ house.
And I will buy a Magic Mouse.
And I will take them here and there.
Say! I will take them ANYWHERE!
I do so like iPads without cams!
Thank you!
Thank you, Fanboi-I-am!

Apple’s tablet is about to change the software development ecosystem and we mobile developers are rethinking existing and future projects. The tablet becomes the next app gold rush.

The App Store and the iPhone command a monstrous market share for mobile apps. There are a limited number of mobile app developers (20 million’ish) and a limited amount of devices any developer or team can target at one time. The first OS to target for any mobile product is logically the iPhone OS. That’s where the money is. After that, maybe Android or Blackberry or Pre. Maybe.

With Apple releasing a new device with new capabilities and resolution, the ecosystem changes. Teams who had completed an iPhone app and were planning to move on to an Android or Blackberry version would likely be more successful returning to the iPhone and optimizing for the tablet first.

Just as the first developers releasing apps on the iPhone had the least competition and greatest chance of success, the first optimized tablet apps will have the greatest odds. Competition amongst 10,000 apps is much lighter than 100,000.

There have been a growing number of Android starts and popularity of Android devices has steadily increased. Many of these app starts are by developers who completed an iPhone version and are now porting to Android.

The tablet changes one’s priority. Android starts will continue to grow because of handset market share growth, but will also take a hit due to the tablet. The priority of OS’s for developers to to target will likely be iPhone -> tablet optimization -> Android / Blackberry / Pre.

Related thoughts:

• Who wants to build Apple tablet apps? Not just game developers (survey) (venturebeat.com)
• If Apple Releases It, Will Developers Come? (bits.blogs.nytimes.com)

Apple is opening up the In-App purchase to free apps. This is going to change the App Store landscape drastically…

In App Purchase is being rapidly adopted by developers in their paid apps. Now you can use In App Purchase in your free apps to sell content, subscriptions, and digital services.

You can also simplify your development by creating a single version of your app that uses In App Purchase to unlock additional functionality, eliminating the need to create Lite versions of your app. Using In App Purchase in your app can also help combat some of the problems of software piracy by allowing you to verify In App Purchases.

Lite apps… Buh-bye. 2 (or more) copies of the same app but with different badges… Buh-bye. This is nothing but good.

AT&T confirms tethering is, “a matter of when and not if,” but the when is farther away than most of us would like.

As for tethering, by its nature, this function could exponentially increase traffic on the network, and we need to ensure that some of our current upgrades are in place before we can deliver the expanded functionality with the excellent performance that customers expect. We expect to offer tethering in the future.

While the iPhone has blown the doors off AT&T’s network capabilities, I don’t agree that tethering by an existing customer will exponentially increase traffic. The increased load from the iPhone has been due to mobile browsing and uploading of photos and videos.

Those who plug the iPhone in to a laptop are not significantly increasing consumed bandwidth (unless you’re watching Hulu?), and the number of users who tether will be far fewer than the number of iPhone-only users.

I could agree with the assumption of exponential increase based on an influx of customers from Sprint and Verizon. Those customers could migrate purely to acquire the world’s fastest VPN enabled USB modem (yes, the iPhone effectively becomes a wicked fast USB modem when plugged in – and faster/better than the USB versions available at Sprint and Verizon).

According to the latest Zillow Real Estate Market Reports, home values in Philadelphia increased 1.7% in the second quarter of 2009, compared to the second quarter of 2008. Nationally, home values decreased 12.1% during this same period.

For the longest time, the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi has been the most widely used camera on Flickr. With a 10.1 MP Lens, an image sensor vibration cleaning system, 9-point auto focus, and a mid-range price point, it’s easy to see why the Canon camera has been so popular with the photography enthusiasts on Yahoo’s photo-sharing website.

But while Canon has dominated, there’s another camera that’s been zipping up the Flickr charts. Actually, camera phone would be more precise, because we’re talking about the iPhone.

It takes a lot of iPhones to overtake the Canon franchise.

1. iRa Pro – $899.99 (or Direct – $499.99)
2. MATG – SAP BusinessOne – $449.99
3. PDR Quote – $349.99
4. Mobile Cam Viewer – $349.99
5. Lexi-Dental Complete – $299.99
6. iDcrm – $199.99
7. ROSIE Home Automation – $199.99
8. Nursing Constellation Plus – $179.99
9. Interpath – $179.99
10. XA1 – $179.99

From IE6NoMore:

“We think we can have a huge impact: For those users that are just unaware they are using an old browser (mothers, grandmothers), we’d like to encourage them to upgrade and have a better experience using our sites. For those users in corporate environments, we’d like to start putting pressure on the IT department to upgrade — the more users who complain about seeing the prompts (especially if coming from the top), the more pressure the IT department will have to either upgrade IE 6 or install Firefox side-by-side with IE 6 for compatibility reasons.”

Since when do moms and grandmothers get thrown under the bus for using old browsers? I know we gotta throw IE6 out, but that’s just messed up.

The bloodbath at GE’s propaganda station has reached critical levels: according to Nielsen, CNBC has lost 28% of viewers year over year, and 24% in the 25-54 age group category. This is obviously a stunning failure in an environment where the top stories on any other medium are finance and economy related.

Photo of Philly air this morning

Got this in my morning Weather Channel Local Severe Weather Alerts:

Local Severe Weather Alert for Philadelphia, PA

…AIR QUALITY ALERT IN EFFECT FROM 9 AM TO 10 PM EDT TUESDAY… THE PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION HAS DECLARED AN AIR QUALITY ACTION DAY FOR THE REGION…IN EFFECT FROM 9 AM TO 10 PM EDT TUESDAY. AN AIR QUALITY ACTION DAY MEANS THAT AIR QUALITY WITHIN THE REGION MAY APPROACH OR EXCEED UNHEALTHY STANDARDS.

I remember these from Los Angeles and figured Philly’s industrial areas were as bad or worse, but this is for the whole region.

Lovely!

“The touch-based user interface is something we got from the handset market,” Kuittinen said. “And now that you have this innovation, it’s easier to go back to the tablet concept, and say, “Wait a minute, let’s add this.” All of a sudden the device is a lot more appealing and sexier, especially since you have multitouch.”

I’m all for an uber sleek device for mibile computing, but part of the usability of a tablet mobile phone (a la iPhone) is the shaking, gesturing, pointing, and pocketability. A tablet loses much of this and adds power, network, and protection issues.

Maybe man-purses will take on, too.

Now, analytics and research firm StatCounter has released their July numbers for search, and they?re telling the same story: Bing is gaining traction. According to the report, Bing has gained 1.24% market share, up to 9.41%.

I’m still using Google, personally.

Idiot move…

The criminals probably didn’t realize that they were installing their ATM in a hotel that was soon going to be flooded with more than 8,000 security professionals.

Book publishing is getting expensive. Profits are way down. Readership is declining for printed books.

Ebooks, yes. POD books, yes. But books published by a profit-seeking publisher are limited to low-risk authors. High-return authors are best.

If you have something to say, blog it. After a few years of blogging, write your first book. You will have an audience.

If your blog does not attract an audience, neither will your book. Publishers know this.

Bottom line: Start a blog and prove you can attract an audience… If you’ve got traffic, you are infinitely more likely to get your book published.

Gary’s full post is, So, You Want to Write Your First Book. Here Is How to Do It.

We don’t need a full blown Google Voice application on the iPhone. A simple web app would do. In fact, it would probably be better for overall adoption because only a small percentage of people update their apps religiously.

Given Google’s API for GV, and the speed at which the native apps were developed, this isn’t a stretch. A couple decent web developers could get this launched by Monday… In time to save Arrington and the world from an unnecessary rant on the failings of Android.

I made the jump from the iPhone’s included mail application and may swap out the Phone app for a Google Voice web app later, too. The above image is my iPhone dock. Sean McKeever on Facebook asked how I get notifications for new mail being received. Here’s how I do that…

First off, with the iPhone Mail app I never used new mail notification. There’s just too much email every day and having notifications on would turn the phone in to a jumping bean. The little counter of unread messages is nice, of course.

That changes with Gmail and filters. One can receive customized notifications via SMS of new messages based on sender, subject, account, or any other attributes.

1. Create a filter for a desired message type.
2. Have the filter results be “Forward it to:” and set your_number@txt.att.net (it’ll cost you a text message if you’re not on an unlimited plan).

This nicely sets up important alerts if you need them. I use these for messages I need to know about immediately… Typically messages sent directly to me and sent from somebody important.

There’s a lot of noise about Apple rejecting the Google Voice application in the App Store. While a native app would be fantastic, I’d be fine with a good web app. The existing rev is little more than a WAP site and requires three clicks to dial a contact.

It would be incredibly simple to mimic the iPhone’s phone app interface in a web app. It’s just a list of favorites, list of recents, list and search of overall contacts, and voicemail. With HTML5, all of these features from a single web app are simple.

With HTML5 and SQLite the images and local databases can be cached, too. This would allow extremely fast load and minimize any network traffic for initiating a call. I’d probably even swap out the iPhone icon on the home screen for a GV web app shortcut.

I’ve wrapped up my set up and migration to Google Voice. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I’m linking to Paul Stamatiou’s review. He sums up my impressions, likes, and dislikes perfectly and has good instructions and screenshots, too.

His experience of getting calls intended for prior phone number holders hasn’t been the case for me. And even if undersirable callers are dialing, one can block, screen, and take control so easily that it becomes a non-issue.

My new number is 707-659-6864 (70s-oly-oung).

“I believe I’ve done all I care to do here at this point. Flesh and reality and silence are calling.” @trent_reznor, July 17th 2009 (account deleted)

It’s a stylish and absolute completion. What would your last words be?

In the “vision” stage of ebook adoption, which ended with the launch of the Kindle in November 2007, authors were virtually powerless. With ebook sales even for established books struggling to make triple digits, publishers were gunshy about accepting digitization costs for books other than the biggest sellers and it hardly made sense for authors to make the investment on their own.

Check it out: http://www.idealog.com/blog/aside-from-the-publishers-how-the-other-stakeholders-fare-as-ebook-adoption-continues

View from the back deck

My wife and I are off for a few days at Lake Ariel in PA for some R&R. Water skiing and much needed chill time with great friends are the only things on the agenda. The pic is the view from the back deck.

Verizon is planning to launch its own app store. Their latest radio ad describes “…hundreds of apps … Twitter…” They have a developer conference later this month, too.

Obviously building an app store seems like a good idea to any cellular service or handset maker. They’ve got app store envy. Apple has had a huge success. But it takes an entire distribution pipeline, from developer to device, to be a success.

I’m entirely stoked that app distribution is a focus now. Having the public excited about buying apps is about the best thing the developer community could ask for. I just don’t believe Verizon will get this right.

I hope this news about the ISS doesn’t come true. How messed up would it be to have one of our best space efforts come crashing down so soon after completion?

Alternatively bluetooth can be used, but incurs the bluetooth bottleneck penalty like other mobile phone tethers. USB allows the full 3G. I’m also partial to leaving bluetooth and wi-fi off to conserve battery life.

So basically you plug in USB and immediately the network connection becomes active. Dead simple. No configuration and no dead phone battery.

“Content is going to continue to be consumed in digital and physical format, and if you don’t somehow add value to the equation, in terms of creating the content or getting it to people that want it, it doesn’t matter whether you’re big or small, you’re not going to be around.”  -John Ingram

Thanks @rickj for passing it along.

Check your app updates today. Looks like Apple had a busy 4th of July weekend and approved a ton of 3.0 compatibility updates.

My last check for updates was on Saturday, the 4th at 9:00pm. Only the AOL Radio app had an update. The other dozen came in between then and this morning.

The phone trail: BlackBerry Pearl 8100 -> iPhone -> BlackBerry 8800 -> iPhone 3G -> BlackBerry Bold 9000 -> iPhone 3G S

I really like the iPhone 3G. I lasted almost a full year, but something was missing. The push, immediate arrival of email, when one can blast messages out and get responses like an instant messaging client, is what I’ve always come back to on a BlackBerry.

This time there’s something different. It wasn’t as impressive with the BlackBerry email. And that must really suck for RIM because I know I’m not the only one who has grown out of their email awesomeness.

Gmail + push based IMAP and Exchange on the iPhone made BlackBerry email much less exciting when I switched back. If RIM can’t own the messaging space, they’re in for some trouble.

The other reason is that my team is doing some great things with the iPhone at Ingram Content. Customers can transfer their downloads through iTunes quickly and seamlessly. I’m using our own product on a daily basis and enjoying it (yes, I’m biased, but it’s still a good sign that a developer wants to eat the comapny’s dog food).

This post was written on the BlackBerry Bold 9000 during my morning train commute. I’ve been listening to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on the iPhone 3G. The upgrade to 3G S is this afternoon. You can download using our Ingram Media Manager for free through your public library.

- Apple’s download + 3.0 device sales stats = ~17%
- AdMob reports 44% of ads served are to 3.0
- WeightBot and ConvertBot app developers claim 79% are 3.0

This, to me, means:
- Apple’s stats are probably the most correct, overall, but that doesn’t mean a hill of beans to developers
- 44% of active web browsing users updated to 3.0
- 79% of app downloading owners updated 3.0
- Somewhere less than 56% of iPhone users don’t browse much web or download apps, or at lease not enough to splash these stats.

It’s not really an issue with skewed results, it’s an issue with understanding what these results really mean. As the leader of a team doing iPhone development, the world being around 79% adoption of 3.0 is fantastic. And for our future web apps, it’s very intersting (if it’s true) that less than 1/2 of iPhone users using the web are updated.

What’s really intersting is that 17% are on 3.0, or 7 million devices. If 79% of app users are 3.0, and if ALL of 3.0 users buy apps, there is a cap of 8,900,000′ish app buying iPhone owners out of 41 million (8.9 million times 79% is ~7 million).

The questions that come to my mind are:
- Does this mean 1 in 4.6 owners (41 million divided by the hypothetical 8.9 million) have purchased an app? They would have probably at least downloaded a free app. This is probably why Apple is pushing ads about app downloads… They’d like to increase this ratio.
- How many iPhone owners regularly use the web on the device? 1 in 2.5 (if 44% of web browsing owners are 3.0 versus 17% of overall device updates)?

Hope all my readers are having an equally wonderful weekend!

RunKeeper Pro 1.5.0.7

Tweetie 1.3.2

WordPress 1.3

Downloading All…

Most of the announcements from @cnnbrk don’t include links to the breaking news article. They should. And they could do it with style since they’ve got a 3-letter domain.

Current links look more like: http://www.cnn.com/video/world/2009/06/21/von.iran.injured.youtube

Or they’ll use bit.ly (if they include a link at all): http://bit.ly/HnWNV

This could be much more easily inserted in a tweet as (non-working example) http://cnn.com/123xYZ

For that matter, why aren’t all of the major 3 and 4 letter domain news networks using shortened URLs for their tweets?

+

It was April 6th, 2008 that I posted How to post images to Twitter and Flickr at the same time from an iPhone. It has been one of the more popular posts on this blog.

Flickr now makes it possible to post to Twitter directly via an emailed photo AND via Blog This. Their integration removes the need for TwitPic, and arguably SnapTweet too (though SnapTweet is faster than using Blog This and can be used for multiple images at once).

Images are posted to Twitter with Flickr’s new flic.kr URL shortener.

Here’s how to get set up:

1. Visit Flickr’s beta testing group’s page (actually, this step isn’t necessary, but if you run in to problems, their page is the best resource).
2. Associate your Twitter account with your Flickr account here. It leads you through the process and uses OAuth, a safer mechanism than providing your password.
3. You will be provided with a second special email address to send images to. If your main Flickr image email address is example42test@photos.flickr.com, your Flickr+Twitter email address will be example42test2twitter@photos.flickr.com.
4. Send away!

Photos sent to your primary Flickr image address will be processed as normal (not submitted to Twitter). Photos sent to your new 2twitter version will be processed and then immediately posted to Twitter. Your tweet will consist of [subject_line] [url], with the [url] being Flickr’s shortened flic.kr url.

Example.

After signing up for the Twitter integration you also get a new Blog This addition when viewing a single image. Clicking Blog This brings up the option to post an existing image directly to Twitter. You can post your own, as well as other Flickr users, images via this feature. Very powerful.

I’ve switched back to a BBerry instead of an iPhone. Again. This is the second time I’ve found I’m working less productively on the iPhone. This isn’t a switch because I enjoy working on a Blackberry. The Blackberry simply handles messaging more quickly and seamlessly, and that’s my impression even after using the iPhone 3.0 OS with copy/paste, etc, for the last couple months.

Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone is the best phone on the market for consuming information. Browsing, the many apps and games, media consumption, appearance, performance, etc, make it the best platform. Ever (imho).

But it still sucks for Gmail and IM and these are the two most important features for a lot of us web jockeys. The native Gmail client on Blackberry enables Gmail searching of multiple accounts instantly. This is a feature worth switching platforms for. The web based Gmail on the iPhone enables such search, but it is web based and takes a lot longer to navigate, even with 3G, and can’t run in the background and perform alerts for new messages.

Background processes enable IM and immediate text communication on Blackberry. I’d gotten by on the iPhone with AIM’s SMS features, which is a nice way to work IM on any phone, but it didn’t cover Jabber and other instant messaging services.

I keep the iPhone in my bag, and continue using it on wi-fi for development and testing. And I can’t wait to get to WWDC and attend the iPhone dev workshops. When the 3.0 OS is out of beta we’ll get to see how these services affect a transition for me, and many others, from Blackberry to the iPhone. Again.

Twitterlike post…

Grabbing a late lunch and testing a blog post via email. Early this morning I finally set up a cron to check for posts via email.

This post traveled from a Blackberry Bold to Gmail, then the cron ran and the email was pulled by Postie and imported as a post.

Along the way, I ran in to the following problems: – Postie Gmail support – Hosting provider had outgoing ports 993 and 995 blocked – Cronless Postie vs standard (now running cron rev)

Over the weekend I created two blogs for my parents, Heartsong Studios and Earthsea Pottery. I’ve used my own hosted server for sites in the past (and do with solyoung.com). I used WordPress as the host this time… Their distributed servers and pricepoint (free.99 + $10 for DNS name server hosting) is better and cheaper than a personally hosted solution.

Each site, soup-to-nuts took less than six hours and were fun weekend projects. The blogs themselves took less than an hour, really, with image editing for Earthsea and the audio cleanup for Heartsong taking the real time.

I need the ability to modify the source of my solyoung.com blog, but if you’re looking for a clean and hosted solution that lets you personalize, WordPress was a good experience.

Last year I ran Broad Street with 25,000 other runners and live blogged it (actually, live Twittered and Utterlied). It was a blast. I’m thinking about something similar this year, but probably a modification based on an iPhone app… More on that later this week.

Something cool happened this year that didn’t in the past. The organizers of the race appear to have implemented an automatic seeding algorithm for runners who have raced before. I got seeded 2025, which I’m proud of, but am in no shape to live up to.

We’ll see how this shapes up. My first run after about nine months off was a couple weeks ago. I’m hoping for a 7:30 pace. Runs last week ranged between 7:00 and 8:00 during 4 to 5 mile runs.

This is gonna hurt.

Let the Twitter backlash begin. Or not. If you have real friends, who cares? ;-)

Until now it was impossible to offer decent linking, which is one of the most important aspects of a blog – sharing information.

It’s still not the easiest to post. switching between apps can be a pain, but for one or two links, it’s finally possible.

The pic in this post has nothing to do with the content, but was taken with my iPhone.

– Posted via iPhone 3G

“On March 17, Apple presented the blueprint for iPhone OS 3.0, the next version of the world’s most advanced mobile platform. In addition to previewing its innovative features, Apple gave members of the iPhone Developer Program immediate access to the iPhone OS 3.0 software beta and an updated Software Development Kit (SDK) with over 1,000 completely new APIs.”

The announcement page is here (C&P’d, too): http://www.apple.com/iphone/preview-iphone-os/

This year’s annual review process swung around fast! It seems like the team joined Ingram Digital just months ago. I’ve done them a few times, but this was the first review process I’ve done at ID. Reviews are a time for reflection. A time to make and receive input on how we’ve performed. A time to realize and face weaknesses and understand our strengths.

There were five appraisals of my developers, and one on myself. To normalize the results I did my self-appraisal first. I had everyone on the team do their own self-appraisal, too, but I avoided reviewing theirs until I’d done my appraisal of them. This was to make sure my scores weren’t skewed and to look for any disconnects.

I started by reading status reports I sent for the year. For the weeks without status reports I re-read email to make sure I didn’t miss any accomplishments. This was time consuming and highlights the need to maintain a tighter journal of deeds. I’ve done this for myself over the last ten years. Keeping a separate journal for one’s team is highly valuable and I’m going to start doing this beyond status reports.

My team rocks, and my entries in my self-appraisal are the result of their efforts. As I listed each accomplishment I thought, “My team made this. My team created that… I worked my face off, but what specifically did I do?” It’s strange to reflect on what one was responsible for, but did with the hands of others.

Appraisals for my team were less demanding after my own. For one, after this point I’d compiled the full list of the team’s accomplishments. For two, it’s easier to judge others after judging one’s self.

Some additional links on performance reviews:

• Employee Performance Reviews
• Conducting Effective Performance Appraisals
• Why Annual Performance Reviews are a Waste of Time (I don’t agree with the writer, but it highlights what we should do during the year so reviews are effective and aren’t a surprise).

Photo by iamtimmo

Last night my friend Marc dropped me an email with the pilot’s and ATC’s view of 3407, including the MP3 archive of the fateful flight. Here’s his email:

If you’re interested – Callsign – Colgan 3407
http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kbuf/KBUF-Feb-13-2009-0300Z.mp3

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/CJC3407

Approach plate KBUF ILS 23:
http://204.108.4.16/d-tpp/0901/00065IL23.PDF
Clarance Center, NY would be slightly SW of the TRAVA intersection.

A little after 12:00 – cleared to 2300ft, for intersecting the glideslope.
Little after 15:00 – cleared for ILS, 3 N of KLUMP.
Little after 16:00 – handed off to KBUF tower.
17:21 – first sign of uh oh

20:30 – When they are pretty sure somethings wrong
24:00 – Notification to aircraft of a plane down

It was interesting to get this in email first and see/hear the information before getting any other news (I’ve still only briefly scanned the CNN article).

Links:

• MP3 (LiveATC.net): http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kbuf/KBUF-Feb-13-2009-0300Z.mp3
• Flight track: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/CJC3407
• Approach plate (FAA.gov): http://204.108.4.16/d-tpp/0901/00065IL23.PDF

UPDATE: Colgan Air has a link about flight 3407

Newspapers aren’t dead here, but they’re definitely in decline. A check around me in this car has 8 people out of 120 reading a paper. Physical book reading is also down compared to my train rides three years ago.

Instead of books and newspapers I see iPhones and BlackBerry’s. There are tons of these devices, almost literally. But in three months I am yet to see a single Kindle.

Every seat one passes walking in or out has an occupant or two swishing their fingers across a touchscreen or wildly flailing thumbs on a keypad. Most people are reading on these devices, browsing web sites, consuming words.

Yesterday’s news about Kindle book downloads being 10% of amazon’s sales isn’t as surprising when looking at people’s device use, and is kind of a foreshadowing of what’s to come… If Kindle downloads were 10% of Amazon’s consumed books and the Kindle is <1% of the portable device market, what happens when iPhones, iPods, Sony eReader, and other media consumption devices cleanly support book and newspaper content?

Much like the tendrals, this was slightly dissappointing since I’d wanted to see double digits. The other interesting numbers…

• Mac up 9.63% to 9.93%
• iPhone almost half a percent, up 0.44% to 0.48%
• Linux down 0.85% to 0.83%, probably since there wasn’t much Linux activity over the holidays.
• Windows down 88.68% to 88.26% (though Windows 7 betas are picking up)

We visit the Philadelphia Auto Show every year. This year was a little bit different since I walk past the convention center every day and have been peeking in the windows to see everyone setting up.

My favorite car for the last three years has been the Audi R8. The Philadelphia High School / UPenn Engineering team is a very close second with their Attack supercar).

There was disappointment around not seeing a plug-in electric at the show. Lots, and lots, of hybrids, but no plug-ins. The meaty exhaust note from 600 raw horsepower is freakin’ exhilarating, but a car that outperforms those 600 horses, while whisper quiet, and plugs in to the outlet in my garage… That’s what I want to own.

The show is on until February 8th. If you’re in Philadelphia you should drop in and see it… It’s not often you get to walk through a hall full of Bentleys, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Austin-Martins, etc.

You can also see the Ford booth using OS X and VLC Media Player to demonstrate their Microsoft Sync integration :)

Visit the Flickr set here.

I was impressed to click a video headline and have QuickTime immediately launch and stream the video. Very clean implementation.

I love to read anything on aviation, and am in agreement with Chris that most of human-kind isn’t capable of flying. That’s why we have flight schools and a vast amount of training, and why there are ~400,000 pilots out of the entire United States. In order to have flying cars, we can’t have human control.

When I think flying car, I think robotically controlled aerial taxi cab.

Anyway, that’s not the point of this post. The point is Create Commons and offering to share one’s work. I use plain Attribution because I want people to use my content. I don’t care how. Trackbacks and notification of use isn’t ubiquitous or standardized, so planting one’s name makes it easy to see where things are used.

And again, I don’t care where or how my stuff is used, I just want to be able to find the fun stuff that builds upon it. I came across Chris’s post through a Google Alert on my name. There wasn’t a trackback. If there hadn’t been attribution, I wouldn’t have known and wouldn’t have read his post.

Maybe we’ll get to a trackback standard for content usage. It’ll probably get here around the time we have those flying cars.

I received the Mini DisplayPort Dual-Link DVI adapter yesterday. It works great on my 30-inch Dell monitor. From my point of view, the reports on distortion are just hype. The adapter is still a pile of junk compared to having a true DVI port, but at least it works and we can get on with our 30-inch lives.

It had been since October 15th that I’d been trying to get my hands on one. It certainly hasn’t been worth the wait. The adapter is big, bulky, and feels light and frail. Pretty un-Applesque.

But it does what it’s supposed to. The display is clear and crisp. And it does something else. It has a pass-through USB port that isn’t in any of the marketing images (or maybe I couldn’t see the tiny USB port on the hideously big adapter?).

Instead of two cables dragged across the desk (1 DVI and 1 USB – you other MBPro users know what I mean), the Dell’s built-in card-reader-USB-hub and the DVI are plugged in to the adapter just under the monitor, and then the adapter’s long chord runs across the desk. It relieved a little bit of clutter and made for a cleaner, easier, experience when attaching and detaching.

For those of you having problems, check out displayblog’s post, which includes Apple’s recommendation on how to fix the distortion.

The first is Guy Kawasaki’s latest, Reality Check, 2008, published by Penguin Group. I follow @guykawasaki on Twitter and bounce over to his site from time to time. To be honest, I didn’t plan on buying the book but I was browsing in Barnes and Noble and two sentences on the back cover hooked me.

“An evangelist who cannot give a great demo is an oxymoron. A person simply cannot be an evangelist if she cannot demo the product.”

I’m not big on business books, especially books by marketers, and I may never finish it (Sorry Guy) but the above and some recommendations on business plans and pitching were enough to make it worth checking out. If it’s worth your time, I’ll post again.

The other is Jon Krakauer’s personal account of the 1996 Everest tragedy, Into Thin Air, 1997, published by The Anchor Books (division of Random House) by arrangement with Villard Books. I’m in to any climbing book, and this is one of the must-reads (if you’re in to Everest and alpine climbing). I’d read Ed Viestur’s No Shortcuts to the Top and had been looking forward to catching Krakauer’s take on the incident.

Krakauer includes some Everest history (2nd chapter, I just finished the 3rd). I think it’s pretty amazing when they discovered Everest and how they measured it. It was only about 150 years ago that they even discovered it, and the measurement method was all by hand calculations (yeah, I’m too young to remember slide rulers, so anything by hand calculation is impressive).

“To the surveyors who shot it, all but the summit numb of Peak XV was obscured by various high escarpments in the foreground, several of which gave the illusion of being much greater in stature. But according to Sikhdar’s meticulous trigonometric reckoning (which took into account such factors as curvature of the earth, atmospheric refraction, and plumb-line deflection) Peak XV stood 29,002 feet above sea level, the planet’s loftiest point.”

The lasers, satellites, and the technology of today determined that Everest was actually 29,028 feet. He was only 26 feet off.

I described in December that Market Share for Apple would hit 9.5% at the end of December and break 10% in January. So far Apple exceeded expectations and reached 9.63% in December. That’s a 0.76% gain of the operating system market in one month!

Look for January to carry another increase and for AAPL to break 10%, probably diminishing the effect of Steve’s health-related absense a little bit.

In related news the iPhone browser share also grew.  It now holds 0.44% of the market, a move from 0.37% last month and the largest single month gain for the device. Windows dropped almost a full point from 89.62% to 88.68%. Pocket IE is no longer tracked, probably now <0.01% market share. Playstation remained at 0.04%.

For more in-depth detail of market share, visit http://marketshare.hitslink.com.

This week, the week between Christmas and New Years, I’m back to driving. Traffic is nearly non-existant so one can blaze in to the city. It’s the only week in Philly where this is the case.

I rent out a few apartments in Philadelphia. Each year around the holidays I try and do something to show appreciation to the tenants. They could have selected other properties, but they chose mine. They have treated the apartments with respect and have made them good homes. I am grateful.

This year I went to the movie theater and picked up tickets. It’s a simple gesture. A way to say thanks. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

“… my MySpace friends and Twitter list…” (0:32) is a double-take moment for those of us who got in on Twitter when it was only used by the geek crowd. Twitter mentioned in a mainstream ad!? S’wut?

Figured it had to be expensive product placement, so asked Biz Stone:

@biz Did Twitter pay for placement in the new Coke pre-movie ad? 10:21 AM Nov 18th

And received:

@sol no, it just showed up which is totally cool 10:41 AM Nov 18th

Side note: Walmart has plenty of room for improvement in their online and social media presence. They could have auctioned that product placement off for some decent VC supplied money and should be getting their videos out to many many many more services more quickly…

If you’re a diehard fan of the Twitter service, rooting for their profitibility is counter-productive. You should realize a move towards real revenue is going to affect the Twitter experience, and almost certainly in a negative way.

Or at least in a way that will affect Twitter’s value to you.

Personally, as someone in technology and media, I want @biz to bring in the green and prove web companies can rake in cash. But I understand that when this happens, the value proposition of Twitter for my needs will negatively change.

Fixed the Nokia N82 after describing in my previous post how to effectively break it…

It’s a blast to ride a long board or motorboard to the office and around Philly. Sometimes you bail. If you’re always recording video, sometimes you bail while recording the whole thing… Stuff happens.

Nokia makes freakishly strong phones. Despite a slam and slide down a sidewalk with 160 pounds on it, the N82 still works.

Listen for the death scream at the end where my foot comes down hard on top of the phone and slides it down the sidewalk like a bar of Ivory.

Read on to see videos and pics of the aftermath…

The Senior Struggle
A little bit of you can pull them through the winter.
Pay a visit, run an errand, lend a hand. Your support means everything.

Call 215-765-9040 or visit pcaCARES.org for ideas and resources. You can do a lot of good.

Age Demographics from Quantcast – Twitter.com

On Wednesday my wife and I were out at Flavor by Thai Pepper, enjoying some insanely good food and drink. Two conversations took place in adjacent booths, too loud to ignore.

In the booth behind Galina a group of late-twenty-somethings laughed loudly about replacing the contents of a box of chocolates with rocks and giving it as a gift (WTF?!) Behind me, a senior couple dropped the “T” word.

You don’t usually hear random people, especially outside of the tech community, drop Twitter in conversation. However, that’s been changing…

“Twitter? What’s that?” she asked, laughing.

“It’s this web site where you answer a question, ‘What are you doing right NOW?’ – You send a message on your phone, ‘I’m standing in line for a latte’ to everyone.” he described, emphasizing NOW.

She said she was fearful of a greater and greater generational gap forming, to which he disagreed and assured her they could keep up.

Their convo reminded me of a post by Zena Weist, in which she unscientifically found the average age to be ~37. My own findings were similar but I didn’t keep track of demographics.

Most folks on Twitter are not in the high-school contingent, and judging by more scientific methods the average age is indeed in the mid-thirties. 48% fall in to the 18-34 range, but 21% are over 50. That’s a huge difference compared to Facebook and MySpace having only 8% being over 50.

Don’t let age come between you and your tweets…

Follow @sol on Twitter

From Quantcast (Twitter):

Facebook:

MySpace

Found a funny little bug with Apple’s dashboard weather widget this week. It comes installed and running by default when you set up a new OS X installation or buy a new Mac. I just got a new MacBook Pro a month ago and have been using the weather widget religiously. As John Gruber of Daring Fireball described, it’s one of the favorite widgets (and he has a good old how-to on how to make it better).

But rather than validating by zip code, the weather widget validates by city name only. It grabs the first city name, alphabetically, and plugs that in as your local weather default.

There are five cities in the USA with the name Philadelphia. In alphabetical order, they are Philadelphia MO (Missouri), Philadelphia MS (Mississippi), Philadelphia NY (New York), Philadelphia PA (Pennsylvania), and Philadelphia TN (Tennessee).

Apple’s widget grabs Philadelphia, MO for Philadelphia, PA (and MS, NY, TN). Until this week the weather patterns for MO vs. PA were the same for precipitation and within a few degrees on temperature. It took a month before the cities were different enough to notice the discrepancy.

For all you’z Philadelphians buying Macs, remember to plug in your 191xx zip codes :) To see this in action if you’re in another city, add a weather widget to the dashboard and search for “Philadelphia”. The same occurs This does not occur on an iPhone’s weather app.

Population data on the Philadelphias:

• Philadelphia, MO: 643
• Philadelphia, MS: 22,606
• Philadelphia, NY: 2,349
• Philadelphia, PA: 1,517,550
• Philadelphia, TN: 4,407

Twitter Tools, a WordPress plugin by Alex King, blew up my blog last night. For those of you following my RSS or Twitter updates, this meant you got 45 copies of a weekly Twitter update (and you would have gotten 8 more that were in the queue to be published if I hadn’t caught it and shut it off – thanks @evantravers for the RSS heads up).

I like Twitter Tools very much. It’s the first WordPress Twitter integration I used, and it’s still my preferred way to go. It automatically sends a tweet when I write a new blog entry. A good, clean, way to let people know you wrote something you’d like them to check out. I used to use it for a list of my more recent tweets, but I’ve replaced that with a FriendFeed plugin.

In one of Twitter Tools more recent versions the feature of weekly digest posts of one’s tweets was added. I wasn’t hot on the idea of a daily digest since it would be too often and would ultimately just be a daily barf of one’s tweets and wouldn’t involve actual thought. The weekly was worth checking out so I played around with the settings (above pic).

If the setting for “Create a weekly digest…” is Yes, you are given a choice of day and time for your post. During my trial of the settings, I chose 11:59pm on Sunday night.

This was last week. I’d forgotten about it. This morning however, it blew up with the 45 posts. Pretty ugly bug!

UPDATE: I saved the above post for posterity… Something blew up in my blog settings and tons of weekly Twitter blog posts were submitted.

EMS, you’ve got great deals so stop worrying about my frequenting REI (I only hooked up with REI once, remember?) Stop with the piles of email and crazy fire sales. You know you’re the only Eastern outdoor store for me.

PS: Everything is 25% off at EMS until 12/9 (when they will surely have another promo and email).

PSS: This post is a mercy post.

Attending an Apple Tech Talk at the Millennium Hotel New York was a good use of time today. The evangelism team, despite evangelizing, is highly competent and I came away satisfied with decent knowledge consumption.

The event had a massively different feel than John Resig described last year.

There was a lot of JavaScript hate by attendees (“blah blah… GWT is the only thing we trust… blah blah JavaScript is a stupid language…”).

This year it was all about at least 50% about the web. Apple has exposed touch events, multi-touch events, gestures, location based services, and rotation to javascript both for polling and callbacks. Some of the credit for the newfound excitement around Safari and iPhone web apps should probably be shared with WebKit’s HTML5 (file caching and SQLite)… All of which are supported in the iPhone 2.2 OS release.

Over the next few days I’ll have more details on specific highlights. For now, here are my condensed raw notes.

iPhone Safari browser, starting with the basic stuff:

• If not specified, assumes a web page width of 980 pixels and scales to 360
• To override, add <meta name=”viewport” content=”width=720″ /> (where you would replace 720 with your pages width)
• Or, if you’ve optimized for the full screen of the iPhone, add <meta name=”viewport” content=”device-width” />
• Additionally, you can specify a width, height, initial-scale, minimum-scale, maximum-scale, and user-scalable. If width, height, or initial scale are set, Safari will auto-calculate the others (i.e. if width is set, height and initial-scale will be handled for you). user-scalable means the user can not scale via zoom-in or zoom-out.
• Optimize for cellular networks (duh!). Latency is often a bigger factor than bandwidth on Edge and 3G (duh!). Beat this by using fewer, slightly larger resources in a page load (i.e. use a single image and use CSS to display portions of it instead of loading multiple separate images for buttons, etc).
• A nice tool for simulating throttled bandwidth is ipfw (duh, but I’ll this to my blog for others)… Do the following to enable throttling (from terminal.app): 1) sudo su 2) ipfw add pipe 1 src-port http 3) ipfw pipe 1 config delay 200 bw 700kbit/s. Do the following to kill the throttling afterwards: 1) ipfw flush.
• Give the latest rev of Dashcode a try to get a feel for how various transforms, etc, work. See the source in the supplied samples.

Home screen icons, total beginner stuff, but necessary (mostly so I remember the filenames):

• For a custom, iPhone specific, icon from your site (a la favicon), place apple-touch-icon.png at the docroot (http://www.apple.com/apple-touch-icon.png).
• For a custom icon, without the shiny polish (not recommended unless you’ve made it shiny already), use apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png.

How to make a web app feel like a real app (no nav bar, custom status bar, control of rotation, rotation notification, etc).

• To hide the Safari UI: <meta name=”apple-mobile-web-app-capable” content=”yes” />
• To change the status bar (the top space with signal and battery indicators): <meta name=”apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style” content=”grey” /> (replace “grey” with “black” or “black translucent”)
• When the Safari UI is hidden you are locked to Portrait mode (maybe a good thing!)
• You can get notifications for rotation and can rotate your elements via callbacks with the following:

<body onorientationchange=”updateOrientation();”> …

function updateOrientation(degrees) {

case 0:

case -90:

case 90:

}

Touch and gestures via JavaScript:

• Use <div ontouchstart=”trackTouches(event)”… and you’ll need three arrays for your touch points: var allTouches = event.touches; var targetTouches = event.targetTouches; var changedTouches = event.changedTouches;
• When a touch occurs, you’ll receive a touchstart notification.
• When a touch moves, you receive a touchchange notification.
• When a finger is lifted, you’ll receive a touchend or touchcancel (if the finger was moved off the screen).
• For gestures (pinching and rotating), the same notifications will be sent, but as gesturestart, gesturechange, and gestureend (or gesturecancel).
• For pinch gestures, you have scale information. A scale less than 1.0 means zooming out (fingers moving closer together). A scale greater than 1.0 means zooming in (fingers spreading apart).
• For rotation gestures, notifications are sent in degrees. Negative numbers indicate counterclockwise and positive numbers are clockwise.
• Transforms specific to the iPhone are provided, such as calling “-wekit-transform: rotate(-20deg);” for an object you wish to rotate. Make this type of call from a touch or gesture callback and you have dragability from within a web app. Additional parameters can be used during rotation, such as “-webkit-transform: rotate(-20deg); -webkit-transform-origin: top left;” to make the rotation of the object hinge on the top left (default is the center).
• An example of rotating, scaling, and moving an object: “document.getElementById(‘myFlower’).style.webkitTransform = ‘rotate(360deg) scale(0.5) translate(600px, 50px)’;
• Transforms are usually given a period of time to perform the transform (i.e. -webkit-transition-duration: 2s;). During that time the transform can be modified so as to transform in a linear, ease, ease-in, ease-out, ease-in-out, or a cubic-bezier form.

Database support for SQLite and file caching (client side, duh):

• HTML5’s SQLite spec is supported by iPhone’s Safari
• The sample code in the presentation creates a 2.5 megabyte database. Not worth mentioning otherwise, but I was stoked with the thought of creating reasonably large DBs locally… Maybe we’ll see some radically enhanced Gmail and Google Reader web apps. Airplane mode will be a little nicer.
• filecache ability is in iPhone 2.2. This was too new and no slides were available… Still, another airplane friendly feature and would be great for flickr or other media intensive sites.

And that’s just on web apps. My notes on native apps are more sparse, partly because it was the end of the day and partly because it’s old news.

A nice finish for the day was a presentation on submitting one’s application to Apple. I’ll save those notes for later this week – too much commentary I want to include to just put it up raw ;)

Food and refreshments during the Tech Talk were top notch. They know how to take care of the folks that build their platform.

It’s Christmas shopping season and I hope you’re not planning on giving a digital picture frame. Besides being the scorn of Adam Frucci (of Gizmodo) by buying a tasteless, tacky, gadget, these things really suck.

And while I’d never thumb my nose at an LCD panel, these suck a trickle of juice equal to a 40W light bulb, twenty-four hours per day. Depending on the cost of your electricity, that’s close to 1/3 of a cent per hour. How much does this cost your friends or family? About $28.03 per year.

$0.0032 x 24 hours = $0.0768 per day

$0.0768 x 365 days = $28.03 per year

If there really were 20,000,000 sold in 2008, that’s $560,640,000 dollars in electricity per year added to the American budget.

Think of these numbers the next time you see one of these suckers…

Michael Lewis’s article The End is covering Portfolio’s December issue. It’s a fantastic read on his forecasting the death of Wall Street back in the eighties in his book Liar’s Poker.

It highlights many of the insanities and irrational modes of operation amongst the firms of Wall Street and is an entertaining and solid I-told-you-so. I disagree that Wall Street is dead… But his insight shows us how things have to change.

The outrageous bonuses, the slender returns to shareholders, the never-ending scandals, the bursting of the internet bubble, the crisis following the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management: Over and over again, the big Wall Street investment banks would be, in some narrow way, discredited. Yet they just kept on growing, along with the sums of money that they doled out to 26-year-olds to perform tasks of no obvious social utility.

It’s a must-read, here are links worth following along the way:

• Must End (the article, Portfolio)
  
• Liar’s Poker (Google)
• Liar’s Poker (Wikipedia)
• Google Blogsearch (“Liar’s Poker”)
• Twitter (“Liar’s Poker”)
• Ji Lee’s site (artist of the photoillustration on the cover of Portfolio)

It’s Thanksgiving, 2008. Happy Turkey Day! I am thankful for many things. Today I am thankful for sqeezing the bejeezuz out of a Fit’s average miles per gallon. Check the above vid… Seriously… From Philadelphia, PA to Gaithersburg, MD, a 136.9 mile drive with minimal total change in elevation, I averaged 42.1 miles per gallon at 67mph. No tricks, the video is legit.

How’d I do it? Careful use of the accelerator and an ample amount of cruise control. On the flats and downhill I used the cruise. On uphills I killed the cruise and pressed the gas just the minimum to maintain speed (the cruise over-accelerated on uphills to regain 1-2 mph). It wasn’t anything extreme or special, just paying attention and making a game out of it.

Link: real-world mileage of the Fit (fueleconomy.gov)

She’s proud of not being late on the rent for sixteen years and is one of those ideal persons you would want to have as a neighbor. She’s become a wonderful character in my wife’s and my lives.

We lived downstairs from her while we renovated an apartment there, and out of the blue she left a can of salmon treats for our cat. The next month we reciprocated by giving her a large gift basket close to Christmas. I give all my tenants gifts of some sort around Christmas – usually movie tickets – but she doesn’t get out much and something for home was better.

When we came home the next day there were bottles of sake and raspberry brandy at the door. She wasn’t sure what kind of alcohol we’d like, so she hedged and covered as much culture as she could with two bottles.

She called a couple weeks ago about a leaky faucet in the bathroom. She’s consistently worried about bothering us when she calls and often apologizes for doing so at the end of the call.

I’ve been working some intense projects at Ingram Digital, so my first opportunity to visit was today to see what I could do about the sink. She explained that professionals who tried to fix it over the years had described the faucet as not fixable.

The plumbers and contractors were right. The faucet can not be repaired, and replacement of only the faucet requires replacement of the sink, too. To correct the problem requires disconnecting the faucet fittings and the drain, removing the sink from the wall, installation of a new pedestal sink, installation of a new faucet, and then reconnection of the fittings and drain. Bummer!

Tomorrow I’m installing a new sink and faucet. I hope she likes it.

UPDATE: paragraphs of sugarcoated fluff snipped/removed from this post

My dev team uses JIRA for bug tracking. It’s a flexible project management and defect tracking system. As with almost any bug tracking system out there (Bugzilla, Trac, etc), web based defect tracking from a mobile handset is not very user-friendly.

Enter JIRA Mate (formerly JIRA Buddy), written by Shaun Ervine, an application for iPhone and iPod Touch specifically for interfacing with your JIRA database. I was surprised by this application being available before a Bugzilla rev, let alone even being available at all. I’m not complaining. Bugzilla fans should get a move on for their own app.

JIRA Mate simply uses your saved filters allowing you to access your JIRA issues straight from your iPhone.

Since JIRA Mate is helping out your business I guess you could write it off as a tax deduction :)

The app is $8.99 and allows you to pull down issues organized in filters you’ve created in the standard web app, sorted by date (your filter sort setting is not utilized). It does not have issue creation or editing capabilities, but does pull comments and allow you to comment in kind. It’s perfect for keeping your finger on the pulse of your bug database and staying in communication via comments.

On September 23rd, 2003 I rented a plane with friends in Colorado Springs (COS) to fly to Denver (DEN). It was a calm, warm, clear, evening and made for a great night to fly. It was the typical $100 hamburger flight (in to a major International).

The pre-flight was fast and we fired up the engine, but moments later the taxi/landing light blew. Getting a new bulb was out of the question, so we called up AOPA’s member services – closed for the night – and proceeded to whip out the laptop and look up FARs. A landing light was required for commercial flight, but not private VFR-night flight (pilots, remember your TOMATO FLAMES+FLAPS).

Why am I re-telling this story more than five years later? The Beast, of course! A $4,160 flashlight. Yes, four thousand one hundred and sixty dollars (thanks @AgentM for the link).

At only a foot and a half long, no lamp filaments to break, and a weatherproof body made of rugged anodized aerospace-grade aluminum, the Beast Rechargeable makes a perfect backup landing light.

During taxi and landing we used a Lightwave mounted firmly in the co-pilot’s hand, arm extended out the passenger window. This wasn’t necessary since we had ample runway lights, but it made us feel safer prior to the runway and was bright enough to illuminate the threshold before the numbers.

At first thought, there will be lots more app ratings and this will help Apple kull (my favorite word this week) poor applications. On second thought, why would you give a good rating to an app you wish to remove? And how about an app you never remove? There will be many bad ratings applied to apps, without getting an equal response from those who like the app and keep it… The users who love the app will never be prompted for their rating.

Traffic is always there. You can hop lanes and try to beat the overall flow, but the speed of others affects your progress.

Accidents happen. A lane or two gets blocked as a result. Cars following in the same lane as the crash are stopped and require a merge. Cars in the other lanes are still moving, but their flow is impacted as the blocked lanes attempt to merge (and rubbernecking at the carnage).

If you’re a driver in the lane of the accident, you’re stuck until you can merge to a lane of moving traffic. Your forward progress requires a merge to an adjacent lane.

The drivers in other lanes are performing microbailouts. They’re letting you in so a portion of the freeway doesn’t stagnate.

Mike, our IT coordinator dropped this on my desk this morning. It’s still shrinkwrapped. 1991. We have a USB 3.5″ drive, but unfortunately we don’t have an earlier version to get this installed. Would Boot Camp support it?

Amongst the highlights:

• “Online Help from the shell or command-line interface…” – Online help has come a long way.
• “Undelete utility helps you recover critical files…” – Control+Z and “Undo” were born.
• “Unformat utility…” – What?
• “MS-DOS QBasic replaces GW-BASIC…” – Many a coder’s first language.
• “… freeing up at least 45K more conventional memory…”
• “Is network ready” – Remember “net use“?
• “Although we test with a wide variety of system manufacturers, it is your responsibility to confirm with your personal computer manufacturer that this product correctly supports your computer and peripheral devices.” – So, ummm, is it REST or SOAP?

Click through on the images to Flickr – the pics are high enough resolution to read the full the text.

Amazon released CloudFront to public beta today. It’s a simple way to get free content publicly available to the edge of the network (closest to the recipient downloader).

From the AWS announcement:

Amazon CloudFront is a web service for content delivery. It integrates with other Amazon Web Services to give developers and businesses an easy way to distribute content to end users with low latency, high data transfer speeds, and no commitments.

Here’s how it works:

1. Upload your content files to S3.
2. Call the CloudFront API, specifying the S3 bucket.
3. Use your S3 bucket’s already created domain and filename in your website (no change here).
4. When a customer clicks a link the closest file is automatically routed.

UPDATE:
So, uhhh, what’s special here? From AWS’s description, CloudFront is simply setting a flag for your S3 bucket that means it’s to be distributed around the cloud or remain in a single location.

This should be an addition to the S3 service, not a separate service. The added step of having to let CloudFront know you want the edge network coverage is an unnecessary chore. It would be better as an attribute for the S3 bucket. This would make S3 a stronger brand, keep it clearer for those navigating AWS, and simplify the process of pushing content (1 less step).

Here’s how much it costs:

United States Edge Locations

$0.170 per GB – first 10 TB / month data transfer out
$0.120 per GB – next 40 TB / month data transfer out
$0.100 per GB – next 100 TB / month data transfer out
$0.090 per GB – data transfer out / month over 150 TB

Requests

$0.010 per 10,000 GET requests

European Edge Locations

$0.170 per GB – first 10 TB / month data transfer out
$0.120 per GB – next 40 TB / month data transfer out
$0.100 per GB – next 100 TB / month data transfer out
$0.090 per GB – data transfer out / month over 150 TB

Requests

$0.012 per 10,000 GET requests

Hong Kong Edge Locations

$0.210 per GB – first 10 TB / month data transfer out
$0.160 per GB – next 40 TB / month data transfer out
$0.140 per GB – next 100 TB / month data transfer out
$0.130 per GB – data transfer out / month over 150 TB

Requests

$0.012 per 10,000 GET requests

Japan Edge Locations

$0.220 per GB – first 10 TB / month data transfer out
$0.168 per GB – next 40 TB / month data transfer out
$0.147 per GB – next 100 TB / month data transfer out
$0.137 per GB – data transfer out / month over 150 TB

Requests

$0.013 per 10,000 GET requests

Maybe it’s Winter preparedness, or maybe it’s a slow news day… But I’m reviewing the blogs I follow, deleting the old, and subscribing to new. I was breaking well over 300 and realized many were dead (in my opinion, a blog that isn’t updated for 6 months is dead).

It’s cleaning time. I’m under 200. Bring on the cold.

Philip Greenspun is giving away his tank to charity – pretty nice, and he’s paying for the moving expenses…

The tank is complete with filters, lights, cover, etc.  I will pay for delivery, including a crane if necessary, to the school.  The tank is about 8? long by 2?x2?.

Twitter is currently down for database maintenance.

We expect to be back in about an hour. Thanks for your patience.

I wonder what kind of hell will break loose when it comes back up and sucks in the queued SMS updates… My phone is gonna go nuts.

One of the few competitors to Twitter that had some traction, utterli (originally named Utterz), has a nasty weak point. You can’t easily stop following another user.

Typically one can Unfollow, a lá Twitter, directly from the user’s page as well as one’s list. On utterli, not so much.

Utterli make it very easy to follow others, as well as easy to follow anyone following you via a single ‘follow all’ action. This is a great feature.

It becomes a problem as spammers join in. This AM I needed to remove an MLM huckster. It wasn’t possible from the user’s profile page, from his update page, etc. Only from my following page, and I’m following a few hundred people.

It’s a note of success that they’d need this blocking.

A new trackpad firmware update, version 1.0, is available for the new MacBook and MacBook Pro models (listed as late-2008 models).

This firmware update addresses an issue where trackpad clicks may not be recognized on MacBook (Late 2008) and MacBook Pro (Late 2008) systems.

Christopher Clark, a lawyer for Mr. Cuban:

“We’re shocked. We find it incredible that given all the important issues that the SEC has to address with regard to today’s economy they’ve sought to bring a $750,000 case relating to a he-said she-said about one trade against a person whose integrity has never been questioned before with regard to the securities markets.”

Sounds like an excuse someone would use if arrested for looting… “The city is burning down and you’re arresting me for taking this television!?”

A Google search for Apple Dual-Link DVI yields a ton of product pages and blog posts about the greatness of Apple’s use of DVI. You’ll get quite a few of Apple’s own product pages, as would be expected. But only a few blogs are calling Apple out.

Apple recently released a new MacBook Pro. It has the most advanced laptop graphics equipment on the market, with dual NVIDIA 9400M and 9600GT chipsets. Apple has also employed a new port type, DisplayPort, that is not the same as Mini-DVI or Micro-DVI. This is a port that is easier to plug in than DVI and supports HDCP (high-bandwidth digital content protection).

People with needs for the best processing horsepower on the go are going to pick up this laptop. These professionals, myself included, are going to be disappointed. If you’re in to a high-end laptop like this you’re probably also pushing 30″ monitors. If not, you should be. But you can’t. The DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter doesn’t ship for 4-5 weeks (and that’s what they said on October 15th).

The image above is the dual-link DVI adapter from Apple. It’s a DisplayPort plus USB plug to a DVI female. Why does a dual-link DVI adapter require the addition of a USB plug? Giving up that extra USB port hurts. Paying Apple $99 to move us to a new port type is insulting.

So what’s with the delay? It doesn’t take 4-6 weeks to manufacture cables with DisplayPort, USB, and DVI plugs attached (the site has displayed 4-5 weeks for 4 weeks already). Either development of, or problems in, the circuitry is derailing Apple’s rollout. Or perhaps software driver updates will be required before the DisplayPort + USB adapters can be driven. If the latter, we would expect the adapters to ship at the same time as an OS update drops.

Apple, make this easy. Make it just work…

For more on DisplayPort see DisplayPort: what you need to know (Peter Cohen)

And for a little ridiculousness:

• Standard DisplayPort to DVI adapter ($29)
• DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter ($99)
• DisplayPort to VGA adapter ($29)
• Mini-DVI to DVI adapter ($19)
• Mini-DVI to VGA adapter ($19)
• Micro-DVI to DVI adapter ($19)
• Micro-DVI to VGA adapter ($19)

UPDATE: Another theory is that the chip for the adapter requires additional juice. The USB connector would simply be a power chord.

Before Quantum of Solace, last night, a Coke commercial ran in which the lead actor-singer walks around his Christmas party describing everyone he’s invited. Amongst those attending were his “Twitter list.”

Wondering if this is the Twitter PR team buying product placement within an ad or if Coke knows Twitter has enough traction to elicit nods from theater attendees.

I haven’t found a streamed rev of the ad yet… I’ll embed it on this page when I get it.

Besides an absolutely killer Aston Martin opening chase and an even better dog-fight and parachute scene later, two things stuck in my mind from the latest Bond movie, Quantum of Solace.

First, James Bond driving hybrids. Ford got lots of hybrid vehicle product placement (listen for the electric motor during takeoff and stopping).

Second, the Bolivian desert. I didn’t know there was a desert in Bolivia. That ignorance induced the whip-phone-from-pocket reflex to load up some Bolivian geography (sociological pressure kept me from lighting a bright screen in a theater). It wasn’t the movie’s doing, but the ability to supplement one’s experience with personalized metadata is finally here. I’ll remember this when future grandkids ask when we finally started wearing computers.

The movie was good. Not as good as Casino Royale, but I’m liking this style of Bond more than any of the others.

For those stumbling upon this post looking for more on the Bolivian desert try these blogs, photos, and maps:

• El Gringo y El Galio – Desert by 4×4
• The salt plains of Uyuni, Bolivia
• Claire Fenton’s fun in the Bolivian desert
• craigiest’s Flickr set of the High Bolivian Desert

View Larger Map

So I shut down for last weekend. Took no calls, just Twittered a bit and stayed in tune with email web browsing. And finally checked personal voicemail on Monday. Holy hell! 14 voicemails… Seriously?

Well – after not taking calls for the first time in months, I wished I had. In those voicemails were messages from family letting me know of my aunt’s passing. Anna, who was my mom’s midwife. An amazing person.

Voicemail is not the way to hear this. That sucks. There’s something to be said about staying connected.

Written on an iPhone on a slow-moving train.

During the week I used the phone as my primary personal cell phone. Usually I carry an iPhone for work and a Nokia N82 for photography and personal calls. Having the iPhone and G1 on me for a week made for some great comparisons and a little benchmarking.

I do not recommend this phone. You should probably not buy this phone. BlackBerry and the iPhone are both superior in almost every aspect.

The Good

1. Great (for plastic) screen. Bright, smooth movement, and fairly durable. The Flashlight application is bright.
2. Terrific email client (see remarks about keypad below)
3. Market (aka Android App Store) describes exactly what systems (GPS, PIM, 3G, etc) an application requires before one installs it
4. Excellent USB implementation – The G1 reports as a removable drive when plugged in to a computer, and charges from the USB
5. 3G beats the heck out of EDGE – It’s about 75% of the speed of AT&T’s 3G here in Philadelphia, but it’s 4x faster than EDGE
6. Amazon MP3 store integration
7. 3 megapixel camera has better resolution than the iPhone or current BlackBerry units, but is still antiquated enough to generate smile fatigue
8. Hardware keypad is useful for customers who aren’t willing to type more quickly on a virtual keypad
9. “Chin” section reminds us of the 1995 Motorola phones – Great way to reminisce
10. Google logo on the back

This was a first. I’ve been using a G1 for a week, and other than the phone in my hands I have not seen another in use. This was exciting… I could actually interrupt someone’s meal to learn his thoughts on the device!

And I did. And the response was what I expected.

Me: “I see you’ve got a G1… I’m reviewing one. What do you think.”

Alex: “I’m returning it. Aweful. Getting a BlackBerry.”

Alex elaborated on what he didn’t like. He’s used an iPhone, but likes BlackBerry’s more. Mostly his beefs are with hardware:
- big nob on right side when screen is extended (hardware)
- feels cheap (hardware)
- lack of proximity detection so screen items are pressed during calls (arguably, this could be fixed with a software update)
- the messaging and email are weak compared to BlackBerry. Unreliable. (software and network)
- keypad isn’t friendly – not a fast pad to type on. (hardware)

I had hoped he would have some praise for it. Perhaps something I’ve missed or overlooked. But other than believing a future generation will be competitive, he had none. The apps and browsing didn’t matter.

I’ve come to appreciate the browser for stability and support of ajax (its use is still a disaster). I’ve also liked the implementation of the Market (the Android App Store). But if Alex is a read on consumers, these features don’t really matter.

Your current plan is not compatible with the T-Mobile G1. Please visit T-Mobile.com on your computer, dial 611 from your phone, or visit a retail location.

Today I had my most dissapointing experience with T-Mobile. I’ve been a customer and serious fan of their service since it was still Voicestream. Today they shut off my mobile Internet access without warning. Not cool.

This week I’ve been reviewing and testing the G1. I started without a SIM or plan, slipped my own Total Internet enabled SIM in, and was off and running. The first two days were good. 3G was snappy and no interuptions in net access took place. Overall, the T-Mo side of a transition to the G1 seemed solid. No notifications. Life was good.

Then yesterday morning, at the completion of writing a blog post for 40 minutes, net access was shut off. Coincedentally I was writing a post exactly at that time and I found out when I clicked “Publish” (the point where you submit the post). The message that came up is shown above, in an image taken with my iPhone 3G.

It was exactly 48 hours after I began using the device. Pretty much to the minute. No SMSs were sent about needing an upgraded data plan. No restrictions were placed on 3G vs EDGE. No warning, just an abrupt shut-off at a really inopportune moment. Note: Dave Winer knows a thing or two about this with his Comcast shut-offs.

If you’ve got Total Internet for $19.99, it’s not enough. There isn’t any grandfathering. Make sure you’re signed up for the G1 plan. You’ve been warned.

Post written entirely on a G1 in web based WordPress.

An impressive bit about this post is that I’m using the web version of WordPress. There are no apps as of yet for blogging on a G1. This is the first time I’ve been able to use the web based rev of WordPress on a mobile device, so this has been farely impressive. The image inserted above is via a Flickr feed plugin. It worked, but not seamlessly.

Today’s impression of the G1, soley from the power of its web browser, is less negative. I will say however that I plugged the G1 in to the official Device Success Wife-o-Meter and the needle barely lifted. I didn’t tell her it was the Google Phone before asking her to check it out. Here’s how that went (continued after the updates…):

UPDATE: T-Mobile botched up my Internet plan somewhere between the time of getting 1/2 way done with this post and the time of clicking the “Publish” button. When I finally published I received a message about not having the appropriate data plan for the G1. You can probably imagine the color tones of my face turning bright reddish-purple with rage.

UPDATE 2: Wasn’t able to recover the text from the post, but the following is close, re-written…

Seems a little fragile. Kind of blocky and big.

She played with it for a little while, trying the flip screen and browsing to different sites. YouTube popped up automatically for her. Still, the result was a definite ho-hum run.

Ok, so what about the Google Phone? I thought you were going to be reviewing it.

“That is the Google Phone…”

I thought the Google Phone would have more colors.

UPDATE 3: I’ve cancelled my second line on T-Mobile and upgraded to the G1’s official data plan on my primary line. The failure with the post was a case of terrible timing, where T-Mobile took 2 days to determine I was on the wrong data plan (I had no idea I needed to be on a special G1 plan). The T-Mobile network shut my line off at the worst possible time for a blogger – moments before publishing.

Don’t mistake my statements as a knock on Android. Android is great. I love it. My statements in this post are not directed at Android. The G1 is an unfortunate first hardware release of that OS.

There are certain laws mobile manufacturers must follow: You may not offer a media device without a standard headset jack. You may not offer navigation with a week GPS. You may not double the actual required width soley to add a physical qwerty foldout keypad. Above all else, you may not offer a lifestyle device without style.

Now, I’ve said all this based on reading the spec, viewing the pictures, and palming it for 10 minutes. I’ve owned and reviewed many HTC made devices and this a completely obvious failure to me. Perhaps that’s not fair without real-world use though?

So I’m going to endure some pain and suffering so you don’t have to (not that you would buy a G1 – you wouldn’t). I’m going to replace my N82 for the rest of this week with a device I know has no hope. I’m going to use it side-by-side with my iPhone 3G. Wish me luck.

This wasn’t the case before the airlines began charging extra for checked bags. Many people are carrying 2 of more bags as carry-on. The effect of the minor charge addition is obvious.

After looking around on Craigslist for some type of faster transportation I came upon an ad for the Subzero skate shop – liquidating their inventory. So I dropped by and met the owner, a dude about my age (low 30s) clearing out his stuff before remodeling.

Now, I’m not a skater. I did 1/2 pipes and crazy stair jumps on rollerblades as a teen, but I haven’t touched a skateboard since I was seven and did a faceplant on a 1980s’ish Santa Cruz shorty. I’m a two-planker on snow and snowboarded a handful of times.

But with such a good sale, I grabbed a longboard for a song and walked it back to the train (I was too embarrassed to give it a kick in public).

The previously 15 minute walk home from the station (downhill) was turned in to a carving session… Making turns on this thing was like snowboarding and a downright blast. And it was only 5 minutes.

We’ll see where this leads. So far it’s fun and shaves at least 15 minutes each way.

It really feels like a waste of time, this “walking” thing. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not lazy, out of shape, or otherwise averse to exercise. I run a 6:30 mile, rock climb a couple times a week, and love the outdoors.

But right now I’m bored. I’m not able to efficiently respond to email, trees continue to jump in front of me, and my mind is racing about while thinking of the code I want to write. I’m an inefficient human right now.

The commute for me starts in Malvern. Most days I get a lift to the train station. A walk from the train to the subway at City Hall takes 5-10 minutes (walking). Then the walk from the subway to office is 12-15. Back from the office to the subway, 12-15 again. A walk through city hall, 5-10. And finally a walk home from Malvern station, 15 minutes.

My walking math is shaky, but I think that’s 49-120 minutes of walk time. I do very little for myself or others during that time.

I mentioned yesterday on Twitter that I need some rocket shoes or a long board. I’ve seen the Roth Motors scooter and Go Motorboards. Might be a good option. I haven’t seen these around Philly though.

There’s my 15 minute rant. I’m at the office and whipping out the laptop.

–written with the iPhone WordPress app.

I’ve been glued to the news this week and filled up on too much doom and gloom. There are plenty of positive things to focus on. Even if this is the start of a recession, focusing on a tanking stock market doesn’t do any good as a developer. For you stock traders, yeah, you’re boned. But for software developers, there’s much to build.

Focus on what you’re good at. Make yourself better. Enjoy life.

It’s time to switch back to loving this perfect fall weather and looking forward to a killer ski season.

• Great Depression
• Black Tuesday

I’m glad people are educating themselves by trying to better understand similar situations in our past.

The September 3rd, 2008, Geek Dinner at Privé was an interesting and good time. We had a smaller crowd but were treated like kings (I botched the geek dinner invite by sending the venue announcement only a few days in advance, so it was low turnout – that’s what going on vacation and unplugging from geekdom gets me!)

The folks at Privé set us up in our own room. It was unintentional, but to me it was amusingly appropriate - privé translates to private.

The chefs are budding, potential future superstars. Table Talk describes prior Buddakan and Brasserie Perrier experience. While dining we learned of Le Bec-Fin experience as well. The foods here are exotic and fun just to hear described – influenced by countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, with inspiration from chef Peter Karapanagiotis.

Steven Wells of Philadelphia Weekly accompanied us, camera in tow, and geeked right in. While we typically geek out on the latest technology and Internet trends, Steven added new topics everyone ate up. Some of the things I remember Steven bringing up: geneology, HD video, security and anonymity (on the Internet), the value of Twitter, and implants (not those kind) for human enhancement (not that kind)… Honestly, it was us who brought up Twitter – Steven raised the question of it having any value. Good challenge!

Breakdown of what we consumed, mostly on recommendation from Mr. Edwards, our water – everything was fantastic…

• Karpouzi
• Shrimp Orzo
• Lollipop Lamb Chop
• Rabbit Risotto
• Exotic Mushrooms
• Cheese Boureki
• Lobster Makaronia (pictured)
• Beet Salata
• Walnut Puff (pictured)
• Octopus Duet
• Potelle (wine) – Kevin selected a couple wines that went along nicely with the menu.
• Fiano (wine) – same as above.