iPhone 3g S, where the S stands for 'screw'

I just pre-purchased my new iPhone 3G S, the third generation version that drops this Friday. It's clear to me that the S stands for 'screw,' which is what they do to customers who aren't yet eligible for a discount upgrade.

But did that stop this "must-have-the-latest-gadget" geek? Uh, no. I ordered the black 32-gig version.

It has video shooting and on-board editing, a 2x faster processor, on-board compass, 4g capability, (when AT&T gets around to upgrading their system, slated for late summer in some markets) voice control, and a slew of other features which make it pretty nifty.

Worth the upgrade? Depends on your taste and needs. For me, it's an easy decision, but I'd say sales will be less-than brisk unless AT&T decides to change policies post haste.

Signing off...

Today is the day that television technology we've known since the 1939 RCA broadcast from the New York World's Fair becomes obsolete, and is completely replaced by digital television.

The huge bandwidth-hogging, fire-breathing analog transmitters will be turned off for the last time, replaced by lower-powered, more precisely and narrowly tuned ones utilizing a completely different technology and broadcast band. The old band will now be taken over by wireless mobile telephones, etc.

My first memories of television were the commercials. As a toddler, I would mentally drift through the actual shows, but when the commercials came on, I'd sit down and attentively watch. Grayson does the same thing today.

The first big television event I remember watching was the moon landing in July 1969. My grandparents had the volume turned way up and we were all staring, mesmerized. I remember it as if it were yesterday.

I think we've heard so much about this day, we've become desensitized to it. But what if someday, all radios just went "dark"... and only HD and satellite radio remained? Or, if gasoline powered vehicles just disappeared and we had to replace them with electric ones.

Goodbye snowy picture, see you later interference lines. No more rabbit ears with aluminum foil. Even though I've been completely digital for probably 9 or 10 years, it's still a bittersweet day.

Pick up, it's for you

My son has a toy phone, and when you push the various buttons, different recorded messages or sound effects play.

You'll hear things like "let's call Daddy," or "let's call Grandma." But on most of them, you just get a sound effect.

Most of the sound effects are as heard through the earpiece of a phone, like the sound of a phone ringing on the other end of the line. But the sounds that make me smile are the ones I know Grayson will never hear during the practical use of a real telephone. Things like a dial tone, or a busy signal.

I wonder why they even put those effects ON a phone these days. When he pushes those buttons, I always wax a little nostalgic.

So what is a child to make of one of THESE?

When I was a child, we were on a party line. Ever experienced one of those? You literally share your line with neighbors, so when you pick up the phone to make a call, it's possible that, instead of a dial tone, you'll hear their conversation. So you have to hang up and wait.

And wait.

Yeah, that Lela Plumlee was a talker.

A real blogger's blogger

The guy who unwittingly swept me into blogging hysteria a few years ago* put a fine point on what it means to be a good blogger during his trip to Washington D.C. for the Obama inauguration.

He not only blogged, but Twittered as well. Check out Steve's work at Smays.com.

Today's 'everywhere' connectivity has inspired me to revise an age-old bathroom-stall limerick:

Here I sit upon the shitter,
Tried to blog but only Twittered.


*I have yet to do Steve proud. As the title says, he's a REAL blogger, I just flail my arms wildly hoping to hit something.

Bookface*

I've given in to an insatiable desire to spend even more time on the computer. I've joined Facebook.

Day one, I have 35-40 friends. I can't believe I know so many people who are also slowly wasting away to nothingness in front of their computer screens.

If you, too, wish to forget what your family looks like, go to Facebook and join. But be careful. If you get email on your mobile device and have a bandwidth limit, joining Facebook might put you over.

I have a slogan suggestion. Facebook... because I had forgotten all the reasons I stopped talking to these freakin' people in the first place.**


*Sounds like an insult that a librarian would use.
** I kid. I love my friends.

"Toby" and me

This is a test post from another iPhone blogging service called cellspin. This is a picture of a guy named John who, in person, looks JUST like Toby Keith.

UPDATE: it appears cellspin cuts off the picture instead of resizing it to fit, thus you see only half of me. (although it IS my best half) I'm not sure how to fix something like that, so I'm pretty sure the application is worth what I paid for it. (free)

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

Testing iBlogger

I've downloaded a program that supposedly allows me to blog from my iPhone. I'm not really proficient at it yet so bear with me as I experiment.

Mobile Blogging from here.

Only after I downloaded the program was I made aware you cannot upload photos to Blogspot blogs. I paid 10 bucks and I'm very disappointed.

UPDATE: After registering the product and posting this, the owner of the software company visited the blog to follow up. (click the comment link) I appreciate that kind of service, and it does lift my opinion of iBlogger. After working with it a little, the program is very functional and useful. Its only shortcoming is the inability to post photos.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

I'm a PC

Apple has been squelched in the UK for dishonest advertising. Apparently their characterization of iPhone's "full access" to the web has rubbed some Brits the wrong way, and they've taken their complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority.

I agree. As a business owner whose website is Flash-based, (therefore can't be viewed on the iPhone) I find it disingenuous. It's not cool to exclude plug-ins as important as Flash or Java and advertise your product as having full access.

My suggestion to Apple would be to bury the hatchet with Adobe and put the user first. If the iPhone is to be truly revolutionary, it needs to be able to do most of what a laptop can. Don't get me wrong, this phone is a real move in that direction, but there are other smartphones who do support Flash and CAN display my website.

I'm also disturbed by the vague manner in which Apple releases iPhone bug fixes. The description they provide for the software update is simply "bug fixes." At a time when your product fails to function as promised and is portrayed negatively in the headlines daily, it's time to be up-front about exactly which bugs are being fixed, and what kind of experience a user can expect with the new release.

The Mac vs. PC commercials are also a little puzzling to me. I've considered getting a Mac on several occasions and I'm closer now than ever to taking the plunge. But I don't understand the portrayal of Vista as being prone to crashing... I am pretty sure I have never experienced a Vista crash, and I'm a heavy user. It may be a resource hog, and like previous Windows releases, people may not have immediately adjusted to it, but it works fine for me.

It's incumbent upon a company to portray its product in as positive a light as possible and to demonstrate superiority over its competitors. It's also incumbent upon them to be honest and open. I think Apple is pushing it a little.

The iPhone has an opportunity to be the revolutionary tool it's being touted as, and I'm confident Apple will fix the issues and provide a very fulfilling experience for its customers.

By the way, I've had more than a few dropped calls on my new iPhone... and I'd really love to be able to open my company's website.

Charter: "We got innernet"

A search term that will help folks get to this article:

Can't send email through Outlook with Charter

Hopefully this will save you time. Charter practices port blocking. (see the bottom of this article for possible solutions that may work for you)

There are a lot of good reasons to practice port blocking - it cuts down on spammers, viruses and worms, adware/spyware, etc. The negative side effect is, sometimes it prevents certain services from working. For instance, email services and programs use a port (think of it as a tunnel through a wall) to send email. The normal port they use is 25, so Outlook defaults to that port anytime you set up an email address.

Charter blocks that port to prevent people from spamming through their system. (think of it as a guard at the tunnel) Fine, no problem. But they need to be open about that to their customers.

Three mornings ago I opened my laptop and discovered I couldn't send email. At that time I had no idea what port blocking was so I figured it was a temporary thing. When the problem persisted, I called Charter and over the course of two days, talked to three different "tech support" people. (in quotes to convey irony) They ran down their litany of canned solutions, probably straight from a cheat sheet list.

Even though I explained the problem in detail multiple times, they persisted in pointing their finger at Outlook, my computers and my router. (although ALL of them were afflicted with the same symptom at the same time)

Finally, it occurred to me that perhaps the port was the issue, and that Charter had made some sort of change. A quick internet search answered my question. The odd part, none of their tech support people, even their "supervisor of tech support," (even BIGGER quotes) had adequate knowledge to help me fix the problem. Google did.

This is rookie work from a company who provides a substantial percentage of Americans with internet service. They cost me at least a half-day of work.

Here's a solution that may work for you if you're having the same problem. Navigate accordingly:

Tools>Email Accounts...>View or change existing email accounts. Choose the account you'd like to edit and click "change." Click "more settings," then click the "Advanced" tab. The number next to "Outgoing server (SMTP)" is probably 25. Try changing it to either 587 or 2525. Port 587 worked for my Earthlink account, 2525 for my business accounts.

Good luck.

Batteries (included)

I bought a new laptop a couple of weeks ago. With a Vista 64-bit operating system and processor operating at a speed of almost 3 gigabytes, half a terabyte of storage and 4 gigs of ram, it runs cooler and much more efficiently than previous laptops, which allows me to run resource-hogging audio and video software.

Today I bought a 12-cell battery for it, which gives me a full six hours of use per charge. I've never gotten better than two to three before, so it's quite an improvement.

Eventually everything will run on batteries, including vehicles, and they will charge automatically just by setting the appliance near the charger base. (or parking the car in the garage)

It IS the size of the pipe

If you don't give a crap about high speed internet, what I'm about to say will bore you to tears.

High speed internet is of great importance to my business. When I lay down a voice over session in the recording studio, the audio gets delivered via the internet to a waiting client. Because I upload hundreds of megabytes of audio every day, connection speed is big.

I paid $250 a month for years for faster business-level access. Now, because of the competitive nature of the market, I have five times faster service for less than 1/3 that amount. Here's the screen shot of a speed test of my Charter service taken moments ago:


If you don't know much about the internet, that's 96th percentile in the US. Wanna test your own internet speed? Try Speakeasy's speed test.

The future of high speed internet is fiber optic, with Verizon's FIOS offering up to 50 mbps... but fiber optic isn't available on a wide scale, and build-out is expensive and slow.

WiMax and LTE are duking it out for mobile carriers. Theoretically, you soon may need little more than your mobile phone to handle all of your internet needs, with speeds of LTE looking to reach around 320+ mbps. (20x my current speed)

For now I'll take the 16 mbps I have. Oh, and the iPhone gets about 1.2 mbps via AT&T's 3G. Soon those numbers will sound very slow... and we'll all be computing on a cloud with no need for a PC.

Violet loves when I talk tech.

Sitemeter causing blogs to crash

Last night as I was trying to load my blog, it kept crashing Internet Explorer 7. I rebooted, figuring it was some kind of fluky thing. Nope, it's a big problem.

It appears IE 7 is the only browser affected, I had no problem loading it via Safari and Foxfire. I removed the Sitemeter link to my front page (had to do it through Safari) and I'm in business again via IE 7.

Sitemeter changed their code yesterday without an announcement or, apparently, any testing.

I can't even load Sitemeter's main page on IE 7. There are no notices of any kind or any acknowledgement of problems on their site... prompting me to rename the service:

Gotta love Photoshop!

It came to me in a dream...

The new Apple iPhone is quite the incredible piece of equipment. At least that's what I hear.

It's too bad I haven't actually gotten to touch mine yet. For a week, it's been in a warehouse somewhere, longing to be held. Lonely. Wasting away.

Needless to say, I'm less than impressed with the rollout of the 3G units. AT&T stores were ill-equipped to handle activations, and horribly understocked. The store I visited had 20 units to sell on day one, leaving my only option to either go to an Apple store or order mine to be delivered. Stupidly, I went with option two.

On any given day since, I could have gone to the Galleria Apple store at the moment they opened and gotten a new phone. In fact, last night I decided that today I would cancel my AT&T order and do just that.

That is, until The Dream.

Last night I dreamed that I got up and hit refresh on AT&T's order tracker and it indicated my phone had been shipped. (for the past week it has indicated "backordered" and given no estimated time of shipping) Several times in my dream I refreshed the site, to make sure it wasn't just a dream. Then I woke up. Bummer, I had hoped to have the new phone before the weekend so Emily and I could get both of them them set up the way we wanted.

So I got up and went into the kitchen, clicked the refresh button on my notebook PC just for shits and giggles, and went in to get Grayson out of bed. When I returned, the screen indicated "shipped," gave me a tracking number and said it would arrive today before 3 pm.

I'm not proud of the elation I felt. It means I'm a geek in the truest sense of the word. Nobody should swoon over a telephone... it's just not right. But I did receive a little lift knowing that today, I would release the phone from the bondage of its cramped box and allow it to climb into my pocket where it is safe and warm. I'm only hoping it doesn't smell the old iPhone and feel threatened or jealous.

It's about freakin' time, AT&T. Sorry, but you get poor marks for this transaction. I'm only hoping the rest of my experience with the 3G iPhone is better. I'll let you know.

HP = Heave Printer

Ever thrown a printer across the room and heard it slam to the ground, crushing the internal parts into useless plastic shards? I had never known that experience until yesterday.*

After clicking "OK" for the 40th time because the black cartridge was empty, and reprinting a check to the federal government (which was due in 30 minutes) a handful of times because the printer couldn't understand that the paper WAS, in actuality, inserted correctly... I blew a small gasket.

Pulling the power cord from the wall (and that's all because it was a wireless printer) I picked up the printer, turned toward the door and heaved it into the family room outside of my office.

"CRASH!!!!!" At the same time it felt great and horrible.

I made out the check by hand, got to the bank with 45 seconds left, then went to Office Depot and bought a new printer. (it's such a new model, it's not even on their website yet - they had just gotten it in that day) I'll never go back to HP printers again - I'm a Brother man now.

The new printer is quite large and very heavy - therefore not throwable.



And now the fine print - I'm not proud of losing my temper. I haven't been that mad in a long time, and it was the culmination of several events during the day that stacked up over time. I hate waste. It was an okay printer and was only 8 or 9 months old, but it seemed crazy to allow a piece of equipment to stand in the way of productivity. I figured since it wasn't working I needed to replace it... but I feel pretty stupid for having thrown it.

iHate waiting

I'm sure you've hit refresh a thousand times wondering how my iPhone excursion went this morning. Right?

After returning home last night from a guy's night out, I made the mistake of sleeping for a couple of hours. I dozed off and didn't wake up until 5:15, which was about an hour later than I planned. I drove by the AT&T store on highway K, which had a line of about 35 people. Judging from last year's iPhone allotment of 30 phones for that store, I had little chance of getting one there.

I drove through Starbucks for a latte and to contemplate options. I pulled out my first generation iPhone and went to AT&T's website to find another nearby store. The phone wouldn't pull up the site - it gave me the error "can't activate EDGE." Ironic, because EDGE is the whole reason I'm upgrading to iPhone 3G. Bastards!

Finally I was able to get on the site and find an alternate store. Upon arrival I found a line of about 25 people, so I grabbed a lawn chair out of the trunk and took a seat.

I sat. I waited. I contemplated the soul of my sensei, Steve Jobs. I prayed to the iGods.

This was the view before me.

This was the view behind me.

And this was what I saw when I entered the store:


They only had about 20 phones. Fuckity fuck! My only recourse was to order one, which will take about five days. If you know me, you know I'm not good with that! I'm definitely the instant gratification type.

For now, I'll have to make do with the software update that was released today for all iPhones. Honestly there is little difference between the old iPhone and the new one anyway... I'm mostly getting the new one because Em wants my first-gen phone.

Or at least that's the story I'm going with.

iHype

After a night out with the boys, I find myself with an interesting decision to make. It's 2:00 AM, and in just a (relatively) few hours the new 3G iPhone will go on sale.

Last year it was an easy proposition. The iPhone 2G became available at 6:00 PM, and I simply waited until about 5:55 PM and drove to the AT&T store. I was the 29th person in line, and easily waltzed in to snag one of thirty they had.

This year it's a different situation. A little while ago (after listening to Dr. Zhivegas play at Brewskee's) I rolled past the AT&T store and there were about 15 people in line already. The first people arrived at 8:00 PM last night, and considering it's O'Fallon, MO... that's pretty good. Based on last year's figures, I figured if I arrive a couple of hours before they go on sale, I should easily get one.

Dr. Mike wants one as well, but I can't represent him in line - he has to be present to transfer his service from Verizon. We had hatched a plan to jump in line early and blog about our experience, but he has to work at 8:30 am, so he had to bow out. I'm not one to go it alone, so I figure I'll get a couple of hours of rest and then wander by to see what's shaking.

The people I saw in line were an interesting mix of PS3 and Dungeons and Dragons. I'm not sure if I want the phone badly enough to attempt to fit in...

Ox cart, meet space shuttle

Personal transportation has become an experience.

When we were on the road yesterday, I noticed that nobody had their car windows open. Back in the day, it was unusual to see a window closed. When you did, you'd know the lucky son-of-a-bitch had air conditioning.

My first car, which belonged to my grandparents for years prior to being sold to my Aunt Sharon, then being kindly donated to me, was a 1965 Dodge Coronet.

Let me describe the "experience" of driving it: Get in, bypass the seatbelt (they were long buried in the crack and would have required an archaeologist to remove) and adjust the seat. (the entire bench moves) Start the car and let the engine warm up a little so it won't stall.

Turn the AM radio on. Listen to the crackle and broken signal for a few seconds. Slap the dashboard to try to make the radio work. Give up and turn it off, since it hasn't worked properly for years. Put the car in drive and go. Use a map to get where you're going, or stop at a gas station for directions.

That's it. No air conditioning, no radio, nothing. It was simply a means of getting from point A to point B.

Fast foward to today's experience: get the baby's diaper bag, bouncer and other equipment ready to go. From inside the house, click the auto-start button on the van and get the cabin temperature to 68 before stepping out into the heat.

Push a button to open the doors, load the stuff in. Get in, set the GPS to our destination address and watch as it reroutes us based on real-time traffic conditions. (a new Sirius feature)

Back out of the driveway with the help of the reverse camera and object sensing radar. Either hit 'play' on the iPod, choose a playlist from the 30 gig hard drive built into the vehicle, turn on Sirius radio, play a DVD or watch Sirius TV on one of the three video monitors. (yes, they now have satellite television in vehicles)

Or you could go retro and choose AM or FM radio.

Make a phone call to your friends through the built-in microphone and speaker system (via bluetooth through the cell phone in your pocket), and let them know you're on the way.

Whoops, there was no time to use the breast pump before leaving, so plug it into the 115-volt outlet on the wall of the van and pump as you go. I'll try to avoid driving alongside an 18-wheeler at this time, since they can see right into the vehicle.

That was us yesterday. Next year, Chrysler will have broadband internet service built into their vehicles, with WiFi. Each equipped vehicle will be its own "hot spot."

Personal transportation has definitely changed.... it's the freakin' Jetsons. Sometimes I just want to turn everything off, roll down the windows and drive. "Jane! Stop this crazy thing!!!"

Unabashed coverage of the iPhone

For anyone watching for developing iPhone news from the WWDC today, here's the link of a guy, Pete Mortenson, who is blogging live from the event and will have the latest news first.

During the keynote address today by Steve Jobs, the unveiling of the newest version of the iPhone is expected. It's a 3G model (broadband access) and rumor has it, will include lots of new, nifty features.

Click the link above to follow the news via Pete's blog on Popular Mechanics' site. When there, hit 'refresh' for updates. The announcement is expected at Noon, eastern. (30 minutes from now) Update: It's actually noon central time, so it's underway now.

It follows you around... (revised with demo)

Here's a demo of the webcam in action:



I recently upgraded my webcam to the new HP Elite, which includes a stereo microphone and "face tracker," which allows you to move around at your desk and the camera actually follows you around and auto-zooms/auto-focuses so your face (mostly) fills the screen.

It is high resolution (up to 12 megapixel still shot or 3 megapixel video) and looks really neat. Now if I could only find someone who wants to video conference! Wanna?

GPS (Greatly Profane Slanderer)

Yesterday, as I cursed and honked at dolts who clearly couldn't pass a Missouri driver's test, it occurred to me that I need to develop a data set for GPS systems that provides directions in the same way Ed Debevic's in Chicago serves its patrons - rudely.

"Take a left turn in a quarter of a mile, douche bag." If you pass the turn, the unit gets indignant: "So why don't you just turn me off if you're not going to pay attention, idiot?"

"Only your Mom would be driving this slow - what are you, handicapped?"

"Well, well. You reached your destination. Aren't we both a little surprised? Now turn me off, I'm tired!"