Geek

As a productive employee of a large telecommunications company, I feel it is my duty to have a landline at the house. While we don’t live in the footprint of the company I work for, there are some old habits that just don’t go away, so we have a wall phone in our kitchen with an extra long cord. Don’t tell anyone that it actually uses the Internet to communicate with others whilst our fingers do the walking.

The phone in the kitchen rarely rings. On the occasion that someone calls the house phone, we generally never know who they are. A random series of digits come up on the caller ID. 99% of the time the caller is a telemarketer.

During our lunch just moments ago, the house phone rang. Earl answered it. Apparently he hasn’t watched the same 1940s and 50s films that I have watched recently, the ones instructing the public on how to work the phone in a polite manner, because he didn’t answer, “Hello, this is Earl.” He said, and I quote, “What”. His manner was not overly jovial but it wasn’t offensive.

The caller was apparently taken aback by his curt greeting and stammered his way through part of a script when Earl said, “Who is this?”. Again, he wasn’t overly jovial but he wasn’t rude.

He then hung up the phone.

Apparently the caller said the wrong thing at the wrong time. I have to giggle because when Earl hung up the phone he did it exactly the same way as Grandpa Country used to hang up the phone: he just hung it up. No formalities, no farewell, no words at all, just ‘click’.

This prompted a very short discussion over lunch as to why we have a house phone. People that want to reach us do so via text message or email. If there is an emergency in the house, we’d reach for our iPhone. As mentioned earlier, the house phone is using VoIP (over the internet) so the whole “911 is going to pinpoint your location” thing might not hold water. And, to the apparent horror of many folks, we have to dial all 10 digits to call anywhere, local, long-distance, all of it. I mention this little horror bit because they’re looking to add another area code to our region and people are horrified by the idea of having to dial all 10-digits all the time. We’ve been doing it for years. I even do it on my iPhone. People need to keep up with the times.

Maybe we should get rid of the phone and save a few bucks.

As an avid user of Apple products (I’m typing this on my iPad4), I am bound by religious dogma to be ecstatic of anything that Apple does in the way of innovation. This is just one of the ways of the world and it is something that I fully accept.

Yesterday, Apple released iOS 7 Beta 3 to its developer community. Luckily, as a developer, I am part of that community (read: I have paid for the privilege of being part of that community). I installed iOS 7 Beta 3 on my iPhone 5 within 15 minutes of it being available. At no time did I lose any productivity time at work, I swear.

This is my current home screen on my iPhone 5. Normally I have a photo of Earl and Jamie and me (or some other family type photo) as my home screen because I like the idea of having a little photo frame in my pocket, but iOS 7 has eliminated the little “swipe bar” to unlock the phone. Now you just swipe anywhere on the screen and it feels weird to to swipe across someone’s face. It feels unnatural. Because this is a beta and nothing is ever written in stone with software, especially in the beta phase of testing, I’m not too worked up about this. It’s also really not that significant to get worked up about.

While I’m very excited about the new functionality that is starting to show itself in iOS 7, I have to admit that I am not excited at all about the new design elements, especially the typography. As you can see in the screenshot above, Apple, more specifically Jony Ive, the lead designer and engineer of the project, is favoring thin, “modern” looking fonts throughout this new version of iOS.

I’m not a fan. I’m not a fan because it just feels too “dainty” to me.

Now, I don’t know if I’m getting more set in my ways as I get older or if my tastes are falling even more out of step with the consensus of the general public, but I don’t want an expensive piece of technology to feel “delicate”. I don’t want a light, airy experience with my technology. I want to be able to embrace it, grapple it, and maul it. Perhaps this is just a quirk of my already quirky personality, but this is one of the reasons that I use Apple hardware to begin with; I like the metal and solid feel of my iProducts. If I wanted something delicate, I’d buy a (much) cheaper piece of plastic and silicon and call it a day.

As I continue to use my iPad with iOS 6 on it (the version everyone is used to), I find myself more comfortable with the experience because it feels less “delicate” and more resilient. Yes, the interface could use some freshening up, but I don’t think it needs to be so fresh that it feels like it’s been through a TV commercial that makes women roll their eyes (due to the unnatural talk between mother and daughter) and men downright uncomfortable. (You know what I’m talking about.)

I guess I’m going to have to find a way to butch my iPhone back up a bit. The user of an ever-so-slightly bolder font in this latest beta is a slight step in the right direction but I don’t think we’re going to ever get back to that feeling of “metal and hooah” that I somewhat feel in iOS 6.

Maybe I’ll put a piece of duct tape on the back or something.

After upgrading to the latest beta of iOS today, I commented to Siri that her voice was changing.

So now that they days are officially getting shorter, I have decided to plan ahead by being energy conscious and thoughtful of my winter-time SAD*-type tendencies. I’m kind of proud of the fact that I’m thinking beyond the moment. It’s a quality I strive for these days.

We have been in this house for just shy of 10 years. Just about every room is fitted with recessed lighting, which had existing incandescent indoor flood lights when we moved in.

The lights are finally starting to blow out.

Since it’s ecologically and economically responsible to switch over to CFL² light bulbs, and because the areas of the house in question are not really candidates for something wicked fancy like the Hue Lighting System from Philips, I have decided to replace all the lightbulbs in a given room with CFL equivalents when one of the incandescent bulbs fail. It would make me completely insane to have a mix of incandescent and CFL bulbs in one room.

I have decided to go with “Natural Daylight” bulbs in rooms that are not typically relaxation areas. These “Natural Daylight” bulbs are made by Utilitech. One of the things that I like about this particular bulb is that it’s instant on (avoiding that annoying warm up period), but more importantly, the light color temperature is at versus 2700K and 3500K usually found warm white and soft white bulbs.

The lighting difference is very noticeable. (We’ll stay with the warmer color temperatures in the more relaxing areas of the house).

Not only are we saving energy, combatting SAD and all that, these bulbs are better for rooms where one gets ready in the morning because with this color temperature you’re able to see the colors of your chosen fashion as if you were standing in outside in the daylight. So we have energy savings, the negation of SAD AND looking fabulous.

It’s a win all the way around.

¹ Seasonal Affectation Disorder. ²Compact Fluorescent Lighting.

I’m excited that I have found a photo of the exact model of record player we had in our family room when I was growing up. I wonder what happened to that record player. It’s probably still at my dad’s somewhere.

Photo courtesy of Collector’s Quest

So I’ve been on a geek streak this week. This was all kicked off by the announcements at Apple’s WWDC and the beta releases of iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks. Because I’ve done some swapping around of devices and testing of this new software, I’ve had occasion to reload my iPhone 5 from scratch.

Somewhere in one of my geek articles I talked about the importance of using really good passwords for your computer endeavors. Long gone are the days where you could use the clever password of Secret (complete with capital “S”!), today you have to have a whole bunch of random characters mashed together to make something that you can remember but also can not be easily guessed.

Enter 1Password from AgileBits

1Password creates really secure passwords for you and better yet, it remembers them for you so you don’t have to worry about typing a password like h8!UU1m2^CeT into your favorite web browser, just so you can take a peek at Facebook. It stores your secure password under a master password (that you can remember) so all of your online information is doubly secure. Better yet, 1Password can sync between your laptop/desktop and mobile devices so that you have access to these hardened passwords on whatever device you might be using.

Earl and I set up his 1Password information earlier this evening and just before writing this blog entry I got all my information set up for my personal devices. It’s wicked easy and it’s money well spent, especially if you spend a lot of time online and/or you’ve put a lot of information out there.

This solution is MUCH better than writing a password down and sticking it to the side of your monitor on a sticky note or using the same password for all over your accounts.

I don’t get any kickback from talking about the folks at AgileBits, I’m just one satisfied customer. And if I can spread a little love and knowledge in the geek world, I’m going to do it.

I suggest you give 1Password a try.

OK, let me start this post with two important notes, actually three important notes:

1. This is another Macboy related post.
2. I really am a developer so everything I obtain is via legitimate means.
3. I’m scared to death of Apple so I won’t post screen shots or go into specific details of what I’m experiencing whilst beta testing.

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, Apple previewed their newest versions of iOS (for the iDevices), called iOS 7, and OS X (for the Macs). The newest version of OS X breaks the tradition of being named after big cats and is called OS X Mavericks.

I’m not a huge fan of the name but it works for me. I still think “Sea Lion” would have been kind of fun.

As an OS X and iOS developer, I utilized my vast developer powers and installed the beta versions of each of these new offerings on my test devices. These are my gut reactions after just over 12 hours of experience with the new platforms.

Surprisingly, my old MacBook Pro from 2008 runs OS X Mavericks in its current incarnation just fine and it seems a little snappier than OS X Mountain Lion. There are some subtle changes in the interface that I certainly appreciate and it feels quite comfortable to me. One of the things that I really like is the deeper integration with iOS; it’s kind of cool being able to find a place in Maps on my Mac and send the information to my iPhone automagically. I know, I know, others have been able to do this for a while but the bright spot of doing it on OS X is that I don’t have to see an advertisement whilst doing it. OS X Mavericks is a comfortable evolution that I am thoroughly enjoying.

iOS 7 is more than an evolution, it’s an abrupt change.

Keeping in mind that I am running beta 1 of iOS 7, there are some things that I am finding a little confounding.

First of all, I don’t understand this obsession with Helvetica Neue as the default font. Anyone and everyone is looking to make their logo and other typography as svelte as possible with Helvetica Neue.

I believe that if you’re going to say something, say it boldly and Helvetica Neue is anything but bold. In fact, it can be a little rough on the eyes. But it’s EVERYWHERE in iOS 7 and I guess there’s not a dang thing I can do about it.

There has been a lot of chatter about the new icons in iOS 7 and I have to admit that I agree that they feel like they’re missing some of the polish that I have grown to love about Apple. I don’t know that “cartoonish” is a word that I would use; they just feel amateurish to me, almost as if they were an afterthought. There’s a certain lack of class. Maybe these are just placeholders until the real things come out because of course, this could all change at a moment’s notice and it probably will.

That all being said, I like the way that iOS 7 works. I had to make some changes to muscle memory when it came to handling email (I apparently used to swipe the wrong way?) but otherwise in that respect iOS 7 feels more familiar to me than I thought it would. The change isn’t as jarring as say, moving to an Android device. I really like the animations and the slight 3D effects. Of course, this is style over substance but I think it does contribute to the spit and polish that Apple is known for.

There is a feature missing in iOS 7 that I hope will return in later releases and that’s the “Tap to Tweet” and “Tap to Post” buttons in the notification center. I LOVED being able to be witty in 140 characters or less by just typing my hilarity in a pull down box and then going on with life. That functionality is missing right now and it’s kind of a bummer to have to open up my Twitter client (I use Tweetbot) to be witty. Half the time the moment has passed.

The Sybil sides of me have been hot and cold about iOS 7 over the last 12 hours, but the sensible side of me has been determined to just calm down and make a fair assessment of the new experience.

I’m looking forward to seeing how iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks progress.