Geek

Our friend Iain recently found a bug in the mobile version of this nifty bloggy thing, which made me go into full on geek mode with the maintenance of this site. So I’ve done a little bit of house cleaning and the like around here. If you find any bugs, please don’t hesitate to contact me either through a comment to this blog entry or by sending me e-mail.

If you like the mobile version of the site, which can be seen from just about any mobile device out there, and wish to add this functionality to your WordPress powered site, please click through the button on the right hand side of this page. I really like the software that BraveNewCode develops and I highly recommend them.

I’ll admit that I’m a geek. I want to shop at this Sears just because it has the really retro logo on it. I told Earl that the old Sears logo has a Jackie Kennedy swoop look to it. He agreed.

This store is in Santa Monica.

My smartphone, a Motorola Droid on Verizon (the original Droid), lit up the room like a beacon in the middle of the night. It was 04:51 and I was awoken by the bright light.

“A system update is available for your device.”

Now a normal person would just turn off the phone, throw out a few curse words and get back to sleep. Not me, I wanted to see if I was about to get the latest version of Android operating system. It’s called Gingerbread. This would have been an unexpected surprise.

I tapped the display in all the right places and waited for the obligatory reboot. It turns out that I wasn’t getting some Gingerbread, but just a newer version of Froyo, the current Android operating system on the Motorola Droid. I went from 2.2 to 2.2.1.

Sigh. I knew it was too good to be true.

While I still love using and working with computers very, very much, not much has happened in the technology world lately that has really grabbed my attention and made me feel excited about using computers again. Mac OS X is kind of boring to me lately. I mean, aside from a few tweaks here and there, the big cat is plodding along solidly but it’s essentially the same thing as it was a few years ago. Though I don’t play with Windows that much (I have to use XP at work), Windows 7 is still Windows with pretty decorations. And Linux can make it anything you want it to be I suppose, but who has the time to build your own interface from scratch?

I guess there’s a point where technology moves from being an obsession or a toy to a tool, and this is where my head is at lately.

This morning I discovered MOG, which is a music service that let’s you listen to unlimited amounts of music and download songs to your mobile device for a monthly fee of around US$10. That’s kind of cool. Pandora has become a little repetitive for me lately, probably because I haven’t nursed my playlists along enough and you can’t save the Pandora songs in any manner, so I welcome this new chance to play around with MOG.

I need something new, something fresh in the computing world to grab my attention. I want a new paradigm. Perhaps Google’s Chrome OS, due out in the middle of next year, will excite me a little bit. Portability with access anywhere? That stuff appeals to the network/connected geek in me. I sort of have that stuff with MobileMe and Dropbox (and the like), but Chrome OS could take it to a new level for me.

Maybe that’ll compute in my head and give me something to get excited about.

To make everyone’s life a little bit easier (including my own), I have added the ability for Blogger/Google Friend Connect users to use that account to leave a comment down in the comments section of individual entries. I’ll probably do the same for Facebook users in the very near future, like after I finish this blog entry.

Taking the day off from work has afforded me the opportunity to catch up on my online stuff that I have been neglecting. I feel energized again.

I’m not out to win any blogger popularity contests but I’m very much into using all the tools I can to make everyone’s social networking experience that much more enjoyable. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

As we all know, today is Monday. It is a rather grey day in the Central-Leatherstocking Region of Upstate New York. There was an inch or two of snow at home when we woke up this morning but there’s nothing on the ground at work. I believe I have identified the line that marks the official far end of the Lake Ontario snow belt. The pattern is the same as I observed earlier this year when I first started this new gig.

I find Monday mornings to be the hardest part of the work week because I’m not a morning person and I often feel like I’m not firing on all thrusters when I first get into the office on Monday. I have the best of intentions, but I end up plotting my day to gradually ease into the week by doing many routine tasks on Monday morning. After they were completed, I started playing with my whiteboard and formulating my next addition to one of the web applications I maintain.

My mood is jovial in this picture, but I look serious because I’m at work and I’m doing serious programming.

I said something to Earl a little while ago that caused him to make “that face”. As anyone that’s a little bit off the beam (like me) and has been in a relationship for a while knows, you occasionally have to deal with “that face”, the quick look of fear that morphs into “here we go again” and is punctuated by a slight eye roll. A good partner will then follow-up “that face” with a look of “Yes, dear” and an air of interest in what is about to be said.

All of this takes place within a few seconds. It’s just the way it is.

I have mentioned before that I have a collection school clocks (that kind that clunk ahead once a minute) wired throughout the house. I have a fairly old server running Linux that has the sole responsibility of knowing what time it is and then clicking some relays as commanded by some programming I wrote in BASIC a while back. This arrangement keeps these clocks that are over 80 years old in time with modern technology and up to the second with the atomic clock in Colorado. I’m quite pleased with the way it works.

Before the server arrangement was in place, the clocks were run by a master clock that was built in 1957 and had previously lived in the now abandoned Middleville, N.Y. high school. The clock keeps time but the mechanisms that are suppose to do what the Linux server is doing, albeit in a significantly different way, are shot and replacement parts are very scarce and when they can be found, are quite expensive. There is a reason that educational institutions are replacing these old mechanical master clocks with electronic counterparts. I have kept the old clock around because it keeps time and I like the looks of it.

And “the look” was garnered by the fact that I’m going to bring it into the 21st century. This is going to be my project of 2011.

Since the insides of the old clock are no longer really functioning, I am going to take the best parts of my computerized setup and properly mount it inside of this old clock and make it look like new again and give it new life. It will look good and it will operate the way I want it to and ironically enough, I will be able to access it from anywhere in the world. And I’m going to use a first generation Mac Mini to run the thing. That way the assembly is fairly easy and I can still live up to my reputation as a crazy Mac guy.

I know this project is of a little interest to the majority of people that read this blog, but I am geek through and through and I am really looking forward to busying myself with this little endeavor. It’s a good little brain escape for me and more importantly, I am reminded at how much my partner loves me when he still cares enough to give me “the look”.

I will wait until later to tell him about my idea for the Cat Cam.

See? I’m still alive. A little groggy, but alive, nonetheless.

Dig the headset. It makes me feel High Tech.

As a lovely way to start off the week, my workday is filled with corporate meetings of varying banality. One of the meetings involved an IT guy who seems very knowledgable in his contribution to the common corporation we work for and I looked forward to speaking with him. Part of his presentation including a software demonstration.

The problem is, he is using a Mac. And as an rabid Apple fanboy, it pains me to start this paragraph with “the problem is”.

I made a comment stating that I noticed the MacBook Pro that he was using to accomplish his tasks and that I was an avid Apple products user as well. My supervisor, who is an avid Windows user, also made a comment stating his surprise that he was using a Mac for his company business, since we are very much a PC world inside the corporation.

“I’m using a Mac because they gave me a PC. They claimed it was top of the line but it’s still a PC.” His voice was dripping with that holier-than-thou attitude that one occasionally hears from a Mac user and quite frankly, makes me cringe. A lot. Because it’s that attitude that gives us Mac folks a bad name.

Here’s my deal. I love my Macs, I love my iPad and I love all the iDevices that I have in my home and life. I have tried to switch away from Mac but the old adage of “Once you go Mac…” (or something like that) is very much true and I find the cohesiveness of my computing experience with my various portable devices to be quite nice. I am excited about the rumors about Verizon Wireless getting the iPhone in the fairly near future. And quite frankly, using a more expensive Mac in Panera or wherever is a bit of an elitist ego boost for me, because I feel like I have spent our money on the best possible computing experience. The hardware feels better, the software is more intuitive and it really does “just work”.

But I’m certainly not going to poo-poo random PC users and make them feel any less special or important in their computing experience because overall, the Mac is just a tool. I choose to use my computer as a tool to get whatever I want to get done, done. Others choose PCs as their tool. We both get to the same websites, we both type documents and we both exchange e-mail, it’s just that they have their way on their PC and I have my way on my Mac.

I have been known to roll my eyes and groan on more than one occasion when asked to help someone with a computer issue. The groan and eye-roll usually indicates that said user is using Windows Vista, but I digress. I have also had to bail out many Mac users in my day.

Folks with the uppity attitude about their Macs give all us fanboys a bad name. I just want to get my work or play done on a system that doesn’t crank about it.

And I want to do it without an attitude.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Verizon Wireless recently announced that they are going to start selling the iPad in their stores. The Apple device will be the Wi-Fi version only, since AT&T carries the 3G version of the product, however, Verizon is going to start bundling their Mi-Fi device with the wi-fi iPad (MiFi and WiFi get along pretty well) for the same price as the iPad with 3G, bringing the same functionality to the wi-fi version with just a little extra hardware and on the Verizon network instead of the AT&T network.

Did that make sense?

I already have a wi-fi iPad and I love it very much. I do much of my remote surfing on my iPad now and the experience is quite nice. There have been a few occasions, however, where I wish I had 3G network access instead of needing to find a wi-fi hot spot. Unfortunately, the same reason that I no longer have an iPhone holds true for why I bought the wi-fi iPad: AT&T’s 3G coverage in Central New York sucks. I checked with co-workers last week and confirmed that they do not get 3G network access on their phones in the general area around work. The 3G on my Verizon-connected Motorola Droid works brilliantly (hence why I’m on Verizon) but if I want to connect my iPad to the internet, I need to rely on the citywide wireless DSL that ironically costs more per month than the AT&T 3G plan that comes with the appropriate iPad.

Earl announced to me last week, in a very serious voice, that he was tired of carrying two cell phones around and no longer wanted his Droid. This is understandable and I agreed that it was probably cumbersome to carry around two phones. He wanted to terminate the contract on his Droid and just stick with his work issued Blackberry, and then probably get something else for connectivity when he is on the road. (I am going to set him up with a Google Voice account that he can use with his Mac or an upcoming iPad). The problem is, Verizon Wireless was poised to soak us with an early termination fee. We considered this when making this decision but in the back of our minds it seemed like we were throwing money at the wind.

So on Saturday I converted Earl’s personal cell number to a Verizon Mi-Fi device. I now can have up to five devices connected on a portable wi-fi hotspot using Verizon’s 3G service. Not only does this save us some money on a monthly basis (because it’s cheaper than the citywide WiFi when you consider the money we saved by removing Earl’s phone from the cell plan), but we can now also surf the internet wherever there is a Verizon 3G signal. It is quite nifty and I’m happy to say that this is seemingly faster than the citywide wifi, even as we type. In addition, should the RoadRunner connection at the house go down, we now have a back-up plan and can still maintain some sort of connectivity.

Astute readers of the blog may have noticed that I am blogging more again and that’s on purpose. The creative outlet is helping me psychologically and of course it’s something that I really enjoy doing. I’m also sharing more tech stuff on my iMachias twitter feed (see link at right). This new Verizon MiFi connection is helping with that immensely.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, if/when the Verizon iPhone comes out next year, I am absolutely going to get back onto the iPhone platform and sell my Droid. I like the Droid but I loved the iPhone. It was AT&T that messed that up for me.

It’s good to be a geek.

I am sitting in my car doing my daily lunch routine with a twist today. I took my lunch at 11:00 instead of 12:00. This is going to be part of my Monday routine from this point forward due to work responsibilities that begin at noon.

Eating lunch at 11:00 just seems wrong to me. It’s just too early. This is ironic to me because in high school, once you moved to the senior high level, lunch began at 11:04. Fifth period was divided up into three segments, 5E, 5M and 5L. Grades 9-12 ate at 11:34 (5E) and grades 7-8 at 11:48 (5L). In the six years I was in that school I never really figured out who ate during 5M or for that matter when 5M really took place. For some reason I figured it had to do with detention and special education. By the way, I could right now rattle off the entire bell schedule of my high school, even though it’s been 25 years, if I wanted to and I could do it with ease. And they say the things we learn as teens don’t last a lifetime. Oh, and the “bell” was actually an annoying chime that played over the intercom speaker. It was an A-flat above middle C. I could get the chorus to leave early by striking that same note on the piano if there was ambient noise in the room. Pavlovian response and all that.

So while it is technically my lunch break, I won’t actually be eating my lunch until I get back to the office because that’s the way things work. While the 11:00 a.m. lunch break is an old trick and I’m an old dog, I’m set in my ways of a proper lunch at noon and that’s the way it’s going to be.