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I like bright and shiny things.
I also love gadgets.
So when I get a bright and shiny gadget, I am happy.
It struck me last night, as I was polishing the fingerprints and smudges off my iPhone for the five millionth time since I bought it last week, that the iPhone must be an OCD person's worst nightmare. The fucking thing is IMPOSSIBLE to keep clean.
Each morning I open up the Web browser on my Mac and select a link from the toolbar called "Daily News Sources." It opens up a number of tabs that link to Web sites that I depend on each day to stay abreast of what's happening in the tech world I cover. One of these tabs links to PR Newswire. Specifically, to the PR Newswire area for journalists the company sets up.
Under ideal circumstances, this is supposed to automatically open to a customized page that links to content set up specifically for me, based on preferences I've set.
About six weeks ago, it stopped working right, and just started timing out. Sometimes resetting the page will get it to work, more of than not, it just times out.
I've checked around with colleagues, many of whom have the same problem, so I know it's not just me. I asked PR Newswire about the problem a couple of weeks ago and got a response back indicating that they were aware of the issue and were working to correct it.
I'm just surprised it isn't a higher priority with them to fix. Ostensibly, getting press releases into the hands of the ... uh ... press ... is a vital part of what they're supposed to be doing.
Wanting to take advantage of some of the holiday weekend deals cell phone carriers offered, Bonnie and I got her a new phone over the weekend -- an LG VX9900 (the "enV") through Verizon Wireless.
The VX9900 won out because it has a full keyboard (it's a "candybar" style phone that opens up in the middle, revealing a full QWERTY keyboard and larger screen). We were drawn to it because the device has really remarkable battery life, and it's multimedia compatible.
It's a fine phone, but some of the limitations that Verizon places on wireless customers who use their phones for e-mail and multimedia are making me rethink the purchase, and with 30 days to back out, I very well may.
Verizon is incredibly restrictive about what you can put on the phone. They want a piece of anything you stick there. You can't import ringtones, you can't even import contact information from a PDA. In fact, Verizon wants to charge an extra $20 a month for the privilege (its "wireless sync" feature), which isn't Mac-compatible. Neither is their music syncing software, but she has an iPod, so that's not a huge issue.
I'd not really forgotten about this from my own Verizon experience, but I'd just sort of put it out of my head, I guess, and it's all coming back with a vengeance now.
Now I'm looking hard at AT&T packages. They have a refurbished Palm 750 -- a Treo that runs Windows Mobile -- that I may go with instead. Doesn't look like I'll save anything on the data and voice plan, but them's the breaks, I guess.
The iPhone would be a home run if it were less expensive. $400 is just too much for us to justify on spending on her for a phone -- about $100, maybe $150, if the phone was really compelling, would be the absolute top end.
I hate this.
One of the local pleasures I'll only take advantage of a few times a year is called Ben and Bill's Chocolate Emporium. It's an old-time candymaker that also has ice cream, and it served as the right destination for us for dessert last night. It's actually a chain of four stores -- the others are on Martha's Vineyard, in Maine and Northampton, Mass.
The boys opted for ice cream, while Emmeline, Bonnie and I went with the chocolate. Emmeline got three pieces of white chocolate truffles, and I splurged and got myself some Heavenly Hash -- a mixture of hazelnut, marshmallows and glazed cherries embedded in milk chocolate; my absolute favorite candy. Bonnie got her traditional Figaro truffles -- mixtures of chocolate and hazelnut paste (her absolute favorite, too).
I really need some advice. While I'm an AT&T customer, Bonnie continues to use Verizon. There are a few practical reasons why that I won't get into -- suffice it to say that she's going to stay with Verizon at the moment. But her phone desperately needs to be replaced.
Of paramount importance to Bonnie is long standby and talk time. She'd also like to use Verizon's VZ Navigator service for turn-by-turn directions. Beyond that, synchronizing content with her Mac isn't important (she uses a Palm PDA for that) and other multimedia features aren't really important, either.
Does anyone within the reach of my keyboard have any recommendations for a Verizon phone that would be ideal for what she's doing? We're getting conflicting advice from salespeople -- about all they'll agree on is that the Motorola RAZR phones suck for battery life, which puts them out of the running.
So I got to show off my new toy yesterday.
My cousin Jen seemed particularly taken with the iPhone, until she began to type. She's accustomed, as I am, to thumb-typing messages on her phone, and I explained to her that it really works better if you point-type with your index finger. It definitely takes some acclimation. The fact that the iPhone is an exclusive to AT&T is also a deal-breaker for her -- she's a Verizon Wireless customer, and isn't willing to pay the penalty (or suffer the shortcomings of AT&T coverage) for the novelty of having an iPhone.
I'm convinced at this point that the iPhone's cell reception isn't as strong as the BlackBerry 8700 it replaces -- there are "dead spots" around Mashpee that are one bar zones on the BlackBerry, and both were AT&T phones. Inside my aunt's house in Framingham, there was no service at all.
That goes with what I've heard from other people, as well. And I suppose it's a cross I'm going to have to bear from here on out.
I will not "jailbreak" this phone to install software on it; I'll wait for the flood of "blessed" third-party apps that are sure to come out after Apple releases an iPhone SDK in February. Nothing seems like that much of a deal-breaker that I have to hack the phone to have it right now.
I'm disappointed that the iPhone doesn't have any easy way to synchronize contact and calendar data wirelessly via Bluetooth, or even via Wi-Fi, but I'm not surprised by it -- after all, I've had since late June to read all about my colleagues' and our readers' trials and tribulations using the device.
Using the iPhone as a media player is a total home run. I plugged into into my iPod dock in the car yesterday (and switched it into "Airplane" mode) so we could hear some tunes while Bonnie played Solitaire and Mahjong on the long ride home on my 5th-gen iPod. Viewing Youtube videos is satisfactory, and the phone's ability to render HTML mail and Web pages is unparalleled to any portable device I've used.
There's a real shortage of TransPod/iTrip-like interfaces for the iPhone that enable the iPhone's phone circuitry to stay active while you're listening to music, so I'm looking forward to seeing more of them on the market.
Also, I guess I'm in the market for a new Bluetooth headset -- the old Motorola one I was using with the BlackBerry disappeared about a week and a half ago and hasn't been seen or heard from since -- I think it may have fallen out of a jacket pocket at some point while I was out and about. Any recommendations? I'm not impressed with the audio quality of the Apple headset that a couple of my colleagues use. The Aliph Jawbone looks and sounds fabulous, but at $120, it's a lot of money to spend on a headset. Is it worth it?
We had a lovely Thanksgiving with my family this year. My aunt Sandy and uncle Steve hosted it at their house this year, in Framingham. They had their kids, my cousins Jen and Mike, and their spouses, along with my grandmother, Steve's brother and sister, and their spouses. We had enough food to feed an army, and enough desserts to put that army into a diabetic coma. It was a feast.
My mom stayed behind this year; she and her friend opted to attend the Community Thanksgiving meal at the local 4H camp, which I have on good authority is a swell time on its own.
The only problem that we experienced was the drive -- under the best of circumstances, it's about a 1 hour, 45 minute trip (more than 170 miles round-trip) -- so I was exhausted by the time we got home around 8:30. I got about half-way home and had to unbuckle my jeans -- I ate *way* too much food.
The kids went to sleep almost as soon as we got home -- all except for Robert, who neither Bonnie nor I realized had stayed up until 11:30 on his computer. That's well past the point of what we allow, and I was thoroughly annoyed with him when I discovered him tapping away after the news was over.
Also, I noticed that Robert and I both started sniffling and sneezing almost as soon as we got over the bridges. There is something on Cape Cod that we are allergic to, and it's driving me batty.
Thanks to a very generous reimbursement policy from my employer paired with another phone that was clearly on its way out, I stopped by the mall last night and bought an iPhone from the local AT&T store (the closest Apple retail store is almost an hour away, and Apple still hasn't seen fit to let authorized independent resellers sell them).
I got it home, plugged in to the Mac and about three minutes later activated the phone and synced all of my contact and calendar data to the device. Totally impressive. I set up a few music playlists, and before too long, the iPhone was equipped with about 3GB of music that I like to listen to when I'm out and about. I have to admit, I couldn't have asked for an easier transition to a new device.
So far, using the iPhone has been pretty easy. I'm slowly adapting to the keyboard, though I'm immediately missing the tactile feel of the keyboard on the BlackBerry I used to have. Using the iPhone keyboard is more dependent on hunt-and-peck using the index finger of my right (dominant) hand to accurately select the right letter; with the BlackBerry, I'd grown accustomed to letting my thumbs do the talking.
Safari renders Web pages pretty clearly, and the mail client works quite nicely too. For some reason, it wasn't totally intuitive to me that the "Sounds" general preference was where I'd be setting the iPhone's ringtone, so it took me a bit to figure out how to change that.
Ambrosia Software's WireTap Studio makes installing custom rings a home run. So far I've put on three -- the old Monday Night Football theme for my friend Paul, the opening riff of "Fire it Up" by Black Label Society for Jim, and the opening 13 seconds of "Freddie Freeloader" by Miles Davis for my mom. I'll probably try a custom ringtone through iTunes just to compare the process before the weekend is out.
So far, I'm impressed -- more than I thought I would be. Now if I could just find my Bluetooth headset, I'd be happy.
Amazon.com's new eBook reader, Kindle, seems like a good idea -- I know that to many, eBook readers appear to be the classic "solution in search of a problem," but I recognize their use -- especially when it comes to reading daily periodicals like newspapers. And if anyone is poised to make this work, it's Amazon.com -- they're already deeply reaching into the retail book space, so this is a very natural evolution for them. And they have a pricing structure for new book releases that makes sense, and seems very reasonable; one might even suggest it's iTunes Store-like.
But I have some reservations about Kindle that make me doubt I'm going to buy one any time soon.
One is the appearance of the device. It has all the aesthetic charm of a public bathroom soap dispenser. It has a cheap plastic look to it that makes me think more of a prop from "Space: 1999" or another old sci-fi show than it does of something that's been designed and built in the post iPod, post iPhone era. Seriously. This device uses "electronic paper." Shouldn't it look more the newspaper prop we saw the moon shuttle passenger reading in "2001: A Space Odyssey" than a tricorder?
The pricing to download blogs through Kindle is ridiculous. I'd rather see them institute a flat monthly fee to cover bandwidth charges over the Sprint network Amazon is camping on that charge people per feed. That's ludicrous.
Do I really need another gadget in my travel bag, taking up space? This comes back to the complaint I had before about the design of the thing. It's not only the clunky white plastic appearance, but it's also the form factor. They say it's the size of a paperback book, but from the videos I've watched and the demos I've seen, it's the size of a large-format paperback, which I tend not to carry when I'm on the road. Hell, I'm loath to carry a small-format paperback, really. You've got to make this much smaller for me to really want one, Amazon.com.
And the price. $400. That's obviously an early adopter penalty fee. I'll wait a year or so and see where we're at. Hopefully the Kindle v2 will be close to release at that point, in a smaller size and at a lower price point.
"Floating amoebas!"
That was the cry in the van the other night as we drove back from a shopping excursion in Hyannis.
Some years ago, Bonnie remarked that deciduous trees and bushes on people's lawns that have been outfitted with holiday lights look not so much like trees but more like giant, floating electric amoebas, vaguely amorphous and somewhat sinister. Ever since then, we and our kids yell "floating amoebas" whenever we see them drift by the windows.
Floating amoebas come in all shapes and sizes -- round, oval, spiral, small, gigantic. And they come in all sorts of colors -- white, blue, red and green, yellow.
We especially like it when someone has meticulously wrapped lights around the trunk and limbs of a gnarled old tree. "Devil claw!" is the refrain for those.
A crescent moon shone down in the night sky the other night.
"Robert, look!" said James. "The moon is a croissant."
The change of seasons from fall to winter and the reset from daylight savings time to standard time has been toughest on Emmeline.
Emme's often difficult to rouse in the mornings, but lately she's been quite zombie-like. She stumbles off to school when she's supposed to, but we've had a couple of incidents where she's fallen asleep in the school nurse's office and slept for up to an hour.
She's getting plenty of unbroken, restful sleep at home, so I don't think that's the problem.
Her doctor has suggested to us that exposing her to bright light -- something we have in very limited supply at our house -- may be the cure. So Bonnie went out today to buy a full-spectrum lamp for Emme's room, which we'll be putting in right away. We'll see if that makes any difference.
James: "What's the difference between an Apple computer and a Microsoft computer?"
Robert: "'PC' stands for 'Piece of Crap.'"
James: "Uh, there's no o in 'PC.'"
What the hell happened to fall? It's feeling almost wintery out there.
This morning I just about hit my limit with Robert. It was 6:55, and his van driver, Jen, was scheduled to pull into the driveway within the next five minutes. Yet he was sitting there, casually cross-legged, in a kitchen chair, munching on a cinnamon roll danish.
I told him that he had to get ready.
"I just got up and I'm having breakfast," he said defiantly. Then he went back to munching on the roll, staring off into space.
There was no sense of urgency. No recognition that he was running desperately late and that he was about to inconvenience other people. Only that *he* was having breakfast, and that was apparently the center of the universe.
It was a supremely arrogant, rude and totally self-centered gesture. And that is most certainly *not* how I've raised my children to be.
So I started yelling like a drill sergeant.
Finally he started to move. Slowly. And only grudgingly.
At one point, I threatened to throw him outside in his underwear. And so help me God, if he pulls that on me again, I will make good on that promise.
James: "It's like one of those birds that lays man-eggs."
Me: "Mayonnaise?"
James: "Man-eggs."
Me: "What the heck are man-eggs?"
James: "The ones that lay those eggs that are huge, like, man-sized. Oh yeah, ostriches!"
So Ron Paul has gotten a lot of public attention lately, because his campaign managed to break records for one-day fundraising -- over $4 million, as I understand it. But what really excites me is that he's been buying ad time in the Boston market, too -- I've his ads at least two or three times on one of the local "big three" broadcast stations.
Paul's running on the Republican ticket, but I don't hold that against him. 20 years ago he actually ran as the Libertarian candidate for President (oddly, while he was a registered Republican).
In fact, Paul was the first person I ever voted for, as I turned of voting age when I turned 18. Everyone I worked with (I was doing temp work at Raytheon, if I recall) told me that I had to pick Bush (the elder) over Dukakis -- lesser of two evils. I shouldn't waste my vote on a candidate that had no chance of winning, I heard.
That option sucked, as far as I was concerned. Voting was a matter of conscience, I decided. The Libertarian party, while not a perfect match, matched my ideas of the way government should be run closer than any other party -- they believed in real small government, that government should stay the hell out of people's bodies and out of their bedrooms, and that America shouldn't fight a war on drugs and that America shouldn't try to be the world's policemen -- all positions I heartily agree with.
So, while I've been unenrolled in any party my entire adult life, as far as voter registration is concerned, I've voted along Libertarian party lines pretty much the entire time.
He's been a congressman for years, voted against the Iraq War resolution, wants to end the income tax, thinks the PATRIOT act is a load of fascist shit, and supports free trade.
The only position I'm at the other end of the spectrum on with him, near as I can tell, is abortion -- he's strongly pro-life (a pre-req for anyone running on the Republican ticket). He introduced the Sanctity of Life Act and wants to negate Roe V. Wade.
This position is really contrary to what I understand the Libertarian party philosophy to be, at least as defined by what Harry Browne has said in the past: Keep government out of it, let it be a matter for individuals to decide. But I understand that Paul has to keep his constituency (Texas District 14, part of the Greater Houston region) happy. Plus he's an Ob/Gyn, so he's seen the worst of both sides of it, I suppose.
Still, out of a bunch of chattering monkeys flinging poo on stage at each debate, he's the only guy in the room who makes any damn sense to me. And that's enough to make me cheer every time I see him on TV.
What is it about this song that so many people love?
Visa's using it in their check card commercials, and now they're also using it in an ad spot for a new Dustin Hoffman/Natalie Portman movie called Mr. Magorium's Magic Emporium.
I guess I'm not the only one who thinks it is one of the best soundtrack songs ever. Danny Elfman rules.
If you've been checking Macworld since last week, you'll notice that EVE Online has really dominated the game news I've been posting there since last week.
Obviously the Fanfest I went to in Reykjavik had a lot to do with that. I was very excited to have gone and really enjoyed my time there, that's for sure. But it's a lot more than that, too. For the first time in a very, very long time, I was exposed to a group of commercial Mac game developers who aren't overly cynical about the marketplace, about Apple or about their audience. They're not approaching the market with naîvety or unrealistic expectations, either.
I mean this as no criticism to the people with whom I work at other Mac game companies in any respect. They have a great deal of very good reason to act and feel as they do. But for the first time in probably five or six years -- yeah, it's really been that long -- the focus was not on what Apple had done, or not done, to support game developers, or how Mac users seemed bound and determined not to buy games for their computers, or problems with Leopard, or Tiger, or OpenGL, or this, that or the other thing.
It was purely about the product. A lot of that had to do with the environment itself. This Fanfest brought together thousands of players who live, breathe and sleep EVE Online. So the focus was on the product. And this was all about getting the product out to two brand new markets -- Linux and Mac users -- who up until now haven't been served.
That was a really, really refreshing perspective, and it was exactly what I needed to get my head back in the game. Literally and figuratively, as it turns out.
The Grand Hotel Reykjavik is a lovely place full of modern Scandinavian design, but the service is slow as hell, just like the service at everywhere in the rest of the country. Also, their paid Internet service absolutely sucks, and it is hideously expensive. Just like everywhere else here.
Next time, I'll come with more cash. Yeah.
I'm sitting in the lobby of the hotel waiting for the taxi to take me to the airport. Iceland has been quite an adventure -- the Fanfest was terrific. I met some fabulous people at CCP Games and fans of the games, and got a lot out of it workwise, too.
Iceland isn't the most hospitable place on the planet this time of year. While it's not exceptionally cold -- in fact, it's never exceptionally cold in here, thanks to warm weather that blows in from the gulf stream -- it *is* incredibly, bone-chillingly windy right now. It's supposed to settle down in a few weeks.
Speaking of wind, I talked with Bonnie this morning, and she tells me that the remnants of Hurricane Noel blew a few trees down yesterday. There isn't any damage to the house, thank God, but we'll have to remove some big stuff that's fallen on the house and in the back yard.
Looking forward to getting back home. I don't dislike traveling, particularly, but I don't like being away from the family and the toll that takes when I'm away. Fortunately, Bonnie's put on a brave face and held up well while I've been gone, and for that I'm grateful.
My opinion of Iceland changed last night after we got driving rain and 50 mph gusts of wind; it's a harsh climate, every bit as bad as New England in the midst of a Nor'easter.
Having said that, I'm having a great time at EVE Online's Fanfest. For one thing, Jason Sims from Inside Mac Games is here. It's been probably five years since we saw each other and it's just like old times. I love him, he's a great guy.
For another thing, CCP Games is a terrific company. They really know how to throw a party, so I'm having no shortage of meeting new people -- everyone from developers who are working on the game to hardcore players who have been with EVE Online since its first Alpha release in 2002. That's invaluable information, and everyone I've spoken to seems genuinely jazzed about the Mac implementation that's coming in the next couple of weeks.
One thing I've discovered the hard way is that Iceland is expensive as hell. I expected as much at the hotel -- prices are always jacked up for travelers. But even at a bar, you can spend as much as $10 for a beer. I guess that's the downside of living in an island country where everything is imported. We certainly suffer a bit of that on Cape Cod, but not nearly as bad.
The weather is supposed to subside a bit over the next day or so. Already, tonight is not nearly as bad as Thursday night is, and for that I'm grateful (no icy rain tonight, nor are there the driving winds that made going out last night a physically painful experience).
I've filed a few stories for Macworld already and plan to file more as well, so stay tuned for details. Suffice it to say at the moment that I've gotten a tremendous amount out of this trip just on networking with CCP Games and TransGaming alone, and don't expect that to subside for the rest of the weekend. Tomorrow is expected to be the really "busy day" for the show, so I'm going to have my hands full. I'm hoping to sit down with developers and producers to pick their brains about the Mac version, so I'm counting on getting more done before I leave on Sunday.
If you do come to Iceland this time of year, pack warm clothes and don't be afraid to wear them -- even the natives know better, and dress in layers of polar fleece, heavy jackets, gloves and hats when the temp dips below 30 degrees F. Fortunately, Bonnie is smart and packed me a knit hat (My BLS hat, Monique, pass it along to Jim) and a pair of ski gloves, so I'm well-protected against the elements.
My flight doesn't leave Keflavik (the international airport that services Iceland) until 5 PM, and the events at the fanfest wrap up on Saturday night. So I'm really hoping to have time to do some "touristy" stuff on Sunday, and perhaps take some pictures, weather permitting. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I'm very grateful to be here.
...from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow, in the words of Led Zeppelin (Immigrant Song)
I landed in Iceland this morning, where I'll be covering CCP Games' EVE Online Fanfest now through Sunday. Very excited to be in Reykjavik -- this is actually my first time abroad (trips to Canada notwithstanding).
So far, Reykjavik seems like a nice city, though at 9:00 local time, the city is still just waking up.
I'm staying at the Grand Hotel Reykjavik, which is my kind of place -- modern architecture, like something out of an Ikea catalog, only more upscale. Anyone who knows me knows what a fan I am of Scandinavian design.
I can't check into my room yet -- it won't be ready until 2:00 PM this afternoon, by which time I hope to be fully ensconced in events happening at the Fanfest. I'll be reporting blow by blow stuff for Macworld, so keep your eyes peeled to Game Room blog postings for all the deets.