Monthly Archives: July 2008

First couple days with the iPhone2.0 software

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After activation woes, the experience has been pretty good. The things I like:

* The Exchange support. Wasn’t completely obvious how to enable. You have to delete your old imap/webdav email account info, and create a new Exchange account type, and turn on the cal and contact synching. It will wipe all your on-device cal and contact info so sync up first! Getting the entourage/ical sync disaster out of my config is a very good thing.
* The App store. nice selection, a lot of good choices, and seems to work well. Apps I like so far:
** Urbanspoon. The interface is just cool
** GuitarToolkit. Chord reference and tuner, very nice
** Todo. Integrates nicely with RememberTheMilk for a complete app and website experience. Jott is great too with the nice voice interface but Todo wins for the rememberthemilk integration
** SmugShot. Replaces the iPhone camera and photo apps, and is integrated with SmugMug

Things that aren’t doing it for me:

* What is the new Contacts app for? Seems like a subset of the phone app
* The Google app. Not really clear what value this adds beyond the existing search in Safari
* Games. They look nice but the interface limitations of the device really hurt. I won’t get rid of my DS.
* Still no cut and paste?? Am I missing this somewhere?

iPhone servers crumble under activation strain

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iPhone servers crumble under activation strain | Electricpig — exactly where I am at this morning. Has screwed up my entire day. Thanks much Apple. Who had the idea to disable every single freaking existing iPhone as part of this process?????

UPDATE: ok i am past that hurdle and my phone is doing a really slow re-sync. Progress.

MORE: what a freaking disaster. now itunes just crashed hard (on the mac). in the middle of a sync. not happy.

Stuff I Want But Don't Need — Surround projector TV, Multitool, Power monitor

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* Mitsubishi Ultra Thin Frame Premium Flat Panel TV with Integrated Sound Projector ยป Coolest Gadgets — cool. I have a discrete sound projector in one room and have been happy with. this is a great way to get surround sound with minimal fuss.
* At the other end of the price spectrum, the Li’l Guppie Multi-tool. I am not sure I actually get much value out of multi-tools but they look cool.
* Realtime power use monitor — this actually seems pretty useful.

Halloween ideas — green fire, rope lights, DMX, floor plan software

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* How To Make bright green fire | Wonder How To — cool looking, i wonder how toxic this is
* Cheap ambient lighting with rope lights. Cool idea, my mausoleum could use this
* simple DMX controller. I went away from DMX as most of my effects are outside, and water doesn’t mix with dmx cabling, but maybe there is a way to rework my system — after all i basically moved all control electronics into the garage last year and just ran power cables out.
* Planningwiz floor plan software — i use a plan to layout all my halloween plans, this might be a simpler tool

Interesting materials reads

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* [0807.0378] Nano Imprint Lithography on Silica Sol-gels: a simple route to sequential patterning — multiple layers of stamping for nanophotonic or microfluidic apps. I love microfluidics, what a crazy and fun area
* Scale production of nanotube circuits — I’m not sure what they’ve done but scale production is the key problem
* Qubits and branes share surprising features — way beyond me…
* Cornell researchers figure out how assemble metals in complex nanostructures — a cool new way to form bulk metals
* Controlling quantum state via voltage — interesting work on the way to useful quantum computers

Town at the eighth mile of Boston Marathon? Treasure Island illustrator?

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Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: SUNDAY, Jul. 6, 2008 – Brendan Emmett Quigley (“TREASURE ISLAND” ILLUSTRATOR, 1911 / TOWN AT THE EIGHTH MILE OF THE BOSTON MARATHON)

…Criminy. Look, I don’t mind stuff I don’t know (I see it every day), and I don’t really mind stuff I don’t know crossing other stuff I don’t know, but only if there’s some way for me to make a reasonable guess…Come on. That NW corner is just dickish.

I have to agree with the sentiment.

Owl!

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!>http://jhludwig.smugmug.com/photos/326309800_TAsa6-Ti.jpg!:http://jhludwig.smugmug.com/photos/326309800_TAsa6-X3.jpg first time I’ve ever seen an owl in nature. Apparently a juvenile barred owl. Very curious about us.