Cheese Omelet: Inside Baseball

I was iChatting with my folks last night, when Dad mentioned he was mad at his Detroit Tigers. Seems they traded away his favorite player, catcher Pudge Rodriguez, to the team he most despises in MLB, the Yankees for a relief pitcher who used to pitch for Detroit, before they traded him to the Yankees.

So I had to chuckle this morning when I read this Daring Fireball note: "I have no idea what Detroit was thinking."

Competing Messages: More Pondscum

Dan Lyons, the old "fake Steve Jobs," weighs in on Joe Nocera's self-justification for prying into Steve Jobs' health, taking Nocera's side.

There's a good comment buried down in there somewhere, if you're so worried about Steve Jobs' health because of his "material" value to the company, and the risk his health poses to your investment, then sell your stock. If any of these people actually have any, which they probably don't.

If he's such a single-point failure item, then there is virtually no reason to hold Apple stock. All men are mortal. Even if he's not ill, he could bet hit by a meteor, fer cryin' out loud! Your money's not safe! Find a safer investment! Like mortgage-backed securities, or Enron or something. Please. Do it now.

There are a lot of pathologies at work here, a lot of pathologies, and almost none of them are related to Steve Jobs' appearance.

Competing Messages: Steve's Health

Another chilling example of how we're allowing our culture to become even more commercial and less humane, is the debate surrounding Steve Jobs' health.

Joe Nocera, in the NY Times, is asking if Steve's health is really a private matter? He makes a case that it isn't a private matter, because it's "material" to the performance of the company, and therefore shareholders have a right to know.

Shareholders. The people who wish to profit from their investment. Steve's health, his privacy, poses certain risks to their profits.

Greed.

A culture of commerce and greed. Where "markets are conversation," means nothing is off limits, because it's all part of business. Nothing is "none of your business."

Nothing is off limits. When those shareholders are asked to disclose their genetic makeup to their employers because their predispositions to certain forms of illness pose risks to their employers' (and presumably their shareholders') profits, I hope they're as eager to divulge as they are to demand.

We suck. Joe Nocera should be ashamed of himself. We all should.

Cheese Sandwich: Boys and Their Toys

For the most part, I'm very much enjoying my new iPhone 3G and Oly E-520. And, somewhat to my chagrin, I also have to admit that I really enjoyed removing all the protective plastic film from the smooth shiny surfaces of my new, albeit refurbished, 24" 2.4GHz iMac. It's upstairs in the loft sucking the brains out of the 20" iMac through a Firewire straw.

Buying the iPhone must have released some pent-up desire to buy stuff, because the camera and the iMac followed about a week apart from each other. I think I'm sated for the moment, if only because looking at what it did to my savings balance makes me queasy.

The Department of Rationalization and Self-Justification issued a memorandum for the record supporting the acquisition of the new iMac on the basis of the new Oly. A much better camera needs, nay, demands a much better computer. I found it compelling, so here we are. The 20" is a 1st generation intel iMac, with a 2GHz Core Duo processor, not the Core 2 Duo, and the 24" screen is a significant upgrade. Apple dropped the price on the refurb from $1399 to $1349, and that pretty much sealed the deal for me. It's not a current generation machine, but it should be quite capable for me for the next three years, by which time we should see a fully 64-bit optimized OS X and related applications.

Plus, it's simply beautiful.

While I'm enjoying my toys, it's not always all fun and games out there in the virtual world, where bitter quarrels rage over trivial issues about the iPhone, four-thirds camera formats, Apple and OS X.

I did some browsing around the forums in Digital Photography Review, and for the most part, the Oly SLR forum is pretty benign. Occasional trolling, and a few folks with chips on their shoulders regarding the reviews at DPR, at least the "conclusions." If you venture out into the more open topics though, it can be depressing experience.

The iPhone seems to engender strong feelings in people as well. Not just on its merits as a device, but also a result of its manufacturer and how it is being fielded.

I like my phone, my camera and my computer. But I'm having too much fun with them to argue with anyone about their relative merits. And anyone who has enough time to argue about such silly things isn't having enough fun doing something else. I realize for some, arguing is fun; but I would offer that that's more of an affliction than a pastime.

Crowd-Sourcing: Yahoo! Help a brother out...

Chuq Van Rospach has been shouting into the void for about ten days now. Figured I'd lend my own meager contribution to the "conversation."

You know what to do.

Competing Messages: Change the World Or Go Home

Compare and contrast:

Microsoft's CEO in his most recent memorandum to employees:

In FY09 we must continue to:

By focusing on these five areas, we can continue to grow revenue, increase profit, and expand our market share.

Some marketing bullshit about "social objects" and "conversations" from one of the leading lights of the New World Order:

Microsoft: Change the world or go home.

Guess that one didn't get much traction.

Okay, Ballmer does offer, "Our opportunities to change the world have never been greater," in his penultimate sentence. But I guess it's just not a "priority." And the only guy going home seems to be Kevin Johnson.

I think one can safely conclude that bullshit still makes the world go round. Okay, maybe it's "social" bullshit these days. But still, la plus ça change, la plus c'est la même chose...

Apart from the nonsense about Blue Monsters and such, Ballmer's memo illustrates, in bold relief, the gaping void between his ears. First, they're still making money hand over fist, so Steve naturally wants to "continue to" do that. And maybe if it ain't broke, you know...

But priority number one is to "invest in the right opportunities?" That's pretty inspirational. Basically, it sounds like "Buy Yahoo again. Only this time, actually, you know, buy it." Seems like a pretty silly priority, even if it's not Yahoo. Yeah, you can buy lots of stuff with that cash hoard. But so what?

Priority number two sounds like, "do more of the same." See, "if it ain't broke..."

Priority three, "Drive end user excitement for our products." Oh. My. God. Why not "Build exciting products?" Um, because they can't? Not sure. Don't know. But seriously, this guy is the CEO?

Priority four, "Embrace software plus services." C'mon! Where's the love?! Give it up for "software plus services!" Gimme some sugar, baby! Steve Jobs is quaking in his Nikes, or sandals, or whatever he wears. Who writes this crap for him? This is a priority? I mean, they're a software company fer cryin' out loud! Oh, it's plus services, plus services. I get it. (Not.)

Priority five, "Focus on employee excellence." Hunh? And those excellent employees are going do do what? Priorities one through four?

Why does Microsoft exist? Not to "change the world or go home." No, it exists "to grow revenue, increase profit, and expand our market share."

I think Apple, if it hasn't jumped the shark, exists to build products they, mostly Steve probably, think are cool. And so that's what they do. The revenues, profits and market share follow the creative act. Ballmer doesn't have a creative cell in his body. He's a bean-counter. And, to be fair, he doesn't even have to be creative. He just needs to understand that the company does have to be creative. And he clearly, clearly does not grok that.

MS is dead. The heart will keep beating and the cash will keep flowing, but there's no brain activity.

(Having fun with my new toys, the E-520 and my iPhone. Just didn't want you to think we'd gone anywhere.)

iPhone: Griffin iTrip AutoPilot

While I was in the Apple Store on Friday, I mentioned I bought the Griffin iTrip AutoPilot to replace my Griffin iTrip, which is incompatible with the iPhone. While I was at the Genius Bar, I asked my genius if the iTrip AutoPilot (not to be confused with the AutoPilot, which does not include an FM transmitter), worked with the iPhone 3G. He wasn't sure. When I checked out, I mentioned that I would be testing it as soon as I got to the car, and if it didn't work I would return it immediately.

Well, as these things go, it didn't clearly not work. Which is to say, it does work, but there is a great deal of noise in the signal. I tried a number of different stations, and I wasn't impressed with the circuitry that supposedly finds the clearest channels. I ended up using the same freq I used with the original iTrip (which I mistakenly referred to as the RoadTrip in my original post), and while it was the best of the I could find, there was still a lot more noise than I was used to with the iTrip.

But I drove home with it anyway, thinking perhaps there was a setting I could find that might clean up the signal. Going from stereo to mono on the transmitter didn't make any difference in the level of noise. The iPhone itself suggested that the device wasn't designed to work with the iPhone, and offered to go into Airplane mode, presumably to afford a better audio signal.

Well, long story longer, I ended up connecting the iPop Video (5.5G) to the iTrip AutoPilot today, and there was still more noise than I was getting with the iTrip. So it's not exclusively an issue with the iPhone's 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth radios. It's simply not as good an FM transmitter as the iTrip.

Whether or not I'll be able to return it remains to be seen. I suppose there may be a restocking fee. But I can't see hanging on to something that doesn't work as well as the device it was meant to replace. And I suppose I'll just have to keep listening ot the iPod in the car, instead of the iPhone.

Oh well...

iPhone: Remote Feature Request

Remote for the iPhone is pretty cool. You can control iTunes with it, which I could do before with Salling Clicker, but this is a good start. One feature I'd like to see implemented right away is to pause iTunes when a call is received. It might be something you'd want to configure, but for me it would be the default. Sometimes I like to turn up the volume a bit, and it makes it hard to hear the phone ring. So pausing on an incoming call would be a double alert of a new call.

Mac: Apple Store Customer Service

I brought both iPods into the Genius Bar at the Jacksonville Apple Store at St. Johns Town Center. While I did have to wait about 20 minutes past my scheduled appointment, the service I received was excellent. Both iPods are being replaced. The Classic was replaced on the spot, as they had stock on hand to do so; while the 5.5G had to have a replacement ordered from the Mother Ship. But I was allowed to keep my current 5.5G, as it works fine from the dock connector, and when the new one arrives they'll notify me and we'll make the exchange then.

I was more than a little bit amazed to see a line of probably more than 100 people outside the store, all waiting for iPhones.

Of course, while I was in there, I was overcome by the urge to buy accessories. I ended up buying a new battery for the MacBook, though I'm not really sure I should have. It seems to go through the battery much faster now than it had before; but it's just over a year old now, so maybe that's just a reflection of its age. In any event, more juice is always a good thing.

I also bought a Griffin AutoPilot replacement for my RoadTrip, which doesn't work with the iPhone 3G. The AutoPilot works, but the audio quality is unacceptable. Too much static and noise, the RoadTrip was much, much better when it was connected to my 5.5G. It may simply be the electronic noise from the iPhone. The phone comes up with a dialog when the AutoPilot is connected that offers to go into Airplane mode to reduce noise, but then it's not much use as a phone. Of course, I shouldn't be using the phone while driving, so I may need to think about that a bit. I also bought another one of those tiny USB AC adapters.

In any event, the beat goes on...

iPhone 3G: Day Seven

It's been interesting to read much of the reaction to the iPhone. I'm not surprised at some of the negative commentary about Apple from various quarters. It seems like any successful endeavor is bound to attract critics. But some of it is ridiculous, like the Free Software Foundation's 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G. But it's ridiculous on purpose, it's just using the iPhone as a means to garner attention for their own cause.

Whatever.

Okay, some observations.

Battery life is good, but you can drain that sucker pretty fast if you're not paying attention. Turn off the stuff you aren't going to use in a particular setting. Eventually, I'd like to see Apple include an Energy Saver control setting, so I can just select a particular configuration I've saved.

Right now, I'm at home where I can access my wireless network, so I've turned off the 3G radio and calls are over the 2.5G network, the radio for which requires less power. This means I can't access the web while making a call, but I'm in my condo where there are no fewer than four other Macs within easy reach. Yes, I probably have a problem of some kind. I've also turned off location services, because I know where I am and I'm not geo-tagging the little snaps I take with the camera. You can also turn off Push notification for e-mail and just check in hourly. Again, I have e-mail everywhere here. In that configuration yesterday, I made a number of calls, took a few snaps and looked at e-mail a couple of times, and the battery indicator was still nearly full last night when I connected to the charger.

On the first day of the seminar, during the presentations that weren't very relevant to me, I would check my e-mail and use the New York Times Reader application pretty frequently. In that setting, I silenced the phone but kept 3G active because there was no wifi accessible. I turned off the wifi radio and the GPS receiver (Location Services), because I wasn't using those, and I dimmed the screen. Even so, I pretty much ran the thing into the ground on Monday. 3G does use a lot of power.

On Wednesday, I was in Airplane mode a good portion of the day, listening to iTunes, and that seems to have relatively little impact on the battery. If you're in a setting where you don't wish to be interrupted by phone calls, you might select Airplane mode to use it strictly as an iPod, and it would have minimal impact on your battery life.

I don't think power is going to be a limiting issue in most applications. If or when we see GPS turn-by-turn nav applications for the iPhone, we can power the phone itself from the vehicle's accessory power port. In the office, I can keep the phone tethered to the MacBook, or to the tiny little USB charger, and keep all services active while charging the phone.

Performance is good, though there are a couple of hiccoughs now and then. Switching to the Phone app brought up a black screen a couple of times, but hitting the Home button and selecting it again seemed to resolve it. The first time, I waited for what felt like close to a minute before taking any action, to see if it was just "thinking." Not sure what's up with that. One of my early syncs in iTunes presented me with a dialog saying that iTunes had collected some app crash data from the iPhone and wanted to send it along to Apple if that was okay with me. Haven't seen that dialog since, but I didn't look at it closely, so it may have said "Don't ask me again," or something. But I suspect Apple is collecting data on how the phones are performing, and we'll see updates to address reproducible issues.

NY Times Reader seems to fail to download any data now and then. Again, quit to Home and relaunch seems to resolve the issue.

Not sure how I feel about the swipe to activate feature. When answering a call while walking Bodhi, I haven't quite mastered doing so one-handed. A Bluetooth headset would solve that, but I'm really ambivalent about BT headsets. I think most people wearing them look absolutely ridiculous, to include yours truly. I live in a gated community (I know, I know - the gate is not why I like it here, and it's mostly just there to inconvenience people for the illusion of security) and when guests come they have to punch in my code at the keypad, I get a call from the gate and I have to hit 9 on the keypad to buzz them in. I could do that one-handed on the Nokia - I can't on the iPhone. Now, what would be kind of cool would be to somehow automate returning a "9" keypad press upon receiving a call from Gate (it's on the Address Book).

Also cool would be a stolen iPhone registry, such that you would notify the Apple Store when your iPhone was stolen, and it would then retrieve location data from the iPhone, wipe all the data from the memory, and if some user attempted to sync it with iTunes, notify that user that the phone was stolen and could not sync. Not sure all that's possible, but it might become a meaningful deterrent to theft if you could basically brick the iPhone if it was stolen. Of course, Murphy's law says that non-stolen iPhones would occasionally get bricked, and everybody would be up in arms about that.

Anyway, I remain quite pleased with the iPhone. It's by no means perfect, but it's far more capable as a handheld device than my Nokia 3660 or my Palm T|X (which I probably should sell). I wonder if it's a coincidence that Dataviz is having a big sale on Documents to Go and wireless keyboards for Palm devices?

Cheese Sandwich: Back Home Again

It's probably not smart to say this, but I think I'm done traveling for a little while. My next conference isn't until October, so barring some calamity, I'm home for a while. I really don't understand the mindset of all those folks who jet from conference to conference, most of which accomplish exactly nothing, other than to pad their contact lists and give them something to blog about. I sure hope all the greenhouse gas emissions were worth it. In my own case, they probably weren't. But traveling by air is just an ordeal these days.

I got off to a bad start on Sunday. I ran the dishwasher before I left, and just as I was about to walk out the door, I noticed what looked like snow on the kitchen floor. They were suds from the dishwasher. I stopped the machine, but I had to clean up the mess before I left. Not being the kind of guy who leaves a lot of margin for error, this put me behind schedule.

My flight was scheduled to leave at 3:30, and I arrived at the airport at 2:52. I waited at the economy lot for the shuttle for what felt like forever. I swiped my credit card at the USAir kiosk at 3:01, and my seat was gone. You have to check in 30 minutes before departure, doncha know? Sigh. Anyway, I made it up to Norfolk that night, so all's well that ends well, apart from the very large guy with what seemed like restless leg syndrome, who kept slamming his knee into my thigh all the way from Charlotte to Norfolk.

Had many opportunities to practice not being "a grumpy old man." Must be a karma thing.

It wasn't a conference this time, but a seminar, and it ended earlier than I'd planned. Actually, it ended exactly when the organizers planned it to end, they just didn't really explain that part all that well. So I got to get out of there about eight hours early, although it cost quite a bit of money to do so. Not sure how that's going to work out. I said I'd pay for the difference, but it isn't clear that I'm going to have to. The flight home was much less of an ordeal than the one on the way up, but I was interested to note how much more comfortable I felt once I was on the ground in Jacksonville.

I'm burning some vacation time, taking the remainder of the week off. It's not much as vacation goes, mostly I'm trying to get caught up on everything. I had Shiva, The Destroyer of Worlds, worked on yesterday and took care of the dishwasher door. Looks like it was just some fouled seals with dried detergent and scale keeping the gasket from seating well. Scrubbed everything out with a toothbrush and some canned air, and it looks like I'm not going to need the replacement gasket I ordered. Also got the floor mopped yesterday. Now I need to get my counters cleared off and my laundry put away. With any luck, I'll be able to enjoy the weekend by the pool, assuming it doesn't rain.

The iPod Video 5.5G is going to see the genius at the Apple store, along with Caitie's iPod Classic that died some time ago. Both are under warranty, so I'm hopeful for satisfactory resolutions to those issues.

The iPhone continues to delight. More about that in a separate post. I'm also hoping the weather cooperates and I get an opportunity to really play with the E-520 this weekend. I've taken a number of shots with it already, really just to begin to get the "feel" of the camera body, where my thumb goes and where the controls are and how it behaves. It's a very different experience from my point-and-shoots, even though my two main ones also have fully manual controls and lots of buttons of their own. A couple of shots have turned out well, though I'm not really shooting for subject or composition at this point. Also bear in mind, I'm not a photographer, I just take pictures.

Anyway, time to change the subject.

iPhone 3G: Screenshot Maps App

Earlier today, I read somewhere that you can take a screenshot of whatever is on your iPhone's screen by pressing the Home button and the sleep button at the same time. While I was out walking Bodhi, I called up Maps to see how the GPS was doing with my location. It was dead on, so I took a screenshot of it. It worked as described, and deposits the image in your camera images "folder," from which I e-mailed it to myself, and then saved it to my iDisk, so you can see it here:

Cheese Sandwich: iPhone 3G Day One

I suppose I should just create an iPhone 3G category, but if this continues to perform as expected, I think it will just recede into the background as something that we just take for granted. That is, something that works.

I'm still quite smitten with this little device. Finally, I have something that nearly approaches the kind of device I've always wanted. It easily surpasses my Palm T|X even without the "phone" part. At work, I couldn't check my home e-mail. This shouldn't be a "problem" per se, as I am at work. But there are often times when I'm engaged in a personal project or effort, and there are things that require coordination that can't be readily conducted by phone (which is my preference, anyway). I don't forward personal e-mail to my work address, because that's a potential problem. So it was always something of an inconvenience to have to wait until I got home to check my e-mail. Notionally, my Nokia 3660 could check my e-mail, but after trying to live with that, I decided I'd prefer to have another root canal. So I'm very pleased that I have good e-mail connectivity with my personal contacts at any time.

Just as a BTW, I don't get a lot of e-mail. In fact, most of what I get, which isn't much, are commercial messages. So I'm not one of those GTD guys who has to empty his inbox every day or it becomes an ordeal.

I was at the pool yesterday, and someone mentioned that the waves at the beach were pretty impressive, and they were associated with Hurricane Bertha. Having the iPhone at hand, I entered National Hurricane Center into the search field, and within seconds (well, about a minute), I was reading the latest predictions regarding Hurricane Bertha. Not a threat to us, but it's nice to know I can get current weather data living less than a mile from the beach in a state that is somewhat prone to receiving hurricanes. It's bookmarked now.

The GPS feature is quite nice, though it's not a genuine navigation solution out of the box. What it is, is an aid to navigation, and a very good one at that. Outside, the location data is very precise. Indoors, it is somewhat degraded, sometimes very degraded, but that's true of any GPS receiver. This, together with mobile Safari, would have been very useful in Washington two weeks ago.

My contact data all migrated over through MobileMe. I'd been keeping the Address Book up to date on the MacBook, and I just had my .Mac data replaced by the MacBook data, and my phone is nicely up-to-date. There were a couple of contacts I hadn't added to Address Book before the switch, but I just pulled them from my address book in the Nokia.

The camera in the iPhone is no great shakes, but it's much, much better than the one in my Nokia! When I want to take pictures, I have many choices of cameras. In fact, I also now own an Olympus E-520, so I'm not relying on the iPhone as a camera. It's just a convenient way to capture an image quickly, when nothing else is at hand. Would it be better to have a better lens and some focusing ability, and maybe a flash? Sure, but it's by no means a crippling defect.

Sixteen gigabytes is a generous amount of storage. I've managed to only use a few of those so far with music and pictures and some apps I've downloaded from the App Store. I do need to go through and build some custom playlists for the iPhone, because I can carry probably all of the music I really love with no problem. For the moment, I just sync'ed the Nano playlist, along with the recently played, recently added and top 25 most frequently played playlists. That isn't much. I also just defaulted to the last six months of photos from iPhoto, which amounted to about 950 images, which took about 600MB of storage. The pictures are "optimized," which suggests to me that they are downsampled in some way, probably in resolution. We're working with a 320x480 device here! They look great and you can zoom in quite a bit before getting a great deal of pixelation.

The App Store is very cool. I'll write about some of the apps another time. But it's painless to download and install applications. Well, painless apart from your wallet.

So, what's lame? Well, the dock connector is lame. First, the cable that ships with the iPhone is a piece of crap. The dock connector end is in a smaller plastic shell, and it doesn't include the little retractible pawls that are on every other iPod cable I've ever used. It relies on friction, I guess, and there is quite a bit of resistance upon insertion or removal. Also, the metal part of the shell is some cheap, unpolished crap. I'll post a picture of that soon. I can't believe Steve Jobs let that detail get overlooked! They must be saving all of a penny a part on that call.

Also lame is some change to the firmware or charging circuitry. I have a Griffin iTrip and when I plugged it into the iPhone, I got a disclaimer on the iPhone that charging was not supported with that device. I tried to do a little research on Google, and I wasn't able to determine if it was just a precautionary disclaimer, or if charging was actually disabled in some way, or if attempting to charge would harm the device. Very lame. I'm going to wait and see what further investigation reveals, but Apple should be more forthcoming with how newer models work with existing peripherals. Half-assed messages are not "insanely great."

I got the black model, and it's astonishing to me the quantity of lipids our skin produces! Because it's so smooth and round, I was constantly afraid of dropping the thing as I pulled it out of my pocket. And the oily smears are rather unsightly. So i've got a silicone rubber condom wrapped around the back shell now, which provides a modicum of cushioning should I drop it, and which doesn't seem to attract, hold or show as much (any!) oil as the smooth black backshell. The screen gets streaked pretty quickly as well, but I just wipe it off on my pants.

Okay, the onscreen keyboard. Mixed feelings right now. Better than the keypad on the Nokia 3660 for sure, but not great. I'm getting better as I go along, but so far, I think I can see where some of the criticism I've read about it may be legitimate. It's not a deal-breaker for me, because I've had problems with input on every handheld device I've owned, to include my beloved Newton MP130.

Cut and paste? Haven't needed it yet, but I can see where that is likely to be something of a significant oversight. What I'm looking forward to is something like TypeIt4Me or Text Expander for the iPhone. Here's hoping.

Okay, that's it for now. I'm busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest, so light posting for the foreseeable future. I've got a couple of longish pieces in the Social Hygiene vein kind of percolating in the back of my mind, but I've got this trip I've got to take and a ton of housework and some car maintenance and legal crap, and a happily busy social life... So I'm not dead or anything, just busy.

Cheese Sandwich: iPhone 3G Day Zero

I am the happy owner of an iPhone 3G. I was the third in line at the Ponte Vedra AT&T corporate store at 0545 this morning, and the first out the door with an iPhone. The two customers in front of me had complicated orders. I ported my number and it completed in about ten minutes!

The store is right around the corner from my condo and I was home and on iTunes before Apple's servers melted down, so I was a full-up round before I left for work at about 0845.

So far, color me a happy customer. Further reports as they develop.