iPod Touch Apps.

Here are some of the apps I've downloaded and tried so far:

1. Islet. I rally really like this one. Before Islet, I was using a program on my Plam Tungsten E3 for the same purporse: tracking my blood sugar, meds and carbs intake. The Palm app was clumsy, slow and broke Hotsync occasionally. Islet uses a standards-based MySQL database, which makes the data easier to share. With a nice open source addon, the database can be backed up through a LAN sing Apple's Bonjour network auto-discovery protocol. Data can be graphed, screen-shotted, sent via email to the doctor, etc. Well worth $1.99 to me.

2. iPhone Bookshelf. Love my ebooks. I have piles of them, thanks to the Baen Free Library as well as all those Baen CDs from the various Honorverse books I've bought over the years (and ripped from other Honorverse fans). I have all 13 14 (Storm from the Shadows is finally out!) Honorverse novels plus 1632, 1633, 1634: The Baltic War, every Bujold Vorkosigan series book and more. Oh, and there's the resources of Project Gutenburg as well! This reader blows the one on the E2 away. The books are synced through a cute little cross-platform Java app that uses Bonjour over IP for adding books.

3. Runes. Graphical divinatory tool. This tool does only the traditional 3 Norns cast, and includes possible interpretations of the runes pulled. This app is about as graphically ugly as they come (see above for a screenie), but it does the job.

4. Touch Tarot. Basic Rider-Waite tarot tool with Celtic Cross, 3 card and single card spreads, a card browser and of course interpretations of the card, including reversed cards. Basic and useful.

5. Fnorder. Not a divination tool as such, just a toy for generating crypto-conspiracy silliness in the tradition of Steve Jackson Games' Illuminati games. Very very pretty, free, and a sign of good things to come for iPhone from SJ Games.

6. Armory Spy: Free App for accessing the World of Warcraft Armory and displaying the results on an iPhone. Pretty and efective,

7. I Can Haz Cheezburger: Lolcats and other lolpics from ICHC and sister sites. When ya gotta have that cheezburger to go . . .even has the ability to edit pics to make your own lol pictures.

You will note that I have not discussed games yet. Yes there are games out the ying-yang for iPhone. I'll even check a few of them out, but they are a bit costly.

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Now playing: The Rolling Stones - Hang Fire

Look what landed on my desk this morning . . .

. . . this 8 gig iPod touch 2nd gen. I like sales contest prizes.

The OOB experience was the typical one I've had with every Apple product I've ever owned: plug it in, charge it up, sync it with iTunes, and it worked. The wifi connected right away with the network in the office. Yay wifi! Yay mobile Safari! Yay mobile Mac Mail! Contacts, iCal events, music and photos synced like a charm.

I'm ordering just a few apps for it: iPhone Bookshelf (for transferring my PDA's ebook files), Islet (for tracking diabetes stats), the SJ Games' Fnorder (just fnord because), a dice roller for gaming, a secure note program, Wikipedia and Facebook apps.

In other tech / gadget news: new iMacs, new Mac Pro and Mac minis out today. The mini is a verra sexy little beast: mini-DVI AND mini Display Port video outs for dual display support, FIVE(!) USB 2.0 ports, 8x Superdrive as standard, 2.0 GHz Core 2 duo, nice Nvidia integrated graphics, a gig of RAM standard . . . in an aluminum enclosure. Leopard and iLife '09 complete the package. Cute machine, but it's not an all-in-one, it's BYOKMD.

The iMacs are likewise yummy. 2 gigs RAM standard in the 20-inch display model . . . 256 MB graphics, etc.

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Now playing: Black Sabbath - Paranoid
via FoxyTunes

Black Friday Special...

Darth Vader Toaster!

This is simply begging to be mocked . . .

Random Thoughts (and dry, un-buttered humor) follow:

"Always two slices, there are . . . "

The Sith are TOAST!

The Dark Side™: Part of this nutritious breakfast!

Eggs Aankin: Like Eggs Benedict, except on Darth Toasted muffins

"What is thy bidding, my Master?"
"Two slices, not burned."

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Now playing (what else?): John Williams - The Imperial March
via FoxyTunes

I can haz ifon appz?

From the folx who brought you teh cheezburgers . . .

Xbox nailed to a tree...

Odinn and Yahweh not amused.

SotR 2008-02-21: Eris' Personal Plaything

A few months ago, when my life was even more whacked than it is today, I told M that I believed that Eris, the goddess of discord and chaos, had selected me as her personal plaything (I actually used a five-letter word referring to a female cur rather than "plaything" with her, but you get the idea). She didn't dispute the idea.

Being Eris' personal bitc, er, plaything, means that both good and bad stuff happens, not just bad stuff.

This week gives me no reason to believe otherwise. A too sharp right turn and a too-rough curb blew out the right rear tire on the Vanmobile. In the rain. And I didn't have a clue as to how, where or if the beast had a spare. It took the light of day and the help of Rob at work to get the VM rolling again. In the process of changing the tire, I found the black Motorola v3 RAZR I thought had been stolen from the VM last week. This was after I'd bought a cheapass Samsung A127 plain vanilla no-Bluetooth-no-sync-with-a-Mac-model. One SIM swap later, my RAZR's operational. Finally, my tax refund check, Fed version, hit the bank along with my paycheck.

Hail Eris!

Happy Valentine's Day, Texas . . .

Sex Toy Ban overturnd by court. Legislature to reconvene, President to return to Crawford.

There and Back Again . . .

There's a good reason for the gap in my posting: I was in the hosptial for swelling and infected wounds in my legs. While I had my MB with me, I had no way to connect it to the Internet --I guess we're still a few years from what EarthLink founder Sky Dayton called "packetspace."

Ten days of almost no Internet (I had the browser on my cellphone, and that's it), coffee or TeeVee did not quite leave me a gibbering idiot. I was a near-run thing, though.

The most noteworthy aspect of this stay was that they (Kaiser) transferred me to a Kaiser-run skilled nursing facility (KPPACC) in San Leandro, about 100 miles from my current digs in South Sacramento.

I was not amused.

Highlight of my hospital visit: I successfully suppressed the urge to throttle by roommate at KPPACC. Idjit would have the remote for the one TV set the room had and play the most mind-destroying teevee other than political campaign ads or Fox News Channel: soap opeas and sports. Not only that, he'd read the damned paper with the fscking teevee on!

Whotta asshat. I wanted to stuff that remote down his throat, I was so pissed. I chose instead to employ my iPod -- stuffed with tunage from Leslie Fish, The Elders, Seanan McGuire and Flogging Molly -- and headphones to block out the sound; fortunately I had Civilization 3 loaded on the MB, a perfect non-Internet game for whiling away large blocks of time.

I also had The Sims 2 on my phone, another very good game. I'd never had the chance to play the game much until this trip to the hospital, and I got my money's worth from it during the ambulance ride to San Leandro.

M&D also brought me some spare underwear and Guinness pajama bottoms before I was shipped off to KPPACC. I wore the PJs for most of my stay at KPPACC. The tangerines helped stave off the hungries from the notoriously small (and utterly flavor-free) portions of Hospital Food® and the sugarless Jelly Bellies and Gummi Bears were treats I savored.

I managed to read William Gibson's Idoru as well -- I wouldn't say it was better than Neuromancer but it was better than Count Zero or Virtual Light.

At Kaiser South I encountered some utterly awesome nurses and a wonderful doc.

My daughter, bless her, came to pick me up and bring me home. Our first stop on the way home: Starbucks.


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Listening to: Sun Green & The Imitators with Neil Young & Crazy Horse & The Greendale Chamber of Commerce - Be the Rain
via FoxyTunes

"Oh God . . . Oh GOD!!"

Yes, Jesus loves you.

This one's rated "NSFW"

WiFi power bost?

This wireless router is said to have a 1/4 mile range. This reminds me of the science fiction RPG that featured fusion hand grenades on its equipment list -- they could destroy a city block, bit you could only throw it twenty meters or so . . .



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Listening to: Weird Al Yankovic - Christmas At Ground Zero
via FoxyTunes

The very best thing about Leo . . .

Two words: TIME MACHINE.
Time Machine is the very best single reason for a Mac user to buy and install Leopard . . . and of you are a Windows user, the very best reason to go get a new Mac. Time Machine is a backup and restore utility. In a word, you can, at need, "go back in time" and restore your entire system or even a single file from any 1-hr increment in the last day, any day in the last month and any month thereafter. So, if in the middle of writing your master's thesis your MacBook Pro's internal HD packs it in, if you have TM and an external hard disk, you can restore the last backup (not to mention OS X, all your preferewnces, email, etc) of your thesis once the hard disk is replaced, and on you go.

You can restore a single file, your whole iTunes Library or thw whole fscking startup partition. No more need to use Target Disk Mode and another Mac. No more "log in as root, drag and drop your Home folder (c:\Documents and settings\yourname for you windows users) and HOPE you got it right." For some users, enabling the OS X "root" account is like handing a drunk with Tourette's Syndrome a greased grenade . . . only "sudo rm -R /* is capable of more damage in less time (think dropping to DOS, cd c:, then del *.*). No more Retrospect, .Mac backup 3.x (not a bad program, but it's about as intuitive as brain surgery when compared to TM) or needing to rely on a non-Apple solution.

Best of all, TM does this silently and automaticly..

Windows, by comparison, has "system restore" which is great for restoring Windows system files . . . but it does nto do jack about your master's thesis or your email, pics, music, videos or porn.

I had been looking forward to buying a new external hard drive to try this feature out once my finances allowed for it. Fortunately for me, I won a nice 250 gigabyte USB 2.0 drive today for quarterly sales performance. This is plenty of space to allow me to back up the 100 GB drive in my MacBook (currently about 40 gigs free). I'm going to put at least three partitions on the disk: one OS X for TM (I'm going to names it "HD Welles"), one also OS X (one just big enough to serve as a 10.5 startup disk, probably named "DaVinci" -- as in Leo-nardo) to install Leopard so I can boot off this drive at need and one formatted for FAT32 (Disk Utility does not speak Windows NTFS) so my good friends Michelle and David can back up their docs/music/pics/etc/omg/wtf/bbq.

Since the disk will be partitioned three ways, I think I'll call it "Gaul." Of course, people will look at me funny (not that they don't do that already . . .).

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Listening to: Styx - Suite Madame Blue
via FoxyTunes

More Leopard FUN

The only reason I did not install Leopard on my personal machine on the first day it was released was that my personal machine has an optical drive that keeps on ejecting discs. Again. But tonight I got the cat to purr as it should.

OK, so how did I manage to get Leo installed? Four very important words to the Mac Geek: Firewire Target Disc Mode. "FWTDM" allows a Mac to boot up and say to all the world that it is nothing but a hard disk. When that Mac (the "target") is connected via Firewire (aka IEEE 1394, if you're keeping score) to another Mac booted normally into OS X, the target disk is treated like another external disk -- it is visible on the desktop and accessible through the Finder (the Mac answer to Windows Explorer).

FWTDM is a godsend for those times when a drive will be recognized and "mount" (become accessable by the Finder) but you cannot boot from that drive into Mac OS X. You can use it for data rescue (most common use). Another use for FWTDM is for times when you want to mount optical discs from one Mac's optical drive to one where the optical is nonfunctional on the targeted system.

So all i needed to do is borrow a Firewire cable and wait until after work to use my iMac workstation's optical drive to install my copy of Leopard onto this system.

That is the theory.

Install attempt number 1: I got clever and did an Archive and Install preserving instead of the usual upgrade install. One of my favorite tech sites suggested it, and their reasons made sense to me. Sadly for me, the AC power glitched enough to shut off the targeted iMac (the MacBook didn't blink thanks to the battery). Installus Interruptus. Welcome to my nightmare scenario. This is a bad place to be; most of the time this is a reformat. The MacBook, predictably enough, booted to the classic "Apple / Gear" screen that is the hallmark of damaged system files or filesystem. If damaged files, no worries, a straight archive and install fixes that. If damaged filesystem, then I'd have to reformat the drive, lose everything on the system, and reinstall. Your basic nuke and pave reinstall. Fortunately, Disk Utility dubbed the filesystem to be OK. Dodged that bullet!

Attempt number 2: Archive and install preserving user settings. Worked fine until I tried to log into my user account -- bad password. Tried to reset it with the Password reset utility, and it would not reset. Disk util said things were still OK with the filesystem, thank Eris. Then the MacBook started kernel panicking (BSOD for you Windows users). Ick. Deja Vu all over again.

Attempt number 3: OK, I decided then and there to do one more A&I, but this time NOT preserving the user account. If this install screwed the pooch, it was time to bite the bullet and nuke it from orbit. This install was smooth as glass. The system booted to first time setup as usual, Made a brand new account with the exact same name as my old one and a four letter password (fsck, of course). Lo and behold, the MacBook booted to the Leo desktop.

Thirty minutes of user account migration and a password change in System prefs later, my email, bookmarks, address book, documents, wireless peripherals, Bluetooth enabled phone, and World of Warcraft were working perfectly. Not to mention iPhoto and the uber-neat Screen Sharing feature. Now to make sure that I install Palm Desktop (Arch and install ALWAYS breaks Palm Desktop's Transport Monitor), my printer drivers (nice thing about leo is that the open-source Gutenprint driver set I use with my "OEM drivers for Windows ONLY" printer (HA!) is now included with a standard install) and a few other apps I can download form the Internet and I'll be jake.

Not to mention that none of the 'puters on which I have Leo installed on have taken any kind of performance hit. Startup is still fast and there are a few strange behaviors. The only major casualty of the install has been my Windows partition because the arch and installs eat disk space.

Oh well, Windows can wait until I get the optical fixed.

Not a bad night's worth of hands-on teching!

Catapulting the Propaganda on cable teevee, and Why Cable Internet Is Evil

As all five of my readers know, I absolutely HATE television. I do not, and will not own a TV set. While my new roomie, bless his lupine soul, has satellite TV at our place and I had Comcast cable TV at my last place, I refuse to buy a set.

Speaking of cable internet versus DSL: AT&T Yahoo! consumer aDSL beats the holy snot out of Comcast cable for internet access. While cable IS faster and a bit simpler to set up (your computer is configured by default for cable over ethernet, DSL configuration is a bit harder), aDSL is a LOT more reliable. Back when I lived near CSUS, with both my first set o' roommates and my own place, the DSL went down a total of twice, and a power-cycle of the CPE and router fixed the issues. World of Warcraft latency was usually under 25 milliseconds -- not too bad at all. When I lived with Evil Otto, thanks to the wonders of cable "bandwidth sharing" the connect speed would drop to the point where WoW latency exceeded 1500 milliseconds; web pages and email took forever and a day to download (so I knew the game issues were not Blizzard's servers).

Not to mention what Comcast is doing to Bittorrent users . . . never has a problem with Bittorrent when connected to SBC / AT&T Yahoo! consumer aDSL. Of course, if Comcast hoses Bittorrent, it will also hose World of Warcraft updates because these updates are distributed using the Bittorrent protocol.

Moral of the story: do not get cable internet. Ever.

Back to the evil that is cable teevee. Even though I don't own a set, many public places where I spend time have sets tuned to Fox News, CNN or ESPN. It is very easy for me to ignore Faux News and Conservative News Network because of the sheer idiocy the hosts. For some reason ESPN is harder to ignore but the sheer inanity of big-time sports -- not to mention how addicted certain parents of mine are to teevee sports -- makes me more sensitive to it.

Anyway, I saw an ad the last time I was exposed to the toxin that is ESPN that made me go "WTF?" The spot was a generic VISA card ad. What made me go "WTF" was not the usual conspicuous consumption / debt overload stuff that makes me want to puke. The ad is basically a parade of consumers buying stuff they don't need with their VISA cards . . . then one of the parade of customers offered Federal Reserve Notes -- cash -- instead of a VISA card to pay for his purchases. From the look on the clerk's face you'd think the customer offered to pay for his crap with a used condom. Two thoughts went through my head at this point" one was "Why is cash treated like a leprous dead badger with AIDS?" When last I looked at a dollar bill, it said "valid for all debts, public and private." Just what is the Wall Street / Madison Avenue politico-economic axis of evil REALLY trying to say? To me it sounds like "Cash (and by extension, the government that issues it) cannot be trusted but VISA (and by extension the private sector) can be."

Of course, from the standpoint of someone who has a massive distrust for the current regime of corporate overlords in DC, you have to wonder. Is government issue cash money on the way out the door? Perhaps it is. Thanks to the "War on Drugs," cash transactions of more than $10k must be reported to the IRS to ferret out money laundries. Then there is the terrorism angle . . . I'm sure that dealers in weapons, explosives and other things needed for terror operations do not take credit cards (then again, the 9/11 guys got the job done with box cutters . . . and Home Depot takes plastic . . .).

Anyway, there is a long history of private currencies in the US -- Hmmm...something to think about.

Mac and Moto Madness

My new phone arrived today. Kudos to AT&T and FexEx for getting it here so quickly.

OMG, the RAZR is a slick phone. I've always liked how this phone looks. Now that I have one of my very own . . . I wish I'd gotten one a couple of years ago. All I had to do was slip in the SIM for my POS Sony Ericcson, charge the battery for 30 minutes, and I was ready to roll.

This phone and my Mac get along very very nicely thanks to iSync and Bluetooth. I paired up the phone just like it was any other device, iSync did the rest. Much easier than syncing a Palm PDA because Palm Desktop and Hotsync Manager is NOT involved. Now my PDA, my Macs and my phone all talk to each other in perfect sync.

Reason 2 why I'm impressed: it can be powered through a mini-USB power adapter. Mini-USB makes a good data connection for the Bluetooth impaired, and with a mini to A cable, you can power it off a standard 500 mA (high power, same kind iPods charge from) USB port. The power adapter prongs fold into the body of the adapter like those on a Mac / AirPort Express "duck head."

Reason 3: I noticed in the Bluetooth settings that this phone had a Bluetooth "service" called "OLX Object Push" The Bluetooth wireless link allows a number of different services -- printing, headset, dial up modem and others. OLX Object Push is for sending files back and forth. Mac OS X has a feature called Bluetooth File Exchange for sending files to a Bluetooth device. I tested the feature by snapping a picture with the camera and sending the resulting jpeg file to the Mac. That pic appears above.

Color me in-fscking-impressed!

I've only begun to explore this little jewel of a phone. More later.

Oh yes, Leopard, aka Mac OS X 10.5, is likewise awesome. Much more later!

Musicstuff

For you iTunes fanatics: Foxy Tunes, the browser addon that allows you to control your music player (iTunes, or some others) from within your web browser (including Internet Exploder). Much coolness there...and in a new feature, it allows you to put a music signature line the one below into your blog posts. This little goodie supports LJ, Gmail, etc.

Item the second: I won these in a sales contest. I am impressed with this prize. While I am no audiophile, I really really have issues with what iPod earbuds do to my ears . . . and I don't like conventional audio headphones despite the great isolation they provide. Shur makes some very good earbuds with isolation you have to experience to believe it, but these sound better without stuffing memory foam in my poor abused audio canal. My speech-nerd daughter, she who says "You should never put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear canal," would approve.



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Listening to: Red Alert - Hell March
via FoxyTunes

The Hillary Clinton Nutcracker

Okayyy....

What does today and January 16, 1991, have in common?

Both days are / were calms before a storm.

The 1991 one involved combat troops and Iraq. Tomorrow's involves something a bit less violent. I won't want to be within a mile of the Arden Fair Apple store or an AT&T / Cingular store tomorrow at 1800.

In less than 27 hours from this writing, the Apple iPhone hits the hot little hands of consumers. As an Apple fanboy / gadget freak / tech-kommando, I'd love to have one . . . but I can find a lot more places to spend $500+ at the moment than on a gadget, however cute it may be.