Last post before I back up the blog, and switch over to 10.5. It will almost certainly be a while before I can get back on line. I only *vaguely* remember all the steps that it took last time, and if the experience on the laptop is any indicator, doing a straight upgrade is asking for bugs.
I’m not sure what to do about it though. There’s so much music software, and other crap on there that doing an archive and install is going to be unbelievably painful. *sigh*.
I keep reading posts where I’m told that it’s ok for the iPod Touch to be missing many of the applications from the iPhone, because it really is just a digital music player.
To my mind, the thing that clearly puts the lie to that theory is the inclusion of the Safari web browser. As a music player, they could have included (with the built-in wifi) just the dedicated iTunes Store client, which would have brought them up to par with the Zune. Once they stepped over the line and included a full desktop grade web browsing client, they have clearly made something else. In fact, The iPod Touch is the first, true portable computer of the next generation. *
I’m not exaggerating here.
Apple has done what they almost always do: Looked at a hard problem, and found a thoughtful, elegant, effective solution. In this case, it was turning the wild west that is current web design into something that works on a small, keyboardless, information appliance. For the first time ever, I’m not tempted to look for my laptop to follow a link I heard on the radio — the iPod works just as well, and I’ve got it in my pocket.
In truth, I almost never plug headphones into my iPod. I’ll admit to watching dl.tv on it while waiting to pick up a pizza, but in general I just use it as a conduit to the web.
So, it’s in that context, that I find it so painful that they didn’t include many of the absolutely obvious apps from the iPhone:
And don’t get me started on the disabling of the ability to enter new calendar events.
Let’s be perfectly clear about this: This was not an attempt to keep the Touch true to its primary function; it was a transparent play to differentiate it from the iPhone and thereby maintain the iPhone’s value proposition.
Personally, I’m disappointed.
* Yes, the iPhone fits that category too.
** I’m reduced to using the notes field of a contact named “A A”. (ugh!)
I have added a plug-in that reformats the site to make it more readable on an iPhone. Unfortunately, it throws out most of the sidebar content, which reduces the usability to some extent. Anyway, Give it a try (if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch) and let me know what you think.
I have upgraded the site to run on the latest WordPress. One of the features this version provides is tagging, and I have dutifully added a tag cloud widget to the side bar. I doubt I’ll go back and tag all the old articles, but you never know. Another nice feature is the automatic version checking for plug-ins. There were newer versions of several of the plug-ins I use.
I finally got around to picking up the latest version of the Photo Sidebar Widget, and hacking it to display VOX images. So now I can go back to taking pictures with my Treo. Yay!
So I was working on a slide-deck I have to have done for work on Monday, and I realized I should blog about the iPod Touch I just got — capsule summary: I like it; more later.
I started up my browser and logged into this site, then realized
Amazingly, I’m getting perfectly reasonable performance out of this setup. [Ken, with reference to previous conversations we’ve had, I believe VNC running on Vista is faster than on XP.]
In case you’re wondering though, no, that’s not how I normally work. It was a side-effect of needing a VPN connection to IBM (which I only have on the laptop) to get some data for the slide-deck, plus accidentally running Firefox in Win2K (which I had going to read Notes mail).
Isn’t the journey always supposed to be more exciting than the destination. 😉
Every time you vote, you help lead your land.
Almost every time you buy a lottery ticket, you’ve thrown your money away.
So how come there are so many people who buy lottery tickets every week, who say “I never vote. It doesn’t make any difference.”*
* overheard on the way to the polling station tonight.
Just letting people in Ottawa know that there’s another great Divertimento concert in November. The program is:
The Grand Rondo is a brand-spankin’ new, never publicly performed, short orchestral work by a contemporary organist/composer from California. It’s both lyrical and haunting, and well worth a listen. The other two pieces are both big works that really show the orchestra’s capabilities.
There are two shows. The one on Friday is Dennis’ birthday, so I’ll probably be the only person from my family who will be there. [The show must go on!] If you come to the Saturday show, you can catch up with Deb, Dennis and many others.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Arlington Woods Free Methodist Church
225 McClellan
Nepean
8 p.m.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
L’Église St-Thomas-d’Aquin
1244 Kilborn Ave.
Ottawa
8 p.m.
I’ve got tickets to sell, and I’d be happy to get credit for selling you one, so definitely let me know. They’re also available at the door, if you’re more of a spur-of-the-moment person. Prices are: $15 for adults; $10 for students and seniors; $3 for children 6 to 12; and free for (quiet 😉 ) children under 6.
(Photo © Charles Frost)
I just installed the latest beta of Ubuntu 7.10 on my old IBM T30. Unlike the last time I tried this, both the wireless and the video worked first try. Woot! I ran the movie player and attempted to stream a video off my slug and it calmly downloaded the required codecs and then played it perfectly.
Of course, I can’t run the fancy desktop effects, but I couldn’t do this on the old version either, and at least it now notices that it can’t run them instead of attempting to switch and leaving the UI in a busted state.
This spirit of helpfulness carries through in other places too. When I booted the first time, it warned me that my battery was “busted” because the capacity was down to 32%. Yup, that seems busted to me. Anybody know of a good source of T30 batteries in Ottawa?
Anyway, I probably won’t start using the laptop for anything important until the Gibbon comes off beta in a couple of weeks, but man it sure is nice to have found a way to make the old beast useful again. As usual, Ubuntu feels much snappier then WinXP did on this box.
Take a look at this…
Apparently, they are building a sports dome of some kind near my parent’s house.
Unfortunately, it’s right on one of the main roads through the greenbelt, so everyone on the way into the city gets treated to that view. I must say, I don’t find it to be an aesthetically pleasing addition to the skyline.
So last night, some time between midnight and 6am, my friend Ken Walker sent me an SMS to let me know that he had just got a new iPhone [WTG, Ken!]. My phone was off, when the message was sent, so Rogers dutifully held onto it and, sent it the next time the phone connected to the network. In this case, that happened when it turned itself on at 6am this morning.
Now, I leave my phone on the night table beside my bed at night, since I use it to read e-books, and thus the **** BING **** that went off beside my ear at 6am this morning was an excellent reminder to set the wakeup time for the phone to match my own wakeup time.
Technology! [Soon to replace “Belgium” as the worst insult in the galaxy.]
(Yes, that was a HHGttG reference.)
