June 29, 2007
The iPhone has landed, and it’s amazing. The keyboard works better than I expected, especially the wide keyboard in Safari. I want to get back to playing now though.
And I’m back. The WordPress interface works really nicely in Safari. Login, click “Write,” and double-tap on the text field to zoom in and bring up the keyboard. The amount of press that the virtual keyboard received seems ridiculous once you’ve used it. Only peeve is that all punctuation, even the period, is on a separate pane. However, in the time it’s taken me to write this, I’ve memorized the location of the most-used glyphs. No idea how it handles accented characters.
From what I can tell, the iPhone includes the following typefaces: Courier, Georgia, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Trebuchet, and Verdana. I am surprised that it doesn’t include Lucida Grande. I am happy that it doesn’t include Comic Sans.
The RSS reader is really nice. You don’t have to go to the reader.mac.com address that was publicized earlier this week. Just type the feed URL into Safari (or select it in your bookmarks) and it automatically routes the feed through the web app and presents it in HTML.
My experience at the local AT&T store was pretty good. They came through the line with free water two or three times, and once they let the first group in, the process went quickly. They weren’t doing credit checks, but we were told that we could choose to have it done in the store if we wanted. My saleslady knew exactly what she was doing, but the one beside her did try to sell a woman a set of earphones and a USB cable before the manager came over to explain that those things were included in the box. It was her first customer, though. We didn’t get those fancy commemorative tote bags or whatever the Apple stores were handing out, but I didn’t have to drive five hours to get there, either. I was fourth in line at 2pm. This was at the AT&T store in Daphne, Alabama.
As everyone already knows, there’s no Flash support, however inline QuickTime movies play beautifully. So, everyone just deliver all content in QuickTime from now on. Thanks.
When I put the iPhone in my Volvo iPod cradle, it charges, but the audio doesn’t play through the car speakers. Bummer. I’m surprised, because the Volvo cradle is little more than a 30-pin dock connector split to audio line-out and power. I really hope Apple can resolve this with a software update.
White House Defends Cheney’s Refusal of Oversight
Cheney’s office has contended that it does not have to comply because the vice president serves as president of the Senate, which means that his office is not an “entity within the executive branch.”
I believe we’ve gone ‘round the bend.
However, I love the following. It’s theater, but I love it.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) said he plans to propose next week, as part of a spending bill for executive operations, a measure to place a hold on funds for Cheney’s office and official home until he clarifies to which branch of the government he belongs.
On WP Security Matt Mullenweg responds to recent criticism regarding the WordPress team’s approach to security fixes. While I work for Automattic, I have no direct personal involvement in WordPress, the Open Source project. That said, I know the team takes the integrity of WordPress incredibly seriously, and I do believe, after reading Matt’s response, that Colaiuta’s warning (uninstall WordPress or face certain doom!) seems rather hysterical.
As a purely anecdotal aside, I thought it was funny that Colaiuta recommended Movable Type as a secure blogging platform (unless you need outlandish extras like comments). I remember a very trying time not that long ago when my shared server at my otherwise-very-reliable web host, TextDrive, was routinely brought to its knees by exploited Movable Type blogs. (Read David Raynes’ comment on this post for clarification.)
June 21, 2007
I used Vonage as my main phone line for a few months in Baltimore, and the service was mostly ok. When I moved home, my broadband connection wasn’t as fast, and as a result, Vonage quality suffered greatly. In fact, it was so bad that I couldn’t use the internet while talking on the phone, or the person to whom I was speaking could not hear my voice. As a result, I cancelled Vonage—and as a result, they charged me a hefty cancellation penalty and didn’t credit me back for the minutes I’d already paid for but not yet used. Maybe fairly standard company policy, but I didn’t like it, and I expressed those concerns.
Today I received an email from myself, encouraging me to sign up for Vonage under their Refer-a-Friend plan. I would never refer a friend or foe to sign up for a 1-year commitment for simple phone service, but there my name is, lending credibility to a poorly-run VoIP telephony service. Shame on Vonage for using their customers’ goodwill to sell their product—particularly their former, unhappy customers. I don’t know who they sent this email to, and it may have been misdirected since it was delivered to myself. The simple fact is that no company has any business keeping former customers’ data readily available for inclusion in spam e-mail.
iPhone mania nears fever pitch The din over the iPhone is really getting out of control. Not surprisingly, more and more of it is wildly speculative fear over the iPhone’s possible shortcomings. My favorite line from this (otherwise OK) USA Today article:
Many bloggers have estimated battery time as low as 45 minutes.
Many bloggers? 45 minutes? I don’t think anyone reputable, blogger or not, actually thinks the iPhone’s battery life is going to be 45 minutes. Good thing that the Rules of Journalism apparently don’t require you to provide sources when you’re quoting bloggers.
Half of all Americans responding to a recent Gallup poll believe in Creationism.
The group of Americans who attend church weekly—about 40% in this sample—are strongly likely to reject the theory of evolution. The group of Americans who attend church seldom or never—also about 40%—have the mirror image opinion and are strongly likely to accept the theory of evolution.
Clearly, regular church attendance has powerful mind-altering properties, and should be banned like other similar drugs.
Exploiting the Quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend I was lucky enough to see some of the Gee’s Bend quilts back in 2003, before they became the phenomenon they did. I was moved by the story of how the quiltmakers came to be recognized as great contemporary artists, and hoped that that appreciation would help improve the quality of life for the artists. It was really disappointing, four years later, to see that the quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend have only seen a meager fraction of the money made by the commercialization of their art. If it’s true that the Arnett family has, and is, taking advantage of these women the way it’s described in this Press-Register article, it’s really a very sad outcome for what seemed like such a noble venture.
June 10, 2007
My friend John and I took a trip to New Orleans this weekend, my third visit to the city in the past month. The first trip was for pleasure, the second for research. This one was for business—John and I found a house and will be moving to New Orleans at the first of August.
I’m incredibly excited about the move for a variety of reasons. Obviously, New Orleans is an amazing city. Despite the troubles post-Katrina, the city is as alive as ever, and recovering slowly, but surely. It’s a city rich in culture and thoroughly Southern, but large enough to offer some of the big city conveniences that I miss from my time in Baltimore. I’m also thoroughly convinced that you might never eat a better meal in your life than one you’d find in New Orleans.
And it’s just time. I moved back home under a cloud of uncertainty caused by the problems our family suffered over the past few months. But we’re doing better now. My mom’s back on her feet (and spending the summer in Europe with her best friend, something of which I am terribly jealous). My brother is working on getting his head screwed back on straight. My grandparents have passed, which, while it was sad for us, removed a huge burden from my mom’s shoulders. And as much as anything, it’s time for me to move on. Bay Minette is a dysfunctional little town that long ago traded away the character it had for a few fistfuls of magic beans. I’ll always have a little soft spot in my heart for my hometown, but I need more room to grow. New Orleans, I think, is the place to put down those roots.
The next month and a half or so will be long ones, but it gives us plenty of time to prepare. And come August, I hope all our friends have a chance to come visit us in the Big Easy.
