Some New Stuff

Gadget freak, iPhone / Android fanatic, SharePoint Admin, father of 2

Time Out

Don't think Jake likes the thought of a time out very much...

New Building Move...

Just some shots of the new building to share...move starts this afternoon...

                                                       
Click here to download:
New_Building_Move....zip (15837 KB)

Changes to Posterous...keep them coming!

Just an open post about the changes that have been taking place - both with the iPhone app, and quick update, and the theming that was just implemented for the site.

Wasn't a big fan of the iPhone app when it was in it's 1.0 phase - mainly because it just allowed you to post pictures without comment.  That's been "fixed" in the 1.1 version.  Nice!

Theming is nice - I've tried a few and have bounced back to the default - only because I like the clean look and layout - part of what brought me to Posterous from Wordpress.  BUT...as an option for others who have better CSS skills than I, I'm grateful that its there - and expect that that type of customization is only going to be better. 

Overall, I'm excited to be in early on what is clearly a very compelling, and fast growing product.  Thanks Posterous!

Follow-up on my iPhone battery fix - IT WORKS!!

It's been 4 days since I did a full restore of my iPhone 3GS - and I have to say, the difference in battery life has been remarkable.
 
I can easily go a full day without a recharge, I have kept push turned on for Exchange email, which I NEVER had enabled because of the hit to the battery.  No more - I have it on and working like a charm.
 
Now - a couple of details - before the restore I had push notifications enabled and probably had 12 - 14 apps where it was turned on.  Since the restore I keep push notifications (other than exchange) turned completely off.
 
Also, prior to the restore, I had 4 mail accounts set up.  All 4 of them were set up to manually retrieve email.  One was an exchange account.  Two were google accounts, and I had my MobileMe set up as well.
 
Since the restore, I have only set up the Exchange account.  I've read some forum postings suggesting some suspicion that MobileMe services were causing some battery drain.  I can't verify that was the case, but can say that my battery life has never been better on this phone.
 
Can't recommend the full restore enough as a possible solution to your battery woes...

A fix for poor iPhone battery life? Might actually work...

So like many of you, I've been less than pleased with my battery life
since installing the 3.1 update. Getting through half a day on a
charge was not what I was used to.

 Saw some suggestions about deleting and reconfiguring any push email
accounts that had been set up (Exchange or MobileMe).

 The most extreme idea was to restore the phone in iTunes as a new
phone. And DO NOT restore your backup file.

 Since my thought was to do whatever works and be done with it, I opted
for a restore as a new phone.

 Couple of things to note. Took about 20 min, and my apps all remained
in iTunes, so a sync brought them all back over. This includes a
couple apps no longer available in iTunes; specifically Google Voice
and the accidentally approved then yanked SquareSpace. Both resync'd
to my phone no problem.

 Did it work? So far yes! I had 100% around noon. I didn't drop to 99
until 12 min of use, it's now 11pm and with push on all day (probably
30 messages) a couple phone calls etc I'm at 72%! I'd have been dead
by now before the restore.

 So...if your phone's sucking juice, a new restore is not fun, but does
seem to make a difference.

The iPhone's achilles heel

While the mobile industry and related press searches for the next handset they can proclaim to be the "iPhone killer", most manufacturers have been focusing on the UI, a related app store, or some innovative feature to set it apart from the iPhone.

Maybe the right combination of those things are what's needed to de-throne the "King" but I suggest that most consumers want just a couple of key things - one of which the iPhone hasn't been able to do since it's launch.  Give me a 3G / WiFi enabled handset, with a web kit browser and LONG battery life - (2 full days of good use w/ 30% left long) and I think you would see more than just a few users jump ship from the iPhone.

Battery life on the iPhone has always been a complaint, and while Apple has taken some steps to address it - it doesn't seem to be making much difference - and in the last of the 3GS and firmware 3.1 - they might have even taken a huge step backwards.  Quite a few users who updated their ohm

 

 
Sent from my iPhone

This dog wants cheese!

Jake's got an ear infection, so 4 pills a day for 10 days...never an issue as long as they are wrapped in some cheese.
 
Sent from my iPhone

Amazing Race / Zoofari

                                     
Click here to download:
amazing-race-zoofari-edifmzceupziDjDjbJpI.zip (15877 KB)

Something funny about the Kindle DX demo video...

So I'm lusting after a Kindle (not impressed w/ the Sony offerings just announced but that's a different post) - and am watching the demo videos that Amazon has on their site.  Just thought it was funny that when they get to the part where they mention the text-to-speech features, they are using iPod headphones...

HP Mini 1030NR

Well, I tried my hand with the netbook format.  Got an HP mini - 10" screen version.  After upgrading the ram to 2GB - and reformatting to Windows 7 RC - I have to say there were some good points and bad points to the machine.

On the plus side, I liked the form factor - overall the size of the machine was nice.  The keyboard was good sized and natural to type on.  I didn't notice that it got particularly hot with use, and I found the battery life to be within expectations.

One thing that is rarely mentioned on netbook reviews that I read are any steps that the user should take to improve performance.  One important option is to turn the graphics settings down in Windows so that you have tuned the OS for performance over appearance.  Doing this on the Mini made a big difference in responsiveness of the unit.

If your netbook has an SD card reader, I highly recommend dropping a 4 or 8 GB SD card in the machine, and formatting it for ReadyBoost.  This puts the swap file on the SD card as opposed to on the hard drive.  That will accomplish 2 things.  First - since the access time for the SD is quicker, your machine should perform slightly better.  More importantly, since access to the SD card is electronic as opposed to mechanical, you should eek out a little better battery life over time, since the hard drive isn't having to spin as much.  Of course, if you have a netbook with a flash drive, this is irrelevant.

Probably my biggest complaint w/ the mini was with the screen - both the size of the screen overall, and it's resolution.  The 10" screen was okay - but 1024x768 is just too small to work on for an extended period of time.  No matter what I was doing, I felt like it was just too cramped.  Dialog boxes, pop-ups etc just seemed scrunched.

My final conclusion - if it's all you have available - it works well - but if you have a choice - for something slightly bigger - I would choose it every time.