2007s
Pleo Hatches
After months of waiting Pleo has finally arrived! Pleo is the first robot from Ugobe.
It seems not many people had pre-ordered Pleo (according to Jyte). Of course there were only 2,000 of the special “First Hatch” editions available.
I charged Pleo’s batteries and woke him up for the first time. So far I’m pretty impressed. Ugobe has done a great job of getting Pleo to convey a variety of emotions. I took him to work today and people had a great time playing with him. He’s already learned several new motions and actions. I had read another blog post saying that they thought he was really loud. Granted you can hear the servos, but I don’t think they are too loud. Engadget has a nice write-up on Pleo.
I’ll post more on my first few days with Pleo later, perhaps with some video.
Mount Your iPhone While Flying
Ever since I’ve gotten my iPhone I now have a new routine before I travel. I make sure to sync the iPhone with iTunes and get all the most recent episodes of podcasts, and maybe a movie and some TV shows while I’m at it. Since the iPhone is my all-in-one device, it’s great to be able to load up so much content on it and head to the airport.
The iPhone is a superb device to watch video on. The screen is bright and large enough to enjoy the show. Unfortunately, all is not perfect. You really cannot expect to hold your iPhone for an hour while you watch a show on a flight.
The first part of this problem is that the iPhone itself is aluminum and thus relatively slippery. I have the incase cover for my phone that is nice and grippy and I found that I could prop my iPhone on my tray by placing something behind it. This worked okay, but resulted in looking down at the seat tray for a long time, and some neck pain to go along with that. So I pondered this for a while and came up with an alternative.
I got all MacGuyver on this one. The ideal scenario is to have the screen right at the headrest of the person in front of you. How to do that? Two rubber bands and two safety pins later and the problem is solved.
If you don’t have the Incase cover you can just make the rubber bands tighter to hold it in place. You’ll want to make sure and get the safety pins fairly level. After mounting, this worked great!
Fire up a movie, recline and enjoy!
Open Thread: Presenting at Code Freeze 2008
I’m presenting at Code Freeze 2008 in January. The title of my presentation is Innovation in Product Development.
Everyone wants to have the next hot product. We are constantly “pushing the envelope” and “thinking out of the box”. We have the aspiration, but in many cases it doesn’t happen. In this discussion we will review key aspects to fostering innovation in a development team, creating room to play and ultimately making great products.
I’ve got some ideas for my presentation and a theme I’m thinking of winding it through. However, I’m curious if you all have anything to say on this topic. What do you think drives innovation in product development? What are the key contributing factors that you see?
Let me know what you think.
Linksys WTR-54GS: Making Travel Better for Internet Junkies
I recently picked up a Linksys WTR-54GS travel router based on the positive recommendation of my friend Chris. He had gotten one before going on a big trip to make sure that he had WiFi in all the locations he wanted it and it worked really well.
I’ve considered getting something like this for a while, but never had a need that pushed me over the edge. The iPhone was the tipping point. When staying in a hotel I wanted to get my iPhone online and even if a hotel does provide WiFi they usually limit each room to one device (via the MAC address). By using a travel router like this I can put a small network in my room with several devices and not have to pay any additional fees. I’m using it right now in my hotel room with my Dell laptop, MacBook Pro and my iPhone all online. It works really well.
As an added benefit the WTR-54GS has a firewall integrated into it so you can protect all of your devices from other hotel guests. I’ve noticed lately that if I launch iTunes in a hotel I could see a large number of peoples shared music. Tsk tsk. The firewall in the travel router will keep me protected from such things.
The WTR-54GS itself is a nice package. It has an integrated power supply so there isn’t any extra junk for plugging it in. It comes with a nice, very packable, 10-BaseT cable. It’s small and can easily be thrown in your suitcase for any trip. One of the unique features of the Linksys model is that you can even bridge from one WiFi network to your own, thus still getting the advantages even when the hotel offers only WiFi.
If you travel with any regularity, and are an electronics pack mule like me, you should consider grabbing one of these.
Crash Pen
It seems that I lost my Crash pen today. This makes me very sad. I’ve had this pen for a few years and I think it’s just supremely cool looking. I’ve even ordered parts for it in the past.
I think I’m going to have to order a new one. Bummer. I guess on the bright side at least I can order a new one.
Copyright Notice in RSS Feed
If you are reading thingelstad.com via the RSS feed you will notice that I have added a copyright notice creative commons license to the feed, along with a digital fingerprint and for fun the IP address of the machine that pulled in your RSS feed. I’m doing this to fight back against website hijacking.
I’m noticing a lot of my content being stolen via my RSS feed and then republished on spammer websites. This is a slimy practice and is a growing trend. Lorelle wrote on this at some length recently. I decided to do something about it with the CopyFeed WordPress plug-in.
I went out of my way to just put the copyright notice creative commons license in a regular HTML block at the end of the post. I decided to post about this to encourage others to consider adding this if their content is being stolen, and to let you know why the copyright notice creative commons license has appeared.
Stay Focused in WriteRoom
I’m writing this post on a plane. I’m drafting with MarsEdit to post later. There isn’t much interesting about that. What is interesting is checking out people looking at my computer screen. Why? It looks like I’ve time warped back 20 years.
I’ve been doing almost all of my writing for the site using WriteRoom. WriteRoom is a Mac application that defers to a simple, distraction free writing environment. They describe it best as:
For people who enjoy the simplicity of a typewriter, but live in the digital world. WriteRoom is a full-screen writing environment. Unlike the cluttered word processors you’re used to, WriteRoom is just about you and your text.
Here is what my screen looks like right now.
Pretty whacky huh? That’s WriteRoom. When you launch WriteRoom your entire screen goes black, and you just type. All of those other applications, and even the user interface of the editor itself fades to black. You just write. So simple it took a decade to make.
There is a lot more to WriteRoom. For example, it never has you typing at the bottom of the screen. Your actual typing is always in the middle. Seems like nothing, but is really nice. In short you can customize the heck out of it and make it the experience you want for editing. If pure text mode isn’t your thing, it even has a minimal rich editor.
Ya know the thing I love about WriteRoom? It’s the same thing I love about Quicksilver. As well as dozens of other applications on my Mac that are written by very small independent software developers. It’s different. It’s elegant. There is so much fresh and new thinking going on in the independent developer world of the Mac. It’s a great time to be a Mac user.
MarsEdit
I’m totally geeking over MarsEdit right now. MarsEdit is the desktop blogging client that I recently started using with my site. I’ve considered moving to a desktop blogging client instead of typing in the text field of a web browser for a while. I never made the jump though since I had a hard time finding a tool that I really liked. MarsEdit seems to fit the bill really well.
The first criteria for me was full support for WordPress, particularly the native tagging feature added in 2.3 and thankfully MarsEdit ticked this box right away. The other major editor I worked with at length was ecto and it sadly didn’t do this yet. Tsk tsk…
So why shell out some good PayPal dollars for a desktop blogging client? Here are my reasons…
Editing
Can we really think that editing even more than a single paragraph in the text field of a browser is passable? Even with great add-ons like TinyMCE it really is only workable for a simple comment at best. Using a desktop blogging client I get a much more powerful and workable editor.
It’s not just doing the editing on the Mac or PC either. MarsEdit is using the editor you like for what you want to do. For example, I’m doing almost all of my blogging in the distraction free, completely uncluttered environment of WriteRoom. (I’ll do a post on WriteRoom soon too.)
Next time your typing a post in a text field, try putting in a tab. :-)
Drafting
I’m a big “drafter”. I have 10 or more blog posts in draft status with different levels of completion at any time. Sometimes it’s a title with a three word reminder. I may have a long post that has been refined a few times waiting. I haven’t found any web-based admin interfaces that make working with multiple drafts really nice.
Live Previewing
One of the great features of MarsEdit is the ability to have the text open and editing, and in another window next to it have a live preview of the rendered HTML. This makes blogging in raw HTML actually work.
Why blog in HTML? I shrugged off this recommendation for a long time. My opinion was that I shouldn’t have to write in HTML anymore than I should have to know the ASCII codes for all the letter I’m typing. However, I’m a convert. The control it affords you, and the ability to avoid the damage that a rich editor would do to embed codes is a big win.
Other Stuff
There are other reasons to use a desktop client that are less about writing to me. You can post to one of several blogs you have in one tool. That’s great, if you have multiple blogs. This means I’ll likely actually put something up at MinneLightroom now and again.
I give MarsEdit two thumbs up. If you are a blogger, and you use a Mac, go download the demo and give it a go. As they say, YMMV.
Website Updates (Nov 2007)
I just finished a pretty long session or upgrades and improvements to thingelstad.com. Here are some new things to check out.
Gravatars
I actually implemented Gravatars a while back, when Automattic bought them. But it deserves a special highlight and I improved the implementation now. If you comment here, register for a Gravatar so you can get your picture next to your comments!
Feed Improvement
Nothing too big here, but you will now see tags and related article links in the RSS feed. I know a lot of people use that feed exclusively so I think that may prove useful. (Thanks to Simple Tags.)
Ratings
You can now rate all posts on the site using a 5-star scale. You’ll see the rating tool around any posts. Just click to give it a rating. Go ahead and start with this post. Top rated posts are highlighted on the front page. (Thanks to Lester Chan’s WP-PostRatings.)
Articles
I setup an article page on the site where certain posts are highlighted and called out. This allows me to give special positioning to certain things I write. (Thanks to Alex King’s Articles Plug-in.)
Polls
I’ve added polling functionality, which I used to have a long time on my site. It isn’t going to be permanent in the sidebar, but instead just embedded into different posts. (Thanks [again] to Lester Chan’s WP-Polls.)
Theme
The hardest maintenance item you won’t even notice. I updated the theme I use, blog.txt, from 3.1 to 4.1. I don’t think there is any noticeable impact visibly. I had to go in and rehack in all my theme customizations though. I really wish WordPress made that easier. Thanks to Scott Wallick for making such a great theme. I really can’t say enough good things about this theme.
Filling Out Tags
Last is a bunch of manual labor. I’m slowly getting tags applied to my archive. There are hundreds of posts that were made before my blog had tagging. This is getting filled in slowly but surely.
Enjoy the updates!
Top 10 Apple Wishes - iTunes Edition
It’s the holiday season and along with that comes the time for everyone to make wishes for gifts. Along those lines, I put together my Top 10 Apple Wishes. With Leopard out now and there all kinds of new things to play with. But I want more. As I wrote this it seems that it’s really a list of wishes related to the iTunes, iPod, iPhone and Apple TV world. Perhaps I’ll write again with my Apple wishes in other products.
Front Row for iPhone
This may seem like an odd one, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted this. My iPhone only has 8GB of memory, and my media library is huge. I regularly use my iPhone at home and would love to just launch Front Row on it and connect to my massive library on my Mac Pro. This should be totally simple. Obviously only for WiFi. If it could somehow work outside of your house that would be killer, but I’d be happy with just local access for now.
iTunes In My Car
I already wrote about this, and I think it would be a killer product. C’mon Apple, you could get into a new market with car modders!
Play Internet Radio on Apple TV
Another area where the gap seems so obvious. iTunes has a list of radio stations and I enjoy listening to MPR online in iTunes. Why I can’t do this on an Apple TV makes no sense.
Apple TV without the TV
Apple doesn’t have a product that can compete with network music players like the Roku or Squeezebox. The Apple TV is really nice, but it has no display and thus is a deal breaker for a music only device. It would be great to have an Apple TV that had it’s own display that could be used where a TV is not welcome. Maybe even just use the USB port on the existing Apple TV units to attach a display?
eBooks via iTunes
Looking at a PDF file on an iPhone is really amazing. It just works, exactly like you would hope. I would really love to see Apple add a Book channel to iTunes and deliver eBooks (probably not as a PDF) to a Reader application for the iPod Touch or iPhone. Amazon Kindle beware. If this were available it would be hands down better.
Flickr for iPhone and Apple TV
YouTube gets all the love with a special pre-installed application on the iPhone and AppleTV. But no Flickr? C’mon! People take plain old pictures too!
Multiple Video Formats
I have to think too hard when subscribing to a podcast and wanting to watch it on Apple TV or iPhone or iPod. iTunes needs to just handle the bitrate and playback issues seamlessly. Download three copies of the same thing and then dish out the one needed. iTunes already has the “Convert for iPod” functions but then your left with a video that looks bad on your TV.
Add Star Ratings via Apple TV (and volume)
It seems criminal to me that I cannot rate a song while listening to it on Apple TV. I can do it on an iPod, so you know that iTunes has all the brains to do this. This just needs to happen. And while they are at it, how about adjusting the volume. I realize the whole HDMI thing with the TV may cause some challenges, but this really needs to happen.
iTunes Social Edition
I wrote in some detail about adding P2P functions to iTunes as well as a friend network. I want iTunes to do more heavy lifting for me sharing music with my wife on her account and exchanging home movies with friends and family. Embed the BitTorrent DNA product into iTunes and let it roll!
iPhone SDK
This isn’t really a wish now that Apple has confirmed that we are getting an SDK, likely at MacWorld in February. The wish is really that Apple not get in the way of innovation on this device and hopefully other upcoming touch devices. The touch interface of the iPhone is one of the most groundbreaking, and most intuitive, things I’ve seen come out of a company in a long time and I’m mad that Apple has kept it jailed up. Get out of the way, open it up, and let people make great products!
That’s mine. What’s your wish?
Upcoming Office Holiday Party
Our annual holiday party at the office is coming up this weekend. It has
been a tradition for many years to have a theme. There was a black & tie
year. There was a year you came as a favorite figure in history. There
was even a cowboy year that didn’t go over so well. This year the
theme is 70’s Disco – and Tammy and I are going all out. Here is a
sneak peak!
Get ready to boogie!
CPR Training at Red Cross
Tammy and I had our first of two sessions getting CPR certified last night at the Twin Cities Red Cross. The class was a lot more than just CPR. It really went into general emergency response practices. The 3 C’s – Check, Call, Care.
The last time I took a CPR class was probably 20 years ago and a lot has changed. We’ve been planning on doing this since Mazie was born, so we’re only about two-and-a-half years behind schedule.
Rays of Sunlight on Artists Point in Grand Marais.
iTunes Ecosystem
I mentioned in another post how much I’ve been enjoying iTunes. A few weeks ago I extended my Apple TV coverage to the family room and it just hit me as I was looking at my iTunes window how fully evolved the iTunes ecosystem has become. From one application I have all of my music, podcasts, home videos and soon all my DVD’s available on iPods, iPhones and couches. This convergence has been promised for so long, and it’s great to see it finally delivered.
The ecosystem is not without warts. iTunes needs to get much better at sharing my library with friends and family ala the Social Edition I wrote about earlier. I also think that the entire ecosystem does a very bad job with video. It makes no sense that I would subscribe to an “Apple TV version” of a podcast, and separately to an “iPod version”. C’mon guys! Figure out a way to put multiple bit rates and file sizes in one package. It’s akin to putting Intel and PowerPC, 32-bit and 64-bit applications in one package. Do this for my videos in iTunes and then just put whatever version makes sense for that device on it.
I expect there will soon be a 3rd Apple TV in this world, and hopefully something for my car too. Once movie rentals are added to this and I finish my massive winter DVD ripping project it should be almost entirely complete. Oh, and I need Lightroom to automatically expose collections of photos to iTunes please. :-)
The Office Men's Bathroom
At our office we have a long running joke about the men’s bathroom. By long running I mean several years. There is always something wrong. Flooding. Broken knobs and handles. Atomic flushing. I’ll leave it at the pleasantries. A couple weeks ago I walked in and saw a nice note on the door to one of the stalls.
The sign on the door reads
STOP USING HAND TOWELS TO WIPE YOUR ARSE. THEY DON’T FLUSH!!!
Really, it’s a privilege to work with people that can throw out an “arse”.
I Made a Pie!
I made a pie! That’s right! A whole pie, from scratch, the whole deal. I made the crust. I steamed the pumpkin. No canned pie filling here! I ground my own fresh nutmeg!
The image originally associated with this post was lost when I deleted my Flickr account. I’ve searched but I do not have a copy of the photo in any of my archives. I believe I took it with the Flickr app on my iPhone and it didn’t save a copy to the Camera Roll. I deleted my Flickr account when Yahoo! bought them and didn’t realize I was “hot linking” some of those photos on my blog. My last hope was Internet Archive, but the Wayback Machine excluded Flickr photos from archival. 😞
I realize that many people do this all the time without thinking of it. However, I have tried to make a pie crust before and if you haven’t done it yourself try before you dismiss it. Rolling out that dough into a thin crust is tempting disaster. At any moment it may stick to the rolling pin and fold in on itself, like space collapsing in an episode of Star Trek. You may not get it quiet right and think you can just finagle it a little more here or there, and boom you have a torn wreck in front of you. I nearly lost this one at the end, trying to get fancy, and was able to save it and roll out enough dough to make it work.
The pie is baking right now. I’m so proud.
Can't I Buy Overpriced Gas In Quiet?
The other morning I pulled into SuperAmerica [link removed] on my way into work to fill up the tank. I got out and started to fill up and was greeted to a marketing experience.
The image originally associated with this post was lost when I deleted my Flickr account. I’ve searched but I do not have a copy of the photo in any of my archives. I believe I took it with the Flickr app on my iPhone and it didn’t save a copy to the Camera Roll. I deleted my Flickr account when Yahoo! bought them and didn’t realize I was “hot linking” some of those photos on my blog. My last hope was Internet Archive, but the Wayback Machine excluded Flickr photos from archival. 😞
Yes, that’s right. There is 89 cent coffee inside! Not only was I treated to several marketing experiences they even had sound and audio tracks going with it. It seems I can’t even simply get gas anymore without having something thrown at me. I need to find a new gas station.
Apple, Please Make This - Apple TV + iPhone = iCar
The iTunes ecosystem is pretty amazing. It spans my exercise routine (iPod Nano), entertainment on a flight (my iPhone and kicking back on the sofa for a movie (Apple TV). But there is another frontier that remains unserved. A frontier that is a prime media opportunity. The car.
There were some rumors a couple months ago about iCar. Apparently Apple met with Volkswagen to discuss who knows what. Perhaps we’ll see a black and silver VW bug coming out in future years that matches the iPhone aesthetic. (Just kidding, that’s ridiculous.) But the car is a media platform, and there are few good options.
I’ve had a Phatbox in my Audi A6 for a while now. I love it, but it’s a bit quirky. It also lacks two key features that really make it suffer. There is no WiFi so you have to undock it’s hard drive to add music, and no ability to integrate with iTunes. In fact, it doesn’t even have a Mac loader. A huge shout out to Cameron Silver though for creating PhatMac for us Mac users. PhatMac even integrates with iTunes Smart Playlists which is a start.
My proposal is simple. Take the guts of the Apple TV and shove it into a DIN unit for installation into a car. Then, on the front of the panel put a touch interface with coverflow like the iPhone and iPod Touch. Voila! Done. Really, there isn’t much more to it than that. This is what it could look like.
The Apple TV has the hard drive brains to sync with iTunes via WiFi. The only thing it lacks in a car is an interface. The touch interface of the iPhone is an ideal solution for the car. Fling, press, listen. Awesome. You can even have the touch interface itself easily snap off to protect from theft and maybe it could have 8G of storage locally to listen to something while your running an errand. How beautiful would this be? Pull into your garage and your car would show up in iTunes and get the latest podcasts and purchases copied to it. iTunes would also get new information to update play counts and last play times. I get excited just typing this stuff.
I know what your thinking, just dock your iPod with your car. That’s a hack. Seriously. When I shut my car off it’s crazy that I should then have to manually stop my music. The car platform is different and needs a couple of specific functions.
Apple has all the ingredients. It seems like a simple weekend project to tie it all together. But the market may not be big enough to care. I’d line up for this product myself.
One Laptop Per Child, and Me
Technology has the promise of being the great equalizer, or a great divider. I don’t think enough is being done to make sure that the benefits that the “technological have’s” enjoy are available to all. I think this is going to be a big problem in the US particularly. In developing countries it’s even more basic. One Laptop Per Child has the mission of bringing technology to kids in an affordable package to help bridge this gap. They have been working on developing a $100 laptop for a while now that could be given to kids in developing countries (they didn’t quiet get to $100 on this one). I’d suggest they send a few million around the US too! They’ve just released their first computer, the XO-1. I think it’s pretty cool looking!
The goal of this machine is to make something that is cheap, rugged and very usable for kids in developing countries. It has WiFi and a basic web browser to hop on the Internet. In fact, it forms it’s own mesh network whenever more than one is present, allowing kids to collaborate in ad hoc settings. It’s power use is very modest, and a solar panel can be attached to the back of it to allow for permanent off-grid use. I’m also ecstatic that they include a number of different development environments. Hit a few buttons and your writing your own programs for it. Great! David Pogue did a really good video review about the XO-1. It’s worth watching.
OLPC is running a limited time special where you get one, and give one. The only way to buy one is to buy two, and one goes to a kid. I’ve ordered mine up and am looking forward to playing with it. A friend also ordered one so it will be fun to play with the networking features. I even noticed a CTO acquaintance of mine has purchased one. My friend Chris suggested that this may be the new status symbol. Like owning a Prius. Go hang out at the coffee shop with your XO-1. Can’t wait. Offer ends soon, go order one!
After I get mine I’ll post some reaction to it.
Chipai Fishing Trip Video
It’s been a long time since June when my father-in-law took all the brother-in-laws fishing in Canada.