Tiger Woods for Wii rocks!
iPhone Activation
One of the ways in which the iPhone claims to be revolutionary is how you activate it. Rather than sitting in the store and having someone press a few dozen numbers on your phone, you simply take it home and plug it into your computer and follow a few easy screens in iTunes. Sounds great!
And great it is! On Tammy’s phone, it was flawless. I changed her phone on her existing account and it flowed with ease through iTunes. Everything was great. No issues. Bliss.
Then it was my turn. I knew this would be more complicated since I decided that I was going to move my phone to my individual account and no longer submit it through my business. During the weekend I called AT&T and the service representative said I had to call back on Monday, but I could just activate now on my individual plan and they could fix it up on Monday. It turns out that was incorrect. After about 90 minutes of time on the phone with AT&T this is what had to be done.
- Transfer my existing account from the business to a new individual account.
- Move my existing individual account to the same “market” as my business number was. (This seems totally odd to me.)
- Cancel the activation I did on my iPhone before.
- Get a new SIM card for iPhone. (Once you activate a SIM card it’s toast, trip to the store!)
- Reactivate iPhone.
I came within millimeters of just giving up and changing numbers. I’m going to be astounded if there are no billing issues the first couple of months.
Note: there was some concern on various sites about replacing your SIM card. I can say with confidence that replacing your SIM card is very painless on the iPhone. Just pop a new one in from AT&T and re-activate in iTunes. All of your existing sync settings will be retained.
The story has a happy ending. After getting a new SIM card, and having the AT&T people get my account all prepared for it, activation was flawless on my phone as well.
There are many people complaining about activation problems. Perhaps Apple didn’t spend enough time on this process. Or, in my opinion, they are just trying to do something that isn’t possible. The complexity required to move my phone would be incredibly hard to code around, and expensive. Solving the problem seamlessly for 80% is great, but the other 20% are probably thinking it’s easier than it really is.
I got my iPhone
I stood in line for a few hours on Friday at the Southdale Apple Store to insure a shiny new 8G iPhone would be in my possession for the weekend. My reactions to it coming soon!

iPhone Day via Twitter
I didn’t get an “I was there on June 29, 2007” t-shirt or anything, but the iPhone wait via Twitter is entertaining.
- #53 in line for iPhone! 01:59 PM June 29, 2007 from im
- They have closed the Apple Store and covered the windows in black fabric. 02:13 PM June 29, 2007 from web
- Watching Christopher getting lots of attention for being first in line. 02:18 PM June 29, 2007 from twitterrific
- Christopher getting his taken picture with some random person at the mall. 02:20 PM June 29, 2007 from twitterrific
- Just finished pizza in line. 02:52 PM June 29, 2007 from twitterrific
- Random person turns out to be former CEO of Cray Research. 02:53 PM June 29, 2007 from twitterrific
- Taking a survey for Piper Jaffray on a cell phone being passed down the line waiting for the iPhone. 02:56 PM June 29, 2007 from web
- Just passed the phone on to the next person in the line. 02:57 PM June 29, 2007 from web
- Kent’s taking survey now. Awesome. 02:59 PM June 29, 2007 from web
- “Which iPhone you getting?” “8 gig. Go big, or go home.” – Kent 03:00 PM June 29, 2007 from twitterrific
- Christopher just polled the crowd regarding which model people plan to buy. 03:08 PM June 29, 2007 from web
- Drinking a Heath Bar Chiller from Caribou. Oh how I’ve fallen. 03:41 PM June 29, 2007 from twitterrific
- Got a chair! Thank you to my wonderful wife! 04:55 PM June 29, 2007 from im
- 40 minutes left! 05:18 PM June 29, 2007 from im
- Apple store window unveiled with iPhone displaying countdown to launch on it. 05:30 PM June 29, 2007 from im
- Crowd is now queued up to the gated storefront. 05:50 PM June 29, 2007 from im
- Line is compressed and standing. The smell of anticipation lingers. 05:51 PM June 29, 2007 from im
- Store is open! 05:59 PM June 29, 2007 from im
- Line is moving! 06:00 PM June 29, 2007 from im
- Line is stopped. 06:05 PM June 29, 2007 from im
- Inside the store. 06:15 PM June 29, 2007 from im
- Success! Two iPhones in hand! 06:26 PM June 29, 2007 from im
One of the tweets highlighted in my MarketWatch Farewell Video.
Push Conference 2007
Listening to director of National Institute of Play.
Listening to Clyde Prestowitz, author of Rogue Nation and leader of Economic Strategy Institute.
At Oceans 13

Tammy declares that I cannot wear my new fishing shirt to work, citing that “there has to be a line somewhere”.
One of the tweets highlighted in my MarketWatch Farewell Video.
Watching AllThingsD Gates/Jobs interview. Transcript.
Getting even happier with my iTunes-centric music world. I should have caved years ago. 🙂
Mazie's First Baseball Game
Grandpa Bruce came into town for the Memorial Day weekend. It was a nice time, and the most time that Mazie has gotten to spend with Grandpa Bruce since he lives so far away. I think the highlight of the weekend was the Twins game. Mazie’s very first baseball game and the Twins put a “W” on the board for her.
Alona, Bruce and I went to the game and Tammy hung out with Mazie while she finished her nap. Mazie and Tammy joined at the top of the 7th inning which was perfect timing for her. There is just no way she could have sat through an entire baseball game. I got to have some great Dad time with Mazie on my lap. I explained that our guy throws the ball to this other guy and that one of their guys stood in the middle and tried to hit it with the bat. If he did hit it, our other guys out there would try to catch it. Baseball redux for a 2 year old. I brought my crazy camera lens and got some great photos.
Shortly after she arrived the Twins had a big play and drove 2 runs in. The crowd roared with enthusiasm and Mazie was a little freaked out but held it together with a lot of thumb sucking and me holding her. I think she actually had a pretty good time, particularly when we got some ice cream. 🙂
Cold Press Coffee
I had a great coffee moment today that I just have to share. It’s worthy of sharing because there is information here that is new to me, and it highlights why small, local coffee shops are great.
I have two “coffee moments” each day. The first one is at home with my DeLonghi Espresso machine that I’m still loving. Two shots easily obtained with the press of a button. Just great. The second one is in the afternoon with a quick walk to One on One and get some afternoon espresso.
It’s summer now, or at least summer enough, and I’ve now switched to iced drinks in the afternoon. My typical drink is iced espresso. It used to be a triple shot over ice, but I’ve brought it down to a double shot over ice to reduce the shakes later in the evening (too much caffeine!).
I like my iced espresso, but it’s not very much liquid and just disappears too fast for me. So, I presented my problem to our favorite barista.
me: So, I want an iced drink – but there just isn’t much liquid in iced espresso. What do I do?
barista: Well, you could add water to the espresso.
me: That sounds horrible.
barista: Or how about iced coffee?
me: Brew sucks.
barista: Hmm… how about a cold press?
me: Huh? What in the world is a cold press?
barista: It’s great. We take a pound of beans and cold brew it with 80 ounces of water for 12 hours…
The conversation about cold press continued for quite a while. I got one, and it was perfect! The cold press is never heated, and slow brewed for 12 hours and then pressed through a cloth filter. It’s incredibly smooth and wonderful. I’ve got a new favorite drink!
Your not going to find something like this at most coffee shops. And your also not going to find such a helpful person with their headset on punching your order through their assembly line. What a great discovery. Try a cold press the next time you can. If you like serious coffee on the colder side, you’ll love it.
Canadian Fishing Trip Intro
I will soon be departing on a Canadian Fishing Adventure. T-minus nine days before I head out with my father-in-law and all my brother-in-laws to Canada for a week of fishing giant fish. Really giant fish. Fish that, if you are not careful, can severely injure you. I’m not an expert fisherman. I’m not even a basic fisherman. I haven’t fished for a decade, and this trip will double the amount of time I’ve fished in probably my entire life. This fills me with some trepidation.
However, I’m also really excited. This isn’t the type of trip I would typically go on so it’s fun to try something completely outside of your typical zone. Plus, fishing is loaded with gear and I’m a gear addict so that is fun. We’ll be departing for our trip and heading into the great unknown with a sun that never sets and more water than land, GPS in hand of course.

We’ll be eating a lot of fish. I’m going to pack some extra stuff just in case. I’ve ordered some wacky natural bars to take along called Figamajigs. They are supposedly pretty good, and should be a nice break if desired.

We are going to be totally off the grid. Forget the Internet. Forget phone lines. Forget cellular. There is a little bit of power via a solar panel and a generator that can be started from time to time. Digital cameras and such can be charged, but that’s about it. This will be the longest that I’ll have gone offline for quiet some time. The urge to pick up a satellite phone is strong, but the price point is enough to push that urge aside. Plus I’d probably be stoned if I showed up with some crazy phone.
I’ve got a little bit of additional gear to get or arrive via UPS. We are limited to 80 pounds of gear and I’m probably going to be right up against that with fishing stuff, photography stuff and clothes. I’m going to journal while I’m there and post when I return. I’m looking forward to the northern waters, really huge fish, time with the guys and giant fish stories to lie about when I return.
2007 Olson Family Weekend
This year was the 4th annual Olson Family Weekend! This year was Angie’s turn to plan and there is only one more year before we loop back around for the next round of trips. It was a great weekend and Angie did a great job putting it all together.
We had a great weekend up at the Lundeen’s cabin (huge thanks to Lundeen Sr. for allowing us to overtake their cabin!). The cabin was cramped with 11 people and 3 dogs, but it added to the fun actually. The weather was sketchy but that didn’t slow anyone down either.
Rather than reading, go take a look at the pictures from the
weekend, or
watch a couple of videos of Mazie from the weekend (thanks for the
videos Angie!) [I removed the videos from YouTube].
Serious Development in JavaScript

JavaScript is a really powerful development environment. Really.
Many developers don’t agree with that statement. I think there are a couple of reasons for that. First, the word “script” appears in the name of the language and developers are often pejorative of anything with the script word in it. The logic goes something like scripting may be fine for hacking out little things, but cannot be used to build real applications.
I think the other black eye for JavaScript was that the first uses of the language were purely trivial. Remember the first time you had snowflakes falling on a web page? Or how about going beyond blinking text to text just jumping all over the place. True, the first implementations using the language were primitive.
There are other issues that you could highlight. There are no threads. It’s not compiled. Namespace is very loose. But this all misses the point that some of the most sophisticated and sexiest web applications out there are largely built in JavaScript. I personally spend a lot of time everyday now in JavaScript applications thanks to Google. Developers need to focus more on this language as a serious development environment, and the tools for it need to catch up. Venkman is nice for debugging, but more is needed. Further tools like Google Gears will extend JavaScript even further including off-line.
The May 2007 issue of MSDN Magazine featured a cover article called Create Advanced Web Applications With Object-Oriented Techniques (whew, mouthful) that touched on building JavaScript in a more sophisticated way. It’s a good read, and will start your thinking down the path of using JavaScript for more than snowflakes falling off your mouse pointer.
Congrats to my sister Alona for passing her social work exam!
Going Offline with Google Gears
I just spent a little while getting caught up on a variety of sites with Google Reader. Reader is my RSS tool of choice. This isn’t all that special, except that I did it while sitting on an airplane.
Last night Google released the first “developer release” (alpha?) of Google Gears, and along with it Google Reader got a revision to allow you to go offline using Gears. The experience was pretty amazing. Reader works just as you would expect it to. You launch your web browser, go to the Reader URL and instead of the expected error since your not online, you actually get the site but in offline mode.
This is a first release for Reader using the offline capability so it’s a little overly modal (either offline or not) and some features are frustratingly unavailable, particularly marking all items read. To my surprise sharing items is available.
Google Gears, the technology that makes this all possible, provides a nice suite of features to make this all work. I’m assuming that the Googleplex is hard at work on making an offline version of GMail, it’s the most obvious next candidate. I did a little poking around the developer documentation for Gears and I was really excited to see that all the hooks are there for ‘sometimes offline’ applications. With a little bit of ingenuity we should see web applications that seamlessly go online and offline as needed. I’d love to see this in a number of tools – all the 37 Signals applications, Wordpress, Google Calendar.
I think this is a big moment. The Internet is nearly pervasive, but there are times when it may be unavailable. The biggest net benefit of technology like Gears may be in making applications much more resilient to transient network failures – in addition to the offline experience.
It will be worthwhile to keep a close eye on this space.
Update
I used this on the flight back with a lot more unread items and it again worked great. Going offline took more time since there was more data. The lack of a mark all as read feature in offline Reader is a real pain though.
Update 2
I tried getting this going in Firefox on Vista and the installer fails. The Mac OS X Firefox install is a breeze and is just a browser plugin. The Windows install is a separate installer. YMMV.
Used the BlackBerry 8800 + GPS + Google Local to get coffee in completely random locale. Now watching myself walk on the map on the BlackBerry. Geek++
Car service is a fully decked black suburban! I feel like I’m in the secret service. Where is POTUS?
iTunes 7.2 just showed up in Soaftware Update with DRM-free downloads. Guessing I know what Jobs said at AllThingsD.
Dissapointed that it seems very hard, to impossible, to get a plug-in converted Toyota Prius.