How the iPhone Changed My Life (and why I can live without it)
*Monkeys with bones not included
I wake up in the morning to my iPhone alarm, usually hitting the snooze button about three times. Oozing out of bed, I grab my iPhone and head upstairs to sit with Lisa for a little bit before work. I’ll usually open up Reeder to check the morning news. Couch time is also a good time to check email and maybe G+ (Lisa in the meantime is checking Facebook on her iPhone). Then sometime before I hop in the car I’ll crack open Instacast and check if there are any new podcast updates. On the road to work I’ll listen to one of my podcasts, the audio edition of the Economist, or one of my many audio books on the Audible app. At work my iPhone keeps me informed if I have upcoming meetings, email, or important site monitoring alerts. During the day I get text messages from my wife, I take turns of the Carcassonne game I play with friends, and trade instant messages over Google Talk using BeejiveIM.
I have other activities that my iPhone gets used for irregularly, but listed above are things that I do almost every day.
From Chuck and Beans at shoeboxblog dot com
Once upon a time people didn’t have Google, and so there were many things that they did not know. Pieces of trivia would simply go unknown for days or weeks until a proper dictionary, almanac, encyclopedia or other reference material could be found, often at a local library. These days my intelligence is directly proportional to the signal on my smartphone. I can answer most arcane trivia questions in less than a minute, provided I have a 3G signal.
There is really no doubt about it, my iPhone enables me in many different ways, most of which are quite enjoyable.
But I could live without it.
It is a very convenient device because it travels around with me so easy it’s accessible at a moments notice, but I don’t need that. I wound’t be happy getting along with out many of the things it does: audio books, music, internet searches, etc, but I can do all of that stuff on my computers. I have computers an internet at home, I have them at work. Audio books and music can be carried on any number of other devices or formats.
I would miss it, but the iPhone does not in fact fill any unique purpose in my life.
Secure your gmail account today
How devastating would it be if your gmail account was hacked? Do you have financial data in there? Could someone who has access to your gmail start changing the passwords to your financial websites? Is your gmail password more than 48 characters?
Having your email account become compromised is probably the worst thing that could happen to you, digitally speaking. It is worth your time and effort to secure your account. Spending an hour securing your account today will prevent you from having to spend many many hours recovering from a hacked account in the future. I’m going to detail some important information for you about how to do this.
Passwords:
Step #1 is very important. You need a good password. If a very recent analysis of the passwords leaked from Sony is any indication you do not have a good password. The easiest way to start fixing this is to install and use LastPass. I will write more about LastPass another time, but it makes it very very simple to mange very complicated passwords. If you don’t want to use that though you need to get a better password. There are lots of good ways to create a strong password, but Steve Gibson at grc.com has some very good ideas about this. You should read this article on Haystack Passwords. It tells you some easy ways to create very secure passwords.
Two Tier Authentication:
If you don’t know what that is let me break it down for you. Your bank probably already uses an example of two tier authentication already. When you log in you enter your username/email and password; that’s tier one. Then you are asked for a second piece of identifying information, such as “What was the name of your first pet”; that’s tier two. Two is better than one right? If someone get’s your password they might get stymied by the second question. It’s like having two locks on your door. Stealing one key doesn’t let you get in. But stealing your keyring might mean that the person gets both keys, so two tier authentication works best when the second form is a completely different kind of security.
Enter Google two-tier authentication. In addition to your password you must also authenticate through a second method. Google currently has 2 options for tier-two authentication: an iphone/android app, and phone SMS. Adding either one of these authentication methods to your account makes your account inaccessible by anyone who does not have access to your phone/mobile device.
Google’s options for two-tier authentication has two benefits: first you get a second level of security in front of your account rather than a single point of failure (weak/compromised password), and second the person who wants to log into your account must have physical access to your phone which is a very high bar to clear. Your spouse or significant other could pull it off but anyone else is probably out of luck. This kind of security makes the likelyhood of your account being compromised virtually non-existent. It doesn’t require you to have a smartphone either, if you don’t have a smartphone you can simply configure Google to send you a SMS message to your phone’s text plan.
For convince you can have Google only ask for your second tier of authentication every 30 days for a given computer. This means that on your primary system you won’t constantly be required to get your phone out to authenticate on Google’s services. This is a perfectly safe practice since Google requires you to re-authenticate anytime you try to change your login information. Google also gives you a couple of one time use passwords to print off, it’s a good idea to print these off and stick them in a desk drawer in case somewhere down the road you lose your phone or any other authentication information.
I urge you, if you use Gmail as your primary email and have other accounts tied to it, turn on two factor authentication right now.
Dropbox
My iPhone Homescreen
I’ve been a dropbox user for quite a while now. I signed up for an account the first day that I heard about it and I signed up for a paid account the moment that paid accounts became available. Safe to say I use it and love it. I found another great iPhone app yesterday that uses it, and I looked at my homescreen and realized that quite a few of my apps have dropbox integration these days, and that’s awesome. QuickShot – Easy way to take pictures and immediately upload them to dropbox. It can also upload multiple photos at a time from the camera roll. PlainText – primarily a note taker, it just very simply handles plain text files and keeps them sync’d. Dropbox – Access to any of my files. Trunk Notes – A great markdown notebook. Lately I’ve been keeping notes about the various games I’m in, in here, but I think it could be used for much more. DropList – This was the app I just picked up. It’s a pretty simple to-do application (of which I’ve tried many). This one is pretty unique in that it just keeps a very basic plain text file in dropbox, and puts a pretty face on it on the iPhone. Atomic Web (not shown) – A web browser that allows me to download files and upload them directly to dropbox. GoodReader for the iPad – not shown on the screenshot, because that’s my iPhone. GoodReader is a great tool for managing read-only documents. PDFs, word documents, etc. It’s a great way to keep gaming books and documents with me.
iOS 4
iOS 4 appears to be eating the battery of my 3G for breakfast. Someone said that the wifi no longer goes to sleep when you put the iPhone into sleep mode. This seems plausible to me, because the new OS supports a number of multitasking operations (not on the 3G mind you). I have turned off wifi and I will see how quickly the battery dies from here. It doesn’t make a huge difference to me as I will probably own a iPhone 4 in a couple of days.
Side note: the updated wordpress app means that I can once again post from my iPad!
Facebook no more
Just closed my Facebook account. Mark Zuckerberg obviously disdains the users of his service, and I will not support him.
I may cry
Steam has been released for the Mac. A number of games on my steam account already have Mac ports.
The second step is Linux:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=valve_steam_announcement&num=1
So… beautiful… should have sent… a poet.
Everyone, its time to celebrate.
A day or two later
I thought I would go ahead and post this note. After a day or two of having the iPad this is probably my favorite way to surf the web and to access google reader. Having this large, high resolution touch screen is a great way to browse. The news apps: USA Today, BBC, NPR, and NYT are absolutely fabulous for getting news. NPR integrates their audio casts with their print news articles, it’s brilliant. Comic book reading has been great. I can’t get rid of my laptop just yet, but I certainly prefer this to that for just browsing.
I’m still annoyed that I can’t subscribe and auto update my podcasts without syncing or using a 3rd party app. I’ve switched to using my iPad for audiobooks and podcasts since it has a much better battery life than my iPhone.
iPad
I thought it was only fitting that I should write this post on the iPad. So I am typing this whole thing out on the keyboard screen. Let’s see how it goes.
Ok, first things first, pics:
So it’s a good size. Feels great in the hand. I’ve been carrying it around, as you might imagine, and its been very comfortable. The screen looks fantastic! I really like how this thing looks! When the screen is powered on you cant see the fingerprints on the screen. So aside from how this thing feels, the experience has been great so far. For those of you with iphones you know what it is like when you find a really good app, well there are quite a few apps that are really nice. I knew what I was going to be interested in when I bought this. Here are a couple of snap of my app library so far:
Quite a few fun toys. I have to admit that one of the big reasons I wanted a iPad was for comic books. I love me some digital comics! Digital comics are something I’ve been waiting for for a long time and I absolutely love this incarnation. Cheap, easy access to comics, I can download what I want when I want it, and re-download later if I want. I’ve been out of the paper comic world for a while, but they’ve got me hooked with this new comic access. I need to check out the Marvel app. More fun things that I am looking forward to doing with this is taking it on trips, talk about portable! The ten plus hour battery life really makes it a great traveling device. This is going to be fantastic for plane trips. I really need a good offline google reader app. Right now i have a pretty good app that was designed for the iPhone, but i’ve already seen the massive difference in the quality of an app that is designed for the iPad. The Netflix app is really nice, I’m pretty shocked apple let it into the store as it will surely cut into apples sales. If Netflix lets you cache a movie on the device, it will be a real killer. The book applications are really nice. I will definitely end up reading books on this thing, in addition to audio books. There is one thing on top of all that I want to use this device for:
Playing games with my nephew! One of the most important features you could possible imagine for a device.
My iTake (like anyone cares)
Well, at least one person does. If you haven’t already heard Apple just announced their iPad, which is a tablet device (I’m not going to call it a computer, I’ll explain why later). If you aren’t aware, Apple has been working on a tablet for years and years so this has been a long awaited device. Rumors about this or a similar device have been around since before 2001. So there’s been a whole lot of hype about this for a very long time. The weeks leading up to the announcement of the iPad were saturated with rumors and wishlists. A lot of people had a lot of high hopes and I’m kind of annoyed at all the reviews that spend a lot of time talking about what the device -isn’t-, because it didn’t meet their really high expectations.
A lot of people have correctly identified that the niche for this device is one that apple is carving from in between phones and laptops. There isn’t a “netbook” space really. There is a “cheap computer” space, and portable cheap computer happen to be netbooks. Is it a “netbook” competitor? I don’t believe it is. For one thing, there is no real comparison between the iPadOS (not the official name of the OS to my knowledge) and a full-fledge operating system like Windows, Mac, or Linux. The iPadOS is very limited in terms of what it is capable of because of the platform restrictions and DRM that lockdown the system. So what the iPad device really is is a media platform that is highly extend-able. Is there a market for such a device? I think there’s currently a small one, and that as the device gains popularity, it will grow (see: ipod, iphone).
The major media the iPad handles are Video, Music, Books, Games and Web. Do you want a “larger than an iphone” device that can do that stuff? If you do then you are interested in the iPad.
The iPad will excel at watching iTunes videos. It will not excel at watching other video sources. Make no mistake that Apple has done a lot of work trying to tie you to iTunes for all your media consumption. If you can watch it on iTunes you can watch it on your iPad. If you cannot watch it on iTunes, don’t think you’ll be able to on the iPad. The iPad isn’t going to support flash so no hulu for you.
I don’t think I need to say much about music. If all you want is a music player, get an iPod. If you want to do more and don’t mind the size of the device this will work equally as well as the iPod.
How will the iPad function as a book reader? Well, its hard to say for certain because I don’t have my hands on one, but I think the answer will be “pretty good for people who don’t mind reading on backlit LCDs”. Fortunately for Apple I think “students” fall into that category. For people with sensitive eyes, something like the Kindle will probably work a bit better (though the kindle is unreadable in low light conditions, just like a book). Personally, I’ve read 2 books using the Kindle App for iPhone so I think I would have no problems reading a whole book on this device. I still listen to books much more than I actually sit down and read them, so I’m not certain if I would use the iPad all that much for book reading. I tell you what would be a killer app though: Graphic Novels. If the comixology app updates for the iPad I might have to pick it up just for that. Having a comic book collection sitting on a single device would be really really cool. $1-$2 dollar digital comic books is a great way to consume comic books. It’s one of those things that I’ll be keeping an eye on.
The iPad is going to be a pretty good gaming platform, but lack of hardware controls will keep it from being a great game platform. There are tons of good games for the iPhone and most of those will translate very well to the iPad, but there are tons of games and game types that require the tactile feedback of a d-pad to work well. So, as a game platform there will be some areas where the pad will be deeply lacking. That being said, Telltale games, one of my favorite game companies currently has mentioned that they are interested in developing for the iPad. Monkey Island on the iPad? Yes please.
If all the iPad did was browse the web, there would be people who would buy this device. And they would probably be very happy with it. This device will work very well for browsing most web content. It doesn’t have flash, if you need flash this device won’t work for you. If you require Java this won’t work for you. If you just like hitting google news and other sites that know to make their content broadly accessible, you’ll be fine. At $500 ($630 w/3g) its a little pricey for just a web browser, but it’s still tempting to have access to web content on such a device at all times.
In addition to all that stuff, if you currently own an iPhone or iPod Touch, you will be able to transfer all your apps to it. That’s a pretty good library of software (not fantastic, but pretty good). Given that the iPad does not run a full OS, I think a strong app library is crucial.
So my final verdict? You don’t need one today (though you might want one). In 2 years? I think the iPad is gonna follow the same path as the iPod, it’s a joke to a lot of people today, but it’ll become very popular in years to come.
wishlist for v2.0:
-front facing camera for video chat
-subscription based content access ($20 dollars a month for access to all the itunes video and music).
-more open system (no gonna happen)
IMDB comes to the iphone, finally
For my iPhone loving pals out there IMDB finally released an iPhone app. I no longer have to navigate that horrible website when I want to check something on my iPhone.
Google Chrome
Adblock has come to chrome. I’m now ready to use chrome fulltime.
Recording The Patchwork Philharmonic radio show
I made a little project for myself. My brother is doing a radio show these days, but he’s on the east coast, so I have to catch it online. Which works out just fine because I figured I’d be able to record it pretty easily so that I could listen to it at my leisure. We’ll I did a little work and automated the whole recording process and I thought it would make an interesting thing to post. So here goes…
Tools:
VLC
OS X or Linux (i’m using #! currently)
Dropbox
curl
twitter
bit.ly
Snow Leopard
I picked up my copy of Snow Leopard today. So far so good. I did a full reinstall of my Mac Mini, because I had absolutely no space left (not quite sure why). So far it’s been quite fast, I’m getting the bare essentials reinstalled so I’m not quite up to speed yet.
More audible credits come my way
Actually I got my new credits late Aug. but I just haven’t gotten around to picking up my new books for the month yet. It’s times like this when I really wish that my iPhone had the ability to download my audible.com purchases directly, but no, I have to go to my computer and sync. It would be nice if Apple would open up the ability to download files directly, or at least enter into limited partnerships to enable downloads for certain 3rd parties. I suppose when I finally get my new laptop (next year probably), I won’t have this issue becuase the system I sync with with generally be with me. Still, eliminating reasons to have to sync would be very nice.
While I’m griping I’ll add that the iPhone should also:
- Support syncing over wifi (e.g. I come home, get on my wireless network and sync up to my mac mini
- Support subscribing to podcasts within the iTunes app on the iPhone
- background support for audio applications (or the ability to queue files up withing the ipod application even if the file is stored in an exteral app like spotify or audiobooks or dropbox
- Approve the dropbox application goddamnit (does it really take 4 weeks of dead silence to approve and app?)
Microsoft is trashing linux in retail
So I’ve seen a number of stories lately about Best Buy employees receiving documentation (from Microsoft) about why Windows is so much better than Linux. I can’t help but wonder if the net result of this is mostly that Microsoft is putting Linux in the mind of more people than would possibly be exposed to it otherwise and basically giving free advertising to Linux, as well as giving legitimacy to Linux being a direct threat to Windows. I can’t help but feel excited for the dynamic that ChromeOS will bring to that conversation.
Looking forward to ChromeOS (needs a new name)
I find that I am increasingly interested in seeing google chrome and google chrome os get developed and advanced. Since about 1999 I’ve dreamed of a world where I can use linux without feeling like I’m having to comprimise in some fashion. I’m hoping that ChromeOS will be the step that makes developers start selling software and services for linux (games are at the top of my list, but there is plenty of other stuff that would be nice). Apple just released Snow Leopard and that is making me drool. My mini won’t see a ton of benefit from Snow Leopard, and Lisa’s desktop is a PowerPC so she can’t upgrade, for these reasons I have not picked up a copy yet.
Me and Lisa keep talking about getting new laptops in the next year. We both love the idea of walking into an Apple store and walking out with armfuls of bling. I would like to have a “primary system” that doesn’t run windows (at least primarily). Having OS X and/or ChromeOS on a powerful laptop gets me all giddy.
Summer in swing
We’ve started down the road of summer activities and I’m already behind. I need to start scheduling things so that they actually get done. I tend to follow my schedule well enough, especially if it’s something that needs to get done regularly. I should read up on RTM and see what kind of habits I can get myself into.
Things on my todo list:
- I’m going to go ahead and compress all the wedding stuff into a single bullet, but theres a lot to do.
- Two trips to Jacks, one which still needs a large amount of organization and coordination.
- Figure out house finance stuff.
- Clean and organize: room, desk, computers, basement.
- play World of Warcraft
- knock out some of the single player games I’ve purchased but haven’t played
- Budget for next year
- Plan my Eberron game (possibly for the fall, but maybe further than that).
- Schedule some RPGA.
- Go see medical professionals for checkups and physicals and maintenance.
In the meantime, work is going well, and there aren’t too many personal tragedies to deal with (no one I know is threatening suicide or anything over Michael Jackson). Josh and Betsy will be moving north at the end of the month and so we’ll begin a new era of large amounts of space between us.
So yeah, getting hit with a big bag of life, but I’m enjoying most of it and trying to embrace change and make it work for me.
iPhoneOS 3.0 out
I’ll be upgrading this evening and enjoying the hell out of A2DP. Looking forward to useful push enabled programs.
Chrome v2
Google just release version 2 of their Chrome browser. I’m just playing around with it and decided to add a post with it about it. It seems like google is doing a pretty good job with it, I’m looking forward to a more widespread adoption as well as some more advanced features (it will be a while yet before it catches up with firefox in terms of features).
Cheers Google, get the mac/linux versions out asap.
Hitting 80
It’s been a long time in coming, but I finally hit level 80 with one of my WoW characters, Orgimus. I’ve been having a lot of fun playing WoW again and I’m really looking forward to playing with Lisa more, and Joe, Matt and Alice this Summer. I’m still working on my main character, Teqnacht, but I’m only playing him with Lisa, who has less time to play right now.
It’s good to be enjoying the game this much again.
Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty Jackalope” out this week
I’m looking forward to the latest incarnation of Ubuntu. My current plan is to install it on my netbook and in a vmware instance on my desktop (maybe virtualbox). I also need to get my work laptop upgraded, but I need to finese that one.
Still a linux geek.
Computer tools I can’t live without
#1) Linux live distro (usb/cd): I don’t know how a windows installation can take up 5gb and still not have some of the most basic tools out there. Being able to boot a proper operating system on any machine is such a boon. One of my goals in the near future is to get a sizable usb key that I can boot vmware esxi on and just keep some OS images in it.
#2) Dropbox: Revisioned backups. None finer. Access to you documents wherever you have internet. Sync documents to as many systems as you want. Make very large files accessable to people you want. Continued development promises exciting new benefits and uses.
#3) SSH: Pretty much the most important program I use. It allows secure remote access to a computer including file transfer, connection tunneling, and shell access. Combined with VNC it makes for a nearly unstoppable remote access package.
#4) Portable Apps: If you must use a windows machine, and you’re not the administrator then portable apps are pratically required. A full suite of applications that are a standard part of my computing diet. You can put them on a usb key or just unzip them to a local folder for use on an unfamiliar system.
#5) VMware: More and more I’m finding reasons to virtualize my operating systems. The tools and abilities that VMware products provide make all aspects of multiple OS needs become almost non-existant. Combine with dropbox and/or a usb key for a killer go anywhere OS.
#6) Google Apps: I don’t think most people appreciate just how powerful the google app suite is. Email, documents, feed readers, storage space (if you know how), photos, wikisites, the list goes on. At some point soon I anticipate Google Voice will be released and become another one of those things I can’t live without.
#7) Firefox: I thought I’d go ahead and mention it. It’s a pretty damn important piece of software. It’s addon system makes it the most useful browser out there.