Sync gmail contacts and calendar with the iphone wirelessly
February 17th, 2009Wouldn’t it be great if the iphone let you sync your gmail contacts and calendar in realtime over 3G, EDGE or wifi? I’ve been using Microsoft Outlook as my sync vehicle and it’s dumb. Why am I teathering my gazillion dollar phone when it has multiple options for high-speed wireless networking? Even my five-year old mp3 player can sync contacts and appointments via USB.
It turns out that google (thanks g) has a solution for us. They have something that acts like a Microsoft Exchange server, allowing the iphone to sync mail, contacts and calendar. See simple instructions here:
http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740
It works brilliantly, removing the Microsoft Outlook middle-man and providing extremely fast updates.
Objective-C Memory Management
February 4th, 2009Here’s a simple, well-written guide to memory management in Objective-C.
http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/Technical/2001-03-11.01.html
Still Using Microsoft Paint?
April 12th, 2008At work today a friend of mine showed me a slick little image editor called Paint.NET. It combines the power of Adobe Photoshop with the speed and simplicity of Microsoft Paint, and boasts the same price as the Gimp. In other words… it’s completely free.
Paint.NET has layers, color, contrast and brightness controls, effects and unlimited undo. It includes the magic wand, clone brush and a gradient tool. The main feature lacking in Paint.NET is support for vector graphics. Whenever you add a line, a square, a circle, or some text, it’s stored as pixel data, not vector data. So if you misspell Grandma, you can’t go back and easily add a letter like you can in other editors. And you can’t resize your circles either. For most projects this isn’t a big deal. If you remember to insert a new layer whenever you add a new object to your scene you can use the eraser to correct your mistakes.
The bottom line is that if you’re still using Microsoft Paint, you owe it to yourself to take a look at Paint.NET. Installation is easy, and the download is minuscule. Get it here.
Installing Ubuntu
April 11th, 2008My new Coolermaster Cosmos case has a bunch of drive bays, so I decided this would be a good time to pop in a spare hard drive and give Linux another go. I chose Ubuntu 7.10 (the 32-bit flavor) for its reputation as a friendly, well-supported distro.
Installation was easy. I booted Ubuntu right off the CD and ran the install from a fully functional desktop (MS, please add this for Win7!). The only trick to my setup was that I wanted to use the Vista bootloader as primary instead of Grub. This process isn’t well documented, but it turned out to be pretty easy:
- When you install Ubuntu make sure you put Grub on the Ubuntu disk, not your Windows disk.
- Boot to Vista, install and run EasyBCD.
- Go to Add/Remove Entries and add a Linux entry. Make sure you pick the correct drive and check “Grub isn’t installed to the bootsector” (even if it is).
- Reboot and try it out.
Ubuntu detected every piece of hardware in my system and installed drivers for all but one: my sound card. I had to manually download, build, and install the latest ALSA driver to get it working. This process was non-trivial, but the ALSA wiki walked me through it.
Seattle vs Silicon Valley
February 17th, 2008Fun debate about the best place to live and work:
http://scobleizer.com/2008/02/15/seattle-vs-silicon-valley-sillyness/
The comments are the best part.
Ready
October 18th, 2007I’m packed. It’s 12:45 AM and I’m all set. I’m ready to go to New Orleans. There’s just one problem. My flight leaves at 6:15 AM. That means I’m getting less than four hours of sleep tonight. Why am I still up, you ask? Good question. I’m tired enough. I could sleep, but before I do I want to write this so I can remember this moment. It’s a good moment. Everything is in order. My obligations at work are taken care of. My bags are packed: I followed the checklist to a tee and everything fit perfectly in my nice new luggage. I have my clothes laid out for tomorrow (it’s hard to choose good when you’re groggy). There’s even an apple polished up and ready to break my fast as I make my way out the door.
I suppose it’s worth mentioning what I’m doing in New Orleans. I’m going on a service trip with a group from my church. We’re going to be working with Habitat for Humanity. I don’t know exactly what the work will involve. I’m hoping it’s carpentry, but I’m up for anything. It will be neat to see this area I’ve heard so much about in the past couple years, and to help out with this small contribution of time.
Drive Me Directions
July 19th, 2007Google just gave Google Maps human intelligence. You might say they added a common sense module - your brain. Now you can customize your driving directions to your hearts content. Did Google chart your route through a bad part of town? Simply click on the road you want to avoid and drag your path to happier highways. Think you have a faster route to I-5? Set waypoints along your favorite freeway and let Google do the rest.
Two Discoveries
June 30th, 2007Whilst writing my last post, I discovered two wonderful things. First, Wordpress 2.1.2 (the web application that powers this blog) now automatically saves my posts as a write them, much like MS Outlook saves an email in your Drafts folder as you compose. I wish every website did this. I can’t count the number of times I’ve lost great writing due to session time outs or glitchy internet connections. I suspect Wordpress saves my updates in a cookie, because I hear my hard drive spin up with every save, but it’s quite possible that it’s doing some AJAX wizardry to send my fledgling post out to the interweb. Either way, I give it two thumbs up.
My other discovery came as a complete surprise. My roommate has a thing for ales of all kinds, especially pale ales. I’m more of a lager guy, but as it is often the case tonight there was nothing but ale in the fridge. I popped open something I hadn’t tried before, a Curve Ball Seasonal Ale. Its “Slight Herbal Notes” and “Crisp & Golden” taste knocked my socks off. It reminds me of Fat Tire, a beer by New Belgium I occasionally enjoy. This Curve Ball was a little less hoppy and more… golden is actually a good word for it. All I can say is that I’m a fan. Again, two thumbs up!
Picking a Printer
June 30th, 2007It’s time for a new printer. My HP Laserjet 1100 is on its last legs. It has served me well, or at least well enough. I had to replace a roller a few years back to keep it from jamming (that set me back about $30 at fixyourownprinter.com). Besides that it’s been a loyal friend. Compared to every inkjet I’ve ever had it’s been a pleasure to own. Toner, unlike ink, doesn’t dry out or clog up. I haven’t had the need to clean my Laserjet in all the years I’ve owned it. It just works. When it comes to printing I’m not a heavy user. I often go weeks without needing a page, so it’s important that my printer’s consumables last a long time. Maintaining an inkjet is like paying child support, so my new printer will certainly be a laser.
Besides the fact that my Laserjet doesn’t play nice with my new Vista PC, and it has a habit of skewing my margins, there’s one key area where the it is lacking: the 1100 doesn’t do color. This really limits what I can do with it. I print driving directions all the time. More than anything else I need a printer for my Google Maps, and they don’t look so good in black and white. Color really helps map readability. I used to make birthday cards all the time, nice personal ones with photos and fancy text. I don’t know whether it was lack of a good printer or just increased willingness to spend money at Hallmark that changed this habit, but I have to believe that having a sweet color laser, I’ll take any excuse to use it.
So I’ve narrowed it down to color laser. I have a few models in mind. HP has two color lasers I’m interested in, the Laserjet 1600 and Laserjet 2600N. I see that Staples has the 1600 for $150 after mail-in-rebates… an incredible deal. But boy do I hate rebates. The world owes me at least $500 in rebates right now, and I’d hate to add to that sum. I’ve made multiple promises to myself to discount rebates in my purchasing decisions from now on. We’ll see if I stick to that. OfficeDepot has the 2600N for $300 right now. The key difference between these two models is that the 2600N comes with full toner cartridges (the 1600’s come half empty). That’s a big deal when your cartridges cost upwards of $75 a piece, and your printer takes four of them. The 2600N also has a network jack, which would be quite handy. It would free the printer from my computer, allowing others to use the printer without turning my computer on (it’s usually off), and it will give me much more flexibility for placing the printer. Lasers can be big and heavy. I’m not sure I want my new laser on my desk, or even in my room.
The other printer I’m considering is the Samsung CLP-300 (and maybe the CLP-300N). OfficeMax has it for $229, without rebates. This printer beats the 1600 and 2600N on size and price of consumables. Staples has the 300N version, which includes a network port, for $300.
In the course of writing this, I’ve settled on getting either the HP Color Laserjet 2600N or Samsung CLP-300N. The convenience of the networkability can’t be overlooked. I think I’ll go drive to a couple stores tomorrow and take a look at these printers in person. Before I did any research I figured I’d save a bundle by buying online. It turns out that the big office supply stores often have the best deals, and you can’t beat a brick-and-mortar shop for returns.
Followup - 6/14/2009
I ended up going with the HP Color Laserjet 2605dm, which has both networking and dual-sided printing. The dual-sided printing was a nice bonus but really I just got it because it was on sale. The printer has served me well: I’m still on the original cartridges. The alignment between colors is good, and the output is very crisp. I can’t really compare it to the Samsung models since I haven’t tried them. The HP has two major shortcomings.
For one the printer doesn’t handle really heavy paper (like card stock) well at all. I don’t think it’s even intended for this use. The paper slips and the print is usually messed up. But on 28 lb paper the quality is great and the printer rarely jams. One final issue I’ve noticed is that the printer regularly disappears off my network and I have to power-cycle the printer for it to reconnect. It’s annoying but by no means a deal breaker. Perhaps a firmware update or some monkeying with the network settings would resolve this issue, but I wish it worked better out of the box.
Organization, by Vista
February 28th, 2007I love the responses I get when I tell people I’m using Vista. “You must be feeling brave.” “Why did you do that?” “Vista? Isn’t that a rip off of OS X?” I didn’t get a single, “Sweet, how is it?”, so I’ll use this forum to tell you how it is.
Vista fixes a lot of little things that irked me about XP. The improvement I like most is the new home folder for organizing files like documents, pictures, downloads, etc. Windows XP had My Documents and in it some other folders like My Pictures, My Music, and My Videos. This setup has three issues. First, the “My” prefix was not only dorky but it added unnecessary length to the name and confused app’s that don’t know how to handle spaces in a folder name. You’d think that since spaces have been allowed in directory names since Windows 95 that programs would be able to handle them, but I still see scripts and installers that mess this up. I happen to like cygwin, a *nix-style environment and shell for Windows, and bash doesn’t play nice with spaces. Suffice it to say it’s just less of a hassle to work with C:\Users\Josh\Documents than “C:\Documents and Settings\Josh\My Documents”.
My second issue with XP’s document organization scheme is that the hierarchy is broken. XP stuffed everything under the sun into My Documents. Pictures, music, and movies are not documents, I’m sorry. You could argue that in some abstract, theoretical way… but you’d be wrong. Pictures, music, and movies do not belong in My Documents. Vista gets this right. Inside my home folder (e.g. C:\Users\Josh) there’s a folder for Documents, there’s a folder for Pictures, one for Music, Favories, Downloads, Contacts, Videos, Links, Searches, Saved Games, and the Desktop. All my stuff, nicely organized, finally!
So it turns out that I don’t like having all my data in C:\Users\Josh. I have two hard drives, one for Windows, all my applications, game installs, etc. and the other for my data. I call it my H: drive, which is a hold over from my years at the Academy of the New Church where the network was set up such that H: was always your home drive. The main reason I like this setup is that I can back up my data and my operating separately. I erase my install of Windows should I ever need to, and reinstall without touching my data. This drive setup never really worked with XP. I could move the My Documents folder (there’s an interface for doing that in the properties dialog for that folder) and most applications would still find the right documents. But when I moved the subfolders like My Pictures to a new home even the Start Menu got confused. I did everything possible, including hacking the registry to no avail. XP should hang a sign: “Don’t mess with my hierarchy”.
To my delight and surprise, Vista was happy when I moved my data to the H: drive. All the aforementioned folders (Documents, Music) in the home folder are treated specially in Vista. They have special icons and if you open up the Properties dialog on one of these guys you’ll see a Location tab and a Move button that makes it easy to migrate your folders. At first I was worried that the home folder concept would be broken when I emptied C:\Users\Josh of its contents. The top right item in the new Vista Start Menu is a shortcut to my home folder. Would this become useless? Vista came to the rescue with a little megabyte magic. Even after you relocate your folders to the drive and folder of your choosing, these special folders still show up in the home folder. It’s as if the folders are stored in two places at the same time! In *nix land this would be called a symbolic link, and this functionality meets Windows for the first time with Vista. Symbolic links are like shortcuts, with one key difference: the file system accepts symbolic links as valid paths. If the Documents folder remaining in the home folder was a real symbolic link to the new location (for some reason Microsoft chose to make them some other type of link) I would be able to type dir C:\Users\Josh\Documents and I would see the files listed in H:\Documents.
That’s probably enough talk about personal folders in Vista. Did you get that I like the new system? It’s a good step forward, a little step, but one that will hopefully help millions get more organized.