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This time of year is always very busy. It lends to draughts in time to post about things, due to one more holiday coming around the corner. Additionally, my writing time has been split between here and Alacatia Labs, which is why there’s been a draught here.

After a long thought, this blog is going to be losing most of its geekyness and be more of a personal blog. While I would love to keep this blog going on its own, I think that nearly everything I have to blog about these days would work well over at Alacatia Labs, and since subscribing to the blogs over there also gets you excellent posts by my other cohorts, it makes sense to make the Alacatia Labs blogs as good as they can be.

So while I hope there will be some people interested in my life in general, I hope that most of you subscribe to the RSS over there, as it gets updated several times a week with some very interesting stuff. The latest being: how does iCal update its dock icon, and how can you take advantage of it?

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Short post because I’m needing to start work, but Time Warner came out and did the wall-drop installation for the cable, and I must say, they have always had extremely friendly technicians, and they’re always very helpful and willing to go into as much detail as you want to pry out of them. I, being a geek, want to know everything, and they’re willing to oblige.

And the good news: Just a bad cable, no mice in the attic. That’s a relief.

We had a fun trip up to New Jersey. I’ll post pictures of our cute niece and other stuff to our SmugMug later (the Pictures link on the site), and I’ll try to write a longer update tonight.

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The Time Warner tech came out yesterday afternoon, and ran a few tests, and determined that the outlet itself was bad. This is of course the last thing I wanted to hear, this being a brand new house. So for now my nicely set up “server closet” has a few items in the guest bedroom, and wires galore move between the guest bedroom and the office.

So now I get to find out if my 2 year “complete” home warranty will cover it or not. If not, Time Warner actually doesn’t charge an outrageous amount to replace it. It appears that the worst case scenario is that I’m out $70 plus potentially money to deter squirrels or mice from my attic, which while I’ve never heard anything in the attic, the tech scared me by saying, “it is a pretty common thing, especially in new homes. Mice love the rubber on the wires.” I’ve seen mice in the far side of our backyard a few times. Not what I wanted to hear.

But at least I’m online again. It’s strange how often I will be doing one thing, and want to Google something. You never realize how much you use something like the Internet until it’s gone. Then you truly appreciate it.

I guess that’s like a lot of things in life.

Have a great week everyone. With my trip leaving out Wednesday morning, I’m not sure how much blogging I’ll do until I get back.

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Well, I’m writing this from my iPhone. My internet access has been out for most of the day. I went to bed last night and everything was fine. Got up, and it wasn’t working. I got someone on the phone pretty quickly — I suppose not many people call about their internet being down at 8:00. The put me in for an “emergency” appointment, which was great.

The tech shows up maybe an hour and a half later, and tries what I did — unplug, powercycle, and notices it not working. He unplugs the cable to test it, everything looks great. He then plugged it back in, and it magically started working.

The tech was really nice, and we actually chatted for perhaps 20 minutes or so. He left, and things were fine.

I decided today was the day to buy Metroid Prime 3, and went to the local GameStop. I get back and begin enjoying the great game when my wife says, “so the Internet is fixed?”

By the questioning tone, I could tell it wasn’t. I tried recreating the tech’s earlier movements to no avail. Finally, I picked up the phone and called again. Sadly, hold times were worse.

When I finally was talking to someone, I tried to shortcut the process, explaining that I had already had a tech out at my house a few hours ago, but the problem was back. No dice. He was trained for situations like these: follow the prompts.

Fifteen minutes later, he agrees there is a problem, and I get transferred to someone else. This guy was helpful, and got the tech contacted to make another stop here. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.

So I’ll be calling again in the morning. Wish me luck.

When I started this post, the iPhone’s autocorrect wasn’t working. However, at some point it started working. Additionally, wordpress’s edit field is much too wide when zoomed in. Finally, with this much text in a single field, each letter takes about half a second to appear, and clicks are actually buffered, just as a normal keyboard would. I attribute the slowdown to the autocorrect feature. Anyways, it’s annoying, so I’m calling it a night.

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Ok, it’s unforgivable, I know. It’s been nearly two months since my last update. But I’ve been busy, I promise.

First and foremost, myself and several others are now officially Alacatia Labs, Inc. It’s great working with other people on projects, because it seems that every time I look, there’s something interesting that one of the others did.

At my day job, I’ve been working with C# 3.5 and Linq, and I must say I’m very impressed. Today, I solved a the last of the harder problems that were bugging me. It involved a particular query that required three separate group by’s, and I was impressed with the outcome of the query. Yes, it was big, but Linq has a certain readability that doesn’t come with straight SQL. Perhaps it’s just Visual Studio being nice, but overall I think Linq is one of those technologies that will change how a lot of people work everyday.

In my personal life, Erin and I took a week long vacation up to visit my parents in Alaska at the beginning of September. That’s where the picture above is from. There are more pictures if you head over to SmugMug, but not nearly as many as I’ve taken in the past. It was a great, relaxing trip.

I’m learning Chopin’s Ballade #1. It is in many ways the hardest piece I’ve ever undertaken. It’s not nearly as flashy as a few pieces I’ve worked on over the past few years on my own, but technically it’s much more difficult. If you’ve watched The Pianist, this is the piece that he plays in the very dramatic section when he is alone with the German officer. If you haven’t seen the movie, I highly recommend it — it’s a great movie.

Erin and I are taking a trip up to New Jersey next week to visit her parents, and that should be fun. We also get to attend a recital being put on by her best friend from college.

All in all, I can’t complain. Except for the allergies — they’ve been driving me crazy this entire week. And that’s even more reason to look forward to a trip out of Texas.

How’s everyone else been? Do I actually still have readers?

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I bought myself an Xbox 360 a few weeks ago, and as of this morning I bought an Xbox Live account to try out. I just finished playing Catan for 3 straight hours. (!) Unfortunately I lost them all, but they were close matches — the last one I thought I was going to win. All I had left to do was build one segment of road to complete the longest road, which would have brought me to victory. But alas, someone else was hiding a road building development card, and stole that at the last minute to get victory before I could.

The problem, however, is that I don’t have any friends with an Xbox 360 that I know play games online. If anyone enjoys playing games casually online, add me as a friend on Xbox Live. My gamer card is on my About Me page.

But in addition to finding some gaming buddies, I’ve been trying to solicit some good games to play online. I currently have Guitar Hero II, Catan, Project Gotham Racing 3, and Enchanted Arms (enjoying this game so far, but alas, not online). I have two other games that I bought used to try, but will be returning them because they weren’t that fun to me

Let me apologize for the lack of updates here. Everything is going great for me. Aside from playing some Xbox 360 and being a married man, I’ve been spending a lot of time working on my plugin I’m writing for REALbasic. Hopefully this will make its debut in a few weeks with a public beta, but until then I’m keeping it under wraps.

Hope to see some of you on Xbox Live!

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Yesterday was my birthday, and now I’m 23 years old. This is my first birthday while being married, and it was definitely the best birthday in the past few years. The last few years I’ve spent driving and/or recovering from a long trip of some sort. Indeed last year I was preparing to drive up to New Jersey to get married.

iPhone

I did treat myself to what I consider the ultimate gadget. Remember a few days ago how I was saying I didn’t want an iPhone? Well, I changed my mind. I came to the realization that:

• I don’t use my phone as a modem except for when I’m en-route somewhere, or sitting in an airport. And when I do use it in this situation, it’s generally to email, read news, or chat. Thus, the iPhone would suit my needs. I generally make it a rule to only stay in hotels with free Wifi, so my laptop can connect at my destination anyways.
• The clipboard issue I thought about more, and while I could see what this guy was saying in his review, I realized that my Sony Ericsson doesn’t have a clipboard either (non-smartphone), and I get around just fine with it. Additionally, this is something that could come via software update.
• Programmability — well, I’m busy right now with other things anyways, but I feel reasonably confident that an SDK (even if only for more glorified widgets) will become available within the next few months.
• My iPod nano’s battery won’t hold a charge — I needed to replace either the Nano or the battery to keep my sanity. I’ve been wanting to upgrade to a Video iPod anyways because of the vast resources on Google Video that I’ve been downloading. The Google Tech Talks are a great source of information. If I was going to get a video iPod, there’s $250 out of pocket anyways.
• I hate carrying multiple devices. The appeal of having my iPod and phone as one is very high.
• Your comments of praise also influenced me even more

As of yesterday, I’m a happy iPhone user. I’ve got the 4 GB model. Activation was nearly instantaneous — maybe 3 minutes to go through the entire setup. It truly is a great device. The screen is truly brilliant — on full brightness it is really “too bright.” I find the 60% brightness to be about the right level.

The keyboard works really well. The auto-correct is impressive and works about 95% of the time for me. Two thumb typing isn’t that great for me, as I have huge thumbs, but with autocorrect it was OK. However, I find using my index and middle finger of my right hand while holding the phone in my left works the best for me, and I’m pretty efficient even after just one day.

I love carrying around pictures with me. I could do this on the Nano, but let’s face it — 1.5″ display versus 3.5″ display for viewing pictures… it’s a no brainer that I didn’t use my Nano for carrying pictures.

The recessed headset jack isn’t really that optimal — I need to get that silly adapter, as the in-ear headphones have always bugged me. They’ve always hurt my ears after more than 15-20 minutes of usage, and I prefer over-the-ear headphones.

Overall I’m very impressed, and I can’t wait to see what other improvements are made in the lifespan of this product with software updates.

Other fun

Erin bought me a game I’ve been wanting to play for a while — Tiger Woods 2007 for the Wii. I’ve always enjoyed this series. When Aaron and I were roommates, we would often come home from work to play Tiger Woods on the GameCube while we ate Chinese food.

My first game I was really upset with the controls. I just couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. I gave up.

After Erin and I went out to eat, I got back and tried again, and I started getting the hang of it. As of this morning, I’m a pro again, and it’s a great game. Using the Wiimote as a golf glub adds a level of difficulty that wasn’t there before, because the analog swing system was very easy to stay consistent with once you got used to it. However, swinging a club requires a lot more effort to remain consistent, and mistakes are still made. It makes it feel more like a real golf game.

She also made me my favorite cake — a German chocolate cake, and it turned out fabulous. I hadn’t had a homemade German chocolate cake in quite a while, and it really hit the spot.

All in all it was a great birthday, and I’m looking forward to next weekend when Erin and I take a trip to Corpus Christi to celebrate our one year anniversary. We have an ocean view suite that’s right on the beach. It should be a lot of fun.

Well, Tiger Woods is calling me for another round of golf. Have a great weekend!

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I’m sitting here relaxing, plugging away at a project of mine, just having eaten some smoked brisket (sadly bought, not made by me) and watched a movie with my wife. We watched The Fountain, a Darren Aronofsky film. I’ve always been impressed by his films, including Pi and Requiem for a Dream.

I loved The Fountain, but I’m still not sure exactly the full timeline behind the movie. I’m avoiding reading about it simply because that’s part of the enjoyment with his films — realizing how each part is connected is part of the joy of the movie. It’s like a puzzle in movie form.

In about an hour and a half, weather permitting, our city is going to have a 20 minute fireworks show that should be clearly visible from our home. We may venture out though and watch from the park — haven’t quite decided.

So before I close my MacBook and enjoy the rest of the 4th, I wanted to wish everyone a happy 4th of July.

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Today marks a new step in my life. Today I’m starting a new job.

I’ve had a wonderful and very educating four years at REAL Software, and it’s been a good company to work for. I leave behind many friends and colleagues that helped give me a foothold in the software business, and I am forever indebted to the opportunities that I have had over the years at REAL Software.

Over the past year or so, I’ve become more and more interested in a lot of various technologies that just aren’t that relevant to REAL Software. An opportunity presented itself a couple months ago that after a long period of consideration and discussion I decided I just couldn’t pass the opportunity up.

Today I start my new job as a web application developer for a company based out of Washington D.C. that I will be telecommuting for. This certainly won’t mark the last of my work using REALbasic, and I even have a plugin or two in the works that I hope to release this fall. However, the content on this blog will probably no longer be primarily REALbasic programming, but I hope that you will stick around anyways.

If you’ve had my email address at realsoftware.com, please update your address book to “jon” at the domain of this blog.

Thanks to everyone who has supported me in this decision.

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I’m a big Apple freak. I love nearly everything they release. I have 3 Macs in my house. Yet, I have lost all interest in getting this first gen iPhone.

It all starts with just a little bit of reservation: I always tell myself, “I won’t buy on the first day.” It’s so valuable to hear other people’s reactions.

Then Friday night came, and all the hype was impressive. The issues people had mentioned in the reviews were the only ones being highlighted, and none of them really mattered to me. Net result: I was going to go buy one this weekend.

Saturday came, and I finally started hearing some of the real beefs with the phone. I went back into reserved mode, deciding that on Monday I would probably buy it.

Today came, and I decided that I won’t buy it.

I don’t have the usual gripes to worry about: I’m already a AT&T customer. I have a pretty fresh contract, so getting an iPhone would only lengthen it by a couple months. I’m already paying a little extra for a data plan. So what gives?

This guy has some very real complaints about the interface and phone. The deal breakers for me are:

• Can’t use it as a modem: While I don’t doubt I can get most things done on the iPhone, if I can’t send upload to ftp, ssh into another machine, or countless other tasks the iPhone doesn’t support, it won’t be good for me to use when I travel.
• No clipboard: I didn’t actually care about it until I read this guy’s article and realized that it is actually something I use all the time.
• No programability: This is something that would have let me get over the above two points: if I could program for it, I would get it.

Now luckily two of those items can be fixed via a software update, and I believe the modem one might be able to be as well. Whether or not it will happen, I can’t know for sure. What I do know for sure is that I can keep my $600 in my bank account for a few months to find out.

Anyone reading have an iPhone? Regret it? Love it? Anyone else not buying one, and if so what’s your reasoning?

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