iPhone 3.0 and Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée French Toast

I need to post this quick before July is gone and I fail the one post-per-month minimum for this blog. So here goes:

I like the iPhone. With my 3G now upgraded to 3.0 and the ability to cut, paste, and search globally, the device can now serve as a portable computer as well as a phone, camera, music player, GPS, and recording device. I can write decent notes, take decent photos, surf most web sites acceptably, and take care of email. While I don't seem to have much time to play with apps, there are several on my iPhone just in case I get stuck somewhere without a WiFi, 3G, or Edge connection. I will write more about apps in a later post--although you can see some of my choices in the screen shot (and the ease of doing screen shots is no small bonus feature).

While AT&T 3G coverage is still weak in my opinion, I can get an Edge signal most places. That means I can stay in touch with folks in my head office with Yammer while traveling. I can handle both work and personal Twitter accounts while on the move (observing all applicable bylaws officer, honest). At the end of the day I can plug in my Sennheiser PXC 250 Active Noise Canceling Headphones and be lulled to sleep by any number of albums or my favorite Pandora station (currently Tangerine Dream Radio). I can even put the iPhone on the nightstand and play soothing sounds over the built-in speakers.

Speaking of sounds, I have now used the Voice Memo feature to record several interviews. The quality is surprisingly good if you are in a controlled environment, like an office with a door on it. The recordings are easy on the ears when transcribing and acceptable for podcasting. I don't like the fact that voice recordings are stored as m4a files (although these are easily converted to MP3 by iTunes). And it would be nice if I could copy voice files off the phone some other way than syncing within iTunes (mailing memos longer than one minute in length doesn't seem to work and you can't yet see your iPhone as a drag-n-drop NAS device or BlueTooth drive).

The iPhone has taken many mobile device features beyond the gimmick phase to downright useful. I actually turned to the iPhone GPS to get out of a sticky situation in Boston where I was on a deadline and needed to walk the city's crooked streets from my hotel to one of several Staples. Worked like a charm.

Of course, some people are going to read this and say: "See, we told you the iPhone was awesome." To which I reply, "And you were wrong." It is awesome now, it wasn't awesome a year ago. Back then it had a lot of potential, but until 3.0 it was missing vital functions. Even now, I would limit the plaudit of "awesome" to the 3GS, which adds video recording, digital compass, and voice control to the 3G, together with a performance boost.

So, my 3G is cool and I'm really enjoying it. I haven't had time to dig into the complex math of how much money it would take for me to become a 3GS user. And I haven't had time to berate AT&T for the failure to support tethering (I have a hack for that which takes the edge off, so to speak). Now I'm off to enjoy the world's best decaff latté at StageCoach Coffee. I may have to order a piece of the amazing Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée French Toast, just so I can use my iPhone to post a 2 megapixel, non-auto-focus picture of it on Twitpics.

How to Lose Customers: A one-act, two-scene play performed in three tweets

Here is the original form of the play, a short blog post:



Act I, Scene I: A United States Postal Service office.

Me: I want to send this package to England.

Postal Clerk: You can't send it like that, you have the wrong tape on it. And this paperwork's not complete.

[Me exits building, walks down the street carrying package.]

Act I, Scene II: A UPS shipping office.

Me: I want to send this package to England.
[Hands clerk the same package seen in Scene I.]

Clerk: No problem, just write your name here and the address it's going to. We'll do the rest.

[The End]

This play was recently performed as a series of three tweets on Twitter, as shown below. Literary scholars will note that, as posted live, the original tweets said "Me exists" where it should have said "Me exits" thus prompting speculation as to the playwright's state of mind at the time.

Tweet 1. How to Lose Customers: A one-act play in 3 tweets. Act I, Scene I: A United States Post Office. Me: I want to send this package to England.

Tweet 2. USPS Clerk: You can’t send it like that, you've got the wrong tape on it. And this paperwork’s not complete. [Me exits, carrying package.]

Tweet 3. Scene II: UPS office. Me: I want to send this package to England. Clerk: Write your name and address it’s going to. We’ll do the rest. [End]

NBC News: 62% of Americans don't have acess to broadband

Great to see NBC do a piece on the "62% of Americans who don't have access to affordable high speed broadband." For those who have broadband, here it is:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

And the Damage Done: Hemochromatosis recap

The following is a recap of things I have learned from my partner's experience with hemochromatosis, a.k.a iron overload. I wrote this up for a support forum which is private, but I thought it would be helpful to make it available to anyone looking for information on this insidious condition. BTW, the circle+arrow symbol on the left is the alchemical symbol for iron, and yes, it is the same symbol that is used for the planet Mars and for the male of the species (I'm not going to touch that one, I have a hard enough time avoiding "ironic" puns when writing about this stuff).

[Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. Seek medical advice before acting on, or drawing conclusions from, anything I say here. By all means Google this stuff, but do so sensibly (check the bona fides of the folks writing what you read, distrust any site that is selling a cure, and look for the HONcode which is a good sign).]

When blogs or online forums mention hemochromatosis, also known as iron overload, they often leave you with more questions than answers. This is not surprising because hemochromatosis is widely misunderstood (and widely under-diagnosed e.g. if you know someone who has been diagnosed with chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia you really should check out hemochromatosis--if untreated it can kill).

You often hear "hemochromatosis can be treated" as though that was the end of the story. Not so...

Good Food and Drink on the Road

Recently it occurred to me that over the years I have recommended, via blog posts, comments and tweets, a fair number of places to eat, places that are scattered around the country, places that folks who are on the road might like to know about. I figured I would start rounding round them up here. And here are the first two:

City Coffee Company, St. Augustine, FL: Written up in this blog post. Best coffee on the north side of town. Great bear claws and breakfast burritos. Free WiFi of course (a good thing because there is no 3G in St. Augustine at this point and the Edge signal is pretty weak on the north side of town.

Stage Coach Coffee, Cooperstown, NY: I have tweeted this several times. Best decaff latté on the planet. And the most unusual signature French Toast. Seen in the iPhone snapshot on the left, this is "Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée French Toast." Totally delicious and very filling. As served at the 2009 Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies.

More to come...

Hey 19: Things to do when promoting a cause or company, product or person, band or brand

This is a quick attempt to put into one place various bits of advice that I've been giving out to various people over the past few months with respect to raising the profile of a person, place, or thing.

The idea is that you have something you want to publicize. It could be a band, a brand, a product, a company, or an indie film; or it could be you.

Before you go out and hire a PR agency or pay for a press release, you might want to try these things. They are free, except for your time and an Internet connection. In the old days they would have been called guerilla marketing. Now it's called Web 2.0 marketing or New Rules marketing. The strategy is to create interest--in whatever you are promoting--by being interesting. You want to draw people to the object of attention rather than subject them to a message. I will try to post something later on how to be interesting. The following are 19 things to get started with. I've broken them down into 3 phases:

Make Your Money Way More Interest-ing: Put it in a Kiva account

Instead of leaving money sit in a zero interest checking account, why not put it in a Kiva account. Kiva accounts generate loads of interest, of the human kind. Consider this:

I just loaned some money to a woman in Ghana who is seeking to expand her business. She makes rice and stew and sells it by the side of the road to help pay for her children's education. By borrowing money from a community bank she can buy ingredients in bulk and get a better price and thus a better margin. With that margin she can hire another person and double the output and revenue. How interesting is THAT!

When she repays the loan then my money is available to me for withdrawal or I can choose to loan it to someone else. I don't earn financial interest on this money, but it makes my money way more interesting. Consider this:

I opened up a business account with Bank of America about 5 years ago. For the last 8 months there has been about $500 in the account because that business does not do much business these days (these days I have a day job). So each month Bank of America charges me $13.00 simply for operating the account. On an annual basis that's more than 30% interest, just for letting money sit there. They don't even have to send me paper accounts. So now I'm taking half that money and putting it into Kiva (the other half is paying down a credit card balance).

During these tough economic times it's easy to think that we have no spare cash, no extra money. But I bet a lot of people have small amounts of money lying dormant, either earning no interest or actually costing interest in the form of maintenance fees. How much more interesting to lend that money to someone who can put it to work. Your money is relatively safe, is not incurring fees, and is potentially transforming lives.

Go Kiva!

CQM

iPhone Camera Impresses

As I wait to upgrade my iPhone to the newly released 3.0 version of the operating system (over 200 megabytes worth of download) I continue to be impressed with the camera on my iPhone 3G. The other morning I snapped this shot of Layla on our daily walk. Sometimes the effect of using a lower resolution digital camera, such as you get on a mobile phone, is almost 'painterly' in the way resolves complex images into pixels. If you click this image you will get an expanded view, which [IMHO] is still pleasing despite the lack of resolution.

Flying Launch Pad Cruises New Mexico Skies

Couldn't resist blogging this story as it shows progress towards commercial space travel has not been stopped by the recession. Not to get all philosophical and stuff but I think that leaving planet Earth is where evolution is headed.

I'm not saying all Earthlings will relocate to another planet or planets, but some will. And of course, that could make Earth a more accommodating place for those who stay behind. At some point in the future there will be humans looking back, in time and space, saying "Yep, that whole Virgin Galactic thing was a turning point." Kind of like the VIC-20 or TRaSh 80.

Sosa Sucks! The social cost of selfish sport star substance abuse

As yet another big name in baseball gets attached to substance abuse [this time it's some pumped up cheater by the name of Sammy Sosa] I remain stunned by the narrow-minded focus of the media. Sure, some of the better sports writers wrestle with what all this means but most coverage is confined to:

1. The fans (how will they cope with the fall of their idols?)


2. The sport (will people still respect baseball and pay to watch games?)


3. The team (can they win games without the suspended player?)


4. The player (how will it affect his Hall of Fame chances)

I'm tempted to say screw them all, or at least numbers 2 through 4. I'm appalled that nobody seems to care a toss about what this continued abuse of "substances"  means to the people who actually need these substances to stay alive (yes, you can die from adult growth hormone deficiency--see this blog post).

Why doesn't anyone write about how selfish abuse by obscenely overpaid sports-jerks has made Human Growth Hormone (HGH) harder to get for people with medical conditions who legitimately need it to function? How about...