Juan del Real

I bought an iPhone back in September, after the price drop. It instantly became the coolest gadget I have owned. Its an awesome feeling to know you have access to information right at your fingertips anywhere, anytime. Grant it, the EDGE wireless service is slow when WiFi isn’t available, but at least you are able to access the info you need.

Having been using the iPhone for five months now, here are some of my findings about it:

Bugs: After a few weeks of using the iPhone, I began to experience a bug of sorts when using the browser (Safari). The browser would just randomly quit, or crash, while viewing a website — returning me to the home menu. Within a short period of time, this became more and more frequent to the point where I couldn’t use the browser at all. I had a Genius check my phone at an Apple Store, but they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. They ended up replacing my iPhone there on the spot. The Genius didn’t know if the replacement iPhone was a new one, or a refurbished one. He said there wasn’t a way to tell. The replacement iPhone looked new and seemed to work well. I didn’t experience that same bug for the longest time. However, just recently I’ve started to have the browser just randomly quit/crash on me again. I’m hoping the latest firmware upgrade to 1.1.4 will fix this.

Form factor: The iPhone replaced a Motorola Razr V3 i had for years, so there was a size difference I had to get used to. The iPhone is longer than the Razr, but the iPhone is thinner. It didn’t take long for me to get accustomed to the size and form factor. One thing that I just couldn’t get used to, though, was how smooth the iPhone is. I had to be careful when handling it with one hand because it would very easily slip out. I ended up buying an Incase protective cover and that solved that problem. Now I’m able to get a good grip on it.

Cell Phone: So far, I’ve always experienced good reception and clear calls. No complaint here.

iPod/iTunes: iTunes and the iPod on the iPhone is cool, but I don’t really use these features. I have a few songs on the iPhone, some which I have bought via the iTunes on the iPhone itself, but I don’t go around with the earphones in my ears listening to music.

Google Maps: This one feature that I use a lot since day one. I use it to check traffic, how to find short cut to place I’m going, and to locate businesses.

I finally got to see the laptop created for the One Laptop per Child program up close at LinuxWorld. The laptop is also known as Negroponte’s “$100 laptop.”

I had only seen photos of it so I was surprised at its size - its small. I didn’t spend much time playing with it. I just moved the cursor around and tried to opens some programs, but it wasn’t responding. However, it looks like it could be an educational toy from LeapFrog.

In May I went to Make Magazine’s second annual Maker Faire event at San Mateo Expo Center, CA. I had an idea of what to expect. It turned out to be way better than I could imagine. It was geekiest place on earth. My wife went with me although she wasn’t too sure about it. She hadn’t heard of the event and the idea of it being a “geek event” didn’t thrill her. Once there, she was just as excited as I was. She’s a crafty person so she really dug a lot of what Maker Faire had to offer — especially the crafts section. Maker Faire is a two day event , but we only attended one day. Next year we plan on attending both days.

• Maker Faire
• my photos

I’ve had a Dell 4550 for several years now and its been a workhorse of a pc. I never had any problems with the hardware, the OS (Windows XP Professional), or any of the software I’ve installed. I figured now would be a good time to replace the monitor from a big ass 19″ ViewSonic A90f CRT to a flat panel, and upgrade the size of RAM since prices have dropped. I originally ordered my pc with only 512MB of RAM. Back then it seemed like a sufficient amount. So I bought a 1GB of RAM for $79 at Fry’s Electronics. I installed it and my pc works fine.

As for the monitor, I really would have liked to get a DELL UltraSharp 2407WFP Wide-Screen Flat Panel Monitor. I use one at the office and it rocks, but it isn’t within my budget right now. So, after some semi-extensive research, I decided to get the ViewSonic VX2235vm. Its a 22″ widescreen flat panel LCD monitor. When I went to Costco to buy it, they also had a different ViewSonic monitor which I hadn’t seen or read about - the ViewSonic VX2245vm. Its basically the same LCD as the VX2235vm, but the base is different. The base is called the ViewDock and it has a dock for iPods, a mini subwoofer, 3 USB ports, 8-in-1 card reader, a microphone, and a heaphone jack. For $50 more, I got this new model instead.

My frustrations begin

Once I got it home, I fully read the new monitor’s requirements and realized that my video graphics card didn’t support the 1680×1050 resolution. No problem, I figured. I’ll just buy a new graphics card. First I had to find out which card my pc had - PCI, PCI Express, or AGP. I found a website that clearly explained the different graphic cards. After I researched this, I went to MicroCenter and bought a GeForce 7600 GS 512MB AGP Video Card by PNY Technologies for about $136. The box in which the graphic card came in was inside a plastic case for security reasons. The case was removed at the checkout counter. This plastic case blocked a side of the box which had the system requirements, so I didn’t get to fully read them until I got home. The video card requires that the pc have a power supply of at least 300 Watts and an extra 4-pin connector for power. I wasn’t sure, but I thought this might be a problem. I opened up my pc, took a look at the power supply, and saw that its only 250 Watts and there are no extra 4-pin connectors.

So I went back to MicroCenter and I bought a new 400 Watt power supply which was on sale for $39.99. It has plenty of 4-pin connectors. I get home, I opened my pc up, I removed the old power supply — without detaching the cables yet, and I put the new one in place. It fit nicely in there, but the connector for the power cable on the new power supply didn’t line up with the hole in the back of the chassis. It was about 3/4 of an inch off and there was no way it was going to work. My only options were to look for another power supply, or cut the back of the chassis - thick gauge sheetmetal. I figured it would be easier and faster to make the hole bigger, but I didn’t have the right tools. So this part of the project was put on hold for some time. I borrowed some heavy duty shears and I tried to cut the sheet metal, but I wasn’t able to. The sheetmetal was too thick. I ended up having to score the area I wanted to remove and I gnawed bits of with the shear cutters and bent off bigger pieces with pliers. It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done.

Now that the hole was bigger, I installed the new power supply, the new graphics card, and I connected all the cables. I connected my old CRT monitor and turned on the pc. Everything worked just fine. The new power supply is much quieter than the original one. Once I was satisfied , I removed the old monitor and connected the new flat panel monitor using DVI cables. Again, everything worked fine. This entire ordeal took me a couple of weeks from start to finish, but now I have a nicer pc. My next project is to upgrade the storage capacity by installing a second hard drive.

Lately I’ve noticed several of the websites I frequent have a new feature were when one hovers over a link, a preview of the linked website is shown in a small pop-up window. I hadn’t looked into how its being done, but my friend Dan Harrelson saved me the trouble by blogging about it. The feature is called Snap Preview Anywhere. Its free and easy to add to any website. As you can see, I’ve implemented it to my blog.

I didn’t go to the Podcamp West event I wrote about earlier. Something came up that day and I wasn’t able to make it. However, I did go to Laughing Squid’s 11th anniversary party later that day. The event was held at a nightclub called Mighty in San Francisco. The event turned out to be a convergence of technology and art. It seemed to be attended by the who’s who of local artists, bloggers, and techies from Robert Scoble to Kevin Rose and of course Scott Beale, Laughing Squid’s founder.

Links:

• Laughing Squid
• Laughing Squid: Decade 2
• Wrap Up - videos, photos, links
• Mighty

This weekend I’m hoping to make it to PodCamp West. Its an UnConference-style meeting for anyone interested in new media and wants to learn and share new ideas, best practices, and general knowledge about podcasting and video blogging.

What I’m hoping to get out of it is to learn the best ways to record and edit audio, hence making decent podcasts. That includes learning about which equipment and applications to use.

This week I’ll be at the BlueHornet Users Conference in San Diego, CA. BlueHornet is a eMarketing application that we use to collect contact information and email newsletters, invites, and other company messages.

Last week I attended a party at Yahoo!’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA, to celebrate del.icio.us millionth user + birthday. It was a fun bash.

del.icio.us is a website where you can keep a list, or bookmark, of your favorite links.

• more info about the event

On my drive to work this morning, I stopped at a red light and the car in front of me had a Pennsylvania license plate. I found it interesting because the license plate was a standard issue one and along the bottom edge it had the URL of visitPA.com. I don’t think I’ve seen license plates with a URL before and thought it was cool.