total.pardo

for the uninitiated, geocaching is similar to letterboxing from old time Europe, especially England. someone hides a "cache" and gives out the lat/long location of the box accompanied by a "hint" to help the searchers hone in on the hiding spot.  generally this sport is not as easy as you may think.  it requires hiking skill, orienteering ability, and deductive reasoning to be successful.  anything that gets you outside is a good thing!

wikipedia defines geocaching as:

…an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and "treasure," usually toys or trinkets of little value. Today, well over 800,000 geocaches are registered on various websites devoted to the pastime. Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica.

recently came across this article on the trusty TUAW site regarding folks using their new iphones to geocache:

iPhone 101: Geocaching with an iPhone 3G - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).

looks like the iphone 3g’ers are trying to cache with their shiny new, highly inaccurate gps software in the hopes of getting some quality caching in.  pardo recently upgraded to the 3g model - 16GB black - and of course, will attempt a bit of geocaching with it in comparison to the garmin 60csx.  YMMV.  BTW - the Oregon 400t looks unbelievable as a top-flight GPS replacement to the 60.  no bulky antenna and an extremely clear daylight capable screen.

a great site to find the caches, or at least, where to look for them, is:

http://www.geocaching.com/

there is gobs of information on the hobby and how to get started.

they also provide merchandise and geotags (at left) to use in the caches to prove you were there and found the site/cache.

above is an example of the output their search engine provides when you enter your current lat/long or address or even just a zip code.  the site keeps track of where the cache is, gives a clever “hint” to find it when you get close, and keeps track of who visited the cache (by entering the information contained in the cache).

even more compelling is the groundspeak forums – the language of location – where fellow geocachers discuss the sport and the minutia of the hobby.  an interesting spur of the hobby is finding benchmarks - U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey Disks and the like. these items are all over – often going unnoticed by most people – and yet, geocachers search these markers more often than the caches.

you can get pretty intense with this hobby – terracaching – this is a specialty club that requires sponsorship of existing members and high quality hiding spots for the caches. sounds stuffy – but those guys are serious about the sport.

an interesting amateur.radio angle is something called “foxhunting” or transmitter hunting where hams use radio direction finding, gps, and orienteering skills to find remotely hidden transmitters usually running in beacon mode at low power.  this twist on the theme provides a greater challenge for searchers than just plain old geocaching.

happy hunting!

tor.com - publishers of mainline sci-fi and such, recently relaunched their website and added tremendous social interaction.

users can login, choose their own graphic/avatar, and interact with others regarding their fav sci-fi topics/books.

i think it is the first time i ever saw a publisher go down this road. and it should be interesting to all you sci-fi geeks out there…

http://tor.com

Google started to use the Social Graph API to suggest links that can be added to your public Google Profile. If you add links to sites that are connected to other sites using FOAF or the XFN microformat, Google makes it easy to import all the links. For example, if you have an account at FriendFeed, add a link to your FriendFeed page to import the sites you shared: videos uploaded at YouTube, Google Reader shared items, del.ico.us bookmarks etc.

Google’s unified profiles are slowly added to all Google services that allow user-generated content. “A Google Profile is simply how you represent yourself on Google products — it lets you tell others a bit more about who you are and what you’re all about. You control what goes into your Google Profile, sharing as much (or as little) as you’d like,” explains Google. For now, the profiles are displayed next to the list of shared items from Google Reader, in the Google Books library and next to the custom maps, reviews and edits from Google Maps.

from: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/07/your-google-profile-suggests-sites-that.html

Not sure if this is a great thing or not.  Time will tell what evil lurks in the hearts of the goog.

totalpardo’s unified profile is here:

http://tinyurl.com/5owcej

WordPress for iPhone.

yep.  finally.

works like a charm.  get it done if you are an iphone user.

from: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031203232530190

Use disktool and System Profiler to eject stubborn CDROM discs. The short instructions (excerpted from the article) are:

Run the System Profiler (Apple menu -> About This Mac -> More Info).
Clicked on the “ATA” section under “Hardware” (left pane of System Profiler), then look for a Matshita device in the ATA Device Tree (right top pane of System Profiler). Clicking on the Matshita device in the top right pane shows detailed information in the bottom right pane: Need to know the “BSD Name” of the drive. It may be: “disk2″.
Open a Terminal window and enter the following command:

disktool -e disk2

This will eject the optical disc.

0256 UTC - 10:56pm EDT, July 20, 1969:

…looking on like shadows

the end of an age as we watched them walk in a glow

lost in space

but I don’t know where it is

they’re dancing around

slow puppets silver ground

and the stars and stripes in the sand

we hear a voice from above

and it’s history…

- the sundays, monochrome from the album static and silence

looking for a 3g iphone in NJ?

good luck to you.

if you go to: http://www.apple.com/retail/iphone at exactly 9PM in your time zone, you will get the state drop down box and a gander at the availability in stores near you.

remember, you can always go to an at$t store and order via direct fulfillment. 21-28 day wait for a 16 gig 3g black.

what exactly is “iHate”?

first, what is hate?  webster’s says:

Pronunciation: \ˈhāt\
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English hete; akin to Old High German haz hate, Greek kēdos care
Date: before 12th century

1 a: intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury b: extreme dislike or antipathy : loathing <had a great hate of hard work>

2: an object of hatred

when we add an “i” in lower case to the word hate, we add an interesting, multi-layered double entendre (and conundrum) to the mix.

it could mean the possessive – as in capital “I” meaning myself.  That is, iHate this website, or that person was filled with iHate.

it could be aversion to all things apple and the “i” revolution (or, better, evolution – the obsession with “i” has become more than the selfishness and conspicuous consumption to which most in our society feel entitled). so, you could be cleverly saying you have iHate for iPods, iPhones, or iMacs, or iLife, etc.

it could refer to “internet” Hate – a pervasive sense of anonymity and power to become a hurtful arrogant ass whilst on the internet, vis a vis, web posting, etc.  take for example this tragic story:

http://tinyurl.com/6dq6fg

FTA:

One of two devoted St. Louis Cardinals fans hit by a car Thursday after the Cardinals-Phillies game died yesterday of head trauma at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. The other remained hospitalized in critical condition.

the typical (or topical) similarities are peppered throughout the piece – young kid, driving recklessly and drunk, low bail, dead mother/teacher from out of town, grieving family – the usual tragedy which should sadden all of us with hearts in our chests.  the amazing peculiarity of this story is not the story itself, but the ability of anyone who reads the story on the above site to “comment” on it.  and so it goes, for ever 5 “oh so terrible” responses, there’s the indifferent ‘”iHater” who lays responsibility and fault on the dead woman, on other drivers, on uncalibrated lights – are you serious? deplorable.

then you have ol’pardo – the “side swiper” poster.  i will post on message boards regularly but usually to attack the attacker.  i will “hijack” a thread to attack a poster who himself posted about the original issue.  i find a curious sense of righteousness in that – a facet of “iHate” in and of itself. 

a funny example, previously posted in this blog:

the xkcd webcomic says it best:

whole blogs have shut down due to the proliferation of “iHate” in the comment spaces.  social aspects of the web are being overcome with “iHate” and its derivatives of selfishness and righteousness.  america online started all this, and since has lasted this Eternal September – the proliferation of next to free web access, the suspicious, ever-increasing desire for web based social software/sharing, and the continuing dumbing-down of the internet population promulgates this deleterious effect everywhere you surf.  post a picture of something which you are looking to get an opinion from others on – for every two constructive comments, there is one that wastes the bandwidth.

tommyv2 puts it directly:

You fucking kids have turned the Internet into a zoo. You can no longer find an opinion, you now have 100 million kids’ every aspect of their lives to wade through. I feel sorry for every writer in the world – you now have 100 million more reasons to quit. Sometimes I get depressed writing tommyv2.com knowing that it won’t get 1% of the hits Joe Blow gets daily from his blog about his travels to Best Buy. He can’t write, spell, describe or get creative – all he has to do is put some picture taken by his $69-10-year-contract RAZR phone and he’s a celebrity.

since i enjoy living my life vicariously through his, i quote him often.  he is the frackin’ mohammed ali of bloggers – but don’t tell him i said that.  if i had a sister, not only would he steal her hair tie, he’d try to have time with her…his “iHate” is the kind i understand.  wisdom lies behind every self-indulgent, gloriously entertaining word.  so for him, its negative in a positive way.  like this from a recent post:

its just wrong – but its brilliant.  laugh out loud brilliant.  the kind of wit that kicks wisdom in the balls.

but “iHate” can take on less comical forms – take for example this glaring gem of FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt):

http://tinyurl.com/64ff37

in this scathing review of the iPhone, the blogger isn’t satisfied with ripping the device, no, his MO is to rail away against the entire infrastructure as evil – comparing the phone and all things apple to prison.

yes, i typed prison, folks.

FTA:

“…The iPhone is an attack on very old and fundamental values — the value of people having control over their stuff rather than their stuff having control over them, the right to freely communicate and share with others, and the importance of privacy.

…It’s also a tracking device, and like other proprietary GPS-enabled phones, can transmit your location without your knowledge.

…Of all the technology people use that could be turned against them, this is one of the most frightening possibilities.

…The iPhone is broken, on purpose. It is in theory capable of running many different kinds of programs, but software applications and media will be limited via Apple’s ironically named Digital Restrictions Management technology — "FairPlay".

ironically, this “iHater” (i shorten this to “iHatr”) posts his FUD on the free software foundation blog – whose on “a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom and to defend the rights of all free software users.” pardo is all about free and privacy and yadda yadda.  but to claim the iphone is an attack on fundamental value is hogwash.  its about a company trying to make money in a market more than willing to buy their product.  the tracking portions can be turned off. and, frankly, i’d rather pay for software than download a bunch of unsupported crap put out there by “serious developers” that wouldn’t be upgraded even if you paid them.  this “iHatr” goes on to rail against the use of drm music.  what the hell is ogg vorbis and why is it of any advantage to me?  a less lossy open format?  frankly, i can’t hear the difference.

but i can hear the iHate in the FUD post – i hear it all over the internet…

from:

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/updates-to-gmail-contact-manager.html

My Contacts contains the contacts you explicitly put in your address book (via manual entry, import or sync) as well as any address you’ve emailed a lot (we’re using five or more times as the threshold for now).

Suggested Contacts is where Gmail puts its auto-created contacts. By default, Suggested Contacts you email frequently are automatically added to My Contacts, but for those of you who prefer tighter control of your address books, you can choose to disable usage-based addition of contacts to My Contacts. Once you do this, no matter how many times you email an auto-added email address it won’t move to My Contacts.

now, gmail contacts has value.  perhaps it can be used over mac address book?

We have recently completed the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. Unfortunately, it was a lot rockier than we had hoped.

Although core services such as Mail, iDisk, Sync, Back to My Mac, and Gallery went relatively smoothly, the new MobileMe web applications had lots of problems initially. Fortunately we have worked through those problems and the web apps are now up and running.

Another snag we have run into is our use of the word “push” in describing everything under the MobileMe umbrella. While all email, contact or calendar changes on the iPhone and the web apps are immediately synced to and from the MobileMe “cloud,” changes made on a PC or Mac take up to 15 minutes to sync with the cloud and your other devices. So even though things are indeed instantly pushed to and from your iPhone and the web apps today, we are going to stop using the word “push” until it is near-instant on PCs and Macs, too.

We want to apologize to our loyal customers and express our appreciation for their patience by giving all current subscribers an automatic 30-day extension to their MobileMe subscription free of charge. Your extension will be reflected in your account settings within the next few weeks.

We hope you enjoy your new suite of web applications at me.com, in addition to keeping your iPhone and iPod touch wirelessly in sync with these new web applications and your Mac or PC.

Thank you,

The MobileMe Team

Apple Sends Apology Letter, 30-Day Extension to MobileMe Customers - Mac Rumors.

WordPress › Blog » WordPress 2.6.

BE CAREFUL - you will need to clear your browser cache to login to the admin console.  this is a known and reported issue.

from: http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/07/10/iphone-naysayers-one-year-later?page=0%2C3

FTA:

What Dvorak said about the iPhone: Writing on Marketwatch.com in March 2007, Dvorak predicted failure.
“There is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a business this
competitive,” he said. “If it’s smart it will call the iPhone a
‘reference design’ and pass it to some suckers to build with someone
else’s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace
failures.”What Dvorak says now: Did not reply to multiple e-mails.

did not reply to multiple emails.

read that again.

did not reply.

you know why?

because dvorak isn’t about journalistic integrity. he’s about sensationalism. he’s the quintessential nay-sayer. essentially, he’s johnny pardo but with more money.

i was dvorak - an all things apple hater. (some would argue pardo is an ALL things hater, but that’s for another blog post.)

i got on the kool-aid when i first handled an iphone approximately 4 feet from where i am blogging from at this very moment. the previous owner of pardohaus had her son in the kitchen talking on his iphone as i considered the purchase of a new home. as he finished his conversation, i politely (with techno-lust droole on my chin) asked to “touch” the phone. as the son spoke, and i touched, i was sold.

two macbooks later, i am an apple man. who would have ever thought it possible? not anyone who knows me in person.

the “keep an open mind” sentiment is not possible for dvorak and others in the guild. writers worth their salt know they must write to the audience and write to sell. opposition sells. there are times even i find dvorak’s pen to be pedantic and illusionary. most dismiss him. others vilify. in the end, he did what he had to do - knock a top flight product and duck calls to respond to his wrongness.

if you take the time to read jake widman’s article, you will see that most, if not all in some way, of the experts industry pundits who denied the innovation, took great and measured pains to retract with exception their “opinions” on why the iphone was the latest shiny tech object - or bling. none of them will allow for this device to become the trailblazer to ubiquitous computing.

the apps store takes the iphone as a device to that level. a “laptop in your pocket” indeed.

now, not everything is hunky-dory. there are issues 12 months on, such as:

1. no cut and paste (seriously, why?)
2. no MMS (not an issue if you just use email)
3. crazy expensive service plans (i can’t dispute this)
4. difficult keyboarding (no argument)
5. lack of 3G network coverage (not an issue for me, but, this is a world wide complaint)

and, i have to say i am flabbergasted that applications promised by app developers are not yet available. notably, ewallet by illumsoft and the wordpress admin application, were promised but not delivered. all the users got was a video of promised functionality available to a select group.

sorry, i am not buying the excuses. get those apps out there, devs!

another complaint would be the cost on the apps in the store. its not to say the free apps are not cool. the shazam, pandora, evernote, baseball, and even phonesaber apps are top flight apps that whet the proverbial tech appetite. but $69 for a language app? what is that about? gouging was never so sexy, my friends.

now, for paid apps, i would love to see an national football league offering similar to the MLB@bat app with in game video highlights on demand. a wifi catcher would be a nice addition. i look forward to seeing more development in the amateur radio world - maybe streaming audio of shortwave receivers?

all in all, the iphone is the best platform out there for a mobile device. think differently and get one if you can.

very well done and cheap also.  you can load text into the program and have it repeat the code over and over.  you can train with it both visually and audibly.

an easy buy if you are training the code.

photo posted from my iPhone

almost bricked pardophone today with the update and all the issues apple is having.

apple tried to do too much too quickly i think. .mac mobileme is STILL not online! nor is the software update available through the “correct” channel.

most blogs talked about continually trying to connect and disconnect to the apple servers - this worked for me, luckily. having used the beta 2.0 software with apps for a few days more than the average joe was enough for me.

the legit version of the 2.0 software is now on the v1 iphone and is stable - much more stable than the beta.

in other news, a 3g 16 v2 iphone is coming to a pardo near you, foc. i am fearful of what a trip to the local apple store will bring for today - so i think a weekend trip is in order…

nicey, nice.

Ilium Software Blog

* “What’s the hold up?” you ask. While we aren’t entirely sure, it looks like it has something to do with export approval. As most of your know our 256-bit AES encryption is exteremly powerful - so powerful, in fact, that we have to get a variety of government approvals to export eWallet (yep - an eWallet program so powerful exporting it to the wrong people is a potential security threat!) So anyhow, Apple has told us that it should be in the store by the 11th so we’re still hoping to make the “It’s Out!” announcement tomorrow!