Monthly Archives: July 2008

iPhone and Me

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So… I got an iPhone 3G. In fact, I was the 2nd person at my AT&T store to walk out with one. I was planning on getting one, and had budgeted it way in advance. I was already a relatively happy Blackberry user, and had been on that platform for about 2 years. I loved my Blackberries, but there was quite a bit of functionality that I never used because it was either ugly or unintuitive. Especially the calendar, which was so much of both that it was completely unusable. Syncing with my Mac (using PocketMac for Blackberry) was always a bit of an issue, but it got worse with Leopard. To give you an idea of what I mean, it made me create a calendar called “PocketMac” just so that it could sync any appointments I entered on my handheld back to iCal. Address Book was also a bit off, as double records were not uncommon, especially if I had filled out more information on a record on one side or the other. So with all of my machines but one running 10.5, I knew that an iPhone was going to be my next choice. At least I knew it would sync seamlessly, and the calendar app was basically mobile iCal. So when 3G was announced, I was impressed enough to be willing to upgrade early (I got my BB Curve II in December). So with a fist full of dollars, and my research done (despite thinking July 11 was Wednesday, and was all kinds of mixed up until one of my team mates, who also had the iPhone lust, corrected me) – I settled into the fact that I was going to get an iPhone and pay the $200 early upgrade, no-subsidy-for-you price of $399 for an 8gb iPhone. Continue reading →

Introducing FlareSmith

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For the past few weeks I’ve been quietly tinkering on a new section of the ol’xentek homestead, and I’m happy to report that the efforts are starting to bare fruit. In other words, I’ve been scratching a few itches, and have released the results under the GPLv3. The first one out of the incubator is FlareSmith. a WordPress plugin to integrate the FeedBurner Stats and FeedFlare services into your blog – without having to edit your theme.

This plugin was the result of using the K2 theme framework for most of my WordPress sites. I got tired of having to remember to patch theloop.php each time I wanted to upgrade K2. By developing a simple content filter, I could insert the small JavaScript snippet that powers the FeedBurner Stats and FeedFlare integration with your self-hosted blog.

The plugin is available here, and is also hosted at the WordPress Plugins Database – to take advantage of the new plugin upgrade functionality in 2.5.

Enjoy!

P.S. I entered the plugin into a competition. Stop by and vote for me if you get a chance.

Multi-Vendor patch addresses major DNS exploit

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In a rare show of cooperative effort, multiple vendors released a patch today to their DNS implementations, the underlying technology behind connecting domain names to the IP addresses they live on. DNS Admins are urged to patch the systems in their charge, immediately . Securosis has the full story. Here’s a tool to test to see if you’re at risk to the Cache Poisoning exploit.

Interestingly enough, only one DNS implementation was not affected: DJBDNS.

Orlando’s First Coworking Space is Starting to Materialize

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Here’s some exciting news on the Orlando Coworking front. CoLab Orlando is on the verge of opening in the historic Angebilt building at Orange and Wall St. Etan Horowitz at the Orlando Sentinel got a tour of it today and posted a pretty thorough piece on it. They plan to open it to the general public in September and looks like it might be $250 per month to set up permanent shop in the space. Day passes will likely be $25, but all the prices are still up in the air.

Until then, there’s the Coworking Orlando list, and the regular tuesday coworking at Stardust.

Being more than just consumers

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…As we all know, when banks compete I win. And within a few days, without having to actually meet with or even speak to another human, I found myself offered a $336,000 mortgage.

It was SO easy. Fill out a few online forms, make some choices, and there I was, about to close that loan. But then I did an odd thing. I carefully read the papers I was about to sign (I’m one of THOSE people). And in that residential loan application, right on line something or other, was a number that didn’t make any sense to me at all. It was labeled “total household income” and was almost twice the pitiful amount I actually earn.

From where did that number come? It certainly never came from me. Since my signature would be at the bottom of this application I wanted to make sure everything was correct, so I called the mortgage broker. For the first time we spoke. She was a very nice lady, too, and explained that number was the variable required for all the ratios to be correct so I could qualify for the loan.

“But it isn’t true,” I said.

“Do you want the loan or not?” she asked.

I, Cringley on how the reduction in friction caused by the internet can be used to stuff TO us, instead of FOR us.

Preparing for the Recession as IT Professionals

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…The global economy is now reshaping itself in response to these pressures, and like all such transitions is causing earthquakes all up and down the many existing faults within the previous system. Overall, IT workers are in general perhaps better prepared for the upheavals in that emerging world than most – a world where knowledge, flexibility, indepence of action and thought, and an ability to network will prove to be the most desirable characteristics…

More on IT Workers and the Gathering Economic Storm at O’Reilly News

Andrew Keen, Full of Fail

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Inspired by Lawrence Salberg’s review of Andrew Keen’s Cult of the Amateur, I downloaded the book with this month’s credit on my Audible account. I got an hour into the audio book today, and so far it’s like listening to Rush Limbaugh talk about the “Liberal Agenda”. Which is to say, his diatribes are made up of lots of false assumptions, punctuated with moments of accuracy, smeared in generalizations and couched in a rhetorical argument that only make sense if you believe the aforementioned assumptions.

With that out of the way, I agree with some of the points Andrew Keen makes, just not the conclusions he makes about them. Here are a handful of my initial impressions, stated conversationally as a response to his ideas: Continue reading →