atomiciguana.comSpotify recently added the Doctor Who season 6 soundtrack. Listening to it this morning makes my code-writing seem much more exciting, as if the universe itself was in the balance.
And then some ad kicks in with a clip from some new pop song and the whole vibe gets wrecked. Clearly I need to pony up for Spotify premium or something.
This past weekend my wife and I were staying in a hotel and the DST switch occurred. Now, we are both timely people, so the night before (Saturday), we both set our iPhones Date and Time to "Set Automatically: Off".
We then set the clocks ahead one hour.
I even put my phone in airplane mode as it was a little low on battery power. There also was a (fancy) alarm clock in the hotel. We did not touch the alarm clock.
The next morning, we both woke up, looked at our phones, and were shocked it was 8:30 am already. We were going to be late. Double-checked the alarm clock, it said 7:30, so it must be 8:30 am for real. We showered quickly and dashed downstairs so we weren't late for our conference.
The ballroom was empty save for one other couple, who, apparently also had clock issues. My wife checked her (unadjusted) watch and it said...6:45 am.
So: 2 iPhones, despite being set to NOT automatically adjust the time DID, in fact, adjust the time. And so did the fancy hotel alarm clock.
I recently turned 30. Here's 30 some things I've learned in 30 years:
In an effort to reduce the number of things I carry around, I made myself a wallet out of a Moleskine notebook. Previously, I had my phone, keys, knife, wallet, and slim notebook and pen. To make a wallet I purchased a standard thickness Moleksine and cut out about 1/3 of the pages, to make room for credit cards and driver's license in the wallet pocket. Then I glued wallet plastic sleeves on the last few pages to hold cards for quicker access.
This all was due to my struggle with to-dos--I am regularly trying new systems, new apps, various different ways to stay on top of my tasks better. Even though I've had an iPhone for 4 years or so, I still find the keyboard to be something of a barrier for to jot something down quickly. So particularly when I'm onsite at clients or out of the house, I liked to write things down. It's quick, and simple. And, I can't deny, somehow, a tiny notebook has a strong pull for me. I don't know why. There just seems to be some kind of world of possibility and potential for brilliance in a tiny black notebook. As if I will suddenly record incredible thoughts and maps to treasure.
But the reality is, I just don't use it much. I've had it for a few months now, and the notebook is mostly empty.
As an addendum, I'm surprised no one makes such a product already--a small notebook that has spots for several credit cards or IDs.
I've noticed something lately. The only time I ever just have thoughts to myself is in the shower. Any other time where I'm waiting, in line somewhere or just on the couch, I pull out my phone. A couple minutes of Jetpack Joyride, or cleaning out email, or reading RSS feeds. I don't ever just sit and think.
And I wonder why I forget things I'm supposed to do.
Some thoughts. My inner luddite cries out, "This is wrong! You're becoming twitchy and unable to focus for an extended period of time! TURN IT OFF!" Another part of my brain says, "Heh, just check this one thing, this one time." Again and again.
I can't help but think this isn't a good thing; but admittedly, I don't know exactly why. My only evidence is my own compulsion to, essentially, be reading or doing something whenever I'm not occupied. A thought will flit across my brain, and rather than be filed away for later I'll look it up right then; instead of being dedicated to it's own particular time, everything is immediate.
I also think this is systemic; I'm certainly not the only iPhone (or whatever phone) user who checks things frequently. My wife and I went to the movies recently, and as we were walking out during the credits, I noticed so many faces lit up and looking down--people were on their phones, checking Facebook, whatever. (tweeting their opinion of the movie, perhaps?)
This is not a "technology is bad" post. This is a realization; to prevent further changes to my own brain and processes, I need to be more Intentional about what I do. Always being distracted or entertained is easy; rumination is harder.
A few months ago I got one of the "fire sale" HP Touchpads for $99. As an iOS developer, I already have an iPad, but my techno-curiosity go the best of me. I also figured, hey, it's a tablet I can let my toddler use without too much worry.
It wasn't worth it. I'm selling my Touchpad, and if every one is like mine, they are worth barely the fire sale prices.
I was an original Palm Pre owner back in late 2009, so I'm familiar with webOS, and I had liked a lot about it. My complaints back with the original Pre were slowness and lousy hardware build quality. (the case across my entire Pre cracked and began BREAKING AWAY around the USB port. You know, where you have to plug it in to charge it. Sprint's reaction at the time was ambivalent at best. "You should get a touchstone for charging!") Surely, I figured, with the Touchpad HP should have the slowness and build quality issues worked out. Besides, it's cheap!
My Touchpad arrived about two months ago, and the hardware was pleasant to look at, but the back plastic plate creaked audibly with slight pressure (as in picking it up with one hand). The USB charging jack wasn't lined up with the outer shell, meaning you could easily plug it in "wrong" and not make contact with the pins. And finally, the screen bezel all the way around was about 5 different of uneven-ness around the case. I sound like I'm really being nitpicky here, but taken as a whole, the hardware was unimpressive. But hey, it was cheap, right?
The OS was still slow. Pretty, but slow, with the regular "did that button tap not register, or is it just being slow"? experience as well as stuttery scrolls and zooms.
The whole card view multi-tasking was still great.
What boggles my mind is the Touchpad originally sold for $500. HP is an enormous company with deep pockets, and so much of Palm's work was promising. Yet this hardware had the same issue as my Pre from two years ago. I WANTED to like the Touchpad. And I couldn't.
The experience of this has further cemented my enjoyment of Apple's iOS work. Using an iPhone or iPad really gives you the idea that you are directly touching the things on the screen. Scrolling, zooming, et cetera just work, and they work every time. The moment you're using a touchscreen device and you start wondering if the device noticed your tap or noticed your scroll, the illusion that you're physically manipulating the screen is broken. You're back to wondering if the computer was frozen. It takes you away from the fun (and "futuristic") aspect of a touchscreen device and back to the semi-hostile interact-wait-retry interaction that comes with traditional computing.
So I'm selling my Touchpad. The last straw was trying to load an ePub book into the eBook software. It took about 6 tries, each time never fully working right, either crashing or failing in some way. The Touchpad has sat on a shelf for three weeks or so. If it took that much work to read a book on it, it wasn't worth using.
I live in a rural area with slow internet. I'm currently getting Lion server set up on my Mac Mini, precisely so I can download Apple Software Updates overnight automatically. Sure enough, the server setup app has to download some unspecified amount of data. I have no idea if this is 200 MB or 5 GB, I'm just shown a status bar, no time remaining, no other information.
This drives me crazy. The status screen may look pretty and uncluttered, but it doesn't tell me anything. I know that it seems like most of the world is on crazy-fast broadband these days, but all I would have needed was a line about file size to know if I should do this overnight instead of in the middle of the day.
More and more software installers are small files that then download the actual installer, and I find it incredibly frustrating. Remember developers, not every user has a fat pipe. Some clear information would make life for them much less frustrating.
Thanks to an email from a reader, I tried rebooting my Mac into 32-bit mode, and low and behold, my Tascam US-1641 now will not freakout after the computer wakes from sleep. So it looks like the Tascam drivers are 32-bit. Lion's been out for 3 months, and I don't anticipate an update from Tascam if there hasn't been one by now.
To reboot into 32-bit mode temporarily, restart your Mac holding down 3 and 2 on the keyboard.
To make the change persist, you need a little Terminal magic:
sudo systemsetup -setkernelbootarchitecture i386
More info about 32/64-bit booting: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3773
Tascam US-1641 driver site for the occasional check for updated drivers:
http://tascam.com/product/us-1641/downloads/
Well, I survived my "trial separation" from Facebook, and things went well. I really didn't notice it being gone after the first couple days.
So I logged back in today and permanently deleted my account. If you need the link, as it is hard to find, it is at: here.
I 'disabled' my Facebook account this week. Disabling leaves me one login away from being fully back; I was under the impression I couldn't delete my account without sending an email to Facebook support, but in the meantime my wife discovered the 'delete account' option.
The interesting thing is even deleting an account involves a two week waiting period, before the account actually gets deleted. Which, if I'm not mistaken, is a longer wait than to get a handgun in most states.
Since I've disabled my account, what I've found is the compulsion to log in--I haven't posted much to Facebook in ages, but the 'kill some time and check up on things' feeling has hit a few times in the past few days.
I wish I could say in those times I've turned off my computer, stood up, and appreciated the sunset or somesuch, but in reality I've just stayed in front of the computer.