Way to Put Things in Perspective, Eleanor

GTD Expert and 43 Folders founder, Merlin Mann and his wife, Madeline, spent the day bringing a new life into the world. I spent the day fiddling with an OS, uploading photos to my flickr account and doing laundry. Something in the ‘verse seems a tad out of balance. Or as Jubel Early might ask, “Does that seem right to you?” She may be only a few hours old but, way to put the whole thing into perspective, little Eleanor (and congratulations Merlin & Madeline). JBB

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New Day, New Line In Front of an Apple Store, New OS

My twittered report on the release of Apple’s latest OS, Leopard:

jbb (04:21 PM October 26, 2007 from TwitBin): hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to stand in line for Leopard I go!!! Do I have time to eat first? Ack.

jbb (05:26 PM October 26, 2007 from PocketTweets): Ack, the line @ manhattan beach apple store is outside the mall. Good thing I brought a sweatshirt

jbb (06:00 PM October 26, 2007 from PocketTweets): @akamrt sorry, making’ friends in line, watching the sun go down, especially golden this evening (’cause of the fires, ack). Apple rep just said, Welcome!

jbb (09:50 PM October 26, 2007 from TwitBin): home again following an evening @ the apple store, costco & dinner @ in-n-out. Think i’ll put leopard on the mac mini 1st, mbp 2morrow.

Then after installing Panther on my mac mini:

jbb (08:55 AM October 27, 2007 from TwitBin): Leopard running on my macmini media “server,” DOA: yahoo widgets, synergy; can’t get new quicksilver, the new FrontRow is awesome!

jbb (09:04 AM October 27, 2007 from TwitBin): bootcamp is next, but gonna wait a bit.. got work to do first (damn!)

FrontRow is really purty…

Music: Dirty Little Secret from the album “Afterglow” by Sarah McLachlan

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Just Visiting

I’ve been spending too much time in places like this, but at least it’s been either in a support role or as a proactive step to not become more than a “visitor.” Life is interesting that way sometimes. jbb

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For the Love of Chocolate?

Yesterday’s post was a real drag, so this one is meant to put a smile on your face. I really wish I had a drum set. What this has to do with chocolate escapes me, but nothing like a drum-playing gorilla to help re-center one’s thoughts (I especially love that said gorilla stretches his neck just before beginning his set… awesome). jbb

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True Lives

I began writing the predecesor to this blog several years ago as a form of therapy, shared privately with a handful of friends. I survived those difficult years in large part because I was able to vent my deepest passions and confusions. Alas, the blog as a blog was pretty much a failure because it was difficult for any one person to be exposed to my constant and lengthy emotional ramblings without burning out. They’d hang in there for a month or so, then politely and quietly stop reading the blog. Eventually the writer in me saw that it was better to entertain readers than to chase away friends. Thus, the nature of the blog thankfully changed from the need to vent to the need to write and be read.

So the question became how much personal shit I should write about and where do I have to respect the privacy of those whom I might write about. Beautiful Aimee loved that I just laid the frustrations out there, but others no doubt hate that about my writing. Oddest thing might be that those whom I work with on a daily basis know almost nothing about me but some random stranger on the ‘nets has such complete access to whatever shit might be coming down in my life. I mean, shit happens and my natural reaction is to pull out the iPhone and start writing… er, venting. I can’t help the writing, but does anyone else need to be exposed to it and when does it become a relationship liability? Again, God knows my former love has sworn off ever venturing to the pages (but always seems to land here and catch my worse possible ramblings), and anyone even remotely thinking of hanging with me might well and wisely steer-clear rather than risk becoming part of my taudry and generally frustrated musings. For example last Saturday…

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Outcry for iPhone 3rd Party Apps

So a couple weeks before the release of the iPhone, Steve Jobs announced Apple’s 3rd party development strategy for the iPhone while giving his keynote speech at the World Wide Developers Conference. Developers groaned a collective WTF at the idea that Apple was going to restrict 3rd party developers to developing web apps, for a device connected to the Internet via a less-than-stellar wireless connection. Amidst all the groaning I remember hearing August Trometer, developer for Foggy Noggin Software and creator of the long-missed iPodder-X pod-catching software, commented on one of Ken Ray’s shows that manufacturers rarely release a Software Development Kit (SDK) for a brand-new version one product. The idea being that if a manufacturer released an SDK on a version one product than they lock themselves down before they’re ready, limiting their options for future growth. That makes sense, and then that which should have never been forgotten, was forgotten and all passed into legend.

Fast-forward to June 29th, the Jesus-phone is released, the press and the world, it would seem, goes complete crazy… and the hackers begin to quietly pound away on the device looking for ways to work around AT&T’s and Apple’s restrictions. According to a timeline published by Wired, the first 3rd party app was released within a month (Hello World!) and by mid-August, 45-days after the iPhone’s release, software was released for adding 3rd party apps to the iPhone. By mid-September ways were released for using the iPhone on cell networks other than AT&T, and the modders and hackers rejoiced because life was indeed very good.

Then on September 27th Apple released firmware update 1.1.1 Apple and all the loved turned into hate. The 3rd party app tease was so great that Apple-cheerleader, Leo Laporte, went out and bought a non-Apple Blackberry Curve cellphone. Then there’s this great rant by the Diggnation boys… (NSFW, a bit long, but very funny).

And apparently Steve heard the outcry and has announced that an SDK will be released to support native 3rd party apps on the iPhone in February ‘08 (while the hackers will continue to pick away following 1.1.1… tee-hee-hee). Click the following link for a funny “commercial” and Steve Job’s memo on 3rd party apps… “Let my people go!”

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Lusting for a new computer…

It was true in 1996, it’s true today. You can never be rich enough, thin enough or have enough computing power. From Leo Laporte’s blog, The Life of Leo, this little video gem made in 1996, Leo tells then student-filmmaker, Aaron Lubarsky that he he needs to be comfortable with whatever computing-device he buys because in three-years it’ll be ridiculously out of date, and in ten-years PDAs will have more power than the desktops, and then three-years after that they’ll be even more powerful and even smaller. He pretty much hit that prediction, only thing is manufacturers are pumping out upgrades more like every nine-months to a year and not three years.

I loved the part with the homeless guy leaning on a computer with the sign, “Will work for computer parts.” I pray that’s not a future vision of moi. Yikes. jbb

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Abandoned Princess Found

Miracles Do Come True!!! I found this beautiful princess on my walk this morning. This is just the incentive I need to stick to the 30-minute-plus walk every day… If I keep this up I’m hoping to find the rest of the young lady. Fingers crossed… jbb

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Myspace vs. Facebook vs. Virb observations

Fellow educator and friend, MrT**, posted the following bulletin on MySpace:“I have known about Virb and Facebook for a long time now but never wandered in to see what they were all about… I have had a Virb account for awhile but it’s blank… just set up a Facebook account this week and love it… so much more fun and smooth than MS.”Then he sent me the following note: “Seriously man, I need a tech boot camp to get me caught up… come visit me and get me straightened out and on the road to tech recovery”

MS vs. Facebook: i keep my myspace profile because I have the most “friends” there but facebook feels more useful to me. It’s a generational thing, i’m sure. My middle school kids haven’t “discovered” Facebook… yet. They use Myspace like i use my blogs, flickr, twitter. I’m okay with using separate services to do my online life, they put it all in one basket. The other thing I find interesting about myspace with my middle school students is how much they feel like they “own” their use of myspace, like they alone discovered it and that for me to have a profile is weird, almost an invasion of their space.

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Gates’ 11 Rules for High School Students

This one has been floating around the ‘nets. Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! To anyone with kids of any age, here’s some advice. Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1 : Life is not fair – get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

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