Books I've recently read and recommend!
I received an e-mail over the weekend stating I had a package at the office. When I arrived this morning some Mahalo swag was patiently waiting for me. Here's a photo of everything but the beach tote. Thanks Jason Calacanis and the crew at Mahalo HQ!
It's done. Finally. Our home theatre is 100% installed and functional. The whole idea of building a home theatre started about two years ago. My wife and I are very much into music, movies, and TV and for nearly two years we have toyed with the idea of completely reinventing our living room experience. Until last week that experience included a 27" analog TV, DVD player, VCR, and two gaming systems (Wii and PlayStation 2). Today, the experience includes a complete lineup of high-definition video, high-fidelity audio, and a seamless integration of nearly everything digital in our lives. For the full story of how we created our home theatre - including pictures and the equipment we used - read on.
A few days ago I posted about hooking up a 27 inch Dell monitor in my office at work. Marcin posted a comment asking how I was able to use my MacBook Pro while the lid was closed. I responded that it just worked. Since then, I have hooked and unhooked my MacBook Pro a dozen times or so with the lid closed and have had mixed results. I did some searching today to see if there is a set of steps you can follow to keep from having issues - the issues being the laptop doesn't wake up after plugging in the external display and/or unplugging it.
Sure enough, there is a set of specific steps which you can read about on Apple's site.
I recently jettisoned the last Windows machine in my life when I replaced my work computer with a new MacBook Pro running Leopard. The last change to make to completely overhaul my office at work was to replace dual 17'' Dell monitors. Today, the new 27'' Dell display I ordered came in and it took roughly 15 minutes to get it set up. I was really surprised at how freaking huge it is; it almost dwarfs the rather large desk I have. The pictures below don't accurately showcase its size, but even with it's large footprint it is going to make a great addition to my productivity nest away from home. The built-in color profile looks fantastic when connected to my MacBook Pro with zero adjustment or calibration. With such a large display there really is no need to keep the laptop opened. It simple looks ridiculous sitting next to the large Dell.
I'm really happy with the new setup as I've got much better equipment and I've been able to create additional desk space to use for more worthwhile things.
View from my desk chair
View a little further back
The photo below - taken from my truck this morning (no I was not driving at the time) - shows that it does get cold in Nashville. Ouch. It's unbelievably cold today! With the wind chill factored in the "feels like" temperature is near 0.
Looking out my office window it is also snowing right now.
Go bag, man sack, man purse, whatever you want to call it, I first got the idea to post what I carry around day-to-day from the Lifehacker site. That was several months ago, and now that I've received my new Flash on the Beach TimBuk2 bag (thanks Ted!), I decided to reveal the contents of my bag.
1. TimBuk2 "Flash on the Beach" speaker bag. I won this bag in a charity eBay auction by Ted Patrick (Adobe Flex Evangelist)
2. Halls cough drops (it's winter you know)
3. Giorgio Armani glasses case
4. Flask Andy Matthews gave me
5. 5th Generation iPod (Black iPod Video)
6. Truck keys (for my 2005 Nissan Titan)
7. MacBook Pro Front Row remote
8. Hacked Mont Blanc pen (see this for details)
9. SanDisk Cruzer Micro 2 GB USB drive
10. Head phone adapter for the Treo 700p
11. Treo 700p USB cable
12. Treo 700p Smartphone
13. Generic iPod headphones (backup pair)
14. Tommy Hilfiger business card wallet
15. Double headphone jack for 2 person listening
16. Extra Treo stylus (w/ built-in pen)
17. Logitech VX Revolution wireless mouse (best mouse ever)
18. Apple iPhone (best phone ever)
19. iPhone USB cable
20. VGA to DVI adapter for presenting from MacBook Pro's
21. Wi-Fi Spy wireless network detector
22. AT&T USB AIR card
23. Jawbone Bluetooth headset (best headset ever)
24. iPhone-specific headphones with pause and track advance button
25. Latest issue of Wired magazine
26. MacBook Pro with 2.6 GHz proc, 4 GB RAM (work computer)
27. MacBook Pro with 2.6 GHz proc, 4 GB RAM (personal computer)
Not pictured:
I typically carry a power adapter for my laptop, but with 2 laptops now I keep power adapters at work and at home.
After Saturday's trip to the golfing simulator at Dick's Sporting Goods I decided to try the Nike Sumo irons as soon as possible. For this experience, I ventured over to Edwin Watts Golf, a national retailer that's been around since 1968. Before leaving the house I called Edwin Watts to make sure they had the Sumo irons in graphite; Jeff was quick to point out they could accommodate me. He was also extremely helpful in trying to work out the best possible route to the store given some traffic snafu's that had occurred recently. I'm a huge proponent of excellent customer service, and Jeff started things off right before I took the first step into the store.
I spent a considerable amount of time yesterday at Dick's Sporting Goods, trying out all sorts of new iron sets. Getting back into golf, I'm in the market for a new set of clubs. The clubs I have right now are about 13 years old as I used them back when I was in high school. I've grown a bit over the years and the clubs don't fit anymore. Not to mention I paid about a 100 bucks for them at Wal-Mart.
If you follow my Twitter messages you may have seen I unlocked my iPhone today using the jailbreakme.com site. Roughly 10 hours later I've restored my iPhone twice getting rid of the jailbreak software.
It all started when two co-workers were showing off their recently jailbroken phones and all the cool apps they were running. I was really intrigued by the geek factor of having my iPhone run 3rd party applications and games. I had considered jailbreaking my phone several times already but I always changed my mind when I thought about the possibility of bricking a device that will ultimately cost me over $2,000 (two year AT&T contract @ $63/month and $600 for the phone). What pushed me over the edge was how super simple the new jailbreak process seemed to be. You literally open Safari on your phone, visit jailbreakme.com, and press a button. Simple. Well, kind of.
The first 2 attempts of "pressing the button" on the site caused Safari to lock up completely. Fortunately, you can hold the Home button for 4-8 seconds to force quit any application. The third attempt worked and after rebooting my phone I had an "Installer" icon. The installer program, AppTapp, allows you to install a myriad of multimedia, games, productivity applications and more. I immediately began customizing my iPhone with Summerboard, a program that allows you to run themes on your phone. It worked extremely well. Then I tried installing other applications like Labyrinth, Customize, Widgets, Crossy, and two programs that turn the iPhone into a flashlight. Of all these programs, Labyrinth was the only one that worked. The other apps would just crash back to the home screen. After consulting a few friends and trying a slew of possible fixes, including reinstalling most of the applications I was beginning to give up.
After getting home tonight, I totally restored my iPhone to version 1.1.1 and reinstall the jailbreakme.com software. Even on a clean iPhone with clean jailbreak software the same scenario repeated itself. The only applications that would work were the theme application (Summerboard), Labyrinth, and the Installer application. Bemused and blased by the whole experience I restored my iPhone [again] to factory 1.1.1 settings.
Some good did come from the whole experience. First, Apple is to be commended on their syncing and restore functionality. It just works and you don't have to pay attention to how or why. You don't have to worry about settings (much) or compatibility or about losing data. Within 3-4 minutes (after both restores mind you) I had my iPhone up and running with my phone number and settings for e-mail, Wi-Fi, Safari, and more intact. I had to transfer all my tunes, photos, podcasts, videos, and calendars back to my phone, but that took one push of the sync button and about 20 minutes of waiting.
The second good that came from today is I now have custom ringtones installed. I accomplished this with the iToner software which doesn't require any software or hardware hacks. You download their software (there's a free trial), install it, and then drag MP3's or AAC's to a window that looks like an iPhone. Then you press sync and you're done. Incredible.
The new jailbreak software (jailbreakme.com) is a huge advancement from what was available just two months ago. But it seems like it still has a long way to go. I'll keep my eye on it and may give this whole process another go in the future. For now, I'm happy with my ringtones.
Apparently, I'm not much of a nerd.
Following several others (Mark Mandel, Andy Jarrett, Mark Drew) here I am as a Simpson's character.
