tech ronin

No waiting for laundry or coffee any more

Laundry machines can text you when available or done with a cycle. It now seems obvious that this will be the norm. We predicted and have imagined smart appliances for a very long time. The refrigerator door needs an LCD for one.

University of Kentucky has the laundry going. It will either text or email you notifications when there's a machine available and when your clothes are done. Small thing by itself, but it improves usage of the facilities and saves a lot of time waiting. I've spent my fair share of time sitting at laundramats. Relaxing, but a huge timesink. [via NPR]

Apple has applied for patents to allow you to put in your coffee order and get notified when your order is ready to pick up at the counter without waiting in line. Once everyone has a connected device, which is already true for the most part with cell phones. They have just been underutilized to date. We haven't adjusted to the possibilities just yet. But it is coming. [via Forbes.com]

iPod touch Jailbreak Progress #1

I got the screenshots program installed as you can see from the screenshot in my last post. But I got instability after that so uninstalled it. I probably bumped up against a low limit set on the size of the applications folder which I've read about.

You can create your own applications folder without a size cap but I want to be a little careful altering the plumbing when I'm still such a newbie with this stuff.

I did get Transmit on my Mac to connect wirelessly to my iPod touch. That is cool stuff. A tip I read said to access via SFTP instead of regular old FTP. That did the trick.

Got iPhone Apps on my new iPod touch

Let the fun begin. I've been surfing for the week I've had my iPod touch to find the best way to jailbreak it. I read a few things casually. Today, after hearing Veronica Belmont rave about jailbreaking, I was ready to find a way by googling and just do it. No more crippled iPod touch for me.

Once I got a program called Summerboard and Customize installed thanks to a great post about amazing iphone/ipod touch apps, I decided I wanted the order of the application icons to match my iPhone so I won't have to keep adjusting when I switch between iPhone and touch.

This process with my source identified below, was very easy. I didn't have to go into terminal or SSH or anything and I've got a jailbroken iPod touch with Google Maps, Weather, Mail, Stocks, Notes plus Installer and SSH.

I found a nice couple of videos that have all the information you need to pull this off done by a young man named dominic.

This is a great place to start if you have a Macintosh, an iPod touch running firmware 1.1.2 and want to jailbreak it.

The process includes downloading 1.1.1 firmware from a provided link. Downgrading by option-clicking the Check for Updates button in iTunes while having the iPod touch selected as a device and then telling it to use the 1.1.1 firmware your just downloaded. Once that is done (about 15 minutes total including the download time), you jailbreak your 1.1.1 iPhone by using mobile safari and navigating to www.jailbreakme.com. There you get some instructions and click an Install link. That Jailbreaks you and gets Installer on your now downgraded 1.1.1 iPod touch. Then you go into Installer and run a OKtoPrep program that puts something extra in your iPod touch.

Then you go to iTunes, press Upgrade button to upgrade to 1.1.2. And when that's done you download another file that will jailbreak your 1.1.2 touch. Shortly thereafter you are done and can start grabbing applications.

I started with the iPhone applications that Apple withheld from the touch as described above. I have the iPhone and touch, so if I am using the touch and want to write something down, I want the Notes app right there so I don't have to switch to my iPhone. The whole idea with buying a touch besides giving me more storage space and more battery life is to have more applications than just the ones Apples has daned to give us.

I am already a very happy camper and am about to see what else I might want to put on my touch. Will get back to you. Hopefully with some screenshots. By the time your read this I may have a screenshot app so I can show you what my screen looks like now.

Watching Video Podcasts on iMac 24

I just watched my first episode of Girls Gone Geek. About 5 minutes of quite high quality video. I'm impressed. I'll be watching more episodes. Yes, it is partly because it is done by women. If things were not so lopsided in the geek world, I wouldn't need to seek these shows out. But there it is.

I've found with my iMac 24, that I spend a fair amount of time sitting back about 4 feet and either reading and surfing with big type on the screen or watching video podcasts. Maybe the remote you get with it is actually useful to people not in college dorm rooms.

Now that I have the iMac's 500 gig hard drive to boot from, I'm getting into more video podcasts. I could have done this before using an external drive mind you, but something about this 24" screen plus the 500 gig drive has pushed me over the edge on video podcasts.

I bought an AppleTV back in January when they were first announced but cancelled my order once I found out that it wouldn't really work with my Standard Def 50" TV. In October, I managed to pawn off my humongous SDTV to my sister and acquired a 40" HDTV right-sized for my smaller new Tiburon place. Now I could benefit from watching video podcasts on my TV via an AppleTV. Except it seems obvious that Apple will release AppleTV 2.0 in by spring. I'm waiting for that. In the meantime, this 24" iMac is working for me just fine.

Got an iPod touch last night

As most of my readers already know, I have an iPhone. That 8 gig machine is amazing and enough for any sensible person. So I hadn't bought an iPod touch. I thought maybe I would get one for Christmas.

But, then I finished my Studio Manager product. As I was sitting in a crumpled heap, totally exhausted and depleted, a brilliant idea occurred. I could get an iPod touch as a reward for my extraordinary efforts and accomplishment of getting the new software out the door.

Thin. All of a sudden my iPhone seems thick and clunky -- just a little bit. The iPhone does seem large, almost bulky once you hold the two, one in each hand. Really glad the iPod touch is so skinny.

Here's the plan. I haven't jailbroken my iPhone and am patiently waiting until February or whenever more apps show up for it. But, I plan to very soon jail break the iPod touch and use it as my play ground, saving my iPhone in its pristine condition.

Of course, it is quite possible that once I jail break the iPod touch and start having more fun there, I will feel constrained with my stock iPhone. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I do have to say that the video on the iPod touch is great. The iPod aspect is good but it is not quite as nice as the iPhone 9 (lack of volume buttons, speaker...). However, there's 16 gigs of space and it was really easy to exceed 8 gigs.

I am posting here in case a few of my readers have or have an interest in the iPod touch and in jail breaking these things and in native apps for iPod touch and iPhone. Let me know you guys.

We Released our Studio Manager 9 Product

Hi folks. I'm dead tired. All I can say is we have a new version of Studio Manager and you can get the Studio Manager 9 demo free to play with or check out a web page or pdf to see what is new. All links can be found on our studio-manager.com site.

Gmail is looking more attractive right now

I have a little over a Gigabyte of email on my email host and they noticed when I started having email problems this week. They politely suggested that that was too much email and I needed to get my email box down to under 250 mb.

I mentioned that my Gmail account is free and lets me have over 2 gigs of space. Well, I just checked and my Gmail limit is now over 5 gigs! I have a fairly small web/email host provider and for them 1 gig is a lot. So, I respect that and also find that inconvenient.

I may be moving to Gmail if I can find a way to use my tokerud.com domain there. While having my email problems, I started playing a bit with Gmail. I normally have all my email forwarded to gmail as a backup and also so I can use the search features of Gmail should the need arise. Otherwise, I rarely use Gmail.

But, I see it is getting pretty good these days. I've noticed many swear by Gmail as their favorite email client, web-based or otherwise.

I like the way filtering works on Gmail. It is easier to set-up. I like labels. I still need offline access but it sounds like that is in the works too.

My Leopard IMAP is breaking my Email

I don't have all the facts yet, but since setting up Mail on my new iMac in Leopard, I haven't been able to receive email. That's since Monday! Just figured out that shutting down mail on my iMac makes email work again. I can then check the mail with a web browser on my iMac or I can check in Mail in Tiger on my MacBook Pro. Just a little heads up.

Leopard on iMac 24 2.8 - Bliss

Got an iMac 24 2.8 on Sunday. My G5 tower 2 ghz dual was 3 years old. I loved that it still does Classic. But it was starting to show its age and I believe in replacing my Macs before they become completely obsolete. And I like to get new Macs at the end of the year for tax reasons.

I didn't want to pay for a new Mac Pro plus a 23" or 30" screen. Wasn't a good deal from my perspective and a high end iMac seems good enough. I considered the lower-end 24" iMac but I want something that will still seem fast for a while. Not something that is just fast enough now and will start seeming a little slow a year from now.

You pay an extra $250 for the 2.8 ghz processor compared to the 2.4 ghz version. That's a reasonable anti-obsolescence investment. Since the processor is going to give out before the screen does, I want the faster processor so that this gorgeous hunk of metal and glass will have a long life span before hitting the dump or recycling bin.

The other $250 I paid ($2299 total) included a 500 gb instead of 320 gb hard drive and 2 gb RAM instead of just 1 gb. Again, I liked the higher end configuration because it won't be easy to upgrade the hard drive later. At some point I do expect to upgrade to 4 gigs of RAM but 2 will do for a while.

I also sprung for a wireless keyboard and mouse. Because I was buying at the Apple store, I had to pay full price for the wireless gear. I forgot about that when deciding to buy locally rather than online. Oops. That cost me an extra $120. But, I do regard the extra gear as backups should the batteries go bad one day I'm in a crunch.

The 24" screen has been something I've wanted for years ever since I saw my first 23" cinema display years ago. It is huge!

I have been using a 20" cinema display (about 4 years old) and a 17" cinema display (about 6 years old). I thought maybe I could use the 24" iMac and deploy or sell the older displays elsewhere. Not quite!

I missed having a second secondary screen to put things on that I want open but want out of the way. Spaces didn't feel like it would do quite what I need. I have a habit of having that screen there. For example, today my email wasn't working. I wanted to keep the email inbox in sight but needed it out of the way so I could use the screen for other things.

I already had an adapter that let me use one of my old Apple displays with the G5's newer DVI port. All I had to add was a mini-DVI to DVI adapter and plug that into my Apple Adapter and plug the Cinema display into the adapter. Apple sells the mini-DVI adapters for $20 and the Apple-DVI adapter for $100. Luckily, I just needed the $20 item. Went over to the Corte Madera Apple store (which was rocking hard at about 5:30 pm) and picked up the mini-DVI adapter. Plugged things in and I'm set.

Now I have my 20" monitor as the secondary screen. It is about 3" lower because it doesn't have the iMac's chin, but it works. I doubt if I'll bother trying to elevate it.

Now, about this new iMac! It is a thing of beauty! It is a great, great machine. The screen is brighter than bright, so I keep it set to the minimum brightness for normal use. I can turn it up for use with photos and video. You are going to need extra ambient light if you want to work at night with this screen without blowing your eyes out.

The wired and wireless keyboards are exquisite. The touch is to die for. The look is awesome. So far, I'm using the baby-sized wireless keyboard with complete satisfaction. I'm not a numeric keypad fan, so I delight in losing the extra weight and size of the wired keyboard. Every other keyboard seems clunky compared to this.

I was not too surprised to find that Tiger was installed on the iMac. A Leopard DVD was in the box but that's it. I had to install Leopard at home. A whole extra chunk of time when I couldn't use the new machine. Bummer!

One advantage, though, is that I got to see how much better I liked the new iMac with Leopard on it. Leopard on my MacBook was one thing, but Leopard on this screamer with giant screen is fantastic! The 3D dock looks like it was made for this screen. It looks great and their's plenty of vertical space so I don't need to begrudge losing vertical room to a dock at the bottom of my screen. On the MacBook, I had to put the dock on the left to get some room.

Leopard is gorgeous. It runs blazing fast on this machine. Everything pops. Safari is wonderful. I'm hooked on Leopard now. I'll try hard to hold out till Christmas with my MacBook Pro on Tiger just in case I run into trouble. Steve was telling the truth in June when he said Leopard would be worth waiting for.

This is my first iMac. Who knew I would love the integration and simplicity? I am beginning to see things Steve's way on this. It's so easy. So elegant. Sometimes options are more trouble than they are worth. That's the religion you get with the iPhone.... I'm being corrupted but perhaps for my own good.