Curious's Journal

Moving from the iphone to HTC EVO.

First, why I’m moving away from iphone:

Carrier:

• AT&T Network not so good
• AT&T expensive (I can get on family sprint plan or discount Verizon plan MUCH cheaper)

iPhone’s notification system:

• When a notification comes in, it gives you a pop-up with two options: open the application that relates to the pop-up or close it.
• You have to deal with every notification instantly, you can’t pull down your notifications later like Palm/Android.
• If you have multiple notifications, they simply layer in an nonuseful way
• Hopefully Rich Dellinger will be able to fix it.
• http://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/09/inventor-of-webos-banner-notification-system-returns-to-apple/

Range of utility applications:

• The range of things applications are permitted to do on the iphone are limited greatly by the SDK and the rules developers must follow.
• For example, applications may not utilize third party libraries within their development nor use services like admob.

Apple Censorship:

• To me, it’s not a big deal that Apple censors porn apps.
• However, It is a big deal that apple censors apps with a message it disagrees with.
• For example, it blocked an app because it mentioned jailbreaking:
• http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/rejected_by_apple/
• Some of the more popular cases of censorship can be found here:
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store#Censorship

Apple rejections/pulls:

• Apple can decide after it already approved an application to remove it from the store.
• http://www.tuaw.com/2010/05/20/found-footage-apple-pulls-islam-muhammad-app/
• Apple rejects things because it competes, or they don’t like the UI
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Voice#Rejection_from_iPhone_App_Store

Why I’m getting an HTC EVO:

• Widgets
• Ability to enable/disable services easily(Note: with a jailbroken phone, you can use sbsettings for this)
• Lots of utility apps
• Google Voice integration
• Integrated sync with google stuff
• Free turn-by-turn navigation
• much better notification system
• Huge screen (4.3″ vs 3.5″)
• A chance to try out another Smartphone OS
• Google explicitly provides an easy way to run “unapproved apps”
• Steve Jobs said that if I want porn, I should get an android
• http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/19/steve-jobs-android-porn/

What I’m giving up by going Evo vs iPhone 4:

• Better low light camera (has backlit sensor)
• Better games and some other apps
• Better battery life

About Video Chat:

• One of the heavily touted fathers of the new iphone is Facetime Video chat, so I guess I aught say some words about that.
• Apple’s Facetime video chat is currently wifi and only between iphones.
• Most of my wife’s family is moving to EVOs and my family uses android phones so Facetime offers me almost benefits whatsoever.
• Finally, they have stated that they will make Facetime an open standard, which means that if it takes off, there will likely be an android app for it.

Steve Jobs will be giving the Keynote on Monday… here are my predictions:

75% or higher certainty

• Demo new iPhone (name possibly iPhone HD) Release ~end of July
• iPhone will have amazing battery life, front/rear cameras, flash on back
• 4.0 for iphone will be released at or near keynote
• 4.0 iPad beta will be released Steve will say that they will try to keep them at the same release going forward
• Joke about iPhone leak

50% or higher certainty

• Some sort of update on XServers and/or MacPros (it has been over a year and a quarter since these things have been updated)
• New LCDs (it’s been over three and a quarter years since apple has come out with any LCDs except for the 24″ that came out at the end of 2008, and the 24″ is also the only display port LCD apple has released thus far)

25% or less certainty (75% apple will announce these in September)

• Revamped MacTV based on iPhoneOS, designed to be controlled by iPad/iPhone/iPodTouch or from basic remote
• iPod Touch will have a wider form factor (possibly like iphone’s)
• formfactor will allow for extra battery, which will give it more then iPad’s 10hour of video life
• will also have a much larger storage option (next year they may phase out ipod classic)

Note: My predictions have been way off in the past, so I do not recommend gambling on these predictions.

Found here: http://www.opera.com/browser/next/

Pros:

• The password save bar (seen above) offers an option to save across site or just the specific page.
• Full screen support!!! (I wish firefox and/or chrome would get this.)
• Feels fast (not noticeably faster then chrome though)
• Tab mouse-over thumbnails seem nift

Cons:

• No ability to reopen closed tab (firefox/chrome support this)
• Google Wave doesn’t work well – the scrollbar doesn’t work (firefox/chrome work fine)
• Opera doesn’t support greasemonkey scripts
• Extension support seems to be limited to widgets and basic user.js support

Todo:

• Test widgets
• Test Opera Unite

So, fios died…. To get internet I setup tethering on my iphone… my ssh socks proxy solution apparently wasn’t good enough, so I installed blacksn0w and and a tether file thingy.. didn’t work so I tried a network settings reset… thats when the phone locked on the apple. I put the phone into recovery mode, but Apple won’t let you restore the phone with out internet access?!?! WTF apple? So, here I am at midnight outside a McD restoring my phone so I’ll have my alarm clock and folks in the SOC can reach me if need be!

Thank goodness for McD, and go to hell internet requirement for iphone recovery!

Welp, I’m off to get a snack so I don’t feel too guilty for stealing internet.

I’ve been looking for a good ebook reader that would let me take notes, annotate, and highlight. A capacitive screen tablet seems like it should do just the thing. The problem with the tablet are as followed:

• iBook does not appear to have any of the necessary functionality
• review sites indicate that the rounded back make it unsuitable for typing on a flat surface
• There is an apparent lack of rotation lock, meaning that if your reading laying down on your side the words will run perpendicular to your eyes.
• And, it’s not e-ink

Now, you may be saying, “Hey! Amazon or Barnes and Noble could add some of this functionality to their iPad apps!”. Yea, but because of Apple’s control over the app store their competitive ebook readers may never make it to the iPad. Welcome to the walled garden. I will keep an eye on this though. Once it is jailbroken, apps like sbsettings and non-approved apps can be added to the iPad. I may become more interested in it then.

Here is a screenshot of SBSettings app for jailbroken iphones. Notice the rotation on/off add on that enables/disables auto screen rotation.

Free jailbreak app, here: blackra1n.com/

You literally plug in your iphone,  run the application,  click on a button (the only button the app has), wait for aproximately 3min, and your iphone is jailbroken. Unlock and “Hacktivation” coming soon.

FYI: if you paid ANY money for jailbreak you paid someone who stole the work from others that was given away free.

At dinner yesterday someone mentioned that Vaccine usage is going down. When we talked about the reasons it was going down, I brought up the fact that parents are increasing afraid to give their kids vaccines because of the autism fears the anti-vaccine camp is putting on parents. Well that opened up a can of worms… and I got to see how far and wide this fear has been spread.

So, lets start off with the big ugly monster: The MMR vaccine “controversy”
THE STUDY:
-the claims were first raised by a study done by Andrew Wakefield
-The study was funded by a lawyer who was looking for trial evidence
-He had filed a patent on a rival vaccine which
-He did not publish reports that contradicted his findings
-10 of the 12 coauthors have since retracted
-Sunday Times claimed that they manipulated data and misreported results

There were lots of studies done after Andrew’s study that contradict his claims. For more details go here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy

What ultimately causes Autism? We don’t know… genetics appear to be a risk factor… Wikipedia has page that covers most of the popular theories and provides footnotes to studies (if any) connected to them:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_autism

Beyond looking for a cause or a cure – it is important to understand that people who have autism are just live everyone else. The way that they perceive and communicate with the world around them is normal to them. Unfortunately for them, most of the people in the world perceive it in a non-autistic way. Just because we may not understand each other, doesn’t mean they need to be cured to become people. They are already people.

PS. Check out this video by someone with autism talking about how they communicate with the world

According to google reader I’m subscribed to over 300 RSS feeds.. below are some of my favorite feeds in each category:
BTW I’ve put up the .opml with some fam/friends blogs removed here: public Google Reader subscriptions

(Note, if your just looking for interesting blogs to follow, stick with a couple of the ones below for now )

Religion:
scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ -  noted biology professor, PZ Myers, lover of octopi, and athiest advocate
juliasweeney.blogspot.com/ – Julia Sweeney of SNL fame… if you haven’t listened to “Letting Go of God”, go to iTunes and listen – or get the DVD
factnet.org/ – cult watch group
randi.org/joom – James Randi Foundation,home of the 1min$ paranormal challenge
scientologymyths.wordpress.com/ – pro scientology website
xenutv.wordpress.com/ – noted scientology critic and documentarian Mark Bunker
forums.whyweprotest.net/ – anti scientology forums – subscribed to the “Breaking News” forums
also rss feeds from Religion sections of NY times, Washington Post, Yahoo

Cake:
cakewrecks.blogspot.com/  – proving that “You can do no wrong with cakes” is a lie
cakelava.blogspot.com/ – some nice cakes
feeds.pinkcakebox.com/PinkCakeBoxPatries – some awesome cakes

Cisco:
subscribed to field notices, security notices and some ccie bloggers -nothing of note

Comics:
I follow a lot of comics, here are a couple of note:
dilbert.com – duh
failblog.org – there really is too much fail in the world
www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/index.html – Joy of Tech – generally apple focused comics
truckbearingkibble.com – some of this guy’s stuff is pure genius!
community.livejournal.com/politicartoons/ – political cartoons

DC:
dcist.com -don’t keep up with this one very well, but it often has some nifty nuggets
welovedc.com – like dcist, but lighter

Dreamhost:
dreamhost blog (official and unofficial), status, discussion – if you don’t use dreamhost, you prolly don’t care

Games:
arstechnica.com/gaming.ars  – only watching Ars Technica’s game feed now a days

Gov:
change.gov – watching the new administration take shape
www.loudoun.gov/news/index.htm – watching local government news
www.raisingkaine.com/ – liberal slant on virginia politics

Hearing :
Unless your hearing impaired, or know someone who is you probably won’t care for these :

community.livejournal.com/hard_of_hearing/

community.livejournal.com/hearingaidhacks/

www.hearingmojo.com/ – gadget blog for those who can’t hear well

IPhone:
Subscribed to WAY too many sites, some of note:
ericasadun.com/ – one of the coolest iphone developers
www.flickr.com/groups/iphonewallpapers/pool/  – iphone wallpapers

www.appleiphoneschool.com/

gizmodo.com/tag/iphone

weblogs.redeyechicago.com/iphoneblog/

justanotheriphoneblog.com/wordpress

iPhone Jailbreak community:
blog.iphone-dev.org/ – the jail breakers
thebigboss.org/ – the guy behind the best utilities
www.spaziocellulare.com/ispazio/en – awsome developer provides lots of docs

Jobs:
keeping my eye on craigslist sysadmin jobs in vegas and northern va
keeping up with news on verizon business

Military:
love keeping an eye on the latest in military tech… Wired’s Danger Room is the best of the best

blog.wired.com/defense/

Music:

www.coverville.com/

News:
boingboing.net – subscribe, you won’t regret it
digg.com – what do diggers think is worthy now?
groklaw.net – sco vs linux legal news
trying to find good low traffic pure news site… haven’t found a good one yet – open to suggestions

OS:
Huge number of feeds here… I’ll pull just a couple for each major OS:
All:

www.osnews.com/

Apple:

arstechnica.com/apple.ars

www.tuaw.com/

macenstein.com/default

www.macrumors.com/

OpenBSD:

undeadly.org/

Linux:

lwn.net/

arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars

People:
(I removed fam/friends that don’t advertise their blog elsewhere)
jwz.livejournal.com/ it’s jwz, what else do you need to know?

Photos:
I’m a sucker for off-the-wall images
riotclitshave.livejournal.com/ often not safe for work, but really showcases some of the most edgy stuff out there
sadguysontradingfloors.tumblr.com/ there are lots of sad guy trading flore sites, but this guy is the best… the captions are hilarious
ffffound.com/ I follow a couple of feeds on this site

Popculture:
This is really more culture and “design” blogs

billboardom.blogspot.com/

consumerist.com/ – shopping/branding is part of our culture

Recalls:
Find your car at this site: auto-recalls.justia.com/ and subscribe to the rss feed… costs you nothing, could save your life?

Scooter:
killboy.blogspot.com/ – pictures of people riding Deals Gap
webbikeworld.com – best gear reviews
thescooterscoop.blogspot.com/ – THE scooter news site

Security:

arstechnica.com/security.ars

www.schneier.com/blog/

Tech:

hackaday.com/

google.blogspace.com/

www.uncrate.com/

Trailers:

www.traileraddict.com/

Vegas:

www.whilelasvegassleeps.com/

Wikipedia:
Random wikipedia feeds

I got this case because I often take pictures of computer screens and notes with my iPhone and they are always blury… This case fixes it with a slideable “macro”lens… I’m not crazy about the hard plastic mixed with hard rubber on the case.. I wish they made the whole thing hard rubber. Since this seems to be the only case that has a lens like this right now it’s hard not to give it a lot of stars . I put with and without lens pictures below. They were taken from roughly the same distance away (the lens slightly magnifies so it seems closer). As you can see, what used to be washed out is now very readable. The case is not cheap, but it is worth it for me .

Vendor Link:http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/clarifi

www.boingboing.net/2008/08/30/creditcard-companies.html