Since Maureen came down with one, it seems like I hear of GBMs all the time now. When I heard that Ted Kennedy had an unexpected seizure the other day, this was my immediate fear. It’s Too bad for Ted. He’s the last of this tragic generation of Kennedys.

I hope he can get though this with dignity.

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An excellent with an only slightly facetious title by David Heinemeier Hansson of 37 Signals.

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Me Thinks, Gruber has it right.
The SDK is too complete and comprehensive to have been rushed to the development community as many had pre-supposed. Apple has been laying ground-work for this for some time.

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No great revelation here, but reinforcing my belief: The overwhelming interest in the iphone/ipod touch SDK convinces me that we are witnessing the formative stage of a major new computing platform, not just one or two new devices from Apple. I expect that 6 months from now we will see a huge number of 3rd party applications which will popularize these and many new devices which for the lack of an official name I will call the touch platform. Expect to see:

• a touch based pad
• a touch based gaming platform
• possibly a touch based personal video device (video playback, as well as capture and editing??)
• and obviously new generations of the ipod and iphone

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“Must see V”...

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Donating through this website is simple, fast and totally secure. Just use the widget you see below. It is also the most efficient way to support my fundraising efforts with Maine Handicapped Skiing.

MHS is a fantastic organization which helps children, adults and veterans enjoy various outdoor activities throughout the year including skiing, cycling, kayaking and golf.

On March 29th, I will be participating again in the Annual Ski-A-Thon which last year enabled MHS to raise over $348,000 to support these activities. Any amount you wish to contibute will be greatly appreciated.

For a little viral marketing be sure to forward this to anyone who you think might want to donate too!

For more information or visit the MHS web page at: http://www.skimhs.org or
http://www.firstgiving.com/donaldpotter

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I have taken the plunge and started my self-guided exploration of Ruby and the Rails framework. 
I was happy to discover that Ruby, Rails2.0, Mongrel, sqlite3, and subversion is already integrated into Leopard. Then I discovered that all of the published tutorials are based around Rails 1.2! There is virtually no tutorial information out there on Rails 2.0 aside from a few screen-casts going over some of the new features. Consequently, I downloaded and installed Locomotive for a rails 1.2 stack for me to learn on before moving on to rails2.0.
I also loaded MySQL on leopard by using the Tiger version. And yes, the problem with the non-functioning preference panel has been fixed. A new preference panel can be downloaded separately, until an official leopard version of MySQL is released.

So, far I am still getting the hang of migrations & scaffolding: the sexy part of rails. So far, I am very impressed!

I’ll be making progress reports as I go along.

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While I will never be privy to it, I would be very interested in understanding the terms of the Apple-ATT agreement. No doubt, Apple agreed to prevent the addition of a SIP/VoIP client to the iphone. The addition of such a sanctioned or unsanctioned application would tear a gaping hole in the revenue model of ATT and to a lesser degree Apple, as they most certainly have some form of revenue sharing on cellular contracts.

But as certain as the sun will rise, Apple surely realizes that VoIP will ultimately transform the cellular industry as we understand it. The Apple-ATT exclusive agreement has a life of 5 years. I suspect that Apple could not and would not agree to limit the adoption of VoIP technology on it’s platforms for that entire period; it simply would have been too limiting.
The question then is when will we see the doors open on a SIP client? Apple has stated that it will release a developer SDK in February of ‘08. Will Apple allow developers to release a SIP client.. unlikely. But we will see what will happen on the 1 year anniversary of the iphone. What I expect is that we will see not a “iphone” with SIP capability, but rather some other form of touch-based communicator.

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I’ve never been a huge fan of Led Zepplin, so the news of their reunion this week has been a non-starter. But the release of the first album in 25+ years by Levon Helm, the original drummer and vocalist on the “The Band”, is outstanding.  Levon demonstrates once again again his ability to combine American Roots music with a modern rhythm.
Check it out...

And for the NPR/Fresh Air interview...

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First off, Before I get a bunch of hate mail, “No I don’t really believe that the mac is dead”.

But, I do think we have begun to see a sea change in Apple’s product line. The first such change was the transition from the Apple II to the original Mac and it’s revolutionary user interface. More recently, the Mac underwent a major transition to OSX, but ultimately it was still a Macintosh. Initially, the Mac was promoted as “A computer for the rest of us”, which suggested not only elitism, but the goal of freeing the user from the technical complexities of computers and thereby enable real work. Over the years this has been more or less true compared to other computing platforms.

But even the most ardent mac user will agree that the personal computer is still a long way from being a truly personal computer for the casual user. By casual user I mean your grandmother and Joe 6-pack both of whom still struggle to find that letter they saved somewhere on their disc last week, and who couldn’t tell you the difference between dhcp, WEP, WAP or any other number of other acronyms that the digirati take for granted.

Enter the iPhone, iPod touch and what I expect will be the new paradigm for Apple in other such multi-touch devices. While the Mac will continue as a distinct product line in the years to come, it is the multi-touch devices which will fulfill the needs of a whole new class of user (consumers).  The original iPod showed the way for Steve Jobs...That there was another world beyond the classic Windows vs Mac wars of the ‘80 & 90’s.

While we may not see a tablet device from Apple in January, I believe we will see such a device with in the next 6 months. Imagine a device perhaps twice the size of the iPhone featuring the same functionality (sans cellular). With additional storage (ie: 32gb), N-wireless, microphone, speaker and a slew of newly released 3rd part apps the device will have great appeal at say a $600 price point. The addition of a single HDMI port and front-row would also provide an entry level iTV like device.

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Barry Schwartz explains at the TED conference the secret to happiness: Low expectations.

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While some industry watchers are calling moves by NBC and others “a mistake,” NBC Universal spokesman Cory Shields is quoted in the piece by the Post as saying that his company’s programs are one of the primary factors that help drive sales of Apple hardware.

“The iPod is only as good as the content on it,” he said.

What Mr Shields fails to mention is that his “content” is really a commodity compared to the iPod. What music that iPod users can’t download from ITunes can be obtained from other sources: both legal and illegal. The user experience of the iPod and iTunes is for the most part unique. If users wish to download their music (and movies) from other source, it will not affect iPod sales nearly as the lost revenue Universal will experience by exiting from iTunes.

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The people at Panic Software who already make the best graphical ftp client (Transmit) on any platform, just released a surprise application which is wonderful collection of web-developer apps tightly rolled into one. While not trying to be everything to everyone, Coda offers an integrated solution for those of us who don’t utilize WYSIWYG web development tools. Historically, webdevelopers and designers who manually coded their efforts relied on separate applications for coding html, editing css, ftp, and other utilities. Panic has integrated a text editor, web browser, css editor, terminal (via SSH), ftp client and sites manger. It also features the SubEdthaEdit engine to enable collaborative work, and three online HTML, CSS & PHP reference books. While I am still working with a eval version, I expect that I will be upgrading from Transmit ($10 credit) to Coda shortly.

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I survived a 7 day backpaking trip into the backcounty of Baxter State Park last week with Linda and a friend Meredith. All told we hiked about 25 miles, paddled a couple of miles, and viewed much flora and fauna (7 moose, 2 deer, and a couple of leeches!) As most Maine residents know, Baxter State Park is comprised of mostly wilderness with few roads and a few primative campgrounds. The park includes Mount Katahdin, the northern terminus of the Appalachin Trail. Katahdin includes several peaks and trails: Baxter peak, knife-edge tail, Hamlin peak and trail, and the notorious saddle trail.

Our trip began at Roaring Brook campground where Linda and I left our car, and met up with Meredith. Within the first hour at Roaring, we took a brief hike to Sandy Stream Pond where we were treated to a view of 4 moose (3 cows and a calf). A subsequent visit several hours later in the day showed that 3 of the moose were still present at the pond. We witnessed some bizarre behaviour from one of the adult moose which ran back and forth several times along the shore of the pond splashing water about madly. The other adult moose stood staring at the deranged moose and seemed as facinated by this behavior as we were. After several minutes the calmer moose started walking towards us, and when it got within 40 feet, we decided to give it a wide berth and return to camp. The following morning, we set out on a 5.5 mile hike to Wassataquoik stream and it’s leanto. The hike was failry un-eventful with the exception of catching a glimpse of another moose in a small pond. The hiking was not too strenous yet, the temperatures were around 80 deg during the day and 50 degrees at night with low humidity. Stream crossings were always a popular break from the monotony of the trail, and a chance to practice our balancing skills. The final mile of the hike had us “drafting” behind another couple of hikers in an attempt to pass them and optain the primo leanto for the evening. Our efforts paid off, and we were treated to a fantastic view of the stream from our shelter. We setup camp and after a pumping water, I had the pleasure of trying to remove a leach from my right foot. I felt like Humphrey Bogart in “The African Queen”, and freaked out. After several attemts I was unable to pull the little bugger from my skin. I stopped pulling and it simply let go and it slipped back into the stream on its own accord.  We returned to camp , took a bath in the stream, washed some of our clothes, and started dinner. We were carrying between 45-50 lbs of pack each, and we were eager to eat our way to a lower pack weight. But of course we also had to ration food for the later, strenous portion of the trip.
After a good meal and a restful night, set off for about 4 mile hike past Russell Pond, to arrive at the shelter on the island in Wassataquoik Lake. The state supplied canoes got us to/from the island, and gave us an opportunity to paddle the length of the Lake searching for the “Beach” for a little bathing and skinny-dipping.The next day had us retracing our steps a little to Russell Pond campground. Our leanto was on the far side of the lake, about 1/4 mile from the other other shelters.
A visit from the ranger resulted in some reminising by Linda and Meredith when they were stuck at Russell pond for several days due to heavy rains and high streams. The Ranger advised us of another couple of moose currently feeding in the pond on the other side of the pond. So we hot footed it over there for a gander before it got dark.The following morning we started out on the hike up the backside of Katahdin to Davis Pond. It was a long and strenous day of hiking ending in a walk through a high mountain blueberry patch, rain and plunging temperatures. I was feling a little hypothermic, so I immediatley climbed into my sleeping bag while Linda and Meredith went down to the pond for a chilly bath. That evening we were treated 40 degree temperature as we slept. The next morning we forced ourselves out of the sack, dried out as much as possible and continued our journey up the mountain to Davis peak and the alpine “tablelands”. We were very fortuante that day as we were spared from all rain storms around us, and after pumping water we started down saddle trail (which I absolutley detest due to the steep pitch and loose rock) to Chinney Pond. We spent another cold and rainy night at Chimney and the following day decided to exit the park a day early after getting soaked in a rain/sleet mixture visiting Pamola caves. All in all it was great trip! Looking forward to next year’s trip.

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Over the weekend I had the opportunity to show off an embassingly studpid manuveur upon exiting a ski boat. The resulting crash of my unbraced body against the edge of the dock left me writhing in agony. The upshot… a fractured rib.

After visiting the ER with subsequent x-rays and a cat scan (to check for spleen damage), they confirmed that I fractured my 9th rib. Needless to say, Percoset is now my best new friend! There is no wrapping or taping of my torso, so even the slightest movement can at times unleash a series of growns and salty speech.

It is uncertain to me just how long I will be feeling this injury, but I suspect that it will take several months of gradually deminishing pain. The big question is whether I will be up for the 7 day backpack trip in Baxter 6 weeks from now??

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