Future Posts

So I’ve been thinking about what I want to write about here, and while I love looking at technology, gadgets, tips/tricks, etc. I’m finding myself having a harder time writing about those topics which is why I think I don’t keep up at writing on my blog. Maybe it’s because by the time I get done working my full time job (at a software company) and doing work on the side (building iPhone and web apps) I feel that my world revolves around computers. Shouldn’t someone’s life contain more?

It’s been awhile since I’ve wrote to write. My grammar isn’t what it used to be; I feel as though my writing is that of a 9th grader, so I’m hoping that this exercise will help improve my writing and add to other things I’ll mention in the upcoming months.

After giving it a lot of thought, I’ve decided that I’m going to start writing about policy issues in Michigan. While I’ll be the first to say, I’ve only had a mild interest in politics, I’ve been away from Michigan for a year and a half, and have only been able to keep interest from afar. I plan to take a look at the issues facing this state and how they affect the everyday working (and nonworking) people of this state.

Michigan has been my home since as long as I can remember and I’ve had a great grandfather sit in the state house of representatives, a family where entrepreneurship is breed into our blood, and all while living in a small town where the “cool” thing to do on a friday night is to go to the bowling alley. I’ve lived in Lansing, moved to the District of Columbia, and have found that what I can call home is Owosso.

Stay tuned for what else I decide to write about. Perhaps you may be surprised by a thing or two. :)


2010 Resolutions, One Month Late

First off, I’ve been horrible at keeping this updated. If you’ve been following me via my social media outlets (twitter, facebook, etc.) you know what’s been going on these past 6 months.

I wanted to take a few moments to let you know what I’ve been doing the past 6 months and let you know what I’ve got in store in the upcoming months.

Last time I wrote here, I was headed out to WWDC 2009. It was a blast! Lots of fun exciting stuff, meet some new friends, and started to think of some great ideas that are now getting into full swing.

Skipping ahead to October, I made a decision to move back to Michigan for reasons I won’t mention. It was a difficult decision but one I felt I had to make. I met a lot of great friends while I was in DC and miss it a lot. I hope to make it back down there very soon! Most people would ask why someone would move back to Michigan, but I was lucky enough to get a job with a previous employer, TechSmith. So it made everything a little easier.

Anyways, I decided I am going to work a little harder at my 2010 resolutions and figured I’d start out with a post here.

  • Create a Screencast 1 per week
  • Get at least 12 new clients
  • Post at least once per month (I said 3/week last year and it didn’t work out, so I’ll start small)
  • Go camping w/friends (didn’t do this last year)
  • Budget
  • Continue to grow my business

Well I think that pretty much sums up my resolutions for the year. Stay tuned to see how well I progress with these.

Popping My Virginity with Virgin America

I’m on my way to WWDC (as I just stated with my post) and we were able to pick our airline so I chose to give Virgin a try since I’ve heard so many good things about it. First I have to say that I’m writing this post and my last too. It’s pretty cool to have an airline with 100% wifi coverage in their fleet. Also, how many airlines can you say that has AC power instead of the DC power most usually have. They also have 2 power outlets per set of 3 seats, where most only have a few in select seats. There “RED” entertainment system is nice for long flights. They have a decent collection of music, though I will say that I usually bring my own, so why do I need there’s. They have live TV, mainly news channels, but include some other more common channels, USA, FX, FOX, ESPN, etc. Their movie collection is small (smaller than I thought) but pricey at $8.00 a movie. Not worth it; I’ll bring my own! You can also order snacks, drinks, food through the system, which makes it pretty handy. The mood lighting is an interesting concept, but I’m not sure I get it. Perhaps after a return trip I’ll have a better understanding of why/what it does to the person as they’re traveling. Stay tuned for my post wrap-up about Virgin America.

My WWDC 2009 Predictions

So I’m trying to keep awake while I’m on my flight to San Francisco for WWDC this coming week, I thought why not share my predictions about what’s going to be announced. I also figured this would be a good time to update my blog since I have quite a while before we land.

1. Snow Leopard

After looking at the sessions and labs for WWDC this year, I think it’s safe to say we’ll see a release of Snow Leopard. From what I’ve been able to read from the net it looks like it’s nearing RC/Gold status, so I think this will be one that will be talked about to death!

2. iPhone 3.0

As a beginning iPhone developer, I’ve been playing with some of the goodies in the 3.0 SDK since April. I’ve also had the chance to put it on a phone (since beta 2) and have seen it mature and become a stable working update. There’s definitely some features I’d really like to have on a day to day case, so hopefully this comes out at the conference and I’m not having to put the OS Beta on my standard use phone.

3. iPhone 3G v2

I think we will see this announced, but I don’t think it’s shipping until Julyish. One thing Apple did wrong last year was release several products as once which was a disaster (MobileMe, iPhone 2.0 OS, iPhone 3G)!! I think after last years mess, they’ll end up releasing the OS update at the conference, and the new phone in July.

4. iPod Touch v3

This I think they will de a device update on as well and it will be available after the keynote. It will include a new 64GB option. I also think that this will have a camera on it.

5. Minor Hardware Updates

This is something they’ve been doing without waiting for some sort of Press event or Conference, so I’m not sure if this is something we’ll actually see or not.

This pretty much sums up my predictions. I would love to be surprised by the “one more thing” but I’m not sure what this could be. I think the iPhone as a device doesn’t need to be this as pretty much everyone in the modern world are expecting this to come out. Personally I’m still waiting for a tablet or touch netbook. I’d like to see this at least announced next week with a ship date of sometime in July. If by chance this was something that was a reality, I’m sure they’d be sold out by the end of the conference. (I’d be coming home with at least 1) :)

Stay tuned for my after keynote post and other WWDC posts as the week goes on. I’ve got lots of ideas floating around, so we’ll have to see what’s under NDA and what we can talk about.

Growl Notifications in Tweetie

If found it a little difficult yesterday to figure out how to get growl notifications working until @colognerunner told me how he got it working. Figured there were others that were having problems, so I make a quick little screencast showing you what I did.

Zune/iPod Mention on Family Guy Last Night

If any of you happened to miss Family Guy last night, there was quite the funny mention about the Zune failure.

If you would like to watch it, check it out on hulu. You can also watch it below.