Those going to Austin this upcoming weekend for the IA Summit or a few weeks for SXSW should read the NY Times What's Doing Austin travel review or one of the other Times Austin travel reviews. Unfortunately for me my trip is going to be jam packed with IA conference and I and cursed not to be able to make it to SXSW Interactive.
My new phone has given me a lot of adventures, nearly all of them positive. The Treo 600 has been everything I had hoped and a lot more. I had thought there would be some sacrifice having all that the Treo offers in one device. I have collapsed my cellphone, mobile Internet, and Palm device all in one nice package. The phone is as good as my Motorola 270c ever was and that was my best phone up until the Treo. The mobile Internet is better than the Hiptop, mostly because my Sprint service has much better coverage than T-Moble (I am a fan of GSM as it provides me not only US coverage, but the rest of the Western world, although I have not needed that much coverage, yet). I do need to get a better e-mail application than what comes with the Sprint Treo, but that can be worked out. The Palm works very well and I have all my favorite applications functioning just as they always have, some were a little buggy at first, but downloading the updates to the applications to run under Palm v5(x) rather than v3 made the difference.
One thing I was not ready for was the constant attention the phone gets. It, in and of it self, is a conversation piece. I read news on it when on the Metro and I get stopped there and asked questions about it. I have been asked at the Apple Genius Bar, elevators at work, the street, in the bookstore (I use mobile Internet to check my Amazon Wishlist when in bookstores and compare prices as well as add new books to the list while in the store), at sporting events (checking live stats and news), in meetings (checking calendar and adding events as well as checking Google for updated information on new subjects that pop-up in the meeting - many conversations have been with CIOs who have Hiptop, Blackberry, or Pocket PC devices and are not perfectly happy and want smaller better functioning devices), and many other locations as it is also my watch for the time being. The attention much more than my TiBook received a couple years ago, mostly on flights as the screen was brighter and the battery lasted longer than anything else on the cross country flight.
I now think I have a fantastic troika of devices (Treo, TiBook, and iPod). I have been happier with my TiBook than any other computer I have ever owned. It has been more stable, secure, reliable, and friendly to letting me do my work without getting in the way than any other computer I have used since 1982, when I first started using computers. Any other laptop or computer is a waste of money.
It has been a rough couple of days. I was finishing an e-mail to the other side of the globe and on a voice chat, when I had to say "got to go bye". I had been feeling the gurgling for an hour or so and knew what was coming, but little did I know. Yes, food poisoning (hint, don't rewarm then refrigerate and then rewarm creamed spinach).
At 2am on Tuesday morning my I, my body, and Joy had had enough and it was off to the emergency room. It seems to have been a good choice as I had lost a sever amount of fluids and needed to take two full bags of IV and could have used a third. This was my first trip to the ER since in the past 10 years or longer, well for myself that is. It was the first IV I have had since I was very little.
Yesterday I went through insane headaches from dehydration and slept much of the day. I was also not allowed to touch Will, which was very tough. I did manage to get a gallon of Gatorade down and keep it down, which was a good accomplishment. I thought work would have been in the plans of today, but my body was not up to that game. I was back to eating food this afternoon and should be back to normal tomorrow. I am wading through a flood of e-mails here at home and know I will have even more at work tomorrow.
The whole thing had the balance of life eerily brought before me. One of the medicines that I was given made me insanely thirsty, but I was not aloud to drink and had me feeling like I was in a Paul Bowles story. When I got home I was so sore and weak I felt like a bag of bones and organs wrapped in skin, with little more to me. I did not like this glimpse at mortality, particularly not while looking in on my son.
Now the trick is finding a doctor that will give me a follow-up visit. I have had two doctors leave town in the past couple years and one stopped doing outpatient call (only will see patients in the hospital). This also knocked out any hope at going to SXSW as I work for a company that lumps sick-leave and vacation (nobody want to be out sick so people often come to work sick) so my vacation days are gone for that valuable experience.
WaSP asks the W3C about Introduction to Composite Capabilities / Preferences Profile, which allows device specific content inclusion, as explained in the article.
Tech Review interviews Rael about rising tech trends and discusses alpha geeks. This interview touches on RSS, mobile devices, social networks, and much more.
The past few weeks the porn referrer span has gotten completely out of hand. I do not care about Janet's, Britteny's, Paris', etc anatomy nor some island. This past week I set up a referrer block list with about 20 items. By Tuesday it was up to 45 items. Each day the junk referrers was growing by 5 with modifications of the site URLs. Well everything but one chunk of information changed, which is blogspot. It seems it is so bloody easy to throw some horrible site up that only aims at providing a means to collect ad money, microcent by microcent.
Since blogspot does not host anything of value I have read in so long and I do not know any soul that has a blogspot site they are all blocked. That is right all blogspot sites are blocked if vanderwal.net sees a blogspot site as a referrer.
Will's has his first tooth peek through this morning. He has been teething for about three or four weeks. Last night he was a very fussy sleeper and this morning we know the reason, well I found our as he chomped down on my finger and I got more than gummy resistance. Big day for the the guy.
My recent transition to my Treo 600, was rather smooth. Which was good since I not only collapsed three, if not four, devices into one. I had to switch cellular providers as well as my phone, but I kept my phone number. I really have been attached to my number, far more than I ever realized before. The transfer of the number from one carrier to another was very seamless and took less than 10 hours.
The number is big for me as it is the second longest phone number I have had in my life, the first being my landline phone number in Virginia, which I had for seven years plus. My cell phone number will be approaching the same and passing it later this year. I not only make it easy on myself and others by having one number that I really use for most everything (the phone at home is rarely ever for me, except for the calls from my parents on the usual night). Truthfully I am rather addicted to the pattern in the phone number, which is not as catchy as my number in college (another story for another time). The number makes it relatively to remember, so I keep it.
My mobile number is tied to a state, er make that Commonwealth, in which I no longer live and have not for nearly four years. I no longer really associate myself with that pre-fix and neither do my friends. This causes confusion when they see the number and try to think who they know in that area code. Oddly I have filled out four forms in the past few weeks that have asked for just the area code of my phone, which I consider to be my cell phone and in a couple cases the request was these digits for my cell phone.
I know New Yorkers who have kept their 202 mobile phone numbers even when they move away, just for the status. But, I am not my area code. How much longer will it be before all area codes are irrelevant?
Earlier this week Cory's Eastern Standard Tribe was released. I have been waiting for this for some time. Not only have I downloaded the version for Palm (then went and updated by reader), but I have beamed it to a co-worker (as well as the updated reader). Cory asks that you let him know how you acquired the book electronically and how you read it.
I have been excited about this because I loved Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, which the only way I got around to reading it was on my Palm on the train. I now have a new device to read from and I am hoping Cory shares how his book changes hands.
Creating Web Content for Mobile Phone Browsers is a good overview for marking-up for small screens.
Today is an icy birthday day here. Just another reason to celebrate.
Will had another doctor visit (for his four months) and he was suggested to have 4 Tablespoons of rice cereal two times a day (he has been eating one Tablespoon a day for a little over a week). In two weeks he can start eating 2 Tablespoons of oatmeal. Two weeks after that he can start eating vegetables. Two more weeks and he will start high school, okay, maybe not this last item. Dang it if he is not growing up quickly. He has been teething for a couple weeks and it should be any day or week now that the bottom two teeth pop in.
Tonight I was finally home from work while Will was still up. This is always a great treat for me. He has just a few minutes of being really cranky right before falling a sleep, but it is still wonderful to have that time with him.
I found Brian Alvey's contribution to A List Apart Everything I Need to Know About Web Design I Learned Watching Oz to be dead on target. His opening discussion regarding limitations are what drive creativity, is one of the best criteria dividing those that understand the Web and those that do not. This separates the good from the great. The Web has a great amount of limitations, before you get to clients and their boxes they want to work with in. Must we forget the users, didn't think so. The users give us an even smaller pallet of elements to work with.
Personally I find all of this very fun. Much more fun than a TPS report and so much more satisfying.
February 1st means my birthday is only days away (this Friday actually). I have had such luck with the Atkins body hack (down 35 pounds or so) I am proposing to have an Atkins Birthday, that is right I will be one year younger on the 6th.
I have had it with getting older. I just want to spend more time with Will.