Photography
Technology
Random
Design
Links
More
By Justin Michael
Friday October 31, 2008 • Technology
Love.
You can learn all the routing in the ‘verse, but you take a network online that you don’t love and she’ll get DoSed right back off just as sure as the turn of the worlds.
Love keeps her on the net when she ought to be offline, tells you she’s timing out before she keels.
Makes her a subnet.
Monday August 18, 2008 • Technology
Let me say this right off the bat: I love the iPhone. At this point I can’t imagine using another cell phone. However, it hasn’t been 100% fantastic. Here’s the story of how I’ve come to own four separate iPhones since the original launch, two of each generation, and why I’m willing to put up with the forthcoming annoyances.
Obtained: June 29, 2007 at the original iPhone launch in Phoenix, AZ.
I stood in line at my local Apple Store, got my 8 GB for the bargain price of $599, and was happy as a clam. Smooth sailing until…
Obtained: End of July, 2007 in San Diego, CA.
I was on vacation attending the Comic-Con when, suddenly, the iPhone restarted and would not boot again to a working state. It seemed like a software thing, and I had my MacBook Pro with me, so I restored it, wiped it, restored it again, and so on and so forth, but to no avail. I visited the fine folks at the local Apple Store there and took possession of my second first-gen iPhone.
Obtained: Yesterday, August 17, 2008 in Chandler, AZ.
Let me tell you something about iPhones: they don’t like being dipped in ranch dressing.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “But Justin, what could you possibly dip in ranch dressing and have it come out worse for the experience? Surely nothing!” No, I assure you, an iPhone may taste better, but it won’t work better!
After dropping the lower left corner of my iPhone in my dipping sauce I found that, while all functionality remained after a thorough cleaning, one aspect was severely diminished: the external speaker sounded beyond muffled. It was too quiet to function as the phone’s ringer, too soft to stir me from slumber in the mornings. Unfortunately, it was time for it to retire.
Thus, a trip to the Apple Store in Chandler, an Apple Store I’d never been to (that happened to be in the same mall as the Lego Store… I nearly spent as much there as I did on the new iPhone and accessories, but I digress) to obtain a shiny new iPhone 3G.
The experience there, as at all the other Apple Stores in this story, was pleasant and enjoyable.
Obtained: Today, August 18, 2007, at the same Apple Store from whence my very first iPhone came.
Dismay! I found, almost in the exact center of my new iPhone’s display (the one from yesterday), that most horrid of horrors for a new electronic device: a dead pixel!
Fuck.
I ran an app for the iPhone/iPod touch that helps you get rid of some dead pixels, but mine was stuck for good.
Let me illustrate. This is what it looked like:
This is what I saw:
You understand.
So, now I have my fourth iPhone. This one has no dead pixels. It had non-functional voicemail for a little while there, but a tip from a thread a MacRumors pointed me to dialing 611, selecting option 3, and setting up the voicemail again, which worked. Other than that it seems perfect.
Now it’s time to update to 2.0.2. John has a lengthy writeup about the update.
Tuesday July 15, 2008 • Technology
I’ve had an iPhone since launch. Not horribly long after that I jailbroke it (allowing me to install third-party apps long before the App Store ever existed).
Now that the 2.0 update is out I’ve decided not to jailbrake it again, mostly due to the aforementioned App Store.
I’ve been running 2.0 since Thursday; here’s a list of the things I really miss from my jailbroken iPhone (in order from, “fuck, should I jailbrake again?” to “eh, it’d be nice if I had it”):
The first item can’t be fixed via a third-party app from the App Store; no background processes are allowed (offically) on the device
The second is probably a violation of the terms of development for the App Store (too much low-level access would be granted), but I’m only guessing on that point.
The third also isn’t going to happen unless Apple does it on their own (and this is horribly doubtful). Third-party apps are sandboxed pretty tightly, ensuring they have no affect on anything outside of their own little playground.
The fourth is something Apple could easily stick in Settings. God, why don’t they just stick something in Settings?!
Oh well. The new features make up for the losses. Now I just have to decide if I should upgrade to the iPhone 3G or not….
Tuesday July 8, 2008 • Technology
I owe a great deal of my happiness to technology. For that reason the Technology section will be a big part of this site.
I think it fitting to begin with a list of the top three reasons why technology has brought me such joy over the years.
Since I was very young technology, especially computers, have always fascinated me. Most kids were content to get to Willamette Valley and have fun hunting along the way, and while I had a great time doing that I also wanted to know how it all worked. How did that raft get to the other side of the river (and, more importantly, what set of rules governed whether or not I hit a fucking rock)?
I’ve taken computers apart, put them back together, soldered, hacked, tweaked, modded, scripted, programmed, debugged, networked, administered, and more, and yet I’ve barely scratched the surface. No matter how much I learn there’s still a mountain of stuff still waiting.
I soak up knowledge like a sun-baked sponge in the middle of a desert during a drought. I love the monsoon.
First, a bit of history:
My first job was filing paper medical records in a small doctor’s office. This particular office didn’t file them based on something as complex as, say, the alphabet, instead opting for an arcane, totally illogical system based on various factors ranging from the color of the filing cabinets to obscure bits of patient’s medical history and what particular moment the actual paper was put into the “system.”
That didn’t go so well, nor did it last very long.
You know those guys who say hello and goodbye to you at the grocery store? Not the ones that check your receipt, just the ones who say “hi” and “bye?”
That didn’t go so well either.
But wait, next there was a position refurbishing laptops at an electronics recycling place. Great! Finally I can do something I enjoy doing, something that actually makes use of my skillset.
But wait, what’s this? Oh, the company is misrepresenting itself and defrauding the companies and non-profits they work with for their own profit? And they’re asking you to use your knowledge to help them out with that?
Fuck.
Maybe I could work for the state? Start in an entry level position, get my foot in the door, get into the IT department? Sure!
One word: bureaucracy.
So I said to hell with it, did a bunch of IT stuff totally outside my job description in addition to my regular work, improved some systems that were outdated when I was still learning how to count, and got noticed. Not by anyone there, of course, but by a contracted programmer that, when he left for a small but wonderful new business, remembered me when they needed someone for their IT department.
In fact, they needed me to be their IT department, and I haven’t had nor could I dream of a job I like better. The people are great, the work is fantastic, and there’s a lot of respect and recognition going both ways.
For the longest time I got whatever job I could find to pay the bills and followed my passions on the side. If that’s what you’re doing right now, stop. Your passions are your life, follow them, get lost in them. Keep pushing. Don’t get discouraged. I’m not going to say it’ll work out, but it’s better to have fought for your dreams than languish and wonder what might have been.
One of the most wonderful things technology has to offer is this little thing called the Internet. You may have heard of it.
One of the most wonderful things the Internet has to offer is the ability to connect people with one another that would otherwise never have been given the opportunity.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
My girlfriend is absolutely wonderful. I’ve never met anyone like her. INSERT PARAGRAPHS OF RAMBLING ADMIRATION HERE
One thing, one moment, that sums up the whole “technology is absolutely fantastic” sentiment for me happened just recently. This moment would not have been possible, on many levels, without a wide variety of technology. Some of you will understand this, most of you will not.
This was taken on July 4, 2008. These were the fireworks we watched. We both enjoyed it more than we would “real” fireworks.
World of Warcraft
I loves me some technology.