June 2007

I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I just don’t have the time or energy to manage my own dedicated host. I don’t necessarily feel like fighting Apache when I get home after a long day of fighting it at work. And if you’ve noticed, the site has also been down a half dozen times this month.

So I’m moving my domains over to Dreamhost. I’ll be trying them out for the next couple of months (they have a 97 day moneyback guarantee), and if I’m happy, I’ll stick around.

Update: Most of my domains are now moved over to Dreamhost. So far, the experience has been very positive. There were some issues with my initial setup, but support fixed them within 15 minutes of my filing a ticket about it, which is incredible for a Saturday afternoon.

A few weeks ago I picked up a BlackBerry 8800 from a friend who’d ended up with a surplus of them after a few lucky auctions on eBay. I’d traveled back to Michigan for a wedding and, after having the chance to try out his for a bit, I couldn’t resist the chance to pick one up without sinking myself into a new contract.

So far, I love it. Its everything I loved about my old BlackBerry 8700, plus everything I wished the 8700 could have been. Its thinner, sexier, and just simply a more complete solution than the BlackBerries that have come before it. Many of the improvements could be viewed as simple incremental improvements. But taken as a whole, the upgrades make it feel like a whole new device.

• The new form factor is a huge step up over the previous BlackBerries. It may only be a quarter inch thinner than the 8700, but it might as well be paper thin. It fits much better in a pocket now, and with its new shiny black case, many people don’t realize that it’s a BlackBerry until they ask. It no longer looks like just a business device… it actually does look and feel like a real “smartphone”.
• I’ve actually come to like the trackball. At first it was strange, but within a half hour I was quite proficient with it. Its not as “clicky” as the old scroll wheel was, but it makes it much easier to browse webpages and it is now finally easy to edit what you’ve already entered into an email without arcane key + scroll wheel combinations.
• Numerous small software upgrades have improved the overall feel and usability of the system. I love the “Today” screen, and I use it constantly. They’ve made it easier to navigate between the contacts screen and the call log screen, so its easier to jump between calls and their associated contacts. They’ve also added a great media player.
• Bluetooth modem profile!! So freaking cool! The 8800 now advertises itself over bluetooth as a dial-up modem, and its now super-easy to set up with your laptop for wireless Internet access. I’ve been using it all the time with my MacBook Pro, in airports, meetings, whatever, its always available.
• The GPS is simply too cool. Unfortunately Google Maps is too slow to actually keep up with you while you’re driving, but it’s excellent for getting your bearings on foot in an unfamiliar city (like Boston) or for getting driving directions. And it’s an excellent conversation piece. I’m still looking forward to trying out TeleNav, but I haven’t been able to get a trial key.
• The Micro SD expandability is pretty cool, although I haven’t been able to figure out how exactly I’m going to use up 2GB of storage on my BlackBerry. MP3s and videos on your smartphone are pretty fun, but they’re really nothing more than a gimmick.

Great device. I’m very happy with my purchase.

I couldn’t sleep tonight so I made a bunch of improvements to my blog:

• Switched from using Ultimate Tag Warrior for tags to just using Wordpress’ built in categories as tags. UTW broke with Wordpress 2.2. Now my /tag/* links work properly and things are a lot cleaner.
• A tag cloud widget in the right-hand column that actually works now.
• Digg integration
• Some new plugins in the back-end you won’t see.

Also of note is that I’m posting this from the Blogging Bundle for my new favorite text editor, TextMate. Very cool.

Update^3: Somewhere between Wordpress, TextMate, and the Markdown plugin, my post got corrupted and ended up in mixed HTML/Markdown. It should be fixed now.

Updated Update: FYI… As the weather gets hotter and more humid here in Seattle, my board has started to noticeably warp and it doesn’t lean nicely on my wall anymore. This obviously won’t be a problem if you mount the board directly to the wall, but if you want a freestanding board like me, you may want to look into using a stiffer backing board such as real plywood or OSB, or build a stiffer frame. I’m going to look at building a frame out of 1″x1″ on the back of the board to stiffen it up.

Update: Welcome, Makers! Hopefully this time I can keep my site from crashing too much.

Disclaimer: I can’t claim to have come up with this myself. I was actually inspired by a post in Cool Tools, an excellent blog full of excellent ideas like this. But I think its a cool project anyway, so I thought I’d write it up.

I’ll admit it, I’m a geek, and a very visually-oriented geek at that. I like to draw big pictures and lists and doodle. At work, I’m fortunate enough to be constantly surrounded by whiteboards. At home, I’m not so lucky.

Unfortunately, big whiteboards are expensive. A quick Google Products search finds plenty of 3′x4′ whiteboards selling for hundreds of dollars. Even a smaller whiteboard at Office Max will run you at least $30.

Fortunately, the same material that they make most commercial whiteboards out of is available at most big-box lumber stores like Home Depot for less than $15. “Showerboard”, which is basically cheap plywood with a waterproof white plastic coating on one side. Its the same stuff that they make cheap showers out of - four walls of showerboard plus a cheap plastic base makes a decent stall. It also makes a great whiteboard.

More details after the jump.

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Recent photos from my trip to Boston.