I do enjoy the hype and speculation surrounding a new gadget release in the tech world … and few do it better than Apple. Last year’s iPhone 4s announcement was expected by most of us to be the iPhone 5, but it was not to be. This year everyone again expects them to adopt the “5” moniker – will Apple play with naming nomenclature again?
A few more fully assembled photos appeared this past weekend showing the familiar 4 and 4s design with a thinner and as “expected” taller profile. I suspect those who are already comfortable with the existing virtual keyboard will be pleased with the width remaining close to the current iPhone and appreciate the extra height above the familiar pop up keyboard. Those considering a switch from the new wider Android phones or a physical Blackberry/Palm Pre keys may not see keeping the narrow-ish width as an important feature.
After getting familiar with my wife’s Samsung, I’m thinking I may be able to give up the physical keyboard of my Palm Pre … still challenging as I get grumpier and more set in my ways. Still, if the new iPhone offers an improved camera (it probably does – previous post) as well as a 4G LTE Sprint radio and full day battery life that resembles that of the impressive iOS iPad. Here are a few more comparison photos from BGR.com.
I missed the usual busy weekend with the TDIClub’s TDIFest and my EAA friends at our annual fly-in and pancake breakfast, but I was able to be at my mom’s bedside with several from my family. Mom had a rare smile and wasn’t in pain. Her voice was weak, but her mind was sharp and clear. We are thankful for the way hospice is managing her pain, caring for her comfort and giving her time to talk with her family with a clear head. Brenda and I visited with her at Dorothy Love in Sidney and also enjoyed spending some time with my brother and his family as well as my cousins Diane and Bert ;(thanks for coming down).
Sharing a story while trying out Google’s Current reader on the iPad to see how it re-posts to my blog … but it is an interesting story.
Andrew Leaper, a Scottish skipper, has discovered the world’s oldest message in a bottle. He found the bottle while on the same fishing vessel where another mate had set the previous record, for a bottle that had been floating in the ocean for 92 years and 229 days. Now, Leaper has broken his buddy’s Guinness World Record: his discovery turned out to be a 98-year old message in a bottle.
Leaper told the BBC, “It was an amazing coincidence. It’s like winning the lottery twice.”
Within the bottle, a postcard written in June 1914 by Captain CH Brown of the Glasgow School of Navigation promised the finder a reward of 6 pence. It had been part of a scientific experiment in which 1,890 such bottles were released, in a bid to chart currents around Scotland.
Leaper said his friend Mark Anderson, who set the previous record in 2006, was “very unhappy that I have topped his record.” Anderson “never stopped talking about it – and now I am the one who is immensely proud to be the finder of the world record message in a bottle.”
The Republican National Convention was held this past week in Tampa, Florida and besides being shortened due to Hurricane Isaac, it was … in my opinion … a big success for Gov Mitt Romney and the Republicans. I watch many of the speeches during each of the three evenings and caught a few of the lessor names on news snippets. About the only disappointment was the speech by “mystery speaker” Clint Eastwood. I wanted to like it, but found it a little too edgy and even a bit offensive considering the audience – let’s just say that “it was odd.”
Standout speeches came from Mitt Romney’s wife Ann and VP pick Paul Ryan. Both were excellent and helped us learn a bit more about the candidate. Ann Romney was able to fill in some missing family history which highlighted Gov. Romney’s work ethic, intelligence, humility and love for family. Although many portrayed Mr. Romney as a “rich guy out of touch guy,” we learned that he was much more down to earth than expected and that he was certainly a self-made and ambitious businessman. Paul Ryan also was able to elucidate his family values and his ability to do the hard hitting expected of VP picks. He delivered the best line when he mention “staring up at fading Obama posters.”
We are four years into this presidency. The issue is not the economy that Barack Obama inherited, not the economy as he envisions, but this economy that we are living. College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life.
Governor Chris Christie was pretty good too, but like many pundits mentioned, he seemed focused on tooting his own horn rather than promoting Mitt Romney. On the other hand, Sen Marco Rubio was truly outstanding and surpassed my expectations … the Republican party definitely has some rising stars which has to make liberals squirm and conservatives ecstatic. Seeing the old guard step aside gave life back to the GOP and generated far more energy than when Senator John McCain ran in 2008 … except the juice generated by his lightening rod of a running mate, Gov Sarah Palin(noticeably absent this year I might add). Other stellar speeches were those given by Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Gov Susana Martinez, Gov Nikki Haley, former Sen Rick Santorum and Democrat turned Republican Artur Davis.
Romney’s speech was also “very good” … that’s on my scale of “poor to excellent” (my wife disagreed and said she’d rate it “excellent"). I thought he was able to show his human side, in part thanks to his wife’s speech and his many friends. Unfortunately he is not the gifted orator many would love to hear — not many can inspire like a Ronald Reagan or a Jack Kennedy. Frankly the “expectations” bar is pretty high. What he did say were many of the things traditional American wanted to hear. They want to believe things can and will be better and recognize the undelivered promises from President Obama who’s focus seems to be on everything except creating the milieu for private sector jobs. That message resonated when Romney personalized his “promise.”
President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans, and heal our planet. My promise … is to help you and your family.
Romney concluded with a 5 point version of his much criticized 59 point plan … one that most of us might have the attention span to read or hear.
North America will be energy independent by 2020.
Parents will be able to choose the school they want their children to attend.
Establish new trade agreements with foreign nations, including enforceable provisions.
Cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget.
Reducing taxes on businesses, simplifying and modernizing punitive business regulations, and both repealing, and finally, replacing, President Obama’s signature government health care program.
I know who I’ll be voting for this November as I don’t think we can survive 4 more years of President Obama’s big government policies and wasteful spending. I hope there are a few more like me who are growing tired of the dwindling “hope” and the wrong kind of “change.”
Do you ever say to yourself, “why didn’t I know this before now?” Well that what I though when a friend of mine ask if I’ve seen Jeff Dunham videos about him building and flying helicopters. “Helicopters?“(old posts 1 & 2)
Come to find out, he has built four of them and has been flying them since he was a kid … the first being models that were radio controlled. Very interesting … now why didn’t I know this before now? (earlier video below)
I’m finally getting around to adding a social media plugin for WordPress after I received a comment from a friend who said his Internet reading now comes from links being shared on Twitter and Facebook. I had to admit that I no longer use my long list of RSS feeds as often as I once did and instead “flip” through aggregators such as Zite and Flipboard on my iPad. I still would rather read stories forwarded (emailed) from trusted colleagues, but even more of them are using social networks tools that are being included in the “sharing bar” even knowing their clicks and forwards are being compiled (the “Sexy Bookmarks” bar is now included at the top of “full” posts).
After reviewing a few different plugins, the “Sexy Bookmarks” by Shareaholic seemed to fit the bill. The optional settings enabling me to exclude the bar from the main index and static pages, along with a single “half-hidden” less intrusive icons seemed like a good way to go. I’m not sure Internet users need so many social sites, but for now I’ll just include a fraction of what is available … yes, a fraction. Obviously Facebook and Twitter are the most popular … but there has been a recent change in 3rd place with Pinterest surpassing Google+(Experian’s chart from July 2012 to right).
Anyway, I chose to include the number of icons that would squeeze single row width-wise in a column and besides the major social sites, decided to include a the more generic Stumbleupon and a a Gmail button. It made more sense to include something I actually use rather than forwarding to blogging sites or add-ons for sharing photos, video or audio that are used in conjunction with Twitter, etc.
I’m reserving the right to remove the the plugin if it proves problematic or slows down the site to a crawl … let m know if you really dislike it.
Hurricane Isaac s-l-o-w-l-y made its way ashore in Louisiana last night bringing 80mph winds and torrential rains. The category 1 storm may not have packed the punch associated with tight eye-walled hurricanes, but because it is moving at only 8mph, it dumps rain for a much longer period of time.
Early reports are that a parish levy has been topped outside of the city, but that the new and improved 14 billion dollar levies are holding as engineered. About 75% of New Orleans residents are without power and there is some minor street flooding, according to emergency officials.
Isaac’s center is expected to move over Louisiana on Wednesday and Thursday and should cross into southern Arkansas by early Friday.
In checking on TS Hurricane Isaac’s progress over lunch it was clear to see that those living in low lying areas on either side of the Mississippi River better be prepared for some nasty weather — currently the biggest threat appears to be rain. It is kind of eerie to see satellite images of Hurricane Katrina from August 28, 2005 and Isaac on August 28, 2012 side by side ( 8/28/2005 blog post)— see WSJ interactive.
Testing a small video clip above using the an iPad and a Kodak Zx5 pocket cam! 🙂
Facebook comes through again and offered a connection to the past (1, 2, 3).
Recently I received an invite indicating my “XX” year Sidney High School reunion was being planned (35th if you must know). A Facebook URL was given so I dutifully plugged in my lightly used FB account and ended up adding a few friends … friends, I might add, that are actually my age. It was interesting seeing the names and trying to remember faces … oh how we have changed. A few of the standout names had me wondering what became of them. Sadly, I’ve since heard a couple have passed away, but others are scattered around the country.
One of them, a stand-out named Rob Pottorf, commented on one of my posts or photos and so figured I should say hello. Rob was easy to remember since he was involved with many high school activities; he was a talented musician, as well as being one of the few who was friendly to everybody no matter the clique. After high school, I do remember hearing that he was working in entertainment at Kings Island near Cincinnati, but I didn’t pay much attention to his career after that. His recent comment had me sleuthing his music Facebook page and I found that his current project is composing the music score for the movie Broken – pretty cool.
That started me wondering, “do I still have a copy of his high school single” – still in record form for those younger than me. That would be a piece of vinyl that is played with a needle known as a “45” – yes, pre-digital. Yup I did still have it … unfortunately can’t play it. Maybe there is a digital version of side 1 (Flight) and side 2 (Beautiful Day) out there somewhere? … hmm, so old that it’s probably in the public domain – ouch!
I felt a bit behind the times today searching for some old files in OS9 … then realized just how farahead of the timesthe Apple Macintosh computers were as I edited an image on Photoshop 5.5; it still ran flawlessly and with surprising speed.
The first nostalgic moment mentioned above had to do with reconnecting with a high school friend on Facebook … hmm, tomorrow’s post??
Click for larger image
