10 minutes with an iPhone

I visited the Apple store in Bellevue this afternoon and Apple iphone-2might as well call it the iPhone store. There were two giant iPhone replicas in the display case as well as two large tables of full of iPhones to touch and demo.

Say what you will about Apple but they know how to display their merchandise. Go into a Best Buy or CompUSA and their cameras, computers, mp3 players and phones are usually tied down. If you’re lucky, they are attached to a metal tether that’s long enough to lift it 6 inches off the table. You have the sense the last thing they want you to do is actually test out their products.

But the Apple store is just the opposite. Everything in the store is situated  and displayed as if to say, “Pick me up and see what I can do!”. Which is exactly what I did with the iPhone. A few quick thoughts gleaned from the 10 minutes I spent with it:

  1. Oh that display! Simply gorgeous.
  2. Touch screen worked better than I expected.
  3. It’s smaller and thinner than I thought.
  4. Compared to my Motorola Q, the iPhone felt speedy
  5. It’s bright. Did I mention that gorgeous screen?

For obvious reasons I couldn’t test out the phone feature but as a video iPod it was fantastic. Apple is so much further ahead than Microsoft and its Windows Mobile it’s not even funny. Compared to the iPhone, Windows Mobile is years behind.

It’s probably a good thing the iPhone doesn’t support Exchange mail or I’d want to ditch Verizon and switch.

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The nifty IE Tab for Firefox

As much as I enjoy Firefox, there are times when I need to run Internet Explorer such as running Windows Update or retrieving email over Outlook Web Access.

Instead of firing up IE, I can run IE inside of Firefox with a nifty little add-on called IE Tab. Once installed I tell IE Tab which sites to launch in IE. See screen below.

IEtab

 

 

 

 

One thing to keep in mind, if you have other add-ons such as Mouse Gestures installed (my favorite Firefox add-on) they will not work in IE Tab. This isn’t a big deal, but I used to add MSNBC to IE Tab until I realized my gestures wouldn’t work.

Here is Windows Update running under Firefox using IE Tab. Without IE Tab this would not be possible.

winup

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These are the best shoes I own

After spending 10 hour days on my feet last week in Orlando, I can say that the Ecco Austin Oxfords are my favorite shoes. The leather is very soft and feels worn in the first time you slip them on. The back of the shoe is nicely padded and the heel is the right height. The only change I made to the shoe was replacing the laces with a more rigid pair making it harder for them to come untied.

As much as I like Cole Haan they are not nearly as comfortable as these which are on sale now at Nordstrom. I think I need a pair in black now.

Ecco Austin Oxford in Espresso ecco

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What I learned at the tea party

teacupI woke up this morning and found myself in the middle of a tea party hosted by our kids. This is the first official tea party I recall attending and it was clear from the start that I wasn’t privy to all the rules. Here are a few things I learned by attending the tea party:

  1. You can’t just show up to the party looking like you rolled out of bed. A dress code exists that includes “nice shoes and no T-shirts”. No exceptions.
  2. Preparing for the tea party is just as important as the party itself. As a rule of thumb, expect the prep time to take three times as long as the party.
  3. You are served at a tea party. You don’t place an order. “it’s not a restaurant”.
  4. Girls serve the food, boys pour the tea. This rule is set in stone, I’m told.
  5. Colors matter. Oh boy do they matter as I learned when I tried using a green cup with a yellow plate. This won’t happen again. Lesson learned.
  6. The typical spread at a tea party is “cake, pizza, chocolate milk, water, chili, bread, cereal…..” Pretty much everything except tea.
  7. Attending a tea party requires a good imagination. The plastic piece of pizza pulled in triple duty as the pizza, cake and bread.
  8. When the party is over, the attendees are responsible for picking up their plates, dishes and cups. I guess they weren’t kidding when they said this “isn’t a restaurant”.

I learned a lot more at the tea party than I expected and it was fun to see how the three kids worked together to pull it off. Luca and Anna loved matching up the plates and cups and preparing the food. Lincoln was just happy to be included. As best I could tell, Lincoln spent the entire time on “watch the teapot” duty.

It might have been the first tea party I’ve attended, but I can’t imagine attending a better one.

What do you want to become?

When I was seven or eight years old I wanted to be an F7-Compassarchitect. Back then all I knew about being an architect was that my best friend at the time, Guy, wanted to be one and that it included getting to play with a compass. Guy was the coolest kid on the block so if he wanted to be architect, so did I. It took another few years before I realized I didn’t want to be an architect. 

My father was a coach and teacher for over 30 years. During my teens as well as through college I don’t ever recall wanting to be a coach or teacher. My father would leave before 6 am most mornings and return home late into the evening, especially during football or basketball season. The long hours had an influence on me and I told myself that when I grew up and got a job, it would be one that didn’t keep me away from home so often.

Well, things don’t always go as planned. My first job out of college I worked as a retail store manager. The store was small but the hours were long and included most holidays and weekends. When I got into technology a few years later I told myself that I didn’t want to work weekends or late nights. For the most part I was able to do that except I had to travel a lot, much of the time with very little notice.

Looking back on my career I see that the hours I’ve put in average quite close to those my dad worked while I was growing up. But what I realize now that I didn’t back then was that my dad loved his job and the hours probably didn’t seem so long to him. He loved working with kids. He enjoyed teaching and learning from them. The influence he’s had on kids over the 30 years is immeasurable.

Although my career has been challenging and enjoyable so far, it’s only been the last few years that I’ve felt I’m giving anything back to the younger generation. Most of my career has been spent helping pad the coffers of large companies and high powered executives. But my current jobs allows me to interact with a young, fun group of people who have taught me a lot.

As much as I love technology, I’d switch jobs with my dad in a heartbeat.

Bad bed at the Rosen Centre

I was in Orlando last week to attend to help support a conference. I stayed at the Rosen Centre Hotel located right next to the convention center where the conference was held.

On the last night of my stay, I jumped into bed to watch some television. As I rolled over on my bed something caught my shorts and snagged them. I looked down to find a metal spring sticking up through the mattress! I removed the sheets from the bed and noticed two large holes in the mattress.

I had two Queen beds in my room so I slept on the other bed that night. The next morning I returned to the lobby to check-out of the hotel. I mentioned to the women at the front desk that I got poked in the butt by one of their mattresses. She didn’t even look up from her computer screen.

She kept typing and finally said, “Oh that’s too bad. Sorry about that” as she handed me a bill for nearly $1200 for a 5-night stay.

If you need a place to stay in Orlando, I can’t recommend the Rosen Centre. Not only are their beds dangerous but they don’t seem to care about their guests.

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Seinfeld’s productivity secret

Lifehacker has an interesting article that explains one reason Jerry Seinfeld has become such a successful comic.

He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day.

He goes on to explain how Seinfeld uses a large calendar to make off the days he’d write. I might try this to keep track of my exercise.

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While supplies last

On my drive to work this morning I noticed the following sign displayed on on the lawn of house a few blocks away from our neighborhood:

“Dentist Chair for sale. Good condition”

The sign was made of wood and the letters have been painted in black with pink accents to give it curb appeal. Those strike me as strange colors to use on a sign of this sort, but I could be wrong since this is the first dentist chair I’ve seen someone advertise from their front lawn.

I suppose the chair could be used for other purposes besides dental work because I can’t imagine a practicing dentist purchasing a chair from what appears to be a one item yard sale.

Maybe I’ll notify my dentist.