B. Mann Consulting

I'm still using Spanning Sync to sync my local calendars to Google. Calendaring is the main sync issue for me: my phone syncs with my local iCal, and then my local iCal syncs to multiple calendars that I have. This is still a bit tricky, since I have a personal Gmail account as well as multiple Google Apps for Domains accounts. My main request is to support multiple accounts and use the "native" login for that account, rather than having to use one account that has access to all calendars. This does work for calendars, but doesn't work for contacts: your contacts will be synced to only one account.

For calendars only, if you have a Series 60 phone, there is also CalSyncS60. This lets you sync directly from your phone to Google calendar. Except, I never got it to work quite right, and I don't have a data plan at the moment, so syncing would be mainly at the home or office where I have wifi.

I spent some time this weekend updating a long ago how to post on configuring mass virtual hosting for Apache on Mac OS X -- the original version was from April 2004!

I do lots of testing on my laptop, and while I'm now quite familiar with VirtualHost entries from the dedicated servers I work with, this is actually even easier: just create a directory with the name of the host and requests for that host will be served from the directory. It all comes down to good old mod_vhost_alias. I probably should do some more direct examples of mixing and matching this with other host directives. As mentioned at the end of the article, aside from symlinking one directory to another, I don't know of another way to point multiple hosts at the same web root. I'll get to it if I end up needing it myself, it works for now.

First, what the heck is CHDK??! Basically, it's a "firmware enhancement" for a whole list of Canon PowerShot cameras (supported camera model list here). You follow a process where you copy some files onto your memory card, and instead of your camera booting the "regular" operating system, it boots from the memory card instead.

OK, so what does all THAT mean? Basically, today's digital cameras have operating systems -- software -- that runs many of their features. In fact, software is some times one of the main difference between "lower end" cameras and the higher end Digital SLRs. By loading this software onto your camera, you get access to a whole host of other features. The CHDK in Brief page has a list of those additional features -- the three of most interest to be so far are 1) enabling RAW mode, 2) exposure times as long as 65 seconds and 3) exposure times as little as 1/10,000 of a second. There are all sorts of other scripts that can actual be loaded and run on the camera as well. I'm interested in checking out the intervalometer aka timelapse scripts.

So, I spent perhaps 3 hours on Friday, cursing and swearing after the first 30 minutes, swapping my SD card between my computer and my camera, trying to get this stuff working. Looks like most people that are messing with this are on Windows or Linux, and getting this working on the Mac presents some special challenges.

Here are the steps (and yak shaving) that I had to do to get CHDK running on my Canon S5 IS. This assumes that you won't run screaming from using the Terminal, and are at least going to be OK cut and pasting commands in.

So...who else thinks there is going to be an iPhone Nano?

The main complaint against the iPhone seems to be the price point. Looking at things like the widely popular Motorola RAZR, which ended up in the mass market price bracket, I just have to believe that Apple is thinking along the same lines.

A similar form factor as the Nano, except screen taking the place of the click wheel. What else removed? Not sure, maybe no wifi? Limited storage?

Anyway, just thought I would record this crazy idea. I have no inside information, only time will tell if I'm right. And without a photoshop mock up, I'm not going to get tons of traffic :P

Update: Alexa commented and made a Photoshop of an iPod Touch Nano / iPhone Nano:

Everyone loves a good Apple rumours post, and since tomorrow is a "special Apple event", we've got only hours to wait until we know the real answer...hence the perfect time to predict.

What I'd *like* to see is my own long-predicted Mac Tablet. But really, with the iPhone, isn't that product already here? So....what I would like to see is an iPhone without the "phone" part -- a touch screen iPod with Wifi that runs OS X. It really is an iPhone, just without the cellular connection (or contract). But with WiFi, that could mean GoogleTalk / Skype / whatever for voice communications (with my bet on GoogleTalk). Yes, sort of like Nokia's N800.

OK, so back from dream land to something that's more likely. The iPod Nano becomes the "classic" iPod for audio, and a new touchscreen, wide aspect iPod is the "Video iPod". No WiFi, that'll come in later revs.

AppleTV revs? Well, it fits in the general video category, and there's been noise around TV downloads recently. Aside: so NBC is high as a kite. Regardless, I just want the licensing figured out so I can buy stuff in Canada! Actual details? No idea...probably just software, maybe some gaming support.

What are your predictions? Any purchasing plans? What are you waiting for?

Update: so, we now have an iPod Touch. Sweet. And it comes with Wifi already. Yep, the tablet is here...

I've continued to think about GPS and geolocation, and thinking about how to, well, be more geo.

Update 2: you can now participate in a bulk buy of a Globalsat DG100-GPS from Expansys.

Some of this in context of Placeblogger, of course, more of it in imagining a future where even MORE photos and media are easily discoverable as being "local". In fact, Jeffrey Veen's Fixing the Web has a modest proposal to geo-enable *everything*:

I wish every device that was capable of talking to the network could send its geolocation. I'd like this to be fundamental—let's send longitude and latitude in the HTTP header of every request. Let's make it as ubiquitous and accessible as the time stamp, user agent, and referring URL.

So, it has to be easy, it has to be (almost) always on, and I need to be able to easily combine geo information with other media -- blog posts, photos, videos, etc. -- that get created along the way.

Enter GPS logging devices. "What is a GPS logger?", you ask. Well, it's a simple GPS receiver that does nothing more than log your location to local memory with a timestamp, which you can later pull off onto your computer as a GPS "track". It's small, it's battery powered, and you can keep it with you all the time. OK, OK, still too complicated.

1. Buy GPS logger
2. Turn on and clip to belt
3. Walk around taking pictures, video, blogging, etc.
4. Get back to your computer, download the GPS track and the media you've just taken
5. Run some software to merge your GPS location information with your pictures (e.g. GPS Photo Linker)
6. Voila! Thousands of your pictures on a map

Of course, this works for keeping track of hiking, biking, running, boating or anything else where you might want to see a map of a route you've taken after the fact.

After a little research on where to buy (I like Expansys and NCIX) and what to buy (this review of the Globalsat DG100-GPS and the Sony GPS-CS1 was immensely helpful -- some photos by the reviewer rakerman on Flickr are good to get a sense of size), I'm pretty sure that the Globalsat DG100-GPS is the unit for me. It charges over USB, has a longer battery life, and a bunch of different logging modes. It can even do "GPS mouse mode", where it can act as a GPS receiver for a laptop (e.g. various mapping software packages on your laptop showing real time location info for when you do have your laptop with you).

The only, only downside is that it really doesn't work all too well with the Mac. As in, it comes with a bunch of crazy Windows software and that's about it. Enter ClueTrust's LoadMyTracks, a Mac app for sending and receiving GPS data tracks to/from various devices. It doesn't *currently* support the Globalsat unit, but...

...here's where you come in: Want to pay around $100 CDN for a Globalsat DG100-GPS and start geologging your social media? Leave a comment below, and I'll continue talking to Expansys about getting a bulk order in (we'll need to buy 5 or more), including arranging to get a unit to the guys at ClueTrust. I've put emails in to both Expansys and ClueTrust, and the guys at ClueTrust have provisionally said that they should be able to make it work nicely on the Mac. And of course, if you're on Windows, feel free to just take advantage of a bulk order :P

Update: in the comments, Richard Akerman, the person whose review I enjoyed, did a round up of GPS logging and the Mac. Looks like we are on the right track to try and get more support in software...

I've been listening to music before going to bed (and using music as an alarm clock). Last night I used iTunesShut, which lets you set a number of songs or a number of minutes for iTunes to play before it slowly fades out the music over time and stops. See the Macworld review for a longer explanation.

The songs? I just bought Feist's "The Reminder" and Mathew Good's "Hospital Music".

I installed an iTune's Alarm Clock last night, and was woken this morning by some electronica: Rising High Trance Injection: Perry and Rhodan - The Beat Just Goes Straight On & On.

Have a good day, all.

Mossberg has posted his review of the iPhone, calling it a "breakthrough handheld computer". What caught my eye was this statement:

But the iPhone has a major drawback: the cellphone network it uses. It only works with AT&T (formerly Cingular), won't come in models that use Verizon or Sprint and can't use the digital cards (called SIM cards) that would allow it to run on T-Mobile's network. So, the phone can be a poor choice unless you are in areas where AT&T's coverage is good. It does work overseas, but only via an AT&T roaming plan.

Uh....what? Somehow, we had always assumed that this would be a GSM phone. The confusion about the AT&T vs. Cingular brand heightens this. I was under the impression that AT&T was moving to GSM...but Cingular's network was/is CDMA based.

If the iPhone is, indeed, a CDMA phone, then the whole will the iPhone be locked to Cingular question is a bit moot: without SIM cards, you can't take it to another network.

What does this mean for the timeline of a Canadian iPhone provider? Well, Rogers is a GSM network, not CDMA. So...Bell or Telus? Well, just a bit more time and some more of this should be revealed.

Update: ok, I'm pretty sure iPhone as CDMA phone is incorrect, here's another review from USA Today:

In techie terms, iPhone is a "quad-band GSM" phone, meaning you can operate it overseas. (You'll have to tell AT&T to turn on international roaming.)

So. We know that iPhone *is* a GSM phone. But no SIM card. Our best guess now is that this is all done in software / firmware...hence the iTunes activation step. So, unless you know how to re-program the iPhone's firmware to make it emulate another carrier's SIM....the iPhone is locked to only the networks that Apple chooses to support. Which, however, they can update through iTunes.

Wow. Apple iTunes as gateway to buying cellphone services. I'm still shaking my head at how they managed to put the carriers in a headlock...and still sad that they took away user choice by not just having a user-accessible SIM card.

Update 2: OK, last update on this (and boy, this blog post now is completely wrong). The iPhone *does* have a SIM card slot, which we can see thanks to David Pogue's graphic about it. The comment says:

If you insert a pin or an unfolded paperclip into the pinhole and push hard, the pre-installed SIM card tray pops out. Any recent AT&T SIM card should work, although only after iPhone activitation in the iTunes software.

Thanks to Scott Langevin for pointing this out in the comments.

So, final final conclusion -- the iPhone is a GSM phone (duh!), it *does* have a SIM card (yay!), and it is somehow locked and/or tied into iTunes activation. Next challenge: unlock the iPhone....

OK, WWDC is on its way and we need to guess what might be announced. Here are some data points:

• a Macbook rev has been announced
• a Macbook Pro rev has been announced
• the iPhone is out and is supercoolawesome already 
• we don't know everything about Leopard
• usually something "cool" gets announced at WWDC

So, by that logic, we might see something not so exciting like "brushed steel iMacs" (rumor passing on credit to Dave Shea).

But, I'm going to take a stab at predicting what we might see: I think we're in for a 12" Macbook Pro (or a different name?). But with a difference. No keyboard. The entire surface will be a touchpad / tablet / screen thingie, kind of like the iPhone. You can use a virtual keyboard, or you can do crazy touch sensitive actions.

There are reports of patents going back a while (and yes, that might just be iPhone related), and then there is that crazy virtual keyboard company that I can't find a link to now, that Apple bought some time ago. 

There. That's it. That's my guess. I hope I'm right :P

Update: I found a link to a "leaked" outline for the WWDC keynote tomorrow -- talking about a 10" iPhone at Home...which is pretty close to the "tablet / non computer" that I've been thinking Apple would launch for quite some time.