scotthodge.org

Woops.

This, that, and the other....

Anthony Bourdain is hangin' in South Asia right now.  Kinda jealous.  Especially after what I just saw outside on my driveway.  Several inches.

Apple Insider's review of the new Apple iPod In-Ear Headphones.  I hate the standard headphones that they give with the iPhone and iPod.  C'mon, whose ears are shaped for those things???

Ben Arment has some good conversation happening on "mission statements" VS. "mantras." 

Found this new site.  If you're into design it's worth checking out.

Just downloaded a Christmas album called Advent Songs.  It's a nice, eclectic mix from the folks at Sojourn Music.  And it's free if you tell five people!

Have you seen this great new site?  It's called I Am Second.  Thanks to Jason Boucher for the link.

My foot is asleep right now.  Hate that...

Watch & hear Sol Sender talk about how they designed President Elect Obama's campaign logo.  Fellow Chicago folks btw.

I have no idea why I thought of this, but did you know they have Shakey's Pizza in Tokyo?  I remember walking through the Takeshita-dori district (I think...) and seeing one.  For some reason that blew my mind.  Apparently, they're all over there.  Anywho.

Lastly, I've linked to this guy before, but holy smokes.....his amazing food photos make me miss Thailand like crazy!

To bed I go.  G'nite.

iPhone Issues, UPDATED 9/2 1:30PM

Ok, so I'm a big Apple guy.  Everyone knows that.  I use a MacBook Pro and our entire staff is now using Macs.  And I can honestly say that switching from PC to Mac was a great move for all of us.

Now, let me talk about the iPhone....

In a lot of ways, the iPhone truly is a revolutionary phone.  It's freakin' sexy....  The navigation is amazing.  And there are some pretty cool apps available for it.  So when 3G version came out, I upgraded. 

Or so I thought...

Because now after having the phone for a couple of months, I'm starting to wonder if this really was an "upgrade."  Where do I begin?  Hmmm....  Let's see.  I'm going to bullet point this, which is something I only do when I can quickly rattle of more than three things.  Which, in this case, isn't good.

• Network Switching - The phone does not effortlessly switch from 3G to Edge.  In fact, if I'm on a phone call in 3G mode and the signal goes weak, instead of switching over to Edge - the call is dropped!  So now, whenever I need to use the phone for talking, I have to go in and switch it off of 3G first.
  
  
• Crack - Which I think I need a little bit of right about now....  Ok, kidding.  But the casing on the phone is starting to show little hairline cracks along the edges UNDER the glass.  I'll try to post a photo to show you what I'm talking about.
  
  
• Battery Life - Complete Crap.  (Even WITH 3G shut off...)
  
  
• Lag Time - When I click on my contacts......it shows the opening page, but then reacts SLOWLY.  It just sits there.  Same with a couple other programs.

(TIME OUT - ORCHARD PRAYER RHYTHM TWITTER TEXT JUST RECEIVED....BRB.) 

Ok, that was good.  Needed that!  Ok, where was I??

• iPod spontaneaously turning on.  Every once in a while, the iPod just starts playing.  Which stinks when I'm in church or a meeting.
  
  
• Email issues.  I have no idea why this is happening, but sometimes the only way I can get my email to download is if I restart my phone.  Otherwise, it just sits there and acts like it's looking for emails, but doesn't do anything.
  
  
• Pagination for SMS.  When I scroll to write someone an SMS, my phone doesn't paginate correctly.  I have to RESTART the phone so that I can even get to the text box to type the SMS message. 

Now, I know that I'm opening up a can of worms here - especially with all my Blackberry friends who are reading this and thinking to themselves, "HA!  Scott!  See, we were right!"  Well let me just say that I've already instructed my assistant, Terri, who approves all of the comments on this blog to ignore all of your comments and to also add your personal email to the Florida Revival Email List.  So please, don't even bother!  :)

Secondly, if you know me, you know that I'm an optimist.  I hate complainers.  So....let me also mention that I have faith that Apple is going to fix this and make it right.  And I will keep you posted as to how that goes.  I'm taking my first step towards getting this worked out TODAY. 

That's it for now....  I'll update the above list as I recall what else has been going wrong with the phone.  I know there are others, but I really have to go now. 

Reason #436 why you need to switch to a Mac.

iChat!

What's Your Stand?

It's official.  The last couple of Mac stragglers on our staff (kidding guys...) have now transitioned from PC to Mac.  Now we're looking for a good notebook "stand" solution for those of us who use their notebooks as their main office computer.

Here's a few we're looking at:

Griffin Curve 2

Griffin iCurve

iLevel

Any suggestions?  What do you use? 

My Own Widget!

Folks...  I've got a widget!  :)

My friend Elmer created a widget for Mac users that shows my blog contents in a little box that looks like this:

Pretty cool, huh?  And it can all be yours for the low, low price of $49.95!  Well, maybe not.  But you can download it for free. 

Better yet, I will actually pay YOU to download it.  :)

Download the widget here. (Mac users only, sorry PC folks!)

Prrrrrrrrr....

Hey Mac addicts - how many of you are upgrading to Leopard this weekend? 

Those of you who are - how are you doing it?  Clean install?  If so, what's the easiest way to do that?

PS - Any of you Chicago folks going to be standing in line at the Oak Brook Apple store tonight?  Not that I am...  Just wondering.  :)

Caption?

This was the scene in our "holding space" a few minutes after my talk at Innovate 2007. 

   
(Click for larger version.)

Does anyone have a good caption for this?  (And yes, those are all Macs that you see...) 

Battery

Bad battery...

Good battery!

Apple battery replacement program for my MacBook Pro.  Qualifications include being under 300 charge cycles.  Mine was at 299 yesterday when I called.  Phew...! 

New battery in less than 24 hours.  And now, no more 53% charge.

Not bad, 'eh?