iPad

So I succumbed to peer pressure and got an iPad. I reserved it on Saturday and picked it up on Monday. It’s the 32GB 3G model.

Surprisingly, the unlimited data plan from AT&T was still available (even though it was supposed to disappear last week, I think), so I went ahead and signed up for that. I don’t know if I’ll keep the data plan turned on; I may only need it occasionally.

I haven’t found a killer app for the iPad yet. Nothing I’ve played with so far really makes me think, “yeah, I needed one of these.” I’ve been using an app called FrontPocket on my iPod Touch to access my Backpack account. I checked to see if there was an iPad-specific version of FrontPocket out, and was surprised to see that the app appears to be discontinued entirely. It’s no longer in the app store, and there’s no mention of it on the developer’s web site anymore. There is, however, a new app for accessing Backpack from another developer, and they have an iPad-specific version. It’s called Satchel and it’s from Stand Alone Software. If I remember correctly, these guys have been around since the days of the Newton. (I vaguely recall using one of their apps on my Newton, but I don’t remember what it was.) So, I’m probably going to download that and give it a whirl. I don’t know if that’ll be my “killer app”, but maybe it’ll be useful.

Oh, and I ordered an Eco-View case from Marware. As usual with these things, I spent far too much time looking at cases on the web. If they’d had the standard Apple case in stock when I picked up my iPad, I probably would have settled for that. But they had *no* cases in stock at all, so I went nuts on the web, and decided that this one looked good.

jQuery and CSS


I’ve been doing some client-side stuff at work recently, and I’m realizing that I don’t know nearly enough about some of this stuff. So, I picked up a book on jQuery, “jQuery: Novice to Ninja”, and another one on CSS, “CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions”. The jQuery book is pretty good, and a pretty easy read. I haven’t started the CSS book yet. I’m somewhat chagrined to admit that I’ve kind of been “faking it” with CSS for the last few years. I’ve never actually sat down and read a book on CSS or taken a class, or anything like that. I know enough to get by, usually, but I definitely need to learn more.

Meanwhile, I’ve put off my attempt to get through any more ASP.NET exams for now. I’m just letting work needs dictate my independent study time. At some point, hopefully, I’ll be up to speed on enough of the stuff at work that I can get back to the certification exams.

Oh, and as an example of how little I know about CSS, I really don’t know how to style a div so these two Amazon link boxes will line up horizontally instead of vertically. If I messed around with it for an hour, I’d probably figure it out. But I should probably know how to do something like that off the top of my head.

Big Bambu


Big Bambu
Originally uploaded by andyhuey

I went into NYC yesterday, and spent some time at the Met. I went up to the roof to check out Big Bambu. It’s pretty cool.

I did not realize at the time, though, that Big Bambu is also the name of a Cheech and Chong album. This is funny, because, as I was looking at this installation, I thought to myself, “I wonder if this thing was all planned out in a CAD system, or if these guys just smoked a lot of weed and lashed a bunch of bamboo together at random?” So, the name would indicate the latter. But I think they did plan it out, at least to some extent, and were probably not high while climbing around in the bamboo, and lashing it all together.

WordPress

I like this post on converting from Blogger to WordPress. I was thinking about doing this myself, when Blogger announced that they were discontinuing FTP support. I decided to stay with Blogger for now, rather than learn WordPress, but I now need to learn WordPress for work, so maybe it’s time to look into this again. WordPress has a nice admin interface, and it’s kind of cool that you can run your own install, and do whatever you want with it.

My brother Pat’s old blog used Movable Type, and I was always impressed with MT’s admin interface, and plug-in support. WordPress is similar in many ways.

Eh, who am I kidding? I’ve been on Blogger for almost ten years now. I’m probably not going to change, unless Google shuts it down, or does something really weird with it.

Halloween 1976


Halloween
Originally uploaded by andyhuey

I think this is from Halloween 1976. I would have been only 9, and so still at an age where making a cardboard Liberty Bell costume, and painting it red, white, and blue, would have seemed like a good idea.

I finally finished uploading all the slides I had scanned in by ScanCafe. There are a bunch of good ones in there. Some very nice photos from Japan, though some seem to have picked up some mold or something that couldn’t be removed by their digital ICE.

a fun project at work

I’m starting a project at work right now that’s going to involve integrating content from a WordPress blog and Picasa Web into an ASP.NET site. I’m a little leery about this, since it seems that this could all be done directly in .Net, and would be more efficient that way, but I’m game to give it a try. It should be fun. (Yeah, I know, now that I’ve said that, I’m doomed.)

Dad’s old slides


00073_s_10af4mly9r0073
Originally uploaded by andyhuey

I just got my first batch of scans back from ScanCafe. I’m uploading about 2GB worth of images to Flickr right now. I think it’s going to take a while. Here’s a nice photo of me (in a Mets jacket) and my brother Mike (in a Yankees jacket).