Territorial Bloggings

So, I’ve had the new 17″ MacBook Pro for a couple of days now, using it enough to form more than just the cursory first impressions ( pretty, big, fast, cool, etc… ). Here’s a quick rundown on what’s struck me as the most significant & impressive elements of this beast so far.

The Screen: It’s not just that it’s big (which it is), it’s also that it’s so clear & bright. Frankly, the reason I pushed to make the jump from the 15″ to the 17″ was in the hopes that the extra workspace on 17′s 1900×1200 display (as compared to the the 15′s 1440×900) would be more than worth the extra 1.1 lbs. It is. It would be worth another pound. The extra screen real estate is useful, empowering, and gorgeous. WIN

The Body: I’ve watched the videos on the new MBP unibody design. I’ve even handled my mom & dad’s 13″ & 15″ MBP’s a few times. I knew they were solid. But I didn’t know just how solid, and now (and I use this word advisedly) sensual, the unibody design was until I got the chance to live with this 17″ MBP. It’s solid, supple, and just plain nice to touch. It feels good, and that translates into a computer that’s nicer & easier to use. The tolerances to which it is engineered are simply amazing. Everything fits. Everything works. My old 15″ MBP was solid, but this one makes it look/feel creaky & flimsy by comparison. WIN

The Keyboard: I’ve long been a fan of the new style (sleek, low-profile) Mac keyboards. I use one on my PC at work, and have one as the external keyboard for when I have the MBP “docked” & connected to a second monitor at my desk. The 17″ MBP has one of these keyboards (the old 15″ MBP didn’t), and in combination with the unibody engineering, typing on this is simply a joy. No stress, no strain, & great tactile feedback. Granted, it’s no IBM Model M – but what has ever matched that? No, pair the MBP keyboard with the fabulous multi-touch trackpad, and you’ve got a big WIN

The Battery: This MBP has one of the new Apple-designed, lithium-polymer, long-life batteries that is hardwired into the laptop. I.e., you can’t swap it out on the fly. I don’t care, as it doesn’t really impact me. I never had that come up with the old MBP, as I’m not a road-warrior type user. This new battery is rated for 1000 full discharge/recharge cycles, and up to 8 hrs of (theoretical) life per charge. Thus far, out of curiosity, I’ve done two cycles just to see what I could get using as I normally would if I had it plugged into the power. And I’ve gotten right at 4 hours each time. WIN

The other stuff is expected, really, in that it’s not surprising that a C2D 3.06 is fast, that 4GB of RAM is roomy & fast, that a 500GB 7200RPM HD is big & fast, and that the whole package is perfectly integrated with Snow Leopard.

All in all, I’m pleased as punch, and about as happy as a Mac fanboy can be…

-ghp

This is way, way cool! (yes, I’m a tech geek, and I’m ok with it…)

The sounds of those old drives and components is just, well, comforting. And to hear it used for the good of one of Queen’s greatest hits? Well, that’s just a sublime experience, now isn’t it?

-ghp

I now have what I’ve coveted for quite a while: an iPhone!

Thanks to the IRS forcing a change in how cell phones are handled by employers (the Feds want their tax bite). Ownership is getting tranferred to employees, along with a stipend to pay for the service, and the Feds get their slice out of that.

Well, I was able to trade my Verizon BlackBerry Curve for an iPhone on AT&T – a trade I was more than happy to make, even given our being a GroupWise email/calendar shop.

The WordPress app for the iPhone is very cool, and this far I don’t miss the BlackBerry’s keyboard at all, as the touchscreen version on the iPhone is really well done.

More as it’s warranted…

-ghp

I know that The Wittenberg Trail is reasonably en vogue as the social networking site of choice in the online Lutheran world. I must confess, however, that it’s always been a bit too much for me. At first, it was largely because I just didn’t like the idea/concept of the whole social networking thing – it was a bit too chummy for my taste & comfort. And I didn’t need the discussion areas & pseudo-blogging spaces that these types of sites give, because I get discussions & blogs at, wait for it… discussion forums and blogs.

Every so often, I would revisit WT to see if it would grab me, or if I would somehow get it now that some time had passed. I never did. If anything, the growth in WT put me off to it even more. I knew that good stuff was going on there, because I knew lots of good folks who were active there (I interacted with them at other sites…).

In the past few weeks, though, one thing has changed – I’m not as dead set against the social networking model anymore. I’ve gotten more involved in Facebook. At first, as is my wont, I was going to segment it off to have FB be just for my “non-lutheran stuff” – i.e., college friends. Then I started getting in contact with some high school friends (something I never thought would happen, but I’m glad it did…). Then I started seeing that many/most of the folks that I have contact with in the Lutheran blogosphere also have a FB presence. So, not only did that knock down my compartmentalization, it also way knocked down any need/desire I might have for getting back on WT.

It comes down to this, I guess — I now see the utility of the social networking site concept. FB delivers that utility to me in a far greater and richer way than does WT, despite WT’s narrower niche strengths. I don’t need those particular niches met in a social networking site because I get them elsewhere (discussion forums & the blogosphere). Since FB can give me the superset of the WT folks I know and the non-WT folks I want to link up with, it’s the better choice.

Thus, I’m going to kill off my WT account because, 1) I don’t want to leave a loose end hanging out there, and 2) I don’t have the time or the inclination to keep up with WT, for all the reasons listed above.

-ghp

From the Oct 25, 2008 Belief Watch column in Newsweek:

“With a scrap of bagel and a sip of Crystal Light, Beth McDonald gave communion to her husband. Then, after a blessing, he gave communion to her. Music played as the celebrant intoned the ancient words, “Do this in remembrance of me.” The experience was among the most spiritually powerful of her life. “I had my eyes closed,” McDonald told me. “We were praying … I got really choked up.”

McDonald was not in church; she was in her living room in Minnesota. The celebrant was not at church; he was at home, in Santa Fe, N.M. Other participants logged on from Sri Lanka, Australia and the Netherlands. Through streaming video and the Internet, all were joined in holy communion.

As technology reshapes our world, as our “friends” become the people we know on Facebook as well as the ones we invite home for dinner, the definition of community is taking on radically new meanings. Nowhere is the concept of community more crucial than in religion. In the West, people traditionally worship together, in a group, in one room; that togetherness has theological import. In Christianity, the sacrament of communion underscores the unity of the faithful; consuming the consecrated bread and wine binds Christians with each other, with the saints in heaven and with the Lord. Now, at the farthest corners of the Christian world, a few people are applying new-tech concepts of community to this ancient rite. The example above is among the most avant-garde. The celebrant, Zeph Daniel, is a musician who preaches online to a group of Christians disconnected from the traditional church. One of his slogans is “Leave religion and find God.”"

This is neither Holy, nor Communion. Discuss…

-ghp

This is pretty cool – I found a plugin (WPhone) for WordPress that enables me to pretty much run my entire blog from my BlackBerry handheld device! From writing posts (like this one) to doing simple admin stuff, it’s pretty darned nifty, if you ask me. It might even loosen me up a little & get me posting more without getting quite so hung up on precise verbiage…

-ghp

One of the bad things about what I do for a living is that I have to carry a cell phone. One of the good things about that bad thing is that, for various & sundry reasons, it gets to be a Blackberry “smartphone” device. That’s good because, if I’m going to have to carry the electronic tether around with me, at least it gets to be one that is a cool toy & has lots of nifty, geeky stuff that I can do with it.

As a side note, it seems that the friendly IRS has decided that companies providing cell phones to their employees is an untaxed benefit, as those employees have been using those phones for some non-work-related purposes. Imagine that! And we can’t have a non-taxed benefit out there, now can we?

This is causing many employers, mine included, to examine their current policies, and craft new ones that close this loophole. The most common way of doing so will be to provide a stipend (taxable, natch…) which the employee can then use to purchase the necessary/required cell phone service/package. My current employer hasn’t done this yet, but the writing is on the wall, and it’s going to happen sometime in the next few months. So, I was able to get a new device request pushed through, so that one last new Blackberry got bought for me without having to go through the hassle of a stipend purchase and/or reimbursement.

So, I was able to snag the nifty-keen Blackberry Curve 8330 from Verizon. And it’s pretty darned cool. I’ve even gone over to the dark (dork?) side and gotten a Bluetooth headset (a Jabra 8040, which I highly recommend, as it’s been very good) to pair with it. As I’ve gotten over a bit of self-consciousness re: using the headset, I’ve found it to be immensely useful & convenient, particularly when I take/make a phone call in the car.

If you already have a Blackberry and you want to learn more about it and/or want to trick it out a bit, a great place to start on that quest is CrackBerry.com – a great clearinghouse of reviews, information, downloads, shopping, and generally all things Blackberry related.

Newer Blackberries also afford you the luxury of customizing the visual interface via theming. After a while, the stock themes get a bit boring, and the free offerings out there are a bit thin & uneven. There are, however, some good, high quality, and reasonably priced themes available. And some of the theme designers will even customize their offerings for you, if you ask nicely enough! ;^) Once such top-notch designer is Corey Visto, creator of the amazingly good Visto Premium BlackBerry Themes. Corey’s Chrono & BB OSX themes are particularly amazing, and he even did a custom job for me that combined elements of those two themes into a theme that was just what I was looking for in a theme. Corey’s a top-notch designer, a pleasure to do business with, and gets my highest recommendation!

In a perfect world, I would’ve liked to have held out for an iPhone, but that just wasn’t in the cards — boo! The 8330 Curve is a pretty darned good consolation prize, especially given how well it integrates with the Google Apps that I use for my domain (gmail, gdocs, gcal), its integration with Remember The Milk for keeping on task & organized, and a bunch of other stuff like web browsing & the like.

-ghp

Getting a new toy is always fun, even if the reason for getting it isn’t the best.

Case in point: I just got a nifty new treadmill. (yes, dear, I know, we got it – the allowances I have to make now that I know the wife is reading my blog…) It’s really very cool — sturdy, powerful, & lots of cool features. Ultimately, though, the reason for the purchase was because I’m a lazy so-n-so. A lazy, 40 year old, so-n-so. Who’s overweight, borderline diabetic, and has high blood pressure & cholesterol. I also have a largely sedentary (and way too stressful) job, and I’m not a big fan of the great outdoors. And I like to eat. Did I mention that I’m lazy? But, other than those minor things, everything’s just peachy.

You get the picture.

Anyhoo, my main thinking behind the treadmill is that I’m far more likely to do something if I can do it within the convenient comfort of my basement, rather than having to go out into the elements. For some folks, the elements are a/the draw. I’m not one of those folks, at least not on a consistent basis. Neither am I one who gets my moneys worth out of a gym membership. One, I lack the discipline & motivation to get there all the time, and two, I don’t like being around the people (I like having my equipment ready & waiting for me right when I want to use it!).

The challenge is, and will continue to be, to keep on keeping on. To use it & not get discouraged. Because doing something is better than doing nothing.

And it looks pretty darned cool… ;^)

-ghp

I just installed a new comment management/aggregation app/tool/thing – Disqus.

It got pretty good reviews over at WebWare’s recent Battle of the comment add-ons, so I figured I’d give it a try. One of the niftier things about it is the community aspect of it. From the Disqus FAQ page:

Disqus, pronounced discuss, is a service for blog comments. Disqus enables bloggers to make the conversations on their blogs more interactive and manageable. Our distributed comment system connects readers across blog communities, while empowering publishers in promoting their content.

In short, using Disqus is a better way for people to participate in conversations initially started by blog posts.

Largely, I’m writing this post so that there’ll be a post for which the new commenting system will be in place — the old, WordPress comment system is still in effect for posts that already have existing comments.

Hopefully it’ll be transparent, easy to use, and bring some value (to me, if no one else) to the party.

If you have any thoughts on it, let me know.

-ghp

Well, I’ve jumped in & done the upgrade to the newest version of WordPress. Version 2.5 came out about a week ago, but I haven’t had the time to get to the upgrade, what with all the testing & checking for updated themes & plugins, until today.

Those who visit the site directly will notice a new theme has been installed. Not because I was necessarily dissatisfied with the old one, but more because I like to change things up every so often, and picking a new theme that was 2.5 ‘compliant’ seemed as good a reason as any.

I think that I was able to test things out enough to ensure that nothing is broken, but it’s almost a certainty that something will have slipped through the cracks. So, if you run into anything that doesn’t work right, please let me know by dropping me an email or just clicking on the ‘Contact’ link near the top of the page.

-ghp