Phil compared writing the same 221-word passage using six different devices (including Pen & Paper) and shared the results on his site. It is very interesting to see the results and how far text-input on devices has come over the last few decades and even the last few years.

/via John Gruber.

As you may recall Bernie has a support control center on his desk. Today I came into Viddler HQ to discover that he’s pretty much a switcher.

Setting up the new 15-inch Macbook Pro. The Migration Assistant is absolutely incredible.

Update: After just the first charge the black Macbook is getting about 3 hours of battery life. Splendid.

Two years ago, near the one-year anniversary of my purchasing this black Macbook I wrote (sorry for the long quote, but please read on):

“I use my Macbook on a daily basis. I’ve put it through its paces. I’ve taken it on several trips across the country and it has always performed perfectly for me. The battery life is sufficient, the screen size is nearly perfect, its extensibility with external monitors and even my television is an added benefit. I have no real complaints.

I’d say the only thing that I would change, now that I’ve used it for an entire year, would be the size of the hard drive (though much larger sizes are now available in current models). The hard drive is only 80GB in this model of the Macbook which is not large enough for me to keep all of my music, video, and photos locally on the computer. Being that I’m using a laptop that may never be possible so I’ll always be tethered to some external drive(s) when I need that data.

I’ve had the opportunity to upgrade to a Macbook Pro but I am going to stick with this Macbook. I may even run it into the ground I love it so much. Even if I did upgrade to a larger hard drive, faster processor, and the ability to have much RAM – I’d probably still stick with the black Macbook. I really like the form factor, size, and weight of this computer. It has been the best computer I’ve ever owned.”

Not too bad a review. Two years later I still have the same, single complaint about the Macbook model I have – hard drive space. Today more than ever 80GB is simply not enough to do, well, anything with media. Photos from my DSLR, on average for a compressed JPEG, are about 3-5Mb a photo. Video, music, documents, podcasts, TV shows and movies from iTunes, etc. all take up a lot of space. If it weren’t for a few external hard drives I’d be all but stuck. But that isn’t the point of this post and you all deal with this the same as I do I’d bet.

After three years of using this Macbook I still feel the same about it today as I did then. It has been the best computer I’ve ever owned. The Macbook looks the same today as it did the very first day I bought it. This isn’t due to my care, but rather to its rigid design. I have never reinstalled the operating system, it has never slowed down, and I have never needed to reboot it due to freezing. That isn’t due to seldom use, in fact I’ve used it nearly every single day for many, many hours a time for all three years, but rather to the Mac OS being simply awesome. I’ve really enjoyed using this computer.

Having said that I’d be remiss not to mention that I recently purchased a replacement battery for the Macbook. The original one simple won’t hold a charge for more than a few minutes. According to Apple’s own documentation they acknowledge the number of times you can recharge the battery – and I exceeded that and then some.

I said, in the one year review, that I’d probably stick with the black Macbook because I like the form factor, size, and weight of the computer. Times change. The black Macbook is no more. Apple no longer offers it. It has been replaced with what is now the unibody aluminum 13″ Macbook Pro. It also looks like a fine machine.

It is time to move on. Eliza’s computer is, if you can believe it, much older than the black Macbook and so she will be getting this computer and I will be moving onto another one. But to what? I’ll leave that for another time.

Working from Panera Bread today with Chris. I like the reflection of the lamp in my Macbook.

Random 60: Laptop or Desktop? | Favorite on Viddler.

Laptops are more powerful today than the computer used to launch the Space Shuttle in the 1960s. That is a fact. Look it up. That said, some people prefer desktops with much larger storage devices, displays, amounts of RAM, etc.

I’ve been using laptops since 2002 and haven’t gone back to desktops since. What about you? Laptop or Desktop?

The above photo was posted to Flickr from my iPhone a few minutes ago.  I wanted to show off, in all its glory, the new desktop picture I’m using on both my Macbook and external monitor courtesy of Mark Bixby.

But this brings up something that I’m completely torn over.  Where should I post my mobile photos?  I have a mobile photos category here on my blog, a Brightkite account that makes it dead-simple to post photos and remember where they were taken an in context, and a Flickr account.

It seems like every time I snap a photo with my iPhone I have a different idea of where I think it should go.  I like having everything I submit to the Web here on my site.  I think photos of what I’m currently eating at a restaurant is best kept on Brightkite for a lot of reasons, and perhaps an artsy mobile photo like this one would be best submitted to Flickr.  Is that the answer?  Should I diversify where I submit my mobile photos?

And better yet, why do I care so much? Should I care?  Does anyone else care?

UGH!

Putting the finishing touches on Viddler’s B2B site. Photo by: Rob Sandie.

Simultaneously testing out cross posting to my site, Flickr, and now Brightkite (just for fun) and showing off my wine barrel trash can.

I’m going to start with something that we know we’ll get, iPhone software.  Since getting my iPhone nearly one year ago I’ve been more than happy with it.  But I’m ready for Apple to support, and even encourage, third party applications to be built for the iPhone.  On Monday we should get a pretty good glimpse of how this will work and, perhaps, even know an exact date when third party applications will be available to download and install on the iPhone through Apple’s iTunes store.

First, I’m going to cover my wishes for updates to the existing iPhone software.

• Mobile Mail is in need of a pretty thorough update.  I manage two email addresses on the iPhone.  One for personal, and one for work.  The Mobile Mail application, using IMAP, does this pretty well – but sometimes the iPhone chokes a little.  I’d like to see speed improvements, easier flagging for following up on my Mac, and searching mail messages.
• Mobile Safari will probably get a decent upgrade, as regards its rendering speed and hopefully cache.  The iPhone has a fairly large hard drive, and I have yet to see the reason Mobile Safari doesn’t use it to store the Web pages you visit in a cache.  Reloading pages over and over and over on EDGE is frustrating.
• The address book, or phone contacts, is also in need of a search function.  The alphabet slider on the side, for those of us with hundreds of contacts on our phone, doesn’t make things too much easier.  I’d also like to see better bluetooth support here to sync contacts and/or send contact information to a friend’s iPhone.
• The calendar application needs to do a better job with multiple calendars.  I would like to have all of my calendars on the iPhone, but also be able to add new events to any of those calendars instead of just one.  Sending these events to other attendees, either via email or bluetooth, would also be nice.
• The iPhone’s camera is decent quality, but I wouldn’t mind a brightness slider, or even some effects, for when taking photos. I also wouldn’t mind being able to delete all of the photos on the iPhone with a tap or two.  Being able to tell, on the iPhone, when a photo was taken would be a major plus.

Are any of these things too much to ask for?  I don’t think so.  Next, I’m going to focus on third party applications that I’d like to see.

• Sharing.  Just an application that would let me share anything on my iPhone with another iPhone.  Contacts, photos, documents? Why not?
• Bonjour messaging!  Any iPhone within range?  I’d like to be able to “chat” with that iPhone by sending messages, links, photos, etc. to it.  That’d be fun.
• Media Browser. I’ve finally setup a shared hard drive on my Airport Express at home with photos, music, and video.  Being able to access this media on the iPhone when home, would be nice.
• Twitterrific, on the iPhone. Enough said.
• A simple “to do list” application.
• Games! I know a lot of people are waiting for these, and I am too in a way, but I know that my battery is going to suffer for it.

Are any of these too much to ask for?  I don’t think so either.  Sometimes though I start to think about some of the crazy ideas for iPhone applications like controllers, a way to view my computer screen at home remotely, interactive applications based on location, and other hair-brained ideas.  The possibilities seems endless, but I don’t want to get my hopes up.  I’d rather be pleasantly surprised.

And last, I’d like to just quickly state that I’m in the market for a new laptop.  My wife’s laptop, which I gave to her when I upgraded to this black Macbook over two years ago, is on its last legs.  My black Macbook, however, is running perfectly.  So I’m planning on giving her my black Macbook when I upgrade to, whatever comes next out of Cupertino.  I’m leaning towards a Macbook Pro, but I’m waiting to see if anything happens at WWDC first.

Are you ready for tomorrow?  What are you waiting to see?

]]> http://cdevroe.com/notes/wwdc08-wishes/feed/ 3 http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/rob-at-work/ http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/rob-at-work/#comments Fri, 09 May 2008 19:20:04 +0000 Colin Devroe http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/rob-at-work/

Rob, a Monster drink, and a laptop. The usual scene here at ViddlerHQ.

]]> http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/rob-at-work/feed/ 10 http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/table-at-panera/ http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/table-at-panera/#comments Mon, 05 May 2008 17:20:04 +0000 Colin Devroe http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/table-at-panera/

One of the many days of working at Panera. This one Eliza, Chris, and Andrew were there.

]]> http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/table-at-panera/feed/ 3 http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/panera-on-wednesday/ http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/panera-on-wednesday/#comments Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:30:43 +0000 Colin Devroe http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/panera-on-wednesday/

A shot from this past Wednesday. I get a lot of work done in the energy of Panera Bread.

]]> http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/panera-on-wednesday/feed/ 0 http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/working-remotely/ http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/working-remotely/#comments Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:10:04 +0000 Colin Devroe http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/working-remotely/

Working at Panera Bread.

]]> http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/working-remotely/feed/ 2 http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/viddler-breakfast/ http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/viddler-breakfast/#comments Sat, 29 Mar 2008 01:15:09 +0000 Colin Devroe http://cdevroe.com/mobile/photos/viddler-breakfast/

Jason made the Viddler team, at least those of us near the office today, some breakfast.

]]> http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/viddler-breakfast/feed/ 1 http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/importing-game-1/ http://cdevroe.com/mobile-photos/importing-game-1/#comments Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:45:42 +0000 Colin Devroe http://cdevroe.com/mobile/photos/importing-game-1/

Importing Game 1 of a few friend’s league games. Makes me wanna go to and record Game 3. And yes, that is the Cocoon and Cocoon The Return DVD set.

1. Backup your entire drive. Some good tips for this step can be found in John Gruber’s “I believe in Murphy’s Law“. In short; create a bootable backup of your hard drive before you install any operating system upgrade.
2. Uninstall anything non-Leopard compatible. There are many applications that you probably have that you could keep, because you know that it will be updated at some point, however there are others that start when your computer boots up that it’d be a good idea to ditch. The first of these may be Unsanity’s Application Enhancer (APE). Either remove this using these instructions or update it to the latest version. Another would be to rename your DivXNetworks folder in your /Library/Application Support/ folder. Doing these two things will ensure that your installation process will go much smoother.
3. Free up enough space. Leopard is going to need somewhere between 6 and 9 Gigabytes of free space in order to install. Leopard won’t actually take that much space once installed, but it will need at least this much space in order to complete the installation.
4. Plug in your computer. If your using a laptop computer I would advise having your computer plugged in during installation. The installation will take the better part of an hour in most cases so you’ll want to be sure to have enough juice. This may seem like a no-brainer but, for some, it isn’t.
5. Have a way to search Google handy. I hope all of your installations go as well as my Macbook’s install but incase they do not, have some way to search Google for solutions handy. There are thousands of people upgrading Leopard or have already done so within these first few days since its release and you can easily leverage their experiences to make yours better.

I’ll be doing a short write-up about Leopard sometime in the next few days but here is the short version; I am in love.

One year ago, almost to the day

I use my Macbook on a daily basis. I’ve put it through its paces. I’v taken it on several trips across the country and it has always performed perfectly for me. The battery life is sufficient, the screen size is nearly perfect, its extensibility with external monitors and even my television is an added benefit. I have no real complaints.

Today, a little over a year

I’d say the only thing that I would change, now that I’ve used it for an entire year, would be the size of the hard drive (though much larger sizes are now available in current models). The hard drive is only 80GB in this model of the Macbook which is not large enough for me to keep all of my music, video, and photos locally on the computer. Being that I’m using a laptop that may never be possible so I’ll always be tethered to some external drive(s) when I need that data.

I’ve had the opportunity to upgrade to a Macbook Pro but I am going to stick with this Macbook. I may even run it into the ground I love it so much. Even if I did upgrade to a larger hard drive, faster processor, and the ability to have much RAM – I’d probably still stick with the black Macbook. I really like the form factor, size, and weight of this computer. It has been the best computer I’ve ever owned.

Here is a short video tour of my current office setup. It consists of a Macbook, a Dell 21-inch widescreen monitor, some external hard drives, and a few iPods all on a desk from IKEA. I’ve also got my art desk (which I need to use much more often than I am currently). And don’t forget, my new office used to be filled with blue elephants.

If you can’t do video – perhaps you can take a few snapshots and post those. Whatever works best!

[tags]office, desk, ikea, viddler, 9rules, video, tour, macintosh, apple, macbook, dell, monitor, ipod, external hard drive, watercolor, art, colin devroe[/tags]
[slug]office-tour-video[/slug]

You can look at my profile over on Viddler, subscribe to the Viddler blog, or just learn how to use the service – while you’re following me around today.

6:00am – Just showered and fired up my Macbook to get last minute directions. I’m going a different way than I did the first time because I’m dropping Eliza off at some friend’s in Slatington (the Rosarios) before heading into Bethlehem.

It snowed last night! I got all of my gear ready (camera, ipod, laptop, etc.) and I’m going to start the Jeep up early. First time I’ve had to do that all winter. Off I go, next time I blog will be from the Viddler HQ more than likely.

9:19am – Just arrived at Viddler. Man, what a hassle with the ice and snow! I didn’t account for school buses or blinding sun on icy roads.

Of all things, Rob and I are talking about how Web 2.0 Viddler is. Oh, and we’re going to start posting in the new Viddler forums!

9:59am – The forums are up and running and you can even use video to respond or post in the forums. Very slick.

10:25am – Just finished a quick video, in better quality, letting people know you can respond to forum threads with videos.

We’re on our way out to Dan’s Camera Shop to see if we can get into some trouble.

1:54pm – Had a great meeting at Dan’s Camera Shop with Mark Woodland. Great guy, great company, if you live anywhere near them, I recommend you check out their site, and their shop.

By odd coincidence we saw Eliza, Andrea, Ava, and Giana there. I couldn’t believe it. I thought for sure they were stalking us.

I got to meet Donna finally! After leaving Dan’s Camera Shop we headed to a chinese buffet and went over what we learned in our meeting. Seeing this business from all perspectives is not only important, but it is also extremely interesting. Mark was able to teach us a lot about their side of the business in a relatively short period of time. Invaluable experience.

We’re now back at “the ranch” listening to some Cold War Kids and going over the new yet-to-be-released Viddler API.

2:56pm – We’re going to head over into the conference room and I’m going to record a “ScobleShow-esque” interview with Rob so that people can get a pretty good feel for Viddler.

If you have any questions, you can send them to me via email or comments.

4:02pm – Rob and I recorded a quick interview video and we’ll be publishing that on Viddler slowly over the next week or so. It has some great insight into not only Viddler’s past, but also Viddler’s present, and future.

I’m on my way out of Viddler HQ now. Going to head back to Slatington to hang out with some friends and get a bite to eat. I had a great day here at Viddler and I hope to come back really soon.

[tags]viddler, bethlehem, pennsylvania, slatington, macbook, eliza devroe, api, andrea rosario, dans camera shop, giana rosario, ava rosario, mark woodland, chinese buffet, food, lunch[/tags]
[slug]live-viddlerhq[/slug]

See, the tenants that lived here prior had a few kids and a few dogs. I’m not sure on the number of kids, but I am sure on the number of dogs, two. And not your run of the mill puppies either – a pit bull and a rotwilier. From what I’ve been told the two dogs wreaked havoc in the apartment all day long tearing apart wood and such. Our landlord had done a very good job of repairing the damage by the dogs.

But, did he do just as good of a job repairing “the damage” from the children? My current office is the old kids-bedroom. Here is what the bedroom looked like prior to us moving in.

The office before we moved in
Complete with elephant border

Yellow and ?turquoise? with an elephant border. Not exactly the image I had planned on projecting with ChanceCube, so it had to go.

Over the few weeks preceding our move-in, we stripped off the wallpaper, put down a coat of primer, two coats of paint, one coat of trim color, and generally cleaned it up. Here are a few photos showing that progression.

Scoring the border

Border = scored

See ya elephants

Removing outlet covers

Fixing holes and trim

One primer coat

 
Nearly done

Painting the office

For whatever reason my other two helpers on this project are not in any of the photos – probably because they were the ones taking the photos. Eliza and Mike helped me through each and every step of the process, so thank you both for helping me out.

The completed office

You can see the end result and it was truly worth the effort as I now have a place, free of elephants, that I can get my work done.

Inner page of Geekanoids preview issue

The preview issue can also be downloaded as a PDF. I’m actually thinking of picking up a subscription to Geekanoids, not only because they included one of my photos in their preview issue, but also because the material seems to be very good. I’m hoping that their upcoming reviews in the July 1st issues are worth the money, and from what I can tell they will be.

[tags]published, quoted, photos, geekanoids, magazine, publication, macbook[/tags]