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We decided to head out to Toys R Us to do a little browsing and get a few ideas. 90 minutes later it was over. Shopping done for the holidays and I’m pretty sure we single-handedly pumped enough cash back in to the system that we no longer need any kind of bailout.

We were not planning on buying a single thing today, but the sales were too good to pass up. The store was packed to the point it was hard to get a cart around in there.

Looks like the stores are going to get agressive with pricing to get people out there spending.

Continued from Part 1…

Thankfully I was able to get her phone operational again by holding down the button at the top edge of the phone until it asked me if I wanted to power it off.  I powered it off and back on again and all seemed fine, but I lost just a tiny bit of confidence at that point in time, kind of like when a car has an issue and you never quite trust it again.  It happened to me a few more times that night - some times it would let me power it off and some times I would have to hold that top button and the button on the front at the same time until the phone reset itself.  More recently none of those tricks seemed to work and I had to do the top and front button reset dance numerous times before the phone finally came to life.  That one was really scary.

I am not a stranger to computers and failure.  I am in my 22nd year in infrastructure and see bugs all of the time.  But this one hurt a little somewhere deep inside because, like many, I had fallen in to the fuzzy, happy world where Apple would never, ever make mistakes like this.  And this was just one little piece of the issues that would rock my happy little Apple world and slap me right back in to reality, where you remember that these are things engineered, designed, coded, and tested by humans.  Humans are imperfect and make mistakes, and now the entire world knows that Apple makes them as well - Activation, 2.0, MobileMe,  Welcome to the real world Apple.  That’s a lot of things happening at the same time that should have been avoided.  It will be interesting to see if Apple learns anything from this.  Scaling is hard.  Enterprises are hard.

The 2.0 software and the App store are an amazing example of systems and integration.  But they are not perfect.  I have applications crash on me all the time.  I actually blame Apple for most of these as I don’t believe any application’s crash should be able to take down the phone’s OS, but it sure seems like that happens a lot.  Those apps that just crash back to the icon screen I believe are probably the developer’s issue to resolve, but the rest should sit firmly on Apple’s shoulders.  If you are running applications from the App store I would encourage you to check for any updates daily.  The developers seem to be working hard to get any bugs eliminated and I have seen a ton of updates to applications over the last 2 weeks.

I don’t know if Apple has a beta program for these developers and their testers, but they need to get one in place if it doesn’t exist.  Right now we, the people, are Apple’s beta testers and that would bother me a little less if I hadn’t paid 10 bucks for that privilege on my Touch and if Apple would have just stated that initially.  Let’s be honest, Apple still would have picked up thousands and thousands of people that would be willing to test their software - and probably pay for the privilege.  But, no application crash should ever take down the entire phone.  Period.  

It’s probably a good thing that Apple is out of iPhones all over the country or this could be a bigger black eye than it already is.  It will be interesting to see how many people stay up late at night clicking that Check Now button in iTunes when the next release rolls around.  Apple, we need 2.0.1 or 2.1 or what ever you are going to call it, soon.

What do you think, will you be cautious the next time Apple releases something or will you move ahead as you normally do because it is the next great thing from Apple?

There is so much to catch up on since Apple released 2.0 for the iPhone and iPod Touch that it’s hard to figure out where to start.

On July 11, 2008, we were getting ready to leave for a vacation to Myrtle Beach when I noticed the 2.0 software release for the iPhone was out.  Since my wife has the original iPhone I decided to download 2.0 and apply it once we got to the beach.  2.0 downloaded so fast that I figured I might as well apply it before I got in the shower, so I did.  (By the way, this was less than 10 minutes after my wife begged me not to touch her phone before our trip as she likes to use it when we’re on the road.)  Hey, it’s Apple, and Apple has never let me down before.  What could happen?  Well, thousands of you probably know the rest - after the 2.0 update the phone reset itself and needed to communicate with Apple’s servers to activate.  Since those servers were totally overwhelmed, nothing was happening.  So I jumped in the shower and figured it would be done by the time we were ready to leave.  No such luck.  I checked the Apple forums and found I was definitely not alone, but we had to get on the road so I grabbed my wife’s iPhone, her laptop, my laptop, and my backpack and we headed out the door. 

She was not a happy camper.  No phone to play with on the road trip meant no Goggle Maps.  It doesn’t matter that the awesome Garmin Nuvi 350 was less than 5 feet from her head, it was not her phone and Google Maps.  So she asked to use my iPod Touch since it was jailbroken and had FiveDice on it.  Well, unfortunately I had restored it to factory default to get ready for the 2.0 software for the Touch, which didn’t come out for another 13 hours.  If the software had been available for the Touch I would have never touched her phone at all.  So, no FiveDice.  Strike 2.

Then it hit her that we packed the Nintendo DS and that would surely give her plenty to do for a while.  Except that it was packed in the trunk of the car, which was an amazing feat in itself as we were originally going to take the mini van but decided to take the car to get better gas mileage.  The DS was buried deep in the bottom of all the luggage, beach chairs, and body boards.  Strike 3.

I had no intention of taking her laptop to the beach that day, but I grabbed her PowerBook because I didn’t know if I would have to complete the activation process on the same computer that had started it on or if I could use my MacBook Pro.  Unfortunately I wasn’t smart enough to grab the power supply and the battery on her PowerBook has seen better days.  If we’re lucky we’ll get 30 minutes on a full charge.  So I turned on her PowerBook and killed every program that started up and launched iTunes.  I turned the screen down to 1 little bar and hoped I could find a wireless signal.  Thankfully the hotel we were in that night had wifi and the iPhone activated itself almost as quickly as I plugged it in to the PowerBook.  Success!  We can now use the iPhone as a phone.  ”Apple must have resolved their capacity issues.”  ”Hey, where’s all your data?”

Next came the fun of holding my breath through the longest initial restore of data to a device in my lifetime.  I would continually take the screen down to 0 bars, then back to 1 a little later to watch the restore progress.  The battery indicator was down to 14 minutes and had turned red.  Not good.  Turn the screen back off.  With just 7 minutes of reported battery life left the iPhone retuned to its glorious former self.  It was a phone with all the data she had on it previously.  Life was good.

“Hey Valerie, check out all these cool apps I loaded on here for you” I said with the joy of a child on Christmas morning.  ”Watch how…hey, why is it just a black screen with an Apple logo in the middle of it now?”  Uh oh.

That would not be the last time that I saw that black screen with the Apple logo.

To be continued…

First, Colorado Springs is absolutely beautiful.  I’m out here for an HP Executive Briefing that went very, very well and the place is just amazing.  We’ve definitely added this place to our short list for future vacations.  I wish I had brought a decent camera as the one on my Treo700wx is as close to garbage as one can get.

Second, after sitting on a conference call for 90 minutes with a Treo that just kept getting hotter and hotter glued to my head, I finally broke down and purchased a decent bluetooth headset.  I picked up the Jawbone at the Palm store at the Pittsburgh airport of all places.  I know what you’re thinking, but their prices were actually better than the Apple store and they sell ones that are already charged.  Nice perk.  I picked up the black model.  The noise canceling seems really good and I can hear really well with this thing instead of the straining I used to do to hear from some of the others I have purchased over the years.  Hopefully this one is a winner.

Third, if you use VMWare Fusion, make sure to check out the update that came out tonight.  No problems with it so far, although anymore I tend to only fire up my WindowsXP VMWare guest to perform anti virus and Windows patch updates.

Fourth, are you running Firefox version 3 beta 5 yet?  If not, you should take a few minutes and check it out as the performance is excellent and it is very close to becoming my main browser, although Webkit has yet to let me down.  Very impressive release so far.  I think I heard the final release comes out in June.  Pick your operating system and try it out.

Fifth, I’m finding it harder and harder to avoid the iPhone as I am finding it harder and harder to find free WiFi where I need it.  The iPod Touch I use for so many things is nice when I have connectivity, but I almost wish I could have an iPhone with just the data plan.  I don’t really need the phone piece as work gives me a Treo that I have to have with me, but everything about the iPhone and iPod Touch is so much better that I can feel I will eventually break down and end up with an iPhone.  We’ll see how things look after the release of iPhone 2.0 in late June.

Lastly, I finally joined Twitter.  Why?  I don’t know, Robert Scoble told me to.  After having it for one short week I have learned that, for me, it is not a matter of being followed, but a matter of who you follow that makes it interesting.  I’m there as blindsquirrel.

That’s about it, looking forward to getting home.  I like seeing new cities, but I still can’t wait to get back home to Pittsburgh.

I woke up this morning not to the sounds of my kids ripping the house apart looking for their Easter baskets, but of my 8 year old daughter standing there with a card for me.  When I opened it I was surprised to find a $5 bill!  My 8 year old gave me a card with money in it.  Cute.

Another Christmas is just about over.  Everyone is stuffed from eating all day and the kids are in a trance playing with presents they received.  It’s been a long time since I last updated this page, but the only things really going on have been at work, and you all know how I feel about mixing work and my personal Blog - I don’t do it.

So there has not been much to talk about.I at least wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, even though it may not be the politically correct thing to say these days, but it’s still what we say in our house.  So I’m using it here.

Looking at all the gifts that were given and received today, I am blown away by how much power these things take.  Nintendo DS - rechargeable batteries.  iPod Shuffles - rechargeable batteries.  Digital camera - AA batteries.  Video camera - rechargeable batteries.  The remote for use with the Wii (for Guitar Hero III for the Wii! - that one’s mine) uses batteries.  Other than clothes and books I think everything needed charged or batteries.So how can we reduce that energy dependence that we just brought in to the house?  Any ideas out there?  I guess we can replace all of the regular batteries with rechargeable ones.  Overall I plan on replacing most of the regular light bulbs with the curly florescent ones.  The Christmas lights are all on a timer.  The thermostat is on a timer and we choose to nearly freeze over night and when we leave the house.

Any other bright ideas out there?  How else can reduce that might carbon footprint we put out every day?  I hope your Christmas was a good one.

I’ll start with the puppy.  Margo is no longer with us.  She is now with a very good friend’s mother where she’ll get more love and attention than she knows what to do with.  As part of the deal I think we may be watching her over the Thanksgiving holiday so I’ll need to make sure I’m home so Val doesn’t lose her mind while Margo is with us.  By then she should be even more house trained and this time I’ll make sure to block off the kitchen so she is a little easier to watch.  The kids are excited.

I spent 5 days out in Las Vegas at the Citrix iForim App Delivery Conference.  Honestly, I wasn’t expecting too much this time but Citrix surprised me and it was a really good conference.  I cared about 3 things when I went there; virtualization, application streaming, and end to end performance monitoring and management.  Citrix delivered and I even got to see Cheap Trick at the closing night party.  Bun E. Carlos was not there (they said he had an operation earlier) but the band still sounded great.  Robin Zander sounds as good today as he did all those years ago.

I picked up a new 16GB iPod Touch a few weeks ago and I am blown away.  It is a great iPod even though it is not enough capacity to hold everything I have, but I still have my 80GB for all of that.  I use this one for all my purchased music and podcasts, but the real beauty is the built in WiFi and Safari.  The first thing I did with it was jailbreak it and add a lot of great applications that are out there.  It is actually the main computer I used while in Vegas and I always have it with me.  If only we had WiFi at work.

For work I have a Treo 700wx for a cell phone.   The Verizon network is good, but overall the phone is a disappointment.  It seems like there is always something wrong with it. Right now it won’t ring, regardless of the ringtone I select and am able to play a sample.  It will, however, alert me of a missed call or a voice mail, which makes no sense.  So I leave it on vibrate all the time since at least that piece works.  It connects up to our Exchange environment nicely, but the performance is nothing to write home about.  It hangs a lot and opening attachments is really slow.  MMS is painful but texting is fantastic, so at least there is something positive.  It’s uncomfortable to hold and use for long periods of time.  I pull the battery on average 2 times a week to address one problem or another.  It is definitely not a fast device.

Lastly, I upgraded to OS X Leopard a couple weeks ago.  I think I expected too much because nothing has really impressed me.  I don’t use Time Machine or Spaces and the translucent menus are just OK.  The Finder is better and there are a lot of little things that are nice improvements, but so far this is not an earth-shattering upgrade.  It’s nice to be at 64 bit.  I’m sure it will get better as more and more applications come out that require Leopard, but for me, for now, I could have waited this one out.

Did you remember to check your clocks today?

Last week I broke down under pressure from the kids and we got a 4 1/2 month old Silky Terrier puppy.  Very, very cute dog.  We played with her a few times at the pet store while shopping for other things for our fish.  I look back now, a mere 8 days later and realize I made a huge mistake.  Not because the dog is bad or anything like that.  She’s been very good, is learning how to go outside when she needs to (she actually pulled her leash down off the door knob and brought it to us the last time she needed out) and barely makes any noise.  She is really mellow and is great with the kids, and the kids already love her.

So what’s the problem, right?  Well, we had a German Shepard mix for over 13 years.  When he died we said we would not get another dog.  Fast forward 5 years and in a moment of weakness I allowed a dog to come back in to our home.  The problem is we have changed so much since we last had a dog that a dog just doesn’t really fit how we live anymore.  It’s admittedly selfish, but it’s true.  I screwed up here as a parent and should have stuck with my wife on this one.  She did not want another dog at all and eventually gave in once I was on board with the kids.  She never had a chance.

So what now?  She’s a really good dog, but I just don’t see how this is going to work.  I can’t (and wouldn’t) take her back to the pet store (I know, I know.  A pet store?  Puppy mills you say!  But I had talked with some folks that had got a puppy from there before and it worked out really well) and I don’t want to take her to a shelter, at least not unless it is a no kill shelter that will find a new home for her.  This was my mistake, not hers.

I’m not sure what to do here.  My sister in law recommended a really good book that I am already reading through on training your dog, but that is not the issue.  Even if this dog made us coffee and tucked us in at night I don’t think it would change how my wife and I feel.  This is my issue to fix and I’ve already started talking to the kids about the situation and they definitely do not want to see her go, but sometimes as a parent you have to make difficult choices, and I should have done that in the beginning.  The longer I wait to find her a new home the harder it will be for all involved.

It sounds like I may have just made a decision while writing this.  I think I need to find her a new home.  A home where she fits in and can be with a family (the entire family, not just the kids) that really love her and want her as part of that family.  I’m really disappointed that I allowed this to happen.

How do I fix this one?

I don’t know why the experts are saying there are over 1 billion bees missing. I know exactly where they are. I found them all over my yard this weekend. I have a ton under a holly bush in my front yard. I have wasps that try to build nests on the kid’s playset daily. Bees buzz us when we’re trying to eat out on the deck. They sting the neighbors when they’re in our pool.

Missing? I don’t think so. If anything, I think we have more bees in our yard this year.

Just finished our second day down at Universal in Orlando, Fl. Kids are holding up really, really well. Almost too well! They’re not tiring out before us. Yesterday we opened Universal Studios and closed it - 9am-9pm. Today we did Islands of Adventure. We only missed a couple things yesterday - Revenge of the Mummy and Jaws. Couldn’t convince Bailey to try those ones, but we did do everything else except for anything Barney related.

Today we did just about everything more than once. I think we missed Doctor Doom’s Fearfall, The Incredible Hulk Coaster, and Dueling Dragons. We hit everything else. The kids were not happy with me at all for making them walk through Poseidon’s Fury. I thought it was some mellow walking tour and it ended up being a little too intense for the kids and they ended up leaving with Val. I put on my big boy pants and finished the ride.

They must be really forward thinking down here in Orlando, check out the picture of the sign that is all over the place. I guess if you don’t like the baby you have, you can just trade it for another. What an idea!