Month: February 2014

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Cross Country trip day 1

Got a late start, really late!

Made it to Tucson, AZ.

Haven’t really slept well for the past two nights, so I thought this was a good stopping point.

A short time after I crossed the AZ border things looked a lot greener. Guess it was the Colorado river helping to green things up a bit. Some of the desert wildflowers were blooming alongside the roadway and at sunset it was really pretty.

Mind you, I didn’t think to take a picture, Ooops!

I’m here in a nice hotel, well nice may be an overstatement. Clean would be a better descriptor. A “nice” hotel would be The Four Seasons.

Hey, a guy has to have standards!

My car loves long runs like this. I’m getting around 30 mpg plus or minus. The car hasn’t liked the tank of gas I got in Blythe. I’d have been better off buying in Redlands. I’d have easily made it to Phoenix and the prices are better.

The first part of the trip I was getting 30 mpg, After the fill up in Blythe it’s down to 28.

I’ll fill up tomorrow morning and see what happens. I’m guessing I’ll get between 26 (rated) and 29. Not bad for a “Gas Guzzler”

I’m a hell of a lot more efficient than the motorhomes and toy haulers.

Why am I taking this trip? Family issues.

I had to leave my dive gear behind because the weather is such a mess.

I’m kinda bummed about that. I was hoping to play with the manatees in Crystal River and maybe get in some diving off of Anna Maria Island. It was a favorite swimming / snorkeling spot as a kid and I always wished I could stay under water longer.

I just couldn’t fit everything for an extended stay, cold weather gear either for my stay in FL or when I return to CA, and my diving stuff.

Note to self, Need to find a smaller more compact dive bag.

The bag I have would have worked if it were two inches shorter.  The way it had to fit in the trunk dictated where so much else went that, in the end I couldn’t make it work.

Maybe another trip when the weather isn’t running quite the gamut it is now.

88˚ F through California and Arizona. 1/2 of Texas will be in the 80s and 90s, then I can look forward to frost advisories and potential ice in Georgia and Florida?

Say WHAT?

So I packed the essentials,

Foul weather rain gear,  Down Jacket, snow boots, Ice AX, sled, sled dogs, shorts & flip flops. No, not really, But that’s what it seemed like.

Humm. I think I’ve watched “The Day After Tomorrow” once too often.

Time to sleep

I snapped a couple of photos at 80 MPH. Hey if folks can text while driving I can snap a couple of photos. But they haven’t showed up on my computer yet. I’ll add them when they’re accessible.

Believe me there were a lot of folks texting and driving today.

By the way, and this is really cool.

I’m using my iPhone hotspot with a T-Mobile LTE connection to create and post this entry. You know what’s scary? This LTE connection is darn near as fast as my DSL modem at home.

OK I’m impressed!

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Time for Apple to wise up

images-1By now everyone knows about the Apple App Store. The store works pretty well if you’re browsing it from a device like an iPad or iPhone.

But there are folks like me that prefer to shop the app store from our computers. Therein lies the problem.

To shop for iPad or iPhone apps from a computer requires that you open iTunes and then try to use the apps button.

In general this method works IF you know exactly what you’re looking for ie the application name OR you’re content looking at a very limited selection of apps. I have yet to find a window within the iTunes, iPhone app store that lets me browse anything but the New stuff or the “essentials” as defined by apple.

images-2Come on! Sometimes you’re sitting in front of your computer and you think “I wonder if there’s an app?” Then you spend the next minute waiting for iTunes to load, another minute waiting for iTunes to sync if you’ve got WiFi sync on, (Another 3 minutes if iTunes has trouble connecting with your device) then you click on the Apps button and after another minute see todays picks after seeing all the music and video selections which are not what you’re looking for.

It’s frankly annoying and I personally don’t browse the app store often, for exactly this reason.

It’s time Apple let the iPhone/iPad/iPod App store grow up. It’s big enough that it deserves to be fully searchable, browsable, and independent of the constraints of iTunes.

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Apple has already demonstrated that they’re aware of the constraints by breaking iBooks out of iTunes in Mavericks.

It’s time to let iTunes go back to being what it’s best at… Entertainment

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Ya know, sometimes ya just need good software

I was updating a piece of software today.

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After the second time this particular software update caused a complete lockup of my computer, I’d had enough.

This particular manufacturer of software insists that you have an account with them.

They insist upon sending you endless emails attempting to get you to upgrade your version of their software to the next full revision, even though that’s the version you already have.

Then when you finally decide its time for an upgrade they send you not only the requested software, but they’ve bundled their stuff with a bunch of other half baked software that more often than not “works” sometimes.

Really?

Apparently these manufacturers have no confidence in their software’s ability to stand on its own. Incorporating menu bars, java scripts, strange one off applications, and crippled crap, makes me more likely to find another bit of software to replace the first bit of software.

Helpful hint

If your installer can’t install your software without locking up the users machine, you’ve got problems more serious than can be fixed by adding third party crap.

I mean if you as a manufacturer don’t believe in your product, why the hell should I?

Some people call me weird about my computer. I think of myself as simply running a clean machine.

I routinely remove software that I don’t use anymore. Why should I allocate storage space to something that’s useless to me 90% of the time?

I don’t, as a rule like helper menus. I personally find them completely unhelpful, I store web pages I like to visit in my browser bookmarks I don’t need a little icon for Ask or Yelp.com to assist me in locating what typing into a search bar will easily and accurately display.

Really folks, when was the last time Ask actually had a relevant, current answer to a question?

I hate it if a website resizes my browser window without my permission and if I close a window on a website to discover pop-under ads I typically won’t return.

It’s MY computer and I consider that a very personal space. 

Point of interest,

Crashy software has been replaced by something cheaper, faster, and better, as of this minute. 

It’s nice to know that capitalism still works!

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In the for “Shits & Giggles” column

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Yesterday I installed BBM on my iPhone.

It works nicely, unfortunately I couldn’t recover my old original BBM account and had to create a new one. I had a blackberry for a while and it was a very nice phone. The problem was that it was on AT&T and where I worked, the phone had zero AT&T coverage.

Creating a new account wasn’t a big deal.

WHY? Did I do this, you ask?

Well, I noticed a tech news story that said BBM now could search for other people who were using it.

After installation I told BBM to scan for people in my contacts list.

You know what? Zip, NADA, Not one of my friends is still using BBM.

I’ll leave it installed, who knows, perhaps some of my buds will turn up.

The app is pretty nice although I can’t comment on the chat function.

You have to have someone to chat with after all.

I still think that iMessage is awesome on the iPhone and since I have unlimited texting with my phone plan, BBM may be an application that just takes up some room but never gets used.