Quick bits

What's that? You thought we were dead? Pushed too far to the edge of the map, then plowed right off into oblivion?

Fair point. It has been four months. The whole summer, in fact. And some of fall. Damn.

Wait, wait, come back! I have teaser tidbits that, I hope, will draw your attention.

• B started first grade last month. Reading is coming along.
• B had a birthday, too. It was Frozen-themed. I blame myself.
• Hilary also had a birthday. No theme, but delicious vegan carrot cake.
• We took the creatures for an overnight camping trip, plus a hike up to Lonesome Lake in Franconia Notch. Jasper's good in a tent.
• Hilary did her first half ironman race this summer. Came in around 5:38!
• I embarked on the fourth, and final, phase of the epic backyard fence replacement. No, it's not done yet. Winter is coming, I know. I'm on it.
• We replaced Hilary's car. One used outback for another. The only problem was the transmission replacement it needed before we even registered it. Long story.
• We took an awesome trip to Nova Scotia!
• We got a second dog! Guess we need to update the tagline.

Hopefully, in less than four months, I might even manage to tell you about these.

Hey, mooses, where did you go?

This blog has spent a long period of time being neglected. It hasn't been intentional, I assure you. Each evening when I finally sit down and open my computer - at 10 or 11 - I simply have not had enough left in me to put up something worthwhile. It's a shame, too, because there have been numerous noteworthy topics since late June:

Birthdays and Anniversaries
Races and Training:
      Shane-anigans 5k
      Thirsty Thursday
      Hopkins Vineyard Tri
      Capitol City Tri
      Qualifying for the USAT nationals
Princess Ballerina and Pony Camps
Progress in the attic
Graduation from residency...?
Gardening and Harvesting
The Olympics, or, how I reiterated my hatred of cable TV
Mending Fences (literally)

I hope to be able to provide at least some of this to you in the coming weeks. We'll see how it goes. Many of our readers have probably already heard about some of this through other forms of social media (damn you, facebook!), but I'd still like to get it up here, too. Stay tuned (please!)

Analytics

Not long after we started this blog, now some four years ago, I wondered who was reading it, and where. I could fairly assume that I personally knew every person reading it, but I wanted some way to know. Blogger at the time did not have any way of gathering or presenting this information (still doesn't as far as I know). But there are a number of ways of gathering analytics, as the buzzword-inclined would call it. They all work by inserting a bit of extra code into a certain webpage (in this case, the blog template), that sends off a small capsule of info from each visitor. This information can be cut, dried, spliced, diced, and sorted any number of ways. We use Google Analytics.

People tend to use this information largely for search engine optimization, figuring out what search terms lead people to their website, and how they can best draw in traffic and keep them there for longer. Since we don't sell ads on this blog and don't pay for any search terms, this information is largely irrelevant to us (more specifically, to me; this is definitely a geek's pursuit).

What is interesting information to me are the number of pageviews per day, and where they come from. Here is a snapshot of this kind of data:


As you can see, we have quite a fanclub in Rochester, NY (hello, my adoring audience!).

Then there's some location data that is just plain weird. For instance, my blog receives about one hit a day from this or that foreign country: India, China, Latvia, Brazil, Paraguay. I appreciate your interest, dear readers from afar, but I do have to wonder what brings you here (let me know in the comments).

And who are these people that flatter us with their attention? A lot of Apple users: 50% are on OS X, another 15% on iOS. Roughly half of our visitors use firefox, about a third use safari. A bit less than 10% are Internet Explorer (encouraging, but what are you all thinking?). An equal number are using Chrome.

Other information: what are the most popular blog posts. Generally, people come to the main page: moosesofthenorth.blogspot.com, and don't delve into specific pages with specific addresses. Some, however, are just so oh so special:

A steady trickle of visitors go directly this post about the construction of our raised beds. A friend of ours in Minnesota linked to it from a blog she contributes to. In that one day our blog's daily readership went from dozens to hundreds of hits.

And although I'm not trying to make it big in search engines, I am also interested to know what search terms direct random traffic to my blog. What's the big winner? Alas, none of my carefully worded posts (and the occassional rant) about energy or politics, nor Hilary's experience in med school and doctoring. Nope, the number one search engine destination for our blog is a post debunking a chain email purporting to show a Smart car crushed between two dump trucks. Depending on the search terms, it's the #1 or #2 hit on the subject. Our place in history is secure! Slightly more satisfying: a few people find their way to our blog by searching on "oversized knee walker", and end up reading about this little bit of work I did at my last job. Search engine traffic accounts for only about 10% of all visitors.

So I guess we're not getting famous doing this blogging stuff. In truth, I think we can live with that.

500

Congratulations, dear readers! You are, right now, reading our 500th blog post. Thank you for sticking with us through thick and thin, frequent posting and lapses, humor and dry geekery, dog tails and crumpet foibles. Here's to the next 500, wherever in our lives they come from and whenever they appear!

A Note on Connectivity

Readers of this blog will note that many of them have had the "Sent from my iPhone" signature. I should point out that, while I have been composing and sending these postings from Italy from my iPhone, I have not enjoyed the always-on connectivity that I usually enjoy in the States. Instead, when sending from the iPhone, I used a paid WiFi connection from an Internet café in Radda. I should also note that, although my iPhone uses GSM (global standard for mobiles) technology for its cellular (ie, talking) connection, I did not call people while in Italy.

Mostly, this is a logistic and economic limitation, not a technological one. I did not research it much before I left the US, but my understanding is that there is no technological reason that I could not use a local cellular network (eg, Vodaphone Italy) and have both voice and data connectivity, signal permitting. Indeed, when I have the cellular radio turned on, the local cellular networks show up in a list in one of the menus. I could probably choose one of them and go from there. This is the same as most any GSM phone.

However, I did not actually do this. The real limitation is that if I actually used one of those networks, it would be international roaming, and incur tremendous costs. I did not research what it would be exactly, but probably something like dollars per minute.

Things are bad, too, for data. Where GPRS (aka EDGE in the US) is available, the iPhone is able to connect as it would for me in MN. However, international data roaming charges are as bad or worse than voice. There were annecdotes, shortly after the iPhone's introduction, of people who brought their phones abroad with them, but seemingly kept it turned off, only to find a huge bill when they got home. What had happened was that, rather than turning it off, which actually takes a special manuever, they had merely put it to sleep, which is the usual "off" people use, as it is just a flick of a switch. When asleep, however, the iPhone will still try to use the available network to update the weather, stock info, and email, so that you always have the latest stuff on your phone. This meant these customers abroad had a periodic trickle of data usage, which added up to a big bill. The iPhone now has a mode to turn off data roaming, so that this doesn't happen to people accidentally. Mostly I have kept the phone in "airplane mode" which turns both the cellular and wifi radios off, so that you can use it on an airplane. This also conserves battery life.

There is more I could talk about on this subject - about the iPhone vs other GSM phones, SIM cards, and carrier exclusivity. But, as I am already back in the States, it is largely a moot point.

Sent from my iPhone

We Have Arrived

January 2, 1700 GMT
After the joys of a transatlantic flight (7 hours), and crossing 7 time zones, we arrived this morning in Pisa. Holly and Mark were there to pick us up and bring us to the house they are watching over this month. We are about an hour south and east of Florence, where we will make at least one day trip.

We are nearest to several villages that constitute the heart of Chianti wine country. Their names are all variations of "[name] in Chianti", such as Radda in Chianti, where this picture was taken our first evening here. This is the Bar Dante Alighiri. Great cappucino! The café is run by an Italian fellow and his English wife, and is sometimes staffed by another English gentleman who also runs a wine shop in town. Being six in the evening, well before the typical dinner hour and well after the typical after-work crowd, we were the only ones in the place.

Naturally, since I am able to post this, I have gotten some wireless access. Quite reasonable, really: €2/hr. However, I wrote this in the evening of our first day, then posted later (the following mid-day). We'll be posting more as we go along.

Sent from my iPhone.

Information Bankruptcy

Upon arriving at home after more than a week away, one is greeted with all kinds of information: emails both personal and professional, a stack of mail about yay high, newspapers, frequented websites and blogs. In some cases, people get so behind on catching up that they declare information bankruptcy - write off anything that has accumulated in their total inbox and try to get back on track. It is very similar to the concept of personal bankruptcy. In some cases, people just triage and scan the pending information they need to deal with - like negotiating with creditors to pay off only some percentage of the debt, while forgiving others. Still others figure out an extended payback schedule, and try to catch up over weeks and months.

For myself, I have declared as "unpayable" the two weekend and six weekday newspapers I missed while away on vacation. I will try an extended payback period for personal emails and blog posts. Most of my work inbox is probably unforgiveable, so I'll get on that first thing tomorrow. Being Christmas Eve, a lone monday between the weekend and Christmas Day, I will probably be one of the few people at my office. That should be just fine.

A Blogging Machine

I have spoken before about blogging from the iPhone. Apple even has a commercial about it, you may have seen it on TV.

Well, that kind of blogging is done in one of two ways that I know of. The first is by using the Safari web browser built into the iPhone. It is the same as how I am blogging right now from my desktop computer, except it's on a mobile device. The second method, supported by a few mainstream blogging services, allows you to send an email to your blog. The email either becomes a saved draft, which you edit before releasing (again, via web browser), or it is posted immediately.

Well, that's all well and good, but the iPhone is such a capable platform that I think there is a better way. What I'll describe is a little specific to Blogger, partly because that's the platform I use, but secondly because it is owned/run by Google, which has some kind of development agreement with Apple (see the Google Maps application on the iPhone).

To turn the iPhone into a real blogging machine would start with a new iPhone application. You'll notice that there are currently three unused spots on the iPhone home screen (and an infinite number possible beyond) - this would be one of them. This application would have your logon information for one or more blog accounts, similar to how the Mail application has the account info for one or more email accounts. (As a bonus, these account settings would go beyond just logon information, but also include blog settings, preferences, etc.). Also like a Mail application, you would have an "Inbox" that would hold copies of your old posts, as well as an "Outbox" with drafts of new posts. Third, like the Mail application, you would have a fairly bare-bones compose window. The compose window would be laid out very similar to the compose window I am now using, complete with a series of formatting tools (bold, italics, insert hyperlink, etc.). The "insert picture" button would link to the iPhone's library, and allow you to size and crop images before uploading, in addition to determining the thumbnail size and justification (see Blogger's upload image window below).




Now, what makes this dedicated application better than the two traditional methods of iPhone blogging I mentioned above? The advantage over the web-browser based method is that you don't have to be connected to the internet to compose your next post. Like a mail application, you can draft and compose offline, then upload when you're connected. Although Apple toated Web 2.0 applications as being equivalent to iPhone native applications, there is a clear advantage in terms of user experience and performance in having the thing run locally. Compare a dedicated email client like Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird, or Blitz to their web-based equivalents.

The advantage of a dedicated blogging application over the email method is that you would have access to the formatting tools I've mentioned above. Instead of composing emails, you are doing something more akin to word processing (a fine distinction, but one I feel is important). The blogging application, with its list of old posts and folder of draft new posts, seems a more tuned application.

Now, this is a good start, but it needs one more thing: an easier way to add content. Typing with the on-screen keyboard on the iPhone works, but is 1/3-1/10 the speed of using a real, physical keyboard. The images that you can capture with the iPhone are ok, but a way of getting images from real digital cameras would be nice. There is precedent for this: older iPods had an optional accessory that would allow you to offload images from your camera to the iPod's harddrive via USB.

Combine these two ways of adding content and you get the second portion of making the iPhone the ultimate blogging machine: a keyboard/Dock. When the Palm Pilot was the PDA in the world, there existed a thriving market of third-party accessories. Several companies sold keyboards into which you could dock your palm pilot. Some of these keyboards were real marvels, able to fold in half or quarters, resulting in a footprint the size of the Palm Pilot itself. Something similar could easily be made for the iPhone, and contain the all-important Dock connector. When the iPhone docks with the keyboard, the on-screen keyboard is disabled, allowing you to view the entire iPhone screen while typing. This would be an advantage not only in the blogging application, but anytime you need to type with the iPhone.

Having actual cursor keys and the ability to select text, copy, paste, and so on would be a real advantage. One could even have dedicated hotkeys on the keyboard to take you to the Safari, iPod, Mail, and Phone top-level applications. The real clincher would be to have a USB port on the side, to which you could connect a camera and transfer images to the iPhone.

Now, all this tossing around of ideas is great, but what would it take to make it happen? As I said, this would best be done through the Apple-Google partnership. There are enough coders and user-interface gurus between the two, plus a unique knowledge of the iPhone's inner workings, to make this very slick. The keyboard could be done as such things have always been done for PDAs and iPods - through third-party development. Offloading pictures from a camera directly to the iPhone would be tricky. However, camera USB drivers can be fairly generic these days, and the iPhone is built on OS X. I think the software tools necessary exist to be able to implement it. Moving the pictures from the iPhone back to a computer during the next sync is already implemented for the iPhone's internal camera.

Ordinarily, I would keep all of this to myself, lest someone get rich off my ideas. However, I am putting it here for all to see for a few reasons. First - I'm never going to have the resources to do this myself (even patenting the idea would be too much). Second, there is a likelihood, in light of Apple's announcement of allowing third-party development for the iPhone, there's a chance that someone (perhaps Apple and Google themselves) is already working on this. Third, if someone does come out with this, based off of what's written here (a very long shot, considering the small readership), I can always point to this posting as prior art and make a fuss. Lastly, I just think this would be really freakin' cool, and want to see it happen.

Remote Posting by Email

This is just a quick test of the mail-to-blogger feature of Blogger (who hosts this blog). It is also a test of my ability to do this remote blogging from my iPhone. Cool, isn't it? With the iPhone on a desk, and not in one hand, I fond that I can do some decent two-finger typing at a reasonable speed. I just need to be sure to read it over before I send it, because not all of the auto-corrections are always correct. It is still really freaking good, though.

Next I might also try uploading a picture with this method. I might post later about some ideas I have for making the iPhone an awesome blogging platform.

Sent from my iPhone