Who's That?

My class had a Halloween party this evening. (A six-week rotation block ended this morning with a big exam for a lot of people, so we had to celebrate a bit late.)

About half an hour before we were going to head over to Matt's house, we finally turned our attention to some sort of costume. Alex was wearing his Google T-shirt, so I suggested he just go as a softwear engineer. Then he realized that if he just borrowed one of my black turtlenecks and waved his iPhone around, he could go as Steve Jobs!




I went as Jen Rizzotti, with my UConn women's basketball shorts and a number 21 duct-taped on my T-shirt. Old hero worship dies hard.

Speaking of iItems, check out this hysterical sketch on YouTube: iRack.

Cross-Country Speeding

Wired has an article I was reading while in transit to Maine about a person named Alex Roy who attempted, and succeeded, to break the unofficial coast-to-coast land speed record. He took a souped up BMW from Manhattan to the Santa Monica pier in an insane 31 hours, 4 minutes. Do the math and that works out to an average speed of about 95 m.p.h. That's average speed. In order to make the average that high, you need to put the pedal to the metal when you can (up to 150 m.p.h.) to make up for time lost getting gas, in traffic, and pretending to be an average driver when passing speedtraps. That's why the speed record is unofficial - making it official would probably land you in jail pretty quick. The article has all kinds of interesting asides about the meticulous planning, his failed previous attempts, how he got started on this in the first place, and - most importantly - how one avoids getting hammered by the cops.

Reasons to Hate Cellphone Carriers

Wired has an article entitled "10 Reasons to Hate Cellphone Carriers." Without any difficulty they managed to stretch it to 14, and the comments at the end include many more. I'd say that, yes, cellphone carriers suck. Everyone knows it, everyone's experienced it, everyone's effected by it. Even if you are saying to yourself, "Gosh, my cellphone (and, by extension, carrier) doesn't seem all that bad," you should be aware of all the things that can be done with cellphones in other countries, for substantially less money than in the U.S. Most people don't know how backwards it is here.



As a way to fight back, I suggest backing Sen. Amy Klobuchar's (D-MN) bill that would substantially improve consumer rights when it comes to cell carriers.

Goblins!

Happy Halloween to all!

And a very happy birthday to Clara!

We have had 11 trick-or-treaters so far this evening. I think we had a lot more last year, so we still have tons of candy left. I'm sure it'll disappear right away if I take it to the student lounge at the med school!

Jasper has been very well behaved. We were really worried that the people traipsing onto our porch tonight would freak him out, but he's barely batted an eye. He's been extremely sociable in the last couple of weeks, even getting up to follow me around the house a bit. He ran some errands in the car with me today, including a trip into the pet store, where he was very well behaved and even sat promptly for a treat at the check-out register. Perhaps he will even be a real dog someday!

Past Halloweens have been much more eventful than this. When we lived in Norwich, we were just off of Main Street, and thus were part of the town trick-or-treating route that started at the school. The PTA even left a bag of candy on our doorstep for us to give out...though that was nowhere near enough, even when added to what we'd already purchased! Alex had to run to Dan and Whit's mid-evening to restock our candy stores. It was great fun, though, we sat out on the front step to hand out the goodies, and I spent most of the time gazing at my not-quite-24-hours-old engagement ring.

Alex and I also started dating on Halloween five years ago, so it's still kind of an anniversary for us as well. (Thanks Rachel. And Dave. And red champagne.)

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.

Flu Shots...Fast!

The main excitement of the day for us was getting our flu shots. Mayo does a mass vaccination clinic each fall that is open to all employees. It's a practice run in case the Clinic ever needs to vaccinate a large population in a hurry (think bird flu or smallpox). They have a bunch of staff there to direct the traffic flow, and 10 or 12 actual vaccination setups with a data gatherer (to confirm you are who you say you are, and to enter you into the computer) and a nurse who gives the actual shot. 3500 people were vaccinated by the end of lunch today, and that was nowhere near capacity. It's SO fast, we were in and out in under 5 minutes! Very impressive, and nice and confidence-building in case there is ever a big epidemic. Relatively pain-free as well, since there's no time to even see the needle coming.

So, that's my public health plug for the day: get your flu shot!

Go Sox!!!

Like Red Sox fans everywhere, I can't quite believe that the Sox have won the World Series. Again! When it happened in 2004, I figured that it was my once-in-a-lifetime. Now once is twice...amazing!

Beckett! Papelbon! Pedroia! Ellsbury! (How cute is Jacoby?) Lowell! (Who we must re-sign. None of this A-Rod nonsense.)

Ah, life is good.

A good read

My current reading is a book by Bruce Schneier, who started off in computer and network security, but is now regarded as one of the best authorities on security in general. His latest book, for a popular audience, is Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensible About Security in an Uncertain World. The subtitle pretty much sums it up. This book was published in 2006, so it has five years' hindsight about the 9/11 attacks and the change in perceptions about security since then. He has quite a few things to say on the matter, both on the attacks themselves, the state of anti-terrorism security before then, and some of changes to airline security that have occurred since then. He largely eschews the political questions involved - security measures aren't Right or Left, but rather Good or Worthless. Mostly, he uses aspects of 9/11 and airline security measures as illustrations to instill the reader with a broader understanding of what security really is: how it works, what it can and can't do, what constitutes good security, and so on. In his approach, security isn't only walls, locks, and guys with guns protecting us against hijackings, bank robbery, and computer hacks. Above all, in every situation that requires security, he provides a framework for systematic analysis that forces a close examination of the real risks, the possible mitigations, and the trade-offs. He reiterates that all security systems can break, perfect security is a fantasy, and all security has costs, not all of which are monetary.

With all the fear mongering about terr'rists, and the various security measures (good and bad, effective and brittle) that have been pushed through using that fear as justification, it is, to me, a wonderful breath of fresh air to see someone dispassionately and intelligently examine what security is all about and how to evaluate it. I recommend it highly.

Book review (and esuing discussion) at Slashdot.