News Goat

Finding Your Way in the World Today Takes Every Gadget You've Got

2008-10-29T03:53:00Z

This past weekend, we went geocaching for the first time in a few years. We assumed, with each of us having an iPhone 3G, that we had everything we needed to find some caches.

Yeah… No.

We tried two different methods. First, we browsed to a cache page in Safari and clicked the Google Maps link to see the location in the Maps app. This all worked as it should — eventually. We were on a very slow Edge connection, so it took minutes to load the page, and more minutes whenever the map needed more tiles. The iPhone would find the location just fine. The problem was, the map app doesn’t have a high enough resolution to lead you to a specific set of coordinates.

We next tried MotionX GPS Lite. Downloading a 7MB app over Edge is a special experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone. MotionX works pretty well — put in your coordinates and the on-screen compass leads you to the location. This would work for geocaching, but the app depends on the iPhone being in motion for it to calculate a heading. In motion at a speed of at least 3 MPH, in fact. So to use this app I had to run back and forth in the woods, trying not to step on a cactus or slam into a tree. Ultimately, I gave up, as each heading update just made me more lost.

This was all very dissappointing. One of the reasons I bought an iPhone 3G was for geocaching and other GPS-related activities. But since it failed to achieve in the modest task that was its charge, I’m left wondering if I need to buy a separate GPS device.

Some people claim the iPhone GPS chip isn’t accurate enough for geocaching or turn-by-turn directions. I don’t buy that. The first commercial GPS devices were accurate to within 3-5 meters, same as most new devices. No reason the iPhone would be any different. A GPS receiver picks up signals from a minimum number of satellites then tringulates its location. The device itself has very little influence over the accuracy that comes from that process. It may be that the iPhone uses a small receiver that has more trouble detecting satellites. But the GPS-A chip is supposed to help compensate for that.

My gut tells me the real problem here is Core Location, the API apps use to access the GPS data. I know it provides speed, heading, and coordinates, but what an application really needs for geocaching is a continuous stream of updated coordinates. I’d be willing to bet Core Location can not provide those updates fast enough. If someone more familiar with the API could shed some light on that, I’d love to hear about it.

So am I giving up on my iPhone as a GPS device? Not necessarily. It’s possible that a future update to the OS will improve the situation. In fact, that may be what GPS software companies like TomTom are waiting for before they release their apps — a better API. Or perhaps there’s a better GPS app in the iTunes store that I haven’t tried yet. If anybody’s had success with a particular app, let me know in the comments.

In the mean time, though, I probably won’t be doing much geocaching.

SPOILER ALERT

2008-09-17T22:32:00Z

…It’s a boy.

(What, you didn’t know we were expecting? You really should try Twitter)

Two points about ultrasounds: First, the work involved in performing an ultrasound makes Photoshop look like MS Paint. Second, many people have asked if we’re going to have a 4D ultrasound. Unless we change our minds, the answer is no. Maybe it’s just me—and it could be, since most people that have seen them, love them—but the photos and videos look to me like they’re from deep in the heart of the Uncanny Valley. Again, just a personal thing.

It’s become clear to me why women get pregnant and not men. Angela is handling the discomfort and inconvenience far better than I would. She’s amazing, she is. Of course, I’ve always said if I could be pregnant with our child, I totally would. Just the same as I will promise, here & now, to fight any dragon that attacks the U.S. That’s just the kind of man I am.

So, anyway, parenthood. I don’t have anything profound to say about it yet. So far, it’s a constant theme park Viking boat ride between overwhelming fear and immeasurable joy. I go into it totally unprepared and completely committed. I can’t even imagine what it will be like. I try, but what I imagine ends up being things I’ve seen in sitcoms. I only know one thing for sure: I’m grateful to have such a wonderful partner.

And, despite all the uncertainty, I’m sure looking forward to meeting that little guy.

A List Apart - The Survey 2008

2008-07-29T13:20:49Z

If They Had A Dime For Every Time Somebody Suggested...

2008-05-17T22:00:00Z

Man, Dan Farber is an entrepreneurial genius. While the folks over at Twitter have been racking their brains trying to come up with a way to make money, ol’ Dan has it figured out: charge for the service. Why not advertising? Well, because:

[Twitter users] won’t appreciate ads slipped into their Twitter stream.

This despite the fact that one of the most popular Twitter clients, Twitterrific, has an ad-supported version, and most users choose it. Or the fact that their already running ads on Twitter Japan, and I haven’t heard about a mass exodus by the Japanese people. But Twitter wouldn’t have to go down that path if we users weren’t so cheap:

Here’s a solution. How about paying for what you like to use. Much of what gets sent via Twitter is a form of self-advertising. If you like Twitter so much, how about paying $5 a month for the privilege.

At this point, I probably would be willing to pay for Twitter. It’s the one Web 2.0 service I find both entertaining and useful. The problem is, what happens when I pay for the service, but none of my friends do? Then it’s far less useful to me. In fact, this is the problem for all social sites: If they limit it to only paying customers, it becomes far less social, and far less interesting.

But, as Dan has pointed out, the problem is really us cheap users. In fact, we’re a plague on other medias as well:

…why aren’t people willing to pay for what they use? Public radio has the same problem, hence the tedious pledge drives.

There are so many problems with that last sentence, I don’t know where to begin. Pledge drives are how people pay for public radio. The fact that public radio exists and continues to do pledge drives means it is a working business model. How else does Dan think people should pay for a service that is broadcast free over the air? Perhaps he thinks NPR should have been set up as a subscriber-only satellite radio service from the beginning… in 1970… before there was satellite radio…

And of course we know users wouldn’t put up with ads on a radio station. That’s just crazy talk.

You have to admit, Twitter is in a pretty nice position — people so love their service, they keep suggesting ways the company can make money and stay in business. But the Twitter folks have said in the past (And if anybody remembers where, please post it in the comments. I can’t seem to find it now.) that they have plans for generating revenue, but they want to stabilize their platform before they ask users or advertisers for money. In fact, that’s exactly what they’ve done with Twitter Japan: It’s a smaller user base than the rest of Twitter, so they obviously consider it stable enough to run some advertising.

But thanks for the suggestion, Dan. Now I have an idea for CBS: Ask for your money back.

Messages About My Mediums

2008-05-16T03:26:00Z

For anyone looking to learn about Movable Type, I’ve started writing a series of articles about MT for Devlounge. My most recent was published a couple of days ago and covers how to use the Action Streams plugin, which I’ve talked a bit about before.

And while I’m mentioning that, I thought I’d also talk about the various ways I’m publishing these days. Like a lot of people, I don’t post to my blog as often as I used to. Over time, this has turned into a place for longer articles, and short “link posts” just aren’t what I want to do here. But I see things all the time that I want to share, so here’s how I’m divvying them up:

Really short, of-the-moment type stuff goes on Twitter.
Links that I’m saving for my own reference get saved at del.icio.us.
Links that I don’t necessarily need to save, but that I want to others to read — and thoughts that are longer than 140 characters — are shared via Google Reader.
And, as I said, longer blog posts go here, and MT tutorials go on Devlounge.

Of those, Google Reader’s shared items is the one I’ve really gotten into lately. Since they added notes and sharing anything, it makes a decent tumblelog. I’m hoping they continue to move it in that direction.

So that’s where I am with blogging. What about you — how do you publish these days, and how has it changed since you first started blogging?

The Problem With GroupTweet

2008-04-18T13:00:00Z

My first reaction to GroupTweet was: What’s the point? It seemed like an indirect way to send and recieve tweets with people I already communicate with on Twitter.

My second reaction to GroupTweet was: Ok, this could be useful for communicating with a subgroup of your friends. As people use Twitter, they tend to accumulate followers that are spread out geographically. If you’re wanting to make plans to go out on Saturday night, those tweets don’t necessarily need to go to people that live hundreds or thousands of miles away from you.

My third reaction to GroupTweet is to unfollow those I’ve followed, and not join any others. The problem with GroupTweet is it undermines one of the biggest strengths of Twitter: the ability to control the experience. When you follow someone else’s group, you allow that person to decide, at least partly, what you receive. The group owner chooses who to allow in the group, and when they let someone in, you start receiving their tweets to the group, whether you want them or not.

Just to be clear, I haven’t had an actual problem with GroupTweet yet, like getting spammed or anything. It was just seeing a tweet from someone I hadn’t followed that made me realized the idea has a fundamental flaw.

So I could see starting my own group, but I can’t see joining someone else’s without a clear set of rules on who will or won’t be allowed to join — much like the example GroupTweet gives on their home page. I don’t know that there’s a real solution to the problem without making the GroupTweet service significantly more complex. It may be that this is an idea with limited application until Twitter offers more fine-grained control of what you receive.

Microsoft's Change of Heart

2008-03-04T03:52:00Z

Microsoft announced today that IE8 will, in fact, act like IE8, a complete switch from their previous plan. Why the change of heart? Perhaps to get various governments off its back. From the IEBlog:

While we do not believe any current legal requirements would dictate which rendering mode a browser must use, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue.

So in the end it was government regulations, not community backlash, that got this idea nixed. Whatever the reason, I think Microsoft is making the right decision — one that will continue IE’s evolution into a standards-compliant browser.

Start All Over Again

2008-02-18T15:26:09Z

I just made the official announcement over at Smart Goat, but I also wanted to get into some of the whys and wherefores of the whole thing.

As I mentioned on the other site, I’ve been hired as a web developer for a media company in Oklahoma City. I’m not going to mention the name here—if you want to know, contact me privately. I don’t mind telling people, I just make it a rule not to publish the name of my employer anywhere Googleable. Seems best for everyone.

After more than four years of doing freelance from home, I’m going back to a regular, 40-hour-a-week office job. I’m having a hard time imagining it. What do people do in offices these days? It’s my understanding they all have documentary film crews—is that accurate?

Here’s the deal, for those of you that are new: I build websites. Mostly small sites, some medium-sized ones. Typically, I do it all—design, development, the whole thing. Problem is, I’m a developer, not a designer. My design work turns out ok, but it takes me twice as long to get to ok as it takes a designer to get to good. Taking longer to produce something not as good is not a solid business strategy. When you combine that with the constant cycle of trying to find the next client while you’re working for the current client you end up working 60-80 hours a week for not much money.

Meanwhile, our list of potentially profitable ideas continues to grow. But no one’s paying us for those, so it’s hard to justify spending time on them instead of client work, even if the difference in pay is slim. This puts me in the position of wanting to work on my own stuff, but needing to work on client sites. Typically, I compromise by looking at shiny things on the Internet.

SweepsGoat is a good example (Of a personal project. And, I suppose, a shiny thing on the Internet). It doesn’t make a lot of money, but it’s profitable. If I had the time to work on it, SweepsGoat could be doing much better.

So I’m looking at this job thing as kind of a reboot. If we don’t have to depend on client work to pay the bills then we can follow our passions in our free time without feeling guilty about it. Smart Goat can transition from a client services business model to a software sales/subscriptions model. For us, I think that model scales better than what we’ve been doing.

Honestly, I’m pretty excited about this whole thing. I managed to find the exact job I wanted after only looking for about a week. I’ll be doing the kind of work I love to do, but on a larger scale than I’ve ever worked before. And I can use my free time to work on projects I want to work on.

And, if what I’ve heard about offices is correct, the people I work with will be hilarious.

Flash on iPhone

2008-02-13T13:44:39Z

Gruber’s been writing about the rumors of Flash coming to iPhone. I think he’s right that it’s unlikely, but I think there’s an angle he misses here:

Lastly, perhaps you might be thinking that although Flash-for-the-iPhone may not be in Apple’s interest, it is in Adobe’s — and so perhaps Adobe will port it themselves once the imminent iPhone SDK ships. Think again. The iPhone SDK is not going to be the sort of environment like Mac OS X where developers are free to create system-level plugins. No one is going to get to diddle with MobileSafari without Apple’s approval.

Gruber’s probably right, but Adobe may be able to make an end-run around this problem by porting Adobe Air to the iPhone. They’ve made it clear since the early releases that as soon as they can create mobile versions of Air (sometime after 1.0), they will. With Mobile Air they could release their own Webkit-based, Flash-enabled browser.

Of course, don’t expect this any time soon. Adobe Air 1.0 hasn’t been released yet, and a Mobile Air would likely have even worse memory issues than a MobileSafari Flash plugin. Still, I’m sure Adobe’s working on it.

Rough Riding on the Action Stream

2008-02-01T19:17:18Z

One of the reasons I went ahead and upgraded to MT 4.1 is that I wanted to try the new Action Streams plugin. It’s a life stream with a lot of options for publishing what you do online. One word of warning: If you’re using the never-publicly-released MT Elsewhere plugin, disable it. Action Streams is basically Elsewhere 2.0, and the two do not play well together.

Another problem is the code in the example Action Stream widget that comes with it is not correct. I’m guessing it’s using tags from a previous version. I’ve uploaded a corrected version if you need it:

author-action-stream.mtml

However, I don’t really recommend using this as a widget, exactly. Something like this, that’s going to get rebuilt often and used on multiple pages, is best setup as an index template. Then, you can create a widget that includes it via PHP, SSI, etc.

Beyond that, though, I like the plugin. Looks fairly easy to modify, too, if you want to change how it displays actions or add services it doesn’t yet support.