Recently in Technology Category

Elisson was right.  I knew he was.  But I knew tackling it would be a whole lot of work.  Brain work.  Doing geeky things I really don't know much about.

But I did it!

A complete overhaul of the Wordpress version of my blog.

[Yes. For those of you who did not know, a complete duplicate of the timtyson.us blog has been running now for about a year over at blog.timtyson.us.  Check it out.  It's cool.  It uses a completely different blogging system that I like much, much better than MovableType. Eventually, this version will be completely replaced with that version. The content is identical.]

• Fixed:  Elisson said white text on a black background looked sexy but was just too hard for tired eyes to read.  I totally agreed.
• Fixed:  Intermittent odd behaviors when loading single blog posts.
• Enhanced:  I get a fairly interesting collection of hits from around the world.  The Google Translate feature has been extended.
• New:  Fresh, lighter theme
• New:  An image "slider" on the Home page that features clickable images that take you to picture-laden posts about my journeys.
• New:  The Home page shows you a nice overview of the whole site with Featured posts, Travel-related posts, Most Popular posts, and more.
• New:  Archived files are available in a much easier to find (under the Filed tab) and navigate.  In fact, site navigation is generally simplified.
• New:  The Blog tab now only presents a short teaser from each post—just enough to see if you want to click on "Read more  ››" to see the entire post.
• New:  Google's new font technology is incorporated in the banner title.  The font will change from time to time.
• New:  My Facebook status will now appear "live" on my blog.

Other new features are in the works.

Many quirks still are being corrected.  For example:  my previous theme has a main body area that was a good bit wider.  Now, many of the pictures need to be resized.  What a pain!  I've toyed with the idea of tweaking the css files to widen the body and shorten the sidebar in the individual posts, but I've decided not to do that.  I like the white space in the current layout.  Clean.  Open.  Not visually distracting.

The Google Translation code looks horrid.  I've got that one on the list.

If you find any other weirdness, aside from what I write about, let me know so I can fix it!

Tip of the fedora to Dan for this great idea.

Do you ever get tired of hearing the same music over and over again from your iTunes library?  Here's a possible cure.

Select all of the music in your music library.  Right click on one of the highlighted items and select "Reset Plays" to make the play count for each item "0." Create a smart playlist based on whatever criteria you want.  As the final criteria, add Plays is 0.  Click OK.

Now, once you have listened to an item in the playlist, it drops out of the playlist.

Dan syncs all of his music library to his iPod.  Every time he listens to a song the play count goes to "1" for that song.  When he re-syncs his iPod to his computer, that song drops out of the play list.  At the end of the year, he starts over.

Related articles

• Making the most of the iTunes Column Browser (macworld.com)

iTunes Home Sharing
With five computers in the house with two distinct music libraries among them, and with two AppleTVs on the network connected to sound systems, and with the new Apple Remote app for your iPhone or iPad (way cool app!), iTunes Home Sharing is really convenient and easy to setup.  With home sharing turned on, you can play music from any computer on any computer or AppleTV on your local network.  Even more:  It's a great way to have an additional backup of all of your iTunes media.

This post will overview how to get started with home sharing. It looks like it has a lot of steps, but each step is really easy.

1.  Click on the [iTunes] menu and select [Preferences].  (Windows users, I assume your preferences are in the same place as they are on a Mac.)

2.  In the Preferences window that comes up, under the [General] tab, make sure your iTunes [Library Name] on this machine has a name that will make sense to you when you see it on another computer.  If all of your iTune's Libraries have the same name, you will have no idea which one belongs to what computer.

3.  Under the [Sharing] tab, make sure sharing is turned on by checking [Look for shared libraries] and [Share my library on my local network].  Click OK.

4.  Click on the [Advanced] menu and select [Turn On Home Sharing].  (Once iTunes Home Sharing is turned on, this menu item toggles to [Turn Off Home Sharing].

5.  You will be prompted for your iTunes account information.  [Yes, you must have an iTunes Account to do this.  You can click on "Need an iTunes Account?" to learn more about setting up an iTunes Account.]  After entering your account information, Click on [Create Home Share].  Adding your account information does not make it possible for someone on another computer to use your account to purchase media from iTunes.  It just sets up the sharing feature.  I assume that you could have multiple home sharing networks if you used different iTunes accounts for each.  But a single computer could only be a part of a one network at a time.

6.  The screen then shows you some important information.  You must use the exact same iTunes account information when turning on iTunes Home Sharing on each of the other computers in your house.  And, notice that Home Sharing is only for personal use.  Now click on [Done].

7.  Now the computer you just shared appears in a Shared list on the left column in iTunes along with all of the other computers as you turn on iTunes Home Sharing on each computer you wish to share.

8.  The name of your computer's shared iTunes music library will not appear on that same computer, only the other computer's music libraries you are sharing on the home network.  Click on the name of one of the libraries under [Shared] in the left column to see some other really convenient options.  These options will then appear at the bottom of the iTunes window as shown below.  If you leave the [Show] drop down on [All items] you will see all of the items in the selected, shared iTunes Library.  If you select [Items not in my library] only the items that are not included in the music library on the computer you're sitting at will appear in the iTunes window.

9.  If you click on the [Settings...] button, the window below appears.  By selecting any or all of these media types, any of those items not found in that computer's iTunes library will be automatically transferred to the computer you're sitting at.  If your hard drive is large enough, this is a huge convenience for making certain you have an additional backup of your iTunes media files.

10.  Maybe you don't wish to automatically transfer all of a particular media type onto your computer, just a selected group of songs or movies or TV shows, etc.  By selecting [Items not in my library] and then [Command] clicking or [Shift] clicking on the items you wish to import to highlight them, the [Import] button grayed out in the screenshot in step 5 becomes active.  After selecting the items you wish to import, click on the [Import] button to add them to the library of the computer at which you are sitting.

There are many little apps for the iPhone that come in very handy for traveling, but this one really caught me by surprise!  The app translates printed text on the fly in real time.  It substitutes the words it sees in print with the translation.  It's rather remarkable, really—a new breed of language dictionary is born.

Check out Word Lens at the iTunes Store.  It's advertised as free and then works in demo mode.  You must purchase translation "modules" which are $4.99 and currently limited to English to Spanish and Spanish to English.  It really works!  I'm assuming other language modules will be released.

Related articles

• Word Lens: the iPhone app that will change travel (gadling.com)
• Words Lens For iPhone Translates Spanish To English (informationweek.com)
• Word Lens Translates Text With Your IPhone Camera (pcworld.com)
• Word Lens: Augmented Reality App Translates Street Signs Instantly (wired.com)
• Word Lens translates text with your iPhone camera (macworld.com)

I've blogged about my recent encounters with @Verizon when upgrading the TiVo with the Fios service here at the house.  In addition to the Twitter replies to me from Verizon following up, today I got a followup phone call from Ralph, the technician who installed the M-CableCard and got everything working wonderfully.  He wanted to be sure everything was satisfactory.

Since I groused about my really, really bad customer service experience, I feel equally compelled to rave about my current really, really good customer service follow up experiences.   OK, so Verizon and I have kissed and made up.  This was really pretty easy for me to do because I do so love their Fios* service and my MiFi card that I use all over the country.

Also of note:  loving the new high capacity TiVo Premiere XL in HD!

*According to an independent report that has nothing to do with Verizon, here in Manhattan Beach we're in the top 1% of household internet access speeds.  It just rocks my world since I do so much work on the internet!!  And I'm reading that Verizon just announced a whopping 150 megabit up and 35 megabit down upgrade from our supposedly current 15 up and 10 down!  (Our actual speed just clocked in at 30.54 Mb/s up and 22.51 Mb/s down.) My God, that's fast!  This makes cloud computing a bit more realistic.  Their goal:  10 gigabits per household in a few years!  That's just insane.

Related articles

• Verizon FiOS Readies Super Fast 10GB Per House Connection (beet.tv)
• @Verizon Customer Service Is Horrendously Wretched! (timtyson.us)
• Corporate Offloading (timtyson.us)

Mother will hate this post.

Note:  The code on this page is a vastly improved reading experience at this link.

Last year, for the first time, I created a Season's Greetings banner that popped up (using MediaboxAdv) when you first hit my blog.  This year, when I went to operationalize that same code, things were not very straight forward.  This post is to remind me next year how to do this—sort of a note to me in the future.

WordPress Site
Under the wordpress —> wp-content —> themes folder on the server, select the current theme and modify the header.php file within that folder.  Immediately after the HTML header tag closes, this code should appear:

<!-- Mandate that the #mb-announcement mediabox open when this page is first hit or refreshed by the user -->
<!-- <body onload="Mediabox.open('URL_GOES_HERE', 'TITLE_GOES_HERE', 'WIDTH HEIGHT')"> -->
<!-- When NOT mandating the #mb-announcement, comment out the next line of code. -->
<body onload="Mediabox.open('http://blog.timtyson.us/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/HolidayGreeting.jpg', 'Happy Holidays', '480 520')">
<!-- When NOT mandating the #mb-announcement, uncomment out the next line of code. -->
<!-- <body> -->

Normally, without the forced load of the mediabox announcement, the code would read like this:

<!-- Mandate that the #mb-announcement mediabox open when this page is first hit or refreshed by the user -->
<!-- <body onload="Mediabox.open('URL_GOES_HERE', 'TITLE_GOES_HERE', 'WIDTH HEIGHT')"> -->
<!-- When mandating the #mb-announcement, uncomment out the next line of code. -->
<!-- body onload="Mediabox.open('http://blog.timtyson.us/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/HolidayGreeting.jpg', 'Happy Holidays', '480 520')">
< !-- When mandating the #mb-announcement, comment out the next line of code. -->
<body>

This single change in code will impact the loading of both the main index page as well as individual page archives.

MovableType Site
To accomplish the same thing, MovableType requires two file alterations: one for the index page and one for individual page archives.

For the main index page:
Under the template-link-files —> my-template-link-files on the server, modify the Index.html file within that folder.  Immediately after the HTML header tag closes, this code should appear:

<!-- Mandate that the #mb-announcement mediabox open when this page is first hit or refreshed by the user -->
<!-- <body id="mt-blog" class="mt-main-index layout-wm" onload="Mediabox.open('URL_GOES_HERE', 'TITLE_GOES_HERE', 'WIDTH HEIGHT')"> -->
< !-- the body id above is the result of using the <$mt:BlogTemplateSetID$> variable for the boy id as shown below. When NOT mandating the #mb-announcement, comment out the next line of code. -->
<body id="<$mt:BlogTemplateSetID$>" class="mt-entry-archive <$mt:Var name="page_layout"$>" onload="Mediabox.open('http://blog.timtyson.us/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/HolidayGreeting.jpg', 'Happy Holidays', '480 520')">
<!-- When NOT mandating the #mb-announcement, uncomment out the next line of code. -->
<!-- <body id="<$mt:BlogTemplateSetID$>" class="mt-entry-archive < $mt:Var name="page_layout"$>"> -->

All of the index files would then have to be rebuilt for the change to take place.

Normally, without the forced load of the mediabox announcement, the code would read like this:

<!-- Mandate that the #mb-announcement mediabox open when this page is first hit or refreshed by the user -->
<!--  <body id="mt-blog" class="mt-main-index layout-wm" onload="Mediabox.open('URL_GOES_HERE', 'TITLE_GOES_HERE', 'WIDTH HEIGHT')"> -->
<!--  the body id above is the result of using the <$mt:BlogTemplateSetID$> variable  for the boy id as shown below. When NOT mandating the #mb-announcement, comment out the next line of code.  -->
<!-- body id="<$mt:BlogTemplateSetID$>" class="mt-entry-archive < $mt:Var name="page_layout"$>" onload="Mediabox.open('http://blog.timtyson.us/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/HolidayGreeting.jpg', 'Happy Holidays', '480 520')">
< !  When NOT mandating the #mb-announcement, uncomment out the next line of code. -->
<body id="<$mt:BlogTemplateSetID$>" class="mt-entry-archive <$mt:Var name="page_layout"$>">

For the individual page archives:
Under the template-link-files —> my-template-link-files on the server, modify the Entry.html file within that folder.  Immediately after the HTML header tag closes, this code should appear:

<!-- Mandate that the #mb-announcement mediabox open when this page is first hit or refreshed by the user -->
<!--  <body id="mt-blog" class="mt-main-index layout-wm" onload="Mediabox.open('URL_GOES_HERE', 'TITLE_GOES_HERE', 'WIDTH HEIGHT')"> -->
<!--  the body id above is the result of using the <$mt:BlogTemplateSetID$> variable  for the boy id as shown below. When NOT mandating the #mb-announcement, comment out the next line of code.  -->
<body id="<$mt:BlogTemplateSetID$>" class="mt-entry-archive <$mt:Var name="page_layout"$>" onload="Mediabox.open('http://blog.timtyson.us/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/HolidayGreeting.jpg', 'Happy Holidays', '480 520')">
<!-- When NOT mandating the #mb-announcement, uncomment out the next line of code. -->
<!-- <body id="<$mt:BlogTemplateSetID$>" class="mt-entry-archive < $mt:Var name="page_layout"$>"> -->

Get it right the first time, because "Only Entry Archives" files then have to be rebuilt for the change to take place—that's over 2,500 files and takes forever!

Normally, without the forced load of the mediabox announcement, the code would read like this:

<!-- Mandate that the #mb-announcement mediabox open when this page is first hit or refreshed by the user -->
<!--  <body id="mt-blog" class="mt-main-index layout-wm" onload="Mediabox.open('URL_GOES_HERE', 'TITLE_GOES_HERE', 'WIDTH HEIGHT')"> -->
<!--  the body id above is the result of using the <$mt:BlogTemplateSetID$> variable  for the boy id as shown below. When NOT mandating the #mb-announcement, comment out the next line of code.  -->
<!-- body id="<$mt:BlogTemplateSetID$>" class="mt-entry-archive < $mt:Var name="page_layout"$>" onload="Mediabox.open('http://blog.timtyson.us/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/HolidayGreeting.jpg', 'Happy Holidays', '480 520')">
< !  When NOT mandating the #mb-announcement, uncomment out the next line of code. -->
<body id="<$mt:BlogTemplateSetID$>" class="mt-entry-archive <$mt:Var name="page_layout"$>">

My browser of choice continues to be Safari. However, a few months ago Apple pushed an update out the door that is making Safari do weird things when building a page with Flash embeds. This, at times, significantly impacts page display and, I suspect, is a result of Apple pushing HTML5 implementation. I don't get those issues in Firefox. Hopefully Apple will correct this problem in the near future. I don't know what IE does with any of this code. I gave up on that browser a long time ago. (My apologies to all of those who still use it.)

[Another note to self:  the directions for using the awesome but non-intuitive SyntaxhHighlighter used on the WordPress version of this page are located at this link.

And that's about it.

 

I railed against @Verizon last week (link) because of my inexcusably horrid customer service experience.  Well, I'm happy to report that the Verizon installer, who I think was an independent contractor, arrived this morning, on time, properly de-installed my two single-stream cards (called S-cards) and installed a new multi-stream card (M-card) in my TiVo.  He was pleasant and knew what he was doing.

The process was a little more involved than I thought it would be.  The technician had to connect and log in to my router and run a special program to do his voodoo to make it all work.  He then downloaded a desktop program to my computer which I am expected to use before calling Verizon Technical Support if I have a problem with picture quality. He did a good job, and everything is working great.

I have to say though, that I rather resent this corporate strategy:  off-load as much of your workforce onto your customers to increase profit margins by reducing personnel and operational costs.  Corporations do this more and more.  What I find so offensive is not that corporations expect me to use my unpaid time to do their work (though I do resent this), but that it reduces jobs for wo/men on the street that need them!  (And I don't even want to hear the bull about keeping prices down.  I don't think it does at all.  It keeps profit margins and CEOs bonuses going up while the powerless little people lose their jobs.  That's what it really does.)

The only thing that makes me even more disgusted is when corporations turn offloading their work onto their customers into an even greater profit center through advertising. Classic example:  @Delta has reduced ticketing personnel so drastically (increase profit margins) that any savvy traveler is forced to print out the boarding pass at home.  Delta has offloaded their workload onto their generally unsuspecting (even grateful!) customers.  Since you use your own paper and toner/ink Delta saves even more money.  Clever!  Sneaky!

But the real insult is that Delta sells advertising space on the boarding pass you have to print out.  You use your paper and your toner to print an advertisement most of us don't want at all but are forced to see.  You can scroll down to the bottom of the boarding pass to print it without the advertisement, but, based on casual observation from all of my traveling, almost everyone prints the stupid advertisements but me!

Related articles

• @Verizon Customer Service Is Horrendously Wretched! (timtyson.us)
• FiOS TV coming to Mac, iOS in 2011 (tuaw.com)
• Verizon bringing 150/35Mbps internet to FiOS customers, enraging customers of all other ISPs (engadget.com)
• Verizon Adding FiOS TV Support For Mac and iOS Next Year (macstories.net)
• Verizon FiOS gets 150/35 Mbps plan (slashgear.com)
• Verizon Speeds Up FiOS To 150Mbps (tech.slashdot.org)

AT&T promises that they have 97.7% of people in the US "covered."  In their commercials they paint the whole country with Cingular's adopted orange color.  (They bought out Cingular and chose to keep Cingular's marketing colors as the tired AT&T blue color had become a potent reminder of how horrid AT&T is.  You know, keep the same crap service; change the color to make people feel better.)

They fail to tell us that Verizon's network only uses 3G technology and is vastly superior to the AT&T network, which is probably mostly the considerably slower Edge network.  So while AT&T has us all covered in orange, it's much slower service.  Don't believe me?  Try looking at your email on your iPhone at the remote and seldom visited LAX airport.  I have frequently wailed about AT&T's horrid service all over this country.  (Here's a link to everything I've written here at tt.us about AT&T.)

Now, I wouldn't mind all of this nearly as much if my AT&T bill reflected the true value of the service they provide.  Maybe...  $20 a month.  But I pay these people a whopping $100.00+ not including any additional costs I would have if I exceeded my plan's allotments.

Now Consumer Reports is adding to the chorus.  They rate AT&T as the worst.  Period.

When AT&T loses their exclusive contract with Apple's iPhone near the beginning of 2011, I wonder how many users will ditch their service.

Source:  CNNMoney

Now, before you think I'm just in a bad mood (though @Verizon certainly has put me in one!), I think Verizon's cell service and Fios service are completely awesome.  But their customer service is the worst of the worst.  In my opinion, the senior level executive in charge of customer service and retail should be fired immediately!

Today I completely wasted about 4 hours dealing with Verizon.  I had a simple objective:  replace the two cable cards in my old Series 3 TiVo with one multi-stream card in my new TiVo Premier XL.  The new TiVo will only accept one cable card, and it must be multi-stream.  Easy.

WRONG!!!!!

I thought all I needed to do was go to the nearest Verizon store and swap the old two for the new one.  When I arrived at the store near my house, I learned that most of the wireless stores have nothing to do with the cable stuff.  I needed to call an 800 number, and they would tell me where the nearest store is that could solve my problem.  How is one supposed to know which stores are which?!

I sort of remembered the location of the Verizon store where I picked up the first cable box when I moved here.  So off I headed in that direction while calling the number.  I waited on hold, to get to an agent, for about 10 - 15 minutes (after wading through their insufferable phone menus—every time I called).  She then asked in what city the store was where I had gone before.  I told her:  Venice Beach.  She said she would "get them on the line."  The ringing began.  After another 15 minutes or so of ringing, AT&T, in its inimitable way, dropped the call.  I called Verizon back and was dropped, after waiting about 10 minutes, before I even got an agent.  At this point I passed the place where the Verizon store had been.

It was gone!  The security guard didn't know where they went.  I called Verizon again.  (Menus, Wait, Wait, Wait...) We talked forever.  The agent told me the nearest store that would have the cable card I needed was in San Fernando.  What?!  I would have to go there to exchange the wrong cards for the correct card.  Good grief!  Well, ok, off I went.

When I arrived at the San Fernando Verizon store, you have no idea where to go once inside the store.  It looks worse than security at Southwest Airlines in LAX, literally!  Ropes and barricades everywhere.  But, unlike LAX, not many people.  You have no idea at all where to go in this maze!  Finally, I just walked around the maze of barricades and up to a person that appeared to fain being busy but had no one standing near her.

When I told her what the Verizon guy on the phone had said, she was flabbergasted.  She looked up my record.  Why would they send you here?  We don't have any cards at all of any kind!

What????!!!  You're kidding me!  I drove an hour for nothing?!!!!  She gave me a different 800 number to call saying they would order the card for me.

I went home.  Called.  (Menus, Wait, Wait, Wait...) Was sent to support.  (Wait, Wait, Wait...)  Support only replaces what you have, if it is broken, with what you have.  Support sent me back to customer service.  (Wait, Wait, Wait...)  Customer service then said they didn't understand what I wanted and HUNG UP ON ME!

I called back.  To this point I had been patient, but I was now furious.  This person told me immediately that they didn't have multi-stream cards.  They don't use them.  Their service is incompatible with them.  Instead, I could get one of their DVRs.  I told her that TiVo said, before I ordered the new TiVo, that Verizon Fios did have them.  She said she had had this issue before, had researched it, and that Verizon did not have nor support multi-stream cards.  She didn't know if they ever would.  Verizon only had the old cards that I already have that will not work in the new TiVos.  I asked her why any of the other people I had talked to today at Verizon had not told me this to begin with!

I then called @TiVo support to see if there was a work-around or if I was going to have to return the TiVo.

TiVo customer support rocks my world!!!  They are awesome!

The TiVo dude said Verizon absolutely does have them.  They are required by the FCC to have them.  He said we would have a three-way phone call with Verizon and resolve this.  Suddenly this new Verizon agent couldn't begin to understand why anyone at Verizon would have told me they do not have the multi-stream card.  She set up a day/time when they would come out to the house and take care of it for me.  The TiVo dude documented the Verizon case number and agent's arrangements.

What crap!  Verizon probably wanted me to rent one of their boxes.  This reminds me of back in the day when the cell phone companies would suddenly switch your service without you knowing until you got a bill from another company.  If I knew how to contact the head of Verizon's customer service and the head of their retail stores, I would tell them what a horrible job they are doing.

Related articles

• TiVo Unveils Its Own DVR-Controlling iPad App (gigaom.com)
• TiVo outs iPad remote app for Premiere DVRs (electronista.com)

Now, I've actually written a lot more than 2,500 posts here at tt.us over the past 6 years, but a good number of them never got published for one reason or another:  they became old news before I finished the post, I was venting and then reconsidered, I waxed insane and recanted...  The list goes on.

So what is Post #2,500 to herald? (I have no idea why I feel it deserves some level of distinction!)

After careful thought and consideration (not!) it turns out this post will be about current events:  The TSA.  I bring you this cartoon from The New Yorker with a concluding thought.

The thought:  Security is an illusion.  It simply doesn't exist.  And with the tawdry junk talk, the man who dropped his trousers and stood there in his underwear, the  poor man whose medical device was yanked from his body leaking urine all over him in front of everyone while he tried to get the TSA to stop before the incident happened, the other cancer survivor made to remove her prosthetic breast for inspection, the pilots union's worries of extended and excessive exposure to harmful levels of radiation from the imaging systems, the list could go on and on...   we have the security scanning option pictured above (source: The New Yorker).

How long will it take before some man or woman boards a plane with something explosive located in a body cavity?  What then, I ask?!

The absurdity needs to stop. Risk is everywhere. Get accustomed to it.

Everyone knows that in 10.6 you can do a Quick Look on most files without opening them in the application that created them by simply selecting a file (one click) and then touching the spacebar. I love this feature and use it all of the time.  It was first introduced in 10.5.

But I didn't know that you can use the [Option] key to zoom in on the Quick Look and the [Option] + [Shift] keys to zoom out on a Quick Look and can even move around in zoomed images during Quick Look using two fingers on the Trackpad.

Nifty

My hosting service is MediaTemple. They have 24 hour phone support. They are awesome about helping the techno-illiterate, like me.

When I was in Budapest and Prague last week, I published 61 pictures, and my blog publishing platform on the MovableType side went berserk! Every time I would attempt to do anything, MT would log me out. I had never had this happen before and was clueless.

This morning, in my jet lag induced quasi-stupor, I decided I had to fix this problem. O horror!

Amazingly, I was able to determine that a specific table (mt_session) in my mySQL database for MT4 was corrupted and needed to be repaired. But I have no idea to repair a mySQL database table. In desperation I called MediaTemple.

As I feared, this was "outside the scope of support," but the guy did it anyway and walked me through what to do if (when) this happens again.

Awesome!  Now I can publish some of the pictures from Prague!

Related articles

• Hosting Company MediaTemple Gets an API (programmableweb.com)
• Web Hosting with Great Customer Support (bloggingtips.com)
• 22 New APIs: Personal Information Management, Web Hosting and IP Geolocation (programmableweb.com)

/div>

 

I know I've sworn for decades (ok, at least in internet years) that I would never have a Facebook account.  I blogged about it.  I've given good reason for why I would never do it.  But, well...

Damn!

I'm using it as a tool to keep in touch with people I would otherwise never have the opportunity to keep up with in this busy world.  And, hopefully, with a new WP plugin, (thanks to Dan for the idea) every time I publish to my blog, the plugin will also cross publish to my Facebook wall.  It will take me some time to work out the kinks and learn the flow of Facebook.  We'll just see how it goes...

On Saturday, October 23, 2010, I walked nearly 18,000 steps!!  Yes.  Yes, indeed!  I walked all over Atlanta!

Tragically, since I didn't travel with my computer, just my iPad, my Fitbit didn't report this on Twitter!

I was traumatized by the fact that this enormous record (for me anyway) went unknown, uncelebrated, without the ceremonial distinctions it truly deserved!!!

But now the world knows!

Well, yes.  Naturally I watched Steve Jobs emcee Apple's Back to the Mac event yesterday.

Now, I must confess that when Apple first introduced the huge change from iMovie HD (version 6 in 2007) to iMovie (version 7 in 2008) I made no secret of my utter disgust.  It was a huge, enormous step backward.  Apple quickly responded to the extreme customer dissatisfaction, because users were in an outright uproar, by almost immediately, within days, releasing an update with added features.  Everyone who had used iMovie HD continued to use it.  I don't know of anyone who actually used iMovie 7, which was less than featureless, even with the immediate update.

iMovie (version 8 in 2009) was a big step forward, though previous users of iMovie HD, myself included, had a difficult time getting into the new interface. which was conceptually nothing like iMovie HD (version 6 in 2007) and every previous version of the software.  Previous users generally didn't like the new interface introduced in 2008.  New users were not so encumbered.  Ok.  With this new version in 2008, there seemed to be some hope.  Maybe Apple hadn't made a huge mistake with this new GUI.

Yesterday Apple introduced iMovie (version 8) in iLife '11.  (Isn't all of this year versus version number thing so damned confusing?!  And then you have the suite numbers and version numbers for the pro products...  Jeeze!)  The new version now, in my mind, officially rocks my world.  So, from where I'm sitting, it took Apple 3 to 4 years to release a product that is absolutely better than iMovie HD.  You know, I guess I just wish this had been the version they released back in 2008.

iMovie '11, as I'll call it to minimize confusion, appears awesome.  I should be getting my hands on a copy of it today.  I suppose what I found most fascinating, even tantalizing about this newest version, is the movie trailer templates feature--a virtually bullet-proof way to make nothing less than stunning movie trailers.  From an educator's perspective, I see this a an excellent way to teach students to better articulate their quasi-innate understanding of the language of film production.  (The quality of the video footage used in the demo didn't hurt any, of course.)  But I will be interested in seeing how this actually takes off out in the field for common users and, more importantly, for students.  I see enormous, enormous, enormous potential here.

The new MovieMaker in Windows 7 is just about where iMovie HD was in 2007, although the interface, like most of Windows, in my opinion, is just flat out ugly as hell and grotesquely stark—the last thing a person who is being create needs or wants.  Now the latest version of the Windows movie production software appears to be in the stone age once again, eating Apple's dust.  Can't Microsoft do something innovative rather than just copy everything Apple is doing?!

I've been hearing the rumor mill whispering about a complete remake of Final Cut Pro, Apple's pro level movie-making software.  I immediately thought that if they did such a thing, I wouldn't even consider upgrading.  Now, having seen where Randy Ubillos has taken iMovie '11, I'm a lot more open minded.  This could be really interesting.

Oh, and sure, the new features in iPhoto '11 and GarageBand '11 were cool as well, but iMovie '11 was the product that just blew me away.  (I don't know what the new features are in the other apps in the iLife '11 software suite.)  Of course, iLife comes free on every new Mac purchase.  Existing users can upgrade, and Steve Jobs is right:  for $49, iLife '11 is the best software value on the planet!

What Apple has done in the past decade is nothing short of a miracle.  My heart is actually warmed by the fact that the marriage of brilliant engineering, meticulous design, and creative genius has produced the spectacular contribution that is Apple, Inc. And I want to further note that Apple is now a blistering financial success, with stunning sales records and profits in everything they are doing, even in an extreme depression—an American economy that is utterly in the toilet because of America's complete lack of creativity and innovation in everything except blowing things up and killing people.  The bulk of Apple's revenue is coming from completely new and innovative products that didn't even exist much more than 3 years ago.  Apple is a model for what America can do, what America can be.  It's about leadership that carefully nurtures the marriage of engineering, design, and creative genius!

Related articles

• iLife '11: The Best New Tricks in iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand [Apple] (gizmodo.com)
• Apple announces iLife '11 with new iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand (venturebeat.com)
• Apple Announces iLife '11 With New iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand (nytimes.com)
• Apple unveils iLife '11 with significant updates to iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand (edibleapple.com)
• Back to the Mac: GarageBand and iMovie '11 (nytimes.com)

You know, official declarations are often a bit slippery.  I'm about to issue one such declaration now:  I'm declaring the computer hard drives officially recovered, restructured, and now in the process of backing up both on and off site.  I say it's a bit of a slippery declaration because I will probably find small things yet undone even weeks from now—things you rarely use or think about.  We'll see.

The desktop computer now has two new 2TB drives in it.  One of those drives is the freshly cleaned and thinned system drive.  The 4TB Drobo is now working again (It was a catastrophic mess!) as an onsite Tim Capsule backup system for the desktop computer.  The faulty iTunes library disk has been replaced with a 1T external hard drive, and all of the files have been carefully (and tediously too, might I add) copied over through iTunes itself, thus recreating the entire iTunes library from scratch--to minimize future issues.

I'm guessing about one more full week before everything is completely backed up on and off site.  The desktop computer had over 2,000,000 files on it!  (My god.  I need to simplify my life!)  In the meantime, the 20+ MB internet connection feels like molasses.

It has been a horrid week.  But the treachery is now declared officially over!

Related articles

• Oh Horrid Tragedy (timtyson.us)
• iTunes bankruptcy, step one: The Great Purge (tuaw.com)

I've really been fortunate to live in and around very beautiful areas.  The South Bay area is quite lovely.  Last weekend was so typical:  gorgeous sunny weather on the coast.  Saturday featured a day trip to Palos Verdes and Rancho Palos Verdes, just south of Manhattan Beach.  Sunday featured a day trip north to Malibu.

So here are some photos (shot by the HU) and a brief video (shot by the iPhone 4 in HD!).  Clicking on any of the photos will open slightly larger versions of them. (Many monitors may be too small to seethe video in HD. Just scroll to the right. Mouse over the video and click on the "Play Full Screen Button," which looks like a tiny square on the extreme right above the word "Close." The button does not appear until you mouse over the video.)  Holding the iPhone steady in the wind is a huge challenge!

Enjoy!

My main computer has had its 1T startup disk fail.  After nearly 24 hours of working on it, I at least have it running again.  I've had to take another 1T internal drive and make it the new start up drive with OS 10.6.x.  So far, I've had success getting all of my document files, my upgrades and installs files, and numerous supplemental system files off of the bad drive and onto the new startup drive.

I have now successfully copied the movie files folder, the music and pictures folders over to the newly purposed drive.  These contain literally hundreds of thousands of files representing hundreds of gigabytes.  Fingers crossed:  I don't think any of the files I copied over were corrupted.

The final step is reinstalling all of my applications.  I've reinstalled all of the smaller, simpler applications.  Now I've tackled the enormous applications that take hours and hours each:  Logic, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop Extended, etc.  This entire process will take at least a week!  Then I can have Apple replace the bad hard drive.

What a mess!  But again, I am soooo thankful for Backblaze, which is my off site backup service.  I know that even if I can't get all of my files off of the bad drive, I can get them from Backblaze.  I also have to extol the virtues of my password and serial number management system, 1Password.  I would be considerably more frustrated with the reinstallation of all of my software if I had to go digging around for my over 500 serial numbers.

And, as if fate has it in for me, my iTunes 500 GB music library drive, which had given me problems earlier and lost all of its data (and had to be restored from Backblaze!), is having issues again.  I just replaced it with a 1T drive, as it was almost full, which may have contributed to its issues.  So, while I've been reinstalling software on my Mac Pro, I've been painstakingly making certain that all of my iTunes data is recovered and properly installed through iTunes so it plays correctly.

Even with excellent backup strategies and serial number management, this has been a week in technology hell!  The silver lining:  my system folder has accrued a massive amount of needless, useless clutter through about 10 years of migration from older machines and upgrading the operating system and software.  Now it will be vastly less junked up with useless files.

Related articles

• Backblaze vs. CrashPlan: Mac Backup Smackdown, Round 2 (nytimes.com)
• Backup service Backblaze almost acquired by ... someone (venturebeat.com)
• Petabytes on a budget: How to build cheap cloud storage (backblaze.com)

Over the past 6 months or so, I have been getting more and more spam email at my main email address from Apple's MobileMe service.  At 6:00AM I already had 16!  Within 1 minute of deleting them, another arrived!  @Apple needs to get with the program here!  When the subject line has every pharmaceutical name in it, it should be too difficult to ID it as spam!  And I've forwarded as an attachment to spam@me.com enough of these things to fill up a server.  But the problem has gotten worse and worse.

I am so fed up with it I was ready to discontinue my main email address, which I've had for years and years and years!

Then, I had a bright idea.  Gmail has excellent filtering!  I have a Gmail address I have never made public.  Tah Dah!

I've set up a new email rule.  Now, until @Apple gets their act together with spam filtering, every time an email comes in to my main MobileMe email address, Mail automatically forwards it to Gmail and deletes the original from my Mail application.  I never even know the original arrived at my MobileMe email address.  Gmail filters out the spam, thank you Google!, and sends the real email back to my Mail application!  Now only the real, properly filtered email arrives in my inbox!

No more spam from the assholes that troll the interwebs!  The voices have stopped!

Related articles

• 11 Tips To Effective Email Management (celestinechua.com)
• Top 4 Freeware Spam Blockers That Actually Work (makeuseof.com)
• Gmail Filters Email Beyond Spam (webpronews.com)
• When did you last see SPAM in your inbox? [MakeUseOf Poll] (makeuseof.com)

I recently was at a conference for and by artists:  dancers, visual arts, musical arts, and educators.  Naturally, such an eclectic group is a tremendously fun energy.  One of the ladies shared an unusual web site, an interactive film based on the address at which you lived as a child, called, "The Wilderness Downtown."  She just sent me this link to the film generator.

You enter your address, and out pops a movie featuring an interactive experience with google maps for that address.  This isn't just unique.  It's totally awesome!

The music, "We Used to Wait" by Arcade Fire is also something worthy of your time.  Here are  the lyrics:

I used to write
I used to write letters
I used to sign my name

I used to sleep at night
Before the flashing lights settled deep in my brain

But by the time we met
By the time we met the times had already changed

So I never wrote a letter
I never took my true heart,
I never wrote it down

So when the lights cut out
was lost standing in the wilderness downtown

Now our lives are changing fast
Now our lives are changing fast
Hope that something pure can last
Hope that something pure can last

Now it seems strange
How we used to wait for letters to arrive
But what's stranger still
Is how something so small can keep you alive

We used to wait
We used to waste hours just walking around
We used to wait
All those wasted lives in the wilderness downtown

We used to wait
We used to wait
We used to wait
Sometimes it never came
We used to wait
Sometimes it never came
We used to wait
I'm still moving through the pain

I'm gonna write
A letter to my true love
I'm gonna sign my name

Like a patient on a table
I wanna walk again
Gonna move to the pain

Now our lives are changing fast
Now our lives are changing fast
Hope that something pure can last
Hope that something pure can last

We used to wait
We used to wait
We used to wait
Sometimes they never came
We used to wait
Sometimes they never came
We used to wait
I'm still moving through the pain
We used to wait
We used to wait
We used to wait

We used to wait for it
We used to wait for it
Now we're screaming "sing the chorus again!"

We used to wait for it.
We used to wait for it.
Now we're screaming "sing the chorus again!"

I used to wait for it
I used to wait for it
Hear my voice screaming "sing the chorus again!"

Wait for it!
Wait for it!
Wait for it!

You simply must experience it!

Related articles:

• Arcade Fire, Colin Stetson: Concert Review and Photos (beatcrave.com)
• Arcade Fire Interactive Video (jambase.com)
• The Wilderness Downtown: Chrome experiment by Chris Milk and Arcade Fire (boingboing.net)
• Arcade Fire at the KeyArena: Whoa (seattlest.com)
• The Wilderness Downtown (asourceofinspiration.com)

I just came across Eirc Whitacre's Virtual Choir, 2010.  His idea is brilliant.  His composition and conducting are glorious.  The finished product is sheer transcendence:  people all over the globe bringing voice to beauty.  This is spectacular:  technology in the service of beautiful, united though individual, human emotive expression—a true global collaborative effort at its finest.  You easily see both the honesty and purity of the gift of self expression dedicated to the craft of human beauty in the faces and posture of the participants the editor chose to highlight.  (I'm just glad I didn't have to create the video compilation or mix the audio!)

Brilliantly conceived from start to finish, this virtual choir has already been viewed over a million times on YouTube. Most, though not all, of the singers are younger people from the United States, Canada, Singapore, Germany, and Sweden. If you wish to learn more about how the Virtual Choir began, check out this video.  I would love to know the back story on how the participants came to be involved in this collaboration.

Want to participate in the Virtual Choir 2011? You can! Eric wants it to be the largest Virtual Choir ever recorded. At this link Eric discusses how to interpret the score, Sleep, for the Virtual Choir 2011 recording. You can learn more about how to record and upload your part, sign up and download the score at Eric's web site.  The text and translation can be found at this link.

This is awesome!  Be sure to watch it in full screen.  (Also, the audio doesn't begin until the curtain opens.)

Here is a link to the Westminster Chorus singing this piece in TTBB, and this link to the Westminster Cathedral Choir.  Eric uses the gift of delicate dissonance so carefully crafted as to become sonorous and expansive. Just no words to describe it...

Related articles:

• Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir Tour (theworld.org)
• How Digital Media is Attracting New Arts Audiences (readwriteweb.com)

This tragic, yet true tweet has been circulating:

The Tea Party - thousands of hard-working middle-class FOX viewers fighting to make sure the rich pay less in taxes.

What's with people that watch FOX?  Rupert Murdock, whose company owns FOX, isn't even an American, and he's getting filthy rich (current net worth is $6.3 billion--with a "b") on the backs of hard-working Americans by scaring and lying to them.  He has way too much power and influence.  Why would anyone trust him at all?!

That is a common question I get.  I recently read another article that sums up well why I do NOT use Facebook.

1.  I think the founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is a jerk.  According to the article in Wired, he "once joked dismissively about the 'dumb fucks' who 'trust me'."  I don't trust the self-posessed, immature, opportunist.  He doesn't have the best interest of others at heart, only his own.  He wants you to share every tidbit of information about your life with his company, but he shares next to nothing about his life with anyone.  He's exceedingly private, according to an article at CNN today.

Reasons 2 - 5 are also good reasons not to participate in wholesale Facebook information sharing, number 3 being particularly noteworthy:  Information you supply for one purpose will invariably be used for another.  The article sights some excellent examples.  Here's one of my own:  No one has considered what the longterm impact of having news marketed and election information market to individuals based on their pre-existing opinions, philosophies, and associations will have on the longterm wellbeing of a democracy.  Living in a world of your own making is not a healthy place to live.  Opposition is healthy and can spur critical thought that can either reframe or reinforce your thinking.  But if you are only receiving information that affirms your current view, then your opportunity to grow is exceedingly limited.

Reason number 6 is the most compelling reason for me.  I don't want corporations to own culture.  I don't want corporations to own news.  I don't want business to own social discourse.  Mark wants to own you.  No, but thanks.  I say, "Unfriend Facebook."

BTW, this Facebook-related Greenpeace ad campaign is brilliant!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Six facts about Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg (cnn.com)
• Six Reasons Why I'm Not On Facebook, By Wired UK's Editor (wired.com)
• Greenpeace pokes fun at Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg (simplyzesty.com)

And I hate it that the front door to the house isn't private property.  Daily, people leave fliers and business cards and unsolicited junk on the door!

This week's big news story:  the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has decided that the government can, without a warrant, sneak onto your property, your driveway, and place a GPS tracking device on your car that tracks everywhere you go.  We no longer have a reasonable expectation of privacy for our driveways, which even delivery people can use.

Shockingly, this ruling is actually getting some media coverage.

Plenty of liberals have objected to this kind of spying, but it is the conservative Chief Judge Kozinski who has done so most passionately. "1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it's here at last," he lamented in his dissent. And invoking Orwell's totalitarian dystopia where privacy is essentially nonexistent, he warned: "Some day, soon, we may wake up and find we're living in Oceania."

Source:  Time

Some have pointed out that if you are wealthy, you probably live in a gated community or have gates around your property that would extend your zone of reasonable expectation of privacy.  So only the poor people have less privacy.  But that's OK, isn't it?  I mean, wealthy people don't commit crimes.  Wealthy people don't bilk billions, even trillions out of the unsuspecting.  Enron never happened.  No Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme.  No Wall Street bail out while the captains of capitalism lived off the slaughtered fatted cow.

Besides, privacy died long ago in this country — during the George W. Bush administration, I do believe.  His cronies called it The Patriot Act.  Just the name says "Run!  Don't walk!"  During his administration and the Republican rein of terror, not only were hundreds of thousands of surveillance cameras installed all over this nation, but warrantless wiretaps, "enhanced interrogations," and god knows what else were made the order of the day.

And who are we kidding?  I'd bet my last dollar that the US government routinely snags the GPS satellite data from specific cars at will.  There really is no need to place anything on the cars of serious criminals.  That's so last century.  Only puny local police departments have to actually walk onto someone's driveway to plant a GPS under their car.  The big time crooks already have GPS as part of the most fashionable bling package.

The totalitarian state is here.  Is now.  We live it.  The Constitution and Bill of Rights are just window dressing from a time gone by.

Related articles

• Court allows agents to secretly put GPS trackers on cars (cnn.com)
• Warrentless GPS Tracking Of Your Car Is Legal If You're Not Wealthy Enough To Protect It (dvorak.org)
• The Government Can Use GPS to Track Your Moves (time.com)
• The Government's New Right to Track Your Every Move With GPS (time.com)
• Judge Kozinski Doesn't Track with the Ninth Circuit on GPS and the Fourth AmendmentCalls his fellow judges 'cultural elitists' when it comes to privacy. (abovethelaw.com)

Amazingly, people were swimming in the Gulf before, during, and probably after this storm.  But maybe, it was ok.  I never went down to the water.  If any oil or dispersant were around, it wasn't visible from the hotel room balcony.  Sunday night, the last night of the visit, a big thunderstorm came from the north.  I shot this short video of the storm moving out to sea.

Unfortunately, the progress bar does not show while downloading this HD video. Be patient. It is working. If you have a slow connection to the internet, be very patient.

I have always argued that, if you are funded with the public's money, the public has a right to know what you're up to with that money.  Transparency in a democracy is essential.  It prevents such hideous excess as the city manager of Bell, CA, making over $1.5 million in publicly funded salary and bonuses, which in my mind is a criminal act.

I've become so critical of the current "system," which I personally consider completely broken, that when I read or see/hear any news coverage, I immediately wonder, "Who is paying for me to receive this message?  Who is behind trying to influence my thinking in this way?"  And now that corporations can contribute any amount of money they want to our political system, the political influence peddling even gets more convoluted.

The Sunlight Foundation is working to peel back the layers of hidden influence.  They have designed a cool tool, Poligraft, such a clever name, to assist in disclosing who is funding what in Congress.  So when you read something on line, the hidden connections are just a click away.

Check it out by watching this short video.

Related articles:

• Sunlight Foundation Launches Poligraft, Bringing New Transparency To Political Reporting (huffingtonpost.com)
• Poligraft Tracks Influence on Government (readwriteweb.com)
• Poligraft Adds Level of Campaign Finance Analysis to News Articles (news.firedoglake.com)
• Poligraft Tool for Journalists, Politicos, Voters (currentbuzz.org)

The fact that this can be done, in total, from storyboard (if they had chosen to) all the way to upload to YouTube, on a $299 device, the iPhone 4, that also happens to make phone calls, is astounding. When Apple makes this all possible on an iPhone Touch and the iPad, they will rock the education market! Be sure to watch it in full screen.

I haven't posted much to my blog lately because I have been intensely busy, mostly with traveling, writing, and physical therapy.  And I have made some minuscule effort to avoid the computer as typing at the keyboard seems to train wreck my bad shoulder!

Recently, well, over the past several days, I used my Navigon application on the new iPhone as I traveled.  This application is awesome on its own.  On the iPhone 4, the app looks beyond gorgeous and functions with a level of smooth precision I had not noticed before.  I love it!

I use the app with the TomTom car kit.  I didn't give a second thought to using the car kit with my new phone, just assuming it would work fine.  Wrong!  The iPhone 4 is not as thick as the iPhone 3Gs, and this fact caused some connection issues.  Apparently the car kit needs the extra thickness to snap the phone firmly into the connector.  I even noticed a "rocking lever" that seems to need pressure to deliver electricity to the iPhone 4, which is not thick enough to press the lever.

The iPhone 4 appears to snap into the car kit fine.  But it does not get an electrical charge from the connector.  After some wiggling/pressing, each time I used it, I managed to get the phone to seat itself enough to get the charge.  Having electricity is essential as running a GPS app on the phone would otherwise very quickly deplete the battery.

I also noticed some wonderful updates to the Navigon application since last I used it.  I downloaded the panoramic 3D map information which adds more realistic display information.  And, for those who are not familiar with the Navigon app, I totally love how it implements highway signage information as you approach the signage.  It looks so realistic, just as the signs actually look when you arrive at them.  This feature takes so much guesswork out of navigating complex junctions.

The applications functions fantastically well in the background with the new multitasking iOS4.  And I also completely love the intuitive interface and GUI design.

On my recent trip to the Atlanta metropolitan area, I confess to finding the speed limit warning a bit annoying.  You can set the interval to 5, 10, 15, etc. miles per hour over the speed limit.  The application knows the speed limits and will say "Warning" while displaying an exclamation mark in a yellow triangle at the bottom corner of the speed limit sign indicating the actual speed limit.  In the top center I have the app showing my current, realtime speed.  This is invaluable information when traveling in unfamiliar areas.  But I knew the speed limits in the Atlanta area, had the interval set to 5mph, and the traffic was, as the traffic tends to do in Atlanta, speeding maniacally down the intestates.  So I heard "Warning!" every minute or so as I drove.  With my shoulder, I couldn't reach to adjust the interval while driving.

I'll have to update my TomTom car kit when they make one designed for the new iPhone 4.  But, I highly recommend the Navigon GPS application!

Related articles:

• On the road with the latest Navigon MobileNavigator (tuaw.com)
• Best iPhone Navigation Apps (brighthub.com)

I really don't like Apple's use of the word "magic" in their advertising campaigns.  To me, personally, it's a stupid choice of adjective:  the "Magic Mouse," the "Magic Trackpad," and how "Magical" the iPad is.  I wish they would ditch the "M" word.  It just sounds childish to me.

That said, the new trackpad keyboard accessory is awesome!  Aesthetically, it beautifully accompanies the Apple keyboard.

I do not like a mouse, of any kind.  The "Magic Mouse" was the best mouse I've used, but it constantly had connectivity issues!  I have always preferred to use a trackball.  I don't enjoy moving my hand all over a desktop surface.  In this regard, the "Magic Trackpad' is a dream.

Here are the things I like about it:

• I've yet to come across anything a mouse does that this trackpad will not do.  In fact it does more things than any mouse I've ever used will do.
• I love they way it feels to the touch.
• While it is larger than the trackpad on my MacBook Pro, it still has a small footprint.
• I can easily move my cursor anywhere on my large 27" monitors (2560 x 1600) , from corner to corner.
• I can rotate, pinch and zoom, zoom the screen, page back and forth, bring up the application switcher, scroll, and activate Exposé using the trackpad.  I can also point, click, double click, right click, as well as click and drag so easily with intuitive touches and finger slides.

I find the new trackpad vastly superior to the "Magic Mouse" and even my Kennsington trackball.  In fact, I like it more than any mouse-type device I've ever used.  This baby rocks!

Related articles:

• Magic Trackpad review (engadget.com)
• Apple Magic Trackpad first impressions (boygeniusreport.com)
• Apple Unveils Its Magic Trackpad (shoppingblog.com)
• Apple Magic Trackpad unboxing (unboxing.gearlive.com)
• Apple's Magic Trackpad Signals The End Of The Mouse Era (MG Siegler/TechCrunch) (techmeme.com)

I've already ordered one in each color!

Click photo to go to photo source.