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Great New Email Client

And then there was Postbox.

I don't usually plug software on this blog but I have to make an exception for Postbox.  I switched from Outlook several months ago and I love this alternative written by some of the key developers from Mozilla and Thunderbird who have now embarked on their own project. It represents how mail should be done. The price is right, and if you use the image link to the right to order Postbox you'll get an additional $10 off.

Try it for free, then come back here to order and get the discount.

Postbox offers you powerful new ways to find, use, and view email messages and content, organize work life, and simply get things done. Postbox works behind the scenes to catalog everything in your email: every bit of text, every contact, address or link, every picture, document or attachment. This smart information engine provides you with ultra-fast search, smarter and more intuitive views, and tools to help you organize and focus.

It has add-ons that sync everything with your Google address book and calendar as well as other services. You need to check it out.  Postbox is available for Windows and Mac OS X

New From Apple?

While playing 'Words With Friends' on my iPhone I suddenly became aware of why apple named their new tablet PC the iPad:

 

I Want One Of These (redux)

 

See the details at Digital Photography Review

 

Our iPhone 3G S Warranty

On release day Sandi and I both got the new iPhone 3G S models and they are great.  Last week, after having the 3G S only 10 days or so, we were playing Scrabble together over WiFi in bed when all of a sudden the entire left one-third of her screen inexplicably went totally black. The next morning I called Apple and after doing a few standard checks, they agreed that she deserved a replacement 3G S, unless of course hers was dropped in water or otherwise the victim of abuse. I assured them that it was not, Sandi liked her iPhone too much and was too careful for that.

They said they could either send us a box and have us send it in and they would then send a replacement, total time of about 7-10 days. The alternative was to buy the one year AppleCare warranty extension for $69 and then they would just send us a replacement overnight and we could send ours back after receiving it. I popped for the $69 and now she has 719 days of warranty instead of a just a year. That may come in handy! 

The replacement 3G S arrived the other day and I dutifully swapped SIMs and restored it for her, making sure it was perfect. She loved it. Unfortunately, less than 4 hours later she dropped the SOB in the horse stock water tank, filled with 18" of murky water and horse spit.

So, now she has a phone with a voided extended warranty that covered it for about 240 minutes. The sound stopped working immediately and the screen shut down within 5 minutes. She didn't tell me right away; she took it in the house, lit the oven and warmed it up to 150 degrees. She gently wrapped her iPhone in a paper towel and placed it on the middle rack. WTF?  It's not a f'ing burrito! 

I won't go into the, er, discussions we had when she let me know what happened. She tried to calm me down by telling not to worry that she was 'drying it out' as we, er, discussed. That part didn't really help.

Suffice it to say I wasn't happy. I immediately ran into the house and when I rescued the iPhone from the Blue Star's oven it was miraculously working perfectly! 

It's been over 36 hours now and all is still well.  Since things are better now, I'll just post a pic of our big Percheron getting a bath.

Oh yeah, forgot to post a pic of our first hay cutting too.  We stacked 11 big round bales:

More iPhone stuff and NCT update

As if you were interested.  I've been running the v3.0 beta for weeks now and it is nice.  But the really exciting news is the new hardware that is probably going to be released, probably in June.  I plan on pushing my current 16GB 3G phone to Sandi which will give her all the new features of v3.0 and buying the new phone, whatever they call it.  She needs to get away from the old 8GB v1 phone. 

NC Telecom's bankruptcy is winding down nicely.  The asset distriution is underway and is expected to be confirmed by the court next Tuesday.  Although the specific details are confidential, I can say that the current parent company UBTA/UBET Communications will retain ownership of the operational assets and continue to provide services to the community, and a job for me!  WOOT!

iPhone v3.0 Software Announced

Scheduled for release in June or so.

Major new features;
• MMS
• Copy & Paste
• Data tethering
• Turn-by-turn GPS
• Landscape in Email, Texting, Notes
• Stereo Bluetooth
• Over 1k new SDK API's
• Peer-to-Peer connectivity
• Spotlight search on Home Screen
• In-App Purchases
• New Stocks app
• Push Notifications
• Accessory connectivity
• New Calendar support

Since I am an official iPhone developer I was able to download the SDK and new firmware today for testing and review.  I haven't yet loaded it on my iPhone because I am a bit worried about being able to reload all my apps and music, etc.  They make it clear that once you load v3.0 beta you cannot revert to the older releases.  What to do...  I want to take a peek but...

IP Change Completed

...and not a day too soon.  We spent the last half of the month replacing cards in our Alcatel and Cisco hardware and finally established a stable DS3 circuit on February 25th.  Bryan spent every night for the next 5 days updating routers while I handled the customer notifications and DNS, WEB and other updates.  We completed the cut just hours before the month-end deadline.

Although here are still a few remaining small issues,  our new Internet feed is humming along happily.  Previously we were only receiving about 15-20MB from our provider and now we have a full 45MB from a major telco, which is less than half used. 

The graph clearly show how usage increases in the morning just after our customers get to work and have a cup of coffee.  All is well.

IT Management Sometimes Sux

At work we have been working on a replacement DS3 45MB feed since December and it just seems that something goes wrong at every turn.  Now that we finally have the feed and have the new /22 net IP addresses routing properly, suddenly we find issues within our own fiber network between Grand Junction and Craig.  For the last 10 days we have been chasing a problem between the two Cisco 7206s and it is driving us crazy.  It will test fine for 30-60 minutes then it will drop one interface or the other.  We have changed cables, router cards, Alcatel interface cards and we are now rebuilding the entire circuit within the ATM network by manually configuring it in each of the Alcatel SMX shelves in Craig, Meeker, Rifle, DeBeque and Grand Junction.  Part of the problem is that our test equipment is giving us some incorrect readings and we have a very limited number of spare parts.  The price of being in Chapter 11 for over 3 years I guess.  Later tonight we'll know if we go ahead with the first phase of the change or hold off yet again.  It has to be completed by the end of the month because we are going to lose our current feed at that time. 

iPhone 3G Jailbreak pending...

Link: blog.iphone-dev.org.  I'm waiting impatiently for the dev team to release the jailbreak for iPhone 3G.  Looks like it is still a few days away.  While the new 3G has access to all the apps in the iTunes App Store, there are still a lot of programs that will never be available there that would be nice to add to the phone.  Just FYI, jailbreaking modifies the iPhone to allow full access to the OS X operating system, including the ability to modify just about everything and add additional 3rd party programs not available via the iTunes store.  It's geeky but fun.

Got a new camera

After 10 years or so without a good 35mm SLR I finally bought a Canon EOS 20D Digital SLR.  I'm having a lot of fun taking more photos, especially with the Canon 100-400L USM IS telephoto lens.