Chad Things

Before I upgraded to wordpress 2.6, I had URLs using tags like this:
http://chadnorwood.com/tag/travel/

After I upgraded I realized I liked categories better (they can have parent categories).  So no more tags, all categories, but the problem was that google (and others) still link to /tag/travel/ which ended on a 404 page. Since I had no tags, I decided to redirect all my  /tag/xxxx to /cat/xxxx – I also prefer /cat/xxx to /category/xxx, which I changed in Settings-Permalinks.  Here’s how I did the redirect exactly:

Add the following to the end of ../wp-content/themes/<current_theme>/functions.php file

// added at the end of functions.php file, in my current theme's directory
add_action ('template_redirect', 'check_for_tag_404');

// custom function to redirect old tag links to new cat links
function check_for_tag_404()
{
$pat = '/^\/tag\/(.*)$/';

// return if this URL does not begin with "/tag/"
if (!preg_match( $pat, $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"])) return;

$uri = $_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"];
$uri = preg_replace( $pat, '/cat/$1', $uri);
$location = "http://" . $_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"] .  $uri;
header("Location: $location");
exit;
}

Big Ups to this template_redirect dude for giving me a clue.

This summer the 2.0 version of iPhone software came out, and lots more apps with it. It had some problems, so I waited till 2.1 was released. Overall the OS doesn’t seem much different (some new features, but also new bugs and a bit slower running things, at least on my non-3G non-GPS original 16GB iphone). However, there are ton more apps in 2.x, which is why you should get it. None are as cool as the basic features of the iPhone – phone, internet, ipod, and maps – but the apps are definitely worth checking out. I tried to make my list practical and useful for today, avoiding apps that would be great if only something somewhere did something also as well.

2008/12 UPDATE:  I upgraded to 2.2 and its not much difference.  I do love the new voice search on the google app – best ever – including easter eggs. I’ve also slightly changed the list below from the original post.

So forget my old list of free iphone applications, here’s my new favorites, best ones first:

1. Shazaam (MUSIC) – AWESOME. Ever heard music and wish you knew then name or artist? This app can listen and identify most any song in less than 20 seconds – from radio, your friend’s CD, or that one track on that hour dance mix you downloaded. Midomi is a similar app that tries to do more but needs to work on errors.
2. Nuevasync (CALENDAR) – OK, Not an app, just awesome for those who use Google calendar. Using iPhone’s Microsoft Exchange support and the default calendar app, setup a instant 2-way auto sync with Google calendar. Changes made to Google calendar can be seen minutes or seconds later on the iPhone calendar app, no manual synchronizing required. Likewise, edits in iPhone calendar show up seconds later on your google calendar. How to setup Nuevasync.
3. Google Mobile (SEARCH) – At first, I had mixed feelings with this one, mainly because its slow (you type 5 characters but it can take 3-10 seconds for them to appear, since the app starts to search for matches after 1 or 2 characters). However, it definitely saves time. In addition to being a shortcut to google results page on safari, its a shortcut to google maps, remembers previous searches, suggestions, and you can search iphone contacts. Google made a nice overview video. I love voice search in newer version.
4. Movies (ENTERTAINMENT) – If you like the box office, going to theaters, or just getting info on movies, Get This. This would be my favorite app if I still went to the movies – they are just too expensive. Best feature is finding showtimes for theaters near you using iPhone’s location, as well as remembering your favorite theater.  But I also love watching the trailers, finding out the biggest box office hit, and connecting to IMDB. Showtimes is a similar app.
5. Evernote (PRODUCTIVITY) – Ever wanted to record a voice memo? you know by talking not typing? Get this. Not only is this great for audio notes (up to 5 mins), but it also does picture (with text recognition ability) and text notes, rounding it off with a very advanced search. Picture notes are perfect for receipts, wine labels, or anything else with text that you’ll want to have later. Major problem is that it does not cache notes on the iphone – so if you are on an airplane or in a dead zone, you’re screwed. review.
6. reQall (PRODUCTIVITY) – Similar to Evernote, it lets you write text notes and record audio notes (up to 30 secs), no pictures, but will translate audio to text (can take a few mins). ReQall focuses on organizing notes (almost to the point of confusion), but – here comes the best part – it stores notes on both iphone and the web! (it appears to have 2k limit on text note, about 30-40 lines). No more worries about dead zones, which makes this app better for me. Still, took me a few tries to figure out how to use it. Also see Zenbe below. review and quick-start guide.
7. Facebook (SOCIAL) – Best interface to Facebook, I especially love the simple list of friends, news feeds, inbox, and update status.  Get this is you wanna give great facebook.
8. UrbanSpoon (MAPS/FOOD) – Find restaurant near you. Very fun, fast, and easy (cities covered)
9. Where (MAPS) – Brings up a map of where you are, then plots the closest starbucks, places from eventful, places with yelp ratings, gas stations, zipcar, local search, buddy beacon (like loopt) and more. I just wished their map zoom in/out/drag was as fast as google maps.  It also times out alot.
10. Loopt (MAPS/SOCIAL) – If you have friends with iPhones and want to share your location with them, get this. It’s great when you’re out on the town. works with GPS and non-GPS iPhones
11. Weatherbug (WEATHER) – More details than the default Weather app, including wind, chance of rain, and the ability to have more than one source for a city. For example, find highs/lows for SF downtown and the airport (which can vary by ten degrees).
12. Stanza/eReader (BOOKS) – Both are good if you want to read books on your iPhone, nailing down the basics like easy access to books you’ve downloaded, turning pages while you’re reading, jumping to a certain chapter or page, searching for text, tweaking color/font. Both have tons of books, all the classics, but could impove ways to search for books. I like Stanza slightly better because… you don’t need a login, a few more settings to tweak, more books available even tho eReader has DRM (copy-protected) books and stanza does not. Check out stanza – review1, review2.
13. ESPN Cameraman (FUN) – Picture game – find 5 differences between 2 similar pics, like that bar game “Photo Hunt”
14. Brain Toot (FUN) – Simple but fun game that tests memory, eye coordination, thinking, etc.  Also check out Brain Blaze for more brain exercises.
15. Aurora Feint (FUN) – Game similar to tetris or jewel quest.
16. Klick (PICS) – Flickr app. Does a good job of allowing you to upload a new or old photo to flickr, giving it title, description, tags, and location/geocode info.  In addition to upload, you can view your recent sets, tags, recents from contacts, search, etc.

Below are ones I tried and kept, but don’t use very much

1. Remote (MUSIC) – Apple’s way of controlling your computer’s iTunes from your iPhone. It’s great if your computer’s iTunes is less accessible than your iPhone, but when i’m listening to iTunes on my computer, my computer is more accessible.
2. Banner Free (FUN) -Scroll a message LED style across your iPhone.
3. Scribble (FUN) – Turn iPhone into a blank canvas and your finger into a pen and scribble. Or, instead of a blank canvas, scribble on top of a picture from your photo album. Kid Friendly.
4. Tap Tap Revenge (FUN) – Simple game where you tap to the music, kinda fun with two players, but gets old.
5. MazeFinger (FUN) – arcade style game, cool sounds and graphics, but simple and kinda boring.
6. RJDJ Single (FUN) – plug in headphones, and RjDj will tweak what it hears for you. Make it fun to walk down the street. faq. The free version comes with only one scene, and it sux – it basically echos then environment, but even with headphones at full volume you can’t hear much. Paid version seems more interesting. youtube.
7. NYTimes (NEWS) – read NY Times articles. Nice UI, I like browsing news categories, but crashes alot
8. NetNewsWire (NEWS) – read RSS feeds on iPhone, including blogs and major news feeds. I prefer Google Reader on the PC.
9. WritingPad (PRODUCTIVITY) – new way of typing. Instead of tapping each letter, you draw words, going from the first letter of the word on the key layout to the second to … the last. It works pretty well, but you can only use this interface to take notes, you can’t use it anywhere else. Why learn a new way to write when most of the time you have to write the old way?
10. Jott (PRODUCTIVITY) – Once setup, it will turn 1 to 15 second audio memo into text and email it to you. Not always accurate, but accurate enough to make it great when you need to quickly jott stuff down when you’re driving or don’t want to type. I will prolly remove Jott since ReQall also translates audio to text, but reQall is also not always accurate (and slower at translating than jott), so I’m holding on to this for now.
11. nxtb.us (MAPS/TRANSPORTATION) – bart/muni arrival predictions in SF, check out flash video on http://nxtb.us/
12. Trapster (MAPS/DRIVING) – alerts you to speed traps. Useful to locate speed traps on regular driving routes like a commute, but not something you would leave on while just driving around.
13. Twinkle – Twitter for iPhone but with location – find out what people are doing within 5 miles of you. Cool in theory, but i barely twitter and know nobody in chicago. setup could improve.
14. Shozu (PICS/SOCIAL) – shozu is the uber social app – talks to 50+ sites, sharing info back and forth.   If you spend lots of time updating various social sites, definitely check it out.  review. I don’t use it cuz it often has errors talking to flickr or facebook, my two most used apps.

Below are ones I tried and uninstalled.

1. VoiceNotes (PRODUCTIVITY) – Just records audio notes, but had no timestamp. Evernote does and offers much more.
2. Zenbe (PRODUCTIVITY) – Simple list manager – sync’s with web, which i love, but reQall does everything Zenbe does plus has voice to text translation. Sorry, you get the boot!
3. Rember The Milk RTM (PRODUCTIVITY) – Another list manager, similar to reQall, and tho its free to download you got to pay to use some web service. You get the boot!
4. YouNote (PRODUCTIVITY) – Similar to Evernote, but its not easy to backup notes or sync with the web. Dealbreaker for me. However, if you use notepad alot, this is a nice upgrade. review.
5. Exposure (PICS) – another flickr app, Similar to Klick but no uploading. Free version has ads (Boo).  Latest version (November 2008) crashes alot when i try to login to flickr (I login to yahoo, authorize app on flickr.com, then tap ‘done’ on iphone and Exposure crashes).

Need To Spend TIme On These

• Pandora (MUSIC) – stream music
• last.fm (MUSIC) – stream music
• Fring (SOCIAL) – chat with friends on Google Talk, AIM, Skype, MSN, Twitter, etc. And make phonecalls for free using wifi/VOIP (prolly great if you travel internationally).
• IM+ (SOCIAL) – another IM client
• linkedin (SOCIAL) –

NON-FREE Noteworthy Apps

• Air Sharing $5 (UTILITY) – Turn your iPhone into a wireless USB drive using wifi. Also a image/document viewer. I have this and have geek friends who love this.
• Things $10 (PRODUCTIVITY) – list manager (Todo, etc)
• Notebook $5 (PRODUCTIVITY) – todo list manager
• Syncbook $4 (PRODUCTIVITY) – another note sync manager
• Byline $4 – RSS Reader, syncs with Google Reader, better than NetNewsWire.

References

• http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/mowi/article.php/3773366/Top+Ten+Free+iPhone+Apps.htm
• http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/10/iphone-application-overview-and-demo-videos/
• http://mashable.com/2008/10/24/iphone-apps-revisited/
• http://www.didigetthingsdone.com/2008/10/21/top-5-iphone-applications-for-productivity/
• http://www.lifehacker.com.au/tips/2008/11/07/battle_of_the_iphone_task_managers-2.html

If you use Firefox and Google (which should be everybody reading this), then here’s your chance to geek up yo google search.  Install greasemonkey and my “Google Search: Keep Date Dropdown” script.   If you’ve used advanced search on google, you know you can search for stuff based on date – like show healthcare results only from the last week/month/year.  It takes several steps to get to that advanced page, but then you get a nice date dropdown box. However, if you pick “anytime” on that date dropdown box, the box disappears.  Then you gotta go do a bunch of steps to bring it back. That’s where my script comes in – that date dropdown box is always there. Here’s a picture of the dropdown box followed by my official description.

On Google Search, you can search the last week/month/year from advanced search, which creates a date dropdown box on the search results page. Once you search “anytime”, the dropdown box goes away. This script keeps that dropdown from disappearing (when as_qdr=all)

I know, I’m a geek.  I save so much time with little shortcuts like this.  Enough time to write a blog about it. Weeee!!!  Here’s more cool greasemonkey scripts.

Did you know Caller ID can be faked, legally?  For example, Annoying dude can call your mom and fake it so your mom thinks the call is coming from you.   There are even businesses that exist to serve this annoyingly evil purpose.  Relief is in sight – there are bills (not yet laws) outlawing “any caller identification service to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information” – more at wikipedia.

My iPhone has recently been receiving harassing calls from one number – 904-954-3072 – up to 4 times a day, for like 10 days now.  I’ve only answered a couple times and I hear nobody on the other side.  I’m not the only one – some say it’s Citicards debt collectors but most think it’s a scam. My guess is caller id spoofing.

UPDATE 10/14/2008 – It probably was Citicards.  I recently moved, and didn’t update one of my credit cards with my new address.  I talked to citibank and she said they do have a service that automatically calls if bills are not payed.  I asked why they don’t talk when you answer the phone or leave voicemail messages.  She said they don’t leave messages in case phone number was changed, and as far as not talking when you actually answer and say hello .. well, she said there’s a problem with the system.  I told her it was annoying to get the calls and she agreed, but they would stop in the next few days.  CITIBANK IS LAME.

I recently moved to Chicago from San Francisco and, of course, had to figure out how I was going to get me some internets from my new pad.  In SF we found free wifi from the neighbors, but in Chicago we had no such luck – all the neighbor wifi signals were secure (encrypted).  That was fine by me, I was ready to have my own fat pipe at home – both shayna and I would get annoyed in SF when our free wifi wasn’t working or forcing us to sit by the windows.

I was also interested in getting HD cable or HD satellite TV. I haven’t had anything besides over-the-air since 2003, but i bought a nice HDTV from a friend that needed some HD content.  Plus Shayna wanted to get a landline so she could do some work over the phone without eating too many minutes on her cell.  So off i went to find internet, cable/satellite, and phone.

I first looked at comcast, the most popular around here, and they offer all 3 – internet, HD cable, and phone.  But I wanted quality HDTV, and I know comcast HD is not as good as others (comcast quality march 2008).  Also, I was pleased with Dish Network when i had it in 2003.  Some sports nuts like Direct TV better, but that ain’t me.  So now i just need to find me some internets.

Finding a Internet service provider was a bit more challenging.  According to dslreports, there were many offerings in my zip.  However, many said they did not offer service at my address – including RCN, verizon, etc.  Covad was available, but starting at like $100/month. Ouch.  Speakeasy was a good choice, one of the most reliable and best customer service, for about $55/month for 1.5/384 or $95/month for 3.0/768.  Ok, also high but more doable, but i figured i should also consider comcast.

Comcast had many options, but here’s a quick summary of the triple play i considered.  All these have the same cable options, about 200 or so cable channels, including 40 or so HD channels, a HD DVR (like tivo), which was $4/month more than normal DVR, and internet.  Total was $132 for 6.0/384 internet plus cable and HD DVR, or $140 for 8.0/384 internet, or $159/month for 16/768 Internet.  I also read many horor stories about comcast changing the price on their customers .. one guy got a $30 increase on his monthly bill.  Comcast?  I don’t think so.

In the end I went with AT&T.  At first their website said they did not offer service at my address, but some blogger said that you should call to double-check.  I did, and they did have ‘manual’ service at my apt.  The nice lady at ATT had many deals, including combos not on their website, so i’ll just list what i ended up getting – cheaper than comcast and they even partner with DISH for my area (U-Verse, their new TV over internet option, was not available for my location).

Notes: $5/month off DISH cuz AT&T deal, $10/month off internet cuz i got a phone line.

Initial costs were .. -$110.  Yep, I walk away with $110.  Breaks down like this: $40 for phone (would be free if i got $30/month free long-distance phone), plus $50 for internet modem.  Dish equipment and installation are free.  Thats $90 in costs, but i also get $200 cash back – $100 for internet/phone, and $100 for DISH.  So $90 costs – $200 cashback = -110.

My contract is for 24 months, but only DISH charges anything if i cancel early – $10/month.  So if i cancel at 14 months, 10 months before contract, i pay $100 to Dish.  If i want to move at 12 months, DISH will install my same setup at new spot for free (DISH offers one free installation per 12 months).  Pretty sweeeeet !!!

UPDATE – 6 November 2008:

I got .. misled on initial costs.  I only got $100 cash back, not $200 ($50, not $100 for each check), and costs were $70 for internet ($50 modem, $13 shipping, $7 tax), $47 for phone ($64 first bill minus $17 monthly), putting my initial costs at about $17 (still not bad, but $127 less than I was told.).

But what i’m really pissed at is the billing chaos.  More important than the errors and confusion, was the amount of time it takes to sort this out.  I spent about 4 hours total on 4 different occassions dealing with AT&T customer service.  Their managers seem competent, but do not trust anyone else.

The first billing confusion was based on the fact that I was told that I get free outgoing calls within 15 miles.  A manager at AT&T Customer Service assures me there is no such thing, and tried to sell me an outgoing call package deal.  No Thank You, Ma’am. Secondly, DISH is all sorts of messed up .. took 3 calls to sort of straighten it out.  See this picture with details on DISH Bill.  Basically they give you lots of credit on first bill to cover first and second bill, and the third bill should look normal. Did you look at that Bill?  what’s so hard about saying “TOP 200”, “Local HD”, “HD Silver” ???  One thing nobody mentioned is that they charge you $5/month if you don’t connect your DISH receiver to phone or wifi – “ADDL RECEIVER ACCESS FEE”.  What?   .

Overall the monthly is not far off – hopefully it will stay that way:

Related – I found a nice comparison of HD channels available nationwide.

You can avoid paypal fees entirely if you do these:

1. Setup personal account (not business)
2. Only receiving payments for Services. For the other types (eBay Items, Auction Non-eBay, and Goods-Other), there is a $500/month receive limit on personal accounts.
3. Notes about the person sending you money –
   • No fees if sender has enough money in paypal account to cover sending amount.
   • No fees if sender’s balance falls below $0.00 AND is reloaded by a US checking account
   • Yes fees if sender’s paypal balance falls below $0.00 AND is reloaded by a credit card – Paypal charges 4.9% + $0.30 USD, plus limited to only 5 of these per 12 months.

Sources (must be logged into paypal to view):
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-fees
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_show-limits

Now that i’ve had my iPhone a while, here’s some tips and tricks i can share.

• Get a case to protect your iPhone. Following most apple store employees, i bought Agent 18 eco-friendly.
• MegaPhone – mac application – see your call log, SMS/TXT log, iphone filesystem, read/write to iphone notes from your MAC, etc.
• Disk full? 8GB or 16GB iPhone actually has 2 filesystems, first is only 300MB and might fill up if you install lots of apps. In addition to moving /Applications to bigger partition, and chmod +s Installer, i did this
  cp -Rv /opt/iphone/lib /var/root/lib
rm -rf /opt/iphone/lib && ln -s /var/root/lib /opt/iphone/lib

• Geek? Dual Boot your iPhone
• Use iPhone’s internet on your laptop (slow, but useful in a pinch)

If you’re iPhone is freed/jailbroken, get these (best items first)

• fring – finally a found a google talk client (blog). Also does chat/IM with yahoo, aol, MSN, ICQ, Skype, Twitter, SIPwith others apps
• Productivity/WebSearch – shortcut to searching on google, wikipedia, ebay
• Multimedia/MobileScrobbler – last.fm client – like internet radio, but need good wifi
• iLog – view details about missed/received/dialed calls (with call duration!), individual SMS, etc.

Couple months after I replaced a drive in my terastation, another drive died. Sigh. Time to upgrade. Took many many hours, but I upgraded my 1TB Buffalo Terastation (4 x 250GB) to 2TB (4 x 500GB). Of course its less than 2TB – once RAID 5 is setup, it comes out to about 1.4TB of usable space. And you definitely want RAID 5 – that means if any one of the 4 drives dies, you don’t lose any data, just replace it before a second drive fails.

Here’s the deets:

1. Bought four 500GB drives for about $100 each,
2. Copy data from Terastation to one of the 500GB drives – mounted via USB on windows xp, could also work with IDE inside PC (4-6 hours)
3. Disassemble Terastation, pull out 250GB drives (<1 hour)
4. Copy data from 500GB to 2 of the 250GB drives on windows xp PC (6-8 hours)
5. Partial Reassemble Terrastation with 4 new drives (10 mins)
6. Upgrade Terastation firmware to 2.16 (had trouble with disk format till I did this)
7. Format each disk (5 mins) (had to reboot a couple times to get it to work)
8. Create Raid array 1 (RAID 5) using all 4 disks (2 mins), raid “checking” took 13 hours
9. Create shared folder
10. Copy data from the 2 250GB drives back to terastation.

More on http://buffalo.nas-central.org/index.php/Terastation_FAQ

My last backpacking trip to Sykes was great, but my GPS watch ran out of juice after a second full-day of use. Sigh. I figure if I ever do any multi-day backpacking trips and want to record the GPS waypoints the whole time, i’m gonna need a way to recharge. Plus I like being green, so I looked into a solar panel charging device.

My goals for a device, most important ones first:

• Recharge my Garmin Forerunner 305
• Recharge my 5G iPod
• Recharge my iPhone
• Can’t break easily
• Lightweight, small
• Under $100
• Bonus: works with AC outlet and DC car cigarette lighter
• Bonus: work like my current iPhone AC to USB charger
• Bonus: minimal attachments

This roll-up solar charger looked cool – It can recharge a laptop – but was too big and expensive. Solio was pretty popular on the ol’ google search results, and they have 2 models that met my goals – the Solio Classic and the Solio Hybrid 1000. Looking at the tech specs, the classic has a bigger battery and more juice, but the 1000 is a bit more rugged, as this guy suggested. The H1000 doesn’t charge as well as the other Solio products, but I liked that it was the most durable and cheapest. We have a winner that meets all my goals. Watch video. I paid $74 including shipping/taxes at thenerds, and it arrived 2 days after I ordered it. I confirmed it worked as expected with my GPS watch, iPhone, and iPod. Hurray.

It’s on. Shayna and I are volunteering this Saturday 9am-1pm, it goes 2pm-2am, and tons of our friends will be going to south bay to check it out. But chad, what is it? Well, lets let Yuri’s Night Bay Area do the talking:

“Yuri’s Night is a celebration of space exploration—and mankind’s curiosity, scientific ingenuity, technical achievements, and spirit of collaboration that have made it all possible. This year, NASA’s 50th anniversary, the Bay Area will be home to the largest Yuri’s Night celebration ever, with 8,000 people joining astronauts, artists, scientists, engineers, and musicians to pay tribute to our global space heritage and to celebrate how much more is out there to be discovered!”

Personally i’m going to have fun and listen to music – one of my favorite DJs ever, Tipper, will be playing a twilight set. But there will also be fun costumes, interesting art, fascinating science, and friends. What more could you want for a saturday? Buy your ticket now!