iTunes Guilty pleasure songs:

So…its been going around to list your 5 biggest guilty pleasure iTunes songs. So…here we go…

Snow by The Red Hot Chili Peppers

I’d heard it many times, but the time that sticks with me is when I heard it on Californication on Showtime. I can usually only make it around 2:30 into the song, but…it’s a 2:30 I secretly adore.

I Got it From My Mama by Will.I.Am

My brother called me when he heard this on the radio. He thought it was one of those joke radio station songs. It will live on that way in my mind forever, and it makes me laugh every time I get to the line “if your mama’s real ugly I guarantee you’ll be ugly like your mama”.

Today by The Smashing Pumpkins

It’s a good song. The rest of their career is sort of embarrassing. I’m careful to point out to anyone who sees Smashing Pumpkins in my iTunes library that ‘Siamese Dream’ is the only album in there.

Hey There Delilah By Plain White T’s

They rhyme ‘you’ and ‘true’. I mean. And yet I can’t click past it. My inner critic openly weeps while the rest of me enjoys the song.

Rehab by Amy Winehouse

Do I need to clarify?

IMG_0015

Originally uploaded by fromdarkheaven

we found this hat in price chopper this weekend. High fashion in Marlborough, MA, I tell you.

Waiting for Monday
Keynote is a fun day.

Tuesday we see
we wanted more than just 3G

Wednesday is for despair:
There’s hardly anything there.

Thursday we’ll prepare
to wait sixteen hours.

Because we know we can’t avoid
Apple’s shiny new toy.

–

Seriously, though, keep hating the iPhone 3G, just like you did the 2G, so that I can get one on launch day.

iPhone 2G cost:

$59 voice * 24
$20 data * 24
$15 sms * 24
$499 iPhone ($599 - $100 rebate)
$250 Termination on TMobile

–

First month: 843
over 2 years: 3005

iPhone 3G

$59 voice * 24
$30 data * 24
$15 sms * 24
$299 iPhone

–

first month: 403
over 2 years: 2795

By my rationale, I’m saving money! (lol).

Yeah, so. No included SMS, an extra $10 worth of data, and activation required at purchase are the big downsides. Of course, I would activate anyway, but part of the superness of the original iPhone was not having to deal with that idiotic process at the store. On the other hand, perhaps Apple had more problems with activation at the start than was reported. I had no difficulty, but that’s not to say that it went smoothly for everyone. Maybe the goal is to avoid that this time around. Having had my iPhone replaced once over the course of its short life (bubbles under the screen), I can say that the activation process in the store is pretty darn fast for existing users. My guess is that it will be pretty quick on launch day as well.

The nice part about the 2g launch, however, was that even if your activation took a few hours (as some of them did), you could make a snack, walk the dog, grab a soda, etc. I’d hate to have to hang around the Apple store as the crowds pile up, if activation does take that long. By the time they let us into the store last year, there were definitely a few people in line that I wasn’t going to keep in touch with

Apple stock is, as usual, down after the event, as it has been after nearly all of these events. I’ll have to watch the keynote later, but the text version seemed pretty slow. Lots of 3rd party apps, etc. It will be a while before we have a keynote like the iPhone introduction again, I think.

Hi internet. Just wanted to thank you for this post.

I think every other time I’ve had the foreign key check problem, MySQL has complained about the keys instead of just returning the ERROR 1005. Or maybe I just haven’t run into the problem in a while, and my brain has turned to sludge.

Anyway, thanks for the post — saved me some time this morning

Silicon Valley Insider comments on Forrester Research’s list of potential new Apple products, noting the lack of imagination in the list, despite providing no list of its own

So here is my wishlist.

Dual display MacBook

Like the new XO mockup, but real. I know there are folks who love their real keyboards, but how cool would a full touchscreen on the bottom of a MacBook instead of a keyboard. Better yet, make it a display as well so that it can be a keyboard, huge mouse, tablet, gesture surface, etc. I love the keyboard and all, but some new input devices are really needed for a lot of applications like editing video, making music, etc. And I’m sure a lot of tasks we do now could be greatly improved.

This is probably waaay out there, but it would be an extremely cool device.

Multitouch mouse

Sort of a lite version of the above. Maybe a mighty mouse with touch surface on top. Perhaps something like an iPod Touch that can also function as a touchpad for your computer, or small auxiliary display. It would be sort of like that Microsoft technology for displays on the outside of laptops, except that it would be useful, and exist

Kyle and I have talked about this since the death of Mirra (from Microsoft). If the pricepoint could be hit, I think this is a killer technology.

Webcam based gestures

Who wouldn’t love LED gloves like in Minority Report. Answer: noboby. Like multitouch, but in mid-air. It would be quite a feat of engineering to get it to feel right, but would also have the potential to really transform how we work with computers.

.Mac overhaul

Yes. All of us that spend $100 a year on this for some inexplicable reason are mandated to include it on any ‘new features’ list. This is because we must believe we haven’t wasted this money when in fact, we have.

A .Mac that could really function as a hub of other internet activity would be really great. The pages with OpenID. Let users build something that can integrate their other places on the web. It would sort of be like FriendFeed without Scoble blogging about how super it is every two minutes (I jest…mostly).

Seriously, however, a .Mac that could run applications (like Google apps for people like my Mom) would be a great thing. Imagine being able to build something like a Google app, but with Interface Builder. Or Pages. Or iWeb. Maybe this involves scrapping .Mac and using Google services and tightly integrating them with iWork. Providing applications that make collaboration work for non-techs would be great. Making all these cool things the internets have made work for our Mom’s, and work betterfasterprettier for us would be great.

iPhone/iPod payment

Application on iPhone for paying for things. Like Starbucks, lunch, dinner, etc. Content on iPods is sweet, and there is room for growth in iTunes, but I can imagine the application store being a huge huge win for Apple, and what better application that handling all sorts of payments and micropayments. They already do it for iTunes. Take a few cents off the top.

iPod Fit

More iPod apps. Integrate your gym schedule and progress. Other than work, and sitting on the couch, it is the main other thing I (try) to do during the week. Also, my iPod (or one of them) is always with me.

Conclusion

Forrester’s list seems to make me think that those folks like to stay in their house a lot. All those products (genius to the home?!?) seem to be focused on not getting outside.

Apple’s products work best off a little bit of envy. When people see you out with an iPhone, its a win for Apple. AppleTV sits in your house. iPod HiFi (buhbye), sits in your house. MacBooks go out with you. There is a lot of work to do on making mobile technology usable, and iPhone has really only scratched the surface so far. The SDK and the app store are potentially an enormous win for Apple, and I’m sure they know that. Need to take your facebook with you? It’s easier on an iPhone. Need to take your GPS with you. iPhone. Want to find all your friends and meet up somewhere while on the go? iPhone app sounds like a good fit for that too.

I think this is why people are so hotly anticipating the 3G. Both because of the speed (yaay) and because of the app store.

That being said, they will probably do something from my list, and something from the Forrester list. If it is the alarm clock, however…that thing better be loud. I could not wake up this morning!

Just a quick reply to this post.

Java on the Mac isn’t an environment for running applications. Nearly all the applications that I use on OSX are based on Cocoa. The real reason for having Java on OSX is as a development environment. I really, really wanted Java 6 on the Mac. Not for the sake of writing applications for OSX, but for doing my work development on my Mac for deployment on something else. For me, the important thing is that I can keep using my Mac for development, even when (if) my company changes over to running my work under Java 6 on the server.

So Apple gets away with the 64bit only version because developers love new hardware anyway. On the fence about a new MBP — well..it has Java 6 now. Apple is essentially forcing non 64bit users who wish to develop Java 6 to upgrade, but for many of us, though there might be some grumbling, a new machine is never a bad thing.

The only problem with Selenium is that it is hard to write tests before actually implementing a feature. Or perhaps I’m just too tempted to use ‘record’ after the fact to test things. That setup works well for regression testing type stuff, but sort of defeats TDD (as it’s done after the fact, not before). Either way, I’m pretty happy with doing some site testing with Selenium. Now I just have to get good at actually using it