Fantastic Piece in the New Yorker on Elevators

Up and Then Down - The Lives of Elevators (by Nick Paumgarten)

In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) Once you know this, it can be illuminating to watch people compulsively press the door-close button. That the door eventually closes reinforces their belief in the button’s power. It’s a little like prayer.

via marco.org

iPad Quick Thoughts

I haven't had a chance to write this up properly, so here are the notes I've been taking since I got my iPad. It's pretty rough right now, but I'll properly polish it up later (read: probably never).

Impressions

• keyboard a little hard to get used to. iPhone keyboard at 2x seems to be easier to type on, but that may just be familiarity. Although, I’m getting better at typing in landscape mode. Touch typist using three fingers on each hand. Hard when you have to look at the keys but the text is out of your line of sight. Easy to make mistakes and I’m using the delete key a lot. Bluetooth keyboard tons better, but one more thing to carry around and bring out.
• definitely need an easy-to-carry stand. Made one out of the packing material with mixed success.
• a case would be ideal. Especially as I’m planning to sell and buy the next generation when it comes out.
• haven’t put it down since I got it
• photo frame is great
• the number of things I can do with it is limited only by what’s on the App store. I expect I’ll be able to do more as the number of ipad apps increases.

Likes

• reboots quickly, although I haven’t had to do this much
• using the hell out of the rotation lock, wish I had that on my phone
• touch typing in landscape mode isn’t so bad, but using a bluetooth keyboard is tons better
• iBooks is amazing
• I don’t have to charge my phone as much. Seriously, I’m charging every other day as opposed to daily.
• I can subscribe to RSS feeds now. But only from the desktop Google reader. Issue with mouse over event

Dislikes

• can’t upload pictures to Facebook/Flickr
  
  • using upload via email, but it’s not as slick as if there was an app for it. Consequence of being an early adopter.
• editing blog posts is difficult
• no apostrophe on the first page of the keyboard

Still using iPhone versions

• Skype
• Twitter (Loren Brichter’s version)
• Facebook

Battery Test

- put into sleep mode at 6:12am @ 31%
11:27am @ 100%
- We Rule for a bit
11:43am @ 100%

12:10pm @ 100%
- played We Rule and Pocket Legends
- Facebook and web browsing
1:10pm @ 87%
- simplenote update
1:20pm @ 86%

1:52pm @ 85%
- iBooks
2:59 @ 75%

- jack doing web browsing and light usage
5:10 @ 72%
- We Rule, web browsing, ebook reading
6:02pm @ 63%

6:34pm @ 62%
- good reader, web browsing
8:25pm @ 47%
- good reader
- wife and the kids playing games
10:01pm @ 33%

- ebooks and games
11:32 @ 16%

Macally Bookstand iPad Case

Just got this case over the weekend, and it's working out really well. The only two issues I have are that the cover bends a bit if it's left standing up for a while (like, overnight) and the leather tab takes a bit of effort to slide into the back.

Other than that, it's a pretty good investment.

Useful OIDs for Webstar DPC2100 Modems

Rx Power: 1.3.6.1.2.1.10.127.1.1.1.1.6.3
Tx Power: 1.3.6.1.2.1.10.127.1.2.2.1.3.2
SNR: 1.3.6.1.2.1.10.127.1.1.4.1.5.3

Best App Description Translation

It can start even more prematurely.

Cisco SNMP Object Navigator

Available here:

http://tools.cisco.com/Support/SNMP/do/BrowseOID.do?local=en

Enter the OID or Object Name and you can look it up or browse the OID tree. Amazingly useful when used in conjunction with cacti.

A Look Back

The Info Highway - 17 Years Later

Philip Elmer-DeWitt's 1993 Times Magazine article annotated by Mike Halleen at the Producer's Guild of America site.

Annotated version

How to tell if a description of technology is dated

If the description includes some type of reference to physical media, there's a pretty good chance that the material is outdated.

When CDs first came out, it was touted that you could store 150 Bibles or 4.5 million characters on a single CD-ROM.

Now, these types of measurements are antiquated since we have a different perception of storage space as it relates to media. For example, we know a CD can now hold around 100 mp3's or a single feature film.

But even then, we no longer think in terms of optical storage at all, since a 4GB flash drive goes for less than $10.