Scoop The Dirt

Get it while it’s hot…. Apple iOS 4!

The big news today, of course, was that Apple’s iOS 4 was released for the iPhone. What many people did not realize is that the update is not only for the iPhone, but it also applies to the iPod Touch! As I am beginning this post, my 3rd generation, 32GB unit is on the operating table getting a new brain. Among the features I am looking forward too most are the ability to sort all my shit into folders rather than numerous pages and pages of apps. The unified e-mail inbox also promises to save a bunch of time. Multitasking though is probably the biggest dangling carrot enticing us to make the jump into the new OS. I have in mind many different combinations of apps that I want to take for a spin. That may be the sticking point here in the first few weeks of running it, as Apple states that multitasking is only available for apps that have been developed to work with iOS 4. However, I fully expect “older” apps to quickly offer updates of their own to allow multitasking goodness. Also, keep in mind the ever present disclaimer, “not all features are compatible with all devices.” For example, multitasking, custom wallpaper, and Bluetooth keyboard support are available only with iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and the third-generation iPod touch (32GB and 64GB models from late 2009).

So what are you waiting for? Go get your iOS 4 upgrade rolling and then come back to comment on your likes or dislikes of the new system.

Blackbird Pie anyone? – Embeddable Tweets Now Possible

Today Twitter unleashed its new embeddable tweets feature. Now instead of pasting a simple screenshot of a tweet you want to reference, you can paste an active version of the actual tweet, like this:

Twitter ‘Embed This Tweet’ Feature Goes Live Today: http://digg.com/d31Q9mE?tless than a minute ago via DiggTed ☯
Tekee

It is not perfect just yet, but if you want to try it out yourself and reference a particular tweet on your blog, just head on over to http://media.twitter.com/blackbird-pie/.

What’s the next best thing to a new device?

… an OS update! Today, Apple will be giving a sneak peak of its OS 4.0 for the iPhone. As you know, the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad all run the iPhone operating system, so many users will be affected, hopefully in a good way!

Tune in to one of your favorite tech blogs as most of the popular ones will likely be blogging from the event which is to be held at 11 AM MST. Leave a comment and let me know what you hope to see in the updated OS.

What’s All the Buzz About?

Today I was given a pellet from facebook when they upgraded my page…. meh! Same stuff with buttons moved around. It’s like they don’t want to let you get too comfortable on their UI. Whatever, most of us are still pretty comfortable on FB and as long as they don’t start moving shit around on my Farmville farm, I don’t care how often they think they need a new haircut. A much cooler surprise came online today and it’s called Google Buzz, a seamless addition to G-mail. As usual, it is a gradual roll-out to users, and as usual, I am a bottom feeder as far as Google is concerned. However, I was able to take the new product for a spin on my iPod Touch and after about a half hour spelunking it’s crevices (ooh, that sounds dirty,) I found it to be quite intuitive. Not nearly as confusing as Google Wave was/is. Remember that? Everyone had to have it and once we got there, it was like the keg was already empty and the party was over AND Mom and Dad were do home any minute and the place was a fucking MESS! Not so with Google Buzz. Within a few minutes, I was able to populate my list of people I wanted to follow, mostly pilfering friends of friends, but all familiar faces from twitter. I was able to load an interactive map of either my friends or the public, showing me where people were and what they were talking about, “the buzz!” I asked myself a question, “What is the buzz in Colorado?” With ease I zoomed out on my state and was linked to all the current Colorado users. This ease of use was all but absent in Google Wave. Yes it was there, but you had to work at it.

I know that there is a lot of concern regarding the safety of geolocation applications right now, and rightfully so in a lot of cases. My friend Andrew Hyde even committed location-based-service suicide recently, a personal choice that any of us may decide to make depending on the uses and abuses of this powerful tool. So my plea to you is find constructive ways to grow with geolocation because there is much to be gained from it, if only helping small businesses and start-ups grow their client base. Take Foursquare for instance, just today I lost my mayorship of my beloved Dark Horse Bar. Now I know that it is not a world changer, but at the same time, I WILL be back to reclaim it and in the process, one of my favorite venues will gain my $$$.

I hope to have the desktop version of Google Buzz soon so I can explore it a bit more, stay tuned!

Back in the game…

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a nice relaxing holiday season! Myself, I absolutely loved being home with my wife and kids. A nice long stint at home full of love, happiness, food, beer, skating, sledding, etc. is JUST what the doctor ordered! Now of course, being that I AM a mere child trapped in a 42 year old’s body, you know that aside from all that, I am all about the TOYS!!! So here is a quick rundown of the awesomeness that rained down on my Christmas holiday.

#1 A new GPS for my car to replace my TomTom 910 which met it’s demize earlier this year. As geographically challenged as I am (we’re talking D’s and F’s back in the day,) I REALLY rely on a GPS presence in my vehicle. The one my wife found was a Nextstar brand and cost a fraction of what I paid for the TomTom a few years ago. While it does not have all the same luxury features as my beloved TomTom did, it certainly brings back the basic features of getting me to wherever the hell I need to be! I’ve been to both ends of the GPS device spectrum and my recommendation is to go with an inexpensive one.

#2 A 32 Gb iPod Touch☺! Although I still stand behind my 1st post here on Scoop the Dirt, I was absolutely blown away by this one and I now fit the graphic in my bio over there to the right MUCH better! Indeed I am on the trailing end of the Touch/iPhone curve so I will not rehash the goodness of what these devices offer. Instead, I would like to direct you to a recent post by my friend Aimee Giese (aka @Greeblemonkey) with her “End of the Year iPhone App Show ‘N Tell” since it has been a fantastic starting point for me, guiding me to some great apps to start out with on my new Touch. The bottom line for me is that this is a stellar replacement for the positively dismal Palm Lifedrive of mine that also went tits up almost two years ago.

#3 was actually my wife’s gift, but it is also a tech-replacement item so I will mention it too. We hardly took any pictures at all in 2009 so she asked for a Canon PowerShot SX200 which will take the throne from our worn out Kodak EasyShare 530. While I would love to get into a “real” camera someday, I just don’t have the time right now for anything other than point and shoot. Yet at the same time, I want those shots to be crisp and clear. This camera seems to meet these simple criteria.

All is cleaned up now and the instruction manuals have been ignored and filed. I find it much more satisfying to discover the features as I need them and later proclaim, “son-of-a-bitch, it does that too!” As we move into 2010, I am foremost thankful for my family’s health and happiness. Secondarily I am happy to know that as far as my favorite gadgets are concerned… I am back in the game.

Science Fair Anyone?

Does your child’s school hold science fairs every year? Do you have a budding Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, or Rosalind Franklin, who wants to understand the world around him or her? It’s never too soon to start thinking about a project, even before one is assigned. Maybe your school does not offer a science fair, but please do not let that stop you from perhaps trying an experiment of your own, side-by-side with your little ones.

On Monday, November 23, 2009, our president launched the “Educate to Innovate” campaign to improve the participation and performance of America’s students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). There will even be a science fair held at the Whitehouse for the cream of the crop! I have always felt, now more than ever, that it is important to encourage our children to consider these challenging fields as a career at an early age. I say encourage, not force, for these may not be the fields they end up in as adults. A child’s youthful enthusiasm for learning in the early years should really be exploited while their brains are still like sponges. I have seen first hand that when a child is shown the amazing “wow” factor that science can produce, their lamp switches on! They instantly come up with questions that they WANT answers to. They start saying things like ” how hot, how cold, how high, and what if?” Suddenly a boring field trip to see geeky scientists and engineers becomes the coolest thing they’ve done all year! I think that even just doing one science fair project during elementary, middle, or high school can instill lifelong skills of critical thinking, organization, and most importantly, the ability to find out where to turn when things do not go as planned. Remember, it is completely alright to write a conclusion for a project that starts with, “Things did not turn out as I had originally thought. Perhaps next time I will…”

Where do you start? Just Googling “science fair” yields plenty of great project planning resources so I won’t even try to sort out the best ones. I would like to point out however, not to overlook showing your child great websites like Discovery channel and Nature for inspiration. Please also feel free to look towards my twitter list of science and technology which includes the likes of Colorado’s own Steve Spangler, the science guy from 9 news (he’s even cooler in person!) If you do find yourself getting ready to tackle a project, please shoot me a message and I would be happy to offer my advice. Leave a comment below and I will respond. Talk to your children and find out what they are thinking about or wondering about. Take this opportunity to help teach them what steps to take in order to find answers for themselves. Quoting our president; “We live in a world of unprecedented perils, but also unparalleled potential.” Do me a favor, look into your child’s eyes very carefully and tell me you don’t see his point clearly.

Google Wave… at last I am riding the white caps!

If you have been following me on twitter, you know that I have been “craving waving” for a while now. I did finally get my chance to partake of the new goodness offered by Google, “Google Wave,” thanks to my friends @Irant and @PaulSwansen. Although I fancy myself as an old man who is on top of the tech scene, I totally #failed myself by giving out an erroneous e-mail address to my potential Google Wave hosts. For two weeks I wondered why I was not getting the golden ticket to be part of the Wave community. Was it because I am a bit overweight? Does my breath smell like “extra onions?” Turns out that it was my own damned fault as usual (… and perhaps the onions too.) My online presence has always fallen under the screen name of ”Tekee”… except when I signed up for Gmail, then I had to choose “Tekee812″ as my Google identity. What a brilliant time to neglect that fact when my two friends both offered me wave invitations sent to an erroneous address. Regardless, I did finally end up on Google Wave, and here is my initial take on the sitch…

After 10-20 hours of poking and proding, I have to say that I really love this new platform. Immediately I noticed that it offered things that I believe everyone has been secretly craving in a singular, web-based tool; IM, email, conversation, editing, video, audio, consulting, linking, sharing, planning, locating, polling, laughing, crying, screaming! Don’t believe me? Watch this video (NSFW)…

Yes, right now Google Wave is in the “preview stage,” and this is really close to the type of Tom-foolery that I found inside. However, I can also say with confidence that Google Wave is here to stay and will change the way you conduct your business. The ability to actively edit a wave as if it were a wiki leaves a finished product that can be easily digested by a newcomer to the wave. At any given point, it is possible to enter a wave and read it from top to bottom (yes, top down!) and get caught up with it’s purpose.

Fortunately for me, once I did catch my first wave, I found familiar faces in the water with me. My friend Terry Cabeen had been on Google’s new system for a few weeks before me and had scoped out the landscape. Once I got there, he had already posted much of the information that I instantly wanted to know about navigation and searching in this strange new land. Another friend, Matt Bernier, wasted no time in setting up a wave for a local team (which I joined) participating in “no shave November/Movember” benefiting the Lance Armstrong Foundation and men’s cancers. Literally within minutes, he was able to assemble a list of local participants and begin planning ways of maximizing the benefit to this worthy cause.

Were Terry and Matt the the only people that helped me? No. But with the relationship that I have built with each of them since the dead-ass-middle-of-summer 2009, I trust and respect them. As soon as you can gain access to Google Wave, please let me know and I will do my best to pay it forward and assist you with getting your feet wet. Please look me up when you get there, tekee812@googlewave.com.

Android… Will it be your choice?

My first post here on Scoop The Dirt was to help the technically crippled folks who, for one reason or another, did not have an Iphone. For many of us that reason was that we were not on the AT&T network. Alas, a blockbuster announcement promises to bring us Verizonites into the 21st centrury. Android is coming to Verizon in November!
A full spec sheet on Verizon’s first Droid device, from Motorola, makes Droid weigh in as a real contender! Battery life is perfectly acceptable with nearly 6.5 hour life under continuous use and over 11 days in standby. It will be sporting a 5 Megapixel camera with dual LED flash. A full host of Google applications will be standard on Droid phones, including three of my favorites; Google Calendar, Gmail, and Gtalk. Another interesting feature coming to many smart phones (perhaps even the Iphone), is a magnetometer based compass. Coupled with todays standards of GPS and accelerometers, the compass rounds out the toolbox needed for a phone to be fully locationally aware. Expect augmented reality to go to the next level on these devices! Imagine just pointing your phone towards the hills to get ski and road conditions. Here is the kicker. Verizon is not just bringing one new phone to market but a whole family of devices! You will not just be stuck with one design. Furthermore, not just Motorola, but HTC will be adding devices to the Verizon Droid army.

I am not going to get into an iphone vs. Droid fanboy debate here, simply because I have not yet owned ANY type of fully functional smart phone (yet). I’d be bringing a knife to a gun fight. I am just excited at the prospect of a killer bunch of devices coming to my existing network. Verizon does offer the best network coverage, but for years had a very lackluster device lineup. So this leads to my question, “What will be in your hand when your next upgrade cycle comes around?” From what I can tell, users LOVE their Iphones, but they despise the coverage they get. I don’t think I am the only one that predicts a mass exodus of loyal Iphone users over to Verizon in the coming year.

Please let me know:

Do you have an Iphone now and will you consider switching for a better network?

Like me, will you upgrade from the Flintstone era Verizon phone to and Android enabled device?

Or, do you say, “You can have my Iphone when you peel it from my cold dead fingers!”

Worlds Quickest Electric Motorcycle

Meet the KillaCycle, the worlds quickest, fastest, most powerful electric vehicle of any kind in the 1/4 mile! This picture was taken during an EV display at NOAA back in April, 2009. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing its creator, Bill Dubé, since I started working at NIST and I have to say that his is one of the greatest minds I have ever worked with. It was probably about 15+ years ago when Bill pulled into work driving his first EV creation, the Ewectwic Wabbit. You may have seen the all electric VW conversion zipping into Boulder on the turnpike. Since that first tire smoking vehicle of his, Bill has spent most of his EV efforts shaving time of the string of records set by his KillaCycle. Here is a spec sheet to check out and below is a video of the bike setting its latest world record just a few days ago!

The bike on the other track is the ElectroCat, created and ridden by Eva Håkansson, Dubé’s new bride! Eva is like nobody you’ve ever met! Check out her website and see proof that she is indeed the elbow grease behind converting a Cagiva Freccia C12R model year 1990 (an Italian 125 cc two-stroke motorcycle) into a street legal electric bike! The ElectroCat also owns the record it its division.

Please check out both links for these two amazing engineering wonders. Bill, Eva, and their entire team have done an amazing job keeping their passion for EV out in the mainstream via their blogs, forum contributions, youtube videos, etc. And don’t forget to look for this vehicle on the Boulder/Denver turnpike!

ewectwic2

Last pass by Mercury before settling in for a while

Over my lifetime growing up and working in Boulder, I have been exposed to several stories centered around the great space explorations that involved programs at CU and they never cease to amaze me. In fact I will even admit that the reason I got on Twitter in May, 2008, was to follow the Mars Phoenix.

Today, September 29, 2009, MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment,GEochemistry, and Ranging) which was launched August 3rd, 2004, will be making it’s last fly by of Mercury after having made several fly bys of Earth, Venus, and two previous passes of Mercury. The goal is to set it in orbit around Mercury (the fastest moving planet in our solar system) on March 18, 2011. Although many pictures and a lot of data have been acquired already, once it is in orbit, CU’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) will benefit from several more years of data, enormous amounts of data, streaming into their center from CU-Boulder’s Mercury Atmospheric and Surface Composition Spectrometer, or MASCS, which is on board.

“An $8.7 million CU-Boulder instrument en route to Mercury should help scientist better understand the hot, rocky inner planet and the early evolution of the solar system. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington”

Follow @MESSENGER2011 on twitter.

Ted Stauffer, a Boulder, Colorado native, has been an engineering technician at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, CO for 22 years. He started as a work-study student during his last semester at Front Range Community College, where he finished at the top of his class, earning an Associate of Applied Science Degree in electronics. From a very young age, Ted had a passion for taking things apart and figuring out how they work. As he grew older, his Christmas list looked more like a geeks shopping list; batteries, wire, motors, connectors, lights, resistors, and a soldering iron. Taking this mentality into adulthood fueled his passion to put things together to complete any given task at hand. During his career at NIST, in the Electromagnetic Technology Division, he has designed, machined, assembled, and wired several state-of-the-art cryogenic test systems and devices, mainly for the testing and characterization of superconducting wires. As sexy as that sounds, Ted likes to refer to himself as sort of an Igor type figure working for mad scientists. Raising three children, ages 20, 17, and 14, with his wife of just over 22 years, is where Ted's heart truly resides.

Follow Ted aka Tekee on Twitter: @tekee

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