Rob's Blog

So I finally decided to “jailbreak” my iPhone. Since I’ve got a 2G iPhone, the jailbreaking of it wasn’t particually cutting edge or anyting. I figured it had reached the end of it’s “super fun” time frame and I figured, why not extend it a little by hacking it.

Why I didn’t do this before hand, I don’t know. There are a lot of enhancements that are a by-product of jailbreaking. I can, for example, change the look of the phone interface with themes (it looks like Snow Leopard now), organize apps into folders (I really prefer to have a very clean desktop, without a ton of icons) and add new features (the lock screen now shows me the number of emails, txts, missed calls, etc. without having to unlock the phone).

I haven’t noticed any downside to the jailbreak as of yet, although I have to say that if I had a 3G I’d be more skittish to hack it. I’ll be sure to update from time to time on my further feelings regarding the jailbreak.

While Friday marked the beginning of the one year countdown to our wedding day, Ari, Tia and I traveled to Wells Beach, Maine to join Chuch & Bill, as well as some of their friends, for our second annual Fall vacation. We had a great time, even with the weather. Much like last year, Friday and Saturday were rainy while Sunday was absolutely beautiful.

Evidently, Wells Beach closes up early on Friday nights. When we arrived, around 9pm, we checked in and met up with Chuch & Bill. After driving around the area surrounding the hotel, we realized there wasn’t a single place to grab dinner, save McDonalds. So, I enjoyed one of the new Angus burgers (believe it or not, they’re surprisingly delicious).

Saturday morning found us at Congdon’s Doughnuts, which was absolutely delicious (and has some of the best scratch made doughnuts I’ve had!). The ladies spent some time Saturday touring the shops of downtown Ogunquit and we hit Mike’s Clam Shack for dinner (the lobster roll hit the spot!). Sunday marked a return to Congdon’s for breakfast, after which Chuch & Bill headed back to Vermont and Ari, Tia and I took a quick trip to the beach for a walk during which I snapped a few pictures, which you can see below.

After the beach, we began the return leg of our trip vis-à-vis Kittery and a trip to the Kittery Outlets.

[View with PicLens]

I was finally able to successfully update the music library. As I had written almost a month ago, after updating to iTunes 9.0 I seemed to be unable to get the Tune Library plugin to import music added after upgrading. After working with the developer of Tune Library, he eventually suggested to check the filesize of my iTunes XML file. Sure enough, it was just a bit over 64MB. This made me wonder if perhaps the issue wasn’t with the plugin at all, but was instead a filesize issue with PHP. I altered the php.ini file to allow a maximum filesize of 128MB, imported the iTunes XML file again, and wouldn’t you know it – it worked like a charm. The music library is now 47,837 tracks strong and growing!

So, we recently underwent a change at work where we now have to log in to a website to “clock-in” and “clock-out”. I really hate having to be under the pressure of rushing back to my desk from lunch for fear of arriving a minute late. I can say this with no remorse as I arrive, on average, 25-35 minutes early for my shift, and don’t count that time on my time sheet. I figure it is my responsibility to arrive in time for my shift. I feel that, however, makes up for any minute or so I may run late in returning from work.

What does any of this have to do with nerdiness you ask? Well, I started thinking, “if we have to log into a webpage, I’ll just set a scheduled task in Windows XP to launch a browser around the time I’ll need it, to serve as a reminder…” From there, it was a short trek in my mind to, “hmmm… I wonder if I can write up something to automatically login?” A little while later I had explored VBScript and had written the following, with the help of Google:

Set IE = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
IE.Visible = true
WshShell.AppActivate "Microsoft Internet Explorer" 'This brings the IE window to the front
IE.Navigate http://link.to.webpage 'This represents the page to load
WScript.Sleep 3000 'This pauses the script to give time to load the webpage
WshShell.SendKeys ("username") 'this sends the username - the cursor automatically focuses to the username field
WshShell.SendKeys "{Tab}" 'advances to the password field
WshShell.SendKeys ("password") 'this sends the password
WshShell.SendKeys "{Tab}" 'advances to the submit button
WshShell.SendKeys "{ENTER}" 'this clicks the submit button
Wscript.Sleep 6000 'waits while the next page loads
WshShell.SendKeys "{Tab 8}" 'this tabs to the timestamp button
WshShell.SendKeys "{ENTER}" 'this clicks the timestamp button

So, here you have it…nerdiness at work…

So, the 2009 Greater Boston Walk Now for Autism is behind us now. I have to say, it was great! The weather on Sunday wasn’t the greatest. It was cold, and windy and rainy (it even snowed a little bit later in the day).  Even with all of that, we had a blast! The walk was held at Suffolk Downs and the track was incredibly muddy, so one lap around was enough for us all. Ari walked so fast that she kicked up enough mud to cover the back of her pants! It was a great time though, we all had a lot of laughs. The final tally for online donations was $773. Combined with the checks we turned in, we figure we raised somewhere around $1000!

Below are the pics from the day!

[View with PicLens]

Just Me and My Dad

So, in a post from yesterday I wrote about about how Ari and I planned to see the Where the Wild Things Are movie this weekend. When we were talking about the movie and book, it reminded me of another of my favorite books from my childhood, Just Me and My Dad by Mercer Mayer. I checked Wikipedia and discovered that apparently Mayer has published over 300 books, and Little Critter has appeared in over 200 books. Surprisingly Mayer is still publishing books, CD-roms, and toys featuring Little Critter.

The Monaco V4 LE

I’ve found yet another watch that I could lust over, but I’ll most likely never own. Very similar to the Monaco LS I wrote about previously, the Tag Heuer Monaco V4 LE has the same classic look of the Monaco series, but also features a stunning skeleton front along with other patent worthy additions. Combine these aspects with a platinum case, a beveled and arched sapphire crystal and an alligator strap with titanium insert and you’ve got a sexy watch which is limited to just 150 units. Which pretty much guarantees that I’ll never own one.

So it feels as though I’m going through a spurt as a “social butterfly” over the next few weeks. This weekend has me looking foward to three specific events:

• NC State vs. BC football game – Saturday
  So, having grown up in North Carolina around the time that Philip Rivers was the QB at NC State, I can’t help but be a fan of NC State football. With Ari working at Boston College, I can’t help but be a fan of them as well. Instead of being torn over who to root for, I’m just going to wish them both the best and be happy with however the game ends.
• Where The Wild Things Are – Saturday evening
  The film adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book hits theaters on Friday. Directed by Spike Jonze, who also directed Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, the film is highly anticipated. I read that it combines CGI, “suitmation” and animatronics. Apparently Jonze was specifically selected by Sendak after he saw Jonze’s work with Being John Malkovich. Pretty cool if you ask me.
• Greater Boston 2009 Walk Now for Autism – Sunday morning
  As I’ve been talking about recently, Ari, Tia, my friend Early, and I are walking in the Walk Now for Autism on Sunday. According to weather.com, 9 am will bring  and a temperature of 41°F that feels like 34°F

I’ve written before about the fact that Ari and I are walking in the 2009 Greater Boston Walk Now for Autism. The walk is this coming Sunday and as you can see from the picture below, we’ve been very productive with our donation collections. I’m really impressed with Ari, who is really responsible for the majority of our donations! My co-worker and friend, Mike, has been productive as well. Unfortunately it looks as though the day of the walk could be fairly miserable weather-wise.

We're still collecting donations, however we're doing great!

Update:

So by the end of the day, we had collected even more donations:

Even more donations

The Dyson Air Multiplier

So, while browsing the internet on my oh so busy day at work, I headed over to Uncrate where I found the Dyson brand fan pictured here. Looks pretty unimpressive until you look at the price tag. According to Uncrate, “[the fan] uses a fairly ingenious design to suck air into the base, accelerating it through an small aperture in the device’s ring and then over a ramp to channel its direction”. Ok, so that’s nifty and all, but the real “selling point” apparently is the fact that, “this also causes the air behind and around the machine to be drawn into the airflow, creating a smooth stream of air amplified 15 times, without the unpleasant buffeting caused by the blades of a traditional fan chopping the air”.

Ok, so that’s cool and all, but seriously??!? Three-hundred dollars for a fan? Just to not have to hear fan blades rotating? That’s ok. As cool as the fan looks, and I have to say that I love the other Dyson stuff I’ve used (I bought Ari a Dyson “All Floors” vacuum and we have the Dyson AirBlade hand dryer in our bathrooms at work) I still do not think I could imagine spending $300 on a fan. I think i’d rather spend $10-15 on a fan and use the other $285 for something fun.