I [apple] You!

In a bit of geeky bliss, Apple sent out a number of valentines yesterday, one of which I was very happy to recieve: update 10.4.5. Quietly, I've had a new CoreDuo iMac for just over a week... and it had this little problem. But now it's fixed and all is forgiven. Now, who should the flowers go to?

My valentine to my parents was cobbling together a video conference, courtesy of the built-in iSight on my end, and my folks' video camera. True to Apple's reputation of simplicity, it really was as easy as their plugging in and turning on their camera. And, it was fun, though mom's behavior seemed to suggest she didn't quite believe what she was seeing.

Teleflip: Texting computer>mobile

I had a big tech geeking weekend with my folks last week (and they're here in NYC this weekend too!). I set up an airport express for Wi-Fi, network printing and music streaming for them, helped my dad do some movie editing in iMovieHD (astoundingly easy!), and got my mom up to speed for some online commerce and her own gmail account. We even talked about text messaging (which Judy is pretty good at).

But one question was left unaswered: How can one send text messages from a computer?

Well today lifehacker had this cheatsheet, which seemed ok, if you knew what carrier the phone number is on--but how likely is that? Too headachy, so I dug a little deeper and found Teleflip.

I tested it out on myself and works as promised and free. But I'm still not sure how legit/kosher it is. I found variations of this article, but not much in mainstream press. I'm a little concerned of the potential for abuse, but if it works as promised... it's awesome. Just send an email to: phonenumber@teleflip.com

Just imagine, towards the end of the work day, you're at your computer, you're about to meet someone, but you can't get through (maybe they're on the train, maybe in a meeting, maybe sitting in church) so you send an text message... "running late" , "I'm wearing the bunny suit", "pick up some milk" Done. And with a full keyboard.

But why haven't more people heard of it? Anyone else know? So far so good.

Y292,271,023.045K Compliant

Boing Boing had this tip from Kevin Kelly's COOL TOOLS on making your Mac Y10K Compliant. Unfortunately the hack doesn't really work, but the commentary is stellar and much more interesting than the original post.

I didn't check the math but all 64-bit computers should be able to calculate the date for 292 billion years. Mali, can you double check this in finite math? That's peace of mind for you lucky G5-ers, and at least a consolation to the XP-64 crowd (way to go Joe!).

The rest of us need to make sure we have 64-bit machine by 2038 or else the computers will think it's 1970 all over...again...

My Comic Life

For all us zany mac users, you can now annotate your pictures comics style with Plasq's Comic Life. More than anything, it reminds me of the Italian soap opera magazines: real photographs, but dialogue in balloon's a la comics"

Bionic Eyes

The CNET/BBC reports on the development of a bionic eye. The New Yorker had an article a year a so ago on the issue. Both pieces tend to concentrate on the techonological aspects, which are pretty interesting, such as, how does the visual cortex code stimuli from our eyes to create the image in our head. But neither delve deep into the psychological or emotional impact of regaining a sense after adapting to life without.

Brian Friel's play Molly Sweeney, which is based on an Oliver Sacks' casestudy, does, and results in less enthusiasm for sight restoration. One element is vast amount of brain power it takes to translate the sight of ring, with the word "ring", and the circular motion touching it creates. In short, it is overwhelming. I know in this case, the images are very crude, but still, the bioethical dillema persists. To see, then becomes the basic, elemental component of vision; it is recognition and incorporation with the other senses that is the real trick.

There's a fair amount of musing and joking about becoming cybernetic, but science fiction is becoming science fact. Thinking of all the consumer goods that are so poorly designed and thoughlessly made, and all the issues that come up with user interface, perhaps technologists should think deeper into how to intergrate these machines into our bodies.

Unrelatedy, there was all the hubbub over the new powerbooks having sudden motion detection, thus allowing for hacks to control video games by tilt. Anyone who grew up with video games can relate to the tilt that psychically helps move your avatar. Moving from a legacy interface (joysticks & control paddles) to an intuitive interface. Likewise the segway, President Bush excepting.

Looking at the wrong costs

I'll admit that I like my Mac a lot. I read about it online, I got one for my folks, and I'm going to bring one into our office. A while ago there was this musing in techworld about corporate IT opening up to Macs. Among the cited barriers to adoption are needs for serial ports, scsi,tape drives and floppys, also known as legacy features that maintains compatiblity with older equipment.

It seems to me 1) that Corp. IT is looking at the wrong costs, the sunk costs; and 2)that they haven't learned all the lessons there were to be learned regarding necessary reduncancy and diversity. In age of spyware, viruses and trojans, it seems clear that having a mixed shop of Wintel & Macs are a good defense, especially if Macs have far fewer known issues.

Furthermore, when I entered the job market I used my dual profieciency as a strength, IT should do the same. If Macs 10 years out face more problems, and linux is more stable, then an IT shop should be able to respond, that seems like good business to me.