Hilarious – a must watch!

(h/t Alyssa Royse, via FB)

If you would have told me six months ago I’d finish in the top half of my age division in a 5K race, I would have told you you’re nuts.  Yet here I am, the day after my first road race in 5+ years, looking at the results – and I finished 36th out of 82 finishers in my age group!  Woo hoo!  My official time was 27:33, but I was chip-timed at 27:04.

One note for the race organizers: the results page doesn’t format properly on the iPhone.  So – ye gods! – I had to wait until I got to the coffee shop to see my results.  There should be a special place in Heck reserved for web designers whose stuff doesn’t work properly on the iPhone.

Feeling pretty sore today – gluteus medius in particular.  Probably will go to the gym anyway and work out in other ways.  I have a lot of nervous energy to work off, and my goal for the next little bit will be to go to bed exhausted so I don’t have to worry about getting to sleep.

I think that Locavore is a great idea. This little app for the iPhone tells you what foods are in season depending on your geography. It only works in the U.S., but I’ll definitely want to use this when the spring-through-fall farmer’s market season starts up in Seattle.

Locavore is developed by Buster McLeod, a Seattleite and founder of the much-missed McLeod Residence, and is available for $2.99 USD on the iTunes App Store.

Google has released a new version of Reader that is optimized for the Safari browser on the iPhone, and I definitely think you should switch over.  It’s a significant jump up in usability from the original web-based reader.

My favorite upgrades:

• In-place article reading (no page jumps)
• Inline “starring”
• Better finger clickability on common operations

Give it a try!

Google’s released a new mobile interface to Google Apps that is a much better way to access your stuff from the iPhone. You can use this from any browser (I think), but it’s a rockstar on the iPhone.

The upgrades? Easy access to your calendar. Easy access to Google Docs. Notebook. Reader. News.

Point your Safari browser to http://www.google.com/m/a/<your domain> and have fun.

Best practice: I add a home page icon that points to http://www.google.com/m/a/<my domain>#gmail to get to my e-mail in one click.

I’ve spent 73.6 minutes over the last two days looking at various ways to get a photo from my iPhone onto Twitter. As such, these results are definitive, final and no amount of comment spam will move you up on the list!

• TwitPic

Pros: Simple. E-mail your photo direct from your iPhone camera app; photo appears in tweet within minutes. Cons: None that I could find.

• Twitxr

Pros: As simple as TwitPic. Cons: Terrible, terrible name. How do you pronounce it again? Also, it seems like there’s too much emphasis on the Twitxr website, and not on the integration.

• Utterz

Pros: This appears to be the swiss army knife of photo-to-social-networking services. Cons: Too complex: Disqualified.

• Twittergram Flickr to Twitter

Pros: Super-simple – once you get your iPhone-to-Flickr support set up. Cons: Isn’t this Dave Winer’s thing?

• Flickr2Twitter / rss2Twitter

Pros: Indirect integration with Flickr, which is nice. Cons: slightly complex setup steps. This is essentially the same concept as Winer’s Flickr-to-Twitter mentioned above, with you doing more of the work.

• Natuba

Pros: Simple. Cons: No Twitter integration. Disqualified.

• SnapFoo

Pros: Simple, plus has some anti-spoofing measures. Cons: Some of their bio pictures look like ones you might get from marryaprisoner.com.

• Mobicue

Pros: They’ve hired a graphic designer. Cons: They didn’t hire a UX person. Disqualified.

CONCLUSION: Go with TwitPic for now if all you want/need is iPhone-to-Twitter support. If you want to use Flickr as your storage mechanism, use Twittergram or roll your own mechanism based on the same concept.

I gave up yesterday and purchased an iPhone from the Apple Store in University Village.

When I say “gave up” what I really mean is that “one of my kids cracked the LCD screen on my AT&T Tilt“, which isn’t a warranty item.  So I had to get a new phone anyway.  I didn’t want to have to beg some teenager at AT&T for a refurb replacement for the low, low price of only 50% off, so I indulged and upgraded to the phone I really wanted since Christmas, when Santa Claus brought one for my wife.

And I’m still impressed as hell with the iPhone’s usability.  It’s so stunning an experience that it makes me wonder why iTunes is such a relative dog from a UX standpoint.  Different teams, I guess.

A quirk:: my nice Shure headphones won’t fit correctly into the iPhone’s headset jack.  It’s a 2.5 mm opening, but it’s recessed enough that it won’t fit snugly.  I paid $10 for a Monster extender that will adapt my short plug *cough* to the deeper recess on the iPhone.

I’ve already found a great Twitter client, iTweet.  I tried Hahlo based on some web recommends and found it to be confusing.  iTweet is a nicer experience.  Over EDGE it still performs well enough to be a constant companion.

Next steps: figure out how to tether for my demanding moble-worker lifestyle (hah!), and how to get Google Apps set up on my e-mail client.

I’ve just finished setting up an iPhone for my wife, which I Santa Claus delivered on Christmas Day. I had been only half-following the iPhone hype since the summertime, convinced that the Windows Mobile phones, such as my newish AT&T Tilt, were superior.

I was wrong.

The iPhone is the most incredible piece of electronics I’ve ever seen. It’s sleek, fast, feature-rich, and the usability — well, let’s just say that I’ve never seen a more intuitive, friendly device in my lifetime. Most people would sooner have trouble figuring out a Pong paddle than with the iPhone.

My AT&T Tilt, while a superior phone in the Windows Mobile world, comes off like a chump. I can’t think of a single place where the Tilt is the clear winner.

In particular:

• Networking is a SNAP.
• E-mail configuration is a SNAP.
• Keyboard typing is immensely helped by the instant-feedback feature.
• The web-browsing experience is AMAZING.
• Contact management features are FANTASTIC.
• Navigation (with gestures and only one hard button) is SUPERB.

I’m wondering how long it will be before I sell my Tilt and get an iPhone. Seriously, I have no need for my Tilt that the iPhone doesn’t fill.

• Remote Desktop? That’s such a drag on Windows Mobile that I don’t even use it anyway.
• Office Mobile? Don’t use it.
• OneNote for Windows Mobile? Too constrained to be useful.
• Do I miss not having a stylus?  Not so far.  With the advances in gestures, I can’t think of why I would miss it.

I’m very simply blown away. Great job Apple!