Long Books Or Boooooooooooks
I’ve been reading a lot (thanks again Kindle), but recently I finished one of the longest books I’ve read (at least top 5 anyway). I can’t say how long it was in number of pages, which is a bad gauge and thanks to the Kindle, pages mean nothing. But trust me, it’s pretty long (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell). Started another book yesterday, I think this one may be even longer, lame.
Call me weird, but I like the feeling of finishing a book. I mean I love reading, I don’t read just to finish books, but I still like the feeling.
This one was recommended by a coworker, it’s hard science fiction, which I enjoy, but it’s part one of a trilogy. A. Lengthy. Trilogy.
I’m only one chapter through it, but so far it isn’t bad, but you have to be a pretty big fan of hard science fiction (which is very different from science fiction, think more textbook like): The Reality Dysfunction
In: Books · Tagged with: kindle
On The Run
Finally got a good mobile way of posting to this blog, the Android app. No more emailing or texting in my posts when going mobile. It worked fine, but was a pain to set up and the features were pretty obscure and hard to remember.
I love this phone, but I guess if you’ve seen my Twitter posts, you’d know that by now.
In: General, Moblog · Tagged with: android, twitter
Sans San Fran
Got back from San Francisco today, was there for a long weekend trip to meet up with friends and such.
Got work tomorrow morning.
I miss the West Coast.
I don’t want to go to work tomorrow.
In: General · Tagged with: san francisco, travel
Iceland Says Hi
Hello reader (hopefully readerS). In the Reykjavik Hilton right now, flight is tonight, just had some breakfast. I should probably pack and shower and get ready to head over I guess. Iceland is beautiful, but I’d probably be more in awe if it wasn’t cloudy and wet the entire time that I’ve been here.
I did see some amazing things though and the people of Iceland love their geothermal energy for electricity and heat, it’s amazing. The entire country’s population is around ~370k, how weird is that, considering Boston proper is ~620k currently (and that’s not counting everything around it, which is pretty much Boston too).
The cheese and food here, I love it. Had some dried shark, salted cod, fermented shark, whale steak, reindeer burgers, atlantic char, lamb patte… so much other stuff. Totally stuffed.
That’s it for now, see you in GMT-5 soon. I wonder where I’m traveling to next…
In: Moblog · Tagged with: iceland, travel
Land Of Ice
Been a pretty good weekend so far. Saw Muse tonight at TD Banknorth (not a fan of big venues, but I love this band) and tomorrow I’m headed to Iceland with the sister for a few days. We’re hoping to catch the Aurora Borealis, but it’s March and that’s pretty much the last leg of the season and chances may not be that great.
Not that big of a deal, we just want to relax, have great food, and maybe take a couple pictures of the waterfalls there.
I’ve heard that the people there are pretty mean, will let you know how it goes.
In: General · Tagged with: concert, iceland, muse, travel
3 2 1 Contact!
Integration, I’m almost there. Contacts integration I mean. I’m not a fan of Plaxo, never have been, but for some reason I’m OK with Google having my contacts information. I guess it’s because for me Plaxo seems like they want to create a business around my contacts, while for Google my contacts are available to make my life easier while they make a business around web searches. Plus Plaxo sends out a lot of spam.
My contacts are all up to date in one place, my Thunderbird Address Book (which was migrated from my Windows/Outlook Address Book… 10 years ago?). I keep that in sync with my Google Contacts (for Gmail and other Google services) and manually update a SyncML server to keep those contacts in sync with my cell phone’s contacts (I switch phones often enough and SIM cards have too many limits for storage).
So yesterday I switched over from using SyncML (ovi.com, funambol, etc) to sync my contacts online to using Google’s Exchange Servers. I’ve been using that connection to sync my Google Calendar to my phone for a long while now (I live by my Google Calendar) and I’ve been syncing my Thunderbird Address Book to my Google Contacts using the add-on by Zindus. All along I had to manually keep my cell phone in sync, which worked great because it kept my Notes on my cell phone in sync too. But manual changes are for savages.
Now my information just needs to be updated in one place and a sync initiated manually once…
Thunderbird -> Google Contacts -> Cell Phone
I’m pretty anal, so I’ve only kept the syncing one-way, when I could just as easily allow changes to propagate both ways (i.e. I add/update a contact on my cell phone which then syncs backwards to my Thunderbird).
There are a couple of snags though. Zindus stores addresses in Google Contacts using an XML format (since addresses are stored free-form on Google). This looks pretty ugly, but I’m OK with that. I am experiencing a bug though where the street address isn’t stored, I’ve emailed their developer, hopefully this will be fixed soon.
Another snag is that I had to change my phone numbers to not have dashes and add the long-distance code to every number (i.e. 555-555-5555 to 15555555555). This shouldn’t affect anybody else though, just because the application I use on my desktop to send/receive texts (via bluetooth, cause I hate pulling my phone out of my pocket every time I get a text) requires that phone number format, otherwise the number doesn’t match up to the name in my phone’s address book.
And I really wish Google Voice and Google Wave would use my Google Apps Contacts instead of my Google Account Contacts, which were empty until I started using those two services (I don’t have a gmail address, but a Google Apps email address; same thing, but my own domain).
After all that headache, I now have all my contacts on my phone. Their home, fax, cell, work numbers, their home/work address, their screen names, birthdays, any other notes I have of them, etc etc. Feels good.
In: Tech · Tagged with: google, pim, syncml, thunderbird
Let Me Jinx Myself
So far, 2010 is in the contender list for best year ever. So sorry even numbered year curse.
In: General · Tagged with: 2010