Oh yeah, feels like new again. Today I downloaded the new firmware for my iPhone and in case you haven’t been following my tweets, pownces, plurks, or friendfeed I am very satisfied. I haven’t felt this good about the device since I originally bought it, of course jail breaking it did feel good too but now these apps are leaps and bounds ahead of the original third party apps. Now I have something to hold me over until the AT&T 3G network stretches to my neck of the woods.

Of course I hit all the free apps first and most of those were to all my social networks. Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and Pownce all have apps and I have a feeling that I may be using most of those more than their actual websites. All of these social apps allow use of the camera or your photo library to upload pics right to their site. They also speed up the delivery and surfing of all the essential data related to those sites i.e. who is eating cheese, who is playing with their new iPhone, and who is in the shower.

Another notable free app is the weather bug which far exceeds the included weather app. Now you can see which way the wind is blowing, radar maps, and any weather alerts.

The list of free apps that wouldn’t be complete without Apple’s own remote for iTunes and the Apple TV. Now you can surf and control the media in your library just like you are using an iPod. This will be handy in those party situations when you want to have your iPhone on you but still be in control of the tunes.

There are a few familiar programs in the app store that you may have seen in installer.app. I will look forward to supporting as soon as I have a few extra bucks lying around; Band, Mobile Flickr, and Sketches to name a few. I’m still looking for cameraPro or Snapture as I feel they include many features that are missing from the iPhones camera like a self timer. SummerBoard would also be nice as I like to customize the look of the icons and the dock.

One new app I went out and bought was the new MLB app. This app is a must for anyone who spends as much time refreshing baseball scores. It also has the option to watch video highlights of the games. You still have to use mlb.com to view the play by play, hopefully that comes in the form of an update soon.

I could go on and on about all the new apps but the jist of the situation is that all in all I am happier than ever with my old iPhone. I will someday go out and replace it but as it is I feel now I am in no hurry. Since I don’t have access to 3g I don’t feel like paying an extra $10 a month to have fewer text messages and a useless 3Gcard in my phone. The fact that it has GPS doesn’t sell me on the new one either as I have already noticed a big improvement in the “current location” that is already in google maps.

sunrise by artifishall
on Zooomr

In the last year I went from being a line cook to a web designer, moved to a new city and found a new apt after 3 yrs in the old, and bought a truck to replace the car that I had for 5-6 years.

The change that I am most proud of is that I found a new group of musicians to play with and have helped bring them out of the basement into a new practice space and out gigging. So not only am I playing with a band again (I had a few years hiatus) but one that I can actually express myself in (I never felt comfortable in any other band)

Life isn’t perfect as I still have financial issues and currently single but I must be on the right track because my sister commented last week that I was finally looking comfortable in my own skin.

This post was inspired and origianlly written as a comment on Carolyn’s Question of the Day on Pownce

Last night the Silver Spur earned their first win against Pro Con 2. They started the game with a 13 run inning with their pitcher Will earning 5 RBI’s including a inside the park grand slam and a sacrifice fly. Only giving up 3 runs the final score was 14-3 after the fifth due to the mercy rule.

The Silver Spur is now 0-3 after losing yet again on Wednesday night. Though they held their own against one of the best teams in the league with a final score of 9-14. Only one player went without a hit and Zach went 2 for 3 with his first two hits of the season.

In The Kimberly Softball League The Silver Spur were beat Last night by the Outpost. The Spur gave a brave effort in the final inning as they were trailing the Outpost 3-9 on 2 outs and came up with 5 runs to make the final score 8-9.

So far this season they are 0-2 but it looks like these boys bats are finally starting to heat up.

If my love were like a magnet

If it could cut the seven seas

Melt away the glaciers

So you wouldn’t freeze

If it could pull you from the mountains

So you would feel at home with me

We’d rest our heads together

Through this world we’d roam free

I want to take you everywhere

Under the blue sky

Together we can go further

Let our dreams fly

We can let our souls jive

As long as they survive

When I first saw your beauty

I would have raised the soul of Van Gough

To paint you in a masterpiece

But only if you said so

I would have climbed the highest mountain

To bring you an apple from the tallest tree

I would have swam through seaweed

To bring you a shell from the deepest sea

I would have stopped the world revolving

Just so you’d be with me

Tags: Poetry

Driving down the highway on a cold night, the temperature, -21 degrees Fahrenheit. All of a sudden my radio cuts out. “Did I fuck up my iPhone during that last jailbreak?” I check my phone, it is running fine. The stereo on the other hand, not so much. “Great, now I need a new stereo.”

A few miles down the road, I begin to notice the dashboard going a little haywire. The light with a stick figure resting its head on an airbag keeps flashing, “Is my airbag about to deploy?” I begin to look for an exit, for an ill feeling had been resting in the pit of my stomach ever since I left work and if I have learned anything in this crazy life of mine it is to trust your gut. My luck, there are no exits in sight. I am not even half way through my 30 minute drive home from work.

Snow is flying across the road, visibility is low, and I begin to notice that my headlights are fading. The interior lights are fading, the headlights keep getting dimmer and dimmer, and the car is beginning to make funny sounds. The alternator has failed to do its job, my battery is dead, and now I find myself coasting to the side of the road.

Time to bust out the speed dial, I call a few and my landlord Rick is the first to pick up. He immediately jumps in his truck and makes his way to find me. The cold begins to creep in, I pull out my wool blanket from the back of my car and wrap myself. Yesterday I left home in just a fleece thinking that the weather was on an upturn. I normally sleep in Appleton after band practice on Mondays so I was not ready for the weather to make this turn for the worse. I try to keep my mind off things by taking my 365 self portrait, powncing, and looking for a tow truck on my iPhone. That doesn’t stop the cold.

About 40 minutes go by and finally my ride shows, grabbing my bag with laptop and my bass guitar I jump in a start to thaw. Rick calls the cops in New London to find out what I should do. They tell us to call the Outagaime County Sherriff’s department, who transfers me to Winnebago county, in which I lose due to a drop call halfway through the call. I call back and get transfered to Waupaca County (which was my misunderstanding). So I get back to Outagaime, transfered back to Winnebago, to find out that my car is being towed to Menasha, near where I work. Now that I have everything figured out I found myself at the nearest bar for a well deserved cocktail.

So my mother asked me the other day to give her three reasons she should buy an iPhone and three reasons she shouldn’t.

Reasons For

1. it is made by apple
Apple make some of the best products in their market and are always pushing the envelope.

2. Apple has been good about adding features to the iPhone. They just released an update the other day which added GPS like functionality to Google maps, the ability to rearrange your icons, add bookmarks to your springboard (the iPhone’s desktop), and the ability to send a text message to multiple recipients.

3. It is fun to play with. Flicking through and zooming in and out of pictures, browsing the web when you need a quick answer to some trivia, listening to your favorite tunes, watching movies on a plane, and text messaging with a full keyboard while the whole conversation is displayed on one page.

Reasons Against

1. it is made by apple
Apple is always pushing the envelope so it will be outdated within a year.

2. Apple’s updates are a bit behind the third party applications that require you to “hack” your iPhone. Apple will be opening up their developer platform for the iPhone in February. Some of the functionality will likely be crippled so some the third party apps won’t be as robust as their “hacked” counterparts.

3. It is fun to play with. Meaning that when your playtime may be cut short when your battery dies (only has happened to me 3 or 4 times) or you may get frustrated when you are away from a wi-fi hot spot and have to search the web on AT&T’s slow edge network.

My mother also asked me another very important question which should be answered the same way throughout time.

“So and So wants to get a new (insert apple product), should he/she wait until after Macworld?”

Always wait until Macworld is over if the product you want hasn’t been updated in the last 6-9 months!

Lately I have been rewriting most of the code behind http://1stat.us to accommodate the inclusion of Pownce. In this rewrite I have been shrinking the size of the scripts and cleaning up the code to open it to other features I want to incorporate.

With the new Pownce support you can view your friends public notes and replies inline with your Twitter and Facebook friends status updates. The biggest update is the ability to post to Pownce which until I have more time will only be public notes. Not only can you post to Pownce but you have the option to post the same message to twitter if you like or choose to post only to twitter. (posting your facebook status is a bit far off yet)

Currently If you want to reply to a pownce post it will redirect you to either the Pownce website or Pownce mobile depending on if you are on an iPhone or not. (Again I will change this when I have time).

I have also added a cache so that you can let 1stat.us run it’s auto refresh in the background and it will hold up to 100 of the newest tweets, notes, and statuses until you come back to it. You can do what I do and leave it open in your docked iPhone so you can see if there is any thing new.

Along with the new features I gave 1stat.us a new look. Each site is represented by it’s own color border and links so you can tell where it is coming from.

A lot more is in store for the site so bear with me as I’m doing this in my spare time.