Tumble Dry Medium

There should be a label on Apple’s iPhone headset (the earphones with integrated remote and microphone) that states how unbelievably durable they are. I was rather displeased to find that after about 6 months, the left ear bud was starting to lose volume output. At first, I thought I was losing hearing in that ear, but a quick comparison use of my fiancée’s ear buds with my iPhone proved that the left side of her set had no volume loss.

I called Apple support to find out if Apple Care covered them. It did. Apple sent me a new set and I returned the defective. I’ve been using the replacement set for about 6 months now, and it sounds as though the same problem is occurring. I was trying to determine if the ear buds were the problem, or if there was something in particular that I do — winding them up the same way, catching them on objects and having them ripped from my ears, listening to music, listening to podcasts — that might cause the problem.

Over the course of a few days, in the midst of my pondering what to do with it, I managed to lose my iPhone headset. People who know me know that I do not lose things, particularly items that I use daily. So it was a great surprise to me that I could not even retrace my steps, but I had this feeling about having set the ear buds on top of the dryer before heading out to mow the lawn one day.

No, I used them after that.

I went for a week without them. I finally bit the bullet and ordered a new set from Apple yesterday. I received my shipping confirmation e-mail from Apple in the early afternoon, so it is with all apparent obviousness that I tell you I found my old set yesterday evening… in the bottom of the dryer… quite wound together but looking rather clean.

I had left the ear buds in a pair of pants that I had laundered just the night before and tossed into the dryer before heading to bed. The headset managed to slip out of the pants in the drying process. After uncoiling the tightly wound wire clot, I figured I might as well see if it survived the washing and drying process.

Imagine my delight when I tested it with my iPhone and all bits and bobs (ear buds, microphone, remote clicker) worked just as before. Yes, the left ear bud still seems a bit lower volume, but that’s alright, I’ve a new set on the way. The only real problem I see is that the washing process made the wires curly, gave them a perm of sorts, and no manner of straightening is removing those curls. Perhaps some time hanging will straighten them out, but I somehow doubt it.

While I am displeased with this odd loss of volume in the left ear bud of every headset I get from Apple, I am happy to say that the outer durability of the headsets is nothing less than phenomenal. I think I’ll call this set “Curly Q”. Here’s a photo of the survivor.

Be well.

As the designated “tech guy” of the family, I often find myself using LogMeIn to manage family PCs and address issues as they arise. However, LogMeIn requires a client application to be installed.

A client is not bad, but it’s not convenient in some situations. One of those situations occurred tonight when my mother called with an issue that involved computers outside the family. As a regular listener of the TWiT network of podcasts, I decided to give GoToAssist a try since I hear Leo mention it in his ads every now and again.

Wow.

Bravo, Citrix. I have never had such a simple and straightforward remote access solution. This post sounds like an ad, but I assure you it is not. I am not an affiliate, nor do I wish to be. I do believe that GoToAssist is a phenomenal service.

Not only did I have users on three different computers connected in less than 5 minutes, but they had piece of mind afterward as Citrix uninstalls the software from the user’s PC when the session is ended.

At $69 USD per month, it is not a service for those who only have rare occasions to use it. But if you offer paid tech support on a regular basis, it is well worth the money to have this in your tool set. There are, of course, discounts for paying annually instead of monthly.

As with most online products these days, there is a 14 day free trial. You must supply a credit card to start the trial, but you can immediately cancel the service, and it will remain active until the 14 days are up.

If, like me, you are impressed and could see yourself using it again, Citrix also offers a Day Pass for GoToAssist. For $9.95 USD, you can get 24 hours of GoToAssist usage.

Based on my hourly fee for support, that’s a bargain. Long story short, if you need a remote access support solution in a pinch, give GoTo Assist a try. You’ll really like it.

Be well.

How many applications are installed on your iPhone right now?

Do you have a couple of pages of the most necessary apps, or does the iPhone seem to grind to a halt when flicking through your ten pages of essential tools for the road?

I previously fell into the last category. Since purchasing my iPhone a little over a year ago, my Powerbook G4 has started to languish in its case. While it had been my daily companion for over three years, once I had the iPhone, I found that I didn’t need to boot the laptop up as much to accomplish my daily computing tasks.

Apple’s ad campaign “There’s An App For That” couldn’t be more true. For almost every task I have needed to accomplish, there has been an iPhone app available. But there was one problem — the iPhone isn’t as powerful as a full-fledged laptop.

Sure, most tasks require little computing power, and therefore, the iPhone suffices. However, the iPhone performance degrades as more and more applications are added to it. I’ve noticed that even with most applications remaining idle and closed for the majority of the time, the more applications added to the screens, the less responsive the interface becomes.

Even regular tasks such as checking mail take longer to render the screen information. Purchasing yet another application from the App Store became much slower as well.

If this sounds familiar, then perhaps it’s time you cleared away some of the cruft. The beauty of the iPhone is that most applications can be installed anywhere you have service (provided they are under 10MB in size). So I figured I would delete almost all applications that I rarely used or deemed unnecessary.

After the removal of the applications, the performance was much quicker. A subsequent reboot boosted the performance even more (of course, clearing memory will always help). Time will tell how my decision will work, but I am willing to bet that I only re-install one or two applications out of necessity within the next 6 months.

So how many applications did I remove from the iPhone? Well, I had 6 full pages of apps. I trimmed that down to 3. That means at 16 apps per page, I deleted 48 and there are 48 (including the Apple defaults) left. I originally wanted to trim it down to two pages, but was unable to manage it. Perhaps in the future as I find other applications getting used less often.

While this may seem extreme, it not only improved the iPhone performance, but increases my productivity as I have less apps to flick through to find the one I need. Also, there are many less applications just waiting for me to open them because I haven’t bothered using them in months and forgot why I had them there in the first place.

Do you think you could cut your applications down to 3 screens? How about 2?

Is it possible to have a great iPhone experience with just the Apple default applications and web apps accessed via Safari?

I think that last one may just be possible. I might give it a try in another month. Right now, I’ve got to settle in to my current minimalism.

Be well.

Or, how I learned to dance the salsa

Experiment is probably the wrong word to describe the exercise regimen I about to embark on a couple times per week.

Zumba is an aerobic workout that focuses on latin music and dance moves.

“Zumba® fuses hypnotic latin rhythms and easy to follow moves to create a dynamic fitness program that will blow you away. Our goal is simple: We want you to want to work out, to love working out, to get hooked. Zumba® Fanatics achieve long term benefits while experiencing an absolute blast in one exhilarating hour of caloric-burning, body-energizing, awe-inspiring movements meant to engage and captivate for life!

The routines feature interval training sessions where fast and slow rhythms, and resistance training are combined to tone and sculpt your body while burning fat. Add some Latin flavor and international zest into the mix and you’ve got Zumba®!”

My fiancée first discovered Zumba and began taking classes locally. She enjoyed it so much that she convinced me to try one out. Mind you, she has been performing ballet, jazz, lyrical, and hip hop dance since a young age. My dance experience is limited to a handful of musicals during the high school years.

So I tried a Zumba class. I was sweating profusely and felt the burn by the end of the workout. It was loads of fun. Yet I lack the rhythm and coordination for some of the moves. I did not go to another class.

However, my fiancée continued with the classes, adding several workouts per week and branching out to other studios going further and further from home to see what new moves were being used in the routines. Suffice to say, she had become one of the aforementioned “Fanatics”.

Now, I don’t typically write about anyone other than myself here, but it brings me to my point. My fiancée became so passionate about this workout that she became a Zumba Instructor. And that’s where we come back to the “experiment”.

Since my fiancée is an excellent instructor and will be teaching regular classes starting in September, I figured it was time to jump back in and learn the moves. Not only will I benefit from the exercise, but I will also enjoy learning latin dance moves from my love.

I won’t get any more sappy than that, but I am proud of her accomplishment, and I’m excited to see her classes take off as people discover how much fun this type of fitness can be. As for me, I am going to see how my rhythm develops over time and remove the clumsy from my feet.

I will post updates here as I go along, and perhaps even a picture or two for laughs. If there’s a Zumba studio or class in your area, I highly recommend you pop in and try it.

Be well.

The web site, Gravity and Levity, has a great article on the Gompertz law and the odds of surviving through your next year of life. At age 32, I’m looking at just over a 1 in 1500 chance of making it through the year.

Exponential decay is sharp, but an exponential within an exponential is so sharp that I can say with 99.999999% certainty that no human will ever live to the age of 130. (Ignoring, of course, the upward shift in the lifetime distribution that will result from future medical advances)

Surprisingly enough, the Gompertz law holds across a large number of countries, time periods, and even different species. While the actual average lifespan changes quite a bit from country to country and from animal to animal, the same general rule that “your probability of dying doubles every X years” holds true. It’s an amazing fact, and no one understands why it’s true.

There is one important lesson, however, to be learned from Benjamin Gompertz’s mysterious observation. By looking at theories of human mortality that are clearly wrong, we can deduce that our fast-rising mortality is not the result of a dangerous environment, but of a body that has a built-in expiration date.

So, if you make it to the ripe, old age of 95,

you have the body of a 95-year-old with only a 2-in-3 chance of making it through the year.

Puts the whole idea of making the most out of every day in perspective.

Ze Frank looks at Progressives, progress, and tries to define a moving target in this episode of That Makes Me Think Of.

via time.com

With a few tweaks and trips, Indigo Spot is now valid HTML 5. There may still be a few straggling video posts that are not compliant. I will pick those off as I find them and convert all of the embed code, but overall, most everything should be good.

Since plug-ins are proving to be problematic with regards to good standards compliant code, it is a good thing I am moving to another CMS. Speaking of that, the conversion to Textpattern is still on schedule for the next couple of months; however, wedding plans take precedence over site design.

In other news, I was finally able to secure my Facebook name so I can be found at http://facebook.com/iwparker now, but since my primary online presence is here, I will filter you right back to this site, so it’s probably better to subscribe to my RSS feed or bookmark Indigo Spot.

I am excited about the wedding. We went shopping last night to determine what we were going to register for, and wow, is it difficult. On the upside, we’re on the same page about most items that we need. More to come soon. Be well.

Ze Frank lays it all out on another great episode of That Makes Me Think Of.

This time, he covers the “World’s Ugliest Dog Competition”, Al Franken, exorcisms, and giant cucumbers amongst other issues. Quality laughs, compelling presentation, and a new trend idea… #thinklong.

(via time.com)

This is brilliant art. The installation would be fun to see in-person. The pictures don’t seem to do it justice.

Be sure to watch it full screen here or check out the original at Motionographer.

(via motionographer.com)

Here is yet another fantastic installation of the “That Makes Me Think Of” video series from Ze Frank over on Time magazine. I really think that Ze Frank has hit his stride. It’s unfortunate that Time’s video site doesn’t cleanly archive all of the series together. Perhaps they’ll get it right eventually.

(via time.com)