A Little Less than KIN
If you are curious about the Microsoft KIN phones, my review of them is now available on Open for Business.
To Know or Not to Know
According to John Harris, President Obama knew of Blagojevich's quid pro quo expectations for the senate seat appointment that ultimately ended the Illinois governor's term. Obama previously had denied knowing any such thing.
Given Obama's ties to the Chicago political machine, the only thing that surprises me about this is that there has not been more evidence concerning the president's involvement already. I would guess this investigation will eventually grow to more directly relate to him.
The iPhone as a Camera
Derek Powazek demonstrates the impressive camera capabilities of the new iPhone 4's camera. I think Apple might be on to something with this.
HT: John Gruber
Under Construction
As I have noted from time to time, asisaid runs the bleeding edge version of my SAFARI content management system, functioning as the official guinea pig for the software. Right now, I am in the process of checking off some long term todos for SAFARI as part of developing a site and that means things could get a little crazy on here. In particular, the project is forcing me to go back and clean up some of my messiest, oldest code — some going back as far as eleven years — and trying to re-implement things properly.
If something goes wrong, would you please drop me a line via e-mail or Facebook, in case I miss it?
Thanks.
iOS 4
I was able to grab iOS 4 for my iPhone 3GS minutes after it became available today. I have not had much time to play with it, but so far it feels like a really nice upgrade from iPhone OS 3.1. I really like being able to group apps into folders and I have been wanting a unified inbox on my phone since my first iPhone in 2007.
Time will tell if the “multitasking” support makes the phone feel more responsive, but so far, so good. My phone may be a year old, but it feels fresher with this new software. I am reminded of what a nice trend Apple has going with free upgrades for existing phones. Bear in mind that upgrading phone OS versions has never been a given in the past, and continues to be hit or miss on Android.
Now I just keep thinking of what iOS 4 will bring to the iPad when it appears later this year. At the least, the items that have appeared already on the iPhone will be much appreciated.
Zombies on Your Lawn
The perfect kind of video advertisement: catchy.
Filtering
For years, I have filtered my email into different categories — mailing lists, system administration, email forwards, and so on. Thus far, I have always done so on the client side, in my email client. Since switching to IMAP email a number of years ago, the big question became how to standardize those rules across different computers I might use during a given day.
.Mac (now MobileMe) paved the way, back in 2004 when I first signed up for it, by offering a convenient way to synchronize quite a few system settings, including filter rules. It worked great for keeping things humming along on my laptop and desktop. However with the advent of lighter clients such as the iPhone, a crack appeared in my system — the iPhone doesn't do filtering. Nor would my email be filtered if I viewed it in webmail. The situation has become more apparent since I started using an iPad, which, like the iPhone, lacks rules support.
All that said, I have finally broken down and tried server side filter rules. My main rules are now being applied on my server as messages come in. CPanel makes such filtering remarkably easy to setup. So far, so good.
Please let me know if you send me anything and do not receive a reply, however!
Via Media
As Wikipedia notes,
St. Louis-style barbecue sauce is generally tomato-based, thinned slightly with vinegar, sweet and spicy. It is not as sweet and thick as Kansas City-style barbecue sauce, nor as spicy-hot and thin as Texas-style. A St. Louis-style barbecue is not complete without copious amounts of sauce.
That is what makes St. Louis-style sauce so good. Just the right combination of sweet and spicy in a sauce just thick enough to properly coat the meat.
Hamlet
A full comment on the Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis's production of Hamlet will have to wait, but if you live in the region, it will suffice to say that you should go catch it at Forest Park before Sunday. How often can you find a professional production of Shakespeare's greatest play that is free?
Go. You won't regret it.
Sinking Polls
Rasmussen writes,
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 24% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -20 (see trends).
Why am I not surprised?
