Let me start off by saying my hotel leaves a little to be desired. It has a very nice HDTV that stretches all the non-HD channels. It has a nice shower, which was unexpected. The bed is decent, too. However, I had hoped that after charging me so much for a room, Internet access would be a throw-in. Evidently not. It’ll work, though.

My morning started in a fun way. I got up early figuring I wouldn’t be the first in line, but that I may get a decent head start on the large crowd. While watching the news hoping to get a weather update, they cut to a reporter standing outside the convention center I was about to walk to. He was describing the huge crowds and the video showed a line out the door and around the corner! I panicked and finished packing my backpack and ran out the door.

When I arrived, the line wasn’t just out the door. It was around the corner and down the alley. But, in the best Disney style, they managed the line well. After checking in and getting a spiffy T-shirt and nice laptop bag, they kept us moving and corralled us all into the dining area on the ground floor (the keynote will be on the third floor). After milling around for a few minutes, that area filled up (I heard one guy describe it as “pre-buffering”) and they guided us back out and up the first set of escalators. We’ve now been shuffled down a hallway on the second floor and we’ve been waiting here for twenty or thirty minutes. About half the crowd has succumbed to the large backpacks and they sit and type as I am. Some hold a laptop in one hand and type with the other as they continue to stand. Combine that with a backpack, and I’m sure some chiropractor somewhere will be happy.

 

 

I’m always amazed at how I run into people here. I actually spotted one guy I know, but don’t like very much, so I had to melt into the crowd the other direction. Better, though, was spotting one guy I was attempting to meet about ten feet ahead of me as we shuffled out of the dining area. At least I have someone to talk to now.

I’m optimistic that I’ll get into the main hall for the keynote, but I won’t know until I’m sitting in the room.

More later…

Well, it begins.

I’m sitting at gate C3 waiting for my plane to San Francisco. I’m on my way to WWDC (Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference). This is a weeklong conference for software and hardware developers that work with any Apple hardware and software. When I went two years ago, there were about 5000 attendees, but this is the first year that they’ve sold out. I’m expecting it to be a bit more crowded.

While I’d love to give you all the gory details of what I’m hearing, I’m under NDA for all of the conference content other than the keynote address Monday morning. That is always exciting, though, as Steve Jobs usually has something new and slightly unexpected to announce and excite the developers. The announcements are interesting as is the response of the developers in attendance.

I’m going to learn new things and see how I can leverage what Apple is offering for two companies. Inspiration Software (my day job) is paying my way and has encouraged me to learn about everything as we evaluate our options for future deployment. Smart Box Design (my side job) is focused on casual games for handheld devices, so I’m clearly going to be interested in the iPhone developer track for them.

I’m hoping to blog a bit when I can for those who are interested. Maybe even throw in a picture or two that won’t break my NDA.

Hope this turns out to be fun for whoever is reading!

This is just an update to another mailing list/website I’m responsible for: The Daily Push Up. I’ve taglined this as “A daily dose of spiritual exercise for men in various stages of their Christian walk”. Up until now, this has been a mailing list where I or my dad have written short devotionals that are mailed out each day.

Now, there is a web page that will be listing each devotional along with other notes that we may decide to add. If you are of the RSS bent, you can now subscribe that way rather than via email. You are welcome to comment there and, maybe, even engage in a little discussion if you so choose. So, please visit Daily Push Up and enjoy.

Only geeks would think of a Mother’s Day this way. Since Stefanie lives with a couple of geeks, this is what she gets. Her gift was a digital photo frame loaded with a variety of photos from our life.

Her card was a mini comic book, which you can read here by clicking this cover page: 

Give it up for a geeky Mother’s Day!

Okay, so it wasn’t much for you all to see, but I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.5 which has some nicer tools for the blog writer (namely, me). Hopefully, that’ll mean some cooler stuff on these pages in the future.

For right now, though, you’ll notice that the titles in my Now Reading section on the left are now clickable. You’ll get to read my mini-review and even link to the Amazon page if you’re interested in reading more.

Enjoy!

I’ve been writing casual games for PocketPC/Windows Mobile devices for Smart Box Design for a little while now. Recently, we’ve started a blog for our users and I’ve begun to chime in. Specifically, we’re doing a major revision of one of the games (WordPop). So, in an effort to make the process interesting for our customers, I’m blogging about my progress as I go. Feel free to follow along and see what I’m doing with some of my free time.

As many of you know, MIT is famous for its culture of hacking. In the MIT vernacular, hacking is non-destructive, innocuous fun that may bend the rules of legality. This has included famous hacks like placing a working police car or fire engine on the roof of the MIT dome or threading a telephone pole through the hallway of a dorm.

I have been meaning to mention one of the highest profile and most impressive hacks to date which occurred about a year ago in April of 2006. MIT hackers were able to successfully move the famous Caltech cannon to the MIT campus without any permission or legal authority. Even better, they manufactured an oversized MIT class ring (known as a brass rat) that was placed on the cannon. These pictures were taken in front of the Green Building on MIT’s campus last year (credit to Donna Coveney of MIT, Dean Phillips of Technology Review, and the Howe & Ser website):

You can read the whole story in Technology Review here.

The kicker to this story is a letter to the editor from an MIT alum who happens to live near Caltech. It seems the school in Pasadena took some extra precautions to make sure it isn’t so easy to swipe the cannon in the future.

MIT and Caltech hackers have gone intercampus, coast-to-coast, in recent years, as reported in the September/October 2006 issue. As retribution for a Caltech hack, MIT hackers had a large cannon transported from the Caltech campus to the MIT campus. (Caltech had acquired the cannon as a gift when a local military academy morphed into a general college-prep school.) Caltech students, of course, transported it back to Pasadena. But as an MIT alumnus, a Pasadena resident, and a Caltech associate, I was surprised to find that instead of returning to its place in front of Fleming residence hall, on the Olive Walk between the faculty club and the main library, the cannon reappeared chained to a large sycamore tree in front of the nearby residence that serves as the hall for undergraduate registration. I was also surprised to find on closer examination that the chain is much heavier than any I ever purchased for use with my D-8 Caterpillar bulldozer on my central-coast ranch!
Henry Lee ’47
South El Monte, CA

It’s been over a year, but this story still makes me smile.

On Sunday, April 15, I moved Clanwebb.com and the various services that went with it from an old PowerMac G4 to a new Intel Mac Mini. The G4 has been the faithful home of Clanwebb for almost five years and has survived two separate moves in that time.

The old server is the gray Mac at the bottom of the picture. The new server is the unassuming silver brick at the top of the picture. The old server will take on some less strenuous duties in the near future.

Recently, I’ve been wanting to add more services to the server as well as keep it up to date. So, with a few hiccups, we migrated to a newer machine. It is proving to be faster and easier to maintain. It’s also quieter and cooler, which is always a bonus for our multi-computer den.

If you have any trouble with Clanwebb.com or with emailing to any of us, please let us know.

Enjoy!

Sometimes you have to open your mind to understand the truth. If the truth is too painful to recognize, we choose to believe the false front erected by those who don’t want you to know. When enough people buy in to the neatly wrapped story, then any criticism is decried as being kooky and from the lunatic fringe. But, sometimes, a heroic voice cries out and is unafraid to declare the truth. When you can’t avoid the truth, you have an obligation to stand up and join that voice until it becomes a chorus.

Here is one such voice who is unafraid. I join his chorus in asking the uncomfortable question: Was the Death Star Attack an Inside Job?

This is a brilliant piece of writing on many levels.

If you’ve watched the demo videos of Apple’s new iPhone, you may have been impressed with some cool interface touches that really haven’t been seen before. As is usual, Apple didn’t invent them all, but they certainly know how to package them for a mass audience.

Some of those ideas and many more cool ones are displayed in this technology talk by Jeff Han last February. You have to watch until he shows the photo layout tool.

I want to work on stuff like that. Sign me up!