You’ll have to forgive me if I’ve been a little quiet lately.  It’s not that I haven’t been doing things or moving around but I’ve been a little busy with something.  I’ve slowly but surely been learning the fundamentals of computer programming, Objective-c and XCode in an attempt to learn how to program for the iPhone. On top of that, I’ve been learning how to code html and css in an attempt to learn how to market my labor in a way that goes beyond iTunes, slightly, in case people want to know more. On top of that, I’ve been registering ficticious names (a.k.a. D.B.A) in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and trying to figure out how to register as a business in this state.

I hope you’ll forgive me if my blog posts have been a little dry lately.

That being said, I am proud to present my very first foray into software development with an introduction to my little company: sushiGrass.

The name was born out of a habit of keeping the little pieces of plastic that come with sushi in my keyboard at work which was influence by Caleb Larson doing it awhile ago.  I had the name floating around for a couple years and finally thought it was a nice match with a company devoted to developing portable, small software packages.

Anyway, this whole thing has been driven by a desire to pick up a new skill and develop on a platform that is really, very interesting. If you think about it, the idea of a little computer which is constantly connected to the internet and interacts through the natural interface of the finger while fitting into a pocket is pretty cool.  There are tons of opportunities to come up with inventive ideas for such a device and eventually will become as ubiquitous as the internet or mobile phone.

And, although there are plenty of stories of people making it big on the gold rush that is the app store, I know that’s not really my deal.  That mine has already been stripped by people trying to figure out the quickest way to make a buck so I’m not fooling myself into thinking about retiring off a small application.  Instead, the focus is to try a new avenue for creativity, that’s all.  Of course, it’d be nice to be able to become my own boss and work independently but I’m keeping things realistic.

So, if you’d like, take a look to see what I’ve been up to.  The company site is here and the app can be browsed at here.  Warning, you need an iTunes to see that last link and an iPhone to actually use the small clock application.

There has been a lot of frustration lately between developers for the iPhone and Apple. The developers’ main beef is that when submitting their programs to Apple for the App Store on iTunes, the applications will go through a mysterious approval process and then either unceremoniously submitted or denied with very little reasoning.  See here. The issue is one of transparency which is something that Apple has, for better or worse, been terrible at.  In fact, it is it’s greatest signature in that products are announced and make a huge impact.

Back to the prototype.  I got it working, albeit with Tiger (OSX 10.4) and not Leopard (10.5).  The problem is that I want a laptop for Megan that doesn’t offer up any issues and so bleeding edge prototype hardware really isn’t the best solution.  Since it is a rarity and something that someone somewhere might enjoy either as a piece of Apple history or as something to poke around on, I find the best promotional tool for a national audience.  That’s right, eBay.

I posted a 10-day auction and by the end of the 8th day, was up to $700.  In less than 48 hours, someone would be buying the laptop and I could focus on getting something more appropriate for Megan.  Then, less than 24 hours before the auction end came this:

MC019 eBay Listing Removed: Copyright Violation - Unauthorized Item (294098106)

Dear monkeyboyjake(jake@mopedarmy.com), You recently listed the following auction-style listing: 180348382901 - Rare Apple MacBook Pro Prototype / Test 2.16 Ghz 15″ The listing was removed because it violated eBay policy. The rights owner, Apple, Inc., notified eBay that this listing violates intellectual property rights. When eBay receives a report of this type of violation, we remove the listing to comply with the law.

Awesome.  Apple in no way tried to contact me and say “Hey. That’s ours.  We’d like it back.”  Instead, they contacted eBay and got them to unlist it.  So what am I supposed to do?  Well, I tried to contact the email they provided: piracy@ebay.com (Is this really piracy?) and got no response.  So, who do you talk to about something like this?  An Apple Store Genius?  Call up corporate?  Well, none of these things seemed appropriate.  So, I decided to email Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs.

As silly as that sounds, I know that Steve is not going to read my email ever.  Some lackey will and it will be distributed to the correct person.  The thing is that sometimes, it produces results.  I was just hoping that someone could contact me and say “Please don’t sell that.” or “Go ahead and sell that.” but basically anything so that it can be resolved but nothing has happened.  I’ve since emailed twice and nothing came out.

Apple is stonewalling because that’s what Apple does.  It’s much better legally to say nothing than it is to say anything.  I understand that they are huge corporate company that has much better things than helping me sell a laptop.  I also get that me selling this laptop is potentially one less laptop they get to sell at their stores but it’s still frustrating.  In much of the way that they are stonewalling the very people who are providing content to their device, they are remaining silent in this matter.

The internet was supposed to be a way to democratize information.  We were taking the ability to filter information and beginning to destribute that power from traditional media outlets to ordinary people with some interesting effects.  And this, to me, was comforting.  It seemed that information has now found it’s own niche market and if you wanted to find out more about goats, you could.  This is as opposed to before when it was up to a newspaper editor to decide that, yes, you need to know more about Britney Spears.

After getting the prototype MacBook Pro up and running, I needed to figure out what was next.  The whole point was to get Megan a working laptop that could keep up with the day to day demands that graphic design would cause.  The prototype, while in hardware was almost the same as any other MacBook Pro, was different enough to worry about a future update breaking it or other variables unforseen.  No, I wanted to know what to do with a MacBook Pro that is one of maybe one hundred around and one of one outside of the grips of Apple.

So, I turn to the hive mind, the collective consciousness, the internet.  I posted on message boards and at best got a murmur of interest and some snarky feedback.  I then submitted my story to all the parties that might be interested.  All the tech/gadget and even apple blogs.  No interest.  The pinnacle of democratization of information, Digg.  Well, it didn’t get one other person’s interest. Really, the only way I was able to see people were somewhat interested was by posting pictures of it on a Flickr site and seeing the page count go up slightly each day.

But overall, this was pretty disappointing to me.  I’d figure that something like this, although not the craziest instance of a prototype, would be of interest to, say, an apple blog.  I mean what are the chances of someone being able to buy a prototype in a Wawa parking lot on Craigslist?  How many more of these are there?  What else is different about it? These questions were ignored and instead the big story was about the virtues of TextEdit.

It wasn’t until Boing Boing Gadgets ran the story did anyone say anything about it.  And even then, the tone was somewhat like “Hey.  This a little weird but really not that big of a deal. Pffffff.” Still, it caused nearly 1,500 people to look at the photos.

If I sound bitter, it’s probably because I am.  Like I said, I know that this isn’t the most exciting instance of a prototype but I find myself discouraged by the cold realization that the gatekeepers of information haven’t been banished, they’ve just been redistributed. Back 20 years ago, if something newsworthy happened, I’d stroll into my newspaper and say I needed to talk to a reporter.  Now, it’s submitting a story to a webpage that doesn’t give feedback.

Deep down, though, it’s the same mentality that I thought we were getting rid of where someone big has to pay interest to something before all the smaller fishes pay attention and spread the word little bit by little bit.  Instead of AP filtering down to the Des Moine Register, it’s Engadget filtering down to Digg. To me, I find it interesting that this model has reiterated itself but it’s really not that surprising.  The amounts of information traveling through each day must be staggering but I thought the filter was going to be a little bit more interested in such a rare situation, that’s all.

Megan’s MacBook has been getting a little long in the tooth and generally not cooperating with the day-to-day requirements that a full-time graphic designer would impose upon it.  As a result, I started searching long and hard for a replacement on the ol’ Craigslist.  Low and behold, an answer was found in the form of a pretty decent MacBook Pro that is similar to mine, just slightly older.

We travel over to South Central New Jersey to meet a gentleman who bought the MacBook Pro on eBay in order to learn how to use OSX.  He relinquished the laptop to a “buddy” who tried to install a newer hard drive and the latest version of OSX, leopard.  Unfortunately, this caused unforseen circumstances and the laptop was caught in some sort of loop that seemed as if the computer were permanently broken.  In fact, when the gentleman took it an Apple Store to figure what to do, they diagnosed that the issue was a broken logic board and that was that.  And so, the gentleman decided to cut his losses and sell it on Craiglist.

When I saw the laptop, I fired it up to see the error and was unsure if I could fix it. It did seem like a possible logic board issue but decided to give it a shot. I knew that the Apple Store tends to assign logic board issues to anything they can’t figure out in a way that doctors assign stress to medical issues that aren’t immediately apparent. I also know they like to sell computers to people who have broken ones. After deciding to give it a go, I turned it over to see that sticker and the curiosity grew.

When I got it home, I was pleasantly surprised that it would function to some degree but needed some cajoling to work. The issue wasn’t the hard drive as swapping that didn’t make a difference. Swapping the hard drive on this laptop isn’t easy and requires taking it apart to a degree that Apple doesn’t suggest. This process, though, allowed me to poke through the internals and see that it, well, isn’t stock. The wireless component is non-stock and the logic board is green instead of blue.

Once I inspected the bottom of the computer and the other sticker that pointed out exactly what components were inside, it started to come together. From what I could gather, this was a test/prototype unit from Apple that was made before they made revisions to the hardware somewhere around 2006. For a company so devoted to secrecy, this was a pretty big deal that something like was sitting in my living room. It’s kind of like having a prototype car to drive around. Still, it was broken and needed to be fixed to at least boot up and into OSX.

The method I got it to eventually work involved some weird mac trickery by way of installing through my computer to the prototype’s hard drive. Any attempt at updating it causes it not to work so it’s stuck at that particular instance of OSX. You see, this kind of makes sense. The computer more than likely has specialized firmware to control the specialize hardware. This custom firmware is more than likely messing with the software that I’m trying to install. The only way could make it work is figure out which version of OSX it would probably be running at that time and install that.

And so, the result was a MacBook Pro that ran one version of OSX and nothing else but what to do with it? That was the dilemma that something as specialized as this brings. To be continued…

WOOO!

Mark was fortunate, by way of his generous wife, to be able to come and visit the city of brotherly love for 3 whole days!  And another morning!  Seriously, though.  What a good time.  Fun was had and hijinx ensued.  Such as?  Well, we started Monday by driving around on Vespas, seeing the Italian Market and seeing a show at the Barbary.

The next day we went to Honey’s where Mark got some $5 orange juice.  That was about it.  Oh, and we walked 11 miles, saw all the sites, got a mexican luchidor mask, had a delicious dinner with friends and went to a housewarming party.

With rain approaching and me running out of things to do within Philadelphia, we headed north to Earth’s capital, New York City.  We sloshed around in the rain, saw the sites and come home to immediately strip our shoes and socks off and each Indian food.

Overall, it was one of the best weekends since moving here.  It really helps having a very laid back guess who really could have been happy doing nothing.  So for that, thanks mark.  We’ll have to do it again next year.

Yes, it is time for the Annual Philadelphia Beer Week.  It seems like a lot of my post lately have been very beer related.  Fear not, I am not becoming a raging alcoholic.   I have other things going on but they are either secret (to be revealed later), not as interesting (work), or not photogenic (misc).

Philly Beer Week, though, was really great.  In it’s second year, the event has already ballooned to 400 events at 70 locations.  Now, that number is pretty inflated especially when “beer specials all week!” counts as an event and some place lame like UNO pizza counts as a location.  Still, there were some gems in the rough with the highlight being a fun party at the Philadelphia Brewing Company on Saturday.

PBC is a local brewery up in Port Fishington that is the little brewery that could.  Unfortunately, I don’t like their beer as much as Bells, Troeges or even Yeungling but it’s still nice that a beer brewery is interested in serving the community and throwing a bash.  A bash with free beer, free food and free entertainment.  Of course, the real entertainment was watching people, seeing HUGE brewing cauldrons and hanging out on a beautiful day but what a fun time.

The other events at beer week were fun but not nearly as interesting as this one.  And it wasn’t just that I had to actually pay for the beer (I know!), it was they felt less like a celebration of good beer and more like a promotional junket.  Still, I did get a chance to have some beer I wouldn’t normally get, meet people I wouldn’t have normally met and generally had a great time while increasing my pleasure for a city that I am currently residing in.  And I’ll toast to that.

Imagine I approached you and offered you the chance to go snowboarding for free on a chartered bus with meals and beverages supplied.  Sounds good, right? You’re down?  Cool. Oh, wait.  There are a couple things I forgot to mention.

• It’s hosted by Coors Light.
• You leave at 2 in the afternoon and get back at 2 in the morning.
• You will be on the bus with 35 drunken jerks who are loud, belligerent and idiotic for a total of 5 hours.
• The food will be a step below gas station food.
• The ski lodge will remind you what skiing in the 1920s was like.

And, so it goes that the Coors Light FreeRide ‘09 was possibly one of the worst times I have ever encountered.  Between the shoddy planning and the absolutely terrible staffing of the event to the downright worst slice of humanity that accompanied us, this was a very uncomfortable day for Megan and I to say the least.

I’m not sure whether the lowest point was when people were smoking blunts in the bathroom, much to the chagrin of the grandpa-like bus driver or a drunken passenger, who we’ll call “Meth-teeth” borderline sexually assaulting his girlfriend on the bus (she stopped him just short of it).  This was like some sort of grotesque circus of the lowest of the low.

But, as a sign of increased maturity, I tried, with the help of the always patient Megan, to see the bright side of things and make the best of the worst situation.  We did have a good time snowtubing.

I guess things like this are here to let me realize that if a snowboarding retreat with a bunch of jerks is the one of the worst times I have encountered, my life isn’t that bad as it could be much, much worse.

And with that, our work and patience has come to fruition.  The result is a caramel amber ale that resembles my favorite beer, Troeges Hopback.  The interesting thing is the inconsistency in carbonation due to the inconsistent dispersion of priming sugars.  The bottles at the beginning have a silky carbonation where as the end bottles have something course like soda.

And now, it is time for more beer brewing experience with beer #2, our dunkleweizen.

Wish us luck!

Megan and I had the opportunity to see a show at a gallery a little bit north of where we live called “UnIntended Uses“, which featured people taking objects and reusing them in imaginative ways including a Gameboy for music based on which pedals were stepped on and so on.  A nice display of art and technology.

At the Nexus gallery, were a couple of other shows that we perused while chomping on crackers and sipping on wine.  A show from the masters dept. at the University of Delaware and a couple independent artists.

And, of course, one of the exhibits was decidedly anti-war.  Well, the art work itself, a set of armor knit out of wool yarn for a Humvee vehicle was neither for or against war on itself as inherently, it makes something tough a little bit softer.  It was the articles on the wall that disparaged the war while being careful to be negative about war and those who make decisions about it while supporting those who actually fight and that’s fine.  They are entitled to their opinion and that’s the freedom and ideals of those freedoms that are being fought for.

The thing is how that anti-establishment stance, well, really isn’t anti-establishment.  It is in the larger picture in that the government is a huge entity but that’s not who these people are pandering to.  Donald Rumsfeld isn’t going to come to the art exhibit and slowly ponder if he made the right decision.  Instead, people from the art world are and, for the most part, they tend to be on the progressively-liberal side.  So, really, they’re pondering to the your own smaller establishment under the name of being anti-establishment.

So that got Megan and I thinking about how you could present a pr0-war stance at an art show without seeming like propaganda and the idea isn’t that clear.  Megan eventually thought of a fashion show displaying in exaggerated terms the fashion of women before and after the war while I came up with a photo journal or a collection of weblogs/webvideos showing the opportunities granted to those who might have been oppressed before.  It’s just tough because anything pro-establishment definitely could be seen as some sort of propaganda.

Still, it’s interesting in that the art itself didn’t propagate any new ideas on the war in the way intended but instead did quite the opposite.

Seemingly out of nowhere, I was hit with some really intense hours that are normally reserved for our busy time at work.  A certain sugar-water company needed some communications and they needed them now, no matter what.  The result?  Lots of o.t. in a time normally reserved for at-work hibernation/learning.

It’s not that I don’t have it coming.  Our last busy season wasn’t so much busy as it was a low roar that allowed me to go home at a reasonable hour and eat delicious meals with Megan.

Especially during this time when people are freaking out about their jobs, it’s nice to feel busy and needed.  It only took a day or two to get back into the swing of 10-13 hour days but working on the weekends eventually took their tolls.  Then again, it does make you appreciate your free time that much more.