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July 12, 2007

New Discoveries

I call this: computers,mac — Posted by KP @ 9:11 pm

iGlasses
Have you heard the news that the new Macbook Pros have a 1.3MP camera in them? Very exciting to get something you didn’t know you were getting. Doesn’t look like any apps can take advantage of that yet, but surely it’s a sign of better things to come. The test app mentioned in the link is now available for download to be played with by all. You can see the video is quite slow, so some work will have to be done to make real-time video at this resolution practical. But if you just want to take a better snapshot with your camera, you can use this little app and have it saved to the desktop.

All this talk about the camera drew my attention to an app called iGlasses. I hadn’t yet gotten around to digging up the best apps for camera-having Macs, and I think this one is a keeper. And at only $8, the improvement in picture quality is more than worth it to me. The terrible single-source florescent lighting in my summer apartment has made for some very dark video chats, and iGlasses’ “enhanced” setting immediately improved the brightness to a normal level. It also features some funky options to entertain or annoy your chatting partner, depending on their perspective.

Using Protection
My assistant at Reagle has, as long as he’s had his iBook, sworn by using a protective sheet over his keyboard to prevent finger oils from getting rubbed on the screen, and to keep the keys from pressing into the screen and leaving permanent marks. Personally I’ve always felt I was too busy to deal with such a thing, but this probably stems from the fact that my Powerbook had the “white spots” flaw, which began to show itself after two or three weeks of ownership, and I figured there was nothing the keys could do to the screen that would make it look any worse. Four years later, the screen has a full representation of the keyboard imprinted on it, which I can really only see when it’s off. One day during rehearsal I was sitting in the lobby with the MBP, bathed in sunlight from the courtyard, and saw the faint outline of the very edges of my keys on the screen. It’s one thing to let a defective screen go to hell, but this machine is being very good to me, and I was not treating it with the respect and care it deserves. I stopped at Staples on the dinner break to get some screen cleaner spray, and vowed to get to the Apple store as soon as I could to buy a proper cover for the keyboard.

You know every Apple laptop comes with a thin piece of foam that covers the keyboard during shipping. Some people keep this and continue to use it. But really, part of the experience of being a Mac owner is spending a bunch of money on a piece of cloth, secure in the knowledge that this is the only piece of cloth ever professionally manufactured specifically for the purpose of covering the keyboard of your machine.

This miracle device is included in the Marware Protection Pack. It’s a piece of cloth. It’s the size of the keyboard, except it’s actually not. It would need to be a millimeter or two wider to be perfectly sized. But it’s made of microfiber, which means it can also be used to clean the screen. While it’s bigger than the microfiber cloth I normally carry for this purpose, at least it means I no longer have to carry that and keep it clean.

Also in the Protection Pack is a leathery protective sticker that covers the whole wrist rest area. I worry about my wrist rest because I have a metal clasp on the bottom of my watch (which I’m generally careful to keep elevated off the keyboard), and my PB has pitting on the aluminum where my right hand sits when using the trackpad (over the CD slot), and on the trackpad button. While I see this more as a testament to the hard work this machine has done, it’s definitely not pretty. Based on my research, I decided the only thing uglier than the pitting was the Marware wrist rest cover. On a Macbook, especially a black one, the color of the laptop and the wrist rest might blend in. But there is a big difference between bare aluminum and a gray leathery thing. How could I make my MBP so ugly for its whole lifespan in the name of preventing it possibly becoming ugly years down the road? Unfortunately while Marware does sell the keyboard cover separately, the Apple Store only had them in the combo pack for $20. I decided since I was worried about the wrist rest it might be worth having the protective sticker just in case. I put the thing on just for kicks, and this was the result:

It looks as professional as it can under the circumstances, although again it’s not quite cut right to fit the trackpad perfectly. I played with it for a few minutes, took some pictures, and then closed the screen. It wouldn’t latch. Maybe because of the four teeny-tiny bumpers around the top of the screen, maybe that made it just a little too thick. I don’t care why. After several attempts to press the lid down, I pulled the sticker up and stuck it back on its backing and put it away. This to me was final confirmation that it’s simply unnatural to cover up a MBP like that, and I will take my chances without it.

I was also interested in this trackpad protector. I’ve never had a problem with a trackpad, but as I said my PB’s trackpad button is all messed up. It was reported to be basically invisible (it’s on in that picture above), and it is. However, I did have a lot of trouble with the trackpad response. I have seen reviews saying it’s fine, and some saying it’s less responsive. I had trouble adjusting, but then again I had a lot of trouble with the MBP’s trackpad when I first got it and now have gotten used to it. I didn’t give it much time, not even a full day, before removing it. But I kept the button cover on, and saved the trackpad cover. The box actually comes with two of each, which is nice of them.

So after all that I am still using the keyboard cover and the protective sticker on the trackpad button, and I feel like I’m doing my part to keep my MBP in good condition.


July 10, 2007

Oh My God, It’s a Truck!

I call this: summer stock,theatre — Posted by KP @ 2:12 pm


When I arrived at the theatre today, I was shocked upon arriving at our parking lot to find a trailer parked at the loading dock. I was highly confused about what show we were doing, as it’s not customary for a truck to show up on the day of the first dress rehearsal. I quickly realized that this must be the first of the 42nd Street trucks, arriving simply because it can. Reagle owns the set, which like all of the sets that they rent out, is stored in its trailers and parked at an off-site facility when it’s not needed, packed and ready to be driven wherever it needs to go when rented. It won’t be unloaded just yet, but as King and I‘s set is almost completely stored on the deck, there is lots of room in the shop for 42nd Street to start coming in and being put together during the run of King and I.

Tonight was our first dress rehearsal, first rehearsal with orchestra, and the first time we ran the show like a performance. Usually these things don’t all happen on the same night, but the show is in such good shape, the slightly unconventional schedule shouldn’t hurt us at all. I called the show from the booth tonight. This was only my second time calling a real run, and the first time to really get the uninterrupted flow of the show, but I find it so relaxing I didn’t mind. Our master electrician suggested it because she reminded me that when I call from the tech table with the orchestra, the sound is so loud that it gets into my headset and drowns out the calls. I normally move to the booth for the Tuesday run, but usually having had the first dress on Monday to call from the tech table. The show is very quiet at times and we’ve had to really struggle for the crew to be able to talk quietly enough so it isn’t distracting, but loud enough to hear each other. So as much as I wanted to stay in the house for one more day, it was more important that I be able to speak as much and as loudly as I have to, so I welcomed the move to the booth.

The run went very well. I had to adjust a little bit, as always, to figure out what I’m listening for in the orchestra in cases where it sounds much different than it did on the piano. I’m having a great time calling this show. It’s easy, but quite rewarding. All the design elements are beautiful and complement each other very well, I find the show itself funny and moving, the actors are great to watch, the dancers are amazing, the singers sound wonderful, the kids are cute. The show is looking to be a solid three hours with intermission, but I have not yet gotten bored while calling it. And calling the ballet is like its own little show-within-a-show, and while it’s still relatively easy, it stretches slightly different stage management muscles, so it provides a nice change of pace for about ten minutes toward the beginning of the second act. We have one more dress rehearsal and then the first performance at 2:00 on Thursday.


July 7, 2007

King and I Tech

I call this: summer stock,theatre — Posted by KP @ 10:14 pm

Done. We had a very successful tech today. Despite my bold predictions earlier in the week that we would be able to run the show or at least one act by tonight, we did not. We did, however, finish the show in less than our ten working hours. In fact — I can’t say I have ever had this experience — we finished the show, let the cast go, had our production meeting, and stood up to go home at 9:55. Rehearsal was scheduled from 10AM – 10PM. We were all shocked that we were leaving before the day should even have been over.

We didn’t really end that early, maybe 20 minutes at most. The tricky part was that we teched the show out of order. It’s always an issue in shows with a large cast of young children, especially those that aren’t getting paid, to figure out how to use the kids’ time without unnecessarily keeping them up past their bedtime, or simply wearing them out to the point where a four-year-old just doesn’t feel like going onstage or doing her blocking. So we called the kids first thing in the morning and teched all of their scenes first, which happen to also be the most complicated by virtue of having 50-something people on stage. After several hours the kids were dismissed, but we did not go back to the top of the show because the first scene change is an absolute nightmare, with only a silent and rather uncomplicated crossover to cover it. Anna, her son Louis and the Kralahome (King’s prime minister) arrive at the palace. Two sailors are following with a large trunk. They cross from stage left to stage right. That’s it. Meanwhile there’s five pipes flying, and about 20 people on the deck required to move all the scenery (for which we’ve used some of the non-union cast to supplement the crew).

Because of all the people involved and the need to assign and teach the change to the cast, we began with scene two and teched from there until the lunch break. The crew set up the first scene during the break. It’s on board a ship — there’s several flats including the ship’s cabin and smokestack, the sides of the ship, a big paddle wheel thing, a bunch of crates and trunks — a lot of it was supposed to be flown, but this goes back to the issue at the production meeting about ugly aircraft cables ruining the look. So before even attempting the scene we ran the scene change twice.

Because we weren’t attempting to run the scene, I had the unique experience of being on the deck during a crazy scene change. Normally I sit comfortably at the tech table, call the drop in, and then listen on headset to frantic banging and squeaking and calls of “Fly this out! Over there! OK, clipped! Downstage! Bring it in!” then some more banging and squeaking, the sound of counterweights whizzing up and down on the rail, then a few calls of “We’re ready. Are you ready over there? We look ready. OK, clear!” then I say, “Go,” the drop flies, and there’s a nice shiny new set on the stage. So when I realized this I went and got my camera. Unfortunately the video is not nearly as interesting as I hoped it would be. First of all I wasn’t able to get it on at the beginning because I was given the honor of calling the start of the scene change and also fumbling to start a stopwatch. And then for some reason I turned the camera off before it was completely over, probably to stop my stopwatch, or maybe because I realized how lame the video already was. But here it is, shot from stage left.

It’s not quite a well-oiled machine at this point (this was attempt #2, 1 minute 15 seconds), but after this we went back and ran from the beginning of the show through the scene change, and the crew and crewlike castmembers were done quite a bit before the onstage cast, who were expertly dragging out what could have been a 10-second cross into an entire play about people walking down a hallway. I’m sure it will only get faster. Actually, the show was written with a whole silent scene there in which we see the palace dancers preparing for the next scene in which they dance for the King — purposely put there to fill time while this unavoidable Huge Scene Change takes place. The alternative if you have a quick scene change is for Anna and company to simply walk across the stage with their boxes in tow. We went the optimistic route, mostly because all the large pieces were supposed to fly, but I think it’s going to be fine.

So after running that change successfully, we then skipped ahead to where we were when we broke for lunch, and continued from there in order, but skipping the second half of the last scene in Act I, which we covered earlier with the children. People love speculating about how long tech is going to take. I’m an optimistic person, but I’m also a realist, and I also know it’s better to make pessimistic guesses so people won’t be disappointed when it takes longer. By lunch we knew we were moving along well, and people would say so, but then in a low voice they would usually say, “We’re going to be spending all night on the ballet, aren’t we?” “Do you think we’ll end the night with the ballet?” “The ballet is going to take a long time, isn’t it?” I think we got to intermission somewhere around 7PM. This was when a lot of the real speculation started. My answer was, “Yes. Hours. I expect 1-2 hours, but I think we’ll still finish the show.” I wasn’t keeping score, but I think it probably took a half hour to 45 minutes.

First of all, you may remember I got to see the entire ballet on the third day of rehearsal. The dancers know it inside out, so there was no problem there. They did it in costume for the first time, and aside from Simon of Legree’s giant mask/headpiece being too loose on her head and having to be removed, they didn’t seem to miss a beat with the addition of costumes. This isn’t a dress rehearsal, but in many cases we added costume pieces when possible and where they would cause potential issues, like for dancers. We had a few small things to take care of, like spiking the location for the gong, and assigning who places it. Once we had done those kind of housekeeping things, we ran it once and were due for a ten minute break. Gemze seemed pretty happy with it, and declined to work anything or give formal notes before running it again when we were back from the break. The second run was especially helpful as we had some followspot assignments that needed to be worked out in a more efficient way, which we applied the second time through.

I said yesterday I was worried about the rapid pace of cues and losing my place among all the “Run, Eliza, run”‘s, but when the time came I didn’t have any trouble. My first attempt was not at all embarrassing, which was a nice change from the Singin’ in the Rain ballet, where up until the final performance I was never quite sure if I was about to make an ass of myself. The key with this one is that it requires 100% concentration, and with that it’s actually quite easy to call. I just can’t lose my place or fall behind, because there’s not much time between cues, and once you’re lost it’s not immediately evident where you are in the script.

After the ballet it was clear sailing. One by one ensemble members with little to do in Act II were dismissed. We were not running the finale or bows because we did them earlier with the kids. By the end of the day we were down to a book scene with just a couple actors, right before the finale. And thus, with a gentle sigh, ended our tech, about 15 minutes early.

Tomorrow we tech from 10:00AM – 6:30PM. We had hoped to do two runs, but we have already scheduled a 2:30 run. Because of the need to give the kids a definite call time regardless of where we ended up today, we scheduled an afternoon run in advance so they could just arrive at half hour. I picked 2:30 because I didn’t feel comfortable with less than four hours to run the show (I’m guessing it will ultimately clock in at about 2:45 with intermission), give notes, and allowing extra padding for any unforeseen disasters. So that means a 1:00 lunch, and we’re not going to be able to call the cast, get them in mics, and run the show in three hours. I mean it’s conceivable, but highly unlikely. So we’re going to do the same thing we did tonight and skip the kids’ scenes since they won’t be there. Then we run in the afternoon, and after dinner the orchestra has their first rehearsal, which also serves as a partial sitzprobe for the cast to sing with the orchestra for the first time, before they have to do it on Tuesday in dress rehearsal. For this sitzprobe we are calling the singers and dancers who are in the ballet, so they can hear tempos and such and avoid any problems, and once that’s done they’ll be released. Then the principals will stay to sing their songs and make any necessary changes or requests. Then we go home to enjoy our daylight day of rest.


July 6, 2007

King and I Approaches Tech

I call this: summer stock,theatre — Posted by KP @ 10:10 am

I’m sitting in the theatre, approximately 21 hours before tech begins. I got my cues at the paper tech this morning and have some time to kill before the 1:30 rehearsal. The paper tech moved along quickly, and with some discussion of other production-related issues, came in just under two hours, which is pretty much perfection. I’ve done some for more complicated shows that have taken four hours. Approximately 140 light cues, so not a very busy show, but enough to keep me entertained. Just on paper, I see a few cues I’m already looking forward to. I think the “Small House of Uncle Thomas” ballet will be fun, but not too hard as to embarrass me, as long as I can keep following along quickly enough. Shouldn’t need to call anything off the score, which I like. My opinions on that change, but with recent shows I’ve tried to reduce it, because I find that following the score means keeping your head in the music too much and not looking at the stage. Even with Singin’ in the Rain, I called the 13-minute ballet off the score, but in reality I only really followed the music for a couple cues, and for the most part just flipped ahead to the next cue and knew what it was, so I could be looking and listening instead of being buried in the book and counting.

Took this picture just a few minutes ago:

They just put in our groundrow that will go behind the palace. The picture doesn’t quite do it justice, but it’s really nicely painted, and the set looks fantastic under the lights. I’m loving the gel colors on this show.

Another picture I shot a few days ago but never had a post for:

The drop you see downstage is brand new and was specially designed to match our set. This is the “Corridor drop” which is used for almost all the downstage scenes. The audience spends a lot of time looking at it, so it’s a good thing it’s pretty. This was taken right after it arrived and was hung.


July 5, 2007

Missing Sync Replacement Icon Set

I call this: mac,phones — Posted by KP @ 10:10 pm

Missing Sync is pretty much the only decent way to sync various PDAs with Macs these days. The Palm version just recently moved to version 6.0. Along with a bunch of exciting improvements came one incredibly ugly set of new icons that one would be unlikely to recognize as having anything to do with Palms. See here:

Color icons in the menu bar?! Are they crazy? Not to mention that a bumpy orange ball saying “Pa” is not the most intuitive abbreviation for the Palm logo.

I got really sick of this really fast, so as soon as I had a moment I set about designing new icons so I didn’t have to look at that mess. At first I intended it only to preserve my own sanity, but then decided that perhaps the rest of the world could use an alternative as well. Because the MS icons are interactive, both in the dock and in the menu bar, it’s more complicated than replacing your normal OS X application icon. It requires going inside the app file itself and replacing various .icns files contained within the package. Fortunately I’ve gone through most of the trouble myself so with a little clicking and dragging you can replace your icons.

This is my icon set:
For the main application icon you have your choice of a variety of Treo models and colors (I think I got all of them starting with the 650).

Here you can see the various states of the menu bar, and what the dock icon looks like with the little sync progress bar over it.

Installing the Files

If you want to be safe I’d suggest before replacing any files to drag the old ones to a folder somewhere where you can keep them if you have a problem, or if you really like orange balls that say “Pa” and want to go back to them.

  • First download the file MSicons.zip and unzip it.
  • In the folder “App Icons” you will find many subfolders with the names of various Treo models. Find the one you want, and inside will be the file missingsync.icns with the image of that Treo.
  • Find your Missing Sync application file (by default it should be in /Applications/Missing Sync for Palm OS — I assume it’s similarly named if you have the Windows Mobile version and want to apply these icons)
  • Right-click on the app and select “Show Package Contents.” This will pop up a new window where you can see the files within the application.
  • navigate through Contents/Resources and inside the Resources folder you’ll see lots of icons. This is where you drop your missingsync.icns file to replace the app’s icon. It will ask if you want to replace the file, and you can just say yes, or remove the old one first if you want to keep it somewhere safe.
  • Back up one folder and you will see in the Contents folder another called SharedSupport. This contains little mini-apps that do various things.
  • Right click on “Missing Sync Menu Bar” and select “Show Package Contents”
  • Again go through the “Contents” folder to “Resources,” where you will find another bunch of icons.
  • In the zip file you downloaded is a folder called “Menu Bar” with five files. Those five files get dragged into the Resources folder to replace the menu bar icons. Again, either agree to replace, or pull out the old ones first.
  • You can now close any windows you have open and you will be ready to go. Logging out is the simplest way to see the changes applied.

Hope you enjoy the icons. Please let me know if I’ve left out your favorite Palm.


July 4, 2007

I am the Chosen One

I call this: phones — Posted by KP @ 6:41 pm
UPDATE A major bug has surfaced in the Verizon MR (which apparently is also in the Sprint MR). The data connection will not work when the phone is in a regular 1X data area, instead of the faster EVDO connection which is now available in some parts of the country. I can’t even conceive of how a bug like this got through, and I’m not sure if everyone has it, but please consider that before you go running off begging Verizon to give you the upgrade. If you’d like to learn more, the TreoCentral forum for the 700p has several threads discussing it and other advantages and disadvantages of the MR, but this one seems to be the most directly related.

There’s a developing situation in the Treo world centering around the maintenance release (MR) for the Treo 700p.

A brief background:

The 700p was released by Palm over a year ago, and from the start has had a number of bugs, enough to actually make it notable above the normal amount of bugs of any Palm device. The biggest one is what is usually simply referred to as “the lag.” Instead of the normal immediate response that Palms are known for (and that makes the limitations of the Palm OS justifiable), the 700p was known for taking several seconds (or much more) to switch between apps or do various things. Some people were very much up in arms that the lag makes it skip when playing MP3s in the background. There is also something apparently wrong with the Bluetooth stack which makes it difficult for the phone to hold a connection with another device.

Cut to far too late:
Palm announces they are finally going to provide a maintenance release (not just a patch, sort of like a Service Pack is to Windows) that supposedly will fix all that ails the 700p, as well as adding a couple enhancements. Much fanfare was made when the MR was released for Sprint back on June 4. Of course the Verizon people were bitching that their version was not released simultaneously, which just poured salt in the wound of Sprint having released the Treo 755p first, also supposedly containing the same improvements. So the Sprint people had two options for a better Treo, Verizon users were still stuck with the buggy 700p.

Things evened out a bit more when after a few days it became clear that there was something wrong with Sprint’s MR. Instead of being a simple patch added to the phone’s RAM, the MR is a permanent upgrade to the ROM, which leaves open the possibility of the phone turning into a brick if something goes wrong during the upgrade. A lot of users were experiencing problems, either with bricked phones or the update failing to apply properly, and Sprint pulled the upgrade. Sprint then re-released the MR on June 21, which seems to be better at installing itself.

Verizon drags their feet
With this whole saga apparently resolved on Sprint (despite some new bugs that have arisen with the MR), Verizon users still have not heard a peep about either the fix for the 700p or the release of the 755p. So when I heard the rumor that the 755p was going to be delayed at least 6-8 more weeks, I decided I had to buy a 700p, even though I have a major aversion to paying for something that’s already obsolete. My Treo 650 first of all had a talk time of less than 3 minutes from a full charge, and besides that was acting even more buggy and losing more data than even a 650 has any right to. And I was getting tired of the slow data connection, especially given that I pay Verizon $45/mo. for data, regardless of whether I’m getting dial-up speeds or broadband. I was a little worried about the fact that I would be getting a phone without the MR, but since people have at least been living with their 700p’s, albeit unhappily, I decided it was OK.

Buying the 700p

So after kicking around some ideas, I decided that since the 700 is not that different from the 755, I should just get on with my life and enjoy the improvement over my 650. Plus, it would keep me from doing something stupid like jumping on the iPhone too early. So I called up a nearby Verizon store and asked if they had any. The guy I spoke to had to look it up, then said, “Yeah, I’ve got a couple.” He took my phone number and said he would get it set up for me to pick up.

When I arrived I was thankfully able to skip past the line of people waiting for service, and we talked a bit about my plan and I made some adjustments from my last contract. Then when everything was confirmed he passed my phone off to be activated, for which there was a bit of a line, so I amused myself looking at all the other PDAs that I had been considering switching to.

I found it kind of odd that they didn’t actually have the 700p on display. They had the 700wx, which is the Windows Mobile version, as well as several Blackberries, the Motorola Q, and the VX6700, which is soon to be replaced by the more stylish 6800. I have never owned a non-Palm smartphone, and have often wondered if perhaps I might like a less antiquated OS, but having so much free time to try all of them out, I was unimpressed. I’m sure if I owned them I would be customizing them more to my way of working, but the general feel of them was kind of nauseating. Anyway, it made me feel better about sticking with Palm. But I did wonder, as I watched salespeople showing customers around, how they were even supposed to know the 700p was available.

Finally my name came up on the list and I paid for the phone and signed my contract. However, when the rep tried to activate the phone, it started a reset loop. He showed me and I played with it while they brought out another one and went through the process of marking it as DOA. After completing digitizer calibration, the Verizon Wireless splash screen would come up and the phone would promptly reset.

The second phone they brought out started doing the same thing, so a tech was called out to look at it. He explained that they had just installed new software on all the phones and maybe the upgrades had failed on a few. I was surprised at this, because I like to think I have my finger on the pulse of the Treo world, especially given how desperately I was waiting for the release of the 755p. I asked if this was the big update Palm was releasing, because I didn’t think it was out yet. He said they had just gotten it in the day before (which would have been July 1), and he had spent the day updating each of the phones in their stock. I believe he said he did 40 of them.

Of course I was very happy to hear I would be getting the MR, but I was still perplexed at how I could have missed hearing of this huge development. When I got home and checked TreoCentral, I read a thread which said something like “some people say they’ve gotten the MR,” without a link to who these statements. So I chimed in that I had just bought a 700p and was told it had the MR. I asked what version numbers I should be looking for, and was told software version 1.10, and Bluetooth version 3.1.2 were the big indicators, as well as a new feature where you hold the home button and it pops up a list of recently used apps. My phone has all these things. A number of posters contacted Verizon, either the main customer service, calling local stores, or by e-mail, and were all told the MR has not been released to the public, is not available for upgrade in stores, and is not being sold on new units in stores. It was at this point that I took the above picture of my phone’s info screen and posted it.

I’m not sure who these other people are who claim to also have the MR, but they’ve remained silent on all the threads I’m following, and I haven’t seen links to any of these claims. All I know is I seem to be the only person in the Treo community who has it, and I’m not sure if I should feel lucky to be The Chosen One, or scared that my phone is running software Verizon swears up and down doesn’t exist.

Other notes:

The Sprint MR’s most apparent flaw is referred to as the “DTMF tone issue.” What happens is that when you perform certain actions that elicit a sound, like a beep when you click on something, simultaneously with the beep coming from the phone’s rear speaker, you will hear a sound from the earpiece that is the same tone you would hear when pushing the * key on a phone. As soon as I began using my 700p I noticed this, and being unfamiliar with the 700p, I figured I must have something set wrong in my system sounds or something. When I got home I found this thread, where I realized all the Sprint users were complaining about this on their MR. Just for the record, I would like to point out:

  • This update comes over a year after the phone was released
  • Palm has had ample time to test this update
  • Sprint has done their own tests to ensure it operates correctly on their network
  • Verizon has taken their notoriously sweet time with their extra “quality assurance”
  • NONE OF THEM NOTICED SOMETHING THAT YOU CAN HEAR WITHIN SECONDS OF USING THE PHONE

As it turns out, the quick and dirty fix seems to be turning off system sounds altogether, which sucks if you like system sounds. Personally I keep them on because it’s a good reminder if I’ve forgotten to put my phone on silent, I will notice right away that I hear beeps when I tap on things. But for now I’m OK going without. I do hear the tone still when setting ringtones — if I tap on a sound in the list it will first play the DTMF tone through the earpiece, then the sound through the speaker. It’s also heard when that sound is played as an alarm (and presumably for calls as well). The sound doesn’t play every time a system sound plays, but one method that’s been discovered to be reliable is to go to the phone app and press spacebar. I would like to point out that this even happens if your phone is on silent (probably because silent mode doesn’t affect things coming out of the phone’s earpiece).

OK, a little annoying, right? But here’s the kicker: it really is a DTMF tone, and as such, will send a “*” to your phone whenever it plays. Some people have reported being on phone calls and having it do things, like deleting their voicemail while they were listening to it. NOT GOOD, PALM. NOT GOOD.

Why am I so blessed among all the millions of Verizon customers to be the only one with this obviously carefully tested piece of software? I don’t know. But there are many people trying to find out, and I will keep updating as the situation progresses.

Additional Reading:


July 2, 2007

My Pokemans – Let Me Show You Them

I call this: gaming — Posted by KP @ 10:56 pm

Somebody help me, I just bought a Pokemon game today.

It started a few weeks ago during a performance of Singin’ in the Rain. One of our followspot operators, Nick, is a fellow lover of the Nintendo DS, and he had told me he had just purchased a Pokemon game. While I have a general knowledge of what Pokemon are, I had never actually played one of the games.

Over the course of the next few performances, I would sometimes hear exclamations from Nick on headset like, “Yes!! My Pokemon evolved!” We have several gamers on the crew, and our off-topic conversations on headset sometimes revolve around games we’re playing. So occasionally I would ask a question about exactly how the game worked. One day he had his DS with him down on the ground, and I watched a little bit of the gameplay and asked more questions. Having gotten bored of Animal Crossing for a while, I decided this might be something I should check out. He warned me that it would consume my life, but that would be nothing new. It couldn’t possibly be more demanding than Animal Crossing, which punishes you for not playing often enough. I asked exactly which version he had, which was Diamond. I had heard of it, and had a general idea that it was one of the newer titles.

So today I stopped into the local GameStop while waiting for my laundry, and they happened to have a used copy. It started out slow with all the setup of the story and training-type exercises, but yeah, it’s kind of addictive so far.


Treo 700p and my first time touching an iPhone

I call this: phones — Posted by KP @ 8:19 pm

As you may know, for the last several months I’ve had my eye on the Treo 755p, which came out for Sprint in May, and has been reportedly on its way to Verizon by July. Well despite rumors of a July 4 release, there’s been no word on it, and today I read this post on TreoCentral claiming it failed its testing and will suffer further delays. My Treo 650’s talk time is now down under 3 minutes from a full charge, and I’m getting sick of how out of date it is, especially since everyone’s complaining about how slow the iPhone’s data connection is, while it’s several times faster than my Treo. In order to remind myself why I don’t have an iPhone, I must have a device that is faster. So I weighed my options (everything from getting an iPhone just to spite Verizon, to a Windows Mobile device, to a $40 battery for the 650.) I decided to suck it up and do the logical thing — get the 700p, which is exactly the same as the 755p except without the slick new form factor. I even get to keep my current SD card instead of having to buy a Mini-SD.

So I called up a nearby Verizon store and had them hold one for me. It took over an hour to get it, as they were quite crowded, and then they had some problems activating it. Unbeknownst to me, the long-awaited 700p maintenance release (read: Palm released a buggy phone a year ago and has just gotten around to patching it) just came out for Verizon yesterday. I hadn’t heard anything about it on the internet, which really surprised me when the technician came out and explained that he had just installed the patch on all the Treos in their stock and it had probably patched badly or something. After some time he got one working and I went home.

I also decided to go ahead with the purchase because I actually wanted to renew my contract with the Evil Empire. My current plan is very expensive ($124/mo.), and I wanted to scale it down and add basic text messaging. I didn’t realize until I got there and talked to the rep that in the two years I’ve had my plan they’ve actually come up with a cheaper one (imagine that!), because there’s a phone+data plan now, which saves you $5. At the time I last renewed there was no such combo package. So I saved $5 on the combo (which I promptly spent on the TXT plan), and I also reduced from 900 minutes to 450. I will have to keep an eye on that to make sure it’s enough. When I’m really busy my usage can get up to 500, so I’ll have to be smart about it. Ever since my parents got Macs and broadband, we use iChat instead of the phone, so that has probably reduced my usage by 100-200 minutes alone.

I feel like a cassette tape user describing to you the wonders of the CD player, so I’m not going to go into any details about what’s special about the 700p, at least until I’ve used it some more. To me it’s a nice upgrade, though.

While I was waiting for my turn to have my phone activated, I had a lot of time to kill in the store, so I played with all the other smartphones that I had considered getting. To cut to the chase, all of them sucked. No question, I didn’t want any of them, and once I tried them, I had no regrets about going with the 700p. I’ve never owned a Windows Mobile device, and have always wondered if perhaps I was missing something. When a friend will let me play with their phone I try to get a feel for it, but there’s little you can mess around with without screwing up your friend’s phone. A store display model is much easier to work with. I’m sure there are ways of customizing them, but neither the Blackberry or WinMobile UIs appealed to me at all. I’m sick to death of Palm OS, but I didn’t find the others very usable.

When I arrived at the mall, I thought, “Oh cool, when I’m done I can go to the Apple Store and look at the iPhone.” Then I decided perhaps it would be a better idea to look at the iPhone before buying the Treo, just in case the Apple Reality Distortion Field really was that strong. Well, obviously I made it out of the store, but I can’t say I did it with confidence. I think I was shaking a little. God, it’s pretty. If it wasn’t for my strong distrust of AT&T, I’d have overlooked all the phone’s other flaws and walked out of the store with one.

In brief, I found the touchscreen to be a little difficult. Every device responds best to a different amount of pressure, I’ve learned this from all my years with Palm, so maybe it was just that adjustment, but I found it sometimes didn’t respond right away, or in exactly the way I touched it. When viewing web pages I sometimes had to poke at it multiple times to get it to click on a link. Everyone is saying “trust the keyboard.” I found this to be true. When using it in portrait, I made quite a few mistakes, but the software correctly predicted what I was trying to type. I’ve heard in landscape mode it’s more accurate because the keyboard is a little bigger. I didn’t spend much time trying it that way. Overall, I agree with the general consensus online, it’s an amazing piece of work. The screen is beautiful, and the design makes you just want to keep using it. I am more than ever looking forward to seeing what the next version can do.


June 30, 2007

A Run of Act I

I call this: summer stock,theatre — Posted by KP @ 9:54 pm

Not counting our read-through, we have just completed our fourth day of rehearsal of The King and I. The crew was given the weekend off, as many of the large pieces of the set were put up by Friday. This also benefits us greatly, as we have free access to the stage for the weekend rehearsals.

First thing in the morning, we ran Act I, just because we could. It was a nice feeling. Immediately following that, we ran the ballet on the stage for the first time. I had the opportunity to see the entire ballet for the first time on Friday afternoon in the dance studio, without the singers present. I considered that also a great advantage, to see the whole thing so early in the process, especially since I often have trouble getting sufficient time to attend the dance rehearsals. The dancers are already doing a fantastic job, and I’m sure in the next week Gemze will get even more out of them.

For the last few evenings we’ve had access to the stage after the crew finished for the day, and we had been working with the principals and singing ensemble on stage, as the dancers did their thing in the dance studio. We’ve now reached the point in the process where it’s beneficial to swap that: the dancers have learned their choreography, and a lot of what remains is for them to adjust to the exact dimensions and surface of the stage. The principals now begin blocking for Act II, which works just as well in the dance studio at this point in the process.

In the three hours after lunch today, we blocked a good portion of Act II. We also accomplished costume fittings for the children and many of the ensemble. All in all we are going to be in great shape when we start tech in six days. In fact, I think my little trick of pre-tech will mean a very smooth run (or two!) of the show with scenery, before we ever start tech. A lot of this is because the very straightforward technical operation of the show will make it easy to do with a reduced crew. I’m enjoying the show itself and I look forward to putting the technical elements on it very soon.


June 27, 2007

The Life of a Retired Powerbook

I call this: mac — Posted by KP @ 8:39 pm

My new Macbook Pro has received lots of interest and attention from blog readers and real-life friends alike. But what of the faithful old Powerbook that was so unceremoniously upstaged on the morning of the MBP’s release?

When I was planning my summer, I was aware that in all likelihood I would be returning home with two laptops, which is kind of inconvenient for someone who likes to travel as lightly as I do. My solution was that I would have to ship some stuff home on the day I left, mostly soft, durable, low-priority items like clothes and scripts, so that I could carry all the delicate computer stuff by hand on the train. You may recall that I had to make a quick trip back to New York on my day off during the run of Singin’ in the Rain. This would have been the perfect opportunity to solve my problem by bringing the Powerbook and its accessories home.

But I just couldn’t do it. One reason was professional: the Macbook Pro, little more than a week old, was running projections for Singin’, which I considered a risk in itself, only tempered by the fact that my trusted Powerbook was kept loaded with the current show file, and was standing by. Well it seemed like a risk, until I had 4GB of RAM overnighted to the theatre and we saw the MBP run a massive video file with no stutters or digital artifacts. The next day I was given a DVD full of new versions of every video in the show, using a higher-quality codec, eliminating all artistic concerns about the movies looking too digital in a show set in 1927. The Powerbook could never have run the final show file, but still I was not about to take it back to New York when there was a slim chance of it being needed to rescue us if the MBP completely flaked. I could have thrown together a lower-quality version that would have run well enough to at least allow the show to go on. Thankfully the MBP did fine, although it sometimes required an especially firm press on the space bar to advance to the next cue, which would have been a huge problem in a show with more precise video cues, and I’d like to investigate that further.

The other reasons I had for keeping the Powerbook around were more personal. First of all, I wanted a pretty clean start with the MBP and was selective about the files I transferred over from the PB. But having had the MBP only a week or two, I had the nagging feeling there were still files on the PB I would need, but I might not realize it right away.

The one thing I was looking forward to about getting “stuck” with both computers all summer was that I could leave the PB at the apartment to record TV programs using my EyeTV. The EyeTV is useful for watching TV when I’m home, since I don’t bring a physical TV with me to Reagle, but the recording features don’t help me much, since if I’m at rehearsal, my computer is with me and unable to stay home and play VCR for the night. With the Powerbook in retirement, it has nothing better to do while I’m out of the house. The other thing I’ve discovered is that my EyeTV seems a little buggy with the MBP. I still use version 1.x of the software, because they wanted some ridiculous amount to upgrade, like $50, when I was perfectly happy with the present features. As it turns out, it looks like the version I have predates the Intel Macs, which might explain why it’s flaky. I’ve been thinking of getting some newer EyeTV hardware, like the little tiny USB thingy, so I don’t intend to pay for a software upgrade when I could get a better value by having it included in the cost of improved hardware. So the PB has continued to be my TV, which is nice because it frees me up to do other things with the MBP without using up screen real estate or system resources, and I can restart or boot into Windows without losing my TV.

Other things the Powerbook continues to do:

  • It’s writing this post right now. I was backing up my MBP when I got the idea for this post, so I started writing it on the PB. The files are not yet too out-of-date from the MBP, so most tasks feel exactly the same on either machine.
  • I have a perhaps unhealthy ability (or need) to multi-task, and I like to have two computers on at once if one is doing something where I can’t keep a browser window open. This allows me to use the idle computer to browse the web while waiting for the primary computer to complete a task, or to search for solutions to issues I’m having with the other machine.

I said on the day I got the MBP that once I loaded it up with my files I hardly felt like I was using a different computer. For the most part it continues to be that way. These are the occasions that I notice it:

  • When I try to do something really simple on the PB and it beachballs, or gives no reaction at all for several seconds, then beachballs, then finally completes its task while the hard drive cranks in protest.
  • The trackpad scrolling. This one confuses the hell out of me. I’ve always had trouble getting the hang of the two-finger scroll when I’ve played with other people’s Macs, but now that I’ve been using it full time I find that I’m quite good at it, although I do sometimes scroll slightly horizontally when I don’t mean to. I’m also no longer bothered by the wider trackpad and button, or at least not enough to notice it. But now that I’m used to two-fingered scrolling without thinking about it, I inevitably hop onto the PB and can’t figure out why it won’t scroll. I’ve gotten so comfortable with the new scroll that I don’t even consciously know I’m doing it. Then when I look at my position on the desk and remember that the machine on the left is the PB (the hardware differences are subtle enough that I really don’t notice them when I’m using both machines), I see my problem and attempt to do the SideTrack-driven edge scroll, and I realize how annoying it is to need to feel for the edges, instead of just throwing two fingers down anywhere I please. Then of course if I spend too much time on the PB, I go back to the MBP and can’t figure out why I can’t get it to scroll by dragging one finger down the edge. I can’t win. I wish someone would come out with a driver to make either one behave like the other so I can have some consistency!
  • I swear something is different about the keyboard. I don’t know what it is, I can’t see it from a casual look, but when I first got the MBP I kept making typing mistakes, as if a couple keys were not exactly where my fingers expected them to be. I don’t do the real touch-typing method of keeping my fingers on the home row at all times, I just know where all the keys on a given keyboard are and somehow decide which fingers are most convenient for hitting them at that particular time. I’m a fast typer (thankfully I’ve never had the kind of job where it was necessary to give my typing skill a numerical value), but I tend to be slower on an unfamiliar keyboard because I don’t actually touch any of the keys except the ones I’m pressing, so if I misjudge my location in mid-air over the keys I don’t have any way to tell until I hit the wrong button. When I got the MBP I started making more mistakes than I would on the PB, and now using the PB again I find I’m making more mistakes than I do now that I’ve been using the MBP for a while. It’s subtle, but I swear something is different. Mostly what’s happening is that my aim is slightly off and I don’t hit the key hard enough or in the right place to make it register. Maybe it’s not the location or size of the keys. Maybe it’s the travel, or the tension, or the size of the wrist rest area in front, or the fact that the PB is thicker, and therefore elevating my wrist a little higher off the table. I don’t know, nor does it bother me very much, but I do notice it when switching back and forth.
  • The higher screen resolution of the MBP was at first more subtle than I expected it to be. It’s when going back to the PB that I notice things take up more of the screen — sometimes in a good way, like when text is bigger and easier to read, but sometimes in a bad way, like the menu bar and tool bars in apps taking up more screen real estate. I don’t mind the smaller objects on the MBP. The brighter screen makes up for any need to squint, in fact I find myself squinting and putting my face close to the PB, which you would think would be the opposite.
  • Working with the lid. I’ve got one of those original Aluminum Powerbooks with the white spots and the bad latch. I won’t count the white spots, as I consider that cheating, but since the latch is not just a defect, but a change in design from one latch to two, I will mention it. My PB has never wanted to stay closed. If left to its own devices, it would be waking itself from sleep every few seconds when in a bag or carried by hand, or in any sort of motion, which can’t be good for it, not to mention what it does to the battery. I let it do this for a couple weeks when it was young, before giving it the terminal command sudo pmset -a lidwake 0, which tells it that it can’t be trusted to know when its lid is open or closed, and it is hereby instructed to wait for me to press a key before waking from sleep. This solved the problem quite well, but when faced with the MBP and its very authoritative double latch which leaves no doubt that this notebook is now closed, I decided to leave it at its default setting with lidwake on, and see if it annoyed me for any reason (like maybe there would be times I’d want it to stay asleep after I open it). So far I like being able to open the lid and have it wake up right away. I have my machine set to ask for a password upon waking, so it requires some key-pressing either way. It really doesn’t make much of a difference to me, but it’s very nice — and to me still unexpected — to close the lid and feel it lock securely instead of bouncing back open. Part of this is the defect with my particular revision of Powerbook, and part of it is the improved design of the MBP which used two latches on the 15″ models for a much more secure feel.

I’m not sure if I’ll keep it when I finally return home from the summer. I’d like to, it would still be useful around the house, but my parents could also use a new computer. If you think this PB is obsolete, you should see their iMac. With a new battery the PB would work well for their needs. I’ve been getting more and more annoyed with it (and frightened of it suddenly having a massive hardware failure) in the last year or so, but in the end it’s really amazing that it’s held up so well and in many ways can hold its own on the same desk as the very latest model sporting more RAM than any laptop really has any business having.

Enjoy retirement, Powerbook. You’ve earned it.


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