I bought an iPhone while in Miami last week, just before boarding the Enchantment of the Seas. I hoped to get one of the last 1.02 firmware phones made by Apple but was unlucky (it seems that iPhones are still going extremely fast and that Apple stores restock very often). As a result, I was left with a useless US$399 brick, since I had no intention whatsoever to activate the device with AT&T.
Fortunately the iPhoneDev team was hard at work hacking the newer 1.1.1 firmware. By the time I reached the Bahamas, they had already found a way to activate the phone. The procedure isn’t very straightforward but now with iNdependence it has become fairly easy. That allowed me at least to start using the iPhone as a nice, expensive iPod. However, I didn’t have to wait for long to unlock the phone since developers released anySIM 1.1.1 yesterday and soon after getting home I was enjoying full phone functionality.
I must say that I am extremely pleased with the device. For the first time in years I no longer have three devices hanging off my belt. Gone is my trusty Palm as well as my (not as trusty) Sony-Ericsson cell phone. Now everything I need is finally delivered by a single device. I even look slimmer!
There is a downside, though. It turns out that all my IBM colleagues now want an iPhone and they all seem to expect me to unlock it. In fact my first incoming call was from a friend who had already heard that I had unlocked my phone. My first assignment will be tomorrow. I hope everything works well. I should probably print a disclaimer and hand it out to my friends. Nah!
You may have noticed that I didn’t update my blog last week. That is because I spent last week on a cruise on the Caribbean. This may sound like vacation but surprisingly it wasn’t. It turns out that IBM had organized a “geek cruise” for some of our customers and business parters and I was invited to give two speeches on SOA during the event.
I must say that I was thrilled to participate as I had never cruised before. I was also quite surprised to find out that I enjoyed the trip, well beyond my (low) expectations. Who knows, I may even consider a cruise for my next trip to Europe. If you are interested in finding out more about this trip, I have published some pictures of my .Mac account.
Today is a date I will remember. It is the day I have been waiting for since IBM announced that we would be selling our PC division to Lenovo. I just got a memo that describes a procedure to purchase a Mac as my primary computer. At this point it is not clear wether this initiative will be limited to the U.S. or be more global in scope, but it is certainly another crack in Microsoft’s armor since I understand that IBM is Microsoft’s largest Windows and Office customer. Way to go IBM!
A couple of days ago, without much fanfare a great new Mac application, Pixelmator was released. Despite the relatively lack of interest of the mainstream Mac press, this is major news.
Despite what graphic pros may say, Pixelmator is a direct competitor to Photoshop. Granted, it does not offer yet advanced capabilities such as 16 bit per channel images or even RAW support (although it seems that this particular feature will be included later this year in a future update), but for most of us, Pixelmator, with its great user interface, small memory footprint and perfect integration with Core Image, is a perfect replacement for the much more expensive Adobe product.
Personally I see this announcement, as the culmination of Apple’s strategy to reduce their dependency on Adobe without having to create a Photoshop competitor themselves. It is probably a surprise to many that it took so much time for developers to use Core Image to create a photo editor. After all, Core Image is available since Mac OS 10.4 which was released two and a half years ago. Apple had done most of the hard work by providing a powerful API to easily composite layers and support non-destructive filters. Why did it then take so much time to create such a product? Well, it seems that everyone believed that Apple would use Core Image to create their own Photoshop competitor. Competing against Adobe is difficult enough but if you have to take on both Adobe and Apple that is a really scary thought. That is why I am not really surprised that Pixelmator was created by two young brothers who probably have not much to lose, even if this project does not become an instant hit. However, I sincerely hope that their app becomes extremely popular. They deserve it and the Mac community needs more innovative developers like them who are willing to take risks. I have already paid my US$59 license. Will you?
It seems that my boss thinks that I have too much spare time to do cool stuff like developing for the Mac and he has decided to do something about it. So, starting yesterday, in addition to running the SWG tech sales organization in Mexico, I have now the additional responsibility of being in charge of the Lab Services consulting team. While I am certainly flattered that he believes that I can successfully run a team of about 60 highly-skilled professionals, I am concerned that this will eventually impact my personal life. We’ll see.
I have just updated my .Mac site using iWeb’08. You will find pictures of my recent trip to London, Brugge and Utrecht. I have also added pictures from previous trips.
After spending ten days in Europe I am back in Mexico. Even though I enjoyed my visit to the UK, Belgium and Holland I must say that in many ways I feel more comfortable in the Americas. It doesn’t matter if you talk about Brazil, the U.S. or Mexico, there is something over here that makes you feel alive. In Europe I feel that life is much more comfortable but I need the extra adrenaline shot that you get in a continent with few safety nets and more opportunities.
Today I spent the day in Utrecht visiting with my family the place where my father and I grew up. I hadn’t returned to The Netherlands in over a decade and my memories where starting to get blurry. It was certainly very emotional, although I think that neither my father nor I would ever consider returning to live to Utrecht.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the town, it is a medium-sized city with romantic canals that is very enjoyable during the summer and even though the rain can be depressing during the rest of the year I am convinced that it is possible to have a complete, happy life there. However, I cannot picture myself living there, as life seems to move much slower than in larger metropolitan areas.
One could argue that with the Internet (and I was able to get excellent download speeds in Utrecht) it is no longer necessary to live close to large cities in order to get many of the benefits that people normally associate with places like New York, Paris or London. I am not convinced. There is much more to live in a large city than being able to easily buy the latest and greatest. Small cities tend to favor status quo while largest cities spur competition and innovation. This doesn’t mean that innovation is less likely to appear in smaller cities or rural areas, it is just less likely because it is less necessary and there are less opportunities to share ideas with other interested parties. That is why I feel that I would feel quite lonely if I had to return to my home town. I could be wrong, though as Utrecht is only about twenty miles away from Amsterdam. Could it be that this old city combines the benefits of a small town and a large metro-pole? Possible, but it didn’t seem that way to me.
I think that small towns located close to major population centers have a bright future. Knowledge workers usually no longer need to go to the office every day and that could mean a major change in the way people choose where to live. After decades of observing people move to large urban areas, we could be close to witness a major behavioral shift. Last year, after attending WWDC I went to Carmel and Monterey with my wife. I think that I (as well as many others) could easily picture myself living there, enjoying the benefits of a small town and the relative proximity to San Jose and San Francisco. What is the difference with Utrecht? Well, for a technologist Amsterdam doesn’t compare to the Bay Area and the weather is much better in Carmel than in Utrecht.
When I bought my Apple TV I was planning to use it primarily to watch video podcasts on my plasma TV. It turned out not to be such a great plan, I have many devices already connected to it and there where no connections left. Since my wife hasn’t bought into the benefits of ipTV, the device was left virtually unused for several months.
However, since becoming a manager I have been working harder and exercising less. As a result I have been slowly gaining weight. Don’t worry this blog entry is not about fat blogging, I sincerely believe that the whole concept is quite silly. Since I do not want that trend to continue I have decided to take action. Last Saturday I bought a treadmill and a new LCD television set to which I have connected my Apple TV. Now I can exercise early in the morning while watching my favorite TV shows and video podcasts.
Since I have only been exercising for only five days I do not know if this will yield any results, but what I can assure is that exercising while watching TV is really fun. Yesterday I walked just over three miles and if I hadn’t run out of podcasts I would have worked out longer. As a result I have a message for Robert Scoble. I used to hate you and Podtech.net for being so prolific because it was becoming hard to keep the pace with all the shows you produce. Now the situation has changed, I need your help, I need more content to get fit quickly…
Two trips to Brazil, in less than in a month. This is a great way to add up miles and age prematurely. The worse part of the trip was that there were so many sessions in this managers meeting that I did not have the opportunity to work on any of my side projects.
I had hoped to spend some time exploring the new features of iWork and finally complete the sudoku module of my Professional Crossword Designer app. Unfortunately, progress has been slow. It is definitively hard to be a manager and spend time programming. However, I am not throwing the towel. I will find the time to complete this project before the era of personal computers comes to an end.