Fishbots
For the past couple of weeks, I've been hearing from a number of
"Fishbots". If you don't know what I'm talking about, well, there's this
service called Project Upstream which runs a network of AIM bots
with names like ThemedSalmon and "SweptCoho". The idea behind these
bots seems to be that they collect AIM nicks and then randomly connect
pairs of people. It's sort of a cool idea, if you think about it.
Random, and completely anonymous, one-time contact with a person.
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It's a meme!
But it's okay, because reading Planet Debian totally counts as work. :-)
Machine names:
caveofbirds
seitchtabr
caladan
corrin
ix
thalim
kaitain
Can anybody guess the theme?
iPhone 3G: Real-World Use
I've now had my iPhone 3G for four days, and I've had a chance to use it
in some real-world scenarios.
Apps
The App Store is, unequivocally, the most important feature of iPhone OS
2.0. Exchange support is nice, yes, and there are lots of little tweaks.
But the App Store is what makes the iPhone attractive to me, more of a
computer instead of a silly smartphone. I've been using a few apps
pretty solidly for the past few days: Twitterific (a Twitter
client), Exposure (a Flickr client), and the official Facebook
client. All of these are well-written …
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iPhone 3G: Unboxing and First Impressions

I've posted a few pictures of the unboxing of my iPhone 3G. As
usual for an Apple product, the packaging was excellently done. The box
was surprisingly small, but contained everything necessary:
- Docking Connector -> USB cable
- Tiny, tiny power adapter
- Iconic white headphones (with microphone… somewhere…)
SIM Card Removal Tool
- Cleaning cloth
Once I got done with my activation mess (see previous post), the
iPhone was a dream. The first thing I noticed was call quality: it was
excellent. I don't have 3G reception indoors (curse you, foot-thick
concrete walls), but even over 2.5G, it was an amazing upgrade …
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iPhone 3G: Activation
Activation is the scary part of the iPhone process. Tales abound of
yesterday's long waits and crushing failures. Unfortunately, my story is
no different.
I got my iPhone home at about 12:30 P.M. today. When I connected it to
my MacBook (named Caladan for reasons that anybody familiar with my
computer naming scheme should understand), iTunes started right up and
registered it. Alas, the phone made a little "sad tweet" and informed me
that it had no service and the service was required for activation. Hm.
Well, even though my crappy Motorola L2 has 5 bars everywhere in …
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iPhone 3G: The Purchasing Process

My iPhone 3G experience started this morning at about 5:50 AM, when
I left my dorm to get an iPhone 3G. I hiked over to the Montclair
Transcenter and picked up the 6:30 OmniTrans Route 66 bus heading
Eastward. At about 7:05, I stepped off the bus, thinking I was there.
Unfortunately, I was at another bus stop in front of a Best Buy with a
gas station next to it – about a mile and a half shy of the Victoria
Gardens Mall, where the Apple and AT&T stores were. A half-hour of
hiking later, and …
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