What's it all about, Alfie?

Hmmm... I read this article this morning and it brings to the front an interesting possibility - getting an iPhone while retaining my Verizon service. The single biggest reason I haven't gotten an iPhone to date is the fact that it's not available on Verizon and we have the big family plan, etc. and don't really want to leave Verizon. I've heard a lot of issues about the AT&T coverage not being very good, and while I may not like the way Verizon "corporate" is seemingly constantly mis-handling our bill, the customer service agents at the local Verizon store always fix it up right and we never have to pay more than we should.

So if this is true, there will be one less reason not to buy one. If the next version of the iPhone can take movies as well as pictures, and there's 32GB of storage, then it'll easily replace my iPod Touch, and I'll probably be looking to get one. The features are just getting too nice to pass up.

This morning I saw that GraphicConverter 6.4.1 is out with quite a few updates and improvements. While I'm not using it a lot after I started using Acorn, I still like to have it around for those times when I need to convert a very odd graphics data file to something a little more standard. Like the name says, this is what it's really good at.

Nice to see they are still working on it.

This morning I saw that Cyberduck 3.2 is out with quite a few fixes and additional features. While I'm not hip-deep in SFTP, it's something I use from time to time, and Cyberduck is certainly the easiest to use on the Mac that I've run into. It's small, fast, and works like you'd expect it to. Nice.

I noticed this morning that DrawIt has released an update to 3.7.7 with a few interesting fixes:

• Fixed a bug that crashed DrawIt when opening a contextual menu
• Fixed a bug that crashed DrawIt when vectorizing a text layer that contains multiple colors

Interestingly, they anticipated a problem in the auto-updating, and so advised that if you had a problem, go to the web site and download a new copy. I had the problem - an invalid update signature, and did the manual update. Worked like a charm.

Once again, we have a 'security and stability' update from the Mozilla crew for Firefox. This time, it's an update to 3.0.9. It's not bad to update my Mac, but at work, on linux, it's a pain as it's an RPM and not allowed to auto-update.

Still... it'd be great for them to get a better JavaScript engine into their code so I can use it freely without crashing on my web app. They will... eventually.

This morning I read about something new out of Google Labs - an Open Source 3D viewer for the browser call O3D. The Mac plugin is at version 0.1.34.2 and while it's still a little rough around the edges, it's got something there that is worth looking into. VRML just hasn't really taken off, and I thought that was going to be a beautiful solution for complex visualizations. It just never found critical mass.

I'm looking at O3D and hoping that with the Google backing, it's going to have a lot better chance of being the web standard for complex, 3D visualizations. I'm not looking for a game engine, or a general drawing package - both those exist built on OpenGL and other technologies. No, I'm looking for the tool to easily represent 3D spaces (real and imagined) so that, for example, the output of a 2D solid-state simulator can be visualized from many angles, etc., using 3D and color. It's a powerful idea.

So I got O3D for my Mac, and we'll see how it evolves. Like I said, it's got a long way to go, but I'm hoping it makes it.

I saw this morning that VoodooPad Pro 4.1.2 was out with a handful of fixes for little bugs that seem to focus primarily on the iPhone app interaction. Since I'm not an iPhone owner, this doesn't really effect me, but I understand that this is where everyone is right now, so I have to deal with it.

Nice to see progress.

This morning I checked Software Update and noticed that there was an update to iMovie ro fix a problem:

This Software Update fixes an issue with projects having a size of 0 KB. Attempting to open these projects would cause iMovie to quit unexpectedly at launch.This Software Update also addresses a problem where full-screen mode could not be accessed on some systems.

Not that I've heard a lot of issues from the kids on iMovie, but I was looking at some video from vacation and know that I'll want to be stitching it together so I certainly wanted to update.

I'm not a very good traveler. I get motion sick, I don't like the seats in commercial airliners as they are a touch too small for my 6'4" frame, and I don't like all the crowds at airports, etc. But I like vacations. I also like coming home. This vacation was a doozie in that we got to snuba with sting rays and also got to zip line hundreds of feet up in the canopy of the Jamaican hillside.

I loved the former, and was simply too scared to even scream on the latter. But Liza had a tough time with the rays and loved the zip lining. Seems fair. Symmetric. And the rest of the cruise was pretty nice. I think we realized that we're not really cruise people. We aren't really fond of the crowds. I ran every morning - save the last, as we had to disembark at 9:30 am and that meant getting everybody up and out early. But still, it was something that I'm glad we did. Something we needed to do so we'd know we don't need to do it again.

I'm not sure what out ideal vacation is, but the trip to Mexico was a lot closer than this cruise. Not that it was the cruise line's fault. I think they did exactly what they said they'd do, it's just a little matter of expectations. Ours were pretty high, and the reality was that it's really targeted for people that like being around big groups of people. The pools were crowded except for very early in the morning and very late in the evening. The breakfasts were a bit on the crowded-side, but really, it was all probably a matter of getting used to the way it's done on cruises.

It was fun to be on vacation... but it's great to be on the way home.

While I was on vacation it seems they released a new version of MacVim - Snapshot 45 and includes refactoring for the front-end as well as fixes to the ATSUI renderer. I haven't run it through it's paces yet, but I've got it and it seems to be running just fine.

Excited to see what they did while I was on vacation!