Tony Walla's Random Ramblings

There was a garage fire about a half a block south of us tonight. Geri and I took a walk down to the school to get a view of the garage. Check out the shots of the garage next door and the siding of their neighbor’s house. Here’s the link to the Flickr gallery.

I was listening to MacBreak Weekly hosted by Leo Laporte, and I heard Leo talk about a Bluetooth wristwatch GPS device he uses to geo-tag his photos. Before they could start talking about it, I thought it would be great if iPhone OS 2.0 would allow the 1st gen iPhones to get real GPS. It sounds like a great solution. The GPS wouldn’t drain the iPhone’s battery (although connections to the EDGE network for map updates could.) I like the idea of having GPS in my car, but I don’t want the extra box. I would even accept a small GPS puck to place on the dashboard that is tied to the iPhone via Bluetooth. I’ve already purchased a cell phone mount w/ windshield suction cup to hold the iPhone or iPod. I could see that as a big win for 1st gen iPhone owners that may feel left in the dust when the 2nd gen iPhone comes out.

This started me thinking about other iPhone features that I would like to see in iPhone OS 2.0. I’ll bet if you search the net, you’ll find 100 other lists like this, but here’s mine:

• Color code my iCal calendars on the iPhone as I have them setup in iCal.
• If I set iCal to ignore alarms on my wife’s calendar, migrate that setting to the iPhone as well. (My 3G 30Gb iPod can do this.)
• Sync iCal to my .Mac account in real time! (I think there may be a big announcement about tighter integration to .Mac at WWDC) I want my display to update after my wife ads her iCal events… especially when I am away from home and away from my Mac.
• Video recording – but here’s why it won’t happen for the 1st gen iPhone… where’s the microphone? If Apple thinks the mic isn’t suited for video recording, they won’t do it because Apple doesn’t want to release something that might appear half-assed. Regardless, I would be happy with 90 second clips.
• Add the Google maps drag route feature. There are times when I don’t like the route that Google picks and would like to modify it like you can on the web version.

Most of my other wishes will come from 3rd party developers.

I got some good news via Twitter earlier today from The Mac Mommy. We’re trying to start our own podcast and we’ve been putting a lot of thought and research into it rather than just record some audio and throw it out there. She’s gotten a good idea about a name for the show that I like. We also found a few potential domain names we can use as well that are available. I’m tempted to buy the names just in case. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with for the graphic elements. I already have ideas on how to break up the segments of the show.

Also, thanks for your comments on the episode of Typical Mac User podcast. Again, you can find it from this link. Typical Mac User Podcast episode 129.5

Today, Victor Cajiao released a special episode of The Typical Mac User Podcast featuring an interview I did in early April with the filmmakers of “Welcome to Macintosh.” I am honored to be part of a show that I’ve listened to regularly since Mike Rose at TUAW suggested I check it out. Please head over to http://www.typicalmacuser.com to check it out. If you’re coming from there after listening to the podcast, welcome! Feel free to leave a comment.

Here are a few links related to this post:

http://www.typicalmacuser.com – Victor Cajiao’s Mac website

Permalink to the post and podcast in question.

http://www.welcometomacintosh.com – WtM official website

http://welcometomacintosh.ning.com – WtM offical forrums

I need to change goals. I need to update this at least once a week. Its not for lack of content in my head. The problem is making the time to get it out of my head and on the page. I partially blame Twitter for this. Twitter makes it so easy to send a quick note out into the ether.

Anyway, I had to get something up here. Something is coming this week that I’m proud of, but I don’t want to spoil it. I’ll post here as soon as I can to let you know what it is.