wanja.com

iBlogger for iPhone

Just bought iBlogger for iPhone...just to check out. It's nice to be able to do yet one more thing from the iPhone. I am trying out a few applications and will report soon from the ones I really use. The main one is Things, and I tried quite a few games during my vacations..some really good...some not so. Well, I am writing this from iBlogger and will check out the features it offers. Let's see if I manage to include a photo...

Mobile Blogging from here.

No, that first link was to add my location...would be nice if it was like in twitterific. Looking at their website and not hint there either. Found their forum and it seems that other users have the same issue.

I found a review online stating that posting photos to Blogger.com, which I use, is not yet supported. But that review was on ars tecnica from September 2008. And 10 month later iBlogger didn't add that feature yet. Please let me know if I am wrong. This would be a killer feature...but without that, iBlogger seems to work fine...but is just not as exciting. And while you are at it add video blogging support for the 3GS.

See http://illuminex.com

Photo inserted via MarsEdit and not iBlogger :-(

44, Father's Day and Summer

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Wow, what a day. I turned 44, yea! and with 3 kids father day was a blast. It was a beautiful day in Denver for the first day of summer. We went to the pool. I had some good old friends come by, Didier and Elaine, and we just hang out, finished the day with on the terrace with a nice "Fondue Chinoise" and some really good wine. Of course I also did a quick ride on my new birthday present:

It was a pretty good day indeed.

"I feel good!"... My two guys trying to do lip syncing

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We went to the mall and Noah was fascinated by a DancingHeads booth, which allows to do green screen video recording. So we gave it a spin.

"I feel good!"... My two guys trying to do lip syncing from daniel wanja.

Windows 7

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It has been a long time since I used Windows. But couldn't avoid it any longer as I have to debug some JavaScript issues in IE8 so I downloaded the new Windows 7...and that's how I was welcomed:

Thanks to Windows 7 I got a really nice flashback...Thanks, that was funny. I hope they have other improvements.

Google Chrome for OSX.

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Several features are unavailable...Well, no Flash out of the box either. So o many website that show videos (news, screencasts, ...) are just not working. And many website I develop that integrate Flex and Javascript won't work either. So I'lll have to wait for the next version, to bad...it's a cool browser.

Which Bike?

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This is the time in my life where I will go back to riding a bike. Yea!. Some may call it midlife crisis :-), my wife calls it crazy, I just call it fun. Now I was rinding on a engine with two wheels since I am 14. I had mopeds, two Vespas, a Suzuki GSX 750F, two Ducati's 900, and nothing since 2002 since I got married and moved to the US. One thing in the US you cannot just pass cars in traffic as the police will eagerly arrest you and you cannot race on the Autobahn as I used to when I did trips to Germany to test how fast the bikes can go without breaking any laws. So I need to find something more settled down. I found the following two bikes that caught my eye.

The Triumph Bonneville is a retro styled bike with modern features. They call it Modern Classic. I saw one the other day, looks really good.

Another bike that caught my eye is the Honda Fury. I thought...That's a great bike for my morning commute.

In the end looks it not everything, you gotta try them out. So I'll put my behind on each of these and will decide where to go. But first I need to pass my US driver license as my Swiss one is not recognized here.

Verified by Visa - Activation During Shopping - Pain in the Neck.

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It's annoying that when you try to buy something and visa tries to sell you something, but you have no way to opt out. After completing the final step of the order, you click the "Place Order" button and expect to see the order confirmation screen...but no...You see a screen to signup for the "Verified by Visa" program for your own good. Hey, I am trying to buy something, please don't interrupt me...Did my order go through or not, I did push the "Place Order" button, so it's kinda gone through...but I didn't get a confirmation number yet, because I see the Visa signup form...but not way to skip that step. Now Visa tell it's for your own good, but hey...I didn't ask for it and I just want to see if my order went trough. So Visa, please make sure that merchant that will try to sell your service also place a button or link to skip the signup.

So Visa goes in great length to provide a description on the benefits of signup, faqs answer all the questions you may have...besides the one about skipping signup. Even their flow diagram doesn't show how to skip, simply because they want you to signup.

Look at their FAQ ...no mention how to opt out.

http://usa.visa.com/personal/security/visa_security_program/vbv/verified_by_visa_faq.html
https://www.securesuite.net/csi/docs/faq.jsp

Update: 3/12

Well 2 days later I didn't get an information but I called Visa and they did put a hold on my card because I didn't complete the process above. What? No way to opt out and then you cancel my transaction. So I went to order the item again, and yes for sure same thing, once I pushed the "Place Order" button I was presented with the following dialog

See a "don't opt in option"? Nope, this is a trap. Annoying. Well, I decided to go ahead and entered the information, then I was presented with the following screen...

What? Already activated for another of my cards???? Well at least there is a Cancel button this time, and the dialog mentions that I can continue without "Verified by Visa". But pressing cancel presents me with a prompt saying that the transaction will be cancelled, hence I wouldn't be able to order the thing I want to order. Alright, let's try continue...I was presented with a screen showing the name of my wife and asking for a password. Hey, that was the other of my cards they just mentioned above. So know I just need to go find my wife, ask her password and we are good to go...

Yep, that worked. Could it be more difficult to buy something online. I guess Visa will find something new for next time.

tsrvideo.com

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Cool the swiss french television which had already a good online tv offering just improved the number and quality of shows. I can now even watch the Swiss weather report. I like to keep up to date what's going on in Geneva and was usually watching the news (19:30 Le journal). Now if only they could have it as a podcast on iTunes.

Anatomy of a Palm webOS Application

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I love it when you can start to read a book about programming a device before you can even put your hands on the sdk and even less on the device.

This is an image from the book "Palm webOS, 1st Edition"

You can find out more on safari books

Click to read.

Facebook now with face recognition

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Facebook just implemented serving adds based on the attributes of your face.

Some other attributes they also recognize
closed mouth = bad teeth!	facial hair = you try to cover something!	shuby cheeks = ...I let you guess!

Xacti HD 1000 now work on OSX in 1920x1080

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When the Xacti HD 1000 came out a while back I was impressed by the form factor and I just bought it. I knew there were issues playing in 1080 mode on OSX and you could only see a green screen in playback mode. There where a couple of workarounds that existed but where not satisfying and I ended up using the 720p mode which provides a superb image quality. So I didn't change modes since over six month, and my brother just told me that it works well in 1080. So to my surprise I just tried it and yea, it works!

Apparently you need a rather fast Intel process to get good playback. So I will use it in the 1080 mode over the next few weeks and will let you know what I find out.

Full 1080i HD Recording

10x Optical (f/1.8) HD Zoom Lens

4 Megapixel still photos

2.7" Widescreen Display

Advanced MPEG4 AVC/H.264 Format

HDMI high-definition output

Records Directly to SDHC Memory Cards

It's fun little camera which just got better thanks to OSX. Now I can't wait to try out iMovie '09.

October sky

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I was just going through some of my digital photos when some picture that where taken end of October catch my attention. This was taken from my balcony...amazing how Colorado can be pretty.

Zooey Deschannel

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On Friday I watched two movies with Zooey Deschannel. Non, I am not a big fan nor did I know who she was before watching the second movie. In fact I was selecting a movie to watch at a redbox and didn't find anything I knew, so I decided to rent The Good Life and The Happening and though I would decide later which one to watch. I didn't know anything about the Good Life but liked the cover and I heard about the Happening as being from the same director than the 6th sense. I really like "The Good Life", note I like most movies, I liked the strange love story that unfolded inside of a very dark story-line playing in Nebraska.

The Good Life

After watching it I decided to keep going an watched the second movie. The Happening starts really strong and is pretty weird and suspenseful. What shocked me is that suddenly the same actress from the first movie appeared in the second one. So I decided to look her up. I thought her performance was really better in The Good Life and was getting better at the end of the Happening.