dangerouslyawesome

I'm Alex Hillman, the co-founder of IndyHall and a guy who makes things better in Sunny Philadelphia.

I work on Beanstalk, Postmark, and DynamicWear.

I think technology is cool, but people are infinitely cooler.

kids

i’m not nearly ready for kids. but, when the time comes, I hope this product is still around. engadget’s list of uses is entertaining beyond the intended use. And I’m sure me and a few friends can come up with even more fun uses for it, and the kid.

co.mments and wa.rranties

Sure enough, my 2nd ipod has bitten the dust. I took it into the local Apple store. I’m lucky enough to have 2 big apples stores fairly close (within 10 miles) of where i work. Anyway, my first experience with the Apple Genious Bar que system was pretty easy…i signed up for a time slot, played with the Mac Pro and Macbook for a bit (drool), and then my name was called. Quick verification, hard-drive went belly up. My options were simple to choose from: Pay $30 to ship it back, be handled, and receive a new iPod. OR, pay $47 for an AppleCare plan, extend my warranty for another year, and walk out with a brand new 4th gen 60gb (what I had). Needless to say, that choice was simple thanks to my sever case of IGS (instant gratification syndrome). So, valued at $250, ive got a brand new iPod. I’m considering taking it back before I open it to see if they’ll use the $250 towards a new 60gb 5th gen video ipod…so i can get bleeding edge for only $150. But, then again, new iPods on the horizon so bleeding edge wont be bleeding edge anymore, and probably not worth my $150 investment yet. Besides, if this one manages to die (not unlikely with my current 1 iPod per year rate) before applecare runs out next august, i can trade up then.

one more note about a service i recently discovered, co.mments.com. this site lets you set up a bookmarklet, and on any page with comments posted (like digg, or anyone’s blog), it can keep an eye on your posts for any replies and let you know via an RSS feed, or via email, or by logging into the site. Also, lots of plugins are available for hooking into your existing wordpress blog. Sweet, I’m sure I can find plenty of times this can save me searching for something I commented on but cant remember where.

news is tastier when it's cooked for you

ive been a happy user of newsgator for the last year and change. Having all of my feeds in one place, that keeps track of what I’ve already read, independant of the computer I’m on, is key. Everyone always asks me how I seem to be so cutting edge with what I know, and really, i owe it all to my news feeds and my news reading habits. I work on a schedule provided by the motivational timer Instant Boss, 8 minutes on 2 minutes off. It keeps my mind fresh, and allows me to take in new information before it expires. And, effectively, accomplish a solid 80% or more utilization (more often, it’s higher, since Instant Boss, much like my alarm clock, gets ignored for some intervals should I be in “the groove”).

At any rate, Newsgator is great but has its downsides. More than anything, its responsiveness sucks on a regular basis. Crashes, hangs, etc…pretty much anything you’d expect from a fairly highly traffic’d asp.net site Careful, MS evangalists…I work at a .net shop, i just prefer php for my freelance work. A recent post on one of my favorite design/ux related blogs, Design Meltdown, covered web sites that provide a service, but don’t lack in style either. Among its ranks laid NewsHutch, who may have taken NewsGators place. It’s clean, responsive AJAX interface picks up where NewsGator left off…allowing me for even more efficient use of my news feeds, in a cleaner interface (i was never a huge fan of NG’s layout..though it did improve during their one major refresh in the last year). For some reason, NewsHutch makes my news look just as appetizing as I think it should.

It was nice being able to import my feeds using OPML.

It isnt so nice that the refresh intervals dont seem to be variable, and are set somewhere in the 30 minute mark. while this is slightly annoying for someone with the 8/2 schedule i run, perhaps this can prompt an adjustment in my work schedule. We’ll see what kind of effects it has on my productivity, as well as my connectedness with the world.

p.s., in case anyone is wondering, my news feeds are almost entirely tech. things like CNN/world news depress me, so i stay away from it until prompted by one of my more politically-minded friends clues me into something important.

politics are for suckers, anyway.

what the youtube?

someone (jeez, where did the link go?) recently said that the formula to the success of youtube is simple: “hot girls doing dumb shit”.

really, im starting to think that MUST be it cuz it sure isnt simple uploads…

i’m not a technical dummy by any means, but my youtube account faught with me for the last 15 minutes that i tried to upload a video of my rebooting ipod. Maybe it detected the lameness of my video, but really…all it did was fail to recognize the fact that I have, in fact, confirmed my email address!

so…what the crap? i uploaded to competitor blip.tv instead.

p.s. ok, so the video is boring, but at least you get to listen to Penn Jillette from Showtime’s “Bullsh*t” talk about hookers. If you’ve never seen the show, you have no idea what you’re missing

iPod #2 dives

My first iPod came in early august 2004 as a 21st birthday present from ALL of my awesome friends pitching in. A year later, and a week out of warranty, the hard drive dove and forced me to sadly upgrade from a 40gb 4th gen black and white iPod to a 60gig photo iPod. a few weeks later.

Today, after a few weeks of unpredictable behavior and (thankfully) less than a year later, it has started a non-stop cycle of reboots. Sad iPod? yeah. Sad iPod user?

You betcha.

That’s 2 iPods in less than 2 years. Arent these things supposed to have a standard lifetime of 4 years? Hardly a fluke with lemon hardware, like a friend of mine had. he went through almost a dozen units before finally having one that didnt dive as soon as he plugged it into his computer. These little white music boxes worked perfectly fine for just about 12 months. Regular maintainence, not dropped, not misused, nothing hokey. Just random death.

Of course, I’m going to go into the Apple store ASAP to get it serviced/replaced, since i have 29 (soon to be 28) days left on the service plan.

Apple, you’ve converted me with your music player, and more recently, with my iMac which I LOVE working on. Don’t let me down, don’t turn me against you. I’m not asking for anything above and beyond a replacement unit under warranty. But His Steveness, if you’re listening, now might be a good time to speak down from the shiny white heavens above and make sure that you KEEP this happy Apple user. Don’t make me spend another $400 on an iPod when i was just gearing up to drop a grand on a new macbook. THAT would be disservice to the customer.

Sincerely, Alex Hillman