Author: D'Arque Bishop

Using a new IM app for my iPhone…

D'Arque Bishop

Some time ago, I had written about using IM applications on my iPhone. I tend to do quite a bit of IMing when out on the road; unlike the AT&T Tilt I previously used, the iPhone didn’t come with an IM program of its own. Over time, I installed the official AIM and Yahoo apps, and they worked fine for what I did (the Yahoo one much better than the AIM one). While there were multi-protocol clients out for the iPhone, I was a bit leery about trying most of them. I had heard Trillian had been planning on releasing an iPhone app for a while, so I decided to wait and see what that one would be like. Well, a few days back, my friend Patrick McCarron informed me it had been released, so I went ahead and picked it up.

I have to say, I was rather impressed right off the bat. Trillian for iPhoneIf you have a Trillian Astra account, it automatically populates your mobile Trillian with the saved IM accounts and asks which ones to load on launch. From there, it signs the user in, and IM works right away. Typing in messages is easy and auto-caps and spell-check works fine. One might not think that would be such a big deal on iPhone, but the AIM app never really supported auto-caps. Push notifications come through fine as well. I actually spent from Friday evening to Saturday evening signed into Trillian on iPhone (as I was away from a PC most of that time), and it worked pretty much flawlessly.

Now, there are disadvantages. Apparently Facebook and Twitter support isn’t in place, which is really fine by me because I prefer using the official Facebook app and Twitterrific for those. There isn’t Skype support either, but then again the Windows Trillian app only acts as a frontend for an existing Skype install. Landscape keyboard support isn’t available, which may be a deal breaker for some; for me, it doesn’t really matter as I rarely use landscape keyboard. The final quibble I’ve heard some complain about is the fact that push notifications are only available for 24 hours between program sign-ons. Again, this doesn’t concern me much as I change my status and availability more often than that, especially if I’m going to bed and don’t want to be woken by incoming messages. :-)

All in all, though, Trillian for iPhone is a rather solid app. I’ve gone ahead and deleted the AIM app for iPhone (which I still consider junk), but I’m keeping the Yahoo app for those times where I just want to sign in to Yahoo to talk to Jennifer while on lunch or something. For $5, it’s hardly the most expensive app out there, and so far has worked out pretty nicely for me. I’ll likely be giving it even more use while in New Orleans later this week as well. If anything changes there, I’ll post about it later. For now, though, it’s a welcome addition to my iPhone app library.

The Bishop Birthday Bash!

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

Well, this has been an interesting weekend.I'm showing off my cake.

It’s my birthday today. Normally I don’t go out of my way to celebrate my birthday; at the most, all I’d ever do is go out to dinner with my parents. In fact, the last time I had a birthday party of any kind was twenty-five years ago. I had mentioned that to Jennifer, and she resolved to do something about that. She spent the past couple of weeks working behind the scenes getting the party ready, and also working to get me gifts. We scheduled the party for this past Friday, set the venue, and I simply waited for the time to come…
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The Ultimate Mortal Kombat Annihilation Rant…

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

The following is a reposting of an article/rant made by a now-former member of the Mortal Kombat fan community named “FatSatan”. Like many people, FatSatan HATED Mortal Kombat Annihilation; this prompted him to collect every single thing he found wrong about the movie and gripe about it. After the website it was hosted on went offline, I got his permission to host it on my server. After showing it to Jennifer this evening (in response to her question asking what was so bad about the movie), I decided to go ahead and post it on the main site and not just on a subdomain somewhere. So, for your enjoyment… his Ultimate Mortal Kombat Annihilation Rant.
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A play, a convention, and two scary movies…

D'Arque Bishop

This has been something of an interesting weekend.

I spent the weekend with Jennifer, and we got to do quite a bit of fun stuff. We started off at Birraporetti’s downtown in the Theatre District, where we had a very nice dinner. That done, we wandered around the immediate area a little, taking in the sights and talking, before we went to see Our Town at the Alley Theatre. The show was very good, and well worth watching. Once the play was over, we wandered a block away over to Bayou Place, where we intended having a drink at the Hard Rock Cafe. On the way, we saw a rather… interesting sight: six guys dressed as superheroes dancing around a light pole. In retrospect, I wish I had been closer so I could have gotten a good picture of it. We went into the Hard Rock, had a drink and listened to a band whose name escapes me, and then made our way to Jennifer’s favorite martini bar. After having a couple of drinks there, we headed back to her place for the night.

The next day was something of a new one for both of us. We had learned that Randall Milholland, the author of one of my favorite webcomics, Something*Positive, was in town for a convention called Oni-Con. In addition, some of Jennifer’s coworkers were going to the event as well. So, not ever having been to a convention before, we decided to give it a go. When we arrived at the Marriott Westchase, we were struck by just how many people there were in costume. In fact, Jennifer said nothing but “wow” for four or five minutes straight. Once we got some cash for the tickets, we met up with her coworkers Joseph and Andrew, and got into line for tickets. Tickets bought, we wandered through the area, trying to navigate through the packed hallways. I even encountered one of MY coworkers while walking around.

At one point, we found a ballroom area that had many arcade and console machines set up. What drew my attention, however, was the fact that they had a working Doctor Who pinball machine. I was in heaven for a bit as I got to play (ironically, it’s the pinball machine I’m best at). Once done there, we moved on to the next ballroom, where we watched as attendees engaged in mock battles. We then crossed the hall into a room where vendors sold clothing and other items. One company, WLP, had three t-shirts I wanted. I bought two; one was a very neat IT one, and the other referenced a popular German forklift safety training video. They didn’t have the third one I wanted in my size, however…

That done, we wandered down the hall again, where we ran into Randy Milholland’s table. We talked to him for a bit, and he was kind enough to do a sketch of the characters Davan and Vanessa for me. Vanessa and Davan Sketch The guy was just as hilarious in person as he is in his comic and on his Twitter, I must say. I also got a copy of Super Stupor, which is his parody of superhero comics (and pretty funny to boot). We even got to see Clarine Harp, who is the inspiration for the character of Aubrey in S*P. Randy said he was about to do a panel on webcomics, so we made our way over to where it was, where we were entertained for an hour as he and other webcomic artists answered questions about doing webcomics and talking about their backgrounds. One of them asked why those who wanted to do a webcomic hadn’t done it yet; I almost replied that my art skills make Xkcd look like DaVinci’s work. All in all, though, it was extremely interesting… though by the end of the panel, Jennifer was geeked out, and the overheated room did nothing to make her feel better. So, after grabbing one more game of Doctor Who pinball, we walked over to Outback Steakhouse for dinner, and then made our way back to her house for trick or treaters and scary movies.

Once we got to her house, we got the candy ready for the trick or treaters, and sat down for the first of the two movies of the night: Event Horizon. Jennifer had never seen it before, and wanted to give it a try. An hour into the film, she was definitely unnerved, but we were also a bit disappointed. Not in the movie, though, but in the trick or treaters: we had only gotten two or three coming by. We turned out the lights and proceeded to finish the film. After it was done, she was a bit freaked out, but we went ahead with the next film: Prince of Darkness. If anything, that film scared her even more. She retaliated by threatening to make me watch Twilight; in the end, she put on Bram Stoker’s Dracula which was showing on Channel 55. In retrospect, that movie really wasn’t as close to the original novel as we liked, and we ended up shaking our heads at the Mina/Dracula romance. After that, we called it a night… with a couple of nightmares to boot.

All in all, it was a very fun weekend. I’m not sure when or if we’d do another con, but we’re definitely looking into seeing more plays at the Alley. We’re also looking at a couple more movies to watch at some point. For now, though, it’s the start of a new week, and it’s back to work for both of us. Fun fun…

Toys R Us is finally offering layaway?

D'Arque Bishop

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/moms/6674382.html

NEW YORK — Toys R Us Inc. is introducing a layaway program for larger-ticket items such as bikes and cribs ahead of the holiday season, the company said Monday.

The largest U.S. toy retailer said the program is effective immediately in stores nationwide. Customers can put a variety of items on hold and make a series of payments until the item is paid in full.

Layaway programs are financing agreements in which retailers — without charging interest — hold merchandise for customers until they have finished paying in installments.
Popular during the Great Depression, layaway had become largely a thing of the past before the recession hit. But Sears expanded its program for the holidays last year, and due to its popularity Sears and Kmart introduced an online option this year.

Retailers who have introduced the programs see them as a way to keep customers buying in a time of tight credit and other economic problems. Toys R Us CEO Gerald Storch said his company’s customers were requesting a layaway program.

There’s currently no online layaway at Toys R Us, though there might be in the future, the company said. The Wayne, N.J.-based company said the program is likely to keep going after the holidays, though terms may change.

I’m finding this amusing, simply because I used to work for Toys R Us from 1993 to 1995, and back then it seemed there was no chance in hell the company would ever have layaway. That didn’t stop people from constantly asking if we did have it, though. However, as the store director back then once told a customer who asked why we didn’t have it: “We would need a store two and a half times as big.” I had discussed it with Jennifer while at lunch yesterday, and while she tried to say that people would be trying to get their stuff out and out of the store as quickly as possible before Christmas, I had to point out that the warehouse areas of the store were typically jam-packed with merchandise during the entire Christmas season, even if it’s constantly being sold and replenished. The one saving grace I see here is that the items have to be picked up by December 6th, probably to make room for the big influx of season merchandise. I’ll be interested to see how this pans out.

And now, the Worldwide San Antonio/Austin Tour…

D'Arque Bishop

The four of us at River City Grille in Marble Falls.Well, this has been an interesting week. My mom, her sister Norma, Jennifer, and I went on a road trip to the San Antonio and Austin areas for a few days for vacation. I got to see a lot of areas I had never been to before, and all in all we had a great time. While I did post quite a bit about the trip on my Twitter, I figured I would go ahead and post a recap of the trip here…
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Rarely have I heard of a bigger epic failure in IT circles…

D'Arque Bishop

As many people have undoubtedly already read, Sidekick users are in a whole heap of trouble right about now. For those who aren’t familiar with the Sidekick (also known as the Hiptop), it’s a “smartphone” that acts differently from other smartphones. In essence, other than the phone application, it’s a thin client, where everything (including the address book and applications) is hosted on Danger’s servers instead of on the phone itself. An official posting on T-Mobile’s forums states that all data is lost, even though they’re trying to recover what they can.

As for what happened, well… from the rumors I’ve seen, it appears a SAN upgrade went seriously awry and caused the entire array to get hosed. One would think that they would have backups of this data; hell, my own personal “datacenter” is relatively small scale, yet I have daily backups to tape. Also, I have MK Online on a workable and tested backup system. I’m guessing that the backup system they were using wasn’t being kept up-to-date or even monitored. For something as mission critical as that, not having working and tested backups is absolutely inexcusable.

So, what’s happening right now? T-Mobile is stressing to users to not power off or reboot their devices under any circumstances, or else they will lose all of the data on them. Given how bleak the situation looks, I’d say the best thing the Sidekick users could be doing right now is copying all of their address books to paper as quickly as humanly possible. I have at least one friend who is (or now was) a loyal Sidekick user, so this must come as another huge blow alongside all of the other crap she has had to go to.

For me, I had honestly considered a Sidekick a LONG time ago, before moving to my employer’s wireless plan (which is with AT&T Wireless/Cingular/AT&T). Even then, the thought of having EVERYTHING server-side and nothing stored locally unnerved me. I’ve always been a big believer in hosting my own stuff, from email to blogging. Right now the only real exception is Twitter, and I don’t exactly consider that “mission critical” (like any of this stuff is). :-) That way, I can make sure everything is backed up on my own terms, and if something goes wrong, the only person I can blame is myself. Needless to say, I’m glad I didn’t go with the Sidekick now.

So, to all you Sidekick users… you have my utter sympathies. I would wish you luck with your Sidekick, but I’m willing to bet most of you will likely be switching platforms now… and I’m willing to bet that this will be the final nail in the coffin for the Sidekick.

The Canabalt Run…

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

Last night, I accompanied Jennifer to DSW so she could buy shoes for our trip this week. While she shopped, I took some time and played a new game I had gotten for my iPhone recently: Canabalt.

Canabalt has something of an interesting premise: you play a character who is escaping from some kind of city-wide attack, jumping from building to building as you run, and avoiding obstacles along the way. The game is deceptively simple, as the only real control in the game is to tap the screen, which causes your character to jump. How long you hold the tap down for controls how high/far your character jumps. As he runs, he has to avoid boxes (which merely slow him down) dropped weapon turrets (which turn him into “a fine mist” when he hits them), and correctly judge the correct power of each jump on the fly. I’ve lost several times when I’ve hit the jump button too hard on reflex, realizing too late that my character was supposed to be jumping through a window and instead smacking against the wall above the window.

The graphics are relatively simple 8-bit-type graphics in black and white, but still impressive. As I’ve played I pay little attention to the environment as a whole, merely concentrating on getting my character past obstacles, determining whether a building is about the collapse (such buildings are riddled with cracks), and making sure I judge each jump correctly. In the background, though, you can see a wrecked city, with alien(?) walkers walking back and forth, using either a projected energy weapon or a spotlight. Every so often, a plane flies overhead close to the action, but in my experience it’s not possible to die by hitting one of the planes.

If you ever feel like bragging about the distance you’ve run before losing, the game offers you the option to automatically post about it on Twitter. I’m not one to brag, or else I would have tried this functionality by now. It might also have something to do with the fact that I’m pretty sure my scores are pretty lame compared to others out there…

I’ve been playing Canabalt for a week or two now, and it’s currently my favorite “time-waster” game, for when I have a few minutes to kill. It costs $2.99 over at the iTunes Store, which to me was well worth it. Don’t take my word for it, though; the developer (Semi-Secret Software) actually developed a free Flash-based version before porting it to the iPhone/iPod Touch. You can play it at its website, located here.

Chocolate-covered childhood memories…

D'Arque Bishop3 Comments

Sometimes, it’s interesting what we forget from our childhoods…

Late last week, I happened to be in my coworker Deborah’s office when she happened to show me a fundraising catalog given to her by another coworker. The catalog was typical stuff for school children’s fundraising, including Christmas wrapping paper and ornaments, magazine subscriptions, and chocolates. However, while showing me the catalog and discussing it with the other coworker, mention was made of a particular chocolate item and it took me back to my childhood.

I don’t know how many people reading would remember, but years ago (ending in probably the mid to late 80’s) department stores like Sears sometimes had areas in them where they would sell candy by the bag. My parents and I would go to the mall on a regular basis; if it wasn’t weekly it was at least every other week. When we did, I would always ask for a bag of chocolate covered raisins. I didn’t always get one, but when I did it was a real treat. It was never anything else but chocolate covered raisins, at least until I got to junior high school or thereabouts, when I started eating gummi bears on a regular basis instead.

The weird thing is that I haven’t had chocolate covered raisins since. In fact, I almost never ate them outside of those mall trips, either. It wasn’t that I had developed a dislike for them. For some reason, I just stopped eating them. Over time, I had completely forgotten about those things, to the point that I didn’t even remember Sears (and others?) having the candy counters to begin with. It’s a shame, really… the raisins really were rather good.

I ended up going ahead and ordering from the catalog too. Now I’m just waiting for my two boxes of chocolate covered raisins. :-)

Comparing Yahoo Messenger and AIM iPhone apps…

D'Arque Bishop

A few days ago, I posted a quick blurb to my Twitter that said, “On mature reflection, it’s become clear to me that the Yahoo Messenger app for the iPhone is better than the AIM app.” I didn’t expect anything to come of it, really… but then Yahoo’s official Twitter re-tweeted my post, followed by a couple of other people.

As I ended up posting, “Disclaimer: despite the retweet by @yahoo, my personal opinion should not be confused with that of any professional reviewer. :-)”

Seriously, though, it’s my experience that the Yahoo app is just a better program. Both do instant messaging, of course, and allow you to set your custom status message. AIM also has the ability to use something called “Lifestream” to allow you to get updates from supported social networking sites, which I suppose is kind of cool. (I haven’t used it, myself, as I prefer using the official Facebook app and Twitterrific.) Both apps are iPhone OS 3.0 capable, and support notifications.

As far as actual messaging goes, though, I find the Yahoo program to be superior. AIM only allows for text messaging. Yahoo will allow you to send photos as well. AIM seems to have performance issues as well, or at least it does on my iPhone 3G. Switching from the buddy list or active IMs list to an actual conversation lags, as does switching between conversations. When an IM is sent or received, the app “freezes” while processing the request; if you’re typing while a message comes in, nothing appears on the screen until the message is displayed, at which point everything you typed all appears at once. By contrast, the Yahoo app is quick and responsive, and I never have any lag times switching between lists and/or conversations, nor when I am sending/receiving IMs.

Now, technically AIM has one advantage over Yahoo: you can be signed in via two locations at once on AIM, and the one that is set available as opposed to away is considered primary. (If both are set available or set away, IMs go to both.) However, on the iPhone app, this isn’t handled properly. I have myself added as a buddy in AIM so that I can see what it sets my status as to everyone else. When I load AIM on the phone, I typically set the same status message as I do on the PC, except replacing “Call/SMS the cell if needed” with “I will answer messages as able”. By all rights, I should then appear as available on AIM with that message. (I never set myself away on mobile AIM.) Instead, I still appear as away, except my status message is now erased. It kind of defeats the purpose of telling people I’m available, you know? At least while Yahoo signs me off the PC when I log in via the iPhone app, it at least gives the correct status message… and I can always sign back in at the PC when I get back to it.

As it stands, I’m finding myself the Yahoo Messenger app more than I do the AIM app anyway, as I’m finding more people I talk to on it regularly than on AIM. However, considering I do have friends and family who use AIM only, it would help if I had a properly working AIM app for the iPhone. The sad thing is that it didn’t use to be this way; as I recall, the above mentioned problems only started happening some time around the free version becoming available. Here’s hoping AOL gets their act together and releases a version that fixes the bugs and performance issues…