My 3 DIY kits arrived yesterday, and after watching the instructional video, I put them together. They were easy to assemble and I think that they’re going to work well as they make it easier to pull out the cable, but not strain the cord. The only problem I had is that the glue dots that were included were rubbery, so the aluminum cover started moving around and while the video said to use some silicone to secure it, I know that silicone is flexible and wouldn’t do exactly what I wanted. I put a few drops of superglue on the connector and presto, I now have very solid connection.

Pros

• Solves a real need.
• Easy to “install”.
• Looks neat.

Cons

• A little expensive.
• Required a modification to make it work.
• If installed on 2 USB cables, they both can’t be plugged into a MacBook Pro as one blocks the second USB port.

Summary

I love the concept of extending the life of my iPhone/iPad cables as I use them all the time for my collection of devices (I always have 2 iPhones, 1 iPad, and 1 iPod Touch on my desk) that I use for development. While I just got this, I believe that this is going to be the solution to worn cables. Time, of course, will tell if this lives up to my expectations.

If you have worn iPod/iPhone cables and a few extra dollars, this is a unique solution that I wouldn’t hesitate to buy it again.

Not being deterred by this setback, I started poking around Amazon and found a Viewcon USB Active Extension. This is a USB to Cat5 adapter that can transmit a signal up to 150′. I was a bit skeptical at first as I knew that adding latency to the connection could degrade the signal. However, for $19 it was worth the risk. I chose this connector (there are a number of them) as it came with a power adapter which could come in handy to boost the signal.

Setup of this was quite simple. Since I already had Cat5 running from our TV room (where the Ooma is and is the center of my network) to my office, I just plugged the adapter into the Ooma, ran Cat5 to the wall and then Cat5 from the wall to the Bluetooth adapter. I did a few tests and was absolutely amazed that it worked without problems. Luckily the Bluetooth adapter was USB 1.1, so high speed transmission wasn’t a problem.

If you need to run a USB device from a different room or a long distance, this adapter is a dream.

Pros

• Easy to setup.
• Inexpensive.

Cons

• None.

Summary

This device easily solved my problem at a reasonable price. There are lots of options out there and I just got lucky that on my first try, I got one that worked. The reviews for this and similar devices were very mixed, probably because people had much higher expectations; my needs were quite simple and this adapter met them.

After a quick trip to Costco (it wasn’t too bad despite being this time of year) and Target, I headed to Best Buy. Parking was easy and then I went into the store to find the headset. It was a complete zoo, so I started looking for the headset. First I saw headsets in the PC area. They had some Logitech wireless headsets there, but not the h800. So I went to the mobile phone area and there were more headsets, but not the h800. Onto mp3 players to find more headsets, but not the h800.

So, I asked a sales person and he said to check over by the home stereo area as I had said “wireless headphones”. Nope, not there. Someone else suggested gaming. There were headsets, but not the h800. By this time, I was about to lose my mind. I tried to use Best Buy’s mobile website to verify that the store had it, but the Find in Store option kept spinning and didn’t show me results.

I went to one of the cash registers (they have them scattered throughout the store) and asked the guy behind the counter to look it up. He looked it up and the computer said they had 7 of them. He went into the back (I thought I’d never see him again) and when he came back maybe 10 minutes later, he said that they were unloading a truck and that they were probably in the shipment. However, he didn’t stop there and asked someone else who said that they wouldn’t have them listed in the computer unless they were already unloaded. The very helpful guy went with me looking for it. First was gaming to double check, then he said “let’s try wireless mice”. Presto, the headset was next to the wireless mice. I’m not sure I would have been able to find them without help. I profusely thanked the man and went on my way to pay.

So Best Buy has headsets in no less than 6 different locations in the store! I’m not sure that anyone there would have been able to find it on the first try. This was an exercise in frustration and a valuable lesson; shop online, it’s easier and faster!

In my last 3 trips to Portland, the hotel I’ve stayed at, Hotel Monaco, has WiFi that is a) free and b) works quite well. I’ve been able to stream Netflix, download apps, upload things, and even carry on FaceTime calls with excellent results.

I wonder if there is a site that rates hotel WiFi. Does good WiFi matter in a hotel room? With our always connected society, it almost might. I can do many things on my iPhone over 3G, but having WiFi is so much nicer.

All the updates sounded promising as the makers were testing different suction cups and designs.

After many delays and lack of communication, my product finally arrived. I set it on my desk, put my phone on it (my phone has no case or screen protector, so the suction cup was attached to the bare phone) and within a few minutes, my phone slid off the suction cup. I kept trying to get it to work and finally gave up. I wasn’t even going to attempt to use it in a place where my phone was more than a few inches off a surface as I don’t trust it.

The product had promise, but is a complete failure. I saw a deal come across for a plastic stand called The Jack and bought it. It was far cheaper than The Oona and actually works.

Pros
None

Cons

• Expensive
• Doesn’t work

Summary
Don’t buy it. This product is a complete waste and isn’t useful at all. The designers need to go back to the drawing board and work on the suction cups.

Since I managed to accumulate a bunch of the earbuds, I used a pair for running. Sweat really kills them, so I bought knockoffs that fared just as well as the Apple branded ones. The microphone, volume controls, or the speakers stopped working which has become increasingly frustrating.

So now I’m searching for the right earbuds for me. Actually, I’ve broken up my use of earbuds into 3 categories, each with a different pair. The first category is for when I fly. This year, it looks like I will have gone on 9 trips, and I’ve found that noise canceling earbuds make the trip so much nicer. I’ve been using the Audio-Technica ANC23 earbuds for a few months now and find them to be holding up well. I don’t like using these for phone calls as the noise canceling makes me sound strange when I talk. Also, they wouldn’t hold up for running and these don’t have a microphone or 3 button remote.

A few weeks ago, the Apple earbuds I use for phone calls stopped working. I went on a search and ended up with the V-MODA Remix Remote Headset and they seem to be working well. I like the 3 button remote and the sound quality is pretty good. My wife is going to get a pair as they have interchangeable inserts for different size ears.

Next up are earbuds for running. The reviews I’ve read about sweat proof ones have not been good. I want the 3 button remote with microphone so that I can control Siri and talk on the phone, if need be (I’ve only taken 2 calls while running this year). I might just have to bite the bullet and buy one or more pair to try. They aren’t cheap, however.

A few weeks back, he started asking me how hard would it be to learn iOS development. I told him it would take a little bit of time and that I’d help him if needed. One of his clients was interested in having him do some iOS development.

Today, he let me know that the 13″ MacBook Air that his client sent had just arrived. In less than a year, he now has basically a complete line up of Apple products (save for the Apple TV and some lesser used items). Will he come over to the Mac and iOS? I just read an article this evening about a former Microsoft Evangelist quitting his day job to write iOS apps. Maybe this will happen to my friend as well; it will give me something to pester him about if he does. “Why did it take you so long to wake up?”

This past weekend, I discovered that the motion sensor in an outside light wasn’t working, so I needed to fix it. The problem was that since it wasn’t working, I didn’t know which circuit breaker to turn off and just relying on the light switch was potentially dangerous. While the switch was in a box with 2 other switches, I could hope that they were all on the same circuit, but given my luck, someone probably went against code and wired it such that 2 circuit breakers controlled the box.

I remembered that I had the Klein tool and pulled it out. With the breaker on, waving the tool over the switch showed electricity flowing. While I went outside to the breaker box, my wife, used the tool and let me know when I hit the right breaker. I was pretty confident that I wasn’t going to get shocked, so I took the light off the wall, used the tool again and verified that I wasn’t going to get zapped.

This tool is absolutely a tool that should be in every handyman’s (or handywoman’s) toolbox. It’s relatively inexpensive and saves you the trouble of getting knocked on your rear when you touch the live wires.

Pros

• Relatively inexpensive.
• Uses standard batteries.
• Easy to use.

Cons

• After changing the batteries the button gets stuck a lot requiring some wiggling to get it to work.

Summary

I definitely recommend this product. I’m sure I can resolve the hiccup with the switch by rubbing a little bar soap on the places that the button rubs. I wish I had gotten this years ago as I’ve gotten zapped at least twice because I wasn’t careful enough; I do test every outlet, but made assumptions because outlets in the same room were out, but not the ones that zapped me. This tool would have immediately told me to stop; it’s easier to use than a standard 3 prong tester or a regular test meter.

With neighbors like these, who needs enemies? I did clean it up after I got back, but I find it very rude that some people don’t pick up after their dogs.

(My wife thinks it could be from a coyote, but I don’t think so. We live near a canyon, so it is a possibility.)

This spring, all my projects moved to iOS 4 and Mac OS X 10.6 as the minimum requirements, so I took another pass at learning blocks. This time, however, I could actually use them and read all I could about them. The more I started looking at them, the more I became enamored with them. I started using blocks in my own APIs and just finished rewriting a significant chunk of code using blocks. Using blocks has made my code more readable and has greatly simplified certain aspects of our app.

One of my co-workers cautioned me to not use blocks just because they were the shiny new tool which I admit was what I was looking at doing. However, after using them, we found that using blocks was pretty much vital to making our code more readable.

For developers that aren’t familiar with blocks, I’d suggest learning them. With most iOS apps having a minimum OS of 4.0, there is no reason to avoid them.