The cause of traffic

I finally figured out what causes traffic; drum roll, please...stupid people! Did you really expect some profound reason? Last week when we were driving back from Santa Barbara, there were a few patches of slowing. As we passed the slow areas, I kept looking for a reason why. There was no reason the traffic slowed. It's a good thing I don't commute as I'd probably rip all my hair out.

Life with the iPhone

I've been using an iPhone for a few weeks now (I have a very nice client that sent me an iPhone) and must say that I kind of like it. I'm not a huge voice person, so I've only made a few calls and can't really comment on it.

I'm getting used to the email client and web browsing is pretty nice. In addition, the iTunes interface is pretty slick. I even watched some Simpsons episodes on it on one trip. My biggest complaints about the iPhone are 1) it is on AT&T, 2) it is on the EDGE network and 3) it suffers from the GSM buzz. As I don't do much text messaging, the lack of a physical keyboard isn't an issue for me.

At first, I was jealous of the iPhone as I've spent many years dealing with Palm based devices and have had a lot invested in working with Palm OS, but with the lack of life in the Palm OS and my shift of focus in my work, I realized that I had no reason to be jealous and am embracing the device.

I'm sure that future versions of the iPhone will be better, but for a first version of a device by a company that has never produced a cell phone, this is quite amazing. Nokia, Palm, LG, Motorola, etc. have had years to come up with something like the iPhone, but have not managed to come close.

iPhone Update and Self Signed Certificates

I updated my iPhone today to the latest firmware and found that I couldn't check email. I remember reading something in the release notes about man in the middle attacks. So, I tracked down the issue to a self-signed SSL certificate I use on my mail server. Luckily, I have a real wildcard certificate for receiptwallet.com. So, I reconfigured my mail server and changed my settings to mail.receiptwallet.com and presto, things started working again. So, unless I missed a setting, self-signed certificates can't be used with the new iPhone update; I see this as a big problem for people that don't want to fork over the money for a real certificate. Oh well, I learn something new everyday.

Government actually does work!

The other day, I blogged about getting my local city councilman to get a sidewalk we use cleared of brush/weeds. Well, today I walked the dog and saw that the sidewalk was completely cleared. That sure was fast! I guess the squeaky well does get the grease.