The iPod touch lacks the Notes application that is on the iPhone. As a work around for this (until Apple gets the message and adds it via a software update!) you can create a Contact called Notes and use the Note field of the contact to record snippets, to-dos, etc. on the go. The Contacts app on the iPod touch only shows fields with data in them. So Set the first name filed to Notes and put text in the Notes field and these are the only two fields that will be visible for that entry. When the iPod touch is synced with MacOS X the Notes entry and its associated text will be available in AddressBook. And vice versa, changed in AddressBook will sync to the touch.
Tag Archives | Macintosh
New course: Natural and artificial intelligence
Just got electronic access to the first few books for a new Open University course that starts on 6th October. It’s a 3rd level computing course called Natural and Artificial Intelligence. It covers traditional AI research and how ideas from biological systems and evolution are shaping AI ideas. Finished the introductory book already. Good stuff. Looking forward to the rest of the course. Also start the recently introduced course on evolution next February.
The exam for the AI course is sometime around 14th June 2008. I’m hoping that means it’ll be in the week after Saturday 14th and that it doesn’t clash with WWDC 2008. It looks from the Moscone Center web page for June 2008 that there are non Apple events on in the Moscone West on the weeks beginning 16th and 23rd June. Looks like the event listed as Corporate Event from Sunday 8th June to Friday 13th June in Moscone West will be next years WWDC. I’ve got enough British Airways air miles for a free flight from Heathrow to San Francisco, and enough Marriott Rewards points for almost a week in a hotel. So should be able to do WWDC next year pretty cheaply.
iPod touch post
So I read on TUAW that some iPod touch units were starting to hit the Apple stores in the USA. So I hightailed it round to the San Francisco store to see if I could get one. I did. A 16GB one. There are unboxing photos in the web gallery linked on the right. In addition to being an iPod, it’s also a WiFi enabled Internet device. If you are reading this post then it seems that I can post to this site using the built in Safari web browser. More details and thoughts on the device to follow.
Update: Post spell checked and categories set from my MacBook Pro a few hours after posting from the iPod touch.
My 2nd home?
I’m off to San Francisco again in a few weeks. Maybe I should move there? Work is sending me to VMworld at the Moscone Centre. Same place as the last two Apple WWDC conferences. Should be interesting. They are expecting 10,000 attendees for the 3 day conference. There is also a partner day that I’ll be attending. VMware VI3 is really, really cool and very, very useful (as are the other VMware products). Looking forward to getting down and dirty in the deep technical sessions. I’ll also need to go to the sessions that are related to how educational organisations are using virtualisation technologies. And the green computing session will be a must as this is a hot topic in new school builds. All newly funded Building Schools for the Future projects in the future have to be carbon neutral.
Of course there are the VMware for Mac sessions as well. And drinks with the VMware engineers… 🙂
Do you want some cheese with that…?
Scivener may be a nice app. But it’s developer should dry his eyes. Jeez. The ADC Select membership includes pre-release versions of MacOS X. No promise is made about when versions will be made available. Attendance at WWDC is a separate issue. Many of the sessions at the conference discuss features that are in the latest Leopard beta so it makes sense for attendees to have access there and then. Apple have already said that they will post a Leopard beta for Select ADC subscribers in the near future.
WWDC 2007
Well, that’s WWDC 2007 done and dusted. It was a week of evolution rather than revolution. All the stuff outside of the Keynote is NDA’d of course, but the whole week was a refinement of what was presented at WWDC 2006. For me the most interesting day was the Friday. Amongst others I attended a brilliant session given by Sal Soghoian on scripting MacOS X, and the improvements to scripting technologies in Leopard. Sal is a very engaging presenter. If you ever have the chance to attend one of his talks then definitely take it. The MacOS X and Aqua feed back session on Friday was also very good. It was basically 1.5 hours of Q&A to 4 senior Apple execs (including Scott Forstall and John Geleynse) about the user experience in Leopard. Some very interesting discussions about the direction of the new interface 🙂 The presentation on the Leopard user interface methodology given by John Geleynse earlier in the week was excellent as well.
There were lots of other interesting and really informative sessions during the week. I learned heaps of stuff that’ll be useful, both in my job as an ICT consultant in the Education world (Podcast Producer! Oh my god!) and, as a hobbyist MacOS X programmer (Xcode 3 Tools). See you all at WWDC 2008 🙂
Sunny Heathrow
I like Heathrow. For an airport anyway. For all the ones I’ve been in Heathrow pisses me off the least 🙂 Sitting there at present. An hour to go to the flight to San Francisco for WWDC 2007. Much happiness. I didn’t get bumped up to Business Class at check-in. Maybe at the gate. Coming back last year I was upgraded and only found out at the gate. Even if I don’t I’ve got a good seat in Premium Economy. Lots of leg room!
iPhone to deliver world peace?
Maybe. Mark Morford explains…
Quote of the day
From an article about the mobile phone market on The Register, in relation the the forthcoming iPhone:
Not everyone agrees the iPhone will be as successful as Jobs hopes, but Apple does seem to make the perfect bogeyman for the mobile phone industry. What could be more scary than an organisation capable of working in total secrecy, with a track record of creating highly desirable products, headed by a man who’s beaten cancer and an SEC investigation and comes equipped with a Reality Distortion Field that would make Darth Vader jealous.
Nice one!
Schedule Tweaked
Made a few minor changes to the WWDC schedule I posted previously. This is probably close to the final session list I’ll attend. Unless there are some late additions after the keynote for super secret stuff. Not long to go now 🙂
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