Category: General

iPhone Set Up (with power) on my Motorcycle

The SetUp My Helmet

DSC03575 DSC03576 No iPhone

I knew when I bought my Yamaha V-Star motorcycle, I wanted to figure out a way to tie my iPhone into it in such a manner where it was functional. It seemed like a perfect device for motorcycle riding. Before I go much further let me just say, "Always ride Safe". I honestly believe that nothing I did here jeopardizes my safety on the motorcycle and this system was implemented with safety in mind.

I was surprised to see very few systems out there that allowed you to incorporate your iPhone onto your motorcycle. I came across several people who kind of winged it and threw something together but nothing I wanted to do. My criteria was simple, it had to be clean, functional, and safe.

My first purchase was the most expensive one. I purchased two ChatterBox XBi systems at around $200 for each unit. The ChatterBox system ties into your iPhone's bluetooth system and allows you to listen to music and even take phone calls (again please use your head and be safe). I purchased two systems because I wanted to leverage the intercom system but this was not needed for the iPhone integration so you can save some money here.

The ChatterBox addressed around 90% of my needs. I could start some music up, throw my iPhone in my pocket and life was good. But I was really looking for more, I wanted my iPhone accessible while I was riding. My next purchase was a RAM handlebar mount (RAM-B-149ZU) and a RAM iPhone cradle (RAM-HOL-AP6U) that ran me about another $40 from Ram Mounts Web site. This combination made a wonderful product. Extremely simple to install and very sturdy. The iPhone latches in there pretty snug and I have never had any problems or concerns about it coming loose. Just a great product. This got the iPhone out of my pocket and it was now accessible and visible. Now I could listen to my music and if someone called I was able to tell who it was and if I need to take the call. I could also start to use other application such as the TomTom navigation app.

I still had one problem, long bike rides listening to music, using the navigation, and taking pictures really drained the battery. I didn't want to end up in a situation where it was late at night, broken down, and the iPhone with no charge because I was listening to music. I needed power. Took me awhile, but I found Pashnit Moto who offered a couple of solutions of which I settled on the Apple 3G, 3Gs and iTouch Battery Harness PPC-026-DB which ended up running me around $43.

That was all it took and it completely changed my riding experience. I now have music and navigation all in one small device. There are a few drawbacks. For example, the way you have to manually connect the ChatterBox and the iPhone is kind of a pain, seems like they could do a better job with that. Also, when its all said and done, your iPhone is still exposed to the elements. I happen to have a windshield but if you didn't then it would be exposed to all the elements at 80MPH which is probably risky and generally not good for the device. Also certain situations, like navigation, where it would be nice to turn the iPhone to landscape, the RAM mount does allow for this, it isn't as simple as just twisting it back and forth, there is a lot of tightening and loosing that needs to happen.Also, the RAM mount is so snug on the iPhone that there is no room to accommodate and additional case that you might have on the iPhone. But all and all I am very happy with what I have.

Besides the built in applications such as music, mail and camera, here are a couple of other applications I have found beneficial while riding;

  • TomTom Navigation - I debated a long time on this because of the hefty $100 price tag but it is nice having navigation when you are not 100% where you are going.
  • Pandora / iheartradio - I have a pretty good collection of music but these apps allow me to listen to other things when I want.
  • Trapster - Just so I know.
  • OSMTrack - Good for capturing routes taken.
  • TrafficInfo - For when I am heading into town
  • Brightkite - The social networking guy in me. I like to pictures and location of where I am.
  • AutoStitch / Flickr - If I am going to take picture of the wonderful landscapes might as well make them panoramic and upload them to Flickr
  • AAA Roadside - Just in case.

Dropbox Client for Linux

Recently I got my invite to try out the new Dropbox service. I am a long time Folder Share user and had heard some good things about Dropbox. I have to say, I am very happy with the performance of Dropbox and was even more pleased when I found out there was a Open Source Linux client. Figured I wouldn't be a good geek if I didn't do a quick install and see how it performed. Here is a video of that effort.

Dropbox has clients that run on Windows, Mac, and Linux
http://www.getdropbox.com/

Public Speaking

I was asked to speak at a small event here is San Diego about a week ago. I quickly came to the realization that I am not much of a public speak, sober anyways. It's not that I was nervous or anything, I just suck at speaking to large crowds.

Now, it's typical for me to rant and rave and yap about myself here on my blog, but I was extremely surprised and honored when Michael Baum, the CEO of the company I did the speaking for (Splunk), gave me a generous write up on his blog. Check it out http://blogs.splunk.com/thebaum/2008/08/15/splunk-live-southwest-2008/

Fun with SAY

Sometimes it's the simple things that amaze people and leave them thinking you are some type of computer genius. My daughters have grown up with computers, and I mean hardcore. Their first computer was a SUSE Linux machine; they've worked on Windows and OS X boxes and they know their way around them all. At 10 years old, they've taken over the IT tech support duties for my wife. Next, I am going to install a phone line in their room so other family members can call them when they need help. What I am trying to say is, their Dad's vast knowledge of computers doesn't impress them. Whenever I think I'm showing them something new and cool on the computer, they have an attitude of "huh, I just didn't know how to do it, now I do and its not that cool".

I myself get kind of like that too, I am pretty hardcore geek and bells and whistles on computers don't really impress me. I typically look at things on a much deeper level. That's why when I read an article sometime back called "Having fun with the SAY command in your Terminal" I thought to myself, "Cute" and filed it away in the back of my mind thinking I will never have a use for that command.

The SAY command on OS X is a Speech Synthesis Manager. If you own an OS X machine, open a terminal window and type "man say" (minus the quotes) for more information, or just type "say Hello. do you want to play a game" and start having fun with it.

One day, one of my daughters and I were having somewhat of a disagreement on if it was more important for her to clean her room or finish watching TV; guess which side I was on. As privileges started to get stripped away, right after "no more pool time" but before "no more Playstation3 time", she stomps off into her room. Knowing she wasn't in her room doing what was asked of her, and knowing I was probably too mad myself to try to talk to her, I sat at my laptop tapping the space bar. Then it dawned on me; I fired up a terminal session on my Ubuntu laptop and made a ssh connection to my daughter's computer in her room and proceeded to test out that SAY command. It went something like this;

say Why are you so mad

I hear a deep synthetic voice mumble come from behind my daughters' door followed by a somewhat confused sounding voice of a little girl.

say Didnt your dad ask you to clean your room? I like a clean room

Some more little girl mumbles. Is she arguing with the computer now?

say Your dad is probably the smartest man I know, and may be the smartest man on earth, you should listen to him

OK, that last one might have been too much and may have tipped her off. I hear her door open and she yells, "I don't know how you are doing that but you better show me"

Anyways, SSH with SAY and you can have all sorts of fun with co-workers, family, and friends. Further more they will think you are truly 1337.

ICE ICE Baby…

My wife has been preaching to me for awhile to establish an 'ICE' number on my cell phone. ICE stands for In Case of Emergency. This is a standard that emergency response units like police, paramedics, and fire have been working on promoting. The idea is, if you are ever in a situation where you are not responsive and require help, your cell phone will be checked for this ICE number and it will be called. Ideally, the person who you have listed as your ICE contact will know enough about you to help with any treatment and assistance you might need.

Cell phones have become so much more than just phones anymore, they are our cameras, how we check emails, chat, manage our calendars, keep track of our friends' phone numbers, and I've even "Twitted" once or twice from my cell phone. It's very easy for me to leave the house and forget my wallet, but rare for me to forget my cellphone nowadays.

I personally have my ICE number so it is displayed on my screen when you look at it but if you don't have that functionality or just don't care to have an ICE number displayed on you phone, then it is recommend you make an entry in your address book under, you guessed it, 'I' and make the entry ICE. It's simple and extremely helpful if ever needed.

I've actually got a friend who has taken this to another level and has published an iPhone application that brings a lot more than just an ICE contact to your phone. If you are lucky enough to own an iPhone, please check out Polka’s iPhone Emergency Card for sale in the iTunes App store. You can read more about the application on Polka's Blog.

OpenID now welcome

Been a big fan and user of OpenID for sometime now. What is OpenID you might ask, well if you don't know then you can read about it on their site.

Anyways, I was IM'ing with a good friend of mine and I just mentioned I saw a plug in for it. He asked me to install it on his blog and I did, then installed it on mine, and it was so easy I accidentally installed it on another blog I run. Within 15minutes I had OpenID installed, enabled, and configured on three blogs.

So go and get your OpenID now, I recommend MyOpenID but there are plenty of providers out there, and then you too can log into the world (un)known blog which is VanJohnson.com.

New Logo at Starbucks

Starbucks Logo

It’s been awhile since my last post and I am sorry but I need to come out of it with a rant and here it goes.

What is the story with the new/old Starbucks logo? I guess it’s a throwback logo for Starbucks from back in the day but is this permanent? What marketing genius came up with this idea? “Hey I’ve got an idea; let’s change our globally recognized green logo that has become synonymous with coffee to something different. And while we’re at it let’s try and freak out a few people by displaying our Mermaid a little more prominently and show the fact that she actually has two tales.”

Come on, whenever you saw a green coffee cup be it on the street, on television, or in a movie, your first thought was probably, “hey there drinking Starbucks”. Yeah tamper with that type of marketing, great idea Starbucks. And the mermaid, dude she is really freaking me out. Maybe if I was a sailor or even somewhat nautical, I would understand and perhaps appreciate the two tail thing she’s got going on. But I don’t, it freaks me out and looks like Aquaman porn material. It just looks wrong. I mean I always noticed she was holding two things in the logo but never thought it was two tails. One of those; I won’t ask, please don’t tell me just give me my drip and let me be on my way. Now that image is embedded in my head.

The wife learned another interesting fact about the color change. It seems that the new color cups and the color sharpie or local Starbucks uses tend to turn her Non-Fat something (which they typically mark with a ‘N’) into a Vanilla (’V') something because the N blends in with the color of the cup and looks like a V.

Starbucks, I am sure you are not seeing your business increase as part of th effort, please return back to the colors everyone know and loves and has made you a crazy amount of money of the same color.

Starbucks Logo Green

Use Windows or Go to Jail.

Came across this story today, thought it was kind of funny. This Linux user was convicted of doing some bad things on the Internet and is now being told that if he doesn't start using Windows he will not be allowed to use a computer.

Linux felon forced to install Windows | CNET News.com

A Linux user who was jailed for uploading a film onto a peer-to-peer service has been told he will have to switch to Windows if he wants to use a computer again.

Radioactive Man

RadioactiveCard

Check it out, I am Radioactive again.
For those of you who follow my story, you might remember this is not this first time I've become radioactive but this time they gave me a cool card. This is so if I happen to set off a Geiger Counter (seriously). I totally want to go somewhere and set off a geiger counter. The key is in the timing, you have to say "What is that green ooze?" right before the alarm sounds. Where does a man have to go to set off a radiation leak alarm???