Random Brain Dump

Earlier this year, I resurrected the girls’ fish tank. Took the girls to the local pet store, Allison chose an orange guppy and Katelyn chose a gold fish.

Katelyn named hers Fred; Allison named her fish Rose.

I set up the fish tank in their bedroom and made it a ritual for the girls to feed the fish before going to bed each night. While I still have to remind them, Allison is always happily feed the fish. Katelyn on the other hand isn’t always keen about it. And it shows…

Rose is doing well. On the other hand, we’ve gone through Fred I & Fred II already. I promised Katelyn we’re going to take her to get Fred III later today.

Let’s hope we can fool Rose with Fred III. Perhaps she’s wised up about the situation already… 🙂

Just installed the new iPhone app from WordPress. Sweet…
Blogging this post from my iPhone! 🙂

Sometimes instead of running several sessions of SSH’s or putty’s, I run Emacs with multiple shells– this cuts down on the number of windows I have to deal with.

To run a shell in Emacs, you invoke the Lisp function “shell” via meta-x shell. This creates a buffer called *shell*. Running it the second time though doesn’t create a 2nd shell buffer as you might expect, instead it brings you back to the original shell buffer. The trick is to rename the original buffer to avoid name collision. The quickest way to do this is via “rename-uniquely" function via meta-x rename-uniquely. It renames the buffer to a similar but unique name like "*shell*<2>“. Now if you start another shell.

The better behavior is for Emacs to automatically create new buffer with unique name. Perhaps there’s a hook to configure this that somebody can point me to.

I was lining up at the AT&T store last night to pick up my iPhone. This one guy at the front of the line picked up his phone a few minutes earlier and came up to the employee:

Guy: “Where’s the wand to my iPhone?”

Employee: “What wand?”

G: “You know the thing you write on the screen with.”

E: “Oh, iPhone doesn’t have one, you don’t need it!”

G: “Then how am I going to write it?”

E: “You use your finger, it’s a touch screen.”

G: “But I need a wand”

E: “You really don’t need it, let me show you…”

E: showed the guy how to use it

G: “I want my wand, where’s my wand?”

The episode cracks me & all the folks at the store up. And it goes to show some people are buying into this iPhone craze without really understanding the product they’re buying. 🙂

Ah, the omnipotence of Steve Jobs…

Where’s that bandwagon that is iPhone? 🙂 After skipping out on the 1st generation, I decided that I too will join the iPhone generation. I was one of those dorks that lined up when iPhone 3G was launched. They ran out of the model I wanted, so I placed an order rather than settle with the available models.

Anyway, my unit finally came & I picked it up last night. It’s a beautiful device and I can’t wait to put it through the paces! If only I can pry them from my girls’ hands… The fact that even my 4 year old can operate with easy the first time is a tribute to its design. They’re all over it.