Yes, I was one of “those” people. I camped out at Bridgestreet at the Apple store starting ad midnight. We went and saw Hellboy 2 before hand and when we got out (around 2) there were 5 people in line ahead of us. A few other people came about 30-40 minutes later, then about every 30 minutes in increasing numbers. Most of them shocked not only find people already there, but plenty of people already there. By opening time there were well over 150+ people in line and that was before the lines got long with all the late comers. I got out the door first even though I was #5 in line. Like most people, in store activation didn’t work so they sent me on my way with a sexy, shiny white 16GB iPhone 3G. The crowd roared when I left and held it up! It was pretty lame and fun all at the same time. I loved it.

Now, after 2 weeks of using it I’ve got a few gripes, though over all I’m extremely happy with the phone.

1. Firmware 2.0 feels glitchy. I had my 2G iPhone for a year or so with no problems. There are various small bugs that make the 2.0 feel rushed. The main bug being the “lag” in the GUI for the phone. The keyboard lags badly and even switching, opening, moving, etc. often get bogged down and I have to wait.

2. The exterior looks slick but feels a little cheaper than the original iPhone. The screen seems to smudge more and hold the prints more. Minor issue, and just me being picky about the phone.

3. The “silent” button is cheap and it shows. I’m worried I’ll be one of the people who break it by switching it! Not only that, it’s too easy to accidentally switch to silent. Annoying.

4. Apps, especially those which access the GPS, randomly cause my iPhone to restart. I’m very concerned about this behavior and worry I may have to exchange my phone. Fun.

5. “No Sim Card” error. I believe this is due the change in the sim card tray. The old one was solid, while the new one is just a ‘frame’ of a tray. As a result the sim card seems to be a bit loose in there and I’ve had to re-seat my sim card a couple of times. Just to save a few cents in metal.

Overall, the phone looks great though I wish the materials matched the quality of the first. Some of it’s dead on, but it’s the details that really get me being picky. And lets face it, using a mac makes me a picky person ;)

I do love a lot of things about the phone too. The damn thing is a work of art. Great design. I love the White one because, well, that’s very mac to me too and if I’m owning a mac I want people to know that, right? I mean cool kids where Abercrombie and Fitch. Geeks wear macs.

Some of the things I like about the 3G:

1. GPS. I’ve been wanting a GPS for a while now and was holding off in hopes of the new iPhone. I’m a big fan of a general handheld that does just everything we need on a mobile level, like camera, video, mp3, wifi, 3g, etc. The GPS, while not as good as one you’d buy for your car is perfect for walking around a city or driving. You just need to be able to read maps. Something they used to teach us in school but I’m betting most kids can’t do today. Me included.

2. App store. I can’t stress enough how much I love this. Along the lines of a “global” like device, apps extend the usefulness of the phone. From Games to Productivity, practical tools and social networking apps. I love it. I’m waiting for an Amazon app, Google Analytics app, Paypal app, SSH app and a good wallpaper app, among a few others. I also have an idea for a couple myself.

3. 3G. Um, yes please. While it’s not my 8 meg cable modem it’s pretty zippy. I often can’t tell the difference in my wifi and the 3G. It’s excellent. I’ve got no complaints about the 3G speed. Very good stuff.

4. Speakers. It seems they did a better job on the speakers. I don’t know what tweaks they made but it seems to me at least that I can hear the audio on the phone much better.

5. 16 gigs. I never used up my 4gig 2G iPhone. I didn’t bother because I knew it was only 4 gigs and there wasn’t much I could do with that with my media consumption levels. With the 16 gig I can snag all my video podcasts and audio podcasts, books, mp3s, pictures, etc. and have access to them all the time.

6. They made a white one. I’m such a sucker!

I do have a few things I still would like to see in an iPhone:

1. Video camera. Come on, I know it records! There are free apps that will let you use the camera to record. Fix this oversight! Same goes for audio memos. srsly.

2. Add a flash and step up to 3.2 megapixels if possible. Many phones are starting to do this. Apple, you need to step!

3. Copy and paste. This has been beat to death, but it’s still annoying. ‘Nuff said.

4. SD expansion slot. My guess is that they won’t ever do this because then upgrading the storage capacity is in our hands instead of theirs. I can’t think of a good reason not to have this.

5. Contact beaming. Palm has been doing this forever. This phone could easily do it. Write that down.

I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things, but that’s what I have so far, 2 weeks in. While my problems are potentially serious ones, I’m happy with the phone. I’m sure they rushed a little and will probably have a fair share of defective units, just like with the X-Box and PS3’s. If mine is busted and not just a firmware problem they’ll fix it. I loved my first iPhone and this is everything it was plus a little extra. Would I buy it again? If I didn’t have an iPhone already, yes. If I wasn’t giving my old one to my wife, probably not right off. I think there are still a few issues to be worked out, but to be honest it was just plain fun to camp and be part of the madness surrounding an Apple product release. It’s pretty lame and very fanboyish, but I stood in line for Empire Strikes Back with my dad for 5 hours. Being a fan is just in my blood.

These steps were adapted from suggestions on the apple.com support forums and I take no credit for them. These steps were cobbled together for what worked for me.

1. Turn off 3G & WiFi
2. Make sure “Location Services” in General settings is ON.
3. Power down your phone
4. Go outside (GPS needs to ’see’ the satellite)
5. Power back up
6. Go into Maps and click the locate button (Should happen pretty quick)
7. Turn ON 3G & WiFi (if you’re using WiFi)

Worked like a charm for me.

several months ago I relaunched this site. The original idea was to focus more on “work” related topics and grow my personal brand. I’ve failed miserably and I’m ok with that. I have a handful of topics that I’m passionate about and I plan on building sites around those ideas. Here on chrispian.com, the idea was to focus on web development and related topics. I just don’t like the idea of doing that on my personal domain. I’d rather have a site dedicated to to the idea which would open the door to guest posts and possibly even having other bloggers as regular contributors. So I think a slight shift in what the purpose of this site is needs to happen. So instead of putting a lot of pressure on myself to write here, I’ll relax that and write whenever the mood strikes me. It will still be about the my work, mostly, but it’ll also cover other things of interest. I’m going to shift the design around a little so that it can incorporate all the content I create on other sites, especially things like Twitter, Flickr and my other blogs.

I’ve got a couple of domains that I can do web dev specific stuff on. I’m in the process of shifting twitterhacks.com to mobilityhacks.com so I can cover broader topics there. I also own greenlivinghacks.com which I’ll be launching pretty soon along with a handful of other blogs. This are all written by me personally, but since they are broad topics and not tied to my name I can have guest bloggers as well as other regular contributors. That’s probably my favorite part about blogging is working with other people.

Another project I’m in talks to work on is huntsvillemetro.com with my friend Keith. It’s a site he did several years ago and really hasn’t had time to work on. He’s not really a programmer, but he’s great at design and ideas. So I think between the two of us we can create a really killer local portal which is something I’ve always wanted to do. Huntsville is a great city and I’d like to highlight all the cool things about it. We’ve got a couple people who are interested in writing about Huntsville and some really cool features that I think will be pretty fun to work on.

I’m in no rush to push my projects forward. Since I have a day job now it’s not so important to rush and get to the point where these things are making money. I love my job and hope to be working there for quite a long time. However, I’d still like to have my own projects moving forward and making some extra spending money just as a backup and hopefully one day become a very nice second income. I may not have mentioned this before, but my boss at work is also my mentor. He’s teaching me more about the business of running sites and we have a few projects that we’ll be doing as a joint venture. I can’t talk about those just yet, but I’m really excited by some of the ideas we’ve had. I’ll talk more about those once we have some of the details ironed out.

In the near future I’ll be posting more about some of my new projects and I’m very eager to work on a some sort of collaborative site of some kind. If anyone is interested in building a site with a handful of authors blogging please feel free to get in touch with me. I would really like to see something like that happen. I own webmastersweekly.com - we could work on some sort of weekly magazine or even something where there’s a new article every day from a different author. Or any other subject, I’d just like to do something that I’m not the sole person behind it. If you’ve got an idea and need a web developer type geek or just another writer, let me know!

I’m really excited about what’s been happing at work and with my own projects. It’s been a while since I’ve been this stoked about web development and it feels really good. I’m also looking forward to meeting more folks at some of the conventions this year and next year. I’ll post my conference schedule in a couple of days and hopefully I can meet more of you!

I’ve written a few pieces on managing email in the past and it’s something I love thinking about and discussing. Email is just so disruptive and too many people use it in ways that kill productivity. In case you didn’t know, I recently went back to work full time and one of the cool things we do at the office is that every so often everyone is assigned a teaching assignment. Everyone picks a topic and then gets to teach it for 15 or so minutes. Almost everyone keeps their email client open all day long and use email to send things that really didn’t need sending. As a general rule, every email you send generates two replies!

I volunteered to each first and my day is Monday. I’ve got pretty much everything together (I’ll share it here too) but I wanted to get some feedback. What are some of your favorite tricks for managing email? What’s working or not working in your office?

So yesterday I posted about Good People Day and I hope you took the time to check out Gary’s video blog. I love this idea and I don’t even know where to begin. There are so many good people in my life and in my circle of friends that I couldn’t possibly recount them all. Instead, I’d like to share a story about two very special friends who I will never be able to repay for their kindness.

In March 2005 my wife Aeryn was diagnosed with cervical cancer. In fact, tomorrow is the 3 year anniversary of that horrible day. The original plan was that Aeryn would get a full hysterectomy and then have some chemo to make sure all the cancer was taken care of. But when they started the operation they found the cancer had spread to her bladder and other areas. They couldn’t proceed, instead an aggressive radiation treatment and chemo regiment would be prescribed. She had external and internal radiation and chemotherapy. Her chemotherapy took nearly 8 hours a day and she had to stay sitting there during the entire thing. I, of course, sat with her the entire time.

Two friends who I met online back in the bbs days found out and decided to get Aeryn a get well gift. We got home one day and a package was waiting on us. Inside was a brand new Sony PSP and some games to help her pass the time. This is when the PSP had just came out. This was an amazing gift and meant so much to Aeryn and me. It was an important moment in my life and a very trying time and my friends reached out in a very real way to help out. I can never thank Andy or Justin enough for their friendship and kindness. They aren’t just good people, they are great people and I’m better for having them in my life. So many others stepped up too and helped us and supported us, but this particular gift was just so far above and beyond… just, thank you guys.

Aeryn has been in remission for about a year and a half now and I know we wouldn’t be where we are without the support of great friends. Thank you all. Thank you so much. I hope you have Good People in your life too, today and every day!

Technorati Tags: GPD08

I’ve been watching Gary Vaynerchuk for a few months now. Someone had posted a link to his show talking about how good it was and while I don’t really drink much wine (I’m trying!), Gary’s just got charisma and energy to spare. He’s also started blogging about the whole web biz, personal branding and those sorts of things, which are right up my ally. Best part? Gary’s got to be the nicest guy and he gets it. I wish I knew he was at SXSW, would have loved to say hi.

So today he posted a video asking people to take part in Good People Day tomorrow. It’s a great idea, the gist of which is to highlight the “Good People”. Love it. I’m already working on my entry for tomorrow. Check out the video. Pass it on!

Technorati Tags: GPD08

So I’ve been back working a regular job for two days now and it’s been pretty good so far. Yesterday I had the pleasure of consulting with Karina from Hispanic.com, which is a fantastic domain name. Karina has a great sense of humor and I think she’s going to do a great job with the site. Meeting people like her is one of the best parts of working back in the office.

Being around people again is going to be interesting and mostly in a good way. I’m sure there will be some rough patches here and there. You can’t spend eight hours or so a day with people in close proximity and not rub each other the wrong way sometimes, but having people around to collaborate with and cut up with is good for the soul. I can already feel the creative energy building up and just the buzz of doing something new.

Once I’ve been there a little bit longer I’ll go deeper into what all is going on, what I’m doing and the good and bad bits about returning to work.

So, tomorrow marks my return to the 8-5 world of an office job. I’ve really enjoyed freelancing the last 7 or 8 months and the freedom that came with it but I’m very much looking forward to being back at a regular job. I’m going back to work for my old boss before I left to start 451 Press. I’ve been doing freelance work for them for some time now and it’s just a good fit. I’ll get more into specifics in a later post. There are plenty of things I don’t like about working in an office but I think the pros are worth so much more than the cons. This doesn’t mean I’m abandoning the company I’ve started on my own. In the long term it means more opportunity.

One of the things I’m looking forward to most is a more structured routine. What I’m not looking forward to is getting up in the morning. I’m just not a morning person. Even after working full time for nearly 25 I’m very much a night owl. I really get creative and energized as the night goes on. Hopefully after enjoying the flexible schedule for so long it won’t be too hard to fall back into the routine. Tuesdays were always the hard day for me. This time around I’m going to try and establish my schedule 7 days a week instead of sleeping in on the weekends and see if that helps.

At any rate, I’m excited and if anyone has any tips on returning to work after a long time freelancing I’d love to year it.

Darren over at Problogger asks us to post a video about why I blog. I’ve been wanting to do video for a while now and this is as good a time to start as any. Hopefully I’ll get good at it at some point, so be kind.

It seems like SXSW was so long ago, but I’ve only been back a few days. Today’s my first day back into the normal routine and I’m still trying to get caught up. Most of the big stuff has been taken care of as well as lots of little bits. I’ve probably got about 10 or so things left and I’ll be in good shape. So if I’m working with you on something it shouldn’t be long!

Just before SXSW one of my clients offered me a full time job. I used to work with them before and we’ve always had a good relationship. There’s a lot of good reasons to do it and not too many reasons to say no. The only one being I enjoy working from home and having a very flexible schedule. That said, I like the idea of working with people in an office again and having face time with people to bounce ideas off of and work more closely with them. It would probably even be a beneficial move for my long term goal of 100% of my income coming from publishing my own sites. This is someone who can mentor me and if the projects we work on make sense, even be partners in some things. These are nice people and fun projects. At the end of the day I’ll be doing the same work regardless, working on the same projects. The choice comes down to doing it in the office as an employee, doing it in the office as a freelancer or doing it from home as a freelancer.

Here is some of the things I’m thinking about:

Working Face to Face With People

There’s no faster way to get work done or describe a problem than taking 10 minutes to site down with fellow employees and work through something. In addition, there’s a sense of team work and friendly competition that I totally enjoy. Nothing makes me work harder than having someone to show the end product to.

Leaving Work at Work

One of the toughest problems for freelancers is that there is very little disconnect between home and work, especially if you work in a home office. While I don’t mind so much, sometimes I feel I’m always at work. While there will always be times when you have to do something for the day job after hours, usually that’s just emergencies or the rare event where you have a rush deadline on a project.

Taxes & Money

Right now it costs me more to own my own business than I would make working for someone else. It seems like every time I turn around I’m getting dinged for $100 here and $250 there from some government agency. Not to mention I’m not exactly tax savvy and don’t really have time to learn all the things I need to know to make my money work harder for me. Again, that’s something the owner of the company I’d be working for can mentor me about. Not only does he have a long history in the tech sector making it pretty easy to communicate technical issues with him, but he’s also an MBA, and as much as I joke that means I’ll have to teach him everything, he’s really quite brilliant.

Being Around Other People

Being around people brings out creativity in me and probably in most people. Sometimes just joking around will spark an idea for something. I also like keeping my ability to hold an intelligent conversation sharp as I hope to not only attend more conferences and meet more people, but eventually speak at some of these events. I have 13 years experience in this field and I hope that along the way I might have learned something worth sharing.

Naturally, there’s some apprehension about doing this and I’m still giving it some serious deliberation. I don’t have to decide right away, but I’m hoping to make the decision by this weekend and at the moment, I’m leaning towards going back to work in the office. I’m even kind of excited about the idea.

Anyone have any experience or thoughts on going back to work after freelancing? I would love to year other people’s experiences.