Josh Bancroft’s Posterous

Monoprice.com (source of dirt cheap cables - seriously, don't pay full price for cables. I have no affiliation with them, other than a happy customer) has had a $15 external 2200mAh iPhone/iPod battery for a while now. I've seen it, and kind of steered clear of it, because I was uncertain of the quality. But then I saw a couple of reviews (at TUAW and Minimal Mac) that were happy with it, so I took the plunge. I also picked up two iPod cables, two USB AC adapters, and 2 12V car USB adapters in the same order. The total price was about $23. :-)

The stuff arrived last week, just before the long Thanksgiving weekend, and I had a chance to use the battery pretty extensively, as I spent many an hour at my mother in law's house playing games and doing other battery draining things on my iPhone 3GS. So what's the verdict?

This thing is the best $15 you can spend if you own an iPhone. Period.

The battery capacity is 2200mAh, which is about twice the iPhone's internal capacity, so you can charge it up (about) twice. You can also attach the battery and charge and use at the same time. The connection is the standard iPod/iPhone connector, so it will work with any device or charger that has one. It's made of glossy, smooth plastic, sort of like the back of the iPhone 3G/3GS (though it's thicker).

There are tons of other external battery options out there - the Mophie Juice Pack Air is a popular one, at 1200 mAh and $79. But this little cheapie from Monoprice has almost twice the battery capacity at less than a quarter of the price. Most of the time, I find myself in easy reach of a charging source for my iPhone (my desk, the car, etc.), but for the times when I'm not, this little guy is definitely coming with me in my bag or in a pocket. It'll be a lifesaver for conferences, travel, and other all day events.

If you have an iPhone/iPod, and have ever wished your battery would last just a little bit longer, or are sick of carrying around a charging plug and cable all the time, just to keep your phone running, you should DEFINITELY get one of these. Highly recommended.

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The post title almost says it all. I've been waiting for this update
to hit the App Store ever since Twitter started deploying these new
features widely. Now it's here - go get it from the App Store (free
update if you already have Tweetie 2 - the absolute best $2.99 you can
spend otherwise).

Huge thanks to Loren "@atebits" Brichter for single handedly raising
the bar for developers and users everywhere. You rock! :-)

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I brought my Rubik's 360 puzzle with me to the Thanksgiving
Festivities, for people to noodle on. I haven't solved it yet, nor
have I resorted to Googling ways to do it.

But this morning, my ten year old nephew Jayden solved it - got all
six colored balls out of the concentric spheres and into the
corresponding domes. Nice job, Jayden! :-)

(And yes, he's wearing a Gnomedex t-shirt I gave him. :-)

I told him I'd give him something cool if he did it, and now I have to
decide what. A harder puzzle, perhaps? I'm thinking something like a
Perplexus... :-)

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Been a very busy week, live streaming keynotes and Teach Parallel interviews from the SuperComputing 09 conference (for my job/baby, Intel Software Network TV - see more at http://j.mp/ISNatSC09).

And Ignite Portland 7 is tonight! (I'm one of the founders.) Come out to the Bagdad theater or watch the livestream at http://www.igniteportland.com
.

I'm going to take *such* a nap when this is all over. :-)

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Lightning McQueen is his best friend. Our house is littered with the
dang things. But we don't care - he's so cute about it! :-)

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He hated it while it was going on - cried, etc but he's pretty pleased
with the result. Says he's handsome for all the girls now. :-)

     

Click here to download:

Gabes_First_Real_Haircut_-_Bef.zip (361 KB)

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Just got the disc tonight, haven't actually tried it out yet. It's kind if lame that you have to insert the disc every time you want to stream something - as I understand it, it's because they're doing the streaming as a BD Live feature, which requires a Blu-Ray disc. A native Playstation 3 software app is supposed to be coming soon. Looking forward to that.

I'll try it out, and let you know how it works. I can't wait to teach my kids how to use this. We've been Netflix subscribers for years, but I only recently discovered the Watch Instantly streaming library. There are a *LOT* more movies and TV shows that I'd want to watch than I thought I'd find. Not a bad deal at all.

Now, if they'd just launch a Watch Instantly iPhone app... ;-)

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Hat tip to @verso on Twitter last night for pointing me to this idea (<strike>I'll find the link and post it - want to give proper credit</strike> Here's the original post I saw on iPhone Saviour).

It works great. Sits at a perfect angle. You'd have to cut out a little half circle to access the home button, and Matt and I were trying to figure out how to rig a dock cable, but that makes it a lot more complex.

If you have some DV tapes laying around, give it a try! :-)

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Click here to download:

TinyPodcast 2009-10-28.m4a (1249 KB)

I'm going to try these on a regular basis, as a way to share awesome stuff that I've found and want to recommend.

Today's TinyPodcast recommendation is Cory Doctorow's new book, Makers. Cory is my favorite scifi author, and the release of a new book from him feels like Christmas. The remarkable thing about Cory is how and why he releases his books electronically for free under Creative Commons, and what that does for his sales and popularity. He always includes a great essay on the topic at the beginning of each ebook, so don't skip that part when you download Makers from http://craphound.com/makers
.
Let me know what you think of these little podcasts - I'd really like to keep doing them, and I think I've got a great flow down for putting them out. Thanks for listening! :-)

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Click here to download:

Testing Voice Memo + Posterous.m4a (1924 KB)

You'll have to listen to this one, but if you're interested in using the iPhone to create and post short audio bits, and integrating them really well with your online workflow, then you and I share a common goal. Have a listen, and see what I've learned about Cinch, AudioBoo, TweetMic, and just plain recording a Voice Memo and emailing it to Posterous. And let me know what *you* use or recommend! :-)

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