I was previously running a release candidate of the new Rails 2 codebase, and hadn’t upgraded to the final 2.0 release. I’ve remedied that today by upgrading to Rails 2.0.2, the current production release. There shouldn’t be any breakage, but one never knows for sure, so feel free to let me know if there’s any problem.

Peter Moffatt, a director of seveal classic Doctor Who episodes, died recently. He did one of my favorites as a kid, The Five Doctors.

I’m a mountain biker, but I do enjoy watching some coverage of the Tour de France when it’s going on. They just today took the wraps off of what will be the course for the 2008 edition of the race.

Today’s the release of Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard,” and it’s a big release as far as Ruby is concerned. Ruby is finally supposed to be built-in as a framework, with Rails, RubyGems, readline support and a whole bunch of other Rubylicious goodness. You can read all the details on Mac OS X Forge. I’ve been working on updating my personal projects to work with the Rails 2.0 Preview Release, so we’ll see how customizing the installation that Apple gives us goes.

As far as getting Leopard goes, I’m not planning in waiting in line to get a t-shirt, but I’ll definitely be making a stop by the local Apple Store to get my copy at, say, 9 o’clock. You know, after the lines die down a bit and I can hopefully just walk in and grab a copy.

I usually do a clean install when I get a new OS, but I just did a clean install about 3 months ago, and I think I’m going to try the upgrade route this time and see how it goes.

Update: The official Rails blog has an entry on compiling the native C extensions for MySQL to work on Leopard.

Those of you who know me know that I regularly post in a walled garden with a few close friends and also recently started a blog with my wife. Why another place here? Am I really lacking for an outlet? No, not really. But there are times when I’d like to write something viewable by the world-at-large and perhaps isn’t really relevant in a blog with Val. So, I decided to start this up. I’ll try and post here and if it doesn’t work, I’ll kill it off. We’ll see. :)

It came today. :)

It’s nearly identical in feel to the G7 it replaces, which is a good thing.

Except the strap, which was slightly nicer on the G7. If it didn’t say “PowerShot G7” on it, I’d keep that one.

I haven’t had much time to use it, but here are some early impressions.

Pro:

• RAW!
• Bigger, nicer screen. Very noticable.
• New focus modes with new review modes. More later, after I experiment with them in detail.
• Faster.
• ISO data is back in the right place in the EXIF! Yay!

Con:

• Strap not as stylish.
• Viewfinder not improved over G7.
• RAW not supported in Lightroom or Aperture yet.

So far, I’m stoked.

Things have changed a little since round one, in that Lightroom has had a 1.1 release which added some new features and overall performance and stability enhancements. I have managed all images from my British Columbia bike trip in Lightroom 1.1.

Lightroom is much-improved in 1.1, mainly in small refinements and speed. Aperture has been pissing me off in small ways lately. It seems to spend a lot of time dealing with its previews. It also seems to bog down when doing more than basic manipulations of an image. Lightroom was already faster than Aperture, and it’s even faster now.

One of my basic complaints about Lightroom was that its organizational abilities seemed a bit behind Aperture’s, but this time around I feel differently. Once I embraced Lightroom’s module concept and used it’s flag-rate-develop-output workflow, I was really comfortable in Lightroom. The docs have gotten better too: there are now videos and tutorials online that, which not quite as nice as Aperture’s, have filled that void I mentioned before.

Now that I’ve spent a week exclusively in Lightroom, I feel like it’s the better program (for now). I’ve compared the programs pretty extensively before, so here’s a look at just the differences I really care about.

I really miss these from Aperture:

• The Loupe. Aperture’s Loupe is excellent, and got even better in Aperture 1.5. Lightroom uses a zooming loupe, which gets the job done, and is even faster than Aperture’s, but it’s just not the same.
• On-screen proofing. I’ve resigned myself to printing from Photoshop instead of either of these programs, so this one’s not a big deal anymore. Aperture’s printing is just plain not as good as Photoshop’s, and there’s no point wasting paper and ink when I can use Photoshop for the limited printing I do, and PS does have on-screen proofing. PS also fills one of the voids of both Aperture and Lightroom: sharpening. Both programs have gotten better than their 1.0 versions in this respect, but neither is good enough yet (Aperture has a slight lead here). So I’ll sharpen in Lightroom for web output and in PS for print.
• Smart Folders. Like iTunes, Aperture has the ability to automatically create albums based on arbitrary criteria that is very nice. There’s nothing quite like it in Lightroom.
• Flickr Export and other plugins. Adobe has not publicized Lightroom’s plugin API yet, although it has one. So while we can expect great things from the assorted Photoshop plugin makers, there aren’t any yet. The one I miss from Aperture is Flickr Export, which lets me quickly post images to the web on my Flickr account. Dave, who also uses Lightroom, uses Picasa instead and he gets no love either. Right now I have Flickr Uploader set as a post-export action, which takes one step out of the process of posting photos online, but I’d rather have it integrated directly. A big thing missing from what I get with Flickr Export is automatic updating. When I upload a pic to Flickr, Flickr Export automatically tags the photo in Aperture with its Flickr ID. If I ever change and re-upload the pic, it (optionally) replaces the original in place with the new edits. I want Noise Ninja bad, too. I can use it in PS for now, but I’m shooting with a compact camera at high ISO for a lot of the bike shots, and Lightroom’s built-in noise reduction isn’t up to the challenge. A good plugin API will help Aperture overcome the sharpening bit above, too, since I tend to use PS plugins for sharpening. Come on, Adobe, open ’er up for the plugin guys!
• Multi-monitor support. I’m on the road, so I don’t miss it right now, but Aperture has excellent support for multiple monitors, which is lacking in Lightroom. Lightroom does have very nice full-screen modes, though, which work even better than Aperture’s (very good) full-screen mode, especially on a laptop.

Things I love about Lightroom now that I’ve used it more:

• The Develop Module. This is the biggie. Man, is Lightroom better at photo manipulations than Aperture. Access to Curves, while not quite as powerful as Photoshop’s, is a mile better than what Aperture offers, and is good enough for 99% of what I do (maybe 100%…I haven’t punted to PS for a manipulation yet). Lightroom is just really, really good in this area. There’s a new “Clarity” manipulation, which is really a smart, local contrast control. It’s very cool, and super easy to use. Aperture 1.5 has a new edge sharpening tool, but this is different than that. It’s a nice bonus for Lightroom.
• Performance. Another biggie. Lightroom’s just plain faster, and it’s especially noticeable when you start manipulating images. Now that I’ve been processing a lot of images (I imported every mountain bike trip I’ve got pictures for…some 2500 images so far), Lightroom’s performance really shines.
• The Slideshow Module. I tend to gang up selects from a day’s riding and show them to folks while on the trip, and Lightroom is better at this than Aperture, although not by too much. I’d like to see an export to a DVD, video or presentation app as an option. LR can export to Acrobat, which is pretty lame, IMO. It also sucks that Apple’s DRM on iTunes music means that I have to jump through extra hoops to use music I bought on the iTunes Store in a Lightroom slideshow. This is really a ding on Apple, not Lightroom, but it’s something that I don’t have to worry about when keeping it all-in-the-family with Aperture.
• Metadata. Lightroom has more and better metadata options (and they’re presented nicer), including automatically creating Collections. I’d could certainly use Aperture’s Smart Folders to replicate this, but it’s nice to have Collections automatically available based on most common criteria. Also, Lightroom has better XMP options.

Overall, I’d say the race is still close. I think the fact that I’m having to do a little more work on my images from this trip because of the challenging low-light conditions is what’s making me so happy with Lightroom this time around. I’ve had the chance to process some RAW pictures from the 30D taken in better conditions though, and now that I’m comfortable in Lightroom, I’m finding that I even like it better for that too. Both programs are clearly pushing each other, and that’s a great thing. I think Apple missed a chance to keep its lead with Aperture by not getting a 2.0 out this year at PMA. I bet Lightroom 2.0 won’t be far behind, if at all lagging Aperture 2.0.

I haven’t posted much mountain biking stuff lately, so I thought I’d do a roundup. First, I’m headed off to Canada for a two-week bike trip…the longest I’ve ever done. Hopefully it’ll be one of the best as well, as I’m headed to British Columbia, which is well-known as a mountain biking Mecca. Much as Moab epitomized mountain biking in the ’90s, the North Shore in British Columbia redefined it in the early ’00s. Starting with a so-called “movement” dubbed freeriding. Modern bikes started getting longer-travel suspension, slacker angles and beefier builds.

I’ll be headed to the Whistler Mountain Bike Park, which is essentially a ski park that caters to mountain bikers in the off-season. This one’s particularly famous for really supporting the sport, and is well-known for its challenging terrain. I’ll be taking a freeriding class, since I’m pretty solidly a cross-country rider even though I really enjoy technical riding.

I’m taking the RV up and staying in an RV park at Whistler with Dave and Becky and their Airstream (and a variety of other folks you don’t know). It’ll be the longest trip I’ve ever taken the Minnie on, so it should be interesting. Post-Whistler, I’ll be moving around to some other spots in BC before heading home.

Val will be flying in for a portion of the vacation (in the Whistler part). Two weeks of bike riding with a bunch of guys was a little too much for her. ;) She’s going to take a two-day womens’ only bike clinic, focusing on improving her technical skills.

Speaking of those modern bikes, I bought a new bike that fits that description a couple of months ago. It’s a Turner RFX which, while technically not a freeride bike (it’s considered “all-mountain”), is the beefiest bike I’ve ever owned. It’s got 6.3" of front and rear suspension and a heavier frame capable of taking more abuse. It’s also got slacker angles, making it more stable at higher speeds.

I’ve been changing the parts on it recently, and have stabilized the spec after some issues with the earlier parts choices. It’s laden with the latest 2008 suspension (Fox Van 36 fork and RP23 rear shock), new 8" front and 6" rear Shimano Saint brakes, along with a GripShift/SRAM transmission, assorted Chris King bits and the Gravity Dropper seatpost. It’s a positively awesome bike. I still have the 5-Spot, and will make a winter project of rebuilding it as a lighter XC bike to make it different enough from the RFX. It should be nice having 2 bikes to choose from for different applications, not to mention having a backup for when one’s out-of-service for some reason.

To be safer on the BC trip, I’ve invested in a full-face bike helmet (although it doesn’t look like a stormtrooper ;)) and shorts with padded hips to go with my arm and leg pads. I figure that since I’m going to be taking a class and pushing my limits in unfamiliar territory, I’d better try and offset that risk with some armor.

As if that’s not enough, the weekend after I come back is this year’s iteration of the annual Downieville trip. I’ve done this two years now, and it’s a blast. Alex and Val have gone in previous years, but Val will be in Nebraska this time around and Alex never did commit to going. So, instead of taking the RV up just for me, I’m going to give the Minnie a break and stay in the hotel with the rest of the group (our group rents the whole hotel for the weekend). If anyone reading this gets interested in going, shoot me a line. ;)

More confirmation on the ‘TiVo HD’ as it’s now being called, along with another nice couple bits.

First, the eSATA ports are apparently about to be enabled, with BestBuy carrying external storage drives for the Series3s. Also, they’re finally going to enable TiVoToGo for shipping shows from the S3 to a computer. They aren’t enabling it for HD content yet, but I’m glad to see some motion on this front.

Looks like the cheaper Series3 TiVo is getting pretty close. I wonder why they’d do this and keep the higher-end S3. There doesn’t seem to be that much separating them.

OK, I’ve had the thing for 4-ish hours now, and have run through it pretty well now. Here are some first impressions:

Likes

• God, everything is fluid. The thing works just like the videos, and nothing on the phone is startling. Everything melts, fades, sweeps off-screen, or into the next. The interface is beautiful.
• It really does feel like OS X. The sounds for new mail, messages…they’re all the same (by default) as on a Mac. The little fading status things from the Mac (like when you change the Mac’s volume or screen brightness) are identical (obviously smaller) on the iPhone.
• Setup was an absolute breeze. Plug it in, answer a few questions, and the iPhone connects to the AT&T network and tells you that it’s on a few seconds later. In fact, I got my first call on it (from Pramod) a couple minutes after starting the process.
• The screen is stunning. If you thought the video iPod had a good screen, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
• I had no idea that the touchscreen was going to be this good. The swiping and gestures you can do really work well.
• Safari is amazing on the thing. The effect of zooming in and having the screen not only resize, but adjust the apparent resolution is great.
• OMG, Google Maps is freaking great!
• Stock and Weather widgets are nice…in fact, a little nicer than the counterparts on the Mac.
• Cover Flow is really impressive on a phone.

Gripes

• It’s a little bigger and heavier than I thought it’d be. It’s a bit taller, a bit skinnier and a bit thinner than my video iPod. The upside of this is that it doesn’t feel fragile.
• It doesn’t come with a case. Now, I don’t use an aftermarket case for my iPod (or the clear plastic things Mike and Don use), but the little slipcase that came with it. I’d have liked one like that for the iPhone.
• It came with a cloth to clean the surface, and you’re gonna need it—it’s a fingerprint magnet for sure.
• I have my wifi network set up to filter clients on MAC address. The MAC address on the phone isn’t where I expected it to be, although I found it after hunting around a bit.
• It doesn’t work with all accessories that have an iPod connector. I just don’t understand this, although I read that they may fix this with a software update. It doesn’t work with my car adapter, which charges an iPod and gives it a line-out. The iPhone will charge on it, but not play through the line-out.
• The headphone port is sunk into the top, which only allows narrow plugs to insert. I have to do more investigation on this, but it doesn’t allow the Monster Cable headphone jack I have in my car in.
• Possibly related to the last point, the headphones that come with the phone are tripole, like the video adapter cable for the video iPod, probably because of the switch to control music that’s built-in to the cabling.
• Related to the last bit, the iPhone won’t put video out to an external source with a video iPod cable.
• Not really a gripe about the phone, but the Bluetooth headset that is made by Apple for the iPhone doesn’t have anything that wraps around the ear to hold it on. That probably means that I’ll go with a 3rd-party one. I’d like to use the Apple one that has a dock for both the phone and the headset together. They didn’t have this available in the store, so I’ll wait till it comes out to see how it feels.

Misc Observations

• It’s the first non-special edition iPod that I can think of that wasn’t available in white. All the accessories that come in the box are still white, though.
• Speaking of accessories, it’s the first iPod I’ve bought in awhile (maybe since the first couple) that came with a dock, power adapter and usb cable in the box. Other than a Bluetooth headset and a case, there aren’t many accessories you could want right now.
• It actually doesn’t feel like an iPod in iPod mode. This isn’t a knock really, but the controls are so different (no scroll wheel, different menu system) that it really comes across as a different beast.
• I could probably, with the exception of the not-working car adapter mentioned above) use this as my primary iPod. I set the iPhone to get several playlists that I listen to most frequently (mostly Smart Playlists whose content changes fairly frequently), the 3 most recent unlistened episodes of the podcasts I listen to and TV shows I’ve got. (That really boils down to The Office, which I bought to watch during the couple of flights I’ve taken recently and today’s line.) Even with all of that plus the contacts and such that are naturally synced, I’m only half full. I’ll probably move more music over once they get a new version of my car adapter out.
• I haven’t played with photos on it yet, but that’s not the iPhone’s fault. I don’t use iPhoto, but do use Aperture for photos. They recently updated iTunes to be able to sync Aperture photos with an iPod, but this never worked for me on my old iPod, and fails on the iPhone with the same error. It’s got to be a problem with the installation on my MacBook.

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Later impressions:

• It needs an RSS reader. Safari doesn’t have its built-in RSS, but I want NetNewsWire. I hope they open 3rd party development soon. There have been solid rumors (backed by accidental screen shots uploaded to Apple.com) that Apple has RSS support coming pronto. Still, gimme some NNW.
• Oh, one other thing that made the whole thing super easy to get started with: it imported absolutely everything you’d expect it to, before the first use. Contacts, bookmarks, mail settings, everything. A little tweaking (for instance, to set up automatic email checking) was all that was necessary. Good stuff.
• One more niggle: the dock connector is “sticky” in that if you lift the docked iPhone, the dock comes with it, and is in there so tight that you pretty much need two hands to undock it. It’s not the dock itself…it’s that way on my old iPod dock too. The iPhone connector is just a snug fit.
• Nice thing: when you select a playlist, you can choose to play the tracks in random order, without having to globally set the iPod to “shuffle songs”.
• I got an iPhone-to-regular headphone adapter so I can use the iPhone in my car now. Not perfect, but it’ll hold me over until a new version of the Belkin with the line out comes out.
• I bought the Jawbone Bluetooth headset. It looks cool, comes with many sizing features, and has a loop around the ear. I don’t know if it’s good or not, but it’s certainly got style to match the iPhone.
• I bought a slip cover for it, so that it’s got some padding while in my back pocket (where I normally stash my phone). I prefer that to a case that’s on it all the time because I want to see it in all its glory when I pull it out. ;)

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The next day:

So I went to the mall today and had a chance to use the iPhone out on the road.

• EDGE is slow, but not unbearably so. If I were using it for extended browsing it would get annoying, but that’s not what I think this thing is really about. It’s a far better broswing device than any phone I’ve ever seen before.
• Connection-handling is beautiful. You just never have to pay attention to the cell network for data—it just handles it automatically in the background.
• Filling out forms (say logins) is very easy. Double-tap to zoom in to a form, and it’s clear as day what’s going on.

Compared to my previous phone (a Windows Mobile 5-based Cingular 2125):

• Contacts, calendars and their management is better on the iPhone, but only because the software is so damned smooth. I used the excellent Missing Sync for Windows Mobile to keep things in sync on the 2125, and it was good, but this is invisible and seemless.
• The 2125 had one-touch dialing (possible since it had a real keyboard), but the “favorites” on the iPhone is very nice. I’d give the total usability edge to the 2125 for hot-keyed contacts, but give the edge to the iPhone for finding anyone else in the phone book.
• The home screen of the 2125 has a nice “Agenda” view that has your next upcoming meeting and such on it. You have to click on the calendar app to get a “List” view, which is similar but better, but it’s not on the front page as soon as you turn it on.
• Alarms, which I use constantly on the 2125, are far superior on the iPhone. The iPhone supports multiple alarms with different rings, snooze settings, etc. Very nice.
• Sound quality. The iPhone is superior to the 2125 in every respect around the quality of its sound so far. The speaker can be turned louder, and it sounds better. I don’t have particularly great hearing, so I tend to have my phone’s speaker turned rather high. I don’t have the iPhone maxed out, while I always did have the 2125 as high as it would go. I’ve called Val both with the handset and the headphone mic and she’s said that both were superior to the 2125 from the other side of the phone.
• The iPhone is a pretty good speakerphone so far, but I haven’t stressed it much. The 2125 was fine, but it was nothing to write home about.
• The email and SMS apps are hands-down, 200% better than anything the 2125 can do, even without counting the input superiority of the iPhone. Counting it puts the iPhone in a completely different (and unfair, given the size difference) league.
• The iPhone has no Bluetooth modem mode, while the 2125 has a good one. I tend to use that mode to check news and email, so maybe the iPhone is good enough at those things to make some of this up, but this is a definite big “plus” in the 2125’s favor.
• WinMo is an open platform, which is a nice win. That said, I’ve uninstalled every app I’ve ever put on the 2125 with the exception of GMail Mobile, because they uniformally sucked. GMail was pretty good, but the GMail mode on the iPhone’s mail app is far superior.
• The iPhone can’t pair with a computer with Bluetooth, which means that you can’t use the Address Book on the Mac to dial a contact wirelessly. That would be minorly nice. In fact, mobile Safari can dial a number if you click it on a webpage, and it would be nifty if they’d make it so that if you click one on the Mac, it would start the call on your iPhone.

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Answering a friend’s question about the whether or not the iPhone was “pocketable”:

I think so. I carry my phone in my back pocket, and have been doing the same with the iPhone. I bought a wallet-like case for the iPhone, and it feels like a thin wallet in my pocket. I wouldn’t want the combo in my front pocket, though. That said, I don’t like most phones in my front pocket…even the fairly small 2125.

Adobe released a 1.1 update to Lightroom.

The update includes flexible image management for multi-computer workflows, improved noise reduction and sharpening technology, Windows Vistaâ„¢ compatibility, and more.

Don’t know what the “more” is yet, but it’s coming down the pipe to me now.

Some of you might remember that a few of us did a mountain biking trip to Gooseberry Mesa about this time last year. Well, it's on again this year and this time, we're adding Fruita and Grand Junction, CO to the list of ride locations.

Val and I are welcoming returning pal Brian and Kevin (who we ride with locally as well on previous Sedona trips) with us in the Minnie. We're leaving tomorrow (Thu.) night with plans to arrive in Virgin, UT Fri. night via Las Vegas, where we're gathering folks who are flying in to join us.

Fellow RVers Dave and Becky are taking their Airstream again, and we're hitting Gooseberry and the surrounding area until next Wed., when we move to Fruita. Alex is joining us there, flying into Grand Junction that night. We'll ride there until Sat. afternoon, when we head back.

I'm sure there'll be plenty of fun pics and video, which I'll post when I get back. I'll have limited internet access, so if I'm not posting much, you know why. ;)

According to an AT&T/Cingular manager, the iPhone will ship on June 11. Now I’d normally say that you couldn’t trust that sort of thing, but June 11 also happens to be the first day of WWDC. Coincidence? Probably not.

I took the site down for a few minutes to upgrade to Rails 1.2.2. That was a pretty major upgrade to Rails, and I sanity-tested the app first as well as made sure the unit tests passed before upgrading. Please let me know if you see any issues that you didn’t see before.

BTW, I should mention that the last time I had to restart Serrano was 12/26. The new host is much more stable than the last one. That said, the old host was acquired and are upgrading my account to a business hosting account on a new environment. Since I have a lifetime account with them that doesn’t cost me a monthly fee like this one does, I may move this site there. I’ll wait and see what other people in my situation experience before doing it, but I thought I’d mention it.