Still, there are some formidable challenges in the way of an intensive development effort for the next 6 months to 1 year. By that point I expect to be in much better shape to focus a lot of man-hours on this project. I also want to note that the final version might well become an iPhone / iPod Touch app instead of (or in addition to) a desktop app. We’ll see.

For the few of you that have shown interest an are following along, thank you. Unfortunately there hasn’t been more widespread interest, but I still think there is potential here. I plan to progress to the private-alpha stages and see how (whether) interest picks up from there.

This post courtesy of WordPress 2.7′s new “QuickPress” feature.

I took a look over my last several months’ data usage.   Here’s the run-down:

Nov 07 – 126MB (new user’s enthusiasm…)

Dec 07 – 109MB

Jan 08 – 102MB

Feb 08 – 57MB (got really busy with travel, also decided no more YouTube videos, which I continue to avoid to this day)

Mar 08 – 64MB

Apr08 – 35MB

May08 – 71MB

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Totals:  sent-85.7MB, received-550MB (over the course of 8 months or so)

Usage pattern: on WiFi at home, home office, and some hotels.  Use Edge heavily at airports and some hotels, lightly while out about town.   Mostly heavy web-browsing, email syncing, some use of the other data apps (weather, stocks).

IPHONE APP IDEA

There are already some card games, but here’s a unique and fun idea: a “Deck” app.  Now you’ll need some friends with the same app (preferably in the same area?).  You can then hold your deck, and essentially see your cards in your hand (fanning through them or switching through them with either a coverflow type action or just the accelerometer and a quick shake).

Just above the cards is the table, which you can tap to temporarily “shrink” your hand and zoom in.  Here’s the key: everyone uses the draw pile and discard pile on the center of the table, so you see what the other person lays down.

Benefits of this over a deck of cards?

• Multiple, customizable, perhaps unlockable playing decks
• No bent or mutilated cards, easy to shuffle for next game
• Game rules / logic built in
• Possibly play remotely

I see a lot of possibilities for this gameplay idea.

However, while iTunes activation went pretty quickly and easily – it failed.  I’ve since spent well over an hour on the phone with AT&T – despite the fact that my calls were almost immediately answered!

Yes, multiple calls – one (unintentional I hope) hangup by the first lady, who never bothered to call back.  The second call lasted about 20 seconds – the girl who picked up couldn’t stop laughing and instead hung up on me.  Nice….  The third lady was actually helpful AND professional!  However, she still had to sit on hold with her customer service (??!!) for at least another 40+ minutes before finally getting things resolved.

Now I knew up front  that porting a number from another carrier, from a zipcode that I no longer live in, would be a little tricky.  I thought maybe Apple had polished things up though, since the first activation screen asked for the zipcode of the service area of the phone number along with other porting info.  Since I thought I was squared away, I went ahead and entered my actual billing address, and (HERE IS WHERE I MADE MY MISTAKE) did NOT enter a different address for where the phone would be used.

Lesson learned?  If you are porting a number from an area code that is not from your zipcode area, be EXTRA careful and follow the detailed instructions you can easily find with a Google search.  You DON’T want to end up on the phone with AT&T customer “support”.  Oh, and if you don’t really really need / want the iPhone, you might want to consider whether you’re really ready to go with AT&T.

There is no doubt that the device is amazing, easily the best phone (and possibly consumer gadget period) on the market right now.  There are some tradeoffs that come with that, certainly some missing things – luckily we can look forward to Apple adding many of those as we go.  No, the question is simply whether AT&T will be a tolerable network for two years – and whether Apple and the iPhone will lead them to improve, or just suffer from the relationship. Here’s hoping I don’t regret my choice.

(Stupid, stupid Verizon.  Ah, if only you had known what you were missing out on…)

I’m also playing with Quartz Composer.  It might (possibly) let me get some pretty visualizations up quickly for audio input.  Not sure long term that it will come close to doing what I need, but looks like short-term it might let me do something much earlier next year than I expected.

Meanwhile, the app itself – well, more the first bits of code that will eventually become the app – is going to get a little refactoring makeover this weekend.  I’m intending for this change to help me isolate some of the low-level issues I’m having, and let me proceed with getting some of the initial analysis stuff and display stuff going independently, so I can play with work on those areas separately when I want need a break from the low-level Core Audio fun.

Things that need to be done:

• Get some reporting in place so I know what kind of traffic I get.
• Write a few intro posts.
• Make this place less ugly. 

That’s really probably about it.

And yes, I like to hear myself talk.  Why do you ask? 

ome on in, hope you don’t mind while I clean up the place.   Stick me in your RSS reader, and I’ll let you know when we’re ready for visitors.

And shhh, don’t tell anyone!