For those of you who missed the Cherry Festival this year, or couldn’t make it to the fireworks – I present you with a sped up (800% faster!) version of the closing fireworks. We watched these from the rooftop of the Northpeak building in downtown Traverse City. Great view, and most importantly, avoided fudgies.

While I won’t be one of the few people who upgrade their iPhones to the latest version (iPhone 4) come this Thursday, today did mark the day of the latest OS, renamed iOS 4. Apple typically releases their latest major OS updates at about 1 PM EST, and today was no exception. Having fired up iTunes in anticipation of having troubles downloading the update, I repeatedly clicked on the “Check for updates” button and sure enough, shortly after 1 PM, the download started. I must have been have good timing, because it was soon after that I started hearing some grumblings about how slow the relatively small download was taking  - some even claiming hours. In it’s typical iTunes fashion, my iPhone took forever to backup before beginning the upgrade process.

I’ve been highly anticipating this release of the OS since Apple announced it a few weeks ago at the WWDC. The features I was looking forward to the most was the ability to organize apps in folders, threaded email and of course, MULTI-TASKING! Finally. Thank you Mr. Jobs.

After rebooting my iPhone, I quickly started moving like-apps into a folder to better organize all the random apps I had installed. The process was quick and easy, and I found it to be much easier way to organize and move around the apps than even the iTunes interface that allows you to move apps from one “page” to another. For a company with a great reputation for user experience, that still needed some work. However, with the ability to quickly create folders and move apps around, that became a moot point.

After just a few minutes, I had my home screen looking something like this:

I now had easy access to over 50 applications where previously my home screen would have had a maximum of 20. It’s all about efficiency folks. Create folders by holding down an icon to get the dancing icons effect, and then press and hold down, while moving any icon over another icon. It will instantly create a folder, and for the most part, name the folder what you might expect to name it yourself. Of course, you can always rename the folder to what you want.

Here are some of the folders I quickly created:

While not every app is quite ready for iOS 4 in terms of multi-tasking features, etc, some are ready now. Probably the most anticipated one that I was looking forward to was the ability to play my Pandora radio stations while being able to open email, look at pictures, or check out what’s going on in Facebook. To quickly get access to Pandora, or whatever else you have running in the background, double click the home button twice, and the bottom of the screen will reveal the applications that you still have running. You can even pause or skip to the next song this way – either in Pandora or with your own music collection.

To close applications that you have running in the background, hold down an icon after double clicking the home button twice and you’ll have the option to close down whichever application you’d like.

The last feature that is also very useful, is threading of emails. Finally! I’ve been using Gmail since 2004 when the concept of threaded emails was a first, so this was a very welcome feature. Instead of having 48 RE: RE: RE: emails in your inbox, they are now all lumped into one and you can see how many emails belong in that thread. Click on the email to expand the rest of the conversation that’s going on.

One problem that I did run into, was that after I upgraded my iPhone 3Gs to the latest iOS 4 software, I noticed that ALL my contacts and calendars were gone! I have most of my accounts setup via Active Sync – Exchange via Gmail. After reading about some other users that were experiencing the same thing, I removed my Gmail exchange account and added it again. It took nearly 8 hrs for all my contacts and calendars to re sync with the Google servers, but everything seems to be fine now. Also, keep in mind that you can only put 12 apps in any folder, that seems to the limit restriction.

Now, if only I didn’t have to until this fall to see these features on the iPad. It will seriously be a bit of a downer to use the iPad now until these same features are offered come this fall. As for  you iPod Touch owners of recent models, for the first time you don’t have to pay $10 or $20 for the latest software, so upgrade away.

All in all, pretty happy with the new features.

I received a Canon T2i DSLR from my dad a weeks ago for my birthday (awesome!) and one of the features I’m really interested in testing is the HD video capability. This is the first video I took. The lighting is bad, and the sound isn’t great, but for a camera, it takes decent video.

It’s safe to say that Google Analytics is by and far one of my favorite analytics tools available for tracking and analyzing visitor data. What used to be a paid version of Urchin, it’s now freely available to anyone who takes the two minutes to sign up and implement on their website.  Though many paid analytics solutions exist, few are as robust – and did I mention it was free?

Having said that, and as great of a tool Google Analytics is, it’s not perfect. I spend a good portion of my day reviewing, analyzing, and reverse engineering the traffic data that comes into Google Analytics. Though you can view the data in a thousand different ways, sometimes it’s nice to be able to export the particular page you’re on to an Excel file and manipulate the data for your own use.  Google Analytics gives you the ability to export to PDF, XML, CSV, Excel or TSV formats. Very handy.

That’s all fine and dandy, but when you use the Google Analytics export feature, you’re limited to exporting no more than 500 rows of data. For large accounts, you’re certainly going to have more than 500 rows of data!

The solution is to go to the page within Google Analytics that you want to export data from. In this example, I’m at the Traffic Sources > Keywords area within Google Analytics.

Once there, go up to the address bar in your browser and enter “&limit=5000″ (without the quotes) to the end of it and hit “enter” or “go”. After hitting enter, you should still be able to see the “&limit=5000″ at the end of the URL.

The resulting URL should look something like: https://www.google.com/analytics/reporting/keywords?……………..&limit=5000

You can now export the data to a CSV file with all your rows of data, not just 500. It’s important to note that you have to export to CSV format, not the CSV for Excel.

Let me know how that works for you, or if you have any other Google Analytics tips!

My love/hate/love relationship with Apple has a long and storied history. My first experience with an Apple computer was back in elementary, where each class had one Apple computer per classroom. Of course, the classic game of the time was Oregon Trail – assuming the floppy disk worked. There was no thrill like the thrill of shooting a buffalo on the green and grey computer screen. Outside of playing Oregon Trail however, there was little use for that particular computer at the time.

Fast forward to my freshmen year at the University of Michigan. I’m enrolled in my first C++ course, CS 183. At the time, I was cursing Steve Jobs for returning to Apple and creating the “innovative” bubble iMac. Why? Because at the time, the University CS Program required all students to program and submit their code via the computer labs. We were using a program called Code Warrior, and for whatever reason, the University only offered it in their labs on Macs. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, but Macs at that time were running OS 9, which was so bad and clunky that it made me absolutely despise Apple. I remember having a heated conversation with a fellow student regarding how horrible Apple products were. Luckily for me, a friend of mine had a copy of the Windows version of Code Warrior, so I could code from the comfort of my cramped freshmen dorm room. This saved me the 5 minute travel time down to the computer lab and away from the despicable Macs! It also allowed me to code a pretty kick-ass calculator that could add, subtract, divide and multiply – and output the answer. I was on my way to programming stardom.

The story of Steve Jobs starting Apple, getting kicked out and then returning is one my favorite corporate stories of all time. Without getting into the details too much (you can read the history here), the short version goes something like this:

• Steve founds Apple with Steve Wozniak in the late 1970′s
• Jobs convinces then Pepsi CEO John Scully to leave Pepsi to run Apple
• Scully and the board of directors forces Jobs out of Apple
• Jobs starts NeXT Computer
• Apple – losing money and in need of a makeover of their operating system looks at possibly licencing (gasp!) Windows. Instead, buys NeXT for their unix based operating system.
• Jobs becomes interim CEO and integrates NeXT technology to the core of Apple products.
• OS X changes Apple forever and convinces me to turn to the dark side.

My first product I bought was an iBook G4. It had a 12″ screen, was perfect size for carrying to and from class and had a great battery life.  It was slow, ran a buggy version of Microsoft Office for Mac, and barely had enough internal RAM to open Adobe Photoshop, but I loved it. I’ve pretty much been a Mac convert since, having gone through multiple Macbook/Macbook Pros and my latest additions of an iMac and the iPhone.

Having been in the IT Consulting world for a while, I still had to keep a Windows box or two around, and of course when Apple went with Intel, you now had the ability to run Windows software either natively or via Parallels/VMWare Fusion. Make no question about it, Mac products are more expensive, and you’ll pay a premium for them. But they just work, and I’ve rarely had problems with any of my Mac products. Their Apple Care program is great, but to be honest, I hardly ever partake in that program only because I take care of my equipment and it lasts as long as I need it to.

As with most Apple products however, I generally like to wait for revision 2 of the product. The first revision usually generates a lot of hype, and is found to have this problem or that.  When Apple made the announcement of the iPad, I thought the product looked interesting, but beyond being a larger iPod Touch/iPhone how could it benefit me? I already had a Macbook for travel, an iPhone and an iMac for my daily use. Pre-order? Nah, I’ll pass. I’m sure it’d be a fun toy, but I couldn’t see myself using it that often in place of my laptop.

As the release date became closer, and as I read up more about the platform I suddenly had rush of regret come over me for not pre-ordering. Sure enough, the day of the release, they were sold out everywhere. I also realized all the different applications that the iPad could be used for. You know where this story goes – I had to get one. I’ve got some ideas for applications, and I’m excited to see what applications and uses that developers come up with for this and other tablet-touch-devices in the near future.

The questions I get asked most frequently, is how is it that different from an iPod Touch or a laptop?

The Pros:

• Battery Life. 10-12 hours depending on use. Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal got over 10 hrs of use playing non stop video. That’s pretty incredible for a devices like this. Try that with a standard laptop – without getting this massive battery add-on.
• Large Screen. It’s like an iPod Touch/iPhone, only you can actually view things the way they were meant to be.
• Netflix Streaming. Netflix has to be in my top 10 products I love. And it’s on the iPad. Awesome.
• eBook Reader. It does everything the Kindle can, and way more. I personally would rather carry my books and publications on this device. Especially while traveling.
• Killer Applications. Some of the applications created for this are truly amazing.
• Typing. It’s surprisingly easier than I had thought it was going to be.
• Quiet and cool to the touch. If you have any Apple laptops, you know they tend to run pretty hot and often sound like F-16′s taking off when using resource heavy applications. Need to cook some eggs but don’t have a frying pan? Run multiple rendering applications and crack open some eggs.  Not true with the iPad. I’ve never had it run hot, and it doesn’t make a sound. Awesome.
• Intuitive use. It’s just simple to use. How easy? Easy enough for a 99 year old to make it her first computer. Have parents or grand-parents that don’t want to learn how to use a computer? Setup an iPad, hook up some wireless internet and send them one.

The Cons:

• No USB port. Would be nice to be able to use third party camera’s or other USB devices.
• No Camera. Speaking of camera, a front facing camera would have been awesome for Skype conferences or other web chat applications. I’m pretty confident future revisions will include one.
• No SD Memory slot. This one I can’t figure out. Pretty standard in laptops now, I’m hoping v.2 has one.
• No Flash. The story that never ends.  As Jason Calacanis said: “No Flash or Adobe Air is pathetic and anti-competitive. The Government should really investigates Apple’s jihad against competitive application and media platforms–it’s disgraceful.”
• Fingerprint magnet. When the screen is turned off or in low lighting, you can definitely see the fingerprints all over it. When in use, can barely tell and it cleans off nicely.

PC makers and other manufacturers are right behind and will releasing iPad-like devices in the near future, and I’m curious to see the  Google Chrome enabled tablet devices that will be out shortly as well. Like it or not, I think the way content is consumed and distributed has changed forever. And I like where it’s going.

IMG_0205, originally uploaded by nipez.

I had no idea 7-11 had so much coffee…

IMG_0089, originally uploaded by nipez.

Seems too soon to be looking at colored leaves on the ground, simple reminder of how soon this summer passed by.