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After an hour of waiting in line at the AT&T store I scoped out, I was the 31st person there to get an (8GB) iPhone.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

• The interface is ridiculously slick. Your best bet is to not think and just use it … it’s smarter than you are.
• A paper clip pushed in (HARD!) to the tiny hole at the top will expose a drawer for the SIM card. Don’t bother putting your existing one in, it won’t work.
• You can not activate your iPhone if you are on a corporate AT&T account (a fact that would have been VERY helpful for my Rep to tell me 3 days ago when I told him I was going to get an iPhone).
• Once your company authorizes you to go onto an individual responsibility phone plan, and you set up the account, and you’ve called AT&T and gone to the store, and you’ve magically found all the right people in AT&T to make that happen … the actual setup of the iPhone is SLICK through iTunes.
• You will instantly realize how much it sucks to not have any connectivity between Apple apps (mail, calendar, etc.) and Lotus Notes. — As I type, I’m trying to reconfigure our office servers for IMAP to at least regain some of this.
• YouTube content seems to be filtered based on your connection (WiFi or EDGE).
• The web (on either connection type) is VERY cool. However they are handling this – the end result is slick.
• The interface is so smooth and intuitive. — I watched all of the videos last week and thought I knew how to use it. My wife picked it up (and never saw more than a picture of it) and got deep into the features without much trouble.

Enough blogging for now … I need to get back at this whole issue of “how to connect my Apple and Lotus worlds” – I can already tell this will be the single biggest frustration with the switch to an iPhone (from a Nokia E61i with GOOD).

I have hosted websites on A LOT of ISPs. Sadly, my favorite ISPs either don’t have some of the features I want or don’t have as competitive of a rate/plan as I need.

For example, ICDSoft.com is one of the BEST ISPs I’ve EVER dealt with (and who hosts this site). Their support team is amazingly fast. Their servers are fast and reliable. They don’t have Fantastico (which is REALLY nice to have on an ISP – especially if you like to play around with lots of the fun PHP stuff) and their service plan is a good deal, assuming you don’t need a lot of disk space or a crazy amount of bandwidth – most of my other sites require at least one of these.

I also really like the guys at SuperWebHost.com. They have a sort of no-nonsense business going on there and they hosted one of my biggest sites for a long time. Unfortunately, the performance (speed) wasn’t as great as I needed it to be once the site really grew. Most people won’t have a problem with this (for personal or family sites and such). I still have moments where I wish I still had a plan with them, because its really a nice company.

A company called DH2.net is the company I love to hate. Their plans are great. The bandwidth is good and they have some nice tools. I host one of my sites there and am generally happy with them. Their support area limits you to something like 200 characters or less – try explaining any IT problem with that limitation. I used to host my biggest site there, which always seemed to be on the server that had the most problems, so it ended up being down more than I could tolerate. It must have been a mutual thing because one day they told me I had 30 days to move that site somewhere else. That’s one of the most frustrating things to do … and yet, I still have a site there because its a great deal and works well most of the time.
I’ve avoided moving to the huge ISPs for no apparent reason. People like GoDaddy and such. They seem to be slightly higher than other things you can find if you look around, but I assume they are slightly more reliable as well. — I’ve also using using a company called ANHosting.com. Its too early to tell for sure, but so far they look promising and have a nice set of plans that are a good deal.  I like that they have a widget for your computer that reports on their service … although it draws attention to normal server issues that any server room would have. Being in IT, its not a big deal because I know they are, in fact, normal. Still … I wonder what the average person thinks.

I KNOW someone reading this has a great ISP or two that they love. What are they!?  (Oh, and if you have a Domino ISP, be SURE to speak up … especially if they’re a good deal, ’cause most of the services I’ve seen that do Domino carry a big premium.)

Its official. I’m going to be one of those insane people waiting outside my local AT&T or Apple store on Friday for an iPhone. I’ve even been doing some reconnoissance work ahead of time to make sure that the stores I’m thinking about waiting outside will, infact, have the iPhone this Friday.

And no, I’m not going to tell you which stores in my area will have them. 

But I did walk into what was I thought would be my top pick for an AT&T store to wait outside of. The store is in a horrible area and most people don’t know its there. The staff there are less-than-helpful, yet its once of the nicest designed stores I’ve seen.

When I went in this weekend to ask if they’d have the iPhone on Friday I was told:

“Uh… on Friday? No. We… uh… we won’t be getting those at the store level. Do you want to look at some other phones that are just as good, if not, probably even better?”

There are several things wrong with this reply. First, what is the “store level?” Aren’t all Cingular/AT&T stores at “store level?” I could understand if it was a kiosk or reseller, but it wasn’t.

Second, I would have thought that AT&T would have a scripted response to this question that would go something like this “Unfortunately, THIS store won’t have it on Friday, but we expect it shortly after. We have lots of great deals on other phones if you’d like to take a look … many of them have similar features to the iPhone.”

Third, yes, I understand the ‘need’ to try to turn a customer’s question into a sale. And, I understand trying to focus them on other phones (I even assumed part of their scripted response would be that!). But substituting the iPhone for a phone that is “just as good, if not, probably even better” is just a horrible phrase. – I think I laughed at that at least a dozen times over the course of the weekend.

Still, I am now curious to see what he’d consisder to be a “just as good, if not, probably even better” phone. He is the “expert.”

The new version (3.0) of Parallels is awesome. There are so many cool features that blend my Mac OS and my Windows XP OS together. It really makes it seem like Windows is just another application on my system (versus feeling like it is a whole other operating system within an existing operating system).

But a funny thing happened today…

Yesterday, I had to reinstall Microsoft Office in Windows. The install was uneventful. Today, I went to open a PowerPoint file (located in my “Documents” folder on my Mac) and the next thing I know, Parallels fires up, starts Windows XP and opens up PowerPoint in Windows (instead of the PowerPoint installed on my Mac).

A right-click (or command-click) shows that the Mac file association is, infact, to the Windows install of PowerPoint. I didn’t even know it could do that!

Incase your wondering (if this happens to you), you can “fix” this by right clicking on the file type (in the Mac OS), selecting “Open With…” and choosing the Mac application in the window that appears. A “Always Open With” check box at the bottom of that window will ensure Mac regains control of the files.

And now you know what I’ll be doing for the next 5 minutes.

I’ve noticed a number of articles in IT trade rags within the last 45 days or so about IBM products. For example, InfoWorld is suggesting that IBM is leading the Web 2.0 trend straight into the business world. MySolutionInfo.com picked up a press release about Quickr’s availability. ComputerWorld is expecting that 112 million people will be using Lotus Notes by 2011. And the Wall Street Journal is talking about how IBM employees have been using social networking and web 2.0 tools.

Meanwhile, I’ve been complaining that IBM/Lotus isn’t doing enough “talking” about all of the exciting new products. — I’m glad to see that I’m somewhat wrong about that!

As someone who’s passionate about the power Lotus Notes/Domino can bring to an organization, I’m THRILLED to see so much press about the products. I still think there’s room (and need) for more. I think the time is right to strike now with even more marketing effort. Blogs have covered lots of details about the new set of Lotus products; trade magazines are picking up stories and helping the buzz; and Lotus has done a good job announcing them at events like Lotusphere. Its now time to take it to the masses! I’ve been an advocate of a widespread TV campaign that speaks to the power of Lotus products in the workplace. Something with the buzz of the R5 ads but with more storytelling on the product itself and its value.

After all, when the iPhone comes out next Friday, what will all us techies have to talk about then? What do you say we all switch to talking about the cool new Lotus ads?!

… and I’m still not sure I want it!

I turned on my DirecTV HD DVR last night and realized “someone” had upgraded it in the last 24 hours. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t my wife. So either a very technically savvy criminal broke into my house and upgraded the box for me, or DirecTV pushed out a substantial upgrade.

The upgrade is a significantly different interface. It now uses a folder icon to denote levels in the playlist (which is nice … even if the UI needs some serious “polishing”). I haven’t stumbled along too many new features yet, although there is now a legend at the bottom of some of the screens assigning features to the four colored buttons on the remote (I was wondering what those would do).

In all, the interface is an improvement, but no where near as slick as TiVo or Windows Media … eh… whatever they’re calling that now. Oh, and DirecTV wants to remind you often that you are watching DirecTV. Nearly every screen (including the status bar / play-time indicator) has an obnoxious DirecTV logo on it.

I’ve been trying to find out more information about the upgrade, since DirecTV didn’t feel the need to tell me ahead of the time that it was going to apply it. They also didn’t feel the need to leave a message in the messages area about it either. Maybe they didn’t think I’d notice that the whole UI changed?

I did check their “Latest News” section of their website, which doesn’t say anything. A search turned up an article which makes it look like there will be an upgrade that will transform it into a TiVo (which would be AWESOME, but I don’t think it will happen).

Searching for more information about the upgrade made me quickly realize that there aren’t many blogs out there on the topic either … not many that have been updated more recently than January of last year anyway. — If you know of one, please do tell!

Oh, Apple. Why couldn’t you just build some DVR-goodness into AppleTV?!? Name the price, I’ll pay it!

I’m a big Apple fan. Obviously.

I didn’t realize how bad it had become until I noticed my trash can the other day. Someone has “upgraded” it to an iTrash. Now if only they’d to my recycle bin!

I traveled via plane with my in-laws for the first time ever a couple of weeks ago. In the security checkpoint line, my father-in-law made the observation “you must fly a lot.” He was referring to how much of a “system” I had about everything dealing with airline travel. I never thought much about it until he said something. Then, this morning, I saw a clever little blog post someone did that sums up a system very similar to mine. Enjoy.

Geeks & Airline Security

Update: If you’re looking for information how my progress (or lack thereof) in attempting to get Lotus Notes/Domino to work with an iPhone, please visit this article instead.  10/1/2007

With all the hype around the iPhone I find myself asking … well, myself… if I “need” one. I currently am using the Nokia E61i and really like it. I’ve got Good software to sync my calendar, email, contacts and to-do’s wirelessly and I’ve been able to connect it to our Cisco system to get my desk phone calls on the device (which is slick!).

So why would I want to give up all that? Two reasons:

1. The Nokia E61i is heavy and wide.

2. The Nokia E61i isn’t an iPhone.

I’m sure I’ll love the iPhone’s interface. I’m sure I’ll love having some of my music, podcasts and movies on-the-go with me. I’m just not sure how to reconnect myself to the business world once I move away from the Nokia E61i.

Which started a whole frenzy of activities. Let me walk you through it, link style:

• First, I wondered what Apple says about getting ready for an iPhone
• Reading that they plan on operating with Exchange/Outlook gave me hope. Worst case, I should be able to connect Outlook to a Domino server and possibly connect to the iPhone somehow. But I wondered if anyone at Lotus was talking about it.
• That pointed me to a Martin Scott product that looks like something I should have tried a long time ago. It looks like the type of tool I might need to pull off the iPhone to Notes trick, so that gave me some hope.
• And a Google search or two pointed to lots of other ideas about how to make this work, assuming you can find a way to connect Notes to iCal, Address Book, etc. on your Mac. That, along with exposing my mail file through POP3/IMAP would give me most of what the Good service does, just not nearly as conveniently.

So in the end, I have no answers. (Sorry to those of you who got here by searching.) But it looks like there is some hope. Maybe I’ll just have to get one an experiment!