Ah, it feels good to be writing casually again. As some may know, I recently gave the Kindle for iPhone app a spin. I bought the latest book from Lincoln Child - Terminal Freeze - and I finished reading it on the iPhone last week. It actually is the first book I’ve finished in over a year. The reason I was finally able to start and finish a book is because when the book is on the iPhone, it’s with you all the time.

All of my websites are in the process of migrating away from my homegrown blogging software - Exposition / Narrative / Rendition - in favor of the latest version of WordPress. The reason? Simply put, I am much more interested in blogging than the building of blogging software. I originally created Narrative because there wasn’t a good blogging package for ASP.NET. Now, almost 6 years later, while I still work as a .

I ordered a new MacBook Pro last week, the day the new hardware refresh was released. Actually, I spent a bunch of time running around to Apple stores to see if anyone had one in stock but no one did so I had to order mine custom from the Apple store. The computer left Shanghai, China on the 6th and arrived in Anchorage, Alaska today. According to the FedEx tracking system, it has already left Alaska and is en route to me.

Apple released the MacBook Air today. It is the world’s thinnest laptop. At it’s thickest, it is thinner than any other laptop’s thinnest. It is a nice boon for the executive traveller who is tired of lugging around extra batteries and a heavy laptop. The MacBook Air weighs only 3 lbs. and has a battery that lasts 5 hours. That’s a long battery life, really. My work laptop (not a Mac) has a 30 minute battery life and weighs 10 lbs.

When I commute to a client downtown, I have to take the Metra train. When I take the Metra train, I have to park in the Metra parking lot. Parking there used to cost $1.00 per day but was recently increased to $1.25. So instead of simply slipping a dollar bill into a payment slot, now I have to find the dollar bill and change. Who carries change in their pockets in the morning any more?

At long last it is now possible to get your GMail by mobile phone. Just go to m.gmail.com and login. If you type this URL into a normal PC or Mac browser, you can see what you’ll get in your mobile.

Recently, I realized that most of my monthly bills are for recurring services. Not including landline telephone bill, electric bill, or gas bill, my monthly service charges add up. These are the services I use which are business-related: Business Use MyFax, $10 per month: MyFax provides us with an incoming fax line. While we have a fax machine at home, it’s never in Receive mode because it shares a line with our other phones.

I like writing on the train, as mentioned in this previous post. However, it’s nice to take a break and do other things sometimes. Here’s a list of the other ways I pass time on the train. Playing video games. The Sony Playstation Portable (PSP) that I have is great for passing time. Each game comes on a little UMD disc and so I can easily carry a library of games with me.

As I mentioned in earlier posts, I commute to the Chicago Loop now from West Dundee and that gives me almost 3 hours on the Metra Milwaukee District West Line train 5 days a week. That’s 15 hours on the train every week, folks - a longer commute than anyone should ever have. To make this lovely ride more bearable, I have started bringing Ahu’s laptop with me to work and spend at least 45 minutes of each ride writing articles for my various blogs.

I’ve read some articles on various blogs about how people are using GMail to maintain certain lists. GMail allows the “+” syntax on email addresses. For example, the two email addresses “potsie+Incubate@gmail.com” and “potsie+Goals@gmail.com” both get the email to “potsie@gmail.com”. However, the “+Incubate” and “+Goals” part of the address allows you to set up rules in GMail which automatically apply labels to incoming messages. So, continuing the above example, Potsie could create Incubate and Goals labels in his GMail account.