rinzai a site for raven zachary

Focusing on the iPhone

Today marks a turn in my professional life focusing on the iPhone. I have launched raven.me. The site provides interesting iPhone content to the general public and promotes my iPhone advisory business and other iPhone-related pursuits.

For those of you who know me as the founder of iPhoneDevCamp, this will probably not come as much of a surprise. Over the past few weeks, a number of professional opportunities relating to the iPhone have emerged that are too compelling to pass up. Some of these projects I can’t talk about just yet, but I am looking forward to sharing them with you as soon as I able to.

For those of you who have known me as the Open Source Research Director for The 451 Group over the past 2.5 years, I am transitioning to a role in the company as Contributing Analyst, focusing on supporting our existing open source clients. This is a part-time role. Jay Lyman and Matt Aslett carry on with the open source research work, while I help out in an advisory capacity only.

Twitter users: I have launched a new Twitter identity, ravenme, where I will do all of my iPhone coverage and networking. The ravenzachary account will remain for Portland friends, general topics, and miscellaneous issues.

There’s more I could say, but I’d rather just have you take a look around the site and see for yourself. I’m hopeful that you’ll find something useful there.

My $837.20 iPhone bill and how to avoid it

As I was preparing for another trip to London in late May, I decided to take along my iPhone this time instead of using a UK SIM card in my old Sony Ericsson phone. I called AT&T the day before my trip and activated the AT&T World Traveler dialing plan for $5.99 for cheaper voice calls and the 20MB Data Global Plan for iPhone for $24.99 so I could receive email and use the web. I made it clear to the AT&T sales rep that I was going to London for the next seven days and intended to only use the service for the minimum one month billing period. The sales rep told me to call when I returned to the United States and cancel the two plans so that I would not be continually charged $30.98 per month. Total phone time: one hour.

Three days into my trip, I called the international customer service number to check on how much of my data plan I had used. Not surprisingly, I was over the 20MB plan at 27MB in just a few days, so I asked to upgrade to the 50MB Data Global Plan for iPhone for $59.99 to avoid massive overage fees for the trip. Before I was off the call, the agent told me that they had ‘prorated’ my service based on the billing cycle and that I was only allocated 7MB for the billing cycle instead of the full 20MB I purchased. What?! I was on the hook for hundreds of dollars in data fees and the best option was to wait until I returned to the United States with the bill for that billing cycle in-hand. Total phone time: two hours.

I received the bill today - $837.20. The vast majority of that cost was for international data usage - surprise, surprise. I called AT&T and walked through the story again - I called the day before my trip, explained I would be traveling for seven days to the UK, and would cancel service upon my return. I have no idea why AT&T would prorate a service when I made it clear what the intended service period would be. In the end, AT&T waived all of my international data fees, but it was clear that this was one of those rare exceptions. Total phone time: one hour.

Four hours total on the phone with AT&T - setting up the service, checking, investigating, and finally arguing my case with AT&T ended up saving me hundreds of dollars.

So, here is my advice to you, international iPhone traveler:

* Disable international data roaming altogether (it’s a preference in the iPhone, Settings > General > Network > Data Roaming). It should be disabled, by default. Avoid the temptation. As a point of reference, a 20MB email attachment over EDGE or GPRS internationally costs $100 once you go past your 20MB or 50MB allotment. I am told that cost is substantially higher over 3G.

* Rely upon Wifi, instead of EDGE or 3G service. You’re going to save money even if you have to buy Wifi access on occasion to download your email. It’s a convenience to get email continuously, sure, but as I said already, avoid the temptation.

* If you absolutely must get the Data Global Plan for iPhone, make sure to get clarity from the sales rep about how proration is going to impact you. I was only given 7MB for my billing cycle even though I purchased 20MB! Call the free international AT&T customer service number (916.843.4685) regularly to get an international data usage amount and prepare to upgrade from 20MB to 50MB if needed. Understand that email attachments, which are out of your control, could easily eat up your allotment.

* AT&T does publish a useful iPhone Travel Tips guide, which I highly recommend before you proceed.

Good luck!

Starbucks Card Rewards Program

Free syrups and soy in your drinks, and two free hours of Wifi access per day at Starbucks for no cost! Here’s how…

Walk into a Starbucks. Get a Starbucks Card with some credit on it (I did $10). Login to starbucks.com, activate the card, and then join the Starbucks Rewards program with the free optional Wifi access. Simple.

As my drink of choice at Starbucks is a Soy Vanilla Latte, and I like to work from there for a bit, I just saved a bunch of money joining this program without it costing me anything really, other than having a balance of greater than $0 on my Starbucks Card.

Tonight is Ignite Portland 3

Tonight is Ignite Portland 3 in Portland, Oregon. This event is produced by Legion of Tech, a non-profit dedicated to growing and nurturing the Portland tech community. I serve on the organization’s board of directors. We’ve got a great line-up tonight of 13 speakers covering topics such as cheap cars, carbon offsets, social brains, cranes, boiling water, noodles, fear, robots, ecolabels, startups, trash, freight trains, and making videos. Prior to these 13 great speakers, I will be doing the ‘What is Ignite?’ presentation.

I hope to see you there!

iPhoneDevCamp 2 Announcement

iPhoneDevCamp 2
August 1-3, 2008
Adobe Systems, San Francisco, CA

iPhoneDevCamp 2 is an upcoming not-for-profit gathering to develop applications for iPhone and iPod touch using both the native SDK and web standards. This is a follow-on event to the first iPhoneDevCamp, held in early July 2007. We are pleased that Adobe Systems has agreed to provide the venue again this year.

Attendees will include Cocoa Touch developers, web developers, UI designers, and testers, all working together over the weekend. Development projects will include both solo and team efforts. While some attendees will wish to work solo during the event, we encourage attendees to team up, based on expertise, to work in ad-hoc project development teams. All attendees should be prepared to work on a development project during the event.

Attendees will be able to:

* Create new applications for iPhone and iPod touch.
* Migrate Mac OS X applications to iPhone and iPod touch.
* Test and optimize applications for iPhone and iPod touch.

We have some exciting things in store this year - a few things we’re not quite ready to announce, but check back reguarly for updates on the event.

We are sensitive to the NDA that Apple has in place on the iPhone SDK. It is our hope that Apple will lift this NDA shortly after the public launch of the App Store. iPhoneDevCamp 2 will be held one month after the launch of the App Store. We have no intention of violating the terms that individual developers have in place with Apple on the iPhone SDK.

Confirmed sponsors so far include Adobe Systems, gogo apps, RadTech, Belkin, iLounge, Core Cases, Viewzi, ANSCA Mobile, The Apple Phone Show, and iWipes. We’re actively looking for additional sponsors to help make iPhoneDevCamp 2 a success. This is a not-for-profit event and 100% of sponsor dollars are used to pay for event costs.

The organizers of iPhone Dev Camp 2 include Raven Zachary, Dominic Sagolla, Christopher Allen, Chris Messina, Bart Decrem, whurley (William Hurley), and Blake Burris.

iPhoneDevCamp is not affiliated with Apple, Inc.

Volunteer at BarCamp Portland 2008

BarCamp Portland 2008 is just a few days away, and we’re looking for more volunteers to make sure the event runs smoothly. I am responsible for event logistics this year and that includes volunteers. There are four volunteers teams - take a look below and let me know if you are interested in helping out. I’d like to get the volunteers finalized by Thursday afternoon. I have been out sick for the past few days which has resulted in some unexpected delays in getting volunteers finalized.

One important thing to mention - we really need volunteers to commit to all time slots listed per team - we’d rather not have to manage a little bit of this and a little bit of that with individual volunteers, this makes for a lot of complexity with 12-20 volunteers over the course of the weekend. We really hope you’ll have the availability to serve the full team schedule.

Take a look at the information below and then send me an email (raven@rinzai.com) with your name, team preference, and mobile phone number if you’re interested in joining a volunteer team.

NOTE: The volunteer teams shouldn’t have to worry about missing out on BarCamp sessions as the time slots rarely overlap with session time slots (the Food Team has a small amount of overlap).

Setup Team
4-6 volunteers total
Friday: 4-7pm & Saturday: 8-10am & Sunday: 8-10am

The Setup Team is responsible for preparing the venue for the day, setting up and working the registration and badge station before the sessions begin, setting out the breakfast, and managing the t-shirt sales (only during pre-sessions). One volunteer from this group will need to pick up the breakfast order at Kettleman Bagels on the way to the venue on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The Setup Team gets to show up at the event before the public arrives and eat breakfast first. Beat the rush!

Cleanup Team
4-6 volunteers total
Friday: 10-11pm & Saturday: 11pm-12midnight & Sunday: 3-4pm

The Cleanup Team is responsible for de-cluttering the venue after each day, putting tables and chairs back into place and working with the CubeSpace staff on daily shutdown tasks. This is not deep cleaning, but straightening. The Cleanup Team gets to stay until the very end after everyone else is kicked out.

Food Team (Food Setup & Cleanup)
4-6 volunteers total
Friday: 5-7pm & Saturday: 12:30pm-2:30pm & Saturday 5:30pm-7:30pm & Sunday: 12noon-1pm

The Food Team is responsible for setup and cleanup of non-breakfast meals/snacks, restocking food items, storage of leftovers, and loading and unloading the dishwasher. The Food Team gets to eat first. The food team lead is Eva Schweber from CubeSpace.

Agenda Team
1 volunteer total
Friday: 8-10pm & Saturday: 9-10am & Sunday: 9-10am (plus occasional agenda reviews)
The Agenda Team…err person will be responsible for entering the session calendar on the wall at BarCamp into the online calendar for easy access by attendees online. The Agenda Team lead is Selena Deckelmann.

Thank you!

Travel Varlet

Tomorrow morning, I wake up at 5 AM and begin the most complicated travel week of my life. Here we go…

Monday, March 24th

Portland to San Jose

Various meetings in Silicon Valley and San Francisco

Tuesday, March 25th

Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) in San Francisco
Moderate a panel - The Future of the Operating System

Various meetings in San Francisco with clients

Wednesday, March 26th

Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) in San Francisco
Moderate a panel - Converting the Open Source Lead Funnel

Various meetings in San Francisco with clients

Red-eye flight from San Francisco to Philadelphia

Thursday, March 27th

Sleep for a few hours in the hotel

Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise in Philadelpia
Give a talk - The State of the Open Source Industry

In Philadelphia for less than 12 hours

Flight from Philadelphia to Seattle

Friday, March 28th

Sleep for a few hours in the hotel

Microsoft Open Source Day at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington
Give a talk - The Current State of Open Source

Various meetings in Seattle with clients

Flight from Seattle to Portland

(and then I’m off to NYC two days later…*sigh*)

Panic Park

Last night, a group of folks from the Portland tech scene had dinner together at Kinta, an excellent Malaysian restaurant on SE Belmont. Everytime I eat at Kinta, I am hypnotized by the lights across the street at the Avalon Theater. The outside of the building advertises the best 5 cent video games anywhere. As it was a Friday night with no responsibilities, I couldn’t resist going over to the Avalon after dinner to explore. My wife had already taken the two younger kids home, and so I went to the Avalon with Aodan and Xander, and with Dawn Foster and Todd Kenefsky, who were equally curious.

Basically, you pay a small entrance fee, and then use nickels on a variety of games, most of which dispense tickets for prizes similar to Chuck E. Cheese. After using up a bunch of nickels (bags of nickels are sold inside), we discovered another room in the complex, mostly stocked with non-ticket dispensing video games. The highlight of the night was definitely Panic Park, an unusual Japanese video game that pits two players against each other. The controls of the two-player game are levers, which allow you to bump the other player. Unfortunately, the only video I could find of this game on YouTube (see below) does not include the controls, only the screen. However, you can make out the red and blue levers from the Coin Express sales page.

If you’re in Portland and you’re looking for some entertainment, I highly recommend a visit to the Avalon to play Panic Park. Just make sure that whoever you are playing with is about the same physical strength as you are, or you’ll find the game play horribly unbalanced.

Update (03/22/08): I found a photo on Flickr that shows two players competing in the game.

Back to WordPress

Ok - I finished up most of the migration last night from Chyrp back to WordPress. Before I can switch to a new theme, I need to remove all of the hard-coded header and footer modifications (e.g. Favicon, Meta Tags, Google Analytics, etc.) and move the data into Plugins and Widget text boxes so that the code is portable across Themes.

That’s my project for tonight.

To borrow an analogy…

WordPress has the momentum. Chyrp is going through an upheaval in its short history - the developer is moving away from PHP, a scripting language I actually can hack around in with comfort. As soon as I can find a few hours, I am moving back to WordPress. I’ll probably choose a WordPress theme resembling Tumblr (which attracted me to Chyrp in the first place). Thankfully, the number of posts I’ve added into Chyrp has been limited. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I still think Chyrp has a huge potential. Keep an eye on the project - chyrp.net.