I'm not one of those techie geeks who thinks that everyone should be using only Firefox. I do think it is more secure than Internet Explorer but to each his own - I have had clients get viruses through each of the major browsers and don't really have significantly different experiences with clients who use Firefox. When Internet Explorer breaks, though, I usually switch over to Firefox, which is why I started using it years ago. What has kept me on it is AdblockPlus, a free addon that, well, blocks ads. And annoying flashing graphics stuff.

So it was with sadness that I almost had to abandon Firefox a while back. Downloads were randomly coming down corrupted, which was annoying. Eventually an update somewhere seems to have fixed that but then Firefox started slowing to a crawl and became difficult to use. I recently changed my email system over to Google Apps from Lotus Notes (that will be the subject of another blog post) and have been using Chrome extensively for that, but I wanted to keep Firefox alive too. Enter SpeedyFox, a free download from CrystalIdea. Firefox profiles are stored in a SQLITE database that becomes fragmented over time. A quick run of SpeedyFox cleans that up and now Firefox seems as good as new. Whew...

I think I have to finally admit it - somehow it appears that I've turned into an Apple fanboy. I know, I know - if you've been reading my blog or talked to me it's kind of obvious. Am I the only one who is shocked by this? Are there support groups? Is it OK that there are now 2 iPhones, an iPad 2, 2 Apple TV's (running XBMC), a few iPods, and now a 13" MacBook Air in the house? Does that REALLY make me a... yeah, forget it - I see where this is going.

Honestly, I'm fairly platform agnostic when it comes to a lot of things. The vast overwhelming majority of my clients run Windows machines on business networks and it's all I've ever known or needed so there just hasn't been a good reason for me to even look in the Mac direction.

Then along came my first iPhone, finally. And my interest in developing iPhone (and later, iPad) apps. In order to program for iDevices you need to have a Mac. Even then, though, I made do with PCs and PC hardware. My first Mac was a virtual machine running on my Windows computer. Not the easiest thing to set up (especially with an AMD processor) but I got it working reasonably well enough to do development on. It was convenient to be able to still use my keyboard, mouse, and multiple monitors.

My second Mac, not too long after the first, was a Hackintosh, built on an old Dell laptop with a smashed screen. That was more difficult to make work than the virtual machine, but eventually I prevailed (I always win) and used it hooked up to an external monitor. It was more convenient working on the virtual machine though. Except for the occasional freezing up. My illustrious iOS development career never materialized and the Macs laid dormant for a while.

Lately, though, I've started to talk to a startup company that needs an iOS developer (more on that later.) I cranked up the ol' virtual Mac and tried to upgrade it to the latest version of Lion so that I could install the latest iOS development platform, Xcode 4.2. Unfortunately that was the upgrade that broke the computers back and I was never able to get it working. I did get a version working on a computer with an Intel processor but that's not quite what I need.

Well, looks to me like a good excuse to buy some new hardware, so off to the Apple Store I went. I've been intrigued by the MacBook Airs since they were released but never really had a good excuse to buy one. Then I got my first iPad and had even less excuse. I did some research and debated between the Air and the Pro, then at the store I played with each for a while, but I just really like the hardware on the Air. I eventually ended up with a 13" Air with a 256 GB SSD drive.

So far it has been... interesting. I'm still very used to Windows and there are some things about Windows 7 that I really like a lot better than the Mac equivalent. The biggest one being the menu bar - what is up with it always being at the top of the screen? It's really not efficient to have to constantly go all the way over there to get to what I would have thought should stay with the program window. I'll probably get used to it though.

The Air is primarily going to be for iOS programming and any time I need a remote laptop, which is virtually never. I haven't really carried a laptop with me for years, and if I need anything more than my iPhone provided then I had my iPad. But we'll see if this becomes more useful. My go-to machine is still going to be my Windows 7 Ultimate desktop with 4 22" monitors. Yes, you read that right - and I use every inch of every monitor. It's tough getting used to just one screen on the Air. I could hook up an external monitor but that will require a special cable.

One last thing for now - the hardware really is quite remarkable. Such a thin, light machine, and yet it literally takes only 1 finger to raise the lid. The backlit keyboard has a great feel to it, and the multitouch touchpad is pretty amazing.

The FAA has just approved iPads for use in airline cockpits in all phases of flight. American Airlines has been testing iPads, with FAA approval, since the summer. So now a 1.5 lb iPad can replace about 35 lbs worth of paper charts, saving an estimated $1.2 million of fuel each year. And the backs of countless pilots.

Starting Friday American Airlines will begin rolling out iPads to pilots in B-777 aircraft. Both iPad 1 and iPad 2 have been approved. Other airlines are also evaluating tablet use in the cockpit and I'm sure they won't be far behind.

I've been using my iPad 2 in my own cockpit for months now in my Grumman Tiger and would never go back to paper charts. In the event of a failure (which has never happened other than the odd crash requiring a quick restart) I have charts on my iPhone as well.

Thanks, FAA - welcome to the future!

It's that time again - Navigon GPS is again on sale for iOS devices. A couple times a year Navigon reduces its prices by $10-$20. This time they have also updated to version 2.0 with some nice new features. My favorite is map management. No longer do you have to carry around tons of extra data that you don't need. Simply pick out the states you want and download those. Change at any time (preferably while on WiFi.) Navigon now has a fresh new interface as well.

I have tried a lot of different GPS apps for my iPhone and iPad and have consistently settled on Navigon for my ground-based navigation (airplane navigation is another story and there are some great options there, too.) The sale won't last long so grab it while it's hot. BTW, if you are updating from an earlier version of Navigon it looks like people are complaining that everything is getting reset - home address, favorites, etc. So be prepared.

Navigon comes in many different flavors, including just a portion (1/3) of the US for $19.99, the entire US for $29.99, all of North America for $39.99, as well as other countries. There are a handful of in-app purchases available too. Search for Navigon in the App Store on your iDevice.

Sometimes it's the little things in life that really get you. Sorry, but after spending hundreds of dollars on my iPhone, iPod, or iPad, I'm just not spending another $0.99 or $1.29 for custom ringtones. What is this, the early 2000's when buying ringtones was all the rage? Never fear, though, there is a method to getting around this. The key is that iTunes understands that DRM-free AAC songs with the "m4r" extension are ringtones. The following procedure (adapted from another website that I subsequently lost) will do the trick. It was done using iTunes 10.5 on Windows 7 for my iPhone 4S running iOS 5 (but should work for other configurations as well):

1. In iTunes, right click on the song from which you want to create a ringtone or alert tone and select “Get Info.”
2. Go to the options tab and go down to the “Start Time” and “Stop Time” check boxes. Check both boxes and input the time you want your ringtone to start/stop (it should not be more than 30 seconds for Ringtones or 1-3 seconds for Alert tones). Click OK when you’re done.
3. Right click on your newly “clipped” song and select “Create AAC Version”. If your menu item is set to create another format such as AIFF or MP3, go to Edit > Preferences > General > Import Settings (you'll find that at the end of the "When you insert a CD" line) and change the “Import Using” drop down menu to “AAC Encoder”.  The song will be re-encoded using the start and stop times you chose.
4. After the song is done encoding navigate to your iTunes Music folder in Windows Explorer and locate your song. If you don't know where it is, right click on the clipped song in iTunes and "Get Info". The bottom of that window has the path to the song. For Mac users - right click on the clipped song in iTunes and click on Show in Finder. Drag the song to your desktop. After the song is on your desktop go back to iTunes and delete the clipped version from your iTunes library (it won’t be deleted  from your desktop, just removed from iTunes.)
5. Go back the song on your desktop, right click on your song and choose “Properties.” Go to the name and extension section and change the extension from .m4a to .m4r (or you can just change the extension right from your desktop)
6. After the extension is changed simply double click on the file to add it back into your iTunes library. It will show up under the ringtones section. Click on your device, go to the Ringtones tab and make sure that Sync Ringtones is checked, then sync your iPhone.
7. Use your new ringtone by going to Settings > Sounds and choosing whatever ringtone or alert you would like to change. The new ringtone will show up at the top of the “Ringtones” section.