iyeronic

Our next Pulp Software iPhone application, Muezzin, has launched.

Muezzin is a prayer clock that shows you the times of the daily Islamic prayers, and the direction of the Qibla in a single elegant screen.

Muezzin automatically calculates prayer times using the location-finding capabilities of the iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPod Touch, or from any location you enter yourself.

You can get it from the iTunes App Store.

I can only beg the press to do this every time they ask a question. Watch the video for the painfully repetitive non-answer to what seems like a simple question.

Minneapolis Press Corp Grilling Sen. Norm Coleman’s campaign manager

Thanks to Jared for the link.

It was a very exciting day today for a number of reasons. One big one, though, is that Pulp Software, my iPhone-app side project, launched today.

The first app, Ellipses, a companion app for Scrabble and Boggle players, is now live and available for download in iTunes.

It is really gratifying to be able to share your work with other enthusiasts, even (or perhaps especially) for niche applications like Ellipses.

This is one of the most bizarre articles I’ve seen recently, with one of the best titles.

From the article:

It wasn’t just the caffeine that gave an Iowa woman an extra jolt after she had her morning coffee. It was also the bat she found in the filter.

Read the entire article here: Woman wakes up, should have smelled the coffee

We’re back from Alaska, and the trip was amazing. We biked, hiked, and drove our way across the state, from Anchorage to Denali National Park, and back again.

We even happened to stop in Wasilla, where Sarah Palin was mayor, on the same day she was named to the GOP ticket.

We were also to be able to see Mount McKinley, the tallest peak in North America at approximately 20,000 feet. McKinley actually creates its own weather and is usually shrouded in clouds, so we were lucky to see it at all.

We also saw a lot of wildlife, including couple of bears, several moose (including one that jumped in front of the car), mountain goats, sea lions, owls, and a bald eagle or two.

I’ve posted many of our trip photos to Flickr. Take a look in the Alaska Trip set.

The Alaska trip is only 3 weeks away. Everything is booked and ready to go.
The only obstacle? Clothing.

It is rainy in Alaska this time of year, and in addition we are going white water rafting.
So it is off to REI today to put someone’s kid through college on water-proof clothing.

I woke up today and promptly downloaded the iPhone 2.0 upgrade software for my first-gen iPhone. The download was flawless, the phone upgraded in no time, but the iTunes activation step is down and out.

Uggh.

Now I have no phone AND no iPod (at least for today).
I really hope they fix this soon. Much as I love the product, this is pretty weak-sauce.

Update: They fixed their servers, and everything is good again a couple of hours later.

I got this Indian/Bollywood themed State Farm ad in the mail the other day. I assume this is supposed to appeal to me ethnically… but really, could it be any cheesier?

I found a really cool interactive graphic from the New York times showing how the average American consumer spends their income.

Click here to go to the actual New York Times interactive graphic - It lets you examine each spending bubble interactively.

I made it through the movie. Overall, not a bad time. There were some funny parts, and in general, I was entertained/not bored.

Several times, however, I felt like I was watching a foreign language film. People were laughing and going crazy around me, and I had no idea what set them off. One woman (located conveniently in the seat right behind me) squealed at every line and sort of spasmodically kicked my seat when the jokes were especially on target.

The beauty of it is that I later asked Shortbread (who is a fan, and watched 5+ seasons of the show) what was setting people off, and she couldn’t figure it out either.