I've just started working on a new project using ExpressionEngine, a PHP-based content management system. I didn't really know a whole lot about it going in (it was the client's choice to use EE), but from what I've seen so far it's a pretty decent piece of software.

Being a CMS, it sits somewhere between blogging software like WordPress, and a framework like Django. Basically this means that it's much more structured than Django, proving a lot more blogging and related functionality out of the box but still much more flexible than WordPress allowing for a lot more freedom in the creation of your website. So far it seems like they've struck a good balance, providing a relatively shallow learning curve while still giving you a lot of powerful features.

Of course, for me, I found the more structured nature of it to be a bit restrictive. Also, I just don't get some of the choices they made. For example, your URLs, while readable and search engine friendly, all look like 'domain.tld/index.php/blog/archive/&c;'. Not a bad URL, but why on Earth is that 'index.php' in there? If they're going to use URL re-writing to provide nice URLs, why do they leave that useless bit of information in there? It's not like it would have been any harder for them to have taken it out. Also, the only obvious way to edit templates is through their web-based control panel. I'm sure there's really nothing stopping me from going in with an FTP client or via SSH and editing the text files directly, but they don't even hint at where you would want to look to do that (and as I didn't install it on the server myself I have no experience with the directly structure). Neither of these problems is a big deal, or a big obstacle to someone who knows what they're doing and wants to change it, but they just seem like very strange design decisions to me.

Overall, however, I think it looks like a pretty good system, and very good way to rapidly build a flexible and highly useful CMS. I don't know that it'll ever be my first choice for a project, as anything I can do with EE I can also do with Django, and in a way that's more intuitive (though probably has a higher initial investment of time), and anything that I don't need that level of flexibility and power for, I'd probably just use WordPress. But still, it's a nice piece of software, and I can definitely see how it would be a very good choice for a lot of people.

If you didn't already know, WordPress has released an (free) iPhone app. I'm writing this post from it.

So far it seems pretty cool. All the basic functionality is there, plus a few really cool features like live previews that work exactly as they do when you're editing online, and, even better, the ability to add pictures either from your iPhone's library or directly from the camera. I'll test that out now:

Ah, apparently the picture(s) will simply be attached to the bottom of the post. Makes sense. If you're wondering, that's Dexter, our crosseyed kitten, named after the eponymous serial killer hero of the amazingly awesome Showtime show of the same name (which is based on the novel(s) by Jeff Lindsay which are, sadly, not nearly as good as the show).

The iPhone's auto-correcting type is very useful here. Sadly, it's not all that great for manually entering HTML, which is how I prefer to do things (and, as far as I can tell, the only way to do things with the iPhone app).

Anyway, the app is, in my opinion, pretty great. Anyone with a WordPress blog and an iPhone should get it.

I hadn't even started thinking about it, but in the course of writing my last post about Sean Tevis, I just happened to find a very interesting Boston Herald article from the first of this month: Christy Mihos unveils 2010 bid for Mass. governor.

If you were reading my blog around the time of the last Massachusetts gubernatorial election (or, as I called it Mass Guber '06), you'll know that I was a pretty big Mihos supporter at the time. Although his campaign website hasn't yet been updated to reflect his renewed candidacy (though it does have the new www.christy2010.com URL), I'm going to go ahead and assume that I still agree with most (though not all) of his positions, and probably that there won't be any other contenders in the race that I'm likely to consider voting for (though I did like Gabrielli last time around).

So, as of this moment, I'm announcing my official support for Christy Mihos for Governor of Massachusetts, as well as the beginning of my coverage of Mass Guber '10!

Sean Tevis is running for state representative in Kansas. Why do I, who have only ever been to Kansas once and that was only because it was in my way trying to get from Texas to Minnesota, care about Kansas politics? Well, I don't really. But I do care about greater civic involvement in politics in general. And I also think that it's almost always a good thing to get new blood into politics and replace incumbents. So when a number of different people all linked me to his XKCD-style campaign advertisement I actually read it the whole way through and then read the rest of his site. He doesn't go into a whole lot of detail on the issues he's written about so far, and he hasn't written about that many issues yet, but what he's got up there now, I like the sound of. If I lived in the right district in Kansas, there's a decent chance I'd vote for him. And I might just donate $8.34 to his campaign because, not only do I like what he's doing, but he made me laugh while he's doing it.

Plus, he's got this great blog entry.

As those in the Boston area are probably aware, this years Summer Restaurant Week is fast approaching. This year it will be two weeks, those of August 10 through August 15 and August 17 though August 22. If you've been reading my blog for a while you may know that one year ago, almost to the day (off by 5) I announced that I had helped work on BostonChefs.com's Unofficial Guide to Restaurant Week. Well, this year I'm announcing the same thing.

The site just went live with all the information you might want about what's going on with this Summer's Restaurant Week including the restaurants that are participating, what meals they'll be serving, what's on their menus (where available), and a Google Maps mashup to help you find them. The site has been completely redeveloped and is now powered by Django, making this my first Django-based project to go live! (Not counting my own website, of course.)

Go check it out, and bon appetit!

I just got off the phone with the California DMV. That's right, the California DMV not the Massachusetts RMV that I've already spent countless hours waiting in line at or on the phone with.

As you may recall, I recently (and after many many failed attempts due entirely to problems on the RMV's end of things) converted my California driver licence to a Massachusetts one. In doing so, they managed to forget my motorcycle endorsement. Having put quite a lot of time, effort, and money into getting that endorsement in the first place I wasn't really all that interested in losing it for no good reason. After two relatively pleasant chats with a woman at the RMV they sent me the paperwork I needed and told me that all I had to do was take it into a branch office and they'd be able to take care of it.

So yesterday I went into the RMV branch at the Cambridgeside Galleria. They're open until 7, and I got there at about 5:30. After waiting in line for a scant 45 minutes I gave them my paperwork and explained what was going on. The woman behind the counter told me that, unfortunately, she'd have to call into the Boston branch office which had closed at 5 so I'd have to come back the next day (today) before 5 to take care of it. So today I went back in. I got there at two and spent maybe 10 minutes waiting in line. The same woman was there and she called the Boston office. They told her that before they could correct the mistake that they made, I would have to call the California DMV and request that they send a copy of my driving record over to them. Hence my call to the California DMV. Unfortunately, the woman I talked to at the California DMV told me that I'd have to submit a form and pay a $5 fee before they would send my driving record.

The form and check will, of course, have to be mailed in, so who knows how long this is going to take. What I want to know is exactly how much of my money is being wasted on this crap. Is this really what I'm paying taxes for? Is it really worth the effort for me to be a law abiding citizen when I could probably have a motorcycle with invalid but normal looking plates illegally in no more than a couple hours if I really wanted to?

With all my posts about the new iPhone software that I've got installed on my first-gen iPhone (and I do mean first-gen, it's a 4 GB), the question still remains of if I'll upgrade my hardware as well. There's definitely some good arguments either way, but my answer, at this point, is a resounding maybe.

To be honest, I don't really care about the 3G data speeds. EDGE is by no means blazingly fast, but it meets my needs sufficiently well that I'm don't feel the need to upgrade just for the faster data network. The feature that really does attract me, however, is the GPS functionality. The built-in Google maps feature that I've got now is nice, and certainly a lot more convenient than having to look up direction on your computer and print them out, but it's definitely less useful than it could be largely because it requires user input to be of any use. You have to take your eyes off the road and your hand off the wheel/shifter so you can see have it show you the next step in the directions. Because of that limitation I have been, for a while now, seriously considering buying a TomTom GPS navigation device for the car.

The existence of real GPS on the iPhone, however, calls that plan into question. Especially as the price of a TomTom is greater than or equal to the price of a new iPhone minus the proceeds I might get from selling the one I've got. Yesterday AutoBlog posted a review of the GPS functionality on the iPhone. Apparently it leaves a bit to be desired, and doesn't actually do anything more than the old iPhone does except have a more accurate idea of where you are and put a moving dot on the map to show your position along the route. It doesn't automatically tell you what the next step in the directions are, you still have to do that yourself. So with things as they are, there's really no reason for me to even consier getting an iPhone 3G. It offers no compelling new features for me.

But wait! Just before the iPhone 3G was released, TomTom announced that they were working on porting their software to an iPhone app! When they made this announcement there was all sorts of speculation as to why it would never work. Some insisted that the iPhone SDK agreement forbid the development of navigation apps. Some insisted that the iPhone 3G's GPS antenna wasn't good enough to provide turn-by-turn directions. Since then, however, there's been clarification from both Apple and TomTom that there is no legal or technical barrier to this happening. TomTom reports that they've got the software pretty much working as well.

So I think it's just a matter of time (weeks, hopefully) before we see the iPhone becoming a fully featured GPS navigation device. Even better, it will be a GPS navigation device with internet access! That means that all of the advanced features that TomTom currently offers (if you have a compatible bluetooth enabled phone) should work including real-time traffic reports and, what I think is one of the coolest, buddies!

So basically, if the TomTom software proves to work well, I'll probably get an iPhone 3G. If it doesn't, I probably won't, at least not until either TomTom or someone else does get a good GPS navigation app out there. Assuming, of course, that I don't get tired of waiting and just buy a TomTom device.

I wasn't really intending to write a whole lot more about the new iPhone software, but I've actually seen a fairly huge spike in traffic since my first iPhone 2.0 post and I feel like I should probably pass this info along. It appears that the earlier, pre-release 2.0 software that I downloaded and installed on my iPhone to great effect the other day may have been intended for the iPhone 3G only. This isn't confirmed, but since we do have an official release now, it's probably not a bad idea to install that instead (I just finished doing so myself). Again, MacRumors has the download link and instructions for doing so.

Yeah, yeah, 3 posts about the iPhone in two days, and you still can't even buy the 3G iPhone yet! But I was taking advantage of the new iTunes remote last night as we had some company and so were in the living room and wanted music playing there without having to go into the office to mess with the computer. One of the nice (and necessary, really) features of the remote app is that it lets you turn on and off any speakers available on the network. In our case it's just the computer itself and the living room, though eventually I'd like to put some on the back deck and in the kitchen. This makes it a breeze to have your music play on any subset of available speakers. But what would be really cool is if it had the ability to determine which set of speakers you were closest too (shouldn't be too hard, just see which AirPort Express base station you get the strongest signal from) and automatically switch the music to the appropriate speakers. That way as you walked around the house your music would follow you. Of course you could always just play it on all your sets of speakers, but what kind of fun would that be?

It didn't take very long, but I found a bug in the iPhone 2.0 software. It's nothing major, but a bit of a pain. Basically, if you install an app via iTunes rather than directly on the iPhone, or if you install it on the iPhone then have iTunes transfer it to your computer when you sync (it asks you), you have to then delete it from both places if you want to get rid of it. If you delete it from only the iPhone or only from iTunes a sync results it in being back in both locations. I imagine this will probably be fixed relatively quickly.

Thanks to a tip on MacRumors, I've now got the 2.0 firmware running on my iPhone. This means I've got apps! Without resorting to jailbreaking! So far, I've got to say it's pretty slick. I've only got a few apps installed so far, but the app store works incredibly well (you can see reviews of it and videos of it on Gizmodo).

For me, there are two apps that are absolute must haves: the iTunes remote and the Pandora app. We have some speakers set up in the living room via AirTunes on an AirPort Express so that when we have company we can play music in the living room without having to drag a computer out there or something like that. The only drawback to that setup has been that someone needs to get up and go into the office to change the music. No more! Now we can just whip out one of our iPhones and take care if it from right there. Now if only it were possible to play music over AirTunes with an iPhone so that a friend who was over could play their own music if we wanted.

But even better than the remote app is the Pandora app. Pandora, if you don't know, is a website that basically helps you find awesome new music (kinda like OurStage, but it's music from big name artists). Basically you start a 'radio station' by seeding it with either an artist or song that you like. Pandora then picks songs for you based on the characteristics of that song (characteristics such as 'traditional blues melodies' and 'minor key tonality'). You can then rate songs with either a thumbs up or a thumbs down to help fine-tune the station. I've found a ton of good music thanks to Pandora, and now I've got access to it wherever I go (it didn't work before because the site is Flash based). Anyone who likes finding new music should definitely check it out. I find it especially useful for exploring new genres: just find a single song you like in that genre and it will help you find more. The iPhone app even has a button that lets you buy the current song/album in the iTunes store.

There are a few other features that the 2.0 firmware brings of course. Most notably is MobileMe, which gives push email, contacts, calendars, &c.; to MobileMe (previously .Mac) subscribers. I am a subscriber, but the new services aren't actually active yet so I haven't really been able to play around with that yet (But once they do go active I'll be faced with the conundrum of what to do about email. Currently I use Google Apps to manage my email which I really like and works really well, but using my mac.com email address would give me push email. Maybe Google will give us push eventually and I won't have to sacrifice their awesome spam filtering and the ability to host my own domain's email with them. Or maybe Apple will offer something similar.). The new firmware also gives us the ability to search contacts in our address book (and adds a Contacts icon to the main screen so you don't have to go through the phone just to find an email address). I'm sure there's all sorts of things that I haven't found yet too, but for now the only other thing I'll touch on is a better implementation of password field. Previously, when entering a password you had to either pay very close attention or just assume that you weren't hitting the wrong keys on the virtual keyboard. Now, however, it shows the last character that you entered and only hides the previous ones so you can tell if you've made a typo. Not huge, but a nice touch.