The iPhone is a Gateway Drug
Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 09:46PM It started innocently actually, which is what every addict says at some point, when they realize they are addicted.
Everyone around me had iPods in all flavors, sizes, colors and storage capacities and I steadfastly held on to my Zune and Microsoft-centric products. I actually like them, and I probably still would still be using them had it not been for the pesky little iPhone I bought my partner for Christmas, then, he dumped me.
I still have the card neatly gift wrapped from Apple. It's a white little envelope with a bright red ribbon around it. It's so cute and a constant reminder of something although at this point I am not sure what. A lesson maybe, but I'm still not sure what kind.
The iPhone was under my elaborate Christmas tree no one ever sees because no one visits me and it didn't stay there long. I downloaded iTunes and activated it and thus began my obsession with Apple. A lot of people thought it was bound to happen and long over due.
It's funny now how people with iPhones gravitate to people with iPhones. All of my friends have one and I have made some new friends just because they have one. We shun others that have inferior phones, and pity those with Razr's. We take them out when we are bored with our company as a subtle reminder to those around us that what is waiting for us on our iPhones is slightly more important than they are.
We prominently display them on restaurant tables and on the bars of clubs.
We TXT/SMS more than we call and it has become our primary method of communication.
;-/
Then came the iPhone accessories. Cases, bluetooth headsets, Bose headphones, holsters, and applications from the AppStore. Around the Spring I got the strangest impression that I was missing something when I connected my iPhone to my Dell laptop. Luckily it died on me and I had to replace it with a MacBook Pro. In my mind, I had no other alternative.
Just when I had satisfied my Apple appetite, Jonathan Ive and Steve Jobs slaps me in the face with the 3G. I had no choice to upgrade. Black. 8gig. All new accessories, of course.
My friend DramaCop talked me down from a iMac 24" ledge last Friday. My thoughts were focused on my ancillary obsession of developing applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms, and the need to have a larger screen for development. If you are not a programmer, then you wouldn't understand. Luckily, he kept me busy just long enough for BestBuy to close.
Now I have my eyes on an AppleTV and a Time Machine to protect all of those precious episodes of The West Wing I have downloaded from iTunes.
I'm not so sure there is an end although I had a break though this week; Mr. Jobs announced a new line of iPods on Tuesday and I walked away from the podcast feeling dull and numb. No breakthrough product. No new Newton. Some may call it a first step. I call it a lull.
Displaying a Long List of Values from a Parameter in a Header or Footer
Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 06:01PM Almost two years ago today, I posted a journal entry, Listing All Values from a Multi-value Parameter in a Header or Footer, which detailed how to use the JOIN function to list out all of the items that a user had selected so that when the report was printed or exported, they would know which values had been selected.
I recently had a situation where the users of my application were selecting all of the items in the list, filling up and overflowing the footer section of the report, producing an on-screen error.
You can prevent this by creating a custom expression in the textbox that contains the list of values that the user has selected.
=IIF(Parameters!EE.Count = Count(Fields!expEleCd.Value, "All Expense Elements"), "All", IIF(Join(Parameters!EE.Value, ", ").Length > 60, LEFT(Join(Parameters!EE.Value, ", "), 60) & "..." , Join(Parameters!EE.Value, ", ")))
The expression uses nested immediate IF functions (IIF) and the COUNT function to compare the number of available values to the number of values actually selected.
If the user selected all of the available values of the parameter, then "All Expense Elements" is returned.
If not, then the second immediate IF checks to see if the string of values created by the JOIN function is longer than sixty characters. If true, then the list is shortened and an ellipsis (…) is appended to the end of the string. If it isn't longer than sixty characters, it returns the values that the user selected separated by commas.
The Apple iPhone Legitimized the Blackberry
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 12:57PM Apple announced weeks ago that the iPhone, a revolutionary new cellular phone platform, would be taking corporate users seriously and integrating the missing pieces into the upcoming release of the new operating system version 2.0.
While Exchange email/contacts/tasks/note synchronization, remote management and security is, in fact, a big deal and has made the Blackberry ubiquitous in the enterprise, the iPhone has a long way to go to become an enterprise tool in traditional corporate America. While cutting edge firms like technically savvy upstarts, media, marketing and places where only the hip survive it will thrive, the iPhone with its sleek design and obviously placed logo carries a stigma which attaches itself to the behavior of the owner.
I myself have experienced it.
I personally own an iPhone for personal use and a Blackberry for work; not really by choice. It doesn't matter who or where but use a Blackberry and everyone knows you are moving mountains, making deals, putting out fires and perhaps, firing someone. You shouldn't be disturbed because you are working.
Get in a meeting and play with your Blackberry and you are a mover and a shaker and the fact that you are not paying attention is condoned because "he's on his Blackberry". Produce an iPhone and everyone immediately assumes you couldn't possibly be working on anything productive and "he played through the meeting on his phone".
These comments used to be reserved for the Blackberry users but with the addition of the iPhone to the market, the Blackberry moved from an annoyance to a business tool.
The Crackberry addiction stigma transference occurred because, just like the Blackberry, they are addictive, but now the iPhone made the Blackberry legitimate.