Full story here.

Like I announced some time ago, Mac-A-Doodle is moving over to the Inquirer.net blogging network, although I didn’t say when. Well, I’m saying it now: that move is sometime today, October 1, 2007.

Later today, this WordPress blog at this URL will freeze, and commenting and posting will move over to this new URL:

http://inquirerbloggers.net/macadoodle/

Please copy it, save it, bookmark it. It’ll be up within today, and from here on in, you can get your Mac-A-Doodle noodles there.

Over there at Inquirer Bloggers, Mac-A-Doodle will still be the same old blog, with a little different look, but that’s about it. All the previous stuff has been exported there (or in the process of being), so it’s still the full, unabridged MAD. You can come back here and poke through the old stuff, but you might as well do it there anyway. Up to now it’s all been me, but maybe I’ll start asking guest bloggers to help out now and then. For variety and more refreshing points of view other than this old coot’s.

It’s an important milestone for this blog – just five-and-a-half months old, it moves into a new, bigger neighborhood. But October 1 also marks a personal milestone for me. Here’s why:

I’m pretty busy these days. I personally edit a couple of magazines directly (a monthly and a quarterly), and help out on a third one (a monthly too). Being in charge of the whole editorial department, I supervise twenty other titles in our company. I write up to twenty or more articles and columns for some of these titles as well, every month.

I also blog for several of our sites, administer a forum, and on the personal side I help moderate three others. I also have my own personal blog, which has lain fallow for the past few months precisely because I have no time to blog for it (which is one big continuing regret of mine that I still hope to fix.)

Aside from all of these I am also a Writing/Communications Consultant for a big PR firm and train their writers and evaluate and edit their work. This takes up the little time I have outside of my day job. When there is any time left at all, I try to write some fiction. Short stories, that sort of thing (Number of stories I finished this past year: zip.)

And then there’s Mac-A-Doodle.

MAD is a personal project, which I do for my own pleasure. My fanboyism needs an outlet. In the beginning I was ok, but it rapidly became inconsistent, and I wrote for it spottingly. I enjoyed it big-time-plenty, but life often got in the way.

Three months ago, ruing the fact that MAD was going the way of my personal blog – which is to say, nowhere fast – I resolved to write in Mac-A-Doodle every single day of the week. At least one post, more if possible, for at least three consecutive months. Three. Full. Months. A full quarter of a year. No matter how busy I was, no matter where I went, even if I wasn’t getting paid for it.

I wanted to prove to myself that I could put my nose to the grindstone for MAD, and keep it there and not come up for air. I didn’t think I could do it, but I was willing to try.

Whaddaya know. Today, I complete that three month goal. I did it. Not just a post a day, but often two, sometimes three, and on occasion four or five. Go back and look if you don’t believe me. Hey, I don’t believe me.

And it so happened that within this three-month jag, inquirer.net asked me to join them. I said, ok, lets make it formal on October 1, the day my three-month self-imposed struggle ends. Only it hasn’t really ended. It’s more like it’s just started. With a bigger audience, the pressure is equally bigger too. Hey, I don’t mind. I’ve found I can do it after all.

It’s just a URL/bookmark/feed change for most of you folk, but for me this change means a lot. As much as your continued patronage. Thanks for reading, doodlers. I hope you continue to doodle at the new site.

Let’s go!

The intrepid gang at iPhone Dev have made a downgrade routine from Firmware Update 1.1.1 back to 1.0.2. It’s a bit complicated (they even recommend using a stopwatch at one point), but it works. They are currently working on a reunlock, bless ‘em. See the magic here.

(Hah. Knew they’d pull through!)

(Via WIRED)

A 13-minute short film by director Wes Anderson called The Hotel Chevalier is now up for free on the iTunes Store, starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman. It’s supposed to be a prologue/companion piece to Anderson’s forthcoming film The Darjeeling Limited.

Nice the things you find on iTunes, although Portman fans are specially excited about this one because it marks the first time on film Natalie shows up in her birthday suit, wearing nothing but bruises.

Download it here.

(Hmm. So let’s see you not click on the link now.)

Scared to update Keynote right now, since I have a big presentation this afternoon, so I’ll do it later. Did the others yesterday, details on the changes later (iMovie‘s much better now). As usual, no detailed info about any of them from Apple at the moment.

Am too rushed now to type them out neatly, so just look at the pics for the details of what they are and how big the downloads will be (check the relevant dates). The first batch (in the Installed Updates pic below) I installed yesterday, but forgot to blog about them.

All in all, nine updates. Wowza.

Gizmodo‘s got a great piece on the unlocking timeline done Star Wars style. Hilarious post. Great for relieving the tension while we all worry about the firmware update. Hey, I find it funny! If you don’t, TFSU!

The new iPhone Firmware 1.1.1 has been released, and reports are trickling in that it does disable third-party apps, and makes users undergo a second reactivation procedure that requires a genuine AT&T SIM chip. Lots of folk are getting “Incorrect SIM” errors. Ayayay! It looks like it’s back to the drawing board!

It’s a carrot-and-stick thing: the new features from the firmware update are tempting to get, but the price you have to pay is enormous. The only solution seems to be: don’t update then. Sit and wait. More news when we get it.

(Via Engadget)

UPDATE: Detailed, updated, and dismaying testing reports on Gizmodo. * bites nails *

One of the Doodler‘s most-favorite-of-all-time-extreme-to-the-max apps is the SRS iWow Plug-in, which tweaks audio from iTunes to create fantastic audal soundstages and environments that make you disbelieve that all this goodness is actually coming from your two cheap, tinny, bargain speakers. The plug-in lets you adjust bass, focus, stereo separation, and definition from your own preferences or the built-in presets and make you feel like you owned Wharfdales.

It’s certainly a plug-in I can’t imagine being without. It’s the best US$20 I ever spent.

Well, SRS has an update available for download as we speak. iWow 2 now lets you save your personal presets, and adds  auto-presets based on the material you’re playing (“Cruise Control”), and more of its own. Best of all, it adds Movie Mode, which has the ability to create. Virtual. Surround. Over. Headphones. (Granted, this is only with the SRS 360 Headphones, but still…)

It usually sells for US$29.99, but the introductory promo gives it to you at US$19.99, with upgrades for old users at US$11.99. There’s even a Free Trial, which I urge you to take so you can be a true believer.

Go get SRS iWow 2 here. iWow indeed.