The Kennebec Journal has a story this morning on Steve Jobs' impact throughout the state of Maine. 

http://bit.ly/n8ZQM5

Since it seems we are all going to get a little wet this weekend (thank you Irene) here's a nice tutorial on underwater photography... 

If I could just play my ever growing, slightly bloated, and a little trendy from time to time (see nu metal, emo-rock, and indie hip-hop bands) music collection anywhere I go without having to lug a massive hard drive at the same time I'd be a happy audio-junkie. 

What's that you say? Apple has a solution for me? iCloud? Sweet! 

I kid. We've all heard of it. If you haven't I suggest reading some here. It's worth it. 

The reason for this post is to note the iCloud has just released it's beta version for developers to test [see here]. This means we're close to streaming all the Journey we want via our computers, iphone, ipads, or AirPlay enabled house stereo system from one place! What I like though is the "personality" Apple has designed into the cloud itself. It's the little things that keep this [AAPL] on top.

For more iCloud "persona" see this article:

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/01/apples-icloud-com-error-pages-have-person...

Adobe has just released (Aug 1) a preview of their new HTML5/CSS3/Javascript (no flash) software called Edge. It's pretty sharp but seriously lacking some of the tools we love about Flash. Interactivity for one. It is promising to see Adobe addressing the issues web designers and developers are having today with essentially double the work for the same project budget. We strive to create rich, interative web sites, games and software with flash but those pesky ipads and iphones are always screaming for "their" content too.

Have a look at this article and maybe even try out the preview software. Create a buzz about it but don't expect to be using it in place of Flash for a while. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go build two photo galleries, one flash, the other javascript with the same content. Sigh...

http://www.fastcompany.com/1770591/adobes-edge-html5-designer-is-ready-for-a-... 

Fast fiber optic lines are being laid in northern Maine as part of the rightly praised Three Ring Binder project. This is great news for people and businesses in Aroostook county.

The Bangor Daily News has the story.

http://bit.ly/rmayPF

File this under "it's getting better all the time," along with GWI's news from a couple of weeks ago that users of its residential DSL service were going to be getting a big speed bump, but AT&T is updating its wireless service in the state. Specifically, AT&T are expanding service, and they're expanding coverage for the spiffy and über fast 4G services.

The ever-lively Portland Press-Herald has the scoop.

http://bit.ly/nnCJPV

So it's Friday, July 1st, and we've got a long holiday weekend ahead. The focus in the office can be likened to a 3.5 year old at a new playground — anywhere but in one place. So while we type this many of you are already in the car driving north thinking about the weekend's BBQ with family and friends or how the golf will play out while the kids watch Dora the Explorer on the DVD in the backseat (hopefully with headphones on)... Ok, if I can get this together the weekend will be here and the traffic not so horrendous — apparently yesterday was the BIG travel day. Here's what a couple of our great Packawhallop customers have been up to lately, and please be sure to have a safe and happy 4th of July weekend!

Geoff Gronlund, chief editor and founder of Nine Point Publishing in Bridgton, Maine, is gearing up to launch his 12th installation of Omphalos, a semi-annual arts & literary magazine "published every solstice (June and December) that seeks to expose the human experience and inspire the human perspective through compelling poetry, art, fiction, drama, interviews and more." Nine Point Publishing accepts submissions throughout the year and is always looking for new and unique material! Possibly consider supporting Omphalos and Nine Point by subscribing here.
www.ninepointpublishing.com

If you're driving through Yarmouth, Maine on your way to Boothbay Harbor (just an example - although one Packawhallop partner we know will be doing the same in T minus 3hrs...) please stop at our customer and friend Alison Evans Gallery. Alison is an accomplished RISD grad and ceramic artist. "Alison Evans' Ceramics takes the natural forms of coastal life and transforms them into dinnerware and tabletop accessories. Her work is hand molded and hand glazed, making each piece unique." We're in the process of updating her web site with extensive new work, and a new Mint & Tortoise glaze that is stunning! Stay tuned for the launch of her SlickFish Studios revamped web site this July!
www.aeceramics.com

BBC Word Update, which we listen to in the wee small hours here in Maine, where we don't need to use AC in mid-June (just thought we'd mention), has a story on ICANN preparing to add new top level domains, or TLDs to those overly fond of calling things by their initials.

A top level domain is just the .com, .net, .org, etc. Instead of having a URL that read just http://www.packawhallop.com (so difficult!), we could, if we wanted, actually have one that read http://www.packawhallop.packawhallop. Or, realistically, http://website.packawhallop (much much much better!). 

Here's a like to the World Update site with the story: 

http://bbc.in/jpzHoR

It's going to be quite costly do get these top level domains. Dan Damon, the World Update presenter, is a bit of a geek, in that he's aware that the $185,000 application fee is way beyond the reach of all about large companies. The rep he interviewed from ICANN replied, when he as asked, that true ownership and rights were covered.

Cheap action for businesses concerned about this but not saving up for the vanity top level domain might be to trademark their names. It's old fashioned. And it seems ICANN may release the top level domain even if you the trademark owner don't want to purchase the top level domain. 

Whew! Isn't summer great! We wish we could enjoy some of it with our families, and we will be sure to set aside time to do so, but it's been busy. Like we said: Whew! Our customers have been rockin' busy too. Here's just a couple of cool things they and we've been doing to beat the heat:

Who knew Yellahooser and Packawhallopian Jumpin' Jim Cradock knew how to parachute? Well, he does, and he did the IT equivalent of fire jumping when he helped out with a quick reboot of Gretchen's Children's Shop, an ecommerce site those busy Yellahoosers put together several years back. As part of the reboot we made an assessment with the customer on infrastructure, and all agreed the web hosting was inadequate and that the site needed to be moved... to Packawhallop. Done. 

We don't host them (yet!), but Shannondell at Valley Forge, the Pennsylvania-based retirement community, lifestyle, value and top-quality continuing care program, needed some of the top-notch sysop smahts (Mainer for "knowledgeable, professional, direct, effective") Packawhallop's got under the hood as part of its own hosting smahts. So senior Packawhalloper ol' Jim jumped in and straightened out some DNS, Qmail (it's an email server) and Fedora (Linux) server configuration, and then translated all the whole shebang (enchilada) in such a way that Shannondell's hot web designer and web master won't need to use SSH, CLI, Terminal or to be honest Jim to make changes in the future.

Well, this one's novel:

Using PHP to build desktop apps. The technique uses appcelerator's Titanium toolkit to build mobile, and yes desktop, apps with HTML5 (JS and CSS) and any of of a number of lightweight scripting languages, like Ruby, Python and PHP. We know about appcelerator because they recently aquired Aptana, which we liked when we were plunked down in front of our Linux computers working, working, working.

TechMaine's PHP User Group tonight is showing off what PHP can do on the desktop tonight at Tap Tapas on Fore Street. It should be fun!

Here's the poop:

http://bit.ly/iYQ1fn