Michael Castellon

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#aloha Merry Christmas, from way out here https://www.instagram.com/p/DO4GdyOEvAE/ My #Maine squeeze πŸ¦žπŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Happy birthday to the most amazing woman in my life. Your love, laughter, and kindness make every day brighter. Here’s to celebrating you and all the joy you bring to everyone around you. https://www.instagram.com/p/DE0AEGvPk0b/ After hundreds of hours in the Texas sky, I can say this: the quiet charm of small-town airports never fades. ✈️ #flying #aopa #eaa #aviation https://www.instagram.com/p/DC-lpVgtZg9/ https://www.instagram.com/p/DBXe_dsvXQ6/

  • How to publish your eBook on Amazon

    Lifehacker offers a short guide on how to turn your musings into a finished product in the Amazon Kindle Store:

    • Write your book in Microsoft Word and save it as a .doc file. Skip the .rtf and .docx formats. They don’t play nicely with the Kindle.
    • Pay attention to how you format your text. Bolding, italicizing, and indenting are no problem, but steer clear of bullets, headers, footers, and fancy fonts.
    • Any images you use need to be in .jpeg format with center alignment. Remember that the Kindle can only show images in grayscale.

  • What will be the last Steve Jobs inspired Apple product?

    For many tech enthusiasts, the thought of Steve Jobs not coming to work is pretty uncomfortable to bear. News today that Jobs was again taking a leave of absence from Apple and leaving CFO Tim Cook in charge had me deliberating which product would considered to be Jobs last — his swan song — if his leave were to somehow become a permanent departure.

    The iPhone 4, despite antennae problems, was an explosive success for Apple and continues to have a major affect not just on the smartphone industry but on how consumers expect to receive and parse information. The second iteration of the MacBook Air was also successful, but nowhere near the mark of the iPhone. MacBook Pro is due for a refresh. Pros haven’t had a full refresh in 279 days, and average 208 days. We should seen see an update here, but probably nothing beyond processor speed bumps. (This is actually killing me since I desperately want a MacBook Pro, but hesitate to purchase until the latest model.)

    Apple TV is still fledgling; it’s impact on the home theatre and content distribution won’t be realized for some time.

    I realize that the subtext here suggests that Apple products will lose a certain luster without Jobs around to manage development and personalities, and while that’s debatable, what’s for certain is that the core Apple fanatics will even further scrutinize Apple products for signs of an absence of Jobs’ brilliance after he’s no longer contributing to the company.

  • Creepy Jesus bust in Austin antiques store

    I found this guy at Uncommon Objects, a popular secondhand store on South Congress.

  • Lend Kindle books to friends and family

    Today Amazon quietly rolled out a feature that lets Kindle owners share Kindle ebooks:

    • Eligible Kindle books can be loaned once for a period of 14 days.
    • The borrower does not need to own a Kindle — Kindle books can also be read using our free Kindle reading applications for PC, Mac, iOS, etc.
    • Not all books are lendable.

    The biggest catch is that once you lend a book, you can’t read it for the 14-day period, as with a printed copy. ο»Ώ

  • Four predictions for 2011

    1. Smarter access to information. Open data and transparency are barely on the radar but will begin to boom in 2011. A new generation of users are viewing information as fluid and dynamic. Third-party developers are building apps that do amazing things with your data across a variety of platforms, including mapping and visualizing. Design is on the verge of mattering less than accessibility of content.

    2. E-readers drive mobile information. The Nook and Kindle haven’t had much play as anything but book readers. But 2011 will see a major shift toward more portable information, expanding from mobile phones to readers and tablets. The Kindle and iPad are still king.

    3. Video. We haven’t seen the online video revolution yet, but it’s around the corner. It’s coming in such a way that major telcos like Time-Warner are lobbying hard to restructure the Internet so that content can be throttled and divided among subscription tiers. If you stream Netflix or play online games, you’re on Big Telco’s shit list. New methods of indexing video will emerge.

    4. The death of the Internet marketing/guru/ninja/expert. These people, who you see on Twitter and Facebook pushing their consulting and freelance services, will dwindle in volume. Having followers no longer makes you a guru. Innovation in communication, marketing and technical design will again be firmly rooted within this field, and not just to those who self-proclaim their expertise. Good riddance.

  • What Wikileaks really tells us about government and policy

    If there was ever a question that information wants to be free, look no further than the Wikileaks story.

    Governments — and especially those of us who work within them — haven’t fully identified the intersection of social connectivity and electronic data management.

    The upper levels of government, foreign policy and national security keep secrets. By definition, that’s what many agencies do. As citizens, we must accept this fact. Secrets can keep peace. Secrets win wars. But secrets also can destroy trust, hide criminal acts, and threaten civil liberties.

  • Apple releases iOS 4.2

    iOS 4.2 has just been released for iPod and iPad, adding major support for features like AirPlay, Folders, Multitasking, and more. The update also provides free Find My iPhone/iPad functionality to all users, a service previously reserved for paid subscribers of MobileMe.

    Get it now by connecting your iOS device to iTunes.

  • Enough with The Beatles – today’s real news is on the iPhone

    Apple’s announcement today that it added The Beatles to the iTunes Store overshadows two news items of much greater importance to iPhone and iPod Touch users.

    The first is that Google Voice finally squeaked its way through the App Store’s approval process. U.S. users with a Google account now have better mailbox and voicemail functionality than before, with free text messaging, voicemail transcription, call screening and call blocking. The service also offers cheap international calls. Google has tussled with Apple in the past about the Google Voice app, just one battle in an already contentious relationship between the two companies.

    Second, an update from Twitter late today now allows push notifications. @ mentions from people you follow now push as a notification to iPhone and iPod Touch users, making Twitter a much more real-time conversation tool.