For those of you needing up to the minute, interactive election poll results, check out: pollster.com.

Recycle your unwanted desktop and notebook computers, printers, copiers, fax machines, VCRs, stereos and microwave ovens at no charge.
Because of their lead and mercury content, monitors of all sizes still have a $15 fee. The drop-off center is open Mon - Sat.  More info at Recycle Ann Arbor.

Eli over at the aadl uncovered this gem of a recipe from the Ann Arbor Cookbook, 1904:  ”The following is all I know about cooking squirrels. First catch your squirrel. Skin him, etc. Parboil in a little water in a kettle, add salt, pepper, and enough butter to fry it brown. Then eat. If the animal is tough parboil a little more till he is tender”  -Contributed by: F. A. LYMAN

I’m totally inspired and looking forward to our next IT Dinner, 1904 style.  You can view the scanned original of this recipe and other historic Ann Arbor cookbooks at the Ann Arbor District Library’s Cookbook Collection.

Just in time for the Ann Arbor Commuter Challenge, Google has enhanced their maps of Ann Arbor to now integrate the AATA bus schedules and routes.  I’ve had mixed results with it so far–plugging in the Deli to Bakehouse yields a pretty interesting route, but I see a huge potential, especially if the UM buses and proposed commuter rail and AMTRAK train schedules were also integrated.  Give it a whirl:  Google Transit Ann Arbor.

The human body as an alternative energy source? Here’s a method with huge potential for capturing the energy expended by our muscles: an energy harvesting knee brace.

Google Calendar has become my calendar app of choice. Because it is web-based, there is no client, or OS dependencies. It does a fantastic job of sharing and displaying multiple calendars. It also worked very well for me on the iPhone until, well, Macworld. It turns out the Google mobile crew updated the Google Calendar GUI for Macworld, giving it a monthly view option, and a slicker look and feel, but at the cost of removing what I consider one of its strongest features–view multiple calendars. Fortunately, I uncovered a work around: From the iphone, tap the “mobile” link at the bottom of the Google Calendar page. Once the Google Mobile page loads, tap “Calendar.” Voila, the old multi-calendar page loads.

I still think to myself, there’s gotta be alien technology in there. The touch screen and UI is responsive, intuitive and, well, fun! email - flick. calendar - spin. photos - stretch. On top of its phenomoninal interface, the phone gets great reception–I’ve been getting 3-4 bars within the Verizon dead zones at ZMO, Bakehouse, and Creamery buildings. Voicemail is stored directly on the iPhone, making it easy to retrieve and manage. Contacts and calendar sync up with our Exchange server, using of all things, iTunes as the conduit. Email with the Exchange server uses some pretty antiquated and insecure protocols, so I’m forwarding a copy of work email to gmail and pulling it from there. I can always use webmail via safari if I need to work directly with the Exchange server. As for attachments, Excel, Word, PDFs all render beautifully. I was able to view the PG DOR with no problem on the iPhone screen (seriously).

Here’s my wish list of things that will make it an even more productive office tool:

I’d like to see better Exchange server integration. While the current sync for contacts and events is good enough for me–I sync it with my laptop when I get in the office. The ability to push mail and sync wirelessly would be nice, and is something that is essential for some ZCoBbers I know.

I would like to be able to copy and paste between applications on the iPhone. I foresee a software update to enable this and perhaps spawning a new gesture to learn.

From third party developers, I’d like to see a good encrypted password keeper like SplashID.

As for bugs, I really haven’t experienced too much. Safari was crashing on me, and a simple reboot fixed it. More reports to come.

Dell will be shipping PCs with Linux preinstalled again. This time it’s one of our favorite distros: Ubuntu. Checkout the interview with Ubuntu founder, Mark Shuttleworth.

Using a tip from Josh at the Creamery, which directed me to the resources at Bikely, I created the Tour de Food bike map based my intimate experience of cyling across the ZCoB.

Wired News just posted this article affirming what we’ve known about the overall value of the new intel macs.