I know most of you with iPhones play Words With Friends, but there is an official Scrabble app as well.

And if you didn’t get to your local Starbucks for their Pick of the Week free app, I have 5 of them to give away.

The first 5 people that comment will get a code sent to their email.

The app so far is pretty polished. Easy to play, works well and for this iPhone user that hasn’t joined the WwF crowd, I’m content to use this official Scrabble app for now.

UPDATE for 1/20/12: I got 5 more codes today. If you missed them before, now’s your chance.

Last Friday, I finally pulled the trigger and have as my main phone, an iPhone 4S on Sprint. My previous phone was a Palm Pre, which had it’s share of issues over the almost two years I carried it, even though I’m a fan of the webOS experience.

If you remember previous posts, I had an iPhone before, but it was not my main phone, used mostly on wifi.

So far, I’m quite impressed with this marvel. I’ve yet to scratch the surface on new features like Siri, but once I do, I’ll be sure to talk about my experience here.

So now, I have officially joined the ranks as a full time iPhone user.

iCloud is here! And it’s going to change how we store information.

Well, not without some adjustments to how some of us manage our personal data like calendars, contacts and tasks.

Back in March of this year, I lamented about my data syncing issues with MobileMe. Those same issues plus new ones continue with the introduction of iCloud.

This post will focus on tasks, todo lists, GTD items and now with Lion and iOS 5 new addition, the Reminders app.

In simple terms, Reminders is a todo list. Tasks have long been part of iCal, but until the recent release of iOS 5, the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad didn’t have a built-in task app. There are numerous third-party solutions for syncing and/or managing a list of tasks. Even Google has jumped in the game with their Tasks and associated API for developers to create apps [which does not currently sync to Reminders - serious omission, Google]. Now with Reminders, it’s an included app, but not for previous iOS releases.

iCal syncing.

Aside from MobileMe and iCloud, iTunes has always offered a way to sync calendar items to your iDevice via USB. Any iPod could store a copy of your calendar and todo items. But while those options are still available, they are not for anyone that’s moved their calendar and reminders to iCloud. It moves your calendar, reminders and contacts from being local to your Mac and into the cloud. Especially for Reminders, this changes how they work. They are no longer tied to your calendar as they find themselves separately managed, most likely due to the integration of the iOS Reminders app.

Luckily, it’s not just iCloud that can support the Reminders app. Yahoo! and Windows Live can sync their todo lists to the Reminders app. As well as Outlook via Exchange [versions 2003-2010 are supported]

Needing to Switch

So what’s the big deal about switching? I’ve stored all of my todo items locally for years and up until a week ago, I used non-Apple devices to sync them to. My pending purchase of an iPhone 4S in December plus my use of an iPad 2 and iPhone 3GS helped push me to adjust how and where I manage my tasks.

Offline Access

One major disadvantage to storing your data online is when you are offline. No internet connection to the servers where your data is hosted or if they are down or busy removes their view from iCal. Having everything local is a serious advantage in this situation. My tests with storing my todo items inside iCal on Yahoo! and Windows Live proved that if I lost my connection to their servers, so was my access to the tasks. Although the iPhone and iPad do store a local or cached copy of the Reminders, which helps on the mobile side when you need access.

Having very recently moved my MobileMe data to iCloud, it has a nice twist: it caches/stores a local copy of my reminders when I do not have internet access, which resolves this issue.

I put a lot of time into this because my data is important to me. I wanted to make sure I didn’t lose access or had to jump through a lot of hoops to make it all work. Of course, this could all have been resolved with just one thing: Apple having direct syncing support for tasks/reminders under iCal to the Reminders app. They already have local calendar syncing support via iTunes. How easy would it be to add Reminders to that Info option screen when your iPhone or iPad is connected? Simple, especially for those that are not ready to make the jump to iCloud.

Again, iCloud is not for everyone. And I’m sure there’s a good number of others that use a non-iDevice that’s running something other than iOS 5 and OS X Lion and are concerned about keeping their data synced up. For now, I’m using parts of iCloud, like Reminders, and it works very well. I’m also leaving the Calendar locally until I can find a solution that works for me in the cloud.

Next on my list of iCloud issues: Address Book and contacts syncing. Stay tuned.

How important is your data? Do you make backups of it? Are you using iCloud or some other cloud option like Google or Yahoo!?

Links

iCloud Help – Apple Official Site

iCloud FAQ – User Created Page

How To Use Reminders- Cult of Mac guide to Reminders

I got emotional when I heard the news earlier this evening. Twitter was very busy with people posting the news. It’s still a shock, even though I knew of his ill health. Fifty-six is too young for anyone to die. Regardless of their contribution to society. But this one hit a little close to home on many levels. Not just for the love I have for my Apple products. But I lost my mom to a form of cancer. Granted, she lived to be 83. I was hoping the same long life for Mr. Jobs.

It wasn’t to be.

Very fitting tribute.

If there’s something in your life that has been impacted by way of the efforts of Steve Jobs, please send email to rememberingsteve@apple.com. Here’s what I wrote:

I got my first Apple product in 1985. A Fat Mac… 512K with an external floppy drive. I used it to produce technical documentation for businesses in Southern California. I was already using PC clones as my main place of employment was a software store in Tustin, CA. But the Mac different. Unique. I used that Mac for a year until I moved to a Mac Plus.

Since that time, I have always used some type of Macintosh in my personal life. Sometimes in business, but mostly for personal use, including my side work I’ve continued to do. In 1997, I made the jump from a clone Mac running OS 9.1 to a Mac mini running Panther 10.3 in 2005. Since then, I have converted many friends and family to Macs. Not only have the number of “hey, I’m running Windows and there’s an error..” calls gone down, it’s also allowed all of us to be more creative and have a system that simply works. Today, my Mac mini (2010), my MacBook Pro (2009), my MacBook Pro (2006) and my daughter’s iMac 17″ (2007) have all been work horses and rarely give me any grief. I rely on these systems today to do many tasks. In addition to numerous other Apple products that I love and use, it’s the iPad that I bought on day 1 in 2010 (which has since been sold and upgraded to an iPad 2) that changed how I access my data and all of the parts of my life.

Thank you to Steve Jobs for creating Apple and for returning in 1997 to create not just one of the most powerful companies in the world, but to create products by thinking differently.

Your legacy will live on in all of us.

Marty Mankins

You will be missed, Steve.

Back a month ago, I mentioned my calendar syncing changes I needed to make due to the MobileMe calendar moving to a CalDAV format, which would break my syncing with all of my devices.

With so many changes I needed to make in order to keep all of my calendar and todo list data in sync, I decided to simply do the MobileMe calendar upgrade, but remove it from syncing with any of my devices – including my iPhone and iPad.

While it’s nice to see Apple adopt standards like CalDAV, it doesn’t mix well with my mixed set of devices. My Palm Pre requires syncing from local iCal calendars. Plus, each time I sync my iPhone and iPad, they can sync from those same local iCal calendars. So not all is lost, except one of the services I’m not using from my paid MobileMe subscription. All that’s left that I continue to use is email, Address Book syncing and iDisk for other backups I do.

Which means, come October 2011, I may be making even more decisions on whether to renew. Stay tuned.

No, it’s not a new product from Apple… just a blog post with updates on my recent use of all the iDevices I own.

iPad 2

Boxed up

I sold my first generation iPad to a friend in anticipation of being able to get an iPad 2 on opening day. As it turns out they are in high demand. But thanks to a nice tip from an Apple fan I follow on Twitter, I was able to get the white 16gb wifi model not that long after the initial release date. Just a small wait in line was all it took.

Peeking out from behind the Smart Cover

First impressions are: it’s fast. A marginal increase in speed and response time. The screen appears to be brighter and clearer, but that may just be me. Battery life hasn’t been quite as good as my 1st gen iPad, but I’m sure it will get close to the 9.3 hours I enjoyed before.

The white bezel seems to not be a distraction, which is good

I did backup of my original iPad before I sold it and after updating iTunes to version 10.2.1, I was able to do a full restore that brought over all of my settings, icon placement, folder names and everything else that made me fall in love with the iPad in the first place.

iPod nano

Get it on.. got to get it on… Adam Carolla podcast is always on!

I have an iPod nano that I use for most of my podcast and music listening and the battery life on it became very limited – going from 18-20 hours to just over 2 hours before needing a charge. Thanks to the Genius Bar [and it still being under warranty], I got it replaced and it’s back to it’s awesome state of awesome sauce again [translated, that means 20 hours of solid run time between charges]. This nano also has a camera for taking VGA-quality video, not to mention also being able to play videos. Easily my favorite iPod I’ve ever owned.

iPhone 1st generation retired

iPhone 2008 – 2011 – you performed well

Back in October of 2009, I blogged about my first iPhone, which I was given by a good friend. I used this iPhone as my secondary phone until the next year when this same friend gave me her iPhone 3GS, which is my current iPhone.

Since that time, this original iPhone has been just a fancy iPod touch, albeit slow and not able to run any apps made for iOS 4.x. So it was time today to turn it off and place it in it’s box for good. It’s staying around in my arsenal of older gadgets and PDAs [which I've deemed the Retro Hall of Fame].

Jailbroken No More

No more jailbreak

Just before Christmas, I blogged about how I was stuck at iOS 4.0.1 because my iPhone needed to be jailbroken and unlocked in order to be used as an AT&T prepaid phone. Well thanks to some searching, I found a great tutorial for updating to iOS 4.2.1. And as an added bonus, I no longer needed to jailbreak or unlock the phone. I got to step 8 of the linked instructions and I was done. Phone calls, text messages and data just worked. Of course, a week later, there was an update, but at least now I could be at a more current iOS release for compatibility purposes.

Next: Mac mini retired

One of these days, I will decide what to do with my original Mac mini. And when I do, I’ll be sure to provide an update on it’s history and what I ended up doing with it after it was retired last year [replaced with a newer Mac mini].

For the last 3 years, I’ve been a MobileMe subscriber. During that time, it’s changed here and there, but I’ve rolled with the changes the best that I can and without too much of a headache.

My biggest use of the service is to have my Calendar and Contacts synced to the cloud, stored locally under iCal and Address Book – so all of my Macs, iDevices and my Palm Pre – can all have the same calendar entries and contact listings. And up until now, it’s worked flawlessly. On each Mac [I use three at home], I have my MobileMe account setup to automatically sync my iCal and Address Book data to the cloud. For my Palm Pre, I use the application The Missing Sync to sync my Calendar, Tasks and Address Book data to that phone (via WiFi), adding a non-Apple device into the perfect mix of synced data on every device and Mac.

But Apple has changed the format of it’s MobileMe Calendar to use CalDAV, which is an industry standard way of hosting a calendar in a central location, adding their own twist to that: syncing from local calendars is not supported. This is largely due to Apple discontinuing their use of Sync Services and moving to only CalDAV, where the calendars are hosted in the cloud on the MobileMe service. The local calendars in iCal are then replaced by synced online calendars. This is a problem if your non-Apple devices are needing local calendars to sync from. And while I’m sure some of the third-party utilities like The Missing Sync, BusySync or Spanning Sync will have an update to support local to online calendar syncing, it’s not clear if they will be ready by the May 5, 2011 deadline to cut over to the new calendar format.

So that leaves us users that rely on Sync Services in a lurch. And yes, most of this is tied to my use of a non-Apple device, but some of it is also related to my recent explorations of the Google Calendar.

Google Calendar

Supported by all of my devices, Google Calendar is becoming a viable option for keeping everything in sync. And using a program like Spanning Sync, it will keep my local iCal calendar in sync for my Palm Pre. In my tests with a trial version of this great little utility, my calendar data has been kept in sync with all of my appointments and events.

No Tasks

But one critical piece missing that doesn’t sync to Google are tasks. They remain local to iCal, or if you are using the new MobileMe calendar format, they will sync to that and be stored in the cloud. But Google doesn’t have a Tasks API yet, which leaves tasks on their own.

Exploring Options

Other users are also lamenting the change as it affects their overall work flow. I completely agree as I’ve had to spend time considering changing my options to make it all work better. I’ve not made any decisions on what I plan to do here, as I still have over a month to see how to keep my calendar and tasks in sync, including MobileMe in the mix. For now, I have turned off calendar syncing to my other two Macs, leaving only the syncing of Contacts between all my systems and devices. I will have another post as it gets closer to the May cutoff date on what the final array of configuration will look like. Stay tuned.

Links to articles on MobileMe Calendar change:
MobileMe: Frequently Asked Questions about the new MobileMe Calendar
The New MobileMe Calendar: Should You Upgrade?
MobileMe: Setting up iCal for the new MobileMe Calendar
MobileMe: Troubleshooting upgrading to the new MobileMe Calendar
Upgrade to MobileMe Calendar by 5 May 2011
Spanning Sync and the New MobileMe Calendars
Howto: Your Data, Everywhere, In Sync

Back in October 2009, I talked about how I jailbroke and unlocked my original iPhone 2G. It wasn’t too difficult and the steps I took to do it were easy to follow.

This past September, the same friend that gave me her iPhone 2G, upgraded to an iPhone 4 and I ended up with her iPhone 3GS, which is a lot faster than the original and can run the iOS 4 firmware, allowing for multitasking, folders and any apps that are now iOS 4 compatible.

But as newer firmware updates came out, I had to ensure that I would not be “bricking” my iPhone [meaning, if I updated to a newer firmware, I would lose the ability to unlock it and use my prepaid SIM card for voice and data usage], rendering it a fancy iPod touch usable only on wifi.

The steps to jailbreaking and unlocking an iPhone running iOS 4.0.1 were simple and all done without having to connect the iPhone to a computer. I simply took the SIM from my older iPhone and put it into my new iPhone and was able to start making calls, sending texts and using the 3G data. Very nice, huh?

The iPhone hacking community has made many a progress in the cat and mouse game where Apple updates and breaks the jailbreak, and they release a new set of instructions on how to jailbreak and unlock the iPhone again. Until recently with the release of the latest iOS 4.2.1 firmware.

While they have a way to make this work, it’s not the prettiest of solutions. The steps not only void any warranty, they tread on removing any steps to upgrade the iPhone in the future under normal circumstances.

Sitting This One Out

So for the foreseeable future, I am sticking with my iPhone 3GS stuck at iOS 4.0.1 and keeping the current jailbreak and unlock in place so I can continue my AT&T prepaid option.

Some have asked me, “Why don’t you just get a regular plan, sign up for a 2 year contract and avoid all this ugly mess?” To which I respond with the following checklist:

• I already have a contract with Sprint with my main phone – a Palm Pre
• the prepaid SIM card I have allows me to have an iPhone as a second phone to use for those times when I want/need another option for making phone calls when the Sprint coverage isn’t the best.

In looking at getting an AT&T contract and moving my iPhone to a regular plan, the minimum cost each month would be more than I would need, given the fact that I already have a phone with unlimited data, text and mobile-to-mobile calling. I’ve priced the lowest plan available for minimal data, texting and voice to be $60 before taxes. This gives me the following for each month of service:

• 450 minutes, including rollover each month, 5000 night and weekend minutes and unlimited mobile to mobile minutes
• 200 text messages
• 200Mb of data

Compare that to what I already have on my Sprint Palm Pre:

• 1500 shared daytime minutes [I'm on a family plan with 4 other phones], unlimited night and weekend minutes and unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes
• unlimited text messages
• unlimited data [according to Sprint terms, there is no effective cap on how much data I can use, although I'm sure excessive overages will raise some red flags]

Pricing

I would consider switching from Sprint to AT&T if:

• Sprint wasn’t giving me a great discount [I get 20% off my bill each month]
• If I didn’t already have 4 other phones on my plan [wife, daughter, wife's sister and brother-in-law]
• and to have the same amount of phones and comparable options at a reasonable price.

In pricing it all out with AT&T, it would be $255 for five phones plus tax each month. I pay $175 [taxes included] now under Sprint. Of course, Sprint doesn’t have the iPhone. That’s an $80 a month premium just to use the iPhone. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but over the course of a two year contract, that’s an additional $1,920. Ouch!

Conclusion

So in order for me to have and enjoy using an iPhone [yes, this means I carry two phones with me most of the time], the prepaid route is the best option and one that I would like to stick with. At least until I’m forced to change, which I guess we’ll cross that bridge when I have to.

It’s now been over five months since I bought my iPad and started integrating it into my daily life.

To some, it’s just a giant iPod touch. To others, it’s a limited device that can’t view Flash websites. To me, it’s been a really cool device that’s not only fun to use, but has changed some of my productivity, how I view media, a solid and fast device to check email and another option to tweet.

I bought the 16gb WiFi model on the first day – April 3, 2010. Since the official unveiling in January 2010, I thought of this device as something that could feasibly replace a netbook I don’t use because it’s too slow, runs Windows and didn’t fulfill the promise of me using it to write. My MacBook Pro has always been used more often for writing. And while I am still working on a workable solution using the iPad for writing, I’ve been able to use it for more than I had originally intended, given the many apps that are now available for the device.

Here’s a summary, with screen shots, of the apps I use on my iPad.

BlogPress

BlogPress

Thanks to a Twitter mention from Kim, I found an app that I can actually work on blog posts while on the iPad. I still do the final post from my laptop, but I can now do a majority of the writing from my iPad. The WordPress official app is pure crap and added more frustration to my post creations. So I deleted it and now use BlogPress. Plus, this app also supports more than just WordPress, like Google’s Blogger, which helps for my other blog that I rarely post on. And at a cost of $2.99, it’s priced just right for all of it’s features.

Echofon

Echofon

This is my main Twitter app for my Mac, iPhone and now iPad. I’ve tried all of the other apps and found that Echofon really has everything that I need. My favorite feature is typing a Twitter username and having it pop up with a list that matches, which I can easily pick from. Very nice for adding multiple recipients in the same tweet. Plus, the same app supports both iPhone and iPad, eliminating the need to maintain more than one app for both iOS devices. Worth the $4.99 without question.

Evernote

Evernote

I keep lots of notes, but there was never a solution that synced my notes between my Palm Pre, the Mac, the iPhone and the iPad. Until I found Evernote. While most of my notes are still kept on my laptop (and synced to my Palm Pre), all of the main notes I need to see each day have been moved to Evernote. In addition to basic text notes, it has a simple list with checkbox format that allows me to keep my LEGO minifig collection in check. And for free, you get 40mb of data per month, which is way more than I’ll ever need for a long time. Highly recommended even if you don’t use an iPad.

GoodReader

GoodReader

Simply put, this is the best app for viewing PDF files on the iPad. I’ve not pushed all of my PDF files over to it just yet, but as I need a document, it’s just a simply sync from iTunes to have it on my iPad. There’s support for Dropbox and Google Docs and other remote file storage systems. And for 99 cents, it’s feature set exceeds the cost the of the app.

Apple Mail

Apple Mail

Built in to the iPad, this app is similar to the one found on all Macs. I’m able to keep on top of my personal email (not including my Gmail) and reply as needed. Each morning, I check my email from the iPad, then leaving messages that need more attention to my laptop for later. This has helped reduce how much time I spend managing my email on my laptop.

Reeder

Reeder

This is a dedicated Google Reader app, which is my main feed reader for all of the blogs I read. I’m able to read and comment on a regular basis and it’s easy to mark all as read [not that I would do that ] and mark as unread for those posts I want to read later on my laptop. The interface is easy to use, it’s fast and I’ve never had any issues getting around the 120 or so blogs that I am subscribed to. The iPad app is $4.99 and for what it has done to help me read blogs, it’s worth every penny.

Some Adjustments

For the most part, the iPad is awesome. But there have been some adjustments. Typing on the on-screen keyboard produces lots of errors. I’ve been able to eliminate many of the errors over the last 5 months, but still have some frustration trying to type. My next step is to hook up a physical keyboard for dedicated writing, which will help a lot. Also, any web page with Flash doesn’t display, but that’s not been that big of an adjustment. I simply take note of the link and load it up on my laptop later. Finding Wifi access points have gotten better, but still, there’s a good number of apps that I use that need an internet connection.

Overall

So is it worth the $500 I spent? Yes, without hesitation. I’ve been very happy with how well this device has changed how I access the daily data I use. Plus, the ability to watch video via Netflix and Hulu, it’s helped me catch up on TV shows I hardly watch anymore.

So do you have an iPad? If so, how do you use it? What apps do you have installed?

the Mac version of 1Password

After a month of iOS4 devices being available, we are seeing more evidence that older iPhone and iPod touch models are being treated as antiquated. 1Password, a very popular app that’s used to store user name and password information, has issued their new version 3.5 as supporting “only iOS 3.2 and above”, which works on pretty much any iPhone 3G/3GS and all iPhone 4 devices, iPod touch 2nd-generation and above and any iPad model. Any other device that isn’t running iOS 4 or iOS 3.2 can’t install the upgrade.

The previous version of 1Password Pro was version 3.1.1, which runs just fine on any device running iOS 3.1.x or above. This new version does add support for syncing with Dropbox and other functionality, which are nice updates. But if you are using an original iPhone or a 1st-generation iPod touch, you are out of luck.

I discovered this when recently running my App Store updates and trying to sync my iPhone 2G, which gave the error that the version of 1Password was not compatible with this device. Fortunately, it didn’t delete the app from my iPhone, which kept all of my data intact. The newer version installed just fine on my iPad.

Functionality wise, I’m still in business here. But it did raise some concerns over how much the older iPhones, iPod touch models and previous versions of iOS are at risk here of being antiquated rather quickly. Yes, I understand the original iPhone and 1st-gen iPod touch are three years old now and support cannot continue forever. But iOS 3 was current just one month ago. And already we have a major developer that is pushing forward with eliminating support in previous versions.

This is not new, since at the first announcement of the iPhone 4 and iOS 4, it was known that the original iPhone would not be getting an OS upgrade option. And neither would the 1st-gen iPod touch. And with that, I can understand why. Older devices running new version of an OS can be problematic. But it was announced months before and users of these devices had a heads-up. Not so with Agile Web Solutions, who simply pushed out a new version without notifying it’s customers of what they were planning on doing. Yes, in the small print on the App Store for 1Password, it does say that “iOS 3.2 or above” is required. But to a lot of people that don’t do the OS math, they may not have clued in what that meant exactly. There should have been a more detailed announcement on their web site, in their support forum, an email sent to all registered users – something – to give users who store critical and important data, a warning of what’s coming up with some solutions for keeping their older app.

So for now, I am extra careful to ensure I have backup copies of both the previous version and my data. But if this is happening now, I can imagine more developers jumping on board and orphaning previous users, all with an eye to supporting the latest and greatest. I’m sure supporting multiple iOS versions is not the easiest thing in the world and I can understand wanting to move forward, but people still use and love their older Apple products. Kicking them to the curb too soon could leave a bad taste in users’ mouths when it comes time to upgrade. By then, they may have moved on to a competitor’s product.

And that’s not a win for anyone.

And once again, Apple consumes the tech world with another game-changing product.

I pre-ordered mine for store pickup on Saturday, April 3rd. Will I actually go through with it and make the purchase? A lot of that depends on how much money I can raise between now and then [that's less than 3 weeks away] to afford the 16gb WiFi model. I’d like the 32gb model, and I know it’s a good deal to double the storage space for only 20% more, but based on my last round of items I sold on eBay, raising that extra hundred will be a small challenge.

My main intended use for the iPad will be two fold:

• Media Viewing

- Watching TV shows mostly, with movie through in here and there. And video podcasts, with the idea to actually throw my own hat into the video podcast ring.

• Word Processing

- Word processing? Are you serious, Marty? You haven’t even tried it out yet. But wait. The bluetooth external Apple keyboard will work with it and it’s going to be small and light enough to carry both the iPad and keyboard, using a version of the iWork application Pages written specifically for the iPad. My more than a year old HP 2133 netbook has become too slow even for simple word processing. I have found that I use my MacBook Pro more often than the netbook as a couch computer. So the netbook and anything else I can sell will help go towards my new couch computer, which should be plenty fast for both Googling and working on my next story.

So come April 3rd, we’ll see what happens. In the meantime, check out Andy Ihnatko’s well-written overview of his first impressions of the iPad:

My MacBook Pro 15-inch unibody that I got in September 2009 is off to get fixed. Not much wrong with it. Just an ethernet port that stopped working. So it’s getting an entire logic board replacement. The Genius bar employee told me to allow up to seven days, but told me that the average lately has been three days.

I hope so, because it’s only been two hours since I dropped it off and I miss it already. Not that I’m without a Mac to use. My original MacBook Pro 15-inch that I gave to my wife when I got my new MacBook Pro is what I’ll be using in the meantime. It only has a fraction of my data on it as I cleaned most of it off before handing it over to my wife.

I did a backup of my data to an external hard drive, so I do have it available to me, but it’s still not the same.

Amazing how reliable I have become on my laptop for just about every part of my computing needs.

I’ll still find time to blog and do my personal work. But I will be missing my Mac, even if it’s not gone for that long.