Shane's Blog

Cap Metro bus drivers, mechanics and maintenance workers in the union will begin a strike Wednesday morning in response to continued failure to reach a settlement in contract negotiations. It is possible that an agreement will be reached before Wednesday. If not, CapMetro will run a reduced schedule and charge no fares.

Here is one reason the Obama campaign has been making such an effort to sign up supporters to receive text messages: In this concluding phase of the presidential contest, the campaign has been using those messages to recruit and deploy volunteers.

The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.

The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

The endowment of the University of Texas at Austin has declined by nearly $1 billion this year as a result of the turmoil in worldwide financial markets. The university’s share of the Permanent University Fund, plus its other endowment holdings, stood at $7 billion at the start of the year. By the end of September, the latest date for which figures were available, the value had declined by nearly 13 percent to $6.1 billion. 

• GOP-leaning state could vote in a Democrat for U.S. Senate 
• Race pits GOP Sen. Roger Wicker against ex-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove 
• Mississippi has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 26 years 
• Republican Senatorial Committee spends nearly $2 million to run ads

I.B.M. sued one of its top executives on Thursday in an attempt to prevent him from taking a position at Apple.

Congrats to you and the whole team at Roundabout Theatre, Rachel, on getting a great review from a very tough, Charles Isherwood.

Mr. Levenson’s sensitive if not wholly satisfying drama is welcome for the imaginative sympathy it extends to the families left behind, whose painful stories have been the subject of much powerful journalism but relatively few new plays.

Shane’s advice for AT&T: The hotspot should just become live on my iPhone when I walk by.  I know the technology can do that and so do you, AT&T.  These instructions are comical.

I have to do this every day, in every location?

iPhone users, get started with Wi-Fi

• Activate Wi-Fi from the settings icon on your iPhone
• Select “attwifi” from the list of available networks
• Enter your 10-digit mobile number and check the box to agree to the Acceptable Use Policy. Tap ‘continue’
• You will receive a text message from AT&T with a secure link to the AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot. You will not be charged for the text message.
• The SMS link will only be valid for 24 hours at the location it was requested. Another request must be submitted when using another hotspot location.
• Open the text message and tap on the link for 24-hour access to the AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot

This article provides more detailed information about some recent improvements and the resolution of known issues that Apple delivered in the Late-September 2008 update to MobileMe services.

Since server-side updates are a bit more innocuous than a standard software update to Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows, it’s easy not to notice that updates are occurring.  Usually the only hint of these updates is that things just “work better”.