Loading ...So has himself a shiny new iPhone 3GS, and has gone and given his old first-gen iPhone to . Dara futzed around with the device some last night to get it all set up and activated and stuff, and then let me play with it some to get the final bit of critical information I needed: i.e., could I use the virtual keyboard on the thing well enough to write on?
Survey says, YES. I quite liked the virtual keyboard that came in with the 3.0 version of the iPhone software, especially in landscape mode. This doesn’t leave much screen room, but that’s okay; for my purposes, all I really need is to be able to whip out a few paragraphs here and there (such as when I’m at a con or something), which I can then sync up onto my laptop later.
Knowing this, I stopped in the AT&T store this morning and ordered me a shiny new iPhone of my own. I asked for one of the 32G white ones, and the girl who rang me up said those are coming in pretty fast. So I should get the device sometime in the next few days–it may even come in before I get back from Disneyland!
And, folks, this is where you come in, because I also need to settle the vital question of what to name this incoming iPhone. Drop your suggestions in the comments! The strongest contenders will then go head to head in a poll.
To sweeten the deal, I will heretofore announce my very first author contest. The winner of the poll will get one free e-copy of Faerie Blood in the format of their choice (options: PDF, Mobi, or Microsoft Reader). Or, if you already own a copy of Faerie Blood, I’ll give you a copy of any Drollerie Press book of your choice from the Drollerie bookstore!
So spread the word far and wide, people, and start winging those suggestions at me! You have until Monday, when I get back from Disneyland, to submit your nominations for the poll!
ETA 4:47pm: A couple of quick addenda to stick in a couple of rules!
1. Multiple nominations will be allowed but I reserve the authorial right to allow only one nomination per person to get into the final actual poll.
2. If you’d like to endorse someone’s nomination, you may do so by dropping a comment in support of it wherever the nomination originally showed up (which is to say, angelakorrati.com, LJ, Dreamwidth, Facebook, or Twitter, since I doubt anybody’s actually reading this post from InsaneJournal or JournalFen). If a nomination receives at least two comments in support, it’ll go into the poll!
And again–y’all have until Monday the 13th to either get in your nominations or support somebody else’s! So let me hear from you, folks!
July 8, 2009 at 5:14 pm
I admit, I name all my portables things starting with P. The MacBook Pro is ‘Pico,’ the MacBook Nano (Dell Mini 9 hackintoshed to run OSX) is ‘Packet,’ the iPhone 3GS is ‘Ping’ and the T-Mobile G1 is ‘Paradigm.’ (Servers start with ‘S’ — Snafu, Segfault — and desktop boxes start with G. Gizmo, Glitch, Gamma.)
The gist of which is, if you have an existing naming scheme for your computers, it might be useful to include in the contest info in order for folks to find a name that fits in!
Other than that? Aether. Both in honor of early forms of of certain characters, and because the iPhone is a little shiny box that magically plucks information out of the ether whenever you need it. (Wiki Mobile is /awesome/.)
July 8, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Ah, you win for first vote here! And you have a fine point re: naming schemes. I’ll do a separate post about that.
July 9, 2009 at 2:01 am
not related to you fandoms per se (maybe?) but being that i am still a total Heinlein fan, and you are getting what is, in essence, another miniature computer…
there are a few options. if you think the phone is gendered male and it involves *very* immature humor, i would totally go with Mycroft (Mike) after the computer in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.
if you think it may be gendered female, and you think it is very helpful and not annoying, i suggest Minerva (Time Enough For Love is the first book – after that, she gets a human body…)
If you think it may be gendered female, and it is somehow snarky and sarcastic and laughs at you because you don’t know as much as it does – i say Athena, also first seen in Time Enough For Love, and still a computer as of RAH’s death, although she had plans (that involved Mycroft and a laaaaaaaaaaaarge orgy)
if you think it is gender-neutral, and it contains some combination of the above (sometimes helpful, sometimes laughs at you), then for some reason the “successor” computer to Athena/Mycroft was named Shiva.
If you think it may be gendered female, and you use it for GPS and/or lots of math things, then Dora! *also* from Time Enough For Love,
wow… Heinlein really liked his AIs that were real people…
also: if it is more of a PDA type thing (like, a phone+PDA, which is what my phone is) i recommend Friday. for lost of reasons, not the least of which is the RAH book of the same name, plus the movie named (i think? been too long) His Girl Friday about a woman who was the *best* at her job, but was getting married so was having to quit, but couldn’t *quite* bring herself to quit, because she was SO GOOD AT HER JOB. it is obviously a very old movie lol.
hrm… music wise… it being a phone, it may interupt you – stacata (not that i am spelling that correctly). i like the word Sonata (and my favorite piece of music *period* is Moonlight Sonata) and depending on how you feel about the phone it may be apropriate…
i’ll see if i can’t think of more
oh – so, would names from Faerie Blood be at all appropriate? because, um… well… it;s *your* book and *your* phone and…
July 13, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Hey there Denelian, thanks for chiming in all these suggestions, wow.
I’ll go ahead and take them all, although re: whether a name out of Faerie Blood would be appropriate, sure. However, I’m going to take the liberty to give that to kisanthe over on LJ because she already called dibs on Kendis, the heroine of Faerie Blood, and you’ve got a bunch of other options here!