If we embrace the fact that no one can or should ever care about the health of our passions as much as we do, the practical decisions that help ensure Our Good Thing stays alive can become as “simple” as a handful of proven patterns—work hard, stay awake, fail well, hang with smart people, shed bullshit, say “maybe,” focus on action, and always always commit yourself to a bracing daily mixture of all the courage, honesty, and information you need to do something awesome—discover whatever it’ll take to keep your nose on the side of the ocean where the fresh air lives. This is huge.

Thankfully, there’s the Interphone study, launched 10 years ago and studying 10,000 participants spread across 13 different countries. Those concerned with The Answer have been waiting for the results with increased anticipation. And, here it is, summed up by Dr. Elisabeth Cardis, leader of the Interphone study:

Until stronger conclusions can be drawn one way or another, it may be reasonable to reduce one’s exposure [to cellular radiation]. It can’t hurt. — Dr. Elisabeth Cardis

“It can’t hurt?” So, it turns out that the long awaited report, published in the Internal Journal of Epidemiology on May 17, according to Time Magazine’s May 31 issue, “is by far the most comprehensive look at the issue to date and was meant to provide a possible conclusion to the debate.” Unfortunately, the real facts of the matter: 10 years isn’t that long to study something as subtly insidious as cancer poisoning from a radiation source such as cell phones. Even so, the study does give us interesting new data to ponder, discuss and argue over while another 10 or 20 year study is pulled together:

1. The study did not find any obvious connection between cell phone use and cancer, but it did find some seemingly conflicting data that muddies the discussion even further.
2. Of the study’s subjects, the 10% that used their cell phones most often did exhibit a 40% higher risk of developing some form of brain cancer, as compared to those who don’t use cell phones.
3. On the other hand, participants in the study that used their cell phones infrequently demonstrated a lower likelihood of developing brain cancer over people who use corded phones exclusively.

Unfortunately, even some of the data the defined the study is already out of date. 15 years ago (when the study was originally designed), using a cell phone for 30 minutes a day was considered “heavy” use. By today’s standards, 30 minutes a day might be considered moderate, particularly as people are starting to forego land-lines in favor of simply having a cell phone.

So what’s our take-away? Probably that the Interphone study is too dated and flawed. When you hear the mobile phone industry trumpeting it’s positive findings, or when you hear consumer advocates talking about it’s negative discoveries, keep in mind: They’re both quoting from the same study, a study which seems to equally support either position.

We need a new study. Unfortunately, that means we’ll be waiting another 15 or 20 years before “significant” evidence has a chance to answer this question once and for all.

I know all the arguments for tolerance: AT&T’s network was slammed with unexpected adoption levels; they are trying to roll out more coverage; they are upgrading their networks. But that doesn’t change the fact that when I bought my iPhone 3Gs, I cancelled my data card and plan and have been waiting for over a year listening to promises of “real soon now.” In the meantime, I’m inconvenienced on every business trip. Dishonesty is at the heart of the matter: AT&T needs to deliver on their promise, or tell us what’s really going on.

So, for the record: If a class action suit gets off the ground, I’m in.

According to TUAW you can buy the CoPilot application for a $2.99 per month subscription, or opt for a $19.99 per year payment. That’s a heck of a lot more attractive than AT&T’s plan (which would run about $120 per year). You can give the application a try for free, too, as it comes with a 30 day trial period when you first download it. TUAW does point out, thought, that after using CoPilot for a couple of years, you could have bought the higher rated TomTom or Navigon apps, both of which seem to have more features and fewer problems than CoPilot. Check out some of the reviews on the Apple store before buying: CoPilot has it’s pros and cons.

No officials were talking about reforming British drinking habits of course. I like that. The Brits have got their priorities sorted — and, let’s face it, they’ve got a healthy dose of realism going here. Rather than stem the tide of drunken behavior, the government has invested in developing shatterproof beer glasses. Officials swear the country will save billions in health care costs by eradicating the “pint glass as a lethal weapon” issue.

“Glassing causes horrific injuries and has a lasting and devastating impact on victims and their families,” said Alan Johnson, Home Secretary, as he introduced two new shatterproof pint glasses. Alcohol Concern, a charity that strives to reduce alcohol abuse in Britain, praised the new designs.

If this sounds like something you want to try, give dropbox a go. Dropbox creates a virtual folder on each of your computers — anything you drop into the folder shows up everywhere. It’s instantly backed up to the dropbox computing cloud, and you can even get to your files through a web browser.

One of the best features, I think: You can instantly share any folder inside your dropbox with friends or colleagues, even if they have a different operating system. The shared folders just appear inside your dropbox, letting you work together seamlessly.

Give it a try for free. You get 2GB of storage with your starter account, and can upgrade to 50GB for about $10 a month. And if you’re a Time Machine user — yes, your dropbox folder is seamlessly backed up to Time Machine.

1. It’s cross platform, working seamlessly on my iPhone. Any information I capture appears both on my laptop and my iPhone and is fully searchable in either place.
2. Evernote’s search and retrieval capabilities are phenomenal. In part, this is because it uploads everything to a central server where character recognition is run on everything non-text, turning images, scans, faxes and PDF files into fully, content-searchable documents.

As my library of Evernote content has grown it has become more and more indispensable. This took a while. At first I had my typical quandary when facing a new tool. “Where do I put this? How will I find it again?” Eventually I discovered the answer to both questions is actually quite simple: Put everything in Evernote, and don’t worry about finding it again — it’s just going to work. And it does.

This doesn’t mean it’s entirely effortless, but it’s close. I still love Apple Mail and it’s powerful search capabilities, and I still have gigabytes of documents tucked away in my file system. I don’t dump all of my mail into Evernote. Evernote gets most of my documents, faxes, PDFs, images I snap on my iPhone. But it also gets email that I think falls into the “ooh, I’m going to want to reference that again later” category, and it works nicely — especially when there’s a document or image attachment.

Give it a try, but do be religious about it for a while. Until you have enough information in Evernote, you’ll feel like you’re doing double-duty. Eventually, a transition happens and you find it has become central to your workflow. Now, I use it every day — categorizing materials I want to research, as an “idea board” for rough drafts and notes that I’m working on, and as a way to tuck away anything I’ll want to find again.

13.9 billion — minutes facebook users spent on the site in April, a 700% increase from April 2008.

95% — of business decision-makers worldwide use social networks to some extent.

35% — of Americans 18 and over used a social-networking service in 2008.

8% — of Americans 18 and over used a social-networking service in 2005.

87% — of adults said they prefer dealing with others i person instead of via computers or smartphones.

The good news is, with iPhone OS 3.1 we’ve got better options.

The bad news — well, it’s still a bit of a hassle to figure out how to make it work.

iPhone OS 3.1: Subscriptions, finally!

With the latest release of Apple’s new iPhone OS subscription calendars configured in iCal on your Mac will sync via MobileMe to your iPhone. This means that if all you want to do is get calendar subscriptions to show up, and you are syncing your iCal calendar with your MobileMe account, you’re all set.

This does require a MobileMe account though. I haven’t found a way to get an iPhone to subscribe to calendar subscriptions all on it’s own — so this is where other solutions come in very handy.

Spanning Sync: Google calendars (and subscriptions)

SpanningSync is another possible solution — for those of us either without a MobileMe subscription, or just interested in solid synchronization between Google calendars and the iCal. SpanningSync is a preference panel that reliably and accurately synchronizes your iCal with Google Calendar and Address Book with Google Contacts. In my first week of experimenting with it, I’ve found it flawless. Furthermore, updates both from and to Google calendar happen within minutes, if not faster.

So, how does this help iPhone users? In conjunction with a MobileMe account you can get a full synchronization between Google, your desktop and your iPhone. SpanningSync takes care of the Google to desktop synchronization, while MobileMe takes care of the desktop to iPhone connection.

Using SpanningSync, it’s also possible to synchronize subscription calendars to the iPhone, provided that your Google calendar account subscribes to the calendar. SpanningSync is smart enough to pick up every calendar (subscriptions included) on your Google calendar and put it on your desktop.

Another product in this space is BusyCal, from BusyMac.com. BusyCal offers an iCal replacement with a number of groupware features:

BusyCal is a desktop calendar that provides seamless calendar sharing and enhanced productivity tools for workgroups and individuals. BusyCal combines the calendar sharing and synchronization technology from the award winning BusySync with a beautiful desktop calendar interface that is instantly recognizable to iCal users — all in one easy to use integrated application.

BusyCal bills itself as “a better iCal,” but this approach does require dropping Apple’s calendar application in favor of BusyMac’s.

My solution

In my case, I’m using iCal, MobileMe, Google calendar and SpanningSync quite successfully. My iPhone is always up-to-date with my desktop and with Google.

I tend to use iCal and MobileMe as my primary scheduling tool. Consequently, most of my calendars are, actually, iCal/MobileMe calendars. I’ve got a few subscriptions as well, but most are in iCal/MobileMe. Finally, SpanningSync takes care of making sure my two public Google calendars (for shared meetings and office scheduling) are correctly synchronized to iCal.

All of the iPhone synchronizing takes place through MobileMe. As soon as SpanningSync picks up a change — either on Google (sending it down to my iCal account) or on my desktop (sending it up to Google), my MobileMe subscription reliable picks up the change and pops it into my iPhone and vice-versa. So far I haven’t had any problems making changes to calendars on the iPhone. MobileMe picks up any change, sends it to iCal and within moments SpanningSync relays the change to Google.

It is a bit complicated but, fortunately, it’s all behind the scenes. Granted, life would be easier if iCal and MobileMe knew how to talk effectively to Google — but then, where would companies like BusyMac and SpanningSync be?