December 2010
2 posts
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Weet for Mac Review →
My review of Weet at The Technology Charge.
Weet’s high configurability and robust feature list set it apart in a crowded market. Loren Brichter was supposed to release Tweetie 2 for Mac months ago, and continues to cryptically hint that an update will come one of these years. That’s not enough for me, and I doubt it is for anyone else. There are other solid alternatives, like Nambu...
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October 2010
1 post
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“I went to college in at a conservative school in Hawaii where there were a lot...”
– McRathenn on Reddit
September 2010
1 post
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In the Life of ‘The Wire’ by Lorrie Moore →
Awesome deconstruction of the best TV show since the invention of television.
August 2010
12 posts
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Droid Incredible's New Mobile Hotspot Feature
Late last night, a notice popped up on my phone telling me it was ready for the Android 2.2 update. The update, in addition to Froyo, promised 720p video recording and 3G tethering capability, both of which I was looking forward to using. As of now, I’ve only managed to test out tethering, and I’m sorry to say that it’s a huge disappointment.
From what I read on the web before...
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Really? Ya think? →
Shocking revelations, brought to light by Fast Company:
Although it is not due to be released for another ten days, the report says that an employee misread pressure data, giving the go-ahead to replace the drilling fluid with seawater. As a result of using the lighter liquid, natural gas shot up the pipeline and exploded on the rig, killing 11.
★
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Touchy-Feely →
Latest article over at The Technology Charge. Here, I share my thoughts on Apple’s recent multitouch desktop patent filings.
Is the Mac dead? No. Conventional computers will always do the dirty work — tasks that require the precision of a pointing device and the power of a quad-core processor. Think Steve Jobs’ pickup truck analogy. But is the Mac dead in its current iteration?...
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Personal Story of Progressive Father and his... →
ridikulouz:
Very interesting.
I suspect stories like this will become much more prevalent over the next generation. Here’s hoping to the eventual disappearance of firm gender roles in society.
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Playing Life →
A short story I wrote for school back in March has been published on Teen Ink magazine’s website. It’s some pretty trippy shit, so I can’t really give you a summary; you’re better off just reading and reflecting. Here’s a peek:
Claudius Cipher is an actor, and life is his play. And as a performer of life rather than a liver of life, he will do anything and...
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“…everything that ever has been always will be, and everything that ever...”
– Kurt Vonnegut
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Sneak: Fixing the background 'bleed' →
I recently came up against an issue in Safari where the background colour of an element seemed to ‘bleed’ through the edge of the corners when applying both borders and a border-radius (see the image above). After seeing David Cole tweet about the same issue I resolved to find a solution,…
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Predictions for the Next iPod touch →
My latest piece on The Technology Charge. Apologies for being a couple of days late on this one; I’ve been pretty busy.
Given that the iPod nano got a video camera last September, the iPod touch is in dire need of some form of photographic ability. I can understand why Apple waited this long; adding a conventional camera one year and a FaceTime camera the next would be silly and unfair to...
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“I’m not Pro-Gay Marriage, I’m Pro-Equality. I’m not Pro-Gay Rights, I’m...”
– Derek Powazek
July 2010
35 posts
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Ars Technica Reviews the Magic Trackpad →
Jacqui Cheng:
The ability to perform multitouch gestures on my desktop Mac is welcome. The less precise nature of using a trackpad instead of a mouse is not so fun sometimes—it’s tolerable, but annoying. Apple’s design is, of course, sleek and well-done, so at least the device is large enough to be useable without being too large. At least half of my childhood complaints about a...
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An Interview With Flipboard CEO Mike McCue →
Nice, long interview conducted by Silicon Alley Insider. Here’s a peek.
We were originally thinking we’d bring this to the web, but in thinking about this, it was clear that a tablet—and the iPad rumors started to pick up pace—it was pretty clear that betting on a tablet, and form faster, would be the idea. So we started designing for that, hoping and praying that something would actually...
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Coyote Tracks: The Emperor's New Antenna →
So I’ve been thinking about “Antennagate.” First thought: stop fucking calling every scandal “-gate,” for Christ’s sake.
Next thought: so what’s the scoop here? Biggest problem in the history of all of mobile phones, or minor issue blown way out of proportion by the tech media? Neither, of…
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First the Tata Nano, Now This →
From The Guardian:
On the manufacturing side, the bill of materials currently going into the tablet has come up to $47. This does not include labour, supply chain costs or profit. Even if the government sticks to its current stance of subsidising the product by $15 it is unlikely to retail at $35, let alone the $20 the government eventually hopes to sell it at. Further, a manufacturer has not...
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Safari Extensions: Off to a Bad Start (For Me at...
I’m a heavy Safari user. When I heard that Apple was going to try its hand at the extensions game, I got excited, especially with the knowledge that they would be built entirely using web standards (HTML, CSS and JavaScript). Some early extensions could be found before the official launch of the Safari Extensions Gallery, and some of them were pretty impressive (Ostrich, FullScreenYouTube).
...
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Cory Doctrow on "Curated Computing" →
I don’t necessarily with everything he has to say here, but it’s a good argument.
No, the only real reason to adopt coercive curation is to attain a monopoly over a platform – to be able to shut out competitors, extract high rents on publishers whose materials are sold in your store, and sell a pipe dream of safety and beauty that you can’t deliver, at the cost of homely,...
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On the Magic Trackpad
So, the Magic Trackpad is pretty much exactly what everyone expected it to be: A large, aluminum and glass external trackpad designed to bring MacBook-like gestures to the iMac experience.
I like the idea. I haven’t used a desktop computer in forever, and now I’m so used to the MacBook Pro’s Multi-Touch™ glass trackpad and its gesture-based interface that I would feel at home...
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Mac Pro goes 12-core, Apple offers new Cinema... →
marco:
The Mac Pro got an awesome Westmere update. (The iMacs were also speed-bumped today, and we got this interesting thing).
The biggest news, though, is that they put the 27” iMac’s insanely great panel into a standalone Cinema Display at just $999, supposedly shipping in September.
The old 30” Cinema Display, which cost $1799 with the same horizontal resolution, slightly more vertical...
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"Technology Fetishism is Skin Deep" →
Eye-opening article for The Guardian by Guy Dammann. It’s a refreshingly honest analysis of our obsession with the latest bells and whistles:
We flatter ourselves with endless talk about living at the “cutting edge” in an era of “constant change” and “permanent technological revolution”. Most of the time, though, by conspiring to keep capacity at a set...
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Pulse for Android: First Impressions
Pulse — that iOS news reader that got much press after the iPhone 4 event — is now live on the Android Market. I was impressed with what Alphonso Labs came up with for the iPad, and even more so when they managed to compress the experience for use on the iPhone. So as soon as I saw the news, I jumped up and bought my Droid Incredible a copy.
First impressions: it’s definitely the best RSS...
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Return of the Charge: Android-Bashing Edition →
After a short summer hiatus, The Technology Charge is back with a hefty criticism of Android, full of opinion, complaint and reason.
These bugs and quirks are crippling the OS’s growth. Polish is one concept the folks at Apple fully understand, but Google (along with Android hardware vendors) isn’t quite there yet. When I say “polish,” I’m not referring only to the...
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A New Version of Chrome Every Six Weeks →
Anthony Laforge:
Over the next few months, we are going to be rolling out a new release process to accelerate the pace at which Google Chrome stable releases become available. Running under ideal conditions, we will be looking to release a new stable version about once every six weeks, roughly twice as often as we do today.
Now that’s what I call competence.
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Facebook's Mobile Web App Gets a Hefty Update
Discovered this in the morning while checking Facebook on my Droid Incredible (Facebook’s Android app is a disaster). Here are some screenshots (taken from the iPhone Simulator because Android doesn’t allow screenshots without a fight):
…And that’s about all I can show you without infringing someone’s privacy. It’s not better than the iPhone app, but it...
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Apple's Third Quarter Results →
Here are the numbers:
Apple sold 3.47 million Macs during the quarter, representing a new quarterly record and a 33 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 8.4 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 61 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.41 million iPods during the quarter, representing an eight percent unit decline from the year-ago...
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Facebook Among the Web's Worst in Customer... →
From Mashable:
Even though Facebook’s users are dissatisfied, they haven’t demonstrated the will to leave. Perhaps it’s because there is no strong competitor, or because their social lives would suffer tremendously if they opted out of this now-essential tool for communication and event planning.
And there lies the problem. People hate Facebook, but by now it’s so widespread that they use...
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“We’re Apple. We don’t wear suits. We don’t even own suits.”
– A deputy of Steve Jobs (via Wired Magazine)
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Marco.org: My iPhone 4 antenna-gap fix →
I hate cases. I hate that they make the phone bigger, look cheap, and increase friction into and out of pockets.
During the Q&A session after yesterday’s press conference, John Gruber asked, “Do any of you use the cases?”
All three executives held up their bare, caseless iPhones. None of…
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“See now I’m thinkin’…maybe it means…you’re the...”
– Jules Winnfield, Pulp Fiction
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RIM's Official Statement on the iPhone 4 Press...
I saw this on CrackBerry, and immediately checked RIM’s press page to see if it was there, but it wasn’t. I can’t guarantee its authenticity, but it’s probably the real thing.
Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s...
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Apple Posts Streaming Video of Today's Press... →
Very thoughtful of them to do this. Now that I’ve watched the whole thing, I can’t help but feel sorry for Steve Jobs and co. Apple has also created a page (link located at the bottom of the video page) where all the antenna test videos are located, including one for the iPhone 4 and 3GS, which were not shown at the press conference.
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Press Conference Thoughts
Apple handled that pretty well, wouldn’t you say so? Steve Jobs immediately made it clear, through the use of hard numbers, that the antenna issue is something people have blown way out of proportion. I agree with him on that front; people will milk the smallest little thing for all that it’s worth now that Apple has had so much success.
He also made it clear that signal loss on...
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So, Jobs Knew?
According to a number of sources around the interwebs, senior Apple engineer Ruben Caballero warned Steve Jobs about potential problems with the iPhone 4’s antenna design. His concerns were voiced as much as a year ago, when development of the new hardware began.
Apparently, Jobs loved the design so much that he waved away Caballero (known for being an expert on antenna design) and his...
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Roger Ebert Gives 'Inception' Four Stars →
No matter how many glowing reviews a new film receives, I’m never convinced of its quality (or lack thereof) until I read what Roger Ebert has to say about it. This was the case with Christopher Nolan’s Inception, a flick I’ve been giddy about for quite some time, and Ebert’s word is out there.
The movies often seem to come from the recycling bin these days: Sequels,...
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Surprise! FaceTime is Coming to iPod touch and... →
No one saw this coming.
One of Boy Genius Report’s Apple connections has shocked the world by revealing that the next iteration of both the iPod touch and iPad will feature FaceTime. There would obviously be some modifications to the protocol, since the iPhone 4 uses FaceTime when calling a phone number, and the iPod touch and iPad can’t make phone calls (well, they don’t have...
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Apple to Hold Press Conference on Friday Regarding... →
I’ll give you three chances to guess what this is about.
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PR Experts: iPhone 4 Hardware Recall Is... →
Professor Matthew Seeger:
Apple will be forced to do a recall of this product. It’s critically important. The brand image is the most important thing Apple has. This is potentially devastating.
Devastating, my ass. Sure, it might harm Apple’s image a little, but it isn’t nearly as big of a deal as people are making it. I love how these so called “experts” always...
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“Larry King’s retiring after hosting “Larry King Live” for 25 years. Personally,...”
– Conan O’Brien (via Twitter)
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Squarespace Nabs $39 Million in Investments
Anthony Casalena, writing on the Squarespace blog:
Squarespace customers will be the real beneficiaries of this transaction. We want to grow into the company that can deliver the next stage of our vision — and I wanted to ensure nothing stood in the way of that. We are now cleared of all obstacles that stand in the way of us building our next generation platform — which will emerge...
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Apple Acquires Poly9
Yesterday, Apple acquired online mapping company Poly9. Here’s the scoop from AppleInsider:
Among its products is Poly9 Globe, described as a “cross-browser, cross-platform 3D globe which does not require any download.” The interactive software allows users to spin a three-dimensional rendering of the Earth, while providing real-time statistics on the user’s virtual...
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iPhone 4 Recall?
To everyone’s complete surprise, the software fix that targets the faulty signal display calculations wasn’t enough. The reception issue with the iPhone 4’s antenna persists, and people aren’t happy. Petitions are being signed all over the web asking Apple for free bumper cases (which are known to alleviate the problem), but Apple continues to sell a ten cent piece of...
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“Can a summer blockbuster with a multi-million dollar budget really be this...”
– Catherine Bray on Christopher Nolan’s Inception
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Man Claims He Owns 84% Of Facebook →
Not surprising. Especially after seeing the latest trailer for The Social Network.
A man in New York state claims he owns 84% of Facebook based on a two-page “contract” he entered into with Mark Zuckerberg 7 years ago—9 months before Facebook was founded.
One thing is for sure: Mark Zuckerberg is a creeeeeeep. I mean, did you see those D8 interviews?