This is so dumb, there is no possible reason that any one needs a stupid FM radio in their device. I can’t remember the last time I listened to the radio, even when I don’t have an iPod hook up in a car I prefer the silence over the ad-network (i.e. Radio).
Year: 2010
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calvetica – The fast calendar for iPhone
Awesome new calendar app for the iPhone. Boils down the calendar to exactly what you need, viewing and quick adding, with alarms. Great little app (syncs with your Calendar that is on the phone already), a bit annoying that you can’t change the calendar that you add a new even to (uses the default only), but it is going to replace my calendar in the iPhone dock, from the developer:
Add an event in just two quick taps. See how full your week or day is at a glance. It works with the built-in iPhone calendar but it’s faster.
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HBO Streaming Service Coming to iPad
That is awesome, I don’t get HBO at home and so I would gladly pay to be able to get access to these shows on my iPad. Very cool, now I just hope that it isn’t vaporware.
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Vimeo Releases Embeddable HTML5 Video Player
This is great news for iOS users.
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Site Updates – Readability
I wanted to give you a brief run down and tips on reading this site. First things first I do two different post types, linked items and articles. The linked items appear in a smaller Helvetica font with an underline on the title, clicking the title will take you to the link. Clicking the word ‘permalink’ below will take you to the page for just that linked post on this site. Articles appear in a larger Georgia font with no underline. Clicking the title or the ‘permalink’ will result in you going to the page for just that article.
I have styled things in this manner to help everyone quickly know which is which, and I hope it is easy enough to figure out.
iPad Users
You all get a special site, the current site is very readable on an iPad, but as of yesterday I have implemented the excellent PadPressed plugin to add a custom theme for iPad users. This gives such users swiping support and inertia scrolling. The styling is all the same as the regular site for links and articles. The main difference is that at the top you are greeted with a sideways scrolling list of the most recent four posts I have done in the ‘perspectives’ category. I call these perspectives because they are my editorial opinion on something.
Please email me if you have any problems.
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Apple is doing you a favor by controlling iAd. Stop your whining.
Brad McCarty:
Apple is, at this point, doing you a world of favors by keeping a controlling hand on the iAd platform. Not only is it keeping you from throwing content out there that simply isn’t effective, it’s also making certain that the platform as a whole maintains its value, moving forward.
Great follow up to the hubbub yesterday about Apple being too controlling over the iAd platform.
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Data-Gobbling Android Users Will Likely See Bandwidth Capped
Check out the graph comparing Android phones to iPhones – now remember the antenna problems the iPhone 4 has. Do you think this may be an AT&T conspiracy to curb data usage? I don’t but for you conspiracy theorists out there enjoy that tidbit.
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Lycos Acquired By Ybrant Digital
W. David Gardner:
Lycos Inc., one of the early Internet companies that soared into the stratasphere before falling to the earth, has been acquired by an Indian company for $36 million. Lycos once commanded a valuation of $12.5 billion before Internet companies began unraveling more than a decade ago.
Read that again, from $12.5 billion to $36 million – that’s a drop.
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Kid Receives 26,000 Texts After Justin Bieber Cries
What a douche bag.
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11 Famous Sony Products, Ranked From Worst Failure to Biggest Success
I don’t agree with all the rankings, but he isn’t too far off. Great list and some great memories.
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The Secret History of Apple’s Command Symbol (and others)
Bryan Gardiner:
Alternately known as the Gorgon loop, the splat, the infinite loop, and, in the Unicode standard, a “place of interest sign,” the command symbol has remained a mainstay on Apple keyboards to this day.
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Fuck you, Money
Antonio from Adgrok:
Crunching more realistic numbers, ‘fuck-you money’ is about $4.2MM for a 30 year old guy who plans on dying at 70 and wants to make $200K/year. Well within the payout picture of a fortunate startup founder whose company is acquired.
This is one of the best articles I have read in a long time, truly fantastic and a must read for anyone thinking about starting a company.
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PadPressed – WordPress Optimized for the iPad
If you have an iPad visit the site, it is an impressive plug-in and I am seriously considering buying it for this site ($49.99). I don’t use WPTouch to optimize because I think it looks like crap – this though looks pretty nice.
[Updated: 8/16/10 at 2:37 PM] I now have PadPressed up and running on this site – iPad users please check it out and let me know what you think.
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News on Why HP Fired Hurd – A He Said Board Said Accounting
Sounds like the bottom line was that Hurd and the Board of HP did not get along.
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Apple’s New iAds Platform Is a Power Struggle
Everybody is making this out to sound like Apple is shooting themselves in the foot and trying to control yet another industry. I however would like to offer this to you: Apple is trying to make mobile advertising not look like crap, and that takes time. More than time it takes changing the hearts and minds of advertisers – advertisers always think they know best.
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Michael Lopp on Geeks at work
Lopp (aka Rands):
I did a lot of research into figuring out the difference between nerd and geek. There really isn’t one. The Venn diagram completely intersects. For every great definition of nerd, you can find the same definition of geek.
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Technology Saved This Hikers Ass
In no uncertain terms technology (and Verizon) saved me from being on the news as a lost hiker this weekend. I went for a hike this past Saturday at Tonga Ridge located in the Mt. Baker National Forest two and a half hours north-east of Seattle. My wife had bailed on Friday evening, so that left me and a buddy to hike – on a day when the weather was set to be in the low 90s.
On the way out to the trail we jokingly went over all the survival gear we had for an absolute emergency – we had plenty to weather for a few days (assuming we could forage for some food). My buddy, let’s call him Steve, was showing off some of the apps that he adjust got for his brand new HTC Incredible (Verizon Android phone).
We set off on a six mile round trip hike that started at an elevation of 4400 feet and moved up to 4800 feet. We quickly covered the three miles in, as the weather was still very cool. Upon hitting the three mile mark we were presented with three different trails we could take for side hikes, only one of which was marked. We knew ahead of time that we wanted to try and make it to Fisher Lake, so we could cool off before hiking back. Not knowing which trail to take I pulled out my iPhone to see if I had internet reception and much to my surprise I had two bars on the Edge network (slow ass AT&T network). We decided to take the trail marked Bear Creek even though the iPhone said it appeared to head in the wrong direction, away from the lake. We wanted to stick to a marked trail and it seemed the best bet at the time.
Wrong Choice
Fifteen minutes into the trail Steve and I decided we were off course and turned around. Getting back we checked both of our phones and our compasses and decided on the trail heading due south, as that was the direction of the lake. Fifteen minutes in it looked like we were off course, using the compasses on our phones we checked our heading, still due south. At this point we bumped into a group of women hiking who seemed confident we were on the right trail, and told us when they had done it before explaining that you had to hike up over the ridge ahead.
The Ridge
Hiking along the trail became very difficult to follow as it wound through a forest and up a ridge. We scrambled (sometimes on our hands) to climb about 700 feet in less than a mile. An exhausting climb, one that we hoped we did not have to go back down. Exhausted we reached the top of the ridge – no lake in sight. We checked the compass and Google Maps (only the Incredible had reception at this point) to confirm where we were in relation to the lake. We were no where close, still about a half mile away.
After much exploring and finding a couple other trails we admitted defeat and called it quits. We turned back and hiked out, never reaching out destination and exerting more energy than we needed too.
The Ass Saving Part
As I sit here a day later on my balcony writing this I realize just how important our phones were to us in that situation. Had we not had reception we may still be on that ridge thinking we were just moments away from seeing the lake. Knowing where you are in relation to where you want to go with the precision and fool-proofness of GPS is nothing short of amazing. Had we only had a map and compass I am sure we would have gotten lost, or worse believed we where closer than we were. Map reading is easy, map reading to determine your location in the middle of the forest takes a lot of skill. Hitting a button on your phone tell you your exact location and direction you are facing takes no skill.
We turned around because the Incredible told us with 100% certainty that we had made very little progress while expending tons of energy doing it. We turned around because we knew we were not getting to that lake, and we knew that because of GPS, and the robust Verizon network. A map would have not shown us the same, it would have allowed us to question where we really were.
One last thing, when Steve and I realized that we were off course (i.e. Lost), Steve took down our latitude and longitude (i.e. our GPS coordinates) and texted them to his dad. Someone now knew where we were and could send a search party right to us if we didn’t return home that night. Smart.
Technology and Brains
Technology really did help us, but it is no substitute for playing it smart. We made the decision to turn around, we made the call that enough was enough and we were lost. The phones just gave us the information we needed to make that call. Hike smart, hike safe, take your phone with you always.
(Also it doesn’t hurt to have phones on different carriers with you, thanks for the help Verizon. Also AT&T WTF?)
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Study Reveals 75 Percent of Individuals Use Same Password for Social Networking and Email
Don’t be stupid, get 1Password and make different complicated passwords for everything – do this now.
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Jeffrey Zeldman: iPad Fonts Petition
Zeldman:
Please either add the ability to retain fonts (and all their settings) when importing Keynote, Pages, and Numbers documents from computer to iPad, or else please create a simple font management tool for the iPad that allows us to import reasonable subset of our fonts to the device.
I second the motion.
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Apple manager charged with taking kickbacks from suppliers
Eric Bangeman:
According to the indictment, Devine had the companies bidding to supply iPod and iPad components wire numerous small payments to a number of US and offshore bank accounts held by him and at least one shell company. Devine is currently in custody in California, while an IRS agent declined to tell the The Mercury News if Ang was in custody.