WWDC Keynote reflections
First off: No, I was not actually present at the keynote this morning. I was watching updates flow in through the news feed while at work. I wish I had been because it was a busy day.
The garage you’ve always wanted: TechShop Portland
A few years back I started to get more nerdy than I had ever been. By more nerdy, I mean that I began to take an interest in a wide variety of things that leaned on the technical and electronic side. I became interested in making, modeling, and very much the “DIY” (Do-It-Yourself) mentality about things. If you haven’t heard of this phenomenon, it’s more of less born out of the desire to be creative and productive. The availability of materials and the lowering of costs has enabled individuals to create things that weren’t practically possible ever before. It’s gained the name “Making”.
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(My) 2009 Birthday Wishlist
A month from tomorrow is my Birthday. Whenever it comes to a holiday or event that involves some gift receiving on my part, the question inevitably comes “What do you want for _________ ?” And my answer is inevitably “I don’t know…”.
The reality is that I do know, but the things that I want are so far outside of the normal range of affordability that I generally don’t want to bring it up. I don’t want to ask people for an electric car (if such a thing exists in the US – c’mon automakers, get with the program), or a $3000 projector, or a 42″ flat LCD TV, or whatever. Up until 9 months ago, one of the answers was “A new computer”, but having struck a deal with Hykel, my wife I bought a new iMac back in July, and it’s been great. So thankfully I don’t need a new computer. I’m very happy with it.
Shameless plug for a contest entry
As the title says, this is a shameless plug. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a common expression that means “I have no excuse for this except my own self-interests. I’m not ashamed of that, but what I’m saying here doesn’t serve a higher cause.” At least that’s what I think it means. Anyway, I need your help… Continue reading ‘Shameless plug for a contest entry’ »
Gadget FlashBack: The Apple Newton MessagePad
What can possibly more be said about the Newton, that hasn’t been said already? I’m not really sure, but something drove me to own one… actually, I owned a MessagePad 2100, and 5 eMate 300s.
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My DIY NAS
I’ve been looking forward to posting this for weeks, nay months. I would have to say that this project started out as an entirely different project early on. I stumbled across the idea on Paul Stamatiou’s blog. He built a little computer out of a Mini-ITX board and a couple of pieces of plexi-glass. I was pretty amazed at it, and I thought “I would like to do that. That would be cool.” I think as much as I loved the idea of having a NAS,I also wanted a project to do. I enjoy the DIY approach to thing and I love the feeling of accomplishment that comes with it.
Kindle iPhone App
I’ve never been really into ebooks. The primary trouble has always been a matter of how to read them. Computers are inconvenient because they’re only in one place. Though I do spend a lot of time at my desk, I don’t approach the Internet the same way I do recreational reading. Even a laptop would present to me an awkward situation. It just doesn’t feel right. I’ve had a few handheld devices in my day. A Palm, a Visor, even a Newton MessagePad, and that doesn’t include the phones I’ve had. In all of those, I’ve never given significant effort to trying to read a book on them. I don’t know if it was accessibility to books, ease of use, whatever, but the option has never really intrigued me.
Throwing Skribit into the mix
It’s been a few weeks since I setup the blog. I’ve had a goal to post often, and by often I mean about 3 times a week. I did not realize what that meant at the time I think. I imagined this blog to be something similar to a bit of a tech-cool-stuff blog. The kind of thing you read when you want a personal opinion from someone, or a cool idea you’d like to head up.
The Safari 4 Beta – some notes.
In a few words: I don’t like it… much
I need to be fair though. I need to offer at least arguments for why I don’t like Safari 4, and it’s important to note that in spite of the definition, a beta product can be changed. To clarify that, Beta means that it’s gone from internal testing to external testing. Internal testing is Alpha, External is Beta – usually controlled. A public beta, which has become the common-place these days, would be an external test open to everyone. I think the accepted meaning of “Beta” means to most people “Available, but not finalized.” It should mean essentially that they’re in bug squashing mode. On to the thoughts (I wanted to say review, but this isn’t a review.)
iPhone Apps
iPhone apps have been around as long as I’ve had an iPhone.I got my iPhone about 6 months in, on Christmas of 07, as many people did. Apple hadn’t yet allowed iPhone apps developed with the SKD (and at that point, had no intention of releasing such a thing) and so the Jail-breaking community took the lead and reverse-engineered the iPhone platform for their own purposes. Save for a few games, I didn’t do much with it then and I frankly don’t do much with legit apps now.