Going through Google reader tonight, I’ve encountered a lot of shared articles about the Apple iPhone SDK. And for the most part, every one of the articles praises the SDK and Apple’s approach with it.
Photo by John Biehler
But in pure Office Space style, I’m going to have to go ahead and, you know, sort of disagree with you all. In particular, I’m going to outline a few points from one specific article and give my take as a cross platform application developer who actually *has* developed software from scratch on the Mac using both Carbon and Cocoa.
First point:
Overall, it is deeply ...
I read this fairly alarming (although not entirely surprising) article yesterday detailing how prescription drugs are being detected in municipal water sources.
A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.
..
• Officials in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, ...
As most of you are now aware, last night we moved our clocks ahead an hour due to daylight savings time. At 7pm tonight, as I pumped endless money into my Apple TV, I looked out the window and saw the sun still setting, a nice change from the dark evening skies of winter.
This year I’m going to do something different with regards to the summer — I’m going to keep all my weekends open for me. For the last three years, I have basically not really had any time in the summers to do the things I wanted. The summer of 2005 I spent in a small office in Burnaby with a bunch of other guys, literally ...
As I mentioned in my last post, my mind is starting to drift towards a vacation sometime in the next two or three months. I’m thinking about overlapping it with a trip I’m making in June to Disneyland (to hang out with some of my family who will be there).
Here are a few ideas:
Vancouver -> Los Angeles -> Costa Rica: I loved Costa Rica when I was there, and it might be cool to head back and rent a little place on the beach for a week. The flights for the entire trip are about $1000 right now. Not bad for five flight segments.
Vancouver -> Los Angeles -> Cancun: I’ve actually ...
John and I made it. I was pounding back caffeine most of the way which meant I had to pee a lot, but we’re at the Holiday Inn now (yes, very classy I know), having a liquid dinner in the hotel.
We’ll be heading down to the Tractor Tavern in about 90 minutes to catch the show. I’m charging the camera now, so hopefully I’ll grab a few shots.
Also, just checked the official website. The only musician to have a sell-out at the Tractor Travern this month:
...
Yesterday Apple released their long-waited for SDK for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. What this means is that if you’re interested in developing applications for the iPhone, you can simply download the SDK and get cracking. That is, unless you live in Canada.
That’s right, Steve Jobs has limited real development to people with valid US addresses. And even then, it’s an application process that costs a minimum of $99 to be a part of. I realize Canada is a really small demographic compared to the United States, but we’re not *that* small, and there really are some bright people up here. ...
That’s the phrase of the day people. I was debating a hard problem at work with a few people and after banging our heads on the table for 30 minutes, Cisco interjected “everyone really should have their own GUID.” Yes that would be a rather perfect solution, albeit fairly nerdy.
Some day. ...
Yes, they are here — my Moo cards finally arrived in the mail today. I officially ordered them exactly one month ago, so it took a full four weeks to get here. Looking at the packaging, it looks like they went from London, UK to Germany, and then finally over here to Canada.
Considering that they state they all shipping is done with First Class airmail, I’m pretty surprised that it not only takes this long to get here, but also that there isn’t some sort of tracking number. In fact, there are no markings on the packaging at all to indicate when it finally did ship from London, which seems ...
I’ve had gravatars on this site a few times over the last few years, but they always seem to disappear whenever I do a retheming. I’ve added them back in the comments and also added the last comment to the main page along with a gravatar.
If you don’t have a photo next to your name when you comment, that means you don’t have a public gravatar available. If you want one, head over to Gravatar.com and sign up. It’s free, and as soon as you add your photo to it you will start noticing it automatically show up on various sites around the internet. If you don’t define one you’re going ...
I’ve spent a great deal of time in the last few months trying to understand how search engines work, and how sites get indexed. In my last article, I recommending that the XML Sitemap generator for WordPress should be installed on sites to help with search engine crawling. On this site, Google has gone from around 400 indexed articles (about 20%) up to around 1600 articles (about 80%) for my website — a substantial increase, entirely due to the sitemap.
I want to write briefly about WordPress title tags in the context of search engine optimization. Most default WordPress blogs are configured ...
Today I took the plunge and quickly upgraded my WordPress installation from 2.3.3 to the Beta for 2.5. In terms of look and feel on the front-end, I doubt you’ll notice any major changes (especially on sites where you don’t have to login). However, they’ve completely overhauled the administration section in the back to make things a little easier to find.
I’m not going to really review it, because in all fairness it’s not quite done yet. However, the back end does seem a bit slower, maybe due to the new additions. Also, I have been completely unable to add media using the new interface. ...
Mark just swung by my desk at work and we spun into a debate about who was the bigger nerd. This somehow led to a discussion about the first computers we ever owned. My first computer was probably when I was around six years old. It was a Radio Shack’s Tandy TRS-80. Back in those days you’d go out and buy a magazine with BASIC code in it and have to manually type your own games into the thing. I remember my dad and I struggled for days just to get this stupid game going where dots would bounce around the screen.
The Tandy TRS-80, From Wikipedia
Next on the list was my Commodore 64 computer. ...
Well, it was an interesting day in the blogosphere, one that I’m thankful is over. Tonight I was sitting at home debating drinking myself into a coma when Rebecca pinged me online and said I should come over for wine. I was pretty comfy in my flannel pants and briefly debated staying at home. But since I really needed a few drinks, I decided to head over as I was, flannel pants and all. So for the last few hours I’ve been sitting on Rebecca and John’s couch in my flannel pants with a big-ass afghan draped over me. It was pretty much exactly what I needed tonight (although I’m looking forward ...
Yes, today is my mom’s birthday. I lost count of how old she is years ago, but she’ll always be 39 in our hearts.
Have a great day today mom! And hurry up and call me back so I can wish you Happy Birthday myself! ...
Tonight, while sitting at home on the couch, I was reminded of a conversation I had last week with someone that I hadn’t talked to in quite some time. That person was someone I used to hang out with quite a bit in university, but haven’t really seen that much of in the last few years. We both somehow ended up in software development, although I’ve stayed more along the lines of developing software while he has moved on to managing a small team of developers.
The thing is, I left the conversation somehow being made to feel bad that after eight years in my career I haven’t advanced to full-time ...
I just read the results of an interesting study done down south. Apparently americans spend approximately three hours per week grooming themselves and looking good, but less than an hour (per week people) on foreplay and intercourse. So it appears the collective mass would rather look good in bed than be good in bed.
Here’s a couple of paragraphs from the write-up.
Americans spend nearly three hours every week grooming themselves, but less than one hour on foreplay and sexual intercourse. It’s no wonder that only 46% of us describe our love lives as exciting, or existent for that matter.
On ...
I’m hopeless, really I am. I do stupid things all the time, most of which I end up thinking are pretty funny. A few years ago I went to work with my shirt on backwards and inside-out. Since I like laughing at myself, I never take these things too seriously.
This morning, after taking a shower, I went into my room and sorted some clothes looking for something to wear. Underneath a couple clothes in the corner there was a plastic bag. And in that plastic bag was….
everyone’s favorite packaged pig, Mr. Bacon. Yes, I’m so not shitting you, there was bacon.. in my room. I actually remember ...
I’m a big believer in corporate responsibility. That is, I think big corporations should reach out and do more for people in their communities, or use whatever means they have to contribute positively towards society. Surprisingly, the Vancouver technology scene is fairly active in this area, and I’ve witnessed many technology-driven events in this city geared towards feeding people in the Lower East Side, helping acquire clothing, etc.
So today, I was rather pleased to see an announcement from one of the largest technology companies around. Google has just announced that they are going to ...