Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Where's my app?
I'd like to see an iPad technical drawing app using the 'sketch' abilities seen in a number of CAD programs. It would be awesome to be able to use your finger to rough out some ideas, but have lines snap to straight, prompt for dimensions, and generally assume that you were trying to make something that looks professional, instead of like a kid's finger painting. Google SketchUp for iPad would be perfect.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Advertising
Yeah why not? The ads here are supposed to be contextual - i.e. they should relate to things I'm talking about in the posts. So if you're interested in the posts, check out the ads. Maybe click a few. It could earn me half a cent!
How to gather info from the Internet
The Internet is full of interesting things that update all the time. But these updates come at different times. News sites update all through the day as people write articles, comics usually update once a day. Blogs can get updated anytime. So how do you know when & where to look?
You could keep a list of bookmarks on your browser, and every once in a while, when you remember, go searching through the list. "Anything new here?", "No",next..."Anything new here?", "No",next... until you find something. Hmm.. kind of like "are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there yet". Not very efficient.
A better way, sometimes, is to sign up to newsletters. But not everyone lets you do this, some places send updates weekly, some include stuff you have already seen.
If the page has a Twitter or Facebook you can link to those, and hope they update with each new story.
But my choice at the moment is RSS. Ever used it? But I'll bet you have seen this little icon. (it's just up there to the right!)
I had seen it for years and ignored it, working on the 'have you updated yet?' method. But eventually, I got tired of going the slow way (especially when I was checking lots of sites each day), and tried something it out.
There are lots of programs for RSS feeds, either installed on your machine(OSX, Windows, iOS, Android) or accessed on the web. I chose Google Reader because I use other Google products, and it lets me access from any computer I can get my hands on. I'll show you how to use this, but you could just as easily use Outlook, Safari, Windows Live mail or more).
First, go to Reader and sign in, or create an account if you need to.
Then, click on my 'Subscribe to posts' button up on the right. It will look like this once you click it:
Then, 'add to Google reader':
Done!
Pretty easy? Well... not so fast. This is the internet, designed and organized by many, many different people. So there are always a few different ways to do things. There is usually a 'subscribe' or 'RSS' or 'feeds' link on a site somewhere. If you're lucky, you look for the logo, click it, and add just like above. Sometimes, when you click you get a messy text page like this. When this happens, copy the URL (i.e. the http:// www bit), and paste it in the 'add a subscription' box on Google Reader.
Sometimes, if you are really unlucky and find that the page doesn't have a feed, but that you really want it anyway, you'll have to resort to Google Search. You'll find that some people have put together feeds for all sorts of things. For example, I like the comic Sinfest. It doesn't have a feed, so I googled for 'Sinfest RSS feed' and the first result, when pasted into the 'add subscription' box, worked fine.
So now..... your turn! Try it out on my blog feed!
You could keep a list of bookmarks on your browser, and every once in a while, when you remember, go searching through the list. "Anything new here?", "No",next..."Anything new here?", "No",next... until you find something. Hmm.. kind of like "are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there yet". Not very efficient.
A better way, sometimes, is to sign up to newsletters. But not everyone lets you do this, some places send updates weekly, some include stuff you have already seen.
If the page has a Twitter or Facebook you can link to those, and hope they update with each new story.
But my choice at the moment is RSS. Ever used it? But I'll bet you have seen this little icon. (it's just up there to the right!)
I had seen it for years and ignored it, working on the 'have you updated yet?' method. But eventually, I got tired of going the slow way (especially when I was checking lots of sites each day), and tried something it out.
There are lots of programs for RSS feeds, either installed on your machine(OSX, Windows, iOS, Android) or accessed on the web. I chose Google Reader because I use other Google products, and it lets me access from any computer I can get my hands on. I'll show you how to use this, but you could just as easily use Outlook, Safari, Windows Live mail or more).
First, go to Reader and sign in, or create an account if you need to.
Then, click on my 'Subscribe to posts' button up on the right. It will look like this once you click it:
Then, 'add to Google reader':
Pretty easy? Well... not so fast. This is the internet, designed and organized by many, many different people. So there are always a few different ways to do things. There is usually a 'subscribe' or 'RSS' or 'feeds' link on a site somewhere. If you're lucky, you look for the logo, click it, and add just like above. Sometimes, when you click you get a messy text page like this. When this happens, copy the URL (i.e. the http:// www bit), and paste it in the 'add a subscription' box on Google Reader.
Sometimes, if you are really unlucky and find that the page doesn't have a feed, but that you really want it anyway, you'll have to resort to Google Search. You'll find that some people have put together feeds for all sorts of things. For example, I like the comic Sinfest. It doesn't have a feed, so I googled for 'Sinfest RSS feed' and the first result, when pasted into the 'add subscription' box, worked fine.
So now..... your turn! Try it out on my blog feed!
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Mac vs Windows? A brief personal history.
I don't like this line of thinking. Are you saying that if I like one feature I must like the whole package? Are you saying if I like one version, I must like all past and future versions? Are you saying that if I like one then I cannot like the other?
I have more Apple products than any other at the moment. That is partly circumstance, and partly choice.
I have had a couple of HTC smart phones, running windows operating systems underneath the software I'd added to make them usable. After seeing a few friends with iPhones, and realizing they would just slip into a pocket, I tried and didn't look back. No rebooting regularly, no hard work to get programs to share info. It really did 'just work'. I'd started into the Apple world, and was called a traitor by one friend who also had HTC phones, but who got into an iPhone not too long after I did.
My work laptop is a Windows XP machine. It is old and slow. If it was good enough, I would have used it for personal use as well. However, it was not. At this point, I felt the machine would be for pleasure reasons only, and as such, thought I would take the plunge and try Apple after the positive experience with the iPhone. And it was a pleasure too. Different. Not perfect, but easy to travel with, light, fast, easy to connect to my iPhone for internet (which gave me faster network speeds than my work laptop on the work network at one of the sites I visit!).
But.... the speed seduced me. I could use my MacBook to complete a couple of tasks while waiting for the work machine to think about half a task. I moved more and more towards the Mac. Moving email to GMail with a forwarding rule worked. I could even log in to my work email if I needed to using a web interface. But trying to share data with Microsoft Groove running behind Parallels got a bit too much at a time when sharing a lot of data was critical to the project I was working on.
So I purchased an ASUS with Windows7. It was definitely a 'portable workstation' style, which was OK since I had the MacBook for more portable needs. So I was definitely not trying to replace the MacBook with a Windows machine, but rather to compliment it. And fill some of the gaps left by the work piece of junk. And so I appreciate different things from each machine.
In between this, my media center PC, an Aldi bargain when I didn't have quite as much cash for toys, decided to start dying. It made the fatal mistake of not booting one morning when I'd been out on a big-ish night with some friends. So while they slept in around various rooms of my apartment, I walked the 15 minutes to the shops, bought a mac mini, and woke them as I tried to install it.
I think if I was to sum it up in a neat package, I like the hardware on the mac, and the software on Win7. That's a complex statement though, since my Windows hardware was purchased for different purposes than my Apple hardware. And then there is the whole argument around who had what feature first in software. I think that one boils down to Win7 releasing last. I look forward to the next release of OSX, which should push things forward again, at least until Windows returns fire (competition is good!).
And of course, sneaking in from the side while the other two go head to head is ChromeOS. This could change the rules of the game a little, which is the best tactic when David takes on Goliath. This is one to be watched. I'm not predicting anything, but there is a lot of potential there if marketed well.
Finally, just to own a new toy, I bought an iPad2. I've got no real reason to own it. My girlfriend is using the MacBook a lot more now that her old windows machine has died, but that wouldn't have stopped me from using the ASUS (although that does tend to stay on the desk and not play well with your lap - it's very hot). Mostly it's just to own it. To play with the tech. To see what I think. Perhaps it will be the right device for someone like my mother? I am considering a 3G version and deleting her ADSL account and retiring her laptop. I think she would have all her computing needs exceeded by this little device, with the added bonus of becoming totally portable. Now that I own it, and understand what it does and doesn't do, I would definitely recommend it for casual internet users as their one and only machine. In fact, I was using mine yesterday and someone came up to see what is was and how it worked and I think I made a sale. If only I could get the commission somehow!
I have more Apple products than any other at the moment. That is partly circumstance, and partly choice.
I have had a couple of HTC smart phones, running windows operating systems underneath the software I'd added to make them usable. After seeing a few friends with iPhones, and realizing they would just slip into a pocket, I tried and didn't look back. No rebooting regularly, no hard work to get programs to share info. It really did 'just work'. I'd started into the Apple world, and was called a traitor by one friend who also had HTC phones, but who got into an iPhone not too long after I did.
My work laptop is a Windows XP machine. It is old and slow. If it was good enough, I would have used it for personal use as well. However, it was not. At this point, I felt the machine would be for pleasure reasons only, and as such, thought I would take the plunge and try Apple after the positive experience with the iPhone. And it was a pleasure too. Different. Not perfect, but easy to travel with, light, fast, easy to connect to my iPhone for internet (which gave me faster network speeds than my work laptop on the work network at one of the sites I visit!).
But.... the speed seduced me. I could use my MacBook to complete a couple of tasks while waiting for the work machine to think about half a task. I moved more and more towards the Mac. Moving email to GMail with a forwarding rule worked. I could even log in to my work email if I needed to using a web interface. But trying to share data with Microsoft Groove running behind Parallels got a bit too much at a time when sharing a lot of data was critical to the project I was working on.
So I purchased an ASUS with Windows7. It was definitely a 'portable workstation' style, which was OK since I had the MacBook for more portable needs. So I was definitely not trying to replace the MacBook with a Windows machine, but rather to compliment it. And fill some of the gaps left by the work piece of junk. And so I appreciate different things from each machine.
In between this, my media center PC, an Aldi bargain when I didn't have quite as much cash for toys, decided to start dying. It made the fatal mistake of not booting one morning when I'd been out on a big-ish night with some friends. So while they slept in around various rooms of my apartment, I walked the 15 minutes to the shops, bought a mac mini, and woke them as I tried to install it.
I think if I was to sum it up in a neat package, I like the hardware on the mac, and the software on Win7. That's a complex statement though, since my Windows hardware was purchased for different purposes than my Apple hardware. And then there is the whole argument around who had what feature first in software. I think that one boils down to Win7 releasing last. I look forward to the next release of OSX, which should push things forward again, at least until Windows returns fire (competition is good!).
And of course, sneaking in from the side while the other two go head to head is ChromeOS. This could change the rules of the game a little, which is the best tactic when David takes on Goliath. This is one to be watched. I'm not predicting anything, but there is a lot of potential there if marketed well.
Finally, just to own a new toy, I bought an iPad2. I've got no real reason to own it. My girlfriend is using the MacBook a lot more now that her old windows machine has died, but that wouldn't have stopped me from using the ASUS (although that does tend to stay on the desk and not play well with your lap - it's very hot). Mostly it's just to own it. To play with the tech. To see what I think. Perhaps it will be the right device for someone like my mother? I am considering a 3G version and deleting her ADSL account and retiring her laptop. I think she would have all her computing needs exceeded by this little device, with the added bonus of becoming totally portable. Now that I own it, and understand what it does and doesn't do, I would definitely recommend it for casual internet users as their one and only machine. In fact, I was using mine yesterday and someone came up to see what is was and how it worked and I think I made a sale. If only I could get the commission somehow!
Simple note use everywhere - Evernote
Another favorite for me, since I use multiple devices is Evernote.
I can be on iPhone, iPad, MacBook, my work pc (a poorly disguised boat anchor), my personal windows laptop (needed to cover for my rubbish work pc) or anywhere else with a browser. I dont have to think about it. I just got to Evernote however I can get there, and all my notes are there. And any new notes will be available from everywhere else too.
I use this for things as simple as my shopping lists, to things as complex as work project tracking lists.
And FREE. That's always a favorite for me too!
As a little side note though. Why do I need this? I don't need a program like this for email, calendar, documents or my 'reader' list thanks to google. Google has a tasks feature, but it looks like a last minute feature that was added years ago and has been forgotten. Perhaps the release a tasks API will let others push forward where Google hasn't seen value on return?
I can be on iPhone, iPad, MacBook, my work pc (a poorly disguised boat anchor), my personal windows laptop (needed to cover for my rubbish work pc) or anywhere else with a browser. I dont have to think about it. I just got to Evernote however I can get there, and all my notes are there. And any new notes will be available from everywhere else too.
I use this for things as simple as my shopping lists, to things as complex as work project tracking lists.
And FREE. That's always a favorite for me too!
As a little side note though. Why do I need this? I don't need a program like this for email, calendar, documents or my 'reader' list thanks to google. Google has a tasks feature, but it looks like a last minute feature that was added years ago and has been forgotten. Perhaps the release a tasks API will let others push forward where Google hasn't seen value on return?
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Camera+
Something I tried out recently - Camera+ for iPhone
I've been a fan of Polarize for a while, but it's been a little buggy and I don't think it's even available anymore?
Camera+ works well, gives you good results without too much tech in the way, but could be a bit faster to get to the 'snap' button.
iPad
Yup - I got one. Why? Why not? It's a toy. It's kinda interesting and different. It might be an interesting option for some people who don't really need a full computer, but want to stay in touch with Facebook and email (and angry birds).
So far I like Flipboard the best I think.
It's a pretty stylish way to display things that I'd otherwise just go and see on a standard webpage. So why don't standard webpages look like that..? I know the gawker people have tried to do something a bit more stylish (I go to Lifehacker a lot). Somehow I don't like what they have done - maybe the interface isn't quite as intuitive?
But if switched on designers are paying attention, we could be seeing a new way to interact with websites...
So far I like Flipboard the best I think.
It's a pretty stylish way to display things that I'd otherwise just go and see on a standard webpage. So why don't standard webpages look like that..? I know the gawker people have tried to do something a bit more stylish (I go to Lifehacker a lot). Somehow I don't like what they have done - maybe the interface isn't quite as intuitive?
But if switched on designers are paying attention, we could be seeing a new way to interact with websites...
Welcome!
Hello to anyone who might happen to read this. I have no idea how or why you did, but thanks for stopping by.
I don't know yet if this will continue, or what it will become, but for now I'm just playing around to see what happens. I do that a lot. It let's me file away ideas so that when a use comes up, I know the right tool to use. Or it let's me discover well designed ( or poorly designed) aspects of a project so that I can imitate (or avoid) if I do something similar.
Stay tuned for (possibly) more...
I don't know yet if this will continue, or what it will become, but for now I'm just playing around to see what happens. I do that a lot. It let's me file away ideas so that when a use comes up, I know the right tool to use. Or it let's me discover well designed ( or poorly designed) aspects of a project so that I can imitate (or avoid) if I do something similar.
Stay tuned for (possibly) more...
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