I got 2 more mysterious (for you, at least) packages today…One was in a small bubble-wrap pouch and the other in a mid-sized cardboard box. Both are computer-related, and photos will be up by this time tomorrow. Ain’t I a stinker?
A Series of Tubes
An archive of old posts.
Tag Archives: Life in general
My First Cocoa App
Today I made my first Cocoa-based App for OS X. It’s called PieText.app, and is a very very simple text editor. It’s features are rich text, printing, a ‘clear all text’ button, and a special limited edition button, the Pie button. It prints a special message in the document.
It’s extremely basic, yes, but I figured out how to use XCode and make this app using this tutorial and this one. They are very well written and illustrated, and best of all, there are no prerequisites to doing them, no coding skillz or anything, they will teach you what you need to know.
There’s only two so far, but there’s a (not so) subtle hint that he’ll write more if people donate money to him.
MotoKrzr K1
So I finally got a new phone. I felt it was really time, my old one was almost years old, and it really showed. I just couldn’t stand having such a POS phone anymore, so I bought a MotoKrzr K1 in blue. It’s an awesome phone, worlds better than my previous Ericsson Z500a. It has a 2mp camera, Bluetooth 2.0, and a ton of other features. So far it’s a great phone, I just have a few issues with it. First of all, the buttons are slightly raised and rubberized, and thus leave smudges on the screen in the pattern of the keypads. This is just an aesthetics issue, and I’ve seen it on Razrs as well. It’s easily fixed by wiping down the screen, but it seems a shame to have such a flaw in the shiny beauty that is the Krzr. My second problem is that sometimes the button in the upper left-hand corner sticks, and presses twice rather than once. I usually don’t use this key anyway, since the middle directional button does the same action, but it’s a bit annoying. The last problem isn’t with the phone itself, but the cingular website. It is just impossible to use. Apart from constantly being logged out and stuff, and features that only function in IE (*shudder*), the interface is horrible, and the thought that they charge such exorbitant prices for phones and services and can’t be bothered to even make a decent website makes them seem even more evil.
But aside from those 3 points, I love my new phone. No name yet, but I’m flipping through The Odyssey to find a good nymph to name it after (peripherals are almost always nymphs in my mind).
And of course, the obligatory unboxing photos:
Happy Valentine's Day!
Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody! And for all you fellow Bostonians, good luck in all this snow….I can’t believe I didn’t get a snow day today…
Hackers are attacking the tubes!
Today the 13 Intertube root nameservers (the things that turn ip addresses into urls and vice-versa) were attacked by a few South Korean hackers, in an attempt to clog up the Tubes so badly we wouldn’t be able to use them. 3 of the servers were overwhelmed over a period of around 12 hours, but the other 10 were just fine, so nobody really saw any of the effects of this attack. Still, it’s apparently the worst attack against the Tubes since 2002. Huh.
His Steveness hates DRM just like the rest of us.
His Steveness posted an article on DRM (Digital Rights Management, the thing that prevents you from putting digital music on multiple computers, or listening to iTunes-bought music on anything but an iPod) on the Apple website earlier today. He says that there are only 3 ways Apple can go with the DRM from here:
or
He (and most of us, I think) states that the third choice is the best, since it would free up music a lot. He calls for the 4 major recording companies to abandon their DRM, and then Apple will drop the iTunes DRM, which would be awesome. This is actually a gutsy move by Apple, since if they did drop their DRM, they would possibly lose some of the people they currently have locked into iTunes and the iPod if their music was playable by other software and players.
I have one thing to say.
GO STEVE!
The Bomb/LED Ad Makers Speak!
I came across a video of the press release given by the two guys responsible for making the Bombs/LED Boards I posted about not half an hour ago. Check it out here.
I love the style and coolness they keep while avoiding any real questions and instead electing to discuss haircuts of the 70’s. Of course their lawyer has to step in and ruin the fun a bit, but oh well.
Boston Bomb Squad Can't Distinguish Between LED Boards and Bombs
Earlier in the week, a bunch of LED Boards (a circuit board with Light Emitting Diodes placed in it to form a picture) were discovered spread all over Boston. They were shaped like the Mooninites from Aqua Teen Hunger Force:
The Mooninites
These boards were guerrilla ads for the upcoming ATHF Movie. What do you think happened when average civilians caught sight of these things hanging on the Green Monster, from bridges, and walls? They did what any average post-9/11 civilian would do, and immediately panicked. The bomb squad was called in to remove them, and they even detonated one to make sure it wasn’t a bomb (what, if it’s a little explosion then it wasn’t a bomb, if it is a big explosion it was?). The whole fiasco cost Boston $750,000. They arrested the man responsible for making the ads, and Mayor Menino is demanding that Turner Broadcasting (the company that commissioned the ads, and, coincidentally, also funds the revival of Uru Live) pay for all of the expenses.
Personally, I find this ridiculous. Yes, maybe they should have notified someone that they were going to hang these things up, but calling in the whole bomb squad for these things is a bit of an overreaction. I don’t think Turner should pay any money to Boston, but that Boston should instruct its bomb squad and police force in the difference between a circuit board with lights in it and a bomb. Any slightly experienced techie would be able to see that these things are not bombs, and might even laugh, if they liked ATHF (which I don’t, but that’s beside the point).
I’m disappointed, Boston.
Bloody Noses Are the Suck.
I hate bloody noses. They are a very large inconvenience. I just had one, and I had to lie on the couch for like 15 minutes until it stopped. And my hand of course, got covered in blood:
Eew.
Package #2 Part 2
Well, here’s the scoop on the mysterious Package #2. It’s a Dell 228WPF LCD, or a 22″ widescreen computer monitor.
Now, I knew a 22″ monitor would be big. But I really wasn’t expecting this. This thing is a BEAST. It dominates my desk, blocking out my view of half the things near the back (Including my ’84 Macintosh 🙁 ). Not that this is a bad thing, as the 1680×1050 resolution gives me a ton of screen space to utilize, and is just mouthwatering to look at.
I took a bunch of pix of the unboxing process and put ’em all on tabblo, check ’em out:
