Monday, February 6, 2012
Google must buy Tumblr
...so that they can merge it with Blogger. And while they're at it they should buy Twitter as well. Is there already a company called Twooglr? Tumbloogr? Twoogle? Why blog when you can tumbl? This is a better format for my longer rants though.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Keep you head on and don't let the bullshit faze you!
Just my words of wisdom to myself this day! =)
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
iPhone 4S eh?
12 years of Verizon Wireless, almost all of them with Motorola phones, except for my ill-fated stint with the LG Dare, and I finally jump over to iOS.
Well I'm sick of things that start with 'i' It's starting to feel a bit too last decade. But iGiveUp. Anyways, 2 weeks with the thing and I "get it". It's a wonderful platform for getting consumers to spend money. Particularly for Apple to make money. The UI and the experience is for the most part a polished affair. Coming from 2 years of Droid goodness, I can appreciate the efforts there. As a software engineer, I can appreciate the obvious tradeoffs made between functionality, simplicity and quality. I get a sense that "make it simple, make it work" were the guiding themes here.
I've been a big fan of most of the Moto-phones I've owned over the years. The v60i in particular will always stand out for having been pretty, sturdy and in possession of the most ridiculous battery life of any phone I have had (and sadly it probably will retain that record). One thing Motorola never got right to me though was the camera software. It was always decent in sunlight, and always horrid in low light. And it was consistently horrible. The Droid even...always grainy. And nothing was more frustrating to me than watching the software try to adjust the picture, usually swapping quickly from what looked like a great adjustment job only to settle at grainy ridiculousness....le sigh! The LG Dare was my attempt to stay on Verizon, and it had a decent camera (at least for the time), but the underwhelming experience nearly drove me to AT&T until the Droid came out. Verizon's first truly open phone. It was a worthy competitor to the iPhone. 2 years later, it's slow and out of date, and I found myself confronting a few choices:
- Sort through whatever the high end Android combinations are (potentially another Moto - though I think some of them are getting unnecessarily big - and the camera *still* isn't better) and watch a newer, "better" phone come out every month.
- Finally fulfill my iPhone curiosity and give in to the hype.
So I gave in, and said I'd give it a try. There's a few things I imagined would happen that came to pass. All of them involved spending money, in large part to Apple. First I upgraded Mac OS X so I could get iCloud (30$), then I went to the Apple store and bought a case using the mobile app which allowed me to scan/purchase right from the phone and walk out the store - no lines (which was pretty cool...and 30$). Then I downloaded the Starbucks app and scanned my latte purchase using it (never got it to read off the Droid - awesome - and i had to reload my card for another 25$). Then I contemplated paying 15$ to update iPhoto to get iCloud integration. Then I thought about this for a minute...
It's so genius really. So easy to spend money. Get em in the ecosystem and make em pay for the features. And then I think about the Droid. Well it's not as polished on the UI side and the app store is a free-for-all. But even 2 years ago, my photos sync'ed via Picassa for free and were accessible on the phone. Easy Gmail integration already had me used to free cloud service support. Granted Google has been a tad unpredictable with their offerings, but I never felt some compelled to shell out the coin, nor did it ever seem so easy. I miss the google nav app. I've yet to find anything to come close really. I like the iTunes music integration though. That is unsurprisingly as slick as its always been. And I like iMessage.
I also like the Apple contacts management a tad better than Google's services. It just feels more naturally organized. Of course, Google has been getting better (and for free...I expect some day I'll have to pay Apple to upgrade when they figure out a better way of doing things). I was surprised to find I had to dig a bit to figure out how to integrate all the stuff from my Google cloud into my iPhone. Seemed the answer ultimately is export from Google and import into iOS so that you can take advantage of iEcosystem integration capabilities. E.g. off the G-crack and onto iCrack. I'm not fully switched yet (e.g. my G-Calendar), but its a good excuse to clean out my contacts finally.
I also miss the "back" navigation on Android. But I also found Android was inconsistent with maintaining state of apps. So far iOS (which makes you go back to the home screen generally) has consistently maintained state, so I'm usually right back where I left off (even if I had to jump to get there).
It's pretty early on, so hard to say where I end on it, but no regrets at this point. And it's just so damn pretty! LOL. The camera btw...I love it!
Well I'm sick of things that start with 'i' It's starting to feel a bit too last decade. But iGiveUp. Anyways, 2 weeks with the thing and I "get it". It's a wonderful platform for getting consumers to spend money. Particularly for Apple to make money. The UI and the experience is for the most part a polished affair. Coming from 2 years of Droid goodness, I can appreciate the efforts there. As a software engineer, I can appreciate the obvious tradeoffs made between functionality, simplicity and quality. I get a sense that "make it simple, make it work" were the guiding themes here.
I've been a big fan of most of the Moto-phones I've owned over the years. The v60i in particular will always stand out for having been pretty, sturdy and in possession of the most ridiculous battery life of any phone I have had (and sadly it probably will retain that record). One thing Motorola never got right to me though was the camera software. It was always decent in sunlight, and always horrid in low light. And it was consistently horrible. The Droid even...always grainy. And nothing was more frustrating to me than watching the software try to adjust the picture, usually swapping quickly from what looked like a great adjustment job only to settle at grainy ridiculousness....le sigh! The LG Dare was my attempt to stay on Verizon, and it had a decent camera (at least for the time), but the underwhelming experience nearly drove me to AT&T until the Droid came out. Verizon's first truly open phone. It was a worthy competitor to the iPhone. 2 years later, it's slow and out of date, and I found myself confronting a few choices:
- Sort through whatever the high end Android combinations are (potentially another Moto - though I think some of them are getting unnecessarily big - and the camera *still* isn't better) and watch a newer, "better" phone come out every month.
- Finally fulfill my iPhone curiosity and give in to the hype.
So I gave in, and said I'd give it a try. There's a few things I imagined would happen that came to pass. All of them involved spending money, in large part to Apple. First I upgraded Mac OS X so I could get iCloud (30$), then I went to the Apple store and bought a case using the mobile app which allowed me to scan/purchase right from the phone and walk out the store - no lines (which was pretty cool...and 30$). Then I downloaded the Starbucks app and scanned my latte purchase using it (never got it to read off the Droid - awesome - and i had to reload my card for another 25$). Then I contemplated paying 15$ to update iPhoto to get iCloud integration. Then I thought about this for a minute...
It's so genius really. So easy to spend money. Get em in the ecosystem and make em pay for the features. And then I think about the Droid. Well it's not as polished on the UI side and the app store is a free-for-all. But even 2 years ago, my photos sync'ed via Picassa for free and were accessible on the phone. Easy Gmail integration already had me used to free cloud service support. Granted Google has been a tad unpredictable with their offerings, but I never felt some compelled to shell out the coin, nor did it ever seem so easy. I miss the google nav app. I've yet to find anything to come close really. I like the iTunes music integration though. That is unsurprisingly as slick as its always been. And I like iMessage.
I also like the Apple contacts management a tad better than Google's services. It just feels more naturally organized. Of course, Google has been getting better (and for free...I expect some day I'll have to pay Apple to upgrade when they figure out a better way of doing things). I was surprised to find I had to dig a bit to figure out how to integrate all the stuff from my Google cloud into my iPhone. Seemed the answer ultimately is export from Google and import into iOS so that you can take advantage of iEcosystem integration capabilities. E.g. off the G-crack and onto iCrack. I'm not fully switched yet (e.g. my G-Calendar), but its a good excuse to clean out my contacts finally.
I also miss the "back" navigation on Android. But I also found Android was inconsistent with maintaining state of apps. So far iOS (which makes you go back to the home screen generally) has consistently maintained state, so I'm usually right back where I left off (even if I had to jump to get there).
It's pretty early on, so hard to say where I end on it, but no regrets at this point. And it's just so damn pretty! LOL. The camera btw...I love it!
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Braces at 31 still suck...but they at least get better
or I'm just getting used to them. So here's some fun details of my experience 3 months in.
- Oh how neat it is that my bite seems to change all the time. Kinda weird at first and then simply fascinating and sometimes annoying after that. I hear that will eventually stop happening, but every few days or so I notice my bite has changed a little bit and different teeth seem to touch different teeth.
- I no longer pick which side to chew on. After a couple weeks, or however long it was before I could really chew again to notice that my bite is at least roughly the same on both sides.
- Adjustments so far are a mixed bag of pain. First couple days after getting em on were uncomfortable not not really painful. Took 2 weeks to be able to really chew again (but hey, I lost weight). And then my 2nd adjustment led to one side being soooooo unbelievably sore for 5 days that I couldn't chew on that side. Seems to always come around eventually though.
- Yogurt, overcooked veggies, tofu, soup, pasta, ice cream. They are indeed friends now. Worst mistake ever....the day I ate only yogurt and ice cream.....oh...I don't think I'll ever forget that!
- Definitely notice other folks teeth now. Lotta folks had braces when they were younger and you can tell if they wore their retainers or not. Also other people tend to share their experience with braces.
- I'm much better now with the oral hygeine. Once you see pictures of calcified teeth, you'll want to make sure you don't get them. Getting floss in though still annoys me. I've gotta try some of the options.
- Oh how neat it is that my bite seems to change all the time. Kinda weird at first and then simply fascinating and sometimes annoying after that. I hear that will eventually stop happening, but every few days or so I notice my bite has changed a little bit and different teeth seem to touch different teeth.
- I no longer pick which side to chew on. After a couple weeks, or however long it was before I could really chew again to notice that my bite is at least roughly the same on both sides.
- Adjustments so far are a mixed bag of pain. First couple days after getting em on were uncomfortable not not really painful. Took 2 weeks to be able to really chew again (but hey, I lost weight). And then my 2nd adjustment led to one side being soooooo unbelievably sore for 5 days that I couldn't chew on that side. Seems to always come around eventually though.
- Yogurt, overcooked veggies, tofu, soup, pasta, ice cream. They are indeed friends now. Worst mistake ever....the day I ate only yogurt and ice cream.....oh...I don't think I'll ever forget that!
- Definitely notice other folks teeth now. Lotta folks had braces when they were younger and you can tell if they wore their retainers or not. Also other people tend to share their experience with braces.
- I'm much better now with the oral hygeine. Once you see pictures of calcified teeth, you'll want to make sure you don't get them. Getting floss in though still annoys me. I've gotta try some of the options.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Braces at 31...they suck!...but if you're on the fence just do it!
So in typical fashion...it takes almost 20 years for me to get em. I procrastinate and wait and wait and them just BAM up and get em.
At first they tell me it only takes a year, and I'm thinking "well, that's not too bad." Then they mention how they need to pull a top teeth (ala Tom Cruise) to align my much less crooked top teeth and close the gap..."well, perhaps". Oh and then the bit about getting implanted molars to replace the impacted ones you lost 10 years ago because your dad cheapened out of getting you braces when you were 12 so the oral surgeon had to remove them at 17 and now your top molars are descending and will fall out eventually..."cringe cringe cringe". They don't recommend Invisalign because it'll take longer and cost another grand...or perhaps they want more of the money? Who knows...anyways, they tellme I can use a retainer instead of implants as an option and I give in, and whaddaya know, they have an opening at right that moment and have all the xray equipment in house.
So there I am sitting in the chair. Pretty easy process, little pressure when they install the wire, and the ceramics really aren't that noticeable. I guess to give up a year of my crunchy taco bell taco eating, soda drinking, apple biting, gum chewing life I'll deal, although 2 things stood out as the most immediate and annoying side-effects and I didn't see it coming:
- can't eat...lol. It's like being on a forced diet. Teeth are way too sensitive to bite. Yogurt, soup, soon dooboo, you are my friends now. I hear that part gets better, but we're not there yet. Oh and food gets stuck in em...gross!
- flossing takes forever. Actually day 1 it took forever. Day 3, it takes about 10 minutes. Suddenly I'm threading floss between individual teeth and trying not to yank on the wire, but then it gets caught on a bracket, and then i try to pull it out but it starts to tear and now that part is stuck on a bracket...agggggh!!!! annoying!
Thank god I can still drink, although I hear i'll need to save red wine for the day before they replace the brackets. I hope I don't start getting grade school flashbacks too...bleh! On a positive note, there's a bit of mental goodness to doing something like this for myself. It will require a kind of patience and sacrifice that I generally don't summons for myself anymore. Go figure!
At first they tell me it only takes a year, and I'm thinking "well, that's not too bad." Then they mention how they need to pull a top teeth (ala Tom Cruise) to align my much less crooked top teeth and close the gap..."well, perhaps". Oh and then the bit about getting implanted molars to replace the impacted ones you lost 10 years ago because your dad cheapened out of getting you braces when you were 12 so the oral surgeon had to remove them at 17 and now your top molars are descending and will fall out eventually..."cringe cringe cringe". They don't recommend Invisalign because it'll take longer and cost another grand...or perhaps they want more of the money? Who knows...anyways, they tellme I can use a retainer instead of implants as an option and I give in, and whaddaya know, they have an opening at right that moment and have all the xray equipment in house.
So there I am sitting in the chair. Pretty easy process, little pressure when they install the wire, and the ceramics really aren't that noticeable. I guess to give up a year of my crunchy taco bell taco eating, soda drinking, apple biting, gum chewing life I'll deal, although 2 things stood out as the most immediate and annoying side-effects and I didn't see it coming:
- can't eat...lol. It's like being on a forced diet. Teeth are way too sensitive to bite. Yogurt, soup, soon dooboo, you are my friends now. I hear that part gets better, but we're not there yet. Oh and food gets stuck in em...gross!
- flossing takes forever. Actually day 1 it took forever. Day 3, it takes about 10 minutes. Suddenly I'm threading floss between individual teeth and trying not to yank on the wire, but then it gets caught on a bracket, and then i try to pull it out but it starts to tear and now that part is stuck on a bracket...agggggh!!!! annoying!
Thank god I can still drink, although I hear i'll need to save red wine for the day before they replace the brackets. I hope I don't start getting grade school flashbacks too...bleh! On a positive note, there's a bit of mental goodness to doing something like this for myself. It will require a kind of patience and sacrifice that I generally don't summons for myself anymore. Go figure!
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
As a software engineer, I'm offended by Grindr Android
Lol. So much better to get it out.
All I gotta say is if I had an app that had blown up the gay iphone world and there was a sea of untapped masses hankering for something to replace Encountr et al and I was the market leader and the expected savior to bring... Well I dunno really what Grindr brings to the table except more neighbors to voyeuristically spy on, or well...you know...but where was I. Oh yes! I would've made damn sure my app was tested on a wide variety of platforms and ready to ascend to its rightful position as the market leader. Spending 2 years getting to android only to crash out , lose profiles, drop saved data does not a good impression make. To make matters worse, the launch was accompanied by a 1 week free trial of that madness in case you wanted to buy that "premium service"...SMH!
I expect it gets better from here...but man...way to shoot yourself in the foot walking in the door! =S
I just read my old blog posts...it's almost as bad as hearing yourself on a tape recorder or answering machine (for those who remember such things).
All I gotta say is if I had an app that had blown up the gay iphone world and there was a sea of untapped masses hankering for something to replace Encountr et al and I was the market leader and the expected savior to bring... Well I dunno really what Grindr brings to the table except more neighbors to voyeuristically spy on, or well...you know...but where was I. Oh yes! I would've made damn sure my app was tested on a wide variety of platforms and ready to ascend to its rightful position as the market leader. Spending 2 years getting to android only to crash out , lose profiles, drop saved data does not a good impression make. To make matters worse, the launch was accompanied by a 1 week free trial of that madness in case you wanted to buy that "premium service"...SMH!
I expect it gets better from here...but man...way to shoot yourself in the foot walking in the door! =S
I just read my old blog posts...it's almost as bad as hearing yourself on a tape recorder or answering machine (for those who remember such things).
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