Opinion: just for Hassan

So, people keep saying all around me "new iPad doesnt have Flash" "gotta have Flash" "what about Flash". Suffice to say, Steve Jobs wrote a letter & put it on the Apple website regarding Flash and their stance on stepping around it, and actually ripped Adobe a new one. It was like he had been saving up for a long time and finally just let them have it, its pretty amazing but he makes some good points, mainly toward what is considered "open" and what's "closed."

Apple has amazing clarity and vision toward the future, which puts them ahead of the competition constantly, and for that I'll give them credit. And while I'm not sure how the iPad's going to change everything, as I still very much enjoy keyboards over touchscreens any day, I will say that the next big step is going toward mobile devices that sip power and don't slurp it, and pick & choose how they handle processes, without delaying or going slow, and emit very little heat, compared to the machines of the past.

Adobe Flash does not fall in this vision. Its a general one-size-fits-all solution to run on everything. The problem is, when "everything" includes the small army of mobile devices that has already started to appear in peoples hands, Flash finds itself fading away because it really doesnt even run efficiently on some desktops. Yeah it helped by creating a way that anyone with a browser could watch video, but it decodes in SOFTWARE, which is unnecessary work for a computer thats got the gearing & fittings to do it in HARDWARE, saving both heat & energy. Furthermore, its incredibly unstable. Mr. Jobs talks about how its the leading cause of Mac OS X crashing, and I'll go one more and say that using it on Linux is a complete pain. First, they always leave Linux for last, throwing them a bone when they have to. Second, watching Flash video on Linux is the equivalent of making your computer go running for like 8 miles and then wondering why the battery dies, because if you're on a laptop, forget it. I had an old 700MHz ThinkPad and it could only play one Flash movie if nothing else was running, in Crunchbang (very minimal Linux distro). And the battery would last about 30min, and the battery was still good.

There's other reasons why Flash probably wont make it into the future, but these are the most outstanding IMHO, and Adobe should create something new instead of making people update their Acrobat 3,284 times for no reason or sitting on the CS Suite.

Favorite Running Songs...

There's always songs to run to but these are the ones that, over years, I always leave in the mp3 player because I never tire of them. SO, in no particular order:

Prodigy - Breathe

Rage Against the Machine - Sleep Now In the Fire

Cake - Never There (breakbeat mix) *

Bomfunk MCs - Uprocking Beats (Speed Garage Mix)

Metallica - Enter Sandman

The Prodigy - Outta Space (DJ Deekline Booty Space Mix)

Naughty by Nature - Uptown Anthem

*pretty hard to find, dont expect to see them on youtube

Theres LOTS of other songs I run to, usually House or Rock, or really fast rap, but these songs are a constant so I hope whoever reads this somewhat enjoys it

- X

best characters

so in an effort to deviate from the usual technical BS, heres a list thats been in the back of my mind...

No matter how garbage the movie, most every time there's one side character that makes it bearable or even enjoyable to me. Here's the list
-----------

Monsters vs Aliens / B.O.B. / voiced by Seth Rogan

Dr. Cockroach: You must forgive my friend, but as you can see, he has no brain.
B.O.B.: Turns out, you don't need one. Totally overrated! I don't even have to...
[Starts gasping for air]
B.O.B.: I forgot how to breathe! Help me, Doctor Cockroach!
Dr. Cockroach: Suck in, B.O.B.
B.O.B.: [breathes normally] Thanks, Doc. You're a life saver.

---

Elf / Gimbel's Manager / Faizon Love

Gimbel's Manager: Why you smilin' like that?
Buddy: I just like to smile, smiling's my favorite
Gimbel's Manager: Make work your favorite. That's your new favorite.

---

Anchorman / Brick Tamland / Steve Carrell

Ron Burgundy: Last time I looked in the dictionary, my name's Ron Burgundy. What's your name?
Brian Fantana: Brian Fantana.
Champ Kind: Champ Kind.
Brick Tamland: Brian Fantana.
Brian Fantana: No, you're Brick.
Brick Tamland: Brian.
Brian Fantana: I'm Brian.
Brick Tamland: Veronica.

---

A Bug's Life: Tuck and Roll, the twin bugs

Tuck: You fired!
Roll: You fired!
Tuck: You fireeeeeed!
Rosie: [in disgust] Oh, will you *shut up*?
Tuck: Hey!
Roll: You fired!

---

The Simpsons / Dr. Nick Riviera

Dr. Nick: "Hi, everybody!"

Dr. Nick: "Hey, Mr. McGregg! If it isn't the man with a leg for an arm & an arm for a leg!"

Update for the sake of an update

Well...what's new. Apple's tablet came out...as a half-developed premature ugly concoction. But they made it cheap to compensate...hahaha. All I will even be willing to say about it is, for now, it's literally a giant iPod Touch. Until that changes, i don't care. i want an actual computer. the tablet conversions that 3rd party companies do to macbook pros look pretty slick but they're incredibly expensive. just want something i can take notes on for class, that's all i ask. then again...if the iPad gets a SERIOUS note-taking/organizing app that can sync with my laptop, it doesn't sound so bad. we'll see.

irritated because i got fat over the break and i can't run b/c of a foot problem that's taking weeks to resolve due to the way the healthcare system works. its incredulous.

alright i'm late to hackmiami. new laptop on the horizon...not even sure if it'll be mac, to be honest. i see half-decent laptops (now that 7's out) for half the cost my macbook pro was. in a day of $1k 3-d laptops, its getting harder to justify MBPs. where else do you pay $2k for a laptop with a 120GB HDD. that was small when i bought it Jan 2008...now its intolerable when running 2 O/S's :(

been playing with Arduino and Processing...have to learn to get them to work together via serial comms. dreading learning programming for communications but ...here goes nothing

BlackBerry stuff... since i'm restless

To make the most of my restlessness, i've decided to dedicate 15min to my BlackBerry, and extend the wealth to you all.

Someone once said "If you want a toy, get an iPhone. If you want a tool, get a BlackBerry." Indeed it's like comparing apples and...not apples (pun intended). In this case, the BlackBerry does all I need it to and much much more. i don't want games on my phone. i don't want a fart button on my phone. i don't want to edit video on my phone. I have enjoyed video, & MMS on my phones for years, and have enjoyed copy & paste since getting my first BlackBerry in 2007. Here's a list of useful BlackBerry apps and their addresses:

BlackBerry App World (needed for Pandora, iHeartRadio, Trapster, QuickPull etc.)

http://www.blackberry.com/appworld/download

Messenger Progs (official clients)

www.blackberry.com/aim | www.blackberry.com/googletalk | www.blackberry.com/windowslivemessenger | www.blackberry.com/yahoomessenger

Flickr Client

www.blackberry.com/flickr

---non-App World progs (might have been added since this post)

Google Maps / GPS Navigation tool
http://google.com/gmm

MidpSSH for BlackBerry / SSH console client
http://bbssh.org/ota/

BBFileScout / enhanced File Manager

http://www.emacberry.com/ota/BBFileScout.jad

TwitterBerry / Twitter posting client
http://orangatame.com/ota/twitterberry

Opera Mini / alternate browser (serverside processing)

http://mini.opera.com

Foursquare for BlackBerry

http://foursquare.com/blackberry/beta

Grooveshark for BlackBerry

http://m.grooveshark.com

---Sites---
List of very useful non-standard mobile sites you never thought of
National Hurricane Center (track storms)
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/mobile/

UPS (track UPS packages)
http://mobile.ups.com/ups/

FedEx (track FedEx packages)
https://fedex.com/mobi/


----
Finally for the nerds, a list of every phone i've owned (and learned inside out) in the last 10 years (as of next month)

RIM / BlackBerry Bold 9000 / GSM850,GSM900,GSM1800,GSM1900

After getting the 8830 (along with my 8GB MicroSD) stolen, rather than call in my last replacement, I used it as an excuse to switch to a GSM carrier. Shopped everywhere before finally settling on a Bold at Best Buy ($289 w/ contract, AT&T store wanted $499). Really just wanted a phone that could utilize a SIM card so that I could switch carriers whenever I wanted, both in the US OR in other countries. Worked like a charm in the Dominican Republic, showing me all the carriers I could choose from and choosing AT&T's counterpart ("viva") by default. (They had Viva, Orange, & Claro). Accepts up to 16GB MicroSD, superb media player, browser second only to the iPhone. No bluetooth FTP, but apparently thats by design so as to avoid security flaws inherent in Bluetooth. Amazing multitasking. Not uncommon for me to be running Pandora (into car stereo), texting someone, and tracking my whereabouts with Google Maps, all at the same time, without so much as a single wait symbol. Speakerphone excellent. Camera a little washed out but don't expect great pics, thats what Canon is for. Can't shut off corny "camera shutter" noise without nonfree app. Speaker is excellent, with discrete stereo coming from speakers pointing outward to the L & R sides. Faux leather back built in makes it easy to grip. People complain that its too big but makes it easier for me to type with chubby fingers. (After buying an iPod Touch, found out that i really prefer buttons to touchscreen...touch screen requires you to look b/c there's no tactile feedback).
_______________________________
RIM / BlackBerry World Edition 8830 / CDMA850,GSM900,GSM1800,CDMA1900 (US CDMA, EU GSM)

My mother left me this as a backup because she was going to toss it so when I got tired of the
Nextel dying and freezing I gave it a shot. Just when I happened to activate it they released a software update that apparently was years in the making (4.5?). Fell in LOVE. Had horrible RAM required-to-available ratio after the update, so it was constantly garbage collecting, but as long as I didn't run too much at once it was all good. NO CAMERA. Went to Ultra Music Festival, close to many many great artists, and had no phone camera. 50ft from The Prodigy and I couldn't take any pics. Full keyboard rocked my world.
_______________________________
Motorola / Deluxe ic902 / iDEN800,CDMA1900 (Hybrid Nextel/Sprint)

First Direct Connect phone. Direct Connect was pretty awesome except...barely anyone used it anymore by the time I got it. A Nextel phone that doesn't look like a doorstop so that was pretty cool. Had special bio-paint according to pamphlet inside box, to keep it from getting "smudgy-looking". A Nextel phone with removable memory, video camera, camera, etc. Had killer speakerphone (super loud, obviously because it already has that Direct Connect speaker). VERY buggy software-wise. Shame b/c the hardware seemed pretty badass to me. Huge color screen on the front. Only phone i've seen with a MicroSD slot in the door (receiever end of the clamshell) instead of the body. Horrible battery life.
_______________________________
Sanyo / SCP-8400 / CDMA850, CDMA1900


First phone with removable MicroSD card. Built-in phone number backup functionality was amazing. First bluetooth phone. Had PictBridge (print directly to printer via cable) but only used it once.
_______________________________
Sanyo / MM-7400 / AMPS850, CDMA850, CDMA1900 (last analog-capable phone)



My last analog-capable phone, I probably liked the feel of this one the best, with its contrast of metallic red faceplate-to-dark grey body. 70MB onboard memory. Had a feature where you could text a certain code to it and it would erase the phone. Had Sprint's prototype push-to-talk that didn't work all that well, tried it for a month with a friend. First video phone. Figured out that you could pause recording, and used it to make stop-motion videos (i.e. Robot Chicken) lol.
_______________________________
Sanyo / SCP-8200

This phone proved to me that Sanyo's may have shitty cameras but get excellent reception and furthermore, can take a beating. Got ripped in half on family vacation and kept on working. (had to plug in headset since receiver was gone). First speakerphone.
_______________________________
Sanyo / SCP-8100

My first camera phone. Pretty decent shots from this, including one of a UH-60 (Black Hawk) where the blades were spinning so fast they look curved because the CCD couldn't capture it fast enough.
_______________________________
Samsung / SPH-N400 / AMPS850, CDMA850, CDMA1900

First phone with a color screen. Froze a bit but pretty awesome bodystyle like the old one.
_______________________________
Samsung / SPH-N200 / AMPS850, CDMA1900

My first remotely cool-looking phone. Still monochrome screen. Wouldve been the MAN in 10th grade except no one at that age really cared about phones yet, especially compared to now.
_______________________________
Qualcomm / QCP-2760 / AMPS800, CDMA1900

First cell phone. Kicker: I was rockin AIM on this bitch. Yes, I know it was a 5-line LCD.

Touchyfeely

Where the eff is this Mac tablet. That's all I care about. I'm such a jaded technonut when the only hardware that excites me anymore is Apple's, and thats only bc it's almost always radically different. Which humors me.

Seriously I know three people with HP 12" tablets and they all have serious heat dissipation problems. One even got so hot it burnt up the wireless card and now needs a dongle for wifi. That's sad. And I want to take notes in my engineering classes and be able to draw diagrams in my notes without having thousands of papers from classes I took all over my room. And without scanning.

Just hoping it doesnt look like a 10" square iPhone. 'Twould be lame.

"The Switch"...a month later. (w/ my Santa Rosa MacBook Pro)

So far, I'm not gonna lie...I made "the switch" and although it still feels weird, its not bad in many ways. Besides the Mac fanboys who think they're technical know-italls because they know the ins and outs of their little Maccy (sp?) world. (Whether or not you think Windows PCs are "inferior" you should still know how to use them. Why? Because they're everywhere. Don't be such a simpleton.)

Regardless here's the +'s & -'s of my MacBook Pro experience (incl. things that aren't Apple's fault). And yes they're very particular.

________________
Hardware & Other
-------------------

(+) Pluses
-------------
All in one package (Microphone, Bluetooth, iSight, Wireless is just THERE. (no labels advertising the features all over it like "BLUETOOTH 2.0 TECHNOLOGY" like Bluetooth is new)

RIGHTEOUS 3-D performance. GeForce 8600 (even the 128MB i got, not 256MB) ran Unreal 3 at full res 1440x900 with all the options on high without a hitch. This isn't even a cement-brick 'gaming' laptop!

Runs Windows natively. Huge selling point.

Ports, ports, ports. ExpressCard 34, USB 2, DVI dual-link, Gigabit, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, infrared, audio in & out.

Very bright screen + auto-lighting keys = nighttime code-hacking bliss.

Plays HD video so clear and hiccup-free its like you're at the movies.

Option for a matte screen (which i quickly took advantage of. Glossy-screen people: You can have your "stark contrast" because when you're trying to do something anywhere with significant lighting you're gonna be hating it.)

$200 education discount. (Tip: student discount > military discount)

Societal: Because you look like an "Apple fanboy" people don't really expect you to know anything. Anyone who's been in tech for a while knows this is a good thing more often than a bad thing.

Societal: Kid at the Apple store was just dead honest with me. Didn't try to force me to buy jack. No hassle, no spin doctory stuff (used to sell laptops retail and there's some shady dudes out there)


(-) Minuses
--------------
Fn key is on the outside. (Liked having CTRL there...fingers dont have to "look" for it)

NO HARD DRIVE ACTIVITY LIGHT. Drives me mad. (Might write a prog to reprog the Caps Lock light to be an HDD indicator in OS X.)

$2 extra to 'activate' 802.11n part of wireless card online

hard not to touch palms to HUGE trackpad while typing

No HDMI

so beautiful that every single oilmark is visible. Feel like i own a sports car, wiping it off with my shirt and scared it'll get ripped off)

user HD replacement voids warranty (only on Pro, not regular MacBook).

Don't like the noise the 'SuperDrive' makes when you insert a disc. Sounds like an old car cassette player.

3rd party: MSN Messenger on Mac OS X doesn't do video. Thats the only reason I even USE MSN.

Societal: Every Mac-only ignoramous thats actually dumber than rocks because they have little "real-world" computer experience but they wanna be nerds. Correction, 'geniuses'. How quaint.

Societal: People assume looking at you that you ARE one of those ignorant Mac-only fans.



__________________________
OS X & Software-specific
-----------------

(+) Pluses
----------
Things just...work. Especially in Mac OS X. No questions. No fiddling with new and old drivers.

love iChat. iLife in general. (iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, iCal)

iCal can sync ("subscribe") to Google Calendar automatically. Its so convenient its sickening.

"Open With..." already knows which apps on the system can open your file of choice

Can speak the time aloud on the hour. (Useful when you're on a schedule and focused on something other than the time)

Speakers may not be super loud but they don't distort. Very crisp sounding.

Very stable. No driver issues.


(-) Minuses
-------------
No driver issues BECAUSE very little non-essential device compatibility (out of like 20 non-HID usb peripherals i have only 2 work) (bad/conflicting device drivers are usually what bring Windows crashing down first)

No program-independent acknowledgement of a compatible device connection (i.e. Handheld GPS)

Leopard: Very difficult to set up triple boot w/ Ubuntu! Between Tiger and Leopard, apparently Apple removed "Linux" as a file system type when partitioning the disk with their 'diskutil' terminal prog. Which happens to be the only util to safely partition the drive with (supposedly GParted isn't good with EFI manipulation or something)

Leopard iTunes: No matter how many times I tell OS X to always open my MP3s with VLC by default, it insists on opening iTunes instead (is this an iTunes setting?) and i have to manually "Open With..." every time.



----------------------------

All in all I'm very pleased with it. And also, to all you pussy Mac boys complaining about how "heavy" it is to "lug around" the Pro...lift some freaking weights. Its five and a half pounds. My mother goes walking with weights twice that heavy. And she's 55. And 'not skinny'.