Epiphany

Posted by Johnny in 2010, Tech on February 28, 2010

You know that scene in 2001? The famous eye scene? “My God, it’s full of stars.” The giant eye filling the screen where the guy suddenly ‘gets it‘ and it blows his mind? (I think I’m remembering that correctly)

I just had that with Python.

It was the same feeling I had when I ‘got‘ MVC with PHP, except much much quicker.

All the time I’ve wasted with Perl. Makes me sad.

To drastically shorten a long story – I had to learn Python enough to function in a weekend for work. So, last weekend I disappeared from everyone and spent as many hours as I could doing nothing but working with Python and it was fun and exciting.

But it wasn’t until this week, watching a real Python guru explain a facet of the language that it hit me like a jolt how lovely and elegant this language is. Elegant is the perfect adjective for Python.

I can’t tell you what it was that turned me from Saul to Paul. If I do you’ll go in expecting that very thing to have the same impact and it won’t work that way. Just play with it, your moment is in that syntax somewhere.

Don’t worry, I’m still die hard PHP loyalist. For three reasons, one it works when I need it to work, it’s fun to work with and it applies to 98% of what I write code for. (Web dev) But I will look forward to working with Python whenever I can.

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On Second Thought – The iPad

Posted by Johnny in 2010, Tech, geekery on January 31, 2010

Courtesy Wikipedia

I keep having situations the iPad COULD have been perfect for pop in my head. Haven’t seen such wasted potential since ‘Harlem Nights‘.
I’m not suggesting it’s horrible or anything. Just saying I’ve had a few situations lately where I’ve thought, ‘oh something like the iPad could have been great for that.’
Mostly the sheer amount of work I do on the iPhone. I routinely check/answer email, twitter, edit Google documents and even answer feedback on our intranet with it. But it’s obviously a bit of a pain because of the size. However, that doesn’t mean I just want a big iPhone…with no phone.
What is great about the iPad is, it legitimizes that kind of device and now others, like Lenovo, Microsoft or even Google, will probably come out with step up products.
I think the mistake with a device like this is trying to call it a laptop killer. It’s just a different device. I don’t think of it as something to replace my laptop, just another tool better suited for certain situations.
As far as improving the iPad, Apple will follow along eventually but it will take a while. Apple is very slow to respond to customer demand it seems. They are more of a “we’ll tell you what you want silly consumer” type of company. (Read: QuickTime 7 debacle)

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iPad – Like the Foam Finger Changed Football

Posted by Johnny in 2010, Tech, geekery on January 28, 2010

Courtesy of failblog.org

Really? I have to write iPad now? The indignity of the 21st century knows no end.

So with much fanfare and some of the most pathetically pompous self-loving promotion ever, Apple announced it’s unfortunately named iPad today.

Here’s the rundown on specs and some highlights of the device. (From Wired)
- The tablet is 0.5 inches thick and weighs 1.5 pounds.
- It has a 9.7-inch display with 1024 x 768-pixel resolution. It also has capacitive multitouch that’s similar to the iPhone.
- The device runs Apple’s own processor, a 1-GHz Apple A4 chip — possibly the fruits of of Apple’s $278 million acquisition of PA semiconductor in 2008.
- The iPad will have 16-GB to 64-GB flash storage.
- It includes speaker, microphone and accelerometer so you can use the device in both landscape and portrait mode. There’s also a compass.
- It has up to 10 hours of battery life and one month of standby time.
- It offers Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity
- It will include optional 3G access from AT&T. For $30 a month, users can get unlimited data. For iPhone users already crying out in pain about their bondage to the AT&T network, here’s something to sweeten the deal: No contracts are required for the data plan. iPad users can cancel their data connectivity at any time.
- Unlimited data will cost $30 or users can pay $15 for up to 250 MB of data.
- The iPad will cost $500 for 16 GB, $600 for 32 GB and $700 for a 64-GB model. But if you want 3G connectivity, add another $130 to the price tag.

Ok, in spite of my best efforts I got excited for this thing the last few days. I mean, c’mon it’s new shiny sexy hardware right? I use my iPhone constantly these days for work so this thing should be that great, but bigger. Right? An iPhone that goes to 11, right? BUUZZZZZZ!! Sorry, wrong answer.

The first thing I thought when I saw this thing was If Top Secret were made today the iPad would be the phone gag. ow.ly/119oC

But after a minute of thinking about this thing the severe limitations started to scream at me.

The big ones for me are: no flash. Really? Apple is tauting this thing as the laptop killer, not going to happen without flash. It essentially  forces you to enjoy all kinds of great video sites, as long as they are approved by Apple.

No multitasking. I’m sorry, when did we arrive at 1987? Again, it’s fine on the phone, because essentially it’s a phone. But a tablet? Are you going to use a laptop “killer” where you have to shut off your chat to grab a link for the person you’re chatting with? No, you’re not.

Not one usb port. That bugs me. Especially when it comes to the audio/video stuff. It also keeps you from buying the wifi version and slapping a sprint (or whoever) usb internet dongle on it.

Typical Apple. “You will get the innovation we decide you want.”
Did you see Calacanis’ reported specs on Tuesday? http://bit.ly/a4omkL
That would have been cool. Oh well.
At this point I would go with the Lenovo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5DYuVN6nuY

However, the basic idea of this style of tablet intrigues me and I won’t even rule out getting one of these at some point. It also has to be mentioned that none of these missing features have been confirmed by Apple. So it could either come out that all or some do exist or it will be upgraded in the future. However with Apple, upgrades are a loooong shot. We’re still waiting for them to fix the sound they broke on QuickTime Pro 7 at work. That’s been 3 years.

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