Dicing with the iPhone

In an odd combination of non-day-job-work and play, I found this: “I started working with the audio toolbox on the iPhone today. This morning, I added sounds to the little dice rolling application I’ve been writing. I recorded a total of fifteen sounds, five of a single die being rolled, five of two dice being … Continue reading “Dicing with the iPhone”

In an odd combination of non-day-job-work and play, I found this:

“I started working with the audio toolbox on the iPhone today. This morning, I added sounds to the little dice rolling application I’ve been writing. I recorded a total of fifteen sounds, five of a single die being rolled, five of two dice being rolled, and five of four dice being rolled. I let my kids roll the dice while I recorded the sounds, which they thought was cool, although they can’t understand why I can’t put the program on my iPhone.”

I’ve never really used computers in my gaming. Recently it was useful because Google Maps helped us visualise the countryside in Arizona where we were travelling through.

  Jeff LaMarche is developing an iPhone Dice Roller for us gaming geeks and I, for one, think it just the tip of the iceberg for the iPhone/iPod touch-carrying gamer geek.

Okay, Jeff, get this app out and we’ll see what we can do about Apple giving us a Certificate to install. I’d like to see “dice sets” myself. I will need all sorts of dice for Runequest, only d10s (but a lot of them) for Godlike and everything in between. Get to work (because it looks gorgeous).

In planning to play Godlike, we’re going to be using a lot more than one pair of d10s which means that the possibility of using a DiceRoller application has great interest to me. I don’t know if Jeff LaMarche will develop it but it’s inspired me that I’ll need it. Do I need it to just roll a number of d10 or do we need to provide matches? What about dynamic rolls? That would rock 🙂

My battery will need to be replaced however – to help make sure it lasts a game session and also gets my email. I’ll get in touch with my local AASP and get that sorted.

What Microsoft can teach Apple about software updates

ZDNEt’s Ed Bott writes (in all seriousness): “For the record, I think Apple is dead wrong in the way it’s gone about using its iPod monopoly to expand its share in another market.” Ed continues with examples of why he feels Windows Update discloses more than Software Update and does it the right way and … Continue reading “What Microsoft can teach Apple about software updates”

ZDNEt’s Ed Bott writes (in all seriousness):

“For the record, I think Apple is dead wrong in the way it’s gone about using its iPod monopoly to expand its share in another market.”

Ed continues with examples of why he feels Windows Update discloses more than Software Update and does it the right way and to be honest, I do think that Apple overstepped the mark here. But that’s not to say that it’s all rosy. I mean, if we retain an Easter theme here, Microsoft is the Barrabas of current monopolists. Microsoft was not shy in pushing Outlook Express or Internet Explorer on you when you wanted one or the other but not both and there’s certainly the impression that Microsoft updates whatever the hell it wants on Windows with the vague threats that these are ‘recommended’ updates (and therefore on your own head be it should you decide not to update). And remember the whole court case that Microsoft lost? That was about using your monopoly in one market to extend into others. Has anyone seen any evidence that Microsoft is actually doing this any less? That’s the difference between ‘monopoly’ and ”illegal abuse of monopoly’. Monopoly is just having a large share of the market. Abuse of Monopoly is when you hurt the market.

Sure – proponents of IE and Firefox are going to be pissed. Safari/Webkit is standards compliant and fast enough to give both of them a run for their money.

The issue is as much one if trust as anything and, experience shows that trusting Microsoft is going to end up biting you as a consumer. In fact, working with them as a partner is also likely get you your head handed to you for dinner. Don’t believe me? Ask Spyglass? Or any PlaysForSure licensee.

The fact that Windows Update is ‘opt in’ is immaterial when the repercussions for not ‘opting in’ are possible compromising of your system. This is Windows after all, the 600lb lice-infested gorilla that it is. Ed continues:

“At any time, you can visit Windows Update, click the Change Settings link, and get to this dialog box. Here, you can specify whether and how updates are downloaded and installed. You can also opt out of Microsoft Update.”

And then what? What novice user is going to opt-out of Windows update? They’re going to take what they’re fed.

Disclosure and ‘opt in’ are meaningless to the end user. Apple is not doing the right thing here but the thing they are doing, by pushing Safari, is less onerous than Microsoft has been in the past.

What can Microsoft teach Apple about software updates?

I think they’ve learned everything perfectly.

Getting the media into my head.

I only listen to one podcast at the moment and working through their back catalogue takes some time (I’m currently at the end of 2006 to give you an idea). Each of their episodes is around 1 hour long and the journey to work takes about 25 minutes so I am grinding my way through … Continue reading “Getting the media into my head.”

I only listen to one podcast at the moment and working through their back catalogue takes some time (I’m currently at the end of 2006 to give you an idea). Each of their episodes is around 1 hour long and the journey to work takes about 25 minutes so I am grinding my way through them at around one episode per work day. It’ll take me the next two months just to get to 2008 on their list. Seems daunting.

I mostly listen while driving as it has the right amount of ‘automatic behaviours’ so that my mind can listen to what is being said. I find that when I’m in the office I can only really listen to music in the background and not podcasts otherwise I can’t take anything in. Perhaps this is the problem men have with multi-tasking hitting me after all – and I thought I was immune 🙂

I also can’t listen when I’m at home due to distractions, family wanting to talk to me and the desire to do something more constructive with my time – like write or pore over these programming books until something sticks in my head.

I’m not sure I have there bandwidth to take anything new on.

Do not go gentle into that good night

“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” – Dylan Thomas I’m not talking about ‘death’ of course, but the notion that ‘going dark’ is desirable. I recall someone accusing me of being addicted to the Internet which, despite being true, is also utterly preposterous. I pointed … Continue reading “Do not go gentle into that good night”

“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

– Dylan Thomas

I’m not talking about ‘death’ of course, but the notion that ‘going dark’ is desirable. I recall someone accusing me of being addicted to the Internet which, despite being true, is also utterly preposterous. I pointed out that this person is never found without a watch, and in fact, owns half a dozen of the accursed things which is as ridiculous as anything. (I would prefer a wall clock and watch that use nothing but ‘fuzzy time’ (like this one. It’s evidently just as possible to be addicted to knowing the time, another completely artificial construct.

Darryl has mentioned ‘go dark’ a couple of times to Gareth and Andy because they were on vacation (in Dublin and Prague). My other half has balked at my attempts to find good internet coverage while we go on a cruise (visiting 6 countries) in August because it shows my addiction. She will, on the other hand, be taking her MacBook Air with her (to download photos to) and will be disgusted if she can’t get her email.

I think that for my ‘watch bearing friend’ and others who cannot leave the house without watches, reading materials, makeup, umbrellas, chewing gum, tobacco products and other serious but potentially more socially acceptable addictions, they should work on their own issues. Being internet connected 24×7 isn’t something I strive for. But it being present when I want or need it is.

That’s the difference between ‘always on’ and ‘always available’. I want internet to be ubiquitous because I don’t know if I need it ‘now’ or ‘later’ and unlike tobacco and makeup it’s not something I can just ‘buy’.

Anyone know the state of free WiFi in Stockholm? St Petersberg? Talinn?

Subnotes

I’ve got two ‘subnotes’ in the house here. An Asus eee PC and a MacBook Air. Yes, it’s true that the MacBook cost five times the cost of the eee PC but the differences are startling. Attribute MacBook Air eee PC Screen res/size 13″ @ 1280×800 7 inch @ 800×480 Screen border

I’ve got two ‘subnotes’ in the house here. An Asus eee PC and a MacBook Air. Yes, it’s true that the MacBook cost five times the cost of the eee PC but the differences are startling.

Attribute MacBook Air eee PC
Screen res/size 13″ @ 1280×800 7 inch @ 800×480
Screen border <1 inch 1 inch+
Weight 3 lbs 2 lbs
Thickest point 0.76 inches 1.4 inches
Processor 1.6 GHz dual-core 630 MHz Celeron-M
RAM 2 GB 512 MB
Storage 80 GB (70 GB free) 4 GB (1.3 GB free)
Battery 4 hours 2 hours
Keyboard Full size, backlit Cramped hunt-n-peck
Software Mac OS X plus iLife Linux


The real question becomes one of why the MacBook air is now being touted as the “one to beat” as if the PC industry was poising itself for defeat just like they did with the iPod. It’s true that Apple tends to attract focus in terms of free publicity but the more apt comparison would be with the Lenovo X300 which is, feature for feature, relatively comparable to the Air, but a lot more expensive and a lot uglier.

I do mention the looks of the machine and, let’s face it, that’s not going to matter to someone who’s used to Linux or Windows. But I appreciate a machine that’s well put together, that doesn’t flex and creak when you lift it and which is easy to carry. Again – like Mac OS X, it’s more than just an aesthetic. The Air is very thin which means that if you’re carrying it with books/papers then it just fits in. The eee PC needs a bit more attention because it’s an awkward shape (half A4, 1.4 inches thick at the widest point) and in a bag, the awkward shape is liable to deform or damage other things in the bag. I’d certainly think twice about carrying the two together in a bag.

I don’t like the eee PC. It’s a perfect example of you get what you pay for. The plastic is cheap and ugly, there’s a strange amount of flex in the unit, sleep functions are almost entirely absent and how anyone can work on that keyboard with that screen. And it’s so sluggish. Yes, it boots up marginally quicker than the MacBook Air but then the MacBook Air has better battery life and very seldom needs rebooted (as Sleep works!) whereas the eee PC needs rebooted often. And the wireless? Is it just Linux? Can’t it ‘just work’. Can’t it automatically reconnect to my two different WiFi networks? Why does it need reconnected manually every time?

To be honest, I’d be more likely to wonder where the utility of the eee PC comes in when compared to the iPod touch, the Nokia N810 and other such devices. It’s the bare minimum of a computer – the UI, capabilities and portability of the N810 and iPod touch leave it far behind.

Loonies all around

“I see that you yourself are from Belgium. One can hardly imagine a more America-hating socialist European nation than that.”

“I see that you yourself are from Belgium. One can hardly imagine a more America-hating socialist European nation than that.” – Michael Amorose on the Mac OS X Dev list.

Michael is addressing Marc Van Olmen because in 2006, Michael didn’t get hired for some job. His diatribes were documented in full and in public on the Mac OS X Dev list kindly hosted by Omni.

Michael may be a talented developer but he’s also an arsehole. His argument (publicly documented here) is a testament to the sort of person that you can end up hiring. It’s my opinion, based on this content, that Michael may be paranoid. Just a little. And perhaps the telephone interview he refers to pointed out exactly this quality. Is it just his paranoia? His obvious racism (which another poster describes as ‘nationalistic pride’). His frothing at the mouth need to be heard? Let’s face it – if the dumbass had a case he’d have already run them through the courts and come away with an award or a settlement. As it is he probably has employment lawyers slamming the door in his face and changing their telephone numbers.

Technical skills in todays market are not enough. I could tell you stories that would curl your toes of the cringeworthy behaviour of people these days – people who think that you can bully your way into situations or who think that manners and propriety are unnecessary. I remember one such person who, when they left the room, the other occupants stared at me and one said,

“You’re a smart guy. What the fuck was that?”

I could only shake my head and wish the nightmare was over.

Let’s face it. Michael Amorose may be a talented developer but based on his other “qualities” there is no way I’d ever hire him.

Simplicity and the Brand

I love this. It’s a very simple and concise way of showing how bad user interface design can be and it draws on our experiences with media darlings Apple and Google. While the implementation details may differ (entering a search term is very different to submitting taxes), there have to be ways that we can … Continue reading “Simplicity and the Brand”

I love this. It’s a very simple and concise way of showing how bad user interface design can be and it draws on our experiences with media darlings Apple and Google.

While the implementation details may differ (entering a search term is very different to submitting taxes), there have to be ways that we can streamline things. Cookies for example, reduce the need for me to keep entering usernames and passwords, as does Apple’s Keychain.

User Interface Design is something that is harder than it sounds and really involved removing assumptions. There’s been a lot of hubbub about how Google is the master of advertising and yet doesn’t get clicks on advertising from their front page. Their front page has a minimalist aesthetic but is arguably one of the most visited pages in the world. Or is it? Consider the deals they have struck with Apple? Firefox? Their front page is for them alone to advertise and it’s an incredibly potent branding message.

Is there any amount of money that could get you placement on their front page? I don’t think so.

So, really Google looks more like this.

and when you get past that, it’s advertising in your face, coating your eyeballs and dribbling off the front of your desk (which is one reason that I’m not really relishing Google’s Android). I think there’s a time and a place for advertising supported content and I’m not really wanting it in my face like that, on my mobile phone. We will have to wait and see how Android is positioned and exploited.

1000 fans

Mike Cane 2008 provided the following interesting link: A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living. Assume conservatively that your True Fans will each spend one day’s … Continue reading “1000 fans”

Mike Cane 2008 provided the following interesting link:

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

Assume conservatively that your True Fans will each spend one day’s wages per year in support of what you do. That “one-day-wage” is an average, because of course your truest fans will spend a lot more than that. Let’s peg that per diem each True Fan spends at $100 per year. If you have 1,000 fans that sums up to $100,000 per year, which minus some modest expenses, is a living for most folks.

It’s certainly along the lines of fundable.org and other “micropatronage” ideas. I think that RPG designers wouldn’t have a problem with it and I guess that bands like Radiohead (with ‘Pay What You Want’ or NIN’s tiered pricing also smack of the same concepts. My time is precious to me and I’d really love to be doing what I love rather than what pays but the simple needs of mortgage, food on the table and the other necessities of life get in the way.

You would think, however that with 6 billion-odd people on the planet that there’d be a lot more wiggle room for independent creatives and potentially it could be a nail in the coffin for middle men like Publishers and…well…the entire music industry.

That’s got to be worth it, even just screwing over Music Execs? (Let’s face it, fewer things would give more satisfaction to more people for so little.)

[UPDATE: John Scalzi says it’s harder than it looks and that’s probably true. This isn’t ‘find 1000 people and scam a days pay out of them’ as much as it is, ‘work hard and reap rewards’]

IE8. Damned if they do.

In the argument about what is the right thing for IE8 developers to do with regards to web standards I have little sympathy. They built this mess and now they’re going to be stung for it. But I don’t really care about that. Joel Spolsky says: DOCTYPE is a myth. A mortal web designer who … Continue reading “IE8. Damned if they do.”

In the argument about what is the right thing for IE8 developers to do with regards to web standards I have little sympathy. They built this mess and now they’re going to be stung for it. But I don’t really care about that.

Joel Spolsky says:

DOCTYPE is a myth.

A mortal web designer who attaches a DOCTYPE tag to their web page saying, “this is standard HTML,” is committing an act of hubris. There is no way they know that. All they are really saying is that the page was meant to be standard HTML. All they really know is that they tested it with IE, Firefox, maybe Opera and Safari, and it seems to work. Or, they copied the DOCTYPE tag out of a book and don’t know what it means.

I always thought that DOCTYPE was a waste of time and I remember having a discussion with Steve Rushe on this exact topic many moons ago at some BLUG meeting.

It’s a long post and will send half of you off to make a cuppa before it’s done so be warned.

nerdz

PeeJ noted this link to The Nerd Handbook: Really it’s a couple of pages describing how to meaninfully interact with a nerd who is painted for the most part as being a borderline Autistic with directional (and somewhat immutable) focus. …control issues mean your nerd is sensitive to drastic changes in his environment. Think travel. … Continue reading “nerdz”

PeeJ noted this link to The Nerd Handbook:

Really it’s a couple of pages describing how to meaninfully interact with a nerd who is painted for the most part as being a borderline Autistic with directional (and somewhat immutable) focus.

…control issues mean your nerd is sensitive to drastic changes in his environment. Think travel. Think job changes. These types of system-redefining events force your nerd to recognize that the world is not always or entirely a knowable place, and until he reconstructs this illusion, he’s going to be frustrated and he’s going to act erratically.

The stresses of “the real world”, where people are erratic and inconsistent, lie, cheat, grandstand, self-promote and generally act in socially acceptable ways is just not where my comfort zone is. I like to be with people I know and trust. While PeeJ may consider me to be present the air of being obnoxious (and he’s probably right), there’s a much more complex interplay here as despite the fact I don’t communicate well (his word was ‘atrociously’) I’m not doing too badly. I think.

The ability to instantly context switch also comes from a life on the computer. Your nerd’s mental information model for the world is one contained within well-bounded tidy windows where the most important tool is one that allows your nerd to move swiftly from one window to the next. It’s irrelevant that there may be no relationship between these windows. Your nerd is used to making huge contextual leaps where he’s talking to a friend in one window, worrying about his 401k in another, and reading about World War II in yet another.

Yup. Which is why I can have the SlingPlayer open, while surfing the web with Godlike open at page 285 and email and IM conversations going. It may not be efficient but it gives me happy. It’s hard for other people to understand this and it often seems untidy because, by extension, we really ‘need’ 30″ high resolution screens attached to our laptops to keep everything visible and a large desk with our papers, books and pet projects. Our attention may wander to any one of these things (and I believe it’s part of the good procrastination thing that I’ve talked about before).

Your nerd might come off as not liking people. Small talk. Those first awkward five minutes when two people are forced to interact. Small talk is the bane of the nerd’s existence because small talk is a combination of aspects of the world that your nerd hates.

I had a rather negative experience of this recently where it was assumed that when I met her friends I’d automatically embarrass her because I’m not interested in football or cars. I am, however, interested in computers, technology, gadgets, business and suchlike and a lot of other guys are too. This was highlighted a couple of weeks later when we went out for dinner with one of my friends and his wife. We geeks successfully stayed away from our geek topics while the conversation steered itself around shoes, hair, weddings, holidays and other essential stuff and the only references to our nerdish tendencies was when the womenfolk brought them up. These geek things were, after all, the reason we were in a nice restaurant, eating nice food and having good conversation.

If you’ve got a seriously shy nerd on your hands, try this: ask him how many folks are in his buddy list? How many friends does he have in Facebook? How many folks are following him on Twitter? LiveJournal? My guess is that, collectively, your nerd interacts with ten times more people than you think he does.

I would agree absolutely that I interact daily with more people during my downtime at home than I do during my work day and also any other time. My buddy lists are huge and used every day. I twitter. I blog. I receive and respond to emails. I run more than one forum. Social skills? Yeah I got them. It’s again back to the small talk.

Looking back earlier this week to a wedding I attended, I don’t think it was immediately apparent that I was a geek though I was and so were my friends there. Geeks aren’t bad at all – they have incredible attention to detail and, unlike a lot of other sorts of people, they do have passion for things. Passion is something sadly missing in most people’s lives (or if they have it, it’s for the beer or the football which I consider to be unconstructive).

I’m not going to sweat it. The people I love, love me for who I am now. Though I admit that I dress (and smell) a lot better since her indoors came on the scene. I even like aftershave now…