I See An iPad 2 In My Future
About a year ago, I wrote my initial impressions of the iPad, and explained why I wouldn't be buying one. I ended up buying one, but not for my wife, not me, so I stuck to my guns. With the iPad 2, Apple addressed my biggest complaints, and I've come around on the others, at least to a degree, and they've given me a couple of things I didn't even ask for, so, yeah, I'm going to buy an iPad 2.
The new iPad uses the A5 processor, a duel-core monster that is twice "up to" twice as fast as its predecessor, with graphics "up to" 9 times as fast. The "up to" phraseology is Apple's, and makes me wince a little, but frankly, if I can get a 50% bump in processor speed and graphics "only" 4 times faster, I'd be a very happy boy. The original iPad was incredibly responsive, so faster is icing on the cake.
I am looking forward to some real-world benchmarks to see just how fast this puppy is. Engadget has posted some hands-on videos, the first of which shows the speed of the iPad 2, and where the word "fast" is mentioned 10 times in 2 minutes, along with "blazingly", "insanely", "incredibly", and "really really". So yeah, it's fast, but how fast?
The front-facing camera is what I have been waiting for. FaceTime on the iPad would be perfect. I personally don't care very much about the rear camera, but can see where it could be useful for showing people what you are looking at, or for some stealth-ish video. The form factor is not a good one for general videos, however.
Apple managed to pack these new features and much faster processor in while maintaining a 10 hour battery life. That I am very happy about.
The iPad 2 also introduces a gyroscope. It will be interesting to see how developers use this. As a more precise gaming controller is an obvious use, but I'm hoping for something more.
The new iPad is also 33% thinner than the original iPad. Basically the flat edge of the original iPad has been removed. Engadget posted an image of an iPad and iPad 2 sitting side-by-side, and the difference is striking.
iPad 2 and iPad 1 Side By Side
One of the things I am most excited about though, and against my better judgement, is the "Smart Cover". It attaches to the iPad 2 with magnets, and acts as a thin protective cover and a stand. Apple has posted a video of the Smart Cover on their site. I think everyone that gets one will spend the first day or two trying to figure out how it works. I figured out how the refrigerator light turns off (and it does!) I can figure out how the Smart Cover works too. (Between you and me, I already know how it works, but I don't want to spoil it for everyone else).
There's already a lot of talk about how the iPad 2 still falls short of the Motorola Xoom. Yes indeed it does, but not by far, and, well, the iPad has a huge head start. Not many people are going to be willing to fork over $799 knowing that they'll have to replace all of their iOS software too. Apple has a huge lead that they are not going to lose any time soon, and while the iPad 2 doesn't have the most muscle of the bunch, it's still the alpha male.
The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss
The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman
No, I'm not the first blogger to write about this book, and I won't be the last, just consider this my endorsement, my thumbs up, whatever pleases you, dear reader.
A few things surprised me about the marketing around this book. It's surrounded by all kinds of cool. First, three of the chapters that are arguably the most appealing (at least when looking at the table of contents), are available for free online. The Slow Carb Diet, Six Minute Abs (both via Tim Ferriss on Gizmoto), and The 15-Minute Female Orgasm (unlockable via Tim's Facebook page).
Three free chapters not quite cool enough? It's too late for you, dear reader, but anyone that bought the book in the first 48 hours could register their receipt on the book's website and get a free digital copy of Tim's first book, The 4-Hour Work Week, and an exclusive eBook, The Slow Carb Cookbook.
On top of that, Tim Ferriss has been interviewed on a boatload of blogs, podcasts, and even real live TV about the book. Don't believe me? F-you! Google it! While you're at it, make sure you check out the book's blog, and Tim on Twitter.
The book itself seems a little ADD at times, but in a good way. You expect diet and/or fitness books (especially ones that are 600 pages!) to be filled with a lot of scientific doublespeak that you really don't need, but was required to fill pages. Tim is a geek, so there are some scientific nuggets there, but fun stuff that will make fellow geeks giggle like a girl. Rather than a bunch of useful information padded with filler, this book tends to be a bunch of useful information padded with a bunch of useful information and anecdotes. Some sections, though very relevant, feel very unprofessional simply because it's given to us raw without anything fancy done to the typeface or styling. This sounds like a slam, but it's really a compliment. Sections where emails from family are pasted in look like the email was cut-n-pasted. Raw. Nothing fancy.
I'm interested in losing a lot of weight. A whole person. I'll start with a small person, and set my initial goal at 20 lbs. According to what I'm reading, I can expect that to be about 6 weeks. I'll let you know how that goes.
The diet is simplicity itself. Read the damned book if you want details, but basically eating about 4 oz. of protein (eggs, beef, poultry, pork), as much as you want of legumes (some of us dummies call them beans, including black beans, red beans, pinto beans, and most importantly lentils) and as much as you want of veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, asparagus, etc.), eating 4 or 5 small meals a day, and lots and lots of water. No calorie counting, no "white carbs" such as bread, rice, pasta, etc. The diet keeps with a KISS (keep it simple, stupid!) approach, suggesting the same meals over and over and over again. (Hard to screw it up that way.)
If you were counting calories, depending on how many legumes you eat, you'd probably find that, while you're quite full, you're not getting nearly as many calories as you would normally eat. According to "the professionals", if I'm trying to lose 2 lbs a week, a fat dude like me is supposed to consume about 2,500 calories a day. No, really! I am not going to count the F-ing calories, but my edumucated guess is that on a good day, eating just veggies, "beans", and a little meat, I'll consume 1500-1800 calories. Probably enough to get my body all panic-y and thinking about flipping into starvation mode. That's the beauty of Tim's plan. One "binge day" per week. He suggests Saturday, and, sir, I concur. That day you can eat whatever you want. Pig out. Consume 5,000 calories if you're so inclined. (I like the idea of Saturday since it will give me Sunday to poop out all that nastiness and won't interfere with my work week!) This tells your body, "oh, ok, no starvation here, this dude's a pig!"
I've started this crazy eating plan today, and I'll tell you, getting up and eating first thing was not easy. I had 3 eggs with about 2 cups of asparagus and maybe 1/2 a cup of onions. Surprisingly, it was pretty good. I spiced it up a bit with some pepper and garlic powder, and it was all kind of yummy, and filling.
The other part that I'm going to have trouble with is all the water. Everything I have ever read tells me to drink lots and lots of water when trying to lose weight, and this book is no exception. I've downed about 16 oz. since I woke up (about an hour ago) so I think I can manage, I just tend to be a 1 to 2 bottle of water guy, and have to become a 6 to 10 bottle of water guy...or get bigger bottles.
All this talk of water...now I've gotta pee, so I'll wrap this up. Bottom line, get this book. Go! Now! Let me know what you think, how you're doing, etc., and I'll do the same. Check here for weekly updates on my progress. (I'm also taking pictures of what I eat, tracking measurements, etc., but I won't share that data until I'm done...in about a year.)
Pan and Zoom to Include All Markers in Google Maps v3
I had what I thought was a pretty common and simple problem to solve. I wanted to make sure that all of the markers I placed on my Google map were initially visible. So the map would have to pan to the center of all of the points and then zoom in or out to fill the view port.
There were a ton of examples on how to do this with v1 and v2 of the Google maps API, but, alas, I was using v3, and I wasn’t able to find even a hint as to how to do this. Through trial and error and a lot of actual reading of the API docs, I finally figured it out. Hopefully this will help someone else someday. (Sorry if you are using v4 or v5 and this doesn’t work, blame Google 
)
First create an empty LatLngBounds:
-
var bounds = new google.maps.LatLngBounds();
Next loop through and create points however you normally would, adding the bounds.extend(latlng) you see:
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for (var index in marker_array) {
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var lat = marker_array[index].lat;
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var lng = marker_array[index].lng;
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var latlng = new google.maps.LatLng(lat, lng);
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bounds.extend(latlng);
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}
Finally, tell the map to do all the heavy lifting with the fitBounds() method:
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this.map.fitBounds(bounds);
There are plenty of tutorials out there to tell you how to create the points, markers, and the map, so I won’t bother going into that here.
Hope that helps someone!
Nasty iPad Side-Effects
I have been watching the little spat between Macmillan and Amazon.com with some interest, since I think it represents a very important turning point in the publication industry. Amazon.com published their side of the story, and Macmillan published theirs. In the end, Macmillan won, and you and I lost.
The gist of the story, Macmillan insisted that Amazon.com start charging between $12.99 and $14.99 for the Kindle versions of Macmillan’s books. Amazon has generally charged $9.99 or less, and wanted to keep it that way. Amazon stuck to their guns for a couple of days, going so far as pulling all Macmillan publications from Amazon.com. Well, today Amazon caved, and Macmillan’s new release Kindle books are now between $12.99 and $14.99. On the bright side, Macmillan promises that older books will reduce in price, to the $6.99 range. How good of them!
I for one bought Kindle books because they were cheaper than their hard-backed counterparts. All other things being equal, I’d prefer the physical book to the electronic one. So, when I’m not saving anything by buying the Kindle version, it’s not likely I will be buying the Kindle version.
You can bet that very soon other publishers will follow suit, and all new Kindle books will be roughly the same price as their paper equivalents. This is 100% due to the greed of the publishers. Electronic books are cheap to produce. Much much cheaper than paper books. There is no logical reason to raise the price of electronic books, and frankly, even $9.99 was more than they should have been.
What’s truly unfortunate is that this is Apple’s fault. They are entering into similar deals with publishers (to sell books in the $15 range), and publishers are undoubtedly playing this card against Amazon. “Do what we tell you, or we’ll enter an exclusive deal with Apple.” Amazon’s hands are tied, and we, the readers, lose.
Sorry Apple, sorry Amazon, I don’t intend on buying any ebooks as long as their cost is comparable to the physical book. Here the publishers win, because they know that we’re all suckers for new releases, and they’ll get their $15 one way or another. Ass holes!
Why I Will Wait To Buy My iPad…Maybe
Anyone that knows me is expecting me to run out and buy an Apple iPad the day it becomes available. Ok, I probably will, but am considerably more hesitant to do so than I would/should be. Why? Because I think version 2.0 of the pad is the one I want.
Most of my problems with the iPad can be solved with software updates, and (you read it here first) will be solved by Apple before, or shortly after launch. The most glaring of which is the very iPhone-like home screen and “springboard”. Apple doesn’t do ugly, and the 4 x 4 icon arrangement with about an inch of padding around each icon is about the ugliest thing I’ve ever spied. This is a placeholder so they could get developers working on iPad software with the iPhone OS 3.2 SDK. The long-term home screen will NOT look like THIS!
My other problems are decidedly hardware based, and I expect them to be fixed in 2.0. First, as you can see above, the bevel around the iPad screen is huge. It can be about 75% of that size, no problem, and probably will be in the next version.
Second, I’m VERY surprised that there is no camera. It doesn’t make sense. I’m sure there is some kind of technical reason for this that will be solved for version 2.0
Third, there doesn't appear to be a compass or GPS. While these aren't entirely necessary for the most likely use (sitting on your couch cold chillin') it would be a nice to have for any location-based functions.
Finally, there’s no way (currently) to either use the iPad as an external display, or use an external display with the iPad. This might be solved with an adapter, but how cool would it be to use the iPad as a 2nd display for your laptop?
Of course, I could always play the “get 1.0 and then get 2.0 and give 1.0 to my wife” trick. It always works.
Books-A-Million, You’re Dead To Me! Dead!
I live in the “suburbs” of Joplin, so basically in the middle of the middle of nowhere. In this berg, only one book store, Books A Million. Because I like to support our local economy, especially around Christmas, I decided to purchase a couple of books from them. I was there, the books I wanted to by were there, the stars were aligned just right, so why not?
These books were Christmas gifts for my son. He’d been getting into Christopher Moore, one of my favorite authors, so I thought I’d get him a couple of books to feed his addiction. Unfortunately, they were the same two books that I had bought him 6 months ago. The exact same books. Oops!
I still had the Books A Million bag handy, so when we were headed out December 26, I grabbed the books, and the bag, and stopped by Books A Million with the intention of exchanging the books for 2 more books by the same author. No problem, right? Wrong!
When I got to the counter, both sets of books in hand, the mousy woman first told me that the only way I could exchange the books was if I was a Discount Card holder. I explained that I was, but that I had let my membership lapse. So she said, “Well, then, I don’t think we can do the exchange. Do you have a receipt?” I said, “I can probably dig it up if I have to, but no, I don’t have it with me. It’s an even exchange, if that makes a difference.”
She told me, “Oh, no, I’m going to have to get the manager. I don’t think we can exchange them without a receipt.” So she called her manager and I waited semi-patiently. While we were waiting, I said, “You know, I know it’s not your policy, but having a policy like this is libel to drive customers away. It seems like with price already being a compelling reason to turn to Amazon, you would at least have better customer service.” She replied with, “We’re not worried about that, we beat out Amazon 5 to 1”. She didn’t elaborate on that, but that’s about the time they lost me.
The manager came to the register and confirmed that, indeed, they would not, could not, take an exchange without the receipt. “The machine won’t even let us do anything without a receipt!” I said, “I can go home and dig up the receipt if it’s really necessary, but am not real happy about doing that, given the weather.” He said, “Well, I’m afraid that’s what you’re going to have to do. Well, I guess if you remember the exact date and time that you bought the books, I could probably look them up, but it might take me a couple of hours to find your receipt in our system.”
Not wanting to wait around for 2 hours, gambling on the off chance that I may guess the correct date and time of my purchase, I headed home and dug up my receipt.
I then returned the books, with receipt in hand, and got a full refund, and ordered the replacement books from Amazon.com right there from the Books A Million register.
Oh, and if you live in the Joplin area and need some books, give me a holler. I may be able to add your order to mine and get you free shipping from Amazon.com. Anything to help put another nail in Books A Million’s coffin.
Is this thing on?
It’s been a LONG time since I’ve written a blog entry, and frankly don’t have anything worth saying right now. I am, however, preparing a blog entry that may be helpful to some, on testing while using Django Haystack, and I wanted to make sure my blog actually still works.
It won’t be an easy blog post for me, as it will require actually writing tests, which goes against my nature. This old dog, however, is ready to learn some new tricks.
Keep Track of Your Stuff!
I worked with a few buds of mine to create a new app called BorrowMe. The short and skinny...it helps you keep track of the things you borrow, and the things you lend. We really dipped into the iPhone capability bucket on this one and have some great features in place. My favorite being the "handshake" to seal the deal, with which you can send an entry for something you are lending to the lendee (is that a word?) with just a couple of taps.
We're very proud of what we did with this app. Check it out at the iTunes App Store.
I originally realized that BorrowMe had finally be released when checking out AppShopper, a site that makes it much easier to keep up on what's new in the AppStore (Thanks, Pedro!) Here's the link to BorrowMe on that site:
iPhone Developer’s Cookbook
The PDF version of Erica Sadun’s book, “The iPhone Developer’s Cookbook: Building Applications with the iPhone SDK” (link: http://tinyurl.com/4aldd8) is finally available.
I’ll admit, I had some very high expectations for this book. The samples on Erica Sadun’s web site offered a peek into what to expect. Not only does the book meet my expectations, but it impossibly exceeds them.
The first surprise was the first chapter, a great primer for iPhone development. I wish I had this in my hands when I first started doing iPhone development, as chapter one explains some key concepts important to understanding iPhone development. The first chapter alone is worth the price of admission for those new to iPhone development.
The rest of the book is filled with examples of how to accomplish magic in all aspects of iPhone development. Some that you would figure out yourself given enough time, but most true gems. And a few with non-public API calls (use at your own risk).
Check it, out! You won’t regret it.
Bank Bailout, Hold the Pork
I normally don't worry too much about anything political. I just can't get excited about something that in inherently corrupt. However, what is going on in Washington today is pissing me off.
It’s not so much the bailout. While I would personally rather the government didn’t spend our hard-earned tax dollars to bail out some fat cats that made some bad decisions, I admit that my knowledge of all things economic is pretty limited, and trust that the “experts” will make the right choice. So, while I don’t want it, I could tolerate the bailout.
What I can’t tolerate is all of the earmarks the shoved into this thing. If this bill was so important, and so urgent, why the hell couldn’t our friends in congress just write a bill that did just what it was set out to do; bail out the banks. Instead it’s filled full of crap such as (and I’m not making this up!):
- $6 million for producers of kids’ wooden arrows. (Unless those arrows are going to be used to punish the fat cats, they have nothing to do with the bank crisis!)
- $192 million to Puerto Rican and Virgin Island rum producers! (I’m thinking that this “crisis” probably has those that drink drinking a lot more rum these days, so this one was truly unnecessary. The rum producers will be making a killing anyway, along with the tobacco industry and the beer industry.)
- Some undisclosed amount to...wool research! (Sounds a little dirty)
- $128 million to auto-racing tracks. (Um...why? As big as NASCAR is these days, I’m thinking they can afford to make their own damned tracks!)
- $33 million to companies operating in American Samoa. (Hey, cool!...no...wait...not so cool, but certainly better than rum or auto racing)
- $10 million to small- to medium-buget film and television producers. (I’m not sure what kind of movies $10 million can produce, but my guess is that we just purchased a stock in the porn industry.)
- $233 million as...get this...tax benefits for fishermen who’s livelihoods suffered as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. (This was clearly a way of buying the vote of Alaska Rep. Don Young. I wish I could get a break for my suffering of 20 years ago! As a starving college student, life really sucked about then. I consumed roughly $192 million worth of rum, too, hmmm...it’s all coming back to haunt me now...I definitely need $233 million for my suffering.)
- $3.8 billion (with a B) for health care provisions that force insurance companies to provide mental-health treatment coverage. (While I see a connection between mental health and this bill, I don’t think this bill is the appropriate place for this.)
Why the hell do we let this happen? How can we prevent it?
For those of you that are supposed to be representing us in Washington, shame on you.
(source: NY Post, via Drudge)
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