Technology

Upgrades and obsolescence

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

In years past, if a computer was 3 years old it was on the way out. For a computer to still be in service after 5 years was strange… that it was still being used was impressive, that such a relic could still be useful.

It was especially harsh in the Mac world. Whereas you may still see someone today using a Pentium with Windows 98 and being happy about it, you just don’t see many Centris or Performa or Quadra still in circulation, except perhaps in a hermetically sealed off elementary school. But even these days that’s rare since most of those can’t exist in the modern world of the Internet (especially with a need for Flash).

But something changed a few years ago. Apple changed to Intel processors, and Moore’s Law appears to have tapered off. My MacBook Pro is 4 years old and performs well-enough. Oh sure would I love to upgrade? Yes. But what would I gain for that? I’d lose a FireWire 400 port. I use a USB port. I lose the express slot (but big deal, I’ve rarely used these). I’d gain an SD card slot, but that’s of minimal use to me. I’d gain 802.11n wireless, but that’s not a huge deal since I’m mostly wired up and when I use wireless it’s just short bursts of network need and it’s fast enough as it is. Faster processor and graphics, but for the most part what I have works… it’s sufficient for email, web, IM, whatever… only compiling would be better but there my bottleneck is the hard drive. Gaining the nifty new multi-touch trackpad would be cool.  But really… for dropping a couple thousand dollars I’m not gaining a HUGE advantage over what I presently have. The biggest thing I’d really want is more RAM since I’ve maxxed out the capabilities in this machine but again due to compiling code you just can never have too little RAM.

The one other upgrade needed? Hard drive. The drive in here I’ve outgrown. I’ve ordered a Hitachi Travelstar 7K500 7200 RPM model from Other World Computing. That’s about the best I’ll get these days: 500 MB of storage on a faster 7200 RPM drive. That upgrade right there should help overall system performance. Yes there are some slightly faster drives, slightly larger drives, but the Travelstar seemed the best bet in terms of price, performance, capacity, low noise, low vibration, lower power consumption… to me it was more important to have a cooler, smoother, quieter, less battery draining drive than say a Western Digital Scorpio Black (whose performance benchmarks were wicked awesome). That upgrade should be here today, and I’ll be down for a while while I do the drive transfer.

But I just find it interesting that while this MacBook Pro is showing its age, it still churns along respectably well. I don’t feel a need to upgrade now because there isn’t the obsolescence there once was. Oh sure, within a couple of years I’m probably going to replace it, but it feels good to not have to plan for a new machine every few years.

Testing WordPress for iPhone

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Testing WordPress for iPhone update.

Well it seems to be a little better, but I still got it to crash. But it has a new crash reporting feature, which is cool.

Typing body text in landscape mode finally works. I wish it would always be savvy to landscape mode (e.g. Editing a post’s other info) since it’s easier to type in that mode.

We’ll see if this version is finally usable.

Back to the Mac

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Yesterday, Apple held an event to get “Back to the Mac”. You can watch the replay of the keynote here.

My impressions.

First, it’s evident from the growth of the product sales, the revenue, the units shipped… anyone that continues to say Apple is some niche just isn’t paying attention.

iLife ’11? I like it. You can tell this is a mature product suite. It’s not adding major new features but rather refining what it has to a high degree. It’s lots of little touches, little things to help make life easier. For instance, that your Flickr and Facebook albums are just a part of the iPhoto library so you have the same editing interface? Awesome! I’m considering buying iLife just for that, as I know Wife would appreciate it. I got a major kick out of the “trailers” feature in iMovie. They did a great job at making movie editing “for the rest of us”.

Lion. Mission Control makes sense because yes, they had all these things that were disconnected so it’s time to bring them all together. I’m not sure about LaunchPad, how really necessary it is, but I think it’s something I’d have to play with. I can see for less savvy users that it could be just the thing they need.

Of course, the big thing for me to watch is the App Store. This is a possible game-changer for Mac developers. You can read the store review guidelines here, but it’s behind an ADC login so I’m not sure how publicly I can discuss it. What I will say are the impressions and questions that came to mind when I was watching the keynote:

  • Apple controls the end-to-end experience, so I assume this means you can’t use your own registration/license scheme, nor your own installer (and probably have to create your install in a particular way). That makes sense, but it’s a bit of a pain for developers since now we’ll have two means by which our apps could be installed, two code paths, two different builds, two different things to have to support and test… it’s just more work on our end, but it stands to reason for the mechanism.
  • I figure this will benefit small developers, but how about big boys? For instance, will Microsoft sell Office? Will Adobe sell Photoshop?
  • Will we start to see competing app stores? It’s well-possible for them to exist, but then what sort of additional headache and nightmare will it be for developers?  Could we see the end of traditional sales channels?
  • What about non-applications? Like plug-ins?
  • The concern is, Apple’s store will become THE face of how you buy Mac software, thus if you don’t comply with them, you’re out of luck and will suffer. I’m concerned about Apple’s content restrictions, technical restrictions (e.g. non-app sales?), and so on.

But really, all we saw of Lion were some basic things. I’ll be more curious to hear about things at the developer-level, which I reckon will come with WWDC 2011.

Finally… there’s one more thing.

The new MacBook Air’s.

Impressive. That’s all I can say. Sure they are not uber-powerful (slower processor) and decked out (e.g. only 2 GB RAM) when compared to the traditional MacBook and MacBook Pro, but my word what they do offer. The small size, the light weight. You do get an amazing amount of stuff in a very small package. If I travelled often on business, lots of coach class flights, and had to get lots of work done on the road? I could see picking up one of the 11″ models to help me handle email and work on the road.

And at that price point and form factor? Gosh… if I had a few thou lying around, I’d pick up 3, one for each of my kids. Don’t have the money, but it was just that compelling. Granted, your basic MacBook gives you more for less money, but the Air is so cutting edge that yes… it tantalizes me. 🙂

The main point tho is to see Apple well.. getting back to Mac. Mac has always been Apple’s bread and butter, but for the past few years it’s been about iPod/iPhone/iPad, which I totally don’t blame them for. For me personally, I make my living making Mac OS X software, not iOS software, so at times I felt ignored. It wasn’t true, Apple has been continuing to update the OS and Mac, but it just hasn’t been the forefront… I skipped the past couple WWDC’s because they were all iOS focused. But the irony is my life is now shifting away from Mac, just as Apple is shifting back to it. It’s like fashion from the 80’s… retro is cool again, and so is Mac. 🙂

Droid impressions

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

I’ve been an Apple guy all my life. I like Apple products because Apple puts an emphasis on making things “just work”. Oh sure, nothing is perfect, but they score higher on the success chart than anyone else. Human-computer interaction is a primary thought, not an afterthought, and it shows in the design of both their OS and their hardware. Apple leads, everyone else follows.

While I love my iPhone, I can’t help but be curious about Android. This past Sunday at a dinner, a gentleman sitting next to me had a Motorola Droid X phone. I asked him about it, he let me play with it.

Gosh, but I’m impressed.

I liked that you could put a storage card in there, to facilitate transfers between your phone and other devices. Not sure how smooth and seemless it is, but gosh that’s nice.

Decent camera with a flash. Seems like a simple request, but my iPhone 3GS’s camera isn’t that great.

Overall response of the system and network was peppy. Never felt like anything was dragging.

I loved the huge screen size. Of course, that meant a larger device and it’s certainly pushing the limits of a “pocket device”. But I think what I also dug was the use of that limited space. For instance, menus weren’t constantly along the bottom of the screen but only came up on-demand by pressing one of the 4 buttons on the front of the device. I like that because precious screen space is now filled with content, not menu. It doesn’t always matter of course, but I just like the concept of being able to use limited resources to the fullest.

I liked that the main screens aren’t just flipping through pages of app icons, but instead you can have some vital things running so you can quickly access information you care about, like sports scores or today’s calendar of appointments, or whatever.

I only got to play with the device for a short while, so my impressions are shallow. There were some things I didn’t think it did as well as the iPhone, but it’s subtle little human-computer interaction details, too difficult to articulate in the limited space I have here. Still, I left with an overall positive impression and certainly am curious to explore it more.

iOS 4 – finally

/ hsoi

I’ve been in the professional software business for about 15 years. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, bugs happen. Consequently, never use the x.0 release of something — always wait for x.0.1. 🙂

So when the iOS (iPhone/iPad OS) 4.0 came out, I did not want to upgrade. I am evolving into what they call an “old fart” and am no longer an early adopter. It’s simple. I write enough of my own bugs in a day, I don’t need to have my life hampered by someone else’s. 😉  There are always inevitable bugs (software is a human process), and since I need to get things done in a day I’ll wait until the kinks get ironed out.

I have been wanting to upgrade to iOS 4 because it does have a lot of cool new features. So last night I bit the bullet and upgraded.

In general it’s a nice upgrade. I’m sure I’ll see more advantages to the multitasking as I use the phone in daily use.

I did not like that all my photos showed up fuzzy. It seems when you sync photos they get optimized for the phone, which is fair, but why the upgrade process couldn’t have automated this is curious to me. It was simple to fix (just sync), but if it was that simple again, why the iOS 4 upgrade process didn’t just handle it was odd.

I do not like the loss of being able to program what a double-click of the home button does. I liked being able to double-click it and get the camera. Now it’s dedicated for multitasking app switching. While I understand the phone has limited interface and something had to give well… that just wasn’t my favorite to have to go.

I like that I can have picture wallpaper everywhere. I know, small thing, but hey… if I want to stare at a picture of my wife and kids all the time, it kinda sucked that only the lock screen showed the picture.

While this wasn’t an iOS 4 upgrade, I was running low on space so I enabled the “Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC” option and resynced my music library. That took all night to do, but recovered a lot of space. Will I notice an audio fidelity difference? Maybe, but unlikely. I’ve abused my ears with many years of loud things (heavy metal music, motorcycles, guns, etc.) so I have some hearing loss and really doubt I’ll get all audio-snob about this. More space is more important, but if by chance I notice, I can always change back.

I haven’t noticed much for reception issues yet, but the upgrade is still young. 😉

Now to upgrade Wife’s iPhone….

Steal my software? I’d prefer you didn’t, but…

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

As a software developer, I’ve dealt with the subject of piracy of my product long before it was hip for the RIAA and MPAA to demonstrate what dinosaurs they were with their business model.

What’s the bottom line?

Don’t treat your customers like criminals. Yes, you are going to have some loss to theft. But you only have so much time and energy, so how do you want to spend it? Fighting the people who spoil it? Or making the product better for everyone else?

Granted, with the rise of the Internet and a new “electronic-based” generation, the times have changed somewhat: digital piracy is easier because we’ve got more ways to share files, distribute files, and a whole generation that views things differently than us old folks. But in the end how a developer chooses to spend their time is still the developer’s choice.

I prefer to make better software.

Yes, I still think it’s worthwhile to put some restrictions and registrations in place. I still think some measure of anti-piracy prevention is necessary. If nothing else, it lets legitimate users know this software isn’t free and here’s an avenue through which they can properly obtain it. But it will always be an arms race between the good guys and the bad guys, and if you spend all your time fighting the pirates then you’ll spend none of your time making good and useful features — things that actually will sell your product and get people to use it.

Jeff Vogel is a games developer and he makes the case that yes, you should steal his software — to an extent.

Generally, I agree with him. Piracy is wrong and I won’t go out of my way to encourage it. I think Mr. Vogel rationalizes the behavior of pirates a little too much, but it’s refreshing to see developers trying to look at the situation from the other side.

And while I’m not sure his solution is truly the best solution, it’s an interesting one:

If you like PC games but you usually pirate them, I want you to start actually paying for one game a year. Just one. Please. You should do it because you need to do it to help something you like to continue to exist. Sure, you might find that doing the virtuous thing feels surprisingly good. But, in the end, you should do it for the reason anyone ever really does anything: Because it is in your best interests to do so.

In his bottom line, he’s right, and I’ve known this for years — especially when the whole Napster thing started. It is this point that folks need to be educated about and it is this point that needs to be driven home. After that, it’s up to the individual if they wish to continue to steal or not, and it’s their moral and ethical judgment call to make. There’s not much more we, as content producers, can do.

For you see, whether we make software, porn, music, movies, digital images, any sort of this media or anything other sort of product in this world… we do it because we like it. We do it because we’re good at it. And we do it because we need to make a living to feed, clothe, and house ourselves and our families. Consequently, we hope to get a return on our labor. The way our markets work, that means if you want our product, you buy it; you get our product, in exchange we get your money and can then use that money to buy food, clothing, shelter and whatever else we need or want in life. If we exert this effort to make a product or provide a service and this product/service does not make us any money (for whatever reason), we will not be able to spend our time on that product/service because it’s not being fruitful and we’ve got tummies to fill and backs to clothe. Thus, if there’s no return on the investment, then the investment will stop.

Why should you care if I can’t feed my family? Because if I can’t feed my family, then the thing I make that you love will disappear.

If you like the music I make but I’m unable to make it any more, no more new albums from me.

If you like the movies I make but they take weeks or months to make and I need to spend that time doing something else to pay my bills? Then I won’t be making any more movies for you to watch.

If the software I write is useful to you but you found a bug or the software is no longer compatible with your latest computer upgrade, don’t expect me to be able to fix and update my software unless I’ve got the time and money to do so.

In the end, if you like what I do and want to continue to enjoy what I do, you need to support what I do. If you support what I do, I can then continue to produce what it is that you find good, and we all live happily ever after. 🙂

So yes, there can be some interesting points about piracy, and it is a Sisyphean task to fight it. But only addressing symptoms will never make it stop nor even reduce it. Educating the consumer about how their theft only comes back to bite them and it’s in their own best interest to not steal, that’s what will truly help the cause.

OK, Apple…. this should be amusing

/ hsoi

Today Apple is having some sort of special press conference, which I’m sure is about all the iPhone 4 and iOS 4 problems… be it the silly stuff about the antenna or maybe how iOS 4 is less than stellar.

Can’t wait to see how Steve’s patented Reality Distortion Field comes into play.

I mean… look at this shit:

(h/t Gawker)

This is why my iPhone is still using the iPhone OS version 3.x.x. I’m a software developer (and a Mac developer at that… Apple has somehow buttered my bread for probably 30 years of my life)… if there’s anything I’ve learned in my career it’s to NEVER go with the x.0.0 release of something… wait for the x.0.1. 🙂  Of course, if a few months go by and there is no x.0.1 then likely the x.0.0 release is fine. My point is, I’ve given up on being an early adopter. Again, being a developer myself — one that writes his fair share of bugs — I know how fragile and buggy and troublesome software development (or any sort of product development) can be. I have enough of my own bugs to worry about, I don’t have the time to waste dealing with someone else’s bugs.

Let’s see what Steve does today. Should be amusing.

iPhone and EVO humor

/ hsoi

Language is a little coarse, so mind your speakers.

I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care. 🙂

and the rebuttal

heh heh.

Google is watching you… quickly

/ hsoi

Wow. That didn’t take long.

I publish the previous post. I thought… hrm. “Officer Potus”. I wonder if Pastis is meaning anything by that, so I punch “Officer Potus” into Google.

I get the first page of results.

What was the last link on that first page of results? My previous post… with the time stamp of “46 seconds ago”.

Man… Google is fast. Makes you wonder what Google has to do to get things indexed so quickly. What must it be monitoring, and how… and the sort of infrastructure necessary for that. Fascinating. A little scary too.