DevLife

So, I downloaded the iOS4 and installed on my iPod touch. It’s the 2nd gen device and the OS is just a disaster. Battery life is abysmal, many apps just don’t work ( not that it’s Apple’s fault ) but those devs have not had the time or inclination to fix the apps.

But what irks me most are a few things about the new OS and iTunes.

1. Battery life just sucks. I used to be able to go a few days with my regular usage patterns provided I was not watching a video on it. My guess that the device is trying too hard to communicate all the time.

2. There is no way to restore back to version 3.1.3 which was the last version I had on there.

3. Should the new OS not be compatible with the current device, then why offer the upgrade? Apple know just what I have so why not just set iTunes to block it if not applicable?

4. Fix iTunes. Why should it let me add copies of music already in the device? It’s just bloody silly.

Anyway enough ranting?

Posted in: gear by Bastien / Tags: apple, ios4, ipod, upgrade

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A few weeks ago I inheirited a older HP/Compaq laptop. It suffered from extreme slowness and the current owner couldn’t get it to run any of his apps. I found this strange since it was a dual core machine running XP Pro.

Upon learning that it was originally sourced from Best Buy, it made it extremely likely that it was lacking RAM. The specs on the HP site called for 1 GB of RAM, but as usual for Best Buy, it only had 512 Mb in it.

A neighbor had an HP laptop which had a screen that was busted, so i pirated the ram, 2gb worth and placed it into the old machine. We had to take the machine apart since one of the ram chips was hidden under the keyboard. Nice design, HP!

Then I acquired a universal power supply since the original could not be located. Talk about a bad move, the screwy amperage delivered to the machine caused the CPU to cycle to 100%, rendering the machine useless. It had all sorts of trouble installing the new OS. Yep, I put windows 7 on it. Meh! Is about all I have to say that, just not enough there to be really impressed.

Anyway, google and trial and error lead me to working out the power supply issue. I sourced a new power supply through kijiji, with the help of a buddy at work. The new supply works like a charm and the machine is running great now.

That entire process took about 3 weeks to sort out. What fun!

Posted in: gear, on the job by Bastien / Tags: hp, laptops, power supply

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On a recent trip to the USA, I arranged with Amazon.com to deliver the DVD/bluray combo as well as the book tie in for the movie called the Field Guide.

Delivery was flawless despite the fact Amazon.ca charges significantly more for those two items than the US version.

Since returning home, I was away for the weekend, I finally Sat down to watch the bluray version. Took me a few weeks to make the time to workrgeu the whole movie, but it was worth it. The blu-Ray with the surround sound was just awesome. I really enjoyed seeing it with some sound based umph! to it. The iPod version is handy to watch as it’s so portable, but I can’t really blast the sound without screwing up my hearing.

I am also enjoying the ‘Activist Guide to Pandora’ book. Lots of great detail on the world that Cameron created and brought to life.

Yep! Totally Avatarded, feeling it out. That’s ok though, it’s a small and harmless obsession.

Posted in: movie reviews by Bastien / Tags: avatar, movie

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So, a while ago I posted about Amazon Canada’s and its ripping off of Canadians for books supporting the James Cameron movie Avatar. Well, that brain trust is at it again with the DVD release of the movie.

In the USA, the movie is available for preorder as a two disc dvd/blu-ray set for the price of $24.99.

The Canadian version of Amazon is ripping us of by offering the Blu-ray disc at $29.99 as shown by the screen shot below.

I find it astounding that Amazon would con us in this way. The Canadian is not $.66 compared to the US dollar. We are hovering just below par at around the $.97-98 mark. That would suggest a price of around $26 for the double pack, which is not even offered to Canadian.

Avatar fans, lets get together and force Amazon to rethink its practices and ensure that we get a fair deal. Tweet this post to @amazon. Link to it in your blogs. Don’t let this travesty continue, don’t let large companies treat us like crap. Demand fairness.

Thanks…

Posted in: Uncategorized, movie reviews by Bastien /
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Due to an abundance of over-excitement about the movie Avatar, I find myself looking at the different offerings that tie into the movie. I’ve downloaded the script, found the book on learning the Na’vi language ( that might make me just a touch geeky!). The one piece that really interests me is the Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora.

And there is where the trouble starts. And the fury at being absolutely hosed by Amazon as a Canadian. The screen shots below show the difference between Amazon.com’s pricing

and the Canadian price at Amazon.ca

There are two pieces of data on the images that really show the differences between the USA and Canada. The first, obviously, is the price. The US price is $10.97. The Canadian price? A whopping $25.02. More than double that of the US price. I completely fail to see how Amazon can justify that difference. The Canadian dollar is hovering around the $.95 USD mark, so I could see a price of about $12, maybe $13 to account for the exchange rate. But $25? That’s outrageous! And then to have it not ship for 2-5 weeks? The Amazon.com version ships in 24 hours.

How can Amazon justify this? Its a total rip-off combined with a total failure of service. I would really like to have someone from Amazon give me a valid and reasonable explanation of why this occurs?

Posted in: movie reviews by Bastien / Tags: avatar james cameron movies, movies

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So Apple has announced the new iPad. I thought I’d add my comments and views to the general fray.

I think it’s gonna be an interesting device. One that is very geared to the general public that doesn’t get or want to be bothered with all the normal hassles of computing life. The system updates, virus warnings and the installation of apps. The iPhone metaphor is one that translates so well to a larger device with the extra screen real estate. This is the device for people who are in the main consumers of content. Email, video, Twitter are all mainly consumption apps where the user is mainly limited to text inputs. The ipad will be perfect for those users.

It’s not the right device for people who create content. It’s not meant to edit images, create docs ( though with iwork it’s possible ) and build applications. Those folks will still need a laptop or desktop machine for that.

Posted in: gear by Bastien / Tags: apple ipad software usability

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Ok, I admit it. I can’t get enough of the film Avatar. It’s just so damn good, something in it just makes me want to keep seeing it. 4 times so far, and looking to see it in IMAX.

[edit mar 7, 2010] so I saw avatar in IMAX. It was incredible. The large screen and huge sounds made the 3D better than ever. The movie becomes even more immersive and I found places where I could feel touches of vertigo and others where I wanted to push the plants out of the way.

It makes me sad that it’s been pushed out in favor of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. I hope Avatar comes back after Alice bails on the IMAX shows.

Posted in: movie reviews by Bastien / Tags: avatar james cameron movies

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I recently replaced my six year old machine at work with a new Dell. Due to certain requirements, I’ve decided not to upgrade to windows 7, but I have been playing with some of the MS dev tools like the web platform installer and ms web developer express. Work is deciding on a new tech direction as classic asp is, well, old and useless.

Although my personal preference is to move to php for a variety of reasons, there is a focus on moving to .Net. Php runs well under dot net and ms has made significant investments into making php run really well. However, there has been some argument surrounding the use of C# as the language of choice.

In either case, I am pushing to use an MVC pattern codebase to provide better code standards. So I went and found asp mvc which plugs nicely into web express. So I download and install it with MS web platform software. This is where it gets good… The web installer starts up and while installing the mvc module, it offers to install:

1. Webcache for php
2. Php 5
3. Moodle
4 joomla

Among a few other bits. These packages are solid php offering dealing with CMS and Learning Management System. So MS is offering php as part of the who MS development experience! Doesn’t that seem a bit…odd?

To me, it seems like this is a bit of an admission that the path they chose is perhaps not the right one. This says to me that MS is offering the better language because there is some lack of interest in their tools and offerings.

This also tells me that PHP is the right language to develop in. Now if I can just make the required people see the light!

For some more laughs, the web platform also installed mysql, even though the original install of the web express package came with MS SQL Server.

Posted in: on the job by Bastien / Tags: MS PHP

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Like most of you, I have been enjoying my holidays, and this I have received, or rather not received an endless tide of spam. Sure my email has been hit, but blog spam has been down dramatically over the past few days. I have not had to spend any time at all managing the blog for it’s spam content as I have received none.

It’s a pleasant change from the normal 10-15 pieces daily I normally get. Granted it’s not much given that maybe three people have ever read this blog, and that I am not a prolific poster by any stretch. There just isn’t much to interest a spanner, though when some of my plans come to fruitition then maybe this could be a destination blog on some level.

In any case, spammers, thanks for not spamming me during the holidays.

Posted in: Uncategorized by Bastien / Tags: spam blogging junk

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An excellent article on why APIs should be open. This was recently echoed by a blog post from Jonathan Rosenberg of Google on much the same topic.

Openness of standards and APIs will drive a lot of innovation. Twitter is one of the best examples of this. Their open APIs have allow a number of companies to build various clients for the site. Those clients also drive innovation within Twitter itself to provide and adapt to new functionality.

Then there are the apps that analyze the datastream and extract trends and other valuable data that can be sold to other parties again. An entire ecosystem built on being open, and it’s a very disruptive one at that, but also offers resounding opportunity to those with vision and ability to move quickly.

I am trying to build the things that I am working on to incorporate those ideals. It will be a challenge to get there and one that I relish. The end result will be better code and simpler growth patterns.

It will be a fun journey!

Posted in: on the job by Bastien / Tags: coding technology google

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