It bothered me greatly, and over the course of the last month or so, a new friend was found and added to the household.

Meet Chuck.

Chuck is a 7 month old coonhound / walker mix who was rescued. He started out a little timid and definitely scared of men, but he’s really come around in the last few days.

It’s nice to hear the soft snuffling and the pad of feet around the house again. It feels more complete.

They play the same top 40 songs over and over and over. It doesn’t matter to them that the same song is played twice in three hours. I can drive home and hear a song and then 3 hours later get in the car to go somewhere as hear the same damn song again.

It’s no wonder these media giants are failing. No one like mediocrity. So self generated and shared playlists on last.fm or turntable.fm or rdio.com or a host of copycats are killing it. Listening to what you want, with variety and the sharing of music for discovery is the new model.

The media conglomerates are endangered species. They bribe politicians to get laws like SOPA/PIPA or treaties like ACTA on the table. Fortunately, the first two are dead, though I suspect something similar will be enacted sooner or later. All this money spent to try and protect antiquated business models and old distribution methods.

New methods of consumption are under constant threat of legal action for copyright infringement with those holders asking ridiculous fees to license the content. This needs to change, new ideas of compensating the artists that make the content have come to light. Maybe ones that bypass the studios, as they claim that piracy hurts the artists ( never mentioning the low amounts those artists get ).

I got ideas. It’s time to build the solution.

A checkup at the vet revealed hidden issues like liver disease and thyroid disease which manifested as a coughing spasm as well as advanced arthritis in his haunches. It was made clear that any attempts to manage his health would be short term at best. A matter of months, not years, of declining health and pain.

It was a painful and tough decision, but he is no longer in pain. I can take some comfort from that. But the after effects of this decision echo in the empty rooms of this house. The habits of 14 years of living with Angus are tough to break.

The worst of it is this house feels so empty. A constant looking for something that should be there. Sounds that are no longer present, the click of nails on the floor, the soft snuffling sounds of a dreaming dog. No one greets me at the door when I walk in.

It is those tiny things that give the greatest sense of loss. Saving a tidbit from dinner, the press of dog fur on my leg as he rested, snuggled against me while I sat on the floor.

For years, I never sat on the couches, I sprawled on the floor so Angus could sit or lay beside me. Sometimes I’d use him as a pillow while watching tv.

I miss him. He was a fixture in my life for such a long time. And now I have a quiet, empty house.

iOS5 was released on Oct 12 and I immediately downloaded and upgraded the device. The first warning box that came up was a tool to back up the phone, which came with a dire warning; ‘upgrading will remove all content, apps and media from the device’. With some trepidation I clicked the continue button and began the hours long process of upgrading. About 90% of the download made it to my machine before apple’s servers got hammered by everyone else trying to upgrade. The last 10% took about 30 minutes to download, but that was no big deal. I knew it would be intensive and contentious to get the download. So the Mac chugged quietly away helping the iPhone get set up.

After about an hour and a half, the phone rebooted and rather to my surprise no apps or music were available. Guess my expectations were slightly off and I got a little annoyed. I was hoping that the device would be just as i left it with everything good to go.

Replacing the apps would take a couple of hours later on that night. It was relatively simple to select them from the iCloud back up that exists within the app store by clicking the cloud icon in each app. But it was frustrating as well, the iCloud list has no organization what so ever that I could discern.

It would have been a much easier process if there could be some way of organizing the apps. I penned a quick complaint/ feedback note to apple, suggesting that an interface like the Contacts app would be much handier. A simple alphabetical list with a one column alphabetical guide down the right-hand side would be a great step in the right direction. Another or additional option would be to add categorical listing, much like the app store itself. I am assuming that the category is a part of the XML list that makes up the back-up, but if it isn’t, it should be hard to add. Guess I could go find that listing and check it out.

All in all, it was annoying but easy and allowed me to be more selective about the apps I replaced, clearing out some of the old less or unused apps that were on the iPhone.

The loss of the music caused me the greatest grief. The iTunes sync has changed dramatically, from a very simple drag and drop of song, albums or artists to a more complex interface with a bunch of panels for genres, artists, albums, and types of purchases that encouraged me to check boxes for everything. However, when you combine all of these check boxes, it only partially moves albums, giving me a selection of the songs on it. I will need to spend more time to sort this out later.

I really preferred manual sync. Sure it had some issues, but it was very simple to manage for me. I would love to see this option make its way back into iTunes. Heres to hoping.

Once i finished though, I have to say I really like iOS5. It’s faster when loading apps, switching is quicker and the new notifications just rock. No more interrupts during a game causing level resets or any of those types of issues.

I did find that setting the ‘push’ notifications on email were a little hard on the battery, but then there are a lot
of emails flying thru my inboxes. Maybe I’ll turn that on during weekends and leave it off while in the office. That’ll help save battery life.

Haven’t played with the new camera settings yet. Taking a pic with the home screen locked is an advantage though I would love to be able specify what camera app to use. Camera+ is my favorite though Instagram is good too.
Other like snapbucket, picplz and color I will be less likely to use, though color’s pivot to become a Facebook photo app is nicely done.

We’ll see what becomes of it. I am lusting after the 64gb iPhone 4S. I have found the 16gb version a little too restricting since there are always new apps I want to play with.

It’s all about data deduplication, not repeating yourself and getting to 3rd normal form. Good db design is a vital part of the app design when the app needs to be flexible. This design is much better than the previous version, with better table design according to basic db design principles.

A four hour discussion that doesn’t get anywhere is a waste of time. You would think that if you don’t know, you’d ask for clarification, but don’t argue just for the sake of it. Some of us have the education needed to do this properly. Let us do our jobs

In the last weeks, i have seen:

1. Cargo – German sci fi film

2. Fearless – Chinese historical piece

3. Ip man – Chinese historical film

4. Diary of a nymphomaniac – Spanish drama

5. Returner – Japanese sci fi film

6. District b13 – French action film

All were pretty darn good, if you don’t mind reading the subtitles or hearing bad translation.

Lots of fun

Well, in the last 36 hours i have inhaled 5 movies. Some good, some bad but the Netflix experience is pretty damn good, streaming them to my laptop.

Short movie reviews:

1. Rampage – a violent, low budget film about a guy going berzerk and shooting up is town. A dark thriller, it was okay in the pace but took a while to really warm up. 3/5 stars.

2. Taken – Liam Neeson as a spy out to find his daughter after a kidnapping. Awesome. Loved it in the theatre but wasn’t about to pay $35+ for the blue ray. 5/5 stars

3. Harry Brown – Michael Caine as an ex-marine takes on the neighborhood baddies in this gritty English drama. Plenty of blood and action. Great film that I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy. A little slow at the start but so worth the wait for the action to start. 5/5 stars

4. The Last Airbender – last years magic and mystical adventure about a kid with supernatural powers over the elements. Enjoyable for the cinematography and set design. Special effects were good. 3/5 stars

5. A Man Apart – Vin Diesel plays a narc whose wife gets caught in the cross fire. Only half way thru it, but enjoyable. 4/5 stars.

6. Final fantasy – great cgi though dated now. 3/5 stars

7. Knight and Day – Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz star is a fun movie though panned on release. 4/5 stars

8. MILF – adolescent comedy about some college student hooking up with older women. Has it’s moments. 3/5 stars

9. Direct Action – Dolph Lundgren stars ( if that is the word ) in this cheesy low budget action flick. Bad writing, bad continuity but lots of explosions. You gotta be bored to watch this. 1/5 stars.

10. Mr Brooks – Kevin Costner as a serial killer. Demi Moore as the cop. Great flick. 5/5 stars

I will update this tomorrow with links and images.