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My QR Code

One thing I think is pretty sweet about my N95, the barcode reader. I mean that’s pretty damn slick, I wish I saw these codes in more places. Also wish the iPhone had a better way to implement code readers. Every one I tried was piss poor compared to the reader that came with the N95.

NeoReader (iTunes Link), is ok, but no where near as cool.

The N95 app is a live view through the camera, like… mmm… a camera, and there’s bounding lines showing you how to line up the code, and it shows you that it’s trying to lock on to the code.

NeoReader has you take a pic, and then ok the app to use it, then it tries to process it. If you weren’t lined up right, or anything like that, well try again. The N95 app at least shows you as it’s working so you know if you’re off center a bit.

I’m not sure if it’s an iPhone OS limitation, or not, but QR Code readers for the iPhone have a long way to go.

Tags: QR code

iPhone App Review - i Heart Radio

Nicole told me about iHeart Radio (iTunes link), so I figured I’d try it out. From what I gather, radio stations all around the country are teaming up to provide radio over the internet. I’m guessing it’s to combat the likes of Pandora, though I can’t imagine the RIAA likes the idea, but since two apps can’t run on the iPhone at the some time (yet), there’s little risk of the dreaded piracy.

The app is pretty straight forward, the app presents you with a list of local cities, all cities, your favorites, etc.

There’s four buttons at the bottom; Stations, Favorites, Tagged Songs, and Shake it.

One nice thing is the tagging of songs, you’re listening to the radio and can tag the song to buy in iTunes, pretty handy.

The app is a bit crashy, if you’re listening to a station, and go back to the stations list or the favorites, it’s as likely as not to kill the app. It’s very much a versions one app, but still pretty well made. The UI is pretty clean, although the playing button, looks like a checkbox, so it took me a while to figure out I could stop playplack.

I know it’s cool that the iPhone has the accelerometers but really, every app does not need to be shake friendly. UrbanSpoon, ok maybe, but really, do I need to shake my iPhone to pick a radio station? Is anyone that bored or starved for content that they’ll explore the radio freqs from across the US? Even if you find a kick ass station out of Boca Raton, it’s not like you can listen to it in the car or at the house. But oh well the fad will hopefully pass.

It’s a cute gimmick, but like I said, really? The Utility of the thing, just not seeing.

Overall, great app. It’s nice to have my favorite local stations, I’m hoping 100.3 shows up as well, but 93.3 will hold me over.

Tags: iPhone

Happy Festivus to one and all!

I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on 2008. It’s been a great year with lots of twists and turns.

2008 was the first full year of 360|Conferences, and saw us visit; Atlanta, Milan Italy, and return to San Jose CA, where it all started for 360|Flex. It also saw us start to make some money, enough that we paid ourselves a little money, not a salary, but we’re able to show a bit of income for our efforts, which in a start up never hurts! Lastly, 2008 saw us announce our first non Flex event, 360|iDev, the first and largest iPhone developer conference.

I moved from being a Flex  developer consultant, working for some really great companies like Universal Mind, and Esria, to being the Community Evangelist/Solution Engineer for EffectiveUI. I love writing code, and still do, albeit not daily, and I’m trying to learn to write some iPhoneSDK code as well, but there’s something about helping EUI get more out of social media and community. I’ve learned a lot in a short period, and can’t wait to see how ‘09 treats me.

2008 was also the year we lost Terrance :( He was 10, I’ve lost a few animals over the course of my life; Chip, Mandy, Hamster Little Tike, Turtle Duke, Rat Eon. The dogs were family pets, and the others I was pretty young, I guess it never sunk in back then.  Terrance hit really hard, I had had him and his brother Philip since they were about 8 weeks old. Losing him so suddenly really hurt.

2008 was our first year in our new house in downtown Denver, w00t! We left Highlands Ranch in December ‘07 leaving behind moms in SUVs with nothing to do all day, starbucks on every corner, and more kids than I’ve ever seen in my life! We love it in Denver, if you can’t tell! We’ve enjoyed meeting our neighbors, and exploring our new neighborhood.

I also joined Jeff as co-host of The Flex Show, in 2008, and we just recorded my 1 year anniversary episode. I can’t believe it’s been a year! It’s been awesome, and I can’t wait to spend another year, helping Jeff to deliver the best source of news and interviews in the Flex Community!

Thanks to 360|Conferences, 2008 is also my first year in any type of frequent flier program. I’m finally Ascent level on Frontier Airlines. Granted they’ve been sucking more and more as an airline, and may not exist for all of ‘09, but hey, for the time being, I get on the plane first, and get my bags faster, can’t beat that.

2008 also (in December, but still) saw Tom and I launch OurStartupStory, where we’ll be talking about our views and experiences with 360|Conferences. We’ve got some great guys writing with us, so it should be a wealth of view points, definitely something to keep an eye on. (as if I need a new blog to write for, but oh well!)

Here’s to 2008, and an awesome 2009! Can’t wait to see what the new year has in store for all of us!

Tags: 2008, life

Big 3, no bailout for you!

I’ve little sympathy for the big 3, less for the unions. The failure of the bail out seems to reinforce my grim outlook for both bodies. I know it will suck for the economy, and suck for most of us in some way or another, but really, they made their beds. Did the government step in for Home Grocer? Or any other start ups that flopped? Did they step in when Apple stock was 8 bucks and less a share?

Sure we let the auto makers get as big as they are, big mistake, hopefully we learn from it, but protecting and bailing out bad business practice, not a wise decision.

If my reading of the news is correct, the UAW wasn’t willing to make concessions as part of the bailout package. I mean, why do their part to help their employers? Why should the union bosses let their people take pay cuts, which lowers dues, which lowers union boss pay? Why can’t the American people just give more? Why should the screw turners take a pay cut, or lose the cushy retirement they’ve earned that few other employees anywhere, even get?

Don’t get me wrong, the UAW isn’t the only one at fault, apparently someone (I talk more about this below) thought the bailout package should include a pay raise for federal judges, cuz you know, they need a raise, and this was a best way to get it.

From the Forbes article:

McCaskill said judges’ pay raise, inserted by Reid, “sends the wrong message to the United States of America at this scary moment.”

Well duh. Yeah it sends the wrong message, it sends a message that in troubling economic times, our politicians are still interested in injecting whack crap like this into emergency bail outs. What do judges have to do with it? Nothing as far as I can tell, certainly it’s not the place, let alone time for that kind of junk!

Labor, lawmakers and the auto industry bargained in unprecedented private talks at the Capitol Thursday night…

I think it’s funny that these talks take place in private. After all it’s my money, shouldn’t I know what deals are being brokered? Shouldn’t those doing the dealing be held accountable? Wouldn’t the process go smoother if all parties knew we were watching that they had best act in good faith, lest we see how scummy they are? Is it just me that thinks that?

The House-passed bill would create a Bush-appointed overseer to dole out the money. At the same time, carmakers would be compelled to return the aid if the “car czar” decided the carmakers hadn’t done enough to restructure by spring.

Really? do we need more Czars? an IP czar, a car czar. Yeah that’s a solution. Appoint a fall guy, that way we have some one to draw and quarter when things go south!

Pushing to convert skeptics in both parties, Democrats agreed to drop at least one unrelated provision that threatened to sink the measure, a congressional official said. They were eliminating a pay raise for federal judges after Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, who represents an automobile manufacturing state, announced she would oppose the carmaker aid unless that provision was removed.

Good for Sen. McCaskill! I’m ashamed it was my own party that put such a turd on this package. I may be opposed to the bail out, but really? Adding crap like this is just embarrassing.

The auto industry and their union cronies had no problem during the big years, maybe we see how they handle the lean ones. As far as I’m concerned, if I (as a taxpayer) bail out the big 3, I want ownership. I want shares, I want them to answer to me (us, the people giving them money for being lame businessmen, and greedy union mongers) in exchange for my money!

Fat chance, I know, but a guy can dream

Tags: Business

The Cloud isn’t all that

Something struck me as interesting this morning. I’ve written two articles for the new Flex Authority Quarterly Update, and we used Buzzword to hand the articles. The Author writes, shares with editor, who shares with tech and copy editors. Then we do the dance of copy/technical editing and review.

The other day, Editor in Cheif Jeff posed a question. “Move to word, from Buzzword?” There were a few reasons, easier approval/dismissal of tracked changes and comments, etc.

as of this morning there are 13 messages in that thread, all saying “Yeah, Word is fine.”

Many of the authors cited being able to work offline as a major plus for Word.

I gotta say I agree. I love Google Docs,  I use buzzword for 360|Flex and The Flex Show, but there’s something to be said for being able to work when there’s no WiFi. Like aboard planes, trains and automobiles, in the backwoods, at the ski resort, etc. There’s still a lot of the country, let alone world that are offline, so sometimes it’s nice to not have all your tools rely on the cloud. I use MobileMe to keep my macs in sync, I also make use of my iDisk a lot! I sync the entire thing locally, because I’ve wanted to work and guess what, not online, no iDisk. Thankfully iDisk syncing doesn’t completely suck, so it’s a pretty good experience.

As an example, when I was in Japan earlier this year, WiFi was non existant. I never saw an access point once. The hotel didn’t offer it, they had a ethernet cord in the wall for $15 a day. The Starbucks (yes, really) had none, the local coffee shops, had none. I suspect because everyone’s phone had internet, and they text and IM through that. While being offline isn’t the worst thing in the world, especially on vacation, it’s nice to have the option. I didn’t.

I think we’re in an interesting time; on the one side we have Adobe, Microsoft, Google, et al. pushing for Photoshop online, Buzzword, Office online, google docs, google reader, etc. They’re pushing really hard to make us want to be online all the time. To only edit docs in the cloud, to store our docs, our emails, our RSS feeds, etc all in the cloud. However on the other side of that “go online” agenda is the reality that wifi isn’t everywhere. Laptops don’t ship with built in cellular modems (OK some small few do), and tethering plans range from free to really expensive, if you have a phone that can even do it. The truth is, we’re offline a lot. More than I think Adobe, Google and Microsoft would like to think.

In my opinion we’re still quite a ways from a place were “being online” is a ubiquitous condition. I think the real technology winners will be the companies that can make their offerings work in both worlds. Buzzword as an AIR app. Google docs syncing locally through Google Gears. I actually saw a gDocs offline gears app, but haven’t seen it in a while, and the 1 time I tried to use it, it wasn’t remotely in sync, not sure if I needed to open it once in a while to sync or what. I assumed since it was gears it’d be in sync from the last time I was online? Guess not.

What do you think? Are you using only cloud based tools? Still using Word or Pages, etc to keep things locally where you always have access?

Tags: Cloud Computing, RIA

Community on and off line

On Monday Tom and I participated in the Program for the Future Conference. He was onsite at the Tech. I was at home working, and watching the event in Second Life.

I’m not a fan of online only conferences, I think they’re aims (stated) are good, but the experience is bad. Conferences are as much networking, hallway conversations, as much as learning, sit in chair experiences. Let’s be honest, sitting in a chair, at work or at home for 8 hours watching online video of a presenter, is not exactly a great user experience. Sure it appeals to some folks, that’s fine, but I think until we’re all wearing helmets and truly interacting, it’s more a gimmick than a serious endeavor. Case in point, I couldn’t get anyone at my office interested in Aral’s conference. Sitting at home on a weekend, to watch a breeze preso, was not at all appealling to them, and since the local hubs were in NY, London, and a few other places, the RL (Real Life) networking wasn’t.

So this event, took a different approach, which I think makes more sense. Tom registered for the RL event, paid his fee (not much either, which was nice) and was in the room. I paid nothing (it was free to attend virtually), and sat in 1 of three Second Life gathering places.

The one I was at, “Tech 2″ had a good turn out, I’d say 50ish avatars. Not bad at all. The other benefit was that Second Life provided an awesome back channel for the event, a few people that were physically present, were also in SL. As were “moderators” so to speak.

The RL to SL interaction actually left a bit to be desired. The mural in the screen shot, had SL post its that we could use, and in RL there were post its, but no inter relation. Obviouslya touch problem, but still made it a little isolated feeling.

Also to ask questions, SL users had to visit a website to submit a question. It would have been a much more interactive experience if, say there was a screen at the event with SL on it, or that the in world moderator folks could pass on our questions, it made for a kind of disjointed experience.

Overall the attempt was awesome. They did a really good (as much as can be done I think) job of merging SL and RL into a single event. I have to give kudo’s to SL or whomever does the tech behind the video, that video and audio seemed very well in sync, which was nice. Tom and I were chatting a bit, and I wasn’t like “What? that hasn’t happened yet”

Are events like this the future? No I don’t think so. Maybe the distant future, but not any time soon. There’s too much signal loss. I was sitting watching my SL screen, it was very hard to do my work (since I wasn’t ‘at’ the conference I still had work to do) since leaving SL I miss the chat, which is the backchannel of the event.

I do think however this type of Rl and SL offering helps expand and encourage community. There was hundreds more people talking, sharing ideas, etc, that wouldn’t have been able to, since they weren’t phyisically present. The networking is nil, which is why these virtual events are not a replacement, but still as a way to augment an event, they’re awesome!

A note to the organizers, for 8 people, the event was not very smooth. If it’s going to be an annual event, I suggest hiring pros to do the organizing, or put a little more into the little things. Just my thoughts.

Tags: community, Conferences, Second Life

My review of the Macbook

I realize I’ve not put down my thoughts on my new Macbook so here they are.

It’s ok.I’m coming from a Macbook Pro. I figured I didn’t need a Pro since I’m not writing code daily, and I don’t game, so I didn’t need a beefier video card. Also since I have the Macbook Air I wanted to swap out my Sprint ExpressCard for a USB model. So Macbook it was.

I got the Macbook just before Adobe MAX, and took it with me, to break in and play with :)

Exterior:

The unibody is awesome. Dodge did it, it sucked, Apple did it, it worked sweetly! There’s not even the slightest flex when you pick it up by a corner, which I experienced often with my MBP. There’s no creaking or anything. No screws to be seen, which is simply prettier :)

ports:

I like the Optical drive slot being on the side. The few times I ever used the bay on my MBP it was on my lap and I had to shuffle the machine and myself around since the slot was front facing. Side facing is nice.

The ports being on a single side is nice. Previously it seemed like there was little rhyme or reason to where ports were on mac laptops. I kinda wish they were on the right since, most of us are righties, corded mice (I know, so 2002) have to go around. Oh well. My main gripe with the ports, is the closeness, they’re almost on top of each other! the two USB ports are so close that anything that isn’t a USB cable, requires an extender if you plan on using the other port. My new Sprint broadband device, is thin enough to work with the Macbook Air, but too wide. USB drives, too wide. So sadly a USB hub or extension cable is required. I carry both in my bag now.

Screen:

Glossy is ass! I don’t know what Steve and company are thinking. They obviously never leave the mothership and see daylight, or have a conference room with windows. My Air has a glossy, and now the MB, so I’m essentially stuck to one side of our main conference room. Sitting with my back to our windows, out of the question. I have noticed that cranking the brightness up all the way helps to counter act the daylight (Yeah I’m a day walker, but I can’t help it), of course that also gives me a good 38 minutes of battery life… Call Col. Carter! I’m hoping to find a matte screen cover, kinda like a privacy filter, but with out the privacy, since I don’t care about that, really.

Trackpad:

It’s alright. It sounded revolutionary when Steve talked about it, but really it’s just a track pad. I find myself messing it up, since for years I’ve rested my thumb on the place the button would be, but now that’s part of the trackpad, so it whigs out once in a while.

I haven’t figured out a consistent or useful use for 3 and 4 fingered gestures. I’ve tried to use it for expose, no good, since it seems to catch the gesture only 3 out of 4 times. So other than having more drag room, it’s not really doing anything for me.

So overall

I really like the new macbook, it’s got more power than my MBP so all things being equal it’s better, and the too close USB ports, are an annoyance at best. I’ve been doing a lot of video editing for work, and it’s handled it all like a champ. It’s a good machine, I give it 3 snaps in Z formation.

Tags: Apple, Macbook

Friday Funny, error message with attitude

Got this a few days ago. I wonder if HAL was back there somewhere?

Tags: User Experience

What a stupid AIR problem to have

Lately I’ve become very fond of the expression “This is a stupid problem to have”, the other night I got to use it in relation to AIR.

I’m working on a tool to view (hopefully) live survey data for when we have booths at conferences. We’ve come up with a simply iPhone survey, and want to be able to see the data in, more or less, real time.

I’ve been working on it, largely at the office, checking the code into SVN when I’m going to work from home. At some point in the last few days, I ended up with Flex Builder 3.0.2. Probably my best friend Adobe Updater.

The other night, I wrapped up at the office, checked in all my code, went home, fired up Flex Builder. When I went to test the app, ADL fired up, then immediately vanished. weird. Tried a few more times, still no joy. Restarted Flex builder, restarted my Macbook, nothing. Checked to make sure my Flex Builder was up to date, it was.

After finally giving up, I check back at work, app runs. Then I check to see if that Flex Builder was up to date. It wasn’t, 3.0.1, so I updated. Ran the app. ADL vanishedright after launching.

I decided to run the app in debug, see if that revealed anything. It did sorta. The message was just about useless, something to the effect of “The app crapped out before the debugger could connect”

I say just about useless, since it was enough to lead me to Cameron’s blog, where he mentioned an error he had gotten. It wasn’t the same error, but since I had just moved from 3.0.1 to 3.0.2 and AIR 1.5 had recently been released, I figured I’d check it out. Sure enough in my app descriptor it was set to 1.1 for AIR.

Now I certainly don’t need Adobe to hold my hand, but really, maybe just a few more descriptive error messages, shoot I’d take a message that gave me a few possible causes that I could run down on my own.

Why make things harder than necessary? What a frustrating waste of a night, just because Flex Builder and ADL couldn’t suggest I check my app descriptor.

Tags: Adobe Flex, AIR

Lifeblog post

Just testing the n95 out