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It seems “wasting time playing games on the iPad” is the new “wasting time watching television”.  If this is the case for you, check out this deck-building card game that was released for iOS.   I never played Magic the Gathering or the ilk, back in the day.  But I find that Ascention is fun, and fast to play and only took a couple games to understand it. (via iTunes)

It seems “wasting time playing games on the iPad” is the new “wasting time watching television”.  If this is the case for you, check out this deck-building card game that was released for iOS.  

I never played Magic the Gathering or the ilk, back in the day.  But I find that Ascention is fun, and fast to play and only took a couple games to understand it.

(via iTunes)

The Pebble Watch on KickStarter

An amazing geek project on Kickstarter has raised nearly 5 million dollars.  The Pebble e-Paper watch.

It’ll be interesting to see if something like this catches on with non-Geeks.  Does anyone else remember those Timex Datalink watches from 1996/1997 that would synchronize with Outlook ‘97.  You used to hold the watch up in front of the computer screen and a bunch of line patterns would flash to transfer the data.  It was really geek-cool at the time.

Timex DataLink

I want to buy the Pebble watch, I can think of a lot of cool things to do with it.  Like an application that sends my current cycling intervals to the watch so I can see what I’m supposed to do next on the bike.  However, I know the reality, I’d buy this thing, play with it for a couple days and then not use it.  

One thing, though.  I’m curious how the Pebble App store application will work. I thought Apple’s tightened reigns on apps with their own application eco-systems (llike Sony and Amazon’s e-reader applications).

Are you geek enough to wear this around?

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Indy film making win? (via The downfall of the big guys just began – BlackMagic 2.5K Cinema Camera with 12bit RAW for $3000 | EOSHD.com)

Indy film making win? (via The downfall of the big guys just began – BlackMagic 2.5K Cinema Camera with 12bit RAW for $3000 | EOSHD.com)

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Paper is getting all the hype as the drawing app for the iPad, but after playing with many…Procreate is the one worth buying. (via Procreate – Sketch, paint, create. for iPad on the iTunes App Store)

Paper is getting all the hype as the drawing app for the iPad, but after playing with many…Procreate is the one worth buying.

(via Procreate – Sketch, paint, create. for iPad on the iTunes App Store)

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Definitely worth spending five minutes to watch this.  Inspirational and truly original.

(Source: levensaler, via amichaelcody)

A Google Tablet?

Being an iPad owner, there’s a couple things I’m fond of for tablets: 1) A $200 price point (because afterall, these are toys for killing time for me) and 2) a 7” form factor that can slip into my jacket pocket (it’s this reason I always take a Kindle with me).

The features that I use most on my iPad - especially after the initial joy of installing the latest app that’s hyped with a sexy interface, but ultimately never makes it into my daily workflow - is video viewing while travelling and reading saved articles on Instapaper.

It’s this 10 Hour battery life and instant on that makes this convenient.  Pretty much everything else I prefer doing on the computer, even though I still try doing it on the iPad…

Anyway, interested in what Google comes up with. 

Sidenote: I played with a friends Kindle Fire and I’m not nearly as turned off as many with it, and I find the 7” form factor attractive.    

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Paper looks like an interesting iPad app and I could dream of sitting down with the iPad and writing and doodling. However, I find that drawing on the iPads cumbersome, at best (yes, I know some people make some amazing art). I’m going to try a stylus soon, but almost everyone told me not to expect much. I look forward to the days when manufacturers can build a hybrid technology that has both passive and active digitizers for those times when you want to get percise with drawing. I installed this app and played with the default brush inlcuded. I wasn’t overly impressed.  Already loaded on my iPad are Pentultimate, SketchBook and Adobe Ideas.  I didn’t see anything in Paper that would make me more productive, though the beauty of its implementation is enticing.  It’s apps like these that I WANT to LOVE, and end up purchasing, but after tinkering with them for a day, end up not using.  

Paper looks like an interesting iPad app and I could dream of sitting down with the iPad and writing and doodling. However, I find that drawing on the iPads cumbersome, at best (yes, I know some people make some amazing art). I’m going to try a stylus soon, but almost everyone told me not to expect much.

I look forward to the days when manufacturers can build a hybrid technology that has both passive and active digitizers for those times when you want to get percise with drawing.

I installed this app and played with the default brush inlcuded. I wasn’t overly impressed.  Already loaded on my iPad are Pentultimate, SketchBook and Adobe Ideas.  I didn’t see anything in Paper that would make me more productive, though the beauty of its implementation is enticing.  It’s apps like these that I WANT to LOVE, and end up purchasing, but after tinkering with them for a day, end up not using.  

Mimicking an IDE with Sublime Text 2

This is a solid 10 minute video on the essentials of Sublime Text 2.  Also shows some OS X window managers.  A FTP plug-in, and LiveRelead.

This is pretty much a cobbled together IDE (much like Aptana) but based around Sublime Text 2, an excellent text editor.

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A Device I’d Sworn to Never Own: The Ad-Supported Kindle 3With a hundred dollar Amazon gift card laying around, I decided to purchase one of the new ad-supported Kindles for $114. With a total net cost to me of $14 which included free shipping. For the longest time I’ve been saying, I’ll get a Kindle when it comes free with a NYTimes subscription. That hasn’t happened - yet - but I see a future where it will. Surely, a one-time $100 purchase (probably even less with bulk purchases and business partnerships) of a Kindle by the NYTimes for a customer cost a lot less than physically printing and delivering a newspaper for a year. The Ads The ads are a lot less annoying than they sound, and never appear while reading. Currently there aren’t many advertisers on the platform and I’m not a target audience for either Buick or Oil of Olay. The ads are displayed as the screen saver (though you can fully power down the Kindle to a white screen), and little banner ads at the bottom of the table of contents. Hardly detrimental to the reading experience. There are even some enticing Amazon promotions basically giving you 50% off purchases. The Human Factor Not since I purchased a 3rd generation iPod has a piece of technology made me so happy (I’ve had several iPods since, including the latest Touch, new laptops, Roku - a  close third, etc.).  The Kindle has really re-energized my love for reading mostly because it fits in my pocket easier than a paperback, and almost almost never needs charging. As I walk out the door, I slip the Kindle into my pocket, even on short trips…something I’d never do with a larger, paperback book. I have no problem taking the Kindle on a train ride to a Red Sox game. Example, I was reading Game of Thrones (now an HBO Show), paper back version, before purchasing the Kindle. It’s 850 pages and 1.5 inches thick, something I wouldn’t causally carry around with me, mostly because I couldn’t just slide it easily in my jacket and the heft always made itself known. With the Kindle, I can carry it with me and hardly notice it’s there. And I’m not even comparing it to a hard-bound newly released book. Who wants to carry that weight around, or even hold it while reading?  I hate to make the obvious comparison to an iPod and you music library…so I won’t, but size does matter. The Ergonomics The ergonomics of holding a Kindle is far superior to keeping a mass-market paperback book open. You know how those pages want to constanty shut themselves and you battle to put creases in the spine? Not to mention the perks of adjusting font sizes and automatic book marking. The e-Ink screen is a joy to look at. Don’t discount this, I can stare at this thing without my eyes straining for long periods of time. I can’t say the same for LCD sceens. Someday, we’ll have color e-Ink, but it’s not ready yet, according to Consumer Reports interview with Jeff Bezos: Color E Ink “is not ready for prime time…the colors are very pale.” But he added that “it continues to be improved Finally, not having to worry about charging the device is a great touch. I look forward to the days when our cell phones only need a monthly charging. Instapaper Integration for Reading all the Important Internet Content One of the things I never thought I’d be using the Kindle for was reading content of blogs. There is a couple types of content I read on the web: stuff you only skim (news headlines, friend’s non-sense on Twitter), and then the stuff you really need to sink your mind into, like a long article at The Economist, or a 33 page guide to MongoDB.  I’ve been using Instapaper.com to save web content that requires my full focus and have it sent for free (using WIFI), daily, to my Kindle.  To setup wiresless delivery of articles that you’ve added to Instapaper, see this page (it wasn’t obvious for me to find originally).  You’ll enter your Kindle-specific email address (@free.kindle.com)  and how frequently you want Instapaper to update your device. One nice touch is that if you read an article on Instapaper and mark it as ready, your Kindle won’t receive it at the next update. Why This Wins vs the iPad for Reading Consumption I don’t mind being disconnected from the live web once in awhile for distraction free absorption of content. While all of this content can all be read on the iPad, but given the alternative opportunity for distracting uses of my time (Twitter, Facebook, a mindless-game, etc), I’ll loose focus on what I’m reading and waste time on my couch. Though the Kindle is technology, it feels like reading a book. Sure, part of this is just personal behavior, but the Kindle sure provides a distraction free reading experience for me to absorb all sorts of great content. The smaller size of the Kindle does make me wonder if a 7” iPad would be an enticing carry-around device (I’d probably consider toting a 7” iPad-type device with me, though I might also suffer through reading for these short trips on my cell phone).  If you looking for a lightweight device to faciliate only reading content, the Kindle fits the bill nicely. Take my review with a grain of salt since I only paid $14 for my Kindle. However, I think the device is well worth the full $114 price tag, and can bring back those moments of low-tech reading enjoyment before the Internet noise infected our attention spans.  I’m sure in the future these type of devices will be only $50 and even subsidized by content providers. Let’s read.

A Device I’d Sworn to Never Own: The Ad-Supported Kindle 3

With a hundred dollar Amazon gift card laying around, I decided to purchase one of the new ad-supported Kindles for $114. With a total net cost to me of $14 which included free shipping. For the longest time I’ve been saying, I’ll get a Kindle when it comes free with a NYTimes subscription. That hasn’t happened - yet - but I see a future where it will. Surely, a one-time $100 purchase (probably even less with bulk purchases and business partnerships) of a Kindle by the NYTimes for a customer cost a lot less than physically printing and delivering a newspaper for a year.
The Ads
The ads are a lot less annoying than they sound, and never appear while reading. Currently there aren’t many advertisers on the platform and I’m not a target audience for either Buick or Oil of Olay. The ads are displayed as the screen saver (though you can fully power down the Kindle to a white screen), and little banner ads at the bottom of the table of contents. Hardly detrimental to the reading experience. There are even some enticing Amazon promotions basically giving you 50% off purchases.

The Human Factor
Not since I purchased a 3rd generation iPod has a piece of technology made me so happy (I’ve had several iPods since, including the latest Touch, new laptops, Roku - a  close third, etc.).  The Kindle has really re-energized my love for reading mostly because it fits in my pocket easier than a paperback, and almost almost never needs charging. As I walk out the door, I slip the Kindle into my pocket, even on short trips…something I’d never do with a larger, paperback book. I have no problem taking the Kindle on a train ride to a Red Sox game.
Example, I was reading Game of Thrones (now an HBO Show), paper back version, before purchasing the Kindle. It’s 850 pages and 1.5 inches thick, something I wouldn’t causally carry around with me, mostly because I couldn’t just slide it easily in my jacket and the heft always made itself known. With the Kindle, I can carry it with me and hardly notice it’s there. And I’m not even comparing it to a hard-bound newly released book. Who wants to carry that weight around, or even hold it while reading?  I hate to make the obvious comparison to an iPod and you music library…so I won’t, but size does matter.
The Ergonomics
The ergonomics of holding a Kindle is far superior to keeping a mass-market paperback book open. You know how those pages want to constanty shut themselves and you battle to put creases in the spine? Not to mention the perks of adjusting font sizes and automatic book marking.

The e-Ink screen is a joy to look at. Don’t discount this, I can stare at this thing without my eyes straining for long periods of time. I can’t say the same for LCD sceens. Someday, we’ll have color e-Ink, but it’s not ready yet, according to Consumer Reports interview with Jeff Bezos:
Color E Ink “is not ready for prime time…the colors are very pale.” But he added that “it continues to be improved
Finally, not having to worry about charging the device is a great touch. I look forward to the days when our cell phones only need a monthly charging.
Instapaper Integration for Reading all the Important Internet Content
One of the things I never thought I’d be using the Kindle for was reading content of blogs. There is a couple types of content I read on the web: stuff you only skim (news headlines, friend’s non-sense on Twitter), and then the stuff you really need to sink your mind into, like a long article at The Economist, or a 33 page guide to MongoDB.  I’ve been using Instapaper.com to save web content that requires my full focus and have it sent for free (using WIFI), daily, to my Kindle.  To setup wiresless delivery of articles that you’ve added to Instapaper, see this page (it wasn’t obvious for me to find originally).  You’ll enter your Kindle-specific email address (@free.kindle.com)  and how frequently you want Instapaper to update your device. One nice touch is that if you read an article on Instapaper and mark it as ready, your Kindle won’t receive it at the next update.

Why This Wins vs the iPad for Reading Consumption
I don’t mind being disconnected from the live web once in awhile for distraction free absorption of content. While all of this content can all be read on the iPad, but given the alternative opportunity for distracting uses of my time (Twitter, Facebook, a mindless-game, etc), I’ll loose focus on what I’m reading and waste time on my couch. Though the Kindle is technology, it feels like reading a book. Sure, part of this is just personal behavior, but the Kindle sure provides a distraction free reading experience for me to absorb all sorts of great content. The smaller size of the Kindle does make me wonder if a 7” iPad would be an enticing carry-around device (I’d probably consider toting a 7” iPad-type device with me, though I might also suffer through reading for these short trips on my cell phone).  If you looking for a lightweight device to faciliate only reading content, the Kindle fits the bill nicely.
Take my review with a grain of salt since I only paid $14 for my Kindle. However, I think the device is well worth the full $114 price tag, and can bring back those moments of low-tech reading enjoyment before the Internet noise infected our attention spans.  I’m sure in the future these type of devices will be only $50 and even subsidized by content providers.

Let’s read.

Why the Flex Coders Yahoo! Group Should Be Replaced by StackoverFlow.com

The Yahoo! Flex Coders mailing list group is really good at connecting developers with important people in the know at Adobe to get help with the strange bugs they’re having while developing applications with Adobe Flex.

However, Yahoo! Groups is such an unfortunate and antiquated technology to use for developers asking and answering questions.  Sure, it’s great if you like communication in a 1995-email-list-serv sort of way.

However, it doesn’t have to be this painful.  By using StackOverflow.Com, all your developer Q&A pains are solved.

Stackoverflow offers:

1)  Better long term archivability of question and answers, all nicely rated and richly formatted.  On the Yahoo! groups, you get a string of old emails, including usually the original question again, all in a nasty string-formatted email archive that you have to dig through.  Don’t believe me, this is usually what a thread message looks like.

2)  StackOverflow allows formatting source code so it is readable by both the questioners, the answerers, and those in the future trying to decipher both.  Try maintaining your source code formatting when sending through an email, or worse, using Yahoo!’s poor website UI for posting to the Group.  And if you’re generous enough to answer someone’s questions, why complicate by having to deciphering the poor formatting?  Or, if you’re fortunate enough to view the archive through one of the many spiders that you find via Google, it might look like this.  Ick.

3)  Adding images and screen shots that are managed in the flow of your question.  This allows for captioning of images, etc..  Take a look at my latest question’s nice formatting (or, look at the answer to this question, with nice source code, inline, with ability to leave well formatted comments around it).  Try doing that in the Yahoo! interface.

4)  Searching by keywords and tags.  Want just see what’s happening for “Flex”, just search on the Flex tag, which BTW, gets a nice “Adobe” icon next to it, letting you know that’s the Flex tag isn’t related to something else.

5)  Sometimes your question isn’t exactly a Flex question.  Maybe it falls more into the realm of “Flash”, or “Actionscript” or “AIR”.  So the answer might be more pertinent to a larger audience than initially thought.  It’s important to think of the larger audience for your questions, as someone down the road might have a similar issue as you and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t easily find the answer to your question, as it might keep them from asking the same question again.

I could keep listing more, but I don’t think I need to.  I wish the Adobe gurus like Alex Harui (@aharui) would let the Flex Coders depreciate, and have everyone move on.  (Sorry to only name Alex, as there’s lots of good people there answering questions)  And btw, I fully visit Flex Coders because I know that some of the Adobe people actually take a lot of time to answer questions there.  (I’m also sure they have a valid reason for maintaining the Flex Coders list.)

StackOverflow.com has a perfectly viable Adobe user base answering all sorts of questions, today, right now.  However, this suggestion is still based on the fact that I have to go use the Flex Coders group at Yahoo for the really tricky things that no one else can fix.

So get started today by viewing the Stackoverflow.com’s Flex questions (and answers).

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