The Mint
A couple weeks ago on a whim I downloaded the much-hyped Mailbox App on my iPhone 5. I was pretty interested in what this app could do to help make my inbox more productive. I was quickly slapped in the face by a screen indicating I had to wait in line and there were nearly 500,000 people in front of me! Mein Gott!
Music at Work
Music is an important part of my daily office experience. My co-workers and I tend to rock out as we tackle our day. It helps tune out the world and allows us to focus on the code. This has been more or less accurate for many of the devs I’ve met over the years. What’s unique about my current environment is the lack of cubicles and earbuds.
We use an open concept with developers sitting in what amounts to a square round table of desks. Everyone is within earshot for instant communication and you only plug earbuds in if your after some private time. So without earbuds pumping music we had to figure out how to get tunes playing in the office.
I’m an Apple fan and love their hardware and OS X. You won’t find a non-Apple computer in my house. This wouldn’t be unusual except that I make my living creating software for the Windows platform. Weird or not I’m sold on Apple (for now) and given a choice it’s what I’ll be using. Of course this leaves the little problem of running Windows on my Mac so I can actually do my job.
Buying a new iPhone from Apple?
Prepare to get nailed with a $36 upgrade fee from AT&T (assuming your still painfully locked into a contract).
I’m not opposed to the idea itself. Perhaps they do have some “cost” associated with allowing my new device on their network and that’s fine. What I do have a problem with is their lame excuse for the fee.
AT&T’s Official Explanation
The upgrade fee is a one-time fee that allows us to assist customers by recommending new equipment, offering special offers and discounts, providing assistance with the upgrade process if needed, and supporting the returns process within 14 days. These specialized processes help us to ensure you are satisfied with your new equipment and are ready to use it the day you receive it. The upgrade fee allows us to defray some of these additional service costs.
Reality
The truth is if I have an issue with my iPhone I’m taking it to Apple (where I bought it) not to AT&T. Also, it takes a sick and twisted individual to call AT&T to get help with how to use an iPhone.
It all boils down to money. AT&T is a giant corporation that’s simply too big to notice why this is wrong. It’s just another example of them trying to squeeze every last drop of profit out of their customers.
This morning I heard about Git 1.8 being available. I headed over to http://git-scm.com/ on my MacBook Pro and clicked Download and was all set in under a minute. I came into work this morning thinking I’d have a similar experience on my Windows VM. I went to the site and saw Latest stable release 1.8.0 but when I hit Download I was greeted with this screen telling me I’m downloading a 3 month old release of Git 1.7.11.
With the awesome tools of today you can have a decent prototype up and running in a matter of hours. Getting a proof-of-concept up and running fast so you can get start gathering feedback quickly is incredibly useful. An idea or design can sound great on paper but look awful once implemented. The faster you can find this out the faster you can move on to a better design.
Remember Steve Jobs
February 24, 1955 - October 5, 2011
Take a moment today to remember Steve Jobs and all that he was. His touch on the planet will be missed.
(Source: Spotify)
So it’s that time of year again. No not that time but new computer time. I recently moved to a new MacBook Air which is absolutely awesome. Problem is it doesn’t quite have the horsepower I need for my extracurricular activities *mumbles* warcraft….right so anyway moving on. The Air would overheat just watching lengthy flash videos or running minecraft for longer than 15 minutes. World of Warcraft was out of the question. Also, and this is perhaps more embarrassing to admit, I couldn’t run Windows via Fusion.
Perhaps inspired by my previous post, I’ve taken a new project I’ve started and released it as an open source project. This project solves a very specific problem for a very specific market. Thus I don’t expect it to be well-known or popular. However, the process of preparing a personal project to be released as an open source project was an great learning experience. I highly recommend you do it.
When I started my very first job as a developer I remember meeting this rather interesting dude named Ben. Ben played bass in a band, loved NiN and vocally shared some novel world views. At this point in my life I had never actually used or seen a Mac (outside of briefly exposure in second grade public school). I was hardcore PC because that’s all I knew. Ben was not. He was totally infatuated with Steve Jobs and entrenched in everything Apple. It was more than entertaining to watch Ben, a proudly proclaimed atheist, defend the ideal of Apple with religious zeal, bashing all things Microsoft all while making a living using Visual Studio.
