ericd v7 media temple

Thursday == Friday

2008-07-03T14:37:00.002-04:00

My Thursday becomes my Friday. Happy 4th of July!

The Preppy Handbook.
Because of some grade school and high school reunion activity I started remembering a bunch of stuff from those amazing times... and I had forgotten all about this classic book. I basically lived a lot of the contents of this mighty tome for over eight years... from mid-way through grade school all the way through prep school.

I misplaced the dog-eared copy I had so I am replacing it with a new copy. I can't wait until it arrives. Oh, and I married a Townie ;)

.Mac (soon to me .Me) Syncing Problems Resolved.
For whatever reason, my work Mac could sync everything except my .Mac calendars. I was getting inconsistent data errors. Instead of going crazy, I launched iSync (I had almost forgotten that application even existed), and I reset my sync data.

Then through .Mac preferences, I re-synced my data & wouldn't you know it? My iCal calendars are syncing again. I gave up on trying to resolve this problem a while ago and was hoping it would just fix itself. I gave this a go and was pleasantly suprised.

Just in time for some iPhone 3G/.Me Mc'lovin!

Fireworks Around Boston.
For whatever reason, a lot of towns aren't having fireworks displays this year. The closest place for us is to go to Lincoln (where in Lincoln I have NO idea). Are these towns (Wellesley, Natick, Framingham, etc.) so strapped for cash they can't afford fireworks? Going downtown is madness... best to watch those on television. I had to get to Fenway Park a few weeks ago around lunch, and it took me about 35 minutes to travel 4 blocks on the way. With kids, this is simply untenable.

Jaromir Jagr peanut butter.

2008-07-03T08:50:00.003-04:00

Jaromir Jagr peanut butter

I've had this unopened jar of peanut butter since 1998. I have plenty of other stuff too from his days with the Penguins (a game-worn sweater he gave to me in the parking lot of then Civic Arena... complete with a little blood on it, autographs, etc.)

I wonder if I could get anything for this peanut butter on eBay.

[ UPDATE: found it online from a collector for $9.99. They must have a bunch, so I guess this isn't so collectible ;) ]

I've been offered over $3,000 for the jersey... but I won't part with it. It sits with my autographed Stanley Cup Lemieux jersey as objects of distinction and devotion. I've tried to retire the number 66 for my life (I won't set a thermostat to 66, I won't use the number in code, etc.) Hehe.

I heard a rumor there is an outside chance that Jagr might come back to the 'burgh and while he's longer in the tooth, I think he could thrive there again. You could slap him on Sidney or Evgeni's line and it would be pretty crazy. Crazy as in awesome.

System.gc(); Cool!

2008-07-03T00:08:00.002-04:00

Wouldn't this be cool in other versions of the player (what limitations of the various players would prohibit this method from being able to live with them?):

()

method

public static function gc():void

Language Version :

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions :

AIR 1.0, Flash Player 9.0.115.0

Forces the garbage collection process.

For the Flash Player debugger version and AIR applications only. In an AIR application, the System.gc() method is only enabled in content running in the AIR Debug Launcher (ADL) or, in an installed applcation, in content in the application security sandbox.

3D Sidewalk Chalk

2008-07-02T11:09:00.002-04:00

I plan on blowing my son's mind sometime this weekend. How? Crayola has come out with something they call 3D sidewalk chalk. You can check out the website to find more. So you draw on the driveway, and your drawing seems to float above the surface at various depths.

How does it work? Well, the glasses are the key, not the chalk.

The glasses use something called ChromaDepth to achieve the effect. Red looks closer, blue looks further away. Other colors fall in-between. I think the chalk might be a bit brighter than normal chalk, but it's really the glasses that drive the effect. So it could be cool to just walk around the house with things like this, look at paintings you already have hanging on the walls, etc.

Now if I can only get my son to keep the glasses on his face ;)

Kuler 2.0 Desktop Rant

2008-07-02T09:14:00.003-04:00

I liked and used the Kuler 1.0 Desktop AIR client. Not often, but I enjoyed it when I did use it.

I am completely not digging the 2.0 interface at all. The first version had this elegant eggy-shape to it, showing how applications could abandon system chrome for providing UI space display. Cool. The way 2.0 does this in my opinion is really ugly and harkens back to nasty old winamp skins from eight million years ago.

The notched close, minimize, and info buttons look tacky. If you have the desktop on top of any other windows, it adds to the nastiness. The kuler logo notched out on the left top side just reaffirms the ugliness of the UI. The dropdown @ the top of the UI is too prominent in my opinion, I think it would look better at the bottom, giving more visual weight to the actual stuff you're browsing.

You still can't resize this thing. Boo.

On OS X, when I give Kuler focus, my menubar up top in the OS is completely empty. WTF.

You can pull a swatch out of the main application to create another window with just that swatch... but you can only grab it by the swatch squares or below, not by the titlebar UI that fades up around it when you mouse over it. I LIKE how you can resize this pullout window though. Nice.

The default color swatch presentations make the whole thing look uneven. The top banner area is short vertically, and you've got this tall bottom area with really large color swatches, making the whole thing feel really heavy and uncoordinated.

The scrollbar is essentially a grey thumb bar (with an almost imperceptible track) - it almost looks like a swatch color itself.

Functionality aside, the desktop client for Kuler has taken a step backwards in my opinion. The UI isn't up to snuff quite yet.

DepthDither for OS X?

2008-07-02T08:32:00.001-04:00

I use DepthDither for the PC a lot, however it doesn't seem to be available for OS X as a Photoshop plugin. Is something similar under a different moniker available for OS X?

Serial Port Madness (NOT Arthropod)

2008-07-01T12:07:00.003-04:00

Recently I blogged about having trouble with Arthropod and an application that's using a socket, serial data from some hardware and a socketserver (namely Comfoolery). The hardware has been checked out on a few platforms and it works great on a Intel PC.

As it turns out, my problem with corrupted messages (tracking down this bug has shown sometimes I am getting two messages combined into one, sometimes an empty message, etc.) I got rid of Arthropod and the data coming in is still sometimes corrupted.

A theory now after lots of debugging is that somehow a Dell AMD machine is spitting out badness to my socket. Intel PCs don't seem to have this problem when running the same application on their hardware.

So right now instead of simply consuming the raw message and passing it up an event chain, it's going to have to be parsed on receipt. If it's in a form I am currently looking for, the event will fire. If I get garbage after the message is received, I throw out anything out of scope. I am also going to look for multiple carriage returns and snap those out as well.

I suppose it's good form to parse the messages coming in and ensuring that the event sends valid data. I was getting NaN for certain things which doesn't make a whole lot of sense... unless there is garbage in there when it's being translated to a Number (for instance).

So this proves that something that runs great on one hardware platform can wonk out on another. I don't know what AMD and Dell have to do with one another (I used straight serial and also a USB to serial adapter - and both provided some bad socket data). So I can only think at the moment that something in a AMD Dell isn't reliable when using a socket... to describe the whole set up and the bug would take a lot of effort... but so far this AMD Dell is the only machine to showcase the bad behavior.

All this work tracking this down shouldn't be in vain. I've spent the better part of a day testing my classes, the input hardware, multiple PCs, versions of the player, etc. It's all come down to one box providing wonky data.

Now you know that it might not be your code that is faulty, but the way the hardware is interpretting and passing data along. I am no hardware engineer, but I'm starting to feel a little like an apprentice.

This project should have been a no-brainer. But it's taight me something. Always vaidate your input data, even when you think it's a no-brainer. It might cost you some extra work, but in the end you'll be more comfortable knowing that you've accounted for the rarest case of getting poor data input. Even for a keyboard event listener? Sure, why not.

My Mobile Me address is working

2008-07-01T09:34:00.001-04:00

It took a while, but now my me.com email address is working. Pretty cool.

Arthropod + Serial Port can be bad

2008-06-30T17:15:00.003-04:00

I'm running Arthropod within an application that runs a socket connected to a socket server serving up data via a serial port connection.

Every now and then my messages coming in over the socket seem to get stomped on. Meaning I get NaN for somethings, etc. The message is always delivered, but the contents are wonk.

Without including the class, things work great. I don't know if it's because localConnection and the socket running at the same time equals wonkiness or not, but I thought I'd put this information out there.

For now I'll have to debug via other means (perhaps my own debug class that uses simple statements to print out to an application GUI element within the application itself instead).

iTunes Bug

2008-06-29T10:09:00.002-04:00

Pat Monahan from Train was in my high school class for two or three years, and I checked iTunes and he has a solo album now. I previewed a track, and instead of playing 30 seconds, it's playing the whole thing. It's doing it for each track too. This is a kind of cool bug ;)

Weird. I closed iTunes and now one track is still playing. So it was possible to initiate playback on more than one track at a time. Laptop must have gotten into a weird state before launching iTunes.

Saturday Morning Code

2008-06-28T15:04:00.003-04:00

Extra-large Dunkin Donuts coffee, Ryan playing with his animals, some classical music on the Nose, my wife holding our daughter, and a print out of the week's coding in hand with highlighter pen. Ahh... a nice way to spend an hour on a Saturday morning before the day kicks into gear.

Plans for the weekend are set, yet already I am thinking to Monday and the modifications to the code base I plan on making. It almost ruins the weekend, it's my fault I know. But there is something magical about making things happen in software.

Have a great weekend, until Monday comes calling. Short week too with the Fourth of July celebrations and everything. God bless America.

Wall•E mini-review

2008-06-28T00:27:00.002-04:00

No spoilers.

I just returned from a 10:15PM showing of Wall•E (namely because of the kids, etc.) so I went into it pretty tired. The theater was PACKED, even at such a late showing. It had to be close to sold out, and this was one of the larger spaces in the theater (stadium seating).

Pixar really outdid themselves here. They took a big gamble with this film in my opinion... almost zero dialogue and they were forced to display emotion with pantomime. They did an incredible job.

The rendering and animation are gorgeous. I used to do a ton of 3D, and this stuff is amazing. They added oodles of atmospheric touches everywhere without making things look too real.

The emotion displayed is incredible and smooth. I looked for moments where the animators and scene artists took liberties for sake of completing the film and didn't find any... Pixar are masters of their craft. You can tell they love what they do by the attention to detail in everything. They add subtle motions and effects everywhere where they could have gotten away with some straight keyframing.

When Wall•E powers up (solar), the chime he emits when complete made the audience cheer every time. If you're a fanboy like me (and many in the audience), you'll recognize that chime immediately.

It's rated G, but there were a few parts in there that I think would have scared my son... so while it's rated G and 98% toddler friendly, just know that there is a tiny bit of gun play and explosions.

This is a great film. I'd see it again. Not just because I was dead tired watching it, but it's really wonderful on numerous levels.

*yawn* Time for some shuteye.

FlashDevelop Request: Method Sets / Folding Triggers

2008-06-26T11:20:00.002-04:00

When I get into some lengthy classes (namely perhaps a document class), I have specific methods in relation to other classes or functionality. I usually try to group them inline in the class (one after the other). After a while I end up with blocks of code specific to something... and sometimes I need to spread some public methods down @ the bottom where I usually keep all my public methods, just for style reasons (and ease of location).

It would be nice to somehow group these methods so I could easily expand & collapse sets of methods with a single click. What I mean here is folding triggers.

This would require another Panel in FlashDevelop. By default it would be empty.

Right-click on a folding marker, and you could Create And Add To Nesting Set, or Add To Nesting Set, or Remove From Nesting Set.

The panel would show the labels you give the sets and perhaps optionally the methods contained in it (a tree mb). You could simply use a check box to the left of the Set title in the panel to expand/collapse the Set easily. The panel would allow you to rename the set labels, etc.

I think this would be a big time saver. Thoughts?

Quicklook plugin for SWFs

2008-06-26T09:58:00.006-04:00

I found a Quicklook plugin that is supposed to work for SWFs. However, when I try it, I only get the HTML with no SWF running within it. I can't tell if the player has instantiated as Quicklook views don't allow for right-clicks in them.

The contents of the preview.html file:

<body>

id="Main" width="100%" height="100%"

codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/

current/swflash.cab">

width="100%" height="100%"

name="Main"

align="middle"

play="true"

loop="false"

allowScriptAccess="sameDomain"

type="application/x-shockwave-flash"

pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer">

</embed>

</object>

</body>

The binary for the plugin must somehow pass that "%@" in there with a file path... but it seems like it's failing for me. Could this be a sandbox violation of some kind? I can't see what the binary is trying to do here. Pointing to a .cab file is pretty strange, ain't it?

The link to the plugin can be found right here (ZIP FILE).

Any insight would be cool... as a SWF Quicklook plugin would rock pretty hard.

Update:

I tried placing an image into the quicklook, and it ONLY works locally (inside the package)... calls to the web fail. So I know the HTML control is there, but the SWF itself doesn't seem to load at all yet.

I wish I knew who made this thing or if anyone had a little XCode Project I could peak at.

Update 2:

Screw it, I might just start developing my own in XCode. I hope it's not too difficult. I mean, it's an HTML control with a plugin call within it (I think). I just got a PDF from the Apple Developer Connection.

Lazy imports?

2008-06-26T08:39:00.002-04:00

I like verbosity, no question, but I wonder if it matters in the case of using general imports:

import flash.display.*;

versus

import flash.display.Sprite;

import flash.display.BitmapData;

...

I mean, using a wild-card in an import allows you to forget about being really specific and knowing the compiler will only include classes that you actually use in your application. Does it really matter as a point of coding style?

For me, the wild-card is more than acceptable. But I can see where some might like to see completely verbose imports to clear up any possible confusion for a someone else perusing the code.

goosh: unofficial google shell

2008-06-26T00:08:00.002-04:00

This is a pretty cool javascript application (goosh) here, powered by Google. Definitely created for the battalions of geeks out there.

Create your own magazine, for free

2008-06-25T23:59:00.001-04:00

Supposedly this site (MagCloud) allows you to upload your high resolution artwork as PDF and it's on-demand printing for those ordering copies. Kind of like Café Press for magazines.

Might be pretty cool to create a copy of a magazine and order one myself just to see how well it turns out. A kind of neat concept... could go hand-in-hand with podcast releases.

Yet another Silverlight browser crash

2008-06-25T23:48:00.002-04:00

Well tonight Silverlight decided to kick the latest release of Firefox 3 (3+) squarely in the nuts. I spotted a twit from MossyBlog with a link explaining why he joined Microsoft, complete with to visit URL. That site bombs after a few seconds of playback.

And it's been a few other sites that have sucker-punched my browsing face. Granted, there are a whole lot of Silverlight sites out there, I am looking for them (still). And they have been ready for me, ready to end my browsing temporarily.

Damn Silverlight...

TONS of Wall•E featurettes

2008-06-25T17:44:00.002-04:00

I just got a million links to cool WALL•E featurettes (behind the scenes, etc.)

This movie looks pretty fun, so I know the videos are of interest to me. Here are the links for your enjoyment. There are certainly lots & lots of them.

WALL•E – “Lots of Bots” Featurette

Quicktime:

High

http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_LotsBots_High.mov

Medium

http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_LotsBots_Med.mov

Low

http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_LotsBots_Low.mov

Flash:

High

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_LotsBots_High.flv

Medium

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_LotsBots_Med.flv

Low

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_LotsBots_Low.flv

Windows Media:

High

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_LotsBots_High.wmv

Medium

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_LotsBots_Med.wmv

Low

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_LotsBots_Low.wmv

iPod:

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_LotsBots_iPod.m4v.zip

WALL•E – “A Space Journey In Sound” Featurette

Quicktime:

High

http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/WallE/SpaceJourneyInSound/WallE_SpaceSound_High.mov

Medium

http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/WallE/SpaceJourneyInSound/WallE_SpaceSound_Med.mov

Low

http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/WallE/SpaceJourneyInSound/WallE_SpaceSound_Low.mov

Flash:

High

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/SpaceJourneyInSound/WallE_SpaceSound_High.flv

Medium

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/SpaceJourneyInSound/WallE_SpaceSound_Med.flv

Low

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/SpaceJourneyInSound/WallE_SpaceSound_Low.flv

Windows Media:

High

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/SpaceJourneyInSound/WallE_SpaceSound_High.wmv

Medium

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/SpaceJourneyInSound/WallE_SpaceSound_Med.wmv

Low

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/SpaceJourneyInSound/WallE_SpaceSound_Low.wmv

iPod:

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/SpaceJourneyInSound/WallE_SpaceSound_iPod.m4v.zip

WALL•E – “The Man & The Machine” Featurette

Quicktime:

High

http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/WallE/Podcast_ManAndMachine/WallE_ManMachine_High.mov

Medium

http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/WallE/Podcast_ManAndMachine/WallE_ManMachine_Med.mov

Low

http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/WallE/Podcast_ManAndMachine/WallE_ManMachine_Low.mov

Flash:

High

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Podcast_ManAndMachine/WallE_ManMachine_High.flv

Medium

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Podcast_ManAndMachine/WallE_ManMachine_Med.flv

Low

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Podcast_ManAndMachine/WallE_ManMachine_Low.flv

Windows Media:

High

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Podcast_ManAndMachine/WallE_ManMachine_High.wmv

Medium

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Podcast_ManAndMachine/WallE_ManMachine_Med.wmv

Low

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Podcast_ManAndMachine/WallE_ManMachine_Low.wmv

iPod:

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Podcast_ManAndMachine/WallE_ManMachine_iPod.m4v.zip

WALL•E – “Pixar Goes To Space” Featurette

Quicktime:

High

http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_PixarSpaceFO_High.mov

Medium

http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_PixarSpaceFO_Med.mov

Low

http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_PixarSpaceFO_Low.mov

Flash:

High

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_PixarSpaceFO_High.flv

Medium

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_PixarSpaceFO_Med.flv

Low

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_PixarSpaceFO_Low.flv

Windows Media:

High

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_PixarSpaceFO_High.wmv

Medium

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_PixarSpaceFO_Med.wmv

Low

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_PixarSpaceFO_Low.wmv

iPod:

http://http.vitalstreamcdn.com/bvimflash_vitalstream_com/WallE/Featurette/WallE_PixarSpaceFO_iPod.m4v.zip

Reserved IDE import & package import?

2008-06-25T17:30:00.003-04:00

One thing I'd like to see in regards to import statements on symbols coming from the IDE's library... demand an implicit import statement. I've seen a few document classes out there that call up class objects from the SWF's library. This is cool, but when you look at the document class, you just see something like

var foo:Sprite = new ClassName;

That's cool if you're the only one who will ever look at the document class, but it makes others wonder where the hell that thing is coming from. Perhaps something declared like:

import $ide.ClassName;

Then you could use that asset ... or something to let the world know where that thing is coming from. I don't know the specifics of the ramifications of this, but sometimes I run into this myself. I set up an asset in the SWF and it's subclassing something (say Sprite) and it has it's own class name. It's then simply used in the document class. It confuses some other developers... they don't know where it came from until I tell them its in the Library set to export to that class name.

I suppose I could just link it to my own class for it and be done with it, but that's a bit of pain in the ass. Well, it can be if it's just a simple UI element.

So maybe something reserved so it's clear its not part of someone else's package. I don't know. It would help a bit... and on the topic of imports...

You can instantiate class objects in a class as long as the classes are all in the same package without using import statements... the compiler looks and finds them.

...

var foo:SomeClass = new SomeClass;

Without an import statement, you have to check the package directory and look for that class.

An import statement is best form in my opinion. Not importing saves you a few seconds of time but adds confusion to anyone else combing your code.

Reading other developer's code

2008-06-25T16:40:00.002-04:00

I just a wonderful hour-long experience going over multiple classes with a fellow developer. Sometimes talking about unfamiliar code someone else wrote can rock!

So my buddy Andrew wrote a bunch of classes in the scope of a larger application, and sent them over the fence to me via email. To see what he was doing, I printed the classes out and started marking up where they worked, etc. After ten minutes of doing that, I ran over to Andrew's cube and we just talked code for an hour. It was great to learn someone else's code quickly on the cuff, asking questions, making suggestions, etc.

I think I learned more about OOP and AS3 in that hour than I have in the past two weeks. All because I was starting with code I didn't write, didn't influence, and wanted to find out how it worked quickly. Sometimes we're all guilty of coding on our own cozy island and forget, as Neil Peart stated in Natural Science, "living in their pools they soon forget about the sea."

It's a great way to get yourself out of a little rut too. Andrew and I were coding up very similar stuff, but his take on it was somewhat different than mine. Made me think about what I was doing, what he did, and what we can combine it to make.

An awesome end to a Wednesday of coding.

zomg crazy

2008-06-24T11:10:00.001-04:00

Spotted this making the rounds on the internets:

From: ---- --------
Sent: Monday, May 5, 2008 4:37 PM
To: Everyone
Subject: Server Room Access

Hi all.

As you all are aware, we have new tenants that have moved into the 2nd floor suites. The access to the server room is now via the women’s bathroom.

There will be a sign on the woman’s door that can be changed from OPEN to CLOSED and vice versa.

Should you need to enter the server room, please change the sign to CLOSED. Once you are done, please change it back to OPEN.

Once you enter the bathroom, you will be able to access the server room via the handicapped stall. Please close the stall door prior to entry, just in case someone doesn’t see that the bathroom is closed.

I know this isn’t ideal, but if we adhere to this protocol, I don’t think anyone will be disrupted.

Thanks! Let me know if you have any questions.

---- --------
Building Management

Blackberry usability really blows

2008-06-24T08:41:00.004-04:00

[grain of salt: yes, I am a fanboy]

I'm holding on for July 11th when the iPhone drops, but my wife was shopping for a Blackberry at Verizon to replace her current phone for personal/work use. She knows I'm all about the iPhone, but I went to the store with her with an open mind. Honestly.

So we had a few models to look at, and the form factor of these things were okay. Not great, but they seem attractive enough. The models we saw were the kind with devoted qwerty and another with doubled-up ascii per button (yuk).

Diving into one (I don't remember which... Pearl, Curve?) I was immediately presented with about 20 icons on the home screen. I had to navigate around with one of those old IBM-like thumb ball controls. And the list of icons would scroll around on me when I hit an edge. Okay. Hard to use, but let's check out some messaging and email.

The font was ENORMOUS and ugly, and I tried using the settings to change it to something modestly attractive. All the fonts began with a "BB_" so it looks like these were custom fonts. Cool... maybe they spent the time to make some good ones. Yuk. None to be found.

Okay font ugliness aside, let's see how easy this thing is to use. After 15 minutes I came to the conclusion that I honestly felt like I was fighting with the phone to do anything. No, I didn't read a user manual, but should I really need to? It's a freakin' phone.

I picked up a Win Mobile phone and it was MUCH easier to use. I actually kind of liked some of it, probably only because I still have an ancient Toshiba PDA whose software looks like Win Mobile (even after all these many years).

Blackberry? I wouldn't take one if it were free. Too bad.

I have an N95 that suffers the same for me... sits unused because it's a freaking nightmare to use. Looks awesome and has tons of features. But right now it's main feature is preventing dust from settling in a 99 x 53 mm area on my desk.

My wife came to the same conclusion on her own after we met back up to talk about which model we liked the best. She had every intention of walking out of the store with a Blackberry of some flavor.

Unless the iPhone gets sweet Notes integration (Notes... yuk), she will probably pass on an iPhone. She could always use the browser to view emails, but that's lame. My suggestion without switching carriers and giving the iPhone a go would be Win Mobile.

My prediction though... when I get my iPhone, she's going to want to use it a lot, and probably snap one up too.

twhirl and iTunes video bug

2008-06-23T16:00:00.002-04:00

On Windows XP, if you run twhirl & pop open a video from iTunes (out into it's own container), the always on top twhirl client suffers from some BIZARRE screen redrawing bug. The iTunes video playback breakout window is set to always on top, as is the twhirl client, and it flickers back and forth. I tried taking a screenshot of it, but it always catches the flicker with the twhirl client on top without evidence of the flickering. I have no idea where the bug lies, but this isn't great behavior. I'm sure this isn't just targeted at twhirl but any AIR client running on top, perhaps any app set to always on top too.

I almost drank out of this...

2008-06-23T15:38:00.003-04:00

I almost drank water out of my adobe water bottle a few minutes ago. I left it at work over the weekend with some Crystal Light concoction in it.

I dumped the concoction out, filled it with water twice (the first being a lame rinse attempt), and went to take a long, cool drink when in the corner of my eye I noticed a little something floating on top.

Further investigation revealed to my horror that a family of spores had taken up residence at the bottom, awaiting my sickly ingestion. Holy cow, that was a really close call of a Monday nasty.