Mildly Hurtful Sarcasm

iPhone FaceTime

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:41:00 +0000

Just testes out iPhone's FaceTime feature. Even though video conferencing is old old technology, I must admit they make it fairly easy to use and quality was pretty good.

A walk down memory lane

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 09:46:00 +0000

I took a quick detour this morning and walked pass my middle school. Can't believe it's been 19 years... Ackhm... 19 months...

Black Friday 2011

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 00:37:00 +0000

This year retailers across the US - from traditional holiday season shopping destinations like Macy's to hard core bargain hunters' darlings like Best Buy and Fry's Electronics, to your day to day stores like Target - open midnight Friday and have made Black Friday a somewhat confusing thing: is it Black Friday anymore, or is it Black Thursday now? Walmart, in its attempt to snatch customers, even managed to open 2 hours earlier, at 10pm Thanksgiving day. Various supermarkets all followed suit and did business during the morning hours of Thanksgiving day.

Deals this year however is pitiful. Amazon had started its pre-thanksgiving sale well ahead of time and deal-seekers like myself have all paid up Jeff Bezos our dues by now given the free shipping policy. Best Buy has some amazing pricing on tablets, such as $250 for the Asus Transformer, but knowing people camp out the day before, I knew there was no chance of me ever seeing one.

But to follow tradition, and to experience the holiday atmosphere, I arrived at Best Buy Milpitas at 11:45pm, the line was devastatingly long...

Look as far as you can, you see the Best Buy? That's right, I couldn't either...

Luckily, the store opened right on time, I only waited for 15mins. And even with such a crowd, they managed to let everybody in.

It was interesting that Thanksgiving leftovers lined the last 100 feet; what people would give for a good deal.

I wanted to see what other places were like so after a quick walk around, I drove to Great Mall Milpitas, which was even a harder battle to get in - traffic stretched for 3 blocks; cars couldn't even get off the highway ramp. Fortunately I knew the area and was able to cut through the crazy, but there was no escaping the parking lot line, which was bumper to bumper for half a mile around, it took more than 30 mins to get a spot because even the back parking lot was absolutely full.

Really? You guys are that crazy for Great Mall?

It was quite a sight even to seasoned Black Friday'ers like me. It was the middle of the night - 1:30am and the mall was completely jam packed!

Most stores at Valley Fair Mall San Jose, given their more upscale status, did not open at midnight. Nonetheless they opened much earlier than past years at 4am. I arrived at 3:30am, but at this ungodly hour and even before most stores were open, the mall was already amazingly crowded. Starbucks even had a line that stretched outside of the door!

I went to check out Abercrombie & Fitch, and was surprised to see people who shell out $300 for a washed out jacket would brave the cold to save $20.

OK, maybe some came for the show, it stirred a bit of a commotion when the dude shedded his shirt

Expanded store hours may be a sign of a change of retailers' strategy to compete. But I also think it is good choice because it is much easier to stay up pass midnight than to go to bed early and wake up at 4am. If long lines everywhere at insane hours are any indication, the San Francisco Bay Area economy is quite strong cause there was a long line even at the Lego store - grown ups buying $300-$400 toys for themselves.

Reporting live from Fremont, California, its Black Friday 2011!

The Actor

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 07:01:00 +0000

Two weeks before premiere, we are still in the editing room editing away in this late October night, is this really happening?

"Watu gonna do, it's a thriller, they've gotta make H'oween weekend...", Sam has no family so he welcomes overtime. "... roll back alit' more".

Los Angeles autumn midnight can be cold, but never this cold. It feels like freezing temperature in here. The room is dark and we are under time pressure, it really is not fun.

"Wat up wif dis Srael guy? I heard he does his own make up..." Sam rolls back and forth the scene of the frail actor cutting up a little boy's bloody torso.

I don't gossip, although come to think about it, it is strange. Ah Srael, he calls himself, rarely speaks I heard. He came out of nowhere, did a few horror hits, and his face's just scary as hell. The producers love him cause he rakes in the dollars, but the talents and the staff all think he is bad news - five people died of freak accidents in his last three films, one was decapitated.

"... I mean, look at dat! His face looks like... ju hear dat?"

I heard that. Sounded like a giggle, sounded exactly like a giggle, from behind the shelf. Sam and I look at each other in disbelief. Someone has been in this 200 sq ft room for the last four hours and we didn't know? The room door is right next to us, it's not like someone could come in without us noticing.

"Who's there." I wish I heard wrong.

I did not.

There is what appears to be a fog build up next to the shelves and from it emerges Ah Sarel in a dark cloak and a machete in his hand.

"It's not make up that I put on, it's just skin." He says as he tears his face off.

I finally realize his name is Azrael, but I suppose it is too late.

The best summer

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 07:32:00 +0000

I was flipping through some old photos tonight. It was from 1991, that was the best summer of my life. I hung out with my few best friends a lot. It feels strange that it has been 20 years and it's sad that I won't be doing that anymore.

Test driving the Volt

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 06:29:00 +0000

GM today came to the campus to promote their 4 lines of vehicles. I jumped onto the chance to take the Chevy Volt, the all electric with a backup gas engine, 40 grand, green transport, for a spin

Getting into one was surprisingly easy. Showed my driver's license, signed a waiver, waited at the tent for 1 minute, that's it! I was in one. It was quick because they had like 5, 6 of each (they also had the Camero, and many others) for us to test drive. They even had the guy who designed the battery there to answer questions.

Starting it was new, brake pedal then press the power button. It's one of those RF keyless thing. I drove off the parking lot gingerly - it's a $40000 car and the windows are so small I could barely see outside - then gunned it to make the red for a left turn. It accelerated effortlessly compared to my 148hp CR-V.

The inside felt spacious and the leather seats and carbon fiber dash were eye pleasing. The all electric panel was graphical and requires a little getting used to. The center LCD screen displaying power info was darn right confusing.

Consider it being a electric, it was actually noisier than I thought it would be, but the real surprise went to the brake system - it didn't kick in until the pedal was fully depressed - scared me. It was obviously a car built for efficiency, accelerating required me to really to step on it and releasing the gas hardly caused it to slow down; it just kept coasting.

The advertised 95mpg is really attractive but I am just so put off by the 40 grand sticker price, though I am sure there are some offsets in fuel economy incentives. Either way it was an interesting drive.

911 anniversary

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 18:04:00 +0000

It's weird. On 911 anniversary morning, I am waken up by low flying helicopter and loud boom...

The blue hair

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 06:16:00 +0000

So I sat behind this girl at a talk the other day, and I noticed one hair, right smack at the middle of the back of her head, is blue, metallic blue, like confetti shinny blue. Not a strand, not a patch, one hair.
I was about to go "miss, you've got..." when she raised her hand - metallic blue finger nails.
What was that! Was that one hair supposed to go with the nails? Nail polish got on that one hair right at the middle at the back? What's the deal? I didn't dare to ask, I still want to know.

Battle Los Angeles (2011)

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 07:48:00 +0000

Released in DVD in less than 6 months after its theatrical open, an IMDB rating of 5.9, words of mouth, everything tells me Battle Los Angeles (2011) is a bad film. But I rented it anyway, I am a sucker for alien invasion I guess.

Allegedly inspired by true events that took place in 1942, the plot almost feels like a script template: the invading force has arrived, F-18s scrambled to fight off squeaky flying octopuses where slaughtered. But when cities were incinerated and annihilation seemed inevitable, the hero infiltrated the mother ship and blew the crap out of it, americano themed music, humanity prevails... wait, isn't that Independence Day (1996), with a singular plot less the shocking special effect?

Bad, utterly predictable story line aside, I liked it :) It's really not a bad flick in my opinion: it has the suspense, the explosions, back stories of the characters (though I don't want to see another 'soldier whose lost his men' kind of lame-o shit again!). By telling the story through the eyes of a low level commander in a span of about a day, it cleverly avoids the fact that extraterrestrials ain't just interested in Hollywood, and that's a tall order most alien movies could get right. Aaron Eckhart delivered what you would have expected from him, and otherwise everybody else's performance were quite pleasing. I am disagreeing with all critics and say this is worth seeing.

The Rosetta stone

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 18:00:00 +0000

So my mom and I were at the world famous British Museum. It was quite a treat. Too bad it closed early on the day we were there, and we took a wrong turn to get there, wasted lots of precious time.

The most important piece of exhibit, arguably, would be the Rosetta Stone. My mom's been there before, but she didn't remember seeing it. She remembered the very big pharaoh fist alright.

We scrambled the vast Egyptian room, back and forth for 10 minutes looking for the Rosetta Stone but couldn't find it and gave up. There are plenty to see in the Assyrian, Egyptian, etc rooms. Just by the time we were about to leave, there it was, encased by a curious crowd, that's why we missed it earlier.

Its importance comes from the fact that it contains essentially the same text, written in three different languages (not sure which), enabling linguists to decipher some earlier unknown glyphs.

The King's Speech (2010)

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Mon, 23 May 2011 07:02:00 +0000

I just saw The King's Speech (2010) and I must say I am stunned to learn how highly acclaimed it is.

It's not a bad movie, I am not saying that; Colin Firth did deliver an Oscar worthy performance, but that's just about it!

There isn't really much of a story line - a singular plot really, told from beginning to... hell that's not much of an ending is it, it's not like Bertie led the RAF and bombed the crap out of the Nazis.
The speech itself, wasn't much of a speech, nothing more than one of those boiler plate address.
There ain't even any epic scene - the production team went out of their way to skip over the coronation! The scene of Bertie watching the Hitler film was so made up.
What about props! Buckingham Palace was computer graphics, Westminster Abbey was computer graphics, it's 2010, can't they make them a little more convincing?
The man that resembles Geoffrey Rush could have been computer graphics, it's hard to tell.

It does remind me of a another WWII stutterer story I saw on TV - Breaking the Code (1996). Alan Turing, he was instrumental in wining the war. Now that's a character worth making a movie about.

Idol result is quite wrong

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 04:11:00 +0000

Isn't Casey the most talented contestant, ever? I just don't see what's in anybody else. How is it that he got voted out? This is one case psychologists should put their heads in.

Anyway, he is talented and liked, and now well known enough to have a career in the music industry.

Woo, Formula 1 Professional huh?

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 06:37:00 +0000

What's wrong with these people, professional formula one? What, you're a race car driver? Driving is you profession, like, that's your day job? Really. I'm racing, cornering that tight turn at 100mph, oh wait, I wonder what time it is, cause god forbid, I am a professional formula one racer who must know the time.

Give me a break.

Polska Kielbasa IV

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 07:06:00 +0000

Pope John Paul II was cardinal of Krakow. If not that, Krakow's old town is known to be even more beautiful than that of Warsaw.

Hitler saw the population of Krakow as Germanic, so the city was spared the bombardment the rest of Poland had suffered in WWII. The old town escaped the fate of that of Warsaw and remained original.

We left the train station and entered the old town through some narrow streets lined with touristy shops.

The St. Mary's Basilica towers over Krakow's old town square.

It sucked that that was a gloomy day, and the Cloth Hall was under renovation.

But we still got to see a lot of nice buildings around the old town area.

We followed down Grodzka Street, stopped by the architecturally ecstatic St. Peter's and St. Paul's Church, with statues of the 12 apostles stood guard a the gate...

... and up hill we went the Wawel Castle... which wouldn't have been much if not for the noteworthy Cathedral at the top.

Those domes are something aren't they.

It's between Paul and Casey

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 07:21:00 +0000

This year's American Idol contestants are actually pretty strong. If I have to call it based on tonight's performance, it's between Paul and Casey. Both have solid vocals and styles. I am impressed.

My last name

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 08:05:00 +0000

Growing up with my last name it's just more than frustrating. I work with many people who's last names have twice as many vows as the number of letters in my entire name, yet I am the one who has to put up with Mr. Ning, Mr. Nu, Mr. None, Mr. oh they misspelled it, let me add y-u-e... No! I am not Vietnamese!

I mean, every time I walk up to the counter:

SR: What's your last name?

Like she knows how to spell it...

ME: N-G

SR: What?

Which part you didn't hear? The N or the G!

ME: N-G

SR: How to spell that?

How to spell that! She wants to know how to spell N-G, what's next, what's 9-1-1's number?

ME: N-G, N for Nancy, G for George

SR: Got it, N-A-N-C...

ME: No! It's not Nancy George! It's just N, G.

SR: And how do you pronounce that?

Me: Just give me my ticket and stop pretending you care.

Golden Globe 2011

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:24:00 +0000

Oh my, Ricky Gervais, I like that guy but how many people did he really want to piss off. He would have been what people talk about tomorrow, if not for one, what happened to Justin Bieber's hair!

... and two, Slyvester Stallone, his face looked like a Halloween mask...

Polska Kielbasa III

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:53:00 +0000

Up the walk, touristy shops housed in pretty buildings appear.

On our right there was the presidential palace. Interesting enough, Google had the exact same picture on its front page the day after the Polish president died.

The polish palace was down the road where the old town begins. The Renaissance style houses were beautiful.

We went past the old city wall. to the new town. Name was misleading, it ain't the new downtown, just a slightly newer part of town. The apartments there look pretty from outside.

That's where we stopped for the famous Polska Kielbasa and the polish cabbage wraps, and saw the Madame Curie Museum.

It was about sunset when we went back past the Royal Palace.

History has it that the Nazis bombed that building 3 times, the last, by drilling holes on the walls to insert dynamites, before it was completely leveled, as punishment to the Polish revolt. In fact, the entire old town has been completely destroyed during World War II. What I had visited was a remade since then. Everyday, someone blows the trumpet up at the clock tower at the Royal Palace to commemorate these events.

Pawn Stars

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 08:50:00 +0000

Pawn Stars, the history channel runaway hit, is really a new genre of itself ain't it. Everybody loves Rick when he goes "This doesn't look right, I know a guy, who is an expert in this area, and I would like him to come down to take a look at this before I make an offer." or "No, I can't do that price, I will give you $200". Ha, you didn't expect that did you :)

The reason I am saying this is, you can really see all these similar shows popping up around - there's Oddities, Auction Kings, and now, a name sake copycat, Hardcore Pawn. I guess people just love this little underworld they never knew about.

Me, I still enjoy seeing Chumlee screwing it up though. There is no replacement of that.

Black Friday 2010

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 07:59:00 +0000

To me, this black friday is just wrought with disappointments, one after another.

First of all, deals were dismal at best. There's the sub $200 laptop with 3GB RAM at BestBuy that everybody thinks is a steal, but be real, people camp out the day before at BestBuy, no reason to sink to that level for a laptop. Camping out at freezing temperature is not fun.

I didn't even want to go shopping today. The only thing that caught my eye was the 32" (turned out to be LG) LCD TV. I wanted a 40" LED but for a price tag of $197, I will replace my second with it I thought. Beside, Patrick was eyeing the 50" plasma, lining up with him under the stars could be fun this time.

I arrived at Fry's 3:45am, the earliest ever, mainly because I couldn't sleep the night before. My body's metabolism is not functioning as well no more. The line was already long...

... and good thing I learned that the police don't arrive until 4am, and barricade aren't up until 4:15am...

First sign of trouble: I got to pee. I peed before I left the house, but then again, metabolism... And why hasn't Patrick showed?

The wind gusted in subzero temperature, all kinds of characters came out of the woodwork... there's the guy in just a t-shirt and flip flops, and then there's the couple wrapped in comforters. Some where loud, others plotting strategies for TV grabbing.

I had a strategy: I'll go grab the free webcam while Patrick takes our place in the TV line. Then he will hold the merchandise waiting in line while I go pee; and then I'll go grab the shopping cart.

4:30am the time we said we will meet has come and gone. No Patrick. My need to pee intensifies.

4:35am, no show, 4:40am, no show, 4:45am, no show, I can't feel my legs no more.

Finally the line started to move at 4:50am. I followed along into the store, lined up for a shopping cart, cause I need a shopping cart for TV don't I? I went and grabbed the webcam, there were stacks of them and nobody even botheedr to look at them. What about the free video card? So plenty could have filled a baseball park.

Alright the TV line I head towards. An unusually long line. No worries, people were still pushing out TVs at 10am last year. And Patrick finally arrived.

He stayed in line while I grabbed a bluetooth headset and a paper shredder for him - he's the secret agent ain't he. Then I rushed straight to the office. Yeah, I still need to pee!

What? you gotta be kidding me, there is a line for the urinal?

When I got back to the line, I decided to check out the 'Major brand name' 32" TV that I woke up for. I walked to the beginning of the line, trying to see what they were pushing out.

"The 32" is sold out" The friendly black man yelled out. If he weren't 6' tall I would have karate chopped him.

Shortly after that, they created another line for 50" or bigger TVs, where Patrick moved to. I went to check out other deals. Oh my, this wasn't even advertised, a $8 AR ATX case. It looks cool. But I don't need another case, I wish they had that deal 6 moths earlier, I would have built my Hulu machine with it... but it's only $8! What the heck, let me grab one, where is it.

Sold out.

Eff! Am I to leave the store practically empty handed? I mean, I wanted a webcam and it's free, but gee, that's no earth shaking deal I woke up for! I wanted a electric screw driver, let me look for one... Oh shoot, the only one there was was $129...

Patrick and I stayed at the TV line pretty much till 6:30am, that's 1.5 hours after store opened. We found a $9 heater which was something I had wanted, consolation prize literally.

The check out line was long and took a while. The temp cashiers' experience show. It took a while to explain the delivery thing.

We got out of Fry's shortly before 730am, that's 2.5 hours after store opened and almost 4 hours after I got in line! We scooted over to Walmart and picked up a few storage boxes. And I was beat. I had to head home.

On my way home I stopped by Target a scored a down pillow. But I need to wash it first before I can tell if it is any good.

To sum up, the loot included a cheap webcam, a video card that I don't need, a heater and a pillow. Really nothing worth braving the chill for. But that's not the end of the story. Tonight I tried to install the GeForce, hot damn! It is incompatible with my motherboard due to a firmware bug! I have to return.

I regret today thoroughly. It just hasn't been as much fun as previous years.

Reporting live from Fremont, California, it's black friday 2010.

Polska Kielbasa II

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 08:49:00 +0000

Many years before Tony Bennett left his heart in San Francisco, Frederick Chopin, the great pianst, left his in Warsaw. After he died that is. It would be creepy otherwise. It is in the Holy Cross Church, an unassuming yellow and white building on Krakowskie Przedmiescie sits aptly behind a statue of Jesus bearing the cross.

We had to crash a Catholic mass to see it. A pair of heavy wooden door, the communion and a final hymn later, the crowd started to dissipate. I strolled around the white interior twice but couldn't find it. My mom's been here before and she kept telling me how it is supposed in this general area. Thanks mom, "general area" doesn't help... or does it? What do you know, she was pointing right at it, how could I have missed it.

Oh I know how, I didn't know it's spelled Chopina! Anyway, mission accomplished. We headed back out and saw a black marble bench with a button at the corner. No, no, not a park bench for you to rest on, it's a map of the Royal Walk, and plays recording of the master's music to get you in the mood.

Very interesting. Now what else lies ahead?

Polska Kielbasa I

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 09:10:00 +0000

So were in the mood for some Polish sausages. Hillshire got us hooked, you know. But what does the real thing taste like we ask. Warsaw off we go.

We stayed at the new downtown, not far from the central station and the Palac Kultury i Nauki, or the wedding cake locally dubbed.

On the first day we immediately realized we were quite ill prepared. One, it was freezing cold. It was cover up the entire face or smile like Nancy Polosi. The other thing is the language. They don't speak English and I don't understand a word of Polish. I mean, if it is French, Spanish, Portuguese or even Japanese I can make out the words by their Greek, Latin or Chinese roots. Polish? I know Kielbasa from the Hillshire wrap, that's it.

I didn't really know what to expect, but the communist look is everything I had expected. Other than the Soviet gift of PKiN that looms over downtown, even the side streets look equally commy.

We ventured out of the hotel soon after it was bright, and without following the map, we stumble onto this nicely decorated street. Krakowskie Przedmiescie - or the Royal walk - we didn't know at the time. Yeah, Chopin left his heart there word has it. We need to check that out...

My new telephone III

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 07:08:00 +0000

Unlimited free phone calls within the US is nice, especially when many parts of the bay area are considered long distance from where I live. There are other add-on features like online mailbox, huh, my cordless phone has a digitial answering machine, so no thanks. But the part that I can really use? Caller-ID. I've never had caller-ID in my life (call me whatever). I never knew the joy of screening calls! Sunday morning the phone rings, instead of getting up or wondering who the eff, my cordless phone speaks out the calling number (or caller's name if it is in the address book). I didn't even know my cordless phone could do that. More sleep for me.

Did I mention free? $25 a month in my pocket from now on. Yipee.

The problem is though, when I ported my number over, AT&T made me put my DSL on another phone line. I suspect that was the noisy pair of wires cause after that, my DSL was actually almost 10% slower. I was upset. And you know what upset customers do? They switch.

Everybody knows cable is faster than DSL. Comcast in my area offers the same speed cable internet for the same price. But because I am a Comcast TV customer, they knocked $8 off. More bandwidth for less, are you kidding me?

I bought a Linksys cable modem, and while I was at it, I updated myself with a Linksys wireless-N router that does QoS. Hm... I'm gonna put my Ooma behind my router one day.

I did discover the downside of VoIP though. Turned out it was because of a loose connector but my cable went out the second day I had it. Boom, all of a sudden no phone, no internet. I was left with my cell phone, that was pretty scary.

There is actually another reason why I want the Ooma behind my router - I can configure port forwarding, but it won't open those ports, like it just ignores my settings. I need port forwarding for... I am not telling you, nice try.

New modem, new router and new phone at all once. It's too much for me.

My new telphone II

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 07:08:00 +0000

So I was ready to ditch my AT&T home phone service. I bought a Ooma Core system and followed their somewhat lengthy but essential steps towards making it my primary home phone.

I browsed to ooma.com and registered my unit, and chose to port my existing phone number (for a steep $40 one time fee!) It's a two step process - first I need to put my DSL on a dry loop, that means closing my DSL account and open a new one. That raised my DSL monthly fee from $28 to $35! Those idiots. After that happened, I signed through (online) the paper work to have my number ported over. They said the process would take a month but in effect took less than 2 weeks.

Meanwhile, I could still set my Ooma hub up with a temporary number. As a networking profession, I respected my collegaues over at Ooma, and followed the set up procedure laid out in the manual, to the letter. And that was cool in several ways.

First, set up was easy and took only 15 minutes, most of which spent with the unit synchronizing with the service. But more importantly, I did not anticipate that how it was supposed to be set up: the Ooma hub sits between my wireless router and my DSL modem, and detects the PPPoE settings! That's pretty amazing. It then acts as a router and my wireless router becomes a second hop router.

But I have other plans. I know Ooma advises users to connect the unit directly to the modem because of QoS reasons, and my little many years old Netgear doesn't QoS. But I am not comfortable being 2 hops away from the ISP (I won't know the difference, I know), so I decided to let the Ooma hub do all the routing, DHCP, etc, and use my Netgear as just a wireless switch. Works great.

I never thought I care about QoS, but sometimes, perhaps peace of mind is enough. Like the other day my mother picked up the phone and started talking... should I pause by Hulu TV? I would have worried if I didn't know QoS was there.

Another interesting thing was, I noticed the first call after reboot had echoes. And then they would go away and the calls will be clear there after. I wonder if it did some kind of dynamic adjustment or something.

Overall, call quality was good consider my slow DSL. But it wasn't without issues.

Kudos to the new Nano

noreply@blogger.com (markng) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:09:00 +0000

Everybody knows, I am not an Apple fan. But even I am impressed by the new iPod Nano.

I haven't seen one yet. I was just reading the info from apple.com about accessibility. The fact is, visual (and other kinds of) impairment is a very real thing, and it shouldn't be something that stops people from enjoying music like the rest of us. Nevertheless, us programmers, arrogant and selfish, often churn out code in haste unheeding to the needs of many of our users. Accessibility is rarely in our mind despite operating system supports as well as numerous regulation requirements. I believe the Nano's feature is not a gimmick but a reflection of the thoughtfulness of the designer and a very good example to the rest of us.

Well done.