Historically I am not much of a reader, but there have been times when I’ve found a book that I liked and I really enjoyed reading. I have a pretty vivid imagination so reading to me is almost like watching a movie except better because it’s almost as if I am experiencing it. I would say most if not all of the people I look up to as being smart and intelligent are prolific readers.
So one of the goals I set for myself in 2010 is to read more. My plan is to read a book every two weeks and hopefully read 20+ books this year. With my goal in mind I spent some time scouring Amazon and created a list of prospective reads. Today Nicole and I went to Half Price books and after a pit stop at Barnes & Noble I can home with five new ( to me ) books. However, I am just now realizing that all but one of these books are the basis for movies. While unintentional I do love movies and I’ve found that the book is usually better than the movie.
I am working on creating a reading list for the year and when I am done I will share it here.
The big news, this week, for Apple fans and gadget geeks a like was the announcement of Apple’s latest creation the iPad….
The official Apple video:
and a hands on by SlashGear:
To be honest when I was watching coverage of Apple’s announcement I wasn’t too impressed with the idea of the iPad. However after having a few days to think about it I’ve come to believe that this maybe the future of computing. That being said I don’t believe that we will all be ditching our laptops and desktops for iPad like devices any time in the near future.
Think about the “applications” you use on a daily basis that only exist on the internet. For me it’s Gmail, Google Docs, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and dozens of blogs that I read. None of these things require the horsepower of a full blow desk/laptop. All they need is a device powerful enough to run a decent browser. With the advent of the iPhone/iPod Touch we’ve gotten used to using light weight mobile apps that typically interact with some sort of web service.
I do think there are a few things holding the iPad back. First is price. I think Apple should be commended for turning out a device starting at $499, but I still think the price is a huge barrier to entry. If Apple or another manufacturer could fine a way to subsidize the price down to the $199 range they’d sell 10’s of millions. I really don’t see the iPad being an “in every house” type of device until the price comes down.
Second, and this is a big one for me, why do we do we have to keep paying separate data for every device we have. I pay for DSL in my apartment, I pay mobile data on my phone and now they want me to pay for mobile data for another specific device? No way. I’d rather pick up a MiFi or similar device. That way I can use it for my iPad and my laptop while on the go. Else I’m forced to purchase an EVDO modem for my laptop as well. That would make 4 separate data plans I’d be paying for and to me that’s insane.
The iPad looks like a very slick device and like I mentioned I think it’s were the majority of future computing is headed. Now for the big question: Will I be buying one? I doubt it unless I decide to start developing applications for it. I’m not a huge fan of first Gen devices. I prefer to let early adopters deal with glitches and bugs besides with Apple the 2nd Gen is always slicker.
As the old saying goes “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”. A few weeks ago life handed me a big bag of lemons in the form of being let go from Jaduka. I’m not going to lie it was a bit scary and nerve racking the first few days, but I tried to look at it as an opportunity not a set back.
Last week I started a 2 month contract to work on a really cool project. Unfortunately I cannot talk about what I am working on just yet ( I signed an Non-Disclosure Agreement ), but as soon as I can y’all will be the first to hear about it.
I am enjoying the project I am working on and I’m still looking for a permanent position, but so far the lemons are making some tasty lemonade. Cheers!
I just want to start off by saying I apologize for slacking off and not updating. Ok on to the recap.
Day 3: Today was marked by limited success. I wanted to try to see if I could slap one of my app ideas together with the knowledge I’ve gathered so far and I succeeded. It’s not how I want it to look and only has basic functionality, but damn it it works.
Day 4: I am feeling the post slap dash application blues. This tends to happen to me when I realize how much crap my whipped together project. Much self doubt. Nicole arrived back in Austin from visiting family in NY so we hung out all day. Tried to not think about programming for a change.
Day 5: I had lunch with Kevin today he reminded me that it takes time to learn a new language. Coming from him it really hit home what I was already thinking which is that it’s going to take me a month or more to really get up to speed on this stuff. I watched the third lesson from the Stanford video series. Dare I say things are starting to make more sense.
I spent the majority of my study time today trying to wrap my head around the code I copied from the iPhone Application Development for Dummies book yesterday. I also started watching the videos from the Stanford CS 193P iPhone Application Programming class which are free to download.
Jumping right in to learning iPhone development without knowing how to program in Objective-C is like if you tried to learn PHP from a book on Zend or Cake Framework. It’s taking longer than I anticipated, but I am starting to feel like I am getting it. I am sure my arrogance will be punished tomorrow.
I am working my way through iPhone Application Development for Dummies it’s a pretty decent book. The truth of the matter is that there are some pretty heavy concepts you need to wrap your mind around before you can start to truly think like an iPhone Developer. For someone like myself who spent most of the past 10 years programming in a non-compiled, non-object oriented language the concepts are even more mind boggling.
On the other hand I find great comfort in the fact that for me there is no failure in this endeavor. If it takes months for me to learn how to write iPhone apps the so be it. There’s no pressure to succeed right away so I can learn at my own pace.
Tomorrow the plan is to keep plugging away at the examples in iPhone Application Development for Dummies. I am going to keep reading and coding until things start to click for me.
I am ashamed to admit it, but I hadn’t upgraded Wordpress since I set up this blog 2 years ago. I am not sure why but this morning decided I should finally get around to upgrading the latest version of Wordpress. I still have some work to do to get everything back to the way it originally looked, which I will finish tonight, but everything should be working properly.
You really shouldn’t notice any changes to the blog as a majority of the enhancements to Wordpress are on the administration side.
