All posts by Dan

iTether!

The wi-fi only version of the iPad has convinced me to look into jail breaking my iPhone, so that I can tether the two and use the data plan I’m already paying ATT for. I know the app I need on the iPhone is MyWi from the rockyourphone app store, now I just need to find jail breaking software that works on iPhone 3.1.3 OS, since most that I’ve seen say they don’t work on anything above 3.1.2

iPad? iLove!

Ok, so it’s a cheesy title, but the sentiment is true. I reserved my iPad the day Apple started taking preorders/reserves. I joined the crowd of people lined up outside my closest Apple store Saturday morning, and within an hour I was on my way home with the latest bit of Appley goodness.

So far, it’s everything it was hyped up to be. I’m a bit disappointed in the pricing and selection in the bookstore. I know the selection will improve as time goes on though. I was hoping the books themselves would be a significant savings over the “physical” version, instead it seems to be only a few bucks cheaper. Apparently, the book publishers follow the RIAA business model of not adjusting pricing to reflect the reduced costs involved with digital distribution.

There was a decent selection of apps available on day 1, and all my existing iPhone apps appear to be working properly. I do hope Apple separates the App store out a bit more to make it easier to find iPad apps, although since it looks like Apple is hoping devs will just write universal versions of their apps that may not happen.

I’m submitting this via the iPad wordpress app, and so far it seems pretty slick, so kudos to the WP app guys for getting a updated version out on day 1, and taking advantage of the iPad’s screen (by the way videos look great on here).

No more Word!

Ok, so… it’s not completely gone, so we’ll still have to deal with the bloated monstrosity that passes for a word processor until everyone (read that as ‘businesses’) comes to their senses and switches to something else.

However, M$ did just receive the smack down (again) for doing bad things in word, specifically, stealing someone else’s IP (not that that’s unusual, they just happened to get someone who noticed and wouldn’t take the hush money).

Earlier this afternoon, the verdict was handed down in M$’s appeal of the guilty verdict they were given earlier this year for stealing someone’s XML code and rolling into word.

The good news?  M$ has to pay $290 million dollars, and stop selling copies of word (2007, primarily) that contain the infringing code by January 11th .

The bad news? M$ says they’ll have fixed copies ready to hit the shelves by then… too bad.. I was hoping to watch their profits flounder if they couldn’t sell Word (or, any package containing word) for 6-8 months or so.

Oh well…maybe next time they get caught doing something wrong….

and Grats to I4i for standing up to M$ and making them pay.

64-Bit adblocking goodness

Since upgrading to Snow Leopard, I’ve had to use firefox as my main web browser and it’s performance has been getting worse and worse as each version comes out (too much feature bloat I think).

However, it had a functioning adblock addon, which the 64-Bit version of Safari did not have.  Yes, you could still use Safari AdBlock, but it required running Safari in 32 bit mode, which negated most of the speed improvements and other enhancements in the 64 bit version.  I’ve been watching the developer’s page for an official update to 64 bit goodness for the plugin, to no avail.

Yesterday, I found this set of instructions on google code, which details how to use a branch build of Safari Ad Block, and SIMBL to get 64 bit ad blocking goodness back.

Tried it this morning, and it works!  Time to go back to the fast browser as my default again!

Pirate Day

Don’t forget that tomorrow Sept. 19th, is International Talk Like A Pirate Day!

If you’ve been living in a cave the last few years and don’t know what I’m talking about, you can get more information at the official site here

Health Care Bailout

From an email I received today, original author unknown.  But so very, very, very true.

BAIL’EM OUT!!! ????

Hell, back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in  Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it.. They failed and it closed. Now, we are trusting the economy of our country, our banking system, our auto industry and possibly our health plans to the same nit-wits who couldn’t make money running a whore house and selling whiskey?!”

“What are we thinking”

Which leads the question… if the Socialist anti-American liberals pushing for this crap (yes Pelosi, I’m talking about you, barry, and harry) are so confident in the government’s ability to run our healthcare, why aren’t they touting the success of the government run health care that already exists?

Oh, right…because it’s not a success.

Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard was officially released yesterday.  I took half a day off from work to try and get an opportunity to play with it.

Initial impressions:

64 Bit Safari… is Fast!  But, the adblock extension for Safari isn’t 64 bit, so to use it, I’ve got to run Safari in 32 bit mode, where, it’s still fast..but not as fast.

No 64 Bit Firefox yet either =(

I like the “new” menus that are triggered from items in the Dock, very cool.  Overall, it seems much ‘snappier’ and is well worth the upgrade price (hey, it’s $29 bucks, you can’t go wrong… well.. unless you have a PPC based Mac, those are unsupported.. SL is x86 only).

I realize this is kinda short, but I haven’t had a whole lotta time to play with everything yet.  I did an erase and install, so I’m still in the process of reinstalling all my Applications.

Note to WoW players, SL and ATI 4850/4870 cards are having some issues.. Here’s Blizzard’s thread on it.

Starcraft II Ship Date

Blizzard announced the ship date for StarCraft 2 today… kind of.

Technically, they announced that it *isn’t* shipping in ’09, but the announcement does say that it will be in the first half of 2010.

Blizzard information here.

Text of release here:

Today we announced that StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty will not be ready for release by the end of 2009. Over the past couple of weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game. The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service.

Our mission is to develop games that deliver an epic entertainment experience. As part of that commitment, we will always take as much time as needed to ensure that our games and services meet the expectations of our players and the standard for quality that we set for ourselves as developers. As we work to make Battle.net the premier online gaming destination, we’ll also continue to polish and refine StarCraft II, and we look forward to delivering a real-time strategy gaming experience worthy of the series’ legacy in the first half of 2010.

We will share more details about the beta, Battle.net, and StarCraft II’s launch in the future. Keep an eye on the official website athttp://www.starcraft2.com for updates, and as always, thank you for your continued enthusiasm and support for StarCraft II and all of Blizzard Entertainment’s games.

Warcraft – 3.2

Today is patch day!

Patch 3.2 “The Call of the Crusader” hit the live servers this morning, which means, of course, that Blizzard has extended maintenance beyond the normal end time.  They currently estimate that realms will be up and playable by 1500 PDT.  My guess, is that they’ll actually be up and playable around 1900 PDT.

So far, I’m most looking forward to the increased speed of the non-epic flying mounts. Hopefully, it’ll feel fast enough, that I won’t feel the need to spend 5,000 gold (each) on all my alts to get the epic flying.  I’ll have more comments after I can actually get into the game (after work tonight) and try some of the new things out.

Patch notes, if you haven’t seen them already are on the next page, they’re kinda long. Continue reading Warcraft – 3.2

WordPress iPhone App

Just a quick test of the WP iPhone app. First complaint, can’t choose an existing category.

Edit: Apparently, you can choose categories. I had to delete and reinstall to get it to pick up the categories.