Rant: Chrome for Android
I have yet to understand why Google Chrome for Android never bothers to synchronize your profile and passwords. It is kind of frustrating to be using the same web browser that I use on my desktop. One I know synchronizes my usernames and passwords and yet I still have to enter in and resave all my usernames and passwords for any website that I decide to visit on my Android tablet. It is kind of ridiculous.
Why buying a tablet will improve your phones battery life
I discovered something interesting already in the use of my brand new android tablet. It would appear that my phone has started to live for longer periods of time. When I stopped to think of this interesting trend it occurred to me that many of the more tablet optimized tasks I partake in on a daily basis, such as email checking and web browsing I had moved to my tablet, instead opting in to use my phone only while on the move or for smaller tasks such as texting (which, thanks to my use of google voice I could do with equal ease on my new Xoom)
This has greatly improved the battery life of my phone. My phone is now relegated to more phone-like tasks while my Xoom acts as a extremely portable device, similar in function to that if a PC.
This brings to mind the conclusion that the reason our phones battery lives are so horrible these days is because we tend to use them for everything. If you're sitting on a train and you don't have a tablet you're probably going to pull out your mobile phone for instant entertainment. Purchasing and using a tablet however will surmount in a significant gain of battery life for your phone, so long as you have uses for your new tablet.
Xoom and ICS
So, today I managed to snag myself a Xoom. By which h of course I mean that I received a Xoom in the mail from my good friend Amazon.com. I have been playing with it since I opened hue packaging and so far I have to say that I absolutely love it. Touch typing on a screen is definitely awkward but I have a feeling that I'll get more used to it as time goes on.
This is my first tablet, and hopeful I'll be able to writ some neat maps for it. I've already had a great idea that nobody seems to be implementing in the android store atm.
So maybe I will at a future date?
Feeling like I’m PWNing REST
I'm working hard to make the private API I'm implementing at my current job a RESTful uri scheme, and I feel like I hit a point of transcendence recently when I decided how to record a user staring a story.
- PUT /article/:articleID/favorite/:userID
- DELETE /article/:articleID/favorite/:userID
I decided that POST didn't make sense, as you couldn't really favorite a story more than once at a time, and of course DELETE makes sense here. Adding them as a relation between the article and the user seems to make sense in this URI scheme as well.
So, all in all, I'm proud of myself. Despite it being such a tiny, simplistic thing.
Future of Facebook?
So, Mark Zuckerberg posted a photo today of his desk.. and I couldn't help but notice that his Facebook is different from mine. Some key things to note:
- Instead of a tiny search bar at the top, there is now a very very large white bar. This bar contains text in it, so I'm presuming it might be the new way to post data to Facebook, replacing the comparatively clunky share box we use today.
- Instead of three icons (Adds, Notifications, Inbox) on the top bar, there is a single icon. Perhaps these have been combined into one?
- The icon appears squarer than the others. Maybe its a Facebook icon, since the logo is clearly removed in this version?
- To the right of this large search box seems to be something else, but I can't make it out - and unfortunately I can't just do a CSI-esque "enhance" on the image.
So maybe this is a sneak peak at what is to come in the future? Despite that, however, it should be noted that the changes seen here on Mark's computer may never hit production servers. This is simply some speculation on some noticeable changes.
Idea: Code Reading App
Just jotting down an idea I had for a code reading app.
The idea is that the application would read through the code and find all the structures, classes, etc and would combine them in such a way that it could be read as a single line-by-line piece of code, with a UI that shows the separation between elements. Possibly using indentation to show the differences between scopes, possibly with a collapsable block that specifies what the variables in that scope are set to.
A good version would, of course, automatically change the values of these variables based on the code.
How Software Ruins Ratings
I'm a long time Harry Potter fan. It's part of my childhood like most people my age. I'd gone to the theaters to see every single movie, except for 7P2. I read today that Amazon was having a rental sale on the movie (apparently it normally costs more than $1.99 to rent it on Amazon?). Either way, I went to the page and I was absolutely surprised to see the rating for the movie was only 2 and a half stars!
Even if the movie was terrible, there would clearly be such a massive amount of fans rating the thing that it'd probably hit four stars.. but two and a half? Not even a full three? What was going on here?
A quick glance at the "customer reviews" told me everything I needed to know. The full copy included some software called "Ultraviolet," the main cause of over 200 1 star reviews.
Ultraviolet is another feeble, doomed attempt by some dinosaur brain Hollywood execs to restrict the use of your legally bought digital purchase. Ultraviolet is NOT a digital copy that resides on a device of your choice to be used on a device of your choice. It is a streaming service, for which you have to sign up and maintain an account, at the expense of your bandwidth, compatible with some but not all mobile devices. If you're willing to wait another 4 weeks, order this disc set from Amazon's UK website you can do this with your current US account). Not only are you getting a REAL digital copy, but the Blu-ray disc is region free too!! Price + shipping is the same as the price in USD with free shipping.
So, that wrapped up that mystery. Horrible software is murdering ratings. A damn shame.
Great Scott, I’ve discovered something delicious
Truthfully, I've tried my best to make a difference in programming, in code, trying to learn, trying to be amazing. I never thought I'd just randomly happen upon a chance discovery that would turn out to be amazingly delicious.
Late August, I went to my friend's house in Toledo. There, we picked some pears. I took home some for myself and placed them in my fridge, unfortunately never stopping to think to eat them.
Late September, I place a Sunkist can I had not had time to finish beside the pears, leaving it for later.
October 1st, I pull the pears out of the fridge, giving them up to inspection by Rebecca. They look as if they haven't aged, possibly frozen by sitting beside the freezer inside the fridge. I pull out the sunkist and set it on top of the fridge to deal with later. Rebecca declares that the pears, although not yet rotten, would be as soon as they thawed as their cellular structure would not be able to survive being frozen and thawed.
Later that evening, I accidentally take a swig of the sunkist left on top of the fridge. It has a delicious taste of pear to it, despite its flatness it does not taste bad. It is delicious, but sickly sweet. But amazingly delicious.
Now that I've learned this, what should I do about it?
The Web Needs a Federated Payment Protocol
When it comes to paying for good and services on the Internet, the consumer has many choices - Paypal, Amazon, Google Checkout, their respective Credit Card...
However, you rarely see all of these accepted in a single place - and for very good reason: Its gorram difficult to implement so many different APIs and systems, and have to deal with tracking each of them.
Clearly, the Web needs a way to deal with this - and having a Federated Payment Protocol would solve it.
Think about it: A vendor website would easily communicate with a payment processor through this protocol. They wouldn't have to know who the Payment Processor is, or even care for that matter. The vendor would issue a request to the payment processor. The processor would be in charge of authenticating the user, and would send back their "terms" (out of the requested amount, *this* much will be dispersed and *this* much will be taken as a processing fee). The vendor will agree, disagree, or change the payment amount based on what the processor sent. The processor would then submit this change to the user, if the user accepted the processor would send the new details and the vendor would accept or deny. The processor would send the money through whatever system they need to, notifying the vendor how long it should take, and if its a short enough time the vendor can hold the user until the payment has cleared (or if it is a trusted source not hold at all) and provide the promised goods or services, after confirming the transaction with their receiving service.
This solves a few key issues:
- Vendors have to trust that they are receiving the money for their services.
- Credit Card details would never have to be provided to the vendor, as the service would be directly through their credit company's payment service.
- Vendors would not have to implement different APIs for different payment methods.
- "Credit Card Fraud" liability would be the burden of the Credit Company, of whom authenticated the user. A vendor would no longer be required to make sure a person is who they say they are.
- Banks could offer their own payment services ("Debit." Possibly with No Fee, resulting in a reduction of prices from vendors, hopefully).
Lack of “Security” May Hinder Future Google Adoption
I better make this clear: I am not talking about encryption, password, hashes, etc. Not that kind of security.
No, I'm talking about reliability. Something Google has had for a very long time, and one of the many reasons I'm such a Google fanatic.
Until recently, at least as far as I can remember, Google products that existed did not see the end of the tunnel very often. (The question and answer service excluded).
Recently, however, Google has been trying to expand into many markets. From what I can take away, Google wants to be the hub of information exchange on the Internet. After all, knowing all of that powers their search - and their search powers their ads.
Recently though, several Google services have announced that they will be discontinued. Among these: Wave, PowerMeter, and Health.
PowerMeter and Health did not see large enough adoption for Google to continue putting forth the funds for them. To me, this is disappointing. Being able to get this information so easily and readily through Google was really exciting. After all: Google has the technological know-how to keep my data secure and provide at least decent user interfaces to said data. In fact, I used Google Health - although since I don't have many issues it was currently just to store my insurance information.
Now though, these services will be disappearing. Who is to say that other less-mainstream services won't disappear in the future? Buzz? Voice? Google+? Well, there's no way that last one could disappear... right?
If I'm going to rely on Google to provide a service, I'm going to need the security of knowing that the service is going to continue to exist. I might be asking a bit much as a free user, but its still a very important consideration.
If Google loses this trust; this security; this reliability - won't it hinder future adoption of Google's services?