tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43504798958728037382024-03-18T02:25:00.451-07:00Navarr BarnierAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.comBlogger187125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-58711520474392490772013-12-11T20:45:00.001-08:002013-12-11T20:45:50.158-08:00My First "Google Glass App"<p>I made what my friends consider a poor purchasing decision - and what I hope will pay itself off in the long run. I bought an explorer edition of Google Glass.</p>
<p>The purpose, of course, was to start developing for them. I'm a programmer at heart and programming is what I want to do. It took about a week before I finally got around to making my first app, and of course being an Android developer I wanted to play with the newly released "Glass Development Kit" or GDK - the API on top of Android specifically for Google Glass Apps - not the mirror api cards. So I took apart one of Google's samples, as I'd never worked with Services or RemoteViews before.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FnIBWVchxE0/Uqk1F03VUnI/AAAAAAAAK_Y/gvb-PnGSiTw/s1600/20131211_230029_389_x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FnIBWVchxE0/Uqk1F03VUnI/AAAAAAAAK_Y/gvb-PnGSiTw/s400/20131211_230029_389_x.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>It says "Meow" (on the card) when you trigger it using the voice command "OK Glass, Meow."</p>
<p>To do this, I had to create a few things: MeowService - the service running in the background that controls the LiveCard, meow_card.xml - the layout file that simply says "meow", MenuActivity - the required intent when interacting with the live card (yes, required!), and voice_trigger_start - a trigger with the text to launch the app, and of course AndroidManifest.xml, but that's barely important.</p>
<script src="https://gist.github.com/navarr/7923282.js"></script>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-54820010762748336332013-07-14T11:58:00.001-07:002013-07-14T11:58:41.335-07:00The Small Cultural Difference between 「朝ご飯」 and "Breakfast"Many a student of the Japanese language will very quickly learn the words for "breakfast," "lunch," and "dinner." However, what isn't discussed is the very, very small cultural difference between the origin of these words. In meaning, the terms are used practically interchangeably - but there is one small detail.<br />
<br />
The "asa" in "asagohan" means "morning." With the "gohan" being rice, of course. It's clearly a meal one eats in the morning.<br />
<br />
However, "Breakfast" is derived from "break" and "fast." When one eats breakfast, they are <i>breaking their fast</i>.<br />
<br />
With this in note, remember.. you can eat at noon in an English-speaking country and still be eating "breakfast." But in Japanese you would definitely be eating 「昼ご飯」 (Noon Meal, Lunch).Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-33568556152282912342013-06-10T16:58:00.002-07:002013-06-10T16:58:18.253-07:00iOS7 takes the leap but misses the mark<b>Disclaimer</b>: I am a lover of Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8, and in general dislike Apple - but I'll try to keep my points in this article clear of most bias. Additionally, the features of iOS7 that have been revealed are in <i>Beta </i>and are subject to change.<br />
<br />
I, myself, am a huge fan of Flat Design, and sort of an amateur designer (professional developer). As such, Flat design or "Almost Flat" design greatly appeals to me. Working without all the flashiness of the early oughts allows me to focus on a more content-oriented design and doesn't require many skills with a graphics editing suite for general work. However, this article isn't about me. It's about Apple, and how their attempt at flat design just barely misses the mark.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Frosted Glass</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgexwP63hadRl26PyrtPXLu39GrOGxKslXcR7nTpF1qd6c_0VSYXQmrvPIMLU-c9na60MZPYjGgVqWm-pWX6SMIjUzeuTysLEwLdC-5GN-fVjWxGo_XvtPvALJvxJ9gmJVHCKG8SLyT8fg/s1600/frostedGlass.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgexwP63hadRl26PyrtPXLu39GrOGxKslXcR7nTpF1qd6c_0VSYXQmrvPIMLU-c9na60MZPYjGgVqWm-pWX6SMIjUzeuTysLEwLdC-5GN-fVjWxGo_XvtPvALJvxJ9gmJVHCKG8SLyT8fg/s320/frostedGlass.png" width="160" /></a></div>
<div>
I honestly can't figure out what Apple thought it was doing with the Frosted Glass look. On it's own, it presents a fairly nifty effect - but it does not fit in with Flat Design, and barely even works in the scenarios they've placed it. This picture of Control Center, for example, uses the Frosted Glass backdrop to overlay the iOS homepage. Blurring the icons behind it and leaving it with a variable and colourful background. "Thats beautiful!" one might exclaim, but if you look closely you'll see there are <b>many</b> problems with it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For one, the variance of colours washes out the content - <b>the most important part of the user interface</b>. While my eyes are admittedly not the best, the white text of the song title "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk blurs into the background, as does the other white objects. They don't stand out at all where, in this case, they're exactly the type of content that should be standing out. The end result appears "pretty" but ends up leading to a colourful and tacky experience.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Inconsistent Icons</h3>
<div>
Icon inconsistency is a common scourge amongst smartphone operating systems. However, from my limited experience with Apple this hasn't been the case. Icons on Apple have always seemed to feel the same, with their slight gloss, roundedness, and lack of attempt to be anything else. Here, however, Apple's own icons are vastly inconsistent with each other.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiozIRibYYEiu4pNjilFygpjmZsYmxvJqh2VDvy0m7ChbE3bsgeFraJG6L442AmMwjYe5sPBhPDNCKh4Tw61EipL4bAJDQqBJL7iK62qeddd9dtjC8NuyJ2Ni83xTzguI3Oyp6ezFCZ_4c/s1600/icons.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiozIRibYYEiu4pNjilFygpjmZsYmxvJqh2VDvy0m7ChbE3bsgeFraJG6L442AmMwjYe5sPBhPDNCKh4Tw61EipL4bAJDQqBJL7iK62qeddd9dtjC8NuyJ2Ni83xTzguI3Oyp6ezFCZ_4c/s1600/icons.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">iOS7 icons for Photos, Camera, and Weather</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
Here you can see the icons for the Photos, Camera, and Weather apps all together. It seems to be a very sorry state for the icons as <i>none of them use the same style</i>. I didn't even have to rummage around for three examples - they were presented to me by Apple on their design page. While they're not consistent with each other, they at least seem to bear some facet of consistency with the other icons on iOS. Three distinct styles appear in the iOS7 icons. I'll refer to them as they're used in the pictures above, from left to right. You have the flat style, which uses absolute minimalism to get the point of the app across. You have the light to dark gradient style, which produces a slight raised effect, and then you have the dark to light gradient style, which appears to produce a slight well. None of these icons exhibit the same design decisions, which leads to a very cluttered and busy looking home screen - even if it's not. This is, luckily, one of the aspects that is most likely to change.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
GameCenter</h3>
<div>
The lack of completely obvious skeuomorphism is gone, which is nice - but what the heck is even going on here? The bubbles are 3D and the text has a gradient background on it. At least they're using the accent colour?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKuaTLYwn2mqoa08F2b0PyQsTiKq5EQMdiZ9BWNTgRSwP90pUYoY0eM6zUCzS5uYr6hEoA1YapRVwUNwvwbvv4uM3Y7s_3jTwTnZd_F1t8l8Zj_eHsNfOdXqB7Ee4lZ96LI9tVvjsU78g/s1600/gamecenter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKuaTLYwn2mqoa08F2b0PyQsTiKq5EQMdiZ9BWNTgRSwP90pUYoY0eM6zUCzS5uYr6hEoA1YapRVwUNwvwbvv4uM3Y7s_3jTwTnZd_F1t8l8Zj_eHsNfOdXqB7Ee4lZ96LI9tVvjsU78g/s640/gamecenter.jpg" width="356" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Header & Inline Icons</h3>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA-TAaLmeaF6VCO45F5HfDAZKWjUnjQxagfmJmHD6jvJWpQw2g8B9XBpNIBYftfV3lJ7a9yghDgo69tpuPlt29q616z3GnkWQ_mT6_SSGqXQR5E9bIOjqFkwn4WRZ0Vul1zEMfxHX-j3I/s1600/busytext.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA-TAaLmeaF6VCO45F5HfDAZKWjUnjQxagfmJmHD6jvJWpQw2g8B9XBpNIBYftfV3lJ7a9yghDgo69tpuPlt29q616z3GnkWQ_mT6_SSGqXQR5E9bIOjqFkwn4WRZ0Vul1zEMfxHX-j3I/s320/busytext.jpg" width="179" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photos</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
While the font is beautiful and the use of a single accent colour throughout the application looks nice, but using it for calls-to-action can be a bit strange and jarring - pulling the user's attention away from content such as the title and presenting opportunities where icons would have been a better fit.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In the header, Moments looks out of place due to how close "Collections," what's being marked as the previous screen, is to it - and it makes Select seem very far away. This experience only gets more awkward when longer human selected titles are used. In this case, "Moments" is the title of a Collection. If that collection was the name of an event, and much longer than 7 characters, how much stranger would it look?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In the footer, you have Photos - big, bold, and bright as a selected icon - and then you have the other icons. Shared and Albums, a very soft gray that becomes increasingly difficult to see on the white frosted glass background of the footer.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Conclusion</h3>
<div>
While there are many more places where I can point out design inconsistency (and many neat features and eye candy I won't bother to point out), it is worthy of applause that Apple has tried so very hard to change their OS to be cleaner and less skeuomorphic. However, in their attempt to do so they seem to have swerved off the road into unknown land. The designs unveiled today are an inconsistent smosh of flat, deep, and skeuomorphic design that when combined as they have makes absolutely no sense. Apple needs to pick a direction for their user interface and stick with it throughout.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-69110808326395024212013-05-17T20:30:00.000-07:002013-05-17T20:30:13.906-07:00^IfMine - Now with ^NotesDisclaimer: The contents of this post are the thoughts and opinions of a lowly Software Developer working at Agile Oasis Technologies on IfMine.com. They are not representative of the official viewpoints of Agile Oasis Technologies nor of ^IfMine.<br />
<br />
We finally pushed the newest version of <a href="http://www.ifmine.com/">^IfMine</a> out today. With the newest feature: ^Notes.<br />
<br />
I've been working on the ^IfMine project for about a year now; slowly building it up, improving and expanding features. The original idea was to have some sort of input on your projects. Pose a question or two and people could answer "If it was my project, I would do this..." and provide users the ability to "Evolve" their project to the next state - clean the comment and file history and focus specifically on what the new state of the project was.<br />
<br />
Being obsessed with the valley and startups, I always thought that this was a really cool idea at its most basic instinct. It seemed to me that ^IfMine was really focused on that area between "I've got an idea!" and "I'm making my idea a reality!" It really focused on Idea Refinement and gathering input.<br />
<br />
Now with ^Notes, it takes it to a new level. Create a new ^Note for every little thought you have about your project and you can get input on each individual thought. Quickly allowing you to pivot your project in the direction you think is best for it - and evolve it into a clean slate where you can post new ideas once you've already established some (With an entire history of those ideas still kept).<br />
<br />
But most importantly: ^Notes feels like it was my idea. The content of attaching notes to a project has been in the roadmap for a long time, but when the team stepped back and we started talking about how to best leverage our infrastructure for people with ideas and projects, something clicked and I immediately began drawing out the design on the whiteboard. I know it's not just my idea - it's the idea my team and I had and refined together - but for once I really took charge with it. I wanted to make sure that every aspect of it was perfect, and even though it probably isn't, it feels great. It feels like my personal contribution to the project.<br />
<br />
If you haven't checked out ^IfMine yet, please do - especially with this new ^Notes feature. It finally feels useful. You can see an example of ^Notes in action where <a href="http://www.ifmine.com/project/anthonyfontana/65/flu-a-graphic-novel/notes">a member is using them to keep track of different aspects of his project.</a><br />
<br />
I'd love to see what you do with ^Notes, and where ^IfMine will go from here with this fantastic new functionality. If you use them in any neat or interesting ways, please write a comment and link to your project - I'm sure the team would love to see what people are doing with our product!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-11867144311709915602012-07-28T22:32:00.000-07:002013-05-17T18:51:14.647-07:00An Update on GVOMS<p>So, as many people quickly found out - GVOMS.com wasn't working. At first, the<br /> mirrors shut down, and then Google got stricter regarding logging in through an external server. With some<br /> tweaks, however, I've managed to bring the service up just fine - including support for dual factor<br /> authenticated accounts via application specific passwords.</p><br/><p>However, there is<br /> more <strong>bad news</strong>. It seems that the latest version of Outlook (2013) is removing<br /> "Office Mobile Service". What that means is that GVOMS will only be available for use in Office 2000 and<br /> Office 2007. I will end support for GVOMS no later than the version of Outlook after 2013 - unless<br /> significant interest/donation is put towards it.</p><br/><p>The good news is, however,<br /> that GVOMS doesn't have to just be for Outlook. GVOMS provides a protocol that Office understands, but is<br /> open for the entire web. GVOMS provides a SOAP interface for sending Text messages over Google Voice.</p><br/><p>So<br /> if you're an interested developer, let that sink in - and then try to build something on top of it ;) You<br /> can read up on <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd774103(v=office.12)">[MS-OMS]:<br /> Office Mobile Service Protocol Specification</a> over on MSDN.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-52839904911713956392012-06-12T14:58:00.000-07:002013-05-17T18:51:14.638-07:00And you complain about Android fragmentation?Something very special and unique exists about Android - it operates on many different<br /> types of screens, devices, and even operating system versions. Android is a uniquely fascinating ecosystem<br /> that I can never get enough of. That said, I program Android applications as a student developer for my<br /> University. Nothing infuriates me more, however, than the constant accusation that programming for android<br /> is hard due to fragmentation.<br/><br/>You couldn't be more wrong.<br/><br/>While I<br /> have yet to suffer the "a new version of android just came out, better test!" scenario, I've successfully<br /> programmed on a two person team for two apps that work on 2.1 and up using 4.0-like features. Is that<br /> surprising? It shouldn't be. The fact of the matter is, Android is built so that differences between<br /> hardware, OS, & al shouldn't matter in the slightest.<br/><br/>That said, I couldn't<br /> help but chuckle a little when we installed iOS6 on one of the test devices in the lab. (My coworker does<br /> the iOS side of things, so we have native apps for both Android and iOS). For our little news application,<br /> a drawing thing with the way we were doing the titlebar broke. Not a big issue (broke for maps too). For<br /> our maps app... everything broke. No map. No pulling up the native application for directions (launched in<br /> safari instead). Nothing. With iOS6, Apple went ahead and BROKE apps relying on the maps application.<br/><br/>Sure,<br /> this is probably because they've moved to their own framework, and this is in the early stages of the OS -<br /> but still - entire app. broken. One iOS update.<br/><br/>And you complain about Android<br /> fragmentation?<br /> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-85245924240976086782012-02-24T18:08:00.000-08:002013-05-17T18:51:14.617-07:00Rant: Chrome for AndroidI have yet to understand why Google Chrome for Android never bothers to synchronize<br /> your profile and passwords. It is kind of frustrating to be using the same web browser that I use on my<br /> desktop. One I know synchronizes my usernames and passwords and yet I still have to enter in and resave all<br /> my usernames and passwords for any website that I decide to visit on my Android tablet. It is kind of<br /> ridiculous.<br /> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-67107030113677465292012-02-07T20:32:00.000-08:002013-05-17T18:51:14.600-07:00Why buying a tablet will improve your phones battery lifeI discovered something interesting already in the use of my brand new android tablet. <br /> It would appear that my phone has started to live for longer periods of time. When I stopped to think of<br /> this interesting trend it occurred to me that many of the more tablet optimized tasks I partake in on a<br /> daily basis, such as email checking and web browsing I had moved to my tablet, instead opting in to use my<br /> phone only while on the move or for smaller tasks such as texting (which, thanks to my use of google voice I<br /> could do with equal ease on my new Xoom)<br/><br/>This has greatly improved the battery life of<br /> my phone. My phone is now relegated to more phone-like tasks while my Xoom acts as a extremely portable<br /> device, similar in function to that if a PC. <br/><br/>This brings to mind the conclusion that<br /> the reason our phones battery lives are so horrible these days is because we tend to use them for<br /> everything. If you're sitting on a train and you don't have a tablet you're probably going to pull out your<br /> mobile phone for instant entertainment. Purchasing and using a tablet however will surmount in a<br /> significant gain of battery life for your phone, so long as you have uses for your new tablet.<br /> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-81028659791928591282012-02-07T00:21:00.000-08:002013-05-17T18:51:14.591-07:00Xoom and ICSSo, today I managed to snag myself a Xoom. By which h of course I mean that I received<br /> a Xoom in the mail from my good friend Amazon.com. I have been playing with it since I opened hue packaging<br /> and so far I have to say that I absolutely love it. Touch typing on a screen is definitely awkward but I<br /> have a feeling that I'll get more used to it as time goes on. <br/><br/>This is my first<br /> tablet, and hopeful I'll be able to writ some neat maps for it. I've already had a great idea that nobody<br /> seems to be implementing in the android store atm.<br/><br/>So maybe I will at a future date?<br /> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-65045554031976827772012-02-05T03:10:00.000-08:002013-05-17T18:51:14.577-07:00Feeling like I'm PWNing RESTI'm working hard to make the private API I'm implementing at my current job a RESTful<br /> uri scheme, and I feel like I hit a point of transcendence recently when I decided how to record a user<br /> staring a story.<br/><ul><br/> <li>PUT /article/:articleID/favorite/:userID</li><br/><br /> <li>DELETE /article/:articleID/favorite/:userID</li><br/></ul><br/>I decided<br /> that POST didn't make sense, as you couldn't <em>really</em> favorite a story more than once at<br /> a time, and of course DELETE makes sense here. Adding them as a relation between the article and the user<br /> seems to make sense in this URI scheme as well.<br/><br/>So, all in all, I'm proud of myself.<br /> Despite it being such a tiny, simplistic thing.<br /> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-32174923877952457912012-02-01T23:15:00.000-08:002013-05-17T18:51:14.568-07:00Future of Facebook?<p style="text-align: center;"><a<br /> href="http://tech.navarr.me/2012/02/future-of-facebook.html/mark_on_fb" rel="attachment wp-att-564"><img<br /> class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-564" title="Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook"<br /> src="http://tech.navarr.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/mark_on_fb.png" alt="" width="264" height="178" /></a></p><br/><p<br /> style="text-align: left;">So, Mark Zuckerberg posted a photo today of his desk.. and I couldn't help but<br /> notice that his Facebook is different from mine. Some key things to note:</p><br/><br/><ul><br/><br /> <li>Instead of a tiny search bar at the top, there is now a very very large white bar. This bar<br /> contains text in it, so I'm presuming it might be the new way to post data to Facebook, replacing<br /> the comparatively clunky share box we use today.</li><br/> <li>Instead of three icons<br /> (Adds, Notifications, Inbox) on the top bar, there is a single icon. Perhaps these have been combined into<br /> one?</li><br/> <li>The icon appears squarer than the others. Maybe its a Facebook icon,<br /> since the logo is clearly removed in this version?</li><br/> <li>To the right of this<br /> large search box seems to be something else, but I can't make it out - and unfortunately I can't just do a<br /> CSI-esque "enhance" on the image.</li><br/></ul><br/>So maybe this is a sneak peak<br /> at what is to come in the future? Despite that, however, it should be noted that the changes seen here on<br /> Mark's computer may never hit production servers. This is simply some speculation on some noticeable<br /> changes.<br/><br/>Source: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10100230247154651&set=p.10100230247154651&type=1&theater">Photograph<br /> Uploaded by Mark Zuckerberg</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-77029657199463828142012-01-29T21:53:00.000-08:002013-05-17T18:51:14.559-07:00Idea: Code Reading AppJust jotting down an idea I had for a code reading app.<br/><br/>The idea<br /> is that the application would read through the code and find all the structures, classes, etc and would<br /> combine them in such a way that it could be read as a single line-by-line piece of code, with a UI that<br /> shows the separation between elements. Possibly using indentation to show the differences between scopes,<br /> possibly with a collapsable block that specifies what the variables in that scope are set to.<br/><br/>A<br /> good version would, of course, automatically change the values of these variables based on the code.<br /> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-71043974647155899092011-11-25T01:39:00.000-08:002013-05-17T18:51:14.550-07:00How Software Ruins RatingsI'm a long time Harry Potter fan. It's part of my childhood like most people my age.<br /> I'd gone to the theaters to see every single movie, except for 7P2. I read today that Amazon was having a<br /> rental sale on the movie (apparently it normally costs more than $1.99 to rent it on Amazon?). Either way,<br /> I went to the page and I was absolutely surprised to see the rating for the movie was only 2 and a half<br /> stars!<br/><br/>Even if the movie was terrible, there would clearly be such a massive amount of<br /> fans rating the thing that it'd probably hit four stars.. but two and a half? Not even a full three? What<br /> was going on here?<br/><br/>A quick glance at the "customer reviews" told me everything I needed<br /> to know. The full copy included some software called "Ultraviolet," the main cause of over 200 1 star<br /> reviews.<br/><blockquote>Ultraviolet is another feeble, doomed attempt by some dinosaur brain<br /> Hollywood execs to restrict the use of your legally bought digital purchase. Ultraviolet is NOT a digital<br /> copy that resides on a device of your choice to be used on a device of your choice. It is a streaming<br /> service, for which you have to sign up and maintain an account, at the expense of your bandwidth, compatible<br /> with some but not all mobile devices. If you're willing to wait another 4 weeks, order this disc set from<br /> Amazon's UK website you can do this with your current US account). Not only are you getting a REAL digital<br /> copy, but the Blu-ray disc is region free too!! Price + shipping is the same as the price in USD with free<br /> shipping.<br/><br/>- <a<br /> href="http://www.amazon.com/review/R3UIUNTBP6BE8Z/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R3UIUNTBP6BE8Z">John Dettingmeijer</a></blockquote><br/>So,<br /> that wrapped up that mystery. Horrible software is murdering ratings. A damn shame.<br /> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-84790315394633264232011-10-01T23:52:00.000-07:002013-05-17T18:51:14.541-07:00Great Scott, I've discovered something deliciousTruthfully, I've tried my best to make a difference in programming, in code, trying to<br /> learn, trying to be amazing. I never thought I'd just randomly happen upon a chance discovery that would<br /> turn out to be amazingly delicious.<br/><br/>Late August, I went to my friend's house in Toledo.<br /> There, we picked some pears. I took home some for myself and placed them in my fridge, unfortunately never<br /> stopping to think to eat them.<br/><br/>Late September, I place a Sunkist can I had not had time<br /> to finish beside the pears, leaving it for later.<br/><br/>October 1st, I pull the pears out of<br /> the fridge, giving them up to inspection by Rebecca. They look as if they haven't aged, possibly frozen by<br /> sitting beside the freezer inside the fridge. I pull out the sunkist and set it on top of the fridge to<br /> deal with later. Rebecca declares that the pears, although not yet rotten, would be as soon as they thawed<br /> as their cellular structure would not be able to survive being frozen and thawed.<br/><br/>Later<br /> that evening, I accidentally take a swig of the sunkist left on top of the fridge. It has a delicious taste<br /> of pear to it, despite its flatness it does not taste bad. It is delicious, but sickly sweet. But <em>amazingly<br /> delicious</em>.<br/><br/>Now that I've learned this, what should I do about it?<br /> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-27664628271626850702011-08-30T00:30:00.000-07:002013-05-17T18:51:14.519-07:00The Web Needs a Federated Payment ProtocolWhen it comes to paying for good and services on the Internet, the consumer has many<br /> choices - Paypal, Amazon, Google Checkout, their respective Credit Card...<br/><br/>However, you<br /> rarely see all of these accepted in a single place - and for very good reason: Its gorram difficult to<br /> implement so many different APIs and systems, and have to deal with tracking each of them.<br/><br/>Clearly,<br /> the Web needs a way to deal with this - and having a Federated Payment Protocol would solve it.<br/><br/>Think<br /> about it: A vendor website would easily communicate with a payment processor through this protocol. They<br /> wouldn't have to know who the Payment Processor is, or even care for that matter. The vendor would issue a<br /> request to the payment processor. The processor would be in charge of authenticating the user, and would<br /> send back their "terms" (out of the requested amount, *this* much will be dispersed and *this* much will be<br /> taken as a processing fee). The vendor will agree, disagree, or change the payment amount based on what the<br /> processor sent. The processor would then submit this change to the user, if the user accepted the processor<br /> would send the new details and the vendor would accept or deny. The processor would send the money through<br /> whatever system they need to, notifying the vendor how long it should take, and if its a short enough time<br /> the vendor can hold the user until the payment has cleared (or if it is a trusted source not hold at all)<br /> and provide the promised goods or services, after confirming the transaction with their receiving service.<br/><br/>This<br /> solves a few key issues:<br/><ul><br/> <li>Vendors have to trust that they are<br /> receiving the money for their services.</li><br/> <li>Credit Card details would never have<br /> to be provided to the vendor, as the service would be directly through their credit company's payment<br /> service.</li><br/> <li>Vendors would not have to implement different APIs for different<br /> payment methods.</li><br/> <li>"Credit Card Fraud" liability would be the burden of the<br /> Credit Company, of whom authenticated the user. A vendor would no longer be required to make sure a person<br /> is who they say they are.</li><br/> <li>Banks could offer their own payment services<br /> ("Debit." Possibly with No Fee, resulting in a reduction of prices from vendors, hopefully).</li><br/></ul><br/><div>Clearly<br /> this is a good idea, and I wish I had the know-how to put it together myself.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-24522078266292174782011-08-24T21:40:00.000-07:002013-05-17T18:51:14.502-07:00Lack of "Security" May Hinder Future Google AdoptionI better make this clear: I am not talking about encryption, password, hashes, etc.<br /> Not <em>that</em> kind of security.<br/><br/>No, I'm talking about reliability.<br /> Something Google has had for a very long time, and one of the many reasons I'm such a Google fanatic.<br/><br/>Until<br /> recently, at least as far as I can remember, Google products that existed did not see the end of the tunnel<br /> very often. (The question and answer service excluded).<br/><br/>Recently, however, Google has<br /> been trying to expand into many markets. From what I can take away, Google wants to be the hub of<br /> information exchange on the Internet. After all, knowing all of that powers their search - and their search<br /> powers their ads.<br/><br/>Recently though, several Google services have announced that they<br /> will be discontinued. Among these: Wave, PowerMeter, and Health.<br/><br/>PowerMeter and Health<br /> did not see large enough adoption for Google to continue putting forth the funds for them. To me, this is<br /> disappointing. Being able to get this information so easily and readily through Google was really exciting.<br /> After all: Google has the technological know-how to keep my data secure and provide at least decent user<br /> interfaces to said data. In fact, I used Google Health - although since I don't have many issues it was<br /> currently just to store my insurance information.<br/><br/>Now though, these services will be<br /> disappearing. Who is to say that other less-mainstream services won't disappear in the future? Buzz?<br /> Voice? Google+? Well, there's no way that last one could disappear... right?<br/><br/>If I'm<br /> going to rely on Google to provide a service, I'm going to need the security of knowing that the service is<br /> going to continue to exist. I might be asking a bit much as a free user, but its still a very important<br /> consideration.<br/><br/>If Google loses this trust; this security; this reliability - won't it<br /> hinder future adoption of Google's services?<br /> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-25291435928961791102011-08-07T07:06:00.000-07:002013-05-17T18:51:14.430-07:00So I Came Up With This Really Great IdeaNot too long ago, Gabor came up with an idea - <a<br /> href="http://blog.gaborcselle.com/2010/02/how-to-replace-imap.html">Throw out IMAP</a>. As anyone<br /> that has ever had to fiddle with email settings should know, IMAP is an email transfer protocol. It allows<br /> a client to communicate with a server and keep email data synchronized between the two. It was a good idea<br /> for its time (1994), but now its old and is no longer as well suited to email tasks as it should be.<br/><br/>Think<br /> about it. How much has email changed in the last twenty years? Not a lot, if any. The most revolutionary<br /> features are GMail's labels and Gmail/Outlook's server-side email rules/filter settings. To me, this is<br /> ridiculous. I was born in 1991, played around on the internet when it was on dialup, and had a free Juno<br /> account when I was old enough.<br/><br/>Since then I'd moved through Yahoo, Hotmail, and finally<br /> rested on Gmail. But all-in-all, everything is still pretty much the same. It was because of this that<br /> Gabor's idea to scrap IMAP really intrigued me. I <strong><em>wanted</em></strong> this.<br /> Google and Microsoft had both come up with newer, proprietary synchronization standards, and creating a<br /> new, open protocol would be the way to usher in a new age of compatibility and extensible feature sets.<br/><br/>Since<br /> this initial bit of intrigue, I've spent some time working on protocol documentation whenever I can get a<br /> bit motivated and have some spare time to do so. I continue to push my creativity and find new things to<br /> throw in to the protocol, ideas that wouldn't have to be there when the first part hits, but that its<br /> extensibility would make possible. Ideas such as receiving push notifications from web services, that could<br /> also be synced to mobile devices through the protocol, or using OpenID as a base and creating a new<br /> single-login/password system that uses your email address., or even ideas such as being able to query an<br /> email server for a person's contact information, and store/update it in a syncable address book.<br/><br/>Once<br /> we leave the defining bounds of IMAP and proprietary protocols like Exchange, we can really start work on<br /> building something terrific that would allow a flood of innovation that email has never seen before.<br/><br/>Unfortunately,<br /> my voice is small - and is very largely unheard. I can't even get Gabor, the original creator of this idea<br /> to @mention me on twitter regarding it anymore, and so I've been stuck working on it by myself.<br/><br/>So<br /> yes, this is a call to action, and I do so hope that you'll oblige me. <strong>I need help<br /> revolutionizing email</strong>. I can't do it all on my own, and the protocol being open is the<br /> important part. I need other people's ideas, not just my own. I need their thoughts and their knowledge.<br /> I'm only a college student after all, and as much as I'd like to do this all by myself and use it as my<br /> claim to fame - I'd much rather just be a person that helped start and organize it and get things moving.<br/><br/>So<br /> please, join me in discussing my ideas, submitting your own, and if you feel like it even work on defining<br /> the protocol!<br/><br/><a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/msapsap">Please<br /> join the discussion on 'MSAP' at Google Groups</a>.<br/><br/>Thank you for your time, and<br /> I look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas.<br /> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-49291900886438993852011-07-23T15:39:00.000-07:002013-05-17T18:51:14.412-07:00Node.JSSo, despite the fact that I know excessively little about how to work Node.JS,<br /> especially when coming from a PHP background - I am beyond obsessed with the language.<br/><br/>So<br /> it thrills me to no end that there is now a Node.JS executable for Windows.<br/><br/>Of course,<br /> things kind of suck when you don't have the super simple power of NPM, but that's life for ya.<br/><br/>I<br /> understand the basics of Node.JS (If you've ever touched JavaScript, its hard <strong>NOT</strong> to);<br /> but some fine details such as templating elude me. Maybe you're not supposed to template? Maybe you're<br /> just supposed to serve up some static HTML that then queries the Node.JS server for the information it<br /> needs? Oh.. now there's a thought.. program a single frontend that just talks back and forth with the<br /> backend. Kind of like Google+, actually.<br/><br/>Is that what I'm supposed to do? God I love<br /> this language.<br /> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-58518038896120875522011-07-22T02:50:00.000-07:002013-05-17T18:51:14.403-07:00First Play with ChromeOSI recently managed to have my first attempt at playing with ChromeOS - and it was<br /> definitely not the way Google would have preferred my first experience with it go. For this test, I managed<br /> to load a bootable image of Hexxeh's <em>Flow</em> onto a 4GB SD Card and booted off of it.<br/><br/>It<br /> booted up faster than anything ever before (except maybe resuming Windows out of sleep), and then it was<br /> slow. Its probably because my ancient graphics card isn't supported by bloody anything these days.<br/><br/>Needless<br /> to say, I quickly left it and booted back into Windows 7. I'd love to play around with a Chromebook, and<br /> know just the everyday apps I'd use.<br/><ul><br/> <li>imo.im - Instant Messaging.<br /> imo allows me to connect to Skype, AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Facebook, MySpace (lol), and Google Talk all from a<br /> single client. It is by far the best multi-client I've ever used, and is constantly improving.</li><br/><br /> <li>Google Docs - There are very few reasons for me to use Google Docs, and if I'm lucky such reasons<br /> will become even fewer.</li><br/> <li> Google Voice - Text Messaging on Any Platform. I<br /> love it.</li><br/> <li>Cloud 9 IDE - So far the best IDE I've found. What I really need<br /> is a <em>free</em> web-based IDE that allows me to work on private projects without them being<br /> Open Source. Sometimes I have things I want to work on in secret.</li><br/></ul><br/>Just<br /> saying. I'd really love a Chromebook to play around on. It might encourage me to put more apps/extensions<br /> in the WebApp Store too. #justsayin<br /> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-48640851077912196392011-06-25T17:36:00.000-07:002013-05-17T18:51:14.379-07:00Programs I Want to See Made Into (Browser) Web Applications<ul> <li><a href="http://www.malupdater.com/">MyAnimeList Updater</a><br /> </li> <li><a href="http://explore.live.com/windows-live-writer">Windows Live Writer</a><br /> </li> <li><a href="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/">PuTTY</a><br /> </li> <li>git – though Cloud9 IDE works pretty damn well. </li> <li>WinSCP or<br /> something similar </li> </ul>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-43766135790743035032011-04-10T01:57:00.000-07:002013-05-17T18:51:00.847-07:00YouTube Audio PlayerWhile I was procrastinating on my essay for GSW, I’ve made a couple slight changes to<br /> the <a href="http://www.gtaero.net/ytmusic/?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DeXqPYte8tvc&psize=s&a=on">YouTube<br /> Audio Player</a> that should make it a little better.<br/><br/>Firstly, I’ve given you the<br /> ability to allow YouTube to set cookies. I’m not sure why anyone would be interested in doing this for a<br /> Music player, but its there. I guess the primary reason I set this is because youtube-nocookie wasn’t<br /> working properly the other day, as I soon found out from a comment on my blog. So if it isn’t showing up,<br /> you should allow YouTube to collect cookies.<br/><br/>The second, and by far the more important<br /> change is embedding the link (in the event that neither the object nor the embed shows) in a <noembed><br /> tag. I’m not quite sure how I didn’t know about the existence of this tag, but I’ve gone ahead and<br /> programmed it in properly, which should get rid of the annoying duplication some users have been seeing on<br /> any players generated from this point forward.<br/><br/>And one last change I made while working<br /> on this blog post, I created an API! So now you can generate them on the fly if you want to and get just<br /> the HTML for the player. I’ll document the API below:<br/><br/>http://www.gtaero.net/ytmusic/?api=1<br/><ul><br/><br /> <li>&q=<br/><ul><br/> <li>The URL to the YouTube Video or Playlist</li><br/></ul><br/></li><br/><br /> <li>&a=1<br/><ul><br/> <li>Only Add if you want the music to AutoPlay</li><br/></ul><br/></li><br/><br /> <li>&loop=1<br/><ul><br/> <li>Only Add if you want the music to Loop</li><br/></ul><br/></li><br/><br /> <li>&js=1<br/><ul><br/> <li>Only Add if you want to be able to use the<br /> JavaScript API with it</li><br/></ul><br/></li><br/> <li>&s=on<br/><ul><br/><br /> <li>Add if you want to enable the Progress Bar on the video.</li><br/> <li>&psize=<br /> This is the progress bar size, acceptable variables are below<br/><ul><br/> <li>s –<br /> Small, This will set the width of the video to 150px</li><br/> <li>m – Medium, This will<br /> set the width of the video to 187px</li><br/> <li>l – Large, This will set the width of<br /> the video to 224px</li><br/> <li>&tc =1<br/><ul><br/> <li>Only<br /> Add if you also want to show a timecode. Only works with progress bar. Changes the follow sizes to the<br /> corresponding pixels:</li><br/> <li>s – 225px</li><br/> <li>m – 262px</li><br/><br /> <li>l – 299px</li><br/></ul><br/></li><br/></ul><br/></li><br/></ul><br/></li><br/><br /> <li>&invis=1<br/><ul><br/> <li>Add if you want to make the player<br /> invisible. Note: People hate this.</li><br/></ul><br/></li><br/> <li>&html5=1<br/><ul><br/><br /> <li>Add if you want to use YouTube’s HTML5 player. You shouldn’t use this. Its VERY buggy.</li><br/></ul><br/></li><br/><br /> <li>&cookie=1<br/><ul><br/> <li>Add if you’re okay with YouTube<br /> setting cookies on the user’s computer.</li><br/></ul><br/></li><br/></ul><br/>And<br /> that’s all! Enjoy!<br /> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-68154487684812474262011-04-08T20:34:00.000-07:002013-05-17T18:51:00.832-07:00Something Chrome Needs<p>There is a very common type of extension for Google Chrome, and that happens<br /> to be the “Notifier” type.</p> <p>You have GMail Notifiers, Google Voice Notifiers, Google<br /> Reader, Google Docs, OWA, Facebook, Twitter, etc etc.  Wouldn’t it be nice if Google Chrome just<br /> had a single Notification Center with a fantastic User Interface for showing notifications from whatever<br /> services register themselves with it?</p> <p>I think it would, and over the summer – if I have<br /> spare time – I think I’m going to program an extension that will can accept additions for showing<br /> notifications.  I’ll then ask around for help and/or program some basic services for it to use, and<br /> post it to the Chrome WebApp Store.</p> <p>My next questions are:</p> <ul> <li>Would<br /> you use this?  Is it a good idea? </li> <li>Would you code for this? </li> <li>Would<br /> you purchase this for $1? </li> </ul> <p>At the moment, I’ve got plenty of cool<br /> programming projects, and I’m not making money with any of them.  GVOMS is almost entirely free (no<br /> companies have purchased a license to use), and anything else I’ve done so far has been free and open<br /> source.</p> <p>So unless people are going to start donating to me – which I’m pretty sure you<br /> aren’t – I need to find some way to make money.  I’m a college student, after all.</p> <p>And<br /> I don’t think $1 would be too much to ask for a unified notification center in Google Chrome, do you?</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-21717024679230019282011-03-04T17:01:00.000-08:002013-05-17T18:51:00.824-07:00Why I hate Terminal on Macs<p align="justify">Ugh.  Just ugh.  I had a lab in my Computer<br /> Science 202 class today.  The computer I sat down to was already booted into Mac OS X, and I didn’t<br /> want to restart it just to get into Windows, so I just logged in and opened up terminal since I’d be doing<br /> the whole thing over SSH anyways.  I should have basically the same experience, right?</p><br /> <p align="justify">Wrong.  So wrong its insane.</p> <p align="justify">I had<br /> pleasantly forgotten that even when using SSH terminal doesn’t send nice commands like “Pg Up” and “Pg Dwn”<br /> to the server, nor does it send “End” for some reason.  I can’t remember, but I’m also pretty sure<br /> it refuses to send “Home” as well.</p> <p align="justify">This is why I hate working on a Mac.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-45716034975481885772010-12-30T18:02:00.000-08:002013-05-17T18:51:00.815-07:00A Desired Feature for Cydia<p>I’m not really a gigantic apple fan, but thanks to my parents and the art of<br /> Hand-Me-Downs I managed to acquire an iPhone 3G.</p> <p>I’ve been using this 3G for awhile, and<br /> of course one of the things I absolutely had to do with it was Jailbreak the device.  I don’t<br /> pirate or anything, but Jailbreaking it does bring fantastic changes to it that simply would not have been<br /> possible on the 3G otherwise.</p> <p>For example, I use Z-Toggle and Bootlace: Z-Toggle for<br /> activating nice little features (Background Wallpaper, Battery Percentage) and Bootlace for giving me<br /> Android as an optional boot-method (iDroid is far from completion, though), and I just now finished<br /> installing and modifying the settings for Backgrounder, since 4.2 broke native multi-tasking on the old 3G<br /> device (I have no idea why), and I’ve already got accustomed to using it.</p> <p>But there is<br /> one problem with Cydia I don’t believe has been addressed yet, and it would be nice if Cydia were to<br /> automatically store your custom sources and a list of the programs you’ve installed, so that when you<br /> re-install a new iOS (by starting from scratch so that you don’t continually lose space on your iPhone) and<br /> re-jailbreak your device, it sees the file and also helps convert your iPhone back to the jailbroken way it<br /> was.</p> <p>This would be a very nice feature, and one I’m sure anyone would<br /> welcome.</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350479895872803738.post-41597265129055292352010-12-26T17:23:00.000-08:002013-05-17T18:51:00.770-07:00A “Revolutionary” Way to Validate Email Input<p>I’m not talking about confirming email, where you have to make sure that the<br /> user owns an email address, but I am talking about a way to confirm that an email entered will probably work<br /> WITHOUT succumbing to regex, <em>AND</em> it’s relatively quick!</p> <pre>[codesyntax<br /> lang=php]<br/>function validate_email($email)<br/>{<br/> $email_parts =<br /> explode("@",$email);<br/> if(count($email_parts)) != 2) { return FALSE; } // You can only have one @<br /> in an email address.<br/> $domain = $email_parts[1];<br/> if(!getmxrr($domain,$array)) { return<br /> FALSE; } // This domain doesn't have any MX Records.<br/> return TRUE; // Everything else is 'valid.'<br/>}<br/>[/codesyntax]</pre>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06358830143045709829noreply@blogger.com7