Category / General

by Aaron

To Cul-de-sac or not?

From Seattle Transit Blog, a discussion of the effect of cul-de-sacs on walkability.

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We’re living out in rural southern Wisconsin, so these issues don’t really affect us in any way. However, we’ve lived in suburban areas for a few years, and always enjoyed the areas that had more connectivity for walking and biking than those that did not. I’m not saying that a “grid” pattern is better, but leaving green space for walking/biking trails between cul-de-sac areas seems like something that should be part of every community development plan these days.

We enjoyed the suburban areas we walked in a lot more when there was some walking variety. Not the same street, same neighbor, same dilapidated porch, etc. Our first home was suburban-rural and only had a few walking options. It wasn’t nearly as much fun to walk there routinely as when we lived in Bellevue, Washington for a few years.

(I’m intentionally ignoring part of the blog-post’s issues that were raised regarding convenience factors of living on a grid-based road system).

Read.

by Aaron

I’m feeling very unlucky today

Oh, please Google, stop, for the love of search, make it stop!

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I can’t see an option to remove the background image and switch back to the default. I tried replacing it with a tiny transparent image, but I was denied …, as it requires an image at least 800×600. So, I tried a white 800×600 image:

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Weak though. I liked the fact that the image was tiny (around 600 bytes), but it’s too washed out. Apparently, Google doesn’t have an algorithm that can make a smart decision about text contrast and the photo being used. Too bad.

So, I tried a black image:

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Not too bad. Passable.

I’d prefer however an option to switch back to the simple white background. The default background image today is absolutely awful (IMHO). I’m sure I’m not the only person this morning shocked by the change.

This option is such a tease:

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As it just removes an image you selected, and switches back to the default image. :-P

If you’d like the black background I use as a temporary fix…, just click on the black rectangle below, which should open the original file. Right click on that and “save as” to your desktop.

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Today, I will start using Bing more. I like the way they do background images. Hand picked. Not too large. Easy to read text…

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by Aaron

New magical accessory for iPad Announced: Duct tape and a Timex

image I’m no longer surprised that the iPad doesn’t include a clock or alarm application. It apparently cannot keep time better than a $5 wrist watch. My 3G iPad suggests that it is 5:51am this morning while the LaCrosse atomic clock hanging in my exercise room says it’s 5:59am. (I know that the atomic clock is correct).

There are numerous posts in the Apple forums with people having the same issue. Nice work Apple. Keep up the magic.

Discussions on Apple Forums

Forums on MacRumors

(* Yes, I know the watch isn’t a Timex. It’s an Eddie Bauer watch. :-)  ).

by Aaron

Imagine the Uproar …

Imagine the uproar if Microsoft changed the legal agreement of Windows to say:

Programs from Apple (of Cupertino, CA) may not be installed or run by any means within this operating system by any means, including, but not limited to virtual machines and web browser plug-ins. By running or installing these applications, your license to use this copy of Windows is immediately void.

Or if they changed it to:

An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any
means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s).

(license quoted from here, taken verbatim from Apple’s updated iPhone Developer Program License)

Imagine how an entire industry would have changed (and the impact if Visual Basic, .NET, etc. were never created as those violated these basic terms — even MFC would have been included.)

Microsoft has made some giant mistakes over the years. But they’ve always put developers at the front and center. Thank you for that Microsoft and keep doing it.

by Aaron

This HTML 5 thing sounds magical…

Steve Jobs certainly makes me want to check out the magic that is apparently HTML5.

Steve Jobs on Why He Knows Flash Sucks and isn’t worthy.

It’s amazing how apparently HTML5 solves all problems and is the best platform for doing modern application development.

Oh wait.

No, as the vast majority of applications for Apple’s mobile devices are written using native solutions (in Objective-C), with some subset using embedded web-browsers as needed. Very few are pure web.

HTML 5 clearly is the perfect development platform for all applications.

Seriously, if you’re thinking of creating an application for mobile – I too suggest you to consider creating the application using modern HTML standards rather than Flash. On that I agree with Mr. Jobs. (Especially if you’d like to have owners of Apple iPhone/iPad/iPod be users of your application).

(Aside: I do think this “Flash = Video” thing really sucks and Adobe should spend more time proclaiming that there’s more to Flash than just video. I really like the Flex framework and what AIR has done for the development community. And seriously, when is the last time you saw a really good HTML4/5 game? It’s still too hard to build things like that in pure HTML.)

Do not however choose the completely proprietary and closed system that exists for Apple mobile products using XCode and Objective-C. It’s a dead end from a portability perspective (especially after Apple banned portability platforms).

What do you do if you need lower-level access to things that aren’t available thru the HTML layer? Ask Steve about that apparently. It’s magical – so either it’s there, or you apparently didn’t need it.  (I’d actually consider creating a native app in this case and wrapping the browser and making it a blended experience with as little in the native application as possible).

It’s pretty simple to create a manifest file for your web application so users can add it to the iPhone experience as a icon that will act like any other iPhone application (you can even hide the “safari” chrome). 

By creating a mobile web application, it will be accessible on many phone and new device platform categories (maybe like the new webkit powered TomTom GPS for example).