Carterpants

They’re shiny. They’re expensive. They’re as much a status symbol as they are a technologically advanced life-enhancement tool. No I’m not talking about silver painted slave-gnomes, I’m talking about the iPhone/iPad! Although a silver painted slave-gnome would be the next coolest thing to owning an iPhone/iPad.

I admit, I was wooed by the glitz and the glamour of the iPhone and eventually convinced to buy one with my wife. Granted the ‘droid alternatives at the time were running Android version 1.ohDearGod_WeHaveSomeWorkToDoStill and were no where near measuring up to the 3G(S), so I can’t say I made a bad decision at the time. Over the last year or so my 3G has become sluggish, unresponsive, and crashing like that slave-gnome fetching the paper on an icy stairwell.. while in the same time Android has made leaps and bounds in feature offerings and carrier hardware improvements. Hell, last quarter Android based phones began outselling the iPhone. No one was was shocked though, wonder why?

Well this guy isn’t wondering one bit. The ease of app development for Android, the low barriers to entry for such development, and the rock solid platform that is the Android SDK were sure to catch up and surpass the iPhone’s stringent policies and control. Today, Android and ‘droid based phones scored what is surely to be an immediate game-turning blow against Apple when Adobe announced Flash 10.1′s availability on the Android Market. Yup, full fledged Flash on your Android phone. All those cool sites that run Flash that you can’t visit on your iDevice, well those now work in all their Adobe-patent-laden-Flashy goodness on an Android phone.

While I’m pumped for this announcement as it throws poo directly into Steve Job’s face, I’m also saddened because this is the one area of tech I actually agree with Jobs on. Flash is a bulky and poorly written crutch for which the Internet has hobbled along on for far too long. This will certainly sway those less tech headed folks teetering on the fence between an iPhone and a ‘droid phone towards the now Flash enabled device (good for Android!) but it will proliferate the acceptance of Flash even further (bad for patent loathing FOSS folks such as myself). I just don’t know what to feel on this one.

I guess I’ll take this as good news since it will help sales of Android phones, but I’ll take it with a large grain of salt for now.

That’s right! It is now legal to jailbreak your iPhone or any phone for that matter. Also in the article it mentions any carrier can be used on any given phone! Finally this administration has done something I’m truly thankful for. Zing!

Granted, we’re still waiting to hear Apple and AT&T’s official stance/response to this, but I can only assume it will remain somewhat similar to their current policy. If you jailbreak your phone, you may not be eligible for product replacement or troubleshooting assistance. So don’t jump the gun quite yet and start cracking open that phone like a walnut. Only time will tell, but I’m already looking at jailbreaking my iPhone for some sweet, sweet ssh access, regardless of the potential impact, I’m just that tired of the current state of my phone and must do something to keep me from buying an Android phone tomorrow.

Oh boy what a great 4th of July weekend. Saw plenty of fireworks courtesy of Mr. Ulmer and his explosionary cohort Michael Goodwin III (really its Ulmer and Mikey, but I made them sound all fancy and shit). Beer was drank, hands were charred, and the night sky was bathed in all colors of the rainbow. Great way to celebrate this Nation’s Independence and honor those who continue to fight for that same principle today.

The holiday weekend meant a shortened work week to look forward to, but my recent project is proving to be rather entertaining in a frustrating sense. I’m learning quite a bit about Oracle WebLogic installation, administration, and configuration, despite Oracle’s best attempt to litter their documentation with completely useless information. Its only Wednesday and I’m already whooped..

Anywhoooooo, what’s happening around the world of tech you ask?

Well for starters the latest release of the Android operating system is slaughtering the iOS4 in various benchmark comparisons. This recent JavaScript performance test shows v2.2 of Android smacking the iPhone upside the skull with a telephone pole. The ‘Droid literally Chris Brown’d the iPhone in this test. Don’t make me smackabish!

Ever since the whole “Big 10 going to 12, and Big 12 going to possibly nothing” event, I’ve noticed Twitter has been struggling lately. I would frequently get errors from my Twitter app, claiming API limit warnings… and even when logging on to the site directly I was presented with the “Fail Whale”. Apparently people are catching on to the service… well DUH. Twitter has become “the horse’s mouth” for all things in the spotlight recently. For example, this college conference realignment fiasco… regent board members and their lackeys were gaining followers by the thousands as people were chomping at the bit to get the latest piece of gossip on their favorite team, and retweeting them to their friends, and so on and so forth. Its not hard to guess that Twitter quickly becomes overwhelmed when high profile news hits the streets via Tweets!


One way to counter this flood of activity is for Twitter to limit the number of API calls made by 3rd party applications, such as my Twitter app on my phone. Recently they lowered the maximum number of calls from 350 to 175 per hour in hopes of limiting the activity on the servers. At one point they dropped the limit as low as 75 last week as Twitter was grinding to a halt.

Folders? Multi-tasking? It would seem only an iPhone user would crave such things, as most other smart phones already employ some form of said functionality. Finally, however, the OS4 update for the iPhone brings these amenities to the once-only-star.

Don’t get me wrong here I do love my iPhone, but when Steve Jobs makes such a huge deal out of releasing an update that simply brings the device back on par with its competitors.. I just can’t get all excited about it. Perhaps I haven’t drank enough of the Mac kool-aid?

While I have the 3G model and not the 3GS, I do not get to share in the multi-tasking fun and games. Probably because the 3G has the processing power of an asthmatic hamster on a 40lbs wheel, and running more than one app at a time would cause it to spew chunks violently into your hand. I do enjoy the new “Folder” concept (and when I say “new” I mean new to the iPhone.. my Palm 3 back in 2001 understood the usefulness of folders).

To create folders you must touch and hold one app icon until the “Wobble X’s” show up. Drag that icon on top of another and poof, you have your first folder. You can rename the folder during creation if you choose. To add more apps to the folder just rinse and repeat.

Anywhooo, here’s a few screenies of the folder functionality

Local web server down? MySQL not running? Are you chillin’ downstairs and too lazy to walk to your linux box and fire up the necessary services? Have an iPhone? Well you’re in luck!

yup that is my Linux desktop... on my iPhone... wut wut

With Mocha VNC (I’m using LiteVNC) you can control your linux box from your iPhone.