Totally useless but ultimately awesome
One of these days I plan to buy an F-150 and I wanted to put some black wheels on it. Browsing the web I came across the nice looking XD Series by KMC Wheels. I wanted to see what they would look l like on an actual F-150 and while you can do that on Tirerack.com’s website I always felt the experience was a tad cheesy so I was hoping the gallery on the KMC Wheels website would have pictures of the wheels on vehicles. I was wrong. Instead, the link above takes you to pictures of women, gorgeous women, and if you look hard you will find a wheel or two in the background. Awesome, and totally useless for… you know… buying wheels.
Apple Releases Flashback Removal Tool
If you have a Mac that you think might be infected (or just want to check to make sure, you know, for funzies) go here to download Apple’s removal tool.
UPDATE: My bad, should have actually read the KB article. Apple’s pushing it via a software update. So just run Software Update in your Apple menu… (Java for OS X 2012-003)
(via Stephen Hackett)
Nest vs Honeywell
Get your popcorn folks because David just slung his stone at Goliath.
Lat year, in a market ripe for disruption, start-up Nest Labs (lead by former Apple engineer Tony Fadell) introduced a re-invented home thermostat called the Nest Learning Thermostat. It’s basically what the iPhone was to “smartphones” back in 2007. Sure there were “smartphones”, then Apple showed the world what a real smartphone looks like. Same idea, but in the world of thermostats.
Fast forward about a year to last February, Honeywell isn’t happy about the scrappy new competition and files a lawsuit saying Nest Labs violates 7 of their patents.
Today Nest has responded with a big Fuck You and some fightin’ words…
“Honeywell is worse than a patent troll,” says Nest CEO Tony Fadell. “They’re trying to strangle us, and we’re not going to allow that to happen.”
And here’s a good quote, again from Fadell:
“In seven decades, there appears to be little more technological improvement to the flagship Honeywell thermostat than the replacement of a mechanical display with an LCD.”
Fun times.
Speaking of great videos. I love Adam Savage (from the Mythbusters) and he gave a great and inspiring TED talk titled “How Simple Ideas Lead to Scientific Discoveries”.
What an awesome video and awesome kid. I love the imagination of kids.
What you need to know about the Flashback trojan
It’s rare that any sort of viruses effect Mac computers but this one is legit and it’s spreading. The trojan exploits an issue with Java (which most people I’m sure have no clue what that is) which is a plugin (like Adobe Flash) that you really don’t need. So at a minimum, follow the instructions to make sure you have the latest patch (just run System Update from your Mac’s Apple menu), a better recommendation though is to do what I did and follow the instructions to just disable Java altogether.
PayPal Here: it's a triangle not a Square
Man I hope Square has some good patents. I’m usually not a fan of patent lawsuits but Square should sue the shit out of PayPal.
Sparrow for iPhone
This isn’t a full on review of the app. You can read one of those here. I just wanted to say the gist of what everybody else has already said. It’s a really great mail app. Really great. In fact it has an unexpected feature. You can attach a picture to an email after you’ve already started the email and without having to copy and paste the picture. There’s an attachment button! Can’t do that with the built in iOS Mail app…
Unfortunately, Sparrow is almost useless for me. I basically only open my iPhone Mail app when the icon badge “unread count” goes up. It works like that because Apple uses push notification to send me my new email and increment the badge number. The problem is that Apple doesn’t allow other mail apps to use push notification in that way. They allow VoIP apps (like Skype) to use it so Sparrow tried to use those APIs but Apple rejected the app because Sparrow isn’t a VoIP app. Lame!
I knew all of this before I bought the app. So why give my $3 for an app I know I won’t use? 2 reasons.
1) Eventually I think Apple will allow these types of apps to work properly so why not support the developer now to show Apple there’s demand
2) This sentence from the link above about why Sparrow doesn’t have Push and their explanation of how they could implement it by storing your mail credentials on their own servers but are choosing not to:
…we do not have the skills to secure your data on our servers and we do not want to put sensitive information at risk.
That’s honest. And I’ll support that shit all day long.
How many companies do you know that would admit something like that?
Better yet, how many companies would do something like that and not even tell their users? (Side note… Path did come clean, admit their mistake and has since deleted the address book information. They’re both an example of what not to do and how to fix the problem so good on them.)
Sparrow is a great app, definitely better than Google’s own Gmail app, and I’ll use it as soon as it can use push notification.
Best. Maintenance page. Ever.
Ads suck, I vote for the sponsorship model
Brent Simmons says he’s:
sick of ads — but sicker of the terrible relationship between ads and software
I agree. I prefer the sites I read to have “sponsors” and where the site author(s) write they’re own promotion for that sponsor. daringfireball.net and shawnblanc.net. Yes, it’s an advertisement, but I like that the authors get to pick and choose what they’re advertising to their audience and in their own words.
Mountain Lion
First things first. Gruber is a dick for getting a private “product briefing” by f’ing Phil Schiller himself! Unreal…
Anyway, I like where Apple is going with OS X. That is, taking the best features of iOS to the Mac in a way that makes sense for the Mac. Not just porting them over for the sake of porting them over.
Also, I wonder if Gruber had to have his post approved by Apple before publishing?
Apple will announce iPad 3 first week of March
If you’ve been deciding on whether or not to buy an iPad you should at least wait long enough to see what they announce.
There will be no iPhone announcement at this event.
New Bourne movie but without Matt Damon. Instead Jeremy Renner will play a similar agent from the same program as Jason Bourne. Looks awesome to me!
The iPad is a PC
I have no idea why this is so widely debated. It’s pretty simple to understand.
“PC” is an acronym that stands for Personal Computer:
- The word personal is an adjective that means “intended for use by one person”.
- The word computer is a noun that means “an electronic device designed to accept data, perform prescribed mathematical and logical operations at high speed, and display the results of these operations”.
Based on those definitions I fail to see why it’s difficult to understand how the iPad is anything but a PC.
I wholeheartedly disagree with AMD’s Patrick Moorhead’s article on Tech.pinions.
I’m not the only one. Interestingly, Moorhead wrote that article on Dec. 6th, 2011. On Feb. 3rd, 2012 Ben Bajarin (also writing for Tech.pinions) wrote this article and said in the first paragraph:
To clarify, we believe and classify the tablet as a PC. We simply view it as a form factor within the PC landscape.
Exactly. The iPad is a personal computer wrapped in it’s own form factor. Just like a laptop, desktop and an iPhone. All are different forms of personal computers.
(via Shawn Blanc)
My son Miles (aka Mr. Blue Eyes).
