The Page of Thoughts: Archive

iWork vs. Office →

I wrote a comparison of these suites over two years ago, and it quickly rose in Google search results. Since I don’t want to give the 100 people per day who land on the page wrong information, I updated it.

Feb 8th

Issues with Twitter 4.0 for iPhone

Today, Twitter released a new version of their app with a simplified design. You can read more about that at fly.twitter.com. Basically, Twitter tried to unify the appearance across platforms, and whittled the experience down to four hubs: Home, Connect, Discover, and Me. This in itself is not a bad idea, but the rushed execution is pretty clear when you start using the new Twitter for iPhone...

Dec 9th

The Long, Arduous Process of Updating to iOS 5

My dad has a philosophy of never updating to a “dot zero” release until the bugs have been ironed out. In the Windows days, that meant not upgrading to the latest OS until the first Service Pack was released, or just plain not upgrading ever. Today, when Apple released iOS 5.0.1, I told him that the bugs had been ironed out, and that he should update from iOS 4.3.2. Of course, somehow...

Nov 11th

Expensive Road Bikes Aren't What They're Cracked...

On September 17, I bought the Scattante R330 road bike for $700. This was an expensive bike, considering I previously rode a multitude of shoddy Costco bikes, all of which retailed for appropriately cheap prices. Naturally, I had high expectations for this shiny new toy. Problem #1 happened on day zero. Apparently, what you see is not what you get. The bike technician took the bike on the shelf,...

Oct 15th

A Fun Way to Burn Up Your CPU

The Stockfish chess engine project just switched its GitHub repo from private to public. Guess what this means? Now YOU can pretend to be skilled at using Terminal! For the full effect, switch your Terminal color scheme to “Pro” and hit the full screen button. Behold… git clone https://github.com/mcostalba/Stockfish.git cd Stockfish/src make profile-build ARCH=osx-x86-64 open...

Oct 7th

Twitter Monetization Strategies

I was talking with my little brother about Twitter. He doesn’t use it, but he did come up with some pretty hilarious monetization ideas. Of course, he started with the basics. You could purchase a “follower pack” and get 1,000 followers. Or you could buy a “premium account” and get your tweet on the Twitter home page. Here’s a strange one though: you could...

Sep 8th

Aug 15th

OS X Lion →

I’ve been using Lion since the very first developer preview. What can I say. Just go buy it now.

Jul 21st

Breakout →

I’m learning Java this summer by watching videos on iTunes U, and I built a game. Yay!

Jun 27th

Mac Apps That Rock Redux

A few months ago back in January, Apple launched the Mac App Store. To keep track of all the cool new apps that were launching, I started the Mac Apps That Rock blog. Since then, Mac Apps That Rock has been a wonderful success. It’s now home to 150 apps, has over 450 followers on Tumblr, and has over 1000 subscribers via RSS. Today, I’m taking it to a whole new level, with the launch of Mac Apps...

Jun 3rd

Tweetbot →

Really sweet Twitter client that came out yesterday. A must buy.

Apr 15th

The home button is going away

Recently, there have been rumors about the next iPhone not having a home button. Gruber thinks that the home button isn’t going anywhere, as does Benjamin Brooks. I disagree. iPhone 5 will look like this: And you might be saying, “But how will you get to the home screen if there’s no home button?” “How will you take a screenshot?” “What if I need to...

Jan 17th

Confusion in the App Store

The Scenario Millions of Mac users are probably confused on how the App Store detects already installed apps and marks them as “installed” in the App Store. They believe that because the App Store detects it, they will get updates from the App Store. This is not true. The App Store only updates apps in the “Purchases” tab. The App Store marks apps as installed so as to...

Jan 8th

Firefox does it wrong

The first launch of an application is arguably the most important. It’s the first impression; it’s when the user decides if they like your app or not. The app should have an immersive first-run experience, and here’s where Firefox does it wrong. Once you’ve dragged Firefox to your Applications folder, ejected the disk, and trashed the disk image, you probably want to open...

Jan 4th

12 notes

The iPod touch 4th generation

I got an iPod touch 4th generation for Christmas. This is a huge upgrade (previously, I used an iPod touch 2nd generation). Here’s my mini-review. Pros Multitasking! Finally! The Retina Display is amazing. I used to think it wasn’t a big deal, but after actually looking at it for a while, I changed my mind. This blows every other display away. Now, when I look at my iMac, I actually...

Dec 27th

2 notes

A few years ago

A few years ago, I was running Windows XP. A few years ago, I was gushing over Windows Vista’s UI. A few years ago, I was still using Office 2000. A few years ago, my PC had 768 MB of RAM and a Celeron processor. A few years ago, Chrome wasn’t even at version 1.0. A few years ago, I got my first iPod. The 3rd generation Nano. A few years ago, I was using something called...

Nov 9th

Stockfish Redesign →

I gave the Stockfish website a little redesign. Now sporting a fluid layout and OS detection, among other things. Best of all, it’s super-compliant and looks pretty much the same in IE 7, 8, 9, Firefox 4, Chrome 6 and 7, and Safari 5. Go check it out. Inspiration If you look carefully, you’ll see that the Stockfish redesign is heavily influenced by these sites: Postbox Tapbots Get...

Oct 16th

Mail Quick Tip: Archive Gmail messages

Arguably one of Gmail’s best features is the archive button. Instead of throwing messages away, we can take advantage of Gmail’s vast storage and keep them. Hit the “Archive” button and the message disappears from the Inbox, but it remains searchable and can be found in the “All Mail” folder. If you’re using Apple Mail, there is no archive button. But we...

Oct 13th

Rachel's Challenge

Today a guest speaker told us the incredibly moving story about Rachel Scott. Rachel Scott was and still is the most compassionate human being on Earth. Throughout her life, she performed small acts of kindness that had a huge impact on others. For example, one day at school during lunch she noticed a girl sitting in the corner, all by herself. Rachel went out of her way to sit and talk to her,...

Sep 17th

Safari AdBlock →

I didn’t like the previous text-only version of the site before, so I built a new one. It’s got browser detection and email spam protection. The buttons are drawn via CSS and take advantage of Webkit gradients, box shadow, and border radius. It’s a whole lot more usable with clear call-to-actions. And it’s got a nice video to go along with it. Go check it out!

Aug 27th

iOS Updates

Updates are a great way for a manufacturer to add functionality, fix bugs, and generally make something better. Yet most people I’ve observed do not update their iPhones or iPod touches, and here’s why. Most people do not sync their iPhone/iPod touch with their computer all that often. And why should they? There is no precedent: no other manufacturer ties their standalone hardware...

Aug 19th

Back to Blogging

I am an indecisive person. Why? Over the past few years I’ve used many many blogging platforms but still was not satisfied. I started with a Yahoo Geocities site (yep!) linked to a Yahoo 360 blog. I hated the inflexibility and was compelled to switch over to Blogger. I think that was when I started dabbling in web design, as I had loads of fun getting image flips to work on those pesky...

Aug 13th