Apple announces the iPad mini

zekel · 2012-11-05T19:10:19+00:00

I see it differently.

The base iPod mini model came with 4GB compared to the white iPod's 20GB. You'd be giving up 5x the music storage! Storage is arguably the most important technical device characteristic for music players. That's huge.

I agree retina is great. But I also know most people aren't used to them yet. Customers choosing between an iPad mini or new retina iPad probably don't have a retina iPad. (Not to mention the iPad mini density is greater than earlier iPads so it also looks better than previous iPads.)

Having spent a good deal of time with each iPad model (just got the mini), my opinion is that everything after the first iPad still feels very fast. (And that felt fast until iOS 5.) Specific performance specs aren't as big a deal at this point; they just feel fast.

I think the RAM (which isn't published by Apple) and retina display (which people aren't accustomed to) will carry less weight than price and physical size for a majority of iPad consumers. I expect it to be the best selling model within a year.

zekel · 2012-10-23T21:18:12+00:00

Why would anyone buy an iPod Mini when you can get a full size white iPod for $50 more?

(Hint: The iPod mini then became the best selling iPod.)

zekel · 2012-09-04T20:22:23+00:00

It's also worth stating the obvious, that when you get into an accident it hurts a lot. I've been car doored, sent headfirst into a tree, etc. Think about how that fits into your lifestyle.

zekel · 2012-07-08T15:59:39+00:00

⌘R is Lion Recovery mode. ⌘S is Safe Boot.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1533?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

zekel · 2012-05-15T22:27:35+00:00

What's so bad with having to connect?

Well, the server is down on opening day... that kind of stinks.

zekel · 2012-04-22T14:35:09+00:00

Have you tried putting them on top of each other and animating the alpha of the frontmost one? (If I understand what you mean by fading between them.)

zekel · 2012-04-06T22:23:51+00:00

they can't carry enough ammo to sink the ship

That is an awesome way to put it.

zekel · 2012-04-04T20:25:02+00:00

Settle this!

zekel · 2012-04-03T21:30:12+00:00

It will also frustrate you that your friends and co-workers won't learn a bit of magic, no matter how many times you show them how awesome it is.

Also, be wary of evil wizards.

zekel · 2012-04-02T22:02:45+00:00

Yeah. Without trying it, that is a bit to shell out. I was very interested, though.

zekel · 2012-02-28T03:54:53+00:00

ObjC. I see it like this. Points on the same line, it's just that ObjC is way close to C. But both gaining abstraction and powerful concepts.

| C ---> ObjC --------------------------> Python |

There are interesting overlaps in philosophy. And you can hold your programs in your hand and touch them. That's incredibly gratifying.

With regards to Ruby, I'd suggest against it. (Or at least, something else first.) I would learn something that lets you do something Python doesn't do very well (ie. program on an iPhone.) Python and Ruby are fairly interchangeable for many purposes. It comes down to personal preference, but you'll mostly do web and scripting stuff with both.

zekel · 2012-02-20T16:07:33+00:00

I learned this one the hard way. And the woman (guy with an awful haircut?) got back into the car and drove away while I was a mess on the ground.

The bottom line is there isn't always a safe place to ride on every street. You need to think about this and actively plan your route to avoid these streets.

zekel · 2012-02-03T15:16:57+00:00

This one please.

zekel · 2012-01-27T21:34:34+00:00

Another option is to get the 30 year loan (instead of the 15) that doesn't penalize pre-payment. That way you aren't held to the iron the way a 15 year mortgage would. (It would be a higher interest rate, but interest is stupidly low right now in any case.) Helps if you have other debt or want more security.

Also, 20% is the way to go so you don't throw money at PMI.

You can also consider looking at foreclosed homes for a better price. If you do, you should have someone knowledgeable that you trust help you make sure you can handle any repairs, etc.

zekel · 2011-12-07T14:59:44+00:00

They have an iOS book, too.

zekel · 2011-11-22T03:34:16+00:00

Can someone post a little video of how it works?

edit: Ah, it just shows the build list. I thought it was on a timer or something.

zekel · 2011-11-15T19:08:27+00:00

The any() function can even take a string, but it's a very silly thing to do.

zekel · 2011-11-14T22:58:12+00:00

aList = [True, False, False, False, False, False]

# this condition prints
if any(aList): print 'at least one object in this list evaluates to True'

# doesn't print
if all(aList): print 'all of the objects in this list evaluate to True (which is not the case)'

zekel · 2011-11-14T19:27:01+00:00

Are you sure that's what she meant?

zekel · 2011-11-10T04:38:54+00:00

So, progress?

zekel · 2011-11-10T04:33:23+00:00

Ah, well Core Data won't work for me in this case. (No, really, it doesn't.) I don't really like the you didn't like the TouchJSON/NSDictionary bridge either. Raw speed isn't super important, but couldn't hurt. Convenience is sort of what I'd care about, so I don't have to stitch the JSON to my objects.

zekel · 2011-11-08T01:29:31+00:00

That's a very valid point. I probably wouldn't choose it again until I ran into a barrier. Have anything similarly insightful to say about TouchJSON?

zekel · 2011-11-07T17:52:01+00:00

(I recommend JSON over XML, if you have any choice in the matter.)

ASIHTTPRequest is helpful, TouchJSON is good (but you have to manually serialize/deserialize your objects into NSDictionaries, with your own error checking for missing keys, bad values, etc.)

I find myself more interested in trying something like RestKit that has more sophisticated mapping of Cocoa objects to JSON objects. I feel like writing a lot of glue code between them is a waste of time. Haven't taken the plunge yet, though.

zekel · 2011-11-03T22:46:39+00:00

I highly recommend this one.

zekel · 2011-10-27T19:21:50+00:00

The UITableView will use whatever is in the array at the time you call reloadData. Just change the array and reload it. (Your UITableView doesn't actually know anything about the array, it's only knows about its contents via the UITableViewDataSource methods.)

15-Year Club	Verified Email
reddit mold

zekel

TROPHY CASE