More iPad apps

 Posted on May 3, 2012  |  Erik

Yet another excellent overview of iPad apps used for “content creation” and general productivity by Matt Gemmell. One thing that jumps out at me, in addition to the fact that we share quite a number of apps, is that the apps in question are truly best of breed that can go head to head with some of the best applications on traditional computing platforms. Many of them are in fact better on the iPad than on the computer. [Read More]

iPhone Screen Size

 Posted on April 25, 2012  |  Erik

There have been a number of rumours floating around recently concerning the possibility that Apple is considering bumping up the screen size on the next iPhone, with various discussions concerning how to do so without changing the physical size of the phone and the various complexities surrounding the impact of application development. Mulling this over in my morning commute today a few points solidified in my head today: A taller screen equals a wider screen for better viewing HD video [Read More]

Bringing it home

 Posted on April 2, 2012  |  Erik

I just read the article over on the Verge about Tim Cook’s visit to the Foxconn production site in China a few days ago. One thing jumped out at me: The plant, located in the Foxconn Zhengzhou Technology Park, is the world’s largest smartphone production base, having 95 production lines, and employing about 120,000 people. This made me think on the ongoing brouhaha about getting Apple to bring the manufacturing & assembly work back to the US. [Read More]

Paid upgrades in the Apps Store

 Posted on March 30, 2012  |  Erik

Wil Shipley, of Delicious Monster fame has written an excellent post concerning the issues surrounding the lack of an option for paid upgrades in the Mac App Store. Go read it and then come back since it would be a waste of time for me to duplicate everything in the article and you need all of it to make sense of nuances of the issue. This is something I’ve been wondering about since the advent of the store as it goes counter current to today’s standard software development and sales practices. [Read More]

iPad at the office

 Posted on March 29, 2012  |  Erik

I’ve been using my original v1 iPad in the office since its inception and it’s been a trouper. A number of people have been asking me about how I’ve integrated it into my workflow so I thought I’d put together a list here of my go to apps and how and why I use them. I just upgraded to the iPad 2012 and find that the increased horsepower plus the screen have enhanced all of the apps across the board. [Read More]

So much material here

 Posted on March 23, 2012  |  Erik

Lots and lots of useful information and insight in this article from James Hamilton. Starting off with this simple observation: Every couple of weeks I get questions along the lines of “should I checksum application files, given that the disk already has error correction?” or “given that TCP/IP has error correction on every communications packet, why do I need to have application level network error detection?” Another frequent question is “non-ECC mother boards are much cheaper – do we really need ECC on memory? [Read More]

Hanging a picture

 Posted on March 21, 2012  |  Erik

An excellent article over at BlueGrayBox that uses the metaphor of hanging a picture to assigning tasks to junior staff to highlight all of the built-in assumptions and knowledge that can cause problems and confusion.

It underlines the point that when you give any kind of instruction, you almost certainly haven’t given all of the information required.

Hypercritical #59

 Posted on March 20, 2012  |  Erik

Some fascinating insights by John Siracusa on the latest Hypercritical podcast regarding Chris Pirillo’s dad’s first experience with OS X. We see clearly that while he has very little foundational understanding of how all of the pieces fit together he’s able to use the computer with a reasonable level of efficiency to accomplish the tasks that he wishes to accomplish. Interestingly, his attitude towards Google as evidenced by “The Google” makes it very clear that his understanding of how the Internet works is intrinsically linked to Google. [Read More]

First impressions with the new iPad

 Posted on March 19, 2012  |  Erik

Every article talks about it, and they’re absolutely correct: the screen changes everything. I have the original iPad and many of today’s apps are really starting to push it to the limit. I passed on the iPad 2, as I was hoping for a Retina display and I’m really glad I waited. This finally brings the tool right to where I need it to be. On the work front, I spend a considerable amount of time reviewing documents and providing feedback. [Read More]