iPhone App Review: eBook readers

 Posted on July 30, 2008  |  Erik

Living in France has given me a certain jealousy for the people in the US that can buy a Kindle as it seems to be one of the best implementations of an eBook reader, especially with it’s lifetime EVDO data connection for acquiring new content over the air any time, any where. But I’ve been happily using my iPhone as my electronic newspaper with the NY Times application and my various RSS newsreaders (notably NetNewsWire) and decided to take a peek at the eBook marketplace on the iPhone. [Read More]

iPhone 3G France, Day 2, Batteries, etc.

 Posted on July 18, 2008  |  Erik

Well, I’m happy to say that I managed to get my hands on a 16Gb iPhone 3G yesterday. The french premier of the iPhone 3G seemed to go pretty well, with a minimum of huge lineups and associated problems. But even though the sales were a steady stream instead of huge peaks, the current word on the street is that the bulk of the iPhones are gone - forget about trying to get a 16Gb model right now and even 8Gb models are getting hard to find. [Read More]

MobileMe Customer Service

 Posted on July 16, 2008  |  Erik

Well this was a nice surprise to get in the mail today: Before the class action lawsuit, but in response to known problems, Apple steps up to the plate, owns up to the issues, clarifies them and gives a preemptive refund. Kudos. And on a related note, they’ve seriously stepped up the support services in the MobileMe service. It’s very easy to go from a help page to entering a trouble ticket. [Read More]

iPhone apps, cool, lame and missing

 Posted on July 11, 2008  |  Erik

Well, it’s been an interesting afternoon of putting off real work in order to get the iPhone 2.0 software update running, reloading all of my data and taking a tour of the newly available applications. With the release, a few new useful tidbits have surfaced, and I’m sure we’ll be discovering a lot more in the days to come, but the most basic interesting one that I’ve come across so far is the ability to take screen shots of your iPhone. [Read More]

App Store online! Wish list and comments

 Posted on July 10, 2008  |  Erik

As has been pointed out on various sites, the US App Store is now online (although you can’t yet buy things). I tried getting in while using my French account (tied to the France iTunes store) and was told to go away. But I can happily browse the US store in the meantime. I just hope that Apple will not restrict access to the App Store while waiting on the July 17 iPhone 3G release in France. [Read More]

Convergence is a b*tch

 Posted on July 9, 2008  |  Erik

Looking around a the current marketplace for communications tools on the eve of the release of the iPhone 3G I can’t help but thinking about just how incredibly disruptive this device will be. GPS The iPhone’s integrated GPS offers a truly viable solution as it’s coupled with a screen the size of most commercial standalone GPS units in a pocket sized device. In its current incarnation it’s not the GPS interface that we’ve become accustomed to with the vocal turn by turn directions and the 3D bird’s eye view, but it’s certainly a very functional interface integrated with Google Maps. [Read More]

RE: Leopard on ESX Would Be Nice : The Lone Sysadmin

 Posted on July 4, 2008  |  Erik

_Leopard on ESX Would Be Nice : Bob Plankers, The Lone Sysadmin: “Instead, I’d really like to run Mac OS X in ESX Server. I don’t even care if I have to buy Apple Xserve hardware to do it. I’d love to see Mac OS X guests in VirtualCenter, able to use VMotion, snapshots, HA, cloning, and all the enterprise features we already have for Windows, Linux, Netware, and Solaris x86. [Read More]

Useful details regarding ESX scheduler support for SMP VMs: co-scheduling and more

 Posted on July 4, 2008  |  Erik

_VMware: VROOM!: ESX scheduler support for SMP VMs: co-scheduling and more: When do I decide to configure multiple vCPUs for a VM? What are the overheads of using multiprocessor VMs? What would I lose by over provisioning vCPUs for VMs? Does the ESX scheduler (co-schedule) all of the vCPUs belonging to a VM together? Why is co-scheduling necessary and important? How does ESX scheduler deal with certain vCPUs belonging to a VM idling while others actively perform work? [Read More]

Disabled menu items brouhaha

 Posted on July 2, 2008  |  Erik

There’s a little tempest brewing in the teapot containing the cream of various developer communities. Joel Spolsky of Joel on Development is an immensely respected developer with whom I agree practically all of the time and think that the bulk of his blog should be required reading for anyone who is/plans to/works with/manages developers. But his latest article concerning when and under what conditions you should disable menu items has been taken up by the UI Nazis of the Mac development community (and I mean that as a compliment). [Read More]

RE: the Revolutionary Apple Wireless Touchboard Concept - AppleMatters

 Posted on July 2, 2008  |  Erik

_Behold, the Revolutionary Apple Wireless Touchboard Concept - AppleMatters: “Therefore, it is my earnest desire that Apple does away with the mouse completely and replaces it with a keyboard like the one I’ve shown below (click on it to enlarge it), the ‘Apple Wireless Touchboard’ perhaps. The name sounds ridiculous, I know, but it’s not like I ever professed to be the creative type anyway. The same Multi-touch trackpad that the Macbook Pro and MacBook Air boast of could be added onto the keyboard itself, allowing you to enjoy all the benefits of a desktop Mac without losing out on one of the best features from the notebook side of the lineup. [Read More]