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Why I downgraded from a Smartphone to a Flip Phone (and why I think it's smarter than ever)

So I have been an *avid* Android user and evangelical since the beginning.  But this week I'm turning over a new leaf.  Or maybe it was just a realization I had. Regardless, it's great so far. Yes, I downgraded to a flip phone.  And it's fan-tast-ic!

I got an LG VX5400. Why?  Since I work from home now I don't need a smartphone as much. With Wifi, I can use a tablet or even my Android apps through Wifi. No use spending an extra $60 on a "smartphone" add-on for my Verizon plan. So I was able to split my phone bill over 50%.  Couldn't justify keeping a phone like that when I'm home 95% of any given week.

Google Voice is accessible through any browser, so I can easily get to text messages.  I can still use Google Voice, and I can enable and disable texts to my flip phone at any given time, that way I really can keep a low text messaging plan.  Plus, I got this phone for $28 with free shipping, and since I got it from Wireless Overstock and not through Verizon, I didn't have to renew my contract. So when it finally does run out in 2012, I'm going to cancel my contract  with Verizon and switch to a pre-paid cell phone so that I can probably reduce my phone bill down to $15 - $20 a month.  Since I have a "one number" through Google Voice, I wont have to worry about giving out a new number either.

I don't sacrifice any of the technology either.   I still can use my Android phone at home. I still have access to the same SMS interface that I've been used to through Google Voice that I can get to through a web browser, tablet, or phone, and I can enjoy the increased battery life (on my 4th day without a charge), speed of use (you wouldn't believe how fast this thing starts up. And sending a text message without ever looking at the phone is AWESOME. Not to mention just making a phone call is easier than ever. No fumbling for my camera app.  No 'touching' the contact and then awkwardly navigating to the number I want to dial), all while at the same time saving a lot of money over the course of a year. 


So this works for me. Not saying it'd work for everyone, but for me, yes. Love it. Oh yes, and I recommend the LG VX-5400.  It's fucking great.  All that said, I do miss having Google Maps.

Guard, livereload, and good times.

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I think if you're a web developer, one of the most common keystrokes you'll perform every day is CTRL or CMD-R.

Refresh.

If you're working in Rails, you may not know of a little combination of technologies that will allow your webpage to two do things while you work.

1) Automatically reload the page when it senses HTML changes.
2) Automatically re-render the CSS in the browser without any page reload.

Imagine that.

It's actually really easy to get moving on it.  Here's how to set it up in your rails app.

$ gem install guard

Add this to your Gemfile (inside the development group):
gem 'guard'

$ guard init

$ gem install rb-fsevent

Install either the growl_notify or the growl gem if you want notification support:

$ gem install growl_notify
$ # or
$ gem install growl

And add them to your Gemfile:

gem 'rb-fsevent'
gem 'growl'

$ gem install guard-livereload

Add it to your Gemfile (inside development group):

$ gem 'guard-livereload'

Add guard definition to your Guardfile by running this command:

$ guard init livereload

Install LiveReload Safari/Chrome extension:

To optimize communication with the LiveReload extension, install the yajl-ruby to increase JSON performance:

$ gem install yajl-ruby

$ bundle install

restart servers, then start the listener.

$ guard start

Here are some other links, for reference:

a hat tip to @stephencelis for the heads up and changing my life :)

frien.ds: 90s Friday is a hit.

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See you next week right here: http://turntable.fm/friends_90s_friday

Still going on right now, actually. But capturing the list, for posterity.

  • Meat Loaf – I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That) (Single Edit)
  • A Tribe Called Quest – Can I Kick It?
  • Jodeci – Come & Talk To Me (remix)
  • R. Kelly – Bump N' Grind
  • Tevin Campbell – Can We Talk
  • H-Town – Knockin' Da Boots (Re-Recorded \/ Remastered)
  • Garbage – I Think I'm Paranoid
  • The Pharcyde – Passin' Me By
  • Skee-Lo – I Wish
  • Wreckx-N-Effect – Rump Shaker
  • Snow – Informer (LP Version)
  • Fiona Apple – Criminal
  • Blur – Song 2
  • Coolio – Gangsta's Paradise
  • Tom Cochrane – Life Is A Highway
  • Fastball – The Way
  • Onyx – Slam
  • Nirvana – All Apologies
  • U2 – With Or Without You
  • Bell Biv DeVoe – Poison
  • R.E.M. – Man on the Moon
  • Deee-Lite – Groove Is In The Heart
  • Elliott Smith – Pitseleh
  • Blackstreet – No Diggity
  • Naughty by Nature – O.P.P.
  • Cake – The Distance
  • The Black Crowes – Hard To Handle
  • Ween – The H.I.V. Song
  • Guns N' Roses – Knockin' On Heaven's Door
  • Live – Lightning Crashes
  • The Mighty Mighty Bosstones – The Impression That I Get
  • Faith No More – Epic
  • Yo La Tengo – I Heard You Looking
  • Third Eye Blind – Semi-Charmed Life
  • Jamiroquai – Virtual Insanity
  • The Smashing Pumpkins – Mayonaise
  • Spacehog – In the Meantime
  • Lungfish – Space Orgy
  • Gin Blossoms – Hey Jealousy
  • The Presidents of the United States of America – Dune Buggy
  • Weezer – Only In Dreams
  • Soul Asylum – Misery
  • Tom Waits – Big in Japan
  • New Radicals – You Get What You Give
  • DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince – Summertime
  • Goo Goo Dolls – Iris
  • Madonna – This Used to Be My Playground
  • Foo Fighters – Aurora
  • The Presidents of the United States of America – Lump
  • Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under The Bridge
  • U2 – One
  • Tag Team – Whoomp! (There It Is)
  • Technotronic – Pump Up The Jam
  • Supergrass – Pumping On Your Stereo
  • Aerosmith – Angel
  • Warrant – Cherry Pie
  • Blues Traveler – Run-Around
  • Garbage – Queer
  • Weezer – My Name Is Jonas
  • Oasis – Cast No Shadow
  • Jesus Jones – Right Here Right Now
  • The Presidents of the United States of America – Kitty
  • They Might Be Giants – Birdhouse In Your Soul
  • Wilco – Outtasite (Outta Mind)
  • Stone Temple Pilots – Plush (Acoustic Version)
  • Beastie Boys – Sabotage
  • Fiona Apple – Sleep To Dream
  • Red Red Meat – Chain Chain Chain
  • No Doubt – Simple Kind Of Life
  • Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit
  • Primitive Radio Gods – Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand
  • Suzanne Vega – Luka
  • Pavement – Stereo
  • Stone Temple Pilots – Interstate Love Song
  • Soundgarden – Black Hole Sun
  • Snoop Dogg – Lodi Dodi
  • U2 – Numb
  • Bush – Everything Zen
  • Jimmy Eat World – Sweetness
  • Nirvana – Breed
  • Pearl Jam – Better Man
  • Alanis Morissette – Head Over Feet
  • Young M.C. – Bust a Move
  • Local H – Bound For The Floor
  • No Doubt – Spiderwebs
  • Sponge – Plowed
  • Tone-Lōc – Wild Thing
  • Lyte Funkie Ones – Summer Girls
  • John Mellencamp – Wild Night
  • Beastie Boys – Intergalactic
  • Fastball – The Way
  • Le Click – Tonight Is The Night
  • blink-182 – What's My Age Again?
  • Depeche Mode – Enjoy The Silence
  • Right Said Fred – I'm Too Sexy
  • Muse – Muscle Museum
  • Spin Doctors – Two Princes
  • Start Trouble – Let's Get Fucked Up
  • Porno for Pyros – Pets
  • Veruca Salt – Volcano Girls
  • Stabbing Westward – Shame
  • Blues Traveler – Run-Around
  • The Smashing Pumpkins – 1979
  • No Doubt – Don't Speak
  • The Sundays – Summertime
  • The Cranberries – Linger
  • Aaliyah – Try Again
  • Alanis Morissette – You Learn

The Turnable.FM Ten Commandments

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THOU SHALT:

01. Awesome pleasing songs. Not only does this make Turntable more fun, but it gives DJs feedback on how to adjust their next song to fit what people are liking (or not liking).
02. Leave the booth when you leave your computer. It's pretty obvious when someone sets up a playlists and leaves the room. Their songs play, and they don't give any feedback to songs before and after them. This isn't fun for anyone.
03. Check "Room Info" for dupes before you play a song. Especially if you're new to a room.  You don't want to queue up a song that was played 10 minutes ago. Get familiar with the room's recent songs before you inject your own.
04. Thank your DJs/listeners before you leave the room. Say "Thank You" before simply closing your browser. If you're a listener, thank your DJs for keeping you entertained.
05. Stay on theme. If the room has a theme, stay on theme. This is pretty common sense, but if you go in to a room, be mindful of the theme they have going on. Nothing can kill the energy faster than a newbie jumping on the decks and playing something way out of left-field.
06. Fill out your profile. Turntable is cool, but it's hard to connect to people beyond the site unless you fill out your complete profile. Hit the "Settings" drop down and click "Edit Profile." There's a place for Twitter, Facebook, etc, and we can stop saying "Who is EquatorMan??"

THOU SHALT NOT:

07. Lame songs haphazardly or critize another DJs song pick. For some people, the music they pick is a pretty personal thing.  Dissing someone's song selection is like dissing someone's clothes, and it's just not nice. If you must, then go ahead and click "Lame." It does have a valid purpose of keeping a room in check, but don't verbally put someone down because they play a song that you don't like or are not happy with.
08. Be a deck hog. Particularly if there are a lot of people in the room, don't hog the decks all day.  Let the room know you're going to step down for a bit so that others have an opportunity to join in on the fun.
09. Lash out if nobody likes your song. Different strokes for different folks, right?  Just adjust accordingly. Don't take it personally and lash out. It creates negative energy in the room. Not to mention people in the crowd may be momentarily away from their computer.
10. Play long songs. Unless the song is amazing, it's bad form to start a 12-minute song that everyone has to suffer through whether they like it or not. Stay succinct and accessible so that you don't frustrate or alienate your audience and fellow DJs.

So there you are. Some etiquette guidelines for http://turntable.fm.  See you in there!

OS X Lion Developer Review

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I initially upgraded my computer from Snow Leopard to Lion.  After doing this, I noticed some various visual glitches that I chalked up to upgrading.  So I bit the bullet, completely wiped my machine and did a fresh install.  Since then, I have noticed a continuing stream of visual glitches and bugs.

Fresh install.  From a developer's perspective, I also had a difficult time getting MySQL up and running again.  I actually had to install an older version of MySQL (v5.1).

Here are some other frequent occurrences, annoyances, and problems.

  • Preview continues to open previously opened files on app launch even though I turned off this feature system-wide. Update: You can fix this by running "defaults write com.apple.Preview NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false" from the command line.
  • Also with preview, you can no longer see the "region" of the image with transparent PNGs. an important detail for developers using Preview as a low bandwidth way to make, for instance, image sprites. Try taking two transparent PNGs and copy/pasting them on top of one another in Preview on Lion. It's a near impossible task. Update: You can fix this by going to View -> Show Image Background.
  • Often while trying to drag icons from my desktop to the trashcan, they get "stuck" in drag mode and I can't drop them.
  • Digital Color Picker, a tool I used frequently as a web developer to grab the hexidecimal value of colors on the screen no longer shows the hex value, but the value in RGB. As a developer this is frustrating. I spent $2 on a 3rd party app in the app store to replace it. An expense I shouldn't have had to make.
  • Continued visual artifacts and glitches in Terminal.
  • Open/Save dialogs still do not open in the last folder used, but a seemingly random folder.
  • Finder crashes (menubar disappears, forcing reboot).
  • Launchpad introduces many UX issues.  One of the first things I did was remove Launchpad from the dock and unlink the gesture from my touchpad. The problem with this is, when you install apps from the App Store, they no longer install to the dock like in Snow Leopard. They install to Launchpad. If you have launchpad disabled, and you start a download, there is no way to track the progress of the download. Something like xCode, this is very confusing, because it is such a large file.  I had no idea what the status of my install was.  The App Store did not tell me what % complete the download was. Clicking install again simply made the App Store app chug a bit and then nothing. I finally found xCode installing in my launchpad.  The state of the install was "Paused" -- the only way to resume the download was to click the app icon in Launchpad This needs to be tightened up. Clicking "install" in the App Store after an install has already begun should've at least focused the Launchpad.  First run of new apps is very clunky as a result also.
  • Organizing the Launchpad is another nightmare.  When I upgraded from Snow Leopard, for instance, launchpad was filled with apps. 5 pages worth.  So I thought, "Ok. I'll organize these in to neat collections. No problem." I started dragging around and moved all the apps on page 1 in to collections. I then wanted to move apps from pages 2-5 in to collections on page one. I swiped over to Page 2, full of apps, and realized there was no way to drag them from Page 2 to a collection in Page 1 without dragging every single app ONE AT A TIME. What a time waster.  So I said, "Ok. Perhaps the "collection" structure is mirrored in Finder's /Applications folder as "folders."   Maybe that would be a "power user" way of managing your collections. So I went there. No, it was just a flat folder of apps.  FURTHERMORE, you can't drag apps from launchpad to the trashcan to uninstall them.  Also once you put your apps in "Wiggle mode," the "X" icon does not appear like on iOS.  So you can't uninstall that way either. You have to navigate to /Applications in Finder to delete them manually. Again, a broken model.

Lets hope they address some of these issues in 10.7.1. These problems are very unlike Apple. This retail upgrade feels VERY beta to me, and has shattered my consumer confidence. I will certainly not upgrade to the latest and greatest OS release next time. I will wait at least 2-3 months for things to stabilize.  I expected a higher level of Quality from Apple.  Less bugs.  More attention to details.  More "common sense" UX/UI decisions.  But they're not here.  Very disappointing indeed.  I don't understand why Lion has gotten so many 5-star reviews.  Perhaps because most of these are "power user" issues, but if you're a technology company, you need to be sensitive to casual and power users alike. So important.

Examples:

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Posterous theme by Cory Watilo
  
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