July 28th, 2008 tkadom
neat tutorial for creating a contact form in merb which shows off some of the table less models in datamapper.
http://www.web2media.net/laktek/2008/07/28/creating-a-contact-form-using-merb-datamapper/
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July 18th, 2008 tkadom
I think Ryan Bates rocks. His screencasts are amazing, and everything Ryan bates is good. If I had free time, I would probably stalk Ryan Bates. So naturally, I have to link to the Five Runs Ryan Bates Interview .
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July 14th, 2008 tkadom
I guess I am the type of guy that is interested enough in new technology to want to own it on the first day, but not devoted enough to wait in line overnight for it. I think it took almost a year for me to finally land a wii, but lets chalk that up to Nintendo not wanting to sell units (Seriously). So naturally I was in line on Friday at the local AT&T store to get a glimpse of the new iphone. As luck would have it, I was 20 people back from the last person to touch the highly touted relic of technical perfection. For the record, everyone who came out of the AT&T store with a bright little orange bag, looked pretty happy, despite all the technical activation challenges that made the evening news. However, unlike Nintendo, the AT&T guys were only too eager to take our names down and order a phone for everyone in line. They must not have been reading the Nintendo playbook, because apparently the best way to market a product is to create artificial shortages, and then refuse to take pre-orders from anyone.
Oh well, I went home to buy the software update for my suddenly ancient and outdated 8GB ipod touch. Thankfully, Apple provided an adventure for me that lasted the rest of the day and diverted my attention from my epic failure at the AT&T store. If you were trying to pay Apple to upgrade your ipod firmware to 2.0 on friday, you were probably contemplating what a sledge hammer could do to your keyboard… am I right? I am not the type to steal software, but when you want to give someone full list price money, and the vendor refuses you service with creative and unique timeouts, well then other avenues must be found! Since the beta of the 2.0 firmware was widely available, I fired up my favorite torrent client and grabbed while the grabbing was good. (For the record, I managed to purchase the final 2.0 firmware sometime after midnight, so my conscience is at peace) I have to say, the 2.0 software made me regret that the lights off game from my JB’pod was not available via sale, or free download. However, there was some very sweet 2.0 programs that ran great on my ipod touch. The games were amazing, as were the news/rss readers. There was a weather app which blew me away with the local radar view, some really neat GTD apps. All in all I felt like my ipod had just become a must carry device! If this is the first taste of the iphone software, its going to be one heck of a phone. I suddenly started wondering if camping out for a night at the apple store might not be a fun experience… meeting new people, having the cops shine flashlights in your face, giving people a false name so they can never connect you to the pathetic display of servitude…but then i snapped out of it and decided that my bed would be much more comfortable.
I went back to the AT&T store on Saturday, because one of the employees informed everyone on Friday that they had another shipment which they would open the next morning The shipment for Friday was 100 iphones, and when I showed up on Saturday I was about 26th in line. I was quite convinced that I would be headed home 60% happier and $316.94 poorer. But the Saturday shipment did not hold a candle to the Friday shipment, and the 20th person to walk into the store walked out with the last unit. Sorry, thanks for playing, we can take everyones name and order you a phone, it will arrive in 5-7 business days. Oh, and by the way, there are no pending shipments to our store through Tuesday, but check back with us on Monday… k? thanks!
Today the AT&T store is out, and does not have any idea if they will be getting more in anytime soon. They said they have no "pending shipments" that are en-route. All the local Apple stores have announcements to check back after 9pm tonight to see if they got a shipment for tomorrow. I decided to put my name on the list, because at this pace, I am beginning to have pangs of Nintendo syndrome. If 5-6 units will be trickling into stores this could be a long wait… But since they did take my name, at least I wont have to sheepishly peek in the store every day to see if santa apple left a shiny box in the display window for me. I for one will be relishing the sage advice of the often wrong John Dvorak who wrote:
Rather than awash with failure, I think Apple is swimming in money. The Iphone is not just marketing hype. It is a single device that replaces several, and it actually executes and delivers on its promise in every way. I had a "Smart" phone in my HTC (complete with keyboard). It could surf the web, it could take pictures and video, run excel and word, grab my email right off exchange, but in the end it was just a fat device that ran out of battery every 5 hours - I never used those features, because quite frankly the execution sucked. With my ipod touch I surf, listen to music, watch videos, and check email at home. It is an untethered computer that goes with me everywhere. The iphone will extend the range and capability of my ipod touch. The GPS feature alone is worth the price. I think once people start seeing this device, Apple will have a hard time keeping up with production. I would be very surprised if the 3G did not redefine the competitive landscape in the wireless world. But maybe thats too easy of a prediction, because I think it already has…
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July 7th, 2008 tkadom
Don’t fall behind in the meme game! http://drnicwilliams.com/2008/06/18/what-is-gitjour-gemjour-starjour/
bonjour - zero-conf
gitjour - yeah ok. i thought you could share repositories locally already, guess im not clued into why this is so cool yet.
pastejour - local pasties
gemjour - share your gems locally
appjour - probably need to use this at the next atlrug to see what people are hacking up while the presentations are running…
starjour - because every good jour deserves a ui…
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