Categories
Life

Memorial Day

Soldier Core

Hat’s off to all who served.

Categories
Business

RxCalc 1.1

RxCalc 1.1Apple Core Labs Blog: “When we released RxCalc 1.0 we felt the need to focus most of our effort on making sure our math was correct. We felt if the standard user interface was good enough for Apple, it was good enough for us. Since that time we’ve collected a bit of feedback, some great, some not so great, and a couple of really horrible comments that made us cringe”

It felt good to finally get that release out the door, and to celebrate we started working on the next release. We’ve made some great progress.

If you have a request please feel free to drop me a line, rob@applecorelabs.com or rob.fahrni@gmail.com, I’d love to hear what you have to say. You can also get it touch with us via one of our contact addresses.

Categories
MLOTW

Movie line of the week answer

Good morning!

We have a winner! Congratulations to Mr. Chris Ledoux.

The correct answer was…

Enemy of the State

See you next Thursday.

Categories
Apple Google

Nexus One vs. iPhone

Justin Williams: “After a week of using Android, I’m conflicted. If you had asked me last Wednesday what phone i’d be using a week from now I’d without a doubt say the iPhone. Now that we’re here, however, I am sticking with Android until the new iPhone ships. Widgets, home screen customization, background processes and the notification system are things that I’ve grown incredibly fond of and would miss if I went back to the iPhone today. I’m also eagerly waiting the release of Froyo for my Nexus One, which will offer a lot of new features I’d like to toy with in the near term.”

Go read the entire post, it’s very good. Justin actually likes some of the stuff I find interesting about Android, home screen customization and the notification system in particular.

Parting shot, from the post: “Where Android shines in some areas, it really falls apart in others. Things that are ridiculously simple on the iPhone such as taking a screenshot involves installing an SDK and going through a 15 step tutorial to do on Android.”

Categories
Life

LEVEL’ing Up

Kim and I are becoming empty nesters. Yes, it’s true, our little girls are all grown up. Haileigh is just about to graduate culinary school, and Taylor has just finished her first year in college. When the reality of it all set in Kim and I started thinking what’s next?

Question is, where?

It wasn’t so much what’s next as it was where? We’d been discussing a move out of the great San Joaquin Valley. Lots and lots of places came up; Boulder, Ft. Collins, Seattle, Austin, just to name a few. Yeah, we were open to a big move. In the end we settled on San Luis Obispo as a destination.

Finding a way

How do we get there? Well, you gotta find a great place to work, right? Yes, of course you do. I started looking for work about a year ago. I spoke with four different companies, one I thought I had, the other three were small and didn’t work. So I started looking around the Twitterverse for folks in San Luis Obispo I could connect with and found a great design community, much like Fresno’s. I reached out and found the folks to be quite friendly and helpful. I shared my skill set and asked who in San Luis Obispo might be a good fit. I was given a name.

Hello LEVEL

LEVEL Studios. That was the recommendation. So I decided to check out their web site, and found they’re a bit mysterious. It was hard to tell what they were up to. I found that they work with folks like Apple, HP, and RIM. They also ship a CMS, Switch. Given that, I thought I might find something that fit, so I applied. Lo and behold, I got a call! After a couple of phone interviews I traveled to San Luis Obispo to meet them in person. I went into the interview not knowing what to expect, and was extremely excited about what I heard. These guys do some very serious work, no I’m not going to say what, suffice it to say I was sold, and hoped I’d get an offer. I did.

Tomorrow, Friday, May 28, is my last day with Pelco. It’s been an interesting five years. I’ve see a lot of change during that time; acquisition, layoffs, and re-orgs. Pelco is on the right track. They have strong technical leadership in place and are making bold moves to become an IP company rather that a metal bending company. I have no doubt they’ll be quite successful. I’ll miss the people I worked with on a daily basis, but isn’t it always like that? Onward!

Monday, June 7, is my first day with LEVEL Studios. I’m really looking forward to it. The folks I’ve interacted with are super bright and friendly. The company has that old Visio-family feel I’ve been missing, I can’t wait to experience it first hand. Oh, yeah, and I also get to work on cool stuff, it doesn’t get much better than that!

Hello LEVEL, it’s very nice to meet you.

Categories
iPad

The Wired iPad app

Adobe Digital Publishing: “Created with Adobe InDesign CS5 and additional Adobe publishing technologies, the WIRED Reader is the first in a series of steps for Adobe to enable magazine publishers and retail catalogers to deliver groundbreaking experiences across tablets, smartphones and other devices.”

Lots of hubbub about this app. Why? The above paragraph says it was created with Adobe InDesign. Doesn’t that violate section 3.3.1?

No, it doesn’t. WIRED Reader is basically a document running inside a host application. The host must be a Cocoa application.

Pretty snazzy.

Categories
Life

Separated at birth?

I had to share this. Kim put this little picture together, I’m on the left at the age of 18, our youngest daughter, Taylor, is on the right at age 18. It’s a bit eerie.

Categories
MLOTW

Movie line of the week

Cut, cut, cut!Good morning movie liners. Have you had your morning coffee? Good.

Here’s the line, good luck!

Actor #1: I blew up the building.
Actor #2: Why?
Actor #1: Because you made a phone call.

Ok, quick, what movie! Send your guesses here.

Categories
Apple Microsoft

Ain’t gonna happen

Barron’s: “Chowdhry says the new version of VS will allow developers to write native applications for the iPhone, iPad and Mac OS. And here’s the kicker: he thinks Microsoft’s presentation could be given by none other than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. (Or if not, at least Bob Muglia, who runs Microsoft’s server and tools business.)”

There’s no way this is going to happen. Great rumor though.

Categories
Social

On Facebook Privacy

James Robertson: “To some extent, that’s like keeping a highly personal diary, and then storing it on your front porch. Sure, the porch is your property – but it’s not exactly private. I sure don’t have any illusions about how private something I put on Facebook (or any site I don’t control) is – I run with a default assumption that “anyone can see it”.”

Great point. I’ve lived a pretty open life of the web for the past nine years. When you have a weblog, everything is visible, knowing that is half the battle.

If you don’t want people to see what you’re up to, don’t post it. The world is watching.