Archive for the ‘Web Tech’ Category

• 18 Apr

  

  Posted by
  mizidy

  
  

  Category

  • Web Tech

  2 Weeks With an iPad

  0

  Two weeks ago I got an iPad the day it came out and I have held off writing about it because I didn't want to comment on it before I really had a chance to use it. I could go on about how fast it is, the great display, etc, but instead I would rather tell you what I like and don't like about it which is likely more useful for you if you are deciding on whether to get one or not, so let's jump in!

  Reading

  Reading books on the iPad is a joy, and i can honestly say that it would be tough to have me go back to the printed version of books. That being said, I much prefer the Amazon Kindle app to iBooks with the primary reason being selection. There are so few books on the iBooks store compared to the Kindle, and when you add in the fact that you cannot disable the goofy page turning animation the Kindle app hits a home run to iBooks double.

  In addition to reading books, and maybe more important, browsing the web on the iPad is the best way I have ever seen to browse. Being able to position the Internet where you want, then zoom in to just the content makes it absolutely amazing. Using a desktop or laptop browser after the iPad feels like using ancient technology, that is that impressive. Oh, and I don't miss Flash one bit.

  Writing

  The portrait keyboard is pretty much useless. The keyboard is too big to thumb type, but too small to use all of the fingers. Landscape is a different story. While it isn't perfect, it is pretty darn good for writing, especially short notes. I am writing this entire post on the ons screen keyboard and while it isn't great, I can get it done. Drawing apps are also a blast on here, and I was able to diagram something really quick on it.

  Apps

  While the apps are more expensive, it makes sense to me. The iPad apps are much closer to desktop apps than the iPhone, so the price should be closer to. The Netflix and ABC apps are killer first generation apps, along with the iPhone classics like Instapaper make it a good start, but really makes me excited for what the next generation of apps will be. My only gripe is there isn't a great Google Reader app yet, that is reasonably priced and not called NetNewsWire.

  Overall, I love the device. It has caused me to try not having a laptop for work since I can do so much of what work I would do at home on it now. If you haven't tried one out yet, head to an Apple store or Best Buy and give it a whirl. You might not buy one, but you will definitely be impressed

• 28 Jan

  

  Posted by
  mizidy

  
  

  Category

  • Web Tech

  First Thoughts on the iPad

  8

  Imagine this scenario:

  You wake up in the morning and notice your digital photo frame. You sit down to eat, check your email and read the news. You commute into work and read a book on the bus or carpool in. You head to a meeting at work and take some notes, then email them out after. Over lunch you take a break and watch a video, then check your schedule. On the evening commute, you decide to listen to some tunes and play a video game. As you go to bed, you lay down to read a novel.

  That could be a pretty typical day that has all sorts of things involved. Your laptop, book, video game system, folio, etc. Now imagine if you could have one device to do that all. That could be the iPad. That is why I think it is going to be a huge deal. The biggest thing for me, is that it doesn't have to do all of the things I described well, it could do three of the things, like playing games, checking your email and reading a book, and it would still be worth it.

  When the iPhone came out, it was a big deal because it condensed my phone, iPod and digital camera into one device. The iPad has a chance to do that again, but with more things around the house and office. And again, it doesn't have to do all of those things well to be valuable. But the awesome part is, it very well might do all of those things well!

  Changes the Web

  I see the potential for all of the things the iPad can change, but from my web tech perspective I am even more excited. The iPad puts the web on the same playing field as print media finally. If you want to argue that the laptop was fine for viewing the web, go ahead. But in my experience, reading a magazine to read an article was nicer than trying to read a lengthy article on the laptop or smartphone. With the iPad, the web is now on equal footing with size and ease of reading.

  The other huge thing is the fact that Webkit continues to support leading edge web standards that web designers and developers want to use. This means designers have the ability to mimic magazine article layouts and now have a platform to present them in a similar fashion. Imagine seeing an elaborate design, now in the ease of reading like a magazine.

  Oh, and no Flash is no problem for me. For me, 90% of the things you see in Flash on a website can now be done with Javascript and HTML5. I want the open standards supported, and if the iPad gives the web standards more of a nudge forward, that is fantastic!

  My Apps Just Work on it?

  As much as I hate the whole App Store approval stuff, I will give Apple credit on keeping a tight lock on how apps get developed. By using the tools Apple provides, almost all apps will work on the iPad without any changes. The biggest reason for this is the common set of UI elements that developers have in creating their app. Now, when the apps get doubled in size on the iPad, all of the UI elements that Apple provides will increase in an elegant way. This isn't to say that you would design an app for the iPad to look like a doubled in size iPhone app, but the fact that day one apps will work, that is impressive and throws a bit of a bone to App Store developers. And for the end user, the apps you have will work with no extra cost.

  I realize that I am labeled as a Mac fanboy, so you might just throw all of this away as Mac hope. Sure I want to see the iPad succeed, but I also think this is going to honestly be a gamechanger with how some folks interact with technology. The ease of use with, that size screen and a decent weight means people will be able to do things more efficiently and with a pleasant experience. Will it be perfect? No, but I think it will be well worth the $500 entry price.

• 13 Jul

  

  Posted by
  mizidy

  
  

  Category

  • Web Tech

  Giving Cable the Boot – Part 2

  5

  At the end of the last post, we were about to receive our Mac Mini instead of using the AppleTV. We got the Mac Mini and started working with Boxee on it, only to find that within a week, the machine would not boot. Luckily Apple was good enough to ship out a new machine once they got confirmation the bad one was shipped back, but it did mean we had a few days without a media station again. This time ended up being valuable though as it let us investigate Plex on our other computer.

  Plex is a Mac-only spinoff of the XBMC project. The first time we tried Plex, we were impressed by it's interface. The folks who work on this definitely are Mac people as the UI was stunning. We were then wowed by the "App Store" within Plex. This is basically a list of plugins for Plex that allow streaming from a number of other sources, such as Netflix, The Daily Show, South Park, etc. What is especially nice about this is that it automatically updates when new sources are available. Since we have received the Mac Mini, Food Network and HGTV have been added, allowing viewing of some full episodes from each.

  Plex also has the ability to watch movies and TV shows saved to the computer. It is impressive in that it can get movie and TV information from the internet, including TV theme songs when browsing through the different programs. We were so impressed by the ability to organize and view shows that we are starting to rip our DVDs of TV and movies shows so they can be easily accessible from the mini.

  The one last big thing is Hulu. With the release of Hulu Desktop, we thought that might be a good option for us. This was reinforced when we found that Plex an open any other application on the Mac from it's interface. The issue with this was Plex had a difficult time releasing the remote to work with Hulu Desktop. While mildly frustrating, we worked with it. That was until we found that Plex has a Hulu "app" that works amazingly well. Because of this, we are now using Plex for everything.

  It has been a bit of an adventure getting here, but we both agree it was the right decision. Within 6 months, the money that would have gone to cable and Tivo will pay off the Mac mini. While we are not getting as much HD content, we are getting almost everything we want to see (A side note: Discovery Channel, please start streaming your programs somewhere. Mythbusters is the only program we cannot get online that we used to watch). The biggest thing is that Plex really just works, where all of the other things we tried were going to be bigger headaches in the end run, so if you are looking to go this route, I highly recommend Plex.

• 18 May

  

  Posted by
  mizidy

  
  

  Category

  • Web Tech

  Giving Cable the Boot

  3

  Month after month, we receive our cable & Tivo bills and cringe at the near $100 total. Before Will, I was able to justify the cost a lot more, but with the economy and less time in front of the TV it is more difficult to do so. With this in mind, Rebekah and I decided to experiment with the AppleTV to see if it could meet our needs of watching videos from our hard drive and streaming Netflix and Hulu with reasonable quality.

  The first thing was getting the AppleTV, not too tough since the University Bookstore carries them. This worked well for the potential need to return it, no need to deal with shipping or restocking fees. After getting it home, I started it up connected to the TV via HDMI and the receiver with an optical cable. All worked well and I had a working AppleTV that basically allowed watching iTunes content. We did know going into it that we would need to hack the AppleTV to get Hulu and Netflix (via Boxee or XBMC), so that was the next step.

  I decided to go the easy route and try the atvusb-creator. This was a piece of cake, downloaded and ran the app, installed to the USB key and done. I then rebooted the AppleTV with the USB key connected. The installer just did it's business and after the restart, there were a bunch of new options on the menu. This is when things were not as easy as I would have preferred.

  I tried starting Boxee and nothing came up. I tried the same with XBMC, and nothing. I started getting a little concerned, so I started poking around the settings and found an update section. I ran the update for the Installer program, and then the Boxee and XBMC programs after that. Luckily that got both of those working, I just wish there had been a little more documentation about that beforehand.

  I decided to try Boxee and it instantly went to a blank screen. After some checking online, I found I had to update the AppleTV software and then do all of the hacks again. This took some time, but after that Boxee came up just fine. I logged in, tried out Hulu and found that it was a bit choppy. I tried Boxee on my laptop as well to confirm it was not a Boxee issue, and Hulu ran just fine through that. I decided to give Netflix a try and it wouldn't even start on the AppleTV through Boxee, again, something that worked great on my laptop.

  It was a this point I checked and found that the AppleTV only has 256MB of RAM, not really enough to handle HD streaming. Because of this, we have decided to return the AppleTV and instead go with a Mac mini. The mini is on the way from China, so there will be a followup to this when we get that setup. We are both optimistic that this will work better and be the cable replacement we are looking for, so stay tuned next week for an update.

• 17 Feb

  

  Posted by
  mizidy

  
  

  Category

  • Web Tech

  And WordPress Moves Into the Lead!

  0

  There has been some competition in the open source CMS area in the last couple of years, specifically between Drupal and WordPress. As each grows and matures, they each gain loyal followers who claim that their system can do everything the other can do, and more! While I am not here to speak on which you should be using, I will say that the recent release of WordPress 2.7 has potentially changed the game. Users of both systems know that the biggest headache for either is trying to keep it up to date, not only the standard install, but also with plugins/modules for each. WordPress 2.7 introduced the ability to update from within the browser and with this, makes it my recommendation until Drupal does the same. If you have not used one or both of these systems, I can show you what I mean.

  Updating the Core System

  Below are two series of screenshots, one for Drupal and one for WordPress on updating the core system.

  Drupal

  

  

  WordPress

  

  

  

  As you can see, after the WordPress update was completed in 3 steps, while after two steps with Drupal, I am just getting to downloading the core and then have to FTP it to my site and hope nothing is overwritten.

  Updating Plugins/Modules

  Here are the respective upgrade paths for add-ons for each system

  Drupal

  

  

  WordPress

  

  

  

  Same thing here, WordPress is updated through the browser, Drupal I have to download and FTP. An added step for Drupal is making sure there are no dependancies on other modules which also need updates. This means that you might have to run your system with the big red banner on it for awhile until the supporting modules are also available.

  Admin Interface

  Taking WordPress really over the top is the new admin interface. When Drupal came out with a new default design in version 6, it was a big step up from the previous theme. The problem is that they didn't go far enough because they didn't address the structure and organization of the admin panel. Below are two views of the Drupal admin panel, one with what shows up above the fold, the second a full list of a typical install.

  

  

  Now compare that admin navigation to the sidebar in WordPress 2.7, both standard and fully expanded

  

  

  In preparing to write for this, I gave myself the minor task of trying to figure out how I would change the sidebar of my site in both systems. I won't go into the detailed process on how to do this for either system, but I will just show you two options below and let you decide which is easier to figure out how to change.