I don’t know, but I’m happy Amazon’s doing something about it.
Gadget marketplace. Wouldn’t it be great? FOR ME TO USE EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Now back to my programming challenges to find a job in SF. Toodles.
Monthly Archives: May 2011
Edge Case: 3G iPad 1st Gen vs iPad 2nd Gen Data Activation
After an hour long conversation with AT&T and Apple, as well as an hour at the AT&T store (first of which, wasn’t the right store because they just sold phones), I am finally ready for the 3G on the iPad. I picked up a refurb 1st gen for $350 a couple days ago. (Super cheap, some crazy fire… sale at AT&T’s site.)
When I got it, I couldn’t access the Cellular Data tab in Settings to see if I could sign up for it. Kept giving me an error: “Your account type does not support the view account feature (H5006).”
So here’s the interesting info. The 1st generation iPads would come with completely blank micro SIM cards. The 2nd generations, however, come with a phone number already attached to it. Someone shipped my iPad with a micro SIM card with a phone number on it, and so the 1st gen couldn’t start the sign up process because there was already a number assigned to it.
You can’t just ask for a new SIM card if you have this error: You have to ask for a completely blank one.
Conspiracy Theory
Okay, so here comes my hatred/fear of the telecoms: When I signed up through the less-than-perfect AT&T site, I had to pick a data plan. Now, as you may know, I love love love the fact that on the 3G iPads, I don’t have to muck around with the pipe provider. You sign up for 30 days of X amount of data, and you’re done. No contract. No calling in to customer support, hammering at the 0, saying no to every single question. No bullcrap. But when I bought this iPad, I felt like I was entering into a contract with AT&T, telling them that I’d be giving them money regardless of if I used the 3G feature (which I normally wouldn’t).
Does the fact that the 3G iPad 2 comes with the phone number already attached to it say anything about the vendor/telecom relationship between Apple and AT&T/Verizon? Will there be a subsidized iPad in the future? Don’t know, but don’t sign me up on it.
Now to enjoy yet another addition to my ever-revolving set of gadget loadouts. Hooray.
Rails 3.1 Beta
So Rails 3.1 beta just came out recently, a fact I found out as I watched the RailsConf 2011 keynote. Also a new Railscast (ASCIIcasts is really what I prefer) on the subject was posted.
I guess I’m taking a break from all the JavaScript diving I’ve been doing in the past two days. So many programming challenges… argh. I do hope that the next time I’m in this situation, I have enough source code available online so that I don’t have to wade through this process, but right now it’s completely understandable on the part of my prospective companies to ask me to do these things.
Three passes already, but plenty more companies left. Gotta keep rolling. SF Ho!
Edge Case: iTunes/Windows Doesn’t Recognize iPad
Not 100% sure what the actual problem was, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with Air Video.
I had Air Video installed for the third iPad I had, but when I got this “new” one, iTunes couldn’t detect it. The last.fm scrobbler saw it, so did Windows 7.
So I went to uninstall everything Apple installs through iTunes (six things listed here), but realized that Air Video requires Bonjour to work, which I found out as I was coming back from a reboot after the uninstall of said six things.
Now it’s all good in the hood. Hopefully this helps someone else.
// BTW: On a Mac? What ‘Control Panel’? What ‘System’? What ‘right click, update, go through directory structure to find a driver folder’? Ahem.
Google I/O
At least watch the keynotes.
I’m getting more and more excited about the web. And I’m incredibly happy that Google is going in the directions that they are going.
And with that, I just bought a first-gen 3G iPad. (I’m almost certain it’s my 4th.) I still don’t know of any browser that works as well on a tablet as the iOS Safari. I also love that there is no contract that I have to deal with. And since it doesn’t seem like Chrome is coming to tablets anytime soon, I guess this is just how I’m going to have to roll for now… or until Android comes up with a better browser.
Syntax Error? Nope.
Logical punctuation, please.
I’ve had this issue since around the time I started to write online. Commas, periods, parens, single/double quoations… I knew what the “proper” rules were, dictated to me by whoever was grading my papers at that time.
But since I make my own rules here, I decided to just keep going with what I felt to be correct. And especially in the Hacker Writing Style, computer syntax would override “proper” English grammar. So I’m pretty sure I kept up my own little system for punctuation.
Maybe it drove a couple of you crazy, but there was a method to the madness, is really all I’m trying to say here.
So if I parens (like so), then the comma comes after it. But if what was in the parens was a full sentence, then I would separate it out, and even include it in the sentence. (But then again, I really should be tangenting this stuff anyway in footnotes, but I absolutely hate footnotes. Probably the better way to do this is to have a second column or some other visual system to go DEEPER.)
Also: Suck it, spellchecker. Parens is a word now.
Just a couple interesting links from Hacker News.
Spark
Some mornings, it takes a while to get started.
This is why some people like to leave tasks undone when they close up shop for the day, so that they can just pick up where they left off.
For me, though, I just have to find out some way to create something to get started.
And I guess that’s what this post is for. Have a happy rest of the day today.
Chromebooks
Uh, so this happened.
I want one. Definitely grabbing it from the Amazon store when it does come out, unless I somehow have a laptop… And maybe even then, the free 100MB per month (for 2 years) sounds delicious.
I won’t need it, but what would make this deal even sweeter is if I can somehow get to a terminal, like it was possible with the Cr-48. I wouldn’t want to throw Linux on it. While it won’t be as bad as getting a Mac to throw Linux on it (seriously, who does this? you’re paying for the OS/Hardware integration…), I would still want Chrome OS to be happy in its native setting, without disturbing too much of the innards.
I could have totally used this on my trip to SF last week… trying to find hotspots is so amazingly annoying, especially on foot, without an internet-connected device telling you where the hotspots are.
// Yes, I’m on a feature-phone. There’s a post coming on this subject.
EDIT: I guess they’re currently not interested in going into tablets. It kind of makes sense, because they’re still keeping the Android/ChromeOS separate projects… and in some sense, it’s super smart making sure not to be okay at two things but be very good at one thing x 2. (Android though… meh.)
I really would have liked to have some multitouch gestures to my Chrome browsing experience, but I guess that’ll have to wait. Android web browser (also with Dolphin and Opera) is… lacking. I’d take the iOS webkit over any Android browser any day.
Maybe it’s time for my 4th iPad… good thing those things are still sold out. 
SF Ho!
The more I think about it, the more I can’t look away.
Ever since I moved away from So Cal and started high school in Ohio and college in Illinois, I’ve slowly been moving towards the West Coast.
Looking for a job is always a bit of a pain, but all these companies that I’m talking with are getting me all the more excited.
So hopefully, one of these companies accept me as their own, and I can be awesome with them, too.
Or, I may stay in the Valley I currently reside, the Las Vegas one, working at a smaller robotics and electronics gig, doing more of the same stuff I love to do.
Oh right, for those of you that are keeping count, I’ve had three different “jobs” in Vegas since I got there, and it would be fourth if I choose to stay.
Enough With The Tool Sharpening Already
I think Linux let’s me do this a lot more. And I think to some extent, a lot of web devs that favor Macs are doing this out of sheer ignorance (which is totally okay… it let’s you focus on the parts that should be getting the focus, like shipping stuff) or having been bit in the butt with this tool sharpening process before.
// This isn’t to say I wouldn’t mind using Linux (Ubuntu) or Mac OS X. But no, no Windows for web dev. Ever.
In my early days of vim, after learning how to get around in documents, I started diving into the world of .vimrc’s and plugins. This would be the start of a very dark time, since nothing would ever get done in this tool, other than me just poking around all the wonderful lovelies of the text editing software.
Unless I was going to start a compendium on how to become even better at vim (yes… there’s a project somewhere in my head for this…), this wasn’t going to cut it. I wasn’t getting anything done.
Another example: window management. I still want to learn tmux like a crazy person. I want to be able to move windows with as few keystrokes as possible. And all the while this desire grows, my desire to sharpen my skills on vim grows just as fast.
Ugh. Stop it. I know you want to be super productive, but seriously, what’s the point of being super productive, Balkanizing time and space to make it super neat and organized if nothing ever gets done.
And so marks the glorious return of the all-too-pensive JK.
And I guess, that’s what all this down period was supposed to be for: To sharpen the tool known as English, to be able to construct better blog posts at a faster speed, to talk on subjects that interest me all the while that list of interest grew and grew…
This need to sharpen my mind to categorize those topics… too much was done on this front and too little was done on the diving into the topics themselves.