Category Archives: Web Applications

Chromebooks

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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. :-)

Highway to the Danger Zone

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Maybe it was accidentally thinking that I deleted my entire music “collection. It’s probably more because of finding about how awesome Rdio is. Netflix only added to this desire of transitioning more and more into a cloud-centric lifestyle. (Heck, Hulu Plus might have pushed me into it, too, if the terms were just a little bit better.)

My Dropbox usage only grew with time. Recently, I’ve been using it heavily to share tabs for my band, adding and removing songs as we close in our Halloween (10.30.10) gig. (Yes, I know something else important happens that day, but you can take a flight here after it, right?) More or less, my entire reference library is on there, as with my important pdfs and docs.

// Which reminds me, I have to transfer all my Omni* files to a more open format. I wasn’t thinking in college when I started using OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle for things, and not exporting them to more durable formats like .txt or .pdf/.png.

Notational Velocity. Only after I used Simplenote on the iPad did I find this gem, and have never let go of it. For now, though, my MarsEdit drafts have been moved into NV, and will stay up in the Simplenote Cloud for the time being, while it’s also being backed up into the Dropbox Cloud just in case.

The “Mac Applications” category is going to start looking empty from now on, since my full-time job is heavily a Windows shop (with a healthy scoop of VMs running all over the place) I’m going to have to become even more one with the Clouds.

Dotfiles. So important. Github and Dropbox is where they will reside, until I can pull them down using Homesick. I haven’t gotten around to implementing this, but it will have to happen soon enough.

And I’m going to love it that way.

  • Local external backup: External FW800/USB2/eSata drive (Probably could use another drive), SD Cards, USB Sticks
  • Local box backup: Physical HDD, SSD
  • Cloud backup: Dropbox, Simplenote, Mozy, Github (Future: Amazon S3 or Rackspace Cloud Files)
  • Cloud media service(s): Rdio, Netflix, Hulu

In some way or another, my stuff is backed up at least twice. And that makes me all the warm inside.

// Please read the title as a reference to Archer. I’m looking forward to the return of this awesome FX show.

Skype over 3G

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“My subscription comes with 250 MB of data per month… With 750KB/minute, this equals 4.4 hours of free Skype conversation. Which is something I would never ever reach which means that at least with skype-enabled people, I can talk for free now.”

Skype over 3G – Calculations

This is some good info for someone who wants to somehow not have to deal with the phone part of the cell phone companies.

Proof of Address

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Eventually, a bill statement is not going to be viable for checking for proof of residency, because most everyone will get eBills.

Where’s Google Mail? No, not Gmail, but like Google Voice, but for your mailing address? Will my address looking something like this?

Josh Kim

PO BOX 5f3a2b8934

Mountain View, CA 94043

I know that there are services that take your mail and scan it and send it to you, but that’s not free. I want to give up my privacy for free services! Hooray.

399,999,999.

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Did You Not See This Coming?

I don’t really want to explain why (at least, not right now), but here’s how.

Go here. Then click submit after typing in your password and filling out the CAPTCHA.

Try logging in later (in 14 days) to make sure. If it asks if you want to reactivate, it didn’t take.

Via Wikihow.

Here Comes The Confirmation Email

Hi Josh,

We have received a request to permanently delete your account. Your account has been deactivated from the site and will be permanently deleted within 14 days.

If you did not request to permanently delete your account, follow this link to cancel this request:

http://www.facebook.com/account_delete.php

Thanks, The Facebook Team

Thank you. 14 days, though? This better mean you blasted through previous backups, too. (Probably not… but I guess that’s better than nothing.)

Haven’t You Done This Before?

Yes. To my memory, I’ve done it twice before. I came back the first time to see what the big deal was about the design changes, which turns out weren’t really that big of a deal. I think the second time had something to do with the username land grab, and I’ve been sitting on “joshkim” for a while.

Actually, it was the username bit that kind of made me hesitant, until I realized that I won’t actually be using that user account for anything anyway. Actually, now my /joshkim page is going nowhere. Interesting.

I’m not completely ignoring Facebook, though. It’s definitely trying something new in the world of the Semantic Web, and while I support that cause, I will not support any one single authority on this front.

It’s not like you people are going to miss me on Facebook anyway… did you even know I was friendless for a couple weeks now? :-)

Next post will be on how to reach me as I continue to simplify my life, in the real world as well as the digital one.

My Head Hurts

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Indie developers, indie musicians, indie authors.

App Store, iTunes Store, Kindle Store. iPad, iPhone, Kindle.

I don’t really want to talk or read or think about this anymore. It seriously hurts my head.

All the while, nothing is getting done. I’m getting more knowledgeable on the issues, but man, it’s just a huge time vacuum.

Dear Vimeo: Please Let Me Skip Ahead

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Attached is the trailer for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, first from YouTube and the second from Vimeo.

With YouTube’s Flash player, you can jump ahead before the video is fully loaded. Vimeo? You cannot.

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

Another plus for the YouTube player: once the video is fully loaded, it stays cached. Vimeo’s does not.

Oh, and I’m sure there are some people who have fancy Pipes being able to download this so fast that my little experiment fails. I hate/love you.

Why This Is Ridiculously Annoying

These are 1 minute long videos, so it’s not that big of a deal to not be able to jump around. (And who’d want to, these trailers are still awesome.)

But think how annoying it would be for an hour long screencast, interview, or presentation. If I find a lengthy piece of video on Vimeo, I try to find it somewhere else online.

Let’s assume that Flash crashed. (I know, hard to believe.) This forces me to restart the download from the beginning and makes me wait until the stream catches up to where I left off. YouTube? Just jump to where you left off. (It would be cool if it somehow saved where I left off, like Hulu in some cases.)

Also, this is mildly annoying if I’m going up to HD or dropping down to lower quality, since the video has to restart downloading. YouTube handles this a lot more gracefully by upscaling or downscaling and continuing from when you left off.

Skipping Ahead

Please don’t take this the wrong way: Vimeo is a fine video sharing site. I’ve heard great things about the upload process from other developers using Vimeo for the aforementioned uses, and I like the design of their site.

But, come on. There was a time when jumping around a video was a whiz-bang futuristic feature. These days, Vimeo is the exception for not having this feature.

What surprises me is that I can scrub the video, meaning: I can click and hold on the progress bar (Vimeo: What progress bar?), and you’ll see the keyframes of the video. I don’t know much about Flash in general, but I feel like this feature is doable without too much reprocessing of old videos. I’d like to hear from Vimeo on this.

Bonus Rant

I absolutely abhor when I click on the video playing in the YouTube’s Flash player that it opens up to the YouTube page. I mildly dislike that Vimeo’s player doesn’t do anything, except I do like how double clicking the video makes it go into full screen.

I’m sure there’s a blog post somewhere out there, calling out for standard User Interfaces for flash players in general. Maybe native players will win? HTML5 <video> FTW?