There is a problem in our household. My wife and I have a terrible time keeping track of what’s in our fridge and more importantly, when it will go off. On many occasions we have bought meat, fresh veg or bread with the intention of eating it ‘soon’ only to find it has passed its best-before date by the time we want to eat it. It’s frustrating, depressing, costly and results in more meals at McDonalds than I’d care to mention. Clearly a better solution is needed. Continue reading →
This week marked the last session that I spent volunteering my time at a high school as a programming mentor for the current school term. Here are some of my thoughts about the experience. Continue reading →
A few weeks back I linked to an interview that I did about an Android app that I have been working on. Well, the app is just a part of a larger project that I’ve been thinking about for a while. I call it Inflatable Apps. Continue reading →
Today Dan and I ventured forth again into our adopted high-school to see how the students were getting on with their projects. Last week they had all presented their game ideas in front of ourselves, the rest of the class and a representative from OCRI. A week later, I was interested to see if they still had the enthusiasm they’d shown in the presentations. Continue reading →
One of the main things that I personally wanted to get across to the students here in Ottawa was that the XO is not just another laptop. There are certain key features that make it unique compared to the desktops and notebooks that they may have seen before.
3 XO Laptops
Chief amongst these is the mesh networking capabilities of the XO. Whilst it can connect to a regular wireless network just like any other computer, the XO can also form its own peer-to-peer network with others in the vicinity. This is really important as many of the applications that ship with the XO are social or collaborative in nature and the mesh allows them to be used in situations where a centralized network is unavailable. Continue reading →
Over the last couple of weeks I have had the pleasure of a pair of XO Laptops at my disposal. The XO is the result of the One Laptop Per Child project, founded by Nicholas Negroponte. The device itself is a real marvel of design and engineering, and I’ve had great fun hacking around with it.
The reason I am able to do this is because I am a volunteer mentor for OCRI, the Ottawa Center for Research and Innovation. Continue reading →
Want to see me flail around on camera and talk too fast about Android development? Here’s an interview I did completely at random while I was at PAX last month about a personal Andorid project that I’m working on. The guys interviewing me are from ftwapps.com which is more of an iPhone app review site but they were happy to let me ramble on about how much I like Android. Enjoy!
Anyone who follows this blog will notice that I’ve changed the theme recently. This was done because I finally admitted to myself that I’m not a particularly good web designer. Whilst I understand HTML, CSS and javascript I lack the design skills to weave them together into something that looks really good. That’s ok. In matters of design I’m prepared to defer to those who have had proper training and experience.
Instead, I’m now using a free wordpress theme called LightWord. The design is far superior to my previous attempt, if somewhat generic. However, I can now tweak this theme to my own needs without worrying too much about all the little details that I would miss if starting from scratch. This approach appeals to me because it’s an example of one of the central pillars of good programming: Code reuse. There are literally thousands of existing themes out there, so starting from scratch would mean repeating the work of many, many people. Seeing as I don’t plan on making design work part of my professional portfolio any time soon, I’m perfectly happy to borrow existing works (within the terms of their license) and bend them to suit my needs.
As a software developer, I’m used to being given tough problems and I’m not shy about building custom solutions from scratch to solve them. However, this is not always necessary. I recently learned that taking a step back and considering simpler solutions is always worthwhile.
This week, I was tasked with gathering and analyzing some data at my job. The task involved generating a couple of thousand data-points and examining their spread. The first part was easy, and accomplished in a couple of hours. What happened next was interesting though. Continue reading →
Lots of people have been quick to point out that Apple’s new iPad (a name which could have been better chosen) will lack multitasking support – just like the iPhone. I don’t think that this is going to be a problem.
Firstly, what kinds of activities were Apple showing off in the keynote? Let’s see:
Reading a book
Watching a film
Answering/Writing email
Browsing the web
Playing a video game
Listening to music
With the exception of the last item, I don’t think I’d want to combine any of those two tasks, especially on the same device. Who watches a movie while they’re trying to read a book? Even if I do want to switch between two such activities – Look up the name of an actor in the movie I’m watching for example – I’d have to pause/save/bookmark my movie/game/page in order to do so. Even if I could keep my movie playing while I did a search on the web, I wouldn’t want to: I’d miss some of the action!
Music is an exception that should be addressed, and indeed already has. Like the iPhone, you can play music ‘in the background’ while you do other things. Problem solved! The same can be said for services that need notification; Mail, Twitter, etc. Can all notify you that a message has arrived without interrupting the current task.
The iPad is definitely not for everyone, but anyone who is on the fence shouldn’t be too concerned by the lack of multi-tasking. When you’re buried in your favourite book or watching the climactic scene of a movie you won’t care.
There is a problem in our household. My wife and I have a terrible time keeping track of what’s in our fridge and more importantly, when it will go off. On many occasions we have bought meat, fresh veg or bread with the intention of eating it ‘soon’ only to find it has passed its best-before date by the time we want to eat it. It’s frustrating, depressing, costly and results in more meals at McDonalds than I’d care to mention. Clearly a better solution is needed. Continue reading 
