Tethering vs. On-Phone Downloads

Riddle me this.. While on cellular service, without wifi, apps cannot be downloaded that are over 50 megabytes in size, yet if I tether my computer to my phone I can download files of any size without restrictions.

App.net II

Within writing about App.net appearing iffy all of a sudden it sounds much more appealing. Twitter I no longer letting third party apps like Tweetbot or Twitterific have unlimited users using the program.

While in the land of Facebook they have begun allowing companies to pay to have their advertising within a user’s newsfeed instead of appearing only on right side bar and after logging out they will be right smack dab between photos and posts. And as it has been said Facebook beta tests by tweaking the experience for people in different area, hence the slow rollout of Cover Photos, which will eventually take over everyone’s profiles like a virus.

A social network site that does not have a need for advertising in order to be a successful IPO or restrict how the service can be accessed by Apps and other websites. App.net is starting to seem very appealing now.

App.net

App.net sounds like a really cool idea, an open source social utility to connect individuals. Basically the main differentiating factor between this platform from the primary sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc and the more fringe “copy” websites is that user’s pay in order to use and fund the site and it is open for individuals to build and provide new features to the program to tailor the experience to what the body wants vs. other companies who roll out updates whenever which may be minor or may drastically change the use or layout of the utility and experience.

It is the closest to Twitter at the 

moment, to the point where you have preference if you were a early backer and already have a Twitter account one could reserve their account handle used on Twitter to be used on App.net. Along with that where it is currently resembles one of the very early builds of Twitter, long pages of communicating individuals tagging each other in their posts in order to communicate. At this point in the game App.net is in essence is a paid version of Twitter and nothing more. Give the various developers some time and it could flourish into something different and better but for now they are very much the same. And the one differentiating factor between the two is the one redeeming value that Twitter has, and App.net does not.

That feature is the ever so proudly touted fact that there will be no advertising or companies on App.net. Twitter’s premier quality is its ability for one account to very simply and easily broadcast to a crowd of interested followers. A prime example of this is from early in Twitters life. Mobile food trucks began using the service to announce where they were parked so their Twitter followers could follow them around the city and know where to go for food. This kind of business-orientated service is where Twitter really shines. On the person-to-person side of things it is just falls to pieces with just due to the fact that individuals are in essence using status updates to communicate instead of using Wall posts/comments/message to communicate in Facebook terms.

Facebook vs Twitter

In my mind sites like Facebook and Google+ fall into one category while sites such as Twitter and the present incarnation of App.net fall into another. Facebook type sites users in essence create an electronic version of themselves that lives online. Not only can you have people over to talk or to view photos or videos but you can also explore the world. There are countless websites and games that use Facebook accounts as login methods as well as to use your Facebook friend list to find  people I know and now interact with in the game. Whereas Twitter is just like Aim or any other messaging service where beyond the confines of the website your account name means nothing.

One of the biggest drawbacks at this early stage of App.net is what will make it great in the future, the $50 dollar service fee.  I am 100% certain that no one I know who I would have any interest in communicating with regularly would be on App.net. Unlike with services such as Facebook when I made an account in 2007 and noticed none of my friends were using the service I just logged off and just went back to MySpace until I had people I knew using the service. There was no harm making the account and waiting for almost a year for Facebook to catch on at my school. The problem with the almost certain lag with App.net is that $50 dollars is just going down the drain. I’d rather use that money towards an infinite number of camera accessories/shoes/who know what and I’m sure many other people would as well.

What sounds so intriguing about the platform is the idea of it being what the current email experience is, a cross platform environment. Where you can communicate with any other user no matter if they are using Yahoo, Gmail, Aol, or a company email account. If App.net can grow beyond just being another Twitter and become a central Social media interaction hub it has great possibilities for use and user commitment, but only time will tell if it will takeoff or crash and burn.

Canon vs. Nikon Entry Full Frame

With Photokina coming up as well as the rumours of Nikon releasing a “entry level” full frame camera (backed up with leaked photos of a D600) naturally it has been assumed that Canon would do the same. Naturally there have been very many different ideas and thoughts of how this would be fit into the Canon lineup. Personally the idea of a 7D mkII being made an entry level full frame and the 70D taking the place of the current 7D while fixing the xxD family naming scheme that the 7D/60D messed up makes the most sense to me.

This makes a lot of sense for Nikon, for them to fill the hole left by the launch of the D800 in their camera lineup. The huge megapixel count combined with the equally large 3,500 price tag put it far out of the hands of those hobbyists and semi-pro who long for a full frame camera but don’t have the memory or need for such large files. The D700 is not as pretty of an option for the primary reason it was knocked down very early in it’s life by the 5D mkII, lack of video. At this point in time if someone shooting Nikon wished to film video with a full frame they would need to either get a D800 or a D4. This is where there is an open spot in their lineup for a sub-2000 dollar camera.

This move does not make as much sense for Canon on the other hand. With the introduction of the Canon 5D mk III the 5D line did not encounter a major leap forward in capability, it was more an act of refining the line. Receiving a focusing system from the 1D series and a body layout from the 7D. Unlike D700 a 5D mkII is quite capable of shooting exceptional HD footage. A used 5D mkII can be purchased refurbished from Canon for around 1,700 and from individuals a price around fifteen to sixteen hundred can be expected. Rumor has it that the Canon “entry level” full frame will be a more stripped down body with less pro features to keep it from interfering with the 5D market share with a sub $2000 price tag. The problem here is that the 5D mkII exists, which unless the new camera has some kind of new innovation or leap forward (use of STM enabled lenses is not one) it will not be able to preform better than the 5D mk II. In essence the problem is if the new camera is priced too low it will interfere with sales of the xxD and xxxD/Rebel series and if the price is too high it will not sell due to the existence of the 5D mkII, a problem not seen by Nikon.

Canary>Safari

Normally I use Firefox on the various computers I use. For the time being I’m stuck using a different browser as Firefox has yet to be optimized for use on the rMBP. At first I was content using Safari which was preferable to Chrome. There has always been something about chrome that bothered me, mainly I think it was the attitude it carried be it vie its advertising and by those who used and preached about it. Yes on several occasions I have had to endure conversation of people declaring why Chrome was superior. The final thing that kept me from using Chrome was the combined search and url entry field. I like being able to just type in “facebook” and being taken directly to the website vs on chrome getting search results if “.com” is not typed in. Secondly I don’t like have my window being taken up by a giant list of search result suggestions when I am typing in the url for the website I want to go to.

The first couple days or so of Safari were all right, I was actually thinking it was as bad as the mental image of Safari and the corresponding gag reflex that hits me when I hear or think about it. There were some things I even liked, such as the little square in the top right corner that shows the status of downloads sort of lie the indicator found on iOS devices and when clicked it has a drop-down recent downloads list. This disillusionment and possible newfound love quickly evaporated after two things happened. One was that over the days of use my amount of tabs slowly climbed and after maybe 12 tabs were opened any new tabs would not appear and the only way to access them is to click on a button and select the one you want to browse or use a keyboard shortcut to scroll left or right through the tabs (Shift+Command+Arrow) this was slightly annoying as with in Firefox you can scroll the list of tabs left or right by using the track pad and just moving two fingers. The final straw was that with the updated 6.0 build of Safari the separate url and search boxes were merged.

Hello Google Canary

 In comes Google Canary which still has the obnoxious search url setup but it has a much better setup for managing open tabs. Just to show how obnoxious Safari is in the 6.0 build along with almost every build I have had the unfortunate experience of using  is is the fact that I would take this beta version of Chrome over a final build of Safari. With the current version of this beta that I have installed right now anytime I type in a field or scroll it looks like I’m at a club or a concert with bright strobes flashing all over the screen. Or in the case of Canary white boxes that randomly   

                                                                                    appear on screen. This is still better than Safari.

Hopefully Mozilla hurries up with their release of a retina Firefox browser

Retina MacbookPro

First off the screen is amazing and overall with the computer there are almost no gripes about it. Honestly there  are only two incredibly minor things that I feel like are lacking. One is the missing battery status indicator that used to be on the left side of the unibody MacBookPro and on the battery itself on the pre-unibody MacBookPro and on the standard MacBook. Its just nice to be able to know if the charger should be grabbed when pulling the computer out of the bag  the other incredibly minor complaint is that it no longer says MacBook Pro under the screen on the bezel as it did previously, it just seems like something is missing.

Applications look stunning on the screen, those that have been optimized for the new resolution at least. Applications such as Microsoft word make me feel like I’m wearing someone’s prescription glasses that are just slightly too strong so there is a slight blur.

The glorious fans, which Apple advertises ever so much really are not that revolutionary. More what is revolutionary is the lack of need for the fans.  Previous computers would always have the fans startup very quickly if the computer was sitting on a bed or on the sofa. The fan only consistently comes on so far when playing Call of Duty on the highest resolution settings. (2880x1800) When the fans do come on it does sound much more white noise esq vs. the normal whirring fan sound. The sound it does make is slightly reminiscent of hearing the wind blowing during a storm from inside of a house.

Editing photos and videos are great, and yet at the same time bad. I have horrible  OCD, hence the always wanting to know the battery level. First thing I have to mention is that the computer is fast. In the time it takes the computer I used to edit with to get to the Opening Aperture Library” dialogue box aperture has fully loaded on the rMBP.  The second great thing is that it can run several apps all at once without added lag. Previously if Aperture and Final Cut were both open it was mind numbingly slow. On this computer I just plugged in the camera and opened aperture without closing any of the previously running apps and I didn’t notice any speed loss, I’m not saying it wasn’t slower than when only Aperture is running it just was not noticeable. For reference the apps that were also running were, Final Cut Pro, Safari, Sparrow, Reeder, and Call of Duty 4. Once uploaded the photos looked amazing. One photo in particular did not look as good as expected. When I had looked at the back of the camera of taken photos it looked great, in the preview window to select images to upload it looked great. When opened full size in the editor it was incredibly obvious it was out of focus. Normally this would not be so antagonizing as when uploaded onto flickr, Facebook the image looked perfectly fine. So only when I see the image I know in the back of my mind that it is in fact out of focus but to the outside world it is not.

The rMBP is an incredibly fast and amazing to use, opening apps within seconds and booting up sometime between 15-26 seconds. Its fast enough so there is not a waiting period to think about how long it’s taking. Running applications is blazing fast, although I am using the 16gb model so it may be able to handle more applications at once than the 8gb. I would recommend it to anyone and everyone I know or don’t know.

School Election Speech

This was perhaps the most interesting assembly I have ever attended. He kept the act up the entire time.

He was not actually serious, he wanted to point out the flaws of the current SEC (Student Executive Council)

UPDATE

Today (The day after) he was forced to make a public apology on the video broadcasted announcements to the student body as well as an in person apology to the entire teaching staff. He was also removed from running for a position on the student council. Just a bit of background, he did his speech in a on stage rehearsal in front of the person in charge of the student gorvernment and she was 100% fine with what he was preparing to do.

The news of him being stripped of candidacy as well as being forced to give apologies as well his speech itself. Of all students I talked to as well as who I have been told about no one has taken offense or believed that he would seriously create an army. Teachers and Administrators have taken this completely the other way, one teacher said that he was "a fucking asshole and should be beat after school" and another seriously believed that he was intending to raise an army, and was VERY concerned.