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Amazing. The interface, the idea, the implementation, the design, the colors. It's really, really great.
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I love it when something does one thing and does it well.
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"We help make the internet a prettier place." Over 2,000 free designs!
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Some of these are just priceless.
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If you know what this is parodying, it's very funny. If you don't, it might not be.
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This is a good foundation of information for newbie 24 watchers. It's funny, too, because so much of this is true AND ridiculous.
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"Utilities which allow you to quickly and easily add new 'stikkits' to Stikkit.com." The QuickSilver stuff is the best part.
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My god, this is perfect. Why didn't I come up with this? I'm constantly saying it, this will save me time!
Oh, that crazy Hobo Jones. You know, we invited him into our studio to record a few life lessons, and now he's become obsessed with the internet. Who knew that having him in the podcast would excite him about technology so? We just figured he'd go back to spitting inside and yelling at the mirror.
Why, earlier today he even created a Twitter account and continued dishing out his brand of hobo-genius. If you're interested, you should add him as a friend so you can keep up with whatever it is he's doing.
It's nearly 2AM. Why am I still up? Because I was busy busting my ass to release episode 16 of the podcast. That's right—that's how much I care about entertaining people. I care.
You should absolutely subscribe to the podcast. If you haven't, you might be insane. It's possible. And tell your friends. There's no good in you being all selfish and not sharing this podcasting goodness with others. Hell, you can send them a direct link to listen to the episode right now with the built-in player. Share the wealth!
We released episode 15 of the podcast yesterday, so go check it out. You can—nay, you should!—subscribe to the podcast or listen to the episode right now using the built-in player.
We were thrilled to see that Jon Hicks recently declared our show podcast of the year for 2006, which is truly an honor—thanks Jon!
I'm still completely in love with my MacBook Pro1, but I'm a little disappointed that it doesn't have a draft-N Airport card and that there's no way to upgrade it.
One good thing about the old days of buying an Airport card and installing it yourself was that there was an Airport card you could take out and replace if you wanted to. My MacBook Pro was the first machine I've ever purchased where the Aiport card was a feature that had to be included at the point of sale and wasn't user installable or removable. And, as such, now with Apple releasing draft-N-compatible cards, I'm out of luck.
This is unfortunate for several reasons, the biggest of which is that everything in our apartment is running on wifi at this point. I've got my MBP and Katia's MB, as well as a plethora of other devices2 all running in 802.11g mode. Now don't get me wrong, it's fast, but when one of us is uploading photos to Flickr, you definitely feel the slowdown on all other devices. And by slowdown I mean all other devices absolutely crawl.
Hoping there might be an option for upgrades to machines like mine, I stopped by the Apple Store to ask a "genius." He said (I'm paraphrasing here) Apple didn't plan to offer upgrades to older machines, in part because the new draft-N cards uses three-wire antennas and the older cards have two-wire antennas, so the upgrade would be more than just the card itself.
It looks like the only solution for non-N-enabled MacBook Pro users will be to use an ExpressCard/34 device, something like the one Belkin released at MacWorld this year. Of course, then you've got a big hunk of plastic sticking out of the side of your laptop, which isn't too pleasant or sleek. And, of course, this doesn't help MacBook users who don't have the slot. They'll need to use a USB device which is even clunkier.
Obviously, there's only so much complaining you can do about things like this—computers evolve and technology improves and you'll never be able to have it all for very long. It still stings, though.
On a side note, I think the new Aiport Extreme pages on the Apple site are some of the most attractive product pages I've ever seen them do. That background gradient and the colors are really nice.
The guide menu's blurb for the first night of the two-part 24 season premiere:
A series of terrorist attacks leads into a nail-biting day.
And the second:
Unthinkable events are unfolding.
To be honest, these are the most ridiculous and yet most appropriate blurbs I can think of. 24 is one of the best (if not the best) shows on television.
About five minutes before the end of the second two-hour block, I actually said out loud, "But how are they going to top last year?" And then they did. Just like that.
I feel like I've been working on version 2.0 of SimpleLog forever. In reality, it's been about five and a half months since the last release, and the app has undergone so many changes and restructures—it's really quite different now than it was before, at least code-wise. The core of the application is still the same, but the theme structure, the features, the way I've written it have all changed.
Version 2.0 is significantly packed with new stuff (comments, "static" pages, admin interface design polish, more preferences, new site helper structure, more, more, more) and I've been working for so long now that I tend to forget what's new and what's not.
Core development is all done—I released a stable beta to testers today. From this point on it's bug fixing and polish and then it will be publicly released, finally. Another goal for this version is to get a wiki up and running with more thorough documentation for installation and helper methods and such, which I hope to have done at release time.
I'll be converting this site over to the next beta once I get a round of bug fixing done. I might even turn on comments on a few entries to publicly test the feature, which should be fun.
So if I'm reading this right (and I might not be), it sounds like Cingular will allow current not-in-upgrade-time customers buy an iPhone and simply extend their contracts another two years:
It was again confirmed that customers must agree to a two year contract, even if that requires customers to renew their current service.
Granted, that's from an Engadget report and I don't have the direct link to the press conference notes, but that's a good sign for current customers.
My butt is sore from literally sitting on the edge of my seat for two hours yesterday as Apple introduced the iPhone, hitherto referred to as Apple's greatest achievement. That might sound like a hyperbole, but it's really not: Apple builds great computers, makes great software and created an excellent music player, and this combines all of them. This is the device we've all been talking about for 10 years. The thing we meant when we were saying, "One day, we'll have one device that does everything..." That day is today (well, okay, it's actually a day in June).
I love mobile phones. Since 1999, I have had thirteen phones1 (a few of them only briefly) and my biggest complaint is that none of them, not one was what I really wanted in a phone. Currently, I carry my mobile phone, my iPod, a small camera (usually), a voice recorder for recording ideas, pens and a small notebook every day. It doesn't seem like a lot, but it adds up. And, with all of that, I still can't browse the internet full-scale, send real email or check my location on a map. And I surely can't send the ideas that I record to friends.
And let's talk about interfaces. I've seen them all—from no color to five colors to full-color, from LED to LCD (STN to TFT!)—and they all fail in comparison to Apple's 160ppi iPhone screen. Just take a look at the demo or photos of the phone and you'll realize, immediately, how truly awful current phones' screens are in comparison. Now, with pixels per inch we're only talking about how it looks, but how does it work? Apple has put OS X on a phone and honestly, that's the best part. Shawn made a good point yesterday in that Apple's real marvel here was getting OS X on a mobile phone. Once they did that, the rest was gravy. Beautiful software, that's just par for the OS X course. Now it's on a phone and they can go nuts.
There are many innovations here (and I'm sure we'll see them all detailed more and more as it gets closer to release) that leave current mobile phones in the dust. Visual voicemail. Multi-touch interface2. Proximity sensors to save battery life and accelerometers to switch viewing state. Two batteries, one dedicated to the iPod functionality so you don't run out of juice and can't make calls (I might be wrong about this, perhaps it's just one battery with software-controlled usage). 8GB of storage. A real, full-featured email client and web browser. Wi-Fi. And, of course, it's got tons of the standard features as well, like Bluetooth, Quad-band capabilities, EDGE and a 2 megapixel camera.
I mean, my god. It almost sounded like a joke when Jobs kept listing features for 45 minutes. This is truly the gadget of my dreams.
Of course, there had to be a downside: the Cingular lock-in. Luckily for NYC-area residents, this shouldn't be an issue3, but for people who live in a weak-signal or non-Cingular area, this will really dampen the excitement. Who knows what's going to happen in Canada and Europe. This also means you'll have to sign another 2-year contract, and, if I know Cingular, customers currently in a contract without upgrade rights will have to pay full price for the phone (which will probably be $699/799 USD). I was really hoping Apple would take Cingular to task and force them to change some of their policies but that's wishing for a lot since Cingular has 52 million customers.
In the end, my excitement for this device can be summed up by listening to the crowd at the Moscone center when Jobs announced the device yesterday. June cannot come soon enough, and I'll be right in the front of the line when the iPhone is released.
- Phones I've owned, in order of use: Samsung 3500, 8500, Motorola V60, Sony Ericsson T68i (briefly), Motorola V600, Sony Ericsson T610, Nokia 6620 (briefly), 6230, 6682 (briefly), Sony Ericsson W600i (briefly), Palm Treo 650, 700p (briefly), Motorola RAZR V3m (my current phone) ↩
- Apple seems to be the first company releasing a multi-touch display—many people have shown working demos of this technology in the past but no one has released anything to mass-market. ↩
- I've been using Cingular in NYC for five years, and while it was shaky for a while back in 2003, their GSM service seems to be solid here now. ↩
Finally, the new podcast website is online! It's on a new domain, features a brand-new design and tons of new features. The best part? Now you can listen to the podcast and sketches directly on the site as well as link to various clips such as, say, this Anti-Badger Death Squad commercial.
We've also released a Favorites of 2006 episode that includes our favorite moments from last year.
The new site has been a long time coming and we're thrilled to finally get it online. This is only the beginning of the many good things to come for the podcast in 2007, so subscribe now.
Wow. First of all—I've never in my life received so many kind words and support and all that good stuff. The Mac community is a tight-knit group of truly excellent people and I'm definitely bathing in that feeling right now. Honestly, the emails and messages and comments and everything have been overwhelming and I thank everyone for what they've written. I wanted to post a quick follow-up to make a few important points.
I wrote the so-called "xPad Debacle" post for two reasons:
- To apologize to xPad users for the mess and to announce that xPad was now freeware, soon to be open-sourced (it will take me a few days to get it all online in logical order)
- To post public record of what happened in my business deal with Mr. Ball, and how I felt the situation was handled on his part, which I felt was unprofessional
One thing this was not about, at all, was me getting money. I want to make it perfectly clear that this is not about the money.
A lot of people have kindly offered donations, to buy (the now-free) xPad, et cetera, and I really appreciate the thought, but that's not what I want. As I wrote on Digg, all Google Adsense profits from the xPad website will be going to The National MS Society.
In addition, if you want to donate money, please donate it to the MS Society as well. There are a lot of people out there suffering and I'd much rather you donate the money to help them than to me.
You might remember a post I wrote back in August about selling xPad. It didn't turn out as planned, and I want to talk about it here for a moment because I think it's important for everyone to know what happened.
I sold the application and all related files, source and rights to Brian Ball of macZOT. Here are the simple details of the contract:
- He agreed to pay me a total of $5,520 USD all rights and materials (including the website)
- I agreed to consult (without developing code) on the project for a minimum of 50 non-scheduled hours over the period of 12 months
- We agreed to monthly payment terms—since he didn't want to pay completely up front—which involved a two-month initial payment and then payments of $460 per month for 10 additional months
- I also agreed not to create, distribute or pitch a product that directly competed with xPad for 12 months
The contract was fully signed and executed on August 3, 2006 and I immediately prepared and transfered all materials to Mr. Ball, who paid the initial amount in full. Mr. Ball got the website hosted and began distributing xPad shortly after, as well as including it in several macZOT packages/sales.
In September, Mr. Ball paid the monthly amount on time. In October, however, he did not. I sent several reminders but received no response. In fact, I sent at least three emails and three PayPal invoice reminders, as well as several instant messages, and Mr. Ball never responded. On October 9, I reminded Mr. Ball via email that the terms of the contract noted that payments sent after the 10th of the month would be considered late and would involve a late fee. He responded via instant message that he wanted to "explore a couple of things" with me, but signed off before I responded.
Then, on October 10, after only paying one month of the 10-month due, Mr. Ball wrote the following to me via email:
Here's where we're at in our process:
- We did a Universal Binary upgrade for xPad and ported the site into symfony for php 5.
- We had a plan to use xPad as a bundled app with developers but based on our current cash / human resource position, we've decided to lower the priority of that to near zero.
- The direct sales of xPad both via getxpad.com and a couple of other channels we managed resulted in sales that don't warrant any further man-hours on the deal.
- The fact that you already made $1,300 or so on the deal doesn't make me feel too bad considering I think you way over-valued it on the front end, and is more than you would have made through sales.
- I think a good option might be to either find a developer who wants to adopt it (and I could help with that) or just let it be with no further updates.
However, as a business (and I apologize for the delay in getting this to you, it was under a stack of other urgencies) we cannot warrant paying the $460 maintenance to own this IP.
If you'd be interested in re-negotiating, having us help find a developer to adopt it, and or other ideas to proceed, I'd be interested in talking about them.
Anyway, let's see if we can't figure out a better position on this, but I just cannot throw more cash at it.
Basically, Mr. Ball decided he didn't want xPad any longer, and wasn't going to pay for it. However, he continued to sell the product. In fact, I did not regain control of the domain until November 25, which means Mr. Ball was selling my product for over a month after he defaulted on a contract.
As as far as me "over-valuing" the product goes—Mr. Ball and I spoke at length about the exact value of the product and I made it completely clear that there was no way to give a true estimation. I did zero advertising for xPad since the day I launched it, and I didn't update it more than once in 3 years, but it was still selling. I made it clear to Mr. Ball that he could make money from xPad, but that he would have to put some work into it first. He said he understood this, and that he was going to hire a developer to do work on the app (he did—Juan Alvarez of Midnight Apps).
At the same time, I don't have to justify what I valued xPad at, and I certainly didn't over value it. $5,520 for xPad and all materials is not over-valued, especially when you consider that at $10/license, that's only 500 sales to make up the difference (which of course doesn't include all the value of the actual app itself, the source code, the design, the QA, the work, the website, the icons, the logos, the built-in customer base, all of which is good and valuable stuff). Believe you me: I sold more than 500 copies of xPad without ever advertising it (except on my own site) and without ever updating it. There was plenty of money to be made if someone had the time/energy.
It was up to Mr. Ball to determine whether or not he felt $5,520 was an accurate price to pay and apparently he felt it was because he agreed to it and signed the contract. But only one month later, he stopped paying.
So, how did he do it? He exploited a clause in the contract that I put in place to protect me from potential default. The contract stipulated:
If the buyer fails to make a payment after 90 days, this contract shall be void and terminated at which point all rights and license will revert back to the seller. At such a time, the buyer will no longer have rights to publish or use any of the materials covered in this contract. No refund will be made to the buyer.
In hindsight, this wasn't the best way to protect myself, and it was a bad move on my part. Consider me too kind. I didn't want to write "buyer must pay balance," because I didn't want to make it an unfair situation. Instead, Mr. Ball used this as a simple way to get out of this agreement. He simply stopped paying, stopped responding to emails, and kept selling the product. Eventually, in late November, he finally transferred the domain back to me and xPad became mine again.
What does this all mean? It means I'm extremely disappointed with the completely unprofessional behavior of Brian Ball and macZOT. I do not appreciate his actions or his attitude and I feel it's my responsibility to apologize to xPad users for this situation. I also feel it's important for people to know what kind of business Mr. Ball conducted with me, in case people have potential business with him in the future. Consider this fair warning that things might not go too well.
From this point on, xPad is freeware. I have refunded any purchases made since I regained the domain in November, updated the site to remove purchasing options and released a license code for anyone to use. In the near future, I'll be releasing the full source code under GPL for people to play with, improve, et cetera.
I genuinely appreciate all the feedback and support and praise the community sent me over the years. I'm sorry if this situation negatively impacted anyone and I'm really frustrated and disappointed with the way Mr. Ball handled everything. I also want to thank everyone who purchased xPad over the years—you guys made it all worthwhile.
Update: For more information, you should see the comments in the Digg entry for this post, as well as a follow-up I posted.
Possible titles for my unwritten autobiography:
- An Acceptable Person
- Garrett Murray: Inventor of the Contact Lens
- High on Life, Smack
- Green, Blue, Gray, White, Dark Gray
- Unachievable Greatness Achieved
- Garrett Murray, 19??-32??
- What's Up, Flapjack?
- The Life and Times of Dudeous Maximus III
- Growing Up Garrett, the Garrett Murray Story
- Douching for Cash
My (slightly) late list of favorite things of 2006:
Album: The Crane Wife by The Decemberists
I hate to sound like a broken record (pun intended, bitches!), but I love The Decemberists and this album is truly fantastic. Nothing can quite compare to the excellence of Picaresque for me, but that's because Picaresque was the first stuff I'd heard from them so it has a special place in my heart. The Crane Wife was released in October of 2006—coincidentally almost one year after I heard Picaresque for the first time in 2005—and rose immediately to the top of my most-played list. Capping off this rise was seeing The Decemberists in November at Hammerstein, and well, like I said, I love them.
Runners up for favorite album were How to Save a Life by The Fray, which I found myself enjoying more than I ever thought I would, and Oh, Inverted World and Chutes Too Narrow by The Shins, both of which were released well before 2006 but neither of which I had listened to until we saw The Shins at McCarren Park Pool in the summer.
TV show: 24
I mean, my god. How can a show that is about "the worst day of Jack Bauer's life" be good in the fifth season? And how can it end up being the best season yet? From the moment the season started until the moment it ended, it was the best work they had ever done. Very rarely can you kill all the characters people love on a show and keep them hooked. 24 is some of the very best television ever made and it continues to astound me.
Runners up for favorite show were Smallville, which did amazing things yet again last season and The Unit. I'm consistently impressed by how well Smallville has handled the responsibility of the Superman franchise. I loved Superman Returns, but I love Smallville much more. I'm deeply saddened to know that it's going to come to an end sooner than later, but while it's still around I love it. The Unit is new (and, coincidentally, stars Dennis Haysbert from 24), but already solidified as a very enjoyable show. Scott Foley as military back-ops? Holy crap, he's actually really great!
Film: Tie between Casino Royale and The Departed
A lot of people have really specific systems for deciding which films they liked the most, based on actors, plot, writing, cinematography, etc, etc, but I tend to gauge my "best movie of" feeling based on the film (or films) I flat-out enjoyed the most and thought about seeing again. By far, these two films were the best time I had at the movies all year.
Runner up for favorite film was Little Miss Sunshine, which was so fun and great (we happened to see this shortly before the press for it exploded and while we had heard good things, it was surprisingly good).
Trip: France
Granted, we only took one real trip last year, but it was a lot of fun. It was the first time Katia and I had ever rented a car on vacation, and driving through the French countryside was a blast. Between Paris, Le Mont Saint Michel and the memorial at Ponite Du Hoc (which I still think about to this day), we had a really fantastic time.
Photo I took: Looking Out
This is an extremely simple photo and to anyone else it's probably pointless, but I took this from inside a bunker entrance in Normandy and it holds a really specific thought/feeling/memory for me. Being inside those bunkers (especially at Pointe Du Hoc) was truly awe inspiring and terrifying and this photo captures the duality of the darkness inside the bunker with the peace outside. The green grass and the blue sky belie the feeling I had as I walked around the various bunker remains.
Runners up for favorite photo were Ben, Differently, which I like because the colors are so interesting and the angle is abnormal, and Jam and Crackers, which so perfectly captures a day from the summer in Prospect Park. More than anything, I realized when looking through photo archives for 2006 that I didn't take nearly enough pictures. Consider one of my resolutions for 2007 to get back into the habit.
Application: TextMate (again)
I honestly believe I will choose TextMate as my application of the year every year, so this will be the last time I actually do. Instead, from this point on, everyone will need to remember that my favorite application every year is TextMate, but that I'll pick another one so as not to make developers feel bad.
Runner up for favorite application was ProTools LE, which I finally bought after a year of suffering in GarageBand. I've only had the app and hardware for a month, but it has already made my life much better.
Purchase (tech): Tie between the Sony 42" HD TV and 17-inch MacBook Pro
The HD TV has really revolutionized our home entertainment. Television looks so much better that I can't even understand how we made it so long with our old 27-inch tube TV, and don't even get me started on games. XBOX 360's native HD support completely blows away any gaming experience I've ever had, and now with the HD DVD player it's even better for movies. The MacBook Pro is the best computer I've ever owned—insane speed in a portable package that does everything I've ever wanted and more.
Runners up for favorite tech purchase were the Nintendo Wii (obviously), Nike+ running kit (I'm running and enjoying it!) and the Logitech Harmony 880 universal remote (finally, having tons of stuff on one remote done correctly!).
Purchase (non-tech): 2007 Honda Fit Sport
It's arguable that a car is technically technology, but oh well. We sold our used Saturn and bought a new Fit Sport and it was a great choice. Fantastic fuel efficiency, tons of interior room and safety features, as well as a cool looking and easy-to-park-sized car.
Runners up for favorite non-tech purchase were Asics Onitsuka Tiger shoes in dark grey/black (I love these shoes) and the weatherproof case I bought for my Canon SD450 (again, sort or tech-related, but not tech itself) which allowed me to take plenty of pool pictures (and, this season, will be used for snowboarding).
Game: Tie between The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Gears of War
I don't even have the energy to explain why Twilight Princess is so damned good, because I'm exhausted from spending so many late nights playing. I'm 40+ hours in and just about to finish the game, and I've been putting it off for a while because I don't want it to be over. Everything about this game is fun. Everything. That's extremely rare and makes this absolutely the best game of the year. Gears of War is just one of the most spectacularly gritty and fun games I've ever played. In HD, it looks better than just about anything ever created in human existence (take that, Sistine Chapel!)
Runners up for favorite game were Wii Sports (unbelievably basic game with simple graphics and yet it's some of the most fun I've ever had playing a game before) and, extremely surprisingly, Just Cause. The missions in Just Cause get old quickly, but the environment is so insanely large and beautiful. I've never seen such realistic lighting conditions, sunrise and sunset, and no loading ever once you're in the game. It's so much fun just to be in the environment and free-falling from planes at 5,000 meters is breathtaking.
Non-blog website: Popurls
I hit Popurls at least once a day, if not more than that. It aggregates the top content from all sorts of places (Flickr, Digg, etcetera) into one easy-to-view layout and I constantly rely on it for fun stuff to read or look at.
Blog or similar: Three-way tie between Cabel's Blog LOL, Daring Fireball and John August.com
Cabel didn't have many entries, but every one of them seemed to be made of gold or something similarly shiny and awesome. Of course, Gruber needs no introduction or explaining and had a great year and John August is a screenwriter who speaks frankly and honestly about his craft.