Blog, posts for Category 'Spot the Idiot'

Here's a killer comparative test: BBB vs iPhone in WiFi web browsing test...

At one point the guy doing the video commentary says that the BBB's browser is better at telling you what it is doing, downloading script, image, percentage of the page loaded... Yes, they HAD to put these sorts of indications in, so that users wouldn't think the page was stuck (I know, we had to do that on a Java Applet a few years ago on one of the projects I worked for).

And I just love the comment by Gizmodo writer:

The Bold's got some fairly heavy duty hardware though, so an update from RIM should be able to give the browser a much-needed jolt.

Yeah, of course, it SHOULD but then, there's loads of DMP out there that have better hardware specs and should have killed the iPod a long time ago.

(Via Gizmodo.)

Are iPhone app devs getting a raw deal? - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW):

We mentioned yesterday a rumor that Apple won't cut a check for iPhone application developers until the dev's share of the sales tops $250. [...]From the (indie) developer's perspective, this stinks. They've already paid at least $99 just to participate, and now they have to wait until they make (potentially) hundreds of sales before they see a dime from Apple. Will the high barrier for entry discourage truly good app development?

Hmm, let me see... $99 a "high barrier"? Well, maybe, but let's see how many of these Indie Devs have a PS3 or XBOX360, for which a single GAME is $60 at least? And how much do they spend on Starbucks?
In any case, the fact that an Indie dev might desperately NEED $250, like, right now, is ridiculous! If you develop apps for money, then I hope you plan on earning a bit more than just $250... and if you just want to make a quick $250 to buy your next iPhone, then maybe it's better if the "high barrier" discourages you from entering the iPhone AppStore system.

Seriously, I don't know a single dev who would create an app just to get $250... might as well make it freeware.

So here we are with a new iPhone killer... wait, the killer is late, its target is already dead! Samsung's Instinct was supposed to go snipe the iPhone, but Apple already sent it to rest, and now iPhone 2 is coming...

Walt Mossberg on Samsung's Instinct:

Also, the timing of the Instinct is unfortunate. It was designed to go up against the first iPhone. Sprint even has a Web site (nowisgood.com) comparing the two devices. But the Instinct will go on sale only three weeks before Apple and AT&T start selling the new 3G iPhone, the second-generation model announced earlier this week.

VistaPerfection 2.0:

So, like, urgh, they even have the boot screen with ugly progress bar and all.
Hmm, maybe if they have been really good, they have managed to reproduce the slowness, the bugs and even the annoying UAC behavior (maybe the iPhone will ask you for your PIN code every time you want to make a call, read an SMS or - GASP - browse the 'net).

I can't think of why anyone would install this on their iPhone...

And so I continue my venture in the shadowy depth of Mac Office 2008, wondering whether I shall finally stay with the 2004 edition... not that it was great (it wasn't, on an Intel machine), but the 2008 edition fixed almost no bugs from the 2004 version, and added a whole lot of new bugs.So what could they have been doing down in the Mac BU during these long years? I think I might have found part of the answer: they fell in love with Aqua and all the shiny widgets and decided they might as well spend some time on creating their own... and so, I hereby introduce the "Enlarging, Blueishing, Splashing Widget".Watch this video closely: you'll recognize the widgets that live at the bottom of your Word document windows, and allow you to swap between display modes (Page, Outline...).

yes, you are not dreaming, this is a triple-action widget: when you roll over it, it enlarges, it gets blue, and there's a splash animation within it. Said animation is probably done using raytracing and specular reflections on terapolygonal vertices, since simply mousing over the widgets taxes my 2.3GHz Core2Duo CPU... well, on some occasions, for on the video it doesn't register much on the Menu Meter CPU display (it did 5 minutes ago, and Activity Monitor pointed to Word using up to 25% of one CPU, while doing nothing more than mousing over... and I am running a 2.3GHz core2duo MacBook Pro) but a friend of mine running on a core solo Mac mini managed to get the CPU to 75% by mousing over.Well, I hope I'll have some new nuggets to report to you as I'll be heavily trying out this 2008 edition to see whether I shall migrate or stay with Office 2004.