Saturday, October 25, 2008

iTunes Rent-A-Failure

The kids wanted to watch a movie tonight, so I decided that I was going to save myself a trip to the rental place and give iTunes movie rental a shot for the first time.
I first made sure that I could connect the laptop to the TV, that the sound worked, and that I could find a movie they'd liked.
We decided on the "102 Dalmatians", they kids were excited, we even watched the preview... but the iTunes Store let me down, with a bunch of dissappointed kids.
I tried almost 10 times, and it failed every time... So I guess I'm done with iTunes movie rentals. Thanks Apple.  :(

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Requiem for DRM

Is the music industry finally realizing that DRM was the stupidest idea on earth, or are they being pushed by a few rebelling retailers? Either way this is good news for us the consumer. If we can buy CDs and legally rip them on our computers to listen on iPod, iPhone, Zune (etc...) then why can't we do the same thing when buying digital tracks online? So far Walmart, Amazon and now MySpace are offering 100% DRM-free tracks, so what are you waiting for Apple?

Oh, and when you finally decide to offer ALL your tracks without DRM, don't forget to give us a tool to fix all the DRM infected tracks we've bought on iTunes so far. Thanks.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

iTunes 8 coming out at WWDC 08?

Instead of checking in another week, iTunes insists on re-checking for updates on 6/9/08 (WWDC) for both iPhone and iPod Classic firmwares... is iTunes 8 coming out?

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Web Development Evolved just got better

Firebug 1.2b1 for Firefox 3 RC1 has just been released!
This is good news because I have been having so many problems with 1.1 that I ended up disabling my favorite Firefox plugin (and actually the only plugin I use). But from the Firebug announcement it sounds like the problem might have been coming from FF 3.0b5...

I even tried an alpha version of Firebug 1.2 but couldn't figure out what was wrong with it, I couldn't disable it... turns out that they have redesign the interface and there is no 'disable' option anymore.

Firebug - Web Development Evolved » Blog Archive » Firebug 1.2b1

Monday, May 19, 2008

iPhone Webapp Buttons

While toying around with the idea of building a webapp for the iPhone I came across the need to build the equivalent of a checkbox. The problem is that checkboxes are a bit too small to be used accurately with fingertips and Apple has already come up with the perfect solution, the cool sliding ON/OFF switches that you find on the iPhone native apps.
So I tried to duplicate the switch in a browser, just using HTML, CSS3 and a bit of javascript.
I'm pretty happy with the results, I even managed to animate the switch. Until iPhone 2.0 gets released in June (with safari 3.1 for iPhone) you will only be able to see the animation on the desktop version of Safari 3.1 (unless, of course, you are already running the iPhone 2.0 beta)
The switch could still use better colors and gradients, but it will do for now.

Link

I'd love your feedback if you come up with a better idea.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Brand new Google Reader for iPhone

The new Google Reader interface for iPhone is out!
It is a LOT faster than the previous version, it loads the posts inline when you open them so there is no page reloads.
It only has the "Share" and "Mark as read" options so far, but like the post says, it's the first public beta.
And it even comes with a neat icon when you save the bookmark to your home screen.
Point your iPhone to http://www.google.com/reader/i/

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

The perfect iPhone webapp

I've been hearing about Twitter for a while, and couldn't figure out what the big deal was. I mean who is around a computer often enough to update their status?
Wouldn't most of the Twitter worthy updates happen right when you're not around your computer anyway?
Well, I just came across the coolest webapp... www.hahlo.com
I might just start using Twitter myself.Now, if only I had anything interesting to say...

Here's my Twitter feed

Thursday, May 01, 2008

AT&T Wireless website on the iPhone

I finally got an iPhone (yeah, yeah I know the 3G one is coming out soon...)
Anyway, as I was browsing through all the settings when I clicked on the button that links to the AT&T Wireless Account site (under Setting > Phone > AT&T Services > AT&T My Account...
How could AT&T, being the only iPhone wireless carrier in the US, not have a site that is designed (or that would at least work) for the iPhone?
First of all the page is way too big for the small iPhone screen, you can barely see the login box. So anyway, you zoom in and try to enter your phone number. Oops, looks like the poorly written javascript code that is supposed to take you to the password box when you've typed 10 digits isn't working on the iPhone... You get stucked and can't do anything.
I reloaded the page several time and finally got 'unstuck'. But oh wait, the last digit of my phone number was a typo, gotta go and correct it before I try to login, right? Nope, the same javascript code seems to be preventing me from using the backspace button!

Way to go AT&T! Great job on that crappy website!