While it went on sale back in May, A List Apart‘s first publication, HTML5 for Web Designers, only just began shipping. I have been eagerly awaiting my copy and it just arrived. I’m not normally compelled to write reviews of technical books I read, mainly because I don’t read them all at once and they usually just lie around my apartment as an every-so-often technical resource (when Google turns up nothing). This book is different. It reads like much less of a verbose white paper — or HTML5 specification rather — and more like a refreshing one-sitter.
At only 85 pages, this book is rather slim and handy for taking — and reading in its entirety — on my morning Caltrain commute to Notifo HQ. [Continue Reading…]
People: Bruce Lawson, Jeffrey Zeldman, Jeremy Keith, Mark Pilgrim, Remy Sharp
Tagged as:
API,
Browser,
Camino,
Canvas,
Chrome,
CSS,
CSS3,
doctype,
Firefox,
HTML5,
Indexed DB,
Internet,
JavaScript,
Modernizr,
O'Reilly,
Opera,
Programming,
Reviews,
Safari,
Software,
Technical Book,
Technology,
W3C,
Web Apps,
Web Design,
Web Designers,
Web Dev,
Web Forms,
Web Storage,
Web Workers,
WebKit,
WebSockets,
WHATWG
For the last few years I have written a blog post on my birthday. This birthday is no exception but while working late at Notifo tonight I decided to have some fun with it. Chad and I whipped up this simple page where you can send a birthday message directly to my phone. Notifo uses push — a lightning fast notification technology made possible by the flux capacitor powered by 1.21 jiggawatts — so I will get your message on my iPhone usually in under 3 seconds. We decided to make it the first of a bunch of examples/projects that will go on a future Notifo “Labs” site. You can view the PHP source here to see how it’s done and begin tinkering on your own.
For the next 24 hours, on my 24th birthday you can send me a message to my phone using Notifo. Cheers!
[Continue Reading…]
People: Paul Stamatiou
Tagged as:
Birthday,
Life,
Notifo
Have you ever wanted to get more out of your home network, like adding a NAS, without ponying up for expensive hard drives with Ethernet built-in, Time Capsules, Drobos or the like? While some newer routers come with a USB port allowing users to add a hard drive or printer on the network, they are costly and rather limited in their functionality. It was this dilemma that had me pondering a custom solution when I wrote my series about building a cheap and small mini-ITX-based computer with the sole purpose of being a NAS and download box. That setup cost over $200 and required much hardware and software tinkering. For those looking for a cheaper and hassle-free solution, I would suggest the $99 TonidoPlug linux home server, NAS, cloud-in-a-plug… et cetera.
TonidoPlug unboxed. [Continue Reading…]
Tagged as:
App Store,
ARM,
BitTorrent,
Cloud,
Cloud Services,
computer networking,
Hard Drives,
Hardware,
Linux,
Marvell,
NAS,
Network,
Network-attached Storage,
Server,
SheevaPlug,
Software,
Technology,
Tonido,
TonidoPlug,
Ubuntu
Just over 5 weeks ago I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to seek new opportunities. I had no idea what I wanted to shift my full-time focus to and began connecting with people, researching and interviewing with a handful of companies — ranging from huge web presences all the way down to tiny startups. I considered companies in different spaces from finance all the way to video. I met with dozens of folks to see what they were up to and what their company was about. That led to me being wired on caffeine for a few weeks when I had 3-4 coffee meetings scheduled each day, but I digress. I am elated to announce, likely to the surprise of many, that last week I jumped onboard [Continue Reading…]
People: Chad Etzel, Jessica Livingston, Paul Graham, Robert Morris, Trevor Blackwell
Tagged as:
Android,
API,
GitHub,
Google,
Hacker News,
iPhone,
Mobile,
Notifo,
Software,
Startups,
Technology,
Web Dev,
Y Combinator,
YC
Hot on the heels of my quick review of the Sprint HTC EVO 4G, I’d like to take a minute to share my thoughts on the latest iPhone announced at WWDC today here in San Francisco. There seems to be two camps when it comes to the iPhone 4 — those that love it and those that hate it. Actually, it is more like three; love, hate and those that aren’t exactly sold on it but will buy it anyway. I have been onboard with the last 3 iPhones and waited in long lines on launch day to get most of them. However, I won’t be getting the iPhone 4 this time around.
The latest Apple pocket toy is 24% thinner and features a beautiful 960 x 640 IPS display.. so why don’t I care for it? [Continue Reading…]
People: Steve Jobs
Tagged as:
3G,
A4,
Android,
Apple,
apple worldwide developers conference,
AT&T,
Cell Phone,
Cellular,
EVO 4G,
FaceTime,
Google Android,
Google Voice,
GoogleVoice,
Hardware,
HD,
HTC,
iBooks,
iOS4,
iPhone,
iPhone 4,
IPS LCD,
MicroCell,
Mobile Phones,
Multi-touch,
multitasking,
Safari,
San Francisco,
Software,
Sprint,
Technology,
tethering,
Wi-Fi,
Wifi,
WWDC
For the last week I have been toting around two mobile phones: my usual iPhone 3GS workhorse with extended battery a la Mophie and the just-launched-today Sprint HTC EVO 4G on loan from Gregory Miller. This is my first time touching an Android device for more than just a few minutes. As such I think I’m interestingly posed to show a different perspective on the EVO from MG Siegler’s thoughts in his recent post entitled “An iPhone Lover’s Take On The HTC EVO 4G.” Similarly, the EVO 4G has received tremendous press as of late — mainly as it has geared itself as being the “it” phone of the month as well as the first 4G WiMAX phone ever.
The lovely HTC Sense UI upgrade adds lots of polish to the Android OS.. perhaps too much? [Continue Reading…]
Tagged as:
4G,
Android,
AT&T,
Camera,
Cell Phone,
Eclair,
EVO 4G,
Froyo,
Gadget,
Google,
Google Android,
Hardware,
HTC,
iPhone,
Mobile,
Mobile Phones,
Phone,
Reviews,
Software,
Sprint,
Sprint Mobile,
Technology,
WiMAX
Media Temple has listened to the masses and finally made a VPS offering aimed at developers and advanced users. While their (dv) Dedicated-Virtual VPS offerings allowed users to have root access and the ability to modify much of the installed software, it was still a fairly turnkey solution: create a new account, transfer files/databases over and everything is ready to go. It also ran Parallels Plesk control panel which sys admins and developers unanimously seem to despise for a mixture of Plesk being a resource hog as well as only working well for out-of-the-box configurations and becoming a burden with custom setups — say, a Rails app. There is a large market for tech-savvy folks that prefer to handle all aspects of server setup and administration themselves. Enter the (ve) Virtual Environment.
A new product series has been created, ProDev, which caters to the side of our customer base that wishes to take hosting a step further. These users want more controls and low-level options. Therefore, we’re working on new ProDev products, such as an API, CDN and Advanced DNS, that compliment (ve) Server.
— (mt)
You know who these people are — they typically congregate around Linode, Amazon EC2 and Slicehost services. They know exactly what OS and solution stack they want to use, their favorite kernel version and so on. [Continue Reading…]
People: Chris Lea
Tagged as:
Amazon,
Backup,
Django,
Erlang,
Hardware,
LAMP,
Linux,
MediaTemple,
Munin,
nginx,
Parallels,
PHP,
Plesk,
Proxy,
Rails,
S3,
Server,
Software,
Squid,
Technology,
Ubuntu,
Varnish,
VPS,
Web Dev,
Web Hosting,
WordPress
Early last month I detailed my plans for moving to California for friends, a change of scenery and of course the acclaimed high-tech hub in the San Francisco Bay Area. Many have contacted me asking to share my experiences on what it is like to move cross-country — in particular to San Francisco — as they were looking to do the same pretty soon. I will attempt to chronicle my journey and adaptation to San Francisco in this and possibly future blog posts.
Apartment Hunting
I first scheduled a weeklong trip to San Francisco to get more oriented with the city and find out what neighborhoods I liked. I told myself I would not depart until I had signed a lease and received the keys to my new apartment. I had planned [Continue Reading…]
People: Babak Nivi, Celia Dyer, Dave Walters, Kimberly Turner, Krystyl Baldwin, Lance Weatherby, Nick Bushak, Noah Kagan, Tim Dorr
Tagged as:
Apartment Listings,
Apartment Search,
ATL,
BART,
bay area rapid transit,
California,
Caltrain,
Comcast,
Credit Report,
FTTH,
Google,
Google Maps,
iPhone,
ISP,
Lease,
Life,
Lombard,
San Francisco,
San Francisco Bay Area,
SF Muni,
SFO,
Startups,
studio apartments,
Technology,
TransLink,
transportation in the san francisco bay area,
Webpass,
Zipcar
In preparation for my move to San Francisco I have started selling many of my electronics and sundry possessions. Unfortunately, this included my absolute favorite technology purchase in recent years — the KRK Rokit RP5G2 studio monitors I discussed at length in my How To: Upgrade to Studio Monitor Speakers post. After selling the Rokits I began considering headphones as a replacement for my audio consuming needs. Investing in high quality headphones started to make sense for a few reasons:
- 1) I will likely have roommates at some point during my life in San Francisco and I can’t blast music all day and night
- 2) My roommates might blast music all day and night so I will need some good noise canceling headphones to concentrate while I work
- 3) Headphones will easily fit in my Timbuk2 Commute 2.0 bag along with my trusty 17-inch MacBook Pro for various Caltrain trips to South Bay
After I decided to look into high quality headphones I became reacquainted with the Beats. While I had [Continue Reading…]
People: Dr. Dre
Tagged as:
Beats Studio,
FLAC,
Hardware,
Headphones,
Monster,
Monster Cable,
MP3,
Music,
noise canceling,
Review
Next month I will be moving to San Francisco — roughly 6 years after I moved to Atlanta, enrolled in Computer Engineering as a Georgia Tech freshman. I soon realized my interests involved the Internet, web applications and new media. I changed my major a year into my college stay to nurture these interests. While I enjoyed tinkering with electronics — having designed and printed circuit boards, soldered and built small servo-powered robots for science fairs from a young age — I did not see how one person could make a huge difference on their own in the hardware field. The typical route was for recent EE/CmpE graduates to work for a large, established hardware company the likes of Intel. It was and remains to be exceedingly difficult for innovative hardware startups to get off the ground without significant capital and a strong team. I need not explain how a few people with computers, vim and an Internet connection can build interesting products and services. [Continue Reading…]
People: Bryan Veloso, David Ulevitch, Dimitry Bentsionov, Eston Bond, Kyle Neath, Mike Malone, Noah Kagan, Phil Freo, Richard Crowley
Tagged as:
California,
College,
Editorials,
Life,
San Francisco,
Silicon Valley,
Skribit,
Startups
