Jolyn have been kind enough to allow me to use our project earnings to procure a mac for further development. Well, I’m blogging on one now.
The mac is a wonderful piece of hardware that integrates design with performance. The one i got is a MacBook Pro 13″, one that is just updated a few weeks ago. I have been waiting to get this version so that i can have a go at developing Apps for iPhone and iPad. We consider this an investment.
Anyway, back to the mac.
The first look is impressive. It’s quite a piece of art, and the trackpad, although has me stumped for a moment, soon has me zipping along and scrolling, flipping windows and moving applications around. Its generous size is also a cool factor, although sometimes it’s not that responsive.
Keyboard is just nice, not squeezed together, and I can easily take to it in a few minutes.
Although impressive out of the box (the user experience is solid, as well as the sense of ownership), as a developer i have to go and find my own tools. A quick hunt revealed several web development tools available, little applications like CyberDuck, TextWrangler, and KeePassX. Online lists nudged me towards the commercial tools which has more capability and are more robust, but being a previous windows user, i do not feel the need to purchase software yet.
oh, i should warn potential buyers that the mac tends to get hot pretty fast. not sure why this is the case, but the time taken from the cool metal to become warm and possibly unbearably hot is pretty short, especially for a new computer.
Time to sleep. Let’s explore the iphone and ipad sdk sometime soon!
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My family and I will be going on a short holiday trip to recharge and chill out in a nearby island. Tina doesnt like all that sun and wind, so she will be staying at home. I will leaving lots of food for her to munch on, and we will be back in a jiffy.
Here’s a picture of Jolyn’s little lab, I managed to smuggle her out one day and put her in colourful balls. See how happy she is!
Daily Squee
Just kidding, found the pic on Daily Squee.
bye for now!
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Torchlight is a third person dungeon crawler, but a remarkably good one. I have spent countless hours having fun with the world as my hero slashes and cuts its way through the endless horde, collecting quality items and chugging potions all the while.
It’s a good game. What makes it special is the fact that Jolyn likes the game. She’s actually playing the game much much longer and more frequently than all the other “mainstream-ish” games she encountered, like Left 4 Dead (which i like), and Plants versus Zombies.
Nevertheless, she has clocked so much time on the game itself that her heroine is now of a higher level than mine. That says a lot.
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This has been something that I wanted to do for some time, but I have not been able to take to actually do it. Finally, this evening brought me a bit of free time for myself and I decided to do my community a little service. I brought a small part of my comic book collections to the local library and gave them to the people behind the counter.
Well, why would I do that? I was out-growing the comics that I used to buy every copy of each month when I was young. Now, I realised that I have not been touching them since a few years ago. So they rest in plastic crates, away from where they should be – in the hands of an interested person. Anyway, I wanted my books to continue to be enjoyed by other people, not shut in a little box. I hope that my decision has been a good one.
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I have in my pocket, a little black book.
It’s nothing special, a tiny book that can fit well onto the palm of my hand. And it contains nothing – plain paper, sixty pages or so. And it’s not even of elite make, like Moleskin (Jolyn has a negative reaction to that remark, mostly because she bought it for me).
I chanced upon the little book in one of those novelty shops that offered such items of attraction – they are adorably cute, smart, and trendy.
Perhaps that is the point – customers can’t get enough of the shiny stuff, so they buy and bring them home.
But they could not find a purpose for the new books and pens, and what a terrible waste it would be to use them for ordinary means. So they leave them little shinies on the shelf, because they are too incredibly cute/smart/trendy to be put into a use that will not diminishish their cute/smart/trendiness.
So on the shelf they stayed – pretty little things, meant for a higher purpose, but always looked over for their plainer, more down to earth siblings.
Eventually, tired and worn out, they would at last be chosen, but for the most modest of tasks, as rough paper or scrap pads. They end their lives as common writing material. Alas, the curse of being too good-looking of stationery.
I am one of those customers yesterday that took one of the pretty books home. I too am faced with the problem of what use the little book could be good for.
Jolyn calls it my little black book – fitting name, but what content suits the title? It would simply not do to have the book as a common notepad, as I have done with several others. What words should be enscribed onto the little pages to differentiate it from the others that ended there lives a plain existance? I have no answer that night.
Along came this afternoon, when I chanced upon another bookshop holding a sale of self-help books. I have always been attracted to books of this variety, as I believe I should never stop learning. But then there were simply too much knowledge, too many things to remember, for me to use them properly.
Suddenly an idea hit me.
Maybe the little book need not suffer the same fate after all.
It would contain information that would render it ageless and valuable, and would be useful no matter where I am and what I am doing.
Of course, why did I forget? The books should contain information – valuable, timeless information, that can be retrieved at a moment’s notice.
But the best book is the one that is with you. It should be available anywhere I go and contain all the information I require.
And what better book to have all that information than the little black book?
Suddenly the book is freed of its dim future and stands proudly before the rest. It shall be the one book to contain a summary of all the books that I have read. And it will be read again and again, its contents fitting of the name to call it.
And so my little black book realises its higher purpose, and I am relieved of one less promising notebook to find a meaning for.
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Last Saturday I achieved the first milestone for this year – Learning Japanese. Well, actually it is a very simple milestone, because I have only achieved Elementary 1 of the complete course, which is actually divided into six parts. Elementary 1 is simply a sixth of the journey.
Well, a step forward is better than no steps at all. And whats life without a few challenges?
Nevertheless I feel comfortable going into Elementary 2, because I want to continue learning things which interest me. Japan interests me. So there!
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