phideltacity » Uncategorized http://phideltacity.net the fundamental property of phidelta Mon, 28 Jun 2010 11:40:24 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 My first 12 hours with the iPad http://phideltacity.net/2010/05/my-first-12-hours-with-the-ipad/ http://phideltacity.net/2010/05/my-first-12-hours-with-the-ipad/#comments Sat, 29 May 2010 08:03:05 +0000 phidelta http://phideltacity.net/2010/05/my-first-12-hours-with-the-ipad/ Yesterday afternoon I received the UPS shipment of my new iPad. This is exciting as I have looked forward to this moment since it was announced in April. After spending half the night reading with iBooks and the Kindle App as well as playing Backgammon I am now thoroughly tired, so you will have to excuse me if this post is only half coherent.
First off the iPad is great for a lot of things, such as surfing the web, playing an occasional game or twittering. But there are a few thing the device currently lacks. Oh, and no flash isn’t one of them. What is missing is applications to do the more exciting stuff such as editing documents. Yes Pages is a fine program, but not everything is letter type content. I am thinking more along the lines of plain text documents such as source code.
Right now I find that I can actually do 95% of my regular tasks on the iPad. What I am lacking yet is the ability to access an SVN repository. I am thinking of a simple access app that enables access to the synced files to other apps, similar to what the awesome DropBox app is doing. Of course that still means that there needs to be a good code editor. The best one I have found so far is named “for i”. As it turns out, it is quite aptly named, for I wish it had a very few features more, such as the ability to be used for opening documents from DropBox and the like.
I think I may just need to take the gloves off and write some of these essential tools myself and trust that others will in time provide the rest.
Any case here are some of the things that I found more awesome to do in the iPad than I would have thought even after the demo videos:
* reading E-Mail is just a wonderful experience. I will have to see how it turns out in the long run, but the iPad may just replace my computer for most E-Mailing.
* playing games is really fun on this machine. Now admittedly I am not much of a gamer (read I used to play no more than one game a year), but the simplicity of the gameplay is quite attractive.
* browsing the web. I have yet to find a age among those that I regularly visit that I cannot browse on the iPad more enjoyably than on my regular MacBook. And as it is instantly available, I fear I may just spend significantly more time reading web pages.
* blogging is easier than ever before. My problem so far has been that either I was near my computer which meant I did not have the time to write or I was not near my computer which meant I was reduced to blogging from my iPhone. While that is possible, the size of the damn thing is just too small for sensible writing. The size of the iPad on the contrary is just right for the purpose and I find (writing this) that I am actually no slower typing on the on-screen keyboard than I would be on a regular physical (i.e. MacBook keyboard. Or at least not much slower. Given that I decided on the 3G version of the iPad I think I may well get more blogging done than in the past. The only thing I lack right now is a better blogging app. Like one that actually allows for better formatting. But hey I haven’t looked really hard either.
* keeping up with the news. There are several excellent apps (such as SkyGrid) that allow for comfortable news consumption. Bundled with the browser and a few magazine apps this more than covers me on that front.
* reading, last but definitely not least, is such a pleasure on this device with both the iBooks and the Kindle App, that I fear I may become even more of a book worm that I already am. Albeit one that consumes bytes rather than wood-pulp.

Given my experiences so far I feel that I can only recommend the iPad to anyone that wants to expand their digital life. The experience is such a pleasure that I am willing to forgive Apple their closed model policy. After all, one can always jail-break the iPad and add whatever to it. Whether that is the route I will choose remains to be seen.

- Posted from my iPad

]]> http://phideltacity.net/2010/05/my-first-12-hours-with-the-ipad/feed/ 0 Time for a Date http://phideltacity.net/2009/12/time-for-a-date/ http://phideltacity.net/2009/12/time-for-a-date/#comments Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:54:51 +0000 phidelta http://phideltacity.net/?p=74 Ever since I can remember we have been counting our years with an insane point of reference. Such as:

I moved to New York in the year one-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety after supposedly some poor lady gave birth to revolutionary in a barn.

Well no more. Form now on I will count my years with a slightly more relevant and slightly more sane point of reference. I will use the Darwin-Era notation for all my date related activities. And as a first start I have created a little WordPress Plugin.

I hope some of you may find it helpful ;)

]]> http://phideltacity.net/2009/12/time-for-a-date/feed/ 0 welcome http://phideltacity.net/2009/02/welcome/ http://phideltacity.net/2009/02/welcome/#comments Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:50:41 +0000 phidelta http://phideltacity.net/?p=6 Welcome everyone!

Finally I managed to get my central hub for stuff of all kinds up. This is it. The place to enjoy all my diverse ramblings and other insanities.

I hope at least some of you will  enjoy it. If not, then I’ll enjoy writing all for my lonesome self and be content with that.

See you about,

ϕΔ

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