November 2nd 2010 · Read More · No Comments
or, “is that tat any better than the last one”
And yes, it is.
Last week I’ve received my Apad M701-R from merimobiles.com (good Chinese electronics store, if you don’t mind waiting a little for your package). And the device is great. No, I mean it, this is not a joke.
Device has Telechips ARM11 cpu, clocked at 720MHz, integrated GPU for graphics acceleration, 256 MB RAM, and Android 2.1 onboard (with unofficial upgrade to 2.2 thanks to guys from slatedroid.com). Device performs great, viewing PDF files, reading eBooks, comics, even watching movies and playing (light) games like Angry Birds (runs better than on my Galaxy I5700).
After a week, I can say $200 I paid for the device was totally worth it. Playing and work with the device is pure joy.
I think I’ll order some more Chinese tat in future. It is soooooo bad.
October 25th 2010 · Read More · No Comments
Or, “is that cheap tat any good”
I recently began looking for another small tablet. One I’ve bought in July, Eken M001 (here you can find review by Shanzai.com) was not too bad for $100 I paid for it, but I gave it to my mother as wall mount pc to display RDS info from her favorite radio station. As I’m parting with my Eken, I thought I’ll post my quick review.
Eken device has 7’’ screen with standard resolution 800×480, which is enough for reading PDF/eBooks/websites. Tablet is very light, and is quite comfortable to hold until it gets very, very hot in the back. M001s slow Via WM8505 processor was terrible for anything other that viewing eBooks and PDFs. No videos, no multitasking, and anything more than simple webpages pushes device to its limits. Also, battery life is kinda crappy, with device being able to work only 3 hours without external power. But, as for $100 – even cheaper than my phone – device performs quite well in simple tasks, like reading PDFs and eBooks.
I decided, that while I’m a terrible cheapo, I should buy something better this time. I looked all over the web, looking at different reviews, and finally settled on Apad M701-R. It’s on way to me right now, and when I get my hands on it, I’ll post update post, with short review.
September 23rd 2010 · Read More · No Comments
I don’t know why, but last Monday I bought myself another PDA. Quite an outdated one, to be exact. Only because I felt sentimental.
I bought myself Palm Tungsten|T2, which arrived at my doorstep today. I’ve never had T|T2, but I’ve had it’s younger brother T|E, and when I saw on auction site that someone sells it for $10, I just couldn’t resist.
I’ve always had a weakness for Palm Devices. I have Palm Vx (still working), I’ve had T|E (with broken screen, lost a long time ago), and now, I’ve bought T|T2 (even if I have working Pocket Loox N520 and I5700 Galaxy as PDA’s).
The reason I like Palm devices (old ones) is Palm OS. It’s stable and fast, and has, lets say it, unique feel. It rarely crashes, and even cannot multitask – is very easy to use and manage.
I would write more about how Palm OS is great, and make some excuses why I bought next device – but I don’t have time, since I’m playing with my T|T2.
September 10th 2010 · Read More · No Comments
Last few day I’ve been working on two web related projects (to earn some money). They are quite simple, but one single thing gave me nightmares – columns in CSS.
I’m an old school web designer – when I have to put content into columns, I use table. I don’t know why I’ve even tried making columns layout in CSS using <div> tags.
Don’t get me wrong – creating basic columns layout is very, very easy unless… you want to have two columns with flexible height, and, at the same time, want both of them to have the same height.
And this… is just to weird and unintuitive. I’ve tried several methods, from pure CSS to javascript, and none of them worked the way I wanted.
So, after few “Fsck, stupid CSS”… I went back to using <table> tags. At least they work correctly in every browser, and give me same height columns.
September 7th 2010 · Read More · No Comments
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
1,5 GB worth of zeros. These are the contents of new DLC for Mass Effect 2 released today by Bioware. I don’t know why and how they have released very anticipated DLC without double-checking download, but they did.
0
That many words I want to tell them. They don’t deserve more (until they fix it, when they will get all praise for oh-so-magnificent DLC).
So, here they are:
I’m going to sleep now. Maybe they will fix it overnight.
September 7th 2010 · Read More · No Comments
Oh God.
I thought that era of ugly windows apps is over. But, apparently, it’s not.
Today, I stumped over a small piece of software that sets welcome message for windows. And I wouldn’t even bother writing about it here, but one thing made me to. Its ugliness.
Here, is what the program looks like
Oh my God.
Really, is it all necessary? This program is ugly as hell – too much graphics, ugly buttons, custom fonts and colors. Why? Is it really hard do make something pretty? Simple? Windows-like? Because, really posting “Compatible with Windows” logo (I don’t think this little piece of software got through Microsoft logo process) and putting Windows login background behind does not give this program very professional feeling.
Really, it would be better if program looked something like this:
I’m not saying that my mockup fully complies with Microsoft UX Guidelines, but it is simple, and integrates with OS better. And designing it took 5 minutes.
It is not that hard, designing good looking apps. And Microsoft UI Guide makes it even easier. So, next time you design an app, instead of making terrible abomination, just read that guide and KISS. Or someone will man the virtual harpoons.
PS. I have no personal feelings for author of Windows Logon Notifier, I just stumbled upon his app and it was a brilliant example of what I hate in many, many windows apps. So, if you would like to set windows login message, use his app, as I won’t create mine.
September 6th 2010 · Read More · No Comments
As some of you may have seen on my twitter channel, yesterday and today I was installing Big World Project mega modification for Baldur’s Gate on my netbook.
Whole process took 27 hours, and when it was finally finished I’ve started the game.
And, as soon as I finished creating character, game crashed.
And that was it. I got rid of BG2 in less than 27 seconds.
After that, I installed HoMM3 in less than 27 minutes. I think, I’ll settle on Heroes for now.
September 5th 2010 · Read More · No Comments
Aside from developing my firs ever GTK application, last week I’ve also created simple app for Android operating system. And it was as unpleasant experience as it could be.
Android = Java (I don’t take into account NDK). And not desktop/enterprise-like Java with good and intuitive debugging. It’s some weird Java-like virtual machine, with literally, no in-ide debugging support.
Here’s why – debugging is hell. I’ve spend 3 hours searching for one bug in UI, that appeared only in system log – not in debugger – because app just kept FCing before debugger could do anything.
And that’s the problem. Most of FC causing bugs only appear in system log, and stupid debugger wont show them. I don’t know if it is NetBeans fault, or generic one (I have not tried Eclipse yet), but, for Gods sake, just make an option to make application spit all crash info on screen (just like .NET CF applications do).
And no, “adb log” is not an answer. Until it is pinned to IDE and shows just which line bug occurred, and all associated values.
September 5th 2010 · Read More · No Comments
Recently, I’ve started wrting small piece of software for my Ubuntu notebook. Since, I don’t like KDE (or, more, I don’t like what they done to KDE in version 4 and up), I use Gnome desktop. As I like my application to integrate with my OS, I decided – “Hey, why not try writing something in Mono and GTK#”.
And this was a mistake.
I know C# quite well, and I can easily created apps in Windows Forms or WPF, so I (foolishly) assumed that creating app using GTK would be very similar. Oh, I was sooooo wrong.
GTK sucks. Creating custom widgets, transparent backgrounds, moving widgets around, and getting their position – everything is hard in GTK. I ended up making custom fields in my widgets just to store position and size information, and I wasted 3 hours finding that there is a simple switch that tells EventBox not to create background window. Everything is so unintuitive.
But, maybe that is just because I’m new to GTK… Maybe. But it shouldn’t be. Even Spring, AWT in Java, and QT work more like WinForms than GTK. So, maybe it’s just GTK’s fault?
July 9th 2010 · Read More · No Comments
Recently I released new piece of software, called Piles for Windows. At the time, I didn’t know the meaning of this word, other than plural form of “pile”, and I thought – hey, I’m making Stacks replacement for windows, so lets create a simple word game (if it is called that in English, I stopped being confident in my English language knowledge).
As it turns out, “piles” is pseudo-medical term for hemorrhoids, and of course everyone is making fun of me, which is just great. Really I don’t care about it, and I’m not gonna change name of the software, maybe, but only maybe, i just add “(pl. form of pile)” after the name. There is also problem with site name, people reading Dragon Shorn (which is underlined in my text editor, like, lets say, an error), instead of Dragon’s Horn, but hey, maybe it because I’m not native speaker.
Also, there are a lot haters, saying “I don’t need it”, “There is something in Windows called recent files” and so on. So what. You don’t like it, don’t use it. It’s simple. Don’t whine, don’t go rampage. I use it, and I like it. If you like it, tell me, if you have some feature ideas, tell me, and if you don’t like it – just stay quiet. Please?
So, to wrap thing up. No, I wont change name, and yes, hater gonna hate.
