BrowserMetrics’s Air Pods

broderic on January 20, 2018

This past Christmas I was fortunate to hold the final number in our annual Kris Kriminal game. Apple AirPods had been revealed already so I stole ’em. Luckily, I ended up the night with them. Most likely the best Kris Kriminal present I had chanced into. So, with that, you know this review will be mostly positive.

Once they were officially mine, I opened the box, pulled them out of the charging case, put them in my ear, and pressed play. Music came through smoothly. I was mostly amazed that the pairing happened almost instantly. It wasn’t as quick as my description lets on, but it wasn’t a hassle. I didn’t even have to open the Blue Tooth settings to start the pairing. It just happened.

I really only tried it that night once and left them in my gift pile for the next few weeks. It wasn’t until the new year that I decided to put them to the test. I have kept them in my pocket for the last two weeks. I don’t use them every day, but I do pull them out once in a while to listen to Nogizaka jams during work. I am always in amazement that they fit in the ear just right and do fall out. Admittedly, I have not exercised with them in but they feel snug, never loose or ready to fall out. YMMV.

I love the carrying case. It fits in your pocket and also doubles as the charger. You can keep it forever in your pocket, ready to deploy at a moments notice.

My only problem so far is pairing with other devices. I believe you have to erase its knowledge of the previous device in order to add a new one. I think. I didn’t read the directions.

Anyhow, it’s pretty neat and should make up for the lack of input jack on the newer iPhones.

Bookstore Haul II: Volume 2 — Useless Things

broderic on January 22, 2017

I should’ve made ‘buying books I don’t read’ one of my New Year’s Resolutions. I stopped into the old B&N and bought a couple of books. I wanted to pass the time and rack up some steps, but I ended up with a couple of books.

The first book is trying to get me to learn Japanese so that I can talk to my idols, Nogizaka46, at one of their handshake events in Japan. I would like to encourage them to do their best: 頑張って！ I’ve bought several books. And have yet to apply myself to reading and learning. At least I’ve got a little bit of hiragana and katakana, but without a vocabulary it will be difficult to understanding anything. Hope this book starts me off.

The second is learning about node.js. We’re using it at work. And I’m trying to figure out what it is. Will I be able to read it?

Japanese For Beginners by Sachiko Toyozato
Learning Node.js: A Hands-On Guide to Building Web Applications in JavaScript 2nd Edition by Marc Wandschneider

“This is a word that, in my experience, the ladies don’t particularly go for.” “Oh, that’s just a typo. It’s supposed to read ‘pushy.'”

broderic on September 24, 2016

Link of the Day [9.24.16]

When you go distributed and base your work in the cloud, always remember, “There are no files on my hard drive.” Your local machine does not own the files on the local file system. The cloud does. O, you may think the files are there, but that is just for the moment. The files are in the cloud. Accept that and prepare for it no matter what. Accept that they could disappear at a moment’s notice. Prepare for them to disappear at a momennt’s notice.

Excuse me while I back up my drive…

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/maybe-be-careful-with-osx-sierra

Link of the Day [5.09.14]

broderic on May 9, 2014

I prefer Emacs. Vi makes you crazy especially the first time you load it up. You say how the hell do I enter text. Then you want to quit, and you'll say how the heck do I quit this program. Then you force kill the process to exit and never come back.

Plus, there are Emacs key bindings within OS X therefore the muscle memory is there while using my OS of choice.

Vi is the devil.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/05/
oldest_software_rivalry_emacs_and_vi_two_text_editors_used_by_programmers.html

Make This

broderic on December 12, 2011

Network storage will become a bigger and important part of the home-consumer market with the adoption of tablet computers. Currently, iPad 2 maxes out its SSD drive with 64 GB worth of disk space. The Kindle and the Nook tablets are on the low end of storage, but Amazon wants you to use their cloud and perhaps Barnes and Noble does, too. Yet, as consumers go digital with their books, magazines, movies, television, and photos, there is going be a need for local storage.There are Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices already being sold, but it's not a category that the average consumer will know about. This area is ripe for someone with an Apple-like bent to come in and remake the market.Here's how I would make my own NAS appliance:First, wireless and wired. Allow it to be connected by a physical connection.Second, web browser interface. Configuration should be straightforward for the least tech savvy of users, but allow for as much customization under the hood for those techies.Third, hot swappable. Drop in a drive and it should be ready in a click of the mouse. Plus, the chassis for this thing should contain 1-10 drives slots, but are adapted by price point: cheap is 1 drive, expensive is 10 drives.Fourth, BYOD. The user can use any drive they want. Old 5200 RPM spinning platters? Go for it. SSD? Go for it. Mix and match. Do it.I know about Apple's own NAS, Time Capsule, but that is for Apple's backup use case. I'm talking about something for everyone. I'm sure that you'll be buying something of this type in the next year or so.

Link of the Day [6.08.11]

broderic on June 8, 2011

We are all going to IPv6 sooner or later. Today, they are starting to roll out the changes. If you didn't notice anything wrong with the internet, then all is well. You should test out if you're ISP is ready. Or is this only for ISPs?http://test-ipv6.com/