Learning to Code (Kind of)

Aside from playing around with visual basic over the years (I coded a configurable metronome in 1997 and a number of other simple windows-based apps), and learning just enough HTML and CSS to know which questions to Google to run a few websites, I can’t by any reasonable definition code. A colleague recently suggested that we take the One Month Rails class in our free time (of which I seem to have less and less), to learn some Ruby on Rails basics. It’s essentially a video and exercise online class. I like the idea. I don’t have any far fetched illusions that I’ll become a competent coder in the near future (or likely ever). But as coding becomes increasingly important

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From Out of Nowhere

Via Barrons via The Big Picture, interesting trends in the computing space: I find it a little bit funny that the graphic says, “from out of nowhere, smartphones have passed global PC sales.” The slope of both smartphone graphs shifted sharply upward the month the first iPhone was released and haven’t changed since. I’d say the passing was rather predictable at any point after the iPhone came out until it happened. Even if PC sales had maintained their trend growth, that only would have delayed the inevitable by a few months.

Cloud Follow-Up

In response to my post yesterday on cloud backup solutions, Colin suggests another interesting solution: Rather than pay $60 a year for cloud backup, I invested in the personal cloud. Connect this to your router and set your Mac or pc to backup automatically. Completely automated and way more storage. I like the idea of this approach, and it definitely has its cost benefits over the long-run,  especially on a per GB basis, but I would still worry about the improbable scenario of a fire or theft. If my computer and local hard drive were both stolen or damaged, everything would be gone for good. But it does look like a great product nonetheless. Thanks Colin.

The Cloud’s Got My Back

I’ve had a rough couple of weeks with my computer — at times I’ve felt as though I’m back in the 90’s when computers just crashed on a regular predictable basis for all sorts of nonsensical reasons. The focus of this post is on various cloud backup solutions, and how well they worked for me throughout my most recent computer mishap. For anyone reading who doesn’t use cloud backup, I’d seriously consider it if you have content you don’t ever want to lose. My recent problem all started with an upgrade to Windows 8. I paid the $40 to try out the new OS, and the install went fairly smoothly. I won’t spend a lot of time reviewing Windows 8, but

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The Super PAC App!

As I previously mentioned here and here, my good friend Dan Siegel has been hard at work developing the Super PAC App, an iPhone app that helps people who are interested in researching election-related commercials funded by Super PACs identify (1) which organizations are paying for the ad, (2) what other political initiatives they support, and (3) what research has been done to substantiate their claims. Today the app was officially released in the Apple App Store. I’m obviously a bit biased, but I must say I’m very impressed. The first thing I did was pull up an election ad on YouTube and try out the Shazam-like tagging feature. While the ad was playing, I pressed the tag button in the app, and

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Who’s Curiosity? Bleep-Bop.

I just discovered that NASA’s curiosity rover, which who landed on Mars last night, has its own Facebook and Twitter pages where it posts updates about its mission in the first person. It seems a bit over the top, but why not? I guess NASA thinks they can gain more media attention if they pretend their robot likes Carly Rae Jepsen. What’s funnier is that it’s probably actually pretty effective. Here are some highlights from the Facebook page: FYI, I aim to send bigger, color pix from Mars later this week once I’ve got my head up and Mastcam active. No photo or it didn’t happen? Well lookee here, I’m casting a shadow on the ground in Mars’ Gale crater. Call me, maybe? All

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Dan Siegel and the Super PAC App

My good friend Dan Siegel is in the process of launching a smartphone app that will help TV watchers who are bombarded with election-related commercials funded by Super PACs identify (1) which organizations are paying for the ad, (2) what other political initiatives they support, and (3) what research has been done to substantiate their claims. The app will use sound tagging technology to identify the commercial based on a recorded sound clip, similar to the technology used by the Shazam app. The idea came out of a project for a digital media class in MIT’s media lab. Dan, along with his co-founder Jennifer Hollett from the Harvard Kennedy School, recently received funding to make it a reality, and are working pretty hard (I can’t even get Dan

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