Hipstamatic
Is a remarkably well put together app. It's one of my favourites.
The in-app purchases of lenses and film is genius. A killer feature left unchallenged by the other 1,000,000 camera apps on the app store. http://hipstamaticapp.com
I'm founder and tree-planter at Curious Forest.
In my previous life I played violin in a symphony orchestra, worked at one of the world's largest advertising agencies, then started and sold a popular recipe website.
Two Minutes Hate
I'm quite saddened by the internet today.
How quick we are to dismiss and criticize what we don't understand. I'm reserving my judgement for when I can play with an iPad in the flesh. I am as indifferent to its specs as I am to blogger-du-jour rants about its lack of features.
I thought we had moved past that generation of thinking.
My decision to buy an iPad is going to be based on whether the device clicks with me when I pick it up in the store. Whether I "get" it. Apple is good at getting people to make emotional decisions about technology and that's what's needed here more than long lists of features. It's a new category of mainstream device - you can't experience it by reading news blogs or watching youtube videos. Wait until they come out, poke one in the store, talk to people who own one. This is the kind of device where every owner is going to have a story.
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Parkinson's Law
Parkinson's Law is the bane of project scheduling. In simple terms, the law is explained thusly:
Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
That is, if you allot 2 weeks to perform a task, the task's complexity will increase to fill those 2 weeks. In software development this promotes bloat or haplessly trying to build the "perfect product" before your arbitrary launch date.
Continuous Deployment is one way of avoiding the effects of Parkinson's Law. Another is to just not schedule things or not set arbitrary future milestones. Another would be to not make software and to just sell coconuts on the beach instead.
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Sugared Water
I'm currently reading "The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs".
It's much less the cheesy, DIY Keynote manual that you might think it is, and much more a detailed, stalker-like analysis of all things Steve. Which, if you're a fanboy like me, is kinda great. It's full of classic Steve moments. Here's one of my favourites.In 1983, Jobs was aggressively courting then PepsiCo president John Scully. Apple desperately wanted to bring in someone with Sculley's marketing and managing experience, but despite Steve's charm, Sculley failed to budge. The position would require that Sculley relocate his family to the West Coast, and it paid less than he wanted.
Sculley recounts the conversation that would lead to his decision to take the job. "We were on the balcony's west side, facing the Hudson River, when he finally asked me directly: 'Are you going to come to Apple?' 'Steve,' I said, 'I really love what you're doing. I'm excited by it; how could anyone not be captivated? But it just doesn't make sense. I'd love to be an adviser to you, to help you in any way. But I don't think I can come to Apple.'"
Sculley said Jobs' head dropped; he paused and stared at the ground. Jobs then looked up and issued a challenge to Sculley that would "haunt" him. Jobs said, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?". Sculley said it was as if someone delivered a stiff blow to his stomach.
Boom.
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Fun with Filters
It's official - Japan is frothing at the mouth for the Apple Tablet.
The UK, not so much.
Or at least, my somewhat unscientific sample would seem to show.
Just an example of result filtering using Seashell :)
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Apple Tablet
It seems as soon as I save a bit of money I'm already finding ways to spend the excess... I've recently caught Apple Tablet fever - an odd feeling since I had no interest in the semi-fictitious device up until now.After observing my usage of my netbook however, I think it would be a perfect device for me. I initially bought my netbook to do super-mobile development - a workstation wherever I am. Although it can perform this function admirably, in reality I seldom use it like this. In fact I'd say 90% of the time I use it for simple email checking / web browsing on the go, whenever the iPhone screen feels a bit cramped. This echoes John Gruber's recent sentiment about the device:
I certainly see it filling that gap for me. It would be a lighter, sleeker (and Apple-ier) replacement for how I use my current netbook. But I'm such an edge-case, I am curious as to how Apple is going to position this for the mass market.
The Tablet, I say, is going to be Apple’s new answer to what you use for personal portable general computing.
I certainly see it filling that gap for me. It would be a lighter, sleeker (and Apple-ier) replacement for how I use my current netbook. But I'm such an edge-case, I am curious as to how Apple is going to position this for the mass market.
Would you buy an Apple Tablet? Take the poll! http://bit.ly/4OksAn
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Cloud Migration... Complete!
Peashoot and Seashell are now both running from the cloud :)
Thanks to Justin from FathomDB for helping me through some early teething issues.
It could be my imagination but everything seems much snappier (TM) now. The application servers have more RAM than before, and the DB servers are just as beefy, with everything hooked up via speedy internal NAT.
And did I mention I've halved my running costs? I'm a happy chap.
Merry Christmas everyone and have a Happy New Year. I'll be launching Seashell into a limited beta soon, so expect an email if you've signed up to be notified.
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Cloud vs. Physical
I'm in the process of moving to the cloud.
The database layer of Seashell already runs off the cloud. It was a seamless, downtime-less transition. I will be moving the application layer to the cloud soon. Then I'll do the same for Peashoot. The applications will be run from Rackspace Cloud Servers. The databases from FathomDB.
Naturally I ran some tests before making this decision. The usual type of load, latency etc tests. I've posted some apache benchmark results below, comparing my physical server to a similarly-specced cloud server. What's important is not the absolute numbers (the benchmark was initiated from a server in Japan) but relative. Moving to the cloud will have zero impact on the end user.
Therefore, moving to the cloud is a simple financial decision. I can halve costs without impacting user experience. That's before factoring in other benefits like being able to scale faster and more cheaply. I've been running a physical server for a year now, which in bootstrapped startup language means I've been leaving money on the table that whole time.
You live and learn :)
If you make web apps or run a website, please vote - Cloud or Physical?
UPDATE: Both the application and database layer of Seashell are now on the cloud!
UPDATE 2: Peashoot and Seashell are now both fully running on the cloud!
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The Space Between Spaces...
I'm finally reading "Free" by Chris Anderson.
This quote blew my mind a little.
In Zeno's dichotomy paradox, you run toward a wall. As you run, you halve the distance to the wall, then halve it again, and so on. But if you continue to subdivide space forever, how can you ever actually reach the wall? (The answer is that you can't: Once you're within a few nanometers, atomic repulsion forces become too strong for you to get any closer...)
I think that deserves a "woah".
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