I ran across this little humorous easter egg the other day, buried deeply in a software development kit manual: Simulated Power Fail Test To begin the test, pull the power plug from the UPS. The first time that you do this, psychologically it won’t be easy, but after you have pulled the plug a few …
Category Archives: Technology
From iOS to Android, part 2: ecosystem shock
Last time, I talked about two key aspects of technology that tend to make loyal customers: platform ecosystem and user experience. It was a natural transition from owning Macs for the better part of a decade to iPods and then finally iPhones. Apple has done well to keep the user experience very fairly consistent between …
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online IDEs
I love IDEOne. It’s a fully debuggable online compiler for a bunch of software languages. And there’s no need installing a plugin to format source code correctly on my blog, when this service offers embeddable links. Like this: By the way, this isn’t compiling. Anyone have any pointers? See what I did there? Pointers?
The collision of Boxes
I’m a big fan of Dropbox. I (and the rest of the internet) have been using it in free mode for quite some time. I probably don’t need to tell you what it is . What I particularly love about the cloud is that it kills two birds with one stone: Syncing your files painlessly …
Bearable wearable
I’ve always loved following tech. The emergence of the wearables market has been a fascinating one: a convergence of small form factor, low power, and high performance electronics. In particular, this market really couldn’t have happened without the smartphone industry blazing the trail, since wearables leverage multiple technologies like touch screens, accelerometers, compasses, and wireless interfaces. And …
From iOS to Android, part 1
You read that right. I’ve made the switch. Got rid of my iPhone(s) and careened over into Android territory. And so far, the grass is still pretty green over here.
Before there was Netflix…
“… the world was without form. And it was not good.” For the past 6 months, I’m not entirely sure how we could have survived without Netflix. I’m aware that I tend to overstate many things and this is no exception. But humor me.
The STEM gap
There’s a great info-graphic and article on Adecco, concerning the widening gap between available Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics (STEM) candidates and those job vacancies waiting to be filled. I have much to be thankful for this year. In particular, I have Adecco to thank for placing me at a great, international science-based company — …
Function pointers
Here’s a great quote by John Bass on an EDN article about function pointers as an implementation of state machine design: Failure complexity is a metric of a design. http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/embedded-basics/4406821/Function-pointers—Part-3–State-machines
OS X Mountain Lion
So I finally got around to updating my iMac from Lion to Mountain Lion last night. Wow, I am pleasantly surprised! For the past year, this was a regular occurrence: systemic memory rot. Wow, what in the world is up with #FireFox on OS X? Here's a screenshot of it chewing up 0.8GB! iPhoto cant …