Jim Roepcke's weblog have browser, will travel (est. 1999)

It’s orange for a reason

iLounge: Apple unveils iPod shuffle in four new colors

Orange is also now an important branding colour for Apple. Don't get it? This image should make it pretty obvious... (click to enlarge)

But yeah, it is gorgeous, too.

Choosing the right Vista for you

Joy of Tech: Vista Recommendation

Kitty Washing Machine

This video shows how you can wash your cat without getting your eyes gouged out.

YouTube: Kitty Washing Machine

Grassroot bloggers to register with Congress?

Congress to Send Critics to Jail, Says Richard Viguerie

Wow.

ZOMG! BluePhoneElite 2

Mira Software, Inc.: BluePhoneElite 2 (via Theocacao)

Thank you! I've been wishing for this app for years now. A couple years ago I briefly looked into what it might take to do this and, well, it was a lot more work than I had time to handle. I'm so glad someone has done it!

ABC’s Dream home brings a big tax hike

Detroit Free Press: Dream home brings a big tax hike

ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition gives families in need beautiful, state of the art new homes and usually other grossly expensive technology and/or vehicles and/or benefits like college scholarships.

Cheryl: HA! I told you so!

I've never liked that show, and this is why. Right from the first episode we ever saw, I told (my wife) Cheryl this show was a bad idea unless they were also going to pay the family's property taxes, and that surely they wouldn't, so suffering families are eventually going to suffer further, unjustly.

Their choice is going to be sell the house (and reap the profit) and have to leave the neighbourhood and give up their amazing gift, or live with a huge financial burden.

The show draws a huge TV audience, effectively selling advertising (and probably getting materials and labour at reduced rates in exchange for advertising and promotion) by pulling on the audience's heart-strings for an hour, letting them witness amazing blessings bestowed upon deserving people. There's not enough of that in the world so this outrageous public lottery reality show feeds that need. But when ABC leaves, the family is left to fend for themselves. Boo ABC. It's great that advertising can fund the help these families receive, but that support system is gone as soon as the advertising audience is gone.

Thankfully, it looks like some state government(s) might be looking to amend the tax laws to give these lucky family a break.

"OS X" != "Mac OS X"

Digg is doing a good job of uncovering stories about the iPhone. Some of my questions from yesterday have been answered, and I'm not surprised to find I don't like the answers. Yes Andrew, I'm being negative again today. Sorry!

iPhone in Canada? Sounds like it might be early 2008, if I'm to believe this blog post by John Wiseman. I'd have to sign a 2 year contract with Rogers Wireless (since they're the only nation-wide GSM carrier), and will have to buy a data plan, which as I said previously is very very expensive in Canada. There has been talk of Canada entering the 21st century w.r.t. data plans soon but it hasn't happened yet. I've told Fido to disable the GPRS functionality on my last two phones because data was way too expensive.

TV and Movies in Canada? Dunno. They've got a month to get their act together before Apple TV comes out. But then I saw this strange post about some TV shows appearing as Podcasts in iTunes... I doubt this has anything to do with anything but it's interesting and I'll keep my eye on it. When I tried to access the "Extras" podcast iTunes wasn't able to get past the "Loading" screen.

So, can I develop for the iPhone? Nope.

Jobs said: "You don’t want your phone to be like a PC". I think his mind-reader is broken, because yes, I want to be able to open a Terminal session and ssh wherever, or run Python scripts or Java code or build and play games I make in Cocoa, or whatever.

Jobs said: "You don’t want your phone to be an open platform". YES I DO! My Nokie Series 60 phone is an open (enough) platform, that's why I bought it instead of another Sony-Ericsson phone or a Moto Razr. I can develop apps in C or Python or Java and run them on my phone. Python apps have access to Bluetooth and lots of other important APIs. I want that on iPhone. Big time. I want to be able to leverage my Cocoa skills to make my iPhone even better.

Jobs said: "Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up." That is a steaming pile of horse shit! Cingular isn't going to go down because an application messed up unless Apple and/or Cingular give developers that ability. Somehow Series 60 Nokia phones haven't taken down Cingular even though they're open to 3rd party developers... somehow Apple can't figure out how to keep developers from destroying the cellular network? Please.

Jobs has this completely wrong. Microsoft is way ahead of Apple on this one. In some important ways for independent developers, Microsoft's platforms are more open than Apple's. I can develop applications for Windows Pocket PC smart phones... not that I want to. I can even develop games for the Xbox 360 using the XNA tools. That is very appealing to me. Microsoft doesn't exist without developers, because they don't make any good applications of their own (and their operating systems aren't much better). Increasingly, Apple doesn't need think it needs developers, and increasingly, I can't develop for their platforms. The Newton was open. The Mac is open. iPod, iPhone and Apple TV are not open.

Finally, and I'm shocked I haven't found anyone else talking about this yet, but the iPhone does not run Mac OS X. Get that fallacy out of your head.

iPhone runs "OS X", whatever that is. You will not find Jobs say iPhone runs "Mac OS X" or Leopard or Tiger anywhere in the Keynote nor will you find that on the Apple web site. He and the Apple literature say it runs "OS X". Mac has nothing to do with it.

The iPhone runs on a Samsung microprocessor, so if it runs any part of Mac OS X its probably just Darwin and Mac OS X's audio/video layers, namely subsets of Quartz, CoreImage, CoreAudio, CoreAnimation, CoreVideo and QuickTime. And then subsets of QTKit, WebCore and WebKit. Probably little of AppKit, running on a much different WindowServer. All in all, very little of what we think of as Mac OS X. Unfortunately, just the way Apple wants it.

Everything but Macworld

I decided to wait a day to post my comments on the Macworld SF 2007 Keynote. I'm glad I did, because my feelings have changed in the last 20 hours or so. Yesterday at this time I was all "ZOMG! iPhone eez teh w00t!!!" but I told myself before the Keynote that that would probably happen due to the amazing RDF of Mr. Steve Jobs. And I was right.

The RDF has worn off and I have a lot of questions and complaints for Apple.

Does Apple realize Canada exists? Will the iPhone come to Canada? They're going to have to find a wireless partner in Canada to implement the "random access voicemail" feature, if Cingular will even let them, that is. Or, maybe they'll just release a crippled iPhone in Canada that doesn't do all the cool things that US customers can do.

Crippled, kinda like the iPod, Mac and Apple TV. In Canada, we can't watch TV shows or Movies on the iPod (or our Macs) unless we download them using something like BitTorrent, and then convert it to iPod format. In the US, customers can use the iTunes store for that... even though we get the same movies in our theatres and pay for the same US networks as part of our cable and satellite packages as US customers.

It was hinted somewhere that the Canadian iTunes store would get TV and movies at MWSF2007 so I've been patient and quiet about this but not any longer. This sucks! I'm still using a 4G iPod because there's no good reason to get a 5G iPod without being able to put TV and Movies on it. I do not have the time or inclination to figure out how to find the shows I want using BitTorrent or waste my CPU and disk resources to store and convert the shows I download to watch them on the iPod.

So why would I want an Apple TV? To watch video podcasts? ROFL! I can already look at my pictures on my TV with reasonable ease using my Nintendo Wii, and sure, Apple TV would be better, but not $349+tax better, especially not when Apple considers me a 2nd class citizen... or is it 4th class, Apple had the decency to tell European and Asian customers it hadn't forgotten about THEM.

Honestly, I was surprised they even bothered releasing Apple TV in Canada... it's one thing to cripple the Canadian iTunes store and just not mention the TV and Movies features on the Apple.ca web pages about iTunes and iPod, but it's another to release a product that is pretty much useless without those features. The Apple.ca web page about Apple TV actually says:

"But what if you want to watch music videos, movie trailers, podcasts, and photos on TV? At $349, Apple TV gives you more to watch on the big screen."

$349 to watch MUSIC VIDEOS and MOVIE TRAILERS? Are you KIDDING ME? You want me to pay for a device so I can watch ADVERTISEMENTS? Podcasts and Photos on my TV for $349? What an embarassment.

Apple.com for the US:

"But what if you want to watch movies, TV shows, movie trailers, podcasts, and photos from your computer on your TV? At $299, Apple TV brings iTunes to the big screen."

Now we're talking.

Apple.com didn't even bother mentioning music videos above, they don't have to stoop that low. Why should Canadian customers have to pay full price for a horribly crippled product?

I watched the Keynote with my wife last night, but didn't anything to her about availability beforehand. I wanted to see her response to the iPhone. Forget "you had me at scrolling", Steve had her before he even turned the thing on! I'm not kidding, she wanted to return her birthday gifts and buy one immediately, before he even unlocked it or showed one bit of the UI! Sorry honey, no dice, at least for the indefinite future.

Canada doesn't even have any Apple Stores, unless you count Toronto is only part of Canada because Torontonians have learned to tolerate the rest of the country. What about Vancouver? What about Victoria? Apple has stores in smaller places. Vancouver and Victoria have more than enough wealthy people to support an Apple Store, and both cities attract tons of American and international tourists every year. For that matter, what about Montreal? As a Canadian Apple customer not living in TO, I feel pretty distant from the Company.

I'd love a new iPod, but it's crippled so I won't buy one. I'd love an Apple TV but it's horribly cripped so don't even try to sell me one. I'd love an iPhone but, ditto, and that's before I even worry about which network I'm going to be forced to sign a contract with, nevermind the fact that Canada doesn't have flat-rate wireless data rates yet unless you have a Blackberry or a Hiptop. I'd love a MacBook or an iMac, but I can't really use Front Row to its full potential so I might as well stick with that I have.

I'm really disappointed with Apple. I love their products but just can't justify buying them. As a developer, the iPhone is even more intriguing, that is, if they'll actually let small developers make apps for it.

Sigh.

And for that matter, when was the last time no Macs or new versions of Mac OS were announced or previewed at MACworld? No new Macs? Huh? Apple Inc., indeed.

My guess is the next new Macs that come out will be iPhone-esque, they'll have high-resolution multi-touch displays, because once you've played with an iPhone, you just don't want to go back to the mouse.

Mindstorms Car factory

YouTube: Mindstorms Autofabrik

This is truly amazing. I wonder if it was made by one person or a group of people. It seems like a good way to do a group / class project where each group is responsible for one of the units and then the groups have to work together to integrate the units into the final system.