App Store

I love the app store, or rather I love the reviews in the app store. For example, I just read a review of a FREE app and the review gave it 1 star. Why? Becasue the app writer had the audacity to want to charge $10 to unlock the functionality that would allow the user to export his data to an email. Consider that for a second- you have a program that is supposed to do one thing (in this case, read bar codes and help track inventory) and you have access to all of that information for free. The developer knows that the useful part of the application is being able to share that info, and that's what they charge you for. You know the program works and does what you need it to in terms of its overall function. Why get mad when the dev is trying to (gasp!) make money from software he developed? Do you hate 'Merica? Are you one-a them communists? No? Then pay for the functionality in your goddamned app!

Not necessarily contrarian...

Rather, a reminder that no one starts out at the top (ok, a select few Mozart's out there start out on top, but without them we'd have no haterade, so drink up.....)

This was posted at Don Fogg's bladesmith forums by Alan Longmire, attributed to Ira Glass:

What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

http://youtu.be/BI23U7U2aUY

A word on Productivity

I recently drank the Apple flavor-aid and bought an iPhone 4 to replace my Tilt2. Part of what drove my decision is my employer's decision to throttle back our internet access. It appears that our servers could not handle the streaming traffic from the recent NCAA basketball finals, so many sites that have streaming audio/video are no longer available, notably Pandora and Grooveshark. In a bizarre twist, I can still sometimes get to Facebook and YouTube is wide open. Seriously, WTF?

I can't begin to tell you how much more I'm getting donw during my workday simply becasue I don't have to fight the technology at my disposal to do something simple, like check my email. I have two domains through Yahoo so I have three email accounts that are accessible from the same menu. It's painfully slow to get to the domain emails, and my old-as-hell Yahoo account is practically unusable from work. When I want a quick FB update I have about a 30% success rate, and of course I F5 the shit out of that page trying to get it to connect. Even Slate.com is too robust for our network (or maybe my 7 year old computer... SEVEN!) and I can't even get the main page to load properly.
*Slate on the phone. Yep. I'm not even using their app (which can't really be any better than opening the page in Safari or checking my Twitter feed).
*Pandora? There's an app.
*Grooveshark. Big neg on that, mostly becasue I think the way they're set up is that you stream music from other people's computers, so it's like a torrent site that doesn't let you keep the tracks. Anyway, Apple has said no to thier app and it won't run in Safari.
*Email- I have four accounts pushed to my phone. I just have to look at it to know if I have email- that is SOOO much faster.
*FB- the app is pretty good. And since I don't play games on there anymore or use their "services" it does what I need it to.

So I'm not here to hand you a cup of what I'm drinking vis a vis the iPhone, the point is that now I don't have to waste time trying to do simple tasks. Instead of 5 minutes to discover that I have no email, it takes 2 seconds. And if I have something that requires a reply, then I can open that particular account. I know employers' gut reaction is to try to control their employees as much as possible, but I'm not an n=1 example of productivity increasing when employees are allowed to blow off steam during the work day. If I feel like it later I may try to dig up some articles I recall reading about the topic. Certainly those who are on chat for half the day or can't get off FB to do any work are a problem. But I can't believe that Pandora is so demanding or is such a threat that it should be restricted.