So hackd! has moved to its own home over at http://hackd.net
That website is still in 'beta' I guess but there shouldn't be any more updates here. Update your bookmarks/rss feeds/blacklist accordingly please :)

Labels: blog, technology

Up in the November 30th edition of DiggNation Kevin decided to let out a few iPhone rumours.

• very small form factor - obviously


• two batteries, one for the mp3 playback side and one for the phone - excellent for people like me that listen to music a lot


• a lot of touch-screen - can we get a mock-up rotary wheel out of an iPod-style scroll-wheel?


• 4 or 8 gig offerings, US$249 and US$449 estimated - for an Apple smart-phone? sign me up!


• slide-out keyboard - keep in tune with the form factor, I'm sure

Of course this is all rumours. It's supposed to come out in January - which is both good and bad for me since I won't be able to get it until sometime in May most likely, but by then hopefully all bugs will be ironed out. Or, who knows, a lovely little birthday present for me :)

Other rumours deal with the OS, which is supposed to be a trimmed-out version of OS X. I think this is a bit far-fetched - although the UI elements should be there for Mac users to feel comfortable and homey and non-Mac ones to fall in love with, whether the technology will actually take from Leopard in terms of kernel and other subsystems...

I hope for cross-over headphones. That is, ones that will let me switch between phone and mp3 player seamlessly when I get a call. They should also be wireless because we want cool :)

Either way, can't wait. Call me a fanboy.

Labels: apple, technology

I am not a web developer. Considering how much time we all spend online I believe that web design is an important part of techlife, however I still think application and (especially) systems development are the 'real' programming venues. I am, however, a heavyweight surfer so I do come along quite a few interesting websites that involve some pretty impressive technologies and design ideas. I love the fact that these things are now easier to get going for anyone that has at least a little bit of a technically-inclined mind.

Enter Ruby on Rails. I know, I know, old technology already. Regardless, I got into it a bit over the last few days and I must say, it makes for some pretty kick-ass, easy implementations. Once you learn the pluralization rules - seeing how RoR heavily relies on this - rolling out a simple application is a walk in the park. The LoC count is always very low, a lot of the tasks are automated through scripts - even creating database tables - and the most work that you have to do is in the views, which are generally rhtml files.

To this we add some kick-ass AJAX stuff and CSS layouts and we have a pretty interesting application ready to roll out. I have a few non-revolutionary ideas of my own (blog or forum suite) to help me further practice all this technology. Why do I want to do that if I think applications are the way to go? All of these are interfaces to databases. I believe having multiple ways of consistently accessing the same information is advantageous to all parties involved, usability-wise. It is also a way to encourage data structure standards, i.e. having ways in which all forums could be aggregated into one application (this is an echo of the HiJack idea passed around during MyDreamApp.com) by means of a standard fashion in which data is organized.

Labels: geek, technology

New thing to test out, Democracy Player is great for vidcasts and other media in video. It comes with a large number of feeds built-in and it's easy to add your own. Built-in player and bittorrent client. I'm pretty much switching to it for all video things.

Name is kind of unfortunate, though.

Labels: technology

"Let's make cellphone jamming products more available for law-enforcement." So that local police can stop terrorists intent on detonating charges by means of a cellphone. I know that having these things is probably a good idea, but here's a twist: what if interrupting the cellphone signal will cause it to detonate? Or blocking cell pings that keep it from blowing up?

I know, nothing special. I'm tired of the same bullshit being thrown around for personal gain.

Labels: politics, security, technology