As a registered iPhone Developer you are allowed to try out new builds of the iPhone Operating system to allow you to develop against an actual iPhone instead of just the provided iPhone emulator.I’ve been fortunate enough to be using the 3.0 builds for quite some time and now that Apple has announced the full feature set of the new O.S. here are some first impressions on some of the features:
- Cut and Paste – It works great, but the funny thing is I use a lot more than I thought I would. Maybe Steve was right after all, LOL.*Waves Hand*”You don’t need cut-and-paste. This is not the text you were looking for”
- Media Downloads – I had been waiting for this for some time. You can now download movies, TV shows, and audio books from iTunes on your iPhone. I’m actually downloading “Predicatably Irrational” on my iPhone while writing this Blog entry, nice! You need Wifi for this functionality, and it will take a while to download your book. Don’t try this on a low battery!
- Landscape Keyboard – Finally! You can now use landscape mode with your email, notes, and Safari.
- MMS – ready as far as the iPhone is concerned, but AT&T still hasn’t got their act together. AT&T says they are working on MMS and it will be ready sometime at the end of the summer…Grrrrrr.
- Internet Tethering – Don’t get excited, AT&T hasn’t got this feature working either. They are getting really annoying. And you better believe that if/when they allow tethering at all, they will charge a lot for the privilege.
- Spotlight Search – You will love this feature, I use it constantly. Here’s a tip, use it to launch your Applications. No more remembering what screen that app is on, just start typing the first few letters of your Applications name and away you go!
- Voice Dialing – Sorry Charlie, this feature is only on the new iPhone 3GS and isn’t a part of the 3.0 update. My personal reaction? Whaaaaaaah! *Stomps Foot* I want it, I want it.
- Voice Memos – Kinda lame, really. Works O.K. but has absolutely no features at all. Think of it as just a big, red, record button. Wait a minute, that’s exactly what it is.
- Turn By Turn and Video Recording – Fooled you. You don’t get these either. Buy the new iPhone 3GS.
Tags: boost, firmware, iPhone, media, os, update
I thought the first generation of the Kindle was an interesting idea but overpriced and feature poor. With the new Kindle 2, Amazon has released a product that I believe is still overpriced but will get much wider adoption. The key feature is that the Kindle is always connected to the Internet allowing the download of fresh content 24/7. Since Amazon doesn’t charge users a monthly connection fee, they are out only the initial cost of purchase. The new Kindle is much thinner and now holds over 1,500 books. And Kindle 2 even reads to you, with a “Read to Me”, Text to Speech engine. But the sweetest detail that Amazon isn’t really marketing (still a rumor) is that the Kindle 2 will sync with mobile devices. This Whispersync feature will allow your iPhone or other mobile device to read Kindle content. The one showstopper for me however is that the Kindle 2 doesn’t allow users to upload their own content to the device.
New Features & Enhancements
- Slim & Lightweight: Just over 1/3 inch and 10.2 ounces
Books in under 60 seconds: Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds; no PC required
- Improved Display: Reads like real paper; now boasts 16 shades of gray for crisp images and text; even reads well in bright sunlight
- Longer Battery Life: 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging
- More Storage: Take your library with you; holds over 1,500 books
- Faster Page Turns: 20% faster page turns
- Read-to-Me: Text-to-Speech feature means Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud.
- No Wireless Bills: No monthly wireless bills, data plans, or commitments. Amazon pays for Kindle’s wireless connectivity so you won’t see a monthly wireless bill.
- Large Selection: Over 230,000 books, plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines and blogs available
- Low Book Prices: New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise
Tags: amazon, kindle, product, review
Posted by: Jeff Owens in Rails
We completed our subversion setup in part three, now let's add Capistrano deployment to the mix. Let's go ahead and ssh into our server:
CODE:
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ssh -p 8888 deploy@your_linux_box.com
Add the following new directories to our server. This is where our staging and production factory websites will be deployed to:
CODE:
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sudo mkdir /var/www
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sudo mkdir /var/www/apps
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sudo chown -R deploy:deploy /var/www/apps
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Tags: capistrano, deployment, Rails, subversion
Posted by: Jeff Owens in Rails
If you've finished part two let's continue. In this part of the series I'm going to assume you have a working installation of MySQL on your local client machine that we will only need for testing purposes. If you've got a Mac you might look at installing MacPorts and using it to install MySQL for you. First we'll create a test rails project. I'm going to use the latest rails 2 sugar in setting up this simple test site. Open up terminal or iTerm and find a directory you want to use to create the test project. Here we go:
CODE:
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rails --d=mysql factory
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cd factory
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rake db:create
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script/generate scaffold widget name:string description:text
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rake db:migrate
Now let's test our site to make sure everything is working correctly:
Open up your browser and try the site out using http://localhost:3000/widgets.
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Tags: Rails, ruby on rails, setup, subversion
