iPadded my Kindle

I have so many thoughts on the iPad at this moment, and you can check a few posts below to see why I thought a netbook would have been the better option (and Steve Jobs slamming netbooks during his keynote actively shat on that idea ever materializing), so I thought I would share one specific opinion. It’s not even that complex of an idea.

Will the iPad kill the Kindle? No. First of all, “____-killers” is a buzzword just like any other designed to hype up everyone except the actual consumer (press, shareholders, etc). But most importantly, what Amazon has is a household brand name. Everyone should know what a Kindle is. Maybe it’s not the most ubiquitous of tech brands yet, if ever at all, but it’s strong enough that I don’t think Amazon has to worry. Kindle is synonymous with eBooks. I think under the right circumstances, Kindle would have been a genericized trademark just like Kleenex… although I don’t imagine that’ll happen.

What I do think Amazon should worry about is how technically advanced the iPad is, despite its branding and similarity to the iPhone and iPod Touch. If anything, Amazon should step up their game to make the Kindle a much more quality product and strengthen their brand even further.

I don’t say any of this because I have an allegiance to either product, or any other. I’ve never even held or seen an eBook reader. I do have an iPod Touch and so I can sort of triangulate the kind of experience the iPad may provide, and I do find it appealing. I think Apple has a very nice product, although I question its necessity and branding.

Googlesoft Chomernet Framesplorer

Google Chrome Frame. Have you seen this, have you heard about this? If not, it’s all right here for you.

Microsoft slammed it, Mozilla has come out and sided with Microsoft in slamming it. Ordinarily I’m supportive of Google’s projects, but this seems odd to me. It’s one of those things that might have looked better on paper than in practice.

Of course, my reasons are different from Microsoft or Mozilla’s. They’re saying vulnerabilities may be doubled, it may be creating a sort of browser soup, and confusing the user and muddying the internet. Sure, possibly.

What I’m going to do is defend Google against themselves. Are you ready? Here’s what I think: It should NOT be Google’s job to patch Internet Explorer or any other browser.

It’s not their browser. It’s not their browser. It’s not their browser.

It’s definitely not their job. If Microsoft doesn’t care enough to make a quality product, Google shouldn’t concern themselves. I thought that’s what Chrome was about, anyway?

You don’t see Microsoft putting out plug-ins for Mac OS X or Linux that make those operating systems behave like Windows. You don’t see Aston Martin putting their engines in Ford Explorers.

I think it’s admirable that they want to try and help people who use Internet Explorer, but the best thing they can be doing is working on their own browser.

Speaking of which, why not drop this Google Chrome Frame crap and, I don’t know, release Chrome for OS X?! You want to help people out, Google? How about releasing your browser for us Mac and Linux people instead of wasting your time on Internet Explorer.

You’re using a modified version of Apple’s own web engine anyway. The least you can do is release your browser on its engine’s native platform.

Troll Trolling

I want spend this post calling out MacDailyNews as the sorriest excuse for a Mac blog I’ve ever come across.

Despite its name, they spend a great deal of time posting on Microsoft and how much Microsoft sucks. Such a post will be followed by a “MacDailyNews Take” in which they jerk off to how much Microsoft sucks and Apple is awesome.

Apple is awesome. As much as I’ve grown to dislike Windows, I still think Microsoft is awesome too. There’s room to like both, and there’s room to criticize each equally and fairly. MacDailyNews does neither, and the result is a following of the worst kind of Mac “fans” out there. The kind that would unabashedly sniff Steve Job’s farts, and God help you if you happened to catch a whiff and said “Ugh—*cough*AACK,” because that would be a clear indication of your lack of belief in His Steveness.

In today’s world, there’s so much of This vs That, that you’re expected to pick a side and the thought that, perhaps, choosing more that just one side is completely UNHEARD OF. I see this all the time in Wii vs Xbox 360 vs PS3 arguments, or indeed Mac vs PC arguments. You have to back only one of them up, and it’s damn near blasphemy if you ever show any kind of interest or support for anything other than what you’re backing. There’s absolutely no room to like more than one side in the eyes of some people.

A Linux user who loves Windows and OS X just as much? Get out of here. That’s ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as a Christian accepting that, maybe, there’s a chance there is no God?

Right? Right?

Keeping with the religious example I’ve now just got myself stuck in, being open minded doesn’t mean your faith has to be challenged. Just because you’re an avid Mac user and a big Apple fan, doesn’t mean you can’t use Windows or Microsoft products and enjoy doing so. Yeah, sometimes Microsoft makes it hard to enjoy using their products, but… Apple’s not perfect either. And you should trust a blog to draw a clear distinction there.

I realize I could simply not visit the site, but despite its overwhelming flaw and clear shittiness, MacDailyNews does offer some interesting bits of news in the Apple community. But the majority of its content is an insult to its own God damn name, and I think the internets would be better off without shit like that clogging up the tubes.

Twitter

Twitter is an awesome tool if you can figure out how it works best for you. I had an account for almost a year and I never used it because I found it too cumbersome to actually go to Twitter.com to stay current with who I was following, and post my own tweets.

The last few months I’ve become much more interested in it simply due to the existence of client desktop apps that you can run 24/7 and keeps you updated with all the latest tweets from your followers and allows you to tweet your own tweets. Tweet. Tweeeeet.

Ahem.

There are a number of these client apps, but the one I settled on is called Twhirl. It runs on the Adobe Air platform and works on Windows and Mac OS X. I wholly recommend giving it a whirl. Get it? Twhirl. Whirl.

Yes, I went there.

Another good Twitter client that I have tried out, but never continued using for reasons that have escaped me, is Destroy Twitter. It has a very slick UI and seems to be just as good, if not better than Twhirl.

I came across Twhirl first and I like sticking with what works, but go ahead and try out whatever you come across. The point is to get Twitter working for you, because it’s one of those things that works better and better the more people use it.

You can, of course, follow me on Twitter. Tweet you later!

Paintbrush for Mac OS X

There are a few things that bother me about Apple and OS X. I’ve been a Mac user for almost three years, coming from a long history of Windows use. There were certain things I was used to having in a default installation of Windows. I’m not talking about those superficial things that most OS fanboys get caught up in arguing about. I’m talking about things that should be standard across all operating systems.

It goes both ways. There are things standard in Windows that I think should definitely be in OS X, and vise versa. One of those things is a standard, simple paint application. Something you can knock out a drawing in without dropping hundreds of dollars and wasting precious system resources on bloated software you’ll never use.

If Apple aren’t going to include it, fine. Surely there’s something out there that will suffice? Well, I found it. In only a matter of seconds, too. I’m amazed I found it so quickly, because I would thought I’d have found it long ago.

Paintbrush is exactly what I think Apple should include in OS X. And it’s exactly what I was looking for. It’s simple, it’s lightweight, and best of all it’s free. I’m a bit of a software junkie when it comes to OS X, and I really love when I find free stuff. Especially free stuff that’s really awesome.

The other thing that really bothers me about OS X is that all it comes with is Chess.app as far as games go. I know that as Mac users we’re supposed to be intellectual, creative, arty farty types who’d love the smell of Einstein’s shit, but… I’m still positive there are only two Mac users in existence who actually know how to play the damn game.

And now that got on the subject of games, I might as well share a game for OS X that I found a couple months ago. It’s called Quinn. What’s Quinn? It’s “A Tetromino Game for Mac OS X.”

…that means Tetris.

How to painlessly set up MySQL and PHP.

I’ll warn you, if you’re a purist you might as well stop reading this now. Not that what I’m about to tell you is really all that bad, it’s just for people who want a quick and easy way to set up PHP and MySQL.

And all you need to know is one thing… what platform are you using?

If you’re on Windows, all you need is a little sumthin’ called EasyPHP. If you’re on Mac OS X, then what you want is MAMP. Sorry for those of you on Linux since I don’t know of any equivalents at the moment, but chances are if you are on Linux you would have stopped at my first sentence anyway.

What these two applications offer is a way to set up a fully functional local (as in on your computer) server running PHP and MySQL without actually having to do all the grunt work that is necessary to run PHP and MySQL normally. Just install and boom, you’re in business.

Of course, you’ll still need to know where to put your website files and how to access them in your browser, which I trust you’re smart enough to figure out. If not, those websites should have ample documentation to get you by.