By Renegade on Tuesday, June 29, 2010 1:42 PM

Well, I've been checking out the Garmin nüvi, and in a word, wow. It leaves my TomTom in the dust. It is way more responsive, has finger scrolling, and even automatically shuts on/off when you start or turn off the car.

I'm almost sold on chucking my TomTom and getting a Garmin. It's night and day. I don't see how anyone can possibly compare them. It's like a broken down tricycle with 1 wheel compared to a Mercedes-Benz. They're not even in the same league.

Cheers,

Ryan

By Renegade on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 11:33 PM

I fly quite a bit, and there are airports that I love, and those that I loathe. In general, I find airports in Asia are much nicer to travel through. Airports in Canada are better than those in the US.

One thing that I really like about airports in Asia is the free Wi-Fi. While there is Wi-Fi in LAX, it's just useless as you have to be in a specific lounge and get a login or use the tmobile Wi-Fi, which requires a login, if you can get one. It's just too complicated to bother with. When you've just spent 14 hours on a plane, you're tired, cranky, and stuck sitting in those horribly uncomfortable airport chairs... running around to figure out how to login is just a bit too much to ask. The airports in Asia have it right -- just let people login and use it. No hassles.

More and more, I see why Incheon International Airport has won so many awards. It really is a fantastic airport. The Hong Kong airport is also excellent. Kuala Lumpur is also very nice. Their LCCT ... Read More »

By Renegade on Thursday, June 17, 2010 10:03 AM

My rants are scathing, but my praise is equally high for deserving companies and products. The Planet fits into the praise-worthy category as they have stellar products and spectacular services.

I've used other hosts and dedicated hosts in the past, and the only one that comes close is Rackspace. Everything else that I've tried falls very far short of what you get at The Planet. (I would actively discourage anyone from ever using Layered Technologies as from what I've seen, their incompetence brings new meaning to the word "morons".)

Anyways, I just got another email from The Planet:

... Read More »

Comments (0)

Renegade Tech

By Renegade on Thursday, May 20, 2010 7:45 PM

The jury is definitely in with the verdict. Guilty. And it's a hanging offense. In the gas chamber. While being shot. With grenade launchers. With a tormentor in the wings waiting to waterboard the corpse as an appetizer.

But seriously, the TomTom XXL 540S is simple horrible. But before I get into all of its many deficiencies, I'll outline the good parts as there is a small number of them. I've had more than enough time to evaluate the unit, and I've decided that I will most likely sell it and get a different GPS unit if time permits.

THE GOOD

The box is good. It contains the unit very well. (End sarcasm.)

The screen is actually very good. It is bright enough and it doesn't grime up with finger prints. It is matted, so you don't get glare off of it. Also, it's quite large, which is nice.

The battery life is very good and has more than enough.

The suction ... Read More »

By Renegade on Friday, May 07, 2010 12:22 PM

HA! I can FINALLY talk about this! (I've been dying to blurt this out, but am under NDA.)

Samsung bada is now finally available to all developers! Here's the official bada release announcement.

You can finally get the bada IDE and the bada SDK (login first) to start developing for Samsung's new generation of bada phones, like the Samsung Wave S8500.

Remember, Samsung is the #2 mobile phone manufacturer after Nokia, so bada is going to be HUGE! You'll be able to reach more people than you will be able to on the iPhone. It will take some time, but it will come.

The API is well la ... Read More »

By Renegade on Wednesday, May 05, 2010 10:37 PM

A friend needed a standard document translated to visit Korea, so I figured I'd upload it here for anyone else that is visiting Korea and can't read Korean.

It's for a personal guarantee. Many countries require that you have a guarantor to visit. That is, you must be invited by someone or a company; you cannot just show up and expect to get it. This of course differs for different nationalities for different countries. This document is only for certain foreign nationals that are visiting Korea. If you are one of them, you should already know. If you don't know, visit the Korean immigration web site for more information.

Click below to download the English and Korean documents:

Personal Reference Letter for Visiting Korea (신원보증서)

The original Korean is in there as well. The translated document is on top of the Kor ... Read More »

By Renegade on Wednesday, April 14, 2010 9:07 AM

Wow. Some people really just don't get it. Some Aussie politicians are pushing full-bore ahead to "filter" content on the Internet. Here's one more story about it.

"This is a modest measure, which reflects long-held community standards about the type of content that is unacceptable in a civilised society,"

Banning whatever he feels like is "modest"? Wow.

"Those who claim the Government's approach is akin to the sort of political censorship practiced by authoritarian regimes are simply misleading the Australian public."

It is akin because it's the first step to it.

Blocking kiddie porn is on ... Read More »

By Renegade on Saturday, April 10, 2010 11:56 AM

I don't think some things are very appropriate here, so I've decided to start an entire series of rants at my new blog that chronicles my frustrations in transitioning from Microsoft to Apple platforms. I've aptly named it "Microsoft 2 Apple".

FAIR WARNING: It is a rant. It used the same language that I use when everything blows up after having followed the instructions destructions, and that means lots of profanity. Don't visit if you are easily offended.

Make no mistake, I still like a lot of things about the Mac, like playing videos (mostly), but the blog isn't about that. It's about development and not about the end-user experience.

Cheers,

Ryan

By Renegade on Thursday, April 08, 2010 12:42 PM

Well, so far there's nothing easier about a Mac than Windows. It's so bad that I've even had to reinstall OS X. It's actually installing it again now.

The problem comes from sercurity certificates, and for some reason, it's simply impossible to delete some in OS X. This presents a problem as I need to actually use them... I'd followed some instructions for Xcode and the Apple iPhone Developer site to create certificates, but nothing worked and I ended up with a bunch of certificates that I couldn't delete, and everything simply became a total mess. I spent close to an hour trying to get rid of them and just gave up. Resinstalling OS X just seems easier at this point. Sigh... 53 minutes remaining... (Looks like it's about as accurate as the Windows file copy estimates.)

I really wish that Macs were as easy to use as the fanboys say they are...

Ryan

 

By Renegade on Monday, April 05, 2010 8:57 PM

Ignorant? Stupid? Or cheated?

That's what I wonder when I click a Google ad on an iPhone and it takes me to this web page:

 What's wrong?

1. It's a web site designed for full sized computers, and not mobile phones.
2. It's a splash page.
3. It requires Adobe Flash - The iPhone does not support Flash.
4. It has no call to action.
5. It is a total waste of money for the advertiser.

Now how did that happen? The above problems are just the beginning. Advertising can get pretty expensive if you're just burning money.

... Read More »

By Renegade on Monday, April 05, 2010 10:50 AM

Well, I found it, the "Xcode for Visual Studio and Eclipse Developers" video:

https://deimos.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/BrowsePrivately/adc.apple.com.3391479180.03391479186.3416008888?i=1223167627

Xcode for Visual Studio and Eclipse Developers is buried deep in the iTunes App Store where you'll never be able to locate it otherwise. After all, Google doesn't index there...

(If it's not in Google, it basically doesn't exist.)

I don't know why Apple doesn't have a friendlier entry-point for developers coming from other platforms. The vast majority of developers that look at developing on the Mac hate it, with many of them avoiding Mac tools as much a ... Read More »

By Renegade on Friday, April 02, 2010 5:20 PM

I am seriously stubborn. A lot of the time. I refuse to use hosted web services. I refuse to use a "web host". I do not rely on anyone but myself, and today I am reminded why... YouTube... Down. No joy. No happiness. Dead. And this is 2 days later... Youch. 2 days of pain.

So for all those people out there that host their corporate videos and business videos on YouTube... OUCH! A lot of them just got burned.

YouTube upgraded/updated/changed/messed up (whatever you want to call it) their site with a lot of people getting nothing. It's just dead. They're working in some places, but not in others. What's going on? Dunno. Don't care. Just wish that they'd get back up soon!

In these kinds of situations, you really can't afford to wait for them to get back up if you rely on them. If you have a business to run, well, then what? Spend the next day? week? uploading to your own server and recoding your pages? Ouch.

While ... Read More »

By Renegade on Friday, April 02, 2010 3:29 PM

My first Mac impressions, or rather, my first impressions for the newest line of Macs since OS 9... I really hate the Apple fanboys. Well, I hate fanboys pretty much all over as they are never very balanced in any of their views, but today, I really hate the Apple fanboys.

Immediately the computer needs well over a GB of updates and several reboots. Three reboots to be precise. What is it that I keep hearing fanboys going on about Windows and rebooting? Hmmm... Well, that myth for OS X is debunked. It requires rebooting as well. Nevermind what they fanboys rant about Windows. Same thing goes for OS X.

I really do like the way it plays videos though. Very smooth and the remote makes it a sheer pleasure.

Resizing windows is miserable though. It's especially difficult with Xcode (the software IDE for Macs) as you need to try to fiddle with a million windows and there's only 1 way to resize things with the grip in the lower right. If it's close ... Read More »

By Renegade on Thursday, April 01, 2010 8:20 PM

You've got to hand it to Apple. Even the packaging is nice. But I'm not writing on my new iMac because I've not installed Firefox yet, and Safari still isn't quite there, i.e. It can't display the RTE (Rich Text Editor) that I'm using now. Never-the-less, it's still a nice machine. The "Welcome" screen when you first boot up is pretty cool too.

But that aside, I'm now getting ready for some Mac and iPhone development. YEAH~! Don't expect a Mac version of GDT quite yet. I've just plugged it in not more than 30 minutes ago. But we're on track again. For the moment, I'm just downloading the iPhone SDK as there's a demo app that I need to write.

I'll post back later once I've had some time to form an opinion. So far, the new machine looks nice, but I've not put it to task yet.

Cheers,

Ryan

 

By Renegade on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 9:11 PM

The Good Lord knows I can't sing to save my life, but there are lots of people who can!

I get a fair number of people asking about how to remove vocals, which is sometimes a tad odd as all the answers are here on the web site. In the section about removing vocals from songs and music, I explain a bit about how to do it, and how to preserve bass and the like. A few words there about audio compression and formats to use for better results.

I've also had some questions about saving music that's been pitch shifted with a different tempo (slowed down music) for use with ... Read More »

By Renegade on Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:58 PM

How many times have you heard colleagues complain about <insert expletive> customers and clients? Having been around the block more than a few times, I've heard a LOT of people complain about clients. I know one fellow that sold off his software just to get rid of it because his customer base was just full of horrible people.

I've not got that problem! I'm seriously, really very lucky. The kind of people that use GDT are really some of the coolest people out there. I get emails from people on a very regular basis, and they're really all very positive, happy, nice people. With so much negativity out there (turn on the TV news), it's really refreshing!

And this has been going on for YEARS!

It's nothing new for me. My GDT customers for years have really been a very cool bunch of people to talk with.

I just got another email from someone today, and it reminded me about just how lucky I am.

Th ... Read More »

By Renegade on Sunday, February 21, 2010 7:57 PM

I just was talking with a friend about doing business with people from different places and how difficult some places/people are.

Then we get to the topic of Korea.

Korea is actually very good to do business with if you know how to. Koreans want to do business, although they like to do it in a particular way. Once you get that, you're pretty much fine. In other places, people don't seem to want to do business sometimes. They say they do, but their actions just don't line up. (We both found the same thing about one particular place/people that shall remain unnamed.)

Both my friend and I understand how to do business in Korea very well, so that's not a problem for us, but I can imagine it being a problem for others that aren't as well versed in how Koreans like to do things.

It looks like I may end up going to Korea for some business, and I'm quite excite to go there. I really like the place, and it will always have a speci Read More »

By Renegade on Sunday, February 21, 2010 8:51 PM

Just a silly note after a conversation with a friend on the topic --- I've found it impossible to find decent quality drinking glasses in Australia. I've only been able to find cheap crap. You know that crummy glass that has a wretched sound when you flick it with your fingernail and a creepy, plastic-like feel?

It's in stark contrast to Penang (Malaysia) and Seoul, where you can find good quality glasses for relatively cheap. I can get good glasses for about $4 USD here in Penang, and similarly in Seoul. Melbourne has proven to be a wasteland for quality drinking glasses.

I did manage to find some good quality Luminarc whiskey glasses in Melbourne, but those were the only ones.

Cheers,

Ryan

 

Read More »

By Renegade on Monday, February 08, 2010 5:36 AM

Well, it appears that lately some of the major email providers have improved their spam filters. This is certainly a welcome change as I get tired of having to email again and again for no good reason. I've noticed as I've not had anyone in the past while email me about a failed GDT license email delivery.

Read More »

By Renegade on Friday, February 05, 2010 12:14 PM

This is a little trick that I like to do that I mentioned in passing a few days ago. It's to disable then re-enable buttons in C# without know the name of the button. It relies on the sender.

Read More »