Benjamin is on his way to earning his Wolf badge

April 26th, 2012

Benjamin earns his Tiger Cub patch!

Benjamin earned his Tiger Cub badge on April 25, 2012. He’s now officially a Tiger Cub and is on his way to earning his Wolf Badge next year!

We had a great year with all the activities. We started the year with a scouting Tigers game where the scouts got to run the bases! Family swim night. Adventure day at Camp Agawam. A newspaper factory tour at the Macomb Daily. A sleepover in the USS Silversides Submarine. The Pinewood Derby! A Photography lesson. A nature center and trail walk at Stony Creek Metropark.

We’re so proud of you Benjamin!!

New Tech iPhone

April 24th, 2012

New technology could make the next iPhone extra thin

Over the years, most mobile phone handsets have become much smaller and thinner. There are many reasons why people like this, whether is is for ease and convenience of transportation or simply a more attractive look. Apple has always been one step ahead of the market with respect to this and many other factors, and now it looks as though they are once again going to set the precedent for a new development. A report from Digitimes has stated that the American company could begin using in-cell touch display technology in order to make the next iPhone even thinner than previous models.

This technology works by replacing a display that features a number of separate layers with in-cell touch display technology. This reduces the number of layers therefore the size and thickness of the phone. Apple fans, who can do everything from playing Sweden – PartyPoker on their iPads to listen to music on their iPods while jogging, have been waiting for the next development from the famous technology company. Apple are expected to source its in-cell displays from Sharp and Toshiba, and the new development will once again place them at the top of the technology tree.

If the integration of this technology proves to be successful, then it will have many advantages for the iPhone user. The in-cell technology will streamline the manufacturing process, which in turn will eventually reduce the cost and drive the efficiencies of the product. As well as making it thinner, the in-cell technology should also make the new phone lighter and generally more convenient to use. As with everything that Apple comes out with, this new development is expected to create a lot of excitement and it will be interesting to see how much of an effect it has on the overall design of the famous iPhone.

The New iPad

March 16th, 2012

I tasted a new iPad at lunch. Holy smokes, that display. Imagine, 60 ppi aside, surfing on a tablet that looks like the iPhone 4/4S. Stunning. Didn’t even see a game that was native to 2048×1536. That’ll be amazing as well. Have fun new iPad getters today!

Reading up on Sparrow Creator

March 6th, 2012

I’ve been using the free version of Sparrow on the Mac for a few months now. Why? Well, I was turned on to Postbox, a pay-for-a-free-email-client-based-on-Thunderbird by a friend of mine at Wayne State University a few years back. I liked it quite a bit because it offered features that weren’t part of Thunderbird and didn’t seem to be part of their roadmap. Since then, Thunderbird added the whole unified inbox, as the queues were taken from smartphones with their unified inboxes. Thank you RIM. Yes, RIM, not Apple nor Google)!

Well, Sparrow takes the whole e-mail client that should be free (those that come with your OS or Thunderbird) and makes it a bit like Twitter. Quick and to-the-point. No frills. It’s very slick.

Now, Sparrow is on the verge (no pun intended) on releasing (if approved) an iOS app to make e-mail much simpler. Dom Leca of Sparrow talks about it here, in this article. He mentions some of his ideas and also talks about what Google did wrong with their GMail app. Me, I find the GMail app pretty weak. It’s nothing more than a wrapper to a browser-based GMail client. I never thought it was very sophisticated nor did it gave me any reason to use it over the native mail client on my iPhone 4S. Also, if the search in the mail client is adequate, I never use the GMail app. I simply go to GMail in Safari or Atomic.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview

March 5th, 2012

So, all I wanted to do at the end of last week was get Windows 8 Consumer Preview a quick ride around the block. Well, I tried to install it on my work PC with Microsoft’s Virtual PC, no luck. I tried to install it with Oracle’s Virtual Box, no luck.

I don’t want to have to mess around with VMWare Workstation (at home) nor do I want to mess around with dual booting. I guess I’ll have to give it a quick go with one of the aforementioned methods after all, though.

I had the very early version installed on my old work computer under VMWare Workstation, booted into it once and was, “meh”. I wonder if the consumer preview will float my boat a little bit more. I am most curious about the mail app. Is that weak? I kind of wish they’d do with the mail app what Apple did with the iMessage OS X app and let you install a beta version.

Is the installation and testing of new OSes something people look forward to? I guess you can do the same thing with Apple if you’re an Apple Developer ($99). It’s not free, but for the diehard Apple Developer, it’s close enough to being free. Well, maybe not, as Apple only charges $99 for their OS (IIRC).

If I do actually get Windows 8 installed, I’ll write something about it.

UPDATE: I realized I missed my mark of trying to write a post every week. Hell, I didn’t write a single post during the leap year month of February. Shame on me.

The Blog of Peter Filias