Branching out into Palm WebOS development
Among the many inconveniences that plague those among us cursed to be generalists -- Shiny Object Syndrome, Incomplete-project-disease -- perhaps the most troubling (or at least the most costly) is the sheer amount of gear necessary to delve into all of the areas that interest us. As a parent, I've all but left behind the halcyon days of multiple guitars, bicycles and pairs of skis -- one of each, two tops, will have to do for now.
But as a developer, particularly a developer of mobile applications, a growing collection of smaller-than-a-computer internet-connected devices is a much more justifiable luxury. Having spent a good amount of time over the last couple of years learning to write iPhone apps, I had more or less ignored other platforms until I attended Joshua Marinacci's excellent presentation on Palm's WebOS at July's Mobile Portland meetup.
Since their acquisition by HP, Palm's developer stock has understandably risen, as we can apparently look forward to seeing WebOS grace devices of a variety of shapes and sizes in the not-too-distant future (Josh was careful not to spill any beans, but made some coy allusions to forthcoming tablet-like products from HP). So, WebOS has gone, in my book, from a niche player to a platform that deserves exploration.
I was impressed with my first real look at WebOS, but also, in particular, with the relatively free rein Palm has given to developers (compared to the somewhat more restrictive and ceremony-wrapped Apple development and deployment process). Enough so that I've decided to take the plunge and try writing some WebOS apps. Apparently the learning curve isn't nearly as steep as it is with iOS, so we'll see how quickly that translates into results of which I can be proud.
In the meantime, the gearhead in me rejoices that a new platform means an opportunity for a new toy... er... test device. I picked up a used Palm Pixi Plus, their entry-level smartphone, on eBay, and have been putting it through its paces. Not bad so far. The UI is pretty slick -- and if I wasn't so used to and enamored by iOS, I could certainly see using it day-to-day.
Bonus: I'll offer one tip to those of you who happen to use an iPhone as your main device, but want the ability to hop your SIM around from phone to phone in order to test your apps on different devices without having to pay for more than one mobile plan. This was considerably easier before Apple started using micro-SIMs in the iPhone 4 -- you could simply pop the SIM out of your iPhone, and into any other device you wanted to use to test your apps. With the form factor change, this is more difficult, but not impossible.
Pick up one of these: http://microsim-shop.com/ -- about six bucks (depending on the exchange rate with the Euro on any given day), and it works like a dream. Just pop your micro-SIM into the tray, an it'll load into a phone that takes a standard-sized SIM. It works fine in the Palm. I'll let you know how it works in an Android phone once I get there. I don't know how AT&T feels about the practice of SIM-hopping, but it seems to work, so there you go.
And now, to write some Palm apps... gotta come up with something more user-friendly than the earth-destroying "Death Ray" app that Josh demo'd at the Palm event...
a photo a day
I have found the promised land, and it is a ginormous asian grocery called Uwajimaya...
Recommended Reading: Everyday Survival by Laurence Gonzalez
I've just finished reading Laurence Gonzales' excellent "Everyday Survival: Why Smart People do Stupid Things". It has floated to somewhere near the top of the list of books I've read in recent memory, for a number of reasons.
First off, it's a cleverly executed indictment of the condition in which mankind has left the planet -- in terms of carbon and climate, specifically, and the environment, more broadly -- in which the author generally avoids being overbearing or pedantic (a difficult task). Gonzales is passionate while maintaining the subtlety of his arguments -- this is no green manifesto, but rather an exploration of a few possible explanations for the condition we now find ourselves in, viewed through the lens of the development of human behavior.
Secondly, it's an ambitious book with a soul. Commingling earth science, history, and psychology, and arriving at any sort of definitive conclusion in under 300 pages, is a potentially daunting undertaking. But Gonzales manages to pull it off. His central premise is this:
We're dumb.
Really, really dumb.
Dumber than chimps, actually. Since we've lost -- through complacency conditioned into us by technology -- much of the natural curiosity that enabled us to achieve the wonders of the modern world in the first place. Gonzales ascribes to us a "vacation state of mind", in which the natural defense mechanisms -- curiosity, aversion to danger -- that allowed us to out-compete the rest of the apes are dulled by our seemingly safe environment. The result? We outsource our survival, to our peril. His example of how airbags make crashing, rather than driving, safer speaks volumes in this regard.
Part meditation, part lamentation, part exploration, the book is a series of hymns to wakefulness, a warning to humanity, and (almost as a side effect) a delightfully accessible explanation of why many natural phenomenon occur the way they do. An enjoyable read.
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On a personal note, I was recently put on the spot and asked what the dumbest thing I've ever done was. I couldn't really summon anything worthwhile -- the best thing that came to mind was decidedly uninspired -- until I was biking home from the office a day later, and it hit me.
I once misplaced a car. Permanently.
Seriously, if anything says "vacation state of mind" more clearly than leaving your second most valuable* possession where you won't be able to retrieve it in a matter of hours, and then plum forgetting about it until it's too late, I don't know what it could be. Forgive me, pity me -- I was young, and stupid, and distracted.
What happened was quite simple: I had just acquired a newer little round car (a Miata) to replace my first little round car (a '74 VW super beetle), so I wasn't driving the latter anymore. It was sitting out in front of the house, waiting for me to get sufficiently motivated to list it in the classifieds (this was 1998 -- sadly, craigslist had yet to arrive on the scene). Then one day, up popped a bunch of sawhorses on the sideway with "no parking" warnings, indicating that street-sweeping was being done the following day.
No problem, I thought, as I dutifully moved both cars around the corner, to a block where sweeping wasn't occurring the next day. Naturally, I moved the new car back in front of the house as soon as I could. Equally naturally, I just plum forgot about the beetle.
That is, until the tow notice arrived in the mail three weeks later. As it turns out, the block where I had moved the beetle was due for sweeping a few days later, and my poor little beetle had been towed. As luck would have it, the towing fee plus the storage fee added up to a bit more than the street value of the car. So, naturally, I let it go. But man, did I feel dumb. I still do sometimes, but usually not *that* dumb.
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*Arguably -- I had, and still have, a very nice guitar amp that was probably worth more than the car in question at the time
Thursday October 2nd: Funk at the Jolly Roger!
I'll be bringing Roundabout Roots back to the venerable Jolly Roger Thursday, October 2nd, for a night of Funk, Blues, Rock and, of course, Jello shots! Special guest Andy Lohr will be sitting in on guitar, dobro and vocals, so it should be a great night! As usual, no cover. See you there!
Roundabout Roots
featuring John Lamb, Jonathan Chase and Ryan Cheng
@ Jolly Roger
SE 12th & Madison, Portland OR
9PM-1AM, FREE
RIYL: Anders Osborne, Funkadelic, JJ Cale