pseudogreen

Apple iPhone

This is the one item where I was, in fact, on the bleeding edge: The iPhone went on sale June 29 at 6pm. I bought mine two hours later.

Part of the motivation behind my uncharacteristic early adoption was that I'd been interested in acquiring a smartphone (and thereby eliminating at least one member of my phone/PDA/iPod trio) since the previous fall. At that time, I had looked at a number of devices (of the BlackBerry, Palm, and Windows Mobile varieties), but all of them had abysmally bad interfaces that rendered them basically unusable.

The other factor in my iPhone eagerness was that I simply got caught up in all the hype around the device. Fortunately, the actual product totally lives up to it. The multitouch interface is very intuitive and genuinely a pleasure to use. Mobile Safari is great; I probably do about two-thirds of my feed reading with it. The iPod functionality puts any other device of that name to shame (excluding the iPod touch, of course). The remaining apps are pretty basic, but they're easy to use and generally get the job done.

True, it isn't perfect: Writing e-mail is kind of a pain (thumb typing and no cut-and-paste), and I really, really wish there were some kind of to-do list application. I've also heard a number of people complain about the phone reception (although I haven't had any problems myself, even in my ground-floor apartment).

But the truth is that, despite its flaws, the iPhone simply beats all of its competitors into bloody, unrecognizable pulp, which it then strains into ziplock bags and mails to their mothers. I'd heartily recommend it to anyone.

Bazaar

One piece of technology that has greatly enhanced my productivity is distributed version control. I frequently hack in coffee shops and other places without internet access. In these situations, if the code I'm working on lives in a remote Subversion (or, god forbid, CVS) repository, then I'm unable to commit changes until I get back online. This seriously limits the number and extent of the changes I'm willing to make, since I like to keep my commits granular and relatively small (meaning they're easy to understand and, if necessary, undo).

With distributed version control, this isn't a problem. I can commit to my local branch as often as I like and have full access to the complete repository, including all previous revisions. When I'm back online and want to transfer my updates to another machine, all that's required is a simple push or pull. (If I'm sharing updates with another person who's been working on the same code, then there will be a merge step as well, but that's no more complicated than it would be with a centralized VCS.)

There are a number of distributed version control systems to choose from, and I looked at several. One of the strongest contenders was Git, which is impressive mainly because it's used in the development of the Linux kernel (which I'd imagine is an ideal project for stress-testing any VCS). However, I found Git's command set less than intuitive, and installing it under Mac OS X is a pain. (Yes, I could get it from MacPorts, but MacPorts seems to fail in random ways every time I try to install or upgrade something, so I'm not willing to depend on it for an essential development tool.)

In contrast, Bazaar is simple to build and install (even under Windows), and its command set is easy to use and very natural for someone who's accustomed to Subversion. It's also implemented in Python, which I'll appreciate if I ever need to dive into the source or write a plugin. Overall, I'm extremely happy with it, and I use it daily to manage the source for a number of projects (including the code and entries for this blog).

Google Reader

I was very, very late to the feed reader party. But now that I'm here, I find it hard to believe that I actually used to browse the web. It's just so much simpler to have a machine do it for me.

Since I started using Google Reader, the amount of content (news, blogs, etc.) that I consume daily has probably increased by at least a factor of 10. There's just no way I could ingest that much information if I had to manually poll every site for updates. A feed reader is also a great way to keep track of high-quality but infrequently-updated sites (like Joel on Software); you just subscribe once and then wait to be notified of updates, whenever they arrive.

Of course, I'd get those same benefits from any feed reader. Why choose Google Reader specifically? Here are the main reasons:

• It's free.
• It's a web app, which means
  1. I can use it from any machine without the need to synchronize read items or other application data, and
  2. it runs in my normal web browser (Camino), which means I don't have to switch applications when moving between the reader and the sites I'm reading.
• It works well on mobile devices (and even has a skin tailored specifically to the iPhone).

The only potential downside is that, by using it, I surrender a little more of my privacy to the Googleplex. Meh.

Nintendo DS Lite

Up until a bit over a month ago, the last video game system I owned had been a Sega Game Gear. (Prior to that, I had a first-gen Game Boy, and before that, an Atari 7800. Sadly, I was NES-deprived as a child.) Although I gamed a lot during my first two years of junior high, my interest waned during 8th grade and had totally disappeared by the time I entered high school. Despite a brief relapse during my junior year of college (during which I enjoyed Final Fantasy VII and was seriously baffled by Riven), I thought my gaming days were long past.

Then, after a week on the couch with mono convinced me that I needed more at-home entertainment options, I bought a DS Lite — and I totally love it! The hardware is innovative (dual displays, stylus and touchscreen control, and a microphone that's used in quirky ways), the games are fun and encompass a wide range of genres and styles, and (unlike some other systems) you can actually just go out and buy one. I can see why Nintendo is selling a ridiculous number of them.

Currently, my game library includes Brain Age, Final Fantasy III, Mario Kart DS, and New Super Mario Bros., all of which are high-quality titles. At the moment, I'm in the middle of the excellent Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, after which I'll probably move on to Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings. And now I can't help wondering: Why haven't I been gaming for the past 15 years?

Looking forward …

I'll finish up by mentioning a few things I'm looking forward to in 2008:

Python 3.0

My favorite programming language gets a new major version. Eat your heart out, Perl 6.

iPhone SDK

I'd love to be able to hack on my iPhone (that is, without having to crack it first or use reverse-engineered APIs). Let's just hope that the upcoming SDK is free and open to all and not some pay-to-play bullshit.

iPhone support for CalDAV

I haven't heard any rumors or announcements about this, but I really hope it's coming, since lack of support on the iPhone is the only reason I'm not using CalDAV already.

Apple subnotebook

My 12-inch PowerBook is three years old, and I'd like to replace it with an Intel Mac, but the 15-inch MacBook Pro just seems too big. I hope these rumors materialize into a compelling replacement.

Happy new year, everyone!