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  1. Wack Ass Wednesday

    June 23, 2010 by james

    Happy Humpday!  We always hear that.  But we all know wednesdays are pretty dreadful.  Well im gonna attempt to help alleviate these mid week blues!

    (more…)

    Category music | Tags: ,, | No Comments

  2. Another new theme?

    June 23, 2010 by james

    Yeah. The old one busted my audio player. Sorrrrryyyyyy

    Category Life | Tags: | No Comments

  3. Why I Left Facebook.

    June 21, 2010 by james

    We all know that facebook is a behemoth. I’ve used it since it was www.thefacebook.com and in the beginning i loved it. It was a closed site that required you to be in college, and even then, that college had to be supported. That wouldn’t last for long. We soon found out that facebook would be opening itself to high schools, and eventually everybody. I had seen what happens when you let whomever you want to make a profile. In fact the only reason initially i liked facebook over myspace (myspace still had better photo options and a few other things) was that you couldn’t customize your profile. Even after all this I had thoughts about disliking facebooks directions but decided to stay with it for a few reasons:

    1. I already had a rather deep friend network
    2. Had amassed a good amount of pictures
    3. Its a GREAT event planning platform
    4. Its a great advertising platform

    However after a while i was getting what i like to think of “Facebook Fatigue”, here’s what attributed it to me:

    1. Application Notifications: I know these have been cut down a great bit by facebook, but i still can’t stand them.
    2. Pointless updates from people i honestly dont care about anymore: I know it can be remedied with removing people, but I’m lazy.
    3. Seeing the younger generation and how they interact/act online: This may be me just getting older but i know i didn’t act that way when i was 13-18.  It’s a bit out of hand.

    While yes i know many of these things are trivial, its what wore me down.  If there was any kind of positives to it, I would list it, but honestly whenever i would go (at least once a day), i’d just be disgusted by what i saw (and yes i know the brevity of using the word disgusted) Having been facebook free for about three weeks, i can say i don’t miss it.  The only thing that sucks is when people on twitter link to facebook only initiatives, in which i don’t get to see it, but that’s a loss I’m more than willing to take.

    Category Life | Tags: | 1 Comment

  4. Twitter + Hip Hop = Not Always Bad?

    February 26, 2010 by james

    Ive personally been in a bit of a twitter apathy mode.  It seems that is very bloated with spam accounts and it just increases everyday. However, this little tidbit reminded me of the power of twitter and social networking in itself.

    While reading on mashable yesterday i came across this article about how Erykah Badu was trying to remove a lot of the middle man work while trying to get a sample cleared for her album.  As you can see in the article, she was able to, and got the sample cleared relatively easy.

    Seeing that im a huge hiphop fan,  I know about the troubles and trials of getting sample clearances for songs.  For those who dont know, a producer of a song that samples any older music (that is copyrighted) has to get clearance to use that sample.  More detailed information can be found here.  It usually deals with going through a lot of lawyers and middle-men just to get something done.

    However, thanks to twitter, Ms. Badu was able to ask for help on twitter, and through her following, she got in touch with Paul McCartney and got the sample cleared! Ive heard quite a few songs before sample clearance, and then, after not getting it cleared, the unfortunate remake of the same song.

    Category Life | Tags: ,,, | 1 Comment

  5. We’re not really friends, you and I.

    February 24, 2010 by james

    While i was at wordcamp miami this weekend, i was listening to John James Jacoby of BuddyPress and what needed to be done to update it when he said something that kind of resounded in my head, when talking about the “Friends” functionality he said something to the tune of “social networks have kind of changed the meaning of friends”.

    (more…)

    Category Life | Tags: ,,,,, | 5 Comments

  6. Sqlite to Core Data: Update

    February 3, 2010 by james

    If you keep up with my blog, you’ll see ive been moving a project from SQLite to Core Data, here’s an update.

    So while ive been working on this, ive been running into a few issues, mainly getting the relations set up correct in the data models, but its been working very smoothly.  While re-working this, i thought to myself, i need to use the repository pattern in this.  As core data is still a bit new, there is still a little bit of textual writing while querying, and instead of having strings for this all over the place in various classes, ill just have them all in one class.

    Here’s some info on the repository pattern (using .NET as an example) here.

    In most of our recent projects, weve been using the repository pattern with our Linq-To-SQL classes, and its been very helpful in keeping code clean, with all of the querying in one spot.

    Im currently working on an example project in XCode that shows how to implement the repository pattern, while using protocols as well for some cool safecatches.

    Look for that towards monday or tuesday.

    Category Programming | Tags: ,, | No Comments

  7. Handwritten SQLite to Core Data, Part1

    January 16, 2010 by james

    I recently completed an app for a client at work, and while it was being written, Core Data was only available in the beta phase, so we pushed it out using handwritten sql queries.  Now me being a .net programmer and having experienced the change from TableAdapters and hand written SQL to ORMs (Linq, in particular), i know that using those have its advantages and disadvantages, and ill voice them here as i go through the project.

    Pros: Less Code, Very Little Handwritten SQL (Predicates still need it)

    Cons:Any numeric value and Bools are saved as NSNumber.

    All in all its a fun adventure so far, ill keep you up to date!

    Category Programming | Tags: ,, | 1 Comment

  8. Google Calendar: Now With Sports Schedules!

    September 7, 2009 by james

    I was looking through my google calendars when i noticed they were offering sports calendars! You can add any of your favorite teams to the calendar and it will show their whole schedule integrated in with your current google calendar!

    If you use google for your scheduling, this is definitely great for you, and if not, you can at least have a calendar that has the most important sports dates for you!

     

    http://calendar.google.com

    Category Life | Tags: ,, | No Comments

  9. Must Have For Sports Fans On The Go

    September 6, 2009 by james

    What’s up!

    Hope the long holiday is treating you well.

    Quick post about my current favorite app, sportacular for the iphone.

    Sportacular has been on my phone for a while anyways for regular score checking whenever im on the go. However, with push notifications theyve definitely added a bit of awesome to the app.

    Via some very simple settings, you can have sportacular notify you if the score changes, when a period ends, when the game starts and when the game ends.

    While this isnt the first app that ive used push notifications on, its the one that im most thankful for.

    The best part? its free.

    So if youre a sports fan and have been looking for a good app that notifies you, pick this up!

    Category Life | Tags: , | No Comments

  10. WPTouch is awesome

    July 11, 2009 by james

    Forgot to mention that I am now using wptouch for mobile viewing! If you’re on an iPhone or android phone check it out!

    Category Programming | Tags: ,,, | No Comments

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