I'm Writing a Book: I’m writing a book for O’Reilly currently titled Mobile Design & Development. (I believe it will be O’Reilly’s first printed mobile book.)
It is an exciting and scary endeavor. I plan to post my progress here: http://mobiledesign.org/book/ as well as use Twitter to solicit input and feedback from the community.
I’ve been catching up on Fringe. I like it. It is a good show with a lot of promise. I like that it feels like an homage to the X-Files, but is attempting to find its own way. But there are a few things about the show that drive me nuts.
Why does everything happen in Boston? It seems like all the “Pattern” events are centered in or around the Boston area. Even when they start off elsewhere, they always come back to Boston. Odd since the show is filmed in Brooklyn.
Why haven’t they brought “Massive Dynamics,” the shows über-secret-fringe-science-conspiracy-corporation, in? Every “event” gets tied back to Massive Dynamics within the first act, but somehow they always ignore doing the obvious cop drama: get a warrant and bring them in for questioning.
What is the deal with security at the lab? The basement lab at Harvard that did all these top secret experiments 20 years ago, but now serves as the central stage for solving pattern events, has some sort of open door policy. It seems like anyone can just walk right in, including students that mistook it for a classroom in one of the episodes.
Unlike the X-Files, which sometimes bordered on the ridiculous, Fringe is trying to base itself on real scientific theories, trying to create an illusion of reality, that these things are not just possible, but could happen some day. Little hiccups in creating the suspension of disbelief, become glaring faux-pas, tarnishing the otherwise good story lines.
“By January 2014 I will wager that in the US almost all forms of tangible media will either be in sharp decline or completely extinct. I am not just talking about print, but all tangible forms of media - newspapers, magazines, books, DVDs, boxed software and video games.” - Steve RubelThe End of Tangible Media is Clearly in Sight
“HARPER REED WAS THE 1ST PERSON TO TELL ME ABOUT RAILS (AND HOW GREAT IT WAS) AND THE 1ST PERSON TO TELL ME RAILS SUCKS.” - Harper Reed Is Your New Bicycle
Intersquash Allows you to turn your website RSS feed into an iPhone Web App in minutes. This is something Garrett and I discussed doing for Leaflets 2.0 but decided against it (at least for now).
While I love the idea, as RSS is a great basis for a quick iPhone Web App (and how we built Leaflets), I’m not keen on using iUI to mimic the iPhone UI.
If you want to build and host your own iPhone Web App, feel free to download my sample code from last weeks Mobile 2.0, which uses SimplePie to fetch RSS/XML and use as your data source for an easy iPhone Web App.
Out of curiosity, I’d love to know if you are into a tool like this. Please fill out this 2-second survey and let us know if you’d like us to incorporate making your own Web Apps in Leaflets 2.0.