Category Archives: Personal

Cortex+tumblr+organ=beauty

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There’s always that random thing you want to share with your friends.

Pictures, text, a conversation you had, you’ll always come across something.

Now usually for this we use facebook.

But if you want to share with the public, you usually use twitter.

But twitter is only text. I mean, it’s only 140 characters of it. If you want a picture in it, you have to add in a link that people have to click.

That’s why people have blogs.

But blogs can be a pain to post to. You have to login, create a new post, add in the stuff, then post it. It’s really not worth the time.

And blogs tend to look kinda standard. I mean, they can look nice, but they all look the same.

I have a solution for this.

Part 1: The blog

tumblr.

Tumblr is a customizable and free blogging platform that is easy to use.

Unlike others, you can post text, but it gives you separate things for text, links, conversations, audio, quotes, and video. And they all show up in their nice ways (quotes have “s around them to make them look quoty). It’s flexible and postable by mobile, and you can have it post to your twitter, facebook, etc.

tumblr.com

2. Time

Cortex.

I did a review of cortex a little while back and let me just say that it is still beautiful.

Cortex is a chrome extension for sharing things really fast. Here’s a demo video that I made (and that was used in the review of cortex on mashable, let me have you know):

As you can see, there is that magical t for you to post to tumblr, so you could use that to publish things quickly to your blog.

One cool thing about it is that you can use it to yes, share just the link to the webpage, but if you click and hold over an image it will share the image (and it will post it to tumblr like an image too). Select text and click and hold over that it will share the quote from the webpage (and yes, it will post it to tumblr like a quote). Click and hold over a youtube video and it will share the video, not a link (and YES, it will ALSO post it to tumblr like a video). It’s nice to see the cortex is so well integrated.

As I said, cortex is a chrome extension, so if you are desperate for sharing you may have to switch to chrome (which really isn’t such a bad thing let me have you kn0w).

Cortex homepage

Cortex on Chrome Extensions

3. Blog appearance

While it’s nice to have a blog in reverse chronological order with one thing on top of the other, you can spice it up a little but with an amazing theme called organ.

What it does it makes everything in to skinny rounded columns (reverse chronological order from right to left) and does different things depending on what they are.

Every different type of post has differently colored columns.

Pictures it will take a strip of the picture and show it in the column.

Everything text (text quotes links) it will adapt the text to go with the theme and then mumble jumble it in big letters down/across the column.

Now you may say “what the hell, I can’t see any of the text!”. Well, there’s an answer. Hover over a column and it will expand to show you a little bit more.

Hovering over the text will make the beginning of it drop down sideways in a single line. Then, you can click on the arrow that shows up at the top of the column and see the full posting.

It’s nice because at first it shows you a lot of posts in a very small space, then when one looks interesting you can hover over it, and if it’s a dud you can hover over another (without having the page have to reload) and if it’s a good one then you can click on the arrow to expand it (and wait for the page to load but it’s probably worth it).

To get this theme on your tumblr, choose to customize your site, click on theme on the top bar, and scroll WAY DOWN to the free themes and find the one called organ. It will be near fluid. 🙂

Personally I use this system to share EVERYTHING, so my site ends up looking like brain vomit. Because it’s so easy, I post to it ALL THE TIME. It’s nice because it’s constantly updated and there’s no thought put in to it. Oh, I think this looks cool. SHARED.

To check out my site done this way head on over to tumblr.maxswisher.com!

BOINC

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BOINC stands for Berkely Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. And I want to appreciate what they are doing with their Distributed Computing platform.

Basically, you download an app to your computer. And when your computer is not in use, all of it’s power (or as much as possible) goes over the internet to berkely so essentially they have a supercomputer of all of these other computers (hence distributed) to go to cure diseases, detect pulsars, and other scientific stuff. It’s an easy way to donate something that could be extremely useful to the cure. The help of the world. So many other scientific things that will get us farther along and allow us to make discoveries of all sorts.

I think that other than being really cool, the BOINC distributed computing platform is an amazing idea. So many people are away from their computers and they leave the potential of power just sitting there. It’s like donating your computer to UC Berkeley for scientific research, but only for the time when you aren’t there.

This is great if you have a LOT of extra computers around you can join this and put those lazy things to work. I read the idea and I just thought to myself. Genius.

Now what’s really cool is that you can actually select which cause you want your power to go to. There are so many categories (all of which support various operating systems) for you to benefit to.

Unfortunately to get it all working it’s pretty simple but can get kinda complicated.

First, click here to download boinc.

Then click here to go see which things you can benefit to. Then find one that has a cause you would like to benefit too. Then, in boinc, click add project. On the page where you found the cause, look at the name in the left-most column.  Find that name in the window of boinc and select it. It will connect to the project then ask you to setup an account and stuff like that. Once you are done with that, boinc will start to download work from the server. One thing you may want to do is open the preferences and select some limits on how much power of your computer it is allowed to use. I made it so that it would only do work after the computer was idle for 1 minute, because I want all of the power of my computer when I’m using it but when I’m not I don’t find a point in letting it sit there useless. I also only allowed it to use 2GB of space on my disk, as I don’t want too much disk space being sucked up by this cause. I also told it to use only 70% of my computer’s processor as I don’t want my computer to overheat either.

I think that this is a great and free way for people to contribute to causes without having to use money. Enjoy 🙂

Nvm

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Well, looks like that last post didn’t go over so well with the fans. I got many emails asking WHY I discontinued, and I am going to CES with a badge that says Good Morning Geek. I also have a whole bar mitzvah that is going to be oriented around GMG.

So, looks like I have to start working on the site again. Sigh. 🙂

Jailbroken iOS still isn’t good enough

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Okay, so by now you have propable figured out that I am an open source supporter,which is why I’m an android user. But I have gotten the question of why I don’t just use a jailbroken iPhone as that allows open development. Well, kind of.

One of the big things is if some random person creates an app and they don’t want to put it in the android market or it isn’t stable enough to release on the android market, they have to put it on some random location online. With an iPhone, you can’t install a random untrusted application. I mean, even when you’re jailbroken you still have to get your apps from cydia. With android, you can’t do this by default but you can by just checking a single checkbox in a settings pane (applications, to be exact). That’s what makes the difference. That is why I am able to run the beta of swype on my phone. Because I downloaded that app off of the swipe website because it wasn’t ready to be released onto the market and was in closed beta.

Another thing that this means is that if you want to have a closed beta and a few lucky testers, you just can’t with an iPhone. they all need the SDK from apple and that whole thing. With android, all you need is to switch a setting and hit the download button.

Another thing is stability. iOS was NOT made to be jailbroken, and it often reduces stability and speed.I recently jailbroke my iPad and after a few days I reverted because the SpringBoard kept crashing and everything was quite slow. Android is open-source without the loss in stability.

Personally, I think it’s inside is what matters. I mean, I can use a computer with a 0.6Ghz faster processor than the last and I can feel the snapy-ness. No one else I know can. I felt the same way when I started using the iPad. But I support open development of the iPhone, and I think it could have a lot more potential if it was open-source (or at least an open-source option was available for people who care more about it).

Why I am an android user

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Android eats appleI don’t use the iPhone. I use a Droid Incredible (P.S. A Droid Incredible commercial came on the TV JUST as I wrote that sentence. Wow!). But being the apple lover I am, I get asked why I don’t use the iPhone daily. But here’s why.

I believe that computers in general started as a hobby. People could do whatever they wanted to do with their computers. People wrote code and embedded it into chips however they wanted to. The point behind the computer was that people could create electronic devices that could do things that people never imagined.

But to bring this to more than nerds in a garage, it had to be commercialized.

I have no problem with commercialization, but I have a problem with being selfish with your software. Keeping it to yourself for you to have fun with, and not sharing with others. That’s not how my mom taught me to be.

Android is open-source. This means that anyone (even if you are in a garage) can take what google has created and play with it. Mess it up. Make it better. Google is sharing.

Now Apple on the other hand, starts a lawsuit whenever someone uses their software. Psystar, for example. If you’ve never heard of them it’s not a big surprise. Psystar was a manufacturer of PCs that came with OS X preinstalled. And Apple decided to grab it back out of their hands and would you look at that, Psystar is gone.

And it is the exact same story with the iPhone OS. You will never find customized versions of the OS that you can install. You can tweak your current one with a couple of themes but you will never find a customized version of the OS. And if you do, make sure you don’t tell apple.

There are many many many different twists on the Android OS. One of the most popular ones would be Cyanogen, which is Android with some cool tweaks. It can be installed by rooting your phone, downloading an app from the official Android Market, downloading the ROM, and clicking install. Things will flash, files will move, and time will pass. But in the end, your phone is running a completely overhauled android OS. Now google recently got upset with Cyanogen, but the reason was because Cyanogen was including Google’s apps with it (Market, Maps, Navigation, etc.). Now it is disappointing that I can no longer download apps from the Android Marketplace when using Cyanogen, but at least cyanogen is available to download and install at will (without google’s apps, of course). Even though google is now keeping a little for itself, it is still sharing. And I like to see people share.

Recent verizon support call: the good and the bad

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So my Droid Incredible has been doing some odd things.

First of all, it didn’t update to 2.2 correctly. It tried and failed.

Second of all, it keeps rebooting itself randomly.

So we call up verizon support about both problems. Lets start with the bad:

The Bad:

We called and a nice lady answered who had us go through some simple procedures like a hard reset. We changed some settings to try and help the rebooting. As far as the update goes, she told us to go to our local verizon store because they had “more information”. So the next day we went and waited in line and everything and what does the guy say? There’s nothing we can do. You’ll just have to wait for the update. Now inferring logically, I argued that “The system has the phone marked as upgraded, even though it failed the install.” The guy says “WELL, it takes about a month to roll it out and everything.” He really didn’t get that we HAD gotten the update, it just didn’t install. Once again, “Well, you just have to wait about a month and see.” Thanks for the help. We schlepped all the way over to a verizon store, waited in line, and we get absolutely no valuable information. Great.

The good:

So after that, we call verizon again and someone knowledgeable picks up. We had to wait on hold for 8 minutes but let me say, it was well worth the wait. He asked about the water activation sticker and had us look at the firmware on the device. And he says (finally) “Well, the system has your device marked as upgraded, even though your phone says differently.” THANK YOU. I’M RIGHT. THE TWO OTHER PEOPLE WE TALKED TO WERE WRONG. So he asked if there was any physical damage and hallelujah, a replacement phone is on it’s way.

But the real question is, why did the two other people there have no idea what they were talking about? I mean, come on verizon. Why would you hire them if they aren’t knowledgeable? These are questions that may never be answered, but in the mean time, here comes a device with 2.2 pre-installed. Yay!

Why I’m not upgrading to the official 2.2

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So the official OTA 2.2 Droid Incredible Update is finally live.

But I’m not upgrading.

So to install this, I would have to unroot my phone. There is no way to root this version of 2.2, so I won’t be able to use my beloved Wireless Tether.

Now I already have a leaked version of 2.2 so I get everything of 2.2 other than the 720p video recording, but I get my wireless tether. So it really becomes a tradeoff between the wireless tether and 720p recording. Now I know that 2.2 has the built in 3G mobile hotspot, but that holds me at 2GB and costs me another $20/mo. Riiiight.

So I’ve decided to stay how I am with a partial 2.2 update and stick with my Wireless Tether until they find a way to easily root this version of 2.2.

P.S. Sorry for the lack of posts, I have a few more coming soon. 🙂

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

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So all of the posts here have personal meaning to me. They are a reflection of my thoughts. All of them are important.

But if you look here, you’ll notice that all of them are at least a paragraph long.

Some of my thoughts are just as meaningful but don’t have that much to elaborate on. As an example, here is one of my thoughts that is important and relevant to this blog: “The Droid X is simply too big and isn’t confortable to hold. That’s why I prefer my Droid Incredible.” Now this is meaningful but what else is there to say? That would look kinda funny in a post where the title takes up more space than the post itself.

So that’s why I have created a new site for the posts that are just too small to fit (oxymoron anyone?) on Good Morning Geek. And just because the posts are shorter doesn’t mean they have any less meaning!

You can check out these posts at maxswisher.com. Please check over there along with Good Morning Geek!

Thanks!

Max

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BlackPad. What now.

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So all of the other smartphone companies are drooling over the sales of the iPad. So they are all trying to make their own tablet.

But it seems that they all have to take their name (or part of it) and put PAD at the end. That will be two more products that people are going to be commenting on their revalance to a female hygiene product. That’s just what we needed.

So first we have the iPad.

Then we have the palmpad.

And now watch out for the BlackPad by our friends RIM!

They should’ve called it the blackbook are blacklet or for heavens sakes the Blackberry 6″.

So RIM hasn’t officially confirmed that the blackpad exists, but RIM has indeed bought the domain BlackPad.com. I think we all know where that leads.

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