HP TouchPad Discontinues, Disappears

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Max Swisher

The HP TouchPad has had terrible sales, and as a result it was discontinued by HP and put on a sale of $99. Within hours, the HP online store was sold out, and every store that carries them in the bay area was out of stock within 3 hours of opening.

At $99, I wanted one. Last night I called best buy and they said that they would start the sale this morning. This morning I call 10 minutes after opening and they tell me they’re out of stock. I call every Walmart, Best Buy, Costco, Office Max, Office Depot, Staples, and Radio Shack in the area – all out of stock.

Now it’s 11:00. Nobody has them anymore, and it’s as if they never existed.

It’s amazing how an unwanted product can sell out at the right price. Every product is a features:price ratio. If you have terrible features (HP TouchPad) and a low price ($99) you will get good sales (out of stock in 3 hours).

If your’e looking for a Touchpad, you’re probably out of luck. The 32GB version is still available on the HP online store for $150, but I think that’s a little bit of a ripoff.

How-To: Create Instagram Photo Booth Strips in 3 Easy Steps

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Max Swisher

You’ve been using Instagram, the social network of quirky and cool pictures.

So now you have a profile with all these awesome pictures with comments, and all this other techy stuff.

But sometimes it’s nice to convert all that cool digital stuff into something analog.

And that’s why today, I’m going to show you how to make photo booth reminiscent photo strips.

You will need:

An instagram account with pictures
Photo paper
Photo printer
Rotary cutter, paper cutter, or at least scissors

Step 1: Get your photos

The first part of this project is to make strips of all of your photos.

Start out by going to http://instaport.me and downloading all of your pictures to your computer as a zip. Instaport is a simple service that allows you to download all of your instagram photos as JPGs for free.

Once you have a zip saved and you can view your instagram images, you might want to go through deleting the ones that you don’t want to be included in your photo strips.

Step 2: Print your Photos

The next step is to open all of them up in preview. Go into the instagram folder (the folder containing all of the JPG images from instaport) and press Command A. This will select all of your instagram photos. Then just double click anywhere in the window and you will eventually get a preview window with all of your images open.

Next, press File>Print and configure the settings to look like so:

If possible, try to print borderless – your printer may or may not support this feature.

Next, hit the big Print button and let the magic happen. In a few minutes, you should have a few pages of instagram photos.

Step 3: Cut your Photos

Get out your rotary cutter / paper cutter / scissors and cut them into even strips horizontally (so that you have strips of four). Here I’m using a rotary cutter to to cut the strips evenly and cleanly.

Step 3: You’re done!

Once you’ve done that, you’ll have a ton of cool instagram photo strips.

Step 3.5: Do stuff with them

Well, now you have these cool strips! There’s tons of things you can do with them. Use them as bookmarks, give them to friends, collect them, hang them, use them as business cards, or my favorite: start an instant photo wall!

Also, feel free to follow me in instagram! My username is maxswisher.

maxeh.me

Posted on August 14, 2011 by Max Swisher

Here on Good Morning Geek, I post fairly professional reviews, opinion, news, etc. However, sometimes there’s things that readers might like to know about, but just don’t have the same professionalism to fit in here on Good Morning Geek.

That is why I have made a new, smaller and less professional site – maxeh.me. I post about more random stuff, with possibly a few more typos and/or grammatical errors.

Enjoy!

NetBeans

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Max Swisher

I code HTML, PHP, and CSS quite often.

Usually, I use an application like VIM. VIM is a command-line based application that shows you syntax and if your quotes are in the right places. Helpful, compared to Notepad/TextEdit.

If you’ve ever coded Java then you know about Eclipse. If not, Eclipse is a free java development environment that includes auto-fill, error highlighting, manual libraries, and more.

It’s the same thing with Objective C in Xcode; there are manuals, auto-correct, and error highlighting.

Finally, we have PHP in NetBeans. Netbeans brings all of the features of Eclipse/Xcode to PHP, HTML, and CSS coding. It provides auto-fill, error highlighting, manual libraries, and more.

I was recently working on a fairly large project that includes PHP, HTML, CSS, and MySQL. Watch what happens when I have a partially typed PHP function:

There you have it. As I type, it gives me live suggestions and the manual for the top most relevant function right there.

I can hit enter and it will automatically fill it in and put my cursor in the parenthesis. It’s like having the familiar Eclipse shortcuts – but for PHP.

HTML and CSS are the same way. Type an opening ” and it will automatically fill in the second for you. It also has all of the CSS/HTML documentation and auto-fill.

The other main feature with NetBeans would be error detection.

Lets say I forget to put a semicolon at the end of a PHP line.

There you have it. You immediately get the error underlined, a notification in number bar, and when hovered over you get what the syntax error is.

Now, what does all this mean for a developer?

1. You can type a lot less and no longer need to look up functions in google so much

2. You don’t need to upload your files to see if they have errors

3. You can save a lot of time between error detection and auto-completion

This is the magic of NetBeans – but it doesn’t end there.

It’s free.

Yeah. Free. Completely.

It’s open-source, cross-platform, and available to anyone who wishes to download it’s magical amazingness.

The truly sad part about this is that few developers know about NetBeans. It’s sad how they end up wasting so much time and effort due to things that NetBeans could easily fix. If you’re a web developer, this application is a MUST HAVE. And it’s free – you really have nothing to lose.

If you’re interested, click here to go to the NetBeans main site and experience the magic of da beanz.

Goodbye, Old Twitter

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Max Swisher

Image Credit: Mashable

A little while back, Twitter started to slowly roll out a new version of the Twitter web interface to their users. Reactions were mixed; some loved it, some hated it, and some really just didn’t care.

For the haters out there, there was an option to switch back to the old version. However, Twitter is going to be removing the old version of the twitter web interface over the course of the next week – not that many users will notice the change, as the majority of twitter users have already switched over.

Personally, I am indifferent to the new Twitter web interface; it’s pretty and all, has some cool effects, and nicer fonts and rounder edges. The previous Twitter interface was simply getting old, and I believed it needed a revamp – which is exactly what we got.

Users of “old Twitter” will get a message saying that they are soon going to automatically upgraded to the new version of twitter, and twitter also announced this publicly on their twitter page. It was bound to happen eventually, and I guess the day (or week) has arrived.

Google+ for iOS released, Welcome to Crash Central

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Max Swisher

Google+ is Google’s stab at facebook that has some great new features that really puts it in the competition (read more here). The Android app was available immediately; the iOS app was supposed to come a few weeks after.

Well, it’s here. Unfortunately, it’s not worth getting.

You are greeted with a front page where you can view your stream, profile, huddles, circles, etc. Everything works until you hit stream; that’s where it crashes. It will give you a spinner saying that it’s loading… then it will keep spinning… and spinning… and spinning… and when you’re sick and tired of it, you just hit the grid to go back to the home screen. But it doesn’t go. So you hit it again. Same result. So you start frantically hitting buttons, but it’s not going to respond. Then, there’s the crash.

For now, this is all you’ll get. Jailbroken or not, iOS 5 or 4. The app is just a crasher.

Mac OS X Lion: Coming Tomorrow!

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Max Swisher

During an earnings call with Apple, the CFO nonchalantly announced that Lion is being released tomorrow.

Lion is the “big cat” name for Mac OS X 10.7, the next operating system for Mac Computers. It was announced a little while ago, and was said to be announced in “July.” Lion brings some new features in Exposé and Spaces, fullscreen apps, and an iOS-like homescreen called Launchpad.

The update will be available in the Mac App Store for $30, and there’s no more discs available.

If you have a Mac, I recommend that you read this post to make sure your mac is ready for Lion.

After using Lion for a little while, I will write a post describing the good and bad of the new features.

Where’s realtime search?!

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Max Swisher

If you do a Google search for a topic that is fairly popular on twitter, you will usually see something that looks a bit like this:

And the list of tweets will update in realtime.

Also, you would find a “Realtime” in the left sidebar.

Oddly, that’s all gone! You will no longer see anything in real time, and the realtime search is gone from the left sidebar.

There’s a ocuple of theories that could be cause for this. First off, it could be that google is planning on integrating Google+ into their realtime search – but that wouldn’t mean they’d need to remove it.

The other possible reason is that google is trying to back off from twitter, considering that they now have a competition going – but until Google+ is fully available, they shouldn’t have any reason to want to hold grudges.

Realtime search may be back sometime in the future, but with Google now as a social service, Realtime Search may never be quite the same.

Google+ iPhone App Awaiting Approval

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Max Swisher

Google+ is already available via the web and an Android app, and now Google has submitted their iPhone app to Apple for approval into the app store.

Everyone knew that Google was going to develop an iPhone app for Google+ eventually, but we weren’t aware that they had already created a full app and submitted it.

If all goes well, the app will be available to iOS users in about two weeks.

But…

Who was here for Google Voice?

You may remember that the Google Voice app sat waiting for approval for months, and was eventually rejected.

Then google resubmitted it, this time not so happy. Apple finally approved it, and I currently have Google Voice on my iPhone.

I hope that Google+ doesn’t end up going down this same disapproval tunnel…

Only time will tell if Apple wants to really battle Google in this way, which could be cause for some kind of lawsuit from Google.

(Personally, I just want to get Google+ on my iPhone, lawsuits not necessary)

(via Mashable)

App of the week: Tiny Tower for iOS

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Max Swisher

Tiny Tower is a simple, 8-bit graphics game. You own a tower in an urban metropolis, and your goal is to make money and build floors. You start out by making a residential floor and moving people in. Then, you make a store and give the people who live on the residential floor jobs at the store. You make money from the store, and have to constantly keep the items in stock (and pay and even wait to restock it).

Once you have enough money, you can build another floor with another store.

And you just keep going trying to make your tower as high as possible. One of the coolest aspects of the game is that you have to wait; it takes time to restock supplies in your stores, and it can take hours to construct a new floor.

And having gritty, 8-bit graphics just makes the whole thing even more addicting.

Tiny Tower is compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad for a wallet-loving $0.

Click here to view it in iTunes.

GMGtv Episode 1: The new GMGtv!

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Max Swisher

As you may have noticed, I haven’t been posting much about GMGtv. This is because it’s a pain to have to setup equipment, practice a script, and edit it, at the same time as maintaining an internship, blogging, conferencing, and of course, going to school/doing homework. So that’s why I am deciding to make the new GMGtv audio only, totally unscripted. I am going to find something in the news, then just talk for a minute or two about it. It’s raw thoughts from my head, and is pretty much the same stuff I would write here on GMG. I am doing these episodes far more often, and because they’re audio only, they take up a LOT less file space.

Here’s the first episode of the new GMGtv!

Also, please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes!

Worried about your server? Get warned if it goes down.

Posted on April 7, 2011 by Max Swisher

Are you worried about the state of your server?

Maybe you have a website, and you’re worried if it’s always up and running, especially when you’re asleep and can’t fix it.

Well, I’ve written an extremely simple script that will solve this issue for you. Just plug your mac into the sound system where you sleep and crank it up to full volume. Whenever there’s a problem, your system default error will start going off every three seconds. That should wake you up! Then, you can go over and check the state of things.

The underlying command here is ping. I am using what you type as a simple variable, $website, and using -A to make it audible and ring, and -i to time the ping out so you don’t accidentally crash your server. In the end, the command is

ping -A -i 3 $website

And when you type in the website, $website is replaced with whatever that is.

It’s not a complicated or amazing script, but it helps to get things done easier and faster.

Download

To use it, download the script and navigate to it’s enclosing folder using Terminal. Then, type:

chmod+x

This will make the script executable. Next, type:

./makesure.sh

You will be greeted and asked to enter the URL (or IP address) of the site you want to keep track of. Type in the URL and press enter. You will see the ping output across your screen updating every three seconds. If ping stops responding, your computer will begin to make the system default error sound every time there is a request timeout. If you have the volume loud enough, that should be able to wake you up.