Jailbroken iOS still isn’t good enough

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).

How to: Awesome mousepad, version 3!

Yes, I’ve already done two posts about creating your own amaing mousedpad that’s better (and cheaper) than the ones you can buy at a store. But here’s another one in case you don’t want to put together a whole thing with aprchment paper ducs tape and spend more than 2 minutes on.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Plastic folder

SHARPIE

Blue/duct tape

Scissors

The folder can't be rubber, make sure it's plastic!

This is by far the easiest one to do, and works just as well. Here’s what you do:

First, use the sharpie and maybe a ruler to mark on the front what size you want to have your mousepad. This is nice because you can have a custom sized mousepad.

Next, cut the flap off of the side of the folder you put the sharpie marks on.

Then, cut out your sharpie marks. Once you have done that, take some tape and tape it do your writing surface. Done!

This one glides a bit more compared to the other ones and is a bit more crisp. The other ones feature a nice cusion, so choose whichever one you think would be best for you! Unfortunately, the images are all broken, but try to d your best with the text. 🙂

Ver. 1

Ver. 2

Cortex App

No matter what we all browse the web. That’s how you got here in the first place. And one of the most popular things to do while browsing the web is to share different web sites with other people over facebook, twitter, and even tumblr (in this case). And sometimes you will come across an article that you want to save to read a bit later. Cortex lets you do all of those, but extraordinarily quickly.

Cortex is a chrome extension, which gives it cross-platform flexibility along with a super easy installation.

Once you have installed cortex, you need to connect your accounts by clicking on the pretty circle on your menubar then clicking connect accounts.

Connect your accounts here

As you can see, it can link to twitter, facebook, tumblr, and instapaper. Each of them use their own authorization system, and if things aren’t working right then try restarting your browser or waiting a few hours then restarting your browser.

Now, you have to pick your facebook friends. Sadly, you cannot post to your news stream. But you CAN post to other people’s walls, and click pick friends to select which friends you want to be able to share with.

Once you have accounts set up, it is time to start sharing.

To share a webpage it’s pretty simple: click and hold your mouse anywhere on the webpage. You should see something like this show up around your mouse:

Now when this shows up, keep your mouse held down and hover over which service you want to share the page with. Once you are on the letter/section, let go of your mouse and the link to the webpage will be instantly shared.

For facebook however it is a little bit more complicated.

When you hover over the f, another wheel will appear that has the profile pictures of the friends you selected up here.

Now, move your mouse over which friend you want to share it with, and now you can let go.

Although it may sound like it will take a long time, here’s proof otherwise:


I made that video when I was bored. 😛

To get cortexapp, you have to go to cortexapp.com and sign up for the beta then cross your fingers that you get an email back. 🙂

Phone Compatibility matcher

This is a general question to ask. You need to get a new phone, so you ask “which phone should I get?”

And most people these days go for a smartphone. iPhone or Droid are the only choices. By droid, I mean collectiveley the whole droid incredible 2 and x series. That part is up to you.

So here’s how this goes. Print out the first sheet and put a check next to every feature you are sure you would use very frequently and woule be helpful. No matter what, don’t check every option!!

Some of the options have an OR. This means you can only check one of the two.

Once you have filled out the sheet, print the second sheet. Put a check next to each number that you had checked on the first page. Add up the total number of checks for each column and look below to see which column means which score.

Hope this helps you decide whether to get Android or iPhone!

PAGE 1

PAGE 2

P.S. This was inspired by my science teacher Ms. Nabokov who created a similar sheet that determined if you were a tactile, visual, or auditory learner. Good idea!

Mac OS X Lion screws it all up

So if you check out the Mac OS X lion sneak peak, you’ll see what tey are trying to do. They are trying to put the iPad right on to your laptop. But what are they thinking?!

1. It’s a laptop, not a tablet!

iOS was made for touch screens. It’s interface was designed for touch screens. And when you try to put a touch screen system onto an OS without a touchscreen, it doesn’t work too well.

I mean, they even created a home screen with all of your apps that you can swipe through. If you had any idea that you were on a Mac (which by this point you might not) then you would know that you can just open spotlight and type it in faster than you can click the button in your dock then swipe through al of your home screens looking for the correct app….

2. I don’t need full screen apps!!!

They keep saying about how “On iPad, every app is displayed full screen, with no distractions” (<–That’s a direct quote by the way) but everybody hated that. I mean, windows is the world of computers. That is the way that everybody knows and loves when it comes to multitasking. Our computers are made for multitasking, and being able to access everything really fast is quite handy when using a laptop. And if you are in your own little world of a full screen app,you might as well just use a damn iPad! Now this doesn’t mean that there will be no windows at all, but here we are with homescreens and full screen apps in addition. I mean next thing we know, there will be a damn app store for the Mac!

3. I DON’T NEED AN APP STORE

Would you look at that.

Well, I think that this is an OK idea, and it’s cool and all, but I’m just afraid that this is going to lead to the same thing as iOS: Not letting any apps on unless they are approved into the app store. This is the bane of the iPad’s existence. Next thing we know, people are going to start Jailbreaking Macs, and when that happens, hello windows 7.

I think that some of these things might be cool, but they seem way too over the top. And these cool UIs are the only updates here, and I see no under the hood upgrades.

However I am not going to finish without saying that I thought the same negative things about the iPad and I was a *little* unhappy that it didn’t have Mac OS X. But it seems like apple knows what we want before we do. so once it is available in the apple store, I’ll write again about it. 😉

Why I am an android user

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.