Apr072011

Here’s your obfuscated Javascript
for the day

function startsWithVowel(word)
{
return [‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’, ‘u’].indexOf(word[0]) != -1;
}

No comments · Written by Nathan at 2:54 pm · Tags

Feb172011

Rename your Bluetooth devices in OS X

Stupid OS X trick today. Know how you can view the connection status of your Bluetooth keyboard/mouse by clicking the icon in your menu bar? Well, normally those are named something boring. Here’s how you can assign clever names to your mouse and keyboard.

Open your System Preferences and click the Bluetooth icon. You should see a list of all connected devices. Select one and click the “settings” gear icon at the bottom of the list, then choose the Rename option. That’s it! Now you can easily identify which wireless accessories are connected to your computer.

No comments · Written by Nathan at 10:46 am · Tags ,

Jan192011

Tab wrangling in Safari

Most people know that you can drag tabs out into their own separate window in Safari. But did you also know you can combine them again? Yep, just make sure that the tab bar is set to always be displayed (Shift + Command + T) and then you can drag tabs from one window to another easily. If a window only has one tab, it’ll disappear when you move the tab to the second window. Jawesome!

(Also, Command + Click opens links in a new tab. When I had a scroll wheel mouse, I used the wheel click to open/close new tabs, but since I’m Magic Mousing it up, I’ve had to drop that habit.)

No comments · Written by Nathan at 12:10 pm · Tags

Jan112011

IE8 “Browser Mode” option

Hey web developers, check this out. I’ve been using IE8 recently to do cross-browser testing, and have been using the “compatibility mode” to simulate IE7. Well apparently you can lock IE8 into running a specific mode by using the developer tools (Tools > Developer Tools). Kinda nice if you want to focus on a particular browser, but then again you have to remember which one you’re using.

No comments · Written by Nathan at 11:45 am · Tags , ,

Jan102011

My thoughts on Android phones

Even though Android is pretty much a giant iOS rip-off (see pre-iPhone UI screenshots), I appreciate its’ existence. Healthy competition brings about innovation, and Apple’s iOS devices are better due to having Android on the playing field. While my current carrier (Verizon) doesn’t currently offer the iPhone (until tomorrow, I guess), I haven’t had any interest in buying one of the many Android phones that they do offer. The reason is the “openness” that Google touts as being one of Android’s advantages.

In practice, what “open” means for Android is that each phone manufacturer will take the base OS, then try to customize it as much as possible for their devices, in an attempt to differentiate themselves from other Android handset manufacturers. As far as I know, it’s impossible to remove these customizations and revert back to Google’s “vanilla” Android UI without significant hacking. The annoying thing here is that I would want to use a phone with no tacked-on cruft, but HTC, Motorola, etc. don’t provide that option.

The other problem with Android phones is that you can’t get official OS updates without going through the carrier/manufacturer. With iOS, this isn’t a big deal; Apple releases a new version, and everyone can download and upgrade at the same time. With Android, Google releases a new version, and then the manufacturers have to tailor the upgrade to fit each of their devices. Of course, this takes time, and in some cases a manufacturer won’t want to keep supporting their device, which means you are crap out of luck.

Both of these problems don’t exist if you buy one of the “official” Android phones, the Nexus One or Nexus S. But bizarrely, the Nexus phones are only supported by T-Mobile in the US (you can run one on AT&T, sans 3G data connection). Of course, that means they don’t work on Verizon’s CMDA network at all. The unfortunate conclusion is that Google doesn’t feel like giving people using carriers other than T-Mobile a choice on whether or not to user their official phone.

These three problems have prevented me from using Android, and since it looks like Verizon is going to start carrying the iPhone very soon, I don’t think there’s much hope for Android in my future.

No comments · Written by Nathan at 1:23 pm · Tags , , , , , ,

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