Ok, so I figured I’d jot down my thoughts on Apple’s announcements at WWDC09. Normally I’d just chuck this on Twitter, but I don’t think 140 characters isn’t enough

iPhone 3G S
I like that it’s got a speed upgrade and a dedicated 3D processor (I’m actually a little jealous of this one), but that’s about it really (for me anyway).

I’m a bit meh about the Magnometer (compass). I’m sure I’ll eat my words here when a killer app requires it.

The camera doesn’t really bother me. 3MP with crappy optics isn’t going to do much. I hardly use mine anyway, I’d much prefer to use a dedicated camera. Video could be nice, but once again, if I wanted video, I’d use a dedicated one.

Voice control, while a very nice technology, it’s not really practical. You can’t really use it in public without annoying people, and I don’t know about you, but when I’m by myself, I feel a bit stupid talking to nothingness.

All of the rest of the features are included in the 3.0 software update (which I’m actually quite excited about) that is coming out worldwide on the 17th of June (Australia included, their press release was actually incorrect).

MacBook Pro
This one is easy. I am so glad that I bought mine last year! At the same price point that I paid (bottom level 15″ MacBook Pro), you now get a downgraded machine
Pros:-

• Faster CPU (does CPU speed really make much difference these days?)
• More memory (Pretty cheap to upgrade RAM too)
• Longer Battery life (5 hours is enough for me, but this is a nice bonus)

Cons:-

• Only a GeForce 9400 integrated graphics card. This one is a dealbreaker for me. The 9600, while not the best card on the market, it’s pretty good for a laptop card (especially with Snow Leopard using OpenCL – more below)
• No Express Card slot. It’s been replaced with an SD slot (which you could have had with an SD Express Card reader).
• Non removable battery. Not a dealbreaker (how many people actually replace their batteries rather than buying a new laptop), but I think this is a bad way to go.

Snow Leopard
Out in September. This is going to be a fantastic upgrade. Full 64bit operating system. The current OS is 32bit with 64bit extensions (basically to allow addressing of over 4Gb of system memory – ie. This doesn’t just include installed RAM). Going to full 64bit should speed things up quite a bit.

Installation time has gone from 1 hour down to 15min which is a nice change, it’s not a big change in the scheme of things (you only do this once every now and again – much less on the Mac than Windows).

It’s smaller. This one surprised me. I’m currently hearing that the installed size is about 6gb smaller. I guess this is due to not having to have the PowerPC binaries in their apps anymore (Snow Leopard is Intel only). This is a very nice change that a newer operating system is faster and smaller than the one it’s upgrading.

OpenCL. Most people really don’t care about this one, but this is going to give some major performance increases for anyone with a GeForce 8600 or better. Basically your Dual Core system just got a whole lot more cores added to it (think hundreds of slower cores). Now while this won’t double performance in most cases, you will see some major speed-ups.

One that I don’t know which way it’s going (if anyone knows, let me know). OpenGL. Is Apple going to have OpenGL 3.1 (and GLSL 1.3) on this, or will it still be stuck back at OpenGL 2? I’d love to start playing around with 3.1 (some quite major changes) and I’m sure more apps/games would use this if available.

Safari 4
Meh.

So I was going to blog about a story that came through my RSS feed, I went back to it and lost inspiration.  Maybe because I’m watching TV at the same time.  Anyway, so I changed my mind and decided to write about RSS feeds.

So I’m actually a newcomer to the whole RSS thing.  I never really saw the point of it as I had my daily sites all bookmarked and just visited those.  Every time I tried to do the RSS thing, I ended up disappointed.  Live Bookmarks, Google Reader, they just never really grabbed me.  I think the turning point was when I was reading an article that had a whole heap of pages that interested me, so I started looking around a bit more at readers.  I found NetNewsWire for the iPhone which looked pretty nicely laid out, but it required me to set up a News Gator account (I’ve actually known about News Gator for a while from looking at my website logs, one of my most active IP addresses).

So I signed up, and set it all up on the phone, which is a really nice way to pass the time on the train.  I checked out the website reader, and the funny thing is I hardly use the phone reader anymore.

Anyway, I’ve got a bit off track here, I mainly want to just list my favourite RSS feeds.  Funny thing is, I’ve got some Freelancing websites on there, and I’m not actually a Freelancer (or even really want to be).  I think the main reason why I have them there is for the web site design side.

Programming

• http://www.jasperpotts.com/blog/feed – Jasper Pott’s blog – One of the main guys that wrote Nimbus for Swing (in Java 1.6 update 10), lots of great info here.  This is mainly for work stuff, but quite interesting reading.  A lot of JavaFX stuff here now
• http://www.joelonsoftware.com/rss.xml – Joel On Software – one guy’s view on the software world. Quite accurate in a scary sort of way.
• http://www.javaspecialists.eu/archive/tjsn.rss – Java Specialists – Some pretty heavy Java reading here, but gets right into the internals with some nice tips for performance.

Freelance/Web Design

• http://feeds2.feedburner.com/fromthecouch – From the couch – a Video blog on Freelancing/Web Design.  These guys are actually pretty good in front of the camera and are very informative.
• http://rss1.smashingmagazine.com/feed/ -  Smashing Magazine – Another Freelance/Web Design blog with heaps of great info/tutorials

Others

• http://pennyarcadeart.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default – Gabe’s (from Penny Arcade) artwork. Fantastic artist
• http://feeds.feedburner.com/DilbertDailyStrip – Dilbert – Need I say more

You may notice that Penny Arcade itself isn’t up there, but that’s mainly because they are one of the websites I strongly support. I even have AdBlock turned off here (and sometimes click the ads) so they get some revenue.

I have a whole heap more on my feed, but these are the best of them. The best thing I find about feeds is that they’re fantastic for sites that aren’t updated daily. That way you don’t need to visit them all the time to see if they’re updated.

Ok, I’ve had my iPhone for a while now, so I thought I’d do my top 5 list (which a lot of people have already done)

1. Pocket Weather – Paid app (only one on this list @ $2.49), but for accurate Aussie weather information (straight from BOM and not some dodgy American site) it is absolutely fantastic.  Very nice interface too.
2. Sol Free – Solitare games (Freecell, Klondike, etc), great for when you are on the can
3. Flashlight – Any flashlight app will work, but being able to use your phone as a torch is fantasic (great for when the better half has already gone to bed)
4. NetNewsWire – For reading RSS feeds that you’ve subscribed to via NewsGator
5. Bloomberg – Great for stock info (includes most of the international markets) and a very slick interface.  At least until Teddy finishes writing the iPhone version of IRESS

I must say though, even though Apple have locked the whole thing down (unless you Jailbreak), they’ve done a fantastic job with the App Store.  It’s such a great resource, and the apps have been (theoretically) audited for safety.

Well. Hello. I figured I’d start a blog. Not because I really have anything interesting to say, but mainly just for the sake of it. I guess as boredem relief. Great thing is that there’s a lovely iPhone app that will let me write this on the train.

I guess the biggest thing for me at the moment is that I’m buying a bike (pushie, not motor). I figure I should work on my fitness a bit, so with a bit of luck, I’ll be riding in to work (about 15km). Found a nice hybrid bike on Sunday and put a deposit on it. Fingers crossed I’ll get it tomorrow. Photo’s will be forthcoming.

In other news, the end of the snow season was on the weekend. Unfortunately I didn’t get up as much as I would have liked, especially with the bumper season they had this year. Only 4 days on the snow (over 3 trips up), but all was not lost, I made some real progression this year! Believe it or not, after 4 (or is it 5?) years of snowboarding, I can finally jump, and land sucessfully! I must thank Richard for giving me the confidence to try and keep trying to do this. Hopefully I don’t forget it all by next season. I must get back to NZ next year.

So I guess that’s it for my first post. I’m sure not many people will actually read this post though (not even expecting many visitors in general) but hell, it’s a nice outlet to have.