iOS5 makes the iPad 1 a slow and annoying experience

Posted by svec on December 23, 2011 0 comments

Marco says: “The original iPad is nearly two years old, runs iOS 5 well, and will probably get a few more significant OS upgrades.” (link) as a way to imply that Apple users are better cared for than Android users. That might be true, but I disagree with Marco’s “iPad 1 runs well with iOS [...]

“Fixing” HipChat Crashes on Mac OS X Lion

Posted by svec on December 17, 2011 1 comment

In case this helps anyone else on the Internets and Googles out there: If HipChat refuses to start for you on your Mac like this (“HipChat quit unexpectedly”): then you might be able to fix it by unchecking “Automatic graphics switching” in the Mac System Preference “Energy Saver” pane. For some reason Adobe Air (the [...]

The Architecture of Open Source Applications: FreeRTOS

Posted by svec on August 16, 2011 0 comments

Exciting news: I’m writing a chapter about FreeRTOS for the next edition of The Architecture of Open Source Applications! Greg Wilson, one of the editors of the book, (the other editor is Amy Brown) tweeted that they were looking for coverage for embedded software. Well, I thought, I’ve been wanting to learn about FreeRTOS, and [...]

Mac apps I love: Caffeine

Posted by svec on July 6, 2011 0 comments

Caffeine, besides being one of my favorite ingredients in coffee, is a very lightweight app that keeps your Mac from dimming the screen, going to sleep, or starting the screensaver. It lives a quiet, satisfying life in your menu bar. It’s perfect for when the Macbook is running on battery power I but don’t want [...]

Browser vs. Screen

Posted by svec on June 6, 2011 0 comments

From John Gruber (emphasis mine): This is a fundamentally different vision for the coming decade than Google’s. In both cases, your data is in the cloud, and you can access it from anywhere with a network connection. But Google’s vision is about software you run in a web browser. Apple’s is about native apps you [...]

Two views on developing for Apple

Posted by svec on June 6, 2011 1 comment

Two different (opposing?) views on developing for the Apple ecosystem after today’s WWDC love-fest announcements: The first is from Des Traynor’s post, “Playing their game”: Apple always look out for their customers. They will always look to improve the experience. If that means adding software to their platform then so be it. If that software [...]

Ember is hiring in Boston!

Posted by svec on May 23, 2011 0 comments

My company, Ember, is hiring for embedded software engineers and QA engineers in Boston: http://www.ember.com/company_careers.html We develop the chips, software, and tools for wireless sensor networks. I’ve worked at Ember since December, and it’s the best place I’ve ever worked (and I’ve worked at some pretty good places!) And, no joke, all of my coworkers [...]

“When Abstractions Fail” quote

Posted by svec on April 27, 2011 0 comments

Hard-won quote about abstractions: We need our abstractions, our black boxes. Black boxes are great and enabling when they work. But when something goes wrong, the walls of our abstractions need to go transparent as fast as possible. From: http://joyeur.com/2011/04/24/magical-block-store-when-abstractions-fail-us/

iTunes->iPad sync crashes with some JPEG2000 files

Posted by svec on April 22, 2011 0 comments

Note to teh interwebz: iTunes 10.2.1 and 10.2.2 (at least) on Mac crash when trying to sync some JPEG2000 files from a Mac to an iPad (first generation iPad). I tried to sync some old maps of Boston from my Mac to my iPad and iTunes 10.2.1 and 10.2.2 crashes every single time while trying [...]

Quotes from “The Bug” by Ellen Ullman

Posted by svec on April 13, 2011 0 comments

Two quotes caught my eye while reading “The Bug” by Ellen Ullman: “To a machine, all here’s are equal.” “To discover that between the blinks of the machine’s shuttered eye – going on without pause or cease; simulated, imagined, but still not caught – was life.” (the last sentence of the book)