Wrong Ramblings

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It erks me. It really does. When a person of some popularity makes a fool of himself by citing wrong facts and comparing products in different economies, it just pisses me off. One of the Sunday Times Magazine's tech columnists (if you can even call him that) recently wrote about the iPhone and it's launch here in South Africa. Sure, his column is about technology from a novices point of view, but that just makes it worse. By not getting his facts straight, he actually might be influencing his readers. In his latest column he went on about the launch price of the iPhone and how he thinks it's not worth it in this country. He also compares it to US pricing. Does he actually know that it's not sold unlocked and on prepaid in the US and that you can actually only buy it on contract? Nooo. He does not. Let alone the US economy and population is literally 100x bigger than ours. If you compare the phone feature for feature with other phones in it's class (wait, are there any that come close?) it's a no brainer. You would (and should) choose the iPhone over other similiar priced phones. Purely because it is the future. It sets the bar. It's changing the way mobile phone companies think and work. No other phone company even thought about creating a device as intelligent and robust as the iPhone. No other mobile platform is as friendly and stable as the iPhone OS platform. And no other phone has a managed repository or marketplace of it's developers applications as the iPhone does.

iLoveMy iPhone

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The air was different last Friday morning. A hint of excitement loomed around tech shops big and small. It'll be the day that South Africa entered the age of the new mobile revolution. The age of the iPhone. I was waiting outside Vodashop Gateway until they opened only to be told they had no stock and neither did they have pricing on these new phones. And to top it off they said I wasn't on the "waiting list" for one (apparently pre-registering online isn't as good as pre-registering in-store). Thankfully Dion Wired were more clued up on the popularity of the iPhone. So here I am. Blogging off my brand spanking new iPhone 3G. It's definitely the most amazing device ever created, and will be for a good few years while other companies play catch-up. On another note, I've been accepted into the iPhone Developer Program so keep an eye out for many localised South African apps coming soon to an App Store near you!

Touch Thoughts

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For a while now I've been wondering why the Wordpress iPhone app doesn't work with by blog. Then today I idly discovered that it needeth version 2.5.1 or later (this blog was on 2.5). So here I am now, blogging off the new Wordpress for iPhone app. (oh and also the feed didn't validate for some weird reason that had me retype the word "off" in one of my previous blog posts.)

Topsy Tilts

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I've been playing around with Tilt-shift photography recently. Marc Forrest twittered me a link to a site that shows you step-by-step how to do this cool technique using photoshop. Check it outz:

[gallery]

Almost Authentic

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You get some great movies. Some that actually do research. Then you get some those almost-great movies that go almost the entire movie making you believe in a scenario that might almost exist. Take Die Hard 4.0 for example. The Firesale? Hmmm... maybe... and it even seemed plausible. Then there was the scene when they broke in to the main building and were stealing all of America's financial information. The dude opened a suitcase, plugged in the embedded computer and started copying... onto disk drives that had no cover... You could actually see the friggin' plates on the drive. Why? Why would they do that? When I discussed this with Jeremy, I came up with quite an awesome quote (if I do say so myself).
True authenticity lies in pleasing the minority.
In this case, the minority being geeks, cos that stuff matters to us dude. You can quote me on that btw.

Surfin' San Francisco

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Yeah, okay, it's been a month since I've returned from San Francisco but... I've never really had the time to blog about it, ya know? Man, San Fran was awesome. Better than I ever imagined and twice as fun. What wasn't fun, however, was the 25-hour flight from OR Tambo International to San Francisco International :-) The flight was admittedly easier on the way back. Sleeping helps. Anyways. I loved it - it blew my mind away. WWDC itself rocked. The technology, the speakers, the presentations, the excitement, the everything! It was sensationaly! Even getting up at 02:30 so that you can catch the ealiest train to the city center and waiting in the keynote line at 4am was just. so. awesome. That 6-hour wait between arriving at Moscone West up until the Keynote presentation actually started flew past like a leaf in the wind. If honestly felt like only an hour had passed. Once you start talking to the people around you, you just can't stop! So many people all with one common passion - technology, and more specifically, Apple technology. San Francisco itself was life-altering. It changed my entire lifestyle, the way I look at things, and the way I code. So many cultures, languages, people, landmarks, sights... It was definitely a memorable trip.

Birthday Buzz

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This is my famous birthday speech:
I thought it would be the perfect opportunity in front of all family and friends to list most of the things I am grateful for: I'm grateful for...
  1. being born
  2. growing up in KwaDukuza
  3. for my grandmother taking care of me while parents worked
  4. knowing atleast one of my grandfathers and what an honor it was
  5. going to Circle Pre Primary
  6. my mum and dad for giving me a brother Bhavnesh, my favourite brother!
  7. for my aunts and uncles for giving me cousins so close to me, they are my siblings
  8. being introduced to technology at age 5 on dad's i486
  9. going to Dawnview Primary
  10. getting braces to fix my then horendous teeth
  11. going to Sir Liege Primary in the middle of the sugarcane fields, yes Tyrone, in the farm
  12. getting online at 10y (heh, I've been using the internet for 11y) and surfing a 4k connection
  13. going to Crawford NC for High School
  14. my high school teachers, they were incredible
  15. my friends in high school who transformed me from being a bug eyed nerd to being geek cool
  16. my terrible science teacher (name escapes me, I think she was so terrible my mind is subconsciously blocking her name out)
  17. my terrible science teacher forcing us to take part in the UKZN science expo
  18. winning Science expo in '03 with my friend Tim (who know works at Google) (when I was in grade 11) and receiving a bursary from UKZN to study engineering
  19. for my dad insisting I study engineering even though I never really wanted to
  20. going to UKZN cos of that
  21. experience campus life
  22. living in flat and gaining some independence by living without parents (...ah... fun times)
  23. falling in love
  24. and... breaking up
  25. experiencing true pain from suffering kidney stones twice (beat that!)
  26. having two great flat mates, the best you can get
  27. finally leaving UKZN after finally realising EE just wasn't for me
  28. the 6 month vacation that followed
  29. getting a call one December day in 2006 from old school friend
  30. meeting two people, my boss and my manager, who saw past the qualifications and inexperience and saw potential in me
  31. accepting their job offer, and allowing me to do my part in revolutionising the internet
So... To...
  1. everyone that reads my blog
  2. everyone thats on my buddy list
  3. Larry Paige and Sergei Brin for creating Google
  4. Douglas Adams for showing me the answer to life, the universe and everything
  5. Yukihoro Matsmuto for creating Ruby, the greatest language of all time
  6. Steve Jobs and Apple for creating Mac OS X
  7. Microsoft for showing everyone how not to create an Operating System
  8. All the girls I've ever loved and liked, if only there were more of me for all of you!
  9. my friends in school
  10. my friends in university
  11. my friends and colleagues at Immedia and East Coast Access
  12. my mentors
  13. My wonderful aunts
  14. My great uncles
  15. my sisters
  16. my brothers
  17. To Bhavnesh
  18. To my gorgeous grandmothers
  19. To my mum and dad
And finally to all of you here tonight Thank you For the greatest gift of all time. The gift of right now. I would not have wanted to live my life any other way. thank you.

Err Evolution

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So I, er, haven't blogged in a while. I've been kept busy over the past few months working on the best of best ideas and concepts. One of which is blogfarm, a blog network that's about to take off soon, and fast. Blogfarm gives its bloggers a share of the revenue generated from a blog on its network. The more you write, and the more popular your piece is, the higher you'll be paid. Interested? Contact me. Blogfarm's inaugural blog, NerdBoys launched about a month ago. It's a tech blog by geeks and nerds to loves their gadgets. We're going to be launching more blogs as we progress further into the year. Feel free to suggest any topical blogs you'd like to write and read about.
By the way, I'm blogging this off my new Macbook Air (courtesy of Immedia). Catch an in-depth review of it on Nerdboys. Simply put, it's one of the finest devices I've ever had the pleasure to work on. And it's 4mm thick :) Just look at it. Can it get any sexier? Anyways, since the last time I've blogged, a lot has changed. I've gotten my driver's licence; turned twenty-one (and had one helluva party!); worked for an entire year; and just enjoyed life. I've had this blog for over four years now and this is the 151st post. Lets hope we have many more.

Development Doses

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I think I'm going start blogging more often. Ever since last December, I've been posting roughly once-a-month and thats basically because I've had no time to think about what to blog about. But... I've come up with a solution now. Development. And specifically, web development. It's about the one thing I'm really, awesomely, good at. So apart from my usual ramblings, I'm going to start blogging about code, bugs, fixes, style, etc. it'll also be a good way for me to track my thoughts. Sometimes I look at code I poeted a few years back and think "Was I really that good?" - :-) I'm really into Ruby on Rails and PHP, so expect those categories on the right. Maybe I'll call it "Xeph's Psudo-Daily Dose of Development" since you all know how much I like alliteration. Ciao ;)