The Blog of Brad
Archive for January, 2010
List: Services Not Available in Canada [UPDATE x3]
Jan 31st
Here is a semi-complete list of everything I’ve come in contact with that aren’t available in Canada:
- Lala (international copyright issues) -> See Video <- (not available ANYWHERE as of May 31)
- Pandora (international copyright issues) -> See Picture <-
- Hulu (international copyright issues; this includes embeds for any associated companies including the Comedy Channel for example) -> See Picture <-
- Google Voice (won’t forward to Canadian numbers; suspicion is that it’s CRTC regulations on E911 services) -> See Picture <-
- Amazon MP3 -> See Picture <-
- Amazon Prime
- Amazon streaming TV and movies
- Netflix Streaming (Netflix physical media rentals are provided by Zip.ca)
- textPlus (won’t accept Canadian phone numbers; although, GOGII is conducting a beta regarding that, see here.)[UPDATE! textPlus is now available in Canada as of February 16, 2010]
- Motorola Droid (or GSM/UMTS version called the “Milestone”) – no carriers yet – available in Canada on Telus as of February 2010
- Nexus One (won’t ship to Canada; Nexus One uses irregular UMTS bands that none of the major 3 Canadian carriers use; AWS is going to be provided by WIND mobile — currently in Toronto only) – available as of March 2010 on Rogers, Telus, and Bell. Orders as AT&T compatible, ships to Canada. Paid apps are supported.
- FitBit – won’t ship to Canada; hasn’t been approved for sale in Canada.
Days of Code: Perl URL Shortener // Day 5
Jan 29th
Since I last wrote, I’ve reconfigured a few different things in this.
- In shorten.pl – I’ve fixed the API key verification for now, added rudimentary invalid URL detection.
- In list.pl – I’ve used threads, as mentioned in a tweet, , and now save about 64% of the time in listing all of the URLs in the database. (that’s using 2 threads; I’ve found that 8 is optimal in general on this server)YES! #Perl | With threads I was able to cut total execution time from 0.121s to 0.78s (both averages)! Perl==WIN!
- In stats.pl – I now order the URLs by id (in other words, the one with the latest created short code first).
- In subs.pl – I rewrote some of the
randomPasswordsubroutine. It should be more efficient in the future, however I will need to write one from scratch to make it work; I keep getting long short codes, I specify a 2-character sc and get a 4 (always 4) character password/sc in return. Help?
I’ve posted the updates to this code on the usual Code >> Perl URL Shortener page.
You can also see it in action at Brad-Zone.com … for now.
The 15 things I want from the Apple Tablet.
Jan 26th
I’m going to make the assumption that we’re going to see an Apple tablet tomorrow after all of the hype about it.
So here are my 15 things I want from it:
- iPhone tethering. The tablet could command it’s own 3G connection subscriptions, however, like many iPhone users, at which this tablet is directed, I’m paying $70+/mo for a data connection. I don’t want to pay more. As the iPhone already tethers (in Canada at least), it doesn’t seem unreasonable that this wouldn’t be an option.
- An iPhone-like OS. The iPhone works so well because it has a Unix/Darwin/BSD-based operating system. It doesn’t do background applications because it isn’t intuitive to have an application without a physical presence (like a window), like Windows (for the most part) does, even though the Mac OSes have never done it like this. The tablet should do background applications, but there are many other places that Apple could find similar simplification.
- Front-facing camera. I wish the iPhone had this, too! I want the tablet to have a front-facing (and rear-facing, too!) camera. This camera could do (if it’s cellular connected, video calling on Rogers and other carriers), Skype/iChat, or just video capture (for video blogging). But it also needs to edit videos, kind of like iMovie Lite®.
- Microphone and speaker. The possibilities are endless!
- App Store…. but that’s a given.
- Best in industry HTML5 support.
- Dock connector. The tablet is going to be a secondary platform for computing, similar to the iPhone, and there has to be a way to get more information onto the device, manage it, restore/reset it, update it, and provide media to it.
- High-pixel density screen. I know that ‘OLED’ is a buzzword at the moment, however if it inhibits cost, a TFT (hopefully LED backlight though) screen (of higher pixel density than the iPhone) would be excellent.
- iTunes managed. iTunes is a ubiquitous platform (Windows, Mac) which people already have and know.
- If the tablet is cellular (and/or can tether to iPhone) text messaging.
- Bluetooth/wireless keyboard connectivity. This is the iPhone biggest short fall (aside from the monthly cost!); this will then be the ultimate tool for a student.
- An Android-like notification system. The iPhone has popups, but doesn’t have a way to go back to notifications.
- A new UI.
- STEVE JOBS! I want to see the beloved SJ again, even if this may be his last ever presentation or Apple project.
- A better way to input text than a pen, current style of virtual keyboard, or slide-out keyboard (although I’d be skeptical of that last one).
However, I’ve made predictions using the Prediction Score Card by David Weiss. You should too! (Will tweet my score card soonl I’m on Twitter as @bradarsenault )
I won a signed copy of Freedom by Daniel Suarez!
Jan 25th
I came home after school to find the FedEx guy looking for an address… turns out it was for me! Just the other day I got an email from Dutton/Penguin (the publisher) stating that I won a free copy of Freedom, signed by the author. In case I haven’t stressed it enough: Daemon and Freedom are AWESOME! They are a great story..
Here’s a quick Youtube Video I shot as soon as I could.
Links:
My favorite:
Daniel Suarez’s site:
Days of Code: Perl URL Shortener
Jan 24th
Today I got some work done; I didn’t get anything on my list that I made yesterday done, however I did experiment with jQuery (the Javascript library)… and now have an easy-to-use listing mechanism (to see the sum of all URLs in the database and the viewers logs). Take a look . With that you may notice something… I repurposed my ‘ol Brad-Zone.com domain name — it is shorter than bradarsenault.com (17 vs 13).
I’ve updated the project page at Code >> Perl URL Shortener with today’s code.
