Linked List: April 18, 2008

Friday, 18 April 2008

Steven Frank Reviews the Axiotron ModBook 

Steven Frank on using Inkwell with the ModBook:

The recognition engine, based presumably on the print recognizer from NewtonOS 2.0 is quite good, but a bit behind the state of the art. It works best with long strides of dictionary words, and struggles with shorter words and shorthand. I never thought I’d say anything good about Windows Vista, but Vista’s handwriting recognition is much more adroit.

Freakonomics Interview With Poker Pro Phil Gordon 

Phil Gordon:

In fact I’ve never had a losing year as a pro. I practice very sound bankroll management principles, and I think my game selection skills are just about as good as anyone in the game. If there aren’t a few guys that are just giving their money away, I don’t play.

Point 

Asa Dotzler (who works for Mozilla Corporation):

This is a good first step. Now Apple needs to stop checking the box for “New Software” items by default.

Counterpoint 

Darby Lines:

Apparently Apple needs to also not check the box to install Safari by default. Again, the take home message here is that Windows users are so fucking confused by a checkbox that they can’t be trusted with the horrible responsibility of installing a browser.

Apple Software Update for Windows Now Separates New Apps From Upgrades 

Good move by Apple: Software Update for Windows now does the right thing, displaying separate lists for upgraded versions of already-installed software and new software that you’d be installing for the first time.

BusySync 2.0 

Fantastic calendar-sharing utility for iCal — BusySync lets you share read/write calendars with other iCal users with no server. Version 2.0 introduces the ability to sync with Google Calendar. Highly recommended.

Qwitter 

My thanks to Tobacco Free Florida for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed to promote Qwitter. Qwitter is a simple social app built on Twitter, designed to help anyone trying to quit smoking. You send tweets to @iquit and Qwitter tracks and graphs your progress. Neat idea.

iPhone JavaScript Character Counts 

After reading my indictment of the text editing fields in the current crop of web-based iPhone Twitter clients (slow typing performance and inaccurate character counts after deleting), Andrew Hedges wrote four different implementations:

Now, I don’t have an iPhone, but I do have the SDK. Typing with a mouse in the iPhone simulator, I found the interval pattern to be the most responsive. Of the 4 techniques, only the instant updating one failed to provide an accurate count (it was always one key press behind). I’m interested to hear from users of actual iPhones which they think is best (most responsive and most accurate) when using the on-screen keyboard.

After trying them on my iPhone, I’d describe his four implementations as poor, best, OK, and good (respectively). Except for the first (poor) one, the character counts are always accurate, and the typing speed is quite good. His “interval” method, in addition to feeling the fastest, has the added advantage of keeping an accurate character count while you hold down the delete key. Twitter web client developers, take note.

What’s in a Mac Clone? 

Rob Griffiths:

I don’t want or need a machine with a built-in monitor, I don’t need the power of an eight-core Mac Pro, but I’d like my Mac to be faster and more expandable than a Mini. [...] Tired of waiting and hoping for the Mac of my dreams to appear, I decided to take the technology into my own hands and build it myself. And thus began my experiment to assemble my very own OS X-running machine.