If you believe in the parenting philosophy of "Reward for Effort", especially when it comes to house chores, then ChoreMonster.com is a web service you should consider. It currently is advertising-free with premium subscription options. You can use the service for free indefinitely, all the premium subscription gives you is extra virtual "rewards" for your kids. The service is divided in two main sections, one for parents and one for kids. The parents section has all the tools needed to create chores and rewards list as well as tracking and approval thereof, all in a very intuitive fashion. The kids section includes the list of chores, the choice of rewards, and, the premium-only section of monster carnival mini-game where kids can trade earned tickets for a chance to "unlock" new monsters. The customer service is top notch and very prompt, in our experience.
It has worked fantastically in our family. Our oldest kid is totally into it, almost not caring what the rewards are, but just the sense of accomplishment and the chance to unlock monsters provides him with more than enough motivation to not only do his chores, but make sure he does them correctly (the parent has to approve each chore marked as complete). The parenting section also has something for numbers-oriented parents as well: chore tracking and velocity (i.e. you can see how many chores/day or points/day your kid is burning through) so you could determine and project forward your kid's baseline effort.
All in all, I highly recommend using the service and if you find it useful, purchase a premium subscription. And just to be clear, I'm no way associated with them. I don't know anyone who works there and I have nothing to gain or lose. I just think it's a great service and deserves patronage.
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Friday, March 8, 2013
Pebble: not quite a "smart watch" ... yet?
Sometime in the spring of 2012, myself along thousands of fellow tech enthusiasts, committed to back Pebble in their Kickstarter funding campaign. After months of delays, vitriol and nonsense in late January Pebble announced it would soon begin shipping. Earlier this week, nearly 6 months after their original estimated shipping date, my Pebble finally arrived.
The watch looks pretty slick and has a "nerdy" chic design to it. The e-paper screen is pretty easy on the eyes and the initial setup/pairing as well as adding new watch faces with my iPhone was a breeze, so kudos to them in that regard. But, regretfully, that's all it does -- at the moment.
The watch lacks many crucial features that would make it more than a mere tech novelty. For instance, the watch is just begging for a touch screen. The whole 3-button navigation interface feels almost anachronic. Pebble also lacks comprehensive notification settings -- it currently only supports phone Caller ID and incoming SMS. The watch lacks and badly needs a recent history of notifications: how good are notifications if you can only see the latest one?
An important aspect that, in my opinion, Pebble either forgot or just didn't have the time to implement is the one-directional nature of Pebble. Pebble's use case is not very strong at the moment because of it. If Pebble was capable of, say, sending canned or predefined replies to text messages or if it was capable of sending a quick reply to a rejected phone call, it would have a place in the wrist of not only tech aficionados but also business types and the public in general.
As of right now, however, Pebble is merely an accessory; a luxury, if you will. There really isn't any feature in it that, at the moment, makes it a requisite for daily life. For instance, my smart phone, my car, my computer and so on are things that I need in order to get things done. Pebble is nowhere close to that level of "neededness" (sic) and until it does it will remain nothing more than a glorified wrist watch.
The watch looks pretty slick and has a "nerdy" chic design to it. The e-paper screen is pretty easy on the eyes and the initial setup/pairing as well as adding new watch faces with my iPhone was a breeze, so kudos to them in that regard. But, regretfully, that's all it does -- at the moment.
The watch lacks many crucial features that would make it more than a mere tech novelty. For instance, the watch is just begging for a touch screen. The whole 3-button navigation interface feels almost anachronic. Pebble also lacks comprehensive notification settings -- it currently only supports phone Caller ID and incoming SMS. The watch lacks and badly needs a recent history of notifications: how good are notifications if you can only see the latest one?
An important aspect that, in my opinion, Pebble either forgot or just didn't have the time to implement is the one-directional nature of Pebble. Pebble's use case is not very strong at the moment because of it. If Pebble was capable of, say, sending canned or predefined replies to text messages or if it was capable of sending a quick reply to a rejected phone call, it would have a place in the wrist of not only tech aficionados but also business types and the public in general.
As of right now, however, Pebble is merely an accessory; a luxury, if you will. There really isn't any feature in it that, at the moment, makes it a requisite for daily life. For instance, my smart phone, my car, my computer and so on are things that I need in order to get things done. Pebble is nowhere close to that level of "neededness" (sic) and until it does it will remain nothing more than a glorified wrist watch.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
iPhone 5: a (somewhat) dispassionate review
In a previous post I briefly explained why I decided to give iOS and iPhone 5 a chance after years of using Android devices. It has been a bit more than a week since I got my iPhone 5 and I've used it extensively since then. I have to say that I am fairly impressed with it so far.
Hardware Case and Design: it's very light (and I mean about half as heavy as Galaxy Nexus) and feels super well built and durable. It feels right in my hands. The buttons are well placed and tucked away. Definitely an outstanding example of form and function.
Screen: in one word, gorgeous. Both, when it's on and when it's off. When it's off, it melds beautifully with the case design (at least with the Black version), un-intrusive and well placed. When it's on, it's even more impressive: tack-sharp, well balanced colors, contrast and saturation. Under direct sun light, it's surprisingly useful, you can still read text well and see web sites and apps (mostly) alright.
Battery Life: of all the features, I have to admit the one that has impressed me the most has been the battery life. After heavy 3G/4G usage, WiFi, camera both still and video, a few games, mobile banking plus my usual mobile activities, I charge my iPhone 5, literally, once every two days. That is approximately three times better than my Thunderbolt and about two times better than the Galaxy Nexus under similar usage.
Camera: as a photography enthusiast, the camera on my phone is a very important feature. I was thoroughly disappointed on all the cameras of all the Android phones I owned. The shutter lag made it almost impossible to shoot anything that moved, the auto-focus was always way off, shutter speed was entirely too slow and exposure would be easily thrown off (and no way to override any of these settings). The iPhone 5's camera, on the other hand, has been great. Near zero-shutter lag, auto-focus works well, not excellent, but good enough for most of my usage, shutter speed is much better (although it could be improved) and auto exposure has proven to work about as good as a point-and-shoot camera. So, overall, I'm pleased with the iPhone 5's camera -- but I will not be completely satisfied until (some day) I can manually control every aspect of the on-board camera.
iOS: is a very opinionated OS, but from my experience thus far, I'd say it has a reasonable and well thought out opinion. A beautiful, simple and intuitive UI, predictable gesture and navigation patterns, what you need right in front of you, anything you don't is stashed away. It feels very snappy and seamlessly integrated with most apps. One thing iOS lacks that Android OS is excellent at, in my opinion, is sharing assets among apps. For instance, in the Camera Roll I cannot select a picture or video to be opened with another app, be it Instagram or Pixlr and so forth. Instead, I have to go directly to the app I want to use and open the asset from within it. It's a minor inconvenience, but it's one feature I sure miss from the Android world.
A valid argument could be (and has been) made about iOS's lack of user customization and why Android OS is better in this regard; but, I'm not big on UI customization neither on my PCs nor on my phones, so the lack of UI customization is not all that important to me. Although I can see how it will be a hinderance for those who do.
Since I don't use and didn't use Apple Maps, I cannot comment on that fiasco, but I imagine that would have been annoying and disappointing to those who rely on Apple Maps. But Google Maps works fantastic, and, again, its look-and-feel is much better than Google Maps for Android (ICS and Jelly Bean).
I hope this review will be useful to those researching before making their minds one way or the other. Comments/feedback from zealots on either side of the Apple vs. Google (imaginary war) will be deleted.
Hardware Case and Design: it's very light (and I mean about half as heavy as Galaxy Nexus) and feels super well built and durable. It feels right in my hands. The buttons are well placed and tucked away. Definitely an outstanding example of form and function.
Screen: in one word, gorgeous. Both, when it's on and when it's off. When it's off, it melds beautifully with the case design (at least with the Black version), un-intrusive and well placed. When it's on, it's even more impressive: tack-sharp, well balanced colors, contrast and saturation. Under direct sun light, it's surprisingly useful, you can still read text well and see web sites and apps (mostly) alright.
Battery Life: of all the features, I have to admit the one that has impressed me the most has been the battery life. After heavy 3G/4G usage, WiFi, camera both still and video, a few games, mobile banking plus my usual mobile activities, I charge my iPhone 5, literally, once every two days. That is approximately three times better than my Thunderbolt and about two times better than the Galaxy Nexus under similar usage.
Camera: as a photography enthusiast, the camera on my phone is a very important feature. I was thoroughly disappointed on all the cameras of all the Android phones I owned. The shutter lag made it almost impossible to shoot anything that moved, the auto-focus was always way off, shutter speed was entirely too slow and exposure would be easily thrown off (and no way to override any of these settings). The iPhone 5's camera, on the other hand, has been great. Near zero-shutter lag, auto-focus works well, not excellent, but good enough for most of my usage, shutter speed is much better (although it could be improved) and auto exposure has proven to work about as good as a point-and-shoot camera. So, overall, I'm pleased with the iPhone 5's camera -- but I will not be completely satisfied until (some day) I can manually control every aspect of the on-board camera.
iOS: is a very opinionated OS, but from my experience thus far, I'd say it has a reasonable and well thought out opinion. A beautiful, simple and intuitive UI, predictable gesture and navigation patterns, what you need right in front of you, anything you don't is stashed away. It feels very snappy and seamlessly integrated with most apps. One thing iOS lacks that Android OS is excellent at, in my opinion, is sharing assets among apps. For instance, in the Camera Roll I cannot select a picture or video to be opened with another app, be it Instagram or Pixlr and so forth. Instead, I have to go directly to the app I want to use and open the asset from within it. It's a minor inconvenience, but it's one feature I sure miss from the Android world.
A valid argument could be (and has been) made about iOS's lack of user customization and why Android OS is better in this regard; but, I'm not big on UI customization neither on my PCs nor on my phones, so the lack of UI customization is not all that important to me. Although I can see how it will be a hinderance for those who do.
Since I don't use and didn't use Apple Maps, I cannot comment on that fiasco, but I imagine that would have been annoying and disappointing to those who rely on Apple Maps. But Google Maps works fantastic, and, again, its look-and-feel is much better than Google Maps for Android (ICS and Jelly Bean).
I hope this review will be useful to those researching before making their minds one way or the other. Comments/feedback from zealots on either side of the Apple vs. Google (imaginary war) will be deleted.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Google Nexus 7: Android's first true market shaker
By now you've probably seen and read all the rave reviews, tear-downs, and all the media coverage surrounding Google's new offering in the tablet market: the Nexus 7. As an attendee of Google I/O, this year I received one of these devices. I wasn't particularly excited about the device given my experience with the tablet they gave out last year, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 which seemed (and probably was) like a rushed product. The build quality was iffy, Android Honey Comb seemed like a stop-gap measure rather than a true well optimized operating system, soon thereafter a number of people started reporting hardware problems ranging from screen glitches to batteries not holding a charge and so forth. Then sometime late last summer, I bought a brand new Acer Iconia A500, which was OK for the most part, but still, in my opinion, it didn't seem like a worthy competitor against Apple's offerings. I also tried out Amazon's Kindle Fire which was OK, except it didn't really feel like an Android product. It seems like Amazon really went to great lengths to use the OS, but remove as many references to Google's services as possible (including, of course, Google Play).
So, I waited until my last day in San Francisco to take some time to Play with the Nexus 7 (partially, too, in case something was wrong with the device I could get direct help form the techs on-site). The first thing I noticed is the high-quality, sleek packaging which definitely shows the care Google put into this product. After taking all the protective plastic sleeves around the the device itself, I could tell this was not a rushed product, at all. It feels like a solid well-put-together hardware. It also looks stylish and "sexy". It only has two buttons, up/down volume combo and on/off switch. It has a 1/8'' jack output for headphones and a standard micro USB port (a big omission on last year's Galaxy Tab) for charging and connecting to other devices. The screen is perfect: sharp, excellent colors, great brightness and contrast; it might not be technically a "Retina" display, but it surely feels that way. While some people might prefer the 10.1'' format, I personally prefer the compact 7'' form factor which is more portable and can be comfortable held in one hand (which is specially helpful for long reading sessions). The OS, though, is what makes the real difference. Android Jelly Bean is, what I think, the best Android OS to date. They have taken notice of all the gripes throughout the years and have fixed those and then some. The UI feels just right: consistent, stylish, and "buttery". The Android team finally realized that as far as the end-user is concerned, the UI/UX is the product and all other technical merits being secondary or non-existent, and they have applied this mantra to Jelly Bean to the extreme: everything seems to be where you expect it to, visual semantics remain the same throughout every nook and cranny of the system and out of the user's way. The device integration with Google Play is fantastic and adds a layer of "awesomeness" to the whole experience. Video playback is great: I watched Transformers: The Dark of The Moon" on high def and it was fantastic, I tried some of the free books on the Play store and they look handsome. Nice typography, excellent contrast and very "buttery" animations for flipping pages and so forth.
I could go on and on about the fantastic combination of software and hardware the Nexus 7 is, but I leave that to the plethora of reviews already out there. I prefer to close making the point that, in my opinion, Google Nexus 7, is hitherto the one true competitor against Apple's iPad, in spite of having a smaller screen size.
Friday, June 22, 2012
MacBook Pro with Retina Display: a week later
Last week, I wrote a "first impressions"-style of review of my new MacBook Pro with Retina Display. In it I said that I needed to use the laptop more so that I could give a more educated opinion about certain aspects. So, here we go:
Performance: the machine is very, very fast. Cold-boots in about 10 seconds (and this includes ~2 seconds of the grey bios screen). The SSD + fast ram + i7 Ivy Bridge processors combination works amazing. Anything that I've thrown at it hasn't slow it down. A VirtualBox instance + Adobe Lightroom 4 importing and pre-processing a few hundred RAW images, with a terminal having brew building several packages from source, all at the same time: no problem whatsoever. The computer was just as responsive as when I have a single browser instance open. You really can't tell the difference.
Retina Display: simply put, and to reiterate, it's amazing. Vibrant, rich, contrasty colors. Excellent shadows and blacks. The text looks awesome (specially with Retina-enabled applications). When the screen is off it gives the impression of being incredibly glare-y, but when it's on, even at half brightness, the glare is negligible. Watched a dozen or so "4K" videos and the colors and details were astounding.
Gaming: although gamers probably aren't the target audience of this machine, this machine is very competent in that regard. It played all the Humble Bundle games maxxed out @ 1080p resolution at very decent frame rates. When in boot camp mode, it played a few MMOs on High or Ultra High settings @ 40-50 FPS even on public instances and "hub" towns which is where frame rate drops dramatically on most MMOs. So the NVidia 650M definitely pulls its own weight.
Windows: although Mac purists might chide at the notion of installing Windows on such new machine alongside their revered OS X, truth is, there are some things -- at least for those of us who work in the development arena -- that play nice on Windows. Another issue is games, specially with older titles that don't have Mac versions or if you don't want to spend more money on software you already own. I tried Parallels and CrossOver, but neither gave me the gaming experience I was looking for and both of them have hefty license prices specially considering I can boot camp for free with a Win license I already own.
Boot Camp: The process was fast and flawless. I went from partition to fully installed windows in a matter of 20 minutes or so, no exaggeration. I then installed the Apple-supplied drivers and all was setup correctly: video, sound, trackpad, HDMI, etc.
* Noise: I forgot to mention about cooling fan noise. Apple made a big fuss out of this issue in their marketing campaign and thankfully I don't find noise to be a make or break sort of thing. The machine runs very quiet so long as the NVidia video card is not in use. As soon as the graphics are switched to the NVidia whether for games or anything requiring 3D rendering, the fan noise is very noticeable and I would say it's equally bad as any other laptop sporting a powerful graphics card.
So, after using for both work and fun, I have to say that I am very happy with the purchase. However, it's hard for me to issue a blanket statement whether I recommend it or not, mainly because it's quite pricey. So, all I can do is stand last week's opinion: it's a great machine that won't disappoint, and would definitely recommend it, if you can afford it and you are looking for a Mac.
* added after publishing
Performance: the machine is very, very fast. Cold-boots in about 10 seconds (and this includes ~2 seconds of the grey bios screen). The SSD + fast ram + i7 Ivy Bridge processors combination works amazing. Anything that I've thrown at it hasn't slow it down. A VirtualBox instance + Adobe Lightroom 4 importing and pre-processing a few hundred RAW images, with a terminal having brew building several packages from source, all at the same time: no problem whatsoever. The computer was just as responsive as when I have a single browser instance open. You really can't tell the difference.
Retina Display: simply put, and to reiterate, it's amazing. Vibrant, rich, contrasty colors. Excellent shadows and blacks. The text looks awesome (specially with Retina-enabled applications). When the screen is off it gives the impression of being incredibly glare-y, but when it's on, even at half brightness, the glare is negligible. Watched a dozen or so "4K" videos and the colors and details were astounding.
Gaming: although gamers probably aren't the target audience of this machine, this machine is very competent in that regard. It played all the Humble Bundle games maxxed out @ 1080p resolution at very decent frame rates. When in boot camp mode, it played a few MMOs on High or Ultra High settings @ 40-50 FPS even on public instances and "hub" towns which is where frame rate drops dramatically on most MMOs. So the NVidia 650M definitely pulls its own weight.
Windows: although Mac purists might chide at the notion of installing Windows on such new machine alongside their revered OS X, truth is, there are some things -- at least for those of us who work in the development arena -- that play nice on Windows. Another issue is games, specially with older titles that don't have Mac versions or if you don't want to spend more money on software you already own. I tried Parallels and CrossOver, but neither gave me the gaming experience I was looking for and both of them have hefty license prices specially considering I can boot camp for free with a Win license I already own.
Boot Camp: The process was fast and flawless. I went from partition to fully installed windows in a matter of 20 minutes or so, no exaggeration. I then installed the Apple-supplied drivers and all was setup correctly: video, sound, trackpad, HDMI, etc.
* Noise: I forgot to mention about cooling fan noise. Apple made a big fuss out of this issue in their marketing campaign and thankfully I don't find noise to be a make or break sort of thing. The machine runs very quiet so long as the NVidia video card is not in use. As soon as the graphics are switched to the NVidia whether for games or anything requiring 3D rendering, the fan noise is very noticeable and I would say it's equally bad as any other laptop sporting a powerful graphics card.
So, after using for both work and fun, I have to say that I am very happy with the purchase. However, it's hard for me to issue a blanket statement whether I recommend it or not, mainly because it's quite pricey. So, all I can do is stand last week's opinion: it's a great machine that won't disappoint, and would definitely recommend it, if you can afford it and you are looking for a Mac.
* added after publishing
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Windows 8 Consumer Preview Review
TL;DR version: lots of potential, I like what I'm seeing thus far.
Slightly more elaborate version: Microsoft's next gen of the Windows family is (and has been) out for public preview (which can be freely downloaded here). Installing it on a blank drive was a breeze and without issues. With the exception of my laptop vendor's driver for dynamic graphic-card switching, all other hardware was detected and properly configured. From the get go, you can tell that they are making an effort to modernize their well-known and familiar UI; however, this can end up being a double-edge sword for them.
Metro UI: At first, while I found the Metro UI visually pleasing, I wasn't sure how to navigate my way to the familiar and ubiquitous Windows desktop paradigm we all are so accustomed to. Also very obvious is Microsoft's concerted effort to foster and push its own computing ecosystem (SkyDrive, Bing Maps, Search, Internet Explorer, and so forth) which is something they have not very good at in the past few versions of Windows. Don't get me wrong, they are not trying to put a wall around you or insistently annoying you. No, they simply visually encourage you (i.e. prevalent screen real estate) to use those services and apps for a better experience. So, after some trial and error, I figured out how to get to the familiar desktop. Once there, the first thing I realized is that there isn't "Start" button in the task bar. So what happens when you click the "Windows" button on your keyboard (or CTLR + ESC)? You are taken back to the Metro Dashboard. And then it clicked (in my head). The Metro Dashboard is the "start" menu but taken literally -- which is a really neat thing -- but it will take some getting used to for some users. After installing some necessary software (i.e. Chrome and VirtualBox), I set out to "explore". So, I learned when you put the mouse pointer near the lower (or upper) right corner a menu shows up gives the options of settings, search, devices, share, etc. You can go to the Start area and once there, you can press ESC to return the the app you were working with. Also in that Start dashboard, if you click on your username, you'll see a menu with options to log off/switch users and so forth. While in the Start dashboard, if you right click, you'll get a choice to see all installed apps which can be helpful if you are looking for an app but don't remember its name. Also really neat, while in that same area, as soon as you start typing anything, windows will search for an app with those letters you have just typed.
Apps Compatibility: all apps I've installed have worked without any problem. VirtualBox installed and runs an Ubuntu image flawlessly. Chrome runs without a hitch. Adobe Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS5, again, both seamless and flawless. The two exceptions have been Cisco AnyConnect VPN client (which works fine under Win7) and the ATI graphics card auto-switching driver. Neither of the latter work at all. They both installed without warnings or errors, but when it's time to run, they error out. I also installed some dev tools (MS VisualStudio 11 for the Web, Notepad++, Dart editor/VM/Dartium, etc.) and all work well and otherwise as expected. Steam client and other games work well (well, the programs run well, the graphics are horrible due to driver issues, as explained above).
Not tested: IE10. While I've heard really good things about IE10, truth is Chrome is working very well for me, so there really isn't a good reason for me to try IE10 to any meaningful extent.
Overall, I think Windows 8 has serious potential. I've become familiar with the Metro Dashboard in a short time and I actually enjoy it. Microsoft also seems to have taken notice that users want to customize their computer experience (specially when it comes to themes and wallpapers), so, they now let people customize the start screen and the lock screen (both customization options missing in Vista and Win7) as well as the desktop and the background of the Metro Dashboard. My only concern would be that for older people who aren't tech savvy who have finally -- after so many years -- gotten used to the Windows workflow that this new workflow/UI paradigm will get them confused and flustered which in turn can turn them away. At any rate, I think the OS is behaving really well considering it still in beta and definitely showing lots of promise. So, I would say that, if you have the time and a blank drive to experiment with, you should give Windows8 preview a try.
Slightly more elaborate version: Microsoft's next gen of the Windows family is (and has been) out for public preview (which can be freely downloaded here). Installing it on a blank drive was a breeze and without issues. With the exception of my laptop vendor's driver for dynamic graphic-card switching, all other hardware was detected and properly configured. From the get go, you can tell that they are making an effort to modernize their well-known and familiar UI; however, this can end up being a double-edge sword for them.
Metro UI: At first, while I found the Metro UI visually pleasing, I wasn't sure how to navigate my way to the familiar and ubiquitous Windows desktop paradigm we all are so accustomed to. Also very obvious is Microsoft's concerted effort to foster and push its own computing ecosystem (SkyDrive, Bing Maps, Search, Internet Explorer, and so forth) which is something they have not very good at in the past few versions of Windows. Don't get me wrong, they are not trying to put a wall around you or insistently annoying you. No, they simply visually encourage you (i.e. prevalent screen real estate) to use those services and apps for a better experience. So, after some trial and error, I figured out how to get to the familiar desktop. Once there, the first thing I realized is that there isn't "Start" button in the task bar. So what happens when you click the "Windows" button on your keyboard (or CTLR + ESC)? You are taken back to the Metro Dashboard. And then it clicked (in my head). The Metro Dashboard is the "start" menu but taken literally -- which is a really neat thing -- but it will take some getting used to for some users. After installing some necessary software (i.e. Chrome and VirtualBox), I set out to "explore". So, I learned when you put the mouse pointer near the lower (or upper) right corner a menu shows up gives the options of settings, search, devices, share, etc. You can go to the Start area and once there, you can press ESC to return the the app you were working with. Also in that Start dashboard, if you click on your username, you'll see a menu with options to log off/switch users and so forth. While in the Start dashboard, if you right click, you'll get a choice to see all installed apps which can be helpful if you are looking for an app but don't remember its name. Also really neat, while in that same area, as soon as you start typing anything, windows will search for an app with those letters you have just typed.
Apps Compatibility: all apps I've installed have worked without any problem. VirtualBox installed and runs an Ubuntu image flawlessly. Chrome runs without a hitch. Adobe Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS5, again, both seamless and flawless. The two exceptions have been Cisco AnyConnect VPN client (which works fine under Win7) and the ATI graphics card auto-switching driver. Neither of the latter work at all. They both installed without warnings or errors, but when it's time to run, they error out. I also installed some dev tools (MS VisualStudio 11 for the Web, Notepad++, Dart editor/VM/Dartium, etc.) and all work well and otherwise as expected. Steam client and other games work well (well, the programs run well, the graphics are horrible due to driver issues, as explained above).
Not tested: IE10. While I've heard really good things about IE10, truth is Chrome is working very well for me, so there really isn't a good reason for me to try IE10 to any meaningful extent.
Overall, I think Windows 8 has serious potential. I've become familiar with the Metro Dashboard in a short time and I actually enjoy it. Microsoft also seems to have taken notice that users want to customize their computer experience (specially when it comes to themes and wallpapers), so, they now let people customize the start screen and the lock screen (both customization options missing in Vista and Win7) as well as the desktop and the background of the Metro Dashboard. My only concern would be that for older people who aren't tech savvy who have finally -- after so many years -- gotten used to the Windows workflow that this new workflow/UI paradigm will get them confused and flustered which in turn can turn them away. At any rate, I think the OS is behaving really well considering it still in beta and definitely showing lots of promise. So, I would say that, if you have the time and a blank drive to experiment with, you should give Windows8 preview a try.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
web2py: an MVC framework that will rock your socks
Living under the shadow of the venerable and much more famous Django (and outside the view of Rails' unwavering zealots), is an amazing MVC framework called web2py. Let me tell you why I find this framework to be absolutely great and why you should give it a try.
First: it's completely self-contained and self-dependent. All it requires to run is python (2.6+) installed in your computer.
Second: Documentation, documentation, documentation. Of all the MVC frameworks out there (including some that are much older and "mature"), I've never seen so much care and effort put into documentation as with web2py. The documentation is not just a collection of half-assed tutorials with a few code snippets here and there with some commentary and whatnot. No, web2py's documentation is actually a full-fledged and very well written book which you can read online or download and print via PDF. But don't be fooled thinking that just because it's a book that it will be a "slow" book or that it will be full of technical platitudes. On the contrary, its focus in the few chapters is to get you up and running fast without neglecting very useful technical side notes and leaving the thick of deep technical explanation for later chapters. The documentation leaves the likes of django's and rail' in the dust.
Third: Meta-admin interface included. That's right, if you thought django's "freebie" admin interface was rad, wait till you see web2py's. It's not just an app-specific admin panel (like django's), it's also a panel to admin all of your available apps their contents and settings. It's a really awesome feature, specially if you are developing/maintaining more than one web app.
Fourth: Built-in web-based IDE? Yes, web-based built-in IDE. When was the last time that, out of the box, you could have a rather complete web-based IDE to get your scaffolding, code generators, models and views and get you started with all the rest of your coding (Zen Conding included) with Rails --or django for that matter? Hmmm I'm guessing never. You could, theoretically, never have to run a shell command (other than to start the web2py driver app) to develop your app. I'd like to emphasize, it's not just a gimmick for "ooo's and ahhh's". It's a very powerful and time-saving tool.
Fifth: Adhering to standards and very well suited for RESTful apps. Classic and elegant /noun/verb (corresponding to controller/action) URLs makes app design straight forward.
Sixth: Built-ins. Web2py has an incredible collection of built-in widgets, forms, validators, types, and so forth. These are great for turn-key proof-of-concepts (or production-ready apps, if these do what you need).
Seventh: top-notch security. This is something the team who developed web2py worked hard to tackle. Web2py addresses OWASP's top ten security issues/vectors throughout their apps. That way you can focus on coding functionality and much less time worrying about the plethora of security risks web applications can have.
There's a lot more I could talk about, for instance its powerful database abstraction layer, it's intuitive templating engine , its form generators, its WSGI-compliance (which is almost a requirement to run in production environments), but I leave that as an exercise to the reader :)
First: it's completely self-contained and self-dependent. All it requires to run is python (2.6+) installed in your computer.
Second: Documentation, documentation, documentation. Of all the MVC frameworks out there (including some that are much older and "mature"), I've never seen so much care and effort put into documentation as with web2py. The documentation is not just a collection of half-assed tutorials with a few code snippets here and there with some commentary and whatnot. No, web2py's documentation is actually a full-fledged and very well written book which you can read online or download and print via PDF. But don't be fooled thinking that just because it's a book that it will be a "slow" book or that it will be full of technical platitudes. On the contrary, its focus in the few chapters is to get you up and running fast without neglecting very useful technical side notes and leaving the thick of deep technical explanation for later chapters. The documentation leaves the likes of django's and rail' in the dust.
Third: Meta-admin interface included. That's right, if you thought django's "freebie" admin interface was rad, wait till you see web2py's. It's not just an app-specific admin panel (like django's), it's also a panel to admin all of your available apps their contents and settings. It's a really awesome feature, specially if you are developing/maintaining more than one web app.
Fourth: Built-in web-based IDE? Yes, web-based built-in IDE. When was the last time that, out of the box, you could have a rather complete web-based IDE to get your scaffolding, code generators, models and views and get you started with all the rest of your coding (Zen Conding included) with Rails --or django for that matter? Hmmm I'm guessing never. You could, theoretically, never have to run a shell command (other than to start the web2py driver app) to develop your app. I'd like to emphasize, it's not just a gimmick for "ooo's and ahhh's". It's a very powerful and time-saving tool.
Fifth: Adhering to standards and very well suited for RESTful apps. Classic and elegant /noun/verb (corresponding to controller/action) URLs makes app design straight forward.
Sixth: Built-ins. Web2py has an incredible collection of built-in widgets, forms, validators, types, and so forth. These are great for turn-key proof-of-concepts (or production-ready apps, if these do what you need).
Seventh: top-notch security. This is something the team who developed web2py worked hard to tackle. Web2py addresses OWASP's top ten security issues/vectors throughout their apps. That way you can focus on coding functionality and much less time worrying about the plethora of security risks web applications can have.
There's a lot more I could talk about, for instance its powerful database abstraction layer, it's intuitive templating engine , its form generators, its WSGI-compliance (which is almost a requirement to run in production environments), but I leave that as an exercise to the reader :)
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Installing Citrix XenApp 6 Fundamentals on Amazon EC2 (from scratch)
Let me begin by saying that it has been a rather painful experience to learn/deal with Citrix XenApp 6. The documentation Citrix provides in their site regarding XenApp on Amazon EC2 is either outdated or slightly inaccurate (and therein a bigger problem). The problem is fundamental and one I'm afraid of Citrix has done on purpose: even a small mistake during installation can spoil your install forever and leaving you with very little options other than to start anew (literally! start from a clean OS image). The same is also true for upgrading/downgrading XenApp: it's just not possible to uninstall and upgrade. You must do fresh install from scratch. Citrix's XenApp forums seem to be packed with troubleshooting threads full of "I have that problem too" replies most of which with no official response/answer. They have two official blog entries specific to XenApp on EC2, but they are either no longer true or assume you have substantial knowledge of Citrix XenApp (and all its tricky parts). So, in this blog entry, I'm going to try to document my steps so that if should someone else find themselves on the same boat, they can at least go over these steps and see if they are of any help.
For the steps that follow, I'm going to assume that, just like me, the reader has little or no experience installing or administering Citrix XenApp and that the XenApp install is intended for external access to apps (sans VPN). I'm further going to assume the reader has an active EC2 account and that he or she is able to launch new instances and that he or she is well aware that this will incur in charges in accordance to AWS EC2 pricing.
1. Launch (i.e. new) a large instance with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with SQL Server Express and IIS (AMI Id: ami-42bd442b). SQL Server and IIS are requirements. Make sure you do so with a valid keypair so that you can later retrieve and decrypt the auto-generated Administrator password.
2. After waiting a few minutes retrieving the instance's auto-generated admin password, fire up your favorite Remote Desktop client and start a session to the instance you just launched.
3. Download (to the instance) and install whatever ISO-mounting software you prefer and install, I use PowerISO.
4. In your instance go to start menu and type "EC2Config" and wait until "EC2ConfigService Settings" shows up, select to run it.
4.a. Once the utility comes up, make sure to uncheck "Set Computer Name", "Initialize Drives", and "Set Password". Click Apply then OK.
5. Go to start menu, find "Computer", right click, click on Properties in the contextual menu.
5.a. In the Computer name, domain and workgroup settings click on Change settings, then click on the Change... button and give your computer a new name (prefearably something you easily remember and you'll use this name for installation and licensing steps as well).
5.b. Click OK couple times and you'll be prompted to reboot, click ok and then click on Close. Reboot.
6. Go to Citrix -> Product And Solutions -> XenApp -> Try (here) -> choose "Turnkey solution for small businesses up to 75 users" follow registration procedures until you're prompted to download and you're given a license number. If you already have a license number for XenApp 6 Fundamentals, you can try downloading directly here.
7. Enable .NET 3.5 (and make sure you don't have .NET 4+ installed).
8. Mount the ISO as a logical drive (with PowerISO or whatever ISO tool you use).
9. In your file explorer navigate to: {DRIVE LETTER}:\W2k8 and click on setup.exe (after agreeing to the license terms, ofter a dialog warning will show up telling you that other users might be logged on, ignore that and click OK). Please note that setup.exe must be "Run as Administrator", else it will fail.
9.a. In the setup workflow set Application Server as installation type.
9.b. Since this will be a test/trial environment, select "Disable Shadowing" then click next.
10. Set your admin username and password. I recommend using the same Domain\UserName and password you have in that machine.
Hopefully the installation will now complete successfully. If it failed along the way, it can be rather difficult to debug since the log file messages are rather devoid of any semantic meaning. As a last ditch effort, try uninstalling the very last module that failed to install/configure. and the try setup.exe again (of course, don't forget to "Run as Administrator").
Re/Sources:
PowerCram
Citrix XenApp on EC2 blog entry
For the steps that follow, I'm going to assume that, just like me, the reader has little or no experience installing or administering Citrix XenApp and that the XenApp install is intended for external access to apps (sans VPN). I'm further going to assume the reader has an active EC2 account and that he or she is able to launch new instances and that he or she is well aware that this will incur in charges in accordance to AWS EC2 pricing.
1. Launch (i.e. new) a large instance with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with SQL Server Express and IIS (AMI Id: ami-42bd442b). SQL Server and IIS are requirements. Make sure you do so with a valid keypair so that you can later retrieve and decrypt the auto-generated Administrator password.
2. After waiting a few minutes retrieving the instance's auto-generated admin password, fire up your favorite Remote Desktop client and start a session to the instance you just launched.
3. Download (to the instance) and install whatever ISO-mounting software you prefer and install, I use PowerISO.
4. In your instance go to start menu and type "EC2Config" and wait until "EC2ConfigService Settings" shows up, select to run it.
4.a. Once the utility comes up, make sure to uncheck "Set Computer Name", "Initialize Drives", and "Set Password". Click Apply then OK.
5. Go to start menu, find "Computer", right click, click on Properties in the contextual menu.
5.a. In the Computer name, domain and workgroup settings click on Change settings, then click on the Change... button and give your computer a new name (prefearably something you easily remember and you'll use this name for installation and licensing steps as well).
5.b. Click OK couple times and you'll be prompted to reboot, click ok and then click on Close. Reboot.
6. Go to Citrix -> Product And Solutions -> XenApp -> Try (here) -> choose "Turnkey solution for small businesses up to 75 users" follow registration procedures until you're prompted to download and you're given a license number. If you already have a license number for XenApp 6 Fundamentals, you can try downloading directly here.
7. Enable .NET 3.5 (and make sure you don't have .NET 4+ installed).
8. Mount the ISO as a logical drive (with PowerISO or whatever ISO tool you use).
9. In your file explorer navigate to: {DRIVE LETTER}:\W2k8 and click on setup.exe (after agreeing to the license terms, ofter a dialog warning will show up telling you that other users might be logged on, ignore that and click OK). Please note that setup.exe must be "Run as Administrator", else it will fail.
9.a. In the setup workflow set Application Server as installation type.
9.b. Since this will be a test/trial environment, select "Disable Shadowing" then click next.
10. Set your admin username and password. I recommend using the same Domain\UserName and password you have in that machine.
Hopefully the installation will now complete successfully. If it failed along the way, it can be rather difficult to debug since the log file messages are rather devoid of any semantic meaning. As a last ditch effort, try uninstalling the very last module that failed to install/configure. and the try setup.exe again (of course, don't forget to "Run as Administrator").
Re/Sources:
PowerCram
Citrix XenApp on EC2 blog entry
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