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The problem isn’t given, especially in the real world

People aren’t comfortable when the problem isn’t given. This semester, I’m the Lab Assistant for ITP 499, iPhone App Development. This week, I felt that my style doesn’t mesh with the students. They care about definite assignments. They want to know exactly what to do, and exactly when they are done. But when I build…Continue Reading…

Open source browser-based text editor

An Ajax-powered, browser-based text editor with syntax highlighting, speed and source code. And it’s installable at your own domain, in your own webspace. Awesome. I like web-based stuff. Nowadays it’s commonplace for people to run multiple browsers at once, just because they’re using so many different web apps simultaneously. It’s this month’s Dreamhost Site of…Continue Reading…

Apple Warranty Lookup – AppleCare

This was harder to find than I expected: https://selfsolve.apple.com/GetWarranty.do Given a Mac’s serial number, you can look up its warranty info online there. It’ll also let you know if the computer’s covered by AppleCare. It is an estimate, however. I’m not sure why it would happen, but some people report that it can be inaccurate….Continue Reading…

WordPress Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘<' in index.php on line 5

My mother’s blog — Adventures in Parenting.org — was hacked today. It took a couple hours to do the research and fix the site, but I think things have mostly settled down now. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to know — without re-doing the entire site — that everything is completely clean. So comb through the site,…Continue Reading…

Snow Leopard Upgrade Time: 1 Hour

I just (finally!) upgraded my main computer, a MacBook Pro, to Snow Leopard (from 10.5.8 Leopard). It took 1 hour. My processor is a 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, I have 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, my hard drive has 53.26 GB free, and there are 98 files in my Applications folder. I’d…Continue Reading…

Mac vs. PC: Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7

There’s lots of talk comparing Snow Leopard to Windows 7, but all I’ve seen so far is heavily biased toward the Mac side. I’m a Mac user myself, but this still strikes me as being quite unfair. So I’ll point out here the things that important details that others are omitting. Some people don’t like…Continue Reading…