Murray’s Blog

Well, the veil has been lifted on the Apple iPad and pundits are busy asking whether there is really such a need for a device in this particular “sub-notebook” niche—especially one at this particular price point.

And once again I shake my head; they just don’t get it… yet. To paraphrase Clinton: “It’s all about the UI, dummy.”

I actually blogged about this well over two years ago. Back when OS X Leopard was coming out (yes, I’m talking about “old” 10.5) there was the introduction of the “Core Animation” API that was the harbinger to things like the sleek iPhone UI and elements popping up on the desktop like the animated “Cover Flow” of iTunes or the Finder.

The iPad will usher in a small but steady revolution as small, intrepid programmers find ways to create very targeted, very specialized apps that make the iPad the perfect tool for business solutions. It will be the architect or interior designer who manages to make a lightweight CAD application that can be really portable, allowing floorplans to be quickly entered into the device while he or she walks through an old house; it will be the medical technician or the factory worker who finally has an application with a user interface that doesn’t force and endless stream of window clicking to enter a simple piece of data; it is the cashier or the maître d’ or the dance choreographer…

Anyway, I suggest anyone interested should actually read that old blog article I wrote in 2007. It still applies.

Up until a week ago I couldn’t say much about OS X (specifically the new 10.5 Leopard release) or the iPhone (which I broke down and bought two months ago). The reason I couldn’t talk about Leopard was that I’m an ADC (Apple Developer Connection) member and I’ve been play-testing 10.5 for months, and I was bound by a non-disclosure agreement.

Well, Leopard has been released so the NDA doesn’t apply (much). I mention the iPhone because my iPhone thoughts are related to OS X Leopard. Let me explain…
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As you may have noticed, this site has gotten a much-needed (interim) face-lift. The old Wulan theme was nice in its simplicity, but it was ultimately broken.

I spend a couple hours this morning browsing through the big ol’ WordPress Theme Viewer to see if I could find something that would serve my purpose, and I’ve got to say I’m amazed at the amount of sloppy work out there! I went through almost 800 themes looking for something that had (a) Clean Design and (b) Complete Functionality.
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I was writing a blog post earlier today and I suddenly found myself wishing that I could enhance my WordPress blog to give a word count in my blog entries. A cursory examination of the available plugins revealed a stark lack of any good plugins. (There were a couple peoples’ blogs where they said “I just wrote this plugin” but there wasn’t even a stupid link to download anything.)

So as a bit of a diversion, I wrote my first formal WordPress plugin to add this functionality. (And if you notice either on my main page or the single-entry view page, there’s a Word Count now showing!)

I even went a bit further and explored “internationalization” and figured out how to nationalize the plugin so it could display that “Word Count” label in French or Spanish. (The two languages I know well enough to translate. Maybe I’ll look up my Russian later.) And being the geek that I am, I’ve got to say it was incredible fun spending a few hours on my weekend to toy around and put this together. I love being a geek!

I’ve setup a static software page for my MTW Word Count Plugin.

I’ve written in the past about the wonders of (free) OTA (Over-the-air) digital television. It’s an oversimplification to call this HDTV, because there are many digital signals that broadcast specifically non-high-def or “standard definition” digital television.

For a quick refresher about the wonders of digital OTA television (also called ATSC) here are some of the neat features:
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