I’ve seen an article by Miguel de Icaza, a great developer oft criticised for his love of Microsoft technologies on Linux. His latest piece is about his love for Mac OS X as a desktop and how he used to feel guilty about it (given his very impressive open source credentials). I used to feel the same also. Android even as a platform more closely follows my ideals, yet I am exclusively an avid iOS user at this point.

I recently finished reading Steve Jobs, the biography by Walter Isaacson. I can’t add much more then the extensive coverage that it has recieved in the press to date. Instead I paraphrase really badly a friend of mine, Noel Hudson: All that book thought me was dropping acid and treating people really badly works as a life strategy. While that’s not entirely true it is a humourous look at the books tone.

I recently read an article that posed the question “Does your dock reflect your priorities?” - which is an interesting question. Further breaking that idea down leads to: What apps do I need the most? What apps should be next (or be higher priority)? iPhone dock Phone app: pretty self explanatory Safari: Still the best mobile browser I think (though if Google ever gets going on a proper Chrome browser for Android that may change) Tweetbot: I like Twitter the most of the social networks and tweetbot is the Swiss army knife if twitter clients Music (aka.

A great essay on why programming is hard: It’s harder than you think. Right now you’re probably underestimating the amount of frustration and discomfort you’re about to experience, without realizing that by doing so you’re creating all sorts of subtle barriers to obtaining a deep understanding of programming. Language does matter I find this part extremely true: my first language is Java. Every programming language I’ve tried since has been through comparing it to Java.

I spend a lot of my day in heavy development tools such as Eclipse1, but often for editing simple XML I just want a quick tool to make fast changes. If I use the CLI (or Linux) it’ll be Vim, if I’m on Mac it’ll be Textmate but on Windows it’s Notepad++. I haven’t found an editor on Windows as clean as Notepad++ (if you use a tool professionally, you get to know it’s quirks pretty fast) for editing text of any kind.

As I’ve mentioned before1, I regularly watch technology podcasts and I’ve had a subscription to sites like Lynda.com. Between those and Youtube, I’ve watched an awful lot of technology how-to videos and 90% of them are quite poor in terms of editing, sound and being coherent/properly scripted. Sometimes though it’s a joy to genuinely learn something new in a short, concise and to the point video. This haktip is right up there with being among the best: short, concise, to the point and about a utility that will be super-useful to me.

Ikea the TV Business? Who would have forseen the day. After looking at their video I must say I can see the reasons quite clearly: TV’s look awkward in almost everyones home. They don’t fit in our units, the cables are in awkward positions and you can never find the remote1. I’m a fan of all things cheap and Ikea I must confess, so I’ll be watching this development with great interest!

Our fifth slot on Athlone Community Radio. Aired the third Monday in March 2012 on ACR 88.4FM in Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland. Topics Covered: iPad 3 Launch Netflix vs. Lovefilm Online TV: RTE Player, AERtv, 3Player, Filmon In this episode Patrick and Neil discuss the most popular streaming video on the market and the launch of the iPad 3. Subscribe: Listen now: Your browser does not support the audio tag. Download Link: TechnologySlot19-mar-12

Our fourth slot on Athlone Community Radio. Aired the third Monday in January 2012 on ACR 88.4FM in Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland. Topics Covered: TuneIn Radio App Path App Twitter App Facebook App In this episode Patrick and Neil discuss the most popular apps on the market, across all major platforms. Subscribe: Download Link: 21st Feb 2012 - Tech Slot

I’ve only recently started cooking meals from scratch and it’s a worthwhile experience! By my side is an awesome cookbook produced by the Health Service Executive (HSE) and Money Advice and Budgeting Service (MABS). It’s generally all healthy food and every recipe indicates cost and portion size. It even has meals for one, meals for weaning babies, desserts, you name it! So what’s the cost of this fabulous book? I got it for free.