JamesAsh.com

Slowly, I am learning how to develop mobile apps on the iOS platform. That means for the iPad, iPhone, as well as the Mac. (I think I can make something for Macs. I know there is a Mac App store.) I will report on that more as time goes on, but that’s not the point of today’s post.

Today, we are here to talk about my new goal of making webpages from the iPad. In the past, I have used the standard tools of the trade: Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Eclipse, and the like. Unfortunately, I do not have those tools on the iPad. I have found a great text editor in Textastic to write the code that goes on the page, but finding a suitable graphics program may be difficult.

Sketchbook Express is the first program that I am going to try. If I had the ability to draw, I think it would be a lot easier. Plus, Photoshop has a way of helping you correct your mistakes. It looks like a fun program though.

Traditionally, when you design a website, you make a composite image and then cut it into smaller graphics along guides to make it all fit just right. I’m not seeing a way to do that with the iPad, so I may have to come up with a workaround. We’ll see what I can do.
I’m not promising an award winning website; my goal is just to create one that looks like someone’s nephew didn’t make it. Hopefully, that is a realistic goal.

Sorry that this post isn’t very informative. I just wanted to lay the groundwork for some potential new posts down the line.

I’m going to stop you right there. Right where? Right at the point where you were about to say any of the following things:

“Pro wrestling is fake.”
“Pro wrestling is for rednecks.”
“How do you watch those ‘roided up freaks pretend to beat each other up?”
“It’s still real to me, dammit!”

I love watching pro wrestling every week. There’s something about it that makes me feel relaxed, so much so that if I am having a bout with insomnia, turning on an episode of Monday Night RAW is like singing me a lullaby.

Now, as much as I enjoy watching two “superstars” face off in the squared circle, I can’t stand to watch it live on TV anymore. I have to watch it on the DVR so I can forward through all of the crap that fills a show each week.  As much as wrestling is labeled “a soap opera for men,” that’s not really an apt description.  But that’s what it has become since Vince McMahon decided to pull the curtain back and call it “sports entertainment.”

The era of sports entertainment hasn’t been all bad for the wrestling aficionado, but it has been different.  Back in the day, wrestling had a lot of people known as jobbers – someone paid to take the loss and make the star look good.  Now, they just pay a lot of guys a lot of money and try to make them all superstars instead of having jobbers.

Wrestling also used to feature a lot of interviews in between matches, either to promote a coming pay-per-view or a live show in a certain city.  Now, those segments are all written by aspiring screen writers and sound nothing like what wrestling has been in the past.  The interview segments have been replaced by one of two things. Either the wrestler in the ring talking about the person he is feuding with, which is good, or some comedy bit in the back involving midgets, which is bad.

I know there are a lot of people out there that don’t like the programming.  It’s easy to criticize it as an industry. Some of the lowest common denominator storylines they use are hard to put up with. Put for me, pro wrestling will always be comfort viewing.

One of the fun things about getting an iPad is getting to play with all of the new apps that don’t fit on your iPhone.  Today’s app is called Flipboard, which calls itself “your personalized social magazine.”

Flipboard is a news aggregator that includes your Twitter and Facebook feeds. But it doesn’t lay everything out like your typical aggregator. It lays it out like a magazine (see right). Hence, the description.

The first thing I like about it is that the layout changes every time you open it.  That could be irritating for some, but I like that it feels fresh when I am looking at tweets that I already read in Twitter.

It also pulls in all of your friends’ Facebook photos and makes you interested in seeing those vacation pictures just because the layout is different.  (Can we all admit that we skip those pictures when we are scrolling through our feeds online?)  I just find that looking at the pictures in a more offline format takes away from the beating of needing to constantly click Next.

The one drawback that I have seen so far is that there seems to be a limited number of providers that you can add without going out and finding a feed on your own.  One feed I didn’t have to go out and find is Uncrate. That’s daily gadget reading for me, even though it’s just a list of stuff I want.

In all, Flipboard is a fun app that presents everything I read to me like a magazine. I like it a lot. The set up is quick and easy and it’s a fresh way to read the stuff you were going to read in the first place.

This is the box my new iPad came in. If you follow me on any social platform, you will know that I am the proud owner of said device for almost 30 hours. Many people may wonder why I bought an iPad in the first place. Here are some of my reasons.

First, I like to tweet about shows I am watching. The iPhone is a little cumbersome for that task, but manageable. I find that the iPad is great for the job. I am typing here much in the same manner that I would on a small laptop. It feels more natural.

Second, I am bad with faces. I rarely know who I am watching on a show and where I have seen them before. I was using the imdb app for that, but now I can just look at the full blown imdb site. That’s pretty cool.

Last, I just wanted a new toy. I am sure that this will be a fun device to play with. I am already regretting not getting 3G service on it, but there are work arounds with that and my iPhone’s mobile hotspot if I decide that I truly need that capability.

People in my office have potted plants that they can’t seem to take care of. I don’t know how hard it is to add a little water to the soil, but some people can’t do it.

There is a pair of spathiphyllum (peace lily, closet plant) that have been passed around, but I have largely cared for them. A couple of months ago, I stopped watering one of them to see if the plant’s obvious creep to death would spur action in the new owner. As you can see from the attached picture, it did not.

I asked the person if she watered it. “No, I just use my coffee,” she replied. I guess I should add that there is a 2 liter bottle of water sitting on her desk that is just for this purpose.

There isn’t really a conclusion to this story, other than to say that I shouldn’t be surprised that the current citizenry have been conditioned to not take care of needs when they believe others should do it for them. But that’s more of a statement than I want to make. I’ll post another picture when I fully rehab the plant.

If I think about it, I like to flip to the end of 60 Minutes on Sundays to watch Andy Rooney. If you don’t know who he is, Andy Rooney is an old curmudgeon that covered the Continental Congress when we were forming the country. He has a newspaper column too (a what?).

Every week, he does the same thing on 60 Minutes where he reads and writes a similar piece. He is the grumpiest old man I’ve ever seen. It amazes me that he can come up with the complaints things he does. Most of his complaints stem from his inability to keep pace in an ever-changing world. He still goes to the post office. He types his columns on a typewriter. He signs autographs with quill and ink.

The real reason I enjoy Andy Rooney is that I secretly envy him. I long for the days when I am a crazy old man that hates the world. I want to wax nostalgic about how I miss 8 bit video games, mix tapes recorded from the radio, and junk food. I know how you feel Andy. Keep carrying the torch for the rest of us complainers.