Geeky Yet Waterproof

On Tuesday, July 15th 2008, I officially released the software I’ve been working on by myself for almost two full years. It’s called Sleep Blaster. And what is it? The first-ever Mac alarm clock that really turns off when you yell at it. That’s right. It uses either iTunes or computerized dynamite (you heard me) to wake you up. It will play the sound for a few seconds, then pause to listen for a few seconds, then play the sound for a few seconds, etc. If it hears you shout during the pause, it will stop the alarm!
And it doesn’t just wake you up — it can also put you to sleep either by playing iTunes for a set amount of time, or with its built-in ocean wave generator! (Which, by the way, isn’t a flat recording of ocean waves, but an algorithm for simulating the sound thereof.)
But there’s more still. How many times have you set your alarm for 8am, and at precisely 8pm, your alarm rings? If you’re like me, the answer is “a lot”. But with the advent of Sleep Blaster: no more. Sleep Blaster comes with a revolutionary Stupidity Prevention System (SPS), which warns you if it thinks you’re setting the alarm for an unlikely hour.

So, all this for $8 — roughly the price of a hamburger and fries. And how did the launch go? Well, the first day was pretty unexciting — as I expected. How are you supposed to get the word out to people? Apparently, by submitting it to the Apple downloads page. Because on the second day, it racked in FOURTY FIVE (45) downloads, and its first joyful purchase. And by the third day, I received my 2nd payment of $8, and the downloads count climbed to… 100? Nope. 200? Still nope. 515 downloads.

So as you can imagine, I’m pretty excited right now. If all works as according to my almighty plan, I’ll get enough sales from this to call it a Real Job™. And it will be one I enjoy mightily.

If you have a Mac running Leopard, you can download Sleep Blaster from the website.

After playing with my new MacBook for several days, I am even more amazed than I was when it first came. It turns out, this is no ordinary computer… As I was getting ready to leave for swim practice yesterday, it somehow knew I was about to go somewhere, and rotor blades unfolded out of the CD drive and then it automatically opened up and flashed a message that said “HOLD ON”! It flew me to swim practice!

Then, when I woke up this morning, there was an english muffin and a glass of orange juice already sitting by my bed, with the MacBook next to it — but I had left it on the desk last night!

And need I mention that nobody’s had to do the dishes since Thursday…?

On Thursday, my geek life was made anew. In other words, my black MacBook arrived.

With a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor and a 250GB hard drive, I cannot justly describe the difference in speed, power, and sleekness from my old PowerBook G4, so all I will say is this: HOLY AWESOME, BATMAN!

My trusty Powerbook, which has served me well, was diagnosed (by yours truly) with cancer of the hard drive. The data is safe (thanks to Time Machine), but the drive will eventually have to be amputated. Fortunately, being a computer, it’s slightly easier to cure than were it human.

This infirmity can be looked upon in a positive light, however. For one thing, the hard drive can be replaced with a larger one (80GB is much too small these days). But most of all…

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*MAKE A WISH*
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*JUST KIDDING, I REALLY DO DESPISE THOSE EMAILS*
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I ordered a MacBook today. Yes, not only did I empty my bank account, I blew a 20 foot hole into the ground. But for a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB memory, a 250GB hard drive, and an Apple logo in the sleek black polycarbonate shell, it’s worth it.

As a result of my biology experiment which was commenced several weeks ago, I had a face-to-face encounter with some aliens microbes:

As most Mac users are aware, tomorrow is iTuesday, the first iDay of Macworld i2008. And iI know where I’ll be tomorrow…

I have now successfully transfered all the posts from my old Typo blog to here. It was a harsh and dangerous journey, leading more than a hundred data-bearing elephants over snowy mountains, across deep valleys, and through sketchy web servers. We even had to battle the dreaded Windows Blue Screens who sought to capture the data and destroy it.
But though the march was treacherous and the interwebs slow, we managed to pull through and finally arrive at this place of safety we call WordPress.
Thus, here shalt the data remain for ever after. (Until I switch to ANOTHER blog!)

Sorry my blog has been down for several days. I won’t go into extreme detail, but as with most problems, it started with Windows…

Warning: Geeky Section Begins
I was trying to install Windows using Boot Camp on the iMac. In the Blue Screen of Death installer screen, I selected what I thought was the right partition - and what turned out to be the wrong partition - to format, then hit “Continue”.
But don’t worry, I didn’t format the wrong partition… worse. Windows being, well, Windows, it gave me some sort of a confirmation screen before formatting, which had a “Continue” button, but no “Back” button.
Realizing it was the wrong partition, I had no choice but to shut off the iMac using the power button, and try to start over.

But when I tried to start it up again, it got stuck on the gray startup screen. I tried booting from the Leopard install CD… no luck. Booting in Target Disk Mode… nope. Every possible reset button or startup option… dang. It appeared that Windows had, without telling me, done something Terrible to the hard drive, rendering it useless.
End Geeky Section

So we took the iMac in to the Mac Store for repairs, and it turned out the logic board was fried. Don’t ask me how some funky (Windows) software could kill the logic board… but it did.
Luckily, the iMac is still under warranty, so we get it repaired for free. Unfortunately, we won’t get it back until about Monday, and I’m leaving for the Philippines this weekend!
So in the meantime at least, I’ll be using this WordPress blog to report from across the Pacific.

But now that I think about it, I think I’ll just use this permanently. Hosting a blog on my own server has been fun, but it’s gotten to be too much trouble having to babysit my blog.
Have no fear; I’ll import all my old posts to this blog, so I won’t have lost anything, though I’ll have to wait till I get back from the Philippines to do it. But you can live for a month without my old blog posts, can’t you?

So the conclusion is: update your bookmarks for my blog to www.eamon.the-byte-factory.com, because that’s where I am and that’s where I’ll be. 

This post is one week overdue, but I’ll just start right off: Leopard exudes Cool from every byte, all the way down to the hologram on the packaging.



The new features for mere consumers, like Time Machine, make it worth it, but what’s even cooler (to me, being a Geek) are the new developer tools.

For over a year, I’ve been using dirty hacks in my code to make things look nice. Now, I can delete all that code, because it’s built-in!

Another awesomenitude is the new Core Animation framework, which allows you to easily include interface animation in your app. There will no longer be any excuse for a non-cool interface.



Sorry I don’t have time for a full review, because right now I’m going to play with Leopard.

Leopard is almost upon us. When will it pounce on you?