General

General

Smartphone Market Share

By on Tuesday, March 8, 2011
image Credit: Nielsen

Nielsen released data on smartphone market share as of Nov 2010 to Jan 2011. From an OS perspective, definitely it shows the Android juggernaut’s seemingly unstoppable rise to the top. From a hardware perspective, it’s interesting to note how Apple and Blackberry(!) still hold a huge chunk of the market. But HTC is waiting on the wings.

It seems that at this point, focusing on iOS development is still a good strategy. Noting, of course that the other iOS devices, iPad and iPad 2, are the leaders in the tablet space. But investing in Android development should already be in the pipeline.

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General

Objective-C: Getting Down and Dirty

By on Monday, March 7, 2011

Delved deeper into Objective-C programming over the weekend. As a challenge, I ported a Java program  that I cooked up in roughly 30 minutes. No, it’s not Hello World :P After several hours, I was still not done! Okay, so I got a little bit fancy with the Objective-C version but most of the time I was slowed down by syntax, API adjustments, and memory management. That’s just the way learning goes, I guess. I certainly look forward to the day when I can cook up an Objective-C program in 30 minutes.

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General

Baby Proofing

By on Saturday, March 5, 2011

Jeanne is wandering around on her own a lot now and I spent some time during the afternoon to do a bit of baby proofing. I put on corner bumpers to the TV table and installed safety latches on low-lying kitchen cabinets. That should keep her away from the contents for a while.

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General

Black Swan

By on Friday, March 4, 2011

Black Swan is about a Nina, a psychotic ballerina trying to perfect the roles of the white swan and black swan in Swan Lake. As she struggles against the challenge, she is hindered by painful pyschotic attacks but which seems to lead her closer to perfecting the role. As perfection comes within grasp, she realizes that it’s not just her who wants the role.

If that sounds familiar, you’ve probably seen Pi also from Darren Aronofsky.

Through great movie-making, Black Swan successfully draws you into the pyschotic world of the lead character for a pretty immersive move watching experience, i.e. you will almost feel the full range of emotions Nina felt. Natalie Portman is absolutely brilliant in the move. As a bonus, it has a lot of beautiful ballet dancing and, of course, the much hyped girl-on-girl action with Mila Kunis. Not for the casual viewer as the movie is dark and heavy but if you’re a serious film buff, you will be rewarded.

Rating: 4/5

 

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