Jud Stephenson

iPhone Venerability — Not Good

Jud — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:24:02 +0000

It just sucks when things like phones can be made to make calls that cost you big $$$.

The Three Advantages Of A Startup

Jud — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:14:09 +0000

No History. What I mean by this is that in a start-up have no baggage, nothing to protect. In a start-up, you can dream up crazy ideas, without any regard to protecting the company’s revenues/ employees/customers, or upsetting the politics of the organization.

Dems Blow Bill

Jud — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:30:27 +0000

There is nothing more liberal than a government subsidized bailout, and the dems won’t pass it.

Reverse Engineering The Google Voice Search App For iPhone

Jud — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:16:33 +0000

Andy Baio:
Here’s my best guess: When you first start speaking into the microphone, the iPhone app opens a connection to Google’s server, waits for you to finish talking, and then does a quick and dirty conversion into a tiny binary representation of the waveform. (And I do mean tiny. These files are between 100-300 bytes.)

Intel Launches Core i7 — Nehalem

Jud — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:09:48 +0000

Ars is back with an overview of Intel’s most recently launched processors, the Core i7, also known by its codename “Nehalem”:
At an event in San Francisco Monday, Intel officially launched Core i7, the new quad-core, 45nm processor popularly known by its “Nehalem” codename. As we found in our recent review, i7 is a media processing monster. When you combine the new core’s microarchitectural performance enhancements with the bandwidth afforded the device by its new QuickPath Interconnect (QPI), you get some serious floating-point power.
These things look good for the Mac Pro eh?

Minority Report UI Exists!

Jud — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:39:27 +0000

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iPod Stick Debunked.

Jud — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:35:40 +0000

Love it! The site that got absolutely nothing right is now debunking rumors (not that this one needed much help anyways).

Mises On “Good Government”

Jud — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:32:11 +0000

Another great article by the Mises Institute.

Realtime Stock Quotes API — Updated

Jud — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:39:55 +0000

Just updated the Realtime Stock Quotes API to allow for json output as well as a user-definable callback function when using json output. Other goodies are in the works, such as the ability to get historical quotes via json and xml. Access to greater analytical data is forthcoming. The new parameters are outputType [xml or json] and the name of the callback function [optional, only with json]. The API is backwards compatible, and the new features can be accessed by the following:
http://judstephenson.com/api/Quotes/Realtime/aapl/outputType/callback
http://judstephenson.com/api/Quotes/Realtime/aapl/json/
http://judstephenson.com/api/Quotes/Realtime/aapl/json/callback

iKanji Touch — Sneak Peak

Jud — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 02:14:35 +0000

Beautiful app for iPhone.

Realtime Stock Quotes API [xml] — Open For Beta Testing

Jud — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 23:08:25 +0000

As with most great ideas (not saying this one is great, but just follow me here), they are generally thought up and developed out of necessity. Ruby on Rails was developed by 37signals for internal use, but was released to the general public and has caused a massive “Happy Coder” movement.

With that said, my idea probably won’t start a movement, but it will allow more web services to take advantage of real-time stock quotes by providing a simple xml api (+ JSON very soon). For now, the beta API only includes access to the actual stock prices + monetary and percentage change. My private API, I guess it would be the beta’s beta, includes access to more analytical data. These features should be released within the coming weeks [2, max].

The API is one of my first attempts at RESTful API design, and, although simple, this realtime stock quote API is technically RESTful. As it begins to incorporate more features, the RESTful design will become more evident, as in GET, POST, DELETE, and UPDATE http requests. As of now, the API simply includes one URL:
http://judstephenson.com/api/Quotes/Realtime/Symbol
Examples of which include:
http://judstephenson.com/api/Quotes/Realtime/aapl
http://judstephenson.com/api/Quotes/Realtime/amagx
http://judstephenson.com/api/Quotes/Realtime/xoho

I am working on offering a JSON option for the data output (with a callback of course), but as of right now, only XML output is supported, but it isn’t that complicated to parse. Since this API is a simple one-liner, the documentation for it is sparse [read: non-existant], but you should be able to get the hang of it.

Now for the disclaimer: This API is released to the public without any warranty, expressed or implied. I am not responsible for any damage you do with it (if thats possible) and I can not guarantee its 100% uptime (although it shouldn’t ever go down). You are free to use this API in an suitable manner, although, if the traffic to the API becomes too much of a strain on the server, I may limit the number of requests/hr. Other than that, have fun hacking away.

Update: The realtime stock quotes api has been updated! New features include json output with the ability to have a user-definable callback function.

MINI E — Electric MINI

Jud — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:41:04 +0000

The MINI E is basically a beta test for BMW engineers to learn more about how lithium ion-powered plug-in cars perform in real world conditions. In a relatively unusual move, people in the warm climes of the west coast don’t get an exclusive on this one. Customers in the New York/New Jersey area will be able to try out the MINI E in the cold as well.

Google Mobile For iPhone — Voice Recognition

Jud — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:35:48 +0000

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Papermaster Countersues [shock]

Jud — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:29:26 +0000

In a world where litigation has become commonplace, it is no surprise that Apple’s recent hire, Mark Papermaster, has countersued IBM in an effort to take his position at Apple as chief of devices hardware engineering.

Apple Close To Pushing OSX 10.5.6?

Jud — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:26:36 +0000

Apple Insider thinks so.

Advice For Indie Mac Developers — Followup

Jud — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:20:44 +0000

After reading the post by Brett Simmons, Kevin Walzer wrote an interesting piece about following in the footsteps of the indie Mac developer community, and whether or not it is a good or bad thing.

Pricing Your iPhone App Out Of Existance

Jud — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:16:01 +0000

What a great article by Andy Finnell covering some of the myths about iPhone App pricing, as well as dishing out some cold hard facts about how many copies an iPhone developer can expect to sell after the initial release (16). Great quote from Andy:
The problem that you’re likely to have, like most developers, is setting a price that you can live on. The temptation will be to price your app too low, such that developing the application isn’t sustainable. You might have the best of intentions, but in the end you’ll cause the premature death of your business before it even gets a chance.
Not going to lie, but I had thought that exact thing when thinking about pricing my upcoming iPhone app. Needless to say, I am now reconsidering.

45 Beautiful 3D Typography Designs

Jud — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:08:23 +0000

Simply stunning.

Advice for Indie Mac Developers

Jud — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:06:16 +0000

Brett Simmons:
Your first thing might not work out. Despite your faith, despite your hard work, your app may fail.
Be ready to write another one. As an indie, that’s one of your best strengths: turning your ship around is as easy as creating a new project in Xcode. Getting going is just a menu command away.
This article has shown up on my RSS reader at least four times, and I think it is worth posting here too. A strong indie community is what makes the developing on the Mac so great and the advice that Brett gives indie Mac and iPhone developers is right on target.

Update: Kevin Walzer has written a followup.

AAPL, GOOG, AMZN — Buying On The Way Down

Jud — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:14:05 +0000

Seeking Alpha:
I like to focus on my average cost on a given stock. And buying on the way down lowers your average cost. I have taken my average cost in GOOG from over $400 to around $350 and if the good till filled orders I placed this morning get filled, I’ll take it to below $320.
I have the same strategy. My average cost on AAPL is $99.00, but not after I buy it again at $89.

The End Of Valleywag

Jud — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:10:47 +0000

Its True.

Landscape Tab Bar For iPhone Apps

Jud — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:07:55 +0000

Very informative piece by Matt Long. Now that the NDA is dead, we are getting a lot of great iPhone App Tutorials, which will lead to better apps.

How To Prepare Your Mac For Sale

Jud — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:01:35 +0000

Dan Benjamin is at it again with a great article on prep’ing your Mac for sale. Having done this before, the only problem I see with his how-to is that the new owner of your computer won’t have iLife pre-installed. Thats alright though, you still have the iLife DVD that shipped with your Mac, right?

Wojo On Storing Passwords

Jud — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:48:41 +0000

I’m always shocked to find out that some web developers still store passwords in plain text in dB column called “password”.

Great article on how web developers should store users passwords in a db.

Intel to Launch Core i7 1Q 2009

Jud — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:45:40 +0000

Digitimes:
Intel will launch ten CPUs for the Xeon 5500 series with the high end topping out as a quad-core W5580 running at 3.2GHz. Processor speeds of the remaining 9 models range from 2GHz to 2.93Ghz.