Shawn's Bits

“The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest” – Book Review

Shawn Grimes — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:22:25 +0000

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A fantastic conclusion to the Millenium trilogy. This book was just as great, if not better, than its predecessors. What I loved most was that the book wrapped up all of the loose ends from the entire series, something I wasn’t sure it was going to have time to do as the pages dwindled down. The character and plot development is superb and at times I found myself almost calling out in excitement as the plot developed. The book did a fantastic job of building your relationship with the characters and investing you emotionally as a reader. The technical parts of the book were believable and not outlandish fantasy. I can’t recommend this series enough. It leaves me wanting more and afraid that I will never find another book (let alone series) as compelling.

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New Project – Putt Putt Score Keeper

Shawn Grimes — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:48:27 +0000

Like Putt Putt/Mini Golf? Want to keep score of your games on your iPhone/iPod Touch? I’m looking for feedback and testers of a new app. Here’s your chance to get an app designed the way you want and shape the creation of something fun. Leave a comment or send me an email if you are interested in helping out: shawn [at] shawnsbits[period]com. No experience required but obviously you have to have an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Book Review – “The Girl Who Played With Fire”

Shawn Grimes — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:11:31 +0000

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of the best books I have ever read. This second book in the Stieg Larson series is even more powerful and compelling than the first. Stieg did an amazing job of pulling you to the edge of your seat and then suddenly switching story lines so that you were constantly wanting more. As the details about a story line built up, so did your anticipation to know more and then suddenly he would switch story lines prolonging the satisfaction of knowing the full story. This kind of writing is powerful and enthralling. I was pulled deeply into the story with all the details, character development and plot twist. I can’t recommend this series enough and I’m afraid that any book that I read from this point forward will just leave me wanting for more of Stieg Larson.

One suggestion to readers, do yourself a favor and by this book and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” at the same time. You’ll be glad you did so you can finish the series after you finish this book.

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Looking for StackEm Reviews…

Shawn Grimes — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:34:54 +0000

If you’ve downloaded a copy of StackEm, you would be doing me a great favor if you would leave a review on iTunes or even just rate it. Your reviews help me get more users which encourages me to do more development and release updates, improvements, and new apps. You can rate the game or leave a review by visiting the game in the iTunes store.

If you haven’t played StackEmyet and you would like a copy to review, just leave a comment on this post or send an email to shawn[@]shawnsbits[.]com and I will be in touch.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Book Review

Shawn Grimes — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:06:13 +0000

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is originally a Swedish book and although it has been translated to English very well, I had some troubles keeping characters straight because of the names. But, I generally have a problem keeping characters straight which is one of the reasons I don’t read a lot of fiction. But this book was really enjoyable. At times, I felt like it moved slow but really, I was so enthralled, I was constantly waiting to find out more and hear more about the characters. I just couldn’t consume it fast enough. There were several story lines that intermingled throughout and eventually combined. The book does a good job of finishing each story by the end of the book but you are left wanting more, wanting to know what the next book will have, and thankfully there are two more books in this series. I can’t wait to get the next one.

There was an overall theme carried in the book, that is both obvious and oblivious; at least it was oblivious to me while reading it and then became blatantly apparent when I finished.

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My Latest iPhone/iPad app – StackEm

Shawn Grimes — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:01:44 +0000

I’ve released my second iPhone/iPad app. This time a game called StackEm. StackEm is a connect-four-like game with a three dimensional twist. You can stack larger sized pieces on smaller pieces to block or win. It is inspired by the game Gobblet, one of my favorite board games.

The goal of the game is to get four of your pieces in a row. You can use larger pieces to cover smaller pieces on the board (yours or your opponents) in order to block or win.

I’m currently giving away 5 copies to anyone who comments on the blog posts on the official page: http://bit.ly/91yPAo

Here is a short video showing the game play of version 1.5 (currently pending approval by Apple but the only difference between v1 and v1.5 is the graphics):

Rework – Book Review

Shawn Grimes — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:42:49 +0000

Rework by Jason Fried

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a really short book with a lot of inspirational and sound advice. It offered examples from the authors experiences as founders of Basecamp and Ruby on Rails and how they’ve kept their company small and employees dispersed and have been very successful in a specific market. They haven’t claimed to be anything that they aren’t and they do a few things and do them very well rather than being broad generalists. I liked how they encouraged companies to stay small and profitable rather than expanding and sinking, it sounds obvious but everyone has seen a company who has gotten too big too quick and sank themselves. I also like how they weren’t afraid to get qualified employees where ever they were and aren’t afraid of telecommuting. They are very forward thinking and have built an agile company that is profitable and can respond to change. They are the small ship tacking quickly in the seas.

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Favorite iPad Apps

Shawn Grimes — Sat, 22 May 2010 01:58:09 +0000

Here’s my list of my favorite iPad apps:

Books and Documents
GoodReader for iPad ($0.99) – great PDF reader. Pull files from Google Docs, MobileMe, Web sites, local network shares, or through iTunes.

iBooks (free) – Apple’s own hand at a ebook reader. Pretty good interface, if you want recent books and NY Times Best sellers, you’ll be happy with the selection. Older books or non-popular books are missing from the library. But there is also a great selection of free books from Project Gutenberg.

Kindle (free) – Amazon’s kindle application. The interface is okay, not as good as iBooks but the selection of books is much better and easier to browse.

iVerse Comics (free) – Same interface as the Marvel app but this app includes Marvel and non-Marvel comic books. The interface for reading comic books is just awesome. Read by page or by panel. It has rekindled my interests in comics and I find myself buying one or two a week.

Zinio (free) – Magazine reader for iPad. Decent selection of magazines. If you don’t find the magazine you are looking for, try searching the app store for the name of the magazine, e.g. Vanity Fair has their own app ($4.99).

Productivity

ToDo for iPad ($4.99) – I tried both ToDo and Things ($9.99). I liked ToDo more because it offered online synching with the service Toodledo so I can edit task items on my iPad or at my computer. I also liked the interface better than Things. All my lists were presented on the left hand side when in landscape mode versus Things which required two “clicks” to get to my list of projects. ToDo also supports the idea of tasks having subtasks (they call these project tasks) which I really liked. It would allow you to define milestones with goals for each milestone.

Note Taking

PaperDesk ($1.99) – Hands down the best note taking app. Record audio, type notes or free hand draw them (Stylus recommended – Pogo Sketch).

MultiMedia
Netflix (free) – Manage your Netflix queue from your iPad or watch movies from Netflix on your iPad.

Games
Astraware Sudoku ($4.99) – I haven’t tried all the Sudoku apps but I’ve tried a few and this is my favorite. I like that you can easily make notes in the cell about possible numbers.

Scrabble ($9.99) – Fantastic game play on the iPad. It’s great to play with family and friends and makes the whole game fun and new again. Get the Scrablle Tile Rack app for your iPhone and use your iPhone to hold your tiles while you play a group game.

Demolition Master ($1.99) – As my Father can attest, this is a very addictive game. In part because it is so easy to play yet so challenging. I like the graphics in this game but the game play is a little more interesting in Implode XL ($2.99)

Plants vs Zombies HD($9.99) – A very addictive and fun game.

Angry Birds ($4.99) – a crush the castle clone that is fun but very challenging.

Real Racing HD ($9.99) – it seems expensive but once you see the graphics, you’ll realize that there is a lot of production value behind this game. Great game play and a real testament to the power of the iPad and its graphics.

That’s all for now.

The Power and Portability of the iPad – A True Story

Shawn Grimes — Thu, 20 May 2010 16:52:29 +0000

I just wanted to share a quick story about one of my many positive experiences with the iPad. As you know, I recently gave my sister a hackintosh for her trip to Africa. While I was delivering her gift at dinner, she mentioned the desire to have a blog so she could write about her trip. This is where the iPad came in handy and was incredibly useful.

While at dinner, I fired up my iPad and launched the GoDaddy app. I searched for domains and found that ambergrimes.com was available and registered it.

Next, I logged into my web hosting server with iSSH and provisioned her account, created a new database and installed WordPress. Having the iPad in landscape mode makes the keyboard very usable with two hands and it was a cinch to use the terminal session. iSSH even allows you to assign macros to a macro wheel to ease repetitive typing.

After everything was setup on the server, I configured her DNS records through the GoDaddy web interface and voila! Her blog was online. All in about 20 minutes and while we were sitting there talking about it. This scenario just demonstrates the power of this portable device and usefulness.

Hackintosh Dell Mini 10v

Shawn Grimes — Wed, 05 May 2010 19:20:45 +0000

My sister is going away to Africa this summer for a month and we were trying to figure out what kind of computer she should take with her. She has a very nice 15″ MacBook but she didn’t want to take anything that she couldn’t easily replace in case of theft or damage. She wanted to be able to copy her photos off her camera and do some blogging while there. With these requirements in mind, at first the iPad seemed like a possible solution but it didn’t really meet the cheap and easily replaceable requirement so we decided on a netbook. It would be small and light so it wouldn’t take up much room in her luggage or wear her down when carrying it in a day pack.

I had heard good things about the Dell Minis but when I heard the Mini 10v could easily be turned into a hackintosh, I was sold. The only problem being, the Dell Mini 10v has been discontinued so I had to act quickly before the prices went up on any available units from independent sellers. I was able to pick one up from a seller on Amazon for roughly $299. This came with a 160 gig HD and 1 gig of RAM.

The computer came in about a week and I instantly went to work on converting it and installing the Apple OS. I found very clear directions over on Gizmodo.

The hardest part (and even this wasn’t that hard), was that after you do the install, you can apply the available updates ( be very patient, it can take a while to get 10.6.3, I was told to be patient and I still wasn’t patient enough). But after you apply the updates some of the hardware will stop working (sound stopped working on my hackintosh Dell Mini 10v) but all you had to do to fix it was run the NetBook Installer mentioned in the Gizmodo instructions and reboot. voilà! Sound was back and everything was working.

The NetBook Installer is a magical piece of software on the Dell Mini 10v. It allows all the hardware to work, including the built in camera and the volume and brightness control buttons on the top row. Even putting the laptop to sleep by closing the lid works if you turn off legacy USB support in the BIOS.

A minor drawback to the hackintosh is that you are left with keys on the keyboard that don’t match up to a regular mac keyboard. He physical location matches to a mac keyboard but the labels are off. So the Windows key is actually the option key and the ALT key Is actually the Command (Apple) key.

The performance is solid for web browsing, I didn’t do much else with it but I will be handing it over to my sister so she has a month to play with it and work the kinks out before she leaves.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad