Blog – Page 5 – Joel Adria

Bearbook.ca Now Online

This morning it occurred to me that Bearbook needed a presence outside of the world of Facebook. We’ll be posting flyers for Bearbook around Campus later this week in our first real ad campaign, and it occurred to me that people might be Googling “Bearbook” in order to find it. Unfortunately Bearbook of the dot com variety is definitely not our product. So I plan to try and take over them with my super awesome SEO skills (ok, not really) and at least make an attempt to Bearbomb them. Thus, I’m proud to introduce Bearbook.ca!

It’s not much right now, but keep in mind I went from domain registration to jQuery all in one day. Be sure to keep Feeding, Tweeting, and Discussing Bearbook, and its mini-promo-website Bearbook.ca!

Bearbook Doubles its User Base, Hits 2000

Holy cow you guys, we just doubled our user base in just 15 days. It was so quick I didn’t even post anything since the last time I updated my blog. Holy schmoly!

Also during that time, we’ve been tweaking Bearbook’s look. It is now officially out of beta, and notifications now let you know when someone has joined a class of yours. Keep spreading the word Bearbookers!

Bearbook Reaches 1000 Users

Some of you may remember (or use) a Facebook application Yuri & I launched a few months back, Bearbook. I’m happy to report that we now have over 1000 registered users on Facebook, with more than 1/3 of the users having uploaded their Fall 2010 schedules. We’re absolutely thrilled by the response so far, and look forward to growing our user base even more this fall as Ualberta students get back into the swing of things.

So what’s next for Bearbook? We’re experimenting with better and even simpler ways of getting your schedule into Bearbook. Also, we’ve been thrilled by the response in the ualberta tech community over the University of Alberta iPhone App (NO affiliation with it whatsoever) and are happy to see that demand is vibrant for helpful online tools for students at U of A.

If you haven’t heard of Bearbook, be sure to check us out on Facebook!

On WP Custom Post Types

So I was hoping to design jole-v3 using WordPress’ latest and greatest Custom Post Types, with customized media types for blog entries, tweets, photos, podcasts, and videos. However I’m beginning to realize the problem with this strategy, particularly at this point in the development cycle.

The new site design revolves around the idea that all my content will be ushered into my personal website for unified and simple browsing of all that exists in the jole atmosphere, however in order to do this, I need a variety of WordPress tools and plugins that will appropriately fetch items from various social media websites. The problem is, most of these plug-ins are not yet custom-post-type aware, or at least not without modification on my behalf. For example, I can have WP-o-matic automatically bring in all my twitpics, but I can’t tell it to save them as “Tweet” post types (at least not yet.)

Before the advent of custom post types, the traditional method of setting up not-so-post-y post types in WP was to simply give them a designated category, and style it appropriately within the theme when you come across it. I’m beginning to realize that perhaps this is still the best way to go at this point in the game, seeing as even the native WordPress environment is a bit confused as to how the various content types will be delivered through theme files.

Road Trip 2010

How we’re going to pull this one off in 13 days I have no clue, but stay tuned for updates!

(We start off in Edmonton)

Whiteboard of the Week – 22

What is this? Another Skully Whiteboard! Ok, normally I would be appalled by this outrageous whiteboard-reality mishmash, but I will accept it because it prominently features the awesome jole.ca banner ~~with~~ without my phone number on it!

I believe the majority of the inspiration for this ‘board is the Ferrari hat Simon found in my closet (and consequently STOLE FROM ME) as well as the gigantic Ferrari history book I found for $10 at the Winnipeg Indigo. I still need to get around to reading that thing… Clearly the rockhorse is jamming out in celebration, in a lovely Italian countryside.

By the time this is posted by WordPress, I’ll be pretty far out in the boonies, but fear not, the blogging will continue as much as I can during my camping/roadtrip adventures. Be sure to follow the Twitter account for the latest!

iPhone 4: Just a phone, says Jobs

If you’ve been following the outrageous communications between Apple’s new PR department and the miffed adopters of the new iPhone 4, you’ll know that there’s apparently a design flaw with the new antenna system of the fancy new phone.

The way Apple’s been reacting suggests to me that this problem was known, but that there are some things that they can do in software to “solve” the issue, such as by recalibrating the signal bars, or even switching to a signal quality meter instead of a signal strength method. There’s probably also an issue with the baseband frequency switching speed, all of which just needs tweaking. That being said, I really don’t think it’s coincidence that for this model Apple just happened to start manufacturing their own overpriced rubber “bumper” which has become the official AppleCare suggestion.

But amid all the chatter is this gem, straight from El Jobso himself in a rather intense conversation between a frustrated customer and Jobs, who has become an unofficial PR department in recent weeks (because really, who’s going to stop him?): “…retire, relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone. Not worth it.” Oh really? Is this not the phone that coined the term Jesus Phone upon initial launch, only to be called the phone that changes everything, again? Surely Apple doesn’t sit around designing their phones with that level of enthusiasm.

UPDATE: So apparently that didn’t happen at all so you can probably disregard all that ridiculous analysis, but the statement still stands: it really is just a phone.

OTHER UPDATE: Also, Apple is apparently releasing an update to reduce the apparent bars on the iPhone which they were “stunned” to find was inaccurate for years. Ha. Ha. Right. But of course, they’re also “making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see,” which just means they aren’t really doing anything besides messing with people. Nice one Apple.

The most fascinating thing about Steve Jobs is how calm, relaxed, yet slightly cynical the guy is behind the veil of Apple secrecy. His statements are incredibly “far out” and airy, sort of like the way Jonny Ive talks about a-loo-min-ee-um. Another point for the Jobs = Ghandi conspiracy. I digress.

Ultimately what struck me this morning about this whole thing is really people, it’s just a phone. Steve Jobs said it, and his will be done, right?

Source

Duck Podcast: Episode 14

The latest Duck Podcast is now posted, although the quality is not what you would expect from the Duck Podcast. Many appologies, and next time it will be resolved for sure.

Grab it in iTunes or check up on the Duck Podcast website.

“Despite the poor audio quality, Kevin, Gill, Simon & Joel look into the past year’s tech events, and into the future of their careers!”

Whiteboard of the Week – 20

This week is another guest artist WotW, this time by the Mishax. A few notable sections:

Trademark Misha tarp
A wild Kevin appears with his clipboard and pen
Only after drawing did he find my black marker (which needs replacement)
The Tundra is apparently outfitted with Apple wheel hubs
John Cheese (Cleese) is finding Basil the Rat (Fawlty Towers – S2 E6)
Darth Vader antenna reference (See Duck Podcast 13)

On iPhone 4 in Canada

The iPhone 4 came out about a week ago to great awe and amazement. I have yet to comment on it yet, simply because there wasn’t much to say. Apple has done it yet again, this time truly delivering a revision worth upgrading for, with a fabulous screen, front camera, and wicked power enough to start editing in HD in the palm of your hand.

That being said, I was disappointed to see hear that Canadians would not be in the running to pick one up until “June” according to Apple, but based on demand, I suspect that we won’t be seeing it for even longer than that. Remember how the iPad shipments got pushed back several weeks for International customers? Jobs claimed that this was going to be their “fastest rollout ever” but considering that customers are pounding Apple’s servers just trying to preorder the device, I suspect their will be difficulty staying on schedule.

While New Yorkers have been out of luck if they wanted to find an iPad, I just came back from the Southgate Apple Store in Edmonton and watched a young boy hugging his walking out of the store, so we might be in luck. Nevertheless, these situations suggest that perhaps Apple will need a new strategy for delivering devices rapidly enough. In order to have enough supply they’ll need to ramp up production far in advance of an announcement, and at 600,000 pre-orders/day, it’s going to get harder and harder to make sure launches are timely.