2008 June | Vaughan Knight

Movie Review: The Incredible Hulk

Posted by Vaughan on Jun 29, 2008 in Movies, Review | 0 comments

Hulk is good, hulk gets angry, smash smash, bad guy, smash smash, the end.

Turn Your Xbox 360 into a Streaming Netflix Player

Posted by Vaughan on Jun 28, 2008 in Video, Xbox360 | 0 comments

That’s right. Watch NetFlix on your Xbox 360 with the vmcNetflix plug-in! It is a bit slow, in beta, but it works.

This video via Lifehacker giving a demo of it working. Head on over to Lifehacker to find out more on what you need to turn your Xbox 360 into a streaming netflix player.

Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs on DVD

Posted by Vaughan on Jun 24, 2008 in Random | 0 comments

Futurama’s second direct to DVD release hits the streets this Tuesday. The first, Bender’s Big Score, was a nice flashback to the Futurama series. As much as I’m looking forward to it, my brain does end up with what I call “Simpson’s Movie Syndrome” where about 20 minutes into the show I’m expecting the credits to run for the next hour. I’m avoiding the press on it to save a surprise, but The Beast With a Billion Backs does follow the first in the DVD release, with a follow up Bender’s Game planned. Cohen is able to push the boundaries further since the show has not been bound by a network since it was cancelled by FOX. For more information check out the article on Wired.

Steve Wozniak – Geek Chat on Apple Early Days

Posted by Vaughan on Jun 22, 2008 in Random | 0 comments

BBC has an awesome video with Woz talking about how it began. He talks inspiration, pretending to be a programmer, and lots more. It is a great video for those who haven’t heard the story from back in the early 80′s. Oh, and check out the Wozniak sized watch!

Sproutcore vs Silverlight vs Flash

Posted by Vaughan on Jun 18, 2008 in Flash, Silverlight | 1 comment

The three way battle begins… or never start, ever. Apple is getting plenty of coverage recently on their love for Sproutcore, but I can’t see where the hype factor is really finding justifcation, other than the hype factory. A Javascript framework for MVC isn’t going to compete with the rich animation tools that Adobe already has, and the pipeline that Microsoft is reaching with Silverlight. Javascript is cool, but it is not a selling point. Sproutcore might have some shiny features out of the box, but true open standards are already being offered in many forms, including Google’s GWT. How one would do video streaming via Javascript starts to hurt my brain.

Javascript is an exteremely powerful language, and for products such as Sproutcore and Silverlight, it is a great thing. I questioned it in Silverlight initially, but came to love the Javascript support. Rather than being proprietary, it opens the door to so many more businesses who can not step into the realm of Flash due to lack of skills and toolsets within their delivery teams. With Silverlight 2 just around the corner, you will be able to take an array of languages that have excellent application building tools, even allowing Ruby could power your applications front and back, with Silverlight as the glue. These languages have a solid history, experienced developers, MVC frameworks, mature tools, and online communities.

Of course the main place Sproutcore is going to be exciting for Apple, adding ease of development, and more depth to browser applications, is on the iPhone. In general the current selection of iPhone applications are good. Not great, not cool, just good. But writing iPhone applications is cool. With the cool factor driving development and innovation, Sproutcore applications written for iPhone are likely targets for the Nokias and LGs in the market.

Could it be that the ultimate mobile combo a Silverlight RIA front end with a Sproutcore MVC driving it in the background? Only if banner advertising is brought to you by Flash.