WordPress for iPhone, Take 2

Anybody who’s used WordPress for iPhone knows how annoyingly buggy and horribly designed it is. Lists don’t line up with the side of the screen, the app will rotate upside-down on some screens but not on others, they don’t use the standard iPhone buttons, and getting anything useful accomplished is exceedingly slow and painful. That’s enough to make anybody who’s owned any Apple product for more than ten minutes cringe in disgust. If there was some sort of opposite of the Apple Design Awards, this app would get it, and more than deserve it.

After figuring out that the WordPress 2 app was a separate download and not an update to the original app (makes no sense, they aren’t charging like Tweetie), I downloaded it. From the home screen, there was a slight difference in the icon coloring and gradient. Those who don’t obsess over design like I do won’t notice much, but the gradient is different and the lighting on the big “W” icon is more prominent.

When you open the WordPress 2 app, you’ll notice a brand-new startup screen. It looks much better than the old one that just said “WordPress” at the top.

When the app finishes loading, you’ll notice the biggest change of all: a magical new interface for switching between Comments, Posts, and Pages. Instead of forcing users to pick one of the three from a menu, the WordPress for iPhone developers finally decided it would be a good idea to use some buttons.

Which one would you rather use?

And those two things aren’t the only things that have changed. Here’s the complete list:

• A new comment management interface, with the Gravatars and author URL shown in the list
• Refreshing is no longer a toolbar button. Instead, it has been moved to the top of the list because there simply is no more room. It’s a poorly written rip-off of Tweetie 2’s “pull down to refresh” feature.
• Posts don’t blow up/get deleted anymore if the network connection is lost while saving, perfect for those piggybacking on a neighbor’s Wi-Fi network
• The app now re-opens to where you left off the last time you closed it
• Fixed the really annoying bug when WordPress would rotate upside-down and everything on the screen would be distorted
• Fixed the problem where WordPress would decide to delete all the work you put into your local drafts folder

The WordPress 2 application is not an update to the previous one. WordPress certainly wants to break away from the bad taste left in users’ mouths when they used the original WordPress app. Go download the new app, you’ll have to re-enter all your settings, but it’s well worth it.

Ubuntu 9.10 is live!

Ubuntu 9.10, the latest release since 9.04 was released this April, is now live on Ubuntu.com. Improvements include better support for the Eucalyptus cloud server and faster boot times. It’s also got the latest versions of GIMP, GNOME, Firefox, OpenOffice, and other free programs.

Grab it now—download (690 MB, ISO) (or learn more).

Let’s stop the lobbying AT&T’s doing to stop net neutrality

This week, AT&T sent out a memo to all employees telling them to basically call up their representatives in Congress in a last-minute effort to stop the FCC’s net neutrality regulations. It was pretty convincing, because the memo implied that AT&T might go bankrupt if the FCC started regulating the Internet (they won’t go out of business, they’ve got plenty in the bank from the iPhone and overpriced Internet). It also came after AT&T laid off 20,000 employees (nothing to do with net neutrality).

(More info on this in Buzz Out Loud episode 1089. Wonderful podcast, by the way.)

That’s why you should write to your representative in Congress. Seriously. Go find your rep now. And don’t forget to cite the CNET.com article mentioned earlier in your e-mail.

Let’s hope the telcos don’t get their way.

[inspired by CNET and a wonderful rant]

What Apple’s new multi-touch Magic Mouse means

I see you staring at the Magic Mouse. And drooling. And wishing you could have one.
Image credit: Apple

Today, Apple introduced their new Magic Mouse, the latest pointing device in Apple’s line of rodents since they made GUIs popular in the 80s. It supports multi-touch on a glossy surface at the top and is a regular mouse when you move it around on a desk.

So what does this mean for the future of mice? Well, let’s take a look at the past first.

Apple's Macintosh Plus mouse

One of Apple’s first mice was the one bundled with the Macintosh Plus. It had one button on the top and a ball on the bottom. It was copied from the Xerox PARC (where they weren’t doing anything interesting with it), so of course every PC maker wanted to copy it. It’s safe to say that Apple made the mouse widely popular.

Fast-forward about two decades, and it’s Macworld 2007. Steve Jobs is standing on the stage once again, and this time, he’s announced an Apple phone—the iPhone. It took advantage of a technology that had existed since 1982—multi-touch. It accepted gestures on the screen as input, something that had primitively existed in laptops for a long time.

The banner Apple used to promote its iPhone on Apple.com

And then multi-touch and gestures slowly started infecting Apple’s portables, starting with the MacBook Pro and ending with the MacBook. But what about the desktop lines? Most people are used to moving a mouse across their desk, not moving their finger across a trackpad. What should they do? Combine the two, of course. By replacing the top of the mouse and its buttons with an acrylic surface (thanks, Roughly Drafted), the user can do any gestures on the top of the mouse but still move it around and click it like a regular mouse.

This seems like an action to try to wean people off of mice and have them use gesture-based systems like the iPhone, MacBook line, and Wii. It makes sense that Apple doesn’t just take out the mouse and include a flat, drawing tablet-like input device with every Mac desktop, because that would cause a user revolt.

Oops, I just used the words “Apple” and “tablet” in the same sentence. Here come the tablet rumors…

[with information from Roughly Drafted]

Getting started with Twitter

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you probably have heard of Twitter some way or another. If you don’t, Twitter is a social networking service that lets people stay connected by short, 140-character long messages called “tweets.” But Twitter can be a very confusing place to start, and I’ll try to clear some of that up with this article.

The Basics

Some basic things you should know about using Twitter…

• To update your status, type something in the box and hit “Update.”
• From your home page, click the @YourUsername tab to find out what people are saying about you. This lists all updates mentioning you.
• But, if you want to reply to a specific update somebody’s written, mouse over their update and click the little arrow. This will add “in reply to [Username]” to the line of gray text underneath the update, allowing others to click it and see what you’re replying to.
• Direct message or DM: By direct messaging someone, you send a tweet to them and only them. It’s great for dropping a quick note or whenever you don’t want others to see what you’re saying.
• If you like an update, you can favorite it. Just mouse over the update and click the star. These updates will show in the Favorites tab.
• Search for stuff using the search box or Twitter’s dedicated search site.
• See what the world’s talking about! Trending Topics is a great way to find out what’s on everybody’s mind.

The Conventions

Wanna confuse the living daylights out of normal people? Just use some of these Twitter conventions:

• @ Symbol: The at sign (@) is used to mention another user. To mention Twitter founder Evan Williams, type @ev into your update (ev is his username). Your tweet will show up in his mentions feed.
• Retweeting: Liked what somebody else had to say? Wanna tweet about it? Easy: Copy and paste their tweet into your update box and add RT @TheirUsername: to the front of it.
• Via: Via is similar to retweeting, you just can reword the tweet. To give people credit, type [via @TheirUsername] to the end of your adaption.
• OH: Use OH when you overhear something funny you want to tweet about. Example: “OH: I told her let’s watch Dora, but this time, I’ll be the explorer.” I’m not sure where that came from.
• Hashtags: Hashtags are the pound symbol (#) followed by some letters and numbers. This makes it easier for the Trending Topics engine to distinguish between topics. For example, the hashtag for the disputed Iran Election is #IranElection. To tag my update about the Iran Election, I just add #IranElection to anywhere in the post.

Twitter Clients

Tweetie is a great Mac client.

Not liking the web interface? You can get a Twitter client! A Twitter client is any program that you can use Twitter with. Most power users of Twitter use a client. I prefer Brizzly, simply because it’s got lots more features than other clients and Web-based. As of this writing, Brizzly is still in private beta so you won’t be able to fool around with it. Twitter’s Goodies page is a good place to start looking for Twitter clients, though.

And don’t forget to set up your phone to use Twitter as well! It’s in your settings page on the Devices tab.

Short URLs

Since Twitter’s got a 140 character limit on all updates, people use short URLs to save those precious characters. I like bit.ly because it offers tracking and doesn’t randomly whine and threaten to shut down (I’m looking at you, tr.im).

No photos or videos? Bo-ring!

Sure, Twitter doesn’t offer a native way to share photos. But that’s a good thing, because it keeps things simple and lets third-party websites step in and fill the gap. I’m talking about TwitPic, a wonderful site for sharing photos on Twitter. And TwitVid is for sharing videos!

One last note…

Even though Twitter says “What are you doing?” at the top, it’s really not about what you are doing right now. Think about how boring your Twitter feed would be if it was just stuff like “I had a ham sandwich at lunch today.” Instead, try putting some of your insight, witty thoughts, and links to articles you like. In other words, tweet about something interesting, not something lame.

That’s all for now. Have fun tweeting, and follow us! @kevinchen22 (me) and @daylenyang (Daylen).

[adapted and updated from The World of Daylen]