codemer

Interesting. Just got a mailer from Verizon that they are offering early upgrade to any smart phone. I'm barely halfway through my 2 years. Must be to compete with AT&T allowing iPhone owners to upgrade to the iPhone 4 before the contract was up. Hrm. Maybe a Droid X... IF

Mr. Thoth, I see a flaw with basing the start of a sentence on the word after the period being capitalized. I rarely see people use a double period. They just look out of place. I vote that we change the abbreviation marker from a period to something else. Let's change it to semicolon. No one uses semicolons correctly anyway. IF

But, then how am I to distinguish between the end of a sentence and an abbreviated word? In my field, at least, abbreviations are so common that it actually makes a difference in how fast the brain can parse the text. IF

So, are you looking for a host, a CMS, or both? I'm pretty happy Dreamhost's service and available web apps. PM me if you want a coupon code. I was *not* happy when I used GoDaddy years ago. Before you pay a web designer, try to flesh out the content of the site. It's not worth spending money on a fancy layout if you do not have enough content to fill it out. IF

I have to admit. Writing apps for iOS looks a lot easier than writing them for Android. IF

Android is just a platform like iOS. Most of the phones that I have seen... well, suck. My Moto Droid has a 5 MP flash camera, but the optics are so horrid that everything comes out blurry. I mean, seriously. What's the point of putting uberpixel cameras on a device that's too small for a decent lens? The Droid certainly does not support videophone out of the box. I'm sure someone has hacked in support for skype, though. I would be more interested in standard video phone support than iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 only video phone. Android has some serious magic. It magically starts apps that you didn't even know you had installed, and its multitasking allows the phone to drain its battery in an hour or so. It magically gets pretty darn hot while said multitasking is running rampant. It magically crashes apps (like the browser) all the time too. Some times it falls into a magic sleep. Kissing it doesn't seem to wake it up, though, and you have to pop the battery out and back in instead. Oh, if only I had a defective phone. Then I could at least make Motorola replace it. Android is just an immature, unpolished platform. Like many products that come out of Google, they seem to start strong, then lose steam. Hopefully they can get their act together in the next version of the OS. Updating applications is a pain. I'm sick of having to kill apps that are running in the background for no good reason. Just about any useful feature on my phone is available on the iPhone. The most attractive thing about Android is that I don't have to switch to AT&T. That company never needs any of my money ever again. IF

It sounds like we might find the Dyne at the bottom of the hole, considering Higgs gave Agatha a drink of that mystical water. Higgs strikes me as another one of those secret agent types. A little too cool under pressure. IF

Interesting, but I felt like I missed something. A lot more people are self publishing, but are a lot more people buying self published books? I mean, yes, it is easier than ever to get self published books, but are my friends more likely to recommend some random book off the internet, or a book at the checkout of the local grocery store? IF

I know I'm great and I've never published anything. Ender's Game is a quick read. You'd probably like it. IF

My experience has been... less than stellar. IF

*raises hand* Guilty. IF

I was just trying to cover a broad spectrum of fiction in a short example. ;-) I've only read Ender's Game (recently). Haven't started anything else in the series yet. IF

Depends on the provider. I think my friend at work said he paid $15. IF

I know people who have done that. Providers discourage that, but you can technically switch your phone any time you want, including swapping primary and secondary phones. IF

It's like when I inherit some legacy code base from hell. A daunting project. Most of selling a sort story or a book seems to be about self marketing. The "research" part of it is really just having to learn a field unrelated to what you're good at. The problem is, there are a lot of people who are naturally good at self marketing who aren't necessarily good at anything else, including writing. Let's face it. Most of the books on the shelves of the stores are not really very good. You can write the next Twilight or Ender's Game and never get noticed if you are not a good self marketer. IF