Completing the while loop...

So I decided to finish off the third chapter and completed the Guessing Game program with while-loop and branch statements. Let's say I took my liberties again on what the text should say:

I'm finding that coding then debugging has been oddly therapeutic. Okay, not really therapeutic, but it's been a great feeling to get it working especially since it's something I wrote and want to make run properly. I know the frustration has yet to hit like during school, but the end result has always been rewarding when everything works.

I haven't really settled on what bigger project I want to write in Python, but hopefully it's something that will help me. I thought about something silly like automating my Radio Alice rewards points activities. It could be interesting.

We'll see...

Anticipating the iPhone Announcement!

As I'm still sick at home, I might as well make my day worth it!

Currently watching the live blog on Engadget:
www.engadget.com/2011/10/04/apples-lets-talk-iphone-keynote-liveblog/

"Let's talk iPhone" is the banner so I guess it's just all about the iPhone today. I'll update this as I see more information on the page.

I find the stats that Tim's giving a bit skewed regarding user adoption of Lion vs. Windows 7. I think the user adoption rate is definitely due to the # of folks who have a Windows machine and most of them won't upgrade just due to cost. Your typical Mac user has probably a butt load of money and is more likely willing to upgrade than Windows users. I know I have never upgraded to a new Windows operating system just because I can and I don't want to spend too much money. What's a little sad is that Mac actually forces you to upgrade at a point. My mom's iMac can't download the new iTunes because it's "too old." Anyways, that's just my gripe.

iPhone only cover 5% of the worldwide market. That surprised me initially and then realized, wait, that's true. It's more likely someone has a normal phone than it is a smart phone. Also in Asia, Apple products are so expensive that they'd probably likely to get another brand than it is the iPhone. Another factor is that most international folks use the phone to text. That keyboard is not efficient.

Cards, that would be useful. They're outsourcing card sending. $2.99 for local and $4.99 for international.

iOS 5 feature that I'm excited about is iMessage. When I had a Blackberry, BBM was so convenient. Reminders is going to make productivity consultants pee in their pants. Being able to use location services to remind you that you have an errand to do where you're at. Be still my productive heart.

iOS & iCloud will be released October 12th! Free 5GB of storage, not that much but enough for those who want to share between Mac products. This whole Friend Finder is just a "Stalk a friend" deal. I'm glad you have to opt in to share your info. So it's not that much different than the whole Google Latitude.

iTunes match is interesting. Would you really pay $24.99/year?

iPod nanos have definitely evolved into a great smart design. I really want one and make it a watch. I'll definitely have to start a "nano buy fund" one day. Oh yay! Price drop! $129 for 8GB and $149 for 16GB.

iPhone 4S...kind of sad right now. So it looks like the iPhone 4S - 7 times faster in terms of graphics due the dual core processor (has the A5 chip - 2x faster in terms of processing) 4S will offer eight hours of 3G talk time. Six hours of browsing, nine on WiFi. 10 hours of video, and 40 hours of music. It has both CDMA & GSM which means you can now take your iPhone globally. New camera - 8 megapixels. 1080p HD video camera. Wireless mirroring so you can play or show images from your iPhone and project it to the tv (like the new Wii). New digital assistant called Siri. Hold down the home key and talk into the phone to ask. Pretty cool as you can ask it to set your alarm clock by just talking into your phone and saying "Wake me up tomorrow at 6am". This thing is powerful. Ask it for directions, find restaurants, reply to text messages just by voice. Siri's seriously powerful. It sets up calendar events and it's smart.

Siri will change how we use the phone. No more typing or clicking or touching, just all by voice. I thought this day would come a while back. Well here it is. This is going to help me a bunch now that I have issues with prolonged typing. It's like Dragonspeak, but better!]

Still waiting on pricing and carriers...
Pricing: Black and white versions 16GB: $199, 32GB for $299, 64GB for $399 with 2 year contract

iPhone 4 - $99 w/ 2 year contract
iPhone 3GS - Free with contract

Preorders start Oct 7. Orders out by Oct 14th. Available on AT&T, Verizon, & Sprint.

This is insane. All three carriers. I think AT&T will see people start jumping ship. 

There's definitely more information that you can find on Engadget and on other technology sites. Thanks for stopping by as I'm experiencing the news at the same time and giving my reaction to it.

Now I need to figure out if I want to get a new phone and which carrier to go to.

Still easing into coding...

Okay, I'm not sleepy, so I'll keep going with Python tonight. So far it's still nothing new.

The next code is about learning modules. So here's our good friend random. Random has a function called randrange(n) which takes in an integer and provides a random number starting from 0 to n-1. So since this coding assignment deals with dice then you need to add 1 to the result from the randrange function. Seems simple enough.

Next is about branching and conditional statements. Now here's something interesting. Python recognizes blocks of statements by indenting. So Python forces you to indent if you want them in the same code block. Good practice in my opinion. I hated it when students would not pretty print their assignments, especially in Scheme when you're surrounded by an endless sea of parentheses. At least with Java and C++ you can bracket off areas, but even then you can get away with not indenting. Bravo Python. (I might hate it when I start doing more complex code). Oh fun! If-elif-else! Now that's some fancy naming (or lazy naming).

I guess I am getting tired for the night. I'll have to stop at the while statement and will have to code another night.

*Okay, I did a quick if elif piece of code. Yay for random song references!*

The Eve of the Apple Announcement

On the eve of the Apple press conference tomorrow, everyone's buzzing regarding the iPhone 4g or iPhone 5 or even an iPad upgrade to battle with the Kindle Fire. Either way, I need an upgrade and have been waiting for this announcement since my prehistoric iPhone 3G lost all its location capability. You know how hard it's been not to be able to check into places on Yelp? I lost all my kingdoms due to it! Also all the goodies that come into checking into some locations. I digress. It will be interesting to see Steve Job's predecessor and how he'll take to the limelight that is Apple.


My coworker showed me this video on YouTube. I only hope it would be as cool. Come on! Holographic images, projected keyboard... One day this will happen!

I should go to sleep and rest as tomorrow will be an exciting day.

Slithering through day 2

Going through Chapter 2 right now for Python and nothing's completely out of the ordinary for me regarding Python. String concatenation's straight forward with the + sign.

Some new concepts did pop up though:

• '\' is not only an escape character but can be used at the end of any statement so that you can extend a statement to several lines 
• Using the multiply symbol (*) and # with a statement repeats the statement # time
• Using triple quotes can save multiple print statements and special characters as it takes whatever you put between the """ verbatim.
• To have two consecutive print statements on the same line you can suppress it by putting a comma at the end of the first print statement.

I got to create a Greeter program and learned how to use a variable. Let's just say I took some liberty to changing the version which was in the book:

The rest of the chapter covered using entered data as numbers instead of strings using the int() function. Then also knowing when to use + and , when concatenating strings vs. ints. Got through this chapter pretty quickly as the examples I didn't feel like I need to completely do, but just get the gist of. I was able to do the couple pieces of code above just to get a feel of how to do it.

Python is starting to feel pretty powerful with just these simple examples above. Next time I get to learn about branching, while loops, and program planning! Oh joy! <Insert sarcasm here> (I kid, I am having a fun time learning.)

Playing with the python...

So after doing a lot of searching regarding what I should learn in terms of how to code again, I keep stumbling upon Python. I know I was pretty adamant before to not learn it, but I keep seeing it in job postings and how much folks find it so useful. So that's where I start. I actually wanted to start a while back and realized it so much more of a hassle to install it on a Windows machine. The Mac has it preinstalled. I simply get to Terminal (now that was an adventure in itself, Lion's very different than Leopard that my mom's iMac is on...I think it's Leopard) then type in python and bam! I'm at the interactive python interpreter (?). Can I say interpreter? It's so Scheme of me.

So what should I use to learn? I decided I had free online books to my disposal and started to look on books24x7. I found a book called "Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner." It talks to my level and well doesn't scare me like other books. It's been pretty nice with small jokes here and there.

My second adventure was how do I write a script? What editor should I use? My good friend GKrimer was online and said they used emacs. Well I am a sucker to go old school and reintroduce myself to my friend emacs. Oh ctrl-k how I missed thee. So what's awesome about emacs is it's also built into Mac. (My Air's been awesome so far, with a few drawbacks which will be explained in another entry of course!) Also the color coding is also already there so huzzah!

My third obstacle was how the hell do I run this script? I started googling how to run a script in emacs, then on mac, and realized, stupid, just type "python <filename>" into the terminal window. And ta-da! Here's the outcome of my first program in 7 years:

(To print screen on a mac it's Cmd + Shift + 4 all at the same time >_<)
 I know, go throw up now. But I made Alex run it and he was proud. :)

Not bad for my first time in a long while even though it was following a book. All and all a good start! I'm well on my way to eventually getting into mobile development!

First!

Yeah, I didn't know what to title my first post on this particular blog site, but figured, "First" is a good way to start. For this who were looking for my other blog, let me know and I can direct you to the right page. Otherwise, this new blog will chronicle my trials and tribulations on finding my inner geek again. There's a small inner CS mini me that wants to do coding again and well I'm going to satisfy its cries.

I know I may just be talking to myself here, but hopefully someone will find this site enjoyable or at least informational to see how much I can succeed with just a minimal amount of time every week to do something exciting besides work.