Arguing on the Internet

September 12, 2008 on 9:22 am | In Funnyish, Insider View, Musings, New Features, Rants by Josh Jones | 38 Comments

Internet Argument

There seem to be quite a few things that everybody knows are good for you, and yet nobody likes doing.

You know, things like: Exercising daily. Staying away from fried foods. Being nice. Taking your medicine. Sleeping until noon.

Ooooh, here’s another thing that NOBODY likes to do that I’ve been doing a lot of lately:

Trying new things.

Whoa man, trying new things really SUCKS.

The baby is left handed. And right handed.

Anytime you try something new, your poor, flabby, brain is catapulted out of the la-z boy chair of “routine” only to land directly on the nordic track of “growing more synaptic pathways for my neurons to communicate better.”

And, based on my experience, that process can very easily be PHYSICALLY painful!

Yep, it actually hurts my brain to learn. Not only that, I’ve also noticed it hurts a lot more to grow pathways that conflict with old pathways I’ve already got!

Well, let's have a look at it then!

I can only imagine (fortunately!) how terrible it would be to get in some kind of gruesome camel crash that squishes my brain in such a way that a vast swath of those comfortable brain pathways are completely WIPED OUT.

Assuming it was even possible, I bet it’d take years of painful and frustrating rehabilitation, like, just to learn how to walk again. Do you remember how frustrating and painful it was the first time you learned? I don’t, but based on my mom’s stories of my tantrums, I doubt I’d want to go through it again!

Well, every time you try something new, your brain has to go through at least a little bit of that uncomfortable process, and I know I at least subconsciously avoid it like some kind of (subconscious) diarrhea!

Nonetheless, I’ve recently started taking surfing and ping-pong classes (two separate classes, sadly), and man, it’s annoying being that bad at things. I should have just taken it easy and signed up for Dr. Mario classes. Or maybe a class at something I’m really awesome at… aw yeah, the ladies know what I’m talking about!

That's me on the right.

Not the Point

Okay, the point of this post was NOT (just) that I’m taking surfing and ping-pong classes.

Let me ’splain.

I’m kind of a developer. I pretty much just develop for DreamHost, in Perl, with Emacs, on Windows (XP). I’ve been doing it like that for over a decade, and to be modest, I’m pretty awesome at it… aw yeah, the ladies already knew that!

It’s a widely-held belief that being an awesome programmer is exactly like being an awesome athlete. Not just in that you can get any cheerleader you want, but that even if your specialty is Perl (or basketball), you’re not going to have too hard a time if you decide to take up C++ (or other important sports).

Which is why I decided five weeks ago to go ahead and just churn out all the fantastic iPhone applications I’d been dreaming of!

Not MY idea!

Straightforward Enough

I really knew nothing about iPhone development. In fact, it took me an hour or so to realize that you need OS X to develop iPhone apps.

Well, no way was I going to go buy a mac, especially after I’d just picked up a $450 EEE 1000H, which can be HACKINTOSHED!

So, my first day was spent “hackintoshing”, and it was relatively easy, and everything worked how the people on the nice Internet had said, and the only thing broken was sound didn’t work (like they said it wouldn’t).

Major Pain

At that point, it’d been kind of a fun project. It was somewhat new stuff, but I’ve installed operating systems by following instructions on a forum before, so my brain really wasn’t growing too many new pathways.

To make a long story short, I soon thereafter realized in order for me to program iPhone apps, I had to switch to developing for the iPhone, in Objective C, with XCode, on OS X.

And. Every. Single. One. Of. Those. Changes. HURT.

The young Josh Jones in a class full of mac users.

Just trying to use OS X, and having to re-learn keyboard shortcuts, how to open programs, how to open folders, how windows work, how to page down, where system settings are, and so on and so on was enough to almost make me run crawling back to the warm bosom of panel.dreamhost.com.

But, I persevered. And then I spent a lot of time reading documentation. And searching for tutorials. And slowly taking apart the example applications.

And finally, after about a week, I had actually finished my first app! It was called Ponger and it was well under 100K. All it did was show an image of a ping pong paddle on your iPhone that when you swung it, made ping pong noises!

Pretty fricking sweet. The inspiration was whilst lobby ponging we noticed that iPhones themselves actually make pretty good paddles (go ahead, try it at home). In fact, I was this close to making Ponger a more authentic “paddle simulator” by not even making it play noises (the noises were a lot harder than you think… and not just because my sound didn’t work)!

Well, I (triumphantly) submitted my app to App-le for inclusion in the App Store (but free) on August 12th, just getting it in in time to catch the ping-pong panedemonium that was sure to be incited by the Beijing Olympics (remember those?)!

In fact, I also started writing this blog post way back then, but I wanted to hold off on publishing it until Ponger was approved so everybody could enjoy it for themselves!

From: devprograms@apple.com
Date: Sat, Sep 6, 2008 at 4:40 PM
Subject: Ponger: Application Submission Feedback

Hello Josh,

We’ve reviewed your application Ponger. We have determined that this application is of limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod touch user community, and will not be published to the App Store.

If you choose to provide additional features that utilize iPhone functionality, your application can be reconsidered for the App Store after you resubmit a new binary to iTunes Connect.

The current version of Ponger may be very appropriate to share with friends and family, and we recommend you review the Ad Hoc method on the Distribution tab of the iPhone Developer Portal for details on distributing this application among a small group of people of your choosing.

Best Regards,

Allison
Worldwide Developer Relations
(Cr)Apple, Inc

SON OF A!

I would have posted this earlier, but I’ve spent the entire last week throwing my HACKINTOSH.

Don’t Bother

Anyway, the moral of the blog post is, “Trying new things hurts your brain, so don’t.”

Double take!

Or wait, maybe the moral is, “It’s not too late for Josh to relate this to DreamHost a tiny bit if he just says,

Hey, we’ve now made a “live demo” of our panel at https://demo.dreamhost.com/ so all you potential Happy DreamHost Customers can now try one more new thing without it hurting quite so much, and we now make the first week of DreamHost PS FREE so you don’t have to worry about money while you deal with all that brain hurt as you find your appropriate resource level!

“?

38 Responses to “Arguing on the Internet”

  1. Mike Says:
    September 12th, 2008 at 9:52 am

    Hey Josh, does the demo clear itself out on a regular basis? I just made a new user, and it looks like it might actually try to be creating ‘lalalala’. :)

  2. Ben K. Says:
    September 12th, 2008 at 10:01 am

    My Christmas wish list for Dreamhost:
    ————————————

    * LiteSpeed (100% Apache compatible) as a web server option (not just using Apache to proxy to it). It’s crazy fast and extremely light on resources. So it’s great for Private Server users like me.

    That’s it. If not LiteSpeed, how about NGINX?

    Thanks you guys.

    Ben

  3. Ben M. Says:
    September 12th, 2008 at 10:05 am

    Are you trying to get us all to switch to Chrome by sending us to a Dr. Mario site that crashes Firefox?

  4. Will Says:
    September 12th, 2008 at 10:38 am

    Should the creation of promo codes via the demo panel really be allowed?

  5. Dallas Kashuba Says:
    September 12th, 2008 at 11:54 am

    @Ben K. (#2) : Litespeed is commercial and the free version limits you to only 5 total websites and 150 total connections, does not support multiple processors, doesn’t support mod_security, and many other limitations. The pay version without the limitations costs almost as much as our DreamHost PS server itself.

    Other than that, I agree it sounds pretty cool.

    Nginx is also cool for what it does, but its feature set isn’t really there to replace Apache for us.

  6. Albright Says:
    September 12th, 2008 at 12:48 pm

    Using OS X on non-Apple hardware is a violation of the OS X software license. The odds of Apple’s black-helicopter agents bashing down your door is small, yes, but it’s not something which should be encouraged.

  7. Ted Says:
    September 12th, 2008 at 1:42 pm

    Hey Josh-

    Instead of making a useless app (according to Apple, not me) like a ping pong paddle making sounds on the iPhone, how about making an iPhone approved panel.dreamhost.com app so we can quickly do things on the panel without having to do it on a tiny web browser?

  8. DanGarion Says:
    September 12th, 2008 at 3:17 pm

    Josh, that’s BS that they didn’t approve your App, considering the fact that it’s not really any different then the stupid Cow mooing one that when you tilt your iPhone it moos.

    As as for #6, dude take a chill pill, Apple is pretty stupid for enforcing such a rule.

  9. Baja Real Estate Says:
    September 12th, 2008 at 3:26 pm

    Josh wrote:
    “…Or maybe a class at something I’m really awesome at… aw yeah, the ladies know what I’m talking about!…”

    Hum… no comment…

  10. dwr Says:
    September 12th, 2008 at 3:50 pm

    Man… I cain’t bleeve you made a stinkin damn blog post before the newsletter where you discuss the new Backups User feature that has shown up in the control panel!

    I tell you what though, that you made a demo Dreamhost panel was a very smart move… you’re panel is so unique and awesome to the edge of The Universe that it is in my opinion one of your absolute top selling points (side by side with your generosity… thank you very much for giving us everything you possibly can). I think that, and this Backups User feature, and hell… even the unlimited thing that you’re thinking of doing, are the absolute smartest business decisions you could have put together for this little era.

    Now, on the “unlimited” thing… the only request I would make of you would be to call it SOMETHING other than unlimited… you are Dreamhost… you are DIFFERENT… you can still say the same thing or even better with different wording. I do not pretend to know what would be BEST, but yall are smart folks and can figure it out I’m sure.

    Too bad a lot of folks wouldn’t easily understand if you called it The Abstract & Malleable Limits Of Infinity.

  11. Sabrejack Says:
    September 12th, 2008 at 10:04 pm

    HEY JOSH!

    Did you already forget that Larson doesn’t want his cartoons used on websites etc.?

  12. taylor Says:
    September 13th, 2008 at 2:13 am

    I don’t understand why people argue with unknown person on internet and spoil their mood?
    ———————–
    TAYLOR

    Ah Info Source

  13. elliot Says:
    September 13th, 2008 at 3:34 pm

    i’m a longtime dreamhost customer and I created an iphone app which apple approved. It’s called brain tuner http://tinyurl.com/braintuner

  14. kL Says:
    September 13th, 2008 at 5:19 pm

    Aww, it must suck to be rejected from appstore. Well, apple is probably right about utility of such application, but they’ve already allowed hundreds of flashlights.

    Maybe call it pong-colored-flashlight and resubmit?

  15. hunter Says:
    September 13th, 2008 at 7:50 pm

    dood that isht is hella real blood!

    In all actuality Im new to the web and dream host has been really cool to me!

  16. themonkey Says:
    September 13th, 2008 at 8:45 pm

    MAN I would’ve downloaded the Pong app in a heartbeat. That’s really very unfortunate that Apple has such a big stick up there.

  17. Bootstrike Says:
    September 13th, 2008 at 9:44 pm

    FWIW, don’t adjust the days of the raw logs archival in the web Panel if you have already set it to a number more than 30 days. DreamHost has silently changed the max limit to 30 days and if you attempt to re-change to any number bigger than 30, it will reset all the domains raw logs archival period to 30 days.

    I find this quite surprising that we are not allowed to keep raw logs for more than 30 days. you can check a screenshot at our site.

  18. Andy Says:
    September 13th, 2008 at 10:47 pm

    Yeah OSX takes some time to get used to and to find the really awesome tools for… but you would be surprised how many developers (especially web developers) LOVE OSX. Shit how can you argue with being able to SSH directly into your box from terminal? (no more need for the craptastic putty!)

    You should check out some of these Killer OSX Apps Josh:
    (assuming your hackintosh isn’t in pieces at the bottom of some stairwell)

    Text Editor: TextMate (http://macromates.com/) Awesome text editor with support for many languages, and extensible with extra packages you can write or d/l. Must have for any mac dev.

    App/Doc Launcher / Search (free) : Quicksilver (http://www.blacktree.com/) The tag line for the application is act without doing. It may take a day or so to get used to… but you will never launch any application again by having to search for it in finder. Ctrl+SPACE (my hotkey for Quicksilver) – S (filter text) – Enter (default operation) is all I need to do to launch Safari.

    Notification System (free): Growl (http://growl.info/) – A universal notification system that other apps can link into. Can be used with many applications to display notifications (see website for all applications supported). Also you can even write your own scripts to use with Growl (obj-c / applescript / perl / python / java / tcl / ruby).

    Automate Tasks: Automator (apple application included 10.4+) – Simple scripting for automated tasks, can communicate with any application that supports applescript. If you have any kind of repetitive tasks that need to be done, (including backups)… check it out and just play with it.

    FTP: Cyberduck (http://cyberduck.ch/) Probably the best FTP client out there for OSX, and its FREE.

  19. Kevin Says:
    September 14th, 2008 at 7:24 am

    I wonder in what way Apple found the I am Rich app and the beer drinking app to be more useful? :P

  20. Vasily Mikhailitchenko Says:
    September 14th, 2008 at 11:42 am

    Man, I’d love to see Ponger in the AppStore! I can imagine playing “ping pong” with my colleagues during the lunch break :)

  21. John Says:
    September 14th, 2008 at 5:16 pm

    You might consider a Windows Mobile phone. You can actually develop applications for those on, uh, Windows. ;) And unlike Apple, EVERY kind of application is welcomed :)

  22. VOO Says:
    September 14th, 2008 at 8:34 pm

    Yes… definitely fuck Apple. And along with that, I also ask you to boycott the word podcast, as it implies a tie in with a single proprietary device, whereas audiocast is completely generic, AND more descriptive.

    Voice Of One

  23. Rob Says:
    September 14th, 2008 at 9:29 pm

    I second the call for a dreamhost iPhone app!

    What it would do? That’s up to you… but maybe you could do your newsletters on it…

  24. andy Says:
    September 15th, 2008 at 9:34 am

    “The current version of Ponger may be very appropriate to share with friends and family, and we recommend you review the Ad Hoc method on the Distribution tab of the iPhone Developer Portal for details on distributing this application among a small group of people of your choosing.”

    make it happen captn

  25. elaine Says:
    September 15th, 2008 at 11:06 am

    I want that app, and so do my pals! It sounds more fun than ping pong itself. Please, please…

  26. shaun Says:
    September 16th, 2008 at 6:06 pm

    the demo login doesn’t work. did someone change the password? wtf.

    also- iphone panel app is a much better idea than pong.

  27. Web Content Writer Says:
    September 17th, 2008 at 9:33 am

    I would like to appreciate such applications for the maintanance of servers.

  28. Raphael Says:
    September 17th, 2008 at 9:44 am

    You guys seriously need to start treating things more seriously. It seems as if you guys are still in High School, you really need to grow up.

  29. Common Sense Says:
    September 17th, 2008 at 1:46 pm

    You guys seriously need to start treating things more seriously. It seems as if you guys are still in High School, you really need to grow up.

    If acting like kids is what made them one of the largest hosts in the world, then it doesn’t say much for all those hosts out there that are supposedly run by adults, does it?
     
    It’s nice that they’re laid back and just act like normal people, unlike some of those kiddie hosts that think throwing some free clip-art images of businessmen wearing suits on their sites somehow makes them more professional.

  30. Brett @ DH Says:
    September 17th, 2008 at 4:30 pm

    iPhone App Approval flowchart:
    http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1151.html

  31. James Says:
    September 18th, 2008 at 10:30 am

    Hi, I found your blog on this new directory of WordPress Blogs at blackhatbootcamp.com/listofwordpressblogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, i duno. Anyways, I just clicked it and here I am. Your blog looks good. Have a nice day. James.

  32. Richard Barr Says:
    September 18th, 2008 at 5:48 pm

    Now, if only Ponger could recognize other players in the area, and allow you to play pong (with random misses and an appropriate booing sound).

    That would be awesome.

  33. Brad Says:
    September 20th, 2008 at 5:45 pm

    Sorry to hear about your Apple rejection man.

  34. mascali Says:
    October 8th, 2008 at 11:43 pm

    Pic girl is very impressive…brrrr

  35. Richard Says:
    October 20th, 2008 at 5:19 am

    Hey Josh! Nice to see a cameo from our site on your post up there – and a pic of one of our intimate (ahem) products.

    Want a sample? More fun than pizza!

    Let me know :-)

    Richard
    http://www.lovehoney.co.uk

  36. Ankara Sohbet Says:
    November 2nd, 2008 at 12:18 pm

    Thanks..

  37. Flüge Says:
    November 19th, 2008 at 5:28 am

    Nice pictures!
    “it actually hurts my brain to learn” LOL
    I totally agree with u because i have the same feeling while trying to learn something
    i will be a regular reader of your blog
    keep up your good work

  38. kareem Says:
    December 1st, 2008 at 6:41 am

    this is wonderful topic …. i will put acopy of this topic on
    my site here
    http://www.as7ap4you.com

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