Reviews | Blog | Mark Steadman

1 Oct 12

Swiss army knives are fine until the hinges rust

I have a combination washing machine and tumble dryer. It washes clothes fine, but I could dry them faster by breathing on them. But it's a convenience, as in my flat space is a premium. But two, three or even four is not better than one as I've found to my cost when using Coda 2.

I was quite excited about the release of this web development toolkit, and bought both the Mac and iPad versions. It combines a decent code editor, an FTP client borrowed largely from Transmit (which the company also makes), a basic user-interface to Subversion and a terminal. It also has a preview option, but why anyone would use it I don't know, as very few sites are built without content management systems in place. But without this you're left using separate apps. My personal choice is TextMate for code editing (the old warhorse that still works brilliantly and whose sequel will never see the light of day),Transmit for file transfer, Versions for SVN and iTerm as my terminal (although the Mac's built-in one is fine).

All of these tools work fine, but it means a lot of switching, so an app that combined it all seemed to make a lot of sense. Apart, that is, from the litany of bugs that have plagued it since release, and which haven't been fixed. Things like its sudden inability to connect to SFTP or SVN servers, its weird and uncustomisable key combinations, its regular crashes, inability to tab between files or handle any concept other than a website (I often work on other things like Python packages or WordPress plugins, and don't think I should have to use a different text editor because it doesn't fit Coda's paradigm).

Coda isn't a tool for novices or those trapped in WYSIWYG hell (like Dreamweaver or FrontPage), but it seems to treat me with kid gloves. Crashes I can deal with, but they seem to hold themselves up to such a high standard with Transmit that you'd think Coda would be as good as Panic, their creators think it is. (That's a dreadful sentence, but you get what I mean!)

So beware the all-purpose multitool. It may be more economical and space-saving, and it may save you time to begin with, but stick with it and you'll start to see the benefits of buying the stack separately. Which reminds me: whatever happened to stacker systems? Are they still a thing?

Posted on Oct. 1, 2012 in Development, Reviews

23 Feb 12

Comic Book Men

Kevin Smith - one of my favourite people - has a TV show. No, it's not another season of Reaper, or the return of the Clerks cartoon, but a semi-reality show which centres around the recording of a fictional podcast. That's probably the element that fits the least well, as everything else I found really enjoyable.

I'm not, and never have been a comic book geek. I have zero problem with anyone who is, and I totally understand the passion people have about the characters they've grown up with. I've listened to the podcast that spawned the show (Tell 'Em Steve-Dave) so was familiar with Walt, Bryan and Ming, but I found the structure of the TV show a lot more entertaining than their formless ramblings (which isn't a criticism; SModcast is a formless ramble and I love it).

The fictional podcast thing does strike an odd chord though. As someone who knows the SModcast network quite well - if you don't, it's basically a collection of podcasts by Smith and friends - I knew there wasn't a podcast called Comic Book Men, so to see them all sit round and talk into mics that aren't live provides jarring bookends. (It reminded me a little of the start of the animated Ricky Gervais Show.)

It feels part of a new swathe of scripted reality TV, heavy-handed in engineering rather than dialogue (ie: scenes are clearly set up, but the words in them feel natural). I guess Smith brings in the punters for those who've seen Dogma but aren't necessary podcast listeners, and he chairs the discussions around the "recording" table, but the star of the show (so far) is Walt Flanagan. The bearded sage Bryan Johnson provides his brand of quiet caustic humour, while Ming and Mike just sort of... well... it's only been two episodes, let's give 'em a chance :)

I really liked the two episodes I saw, much more than I thought I would, so I'll be on the lookout for more. If you get the chance, and you're familiar with SModcast or the world of Jay and Silent Bob, it's worth it. If you're the kind of person who just doesn't "get" comics and doesn't know who Kevin Smith is, probably give this one a miss.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie0Y52g07sU

Snooch to the nooch, etc.

Posted on Feb. 23, 2012 in Recommendations, Reviews

24 Jan 12

Playing with Evi

Following on from yesterday's post, here's a video what I made, of a conversation between me and Evi.

It answers questions reasonably well, but doesn't handle commands yet. And as you might expect, it can answer some of the more silly questions thrown at it.

Posted on Jan. 24, 2012 in Reviews and tagged android, evi, iphone, review, siri, youtube

23 Jan 12

Evi

The iPhone 4S has been a surprising success for Apple, being what I'd think of as an interim release (just like the 3GS two years before). For some, the biggest improvement will probably be the camera; others might enjoy faster gaming, but right from the start I was hooked on Siri.

My O2 contract is a long one, so my next upgrade will be this year (and I'm praying for a new iPhone release... which I'm sure will come). But in the meantime, a company called True Knowledge have come up with Evi, an artificially intelligent, voice (or text) driven assistant for iPhone and Android. And check that link out too; they've managed to nab a 3 letter domain name (which can't be cheap).

What gripped me from the start, and made me head straight for the app store, is that Evi's promo video features a woman speaking English (the original, not the ranch). So I hopped straight on, and with feverish delight pressed the button.

And d'you know what? It understood every word I said, yet at the same time was unable to deliver me a single answer. However I'm going to put that down to this TechCrunch article, which was published today.

I'm excited by Evi's potential, because if it can understand my speech without learning it and turn every spoken word into text, it should be up to the task of discerning the meaning behind it. It seems to do some of that within the app too. When I asked it who Etta James was, it capitalised her name. It even handled more complex questions like "how do you spell onomatopoeia?"

As a way to bridge the gap between iPhone 4 and 4S (or its younger, as yet unborn sister) and to prevent Android users from finding out what they're missing by not owning one, it looks really exciting. It seems to rely more on the Internet than Siri (which can do a lot of in-phone calculations), but if it works over 3G (and since it does the speech recognition in-phone), who cares all that much?

Posted on Jan. 23, 2012 in Reviews and tagged android, evi, iphone, siri, speech