Meticulo

There’s two shows that premiered in the past few weeks that I am really enjoying.

Hannibal (NBC)

Sometimes there are guys that are worth following throughout their career. Hannibal was developed for TV by Bryan Fuller and Bryan has always been one of my most favourite TV creators/showrunners/producers. Since 2003 he’s created some of my most beloved shows (all of which were cancelled prematurely) and while I was very unsure about how his style would translate to a dark thriller (almost horror) type show, I can tell you it works. If you pay attention his style is all over this thing and it’s been really good.

Based on what I’ve read and assuming it gets picked up, NBC is treating Hannibal more like a mini series than a full blown never ending TV show. I think this tighter focus is something more shows should do and is helping me imagine where they can take this thing. It is hard to imagine Hannibal going on for many seasons.

Bates Motel (A&E)

If it isn’t obvious yet, I like to follow creators more than I do content so when I heard Carlton Cuse was involved in bringing a prequel of the Psycho universe to TV I was definitely intrigued—not about Psycho but Carlton.

So far Bates Motel has been really good. Vera and Freddie are amazing. Let me really stress this, these two on screen together carry the entire show. They’ve really impressed me. The story is very rich and tasteful. Bates has already been renewed for a second season so the ride is just beginning.

There’s a few stand out shows for me this year. Like my Last Year In Review list, this isn’t a top list. It’s just my list of new and old that have really came out to deliver something special this fall season.

Revolution (NBC)

Having been a massive Supernatural fan through the years, when I found out Eric Kripke went off to create Revolution and he teamed up with J.J. Abrams to do it… lets just say I knew what my most anticipated show of 2012 was going to be.

Great show so far. Loving how immersed I feel in the world. Plus, it’s an interesting story.

Fringe (Fox)

This is only 1 of 2 that was on my previous list. As I mentioned in the summer, it’s damn close to my favourite show and seeing it all come to end has just been a joy to watch. The story telling is as good as ever, and I really feel like this is a level of quality for science fiction that we rarely get to see.

It’s also the second J.J. Abrams show on my list.

Tron: Uprising (Disney XD)

Ok, so I actually thought Tron Legacy was a pretty damn good movie. It’s just so visually breathtaking and Disney has not spared any expense with immersing me into that very same world here. I’m finding this to be one of my favourite TV shows (period) right now.

The voice acting is fantastic. The stories are engaging. The animation suits the Tron world perfectly and you can’t forget about that score! Oh damn! Hearing this in surround sound is just beautiful. Have I sold you yet?

The Walking Dead (AMC)

So the first season of this show was great. Then season 2 came along and barly held my interest—I had all but written it off. Season 3 has actually been really good so far. A buddy of mine said the characters are barely recognizable. That’s probably true but has it maybe found its self? I sure hope so, this is much more like the Walking Dead I read first.

Homeland (Showtime)

What!? Homeland mentioned on this site 3 times now? Ha! Yes, it has! It’s just really good. That’s all I’m going to say.

Honourable Mention

Go On (NBC)

There’s something about Go On that I like but can’t quite put my finger on. It’s probably Matthew Perry. He’s just really good, ya know? Go On might not deliver that many laugh out loud moments but it’s been really good.

Modern Family (ABC)

I’ve always loved this show but it feels like they have really hit their stride with season 4. Last weeks episode was one of their best all series yet. Love it.

Brickleberry (Comedy Central)

I’m a pretty massive Daniel Tosh fan so it’s natural I’d give this show a try. So far, so good. It’s exactly what you imagine a show produced by Tosh would be like.

Elementary (CBS)

Johnny Lee Miller is just too good. This is a great re-imagination of the Sherlock Holmes world, complete with a female Watson. It’s delivered though. Solid all around.

Last Resort (ABC)

Want to know a winning formula? Combine Shawn Ryan and submarines together. Poof! Last Resort. My only concern is how long they can keep this going. Otherwise, fuck yeah submarines! Oh, look at that. Last Resort was just canceled. Well, guess that won’t be a problem anymore!

This is just a quick observation I had while reading through Brent Ozar’s review of the Windows Surface tablet.

I’m not here to comment about any of the issues he had, in fact I’m only going to comment on one single thing. Was I the only one who had a genuine “ewwww” or cringe worthy moment while watching his “saving a word document” video and saw a file dialog open?

All tablet computing platform competition aside, there’s one thing I am 100% certain of. Apple and Android’s (right?) complete removal of a traditional filesystem is the only way to go. File systems are gross and I don’t ever want to have to think about where my shit lives. It should just simply, live.

I’ve been a happy Transcend Coffee customer for about 2 years now. In that time, I’ve ordered over 100 bags of coffee and have enjoyed every last drop of it. To say I’m a fan would be an understatement.

The other day I got an package from them even though I had not ordered anything. I assumed it was some kind of mixup, but was happy to open the package to realize that no, it wasn’t a mistake at all. It was a thank you letter and travel mug for being such a great customer. Kind of awesome, right?

This isn’t the first time they’ve been amazing. About a year and a half ago I had ordered a couple of bags and as usual, the coffee was sent out within a business day (I got the shipment notification from Purolator). But then after 7 days, it still hadn’t arrived. I checked the shipping number and it was the same status it had been at 6 days prior, in transit.

Obviously this wasn’t Transcend’s fault but I emailed them anyways and simple asked if there was something they could do, or someone they could call, to see if they could kick this bag through. Within a few hours I received an email from Zack saying nuts to Purolator and that he’ll just send another order my way. Sure enough within 2 days I got my coffee, and all at no expense or trouble to myself. That’s how you look out for your customers. Oh ya, and about another 4 days later sure enough, my original order (original shipment dates and everything) arrived.

Point is, if you treat your customers great, they’ll typically treat you great too. I have been a loyal customer for 2 years now and have no plan to change. If you’re in the southern Alberta area, I highly recommend Transcend Coffee.

OS X pushes iCloud as the first and primary place to save everything if you’re using Apple’s own apps. TextEdit, Preview, Pages, Numbers etc… are all good examples. This is absolutely fine, since to most users the concept of a file system is scary and certainly something they don’t understand. But there’s a big hole in Apple’s strategy here and I was shocked to discover it last night in a practical, real world example.

I created some PDF’s in Preview and saved them all to iCloud. Thought nothing of it. I then went to my iPhone to view one of them. Wait. You can’t. There is no way to get these files on your iOS device.

Apps that have an iOS version (Pages, Numbers) are fine. They have a native method of retrieving these files within the app through iCloud. The problem here is that there is no Preview for iOS. So all those PDF’s you saved, stuck in the cloud.

This is a really big problem in my opinion since it negates the whole benefit of using the system Apple pimps so hard by default. The simplest solution is to email the file to yourself… seriously. Wait? Are we in 1999?

iOS should be able to access your iCloud files. Period. Your TextEdit files, PDF’s, Number and Pages documents. 3rd party files can stay segregated of course, this would be very easy for Apple to control. Until iOS can, iCloud is borderline useless over here.

A thought occurred to me today about the current state of software and something that has seen quite the shift over the past few years. To be clear, in this article I will be talking about desktop and native platform software like iOS apps. This is not a discussion about web apps.

Back in the day, I used to install new software on my computer all the time. You remember those days. There was so much new stuff to discover (mostly because of the Internet) and there was weeks when I would probably have installed 50 apps. Most of them garbage, but I tried them. Over time, I found the app that I liked most and that was that.

One of the qualities of these apps was often that it was beta or alpha. This label came as a warning to users willing to install it that hey, it could blow up your computer and burn your house down but in most cases it simply meant to watch out for bugs and was usually not feature complete.

Lets fast forward to 2012. I’m fairly confident I can count on one hand how many new apps I’ve installed on my computer this year. Lets think about 2012 for just one more minute. I said on my computer, right? Yup. I still feel like I try out and explore new apps all the time but if I haven’t been doing this on my computer, where have I been busy? Oh that’s right, my iPhone.

I still grab new apps all the time. In fact, iTunes reports 262 apps either purchased or downloaded for free. Here’s the point I’m driving at, the App Store doesn’t really allow beta or alpha software¹. This makes sense since most people are unlikely to spend real money on something that only half works. But what this has created is a software ecosystem where the quality of said software is really fucking high. Like, way higher than it ever was on Windows and probably ever on OS X.

If you’re curious, it was the beta release of Tweetbot for Mac that made me sit and think about why it felt so lackluster. When I grab new software these days, I expect it to be done. Straight up. When it’s not, I’m unlikely to use it.

¹ I know it’s not explicitly disallowed.

I started watching The Newsroom and I am absolutely in love with it. I don’t know if it’s just one thing in particular but everything about this show has been right up my alley. Between the acting, the fast paced dialog, fantastic score and very good mix of single & multi camera, it’s just been a treat to watch.

Emily Mortimer and Jeff Daniels are fucking great together on screen. Fucking great.

iCal supports timezones, that’s cool but the time it shows is confusing because it’s inconsistent.

This view is correct. It’s in my timezone.

This view shows the time in the original created timezone. Yes, I can see that it shows 3:30 PST but calendar events are all about the quick glance. “What time do I have that meeting?” BAM. Unless you also look at the timezone, you’ll miss your meeting.

Why isn’t iCal smart enough to just snap it to your timezone? Ie. 4:30 MST. If it’s that important to show the timezone it was booked in, create a new item. This is just confusing.

I’ve been using CloudFlare on my personal domains for around 9 months now. If you’re not familiar with what they do, they’re a hosting service that sits in front of your own host, protecting it from all the evil on the Internet. But they do more than just serve and protect.

I’ll let their marketing site sell you on the whole package but here’s my favourite features:

1. Global CDN
2. Content optimization
3. DNS

The best part? You get all of this for free. CloudFlare is definetely doing some cool things. There was even a period last month when my own domain went down and I didn’t even know because CloudFlare kept her running. Pretty cool eh?