Category: Blog

Blog Posts.

  • Startups, man.

    Alternative title: Blogtober Catchup, Part II

    A choice except from the New York Magazine on The Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerbergs of Tomorrow:

    “Taking a job is in some ways like a ­second option,” says Akshay Kothari, who with his friend Ankit Gupta converted a Palo Alto garage into office space for their iPad-news-app company, Pulse. “If you say you’ve taken a job, it’s like, ‘Oh, you haven’t figured it out?’” Last year, the two Stanford classmates started building the news app as part of a class at the Institute of Design. Five weeks later, it launched on the iTunes App Store, where it sold for $4. It now has 5.5 million users.

    The thing about startups is that I have no end of respect about what they do. Whether it’s all-night coding sessions or just churning out idea after idea, hoping one day to strike gold, that’s cool.

    Recommended reading.

    This post part of Blogtober 2011, just a little thing of mine where I (attempt to) post something up on my blog every day in October 2011.

  • Blogtober 2011, or, Because I Don’t Have Enough Work On My Plate As It Is

    Basically, because I don’t have enough work as it is (October 2011 pretty much means Battlefield 3, I’ve already put some 12+ hours into the beta in just under a week), not to mention the end of the Uni semester (Official release of Battlefield 3 is October 25, last exam for the year is October 29, you do the math), I’ve decided to take up Blogtober for another year.

    The last time was back in 2009, and that went okay — let’s see how we go, two years on.

    Same rules as the last time: a photo here, review there, random ramblings scattered throughout, but always a post a day. And catch-up posts where I forget — and sometimes even a little WordPress trickery when I’m a little late. I probably won’t be publishing anything from Posterous, but you might see the odd video or photo from me. Oh, another new rule: all posts published must be as original as possible. Photos taken by me. Video taken by me. Etc.

    Epic Android post, coming right up…

    This post part of Blogtober 2011, just a little thing of mine where I (attempt to) post something up on my blog every day in October 2011.

  • Some terrible deaths in Battlefield 3 — Caspian Border MP gameplay

  • Don’t tell me it isn’t about the apps! (It is.)

    I’m sitting here, thinking about the final touches of my ultra-mega Android wrap-up post, chilling out with Katy (Perry), and I realise, now more than ever, that it’s about the apps.

    It’s always been about the apps.

    Not about how many there are, or how many are fart apps, or or how many spam apps there are. None of that. It’s about the apps that you’ll use — yes, the platform matters, but the apps you’ll be using on a daily basis matter even more.

    Looking back at my Android experience, not one app has been compelling enough for me to go “whoa, this is really cool!”. Not an app that I’d use daily, anyway. I mean, there’s a limit to how impressed you can be by a screenshot app, even if it is one of the best things about your Android device. Launcher Pro is great and all, but I’m relegating that to the domain of “a very nice advantage of Android” rather than anything else.

    I mean, even Windows Phone 7 had the excellent 4th and Mayor Foursquare app. That was seriously good. I probably wouldn’t switch to WP7 purely for that app, but it would be a damn compelling reason to.

    It’s apps like Tweebot that keep me on iOS. Apps like Instapaper. Elements. Verbs. Articles. See what I mean? I might not use some of these apps every single day, but the very fact that they’re on my device, ready for whenever and wherever my fingers need them to go, that’s what matters the most.

    As much as the overall platform matters to the “bigger picture” — it’s about the apps, man. If there aren’t any really good apps in your App Store, Marketplace, or App Catalog — you better hope your web browser and email client is up to scratch.

  • Battlefield 3 / Jay-Z — “99 Problems” Full-Length Gameplay TV Ad

    Cannot wait.

  • Terminal Command of the Month September 2011

    find . -name .DS_Store -exec rm -v “{}” ‘;’

    — command to remove all .DS_Store files recursively from current directory (verbose mode)

Benny Ling's Bling

Computers are like a bicycle for our minds.