matt hackmann - web developer - artist - nerd

As I sit here, hogging my little brother's bed, typing out a blog post on my own personal PADD, I realize that I do not really know what it is that I want to say. So, I shall talk about the device itself and my opinions on it seeing as I've now owned the thing going on a week.

The Hardware

There is no doubting that the iPad hardware is top quality. It is sleek and has a good, solid feel to it. The screen is bright and crisp, though it does come withe usual glare problems you will get from having a glossy screen (not to mention the fingerprints... Oh, god the fingerprints!) My only real complaint about the hardware is it's lone, mono speaker. It doesn't sound bad, but it doesn't have e crispness you get from two discrete aud channels.

Software

iOS is much nicer and easier to use on a lager screen, but in the end it is still iOS. I will list off a few apps I've found that I feel warrant some attention (food or ill):

Flipboard: This is a feed reader of sorts (it will pull feeds from twitter, Facebook, google reader, etc.), but presents stories in a very newspaper-esque way. It is very clean and sexy to look at and for the price is free, probably the best iPad app I've gotten.

Crunchyroll: It's to anime what Netflix instant watch is to movies. The iPhone app is good, do nit get me wrong, but it works so much bett with the exta screen real estate. Watching stuff from the comfort of my bed on the large screen is quite joyous.

Seaglass: This is a rather sad attempt at a Tetris Attack clone. They've so many on the game physics messed up that it pisses me off. Yu can tell that only mild effort was put into this game and yet I paid a buck for it. Know this, Seaglass creators, you are now my enemy and my competitor. Enjoy your sit ion while you can!

So that's all I have. I am thoroughly enjoying this thing (especially on my home visit as I do not have to drag around the laptop) and it was totally worth the money.

I'd been wanting one since the first one came out, but today I finally bought a stupid iPad. The ordeal went down like this:

*walks over to iPad table in Apple store like a boss*

Apple dude: Hi! Can I help you?

Me: 16GB wifi iPads. Have any?

Apple chick: I have one. Black.

Me: It's mine!

And that's verbatim how it went down.

I am enjoying this thing, as I thought I would. My eyes particularly enjoy the very large screen. Been checking out the apps available and sighing over the apps I have that aren't iPad formatted (lookin' at you, Skype).

Also, I've been looking for options for iOS development on Windows and have a few things I'm going to try. Whilst I may have caved to Apple once again for mobile computing, I refuse to use OS X in areas where I can avoid it.

And just as soon as somebody hacks Windows 8 for this thing, iOS is gone....

(no more blog posts typed on this thing...)

It's been some time since I have updated this blog. So I take leave of my busy life, if only for a moment, to fill you, the reader, in on the various happenings and goings on. (Okay, that's enough eighteen hundreds talk).

So, Christmas has come and gone (as it always does) and I am now back into the thick of school. Luckily, I don't have all sucky courses this month. No, I only have one. However, let's put the good news before the bad, shall we?

ADG

Advanced Computer Graphics, or ADG, is probably the second best course I've had thus far (NOS being number one). ADG is, more or less, a Photoshop/Illustrator class. DCG was also this to a slight degree, but more emphasis was placed on the actual design as opposed to technical issues. Now, however, we're in the thick of opacity masks, and layer styles, and blah, blah, blah. Actually, believe it or not, I've become more comfortable in Illustrator than I am in Photoshop. The pen tool, simply put, is the most brilliant thing since aged cheese. But don't take my word for it, take my art:

[gallery][/gallery]

It should be duly noted that the NES is not, in fact, a photograph. Nor was it some fancy job I did in Photoshop. No, it was done completely in Illustrator and, vector graphics being what they are, is infinitely scalable. The advertisement, however, is not. Oh, and speaking of which, I realize that the NES is pushing twenty-three.

My other course is geometry and I will leave you simply with this: proofs can burn in Hell.

One thing I'd like to say real quick: iPod Touch is the best PDA ever created. I know. I own one. Damn you Apple, damn you.

My site is still riding on a wave of hits from the Rock Band drums thing way back when, but I've had another surge in popularity thanks to this guy. He's created one nicely polished drum kit app and has kindly linked back to my page. It'd be wrong for me not to return the favor.

Finally, while I'm throwing out links, be sure to check out the newly revamped Game Boyz. While you're at it, why don't you sign up on the forums and tell my bro how awesome the comic is.

Well, that should appease the masses for the well being. I write these posts in hope that somebody is reading them, however, even if it just serves as a chronicle of my life for me to read later, then so be it. It's deep tomes of history have already provided me with hours of cringing agony. May it continue to do so in this grand a glorious new year.

I do not consider myself an Apple zealot, but I'll have to admit that they make very nice hardware. I'm completely loving my Mac Book Pro. It's doubley more awesome that my Mac mini in almost every respect. Clock speed, RAM, hard drive space, video, you name it this thing is better. And it's portable. And it gets blazing hot when it's doing heavy processing, hotter than the surface of the sun I'd say.

Yesterday I picked up my books and softwares, those being Final Cut Studio 2 and Adobe Creative Suite 3 (adds up to a grand total of $3000+). I loaded up CS3 immediately and had fun doing stupid Photoshop jobs all day.

I tried screwing around with FCS2 last night but didn't really get anywhere. Final Cut Pro itself seems fairly straight forward so far but I couldn't figure out Color (color grading app) which is a bummer because one thing that my videos need are to be color graded.

School doesn't start until Tuesday and I'm beginning to get a little bored. E and I have been playing Halo 2 and we watched all the Back to te Future movies, but I'm ready for school. I do have my copy of Eternal Sonata now so maybe that'll ease the pai of waiting even if just by a little bit. I could always draw, I suppose. But I don't know if I'll be able to top this:

I haven't been posting here very much lately. Why? Well... I dunno :-P. Firstly, though, I'll get the comic links up to speed:

Plan 4 World Peace (filler)

The Fruit Saga, Parts 1, 2, and 3.

The fruit saga is more or less based on real life. I did purchase a Mac mini with my tax refund and, despite my years of rampant Mac hatred, I must admit that it is a nifty piece of hardware. I do have a copy of Vista installed (thanks to bootcamp), but I haven't booted out of OS X in several days. I haven't done much more than piddle around with stuff, but I'm going to start learning the APIs and maybe write a game.

Full Sail, my college of choice, has been "pestering" me lately and I guess I need to call them back and start getting things setup to sail away in the fall. I'm not sure what kind of course I want to take. Back when I heard about them it was game programming hands down, but I do enjoy drawing and would like to do more film projects. It's a real toss up. I may go with game programming yet because, of those three options, it's probably my strongest area. We'll see, though...

As far as work goes, it's pretty much usual. I'm cashier mostly, but since I recieved my CSM powers I've been doing that some too. Just yesterday, in fact, they pulled me off a register to cover for somebody whilst they went on break. I'm sitting in a pretty sweet position in that I can do almost anything in the store from CSMing, to cashiering, to cart pushing, to unloading trucks, etc.

Well, I'll close this blog post with a little piece of my art featuring Basch, my favorite character from FFXII: