iPad gets the iOS 4.2 in November (iPhones get iOS 4.1 now)
As per my previous coverage of the Apple event where several new iPods and a new iTunes was announced, I'm making this post so that iPad owners can sigh with relief regarding the iOS. Yes, we will get an update, yes it will have multi-tasking and make the iPad (even more) awesome.
Read on to get all the juicy details...
Apple’s new iPod line-up, iOS 4.2 and iTunes 10
Just a few minutes ago Steve Jobs has finished his keynote speech where he presented us with a few new things. First and foremost we heard about the new version of the iOS! That's right, iOS 4.2 is coming out November 2010 and it will come out not only for the iPhone 4 but also for the.... YES, you guessed right! FOR THE iPAD!
Did I get you curious with the new things announced at this Apple event? Well then, keep on reading to get the rest of the story!
CyanogenMod 6.0 Released (Still No Galaxy S Support)
Just a couple of days ago, the good folk 'Cyanogen' released version 6.0 of their much acclaimed CyanogenMod. To my (and many other people's) sadness though, it still does not support the Samsung Galaxy S nor any of its other flavours (Vibrant, Captivate, etc).
According to a previous post by the same gentleman, Vibrant support (and hopefully all the rest, by affinity) might be coming to version 6.1. Until this version is released let's just hold onto that thought and pray they are serious about it!
In the meanwhile, maybe you'd like to give one of the Froyo builds a spin?
Samsung Galaxy S Gets Android 2.2 (Froyo) [Beta]
In case you were not aware yet, there are Froyo builds available out there RIGHT NOW for the Samsung Galaxy S. You just have to be aware that these builds are in fact beta builds released by Samsung and thus might still be a bit buggy and crash-ey. Still, it shouldn't break your phone. If anything you'll just have to reflash it back with Éclair which is perfectly possible and very safe.
So you want to give these Froyo builds a try? After all there are already three betas out there so it can't be that bad, right? Well, just read on for a walk through on how to get these builds and how to get them on your phone!
Tiago is now officially an ASF committer!
True to the proverbial "feather in the cap", I have been promoted to committer with the project I have been participating on during the last few months, Apache Derby. There's not much to say except that it feels really good to have your hard work recognized 
Apache Derby is a great project with a really nice community of helpful people and it was through Derby that I have participated and successfully completed the Google Summer of Code challenge for two years in a row! It's always a great challenge even to the sharpest mind and most advanced skills because this is an extensive project that has already been around for more than a decade. Over this period different developers have participated on it which adds to the challenge of reengineering and simple engineering of new features when the need arises. I can't say this is a disadvantage though as it is an excellent way of being exposed to actual production code from an IT giant (Apache Derby once was IBM Cloudscape). It's also exciting because the changes that you make will actually have an impact on the thousands of people that use Apache Derby and for this reason all changes have to be done with most care to keep Derby's performance up to the challenge as well as to ensure that all standards are kept.
With this said, I'll just leave here the link to the "historical" vote in the ASF list
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/db-derby-dev/201008.mbox/<4C6F038C.7080708@sbcglobal.net>
Samsung Galaxy S Lag Issue (And How To Fix It) [Updated]
[Updated - Jump to the end of the post for a detailed walkthrough]
As some of my readers may know, I have recently traded in my Maemo-wielding Nokia N900 for a brand new Samsung Galaxy S. This move was led by several reasons that I am not going to go in detail in this post now but I did it and I was very happy with my new phone. In comparison with the Nokia it was super fast and best of all, it runs Android which is, in my opinion, a great mobile operating system.
Samsung Galaxy S and the iPhone 4′s amazing screen
I went into an O2 store today. I was merely looking to handle the new iPhone 4, to see how it looked like in person, to see how it felt in my hand and... obviously, to test the death grip, or, more correctly, the death touch. Yes, you don't really have to grip it like Steve J. suggests, you really just have to touch it on that joint point on the bottom left corner of the phone and the signal goes all the way down to just two, and then one bar. You can clearly see the effects of the new firmware though, it no longer goes into no signal, it will still tell you that there's some signal, while in fact it's probably impossible to make any calls at that point. But anyway, I was there, I tested it. I didn't grip the iPhone, I merely pressed my index finger against that tiny little spot and the signal instantly started dropping from the full five bars to two bars and ultimately to just one bar. Similarly, as soon as I raised my finger from that spot, it gained back the signal to full strength. This is why I'm dubbing this issue not "death grip" but "death touch".
Why Apple’s argument is simply flawed
Alright so I know everyone has been talking about this and it has been debated and criticized ad nauseum but this latest press conference was nothing short of a joke. For those of you who are unaware of what happened, let me start from the beginning.
Apple released the iPhone 4 and dubbed it as the best smartphone ever. It was the best smartphone Apple had ever built, it was the best smartphone on Earth and... "there's one more thing... look at the rim. This is also the antenna and is part of some brilliant engineering." (this is more or less what Steve Jobs preached at the iPhone launch). When making this presentation, little did Jobs know (or didn't he?) that this antenna design was going to backfire so gracefully, like a Russian Roulette player who's about to fire the gun against his head for the sixth time in a row. And it did fire.
Pie Chart Yourself Into a Diet?
Pretty much everyone who could actually use with a diet has problems with it. They either don't know how much they should be eating of each of the different types of food, or they simply shun the idea out of their minds when push comes to shove. With this in mind, a very clever Portuguese guy and some other people (nationality bias much? ) came up with this plate that has a wheel of nutrition drawn on it.
This way, you will not only know exactly how much you should be eating of each of the wheel's categories, but you will also feel guilt ridden if your t-bone steak occupies the whole vegetable and cereal sections. These plates are apparently still just a proof of concept, but I'm pretty sure you can even photoshop the wheels yourself and have them transferred into normal white plates.
Image after the break.