The iPad mini size isn't a design choice - it's a technical requirement

Yesterday, Apple when up on stage and put the Nexus 7 and the iPad mini side-by-side. They quickly told us how the iPad mini had a larger screen size and therefore could fit more content in it. But let me make something really, really clear - Apple themselves knows that the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire 7-inch sizes are perfect for their form-factor. The reason they did that comparison was to convince you otherwise because they didn't have a choice but to make their device wider.


Why didn't they have a choice? Well, I've said it once and I'll say it again - iOS apps are ridiculously tailored to their given screen proportions. It's actually disturbing. While Android apps scale properly on multiple screen sizes, form factors, and proportions, iOS apps won't. They're built for the specific screen you develop for. That's why the iPhone 5 goes into letter-box mode until a developer goes back and updates their apps for the new screen size. Yeesh, what a [fragmented] pain!

The iPad mini is completely proportionate to its bigger brother. Therefore, it can run iPad apps. If Apple were to release a 16:9 iPad, developers would all have to go back and reformat their apps for this brand new screen size. Like, once again, we see with the iPhone 5.


So, make no mistake - Apple didn't necessarily want to make the iPad the wide slab it is. It had to because, unlike Android, iOS hasn't been built for scaling.

Oh, and here's a slightly relevant kicker: on iOS if you want an app for both your iPhone and iPad, you need to buy two different versions of it [I was wrong about this. Developers can sell both under one purchase item. It is, however much easier to make a single, scalable app on Android using fragments.]. However, on Android? Doesn't matter if you have a phone or a tablet - you only need to pay once across all your devices. And if the developer does things right - the app will rearrange itself to use up the space on both devices properly. It just works.

Source:  https://plus.google.com/u/0/111531118192938544384/posts/T1XaRDe7sV3

How to become open to Life

In many ways, I close myself off to life in all its fullness. I close myself off to others, as a form of self defense.

It happens to all of us. When you left yourself open in the early part of your life, you likely would get hurt from time to time. That pain taught us to close ourselves off in different ways: don’t let others in, use humor to keep some distance, hurt others before they hurt you, back away from anything new, and so on.

I close myself off, and miss the world. I miss out on life when I do that.

And so I’m learning to become more open. It’s a slow process, but in many small ways I’ve learned a lot, and am much more open now than I’ve ever been.

What does it mean to be open? It means that I accept more of life without judgment, and am happier no matter what comes. It means I judge others less, criticize less, accept others more, and learn more about their wonderful particularity.

It means more than ever before I am fully experiencing life.....

...read the rest of this beautiful article here

PyCon India 2012 is here

PyCon India 2012 is the primary Python conference in India. A purely volunteer effort, it is being hosted for the fourth time in India, and will attract some of the best Python developers in India and abroad.

The conference will consist of tutorials, full length presentations, shorter lightning talks and open sprints and BoFs.

Keynote Speakers:

1. David Mertz is the well-known author of the "Charming Python" series
of articles published in IBM developer works. He is also the author of "Text processing in Python" and is a director of the board of members of the Python Software Foundation. He is also an expert in voting and security aspects related to voting, and open-voting in particular.

2. Jacob Kaplan-Moss is a lead-developer and co-creator of Django.
Jacob currently works for Revolution Systems and in his previous life worked for Lawrence Journal-World, a locally-owned newspaper in Lawrence, Kansas, where he helped develop and eventually open source Django.

With these two luminaries presenting keynotes and sharing their experiences with Python and their projects, and with a good selection of other talks, you don't want to miss PyCon India this year!

With a lot of interesting talks coming up (including 2 talks proposed by a core CPython developer), this is promising to be best PyCon India ever.

The last date for regular registration is August 31. Please register soon. Tickets are available here: http://pyconindia2012.doattend.com/

Important Dates: http://in.pycon.org/2012/blog/pyconindia-important-dates

Official website: http://in.pycon.org/2012/