The way I worked around the home button not working is to use Multitasking Gestures. As soon as you detect any issue with your home button on you iPad go and open the Settings app. In the Settings app, click on General and then enable the Multitasking Gestures. Once you have the Multitasking Gestures enabled, you don’t need the home button to exit an app but can instead exit an app by pinching your five fingers together. Place the tips of your five fingers in the screen and bring your fingers together to the center of the screen in a pinch gesture and it will close the currently opened app.

If you find that the home button on you iPad stops functioning correctly then turn on the Multitasking Gestures from the Settings app. The five finger pinch will act as if you pressed the home button. You can also do a five finger swipe to move from different apps or you can swipe up with five fingers to reveal the multitasking bar and navigate between apps this way.

iPad Multitask Gestures setting

Software Development

• Kids lunch snacks sound like Java interfaces, Uncrustables and Lunchables.
• 99% of software is hardcoded defaults.
• Software will shape the future.
• I don’t count lines of code.
• Code less, debug even less.
• Every few years JavaScript goes through a renewed renaissance.
• Sometimes life does not compute. #dividebyzeroerror

Team Leadership

• Success is a dish best served with champagne.
• Don’t let circumstance beyond your control control you.
• Just because it’s widely accepted that Steve Jobs was difficult to work with and a genius doesnt mean you have to be difficult to work with.
• Negativity is like cholesterol, to much of it can kill you.
• Most important lesson in my life: Learn to appreciate what you have and do not agonize about what you don’t.
• Corporate titles mean nothing, that is why I put Chief Creative Business Developer Principal Program Scientist on my business card.
• The biggest lesson one can learn is to listen.
• The universe doesn’t hate you, it doesn’t even know you exist.
• Try harder. Do better. Go further. Think Bigger.
• Forget stopping to smell the flowers, I stop to reach for the stars.

Product Placement

• I’m going to start a search engine for ego searches and call it egoogle.
• Google is a giant keyword router in the cloud.
• Android uses food related codenames for its different versions, such as ice cream sandwhich. I hear next release will be named leftovers.
• Why is Gingerbread still the most popular/common version of Android In new phones? It’s like two releases behind latest version.
• I think it is safe to say that G+ is a successful flop. I would compare it more to MySpace than Facebook.
• Missing Feature: I wouldn’t be surprised if the Kindle reader would allow you to tweet a quote right from an eBook.
• If Apple would design single family homes it would cost over $1 million and only be 800 sq/ft but I would want one really bad.
• iPhone or iMole: whatever data or contact or image you have on your iPhone some hacker, service, API, law enforcement, or app will access.
• In today’s day and age, no person should be executed for tweeting and no person should have to go to jail for downloading a song.
• Blue Ivy Carter sounds more like a brand name of vodka or energy drink put out by Jay-Z than the name of his kid.

Cash Angels

• Who needs $3 million to run a WordPress-powered tech blog? At these valuations my blog is definitely worth $10 million.
• Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are modern day alchemists turning virtual goods into real cold hard cash, IPOs into billions.
• A frothy market is a tasty market.
• The future is in crowd financing.
• It’s raining stock options in Silicon Valley. #makeitrain
• All the people of Palo Alto rejoice at news of Facebook IPO, in a few months their rents will go up 30%.
• To much Facebook IPO analysis on my feed. If you aren’t a preferred investor you ain’t making money.
• 1. _________. 2. $#%#%$*(&. 3. ?????? 4. Profit.

Question

• Can software refactor the world?
• How can people wave their constitutional rights be agreeing to a terms of service they didn’t read or understand?
• Breyer’s or Dreyer’s?
• Who will be the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of 3D printing?
• Forget “where’s the beef,” where’s the 100 Mbps broadband?
• Who is Waldo?
• If corporations are people does it mean a man can marry a corporation?

Equations

• Principles > Politics
• Generous > Gorgeous
• Cheddar > Chatter
• Worrier < Warrior
• Sex On Fire > Heart On Fire

Another big issue is that you have to configure your app pages and folders on each device. If you spend an hour organizing your apps into folders and pages in one device you have to re-do it all over again on the second device. What ends up happening is that you’ll have two devices with the same apps in different pages and folders.

What I am missing from my mobile experience is the ability to sync, not only the apps and content of apps, but the meta-data about how I organize apps between iOS devices. I want to have the choice to clone how one iOS device organizes and layouts the apps to other devices. I would also like the ability to have different app layout settings, such as have the iOS device automatically put applications into folders based on the app category or my usage of the app. And of course, I would like to have a way to delete an app from one device and have it disappear from all other devices.

Because of the half life of mobile application users, app developers are constantly updating their mobile apps. It depends on the number of apps you have on your phone, but if I don’t get the latest apps in a weeks period I would have 15 app updates waiting for me. I update one day and the next day there is another app ready to update. Because apps are updated so often, and they require the users permission to do so, mobile app users have are developing app update fatigue.

Code and Design

• Remove Multiple Null Values From a List in Java
• Launch Default Web Browser and Email Client in Java
• How to Print the Alphabet in Java
• Java String Conversion Puzzlers
• Find the Current Working Directory in Java
• Can You Spot the Infinite Loop
• Run-on Code Statement
• Common Causes for Out of Memory Exceptions
• Fix Common Java Errors
• Access Drives From Remote Windows Computers
• Create SQL Server Database and Database Tables From a File
• Copy Records From One Database to Another
• Copy Data Between Two Databases Tables

Reviews and Rants

• Avoid Overloading Meaning to Existing Database Columns
• Worst Software Bug
• Never Underestimate Your Users
• jQuery Mobile and PhoneGap
• Chipotle Online Order System
• Save on Merchant Fees
• Email Share
• Missing Feature: The Mobile Device Self Destruct Button
• Reclaim Disk Space with Spacie
• The Google Chrome Notebook
• Android Lacks Polish
• Microsoft Bizspark
• Does Lenovo Use Thinkvantage Toolbox to Spam Users?
• HP Printer Driver Wants to Phone Home
• Apple Ruined My Neighbors Christmas
• Google Starts Towards the Path of Evil
• Has Google Jumped the Shark?

Retweet 2011

• Retweet December 2011
• Retweet November 2011
• Retweet October 2011
• Retweet September 2011
• Retweet August 2011
• Retweet July 2011
• Retweet June 2011
• Retweet April 2011
• Retweet March 2011
• Retweet February 2011

Year in Review

• Year In Review 2009
• Year In Review 2008
• Year In Review 2007
• Year In Review 2006
• Year In Review 2005

Software Development

• To checkin or not to checkin a large changelist five minutes before you go home, that is the question?
• A test like a good movie, has three parts: the setup, the car chase, and the test of the results.
• Testing is like a tax, you have to pay 5-10% to have a good running infrastructure or system.
• Testing takes time, make sure you make the time, because it will save you time in the long run.
• All programmers have a black belt in hubris.
• One bytecode to rule them all.

Thought Leadership

• Your miles may vary, but it often depends on your attitude.
• Passion + Perseverance = Possibilities
• Sometimes you can’t afford to lose a client, but there are other times you can’t afford keep your client.
• Just like there should be no hard coded strings there should be no unwritten rules, or assumptions, or specifications.
• The dumbest people I’ve ever encountered are those that think that the rest of the 99.99% of people are a bunch of idiots.
• If you are unique no one can compete with you.
• Team meetings should not feel like an AA meeting, “Hi, I’m bob and I work here.”

Product Placement

• I’ve used the iPhone apps for Google Voice and G+ and I have to say, Google does not know how to make a good iOS app.
• I’m not liking the new Google Reader look. I would not be surprised if the next version of Google design has ribbons.
• Leave no smart phone behind. Google won’t upgrade the Nexus One to Android 4.0.
• Google is set to update its motto to “Do no evil if you ain’t getting paid for such evil.”
• Android is to Google what Internet Explorer was to Microsoft in the Browser Wars. MS gave IE for free just to take out Netscape.
• Siri is to Apple what Kinect is to XBox what Facebook Connect is to Facebook what Circles are to Google Plus…
• Every time I upgrade a MS product an angel loses his wings.
• Is Amazon also adopting social networking features? I just noticed that Amazon has a like button on its product pages.
• Facebook should update its mission “to trick people to over share and make the world more open, connected, and trackable.”
• Google should update its mission “to organize the world’s information about our users and make it accessible and useful to our advertisers.”
• @att has two options in terms of text messages. Pay as you use for $0.20 or unlimited for $20. What about a third option, disable texting altogether?
• Why does it cost half of the price of a stamp to send or receive a text? It’s endemic of an industry that has no competition or innovation.
• The Kindle Fire tablet is a modern day physical shopping cart for Amazon’s virtual online store.
• History is being made every day, yet @historychannel airs reruns of Ancient Alien.

Quotes

• OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW. – Steve Jobs’ Last Words
• I’m so embarrassed. I wish everybody else was dead. – Bender Bending Rodriguez
• Goodbye monobrains – Bender Bending Rodriguez
• There is no recession for great companies… – Jason Calacanis
• Software is like sex: it’s better when it’s free. – Linus Torvalds
• Coming together is the beginning; keeping together is a process; working together is success. – Henry Ford
• When all men think alike, no one thinks very much. – Walter Lippmann

Randumb

• On Monday mornings we are all zombies.
• Why am I listening to old school British punk rock? #GodSpankTheQueen
• The truth is that truth is absolutely relative.
• And then God said, “Let there be bacon,” and there was bacon. God saw that the bacon was delicious.
• You’re so vain, you probably think this tweet is about you.
• Fist pump for peace.
• Anybody that gets lost in a corn maze is an absolute moron.
• I hate Lifetime movies!
• Business is legitimate thievery.
• Some of the most common elements on earth idiotum and dumbtonium.
• meta-disrupt: Disrupt those disrupting disruption.
• I am, therefore I meme.

Thought Equations

• Meaning > money
• problem = opportunity
• means != ends
• Success > Perfection
• Experience != Information
• Thinking > Knowing
• Do > try
• Platform > product
• Creation > criticism
• Passion + Perseverance = Possibilities

Million Dollar Ideas

• Million Dollar Idea: Online Speed Dating Site
• Million dollar idea: a news channel with nothing but news tickers…
• Million Dollar Idea: self cleaning floors.

Software Development

• Code. Money. Respect.
• Software bugs don’t take anything personally.
• Code more, sleep less.
• DONT THREAD ON ME

Thought Leadership

• Just having a goal is often times more important than the goal itself.
• Word programming, i.e. writing TPS reports.
• Code Complete = Tests + Implementation.

Product Placement

• Google is the casino, or better yet the Goldman Sachs, of online identity, ads, and search. You don’t bet against the house.
• What is cloud-accelerated web browser? Learning about Amazon Silk, the web browser in Amazon’s Kindle Fire.
• The project code name for the iPhone’s auto correct is auto cucumber.
• Spike TV should rename itself to Star Wars TV and the History Channel to Ancient Aliens Channel.

Money Angels

• Dr Evil is starting a venture fund.
• If Dr. Evil would have taken his Evil Corp. Public he would have made $1 billion on an IPO. And maybe Google would have bought his company.

Question

• How many uses can you think of for a paper clip?
• Where in the food pyramid is candy corn?
• Is Meg Whitman the new Carol Bartz?
• Are you changing the world or is the world changing you?
• What is the person equivalent to having your car lifted up in the air and balancing its tires?

Randumb

• The Internet made me do it.
• It’s easy to earn money while you sleep, if you sleep on the job.
• You are more likely to die due to medical error than a car accident. So if you are in a car accident, don’t go to the hospital, just walk it off.
• If I could get a nickel every time someone gives me their two cents I would arbitrage people’s opinions.
• Living the Internet lifestyle.
• If you don’t want your naked picture hacked from your phone don’t take naked picture of yourself on your phone.
• There are proposed bills that will make activities such as posting a lip sync video on YouTube a federal crime punishable with jail time.
• Forget the war on drugs, in the future there will be a war on content.
• History is not made, it is written, edited, scripted, and appropriated by Hollywood as a blockbuster movie about mutant super heroes.
• I predict the past.
• Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, behold yourself.
• This is not Sparta!
• Love me, hate me, but you thinking of me.
• Love it or hate it, take it or leave it.
• I love love and hate hate.

Overheard

• OH: When you frown you look like a Klingon.
• OH: Is everyone in the call on mute?
• OH: My dress code is to try not to show my butt cheeks.

In Da Future

• In the future, everyone will be a product guy.
• In the future, Facebook will be your permanent record.
• In the future, the revolution will start with a single tweet.
• In the future, when people say they are going outside the grid, they will mean they aren’t logged into Facebook.
• In the future, Android developers will need to program using the Android SDK and the phone maker’s proprietary SDK, and the carriers’s SDK.

Million Idea

• Million Dollar Idea: A treadmill with a weight scale.
• Million Dollar idea: there is so much artificial flavoring, color, and seasoning in food. Patent dinosaur meat flavoring.
• Million Dollar Idea: Car alarm system that steams video of the surroundings of your car and scans for perps faces.
• Million Dollar idea: wasabi guacamole
• Million Dollar Idea: Carfax for people, including driving record, background check, work history, etc.
• Million Dollar idea: pepperoni pizza flavored breath mints.

Apple's Mobile Me

All mobile devices, from phones, tablets, and to laptops should have a built it self destruct feature that when activated would destroy all data on a compromised device. It is my belief that a phone is a very intimate and personal device, there is so much personal data in my phone from private contact lists, to confidential business emails, to other dubious activities that I may or may not be involved in.

In addition to having the ability to destroy incriminating data from a mobile device, such as an iPhone or iPad, I want the ability to program rules into the phone. Such as if the phone has not been unlocked in over 24 hours, or if the attempted to unlocked more than three times, if it activated with a given specific code, if it is located in a known police or government building, etc.

Find My iPhone