Sachin Agarwal’s Posterous

Sachin's posterous thoughts and photos 

Awww yeah! We're at the fun table at bob and debbys wedding

$10 to the first one to identify all these people. Drinking games shall commence now.

(download)

Sent from my iPhone

Comments [2]

MobileMe is THE BEST way to share large files easily with friends

There are SO many file sharing services out there. Yet, there's no good way for me to upload a 500MB zip file of photos, and share those files with my friends. After an event like a wedding, i need to be able to send *the full size images* to others, and they need to be able to download them with no accounts and no fuss.
 
MobileMe has solved this. I can easily upload files to my public folder on my desktop or via the web interface. Then in just 2 clicks I can get a public or password protected url to give to my friends. I can set an expiration date and forget about it.
 
MobileMe isn't the most successful product out there. But I've always been a supporter because it's all about quality, it's all about doing things right. *Because* it's a paid service, they can offer IMAP email, be totally ad free, and now offer dead simple file sharing. For $99/year ($50 with the employee discount), it's a steal.

It really doesn't get any simpler than this.

Comments [9]

Great deals on Sandisk memory for your digital camera. New rebate available now

Ever since I got my Canon 5D Mark II, I've been looking to buy more camera memory. My 8GB card fills up in no time since I shoot RAW (25MB per photo) and 1080p video.

I hesitated in my purchase because there are too many options out there. Which memory is good? Does it even matter? For a 32GB compact flash card, a Sandisk brand card cost more than double a Kingston. Is it worth the extra money? It only takes one corrupt card, one set of lost images, to make you wish you had purchased the better card up front.

Anyway, my decision was made easier today.

1. I found this flash memory performance database:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/camera_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-9784

It clearly shows the Kingston brand card runs at less than half the speed of the Sandisk, even though they claim similar numbers on the packaging.

2. Sandisk now has a rebate on their memory cards:
http://www.adorama.com/pdfs/rebates/sandiskextreme_092609.pdf

It still doesn't bring the cost down to the Kingston, but it's closer.

Don't risk losing your precious photos... purchase good Sandisk memory. I have two 32GB cards in the mail. Wow that's a lot of memory.

Comments [0]

Hanging out at Apple with my old coworkers

I really miss being at Apple. Every time I go back to visit, i'm reminded of the six great years I had there. One group, one product the whole time. I love that I actually worked in Infinite Loop 1, the HQ. I walked through the same door as Steve Jobs everyday to get to work.

There's so much discontent in the web 2.0 world around working for the man. Startup founders think working for a large company means taking orders from above, having no control over what you do, slow moving orgs.

Apple wasn't like that at all. I loved it. I worked on really amazing projects. We had tight schedules and we hit them every time (or close). I wasn't just a code monkey, I designed every feature I implemented (with the help of the other designers).

Out of all the people who went to work at Google after grauataion, I only know 1 person who remains. The rest moved on. Of the people who I worked with at Apple for 6 years, nearly every single one of them is still at Apple. Maybe they switched projects, but they didn't switch companies.

I was at Apple last week to get some iPhone app help from my buddies there. They changed the main lobby furniture, but otherwise it's exactly how i remember. And the beer at BJs next door is still awesome :)

               
Click here to download:
Hanging_out_at_Apple_with_my_o.zip (6225 KB)

Comments [3]

I wonder why Apple doesn't support flash video files on the iPhone

I'm not suggestion the iPhone support flash. I hate flash. It's the modern java. It just creates ugly, bloated, slow, non native apps. 99% of the time, a native solution is far better. Other than for cross platform games, there's no good reason to use flash on the web.
 
But I'm talking about flash video files on the iPhone, ".flv" files.
 
FLV files are just container formats around audio and video streams. Often, these streams use common codecs like h.264 that the iPhone already supports. So why doesn't Apple simply write a quicktime component that plays flv files?
 
Then, web developers wouldn't need to go out and re-encode all their videos to mp4. All they would need to do is detect the iPhone user agent, and wrap the flv file in a quicktime embed.
 
Instantly and easily the iPhone could play most (all?) web video! It seems like a super easy win for Apple: they support a ton of websites that simply don't work today, it's an easy change for the developers, and Apple can still hold firm to not supporting flash as a whole.
 
Some background info:
 
There seems to be confusion in the web world around what mp4 is and what h.264 is.

  • Audio and video codecs (compressor/decompressor). These are h.263, h.264, mp3, aac, etc. 
  • File formats (containers). These are mov, mp4, flv, avi. They are the file that holds one of more audio/video streams that are encoded using a codec 
  • The player you see on the web. This is almost always flash, but would also be quicktime, or any other piece of software that can take a container file (mp4), decode the streams, and display it. 

 
I'm saying that given flv files are simply containers around commonly used and supported codecs, it's strange to not play them natively.
 
I guess Apple is winning the war against flash so there's little reason for them to do something about it now... Websites are encoding their video in mp4 files so they play on iPhones, and websites are avoiding flash whenever possible since that means no iPhone support.
 
Only Apple could choose to not support the biggest web video distribution platform, and win.

 

Comments [8]

The Creamery in SOMA is a big FAIL. I predict they will go under in six months

We tried to go to The Creamery in SOMA for lunch today, but the kitchen was already closed at 1pm. Are you kidding me? This is at least the fourth time I've been there and have failed to get service.
 
Garry and I have tried to schedule coffee meetings there before, only to find out they had closed at some crazy early hour, 4pm on weekdays. How can a business stay open like this?
 
I chatted with/complained to the guy at the register today, telling him how I've *wanted* to give them business, but haven't been able to. He explained that since The Creamery is family owned, they can't afford to stay open when business is slow. Unless they are full, they go home.
 
This sounds like the wrong attitude to have. Whenever you are starting a new business, whether it's a restaurant or a web startup, you know you have to work your ass off to get it going. You have to create a great product, and then build a clientele. The Creamery seems to be failing at this.
 
My parents owned indian restaurants in LA when I was growing up. I remember when we were just getting started, there were nights we served 10 people dinner, all night. But we still had 6 employees in the restaurant running a professional operation. I remember nights when a customer showed up right at 10pm, when we closed. The employees went home, but my parents and I stayed for another hour and served the customer.
 
You cannot expect to keep a business open only in the best times and have it succeed. It really sounds like they simply don't want to put in the time and work hard. Well, they lost me as a customer.

Comments [9]

Bath time at the sf zoo

(download)

Sent from my iPhone

Comments [8]

Captain EO was one of my favorite attractions at Disneyland

When I was growing up, I went to Disneyland at least once or twice every year. Anytime we had visiting family, it was my duty to take a day off from school and show them around Disneyland. I loved it.
 
On this day when everyone is remember the king of pop, here is the full version of Captain EO. I probably saw this over 20 times growing up. Sorry, this one is not in 3D :)
 

Comments [2]

Clear airport security fast-lane program shuts down‎, and I'm glad. But is your personal info safe?

The future is now, privacy-wise. Clear, the company that let you pay to skip the line at the airport, is out of business and trying to sell their most valuable asset, your information. Considering it involves passport and biometric data, this could really suck. As a friend pointed out, the service was a scam anyway. They pretend they offer extra security because they have all your biometrics and do a background check, but in fact you still go through all the airport security procedures. the only difference is you pay to skip the line.

I've never been a fan of the Clear airport program. It's not because I don't think it's useful, but because they totally lie about what they are offering. Why do they need my biometrics in order to let me cut the line?

If they actually made security less rigorous by identifying you through fingerprints, then maybe it would have been useful.

But all they did was let people pay to cut the line. That's fine, but then just call it that and don't collect biometrics.

Clear was totally a scam.

Comments [3]

I got a white iPhone for the first time. W00t

Sent from my iPhone

Comments [5]