When I first started developing for Palm I was a bit skeptical of the framework because it seemed thrown together and needed a lot of polish. The most annoying part was (and is) the lack of accurate documentation. Yes, I said accurate. Palm’s Developer website doesn’t offer complete documentation on everything, and even less of it is actually accurate. Often times if you copy-and-paste the sample code into your project it will not work due to either a typo in their code or the fact that the code is from a previous version of the framework and no longer works.

Palm’s own developer forums often are a frustration. If you take a look around you’ll notice a trend: most people’s posts have many more views than replies—which tells me nobody else can help them either. This isn’t to discount the webOS/Mojo ninjas out there—it just grows both aggravating and disappointing. I am currently trudging through writing a follow-up app for my last one, with progress alternating between very quick and very aggravatingly slow (as in, spending an entire day trying to figure out a problem no one has the answer to, and eventually deciding on another path that actually works).

Although this post sounds like a rant, I wouldn’t classify it as one. I haven’t lost faith in Palm. I understand it’s very early in webOS’s lifespan (indeed, the App Catalog itself is still in Beta), and being a developer I can accept that 1.x software is seldom perfect. Although being in the Palm camp this early on is a bit frustrating, seeing the ratings and feedback from your users after your app has finally shipped makes it all worth it.

I wrote a small tester webOS app for Palm Pre a while back and submitted it to Palm to be in the App Catalog. I didn’t even notice until today, but evidently my app, gChords Free, was published in the app catalog a few days ago. So far it’s managing pretty good reviews.

If you’ve read a single blog post on my site you know music is a huge part of my life. I’m a double musician (piano/guitar) going to school for music production technology with an emphasis in composition. However, I am (and have always been) heavily involved in technology—particularly web development. Naturally, these things all mesh together. I have music playing (or am playing it) at literally every possible second of my day. If I’m awake 16 hours in a day probably at least 13 hours of it involved music somehow. However, the type of music playing depends on what I’m doing.

Designing

Typically if I’m designing I’m listening to ‘creative’ music. Typically these are the songs that would get me the weirdest looks by people if they were around. Admittedly, a lot of this music is weird but that’s exactly why I choose to listen to it: it’s different. When I’m designing I’m obviously trying to think creatively and flowing. Metaphorically, I enjoy the creative, flowing avant-gardé nature of the music, but also appreciate the underlying structure which typically adheres to the rules of music. This is exactly the way good design is! Refreshing, flowing, and different, but while adhering to the standards of design—both social and natural laws such as line-width and -height.

Typically when I get an album that inspires me, I stick to it for a while until it doesn’t. For a while this was The White Stripes’ Get Behind Me Satan, which is still a monumental album in its rawness. For a while it was Jack White’s other band The Raconteurs and their second album. It truly depends on my mood at the time but others I’ve listened to while designing: Chevelle, Counting Crows, Dave Matthews, The Derek Trucks Band (check out their new album Already Free now), Evanescence, Five for Fighting, Hootie & the Blowfish, James Morrison, Jamie Cullum (this is a relatively new find for me), John Mayer, Kings of Leon, and even Tenacious D.

Coding

Writing code is another story. Arguably, the process of writing code is typically not as creative as designing, assuming you are coding an existing design. Coding is often simply repetitive tasks. Music I listen to during this phase of development typically reflects this. Often I’ll listen to music that, though sometimes repetitive, has a driving force that “pushes” me along. Examples include: NIN’s Ghosts albums, Blue Man Group (haha, yes), Deftones, Kasabian, The Killers, Rage Against the Machine, She Wants Revenge, and System of a Down. You’ll notice most of these are “heavier” than the ones I listen to while coding. Quite literally, I need that extra drive to fuel long, boring coding spells.

Feedback

What about you? What inspires you to creativity, or pushes you to develop your work?

Went to Mulholland Drive yesterday. Quite the view, I loved it. Click photo to see it on Flickr.

Like millions of others, I snagged my own vanity URL at Facebook Friday night. I had planned to be there right at the beginning and try to snag just “zachary” but I ended up forgetting about it until it was too late. I knew I’d have no problem getting my usual username, but I thought it would be neat to just have my first name. No luck there—congratulations Zach McNaney! I ended up with my default:

http://www.facebook.com/zacharytamas

So I read on London’s Times Online (via NPR) that a woman who quite luckily missed her flight on the Air France 447 Flight was killed in a car accident just eight days after she would have died in the plane crash.

This kinda reminds me of the movie Final Destination, where the main character has a vision that his plane will crash and gets off the plane at the last second with several of his friends. The plane crashes just as it had in his vision, except he and his friends survive. As the rest of the movie pans out, his friends slowly die in strange accidents in the order they would have died on the plane. The idea of the movie is that you can’t cheat death. If the universe decides it’s time for you to die, you will die.

I just thought it was odd.

I’m currently reading an interesting new book written by John August called The Variant. Some of you might recognize the name John August as he is the screenwriter for several popular Hollywood films, including Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Corpse Bride. Lately he’s trying his hand at writing books.

On August’s website he has a page dedicated to his new book The Variant. The book is currently available in PDF form from his website or in Kindle format for your Amazon Kindle of Kindle for iPhone/iPod. The best part: the entire book is 99 cents.

From Amazon’s description of the book:

“After 35 years working at the Central Library, Vincent Lewis has perfected the art of unremarkability. But when a terrified woman falls through his bathroom ceiling, he’s forced back into a life of gunfights, double agents and paranormal research. The secret he’s been keeping for nearly four decades might reunite him with his lost love, or kill millions.”

I am currently reading the book myself but already I have to say it’s very interesting. Much like one of his movies, it maintains a mysterious element where you’re not sure what, but you’re sure something just doesn’t seem right—like you’re missing a very big piece of the puzzle and you’re dying to put it together.

You can read a generous 15-page free preview of the book on his website here. Check it out, if you like it, pay that buck and finish a great story.

At the end of this semester I was left with some books that my college’s book store wouldn’t buy back from me for a variety of reasons (they had reached their quota on that book, the instructor was using a new book next semester, etc.) I needed to get rid of a few so I looked for places online I might sell. I had used Amazon to sell things before (books, actually) so I quickly found myself there.

It was extremely easy to list my books—all I had to type in was the ISBN and it knew everything about my book—and they were listed in just minutes. Amazon shows you their prices for the book, as well as other individual sellers’ prices to help you decide how much you want to sell yours for.

Within two hours I got an e-mail from Amazon informing me my Calculus book had just sold and I should ship now—the money was already in my Amazon Payments account. The only complaint I have about the whole process is Amazon’s high fee for using the service. I listed my book for $85 and in the end I received $73.90. Not that bad but still.

All in all I’d give Amazon Marketplace a pretty high ranking. It’s almost too easy. I barely had to do anything but list it and ship it. If you’ve got a few extra textbooks (or anything, really) laying around you want to get rid of quick, Amazon Marketplace is a good place to do just that. You’ll need an Amazon account but who doesn’t have one these days?

What other places online would you recommend to college students for selling textbooks?