Christopher

Member since: Feb 22nd, 2006

Christopher's Latest Comments

Blog Activity

Blog	# of Comments
TUAW.com	5 Comments
Download Squad	2 Comments
Engadget Mobile	2 Comments

Recent Comments:

Average Apple salary is only $46k (TUAW.com)

Jan 20th 2011 11:06AM These figures are a red herring. Obviously, the top end and bottom end numbers are directly opposed to one another. Apple plays lots of retail wages, Goldman pays millions in bonuses. But the wealth generation factor is MUCH greater at Goldman so the contribution to the economy (sketchy bailouts notwithstanding) is greater.

Apple pays a few people to design a product they sell for a huge profit but in limited numbers. Goldman sells analysts for a small % of the trade - a commission on their clients transactions but the volume is enormous. The volume of business skews the comparison, too.

So the $400k the average person is paid nets the company a small transaction fee (and getting smaller all the time) but generates wealth for their clients. Its the client demand that drives the wages.

Ignore these comparisons because they are meaningless.

Ubuntu music store is now live (Download Squad)

Mar 25th 2010 2:18PM Not that I want to be particular, isn't that 79p as in pence?

Our mistake, your gain: win one of fifteen free copies of Weightbot (TUAW.com)

Jan 2nd 2010 4:55PM My goal is to lower my % body fat from 20% to less than 17%. If I weighed the same at the end of it, I wouldn't care.

Apple refuses to return repaired iPhone (TUAW.com)

Jan 1st 2010 12:15PM If I remember correctly, she ended up getting a new Blackberry instead.

Reeder for iPhone lets you read your Google Reader feeds in style (Download Squad)

Nov 14th 2009 12:47PM I want to love Reeder but there are some issues with it that keep me going back to Byline.

First, even with the 1.1 release, I find it buggy; it crashes a lot - mostly during the Notes syncing. Even though I've disabled Notes syncing, it still wants to for some reason. Still, it crashes when navigating the app so its not just a sync issue.

The unread counts aren't always accurate; they almost never are in sync with Google Reader. Sometimes, after I've marked all things as read (Click the checkmark on the lower left side once you've selected a feed or folder) it never reduces the unread count to zero. If I go back into the folder, no items show up but the unread count is still there.

The app also freezes my phone often enough (and the music playback) that it makes navigating around slow. I find the freezing inconsistent - its not just when I have a folder full of unread items, its the small folders, too.

That said, there is SO much to like about this app.

The navigation is brilliant! Not only can I select a folder and see all the unread items, I can sort by most recent and by feed. When you have 50 blogs in a folder, it can be helpful to sort it like that. Also, when you click on the arrow of a folder, it takes you to a list of blogs that make up that folder with the unread articles. So when you do have 50 folders of 500 unread items, you can easily navigate to that specific feed any only look at its items. You don't have to sort by feed and then find it in order. I also like how you can filter out the starred items by feed. Not even Google Reader does that and when you have over 5100 starred items, it makes navigating through them a lot easier. I haven't come across an iPhone or Desktop app that aggregates all the information the way Reeder does - even better than the actual web interface. I love it so much, I'm willing to ditch my web and Gruml entirely just to use this UI.

The integration with Delicious is important for me; Byline doesn't have that. I'd actually have less starred items if Google had integrated the Send To feature sooner. The email and Instapaper is cool, too, but I haven't needed them.

If Reeder could work out the bugs I'm running against, I'd recommend it day and night. And while I consider myself a power user of Google Reader, Byline handles the feeds without issue - and even handles offline a little better (or it could be another Reeder bug).

Maybe I'm the only one experiencing the freezing, crashing, & inaccurate unread counts?

TUAW Review: Storyist 2.0, a professional's writing tool (TUAW.com)

Aug 21st 2009 5:09PM Steven,

I've enjoyed reading your reviews; I've been looking for software like this and have been careful in committing dollars to any one particular software. Would you be willing to sum up your findings in a final "comparison post" amongst the various writing softwares you (and the other TUAW writers) have done? Some checkboxes and a few pros/cons & general comments would be a big help to me in choosing the right application. I know the trials are available but having something I can use to compare would be very helpful in making a decision.

Thanks again for your review!

5 Apps for NYC tourists (TUAW.com)

Aug 4th 2009 6:49PM I second the motion for Exit Strategy NYC. I live in NYC and it's come in handy for those stops I'm not familiar with. Its such a simple interface and you can essentially plan out your route with it. Its no map but its darn close. Plus, it mirrors the maps you see on the support beams in each station; those maps highlight the line and the direct with every stop. So its easy to compare where you are on the app and the subway station you're in.

I've recommended it to all my visiting friends.