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Philanthropy in Newark

To start off the new year right, I have decided to change around my priorities in work. I grew tired of writing the latest and hippest iPhone and Apple Watch apps that solve first world problems. Saying goodbye to a lavish lifestyle will be more rewarding since the problems with education in Newark is a very complex an difficult problem. I developed an interest in helping Newark since high school, where my wrestling team went to face off against a Newark high school. I was in disbelief that I was living so close to a high school that looked like an abandoned building. In addition, the documentary, Waiting for ‘Superman’ also helped show the problems going on with inner city public education. So, what is the plan? I happened to grow up very fortunate, with a father that worked at Bell Laboratories and became very well educated with computers at a very young age. With just a laptop and a internet connection, anyone can have access to limitless educational material. Eventually, with the help of investors, I hope to purchase a property in Mendham, stocked with computers to accommodate and educate as many under privileged kids possible. I also hope to acquire a large amount of land to keep a distance from neighbors to effectively run my philanthropic project. On a side note, owning land is crucial to running by business since it can produce a high yield. Watch the two richest people in the world talk about why land beats about investing in precious metals.

At the new estate, I will entertain the idea of running a private school, such as Alt School as well as AirBnb the mansion for people interested in the estate. However, I must stay focused on the main objective, helping the kids in Newark. One of the major problems in helping the education system in Newark is that money alone will not solve the problem. Mark Zuckerberg donated 100 million dollars and most of the money was spent on raising teacher salaries. The end results were not very impressive. Owning a mansion can’t help accommodate all of the kids in Newark. However, I feel that it is a very good start to help improve the lives of those kids in need. If I do model a great working project, then my business can potentially expand to help out more and more kids. I’ve been having pipe dreams about celebrating Thanksgiving with my family, along with as many Newark kids that appreciate my work.

This Newark project is very exciting, and I am ready to put app development on the side for now.

The Truth and History of the Hardware in Smartphones

Here’s a trivia question. What country is responsible behind designing the ‘brains’ in all modern smartphones today? Is it:

United States of America
South Korea
China
Great Britain
Japan

Okay, if you are unsure, try to eliminate just one country. Did you pick Great Britain? Congratulations, you got the question completely wrong! The ‘brains’ of a smartphone is of course the CPU which is part of the system on a chip ARM architecture, a company out of Great Britain. Not sure on whether to invest money in Apple or Google’s Android platform. Just simply invest in ARM to put yourself in a win win situation. So while Great Britain has been behind the curtain throughout this technological revolution, when all the news will talk about is innovative, genius design of smartphones by Apple, Samsung, and the rest. We also hear about the mass production at the Foxconn factories in China. Great Britain is such a mature, ultra civilized nation that I grew appreciation for over time. They’ve literally conquered the world after starting as a small island. Then they outgrew it and no longer crave attention. My family name has some English roots, how else would I be related to the Royal Family?

I’m writing this post about hardware to celebrate my little brother’s acceptance to a position at Intel. My little brother Phil is a PHD student studying electrical engineering (really computer engineering) and will be working near Portland, Oregon once he finishes his PHD in the fall. Please don’t ask who is the smartest, I’m pretty sure the three of us will all say the standard, “it depends”. For what it is worth, my older brother, an aerospace engineer will admit that Phil learns better than him, which could be why Phil is going all the way to a doctorate degree, while I was an aspiring dropout. Unfortunately, I graduated.

Anyway, I was browsing Youtube one day, and I came across this video which I found to be very funny in itself.

My appreciation for British culture also grew when I got stuck in Manchester on a switch flight coming back from my first European vacation. I have thought about escaping the not so fun things about running my own LLC, and taking a break to study at Cambridge on a whim. I need to press forward with my entrepreneur mind and actually make it happen sometime.

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose – Rigged Coin Magic Trick Guessing to Win Every Time

My first Apple Watch app just got published yesterday! It took about a week for it to get approved. So basically there is a way to tell if the coin will be heads or tails before you flip the coin. If you want to try to figure it out on your own, don’t open the iPhone app, just use the Apple Watch app as it does not give an explanation on how the trick works. So far among my friends and family that I tested out the app with, no one has been able to figure it out.

So this app sounds pretty novel, right? Well it looks like USA decided to copy my style without permission and not make it rigged. Please give me credit USA Today.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I’m working on submitting another Apple Watch app by the end of the week, which is an Apple Watch interface to my free Instalist app. On top of that, I’m plan to write a version of Instalist for Android, as well as develop something for the Oculus Rift. My hands are certainly full but that is just how I roll.

Pumping out Apple Watch Apps and Working Efficiently

In January of 2011, I made my first trip to Europe. I visited Poland, Germany, Sweden, and Norway. I have German and Norwegian roots, so I was especially excited to see Germany and Norway. My last name is Knag, which is Norwegian and it is very unique. In fact, if you share my last name, I have always been able to trace our relationship on the Knag family tree. Before I went on the trip, I friended other Knags on Facebook and actually met up with Alf Knag in Bergen, Norway. We recognized each other while meeting up from a restaurant window, which is a pretty funny feeling. My family uses Geni to track our family tree and so far I have found out that I am related to Prince William and Barrack Obama.

In addition to Bergen, which I think is one of the most beautiful places on earth, is the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo Norway. During the time, they gave Lui Xiaobo the Nobel Peace Prize for peacefully fighting against China’s one-party system. Liu was and remains incarcerated for undermining the state authorities when he won the award. His actions follow one of my favorite quotes that was said my Martin Luther King jr:

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

In the Nobel Peace center exhibit was a quote that you can see at the top of this post that inspired me. I kept it as my cover photo until I moved to Hoboken. I was the youngest adult that was living in my building. I ended up replacing the photo I took while working all night, and the sun started to rise.

I no longer work as hard as I used to, because I think it is important to manage my stress levels. However, I’ll bet you that I still work harder than most people. Well maybe not work harder, but I probably get more done. In the last two weeks, I submitted two Apple Watch apps, a rigged Heads or Tails app, and a Calculator app. Next week, I’m going to publish a third Apple Watch App, an interface extension to Instalist. I am competent in every programming language to get anything I want done, using primarily Objective-C, Java, Python, PHP, and C++. I refuse to learn any ‘new’ language because it is the new trend, I work with what I am most comfortable with. That is why I have never picked up Ruby on Rails or Node.js. Learning these technologies won’t enable me to develop anything I couldn’t develop before.

Mundane Monday, Mayweather Pacquiao, Best Phone, Apple Watch

As I expected as soon as the fight was signed, I knew Mayweather was going to win the fight against Pacquiao. Mayweather is in charge of his promotion, and picks and chooses who and when he fights. Mayweather choose to fight Pac man after he got knocked out cold. As you could imagine, no fighter is the same when that happens to them. I even knew that if it went to the judges decision, it would go Floyd’s way because he is in charge. Most boxing enthusiasts do not even rank him top 10 of the all time greatest boxers.

Regardless, it was a record selling pay per view that left millions of people angry that they spent money to watch such a boring fight. I recommend people watch UFC, one reason being is there is not nearly as much politics involved in the sport. Also, I am positive that Ronda Rousey, would win in a street fight Mayweather and Pac man as long as it isn’t 2 on 1.

I saw Keith Olbermann’s rant on Mayweather and his domestic violence history and I said to myself, “He is right.”. When paying for something, you are in a way voting. I decided I was going to skip going to a friend’s house to watch the fight to support someone who has a history way worse than Ray Rice.

Onto to perhaps more interesting news, I have own and use both the top Android and Apple phones. I have the Samsung Galaxy 6 Edge and the iPhone 6 Plus. Android enthusiasts like to claim their phones are better because of the hardware…the Edge has 8 cores and a better screen resolution! To my eyes though, the iPhone 6 Plus screen just looks better to me. Software really makes the phone, not hardware. However, Apple is considered a luxury brand. So most of the top apps will come out on iOS first. I bought the Edge so I can write a version of Instalist for Android. So here is the verdict, it is a tie. Try out both phone’s at the store, and buy whichever one you like more. I wouldn’t consider either one better.

On to the Apple Watch. As many of you may know, I write software, and buy all new devices to write software for. I wasn’t too excited to get an Apple Watch as it only really solves first world problems. However, it does seem pretty convenient, and I am spending less time escaping from the real world, attached to my phone. I also see potential in creating health oriented apps which can’t be a bad thing. One thing that would be interesting to see if hackers hack the Apple Watch so it can be used with Android devices. I would guess that there won’t be much of a movement to get this done as I imagine hackers would not be amazed with the Apple Watch.

I apologize for my rather pessimistic post, but every post can’t be a hit. My goal is to bring up interesting topics no matter what is going on in time. Till next week..

Help it is Yelp, the Modern Day Mafia

Yelp is a huge company and a lot of people use their service to find the best restaurants, bars, and various other services. Their innocent logo and website appearance is very deceiving though, Yelp is an evil, and nearly useless company. Why do I say that the company is nearly useless? If you know me, you know my passion for Cluck U Chicken. I have a friend that I grew up with that loved it so much he opened his own in Parsippany, NJ. But all clucksters know Morristown is the best location hands down. If I had to rate one company five stars it would be the Cluck U in Morristown. In fact, Cluck U in Morristown and Red Bank are the only two I will go to. Everyone in my high school and surrounding high schools were obsessed with the Cluck U in Morristown. The day before Thanksgiving, which is the biggest bar day in Morristown, the Cluck U is jammed packed at 3 in the morning. The Cluck U in Hoboken is horrible and inferior in every way to the Cluck U in Morristown. However, look at the Yelp ratings: Hoboken, Morristown

One thing that pollutes Yelp is fraudulent reviews, there are plenty of them written by competing businesses. So many people rely on Google to find stuff they come across a Yelp page with a bunch of fraudulent reviews either promoting or demoting the company. I’ve read that bad reviews on Yelp has lead some companies to go out of business. The way to solve this is to have someone login with their real name such as their Facebook account. It is easy enough to write algorithms to filter out fake Facebook accounts. In addition, people can also report fake accounts to solve the problem entirely. In my opinion, people put way too much trust in the internet, including Yelp. One time I was out with friends in the East Village and someone wanted to Yelp a bar we were right in front of? I mean, is that really necessary, you can see the vibe and the crowd, would using Yelp on your smartphone provide you any better information?

As seen in the title, I declare Yelp as a modern day mafia. One may ask how so? Yelp has users pay them for advertising fees. While Yelp does not admit this, if you do not pay their advertising fees, Yelp will only publish the business’s negative reviews. Try looking it up. There are plenty of cases where people will make these claims. Don’t kid yourself, this practice is no different than modern day racketeering, and it is sad we are allowing Yelp to practice their business is such a way.

Have no fear though, the word on the street is that Knag Enterprises and partners are working on a project to overtake Yelp. But in the meantime, if you want recommendations on a good restaurant, use word of mouth; unless you are in NYC, then use the exact opposite advice from a New Yorker.

Bluetooth Mania

As a mobile software developer it is essentially my duty to keep up with the latest technology trends. Buying the newest, and most advanced devices to help detect potential projects. I’m not ashamed to say that I paid $1,500 on a pair of Google Glasses when Google has decided that they will not release Google Glasses to consumers. To me it is essentially gambling. No one can truly predict the future, so true entrepreneurs step up to the plate and to try make something happen. Being intelligent and over analytical can even hurt businessmen as decisions need to be made to be different from other competing companies. If a bad decision is made, at least the person knows what he did wrong and will not make the same mistake again.

I have mentioned in my previous post about the new Bluetooth Low Energy technology. I believe it is capable of being a real game changer in the smart phone world. The idea I had using the Bluetooth LE technology was to make a true car finding app that marks the user’s GPS location when the user loses the Bluetooth connection from the car turning off. Bluetooth LE should not use much power at all, it is just the GPS location that will use most of the power. Currently, Apple permits GPS type apps to run in the background, however, it is not clear if apps are permitted to open and run on command in the background attempting to find a GPS location. Anyhow, an app like this can be developed with limited resources. I recently purchased this Bluetooth receiver, it is for using speakers with your iPhone wirelessly. When a car shuts off, the Bluetooth receiver should lose its power as well, giving us all we need to make a quality car finding app. However, obtaining the rights to use Bluetooth technology is no picnic, it requires appropriate licensing that are designed for giant companies. Maybe one day they will see the light and open up the world to a gold mine of technological innovation.

Another great use for this Bluetooth receiver is to connect with headphones to watch movies in bed with headphones on. The walls in my apartment are really thin, and my neighbor forgivingly complains about the noise level every now and then. It would be nice to have the technology to mitigate this issue.

I now for the issue I’ve been trying to solve for over 3 years now. I own a really nice pair of Bose QuietComfort headphones. I love them, however, I feel that they should be wireless. If it can’t be 100% wireless, it should at least not have to be tethered to a smart phone. With the inexpensive Bluetooth receiver above, along with the portable USB charger listed below, one can conceivably have their Bose QuietComport headphones attached to the Bluetooth receiver, which is powered by the portable USB charger. The receiver and charger can fit inside a jacket pocket leaving your smart phone 100% wireless. By the way, I have tried out the Bluetooth integrated headphones. I was disappointed by the sound quality and the battery life. While this setup may be more for techies, it can help make ski trips and such a lot of fun.

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