LOL
Isn’t it just great? A website has to be “closed” for the holidays. What, do they have people walking the bits from one part of the site to the other? Is there some manual step being done every time a developer tries to use iTunes Connect? If they just want to avoid a large queue of app submissions, why don’t they just turn off app submissions for a week? Argh…
Dec 24, 2009 Read More »
Dear Google
Just because I happen to email someone else who has a Gmail account from my own Gmail account doesn’t mean that I want them to automatically be on my Gtalk friends list. Can you stop doing this please?
Thanks!
Dec 24, 2009 Read More »
A Geologist and an engineer are sitting next to each other on a long flight from LA to NY. The Geologist leans over to the Engineer and asks if he would like to play a fun game. The Engineer just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks. The Geologist persists and explains that the game is real easy and a lotta fun. He explains, “I ask you a question, and if you don’t know the answer, you pay me $5. Then you ask me a question, and if I don’t know the answer, I’ll pay you $5.” Again, the Engineer politely declines and tries to get to sleep. The Geologist now somewhat agitated, says, “OK, if you don’t know the answer you pay me $5, and if I don’t know the answer, I’ll pay you $50!”
Dec 23, 2009 Read More »
No More Kings “Sweep the Leg” (via GregBass)
This is the only appropriate follow up to the previous post.
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
Dec 18, 2009 Read More »
Joe Esposito – You’re the Best Around (via northernlights82)
Do I really need to say anymore here?
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
Dec 18, 2009 Read More »
Bbum on obj_msgSend()
In a three part blog post, Bill Bumgarner goes into the details of how obj_msgSend() works on x86-64 under MacOS X 10.6.2. If you know enough assembly language, you can easily take what he’s given and make it apply to the iPhone or any of the other architectures that MacOS X supports.
For those who might be wondering what obj_msgSend() is used for, it is probably the most called method in MacOS X and iPhone OS. It is the method that actually looks up and dispatches Objective C method calls at runtime. If you’ve ever debugged an OS X or iPhone application before, you’ll recognize obj_msgSend() as it is typically where you will see your app crash if you are trying to use a pointer that you have already released.
Dec 18, 2009 Read More »
Over on Twitter, John Siracusa (@siracusa) posted up a screenshot from MacOS 10.5 of a folder layout from over a decade ago of an icon collection. Other than the font, it looked pretty much as it would’ve back in it’s pre MacOS X days. (yes, Apple made operating systems before MacOS X… and yes, some people used it. Myself included.)
Back in that time, there were plenty of CDs that would include pictures that were made up of multiple empty folders with custom icons. These folders would be named with whitespace so that there wouldn’t be any text obscuring the image. As long as the user didn’t try to click on the image, it would look like a single larger image. When MacOS X was introduced, Apple also introduced support for setting a background image for a folder rendering this practice obsolete.
Dec 17, 2009 Read More »
LEGO Mindstorms NXT Unbricking
I had the fun experience of trying to unbrick my son’s NXT brick over the weekend. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get the official software to re-flash the firmware. We tried on the PowerBook G4 that he uses, we tried on a Windows XP box that I have around for this kind of thing. Nothing.
Lucky for us, however, is that the NXT uses the Atmel AT91SAM7S256 Microcontroller, which happens to have a special mode called SAM-BA that can be used to re-flash the firmware. However, using the Windows tools that Atmel provides didn’t work for us. But the Linux ones did. Using Fedora 12 under VMWare, I was able to follow the instructions here to get the device up and running again. One caveat is in step 12, they say “make sure that the address is 0x100000 (1 + 6 zeros)”. If you count the zeros there, you’ll see it’s 1 + 5 zeros. 0x100000 is the correct address – I tried 0x1000000 a couple of times before realizing that the two addresses didn’t match.
Dec 14, 2009 Read More »
It’s nice when something surprises you in an interface in a good way. Take for example my latest finding in MacOS X Snow Leopard (and possibly earlier versions as well). I was setting up a new login item in the Accounts panel in System Preferences and without even thinking about it, I just double-clicked on one of the items in the list. I must have subconsciously been expecting it to launch the item just as it would in Finder when you double click on it. But sure enough, it did launch.
Dec 11, 2009 Read More »
Barnes and Noble’s Nook Reader Fails to Live Up to Promises
Barnes and Noble’s Nook Reader Fails to Live Up to Promises
I want the Nook to do well — not because I want one, but because I want it to ignite Amazon’s competitive spirit to keep dropping prices and improving the Kindle. (It’s the same reason I want a good iPhone competitor to exist.)
I was hoping for the Nook to do well too. I really want to see the e-book category take off. But if there is no real competition in the space, there won’t be any real innovation. And the innovation is what will drive the growth over the long term.
Dec 10, 2009 Read More »
