A day on Safari, looking for Leopards

Apple LogoIts almost a day since the WWDC bomb dropped, and everybody has stood back to see what a lack of real good announcements. What I mean is what we all really wanted to hear (even if impossible)

  •  UK Shipping Date for iPhone and Network
  • Proper SDK for iPhone, or just we are working on one. Not just make a website
  • Leopard Shipping by the end of this week
  • A killer feature of Leopard, not just the evolutionary stuff. Something we can all taunt the windows users with
  • More use of Steveisms “boom” “Glass of ice water in hell” etc

What we have got though is a solid Safari update that works 10times better than the old version, another tool to get people to switch (Safari on Windows ofcourse) Clear detail on leopard, and just how much more polished than Tiger it is.  As for my experience with safari, I have had Safari 3 open all day, Google Reader hasn’t frozen up. All my plugins work even Inquisitor (http://www.inquisitorx.com/safari/)

Search within pages works just like Firefox with abit more fancy pants animation and highlighting. Now the only thing that Safari for Windows needs is a GPO template for Windows Server, then the holy grail has been cracked. This is the only thing stopping me from deploying Safari or Firefox on the networks I admin.

Whilst the Announcements may not have been a giant leap. They certainly were a jump in the right direction. 

Safari 3 Check, Leopard Check

Apple Mac OS X - LeopardI always pick the best days to go to the Cinema after exams. I got in and the World of Apple has turned to jelly (at least mine anyway). Leopard = Yes! There is anything really revolutionary, but it doesn’t need a fancy new pair of Interface trousers, Finder looks fantastic, stacks (I have already being using folders to do this) Generally Leopard looks like a solid update, and as I said a long time ago, Leopard need not be singing and dancing upgrade. Just fix the quirks and add some useful features, also make sure the install takes less than 3-hours unlike the last 3 times I have set up Vista.

As for safari, I have switched back. First impressions, its polished and fast. Google Reader now no longer has the weird beach ball effect when loading the next lot of stories, its also a lot faster than Firefox loading, Visual Rich Editor in WordPress works (although it has its quirks). It also has the Element Inspector from WebKit which is incredibly useful to me making sure websites work. It also just seems to feel better, nothing much has changed but it seems to run more smoothly even load web pages faster?

In the process of making this post I have corrected 4 errors, on the website. Due to Safari 3 not liking certain elements. 

Bucking the Trend – London 2012

With all the talk of the new £400,00 London Olympic log, flying around and a building consensus of it being naff. I thought I would wade in and say its good and more importantly I like it.

You may wonder why I like it so much, well its quite simple. There is not another Olympic logo like it. Fair enough other Olympic logos work and indeed look good (see here) Only problem is they all look the same, they all have the same elements and all show some kind of recognisable symbol or mark, that is of the host nation. I like the London 2012 logo because its different, simple and there is nothing like it, even if it was a little expensive.

iTunes Plus err = 9006?

iTunes LogoMy first experience of iTunes plus is somwhat lacking in the usual finish that we have come to expect from apple. I put an album for download at 12:00 its now 16:10 and only 4 out of the 41 tracks have successfully made it to my computer. It would seem the pipes are all clogged. Maybe its time for Apple to get bigger pipes.

Update: Apple got some new tubes and now all is well.

BT Homehub?

BTI like gadgets, and I like it when stuff works without messing with (hence why I am a mac user) but the BT HomeHub has been a thorn in my side from day one. I haven’t had bad experiences with BT at all, quite the opposite infact, I ended up with more hub phones than I knew what to do with. This is the start of the problem its all well and good boxing up everything in one place, but when it goes wrong nothing works.

The Case in point being the Asterisk Phone System I use, I spent a good weekend setting up and making it all nice, setting up DMZ and all that jazz. Then the hub threw a characteristic hissy-fit and stopped the HubPhones working. It has taken me to this day, nearly half a year to find a workable solution, so I though I would share, for anybody else in the same position as me.

Put simply I have a good router and network set-up and the HP wireless printer works on the wi-fi unlike the Home Hubs Wi-Fi. So the solution I have worked out is simple, use the Home Hub to run the hub phones and use the original router.

First thing you need to do is get yourself a Super User account on the Hub itself, Instructions here

Second Adjust the DHCP and IP settings for the hub, this step caused me many frustrations. Instructions here (TIP: if you make a mistake here, connect via USB and perform a restore, Instructions Here) The settings should be the same as your main router, set-up the IP address (192.168.0.254 in my case) and DHCP (this should match the settings of your main router) After you have set this up reboot and make sure the settings have taken.

Now to make the whole thing work, firstly turn off DHCP this can be done easily through the web interface in configuration>IP Addresses. Login into the Hub using telnet, and issue the following commands, replace [Router IP] with the IP address of you main router.
:ip rtadd dst=0.0.0.0 gateway=[Router IP] intf=LocalNetwork
:dns client dnsadd addr=[Router IP]
:dns server config WANDownSpoofing=disabled
:dns server route add dns=[Router IP] intf=LocalNetwork
:voice config intf=LocalNetwork
:system config defaultconnection=LocalNetwork
:config save filename=user
:system reboot

After the reboot connect up the Hub to your router and it should all work, if you haven’t configured Broadband Voice yet goto the bt.com/bbv and when you see the pop-up saying ‘configure now’ copy the link and replace the http://api.home with http://[IP address of Home hub] this will configure you BBV settings. Backup You settings now you know it all works incase a firmware update scrambles it all.

Now after all that you should have, you router set-up and Hub serving the hub phones. I would also assume that using this setup would allow you to use BT Vision also, but as I aren’t signed up the service I can’t test it.

The Most Helpful Applescript Ever.

iTunes LogoI have a ever growing iTunes library, but sometimes when importing stuff, the ID3 tags go all wrong, or in the in Japanese/Non-English Characters. So like many geeks I hate having to mess with each ID3 tag individualy even if iTunes makes it easy. Solution CDDB and a little script from dougscripts.co. You simply go to the playlist, run the first script which searches CDDB to find the album your playing, then you run the second script that then copies the page details and puts them in your ID3 tags. Voila! your library is nice and perfectly formed.

Switch To Something Other than IE

Browse Happy logo
Devthought – Guillermo Rauch’s Blog » IE7 still creating problems for developers?

5 Reasons to switch from IE to something else:

  1. Its Horrible confusing and counter-intuitive (in versions 5 – 7)
  2. Its unSafe See Here
  3. It causes headaches on a monumental scale, I only play with web design its not a serious job and it give me headaches I can only imagine what it does to the poor developers that design sites for a living.
  4. Pop-Ups – whilst installing Google’s toolbar and using pop-up blockers built into the latest version IE its still not good enough, with a couple of firefox extensions you can block anything you don’t want easily and you can even stop the annoying “Zap Me!” ads
  5. This is the simplest of all the reasons, its made by Microsoft and therefore supports there own proprietary software and activex controls, which should really be named entry points for spyware and nasty painfully hard to remove software that you simply don’t want

Simply put switch and make your life more productive and Kill Off Bills Browser

Its Official the RIAA is the Worst Company in America

The RIAA

The RIAA won The Consumerist’s “Worst Company In America 2007” reader poll.We predicted an RIAA landlslide, but they only managed a 53.8% majority over Halliburton’s 46.2%
RIAA Wins Worst Company In America 2007 – Consumerist

No Surprises here folks, apart from the fact the RIAA will never acknowledge they are the least liked company in america for 2007. And I can only wonder why (note slight hint of sarcasm)

Piracy: The Loss of Objectivity and Intelligence

“Unfortunately, many schools have turned a blind eye to piracy,” Berman said. “I don’t doubt that there are legitimate issues that universities must grapple with, including privacy and cost concerns. However, when a university such as Purdue tells the AP that it rarely even notifies students accused by the RIAA because it is too much trouble to track down alleged offenders—such inaction is unacceptable.”Congressman Hollywood: Universities a wretched hive of scum and villainy

This is what happens when a person in power, brains’ get turned to jelly and is spat out by the cat. It never occurs to these people funding researching and going around screaming disaster and catastrophe from the hill tops, to actually look what is right in front of them.

The Music/Movie Industries is Inherently, poor at adapting
So what exactly does this mean well its quite simple. When Napster came along the Music industry looked at it and said “We still good it will all blow over in a couple of months” Then a couple of months later they had a problem. The same goes for the Movie industry. They are arrogant enough to dimiss a technology that will quite clearly effect them in the money making department and try to place the sole blame on the cosumer. The consumers pay them money in the first Place

Solve not Sue
Anyone with a slight business interlect and brain cell(s) would look at the current situation within the Music/Movie industry and start working on solutions, put the money were it is well spent. The industry will never change the habits of the youth of today, they have spent to long in the courts increasing the resentment for that. They need to start working to give the consumer product they want in the form they want, this by no means free.

The idea that forcing your consumers to do something because the man companies say it should be is completly stupid and cause more illegal downloading, just so you as a consumer feel happy your pissing the said companies off. Everybody knows that downloading music and not paying for it is wrong, but when the labels offer no better alternatives, what else are your options.

The Other Options
iTunes Store, has a big market share and a big catalog of major labels and indie music, look deeply at the  Store and you see just what a miracle it is, its there, and in the same moment why it doesn’t give what a p2p client gives. The simple matter of choice is what it now starts to boil down to, what could be classed as the catalyst to this whole thing in the first place.

People want choice they want to choose how they consume media and where, iTunes limits you to the iPod and your PC/Mac, there is a simple solution get rid of DRM and completely and open the whole thing up, and I would never illegally download again.

However, there is one place that iTunes excells at apart from providing a seamless UI experience. Our friend the Longtail, p2p only really is a good distribution system for popular tracks, when you get to less popular tracks you quickly find nobody sharing things.

To cut a long story short we need a solution, that the consumer is happy with and we need it fast else we could see everybody going down to court.

Less DRM is Good…


Sign an Open Letter To Steve Jobs
Whether you believe that it was an elaborate publicity stunt or actually Steve Jobs own hand that wrote the “Thoughts on Music” there is one important feature that we all need to take action upon.

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Lets see if the people of the internets will prevail and get rid of DRM, or at the very least start the removal process. Sign the Defective Design Letter Here