exploring new shores

To understand and follow Apple's paradigms and approval processes I took the chance to 'port' my shoppingList to the iPhone.

It is a simple app, so after requesting approval, it got ready for the App Store within 3 days. I tried to give it a fancy name (german: Auf der Liste, english: It's on my list)

If you have an iPhone or iPod touch and don't mind having an actually simple and easy grocery list, give it a try. You can access it via its landing page at http://wintermute.de/itsonmylist

Date dependent content with Server Side Includes

Because that site is a simple static hosted website with only SSI available, I checked on SSI capabilities and inlcuded the content as follows:

<!--#config timefmt="%b" -->
<!--#set var="month" value="$DATE_LOCAL" -->
<!--#if expr="$month = Dec" -->
<!--#include file ="xmas.html" -->
<!--#endif -->

With some more tweaks you could rotate the look (e.g. with different css files) and content of your static website in regular intervals without too much work involved.

iTunes U

iPhone App Programming

After passing that, I might will have a closer look at the german presence (select Country in iTunes U Overview)

Berlin bei Nacht

Michael Kessler

rbb

Berliner Nacht-Taxe

Michael nutzt dabei - manchmal ein wenig gesetzeswidrig - seinen mobilen Helfer (ein Android Phone oder auch mal ein iPhone), um mit den Zuschauern des Streams Kontakt zu halten. Das ganze läuft dabei über seinen Twitteraccount. Um alle Kommentare zu verfolgen, sucht man bei Twitter nach kesslermichael.

Wenn die Fahrgäste ausbleiben, hält Michael die Laune der Stream-Zuschauer mit Selbstgesprächen, Anekdoten und natürlich Antworten auf die Twitter Anfragen aufrecht. Und wenn er mal abgelenkt ist und sich auf die Straße konzentriert oder Fahrgästen nachjagt, sorgt die Twitter-Community schon für genug Gesprächsstoff.

Leider werden nur zwei der insgesamt acht Aufnahmestunden gestreamt, aber zusehen lohnt sich trotzdem.

Ich bin schon gespannt auf das nächste Mal (Livestream am: 09.10, 10.10, 16.10. und 17.10 jeweils 22:00-00:00 Uhr).

Backup Dell mini 10 Using True Image 11 Home

1. I prepared a Kingston USB stick to boot from (using the True Image rescue media builder), but had no success.
   For whatever reason I tried the "HP Drive Key Boot Utility" (google for it) and did it work the USB stick. After that, I had rescue media builder do its job once more.
2. Dell mini booted from the USB stick (Check the "Legacy USB support" and the "Boot options" of the Dell mini - accessible by pressing F2 on startup).
3. True Image Home 11 did not recognize the internal HDD of the Dell mini when loaded as full version (incl. USB/SATA Support). I tried to change the kernel parameters (F11: acpi=off noapic), but that did not help at all. This might work with other versions of TI, so give it a try.
4. True Image recognized the internal HDD only, if I selected the safe mode start of True Image - but then I could not use an external USB HD to backup to. So I took an old USB HD and followed the instructions at http://www.wilderssecurity.com/supportfiles/acronis_bootable_usb_hd.pdf . In short, this guides you to backup the USB drive with True Image to a .tib file and restore it to the USB HD. Afterwards the leftover space on the USB HD can be formatted as primary NTFS partition to work as the storage drive.
5. So with the USB drive loaded with the True Image rescue system and having space for my backup, I booted into TI safe mode now using that USB drive instead of the USB stick.
6. Finally I could now backup my internal HDD to the USB drive's storage partition. As this method (safe boot) does not allow you to use USB 2 speed, the backup procedure will take ages (I started it up 3 hours ago and it tells me, I have 16 to go...).

browser decision

Firefox

Firefox Add-ons I use more or less regulary

• Better Gcal
• Better Gmail 2
• Cooliris
• Delicious Bookmarks
• Image Zoom
• Live HTTP headers
• Mobile Barcoder
• NoScript
• Stylish
• Twitbin
• Long URL Please
• PDF plugin (http://code.google.com/p/firefox-mac-pdf/)

• Bloglines Efficient
• Mac bookmark toolbar favicons
• spiegel.de clean
• Twitbin Remove Yello Burble

(FF/Safari icon by decompositionbeauty)

snow leopard

Installation on my late 2008 MacBook Pro (5,1) took less than an hour. After Installation, Software Update downloaded two fixes. One was a new bt firmware.

Everything seemed to work fine. Expected battery time was and still is low. That seems to be caused by a heating issue. SL keeps my CPU about 10C higher than Leopard. I could not identify a reason for it and other users have made the same experience.

Other problems I had:

• After having run a time machine backup, the time machine buddy widget somehow become source of trouble: The whole dashboard got stuck and I delete com.dock.db and .plist but finally removing the widget seemed to fix it.
• Printing: The installed network printer (Canon iP4000 with Gutenberg drivers) did not work. Clearing it, adding it again as new ip printer and changing the driver back to the Gutenberg one made it work.
• growl is not fully compatible
• truecrypt cannot create new containers

SMC Reset

BoysToys

To fill the emptiness, I bought a Dell Inspiron mini 10. With the larger battery it can run for some while, making it a good writing and websurfing machine. The (very tiny) trackpad supports multi-touch, so you can scroll, right click and zoom (feels like a macbook - just kidding).

I chose the Dell mini, as I simply trust the company and wanted some of the features mentioned above. Going for a non-high-end portable helps me to actually carry that thing around. If it gets lost or stolen, I would not be that worse...

To add some privacy, I encrypted the whole windows drive using true crypt. Unfortunatly, the machine and the hd access are too slow to still use the computer. Now I follow my strict dos and donts guideline and use truecrypt as a file container.

gmail sender address tweak - on behalf of

Unfortunately Gmail adds the Sender: yourname@gmail.com to the outgoing mail and you might not be satisfied with this entry, as the recipient now directly can see the mail's origin.

So Gmail now allows to use alternative smtp servers configurable within your account setting and you can change to your provider's smtp server. See Gmail blog entry Send mail from another address without "on behalf of".

secure mail

Unfortunately again - my provider (smtp.1und1.de) does not allow sending smtp via ssl and Gmail does not support TLS. So I tried to specify Gmail's own smtp access (smtp.gmail.com) within the account settings and voilà - mails sent via the web interface did not contain any more Sender: details.

Nevertheless, the outgoing email will still have the Return-path: set to your gmail account name. But that's ok with me.

(Reflective Gmail icon by Sakros)

Modeless UI

I often developed applications beyond the end-users viewpoint. On other occasions all the user interface design work was done and already settled and not part of my job. After coding some midlets and personal applications and of course experiencing different operating systems I felt the need to really understand the user's point of view. This was enforced due to recent job activities and highlights while talking to colleagues with strong emphasis on application presentation.

So I did what I usually do - try to find some valuable sources and get into the topic. I am still reading Jef Raskin - The Humane Interface (Amazon.de) and already have a fun story to tell: In his book he depicts an efficient user interface for Fahrenheit - Celsius conversion. I once coded such an application for my mobile and my user interface exactly worked like the one he proposed :)

I am currently on the next small step to change our k4kur0's interface to get rid of the pencil-mark mode. I always thought, modes would be a good way to switch context as long as the mode is easily recognizable. But while playing kakuro I often found myself stuck in the 'wrong' mode as the game really can be demanding. So you concentrate on the content and forget about the mode.

My first test after eliminating the pencil-mark mode worked out fine, but I will need some time to see, if the solution is actually 'better'.

Jef Raskin's book was published 2000 but his conclusions and principles are general and remain valid. Follow this link to a summary of the design rules.

scumm again

Loom

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

The Secret of Monkey Island

Sam and Max

I have finished The Secret of Monkey Island yesterday and just fired up Monkey Island 2.

Once in a while, this stuff brings up some geek-memories :) thanks again to Scumm VM.

older entries