July 2010
13 posts
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Solution for my iTunes-Aperture problem
Yesterday I posted about the dilemma of having multiple Aperture libraries and synchronisation with the iPhone through iTunes. The solution was obvious, but unfortunately the process requires many manual steps (perhaps I can use Automator to alleviate this problem):
Install iPhoto and create an iPhoto library.
Advise iTunes to synchronise with iPhoto.
Optional: Choose between synchronising...
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reminiscent of a PADD
The iPhone 4 feels even less like a phone to me than the iPhone 3GS. The latter was already an impressive design, but the iPhone 4’s ‘density’ and finish are of a different class. The first thing that came to my mind when I held it, was that this is what I imagined the smaller PADDs from Star Trek to feel and behave like.
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Aperture 3, iTunes and multiple libraries
I’ve been happily using Aperture 3 for a couple of months now and everything worked fine for some time. A few weeks ago I decided to split up my one giant (~80GB) database file into smaller ones, to reduce the load on the CPU and RAM and the load times.
While this house cleaning had the positive effects I had hoped for, it also has a snag; you cannot synchronise the iPhone with multiple...
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Bloatware, now on your Android device →
This is great: Unwanted, non-removable bloatware on factory new Android devices. It’s like Windows 98 all over again.
I think Apple should just get the old ‘Get a Mac’ ad out of the archives, and overlay the words ‘PC’ with ‘Android’ and ‘Mac’ with ‘iPhone’.
If you don’t know which ad I’m talking about, here it is:
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“That’s basically what Steve Jobs did on Friday. He got up on stage, explained...”
– Darby Lines’s on Steve Jobs’s calling the press coverage regarding the iPhone 4’s alleged antenna issues to be blown out of proportion.
It just makes me sad it were basically respectable news outlets that drove him to be this angry and disappointed.
You can see Steve...
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genius Old Spice marketing campaign continues →
The marketing geniuses of Old Spice and the advertising firm Wieden + Kennedy continue to impress.
In addition to two new TV ads they started video-answering questions by Reddit members — Reddit being one of the sites that helped make the campaign go viral on the internet. Now they’re even answering question sent in by people on Twitter.
If I’m not much mistaken this is the single...
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WatchAstute observation and fucking hilarious!
thanks thedailywhat:
Breaking Tech News of the Day: The Onion News Network covers Apple’s unveiling of their latest Genius Bar spinoff — the “Friend Bar” — which provides Apple fanboys with someone to talk at about the latest Mac products.
[theonion.]
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Email conversation regarding the iPhone 4's...
I just read the alleged email conversation between a iPhone 4 user and an Apple engineer and Steve Jobs.
I would urge this youtube-ishly blunt reader, to carefully read the iPhone 4 review posted on AnandTech. The reviewers of this particular site give a very good and unbiased explanation as to why the reception problems exists, what Apple did wrong and what they did right.
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June 2010
22 posts
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Retina Neuroscientist confirms Apple's Retina... →
It seems that Apple didn’t lie when claiming, the Retina Display, built-into the iPhone 4, has higher resolution than the human eye can resolve:
Dr. Curcio et. al. calculated 77 cycles/degree or .78 arcminutes/cycle of *retinal* resolution. However, this does not take into account the optics of the system which degrade image quality somewhat giving a commonly accepted resolution of 1...
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Oh my, I'm an AppStore addict
Since I sold my iPhone 3GS in anticipation of the iPhone 4 last week, I downloaded six applications, five of which I paid money for. The sixth one was Twitterrific Universal, which I’m going to upgrade to ‘premium’ in App, once I have an iPhone again.
What does that tell you?
For one it tells you that I’m much too trigger happy when it comes to new apps. It also tells you...
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Apple's way of slapping Gizmodo in the face →
… giving its biggest rival early access to a production unit for review.
And a great review it is, Joshua Topolsky really did a great job.
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TUAW writes down MobileMe →
… in favour of free services like GMail and Dropbox. Some of the points made are valid and understandable, some are not.
Accepting everything Lauren Hirsch said, I dare her to try to resolve any problem with Google’s support in less than 30 minutes. Because that is what I get with the MobileMe support chat.
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“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and...”
– Abraham Lincoln (via kari-shma)
Adobe predicting 250 Million Flash enabled mobile... →
This number is ambitious beyond reason. I really don’t see that happening, when, as of today, they still haven’t got a working flash player on anything but demo devices.
This is adobe talking out of their asses, big time.
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keep track of newly released extensions for Safari →
Extensions for Safari are cropping up all over the internet. Jonas Wisser set up a Tumblr blog to keep track of them.
You should check out the blog, there are already a few very handy extensions available for download.
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The WWDC 2010 keynote address is up on iTunes →
The WWDC 2010 keynote address is now available in the iTunes podcast section.
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A couple of good reads concerning the new iPhone 4
Apple’s iPhone site
Arstechnica’s hands-on
Jim Dalrymple’s hands-on
Darby Lines’s WWDC keynote round-up
Cisco’s official comment on Apple licensing iOS
Clients From Hell: CEO: ”Hi Michael, we wanted to... →
CEO: ”Hi Michael, we wanted to talk to you in person (over the phone) to resolve the question of payment.”
Me: “OK.”
CEO: ”Let’s forget all of the stuff that has gone on in the past with this project. Let me put {Accountant) on the phone.”
Accountant: ”What we’d like to do is offer to pay…
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Apple's HTML5 and Web Standards website →
If these techniques catch on, Adobe is going to wish they hadn’t started a discussion about Flash’s position as a web standard and just accepted that it isn’t the best means to deliver video on the internet.
Take a look at those demos. It’s amazing what you can do with HTML5 and CSS3, what has only been possible in flash, until now.
via daringfireball and thijsjacobs:
...
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Marco.org: Microsoft didn't lead the way to the... →
As usual a well written article by Marco Arment, but I don’t completely agree with his conclusions.
Microsoft didn’t lead the way to the smartphone-to-tablet approach, and they didn’t lead the way to the iPad: they led the way down their own path that got them somewhere completely different, irrelevant, and unsuccessful.
In my opinion it’s hard to argue that Microsoft’s and...
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HP CEO says he didn’t buy Palm for smartphones |... →
chartier:
Palm goes out not with a bang, but in HP’s grab for IP. Rest in peace Palm. I was rooting for you.
This is sad news for everybody who was hoping for another financially well endowed competitor in the smartphone business — and the young business of client-host-based tablet computing.
What bugs me, is whether HP is trying to avoid the risks of competing in the smartphone market, or if...
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Steve Jobs will not let the Gizmodo thing slide →
This gives me the impression that Gizmodo’s activities surrounding the 4G iPhone prototype theft, will lead to them getting less to no access to Apple events and will be treated even more coldly by Apple PR than before.
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WatchStraight from the horse’s mouth; the reason why Apple won’t allow external analytics for anything other than advertising. Clue: Violation of privacy policies. Jobs also clarifies that iAds won’t be the only advertising platform allowed on the iPhone.
This video is really worth a watch.
via
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“I don’t want to see us to descend into a nation of bloggers, myself … we...”
– Steve Jobs at D8 on if the iPad will save the newspaper companies.
Call me a sensationalistic blogger, but I think this was a completely justified jab at Gawker/Gizmodo.
May 2010
18 posts
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Warner Bros. Sued for Pirating Anti-Piracy Tech →
Hypocrisy at its best:
via grindlebone:
Warner Bros. is notorious for its attempts to squash piracy, which have included suing popular music search sites and hiring interns whose sole purpose is to find pirated content and issue takedown notices. The company also began embedding each film distributed to theaters and critics with a unique identifier, so that Warner could trace leaked and...
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HP to launch a WebOS tablet by October
Talking to Digitimes, VP of HP Taiwan’s Personal Computing division, Monty Wong, has announced that HP will use WebOS, which they acquired alongside the rest of Palm, to power tablets and smartphones. An official announcement will come at the end of July and the device will supposedly be available by the end of October.
via Heise Online and Digitimes
I’m very fond of WebOS and have...
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Re-inventing Twitterrific →
The Iconfactory is in the process of redesigning their famous Twitter client almost from the ground up, providing a textbook example on what to do when facing strong competition; innovate.
I’d suggest this article to all companies who resort to complaining about how a competitor is making their life miserable, instead of trying to be noticed by creating value for customers themselves.
In...
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The Conversation: Valve's Steam on the Mac →
Great podcast in which Dan Benjamin talks to Gabe Newell and Jason Mitchell of Valve and John Siracusa of Ars Technica about the introduction of Steam to the Mac.
The most interesting bit I gathered from it, was that in some respect the Mac is easier to develop for, because of platform-inherent similarities to gaming consoles.
It’s really worth a listen if one wants to know where games are...
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I trust Facebook just as much. →
Few things display a more firm grasp of the concepts of “economy” and “trust” than leaving the watermark on the cover of the first edition of your book. Well done!
I don’t know if I want to feel pity or Schadenfreude seeing this.
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Ignorance is bliss. Adobe edition. →
John Paczkowski conducted an interview with Adobe’s co-chairman Chuck Geschke, in which the latter demonstrated an incredible capacity for cluelessness.
The link above leads to John Gruber’s comments on a few of the more extreme examples of said cluelessness. Sweet, sweet reason…
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Graphicpeel: MobileMe Mail Beta, a Visual... →
Great and comprehensive walkthrough of the new MobileMe interface. I’m excited about this, even though I don’t use the web interface regularly.
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Compelling alternative for Facebook in the making →
Lately Facebook has taken a lot of flack — and rightfully so — for its abysmal approach to customer privacy. Left and right pundits are advising people to quit Facebook …without naming alternatives.
All of this might change if the guys behind Diaspora* get their project off the ground. Their decentralised approach to creating social networks could be the thing people are waiting for.
I’m...
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“I pay for MobileMe precisely because it is not Gmail. No ads mucking up my apps,...”
– David Chartier.
My thoughts exactly.
MobileMe is one of the few subscription services that I gladly pay money for, every year. It’s inexpensive, too: In Germany a mail provider like GMX charges you €5,- per month for IMAP access to your mails. That equals €60,- in twelve months, which is...
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“An Authorized Developer will have demonstrated the ability to develop and...”
–
An excerpt from Nintendo’s developer application form. Good luck on that war with Apple and iPhone OS, Nintendo. via Craig Chockenberry
(via chartier)
I concur, also; *cough* Trism *cough*
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“[…] but it’s really about being a middle man. The networks—and many...”
– Adelaide Dugdale in a report on the plans of the WAC.
For the network providers it is the wrong realisation! By definition they are providers of infrastructure, why don’t they concentrate on being just that? I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this consortium will never ever...