Zoetrope

It's sad to see Apple using double-standards for the App Store and iTunes store: they banned the Murderdrome digital-comic application while in iTunes they just tag content as explicit. I hope they'll wise-up and start some kind of rating system to solve this.

I'm curious to see how digital-comics will evolve in devices like the iPhone since we're not there yet

I've been quite happy with my iPhone since I got it on July 11th. It certainly isn't fault- and controverse-free Testaankoop complaints but I'm hooked nonetheless.

People often mention the sale price in Belgium as a stumble block compared to the subsidised prices abroad, but if you look at the prices of other unlocked smartphones the point isn't that bad. The new Palm Treo Pro for instance also costs a lot more than other subsidised phones.

I wouldn't mind a law change that legalised subsidised phones in Belgium, but I think the law should enforce the sale of the same phone in an unlocked version. The current situation isn't optimal at all because almost all mobile providers require you to sign up for at least a year if you want to take advantage of the best plan they offer. I currently have a BASE contract I can cancel at any moment, but if I want to change to a better and cheaper plan (e.g. add SMS bundles or more minutes) I need to change to a new contract with BASE and sign up for at least 2 years.

So I'm better of if I switch to Mobistar: same contract length but a lot more minutes, SMS and data included for a competitive price. And that's without the added advantage of 3G versus EDGE-only.

I'm just glad my contract with BASE ran out and I can switch providers AND simcard in my beloved, unlocked iPhone

a Wired blogpost details a security flaw in iPhone OS 2.0.2 where you can access the address book, Safari and Mail through the double-tap shortcut on the home button of passcode-locked iPhones.

Of course, the question remains how many people actually passcode-lock their iPhones. I can't even remember if I've ever enabled automatic passcode-locking on any phone I owned ;-)

In ~/.bashrc:

export LESS="-R"
export LESS_TERMCAP_mb=$'\E[01;31m'
export LESS_TERMCAP_md=$'\E[01;31m'
export LESS_TERMCAP_me=$'\E[0m'
export LESS_TERMCAP_se=$'\E[0m'
export LESS_TERMCAP_so=$'\E[01;44;33m'
export LESS_TERMCAP_ue=$'\E[0m'
export LESS_TERMCAP_us=$'\E[01;32m'

Because it seems MobileMe is still wet around the ears:

feed://www.apple.com/mobileme/status/mobileme.rss (not available anymore)

Update: Apple is no longer sharing with us through a blog (like they should) and moved MobileMe status to http://www.apple.com/support/mobileme/

Here's how to get your Focusrite LiquidMix running again if you're on a Mac OS X Tiger install that was upgraded to Leopard:

Create textfile /private/etc/sysctl.conf and reboot:

kern.sysv.shmmax=536870912
kern.sysv.shmmin=1
kern.sysv.shmmni=128
kern.sysv.shmseg=128
kern.sysv.shmall=131072

My Focusrite would only work on a virgin Leopard install, now it works without a problem on my Tiger→Leopard upgrades too. Courtesy of a very quick support email to Focusrite.

I got fed up with the poor reception and eventual analog non-quality on my LCD flatpanel, so when I learned Prime packs are available for INDI since August 08 I rented their HD-recorder package for 10 Euro a month.

The base package is free with 53 channels of digital goodness like Turner Classic Movies. Here you can find their schedule for Belgium. I also subscribed to the extra package which for me is worth it because of BBC 3 (Doctor Who and The Real Hustle) and BBC 4 (the Avengers → Diana Rigg ;-) and the extra Discovery Channels. Prime sport is currently a waste of time for me because of their soccer fetish, but I suspect I'll be an addict when the NBA season starts in October. Prime sport is the only way to watch the NBA in Belgium. The Prime sports package also includes NASN which features College Basketball, the NFL and Baseball.

The difference between analog and digital reception on my LCD is unbelievable. It's a joy to watch BBC again without strange moiré patterns running across the screen, and the recorder functionality is awesome since I'm not a real-time TV consumer. I hate having to schedule your evening just to keep up with a series, since these days they're all spanning 1500 episodes a year and milking the plots across 15 years or something (read: Prison Break). I'm hoping we're going to catch up in the HD department (free HD channels) because for the moment only one channel broadcasts in permanent HD and for free.

The INDI recorder apparently runs on the Osmosys platform (Java) and is not bad at all. The interface (especially the Electronic Programming Guide) can slow down sometimes, but it's never completely unusable. It's nothing like Front Row or the Apple TV but you're spending most of the time watching stuff so that's not that big of a deal.

And whoever is responsible for the firmware uploader is clearly a Star Trek fan, hence the LCARS interface:

Of course every positive (unlocked iPhone) there's a negative. Especially in Belgium:

The first (local) Mobistar Center I visited did not have any phones in stock, and they advised me to deposit a down-payment to get on the waiting list. So I headed to the larger Mobistar Center in Hasselt, and arrived at 22-minutes after opening. Around 20 people were in a line and were told when they were waiting for the shop to open that they 'had enough iPhones to supply the line'.

So I waited in line, excited that they seemed to have enough stock. After 6 or 7 people got their iPhones, they announced that the 16Gb version was sold-out (especially the white ones). One or 2 people left the store, I guess they really wanted a white one.

Evidently when it was my turn to hand over my hard-earned cash, I had the last iPhone in the store. So they had a stock of 20 iPhones, and all the local Mobistar centers in my area had none.

Other people had an even worse experience: several Mobistar stores only sold iPhones to customers who also agreed to engage in a new Mobistar contract. Remember, this is absolutely illegal in Belgium. It's the reason they have to sell unlocked iPhones over here.

The official Mobistor policy was to no allow pre-orders, and sell the current stock on a first-come first-served basis, but it seems a more liberal policy was applied in some stores. Luckily the Mobistar Center in Hasselt had greate management.

At the night launch in Brussels they evidently had to turn away over 100 people because they ran out of phones:http://www.hbvl.be/nieuws/binnenland/default.asp?art={0BE76C37-4C93-425B-9F19-07A7DF19C0DB}

Anyway, I'm happy I can throw away my old phone and enjoy phone capabilities on top of all the other functionality. I've been using my iPod Touch more than my phone since I got it in January.

Some dutch links with some info about this sad day for those customers hoping to finally snatch a legal iPhone here in Belgium:

http://www.myiphone.be/content/view/298/38/

http://forum.onemorething.nl/viewtopic.php?p=1764908#1764908

Finally the time has come, the AppStore has launched. I've been running the 2.0 Beta OS ever since my application was accepted during Apple's WWDC. It included the AppStore but the content wasn't there.

After you upgrade to iTunes 7.7 you can browse the store on your Mac, or just do it on your device. Make sure to install Remote so you can navigate and control your iTunes library. Absolutely magnificent IMHO.

The current catalog of apps is really cool, lots of games and contains a lot of free apps. I'm not 100% sure, but it seems you can install (actually: sync) the apps you bought on any number of devices. I'll test that when I get myself the 3G iPhone tomorrow. Oh btw, for once us Belgians have something to envy: unlocked iPhones 3G (although 'expensive')!

The last few weeks I've been ramping up my Cocoa/iPhone development and I have to say that it's really fun. Cocoa has very, very mature API's and excellent design patterns (read: delegates/target-action/datasource) that make GUI programming for Mac OS X/iPhone a lot more fun than spitting thousands of JWhatever components in Swing.

Okay, now back to Xcode!

Just an example of how well WWDC08 is organized,I got this message when I tried to download the latest Beta SDK released yesterday (1.9Gb):

The whole event is incredibly well organized, huge breakfast and lunch buffets, coffee carts everywhere, water coolers, stewards to make sure you're entering the right sessions. They've got a dedicated charge-your-battery with quick-charge stations you put your battery in. Hardwired ethernet connections (and power) on the ground floor, and even power-outlets tied to the chairs in most conference halls. I've yet to use my second battery I bought beforehand.

The special website for attendees detects when you're accessing it on an iPhone or iPod Touch and the interface is very nice, and keeps you up-to-date with everything WWDC.

Oh, and why don't they like you downloading big files over the wireless network? It's because they made sure you're going to smile when you're doing it wired:

I'm writing this from the comfort of a leather couch with a nice hot cup of joe on the table in front of me. They really know how to take care of their developer geeks.

Just to give you a look inside the Moscone Center Presidio room

Maybe I'll be doing some twittering about my trip to the USA, so I've added my twitter updates in my sidebar or you can just follow the whole thing at https://twitter.com/nickyp

I'll be leaving for San Francisco tomorrow, and am looking forward to do some hacking at WWDC 08. I'm running solo, so if you're attending the sold-out and landmark event event and want to have a chat drop me an email at nicky AT speakermouth D0_T com. There does not seem to be a lot of Belgian Cocoa developers out there, so I'm eager to see how many I can spot over there.

I've been pining to go to San Francisco and WWDC for quite some years now, but a pricey five-day conference is not something my non-geek friends would attend 'just for the heck of it'. It's also easier for me since this will be a business expense, something I guess almost all attendees will have in common. Going solo is going to be quite the adventure, but with the strong Euro and the arrival of the iPhone SDK I felt this would be the one not to miss.

I've been enamored with my iPod touch and the beta SDK's for some months now and I feel that Apple is going to push the boundaries of mobile development and at the same time jumpstart Mac OS X development. Building iPhone tailored web application is a hoot using Dashcode and the native iPhone API is looking great. Let's hope they won't go all evil on our ass with the iPhone App Store.

If I look back at how NeXT was ahead of its time with its UNIX workstations and the NeXTSTEP operating system and their developer applications such as Interface Builder, I'm hoping the same people and vision are pushing the iPhone and mobile development in a similar direction. If you've ever handled a Apple Newton you know how being ahead of your time doesn't always mean being successful, but looking at the success of the iPhone this won't be a problem for Apple this time.

I'll be posting posts (alliteration, yeah baby!) and photos during my stay, since Apple is providing network-access all across the conference center and I'm not leaving my Macbook in Belgium this time. They really know how to speak to the inner-geek: Apple provides a special conference website with full schedule for iCal, Moscone West floor plans, and even provide reading material and source-code beforehand for each session so I'll be coming prepared.

My inner-geek is getting excited already ;-)

For those who don't want to spend half a day compiling Haskell trying to install Darcs using darwinports, use the darcs client installer from http://www.fivesquaresoftware.com/source/.

Works like a charm, and installs in a second or 7...

###########################################################
# A startup item has been generated that will aid in
# starting postgresql83-server with launchd. It is disabled
# by default. Execute the following command to start it,
# and to cause it to launch at startup:
#
# sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.postgresql83-server.plist
###########################################################
--->  Installing postgresql83-server 8.3.1_0

To create a database instance, after install do
 sudo mkdir -p /opt/local/var/db/postgresql83/defaultdb
 sudo chown postgres:postgres /opt/local/var/db/postgresql83/defaultdb
 sudo su postgres -c '/opt/local/lib/postgresql83/bin/initdb -D /opt/local/var/db/postgresql83/defaultdb'

To tweak your DBMS, consider increasing kern.sysv.shmmax by adding an increased kern.sysv.shmmax .. to /etc/sysctl.conf

Did one of your application windows get stuck on the second display you recently disconnected in Mac OS X? No gather windows button in Preferences > Display? Check out the AppleScript that fixes it all. Works as advertised on 10.5.2.

There's a nice Lisp bundle for Textmate available, it ads syntax highlighting and snippets for defun, defmacro, setf etc. Just check it out with subversion:

>$ cd Library/Application\ Support/Textmate/Bundles/
svn co http://macromates.com/svn/Bundles/trunk/Bundles/Lisp.tmbundle/

In /etc/yum.conf add:

exclude=kernel*

With the above, yum won't install/update any kernels automatically (actually: any package that begins with kernel).