Posts

TWiT Live without cooking your Mac

2010-03-04T12:58:03Z

I regularly listen to the TWiT podcasting network, including MacBreak Weekly, Windows Weekly and This Week In Tech. When I have free time, I watch the live video feed on TWiT Live.

However, there is one problem with watching this on the web. Flash.

This constant use of processor can often lead to the temperature of your Mac quickly increasing, as you might expect from Flash.

There is a simple solution: using the iPhone simulator that comes as part of the iPhone SDK.

By opening the SDK and going to http://live.twit.tv in Safari, you can load the video stream that's usually only available to iPhones and iPod Touches.

The iPhone stream is an mp4-encoded stream, which means it can be decoded on the graphics card. This means that you get really low CPU usage.

The only downside I've been able to find is that the stream can sometimes be a few minutes behind, which isn't critical.

Consonance

2010-02-16T00:18:15Z

Source lists are a fundamental part of Mac OS X applications.

They're used in many applications such as:

Linkinus
Finder

One important thing to note is that when the toolbar is hidden, the source list should look the same. For example, the top of the source list looks the same in both Finder and Linkinus.

The application developers seem to have missed that here:

Source

Too many options?

2010-02-03T15:31:04Z

Do you ever get the feeling that an application has too many unavailing options?

While some choice is good, in this case the designer may be going too far:

10.5 px:
11 px:
11.5 px:
12 px:

Source

My Biggest Worry About The iPad.

2010-02-03T01:29:35Z

It isn't the lack of a camera, multi-tasking or Flash. It isn't the lack of freedom due to the closed ecosystem. It isn't the lack of wireless syncing or video out. It isn't the screen's display resolution nor is it that the screen might not be the best for reading from.

It's this:

Who decided the iTunes 9 team was allowed to design software on another device?

The Javascript REPL in WebKit.

2010-01-30T19:05:59Z

While looking around at web developer hints and tips, you'll often read of people's love for Firefox and Firebug as if that's the pinnacle of debugging. Well, they're wrong.

Firebug has always seemed slow, buggy and not exactly easy to navigate. An example of this is that while writing this post, I examined Firebug to check that I wasn't missing something and while Firebug does have some of the features I describe below, they aren't located on the Script tab.

One of my favourite rendering engines, WebKit, has its own set of debugging tools know has as the Inspector. The Inspector has one of my favourite features in any Javascript debugging software, a REPL.

When you have the Inspector open, click the second button in from the bottom left and you'll be given an area to type in. This is the Javascript REPL and one of many things that I love about WebKit.

As you can see from this example, it also features syntax autocompletion of both javascript APIs and variable names.

This has been especially helpful when coding for Twitterfall. Recently, we've been focusing on reimplementing areas of the code to make it more efficient and have a lower footprint.

Sometimes, you just need to be able to test whether writing a function a specific way will give you the output you want. On these occasions it's so nice to be able to open the Inspector and just start typing.

The state of Twitter iPhone Apps.

2009-11-07T19:30:45Z

While working at Twitterfall, we've been developing a new iPhone application to replace the current one. This will be released as an update with no extra cost. During this time, I've been doing some market research and looking into the other iPhone apps. I'd like to comment on the following apps:

Echofon, Tweetie, Twitterific Premium, Twittelator Pro, Tweetdeck, Birdfeed and Echofon Pro. While Birdhouse is on the list, I couldn't think of anything to say about it. There's just not enough there.

Magic Mouse

2009-10-31T21:30:25Z

My magic mouse arrived this week. One of the major issues you'll have when seeing the Magic Mouse is that it is incredibly low. The low profile of the mouse at first seems daunting, upon receiving the Magic Mouse I tried to place my hands in the same position that they would be in if it was there.

Cooling your Mac

2009-08-20T18:00:18Z

As you saw previously, Flash on the Mac causes instant heat. Sometimes it's not very nice to be typing on a keyboard that's burning your fingers or sitting with a burnt lap.
One solution i've found, is to try and keep your Mac cool as much as possible. I try to keep my Mac's base temperature as low as possible. The method of doing this is to change the low-end fan speed. This can be done by using smcFanControl.

Flash on the Mac

2009-08-05T18:30:35Z

Recently, with a group of friends, we'd be talking and then we'd hear a MacBook's fan spin-up. After questioning we'd find it's due to a flash advert on a webpage. Flash appears to be one of the worst made plug-ins ever.

So what's the fix?

App Store Issues

2009-07-31T17:45:05Z

Recently, my friends and I have been talking about issues with the Apple iPhone App Store. Since there are lots of other articles about this, I thought it would be a good idea for me to join in. I'd like to begin with two case studies: My first case study is the story of a friend's app. He submitted, and the app was found to have some bugs. After multiple submissions and a rewrite, the app was then submitted and approved. After releasing this app, my friend found a rather large bug in the app (that had been missed in the approval process) which he then corrected, re-submitted and was then approved. My second case study is my own story. My app was submitted, and within a week had been denied due to a UI issue. This was corrected and then re-submitted. Within another week or so, my app was approved. Since then, I have sent an update which took about 4 weeks to be approved. This length of time can be attributed to the timing (near the release of the iPhone 3GS), and due to an error on Apple's part. So what's the main issue with the App Store? Consistency. Consistency is the major issue that the App Store faces. It has this in three directions. First of all, consistency between approvals. If both my friend and I were to submit our apps at the same time, would they be looked at by the same person? Probably not. Would one person find issues that another might not? Probably. That's where the issue lies. It has never been guaranteed that the person approving your app has the same standard for quality as the person in the office or cubicle next to them. I believe that this can be corrected. The second direction is the approval process throughout the life of an app. An app can be viewed by one person and placed on the app store. Two months later, the app can be viewed by someone else who deems the app inappropriate and then is removed from the app store. This isn't helpful and has recently frustrated users. A good example of this was when Tweetie released its an update with a list of trends inside. One of the trends was a swearword and therefore seen to be offensive. It was then denied from the App store. I believe that this can be corrected also. The third direction is the ability of Apple to pull any previously approved app for any reason it sees fit. This originally started with a complaint by AT&T based on Netshare. More recently this has caused issues with the Google Voice application. Often when one of these apps is pulled, the developer gets no information as to why the app has been pulled and what actions need to be taken to redistribute it. One major obvious point is that many of these application pullings may be due to complaints from carriers. While I don't think that this can be solved completely, I do believe that Apple can do something to make the process smoother. The Solution. The solution I'm about to lay out may not actually be feasible, but I believe it would make the App store a happier place.

Hire more people and take these people through training so that there is a base level of acceptance.
Make an application have two approvers. Every application would be checked by two people.
If the two approvers disagree on the decision of the application, it should be sent to a super-approver. This person would be able to see all notes taken by the previous approvers and would be able to veto either way. This will ensure that for any discrepancies any applications will be seen by a "select" few, who would be able to make a consistent decision.
Ensure that all previous notes for an application are carried through with an application. If possible, try to ensure that the same two people see the updates to applications. This will help to ensure that any updates to an application have an understanding of all previous issues before.
Ensure that the "App pulling" process has enough transparency. I understand the need for some confidentiality in some of these cases. For example, AT&T probably don't want to tarnish their name even more at the moment. However, something along the lines of
Your application was removed the App store due to a complaint received from a carrier. The complaint deals with the your app's ability to...and can be remedied as so...
I believe this would solve the issue of transparency and would at least offer a glimpse into the reasoning behind any application removal.

If at least some of these changes are done, then it should help the development process. Apple needs to solve the issues it's been having with the App store otherwise there may be a revolt from some developers.