January 2012
1 post
November 2011
2 posts
Why growl is now a paid app
Apple will release their notification center for OS/X, which obsoletes the need for growl.
So this is basically their only shot to try and get some money out of it.
rails_tails.sh #pow @37signals @sstephenson
rails_tails.sh:
!/bin/sh
tail -q -f log/development.log -f ~/Library/Logs/Pow/apps/${PWD##*/}.log
October 2011
3 posts
Why the iPhone 4S is a bliss for developers
Same display
Same resolution
Same aspect ratio
Faster cpu
A product cycle of 2 years for a device which costs around 600 euro is perfect. Especially if customers have a contract of 24 months
Why does apple show a PC on their service page?
http://www.apple.com/uk/buy/locator/map.html?tySearch=1&viaProduct=4&viaSpecial=-1&strCountry=NLD&lat=52.3702157&lng=4.8951679&gCountry=NL
Click on authorized service provider, and you’ll see it’ll open this popup:
http://images.apple.com/euro/buy/locator/overlays/images/aasp.jpg
RIP Steve Jobs - nt
August 2011
2 posts
Fixing default gateway for cisco vpn in OSX Lion...
In Lion, the “Send all traffic over VPN connection” is gone. That was a good thing, since it didn’t work in 10.6
To fix your gateway (work network =192.168.252.0):
UTUN=`netstat -rn | perl -lane 'print $F[1]' | grep utun[0-9] | sort -u`
sudo route add 192.168.252.0/24 -interface $UTUN
sudo route delete default -interface $UTUN
sudo route add default -interface en0
sudo route...
Why Apple is banning access to the iPhone UDID
Since iOS5 beta6, Apple has banned access to the iPhone UDID.
The iPhone UDID is a unique device identifier which can be used to track users.
Many applications use the UDID to prevent signups, but also to track users for advertising.
All around the web, people think Apple is doing this to prevent advertisements, when in fact this is done to protect the users data. Consider the following:
Joe...
May 2011
1 post
Apple's cloud strategy part 2
Here’s a small update on my Apple (AAPL) - Cloud strategy:
Apple bought iCloud.com for about $4.5M
Save-state is called “Resume”
There are references about migrating your mobileme-account to the cloud (http://consomac.fr/news-1140-exclu-un-chateau-pour-mobileme.html)
Why would Apple want to move to the cloud? Hosting music in the cloud would give users more space (= cheaper...
April 2011
5 posts
Google, where are the RELEVANT ads?
Did anybody notice that the ads you are now seeing are only showing ads for sites you’ve already visited or specific searches you’ve done?
Google used to target ads based on the content of your site. This is valuable for advertisers.
Since a while Google has switched to the current scheme, which DOES work, because they know you were searching for specific content or a specific...
“The night is still young..
.. but I’m old”
– Joris Verschoor (jrz)
iPhone5 to get a trackpad instead of a home...
Just read about the home-button thing from Joshua Topolsky. I think this would be a very nice addition to the iPhone. Apple knows that games are the nr1 software category on the iPhone, and the controls are still crippled for certain type of games (platformers, fps, etc)
If Apple turns the home-button into a macbook-like trackpad, the functionality would still be the same for older applications...
My take on the Apple strategy (or: why Apple will...
Here’s my take on Apple’s roadmap:
Better gaming on the iPhone5 with a touchpad instead of the homebutton. The new iPhone5 will probably have a macbook-like-trackpad instead of the home button. This would be ideal for gaming, which represents the largest revenue generator on the iPhone App Store
Improve MacOS for better touch/gesture support.
Improve MacOS’s sandboxing and...
Adium finally gets multipresence!
Check out the latest beta. http://trac.adium.im/ticket/13654
March 2011
11 posts
Why is Amazon Cloud Drive cheaper than what... →
1 tag
iPhone's Personal Hotspot is sweet
I’m using the Personal Hotspot feature of my iPhone to surf the web on my MacBook at this moment. Turns out that 3G really is fast! This also means that safari on the iPhone is darn slow.
Charlie and the Apple Factory →
5 tags
Secure MySQL on brew / homebrew (osx)
Brew is awesome. MySQL is less awesome, but it’s still good. Unfortunately, brew currently lets mysql listen to any interface. If you have no or a weak root password AND you have no firewall, you’re screwed. Fortunately, there’s a way to fix this:
Edit your ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.mysql.mysqld.plist
And change:
Program/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.5.10/bin/mysqld_safe...
Google Chrome performance tweaks
I have around 100-150 chrome tabs open on average. most of the time, chrome does reasonably good, but at some point memory usage is insane, and cpu usages goes up.
My quest to have a better browsing experience (mac):
Go to about:flags
Disable any duplicate flash plugins.
Disable “Web Page Prerendering”
Enable “Click to play”
Enable “Enable better omnibox...
Digid.nl doesn't use an extended validation SSL...
Our national identity service doesn’t use a Extended Validation Certificate when signing in to digid (
https://as.digid.nl/aselectserver/server).
The EV is the green bar shown in your address bar.
Why is it that the government spends millions on promoting the digid service, but doesn’t spend a couple of hundred euros extra to acquire a better certificate?
FAIL
Google Apps OpenID Login with Devise-1.2
Since a few weeks I had my devise-1.2 with :omiauthable working.
A few minutes ago, I completed the addition of google_apps login.
While plataformatec has done an excellent job documenting facebook login. Google login missed a few things. Just add:
def self.find_for_google_apps_oauth(access_token, signed_in_resource=nil)
data = access_token['user_info']
if user =...
Backup your files from the cloud before the...
It’s coming…
GAIKAI is da bomb!
I’ve just tried one of the GAIKAI demos, and this technology is for games what webapps were for applications. I can see this being integrated in TVs or settopboxes in the future
It just runs, no installations (except java gaikai), no hassle, instant play. There’s only minor minor lag noticable, but good enough even for first-person-shooters (single player though)
WIN
Finally XCode4! →
XCode 4 means a better interface
Oh, and iOS4.3 is released ;)
Thunder Bolt the best thing for apple gaming
So, all of you have probably heard about thunderbolt/light peak. Here’s my take on what is (hopefully) going to happen:
You will be able to buy monitors with a built-in pci-express card, where you can plug in your expensive gamers card. This means high performance external (upgradable) video cards for all of you gamers, while still having all the portability of your 13” macbook...
November 2010
3 posts
4 tags
We've launched.... now what? (iPhone game)
I was going to post this after Apple would have approved the latest update, but it’s taking way too long, so I’ll skip the waiting. Here’s the story…
We (Bloomsix) have released an iPhone puzzle game:
Damian Filigree: the Book of Thoth
So far, all (the few) responses have been excellent.
We’re very proud on the enthusiasm on toucharcade, and theportablegamer...
12 tags
How to better monetize actionshots in themeparks
All themepark sell actionshots. These are photographs taken in an attraction t certain points. Some even record videos in certain seats (Goliath in Walibi World).
Actionshots typically range anywhere from 7-15 euros (10 - 20 usd). Obviously, nobody really buys them. They are too expensive, and are bulky to carry with you. Some parks allow you to buy photos based on the photonumber, which is...
4 tags
FreeSWITCH is the best ip-pbx
I’ve been running FreeSWITCH for some time now on a VPS. So far it’s been very stable and fast. If anyone is thinking of installing a pbx. Take a look at FreeSWITCH / FusionPBX.
The UI is very clear, and serverload is minimal.
http://www.fusionpbx.com/
http://www.freeswitch.org/
There no way I’ll be using asteriks anymore.
September 2010
1 post
Amazon now competes again with rackspacecloud on...
Amazon has just announced the Micro Instance . Basically, it means you can run a $15/month instance. One of the reasons I chose rackspace, is that it’s cheap to run a lot of small boxes. Amazon doesn’t have any local storage, besides, rackspace’s performance is better than EC2s. Too bad there are no european clouds from rackspace yet. via James Hamilton
May 2010
1 post
YouTube on html5: thank god!
I’ve been running YouTube on html5 since a couple of weeks, and I must say: Thank god for html5 and the sudden push behind it.
Flash on mac (chrome / safari / firefox) is extremely instable and slow. I really thought of switching back to windows or maybe ubuntu, only because flash kept crashing and, even worse, bogging down my whole browser.
Now, with the new Chrome things are slightly...
April 2010
1 post
Asterisk outgoing DTMF tone detection
I run Elastix as my pbx, on a managed xen server. I have been experiencing problems with DTMF tones (for example when you call a helpdesk, and need to enter something). I use Polycom telephones. After some searching I found out that my problem was that I has set the “Asterisk Outbound Dial command options” to wW. This was to enable ondemand recording of calls. I’ve removed it,...
March 2010
2 posts
4 tags
SMTP RFC: X-Notify & X-Notify-TTL ?
This is a question / rfc-initiator I posted on my old blog:
Does anybody know if there is an SMTP header that allows me to specify that a message is a notification-message, and one to set the expiration date / TTL?
A lot of emails I receive are notification messages (new message on facebook, build failed, etc). Some of these have an expiration-time (password reset-token should be redeemed...
Moved from blogger to tumblr
Today I moved from blogger to tumblr. The reason for this is simple: tumblr seems much nicer, more up to date, and makes it easier for me to customize my template.
Also, the twitter integration will help promote my posts. My old blog never really took off, and I guess writing (at least for me) requires some feedback from my readers.
If tumblr works good enough, I’ll even recommend it to my...