Announcement

sqrOmega AnnouncementThinker | Written by Kay | Leave a Comment 

I will be away from this site for a week. I will be unable to update any or very few post during this week. Please come back next week.

Dripping paint table by John Nouanesing

sqrPhi Dripping paint table by John Nouanesing.Design Artist | Written by Kay | Leave a Comment 

f3e23b31121a68e96e8dd6762a779205 Dripping paint table by John Nouanesing

No, it’s not real. It’s a concept table by designer John Nouanesing.
I’m not sure if I like it. Well, make a black one and I will tell you the answer.

[Link: John Nouanesing]
[Via: BoeingBoeing]

UNIX command for getting the latest version of a file

sqrPi UNIX command for getting the latest version of a file.Computer Science Geek | Written by Kevin | 4 Comments 

When it comes to UNIX shell-scripting I need all the help I can get.  It’s hard trying to do something new because getting to the right info requires reading many manual pages.  Here are commands I learned to find the latest version of a file that has a timestamp in its filename.  Suppose the files are

myFile.2008-05-01.12.45.01

myFile.2008-05-01.12.46.02

myFile.2008-05-01.12.47.03

and they’re in a directory with many other files, and you want to find the myFile with latest time, then issue this command in the directory of myFile:

ls -l | awk '/myFile/ {print $NF}' | tail -n 1
 

Ok, so what does this do?

“ls -l” prints the files in the current directory, one file per line, in ascending sorted order.  This output is passed to awk, which evaluates each line, searching for the pattern myFile, and for each line with myFile, it separates the words by whitespace, and prints the last field, which is the filename.  The list of such filenames is then passed to tail -n 1, which simply prints the last file in the list.  The result should be what we want.  Of course, if there are other files such as myFileABC, then this command won’t work.  We’ll need a more specific regular expression pattern in the awk command.

Can anyone do it simpler?  Please share.  Thanks.

Personalize Your Unix Shell Prompt

sqrPi Personalize Your Unix Shell Prompt.Computer Science Geek | Written by Kevin | 1 Comment 

In a UNIX shell terminal, a prompt indicates the shell is ready for a command. An example:

$

PS1 is the environment variable that determines what the prompt is.  Change it to change the prompt.

For example: PS1=${PWD}> ‘ will set the prompt to display “current_directory> “.  Pay attention to the single quotes.  Using double quotes may have a different effect.

To keep your new prompt each time you log in, set PS1 in your .profile file in your home directory.

Play around.  Different shells require different symbols.  Here are some more examples.

In bash, I use: PS1=’\[\e]0;\w\a\]\n\[\e[32m\]\u@\h\[\e[0m\]\n\$ ‘

In ksh, I use: PS1=’${HOSTNAME?}:${PWD?}’`echo “\n> “‘

Tell me what you are using.

“Eve firing” Adium dock icon

sqrPhi Eve firing Adium dock iconsqrPi Eve firing Adium dock icon.Apple,Inc .Design .Movies .Sci-Fi Artist Geek | Written by Tim | 3 Comments 

We found an Eve dock icon for Adium one month before Wall·E was out, and we all loved it.
Here is a screenshot:
54d14c79c29fbd8b7e9f3ff2410cf02c Eve firing Adium dock icon
Download it here.
We made a custom version with original icons from the author Maximilian Larsson, now EVE fires when you get a new message!

Sorry this one is NFR, but if you have some rudimentary image editor, here’s how you can do it yourself on a Mac (sorry Windows folks).

Step I. Download the EVE icon set from Maximilian Larsson’s site, using the link above. If you have CandyBar, download the CandyBar version, then export the icons you need from CandyBar to 512×512 png and skip to Step II. Don’t have CandyBar? Dont worry, go to Step I.1

Step I. 1. so you download the zip version instead, how to get the icons in png format? Easy, open the zip, you’ll see a bunch of folders with EVE icons applied, select the folder, copy (cmd+c), open Preview, go to file menu > New From Clipboard. Boom! you get the icons in preview, now just save the 512 version as png. Repeat this for all the icons you want.

Step II. Now you have the icons in glorious 512×512 png, take a moment to appreciate the beauty before your eyes. You need to crop them to make it look right on the dock, so fire up any image editor with crop support. (Personally I use Pixelmator) Cut off the excess white space so that the EVE fits comfortably in a 435×435 square, you’ll have her head almost touching the top of the cropped image. Repeat for each icon.

Step III. Let’s make a custom Dock icon set for Adium, the easiest way to start is to make a copy of the original EVE icon for Adium (you did download it right?). Go to your home folder/Library/Application Support/Adium 2.0/Dock Icons/, make a copy of EVE.AdiumIcon.

Rename the copy to whatever you want, right click on it, and select Show Package Contents, now delete all the old icons except sleeping.png, copy all your new pngs in (don’t replace sleeping). 

Step IV. Open the file IconPack.plist and start editing away! But just to get you started, here’s mine iconpack. 

Step V. Launch Adium and enjoy!


b150e652557e58e48ae0f082107b6c90 Eve firing Adium dock icon

HellBoy II: silly, dumb, and boring — but with pretty colors

sqrPhi HellBoy II: silly, dumb, and boring -- but with pretty colors.Movies Artist | Written by Kevin | Leave a Comment 

Hellboy IIFrom the depths of Hollywood hell, comes this un-adoring sequel of our beloved horn-shaving, big red, devil tail, superstar HellBoy.  The look of the film has director Guillermo del Toro’s touch, but the story telling lacks his magic.  The story-line was bloated.  The dialog was dumb.  The characters were boring.  Yes, Big Red felt like he should have been in bed and on not on the set.  And that sums up the movie, things didn’t feel right.

As an action movie, HellBoy 2 is hampered and weighed down by fake character development scenes. It’s this mix-mash of poorly done sub-plots that makes the movie silly, dumb, and boring.

Liz, the fire-girl, is having relationship problems over living with HellBoy.  The issue: trivial woman stuff that’s glossed over with key-phrases like “more space”, and “you don’t get it”.  Of course, we never really get it because it’s never really revealed.  That’s silly.  The problem here is fake conflict for more drama.  Later on, Liz finds out she’s pregnant.  Oh brother! is the HellBoy franchize really going there?

Meanwhile, HellBoy wants to be loved by the humans he not-so-secretly lives among.  But after rescuing a baby from a giant, green, elemental bean-stalk thingy, the crowd of New Yorkers boo him.  They shout that it’s his fault or something or other.  But wait, when did this anti-HellBoy sentiment started?  And didn’t they see him save the baby? That’s dumb.

And Abe has more of a role, too.  The main plot unfolds as follows:  An elven princess runs from her evil twin brother, keeping away the third piece of the golden crown which when made whole will give the wearer of noble blood absolute rule over the indestructible Golden Army.  Wouldn’t you know it, Abe falls in love with the princess. Ahh. And an un-romantic affair follows. That’s boring.

HellBoy 2 was too much of a mix of unrelated smaller stories.  Scenes felt fake and didn’t tie together nicely.  The visuals are certainly the better part: the creatures are bizarre, the costumes lovely, the lighting gorgeous, and the fighting decent.

Contrary to the rating on RottenTomatoes, which gave HellBoy 2 88%, I’ll give it 73%, the standard percentage of an equivalent letter grade B after a curve.  The pretty colors moved me up.

iFail

sqrPi iFail.Apple,Inc Geek | Written by Kay | Leave a Comment 

225e013b874e110595be241c24868449 iFailI knew this was coming the first day Apple released iPhone SDK. The SDK package is around 2.1GB. Pretty huge. Unsurprisingly the server was overloaded and thus I couldn’t open the download page at all. I tried for numerous times, and failed all attempts. It was not until 8 hours later in the evening was I finally able to start downloading. The downloading speed was miserably slow, at around 3 KB/sec, whereas usually I can reach 700 KB/sec from Apple’s http download links. It’s unsurprising that the server couldn’t handle that huge swarm of traffic. What stroke me, though, is that Apple should have foreseen this coming. By which I mean, a 2.1 GB file being distributed via http server to millions of users at once is just as ridiculous as you can get. In fact, the only practical way to do so is to do it via P2P. And that’s not something new or unsecure. Blizzard has been distributing WoW updates, game trailers using P2P since long time ago.
59ac6f4bc03357992ee51ea9be5d9eab iFail While it might not be as fast as a normal loaded http server, it is however, light years ahead when distributing large files to a massive group, just as Blizzard has proved.
Tim added that http download only takes one step, whereas P2P download takes 2 steps(you will have to fetch the downloader(<1MB) at first). And normally http download is still faster than P2P. And that’s perhaps the reason Apple never thought of using P2P at all.
Am I missing anything here? Or maybe Apple is just overconfident with their servers?

Update: Found this from here.

Latest Mac vs. PC ad…

MAC: Hello, I’m a Mac
PC: And I’m a PC
PC: Hey Mac, I heard the new iPhone launched and version 2.0 of the firmware is out.
MAC: We could not complete your iTunes Store request. The iTunes Store is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.
PC: uh, Mac, are you ok?
MAC: Sorry, not sure where that came from - I normally work so flawlessly…
PC: Thats ok, you’ve been ragging Vista for so long, its about time you got a dose of your own medicine…
MAC: This version of the iPod software (1.1.4) is the current version.
PC: WTF???

Que Apple logo…

The potential piracy of iPhone apps

sqrPi The potential piracy of iPhone apps.Apple,Inc Geek | Written by Kay | 2 Comments 

Disclaimer: We do not support piracy of any kind. As developers ourselves, we know the effort others have put to make those apps available. We strongly encourage you to purchase legit apps from the App Store. Our intention, simply driven by curiosity, is to make sure Apple is taking enough measure to protect developers, not the other way around. We will delete this post if it ever directly leads to piracy.

Just like its big brothers, iPhone is also a platform that piracy will eventually take place. The question is how hard it can be to pirate softwares for the iPhone and what measures Apple will take to prevent it.
For now, Apple uses Signing Certificate as it’s been proven to be a secure standard(Vista, for example).
72a01f7d702cd8d1827d4e44bb805791 The potential piracy of iPhone apps


After poking around with the new App store, I discovered that, by renaming the downloaded app file from *.ipa to *.zip and unzipping it, you will be able to get the app package. Now if you have a jailbroken iPhone, you can simply upload the app to your iPhone. As I’m sure you can’t just upload this file to your iPhone and simply run it, the FairPlay Version 2 DRM that Apple is using for these apps is not hard to hack. I tried to install Remote using this method, the app shows up in iPhone’s Laucher but it won’t run. I also purchased the game Enigmo, and tried to unpack it and upload it to my iPhone. It shows up in the Launcher but it still wouldn’t run.

bae695246226e0c51e1e5347ed0a5fc8 The potential piracy of iPhone apps

But the failure might just simply because of my iPhone is still running on 1.0.2. I will later install 2.0 firmware and test it out. It will not work most likely, but trying to find a solution will be on my list.
Either way, the bigger the app store grows, the sooner Apple will have to fight piracy to protect the developers who are paying 30% of their revenues to Apple.
Update: A user at ipodtouchfans.com has found out that “application can be traded”.

I took my friends ipod, on HIS COMPUTER. NO iTunes account watsoever, and sync my MonkeyBall.ipa to his ipod and it works fine!!!!

No iTunes account needed! just the ipa! I am not encouraging this illegal behavior nor am i providing a guide on how to do it. just making you aware of apples flaws.

-John

This is truly terrifying.
Update 2: There is an iTunesMetadata.plist file in the unzipped folder, it appears to contain the app and your iTunes account information. It seems that iTunes checks your shopping list to determine if the app is transferable to other account. Which means *.ipa is probably for packaging reasons, iTunes extracts the *.app folder off it and loads them on your phone(which is associated with the same iTunes account, just like the way iPod handles the music you download from iTunes music store). So if they are DRM encrypted, the key to decrypt them must be available in the phone somewhere, just like cracking the FairPlay DRM of music from iTunes music store.
Also, every app packages appear to have two additional folders(see the picture above), a _CodeSignature folder(Signature key), and a SC_Info folder(don’t know what this folder is for yet). The CodeResources file is an XML file(Property list) that contains a signature for each file.
This means they are indeed signed, which also means it may be cracked by patching the iPhone OS to ignore signatures.

It may be reasonable for iTunes to check the apps everytime when you sync to make sure they are legit.
Still, the only way we suggest is to purchase from the App Store.

Update 3: It seems App Store has a lot of unsettled questions.

What exactly does Fairplay for apps mean?
Apple has stated that they’ll apply Fairplay protection to applications purchased through the Apple store, but we don’t know what that means. Will the software be tied to a single device, and if so, what happens when the user gets a new iPhone? Can this software be backed up and later recovered? As seen in Edward Spodick’s comment on my previous article, users are quite wary of their software being tied to one device.

How will developers get customer information?
Right now, when we sell software to a customer, we get all manner of information. We can track visitors, hits, downloads, and more. We also get a name and email address we can use to contact the customer later, if needed. Will we get any of this from the App Store? If so, what pieces of it?
How will support be handled?

What about trials?
We provide free trials of all our software for Mac and Windows. Just like test-driving a car, you can test our software, before you buy it. The goal here is to make sure our users know just what they’re getting, and that it will perform as expected. How will we accomplish this in the App Store? Can we have free software that’s just a trial, and then link it to a paid version?

How will refunds be handled?
Even with our free trials, we occasionally need to issue a refund to our users. As an independent developer, we can handle this on our own, but what happens with the App Store? Can we make this happen? Further, can users go directly through Apple to receive a refund, without ever interacting with the developer? For that matter, will there be refunds at all? With music and movies purchased from Apple, there’s no obvious way to get a refund. If a user has a problem though, we don’t want them to be left holding the bag and hating us.
How do we give out review copies?
We often provide free licenses to journalists and other people to whom we’d like to give a free copy of our software. To do this, we can just generate a license key and provide it via email to the recipient, then they can download our trial and unlock it with the key. However, it’s not clear how we can provide these sorts of review copies through the App Store.
What about other pricing concerns?
Currently, we have a coupon system in our store, we can offer upgrade pricing for users who’ve purchased old versions, we can offer volume discounts for large purchases, and much, much more. All of these things, and more, help our bottom line. We’ll want to do them with iPhone Apps, but will we be able to?

A commenter said Apple will presumably use exactly the same way as they did for Fairplay for music and videos. I.E. unlimited iPods (iPhones), tied to your iTunes account.
For reviewer, Ad Hoc distribution wouldn’t work in my opinion, and developers haven’t got the official word from Apple on this matter yet.

It seems App Store has to a lot to questions and problems(naming mechanics, for example) to deal with.
[Read:Open Questions for The App Store]

App Store available in 62 countries[Update: it seems Steve has already promised to]

sqrPi App Store available in 62 countries[Update: it seems Steve has already promised to].Apple,Inc Geek | Written by Kay | 1 Comment 

App Store available for 62 countries
(Click on the image to see larger picture)
This is a screenshot I took at around 7:00 am July 10th.
It seems a lot of countries that do not appear in Apple’s “July 11″ and “Coming soon” list get App Store as well. For example, Pakistan, Vietnam, Korea, China and Russia are not in the big party yet. A hint that those countries will get iPhone 3G sooner than expected? Very likely not really. But more importantly, it seems that App Store is going to be a global iPhone app store unlike iTunes Music Store which is only available for a few countries in the world. And this App Store, as Steve Jobs puts it, “The biggest launch of my career.” The profit from app selling will be quite something, or something even bigger, considering how many iPod Touch have been sold in addition to the sales of iPhone.
This is the Apple’s promised list:0559646efe4b4e8bc7c8fb5c0a79a290 App Store available in 62 countries[Update: it seems Steve has already promised to]

Update: Now Apple changed it to this:
9c6869f181e47756294a81b5080b65f3 App Store available in 62 countries[Update: it seems Steve has already promised to]
Update 2: well, it seems if you click the drop down list of “My store”, you can always choose one of the stores that is not in the “big party” yet. Then after you changed the store, click on the flag button next to the drop down list and you will be able to see the 62-country list rather than 22-country list.
Update 3: Now it seems it will always return you the 62-country list. A global App Store indeed as Steve has promised. Every country has their own app store. That is, just like the way iTunes Store was handled, each country will have its own rating system and ranking system.
There’s something unusual about these two lists. If you noticed, there are 71 countries in Apple’s promised list in total, and no signs of Korea, Russia and China. However, they do appear in the App Store list even though they don’t get the “legal” iPhones yet. On the other hand, some countries that are in Apple’s 71-country list, for example, Botswana and Macau, do not have their own App Store yet. There’s no doubt that iPhone will one day come to China, Korea, Vietnam and Russia, the open of their own App Stores maybe a sign of earlier release of the iPhone 3G, or perhaps it’s just for the iPod Touch(and unlocked iPhone) owners in those countries. But some part of me are also wondering if it’s also a sign of the coming of their own iTunes Music Store, since the pop music industry in China, Korea and Russia are all pretty huge and they have been waiting for the iTunes Music Store for ages.

older posts