Clark's Tech Blog

Google TV, Apple TV and More

clark — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:12:23 +0000

Review of the Google TV beta. I was pretty underwhelmed by the AppleTV release. The choices are really a MacMini off eBay running Plex or perhaps the new Roku coming out soon. Of course all of this awaits the death of my old school second TV. (And the money to replace it)

Cocoa Unbound

clark — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:08:23 +0000

Cocoa unbound. A Cocoa mailing list not over-moderated by Apple.

Upgrade to iOS 4.1?

clark — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:10:08 +0000

So iOS 4.1 reportedly comes out later this week. (Here’s an overview of the new features. The big question is whether it’s worth upgrading for jailbroken phones. Now I have to admit the proximity sensor bug really bugs the heck out of me. Also my bluetooth headset isn’t syncing with my iPhone 4 for some reason, making the problem worse. All that said now that I’m jailbroken again I’m not sure I want to upgrade unless there is a jailbreak. Outside of the proximity sensor bug fix (which is huge) none of the features are compelling.

I’ll probably hold off until a 4.1 jailbreak becomes available. Probably a few weeks after the release.

iTunes 10 to 8

clark — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 04:27:25 +0000

Change iTunes 10 to look like 8. Vastly superior to that program I mentioned last week that themed elements of iTunes 10 with 9.

On iTunes 10

clark — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:08:51 +0000

I had a post half written about my thoughts this week and decided everything was enough of a non-story so as to not say much. I mean most of what happened was expected and the (disappointing) AppleTV was at best a slight upgrade (Netflix streaming) along with a better price. I think Apple dropped the ball on this one pretty significantly. I would have written about iTunes 10 but it wasn’t out.

First the big news, Ping seems useless right now. (I find most social media stuff like that though — they tend only to work if you can convince all your friends to use them) The appearance is a mixed bag. I like that they toned down the interface from the Vista like color of iTunes 9. However they went too far into grey. If you want the iTunes 9 icons back there’s a program iTunes 109 that’ll restore the old sidebar and optionally other icons. Me, I wish more of the appearance of iTunes 8 could come back.

What bothers me is that iTunes seems to switch for switching sake. There’s no real concern with usability. In many ways iTunes is the worst of Apple’s software. It’s definitely the worst in terms of UI consistency.

All that said some of the changes I like. As I said I like not having it quite so in my face was nice. It’s just that some color is needed – just more muted colors. Right now it’s hard to find anything at at glance because everything is grey. I suspect Apple will be getting lots of hate mail on this and will fix it soon.

Build Your Own Magnetic Levitator

clark — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:04:19 +0000

Build your own magnetic levitator

Build a Remote Car Starter

Toggle Hidden Files in Finder

clark — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:01:18 +0000

Script to toggle viewing hidden files in the Finder.

Weak Laser Cutter

clark — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:21:14 +0000

Building a laser cutter using only a 1 Watt diode. Man, if only I had time…

Keep WiFi Alive

clark — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:45:21 +0000

Keep your iPhone wifi connection live. That way you’re not always turning the phone on just to access it from the Finder. Add the Insomnia SBSetting to turn this off when not in use.

Benefits of Schedules

clark — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:56:20 +0000

The psychological benefits of schedules. Sadly I’ve found this as well. The main reason I quit doing IT is people would want me in at 9 and be in late working on the machines.

Coolest Lockscreen Mod Ever

clark — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:20:24 +0000

OK, I’ve been a big critic of most iPhone themes. I think they are typically pointless and almost all of them are pretty dang ugly. However I came upon a theme for the lockscreen (what pops up when you wake up your phone ready to log in) Not only is it useful (it displays the weather forecast) it is pretty amazing looking. It also supports the retinal screen of the iPhone 4.

Full info at MacThemes. The latest version is here. Be aware you’ll download a rar file you’ll need to unrar. You’ll then have a directory called Weather Elements Revisited_GPS. Follow the directions inside to modify two js (javascript) file. If you want it to automatically use the GPS to find your location and display the appropriate weather you’ll need to sign up with Instamapper and get an API key. There’s a file called README_FIRST.txt that goes through all the details. It’s not too hard.

The only tricky part honestly is copying the theme into Winterboard. Open up your iPhone directory (once again I suggest using Netatalk and using the Finder). Go to
/var/stash/Themes.xxxxx
where .xxxx is some set of numbers of letters custom for your iPhone. Inside are all your Winterboard themes.

Rename your directory from Weather Elements Revisited_GPS to Weather Elements Revisited_GPS.theme and copy into the theme directory. It should show up in Winterboard where it can be selected.

Get Your iPhone VoiceMail

clark — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 05:02:40 +0000

So in Cydia there is this ridiculously overpriced “forward your voicemail” application for sale. Ridiculously overpriced not just because you can never be sure if it’ll survive until the next version of iOS let alone if you’ll be without a jailbreak waiting for Cydia to update to the latest iOS update. No, ridiculous because you can get all your voicemail at any time.

Install, if you haven’t yet, Netatalk. This lets you access your iPhone as if it were a standard networked Mac. In the Finder go to:

/var/mobile/Library/Voicemail

All your voicemails are there as amr files (with dates and times as well). In the Finder press space and it’ll even preview them for you. There are plenty of programs that’ll convert amr files to mp3s if you need. Quicktime Player 7, if you still have it on your system, will save them as mp3 files.

Windows Live Sync on Mac

clark — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 01:56:15 +0000

So I’d heard that Windows Live Sync was out for Mac. I’d tried an early version of this and it never really worked terribly well. This is still technically a beta but I thought I’d give it an other chance. I’m glad I did. This is definitely the choice for syncing services. Further if you are backing up smaller files Microsoft gives you 2 G of free storage. That’s really nice as it more than handles most people’s various documents. Yes it’s insufficient for multimedia but most business files will more than fit in 2G.

Thus far all my files have synced flawless across networks and at a pretty high speed. I have quite a few “boilerplate” type documents that I’m forever printing out. However keeping the files that are in the office synced with the latest versions on my laptop had me pulling my hair out. No more.

You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting this. I was about to lay down the money for one of the pay services but Microsoft is really out Googling Google here. This is what Apple should have had standard years ago as part of mobile me. Microsoft, even if they have been forgotten in the Google/Apple wars, is really coming back strong. Further they are playing their strengths: the types of practical services businesses need and want. I’m really glad they aren’t ignoring Apple either.

How to Port a Font to iOS

clark — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 01:08:18 +0000

How to port a font to iOS.

Programmer’s Font & Displaying Keys

Theming SBSettings

clark — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 01:07:46 +0000

The best reason to jailbreak your iPhone is still SBSettings. Apple’s caught up on many of the other features jailbreaking used to offer. However if you want to preserve your battery life then turning on and off WiFi, Blutooth and even 3G is a must. Seriously, the amount of battery savings doing this are huge. Only use these services when you need them. The problem is that on a stock iPhone it’s such a hassle to do this that no one does. Enter SBSettings. You swipe your finger across the top of the iPhone and suddenly a set of controls to turn various things on and off pops up.

The most useful settings are Brightness for manually adjusting the screen brightness (nice in the dark) and then the Bluetooth, 3G and WiFi settings. You can via Cydia add plugins for other features. Be aware that not all work with iOS4 yet. My favorite is Veency which is allows remote access to your iPhone via the Finder and even lets you type via your keyboard. (It’s a VNC client, although you’ll need to add in the Veency service via Cydia first for it to work) SSH turns on and off SSH – although if you changed your default password there’s not a lot of reason to do that. I really like RemoveBG which basically kills all background processes. Very nice if you use Cydia’s Backgrounder to enable non-Apple styled backgrounding on some applications. (i.e. it’s as if they are fully running in the background — something I use with 1Password so I don’t have to enter my password again every time I switch between a Mail window and a secure note)

The one problem with SBSettings, if you’ve installed it, is that it is pretty ugly. Enter themes. By far the best theme is Serious SBSettings. Better yet there is an HD theme for your iPhone 4′s display. (See the graphic)

The downside is that not all the icons for custom installed SBSettings Services are available. So here’s a tutorial to fix this. First, if you are looking for graphics visit this MacThemese thread. Lots of people have provided some nice graphics for extra SBSettings switches.

Here’s how to do it.

First open up your iPhone directory. The easiest way is from the Finder if you’ve installed Netatalk — it’ll show up in the Finder’s shared pane. Just connect as root and enter your password. (The default password is alpine, but of course you immediately changed that to something secure. Didn’t you?)

Go to /var/mobile/Library/SBSettings/Themes

You should see directories for all the SBSettings themes you’ve installed. I’m assuming you’ve installed Serious SBSettings HD here but the following directions would work for any other them. Just go into the directory for that theme. Inside the theme directory will be directories for all the extra toggles you’ve installed. So you’ll see 3G, Brightness, EDGE and more. Probably you’ll have a toggle service you installed that isn’t showing up. Just create a new directory with that toggle’s name. (Not sure of the name? Just look under the Default theme directory) Inside the toggle name you’ll see on.png and off.png representing what it looks like on or off. To create new graphics you just create new on.png and off.png.

As I said, the best way to do this is simply go to that MacTheme thread and copy them. But feel free to copy the defaults into a theme and use Photoshop to make your own.