AirPort Express rocks

Posted on August 5, 2004 by joachim

AirPortExpressBox.jpgAirPortExpressToday, my AirPort Express base station finally arrived. It both looks nice and works perfectly, like most Apple products. Previously, I used my PowerMac G4 as WLAN base station and print server. Now, I can just access the internet, print or stream music using any wired or wirelessly connected computer (Mac and PC) to AirPort Express. Very nice!

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Microsoft Beta Software II

Posted on July 22, 2004 by joachim

VisualCSharp2005Refactor.pngFinally, after having installed Visual C++ and Visual J# 2005 Express Edition Beta some days ago, I thought I’ll install the Visual C# version, just to see. And I couldn’t believe my eyes: There is a fully functional refactoring menu!

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iPod Firmware Upgrade

Posted on July 21, 2004 by joachim

iPodUpdater.gifA few days ago, Apple released the 4th generation iPods with significant enhancements in the operating software. A few of those new features – like multiple on-the-go playlists and the new shuffle feature – could easily be available for older models with a firmware upgrade. Please sign the online petition to “force” Apple to release such an update, at least for the 3G iPods (like the one I have bought a few days ago).

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Microsoft Beta Software

Posted on July 9, 2004 by joachim

Yesterday, Ben shortley mentioned something about Whidbey a.k.a. Visual Studio 2005 supporting refactoring for C++, so I thought I have to check that out. On the MSDN website I discovered there are free versions of VS 2005 Beta 1 called the “Express” products. So I installed both Visual C++ and Visual J# 2005 Beta 1 products.
First, I started Visual C++ and didn’t notice any big change on the surface. So opened the help system and read the section “What’s new in Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1”. In the section “Editing Code” I could read the following: You can now re-factor changes to Visual C# and Visual J# code. These refactoring options include rename, extract method, extract interface, change signature, and encapsulate field.
Big disappointment, no C++ refactoring built-in. (There is, however, a 3rd party product that adds refactoring capabilities, I found out later.)
Second step: I started Visual J# and had a look to the new refactoring menu: There were only two disabled entries: “Extract Method” and “Rename”. So I thought: Let’s select some lines of code to activate the “Extract Method” menu item: Nothing! And the same thing with “Rename”. What’s the only conclusion to make? “That’s a Microsoft product, don’t be surprised.” I am very sorry, but if I read there is a refactoring functionality in the “What’s new in Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1” document, I expect those features to be implemented and enabled.

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Tiger Response II

Posted on July 6, 2004 by joachim

My diploma thesis is keeping my very busy, but here is another blog entry concerning Tiger, Ben and Longhorn:

  1. Automator: I don’t remember Steve mention it in the keynote, but hey, the imprtant thing is: There is an SDK.
  2. Hailstorm? What the hell is that? I read the press release and I didn’t get what it’s for. “Web Services Designed to Give Users Greater Control” – Wow, now I know everything about it. Really though: I didn’t find the word ‘sync’ in the whole text.
  3. CoreImage: By saying that the technology was there in prevous releases I wanted to point out that CoreImage is not a rip-off of Longhorn’s graphic capabilities. Apple always first tests new technologies for it’s own purposes and when the technology has matured, it is offered as a public API. I think that’s a quite reasonable approach.
  4. I downloaded a high def WMV from Microsoft’s website, wanted to load that movie and my machine crashed instantly 🙂
  5. The Spotlight SDK is part of the Tiger Developer Preview.
  6. Reasoning is very nice, but too complex for ordinary users. That’s why it wasn’t built right into the OS UI. But 3rd party application will be able to perform any query you like.
  7. About API’s: Apple has API’s for each base technology: Audio, Image, Video, Data. That’s why they are all called ‘Core’-something. You can use higher level frameworks like Cocoa if you want to. Tell my what’s the idea behind the WinFX overview image: I can’t read a single word.

Another thing: What’s point of having a presenter looking to the crowd when the crowd looks to a screen?

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Life saver for C++

Posted on July 4, 2004 by joachim

If you are struggling with this over complicated programming language, I suggest you check out the C++ FAQ Lite and you will probably find an answer to your question 🙂

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Why chm files suck

Posted on July 1, 2004 by joachim

The original Symbian UIQ 2.1 documentation consisted of a lot of HTML files. For easier navigation, a Java Applet was provided with a tree view and a search function.
A week ago, SonyEricsson released the UIQ SDK 2.1 Update 1 which replaces the HTML files with a single chm file. What’s absolutely stupid is that you cannot bookmark specific pages using Microsoft HTML Help. Intrestingly, you can copy links found in a chm file. When you paste a link in MS Word and click again on it, IE is opened for displaying the page! But in IE, there is no table of contents and no search capability for the chm file.

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Tiger Response

Posted on July 1, 2004 by joachim

Just a few remarks and questions regarding Ben‘s remarks regarding Mac OS X Tiger 🙂

  1. Consistent API? What’s inconsistent? Be more specific 🙂
  2. No Triplets? Be more specific and give me a concrete example. By just entering the subject and the object in the system wide search field you will surely find what you’re looking for. When using the search capabilities of a specific application like Mail or the Finder, you can enter queries that match the ‘triplet’ metaphore.
  3. Attributes don’t seem to be extensible – Wrong! There is an SDK to ‘plug in’ your application / document type into the system wide Spotlight search architecture. You’re not ‘stuck’ with Apple-provided documents. That would have been really stupid to make it a ‘closed’ technology.
  4. H.264 delivers HD video (1280×720, 24p) at 5-7 Mbps and full HD video (1920×1080, 24p) at 7-9 Mbps. Compare that to other codecs. Also, is the next standard for HD DVD – very convincing from a strategic point of view too.
  5. Safari RSS does not really compete with full blown RSS Readers like NetNewsWire. What it does is visual notification of RSS/Atom feeds and XSL transformation of feeds for basic message layout. Also, it has a nice search feature which is not present in NetNewsWire. You can choose if the feeds should be opend by Safari itself or a 3rd party reader application.
  6. CoreImage: The technology was already there in OS X Jaguar (2002) known als Quarz Extreme. CoreImage makes it available as a public API.
  7. Sync: Again, it was a private API used in Apple programs since 2002. Now you can plug-in your own data structures or documents for sync.
  8. Automator: There is an SDK!
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Copycat

Posted on June 28, 2004 by joachim

One software company will copy the most evolved operating system in history.

Photocopy.jpg

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CSS Code for Ben

Posted on June 15, 2004 by joachim

A little present for Ben, so that Mozilla and Safari surfers can read his blog without having to scroll down first to get to the content – on small screen sizes (1000 pixel width). 

#content {
    margin-right: 260px;
    border:1px dotted #333;
    background:#FFFFFF;
}

#links {
    position: absolute;
    right:20px;
    width:220px;
    background:#FF9933;
    padding:15px;				
    border:1px dotted #FFF;        
}
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