Feb

26

Sneak peek at Appcelerator 2.1 features

Filed Under activation, appcelerator, iPhone | Leave a Comment

So we managed to sneak one additional feature into the upcoming Appcelerator 2.1 release.  Those of you developing for the iPhone will be pleased to know that we added a new condition - ‘orientationchange’ - so you can handle the origintationchanged event on the iPhone in an on-expression.  How cool is that? Very.  So throw this onto the pile with the new build process, project command line tools, the eclipse plugin/ide (written by Mark Luffel), the developer network (it’s slick — just wait’ll you see it), and a ton of little features and fixes all over the place.  Not to mention improvements to a bunch of the widgets (like the datatable which now supports custom formatter functions, sticky sort, etc.). 

Feb

25

iPhone specific style sheets

Filed Under CSS, iPhone | Leave a Comment

If you need a separate CSS file for your iPhone stuff (sometimes little things just don’t look as good as they can without specific style sheets), you need to put this in your head:

<!–[if !IE]>–>
<link media=”only screen and (max-device-width: 480px)” href=”css/iPhone.css” type=”text/css” rel=”stylesheet” />
<!–<![endif]–>

Then, of course, define your iPhone.css. 

Feb

25

Move digital stuff with your mind

Filed Under mind control | Leave a Comment

..using Emotiv’s headset  which will be available this Christmas for ~$300 bucks.  It’s not quite as neat as simply reading your mind and telling  computer what to do, though; it has to be “trained” for a user to recognize commands.  More precisely, you think of something in some sort of training mode and when you “think” the same thing during the game or demo or whatever, the same action is repeated.  I’m curious to know how the technology actually works at a technical level.  I’d also _really_ like to know what sort of APIs, if any, might be provided for the thing.  The training thing does sort of suck, but it’s not so bad given that you could get around the multi-user issue with profiles or the like.  This is definitely something I’ll be watching for.

Feb

23

getamchat.com launches

Filed Under amchat | Leave a Comment

AMChat is no longer freeware, but I’ve put a lot of great features into the latest version.  You can buy AMChat 2.0 at getamchat.com. It’s much more customizable than the original but still super simple to install and run.  Major props to my buddy Tyrus Smalley for the webdesign — you’re the man.  :)

Feb

21

Apple FileVault, Windows BitLocker and Truecrypt All Vulnerable

Filed Under encryption | Leave a Comment

A group of Princeton researchers have found attacks rendering many popular whole-disk encryption mechanisms useless.  It’s pretty interesting stuff although one has to question the methodology of removing a stick of ram from a computer.  What was “more nifty” was the attack shown in the later half of the video that required nothing more than a thumb drive or the like to grab the BitLocker key on a Vista machine (they said similar methods could break the others as well).  I suppose the moral of this story is keep tabs on your laptop, even if you do use something like FileVault or BitLocker.  Really though, it’s not like your average laptop thief is going to have sophisticated software like the stuff demonstrated in the video.

Feb

15

AMChat 2.0 going on sale soon..get ready

Filed Under amchat, sale, software | Leave a Comment

The pricing will either be a flat fee for the server and some nominal amount per client or a low flat fee for the bundle including unlimited clients so stay tuned.  I’ll try to the information up sometime next week.

Feb

13

Microsoft + Danger = mPhone?

Filed Under Danger, Microsoft, mPhone | Leave a Comment

Full disclosure, although I have friends at both MS and Danger, I don’t have any sort of inside information so this post is purely speculation on my part.  Usually when MS starts a division to delve into some reasonably new-to-them arena (xbox? zune?), it takes a while for them to get it right.

It seems natural for MS to buy a company, like Danger, who already has big customers like T-Mobile and already has the expertise to get a product like a Microsoft-branded phone off the ground quickly.  It also seems, on one hand, like MS is playing catch-up with Apple and their iPhone. On the other hand, the iPhone is pretty limited in its capabilities (currently, anyway.

I’ll have to review Apple’s SDK for it when it hits later this month) whereas the slightly-less-polished Windows Mobile platform already has all of the basic features that I assumed the iPhone would have (better bluetooth support for say, A2DP, file transfers, connection tethering, bluetooth GPS support, video recording, etc.).  It’ll be interesting to see where they take it from here given that both Danger and Microsoft have successful (maybe not Symbian successful but very successful) mobile platforms based on totally different technologies (Danger’s Hiptop OS is Java-based, as I understand it). 

Feb

12

“Hidden” text on Apple’s front page?

Filed Under Apple, Easteregg, Hidden Text | Leave a Comment

So I noticed the following on an in a gradient background on an image on Apple’s front page today. It’s hard to read but it’s either “F***! You” or “Frid Goo” — I can’t really tell. UPDATE: David R. wrote in to tell me the text appears to be “Fridge” with a curved line below it. He adjusted the image using irfanview to see the text more clearly. Screen shots below:

Feb

11

DANGER! DANGER!

Filed Under Buyout, Danger, Microsoft | Leave a Comment

So Microsoft bought Danger.  CRAZY.

Feb

10

AmroMobile v2 Pics :)

Filed Under Amromobile, BBS, Camry, Other | Leave a Comment

Here are some pics of the new AmroMobile. Thanks again to my younger, awesome, brother for making the deal happen. It’s a 2k8 Toyota Camry SE w/ a V6, everything but navigation (it sucked, so I’m going to get an after market model). Read more

keep looking »