The Author – Bart Busschots
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Oct
10
Does Dashboard Hold the Key to iPhone’s Future?
Filed Under Computers & Tech on October 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment
As things stand third party apps on the iPhone suck. Web-based apps which are confined to the browser are not the long-term answer. The problem isn’t really that JS+XHTML+CSS is a crap platform, because it’s not. It’s not perfect, but it’s a grand platform as demonstrated by the glut of Dashboard widgets out there. The big problems with the web only iPhone apps are that you can only use them when you’re online, and they are stuck in Safari and can’t be launched from the main screen. What good is a great third party app if you can’t use it on a plane or if using it abroad will cost you a fortune on roaming data charges?
I have no idea what Apple have up their sleeves, or indeed, if they have anything up there at all with regard to third party iPhone apps. But, as far as I am concerned, Apple have the solution already. It’s a pre-existing part of OS X Tiger, Dashboard. Dashboard widgets are basically off-line web apps. They are written in JS+XHTML+CSS, just like iPhone apps have to be now. But, they are installed on the machine so, when I’m on a plane, I can still use my dashboard widgets. Now, there are much smarter people than little-old-me in Apple so surely someone in there must also have come to the same conclusion? Maybe that’s why they are making developers work on web-based iPhone apps for now. The only way I can make any sense out of that decision is to look at it as a half-way-house on the road to Dashboard-like apps installed on the iPhone.
[tags]iPhone, Apple, Dashboard, 3rd Party Apps[/tags]
Sep
30
Getting Things Done with iGTD
Filed Under Computers & Tech on September 30, 2007 | 5 Comments
iGTD is a donation-ware program which implements the ‘Getting Things Done’ (GTD) philosophy or methodology or what ever it is. However, I didn’t start experimenting with iGTD because it does the whole GTD thing, I started experimenting with it because I wanted a better way of keeping myself organised than a combination of iCal and Stickies! As it turns out though, I quite like the GTD way of doing things. It makes sense to give each task two classifcations, a project to which it belongs, and the context in which the task has to be done. For example, I put an entry into iGTD to remind me to write this post. It is filed under the project “Blog/NosillaCast” and the context “Home”. It’s this ability to see your tasks by both Context and Project that appeals to me.
[tags]iGTD, GTD, Getting Things Done, Apple, OS X.[/tags]
Sep
21
Teleport – Synergy the Mac Way
Filed Under Computers & Tech on September 21, 2007 | Leave a Comment
A long time ago I discussed an easy way to run Synergy on OS X. This is a good solution if you want to use a single keyboard and mouse to control multiple machines with multiple OSes. However, if all the machines you want to share are Macs there is a better solution, Teleport. Teleport does everything Synergy does and some more besides. To be honest, I’m pretty sure Teleport is just Synergy with some Mac-specific features added in. However, they are good extra features and Teleport had the kind of fantastic user interface Mac users have come to demand. The entire program is contained within a System Preferences preference pane. You just install this pane (by double clicking it) and open up two ports on your firewall and you’re ready to go (you have to do this on all machines that will use Teleport).
The big improvements for me over the Synergy option described in my original post are:
- Simple Drag-and-Drop arrangement of displays
- An actual security model and support for encryption
- The ability to sync clip boards between machines
- The ability to transfer files by dragging them from one machine to another (only works well with small files)
- An overlay is displayed the main display when the mouse and keyboard are ‘teleported’ to another display. This overlay shows the teleporter logo, the name of the computer that the keyboard and mouse have been ‘teleported’ to and an arrow showing where that display is in relation to the master. (This feature alone was enough to convince me to switch.)
Teleport can be easily controlled via a menu bar icon and to really sweeten the deal it’s freeware 🙂
[tags]Teleport, Synergy, OS X[/tags]
Sep
16
Writing Presentations With Keynote ’08
Filed Under Computers & Tech on September 16, 2007 | 12 Comments
I have been an iLife user for years but hadn’t previously bought iWork because it was lacking a spreadsheet program. When iWork ’08 came out with Numbers I decided the time was right to give it a go. Just to put things into perspective, at work I use Microsoft Office (the Mac version), and at home I’ve been using OpenOffice and NeoOffice. OpenOffice and NeoOffice always strike me a striving to emulate MS Office, iWork doesn’t do this. It sets out to do Presentations, Documents and Spreadsheets in a simple and accessible way. It’s refreshing to use an office package with a simple interface instead of the usual glut of buttons everywhere. I’ll be writing about Pages and Numbers in the future but today I want to talk about the oldest of the iWork applications, the presentation app Keynote. This review is based on my experiences creating and then presenting a talk about science to students at my old secondary school the week before last. You can read about how I got on here see a PDF of my slides here.
[tags]Apple, iWork, KeyNote[/tags]
Sep
14
Another QuickTime Vulnerability – Apple Still Don’t Get Security
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Security on September 14, 2007 | 1 Comment
It’s not long ago that I posted about Apple not patching their SAMBA implementation for months after a patch became available. Now there is a Quick Time vulnerability in the wild that was apparently reported to Apple about a year ago. I constantly give off to Microsoft for this kind of carry-on, so, each time I catch Apple at it I’m going to highlight it too. The Mac user experience is currently fantastic but Apple’s continued complacency about security is putting that experience at serious risk. How bad will things have to get before Apple cop on to themselves?
For more details on this vulnerability (which affects Windows too) check out this Mac World article
[tags]Apple, Security, QuickTime[/tags]
Sep
2
iPhoto 7 – A Closer Look
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Photography on September 2, 2007 | 7 Comments
In a follow up to my initial thoughts on the new iLife I want to have a more detailed look at the new iPhoto now that I’ve had some time to really get to use it. Although my overall impression is that this version of iPhoto offers significant improvements over the previous version, it is not perfect. One part of my work flow has become less intuitive in one sense, yet more intuitive in another. There is also still one very annoying omission from iPhoto.
[tags]iLife, iPhoto, Apple[/tags]
Aug
25
Unlocking Hidden Features in OS X
Filed Under Computers & Tech on August 25, 2007 | 1 Comment
As a Windows user I was always a huge fan of the program Tweak UI which let you easily mess with some hidden settings in Windows. This week I’ve been experimenting with two similar apps for OS X, Tweak Freak and Tinker Tool. I experimented with both and really I can only recommend Tinker Tool.
[tags]Apple, OS X, Tweak UI, Tweak Freak, Tinker Tool[/tags]
Aug
22
SSH Agent – Simple Yet Secure SSH Keys On OS X
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Security, System Administration on August 22, 2007 | 6 Comments
If, like me, you spend a lot of time using SSH you’ll probably like the idea of being able to log in to servers without a password. If you really want this you can do it by setting up a SSH key pair with an unencrypted private key. This works, it lets you log in to your servers without a password. HOWEVER, it’s a simply disastrous idea from a security point of view. The only reason I don’t do this is because the idea of an unencrypted private key scares the bejeesus out of me. Hence, I still dutifully type my SSH password each time I connect to a server, and each time I check something in to source control. I’ve been keeping an eye out for a simple solution for a while but hadn’t been actively thinking about it for months. That is until I came across Dave Dribin’s blog post Putting the “S” Back Into SSH this morning. Dave rightly points out that there is a solution, ssh-agent, the problem is it’s a command-line tool and by all account not the simplest one to use. So, what’s obviously needed is a nice GUI for ssh-agent. Dave initially thought he’d found the solution in the program SSHKeychain. SSHKeychain is more of a proxy for ssh-agent than a GUI for it though, and Dave soon discovered that it has it’s fair share of problems. So, in the end, I didn’t decide to use SSHKeychain. However, the post inspired me to have another go at finding a solution. Also, the reference to ssh-agent sparked a vague memory in the back of my head of an OS X GUI for something to do with SSH that had the word ‘agent’ in its name.
[tags]SSH, SSH Keys, ssh-agent, OS X, Apple[/tags]
Aug
16
My Very First Thoughts on iLife ’08
Filed Under Computers & Tech on August 16, 2007 | 1 Comment
I literally just installed iLife ’08 an hour or so ago but already I’m happy with what I’m getting for my money. I would consider myself a power user of two of the iLife Apps: iPhoto, and Garage Band (but only for creating podcasts). I don’t have a video camera so I have no real use for iMovie or iDVD. Since iTunes is now updated separately from iLife and free I don’t consider it part of iLife any more. I was a very happy with the previous version of iLife, it worked very well for me but there were five things about it that annoyed me a bit. Even at this early stage I can see that at least four of those have been fixed. Those four fixes alone make me very happy but on top of that the whole suite has had a face-lift. It looks even slicker than it did before. There have been a lot of subtle UI tweaks which make things simpler and clearer as well as shinier. The bottom line is that my first impressions of iLife ’08 are all good, no nasty surprises, and no major disappointments. That really is the bottom line. If you want to find out what the four fixes are I’m so happy with read on, if not, you’re done 🙂
[tags]Apple, iLife[/tags]
Aug
1
A Glut of Mac Related Updates
Filed Under Security, Computers & Tech on August 1, 2007 | 2 Comments
I’m not really sure what the collective noun for releases is so I’m using glut 🙂 Anyhow, I seem to have done nothing but update stuff in the last 24 hours. First FireFox and Thunderbird from Mozilla, then an Airport patch and an OS X security update from Apple, then a new Mac RDP client from Microsoft, and finally, an updated version of JellyfiSSH. Apart from the last two these are all security updates. I don’t have much I want to say about the security updates but I do just want to mention two important fixes which seem to be included. Firstly, there is a patch for mDNSResponder which should plug the hole which the rumoured Mac worm which was never released supposedly used. Secondly, there are a few patches for SAMBA so it looks like the SAMBA flaws I recently gave off to Apple for not patching promptly have finally been patched. Mind you, the descriptions on the Apple site are none too clear so I’m not really certain these updates really fix either of these holes. Anyhow, the real reason for this post is to have a look at the new RDP client from MS and the update to JellyfiSSH.
[tags]Apple, OS X, Security, JellyfiSSH, Microsoft, RDP[/tags]