November 2009
10 posts
Prelude
I’ve never been much of a fiction fan.
Back when I was younger, we had a Home Reading Program: a fifteen to twenty minute period of imposed reading, every night from second to fifth grade. We also had to prove we had understood what we had read by using a program called Accelerated Reader; it would quiz us on the books we read and our results would go towards our grade in reading...
Cycript →
saurik is fucking awesome.
To those from the jailbreak world, saurik is a familiar figure because he’s the face behind Cydia, WinterBoard, and the Telesphoreo project. Recently, he released one of his projects, Cycript: a scripting language that blends Objective-C and JavaScript together.
Here’s a list of things that’s awesome about this:
Runs on (jailbroken) iPhones, Linux,...
October 2009
22 posts
The Frostbite Effect
So back in February, I worked on an extension called Frostbite and a total of eight people got betas for it. And then I had talked to saurik and we had agreed to eventually merge it into WinterBoard. Needless to say, that never actually got done, and now Gi-lo is planning to release a Frostbite clone of sorts on the Cydia Store.
Which is fine, since he has a right to do what he wants to with his...
SpringSorter ($1.99) →
New extension from a friend of mine; it sorts your SpringBoard icons by most recent usage.
If you’re looking to cut down on iPhone home screens, running this for about a week as a diagnostic process for finding out which apps you use most is pretty useful. If you have over three pages of apps, run it for a week and truncate everything from the fourth page onwards. Then slowly start to hide...
Things that are too long for Twitter, too short for a full post. Time for a braindump.
Really digging Instapaper these days; it took over one of my dock spots on my iPod, simply because it is the main way I read on there. Great for my 6+ hours of commuting every week.
Although this one I have posted on Twitter, it is so good it deserves an encore: Eclectica is an awesome online literary journal....
Jailbreaking = Freedom, Not "Free"
A bunch of jailbroken developers got an email from a guy who essentially pitched the idea for Iconoclasm and said, “How would I go about doing this?” I replied politely saying I was working on the project for Cydia Store, and then the guy told me that “money isn’t everything in the fucking world” and that “[shareware] kills the catalysts of jailbreak...
We Were Leaving Our Database Class and Came Up...
Scene opens in a hospital room. Jim Bosworth is lying in a hospital bed, looks like he’s dying. Who knows if he really is, for our purposes, he is played by an actor. Dramatic Beaumont Hospital ad music plays in the background.
Announcer: Jim Bosworth needed antibiotics to save him from a deadly disease. Before giving him the antibiotic, the doctors used their medical software to see his...
Because I'm Tired Of Manually Answering Each...
UPDATE 2: The update is out.
UPDATE: I spent all evening working on FCSB 0.59, the next version of FCSB that resolves all of the issues mentioned below. It has been submitted to Ste, my packager, so it will be up as soon as he gets to it, if he doesn’t find anything wrong with it.
If I’m awake by the time the update goes up, I’ll send everyone who emailed me within the last 24...
On The Topic Of, God Forbid, Orbit
I’ll keep this quick.
Orbit is pretty, yes. We get it. Steven Troughton-Smith is a media whore, yes. We get it.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, both of those are factors in the pretty good sales he’s been getting on it, but the fundamental issue remains. To quote my friend Matthew Reakus:
I wish I had a reason to use Orbit. Sadly, those who do, *really* should look into the amount of apps...
Xpandr (Cydia Link, $1.99) →
So this weekend, two extensions were released on the Cydia Store. One you are probably sick and tired of hearing about (I am) so I won’t even mention it by name, and Xpandr by my friend Nicolas Haunold.
If you’re still on the fence about jailbreaking, this might be the thing to win you over. Mac users might be familiar with TextExpander, which expands macros into complete paragraphs...
Look, I know you have to pay the bills, but seriously.
If more than half of your webpage is an ad, either increase the content to ad ratio by adding more quality content, or cut down on the ads and find alternate income streams.
In no circumstance should the outcome in your situation be “let’s add another banner!”
Readability →
I love this.
This is essentially a bookmarklet that magically styles the page you’re on to be readable, and it works really really well. (And it’s customizable.)
And for those curious: Novel/Medium/Medium is how I roll.
An Inconvenient Truth Teller →
Sure, I’m not an American, but that does not mean I can’t enjoy American politics. I tend to watch Countdown on MSNBC regularly, and read the occasional article that catches my eye.
If anything, read this for the opening paragraph. Joe Biden is the real maverick.
After switching schools in 2005, I was involved in two of the three musicals that were held until my graduation. The first was Mamma Mia, where I was on the mixer for the school recording of the musical. They were going to sell CDs and DVDs, so we later dropped $30 to buy the recordings I had been involved with. Long story short, I’m still waiting after them. I’ve given up, and have a...
iPhone OS 3.1.2 Addresses the Dreaded Coma Mode:... →
Way to FUD it up. 3.1.2 is no different from any other firmware regarding the future of jailbreak; the same conditions as any other firmware applies: don’t upgrade until a new jailbreak is available. (Especially 3GS owners, and be on file if you aren’t already.)
Steve Jobs: The man who polished Apple →
Interesting article on the private life of Steve Jobs. And then it falls apart completely:
My own view is that a Jobsless Apple will seek a merger with Google. The two companies are rapidly converging, a fact that recently led to the resignation of the Apple director Eric Schmidt, the chairman and chief executive of Google. He had been on the Apple board for three years, and was forced out...
What annoys you about public transit? →
Strollers (SUV Strollers in particular), and other things with wheels: There are several places where you can put your crap without it blocking off the aisle. USE THEM! Also, shopping carts are just simply not allowed. Other Crap: If the object is taller than a child, get a friend to drive you.
Kids: Your kid is not cute. S/He is an annoying little shit. No, his/her crying is not cute. I’m...
